Last night I was watching a rerun from around 2013 of Pawn Stars on History Channel, and a guy brought in his set of Topps 1991 Baseball Cards Set of 792 cards made only for the troops in Saudi Arabia in Desert Storm. They only made a few hundred sets and only sold them on the base.
Rick asks, where did you get it, he said since the Desert Storm was over so quick and guys didn't really want to fool with these baseball cards out in the desert, most sets got sent back to a base in New Jersey. Which is where he said he bought it. Rick didn't know much about it, so he called in his baseball expert who owns a Sports business in Las Vegas.
The guy arrives and he looks at the set and said all 792 are here, it's worth about $1200. On the first page are Cal Ripken and Nolan Ryan cards, and he sees they all have a gold seal in the upper right corner, and all the cards are sealed in plastic sleeves. He said, so far so good, so he flips to the middle and to card #333 Chipper Jones rookie card. He said, this card alone is worth $1,000. He looks, and it's not sealed and the gold seal is missing from the upper right. The guy said, this is card is not even mint like the others, and without the seal it's worth only about $5, so now the whole set is only worth about $200 without the Chipper Jones Gold Seal Rookie Card. The sellers goes, Oh, I didn't even notice that.
My opinion, I think the guy did notice it, and tried to pull a fast one on the Pawn Shop and probably sold that good card separately and thought he would bring in the set with the bogus card and try and get top dollar. This just goes to show that with sports cards and grading and everything else, you have to really know your shit!!
I just looked on eBay and a complete set with the Chipper Jones rookie card with the gold seal is now selling for $6,000.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1991-Topps-...gAAOSwg5lgBahB
Even the plain Chipper Jones rookie card without the gold seal is up to $99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/18424071005...RoCNFkQAvD_BwE
