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Q5: What are some useful to know baseball card collecting terms ? (part 1) Certificate Of Authenticity - a document that is used to verify the legitimacy of a collectible. In reality, it is worthless, unless it shares a counterfeit- proof serially-numbered hologram that is attached to the item, and the certificate bears the signature of a notary public, or written verification by the manufacturer. Common - any card which is not short-printed, an insert, a bonus card, or has an insertion ratio. In short, the cards that comprise the manufacturer’s basic set. Condition - the physical appearance of a card/collectible. Centering, corner wear, photo clarity, edges, the presence of foreign material, signs of misuse are the critical components. Along with rarity/scarcity, it is a major factor in determining the value of a card or collectible. Crease - an obvious paper wrinkle defect usually caused by bending the card [i.e.- the result of being tortured on a rear-wheel bicycle spoke during the early ‘50s and ‘60s]. Die-Cut - an insert/parallel card that differs from the basic card by a process of the manufacturer "cutting" portions of the card revealing a special design. Recent issues may also be individually and serially-numbered. Modern Sports Cards (T2) The drop in production from World War I was compounded by the Black Sox scandal and cards were not produced in significant quantities for over a decade. In the 1930s, baseball cards finally began to reappear with candy products. Beginning in 1933, Goudey, a chewing gum company, began producing cards. Gum became the product associated with baseball cards. Goudey produced larger sets of cards than usual and a boon to collector's they numbered them ! For the next several years, Goudey released new sets of cards to coincide with the baseball season. Again a World War (II) curtailed baseball card production. Bowman Gum Company resurrected baseball cards in 1948 soon to be followed by another bubblegum company, Topps. The two competed not only for consumers but also for rights to baseball players with each trying to sign players to exclusive contracts. In 1956 Topps bought out Bowman and enjoyed a relative monopoly for decades. While Topps was dominant nationally, various regionally-produced sets, usually on or in packages of foods. Post Cereal and Jello printed baseball cards on the backs of their boxes from 1961 to 1963 in both U.S. and Canada. In 1962 Post also produced a football card set featuring players from the two countries in each respective country. Fleer and Donruss ended Topps baseball card monopoly in 1981. Topps sued both but the courts ruled that Topps' exclusive rights only applied to sports cards sold with gum. Score in 1988 and Upper Deck in 1989 joined the market. In 1989 Topps reintroduced tje Bowman brand. The baseball card hobby quickly became saturated with cards. The baseball player's strike in 1994 started a rapid decline in interest. Baseball card companies, trying to remain profitable, started introducing improvements in card quality and also measures to prevent counterfeiting. They released many different brands of cards as well as rare and unique cards. Now baseball cards have come full circle and in 2006 there are only two companies marketing and selling baseball cards: Topps and Upper Deck. Fleer went bankrupt and Donruss lost their license. Upper Deck did buy Fleer and began issuing Fleer brand again.

