EP 116·Aug 31, 2026
Episode 116 Mickey Mouse and More with Cleve Bosher
ListenWatchunavailable
CALL IN TO THIS MOMENT
E1
0:00
-0:00
Chapters
/ tap to jump
Searchable
Full Transcript
Every word from this episode, transcribed in full — search the page (Cmd/Ctrl+F) or let Google find the exact moment you’re looking for.
Welcome back to Sports Cards and a Cup of Joe. This is your host, Joe Davis, and it is great to be back with you today. And today I have resident non sport expert Cleve Boescher here in the studio with us. Cleve, great to have you. Thanks, Jeff. And we're gonna have a good time today discussing what could be the hottest cards in the industry right now. It seems like every episode I'm saying this is hot and this is taking off because that's the state of the industry right now. But today we are talking non sports and specifically we're talking Disney and even more specifically Mickey Mouse. Because if you're unaware, Disney cards are on fire right now. We've seen exponential growth even in the last month and both Cleve and I sold a bunch of Disney related cards at the national this year. And I think we're wishing we had almost every one of them back because of the way they've grown since then in pricing. But there's a lot of confusion about this. About a year ago we had you on and you did an episode on one of the most important Disney sets. So if you want to go back on the channel and see that. But today let's focus in and we're going to narrow in on some vintage Disney. Though everything seems to be in demand. I heard where, I don't know if I told you this, but I heard where an Eeyore Superfractor sold for $80,000 last week. And which is just, I mean, I like Eeyore, who doesn't, you know, but 80 grand for a one of one Superfractor from Topps Chrome. And so the modern stuff is in demand, the vintage stuff is definitely in demand. And I have a very limited amount of this stuff. Cleve, I know you've been through a lot of it and probably wish you had held on to more than you have, but let's. My goal today is to provide education and information because there's a lot of confusion out there. You know, in the baseball card world, it's easy to say, hey, Topps George Brett, rookie, Topps Dale Murphy. But in the non sports world, there's no Beckett guide that says here's your rookie list. And we're working on that on our website, cartooncards.com with a Z cartooncards.com I've started a rookie list, but it's very incomplete and we're still adding to it. So let's go back in time to the oldest days of Disney and talk about the first Mickey Mouse set. And let's Talk about the confusion in the industry right now, because you alerted me to this. What did you learn that that a lot. That chat, maybe some other Yu-Gi-Oh platforms are telling everyone what the Mickey Mouse rookie card is. Sure. So if you use any of the the chat engines, it will more than likely spit out the 1931 Wills card that has both Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse on it, which is a great card, but it will identify that as sort of the dual rookie card, 1931. So not too long after Disney started the company. But there is a set that predates that card, and it was issued out of Spain, and it's the Juncosa chocolate set of 15 cards. Mickey's on 12 of the cards, I think 11 or 12. And it's a great set, but it's PSA dates it 1929. So, you know, as far as Mickey goes, that's going to be my rookie card. You know, one of the problems, though, Joe, is that with the Wills card, it's more plentiful, so you have the supply to meet this crazy demand in the marketplace. Whereas for the June Kosa card, it's really scarce. Right, right. If you check the pop report, it's scarce. And so it becomes a tough assignment. Find a card from that set, especially the number one card. Right. So that's one of the reasons it comes up in discussion, because, you know, supply is not meeting the demand. It's a tougher card to come by. Right. And I remember literally probably a week after the national, because I had witnessed a lot of the sales you had on some stuff, and I called you and I was like, hey, I only had. I have two or three Juncosas in my collection. I don't have a card number one. And I was like, hey, there's some other cards of Mickey available on ebay for like $600. And it was a PSA1 or an SGC1 or whatever. I think there were some Authentics and some ones out there, and they were like $600. And I texted you and I was like. Because I remember not long ago, those were like $200. And I was like, hey, you think that's a good price now? And I think you said, well, they continue to go up. It's hard to gauge. So unfortunately, I only bought one of them. I bought the one that had the best pose, and I think I paid 550 or 600. And then I looked and now they've like tripled in the last couple weeks for anything, like just an authentic card in a holder and so we just heard of a sale for the set for 125 grand, right? That's right. A reported sale of the 15 card set for $125,000. And I don't know the grades, but I think it was a pretty good. And there aren't like, you don't find eights on these cards normally if you find a two or a three, it's like, oh, that's a pretty good grade. Because a lot of them are just authentic. A lot of them are really beat up. And to be honest, I don't love the aesthetics of the set. