55. LAst Armour Coins I Ever Grade ?

 

Seems like forever since I wrote the last blog. It's not that I lost interest, I just ran out of new armour coin info to talk about. 

I finally broke down and sent in my 1955 correct Mantle Black      (L or R) which I obtained to complete my 1955 set in "midnight black" and my prize 1955 "Cappo-de-tuti-capo" Mantle correct GOLD. 

The good news is PSA graded them in a few weeks...the bad news is that they have just raised the price to $75 each. 

I guess PSA just does not want to grade coins /pins any more. I mean who would send in a 1955 Vernon and get it graded for $75 unless you were sure it was a PSA 10 ?

Thus the question...Are these the last 2 Armour coins I ever grade ?? Probably unless something really special comes up. 

                                              CAPPO-DI-TUTI-CAPO

the last required coin for my complete midnight black set "42nd St"

54 Gold correct Mantle becomes "Capo de tutti cappo"

In blog 28 , in 2016, we anointed Silver mantle correct "cappo de tutti cappo". For those of you who don't know what that means check out some old Sopranos episodes. 

While most casual collectors were in awe of this coin, savy collectors spotted some further information in the pics supplied by Armour George. The presence of a gold streak in the coin meant there absolutely was a gold equivalent ...we just hadn't seen it yet.  

Well that ended last week when "Luke" contacted me about what he thought was a correct gold Mantle. It seems his father picked it up at a flea market in NC back in he 1990's and his son searched the internet to identify it and came across my armour coin blogs. He was especially interested in blog #19 "Hi Ho Silver" where I called out a fake silver Gilliam that had been obviously spray painted. 

Luke asked whether I would check out the current Mantle coin for him. How could any Armour collector turn down a chance to hold a correct Mantle gold in his hands. 

The coin arrived a few days later and I put it through my series of non destructive tests. It passed with flying colors. It is shown below. As you can see from the bottom row of pics it reveals the required transparency

The next step was to acquire it. I made Luke a very fair offer. Last thing I wanted was for it to come to EBay and set up a bidding war with the half dozen of you who would want to bid against me for it. Mission accomplished. So the gold Mantle correct (L or R) is now in the collection of ArmourPhil and since gold trumps silver it becomes the new "cappo de tutti cappo"

It will eventually be graded and put into the 1955 armour  set "Priceless" but not until PSA pricing comes down. Armour Phil don't grade coins for $150 !

53. 1955 Armour set in black, with all variations, finally completed

Sometimes Armour coin collecting is like a roller coaster ride ...you can go for months adding nothing to your set and then all of a sudden things heat up. 

That has happened recently to me. First lets discuss one of my 1955 sets. There are 24 different coins in the set and with variations PSA recognizes 38 coins when we include variations. By now we all know about the Spahn "comma" variation which is officially not recognized by PSA yet.  So for someone seeking a

complete set in black I think you would need 39 coins. 

I recently just finished the set with the acquisition on a Mantle correct L or R . I have seen probably a half dozen of these over the past 20 years but was never willing to pay the auction price that these went for. This time I finally paid the price to finish the set. 

I will eventually get it graded once PSA drops its prices back to reality. 

This coin actually wasn't the hardest of the (39) 1955s to get in black, it was just  the most expensive.  

So what was the most difficult to get ? Was it a Kuenn Bats/Throws ?? or maybe  Jensen "RED" Sox ? or maybe a Trucks "White Sox" 2 words ?? 

Nope, actually is was the Kuenn condensed. Only seen one of them in the past 20 years and it is  tucked away in my "midnight black" set known as 42nd st.  

If you have one of these please let me know.

As it says in my PSA set description "Where the underworld can meet the elite, Forty-Second Street" ....times square....the core of the big apple. This was our local subway stop in Hells Kitchen when I was growing up. The goal of this set is to complete the variation rich 1955 set in MIDNIGHT black ! Has the complete 1955 armour set with variations ever been completely assembled in the rare black color before ?? I don't know, but we do know never as a PSA registered set. Right now the Mantle correct L or R variation is keeping me from the full set. "

Well the The Mantle correct L or R variation no longer keeps me from the full PSA graded set...Now it is held up by the $150 PSA wants me to pay to grade it........

