Rare sealed wax is having a fantastic finish to the calendar year.
With the record-breaking $2.5 million sale of a one-of-a-kind case of 1979 O-Pee-Chee hockey fresh in the rearview mirror, Heritage Auctions has teased it will be offering an unopened pack of 1948 Bowman baseball cards in its upcoming Winter Platinum Night Auction.
The wax pack, graded PSA 7 and one of just four examples authenticated by the company, is one of the most valuable and scarce vintage wax packs in the world. Marking Bowman’s first release, the set famously contains rookie cards for Hall of Famers Yogi Berra, Ralph Kiner, Phil Rizzuto, Warren Spahn, Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst.
Two PSA 10 cards from the set, both the sole examples at the grade, of Musial and Berra, sold for $360,000 and $192,000, respectively in 2017. Both are record sales for each player.
Unopened material from the set had its legend grow when, in 2017, a box of 19 unopened packs (out of 24) from the release was uncovered and sold at Mile High Card Company.
At the time, BBCE founder and unopened wax expert Steve Hart said he had never seen or heard of a prior such example existing, saying he believed it to be the only of its kind (no packs had previously been known either). It was dubbed “The Beer Box Find,” coming from a family who ran a trading card company during the era.
It sold for $514,746.
The same cache of wax would return to Mile High in 2020, sans one pack (kept by the consigner), and sold for $360,613.20.
Sales of the four graded single wax packs from the set, all of which share the same PSA 7 grade, are quite rare. Most recently, Heritage sold another copy for $138,000 in May.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.