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Collecting the 1961 Post Cereal Baseball Card Set

Peter Putman
Jan 25, 2020

Collecting the 1961 Post Cereal Baseball Card Set

By Pete Putman

The 1961 Post Cereal baseball set is one of the all-time great food trading card issues and an affordable way to collect star players. Good luck finding them in high grade, though ...

It's been almost six decades since a group of marketing, sales and advertising executives gathered in the offices of General Foods in White Plains, New York, to start the ball rolling on a new, unique promotion: A set of 200 baseball cards that would adorn the boxes of 15 different varieties of Post cereals. Sixteen teams in all would be represented, including the new Minnesota franchise, just transplanted from Washington.

The promotion would kick off on April 1, 1961, and run through July, with both print and television commercials featuring New York Yankees star Roger Maris. All General Foods and their ad agency, Young & Rubicam (Y&R), would have to do is secure players' signatures on contracts, shoot photos of each player, compile their statistics throughout the 1960 season and start design and layouts by November of that year. How hard could it be?

As it turns out, a lot harder than anyone expected according to collector and historian Dan Mabey, author of Cardboard, Crunch, Milk, and Scissors, the definitive work on 1961 Post Cereal baseball. According to Mabey, initial planning for the 1961 promotion started in March of 1960, six months after the World Series. The production timetable he details left no room to accommodate players from the American Leagues' two new expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the "new" Washington Senators, who replaced the "old" Senators when they decamped for the Midwest.

Post wasn't new to this game. The company had experimented with a handful of full-sized player cards on boxes of Post Grape-Nuts earlier in 1960 and had a positive response from consumers. But this project would be different, with 16 times as many cereal boxes, 200 players involved and not much time to pull it off. One photographer, veteran sports lenser Art Shay from Chicago, would travel from city to city during the 1960 season and grab portraits of every player who signed on the dotted line for a couple hundred dollars.

Those photos would then be reviewed and edited by the advertising agency to come up with the final rosters. Not all teams were equally represented: The 1960 World Series combatants, the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates, had 18 and 16 players featured, respectively, but less successful clubs got fewer slots. And there was an added wrinkle - Post would also offer "factory" team sets of ten perforated cards to cut apart. However, some of those players didn't appear on cereal boxes. And some players featured on cereal boxes didn't appear in the team sets.

The Year

Several significant events occurred in 1961. The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, rode atop a Russian rocket on April 12, with his historic flight followed by the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, on May 5. A few weeks later President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to fund a program to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Kennedy signed legislation creating the Peace Corps just a few months after his inauguration as the youngest president ever to occupy the office. His foreign policy acumen was tested in April with the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Cuba's Fidel Castro. The Cold War heated up further as the Soviet Union tested the largest-ever nuclear bomb in October, while construction of the notorious Berlin Wall began in August, cleaving the city in two for 28 years.

The first Six Flags theme park revved up its roller coasters in Arlington, Texas, while an original Matisse painting was featured in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for 47 days before a visitor pointed out they'd hung it upside down. Black & Decker introduced the first cordless power drill and the analgesic ibuprofen was launched as a prescription medication, not achieving over-the-counter status until 1984.

Popular movies in 1961 included West Side Story, The Guns of Navarone, 101 Dalmatians, The Hustler and Clark Gable's last role before he died, The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe. On television, people were watching Bonanza (the first regular TV series in color), Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show (with an eight-year-old Ron Howard as Opie), My Three Sons and Mr. Ed.

Keith Richards and Michael Jagger had a chance meeting in a railroad station that led to their forming The Rolling Stones soon after. The Shirelles ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow"), Del Shannon ("Runaway"), Ricky Nelson ("Traveling Man"), Bobby Vee ("Take Good Care of My Baby"), Elvis Presley ("Surrender" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"), Ray Charles ("Hit the Road, Jack"), Dion ("Runaround Sue"), and Jimmy Dean ("Big Bad John") all had #1 hits on the musical charts in 1961.

In sports, the Green Bay Packers trounced the New York Giants 37-0 to win the NFL championship, while over in the upstart AFL, the Houston Oilers defeated the San Diego Chargers 10-3 for their league trophy. The perennial NBA champion Boston Celtics won it all again, this time four games to one over the St. Louis Hawks, while on the ice the Chicago Black Hawks bested the Detroit Red Wings four games to two to bring home the Stanley Cup.

In baseball, 1961 was the first year that the American League expanded beyond the Mississippi River. Senators owner and Hall of Famer Calvin Griffith thought the prairie grass in Minnesota to be far greener than that of Washington and moved his team, with its roster largely intact, to the Midwest. It was a different story in L.A., what with the popular Dodgers already residing at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, leaving the newly christened Angels (made up mostly of expansion draft players and older castoffs) to play for one season in the smaller but historic Wrigley Field, previously used until 1958 by the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League.