52 ANOTHER WARNING on 1960 Mantle rims and PSA GRADING

 

From my very first blogs back in 2012 I warned you, the readers, about the issue with 1960 broken back rims on Armour coins and singled out Mickey Mantle as the worst coin for this type of damage. 

Unfortunately this was not limited to buying this coin raw, since PSA was WAY WAY over grading these coins and they could be found as PSA 8s, PSA 9s and even PSA 10s !!!

Below is the first pic I used to explain the problem. 

 Did PSA mend their ways ?? or did those with such coins stop grading and trying to sell them to the general Mantle loving public - HELL NO !

Below is a Mantle  blue sold in 2018 where you can actually see the broken back rim laying on top of the coin. Is this a PSA 8 to you ??

 

Then there is the infamous red orange PSA 10 that I mentioned a few years ago which I will show again below with 40% of the back rim missing. 

Which brings me to the coin thats being offered  by PWCC today . Its a lime green  Mantle 1960 PSA 10 Armour coin and the bidding is already up to  $685. 

                         ARE YOU KIDDING ME !!!

Shame on PSA and shame on PWCC for trying to sell this coin as a PSA 10. 

The current population of PSA 10 1960 Mantle Armour coins is listed by PSA as 20 

So one thing you can be sure of is that there really are no more than 18 PSA 10s in circulation because at least 2 of them should be rated "authentic" NOT PSA 10s ! 

How did any of these make it by the supposed triple grading at PSA ??

51 Is Chalky dk Yellow another 55 Armour color ?

There hasn't been a blog in awhile, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been anything going on.  Being a lover of color variations I am always intrigued when a new color shows up after 60+ years. 

That happened recently when i received a message from old time collector "armour coin" He sent a picture of a 1955 Mantle correct that was clearly NOT a chalky yellow (which is a pale yellow with a chalky texture to it) It reminded me of a coin I got from SFLAYank nearly 20 years ago, a Berra that graded a PSA 10. It was the only 55 Armour that I had ever seen in that color and I hadn't seen one since....till now. As you can see below (seeing is believing) it appears that both Mantle and Berra exist in this color that we will call "dk chalky yellow".. 

Our unwritten rule to be accepted as a true color variation is that at least 3 of any color have to be known to exist, so this will still not be listed as a 1955 "official color" but maybe there are more out there. If you have any like this please contact me ...

This certainly ties the (1) known silver correct Mantle  as the rarest  of the 1955 Armour coins. 

 

50 Documenting Sale of Freasle sets for posterity

Instead of adding pricing to the Freasle sets that sold in the latest Heratige auction to my last post , I though I'd put all the info here....for posterity.

In summary:
1960 23 coins - $1200
1959 20 coins  - $564
1955 37 coins  - $2760

But...of course if you have learned anything from these blogs it is that value depends on both condition and color so I have added the full detail below .


We will see whether the buyer/buyers add these sets back into the PSA set registry.

1960 Armour Coin Baseball PSA Graded Complete Set (23). Offered is a 23-coin complete set of 1960 Armour coins. Every coin has been graded by PSA. Includes: Graded - PSA GEM 10: 7 coins, Banks/Yellow, Ford/Red-Orange, Fox/Lime Green, Malzone-Red Sox/Yellow, Mathews/Red-Orange, Pinson/Red-Orange, Triandos/Yellow; PSA MINT 9: 2 coins, Crandall/Yellow, Wynn/Red-Orange; PSA NM-MT 8: 12 coins, Aaron-Braves/Yellow, Aaron-Milwaukee Braves/Yellow, Boyer/Yellow, Colavito/Yellow, Conley/Red, Daley/Red, Drysdale-Space L. and A./Yellow, Drysdale-L.A. Condensed/Red, Kaline/Red, Malzone-Boston Red Sox/Lime Green, Mantle/Yellow, Stuart/Red; PSA NM 7: 1 coin, Mays/Dark Yellow; PSA EX-MT 6: 1 coin, Allison/Yellow.