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's Mickey Mouse in a house with skeletons. Basically, it's like a haunted house kind of theme. And it's all black and white. It's really frail paper stock issued in Spain. And it's not. I mean, there's a lot of great Mickey Mouse cards out there, Great Yu-Gi-Oh appeal. And we'll talk about some of those. But aesthetically I don't love them. But when you're talking about the oldest cards, that's them. That's the. To this day, it's the only ones I know of that are dated is 1929. Right. And so there are a few others. Now remember, if you know your Disney history and you know it better than I do, but Walt was a marketing machine in and of himself. I mean, by the time, once the characters got out there, he was marketing them. And that's why a lot of these sets. A lot of collectors are surprised that some of the early sets weren't issued in the US they were all over. And let's give a little more education again. We did a whole video on the Junkosa set about a year ago, or you did on our behalf, but educate viewers. There's other characters. Juncosa issued other cards also around that time period. That's correct. There was Felix the Cat. That's correct. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald, who was. For those who know their Disney history, Oswald is the character that Walt created. And then it was stolen from him. The rights to the character were stolen from him. And so he had to come up with something else. So there came Mickey. But there's Oswald the Rabbit cards in Juncosa. Felix the Cat. Right. And then the fourth set is Bimbo, who was the animal boyfriend, if you will, of Betty Boop. So Betty Boop is really the character that matters, the franchise character in that set. But Yu-Gi-Oh there are four sets all issued at the same time. They're referred to as A, B, C and D. All Juncosa. But those are the four main characters. Yu-Gi-Oh Mickey, Oswald, Felix and Betty Boop. Okay, so we're here to refute whatever you might find on Chat or other places that are telling you the 1931 wills is Mickey's rookie card. Because there were cards of him that came out two years earlier. And I love the Wills card. And the Wills card was issued in the UK as part of a 50 card set, right? Yes, I believe so, yes. Because, Yu-Gi-Oh I look back, I own one. It was film stars. Yu-Gi-Oh film stars. And they put Walt in the set with Mickey hanging out. And so it's a great. And that is Walt's rookie, though. It is definitely. So it is a Walt Disney rookie card. It's just not a Mickey Mouse rookie card. So that what gets really confusing. Could you imagine if tops, if we look back on old Topps cards or even old Gowdy cards, you know, mid-30s Gowdy cards. And it said Babe Ruth Gowdy, 1930s. And you'd go, but wait a minute, what year was it? And that would drive collectors crazy. Like, no, I want to know, is this a 37 or a 31? But with non sports, sometimes stuff was printed over multiple years. Sometimes they just don't know the definitive release date. And I've shared this on some of the other non sports episodes where sometimes we think the dates, even the grading companies assigned could be wrong. There's even debate on the Juncosa, If I'm correct, SGC labels of 1930. Correct. So there's still some. There's slight differentiation there. But because there are other sets of Mickey released. So we're going to get to those. But first, let's touch on the first major red hot US release set, which was the 1935 gum. Correct. And so that one, I literally. I love that set. It's beautiful. Full color horizontal cards. And a friend texted me and he said, hey, I got some of those. I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh I'd love to buy some. And I looked. I had just bought some on Com c for like $50 a card a couple weeks ago. Low grade, but like two, I think two of them. And he goes, Yu-Gi-Oh they're like 650 a piece. And I was like, what? I was like, no, no, no, we're talking about. And he was like, Yu-Gi-Oh that's market now. I was like, okay. And his were in better shape than what I bought. But that set is insane. And I knew something was going on the day I got back from the National. I had multiple people text me, say, hey, I'm looking for some 1935 gum mickeys. You got any? And I'm like, well, I have a few, but I just collect them. I'm not, you know, so share with our listeners and viewers more about that set. Yu-Gi-Oh so it's a. It's a great set. It's, you know, the first or one of the first color sets, and it's a bigger set, so it numbers to 96. And beyond that, Mickey has some cards with celebrities, but the gum set, this gum set is really referred to as, you know, 1 through 96. Right. And it was issued, it looks like