The big attraction was (of course) the battle between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to break Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season. A hip injury forced Mantle out in mid-September with 54 dingers, but 1960 AL MVP Maris hit his 61st round-tripper on the last day of the season off Boston's Tracy Stallard, setting off an argument about whether he had REALLY broken the record as Maris played a 162-game season, while Ruth only played 154.

The 1961 Yankees, now thought to be one of the greatest teams of all time, captured the American League title with a 109-53 record, setting a record for home runs in a season with 240. They finished eight games ahead of the Detroit Tigers (101-61) and an astonishing 47½ games ahead of both the lowly Kansas City Athletics and the "new" Washington Senators. Meanwhile, the surprising Angels compiled a respectable 70-91 record, just one game behind the expansion Twins.

Over in the National League, Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn threw 21 complete games and four shutouts, winning 21 games and compiling an ERA of 3.02, all at the age of 40. He tied for shutouts with Cincinnati Reds ace Joey Jay, whose team led the league in doubles, fewest hits allowed, saves and shutouts. The Reds also led the league in wins, finishing atop the standings at 93-61, four games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. (Expansion wouldn't come to the National League for another year, hence the 154-game season for the Senior Circuit.)

The 1961 World Series looked to be a classic battle of power hitting versus shutdown pitching, but the outcome was never really in doubt. Perhaps the Yankees were looking to make up for their shocking defeat the year before in Pittsburgh when they were heavily favored. New York dispatched the Reds in five games, but it was a bit tougher than they expected. The Yankees won Game 1, 2-0 behind ace Whitey Ford's two-hit complete shutout and home runs by Bill Skowron and Elston Howard, but then gave up nine hits in Game 2, a 6-2 loss to Jay.

Game 3 was another squeaker, with the score tied 2-2 in the top of the 9th before Bob Purkey of the Reds gave up a solo home run to Maris. Closer Luis Arroyo shut down the Reds for a 3-2 win, and that was the end for Cincy as the Bombers unleashed a barrage of hits (but surprisingly, no home runs) to win Game 4, 7-0 on a five-hit shutout by Ford. Game 5 was a laugher as New York collected 15 hits off eight Reds pitchers and home runs from John Blanchard and Hector Lopez to win 13-5 and grab their 19th World Series Crown.

The Set

In contrast to the Topps Chewing Gum Company's relatively simple task of packaging millions of cards in a wax wrapper with a slab of bubble gum, Post had to design, lay out and print a variety of player panels to go on 16 different boxes and trays of cereal, including such favorites as Alpha-Bits, Post Toasties, Raisin Bran, Sugar Crisp and the less-popular (among kids) brands like Bran Flakes and Grape-Nuts Flakes. This allotment included single-size cereal portions with one card.

A total of 361 cards were printed across all of the cereal brands and size variations. So as not to play favorites, Post tried to spread out American and National league players as evenly as possible. Even so, more popular teams had greater representation across all boxes, like the Yankees (31 total cards across 16 packages), San Francisco Giants (30 total cards), the 1959 AL champion Chicago White Sox (28 total cards) and the 1959 NL and World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers (26 total cards). At the other end of the scale, the St. Louis Cardinals had just 16 total cards, while the Cleveland Indians and Kansas City A's grabbed 18 slots apiece.

1961 Post Cereal cards cut from a company sheet (top) present with perforation stubs along the edges, while cards cut from a cereal box (below) show a black border and no stubs.

Post's mail-in offer ran separately and offered a set of 10 players for each of the 16 teams represented. Kids would clip a coupon on the spine of the cereal box, check off the team set they wanted, and enclose 10 cents for mailing costs for each team. As mentioned earlier, these perforated ten-card sheets included players that didn't appear on cereal boxes, making it a bit of a challenge to complete a team set. In addition, kids had to hunt down the specific cereal they needed and convince Mom to buy it, not an easy thing to do with some comparatively expensive sizes like Post-Tens Treat-Paks.

Mabey's research details Post's attempt to evenly distribute players among multiple serving sizes and brands. Even so, some players never made it beyond a single box (or team sheet). The fact that so few intact multi-card player panels survive to this day makes it even more difficult to locate players and complete team sets. After all, if you were a youngster living in Boston, players from St. Louis and Cleveland were likely of little interest and usually followed the empty cereal box into the trash.

