This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/10/2015
The word "rare" gets bandied about in this industry quite often, but the truly scarce items worthy of the label are almost exclusively reserved for some obscure turn-of-the-century issue of a Hall of Famer, say a Texas Tommy Ty Cobb or Baltimore News Babe Ruth. But if there's one post-war issue that has earned the right to wear that badge of honor, it's the 1961 Topps Dice Game series. Topps tinkered around with a long list of test issues in the 1960s-1970s, some of which are extremely difficult to find and fetch a king's ransom on those occasions when they are featured at auction. But for all the notoriety they bring when the hammer drops, it pales in comparison to the featured item. Cooperstown immortal Don Drysdale is the subject of this PSA 7 pasteboard from the 1961 Dice Game set, a test issue so elusive that there's question as to whether Topps actually released it to the public or if a few just kinda "leaked out." With no identifiers, trademarks or copyrights to link it to Topps, it appears that this was an unfinished product scuttled in the development stage. Cataloged as an 18-card series, only 16 submitted specimens are on record at PSA, 14 different subjects with two of Kaline and Mays. This Drysdale card shares the top spot with 3 others as the highest graded specimens from the series. While the grade usually doesn't matter given how infrequent these cards come up, in this case the grade really does matter! Centered just to the right of dead-on with a clear, unique black and white image of Drysdale and endpoints that are sharper than expected for a NM grade. The reverse, a tightly-packed collection of information needed to play the game, is fascinating in that it's completely uncharacteristic of the orderly bio and stat format on mainstream Topps cards. The majority of advanced collectors have never gotten any closer than a photo of a '61 Dice Game card let alone held one in their hands ... now you have a chance to own one!