in. In waves of 24 cards. The cards, as you say, are beautiful. And in this case, they're a little bit more plentiful than, say, Juncosa. And so while the price is rising very quickly, the supply of them is. Is enough to meet some of that demand, the crazy demand right now. So if you look in the pop report it's going to. You're going to 40 to 60 per card that have been graded by PSA, for instance. So that just kind of gives you a gauge for how many are out there. Far more than the Junco. I'm not sure how it compares to the Wills card. And. And again, I own all three. I like all of them, so it's not a race. But I just wanted to get that out there that I have all of them, and I like them all very much. The 35s are some of my favorites. And the three big cards in the 35 set are number one, obviously. Right. And Mickey and Pluto are on that card. So it's arguably like Pluto's first card. Right. And then number 21 is special because it has Walt Disney drawing Mickey Mouse. And Mickey's overlooking. Correct. Cracked Ice And. And they refer to him as a handy, you know, handy handyman. And they're all punny throughout. And some of the puns are terrible. Yu-Gi-Oh they are. But they're all. All punny throughout the set. And then card number 92, Walt Disney reappears again as Uncle Walt. And so those are very. Those three cards are the key cards in the set. Very popular. The cards from 49 to 96 are a little tougher. You. You can see in the pop report where they're considered sort of high numbers. Right. So they're not scarce, but a little tougher than the first 48. Another important distinction is in the first 24, when they first made them, they issued them with questions on the front and answers on the back that matched. And so you just flip the card over. Then they realized, wait, we can sell more cards if we put the answer to the question on the next card to incentivize. So you had to buy more cards, more packs to get your answers. Exactly, exactly. And that created the type 1 card with the answer on the reverse versus the type 2 card. Now, type ones only exist in the first 24 cards. So if you're looking for type 1s beyond that, they don't exist, only the first 24 cards. And the distinction is you'll see in the lower right hand corner it says other side referring to the answer on the other side in type 2, it will say the next card referring to its number. So just a helpful hint there. When you're looking for type ones which are more desirable. Right. Even though you think the type twos may be printed in lesser quantity or. It does look like that. It does. And it's not a huge difference. Right. But type twos are, they do have a lower pop count in those first 24 when compared to the type ones. But the type ones go for more. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh All right. So Yu-Gi-Oh that is the 1940 Gum Inc. Superman set is also on fire. It's like those two gum sets are just red hot. And I laugh on a lot of non sport message boards and it says I'm looking for 1935 gum Mickey, 1940 Superman, you know, 1977 star. Like you take like the five hottest things in the non sport old presidents. And I want to go like. And so am I. And so is everyone else who collects this stuff. Like these are the most, some of the most in demand desirable cards in the non sport industry. So we're going to stick in the 1930s. I know there's other Disney sets, other cards of Mickey from that time and a lot of these are labeled 1930s. Tell me about the. One of my favorites that I think are really cute though they're tiny is the chocolate Rubus cards. Germany, is that right? Honestly, it may be French, I can't remember. European. Yu-Gi-Oh the rubies, I mean they're very popular. If you buy them sight unseen and you think they're bigger, they're not. They're very tiny. Yu-Gi-Oh If you know 1991 tops micro set, that's about the size of them. They are so small. They are, but they are. And I forget how many they number. But they're popular because they're early again from overseas, but very popular set just because it's Mickey. Good looking Mickey. Scenes Yu-Gi-Oh really cute poses. They are. They are. Lots of music. Mickey with a microphone, singing, playing an instrument. Some of my favorites too, from the 30s are the bread cards. Love the bread cards. And there are two issues of the bread cards. And it's important to draw this distinction because I get asked this a lot on ebay. So in 3637 you had a bordered bread card. And Joe knows this, obviously, but in 3637 there's a bordered bread card that was. I forget the dimensions, but it's a little bit bigger than your standard card. And it's, it's on a thin card, stock paper, very, very thin. But what you'll see is those exact same scenes on a card that does not have a white border. And it's actually bigger. So some of those cards that you think, oh, why did they cut the border off? No, they were first issued with bread in 1934. And it's a bigger card and has no border. And if you want to go down the rabbit hole, the bigger card that was issued