1959 Armour Coin Baseball PSA Graded Complete Set (20). Offered is a 20-coin complete set of 1959 Armour coins. Every coin has been graded by PSA. Includes: Graded - PSA MINT 9: 4 coins, Malzone/Orange, Robinson/Navy Blue, Skinner/Red, Triandos/Red; PSA NM-MT 8: 13 coins, Aaron/Pale Yellow, Ashburn/Red, Blasingame/Pale Yellow, Cerv/Royal Blue, Crandall/Pale Yellow, Ford/Pale Pink, Fox/Royal Blue, Kuenn/Pale Pink, Podres/Pale Pink, Sievers/Grey Green, Thomas/Pale Pink Turley/Dark Pink; PSA NM 7: 3 coins, Antonelli/Navy Blue, Banks/Pale Yellow, Jensen/Red. 

955 Armour Baseball Coins PSA-Graded Complete Master Set (37). Offered is a 37-coin complete master set of the first Armour baseball coins from 1955. This was the first of three editions produced by Armour, the others coming in 1959 and 1960. Every coin has been graded by PSA. Includes: Graded - PSA MINT 9: 9 coins, Crandall/Bright Yellow, Doby/Peach, Ford/Navy, Jensen-Red Sox/Black, Rosen/Bright Yellow, Simmons/Bright Yellow, Spahn/Pale Green, Turley/Red, Vernon/Red; PSA NM-MT 8: 14 coins, Antonelli-N.Y. Giants Back/Lemon Yellow, Antonelli-New York Back/Black, Berra/Pale Green Finigan-Quincy On Back/Lemon Yellow, Gilliam-Bats L or R/Red, Haddix-Narrow Gap/Black, Jensen-Reb Sox/Orange, Klu/Red, Kuenn-Cond. LTR '54 AVG/Lemon Yellow, Mueller/Orange, Reese/Lemon Yellow, Reynolds/Aqua, Thomas/Dark Yellow, Trucks-Whitesox/Red; PSA NM 7: 9 coins, Finigan-Ouincy on Back/Black, Gilliam-Thin Lips/Lemon Yellow, Haddix-Wide Gap/Red, Jackson-nfielder Back/Blue, Jackson-Infielder Back/Red, Kuenn-WD SP NM '54/Chalky Yellow, Mantel-Incorrect Spelling/Orange, Snider-Decimal-.341/Navy, Snider-No Decimal-341/Navy; PSA EX-MT 6: 3 coins, Kuenn-Last Line Bat/Thr/Navy, Mantle/Correct Spelling L-R/Navy, Trucks-White Sox/Pale Green; PSA EX 5: 2 coins, Gilliam-Thick Lips/Navy, Mantle-Correct L or R/Pale Green. 

49 New 1959 Vernon variation

Its been awhile since my last blog and quite a few of you have asked whats up. Loading these does take a little work and you just need to be motivated to write them. Basically I just ran out of what I thought were important Armour coin information tidbits that I wanted to pass on to you fellow collectors. A remarkable find has spurred me to write up blog 49, but while I'm doing that I will catch up on other new information as well.

Answering Mail

Some of you have asked why I don't typically answer questions left on the blogs. The answer is simple. This blog platform provided by Google free of charge allows folks to leave comments or questions but does not trigger me that a message has been left. So I would have to make a daily visit to every blog to stay completely up to date. If you want to leave a message better email me at philgarrou@att.net. If you want to leave a comment for everyone to see keep doing it this way ...thats fine.

1955 Trans coins 

Armour Al, SFLA Yank and a few others have written discussing the existence of transparent coins.

In blog 47 we looked at 1960 colors and indicated that most of the colors came in transparent variations. As a life long chemist my conclusion is that he transparency, translucency and opaqueness is due mainly to the quantity of filler (usually SiO2 or sand if you will) that is added to the plastic mix).