A complete set of cards comprised 200 entries, even though there are visible differences between the same player's photo on different boxes (that is, print variations). But there was a catch: Four players (Bob Turley, Chuck Estrada, Chuck Hobbs and Ed Mathews) never appeared on a box, so it was necessary to spend an additional 40 cents on team sets of the Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Braves to locate these players. Then you were left with 36 additional team set cards, so why not splurge and get all 16 team sets (160 cards total) for an additional $1.20? Probably because allowances didn't go far in those days!

The Players

Post did a pretty good job getting as many stars into the set as possible, starting with card #1 (Yogi Berra) and continuing with Mickey Mantle (#4), Roger Maris (#7), Luis Aparicio (#19), Nellie Fox (#20), Al Kaline (#35), Jim Gentile (#68), Harmon Killebrew (#92), Warren Spahn (#101), Hank Aaron (#107), Bill Mazeroski (#128), Bob Clemente (#132), Willie Mays (#145), Willie McCovey (#147), Don Drysdale (#160), Duke Snider (#167), Frank Robinson (#182) and Ernie Banks (#191). All the stars were available on cereal boxes and as part of team sets. Only the previously mentioned Ed Mathews (#106) was nowhere to be found on a cereal box, and the reason for this has never been determined.

Given the tight deadlines to prepare the sets, some or all of the biographical information for many players refers to their 1959 season, while the statistics box reflects their 1960 performance. The bios are somewhat general with any reference to accomplishments during the 1960 season consisting of a brief mention, such as Roger Maris winning the American League MVP award or Ernie Banks hitting the most home runs in the National League. Updating this information was quite the task as finished card and box art had to be ready by November 1.

The Post company sets came out later in 1961. It's easy to tell a team sheet card from a box card - cards cut from boxes should have a very thin black border and blocky text with jagged edges, typical of rotogravure printing. In contrast, the team sheets were printed using an offset system that makes for overall sharper images and text, and they also lack the black border.

There's another interesting twist with the team sets. Since they were issued later in 1961, a dozen player cards were updated to reflect trades that happened before the season started. The team set cards of Gene Freese (#30), Frank Bolling (#41), Willie Tasby (#51), Frank Sullivan (#55), Harvey Kuenn (#57), Ken Aspromonte (#65), Ken Hamlin (#89), Bill Bruton (#109), Gene Conley (#124), John Antonelli (#142), Willie Kirkland (#146) and Billy Martin (#190) all contain traded information. Andre Rodgers' #153 card only appeared on a box, but you can find it with and without trade information (to Milwaukee).

Another more substantial update (or more accurately, a correction) appeared in one of the team sets. Y&R and Post committed a major blunder when printing the Twins cards to boxes, listing them as the "Minneapolis" Twins. According to Mabey, General Foods subsequently took out ads in the local papers to apologize for the slip-up, fixing their goof on the team sets by correctly listing players as members of the "Minnesota" Twins.

Some players were noticeably absent, in particular Stan Musial. He had only started appearing on card issues in 1958 as a Topps All-Star, and Mabey speculates either a contract provision with some other company kept him out of the Post set or he didn't feel $200 was enough compensation. Jimmy Piersall consented to having his photo taken but likely didn't come to financial terms with Y&R, causing Post to insert a card of Detroit Tigers pitcher Paul Foytack on card #62 in the middle of the Indians team block.

Dodgers' fireballer Sandy Koufax, who racked up 197 strikeouts during the 1960 season and would go on to fan 269 batters in 1961, was also overlooked. Mabey theorizes that card #163 had been reserved for him, but for some unknown reason, Mel Roach of the Milwaukee Braves wound up in that position. As for rookie players, the only one of note who made the cut was the Cubs' Ron Santo who appears on card #196. Somehow, Post and Y&R completely overlooked Carl Yastrzemski, Frank Howard, Juan Marichal and Billy Williams. Can't win 'em all.

Scarcities and Errors

To understand scarcities in the 1961 Post Cereal set is to understand which players appeared on which boxes. The common wisdom is that cards #10 Gil McDougald, #23 Bob Shaw, #70 Gene Woodling, #73 Chuck Estrada, #94 Chuck Stobbs, #113 Chuck Cottier, #135 Bill Virdon, #163 Mel Roach and #193 Roy McMillan are the toughest to locate in the set. Aside from the unusual fact that three of these players have the same first name, it should be noted that Stobbs and Estrada were only available in the team sets for Washington and Baltimore, respectively. The other players were only found on boxes.

According to Mabey, the #23 Shaw card is arguably the scarcest and is one of 40 cards that did not appear on team sheets. Shaw's card only showed up in Post-Tens trays on boxes of Alpha-Bits, which were relatively expensive single-serving cereal boxes compared to larger, more economical boxes of the same cereals and less likely to curry Mom's favor. McDougald's #10 entry was limited to boxes of Post Rice Krinkles, a not-very-successful competitor to Kellogg's better-known Rice Krispies, while Woodling's #70 card was only available on 16-ounce boxes of Grape-Nuts Flakes.

