Monday, February 1, 2010

1962 Shirriff Baseball Coins #5, Woody Held (aka Woodie Held)

Today's picture of Woodie Held might look familiar--this blog already covered a nearly identical issue, the 1962 Salada Tea coins, in June 2009. Both sets feature hand-colored paper head shots inserted into plastic holders about the size of silver dollars. The international food packager Salada-Shirriff-Horsey, Inc. debuted this design for the NHL's 1961 hockey season (scans on Google Image Search) and started producing baseball sets in 1962.


It's hard to tell how much of each player picture is "real." Woodie's shoulders look suspiciously narrow for a 20HR-per-year slugger, so I assume they hand-drew a uniform below an actual head shot.


While the backs say "200 baseball coins," both Salada and Shirriff sets actually contain 221. Shirriff packaged individual coins in bags of potato chips and wrapped them in plastic slipcovers to prevent food stains, just like Kellogg's went on to do with their cereal cards. (Find the full 221-coin checklist at OldBaseball.com.)

Value: As of Feb 2010, eBay includes ungraded 1962 Shirriff baseball coins with Buy-It-Now prices from $15 to $50. That's significantly higher than recent completed auctions, which averaged $3 for commons and $15+ for HOFers. (I bought my Woodie Held coin for $3 in 2006.)

Fakes / Reprints: I can imagine someone faking the paper picture of a superstar and inserting into a real plastic back, but haven't seen it happen anywhere in the market and don't know of any reprints.

2 comments:

Dogger said...

I have a complete set of 1962 Sheriff/Salada baseball coins with the origianal plastic green holders. Would like to know what they are worth in todays market.I can be contacted at moedogger@xplornet.ca

Matthew Glidden said...

Best way to check current value is by searching eBay (completed auctions only, so you get actual sale price). For a set of that vintage, you could also contact a sports auction house and ask their opinion.