1956 Topps Baseball Cards I have a particular fondness for the 1956 Topps issue. When I first started collecting back in 1964, my friends and I would wander nearby neighborhoods in a search for "old cards". Back then, the oldest cards we ever found in dealing with other kids were 1957 Topps. Eventually I saw my first 1956 Topps card - I was hooked. It was a larger card, on a thicker, fluffier card stock making it look much, much older than the 1 year younger 1957. We even thought it looked "ancient" !!! We changed neighborhoods leaving my childhood friends behind. Before I left, I gave away all my cards except for a small cigar box full and stopped collecting in 1966. I had a great 3 year run but it sure wish I would have been collecting in 1966 and 1967 with those tough high numbers !!! Can you imagine if they would have made my cigar box instead of those 1964 Topps Felix Mantillia ! The regular 1956 Topps baseball card set, is my favorite ! Topps again went with a slightly larger (3-3/4" by 2 5/8") horizontal card design, similar to their 1955 Topps cards. Several of the portraits are even the same used on 1955 Topps cards and even back to 1954 Topps. 1956 Topps was the first issue to feature Team Cards and include checklists. In addition Topps also included cards of the 2 league presidents, William Harridge and Warren Giles. Now that Bowman was gone, Topps could make cards again of greats like Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams, both who were missing from prior years. Once you get past the Mickey Mantle, this is a fun and relatively simple set to complete as there are no high numbers or extremely expensive rookie cards with Hall-of-Famer Luis Aparicio being the top rookie. The set does contain over 200 variations making things even more interesting for master set collectors. Most are the gray and white card back variations. There are also several cards that have color line variations on the card front. Most notably is the Ted Williams card which has either no line over his name or a thin green, red, blue, or yellow line between the white border for a total of five variations. Whitey Ford and Early Wynn are two other cards which have no line or a thin red or yellow line. In addition, many team cards had 3 different variations with the team name either on the Left, Centered or Right. The only errors in the set are a handful of uncorrected errors the most famous of which is card #31 of Hank Aaron which actually pictures Willie Mays sliding into home. Card #135 Mickey Mantle is also an interesting card. The card pictures Mantle leaping into the stands and making a fantastic catch. An awesome play to put on this great card - right ? Only problem is that on the real play, Mantle missed the ball. If you do some research you can find the exact photograph that the card was painted from. The artist did a great job and in his version, Mantle makes the catch ! And as always for vintage Topps sets, take a quick look at Don Mossi and his famous ears ! Collectors of 1956 Topps should also take a look at their side issue '1956 Topps Pins'. In addition to their 1956 Topps baseball card set, Topps released their 1956 Topps Pins set using the same portrait photos as the cards. In the end, collectors of the day preferred cards to pins and Topps cut back the 1956 Topps Pin set from a planned 90 pins to just 60.

1961 Topps Baseball Cards AUTOGRAPHED Set info/information By now you all heard of the rash of counterfeit autographs on the market. The following autographs all come with auction house LOA's (Letters of Authenticity) from the top authenticators in the hobby - PSA/DNA or James Spence !!! The 1961 Topps baseball card set included 587 standard size 2˝" x 3˝" cards (#1-#598 with several skipped numbers). 2 cards were accidently numbered #463, one of them (the Braves Team card was supposed to be card #426). The 1961 Topps set included the following special "subsets": * League Leaders (10 cards) * World Series highlights (10 cards) * Highlights (11 cards) * MVP's (16 cards) * Checklists (7 cards plus several variations) * Team cards (xx cards) * Special Multi-Player cards (xx cards) * Managers (xx cards) * Topps Rookie All-Star Trophies (xx cards) * Sporting News All-Stars (#566-#589) 1961 Topps was the first of the very popular and continuing Topps Rookie All-Star Trophies subsets. Cards from the last series (#523-#589) are scarce "High Numbers" making the set fairly expensive to complete. MLB Baseball expansion led to one of the least attractive aspects of the 1961 Topps baseball card set. The American League made several changes. The Los Angeles Angels were added, the Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins and a new franchise was granted to the Washington Senators who also debuted in 1961. Possibly because of these team changes, many players had their portrait photos taken without their baseball caps. Not only did most of the players look awful without their caps, they looked more like your old, not so handsome uncle then athletes! Card backs were black print on an army green background on a dark card stock making them somewhat difficult to read. TOP ROOKIES: #35 Ron Santo, #141 Billy Williams, #417 Juan Marichal, Willie Davis, Zoilo Versalles & Jim Maloney; are popular players but still reasonably priced. More interesting tid-bits from the 1961 Topps set: Card #1 features All-American basketball player Dick Groat Card #2 features Roger Maris, right prior to his record breaking 61 Home Run season ........Maris once ran back four kickoffs for touchdowns in a single game! Mickey Mantle had 6 cards making the 1961 Topps set that much more costly.   #.44 American League Home Run Leaders   #300 Mickey Mantle's regular card   #307 Mickey Mantle 'Slams 2 Home Runs' World Series   #406 Mickey Mantle "Blasts 565 ft. HR"   #475 Mickey Mantle MVP card   #578 Mickey Mantle's scarce high # All-Star card Other than the checklists, the set has no other variations. Collectors of 1961 Topps cards may also want to take a look at 3 other baseball issues Topps released that year: a Topps Dice Game, Topps Magic Rub-Offs and a series of Topps Stamps. Although some dealers and collectors consider this set boring, with it's clean design, many special subsets and multiple cards of some of the games top stars including 6 Mantle's I rate it much higher. And, as I end most of my write-ups on vintage Topps sets, grab a glance at Don Mossi and those famous ears !

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