In blog 45 we looked at the so called " dk red trans" 1955 coins where not only can you read the back of the coin (looking through the front) you can see what appears to be precipitated (ppct) red pigment particles. This is somewhat hard to see in a picture on the internet, but clear as a bell when holding the coin up to the light. It appears that this same phenomena can be found for the 1955 navy coins and Armour Al reports that he has a near complete set in this "cosmetic" variation. They are certainly not new colors and not something that I would have expected Bob Lemke to have added to the Std. Catalog of BB Cards (my friend Bob passed away in 2017 ).

So for now, lets simply conclude that for sure dk red and navy 1955 have coin examples that show this strange precipitate phenomena, other 1955 coins can be found in varying states of transparency/translucency/ opaqueness. They are not new colors or variations. If you don't agree...speak your piece.

Rare reds show up in TX 

In the late fall of 2019 OPC baseball in TX put up a rare find of 1955 reds. While we all know that reds are a common color these were reds mainly of the 55 rare variations. In blog 42 we already discussed the fact that many of the variations are rarely seen in red or orange. One could presume this occurred towards the end of the molding runs and they were running out of red dye (red + yellow = orange), but whatever the case, we knew they existed (see blog 33) but were hardly ever seen.  Well OPC found a lot that had at least 5 each of both Mantle correct variations and put them up for sale on EBay. I personally did not buy any because the seller put over inflated  prices on them while their condition appeared, to this knowledgeable observer,  to be no better than vg or PSA 5. Some had back edge chips and all had real rough back edges and wear on the coin faces. This collector does not pay $1500 for a coin like that even a red correct Mantle.

Armour PSA registry sets repositioning. 

A shout out is due to ChiSox Tony whose 59 set has moved into the top 5

Part of this set repositioning is due to sets being sold off. For instance it appears that Outlaw sports has sold off most of his 1955 collection and my old friend Freasle's widow ( see blog 21) has  finally put his sets up on the Heratige April 26th auction.  If I can remember I will update this blog with final prices in a few days.


NEW 1959 VERNON Variation

With those tidbits behind me whats so important that It spurred me to write this first 2020 blog ??

Well Armour Al sent pictures of a 1959 Vernon coin in a dark yellow shade (not the pale yellow that is standard for 1959 coins) As you can see below it has Vernon as a member of the Senators not the Indians ! The back shows a pitchers 1958 W / L record that is not filled out. Maybe that is because Vernon was not a pitcher  but rather an infielder as it clearly says on the coin.

Vernon was traded to the Red Sox for the 1956 and 1957 seasons and then Cleveland for the 1958 season. 

The best guess we can come up with is that the coin designers were asked to produce a prototype set sometime before the 59 season. The designer obviously screwed up and produced this Vernon coin/s (who knows how many were made) This obvious error was caught and never made it into commercial distribution.

I checked with the Godfather of Armour Coins Doug Stultz, who is enjoying his retirement, and Doug says "Never seen one like that before"  .

I never cease to be amazed about how much new information we can dig up about 60+ year old coins.

48 1955 Red MAntle Correct found by Armour Al

We can expect Armour coins of rare color to be scarce or missing from the known sets ...well ...because by definition they are scarce. This should be a random occurrence, i.e. different players missing in diff rare colors, and for the most part that is true.

But...why would a player be missing in a common color ? That is the case for the Mantle correct variations where existence appears to be in the trend :
Navy=Aqua>>pale green=black >>>yellow>>>> orange & red. In fact, up until a few weeks ago no  red correct L-R  was known to exist.

Then it popped up on EBay Armour Al grabbed it before any of the rest of us even knew it was up there. It certainly is not in NM, but it certainly is the only one known to exist.

Below you can see it sitting between Mantle incorrects in orange and dk red.

47 Review of 1960 Armour Coin colors



Finishing up our review of  coin colors...it is now time to take a look at 1960 colors. As you know, the 1960 coins are divided into 2 groups...
(1) the Aaron group with :
Aaron - Braves
Aaron Milw Braves
Banks
Crandall
Fox
Malzone Red Sox
Malzone Boston Red Sox
Mantle
Triandos


The Aaron group comes in the common colors of red, red/oj, yellow, dk green, lime green, royal blue and pale blue as well as the other rare colors shown below except dk yellow and mustard yellow.

