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.
1934,1935,1936 Diamond Matchbooks
During much of the Great Depression, matchbook collecting swept the country !
Sports matchbooks started appearing in the 1930s, most issued by Diamond Match Company
of New York. Over the next few years, several series were issued with
similar designs; b/w photo of the player on front with short write-up
and stats on back. The player's name and team was also printed on the 'saddle'.
Please consider the following info as approximate.
1934's first baseball release featured 200 players, in 4 different background
colors (red,blue,green and orange) for a total of 800 different covers.
The set features plenty of Hall-of-Fame greats like Dizzy Dean and Mel Ott.
1935's issue was tiny with only 24 total covers (8 red,8 blue,8 green).
A third series was later released with 200 or more different covers (players/colors).
1930's matchbook covers appear to be huge bargains for collectors as their current values
are fractions of the value of Goudey and other baseball cards from the same era.
Click for complete
1935-1936 Diamond Matchbook Checklist and Prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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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.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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1993 Topps Finest Refractors
Checklist & Values
Topps went all in in 1993 with their most premium baseball card set to date,
the famous 1993 Topps Finest set with RARE parallel issue REFRACTORS.
With only 199 cards, 7 per team, the 'Finest' set only had room for
the 'Finest' players !
Rare REFRACTORS were randomly placed in some packs.
REFRACTORS looked exactly like regular cards unless you knew where
AND how to look. Tilting a REFRACTOR in sunshine released a rainbow of
colors, "refracting light" Topps scientists liked to say.
Current info is only 241 REFRACTORS were issued of each card making
this parallel issue one of the scarcest. Collecting a complete set is made
even more difficult by the hoarding of certain cards by collectors AND even
major league baseball players !
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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How long have sports cards been around ? (part 2)
The first important and mainstream basketball set was issued by Bowman in 1948.
Other than a Topps set in 1957-58 and a 1961-62 Fleer set, there were no
mainstream basketball sets issued until Topps started producing yearly sets
beginning with their 1969-70 set featuring the rookie card of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
who then went under the name of Lew Alcindor.
In hockey, there were a few sets issued in the 1910's and while O-Pee-Chee issued
some sets in the 1930's, the real modern sets began in 1951 with the itroduction
of Parkhurst's first set.
In racing, while cards go back as far as the early Indy car days of 1911,
modern racing sets began in 1988 with the issues released by MAXX.
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