in 1934 with no border, its set distinction is D97. And then the ones that came out a couple years later with a border that are smaller and far more. I mean, there are a lot more of them, so they're easier to come by. But their distinction or their set number is D52. So if you want to, if you want to chase that and educate yourself a little bit about the two set distinctions and. But, but they are the same scenes. The write ups are a little bit different, but they're great cards. The color is magnificent. What are some of the. Myers. Was that one. Yes, Myers, Bell and Kruger. Lots of different bread. And I don't know the bread companies well enough to know if those were brands all under the same umbrella company or if those were distinct companies that individually had marketing contracts to use. Correct. More than likely it was a big bread company that had a few different bread brands, but they were. It's hard to find these clean because they were released with albums to stick your Mickey Mouse cards in. Correct. And so, you know, timeline. And I don't know if you know this answer, because I don't. So we talked about the little small chocolate Rubus card that was what, 50 cards in that set, Is that right? That sounds right. I think it's 50. That sounds right. So those are just labeled 1930s. I don't know exact date. And then the bread issues, which. I think those were Germany. I think the bread. Yu-Gi-Oh Or were they not? I think they Were us or they us? Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh What do I know? Like, this is why I have an expert on. Well, I don't know that I'm an expert, but I love. I know, I know. I've had some other German issues of other Disney stuff from that time period. Snow White and so forth, but so time frame, it's hard to. I don't know which came for you said those started in 34. Right. The bigger bread issues came in 34. And there are other issues. You know, when you look at the 30, I mean, you talk about how Disney partnered with so many different companies to issue, you know, different things with Mickey. And these are just cards, you know, the pencil boxes and all kinds of things out there. But another one was the Whitman's, the first. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh You know, it basically was a coloring book that was dual sided. You know, PSASGC will grade them. They're black and white, just like you'd expect a coloring sheet to be. And it also comes in sort of a. What's. What's the paper? Kind of a. It's. It's pretty thick. Yu-Gi-Oh it is. It's a thicker paper. Vanilla. Ish. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh but it's. It's an off white page. Not clean white, but. Yu-Gi-Oh Right. It's not slick. No construction papers. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It's almost that kind of cardstock. It's that sort of feel to it. Yu-Gi-Oh I bought one of those in the original. It says like Mickey Mouse, big little book or something. But it had the pages in it still intact. And. And, but. But yet it just had the pages you could. And Yu-Gi-Oh and they. I totally. So they remind me of the Junkosa in size, but. But they're US issued and they're double sided pages. And so what's. Whenever I've sent those in for grading, I have to tell PSA or sgc. That's the only two, I think I've graded those with. I say please slab this side up because like sometimes one side will have a nice pose of Mickey in the back. He may not even be on it or he's very. He's in the background or whatever. So those. I sold every one of those I took to the national this year. And, and they're. I say they're still affordable. I haven't really checked market, but relative to a lot of other stuff. So that's again labeled 1930s Whitman. And then we've also got playing cart. Right. Is it Castile? Correct. Yu-Gi-Oh Probably later. That was late 30s. Right, right. Mid to later 30s. Like 36 maybe you've also got the, the Toasties cereal cutouts. I don't have any of those. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh so. And those are tough, like the Whitman's. They're tough to get in good condition because, you know, they're coming on a box and you're, you know, hand like they like, like old post example. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yes. So those are fun. I mean, there's so many Mickey's, you know, by comparison, in the 1930s. Yu-Gi-Oh It's just incredible what Disney was doing. Yu-Gi-Oh So let's talk the. Am I saying Castile or Castell, whatever. But those were late 30s. That there's a lot of. There's what may be more Disney playing cards out there than any other brand when you look at all the decades. But those in particular, if I remember, have like the yellow back. Is that correct? Well, so there's a Chad Valley that has a blank, sort of orangey yellow back. Okay. And. And those are. Those are referred to as Chad Valley. I don't know that all the graders put Chad Valley on them, but that's how I remember them. I think SGC definitely puts Chad Valley. Those are a little bit tougher