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Below are some tidbits on baseball and sportscard collecting. Visit our web site for more info on vintage and current baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sports and non-sport cards and card collecting.

Q1: How long have sports cards been around ? (part 1) The first baseball trading cards date back to 1869. For many years, baseball cards were packaged in packs of tobacco as a way to increase sales the same way that today prizes are packaged in boxes of cereal. In the 1920's and 1930's, candy and gum companies started packaging baseball cards in their products as well. Baseball card production was virtually halted in the early 1940's due to paper shortages created by World War II. The "Modern Era" of baseball cards began in 1948 when Bowman Gum Inc. offered one card and one piece of gum in a pack for a penny. The first important football set was the Mayo set featuring college players in 1984. Other than the 1935 National Chicle set no other key football set was issued until 1948 when noth Bowman and Leaf produced sets. History of Basketball Cards (T4) The first major basketball card issue was released by Bowman Gum Company in 1948. Topps entered the market in 1957. At the time interest was minimal in professional basketball and the Topps issue was considered a failure. Basketball cards were in direct competition with baseball cards at a time when baseball was the nationally broadcasted America's sport. Collectors were not yet ready for basketball or basketball cards and Topps quickly left the basketball card market after just 1 year not to return till 1969. In the 1960's there was rising interest in basketball and basketball card collecting took off, much like baseball card collecting thirty years earlier. In the 1970's basketball cards started to gain popularity and reached a peak in the 1980's and 1990's, partially attribuable to the great Michael Jordan. Today, high grade vintage basketball cards of greats like Jerry West, Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain and Bob Pettit can run into the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Joining them are more recent stars like Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Larry Byrd, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Even though basketball cards got a much later start than baseball cards and football cards they are now a part of America's collecting heritage.

1959 Fleer Ted Williams Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game ! The 'Splendid Splinter' played from 1939-1942 and 1946-1960 all with the Boston Red Sox. He missed 1943 thru 1945 due to military duty when he was a pilot during the wars. For his career he hit .344 with 521 home runs. Ted Williams was one of the biggest stars baseball has ever seen, and his baseball cards remain very popular and valuable. Ted's rookie card was in 1950 Bowman and he was exclusive with Bowman from 1950 thru 1954. In 1954 he also allowed Topps to make his cards which they did from 1954 thru 1958. In 1959 Fleer signed Ted Williams away from Topps and assumed the star Ted Williams would be retiring, put out an entire 80-card set of cards highlighting Ted Williams and illustrating his life both in and out of baseball. Williams decided late in the fall to resign for another year perhaps damaging the sets impact. Today these cards remain extremely popular with most of the cards in teh set still quite affordable. There is one very rare card in this set, #68 picturing Ted with Bucky Harris. UNFORTUNATELY Topps had Bucky Harris under exclusive contract and Fleer had to quickly halt production of this card making it a significant SHORT PRINT. Only a few made it out to the public. This card is quite rare, hardly ever seen and a plain old simple checklist making it the perfect candidate for counterfeiting. NOTE: This card has been counterfeited in significant quantities so you should be very, very careful when looking to acquire this card. Other interesting cards are those that picture Ted with Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Sam Snead and Jim Thorpe. In addition, cards of Ted fishing or with his airplane are also very popular.

1964 Topps Stand-Ups Topps most popular 1960's test issue !!! Blank-backed and unnumbered, these standard size cards were called "Stand-Ups". "Stand-Ups" refers to a type of card that was die cut around the player's picture. The background section then could be folded in half, so the card could stand up by itself while the player's picture stood alone. Directions for folding are on the background and when folded only the green background remains. 1934-36 Batter Up and the 1951 Topps All-Star sets are 2 other popular standup issues. Thanks to the green and yellow borders and the likelihood that most cards have been heavily folded, 1964 Stand-Ups are extremely difficult to obtain in top grades. The 77 card set features color photographs of the player on yellow and green backgrounds. 22 of the 77 cards were single printed making them twice as scarce and much higher in demand. The set is packed with Hall-of-Famers including MICKEY MANTLE, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, Carl Yastrzemski, Al Kaline, Brooks Robinson, Don Drysdale, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey and more !!!

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