A candy company’s plan to make a contest harder for kids resulted in a five-digit card sale 92 years later.
A William McKinley card from the 1932 U.S. Caramel Presidents set, graded PSA 1, sold Friday night at Heritage Auctions for a whopping $21,000.
In 1932, U.S. Caramel of Boston offered kids the chance to collect all 31 of the presidents in its caramel packs. If they did, they could send the set in, get a free box of chocolates and get the set sent back to them.
Concerned it would have to give away too many boxes, U.S. Caramel execs reportedly ordered the McKinley, not among the nation's most favorite presidents, to be short-printed.
It was so short-printed that in 1992, The Sport Americana Price Guide to Non-Sport Cards said the card “had never been confirmed in any collection.”
Then along came card grading.
Since then, SGC has only graded six copies, and PSA has graded two.
An SGC 5, the highest grade of the card, sold for $96,000 in 2014 at Robert Edward Auctions.
The PSA 1 that sold Friday was punched twice and stamped on the back, “CANCELLED. CANDY PAID” to prevent kids from sending it back again for another box of chocolates.
U.S. Caramel didn't just pull the trick with this set. It did the same thing with the athletes set from the same year. When collectors turned in all 32 cards, they would get a $1 baseball in return.
The company didn't have to give away many because No. 16 Freddie Lindstrom was also short-printed. In 1988, Leland's founder Josh Evans was asking $1 million for his Lindstrom card. In 2001, a PSA 3 sold for $79,876.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.