Are Kellogg's Prices Not Coming Back? How About Trading?

 Sure, when I make a duplicate set I always end up needing the most expensive cards.  I won't list all of those here, but I always need Mays, Clemente, Rose, Ryan, etc.  

I have lots of extras to trade.  Are you looking to complete some sets or extra duplicates of your favorites?  Here are the cards that I am in most need of to complete sets in nice condition.

1.  Sure, like everyone else I'd love to get 1971s in nice condition but I am not willing to pay those prices.  I am currently working on off-condition cards so that I can get all of the variations.  I have no idea how many of my 1971s are in nice condition.  If I had to guess, I'd say only 15 - 20 of them are damage-free.

2.  1975s - I need Jon Matlack and Johnny Bench as upgrades.  I also need Brock, Hunter (A's), Grimsley, Garr, Buckner and Evans.

I've got a great collection of cracked Matlacks from 1975.

This card looks okay, but just like when buying Kellogg's cards online, it can be difficult to detect cracks.  One is obvious on the top right, but the card has other issues.  

3.  1974s - Goodson, Fisk, Palmer, Santo, Gibson.  The Gibson seems to be damaged frequently since it is card #1.

4.  1976s - Bench, Morgan, Jackson, Munson, Seaver

5.  1977s - Campaneris, Fingers, Brett, Jenkins, Foster, Norman, Garvey, Bostock, Carlton

6. 1978s - Schmidt, Luzinski, Carlton

7.  1979s - Yastrzemski, Reggie Jackson, Eckersley

8. 1980s - Carew.

9. 1973s - Kaline, Carew, Brock, Carlton

10. 1972s - Stargell, Lolich, Sanguillen, Wagner (All-Time Greats)

I have so many cracked cards that I also work on damaged sets.  There are lots of those that I am looking for as well.  Do you build sets that are cracked / damaged?  

Some of my favorite cards are in my damaged binder.  I might be able to make complete damaged sets from 1970 - 1980 since I have so many damaged cards.  Hard to believe, but I ended up with a lot of 1973s that are damaged.  They look like they spent a few years in someone's toy box.

I might go to the National.  Maybe we could trade there?

What is the Least Amount of Cash You've Brought to a Card Show?

 Today I went to a card show on the way to visit my mother.  I had $13 in my pocket.  $1 went for admission to the show and $3 was spent on a 1970 Kellogg's Denny McLain.  

I doubt than many of the 40 or so dealers at this show would take credit cards or PayPal.  That's okay because I didn't plan to be at the show for a long time.  I still haven't bought any 2022 Topps cards so I didn't look to see if anyone even had a cheap box like Opening Day since I was so short on cash.

Driving away from the show I realized that I've never been to a show with less cash, even in 1976.  As a team in the mid-1970s I was fortunate enough to go to a few cards shows a year in the Chicagoland area.  I would save paper route money and caddie money for these shows.  I remember having $35 at the first show I attended.  That went a long way, especially when a 1954 Topps Al Kaline in great shape was $2.

Why did I only have $13?  My ATM card was canceled because our bank was bought recently.  I probably have a new card somewhere and I guess this gives me the impetus to find it.  I need to figure this out before the next show.  

I Finally Got One; I Don't Ever Expect to Get Them All

 Today I picked up my first 1975 unopened Kellogg's packs.  I see these packs less than any others.  

You can see the top left card is Fergie Jenkins.  I didn't make a major effort with this picture since it is difficult to get these packs to show up well in photos.  The others are Jorge Orta, Gregg Gross and Ken Brett.  

Only 53 more to go to get the entire set.  I can't imagine that I will ever pursue the set since the cost of getting them could be used to buy a VG-EX set of cards from the 1960s.  

Does anyone collect these in the wrappers?

What is Preferrred - SGC, PSA, Beckett?

 I picked up an SGC card, just to have one in to have in hand in case something else comes up that I want to buy.  Here it is.  