Chuck Cottier suffered a similar fate, relegated to the 16-ounce box of Bran Flakes, while Bill Virdon could only be found by purchasing an eight-ounce box of Post Toasties. Mel Roach's #163 card was also limited to the Rice Krinkles box, while McMillan graced the back of the nine-ounce Raisin Bran container. An argument could be made that single-printed cards that shared boxes with the likes of McDougald are equally scarce, including #50 Tom Brewer, #89 Ken Hamlin, #140 Wilmer Mizell and #186 Gus Bell.

Based on Mabey's analysis and ranking of all 357 cards in terms of scarcity, you might be surprised to discover that several star players are also hard to find. (All star player cards are single prints.) Frank Robinson's card ranks #9 on the toughest card list, followed by Ernie Banks at #12, Harmon Killebrew at #14, Yogi Berra at #16, Mickey Mantle at #19, and Al Kaline, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays in the #25, #26 and #27 slots. Why?

The simple answer is that many of these players either only appeared on one box or tray, such as Mantle, or on cereals that weren't as popular or were manufactured in smaller quantities. The Mick's lone card can only be found in the Post-Tens tray package, as is the case with Berra and Robinson. Mantle was likely scheduled to be on more than one box, but it never happened. According to Mabey, only two million packages of Post-Tens were produced during the promotion and about 285,700 would have featured Mantle. That seems like a large number that should have survived until you think about all the trays that were tossed in the garbage, burned up, torn up or otherwise disposed of during 1961.

Similarly, Kaline, Mays and Aaron appeared on the more costly Alpha-Bits individual serving boxes, something we're more likely to see today in a hotel breakfast buffet than on grocery store shelves. Should you come across an unopened or intact box, it would be considered quite valuable! Mays also appears on the 14-ounce Sugar Crisp package, while Aaron does double duty on the nine-ounce version. Kaline also grabbed a spot on the eight-ounce Post Toasties box. Like Mantle, Berra and Robinson, all three appear in their respective team sets.

Fortunately (for kids), Post decided to leave baseball cards off boxes of Grape-Nuts altogether. While popular with adults (like my father), most kids turned their noses up at this precursor to "health food" cereals and preferred to get their daily sucrose high from brands like Sugar Crisp and Alpha-Bits. Intriguingly, the latter brand in a one-ounce serving size was the only box to feature a baseball card in the Post-Tens tray, due to those boxes using a different printing and packaging process.

Given the compressed timeline, dealing with trades, compiling photographs and proofreading and checking all the statistics, it's amazing how few errors there are in the set. One of the most glaring is on card #41 (cereal box) of Frank Bolling, where his bio mentions "Charlie Derringer." The team set card mucks this up further by attempting to correct the name to "Charlie Gehringer." Another error is found on card #116 of Phillies righty Jim Owens, who deliberately struck a pose as a left-handed pitcher.

The Populations

There's ample evidence that interest in Post cereal cards is growing despite their relative scarcity, especially in high grade. As of December 2019, PSA has graded and encapsulated over 10,000 cards from the 1961 Post Cereal set. Contrast that with over 300,000 PSA-graded 1961 Topps baseball cards and consider that there are almost twice as many '61 Topps examples with qualifiers (18,000+) as the entire population of '61 Post Cereal baseball!

It won't come as a surprise that the most popular cards are the superstars. Mantle's #4 Post-Tens hand-cut entry has been graded 167 times and his team/company (perforated) card 293 times. Hank Aaron's #107 hand-cut card is the next most-popular with 194 graded examples, while his perforated card has been graded 96 times. Clemente's #132 perforated factory card has passed through PSA's doors 151 times and the hand-cut version 80 times, while Willie Mays' #145 hand-cut card has been encapsulated 142 times and 87 times as a perforated team set card.

Given a child's relative lack of dexterity with scissors, it's not easy to find hand-cut cards in high grade. Slightly less than one-third of all 1961 Post Cereal cards submitted to PSA have earned grades of PSA NM-MT 8 or better, but that number includes team cards which were easier to separate due to the perforations and which disproportionately earn higher grades than their hand-cut counterparts.

Consider that, out of the 290+ team set cards of Mantle, 34 now reside in PSA 8 holders with four in PSA MINT 9 holders (no PSA GEM-MT 10s). That's virtually 13% of the total. In contrast, of the 167 hand-cut versions, only seven have earned PSA 8 honors and a single entry was awarded a PSA 9 designation (again, no PSA 10s). That popula