Below are short bits & pieces on sportscard & baseball trading card collecting.
Please wander around the website for more info, prices, values & images
on vintage baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sport and non-sports cards.

Topps Vault & Proofs
Auctioneer Guernsey's went thru Topps offices gathering over 3,000
items for the auction. Topps spokesman reported auction sales of
OVER $1.5 million !!! Additional sales were made from a mail-only
auction. Collector Keith Olbermann, at the auction, described it
as an archaeological dig.
Topps archive material continued to accumulate after the auction
ending up with another treasure of over 250,000 transparencies,
uncut sheets, color separations, art, photos, slides, proof sheets
& wrappers, canceled checks, contracts and one-of-a-kind
items to sell.
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Topps Vault, Proofs & Blank-Backs
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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1961 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values
The 1961 Topps baseball card set had 587 cards (#1-#598 with some missing numbers).
In addition to the missing cards, 2 cards were accidently numbered #463
(the Braves Team card was supposed to be card #426).
1961 Topps set was packed with special "subsets":
League Leaders (10 cards), World Series cards (10),
Highlights (11 cards), MVP's (16 cards), Checklists (7 cards plus several variations),
Team cards, Special Multi-Player cards, Managers,
Topps Rookie All-Star Trophies, & Sporting News All-Stars
Of note - 1961 Topps were the first cards bearing the very popular Topps Rookie All-Star Award Trophies.
"High Number" cards (#523-#589) are very scarce.
The least attractive aspect of the 1961 Topps baseball card set
were the capless players !!!
Baseball expansion led to the problem when
Los Angeles Angels were added,
the Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins
and the Washington Senators got a new franchise.
Because of these changes, tons of players were capless
and looked awful. picture you 50 year old grand-dad.
Life was obviously tougher back then.
More 1961 Topps card info:
Card #1 was All-American basketball player Dick Groat
Card #2 was Roger Maris, right before his record breaking 61 Home Run season
Mickey Mantle was on (6) 1961 Topps cards adding to the sets cost.
Topps released 3 other sets in 1961: Topps Dice Game, Topps Magic Rub-Offs & Topps Stamps.
Click for complete
1961 Topps baseball cards Checklist and Prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.
Click for complete
1961 Topps Autographed baseball cards Checklist and Prices
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1985 Leaf Baseball
In 1985 Donruss created a special version of its baseball cards
(1985 Leaf) in an attempt to enter the Canadian baseball card market.
Except for the addition of a colorful green leaf, the card fronts
were virtually identical to Donruss cards. The most interesting
difference occurred on the back where the Leaf cards featured
text in both French and English !
At only 264 cards, the Leaf set was much smaller than Donruss with it's
660 cards. But ... because of it's smaller set size the Leaf
set has a much higher percentage of star cards. There was also
a special two-card "Canadian Greats" subset with paintings of Dave Stieb and
Tim Raines.
Top rookies are: Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett, Orel Hershiser,
Dwight Gooden and Mark Lamgston.
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Baseball card collecting terms (part G)
Grade/Condition Centering, corner wear, photo clarity, edges,
creases, print flaws ... all combine to determine a card's condition or grade.
Along with rarity/scarcity it is the major factor in a card's value.
Graded Card As values increased the condition of cards and the
determination of fakes and alterations became increasingly more important.
Various companies became "graders" of your cards. For a fee they would grade
your card (usually on a 1 to 10 scale) and then placed in a sealed plastic
holder with labelling of the vital information.
From past experiences, most people are NOT HAPPY with the grades they receive.
To keep values up, graders can be extremely picky. Things you don't see,
they do so don't be surprized when the NEAR MINT card you send in ends up
with an EX or EX/MINT grade.
There are TOO many grading companies - if you do, do choose carefully.
PSA / SGC / GAI / BGS are some of the many companies.
It is good to know that getting a card graded by a company that people
do not recognize or respect will usually just cost you time and money
and not help you in any way.
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