than the, the, the Castiles that are more like a playing card with, I think Clarabel maybe on the back. There are a couple different. There's a Whitman, there's a Castell, you know, there's the Toasties. There are a few different versions. The playing cards, though, hover around 36 to 37. But Yu-Gi-Oh there are a couple different editions of the Castells too, where I think there's like a 39, a 38, 39. It's a little bit more colorful. Unfortunately, I don't have any more of those because my Mickey's, you know, disappeared at the National. Right. Not in a bad way. They were just very popular. Yu-Gi-Oh So we've only talked 19 third or really 1929 through the late 30s, and there's a handful of sets. And within those there are, you know, the Mickey Mouse rookies, Goofy rookies, Donald Duck, many, many. Pluto and Clarabelle. I mean, other Disney characters that we don't even see anymore that are removed from, not removed from history, but they're not in their current lineup. Right. And like Horace Horse Collar. Horace is a good example. And then you've got the names that predated the names that we know today, like Donna Duck. Donna Duck. Right, right. And then the Goof before he was Goofy. In fact, there's a card with Goofy on it that refers to him as Dippy Dog, which actually predates the Goof. So now what set was. I'll have to get me one of those. That's a tough one. So that, that set where he's referred to as Dippy Dog is in the 1934 bread issue. Okay. So if you can come across that card, I think you've got funny. So there's three versions. So he went from Dippy Dog to the Goof to Goofy to Goofy. Yu-Gi-Oh that's a lot of iterations of one character. Right. The 34 card is fun because in the 36 bread card, it's the same image, but it says Mickey's getting ready to throw a snowball at the Goofy. Right. But in the 34 version, it says that Mickey's getting ready to throw a snowball at Dippy Dog. So the name was changed somewhere between those two sets over those two years. But it's interesting to see. See the same exact image, but Goofy is referred to in two different ways. All right, so moving on up. I know my 30s better and I don't know nearly as well as you. I know the 30s better than I do some of the later ones, but I know over the decades, countless other issues. Any that. Any 40s, 50s time period that really stand out to you as iconic issues of Disney cards? I don't know that any of them stand out to me as iconic, but there's so many issues, mostly via playing cards. Right. That go to the 40s. I mean, the graders will put 1940 on some of them. There's some French issues on postcards that are great because they have some images of Mickey and Minnie that, you know, there's even an image of Mickey smoking a cigar, which. Yu-Gi-Oh just seems so anti thematic. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Today was he. Were they promoting a cigar company? I don't think so. I know as a Flintstones fan, there's old commercials of Fred and Barney Winston. Right. But I've never heard about the Mickey card. Smoke. Yes. He's singing and puffing on a cigar. But it's, you know, dates to the 40s. Yu-Gi-Oh And it is, it's a French postcard. But a lot of the, the cards from the 40s were issued on playing cards. And. And I know some people feel strongly about playing cards that, you know, they don't look at those as a true rate trading card. But, you know, they're still. They're out there. They're in slabs. I love them, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh Well, my argument for them, and I wrote an article on that, if Any of you own my magazine cartoon cards. I wrote an article about that and comparing nowadays whether it be Pokemon, one piece, whatever they're, you know, I mean Pokemon is a gaming card. It's a card designed to play a game with. So. And you know, graders grade more of those than anything else in the world. So I think any who have that argument that well, a card designed to be played with isn't a real trading card, I think they've lost their argument at this point. That's a great point because that's what Pokemon are. You know, they're playing cards that are being graded. So you know, one other issue that I love and for the life of me, the tobacco sized, it's not Bonbread. It issued in the early 50s. They did a couple series in England. Do you remember the brand on those? I don't, but I can visualize the car. I think it's a 50s card set. Very colorful. Yu-Gi-Oh And th. Those are a tobacco size because I have like, I think I have a Mickey. I have a couple other characters, but those were mid-50s, I think somewhere in there maybe. I think they did a set in 50, early 50s and then one in 57. I think the tobacco size one in 57. They did an earlier set earlier in the 50s. But again we could do a 10 hour episode trying to list every, every one. But the point of this is to provide a little bit of education. When you told me that whichever that Yu-Gi-Oh was spitting out the 1931 to the Mickey rookie and I'm like, well no wonder that card's blowing up because