(2) the Allison group contains the rest of the players. The Allison group (so far) appears in common yellow and common red/oj and the rare dk yellow and mustard (darker)yellow. As we have discussed in previous blogs, 3 ultra rare lime green coins (Colovito, Wynn and Mays) have appeared oer the last decade.

 Also as we have previously discussed at least 50% and possibly as many as >75% of the mantle coins come with partial back rims making them defective.


             ...WATCH OUT FOR PSA GRADED COINS WITH PARTIAL BACK RIMS...


No one appears to have a grey/blue Mantle with a complete back rim and I have only seen (1) royal blue Mantle with complete back rim and I quickly grabbed it.


More so than 1955 or 1959, 1960 has many coins which we call trans (transparent) Below is a shot of some of the ones that I have. red/oj...yellow...medium green...lime green..dk green....navy blue and pale blue. with both direct light and back light. Close ups re to show you that you actually can read the back of the coins.

Daley has always been reported as the rarest coin in the set. Prices which used to be I nthe $750 range have recently come down to the $4-500 range. 10+ years ago Daley coins appeared on the market that did not match ANY of the known colors shown here. In previous blogs I have shown you some of these coins. They were labeled as "test" coins and many sold for > $1000.  I have repeated a photo of some of them below. Many believe they are fakes.



46 New Armour Collectors...Mustard yellow in 1955 ??

Welcome New Armour Collector

Some new 55, 59 and 60 sets have gone up on the PSA sets list under the name Nehe60. His  "all orange 1955 set" says it has an orange Trucks two words and a Mantle correct LorR . SFLAYank checked with Neil and it ends up the orange correct Mantle is just another PSA miss label . The Trucks 2 words orange does seem to be real and if so, it is the only one we know of. Congrats to Neil. Neil promises to put up pics for his 55's soon...until then welcome to the Armour collectors group Neil...

Congrats also go out to collector Noelle4-life who finished off her 59 set and is only a bob Cerv PSA 9 away from a complete PSA 9 or better set. She is currently in the #5 slot right in front of our friend ChiSox Tony and right in back of my all yellow 45th street park set.

Noelle is also zeroing in on a complete 55 set. She is now 3 coins away from the complete 37 in PSA 7 or better ...a significant feat...while she currently resides in 7th place she is only behind myself, auctionfvr (George), and our deceased pal Freasle. Finishing her set could move her up into 4th place.


Super dk yellow a new 1955 shade ??

SFLA has reported 1955 mantle incorrect in a very dk yellow color he says is close to mustard yellow of 1960 sets. In checking my coins I appear to have a very dk yellow Trucks . As of now we're not sure they are the same color. If anyone else out there has similar color coins please let us know.

Below I have taken a pic of (l to r):

1955 lemon yellow....1955 new mustard yellow color

Armour Al has chimed in with a Vernon example so by our rue of at least 3 coins of the exact same color, dk dk yellow mustard yellow) should now become an official color...

 

 

 

45 The Lake George Find

 2018 has been a hell of a year when it comes to rare 1955 colors and it sure ended that way. It seems EBay seller Grizzley Dick had this accumulation of armour coins that he had picked up a  flea market near Lake Georg NY years ago (actually in the last century...ha..ha..ha) . A few days before Christmas he started selling them after studying these blogs. That in itself would not be startling, but what was startling were the colors that he had. Seems his hoard had no pale green or navy blue or lemon yellows or oranges or blacks. It was made  nearly entirely of dark greens, yellow greens and dark reds. Once again rare colors grouped together coming from the same location. Really the only common color he had was aqua.


Up to this point the only known yellow greens (early on called olive green) were Reese, Kuenn condensed and Trucks (1 word) . At last count we now have at least 19 examples, some of which are shown below. There appear to be two shades with one a little more yellow than the other. In the last row you can see Vernon in both of these shades. Another interesting factoid is that there were no rare variations. Another Mantle was sold in another lot  by Grizzley. These are the only 3 yellow/green Mantle Incorrects known to exist, to the best of our knowledge and brings the total number of 1955 Mantle incorrect colors up to 21 including silver (but no gold)

 

A grouping of the Dk Greens is shown below. Notice how uniform all these rare colors are.

