Topps 1985 Garbage Pail Kids Series 1

[caflisch78]

I moved about a year ago and found an original series 1 box still in tact with all of the cards loose within. I went through the box over the last couple days and sorted all of them out. Some are beat up and in rough condition while others are in pretty solid shape.

Essentially i'm looking to get in contact with someone who has familiarity with these cards as searching ebay is somewhat confusing with sellers claiming glossy vs. matte some 'variants' and 'errors' so I'm just trying to figure out exactly what I have and what I should do with them as a result. Hoping someone here has experience with these from 35 years ago and can help me out as I don't want to just throw them on ebay without educating myself a bit.

Thanks in advance.

[PumpnDumpling]

You absolutely want to send anything you think has a chance at psa 8 or better to PSA and even more so on the keys (Adam Bomb, Evil Eddie)

Most cards from this series are Matte back, only a limited run were made with Glossy Backs. There is a GPK website with a wealth of information i would urge you to peruse before making any real decisions as to how you are going to sell these.

I would be interested at the right price on some of the nicer condition cards you have if you decide NOT to grade them.

Hope i could be of some assistance and let me know if you just want to sell raw

[PumpnDumpling]

Took this excerpt below from Wayne's Garbage Pail Kids Reference (WGPKR.com)

"All of the United States Garbage Pail Kids cards have a glossy finish for the fronts, but not all of the cards have a glossy finish on the backs. The glossy finish card-backs are more desirable and of better quality. The glossy finish also helps protect the cards from staining. Topps most likely printed the cards on whatever card stock they had on hand, which is why you can find the matte/glossy difference. You can only find one type of finish in each wax box, which means you won't find cards with glossy finish backs and cards with matte finish backs in the same box (unless someone pieced together the wax box).

The United States Garbage Pail Kids 1st Series can come with either glossy or matte finish backs, and the matte finish 1st Series backs are much more common."

I will add that in my limited experience even the OS1 matte backs have a fair amount of gloss to the back, not matte like a heritage baseball card.

[caflisch78]

Thanks for the information. I was able to find a checklist below that explains the variations (backs) and the listings of the complete 82 card set. I've never really graded cards. Many of them have bent corners and majority are OC in one way or another. I'll have to go through all of them to see how many I would consider of high PSA quality.

http://geepeekay.com/gallery_os1.html

What are the key cards outside of 1a/b and 8a/b? For some reason I have tons of b's almost double the a's, is that normal that the a's are harder to pull?

Are the key cards worth grading regardless of the quality? For instance there is some surface dmg to one of the Adam Bombs, like another sticker got stuck to it at one point.

[captainrogers]

I would be interested in the empty box if you are looking to sell.

[PumpnDumpling]

I couldn't really say for certain as to which other cards in the set have more value than others aside from the obvious keys (evil eddie and adam bomb and b versions)

Have no idea about what kind of collation to expect, prbly all over the place

I wouldn't grade the keys if you think they are not good enough for a minimum of a PSA 7 grade and even then the premium is likely negligible after all costs associated less you bulk submit or catch a non-sport grading special

Surface damage like you described sounds like it would knock the grade down pretty far, but off centered cards are the norm for this set so anything 60/40 or better with a clean front and good edges would be fine to stack in the grading pile

Also check the front and backs for wax stains, corners should be straight of course

Anything from OS1 that will grade PSA 8 or better is worth grading, while the keys would be worth it at PSA 7 under the right conditions

[dd316]

Score! Nice find. All of my GPKs have been lost to the ages. If they're buried in a dark corner somewhere, I wish I could find them.

I'm not a GPK collector, but isn't Nasty Nick more desirable than Evil Eddie? I also think Dead Ted is a pretty popular one (and not only because I share the name ).

[PumpnDumpling]

Originally Posted by dd316

Score! Nice find. All of my GPKs have been lost to the ages. If they're buried in a dark corner somewhere, I wish I could find them.

I'm not a GPK collector, but isn't Nasty Nick more desirable than Evil Eddie? I also think Dead Ted is a pretty popular one (and not only because I share the name ).

Yes, sorry about that; Nasty Nick is the better version (just have Evil Eddie on the brain i suppose)

And Dead Ted is a good one (just submitted a few to PSA myself) but i am not really sure which others are desirable, possibly Joltin Joe (looking at recent sales)?

[eldavojohn]

I've never really graded cards.

I would suggest that you take the ten nicest cards and submit to one of the bulk PSA group breaks on these forums. If those come back how you thought they'd grade and you have more than ~40 left to grade at or above PSA 8, I would suggest monitoring PSA for the monthly/quarterly specials when you can get the non-sports for $8 a card.

Why do I say ~40 cards? Well, it costs $79/year for access to those specials so you'll want to join for a year just for that submission which should be more cost effective than a go-between.

PSA this year raised their bulk prices to 200 card submissions so you're probably not going to hit that and won't want to do join just for access to that.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that'd be a red letter day to find something like that, just for the cool factor. I am not a huge GPK fan but bought a random retail pack at Target one day out of curiosity and got this 2013 series guy which I got graded just because it was in great shape:



Thanks for sharing!

[caflisch78]

Appreciate all the feedback, especially about the PSA groups on here. So far i've only found about 10 cards in the entire lot that probably qualify but I'm going to look through them a couple more times as the most common issue is OC or dinged corners. Color quality on most is great. I do some some staining on some cards as mentioned here, almost like a horizontal gum stain? Looks like the box was full of matte however I found some other OS1 cards in another box that appear to be glossy in comparison. I'm going to pull out the best of the lot and probably follow through with the recommendation.

For the cards that don't meet PSA 8 quality or better, would it be better to sell in lots/set or sell off the 1a/b 8 a/b's and just lot everything else? Those do seem to be more sought after for sure.

[mjohnatgt]

I would recommend sending most from the first series to COMC where they will sell over time at $5-10/ea for EX or so condition to set collectors. Just list one at a time until it sells and then post the next one for your duplicates.