Sometime ago, I read an article on the Internet about a large collection of baseball cards from the turn of the 20th century that was recently discovered. A major card dealer flew to the source and was amazed at the find. The quality and quantity of the collection was spectacular. Variations such as player poses and colors were discovered and cataloged for the very first time. This was a most complete set of cards of that era. The dealer had lists of collectors whom may be interested in cards of that era to complete their respective sets. For the most part, price guides listed the majority of the cards identified from that collection. Regardless of condition, the major stars or known lesser printed cards valued into the high $100s to $1000s where the remaining cards considered as commons. The dealer obtained want lists from major collectors and dealers from around the world. When compiling the want lists together an interesting pattern emerged. Cards that were once considered common are actually quite rare, perhaps some of the rarest in the set. Some of these cards were to be found on each of the want lists. This of course, starting bidding wars. The purpose of this story is this. The Gold Standard Series records were all released in a series. 447-0600 through 447-0685 over a period spanning the late 1950s through the late 1970s. It has generally been accepted that one may find a similar quantity of one catalog number as would find of another, meaning that the price range would be similar. However, I contend that this is NOT the case. Since this site began in 2009, many collectors have offered their collections as scans for all to see. Internet searches, eBay searches, and communicating with other collectors with collections both great and small, it has become clear that there are some catalog numbers that are NOT available regardless of the label, and in some cases label dependent. Case in point, 447-0612! After five years, I have seen my first copy of 447-0612. A black-label, dog on top example at that. This is also listed in the guides as being pressed with black-label, dog on side, orange label, red label, and black-label, dog near top. With all of those pressings, you would think this is more readily available. It is in my opinion, that the guides have this one wrong, and a hand full of others too. Another example 447-0641 black-label, dog on top! Very difficult to find. The other labels for that catalog number are also difficult to find, but not as much as the black-label, dog on top. Happy hunting!

This is the portion of the Gold Standard Singles catalog released by RCA Records in November 1978. This revelation among other sources of that era, make a strong case that the black label, dog near top series catalog numbers that are not listed in this catalog likely do not exist. While it can be confirmed that the black label, dog near top series records were issued in 1976, I would like confirmation as to when the Gold Standard, black label, dog near top records were first issued. I contend, that the date is a little further out than earlier speculations.

Based on the table below, where several catalog numbers drop from the 1971 catalog like 447-0604, 447-0614, 447-0631, 447-0645, and a handful more, these have sold into the hundreds of dollars in recent auctions, as they do NOT come up very often. Note that 447-0640 is dropped from the 1972 catalog and is impossible to find. This chart may actually be the key to solving the gold standard series red series riddle, as well supporting the position that many more catalog numbers are not to be found from the black, dog-near-top issues from 1977 onward.