Friday, May 14, 2010

1962 Sugardale Wieners Baseball #5, Jim Perry

Prior to the record-breaking Neikro Brothers (details at the 1988 Topps #5 profile), Jim and Gaylord Perry set the gold standard for combined brotherly pitching victories. Today's guest picked up 215 of their 529 wins over 17 years, mostly with the Twins and Indians.

Card front
My favorite part of this card? The vertical notice at far right: "THIS CARD MAY BE WIPED WITH A DAMP SPONGE." Sugardale packaged each one with tasty wieners, so removing the "juice" made them less likely to get thrown out by stink-conscious moms.

Card back
Sugardale made two (nearly identical) sets of cards promoting Cleveland-area baseball in 1962 and 1963. Most picture Indians and are numbered, like Jim Perry. Hoever, both years include a supplementary lettered series of cards featuring Pittsburgh Pirates. If you want to chase a truly tough card, look for the 1962 Roberto Clemente! (Full 1962 Checklist at OldBaseball.com.)

Value: Sugardale cards are fairly tough to come by. Jim Perry's tricky, because he's also an expensive short-print in the (nearly identical) 1963 set. Prices for the 1962 card seem to run higher just by association. (I bought this low-grade Perry for about $40 on eBay in 2010.)

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any fakes or reprints in the market, probably because most players are too obscure to maintain a high demand. I would watch out for fakes of the Clemente card!

UPDATE: Here's a picture of me proving the "damp sponge" advice. There's a decent plasticky coating on the card, so no harm done!

4 comments:

Carl Crawford Cards said...

With a damp sponge---classic!

Matthew Glidden said...

Just for you, I dampened up a sponge and gave it a try! Check the updated post for results of this "test."

Anonymous said...

Matthew,

Help, please...I have a 1962 Roberto Clemente Sugardale Weiner baseball card. It's not a fake. You can see the hot dog juice stripes on it. lol. What's it worth?

Thanks,
Patrick
rtk724@msn.com

Matthew Glidden said...

The 2010 Standard Catalog "big book" lists Clemente at between $3250 in top condition and $650 in mid-grade. I can't find any actual sales of one, though, which would help set a "real" price.

Since Clemente is particularly rare and has plenty of dedicated collectors, you could try an auction house if you actually want to sell. That's where the deep pockets buyers usually go.