I know a nine recently. Well, I don't know if it's even closed yet. Did you see the completed sale on that one? I didn't, but it was approaching 80. I don't know what the final sale. So last you looked it was around 80,000 for a nine on that card. And so I said, well good, not that I'm selling it, but I have like a 4 or a 5. But I paid like 2 or $300 for it a while back. So that one has definitely blown up. And it is, you know, if you're watching. Well, in fact we'll just, we'll drop in an image because it's a really cool looking card but I understand why it's so loved. But at least we brought light on that. We've shed light on the truth that there are cards of Mickey two years older than that. And so we've been playing this episode. We wanted to get this out before the national and then we would have looked prophetic doing the episode before everything blew up. But we're behind getting it out. But Yu-Gi-Oh it's great to see. I mean, and it's not just someone referenced on my comments on my last episode how I failed to mention other parts of the non sport market that are blowing up. So I'm going to touch on that quickly because I only focused on the cartoon which is if I love the most. But I know you're heavy into buying, collecting, reselling presidential cards and so touch on that. Even though this is mainly a Disney episode, I promised a viewer, I said hey, we'll touch on that next day because I just bought a bunch of modern presidential sets like the Topps and the 72 and more modern stuff. And after I saw the Young Washing movie, which I don't know if you've seen yet, but phenomenal movie but I'm like, I need some more George Washington cards in my collection. So I bought some older stuff. But what are a couple of sets there? Older, older presidential issues that you're seeing movement on. Okay, so I mean if we just look at what was issued in the 1800s and even more specifically Washington because Washington and Lincoln are huge. Right, right. They're top tier but you've got the N15 Generals, tough set, great looking set. Washington's number one really big card. You've got the N76s also, you know, incredibly popular set, just really moving up. And then you can go all the way back to the 1860s where arguably it's the first cards that PSA puts in a holder and they do put 1860s. I think the designation for those prangs is W50. So the pranks, you know, the, the presidents and their wives and great cards, Zebra old cards as, as we go in this hobby and, and they're getting more and more traction, more, more attention. So that's just kind of a brief overview of some of the, some of the sets where presidents emerge. Now the 32 Gowdy set, is it 32 or 33? The president. That one's. I know I bought a cup, I bought a Madison and a Monroe on that the other week just to have a couple very popular, been popular, getting more popular and then you go all the way up to the look and sees, you know, I mean all the presidential sets are incredibly popular. Yu-Gi-Oh because was the Topps issue, was it 52? 52, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh 52 I think was the first sort of of that era and then they reissued it in 72 but they added people right I think they used the same photos, didn't they? I think so. I think so, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And you've got Bowman and Tops doing their own. Oh, that's right. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So. So Yu-Gi-Oh there's a lot of. So I wanted to clarify from my last episode when I talked about non sport issues that were in demand and more in demand than ever. I mean, Star wars stuff has grown exponentially. I mean, a lot of this stuff, what's been crazy for us both to see is at the national we both sold a lot of non sports stuff, but literally in the month since then, a lot of that has doubled, tripled, quadrupled. It's insane. I mean, I mean, stuff that, I mean, we talked about the Charlie Brown Rookies from 71 that we teased a friend of ours at what he priced one at at the show. We were like, man, that's high. And then it sold and now in hindsight, it was a bargain. We should have both bought it. That set is, you know, I love that's, that's my favorite set all time. So, you know, of course I follow that one, but you know, that one's blowing up. Scooby Doo. The sales I've seen on that are huge from the 1970s set. And I do, yes, I have some of those listed right now. So I'm not trying to be self serving, but the sales on that have shocked me lately at what those are bringing. And so everything, you know, iconic characters, whether they be starting in the 1920s or starting much newer than that. Gary Vee, I know, put out a post recently where he talked about how he thought fictional character cards were the best buy or one of the best buys in the whole trading card industry. And he's made the same point that I've made that you've made that, you know, they never have a slump. You know, they don't retire. They're always out there. And it only takes another movie coming out or