I don't know what to think about it since I really don't pay much attention to the few PSA-graded and Beckett graded cards in my collection.  I think that I have a 1974 Rose graded by PSA.  I will need to look at them together to see to get a better opinion about these grading services.

I know very little about the holders and if they could easily be cracked open.  I also know very little about the labels and if they could be easily forged.  The label above doesn't look to have a great level of detail on the front.  

Do people see lots of SGC Kellogg's cards?

Has Anyone Else Done This With a Set?

 Over the last 10 years, I've picked up a bunch of cheap Kellogg's sets from 1980 to 1983. They usually went for less than $10 years ago.  Some of them were sealed, like the one shown below.

I probably bought this at the National but I am not sure.  I've had two sets from a place called Sports Fan Attic for many years.  I really liked the way that the set was shrink wrapped, so I made no attempt to open it.  That changed over the weekend.

I found those two sets and three others - another from 1980 and two from 1981.  When I bought the sets I did so with the assumption that the best cards could be missing or in poor condition.  I also found it odd that card #1 was not on the top of the packs. 

I decided to open the five sets this weekend.  The two sets from Sports Fan Attic contained all 60 cards from 1980, they just were not in order.  The conditions were fine.  The other 1980 pack was missing three cards.  Not surprisingly, three of the best cards were missing - Ryan, Brett and Rose.   I have no idea where I picked up this "set" because it was so long ago.   Smart on my part?  No, but any set before 1979 should be opened to ensure that it is complete.   

The other two sets were from 1981.  They were complete with only one corner issue to the first card in the set.  

My only other challenge here was back in 1983 when the traded set I picked up just happened to be missing Daryl Strawberry.  

Has anyone else made a mistake like this?

Another Reason to Dislike the 1980 Kellogg's Card Backs

 The 1980 Kellogg's set has a good selection of players and the cards are generally nice.  That ends for me when I check out the back of the card.  I've complained before about the small print that didn't bother me as a teen in 1980, but it's a different story when trying to read them today.

To add to the small text, the back has a tendency to be discolored.  Check out these, which I see constantly.

I placed cards that were not discolored on the left and right in order to highlight these ugly discolorations.  Even the cards that do not have this issue can still have some discoloration on the top edge as seen by the rightmost card.

An unopened pack from 1980 is shown above.  What an ugly mess.  This is not uncommon for the 1980 packs.  The 1979 and 1980 packs were assembled differently, with two separate, flat wrappers that must have been glued together.  It must have been cheaper to produce that packs from 1978 and earlier?  

As shown above, these two pieces separate easily today on the top and bottom.  It looks like they had those issues even when produced because I think that the top stains are from the cereal.  

I don't see these stains on the 1979 cards, so either the glue didn't work as well or it was related to the cereal.  The 1980 set looks to be only put in Raisin Bran cereal.  Was the Raisin Bran to blame, was it the wrappers or a combination of both?

This is What Happens When Procrastinating Work or Waiting for Mike Hargrove to Get Back in the Batter's Box

Warning - this is a boring story about a print mark on a card.  I am just curious to know if others have seen this mark in different places on Hargrove's card or on other cards.  

When looking for cracks in my 1976 Kellogg's cards, I noticed a mark on one of the Mike Hargrove cards.  I assumed at first that it was a normal bubble on the surface, but then I saw it on the next card. 

Look to the left of his autograph to see it.  It shows up in two locations as shown above.  I also have it on the red mark and on the blue border. 

Then I remembered that he had a variation.  Problem solved?  No, this mark appears on both variations.  

Above is the third one I saw.  Were they trying to cover up the red?   Whatever is above his shoulder is not part of the card - maybe it was my lunch?

There are always discussions about old Topps cards and print marks but I hadn't seen any marks like this on Kellogg's cards.  Rob, who I traded with and happened to e-mail today, showed a 1976 Gregg Gross and a print mark on the back.  Has another heard of other related issues with Kellogg's cards?