To Cut or Not to Cut: The Dilemma of Baseball Cards on Panels and Boxes

Think of a baseball card and the subject could be almost anything: a star, a rookie, a common, maybe a couple of league leaders or a checklist or a postseason highlight card.

But chances are good that the baseball card in your mind is one dimension only: 2.5 inches across and 3.5 inches down.

That has been the default set-ting on a trading card for almost 70 years. Collectors’ brains are wired for those exact dimensions when it comes to showcasing and storing their cards.

Even before Topps unveiled what would become the standard size in 1957, most cards were made smaller, but still easily shuffled from hand to hand no matter how young the collector. Cards with those 2-1/2-by-3-1/2 or smaller measurements are easily graded, slid into a nine-pocket page or fit snuggly into a shoe box.

Larger cards are often considered clumsy or difficult to store.

But the ultimate storing challenge arises from cards in the form of panels or sheets or printed on the side of a box. They take up abundant space and are not easily protected. Knowing a collector’s preference, such cards often come with perforations or dotted lines drawn around the card image, allowing the owner to cut that panel or sheet down to something manageable, more familiar.

Cutting will conform the card to a shape similar to most cards, easily viewed, transported and presented, the best opportunity for being treasured by the collector.

Cutting also, more times than not, decreases the value.

And, so, the collecting conundrum: To cut or not to cut?

Any number of sets over the last 100-plus years have been issued in much larger sizes than 2 1/2-by-3-1/2 and almost each time collectors have been dissuaded from breaking out the scissors. For example:

• “Most collectors prefer complete boxes, rather than cut-out cards,” reads the write-up for the 1971 Mike Duds set in the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.
• “Those without the ad portion and bottom panel are valued at 50 percent or less,” states the blurb for 1966 Kahn’s Wieners.
• “Cards which have been cut in half to form single cards have little collector value,” warns the set description for 1941 Double Play (R330).

It’s this battle between head (monetary value) and heart (collecting enjoyment) that is most often played out with so-called “oddball sets,” often issued by food companies. Businesses who wanted to draw attention to their wares with their own trading card product, often plastered the cards right on the packaging, a two-for-one enticement for customers.

And so there have been hundreds of food issue and other oddball sets that have two sets of values: those when collectors have exercised will power and leftthe packaging intact and those in which the box has been ravaged for the sake of a card that can be fit into the palm of one hand.

Here is a look at just some of those sets that enticed collectors to trim the featured cards down to more typical size (although some of the dimensions are so unusual that even cutting them won’t solve the storing issue):

Boxes

1969 Transogram

These cards, which were displayed on boxes featuring toy baseball player statues, measure 2-1/2-by-3-1/2 on the box with a thin black border outlining the card, suggesting that cards were intended to be cut from the box.

However, a card of the Mickey Mantle in the set, even with the most skilled set of cutting hands, goes for around $200 Mint. Find that same Mantle card on the back of the box intact, with statue still inside, and that price increases to nearly $1,000.

1971 Milk Duds

A popular Halloween candy handout, these five-cent mini boxes plopped into kids’ Trick-or-Treat bags, showcased a popular player on the back of the yellow-colored boxes. Cards cut from, or commonly ripped off , the box measure approximately 1-3/16 -by-2-5/8. However, those cut cards are worth, at most, 75 percent of the value of that same card still on the box.

1970 Action Cartridge

This seldom-discussed set of cards appeared on the fronts of individual boxes containing 8mm film cartridges, issued by Action Films Inc. The cartridges featured various players offering playing tips, and the set expanded from baseball into other sports like football, golf and tennis for a full 40-card set. The cards are slightly smaller than the 2-5/8s-by-6-inch dimensions of the box.

1910 All Star Base-Ball

A rarity issued by candy company J.H. Dockman & Son, drawings of two different ball players were featured on each box, one on the front and one on the back. The names of the player underneath the drawings are not connected to the player depicted. In fact, images have been borrowed from the Turkey Red cabinet series issued at the same time. Cards on boxes measure 1-7/8-by-3-3/8.

1961-62 Apple Fresh Milk/Cloverleaf Dairy Minnesota Twins

These two sets, the ‘61 set with 17 cards and ‘62 set with 24, commemorated the first Minnesota Twins teams and were featured on milk cartons of Apple Fresh and Cloverleaf Dairy brands. The black-and-white photos of the players with stats at the bottom appear on the carton side panels and the cards measure 3-3/4-by-7-3/4.

Complete cartons are worth double the cards that have been removed from the box.

1961-63 Post Cereal and 1962-63 Jell-O

The popular Post and Jell-O sets of the early 1960s were precursors to the 1970s Hostess cards, however there seems to be less consternation about cutting Post and Jell-O cards, likely because the hobby had not developed to the point where collectors were regularly saving empty cereal boxes. Value of Post and Jell-O cards focuses less on whether it’s still on the respective box and more on the quality of the trimming. Also cards cut off of less-popular brands are worth more.

Post also issued 10-card sheets on less-sturdy stock through a mail-in order.

1971 Keds Kedcards

The small-sized cards (2-1/4-by-2-1/8) were printed on the sides of Keds shoeboxes and labeled as “Kedcards” on the bottom of the card. There are 10 cards, from a variety of sports.