 

 

You may notice the dk green Mantle incorrect ( a color I have been hunting for 20+ years).

The other main color Dick had was what we have called dark red transparent. That's right no regular cherry reds, no dark reds but ALL dark red "trans" which if you have been reading these blogs you know are semi transparent and when you hold them up to light you can see what appears to be undissolved pigment particles.

I put Haddix dk red trans and regular opaque dark red on my light table and got the following pics to try to show you the difference.



Armour Al indicates that he has found similar "trans" coins in navy and lime green. Since both SFLAYank and I both have a least 1 navy trans coin, this has led to a call for a more thorough examination of our collections to see if any other coins appear this way...Check for results in a few weeks.

So who was the winner of several of these Lake George lots including 2 yellow green and one dk green Mantle ? None other than Armour Al who clearly has become the Armour collector of the year for 2018 !

This now leaves  silver as the rarest color followed by sky blue and tan, but as we have seen this year...that too can change with the next major armour coin auction...

44. Reviewing 1955 Armour Coin Colors

 

 



Several of you have requested I try to come up with a complete chart of 1955 colors as I did for 1959 colors in the last blog. While all of these colors have been discussed in previous blogs, I have now tried to get all the colors into one chart like my 1959 chart.

I won't go into a lot of discussion on this. By now you know that the common colors for 1955 are Red, orange, lemon yellow, pale green, navy blue and aqua.

 

Certainly the rarest colors include peach, gold, silver, yellow/green (also at times called olive green), tan, sky blue and Wisconsin blue. Hope this is some help to my interested readers

 



Some might catch that I have left out what I have called "dark red transparent"...that's because it is so hard to show this color as a picture that clearly identifies it. It looks just like dr red (especially in EBay pis) . Those that have one know it...when you hold it up to the light you clearly see the individual red pigment particles in the coin. I  currently have 11 different examples of this color so it is real. The only other color I have ever seen like this is one example of navy blue which is Antonelli N.Y....

 

If I have missed any colors let me know...

 

 

43 Reviewing 1959 Armour coin colors

It's been awhile since we looked at 59 colors so I though I'd look at those again. While the 59 set holds the lowest value ( no variations and no Mantle or Mays) of the 3 sets, it is the most colorfull (in my opinion) and has many colors that are very difficult to find. Pale blue and grey/green have always been rare, but recently they have become super rare. Pale oj, pale red, burnt orange, dk yellow, cream and brown  are certainly in the super rare category. There is a separate blog on dk red, dk grey/blue and dk green with the green being rare but the easiest of the 3 to find. The pale green opaques are hard to find and always come with a white swirl. We have confirmed 3 shades of pink as you can see in the chart below and 2...maybe 3 blue shades of confetti.


The color chart below is the best I have done for the 3 years since all the colors look true.

Is the burnt orange really a dark orange to make the full dark set of red, orange, yellow, green and blue ? Your thoughts..should that include dk pink maybe ?

Should another grouping be pale red, pale orange, pale yellow, pale green, pale blue and pale pink ? If so why is the pale yellow so much more common ??

Why are the confetti coins only in blue ??

If your a collector try getting one of each color or a set of all 20 coins each in a different color. In my opinion much "coole" than having a set all in navy or all in orange, but that's just my opinion.

...feel free to comment on which of the rare colors you might have. If anyone has a pale blue Malzone or Cerv...talk to me ...



42 1955 Rare Variations - Grades vs colors

Thought we would take a look at the 1955 non Mantle tough variations and what colors they have been graded in. This data was collected off the PSA sets and by contacting the set owners to input their colors and any other graded examples of these 7 coins that they are in possession of.

We got a pretty good response to this questionnaire so thanks for the input guys/gals...

