April 3, 2025: Spring Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/3/2025
Here’s a striking near set of the coveted 1963 Post Cereal Baseball issue, found here in its most coveted form of complete or partial panels, easing some of the concerns typically attributed to relying on the scissoring skills of an earlier generation of American youth. In a grouping of several Post Cereal baseball and football near and partial sets, this lot neatly adheres to a cherished hobby tradition of improving condition over time, with a remarkably clean and consistent presentation, largely devoid of some of the minor blemishes or hiccups like extraneous small pencil marks often encountered with this issue. In addition, most of the panels offered here are complete and intact, with only a handful having individual cards cut out (noted in the breakdown). This was General Mills’ last of three important baseball card sets that would ultimately be a significant addition to the classic 1960s Topps mainstream issues. With such a lofty pedigree comes great cachet, with most of the larger or complete panels reasonably cut well outside the card image surfaces. Even with the smaller panels of five, four or three cards, the cutting is well done and rarely intrudes on card edges. With only 10 cards missing from a complete set, there are also four extra cards included with both variations of card Nos. 26, 28 and 131, plus the No. 36 Nellie Fox (No Bat). Given the format of panels, there are a total of 293 cards included in the near set, with some obvious duplication, even among Hall of Famers like Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Banks, Ford, Wynn, Aparicio, Roberts, Mazeroski, Torre and Billy Williams, to name a few. Overall, it comes out to 15 seven-card panels (all complete), eight panels of six cards (complete, most with advertising section clipped at the top), 18 with five cards (15 of 18 complete, including two with the difficult Pennant advertising coupon intact), 11 with four cards (six of 11 complete, most with advertising section clipped) and two with three cards (both partials). Breakdown of keys by panels: Seven-Card Panels: 1) Drysdale, Wynn, Roberts and Kaat (not a law firm), 2) Fox and Mazeroski, 3) Maris, 4) Santo and Torre, 5) Hodges and Francona, 6) Ford and Bruton, 7) Francona and Gilliam, 8) Fox and Mazeroski, 9) Marichal and Torre, 10) Cash and Tresh, 11) Adcock and Face, and 12) Roseboro and Pascual; Six-Card Panels; 1) McCovey, 2) Frank Robinson and Felipe Alou, 3) Banks and Cash, 4) Cepeda, 5) Banks and Gentile, 6) Snider, and 7) White and Power; Five-Card Panels: 1) Aaron and Killebrew, 2) Koufax and Colavito, 3) Clemente and Maxwell, 4) Mays, Wynn and Billy Williams, 5) Ford and Kaline, 6) Frank Robinson, 7) Wills and Groat, 8) Gibson and Pascual, 9) Yastrzemski and Willie Davis, 10) Brooks Robinson and Kuenn, 11) Aparicio and Groat, 12) Bunning and Burdette, 13) Flood and Kuenn, and 14) Brooks Robinson and Ashburn; Four-Card Panels: 1) Mazeroski and Roberts, 2) Berra, 3) Mathews (Fair) and Aparicio, and 4) Billy Williams and Bruton, 5) Pinson, and 6) Thomas and Runnels; and a Three-Card Panel with Clemente, so we got that going for us. The album, 8 ½-by-11 inches, with 22 black-and-white pages and spot red color, is found here in attractive Ex-Mt to Near-Mint condition, with thankfully no efforts by anybody to actually affix any of the cards to their assigned locations. The missing numbers include (10): No. 6, 15 Mantle, 32, 63, 74, 90, 111, 145, 153 and 189.
1963 Post Cereal Baseball Near Set in Complete or Partial Panels Plus Album (55 Panels – 296 Cards)
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