Quote from: vai777 on May 29, 2015, 06:16:22 PM

Quote from: 52plusjoker on May 29, 2015, 08:58:16 AM

Class A tax stamps were used 1919-1924. Check this site anytime you need solid information on tax stamps. http://www.endebrock.de/pc-taxes.html

Value of a brick like this [some opened] would be $200-300 based on what we've seen in past. They surface from time to time and so are not too scarce.

Did a little more research and found (on this site) someone who was selling sealed packs for $85 a pop... and they all sold. The post was from 2012, and from what I can tell these are the exact same version he had. Here is the post.. http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=1512.0

Has the market dropped from 2012?

First of all, it was sealed PACK, not PACKS - just the one.  I know the seller - he was very active here at one time and we even met for lunch once with Kevin Reylek at a steak house on Long Island, before Kevin moved back to his home state of North Carolina.  He was even the founding moderator of this board, as well as a 52+Joker member!

If you look at his eBay listing for the opened blue pack, he listed the deck for $29 with shipping for $6.90 - and there's no bids, sale concluded 8 Feb 2012.  The photos are gone, likely due to the age of the listing.  I don't think he got $85 for his sealed red deck, even if it was 92 years old.  The deck's simply not rare enough, even in pristine, unopened condition.  If it had a different back, if it was older, maybe - but it's their most common design, still in print today.  It's why vintage Bicycle Rider Backs often don't fetch a high premium, but the other backs do, especially ones that had shorter print runs.  A vintage New Fan Back would be a little more costly because they were popular and attractive, but even those aren't terribly scarce or expensive, while the vintage two-color backs that were distributed only in the UK or the original War Series decks from 1918 would fetch a huge premium.  If he got $85, the buyer didn't know what he was buying.

I tried looking through eBay for a sale of a deck identical to yours or close to it.  None could be found - most had the "1 Pack" tax stamp used from 1940-1965, when the tax was repealed.  But I didn't see any decks, even sealed decks, going for even half that much - more like a third.  Tom's valuation seems pretty accurate to me, especially factoring that seven of the 12 decks are opened.  One might get more if they sold the decks individually, but doing so is more time-consuming, hence the reason you find the occasional brick put up for sale.