Founded in 1890, the American Leaf Tobacco company faced a dilemma when it ran into difficulties obtaining Turkish tobacco during the Great Depression. With their business floundering, owners Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph Shorin, the sons of founder Morris Shorin, decided to abandon the tobacco business in favor of a new product called bubble gum and the American Leaf Tobacco company was relaunched under a new name, Topps Chewing Gum Incorporated. In 1950, Topps attempted to increase sales by marketing their product in tandem with Hopalong Cassidy trading cards. Less than two years later, Topps executive Sy Berger and Woody Gelman were sitting at a kitchen table in Brooklyn, designing what would become the flagship of the baseball card industry. By offering larger sized cards with an innovative design that is still used today, Topps was able to drive long-established competitor Bowman out of the baseball card market in just four years and continues on as the prevailing force in the market today. The offered collection is the achievement of a lifetime, each card painstakingly approved for its aesthetic qualities as well as its elite status on the PSA population report. As a Master Set, ranked #3 on the PSA Set Registry at an astounding 7.764 overall GPA, the collection includes all 407 cards in the series with the 80 additional 1st series cards in "black-back" form, the celebrated Joe Page and Johnny Sain "wrong bio" reverses (#48 and 49) and the newly discovered and scarce Frank Campos "black star" variation (#307 graded PSA 5), bringing the total collection to 490 cards. The cornerstones of the set are naturally the Mickey Mantle card #311, a fresh and vibrant PSA 7 with an above-grade perimeter and incredible image quality to offset the typical centering variance, a phenomenal PSA 7.5 specimen of Eddie Mathews' rookie card #407 and a breathtaking PSA 8 black-back version of Andy Pafko's card #1, one of just 5 in existence with a lone specimen graded higher, along with a PSA 6 of the red back variety. Nine cards are graded PSA 9, headlined by card #2 James Runnels black-back (one of 2 with just one graded higher) and including #38 Westlake (pop 4, none higher), 71 Upton (pop 2, none higher), 108 Konstanty (pop 5, none higher), 207 Harris (pop 10, none higher), 210 Fowler (pop 7, none higher), 245 Robertson (pop 5, none higher), 292 Baker (pop 8, none higher), and 322 Jackson (pop 7, none higher). Other extremely high-grade low pops include PSA 8.5 cards of #12 Basgall (pop 1, two higher), 131 Martin (pop 3 none higher), 246 Kell (pop 3, two higher) and 398 Rice (Pop 1, one higher) with incredibly sought-after PSA 8 rarities of #9 Hogue red-back, 11 Rizzuto black-back, 20 Loes red-back, 48 Page correct bio black-back, 49 Sain correct bio red-back, 162 Crandall, 165 Kazak, 175 B. Martin, 180 Maxwell, 261 Mays, 312 J. Robinson, 316 Williams, 320 Rutherford, 326 Shuba, 341 Jeffcoat, 373 Turner, 388 Chipman, and 403 Miller. Over 83% of the entire collection (9 PSA 9, 15 PSA 8.5, and 384 PSA 8) is graded PSA 8 or above. A link to the complete card by card breakdown of this set, including individual grades and populations, will be available through our website or by visiting the PSA Set Registry. This collection is being offered as a complete set as well as each card offered individually, with the final sale going to whichever total (the set versus the sum of the individual lots) is higher. This gives prospective bidders the opportunity to examine each and every card in the collection through the use of our high quality scans. We've been honored to offer some of the world's finest 1952 Topps sets over the past few years, but this collection takes it to a whole new level of excellence!
1952 Topps Master Set #3 Current Finest