another show or just hopping on Netflix or whatever, streaming service or whatever. And you're like, oh, I can watch old Looney Tunes cartoons or you know, they're always out there with us. And so these beloved characters are passed on from generation to generation. And on one of my episodes I talked about one way I do the research to think which of these might pop next, which ones might be in demand next as I look at global market sales of merchandise for a franchise, for a brand. And then I'll compare it. And so when I, when I ran the numbers on Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera, Stuff like Flintstones and Scooby Doo. And then I compared that to Peanuts. Obviously, like, Pokemon is exponentially more Disney. Disney, if you do this kind of research, they break it down by like Mickey Mouse and his friends. And then there's the Pixar category. And then they have all these different product lines, so they sound like lesser dollars. When you combine it together, of course, it's enormous. But so if you're doing your research out there, you know, hello Kitty is massive worldwide. And I don't have any graded hello Kitties to sell, y'. All. I'm sorry, I don't either. But. But that franchise worldwide is huge. And so there's always. Right now it seems like daily there's another one that's, oh, can you believe what that one is selling for? And it's not just about the money. It's about, I love these things. I mean, I get asked a lot of times, hey, I know you have XYZ card. Will you sell it? I'm like, no, I'm a collector and I bought it to collect it and enjoy it. And I'm glad it's cool, it's gone up in value. But I bought it because I enjoy it and I didn't buy it to resell it. And I think for me, that's an important distinction to keep that passion. Because if it's all just a dollar, if it's all just a money game, then you might as well be buying stocks. For me, I had a long talk with my son just last night. We were talking about looking at a basketball collection of some players we love. And he said, well, Dad, I just think that's more fun than buying stocks together. He goes, these, if they go down, at least we have cards we treasure and we enjoy looking at together. He said, that's a lot more fun than watching a stock chart every day. And it's certainly true with these iconic non sports characters. So we'll definitely have to have you back. There's so many more topics in this genre to deal with and we didn't even get to to touch on a lot of Disney issues. But I hope each of you watching have gotten a little better understanding of the vintage Disney market, the Mickey Mouse, and the early rookie cards of some of these characters. And so your favorite set Disney set of all time. Yu-Gi-Oh it's probably a moving target. I mean, I love the Juncosa set because it's so early and iconic, but the 35 Mickey gum set has been a new favorite of mine for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh So that. That would be my short answer. And on your stock point, Peter lynch famously, you know, gave Zebra famous investor of Merrill Lynch. Right. Eventually. But Peter lynch used to say, buy what you know, you know. And if this is what you know and love, you know, it just, it makes sense. Right. So these are respected assets. It's an asset class. We like to think so. Absolutely. So, you know, buy what you know. Follow. Follow after Peter lynch and buy what you know. Right. And in this case, what you love, too. Probably exactly. So. Well, Cleve, thank you so much for coming and dropping a lot of serious knowledge because I knew about this much of the stuff you shared. So I'm thankful you brought clarity to a lot of things. I'm going to go back and watch this just for myself and go, oh, I want to chase one of those sets or that card or whatever. But I want to thank each of you for joining us today. Remember, most importantly today that Jesus loves you. He wants a relationship with you. And we appreciate each and every one of you for joining us today. Hope you have a fantastic week and we will catch you next time you run it over. I am your child in me But I need you.
Episode summary
Is Mickey Mouse the Next Giant in the Trading Card Hobby?
Disney cards are on fire and some vintage Mickey Mouse cards are reaching prices few collectors could have imagined even just weeks ago.
Joe Davis is joined by non-sports expert Cleve Bosher to dig into the rapidly changing Disney card market and clear up some major confusion surrounding Mickey Mouse’s earliest cards. Is the famous 1931 Wills card really Mickey’s “rookie,” or do much scarcer cards predate it?
From obscure European issues and the beautiful 1935 Mickey Mouse Gum set to early appearances of Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck and other legendary Disney characters, Joe and Cleve explore the cards collectors are suddenly chasing - and why identifying true first appearances in the non-sports world can be so complicated.
From the original show
This episode is published by Sports Cards & A Cup of Joe.