By the way last check this web page has gotten 67,000+ views...WOW



Feb 22nd  2019 - data update from readers: The following PSA 7s have been reported : Antonelli - pale grn, Guilliam narrow- navy, Jackson - navy, Jensen - navy, Snider black, Trucks - navy

So there have been ~ 193 of these 7 coins graded and we know the whereabouts of slightly greater than half of them. RED appears to be the hardest color to find these 7 coins in.

Hope this data is of some interest to you all ...

41 Armour Al hits the jackpot

 

A large group of 1955 Armour coins went up for auction in September and once again I missed them. This time my excuse is that I was at a family wedding. What was your excuse for missing this lot ??

 



Lets call it the 2018 NY Mantle lot for reasons you'll shortly understand. This lot consisted of 241 1955 coins as shown below

This pic comes to us direct from Armour Al and is not the photo included in the EBay auction. From the auction pic it was very hard to identify exactly what was in the lot. The seller had it up for sale for $3000 or best offer and many of you contacted the seller to see exactly what was in the lot and sort out how to make a bid.

Armour Al immediately made an offer of $2200 which was accepted before  many of you could get your offers in. So exactly what did he get for his money ?

                                      99 orange; 30 yellow; 7 green; 55 aqua; 50 navy blue..... NO Reds ??

By player :

ANtonelli NY 3                              Antonelli New York - 2
Berra - 13                                       Crandall - 7
Doby - 13                                       Finigan O - 5
Finigan Q - 7                                 Ford - 4
Gillliam L or R - 1                        Gilliam L - R - 3
Gilliam tight - 0                            Haddix wide - 7
Haddix - narrow - 6                      Jackson nfielder - 4
Jackson Infielder - 7                    Jensen Reb - 3
Jensen Red - 4                              Klu - 11
Kuenn wide - 5                            Kuenn condensed - 4
Kuenn bats/throws - 4                 Mantle error - 3
Mantle correct L or R - 3            Mantle correct L - R - 2
Mueller - 7                                  Reese - 10
Reynolds - 15                             Rosen - 16
Simmons - 4                               Snider decimal - 3
Snider no decimal - 6                 Spahn - 15
Thomas - 8                                 Trucks 1 wrd - 4
Trucks 2 wrds - 4                        Turley - 10
Vernon 16

A quick look and any Armour collector should be saying 5 Mantle correct !

A look at the pic below and you can see all 5 of the Mantle corrects are yellow. Comparing notes with SFLA Yank we know of fewer than 6 yellow Mantle correct in existance...up till now !

Next take a look at the Jackson nfielder, Trucks 2 words and Kuenn Bats/Throws the other high priced rare variations in the set.

So what is this coin lot that appears to be in pretty good condition worth ? I'll let you determine that !
As for me I say Congratulations Armour Al......................

40 This and that

Thought I would cover a few interesting tidbits in this blog.

 

Nellie Fox Bust Tilts

 

 First of all, long time collector Chisox Tony sends this 1960 Nellie Fox summary of bust tilts. For those of you who don't know what these are, search the early blogs for a complete blog describing them. Basically, my premise is that multiple molds were used for many of the coins. The writing on the front of the coins were not identically aligned  to the bust of the player on the coin and so the bottom left point on the bust points to different letters in the different molds.

 

Tony reports finding 4 different bust tilts for 1960 Fox as shown below.  

From left to right the neck is pointing to the T, the TE, the left of the E and the right of the E. Fascinating that these are being reported all for the same color meaning one mold was NOT just used to manuf 1 color. I checked my Fox collection and found an even distribution of the 4 bust tilt variations across my broad spectrum of color variations.

More mis-graded Mantles

A few blogs ago I ranted on a PSA 10 Mantle with missing back rim. Could there possibly be anything worse ? Well to me the following is even worse. This PSA 8 royal blue Mantle still up for sale on EBay has the back rim broken off and sitting on the encapsulated coin. Was this broken off during or after the encapsulation ?? No way to know.....I'd love to have it in my set as a great example of damaged 1960 rims, but  the seller turned down my offer of $10.........