Bowyer! Snaps a 7 year winless drought.

Earlier in the thread, a posters asked for pictures of the 1972 STP NASCAR set. I had lost all my images when photobucket went to a pay format. I finally got around to scanning images of my racing cards into a new photo hosting site. Here is a link to my cards from the 1972 STP set. A couple of the cards (Buddy Baker and Elmo Langley) are exceedingly easy to locate and worth only $20-30, but several of the cards are all but impossible to find and could take decades to locate.

The cards were handed out for free at the STP promotional tent during the 1972 Daytona 500 (and possibly also at Talladega later that season). Several collectors who acquired the cards directly at the 1972 Daytona 500 claim that the two Lorenzen cards were not distributed with the rest of the cards at the time.

http://imageevent.com/eddiesmithcards/1972stpcards

I have written a description for each card in the 11-card set. Even at just 11 cards, the 1972 STP is a ***** to complete due to the rarities. The set was the first set of NASCAR cards, and predates the mass-produced cards of the late 1980s-90s and beyond.

I have also scanned a copy of my A.J. Foyt card from the 1962 Marhoefer Meats set. Marhoefer was a Muncie, Ind., company that produced cards honoring the Indianapolis 500 drivers for five seasons between 1961-65. The cards were packaged with hot dogs, and are almost always heavily stained as a result. But it is a Foyt card from 1962, so it is a desirable card, even heavily stained.

That's awesome.

How long did it take you to complete the collection?

How did you know it existed, being so rare?

Are you selling?

It took me about 10 years to assemble the complete set. I was stuck at eight of 11 cards for about 5-6 years. But it's not like those are the only cards i collect, so I was not obsessed and spent every waking moment scouring eBay or auction houses for the final three cards. I knew there was a good chance neither Lorenzen card nor Bobby Alllison would ever show for sale.

In card collecting, baseball is and always will be king. The T206 Honus Wagner card is the most famous sports card of all-time. There are numerous cards that are far more rare than a Wagner T206, but the Wagner card is from the most popular set of its era and has a great back story for why it is scarce. There are numerous sports cards of which only one example exists (or only a few examples).

Beyond the Wagner T206, there are numerous baseball cards that sell for $50,000-100,000+. There are baseball cards of players who 99.99 percent of the public has never heard of, but sell for five and six figures because they are from rare or obscure sets. I do have a couple rare baseball cards, but I can't compete money wise with deep-pocketed stick and ball collectors.

I like racing cards or cards outside the big four sports because even the really rare and impossible to find is relatively accessible financially for a regular working person. I also love history. I have a list of about 25-30 cards on my want list that I would like to acquire some day and are financially realistic. I do realize, however, that many of the cards on my want list will never show up for sale or at auction.

I first learned about the 1972 STP set because I post on a couple of sports card message boards, and I have seen rankings of the most desirable racing cards to have. I was also intrigued by the set because card grading company PSA lists a rough price guide (much of which is notoriously inaccurate) for popular sets, and the 1972 STP set is the first auto racing set for which PSA includes any prices.

The message board thread that really got me interested in the 1972 STP set and the rarities of the Lorenzen cards from that set was a 2014 thread in which long-time racing card collect Jon Hardgrove mentioned his 26-year search for the two Lorenzen cards. I have since talked to a couple other collectors on the phone who have also collected the set, and they told me about the set being distributed at the 1972 Daytona 500, and that the Lorenzen with car card is nightmarishly difficult to find.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/52660...ish+for+%3B%29

Another long-time collector of the set told me that he thinks the Allison card is just as tough to find, but it doesn't have the reputation that the Lorenzen with car card has.

I want to keep my one compete set intact, since I just had it graded by PSA in December. But I do have a few doubles that I wouldn't be opposed to selling. The two most common cards in the set are Buddy Baker and Elmo Langley. Those two cards can usually be found for $20-30 at auction. The bulk of the set sells for around $75-150 individually when one of the cards hits auction. Richard Petty is usually around a $125-150 card, depending on condition.

Bobby Allison is anywhere from a $500-1,000 card, but it has been a while since an Allison card showed up alone at auction. My Lorenzen with car card was a little over $1,200 at auction. My own personal rule is never to spend over $1,000 on any individual card, but I broke that personal rule for the Lorenzen with car card. I figured another one might never show up for sale, and I didn't want to lose it over a couple hundred dollars.

Most of the cards in my collection are $200-400 cards. I am a very, very tiny fish when it comes to card collecting. it blows my mind how much money there is at the upper levels of the hobby, and how many cards sell for $10,000+.

I'm hoping to cross off a few bucket list cards this year.

Awesome. What do you collect?

I did not realize you were into cards, or I would not have been been so general with some of my statements about baseball being king and the Wagner T206 card being the most famous card in the hobby.

I have almost every Bo Jackson card in both sports PSA10. But aside from that mainly vintage. I'm hoping to add a 51 Bowman Mantle to my collection this year. Probably something in the PSA3 or 4 range. Nothing too absurd. And I collect 80's toys.

Awesome. I feel like a bit of a dumbass now for being so general when talking about cards when you are well versed on PSA, collecting vintage and that a 51B Mantle is one of the iconic baseball cards in history.

The 52 Topps Mantle has been on such a gigantic run upward in price over the past couple years; I think the Bowman rookie card is a great buy long term. The '52 Topps card has already priced out many collectors with even beater PSA 1 examples selling for $7,000-8,000.

I don't have any truly iconic baseball cards like would compare to a 51B Mantle. My toughest baseball card I have is a 1949 Lummis Peanut Butter card of Willie "Puddinhead" Jones. Obviously, the player is a no name. But I am a Phillies fan, and the Lummis Peanut Butter cards are a near impossible regional type card rarity.