1966 Proʼs Pizza Chicago Cubs

Black-and-white images of Cubs players were printed on boxes of individually-sized pizzas reportedly sold at Wrigley Field. Panels are 6-by-6 inches with blank backs.

1951 and 1952 Wheaties Cereal

The ‘51 Wheaties cards were issued on the backs of single-serving boxes, measuring 2-1/2-by-3-1/4 inches. The ‘52 Wheaties cards are 2-by-2-3/4 and feature rounded corners. The ‘52 Wheaties cards were plagued by counterfeits about 20 years ago, which has caused collectors to question the reliability of cards that are not graded.

Panels

1975-79 Hostess

For five years, Hostess issued sets in which three cards could be found on the bottom of each box. That arrangement provided the collector with the option of keeping the box intact, cutting the panel off the box to feature the three cards in a row or cutting each individual card (Hostess Cupcakes featured the cards in a square configuration, two paired together and the other perpendicular, due to the size of the box).

There is no shortage of complete Hostess boxes or panels. Therefore, they are not worth significantly more than individual cards. The key factor is how well did the collector, possibly dealing with a sugar high as it attempted to clip the cards off the box, trim those cards?

1959-71 Bazooka

The Bazooka sets of this time presented a couple of different cutting decisions as the cards were issued mainly in three-card panels but sometimes as individual cards on the side of the box.

Beginning in 1960, Bazooka displayed three-card panels on the bottoms of bubble gum boxes. That continued through 1967 and again in 1971. Cards are smallish, no more than 2 inches wide. The debut set in 1959 is larger, 2-13/16-by-4-5/16 per card and were displayed on the back panel of the box. Intact boxes are worth double the price of individual cards.

The difference between full boxes and individual cards is even more distinct with the 1969-70 Bazooka set, which featured not stars of the day but all-time greats on the sides of the box. Cards are 1-1/14-by-3-1/18 but cards cut off the box are worth just 25 percent of the value of complete boxes.

The 1968 Bazooka set squeezed four player cards onto each box.

1953-54 Hunter Wieners Cardinals

This extremely diffi cult set featured two different Cardinals players on its 1953 panels that were issued with hot dog packaging. Cards found today are almost always single cards. The 1954 package panel featured the front and back of the card on the same panel. But typical of hot dog packaging of the time, the panels were usually thrown out.

1966-69 Kahnʼs Wieners

Kahn’s Wieners, which had been issuing cards since the early 1960s, altered its packaging in 1966 with a format that lasted through 1969. Players were pictured in conjunction with the Kahn’s advertising logo and a dotted line separating the two that said “cut along dotted lines” (Head: Don’t do it! Heart: Do it!). Cards without the advertising panel are worth just 50 percent of cards with the Kahn ad leftuntouched.

1977 Pepsi-Cola Baseball Stars

A familiar sight for collectors who grew up in the 1970s, the Pepsi-Cola Baseball Stars feature a player’s mug shot on a baseball design inside a drawn fielding glove atop a rectangular tab that features a checklist for the set. The tab was designed to be inserted in cartons of soda as an advertisement. Many young collectors, with no desire to carry around an awkward tab, removed it. But player discs that are unattached are worth half of those intact with the checklist and glove.

1952-55 Red Man Tobacco

This well-known, popular set features tabs across the bottom but removing them doesn’t make the odd-shaped 3-by-4-1/2 inch cards any easier to handle. The thin tabs could be redeemed for a baseball cap, but a card without the tab is valued at least 30 percent less than one in which the card is complete.

Sheets

1970s Topps Team Checklists

During the 1970s, Topps frequently placed an offer on its wrappers or on the back of its team checklist cards to purchase the entire set of checklist cards for that year’s set.

The 24 team checklists in 1975 Topps cost 40 cents and one ‘75 Topps wrapper. In return, the collector would receive an approximate 10-by-20-inch sheet of all the checklists (the sheets came rolled up in a mailing cylinder). The cards were printed on lighter stock but could be cut into individual cards.

Uncut sheets are not of great value although some collectors prefer them to the flimsy single cards and the ‘75 uncut is valued at somewhat more than $50.

1984 Nestle

The ‘84 Nestle set has an interesting history in the world of sheet sets. The set, which is identical to the 1984 Topps set except for the word “Nestle” replacing “Topps” in the top right corner, was issued as a premium in 132-card sheets. However, several collectors bought most of the sheets (reportedly 4,000 sheets were made) and cut them into single cards to sell. The 792-card set now sells for more as individual cards than the 792-card set in sheet form, a testament to the ease of handling individual cards but an exception to the rule that cards kept in their original form are worth more than those that have been cut.

Those are just some of the examples and don’t include various die-cut sets in which collectors could “stand up” the pictured player. It also doesn’t include cards that could be punched out of panels or cards that could be trimmed off of magazine or newspaper pages.

There have been a variety of cards issued in ways that give collectors the option of cutting things down to size or leaving well enough alone.

If your concern isn’t value, the answer is easy: do what you makes you happy as a collector.

But if it is – you and your pair of scissors have a decision to make.