1954 Quaker Oats Sports Oddities |
Top baseball card by Decade
Always an interesting subject.
Here's one person's list:
1900s: 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner 1910s: 1916 M101-4 Sporting News Babe Ruth 1920s: 1921 E121 American Caramel Babe Ruth 1930s: 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth 1940s: 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson 1950s: 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle 1960s: 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan 1970s: 1973 Topps Mike Schmidt/Ron Cey/John Hilton 1980s: 1982 Topps Cal Ripken 1990s: 1993 Upper Deck SP Derek Jeter 2000s: 2001 Topps Chrome Albert Pujols or Ichiro Suzuki 2010s: 2018 Bowman Chrome Shohei Ohtani |

Cabinet Card Were oversized trading cards featuring paintings issued mostly 1910-1915.
Card Show is a gathering of dealers & collectors looking to buy/sell/trade sports cards and memorabilia.
Card Stock is the material a card is printed on. Usually paper-based, today companies play with the card stock and sometimes it appears to be wood or leather or see-thru acrylic ...
Cello Pack is a card pack whose wrapper is see-thru plastic. Usually the top & bottom cards are seen. Unopened cello packs showing major stars and rookies sell for heavy premiums.
Centering is the balance of the borders: top/bottom & left/right. On perfectly-centered cards, top/bottom borders match as do the left/right borders. Centering is presented as a set of numbers & directions and often included with the grade. Perfectly-centered is "50/50 t/b" AND "50/50 l/r". As centering gets worse, one number increases and the other decreases. For example: 90/10 t/b is considered extremely off-center top to bottom. The numbers add up to 100 (50/50, 60/40, 90/10 ...).
Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) A document used to verify legitimacy of a collectible. NOTE: Keep in mind that COA's are easier to fake then autographs.
Common A card of a non-star player is considered a "Common" as opposed to cards of a star players or specialty/subset cards such as league leaders, teams cards, World Series cards...
Condition (Grade) 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.
Crease Defect usually caused by bending the card. Hard to see, or not, a crease lowers the card's grade (VG or lower) and greatly diminishes it's value.