I love collecting the rare, the obscure, the esoteric that might only come up for sale once a decade, even if the card is only worth a few hundred dollars. I just picked up a 1934 National Chicle Skybirds Amelia Earhart card a few weeks ago. She is one of my favorite people in history to collect. She only has five cards that were issued prior to her disappearance, and the National Chicle card is the only one that is even somewhat common.

I wish I would have had the courage to put $1,500-2,000 into a Babe Ruth card 10-15 years ago. I still toy around with the idea of getting a low-grade Ruth montage card from the E121 set. That is probably my favorite Ruth card that I could realistically afford. The Goudey Ruth cards are so plentiful and they have been on such a move upward in value in recent years. I don't really think a collector can ever go wrong picking up a period era Ruth card -- unless you hit buy it now on eBay on one of the cards priced at 500 percent of its actual value.

I got lucky last year, in spring training I picked up a bunch of Judge graded auto rookies, and was able to make a nice profit when I sold them during the playoffs. I try to buy and sell the new stuff, and use the money to purchase vintage stuff.

The holy grail card for me which I'll never own is the 90 Topps White House issued George Bush. There were only 100 made. I contacted a Senator from NH who I read was in possession of one, but he never got back to me. I've yet to see one for sale.

I am familiar with the Bush 41 Topps card. That is one of my favorite modern cards, and I would love to own one. By whenever I catch myself daydreaming about owning a card that is worth several thousand dollars, I bring myself back to reality and remember that if I ever were to put several thousand dollars into one card, it would be a playing era Babe Ruth card.

I also love the background story of Topps presenting Bush 41 with 100 copies of the card, many of which he handed out to his grandkids, friends and staff. But I assume you are familiar with John Sununu confusing PSA by submitting several of the cards for grading? Sununu telling PSA that he has "fairly good" provenance on the cards in his possession is great. LOL.

PSA now acknowledges that there are two types of 1990 Topps George Bush cards. The ones that were given to the President feature a glossy coating.

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...baseball-cards

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...-baseball-card

https://yalealumnimagazine.com/blog_...s-hard-to-tell

https://forums.collectors.com/discus...card-confirmed

I just wanted to give a little more background on the Lorenzen STP cards that showed up on eBay in September 2016. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them show up at auction. The seller lived only 45 minutes away from me, so I agreed to meet him in person to pick up the "with car" version that I won at auction.

The seller was an amateur picker and "car guy" who did not have any idea what he had. He bought a lot at an estate sale for $30 and was hoping to double his money by selling some of the Earnhardt/Rusty Wallace/Tim Richmond clocks and 8 X 10 photos that were in the lot.

The seller tried to do some research on the Lorenzen cards, but could not find anything online about them (he was not using the right search words). He figured the cards were worthless and considered throwing them away, but put them up on eBay just in case he could make a few dollars on them.

Almost instantly, the seller was besieged by requests asking him to end the the auctions early for the "with car" card and a Lorenzen "portrait." The seller knew he had something worth money when offers of anywhere from $300 to $750 came in unsolicited for the two cards. When I met the seller in person to pay for the "with car" card that I had won, he told me that the box contained one "with car" Lorenzen card and 12 Lorenzen portrait cards.

The seller told me in 30 years of picking/junking, this was the greatest find he ever had. He was a "car guy," but had never heard of Fred Lorenzen. I gave him some articles about the 1972 STP set and explained to him how rare those cards are. I told him if this would have been a baseball rarity from a popular set, the cards could have been worth $10,000 or $50,000 or more. As it was, he had already turned his $30 investment into $3,000 when I met him. At the time, he was debating whether or not to tell his wife that he doubled his money on the box and wanted to take her out for dinner.

The original owner of the cards was a long-time racing photographer who traveled to the eastern NASCAR events while shooting photos for Area Auto Racing News of Trenton, N.J. The Lorenzen cards were the only STP cards contained in the box of racing items that sold for $30, so the original owner clearly knew that those cards were something special.

I always love hearing that there are "finds" out there of extremely rare cards still being discovered. This wasn't a million dollar find of Cracker Jack baseball cards or E98s, but hearing the story first hand about how the cards nearly were thrown away as worthless junk was awesome.

Every time I have ever stopped to look at a yard sale and there are some cards for sale, it is always some worthless garbage like 1988 Topps or Donruss.

What a frickin ticky tack pit road penalty on Blaney...F that crap! Tire just sitting on the pit box line. What a violation.

RIP Truex

Texas claiming some cars today boy. 2 real hard hits right there.

Gonna be fun to see if the 18 can hold off the 4 here. Harvick!

Well that was anti-climactic

lol bout died from a rib cramp on this pissed off Harvick interview bout the standard guns they get handed. Idiot reporter gets slammed around the 1:20 mark.




Also, NASCAR in French! Who knew...

Alright so a little bit of fake news there, more like idiot reporter gets quickly dismissed for an extremely dumb question if you're supposed to be reporting on NASCAR. Harvick's response tho.

That's 3 in a row for KB! Tough task at Talladega next weekend to keep it going (still rooting for it tho). I want to see someone eclipse the 'modern era' 4 in a row mark, and then maybe they get lucky and start approaching the King's record.

Shaping up for a fun finish.

This Harvick guy seems to be pretty good.

http://www.espn.com/auto/story/_/id/...ng-sale-nascar

That's been a major topic of local news honks around here. It's really sad to see the sport going this way

But, isn't Brian France selling a good thing at this point? Downward trajectory from watching cars go around in circles aside, there's a barrel of complaints from previous fans that revolves around purely hating Brian France, if I remember correctly.

I'll go ahead and leave this here. lol.