Mike Piazza - Sports CHAMPIONS Magazine #1 PREMIERE ISSUE (1994)

Book = $ *BOOK*
Price = $ 9.95

Premium sports collectors mag. Roy Campanella back cover. Special 3x5 cards: Sandy Koufax,Dan Marino,Frank Thomas & Yogi Berra inside.

Price = $ 9.95

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.

1952 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values

1952 is often thought of as Topps 1st baseball card set, but it was not.
Topps issued several smaller baseball card sets prior to their huge 1952 set.
Topps buzz word was "BIGGER is BETTER" for their 1952 Topps set which Topps described as: "GIANT IN BOTH SIZE and NUMBER of CARDS" (407).
Key card in the 1952 Topps set is #311 MICKEY MANTLE. Often called Mickey Mantle's Rookie card - BUT IT IS NOT. That honor goes to his 1951 Bowman.
1952 Topps "High Numbers" (#311-#407), are very, very scarce with an interesting story:
This HUGE set was released in series weeks apart. By the last (6th) series, baseball season was over and football starting. Candy shops had plenty of baseball cards from earlier series so most cancelled their orders for the last series creating the scarcity.
Adding interest is how Topps disposed of the now un-needed cards including THOUSANDS of 1952 Topps MICKEY MANTLE's. They dumped them into the Atlantic Ocean like most of New York's trash in those days.

Click for complete 1952 Topps Baseball card checklist, values and prices.

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 !

Click for complete 1993 Topps Finest Refractors checklist, values & prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.

Auction's Rarest Vintage Baseball Cards

Rare baseball cards and auctions were made for each other !

Click for more info on my Weekly Vintage SPORTS CARD AUCTIONS

Are sports cards valuable ?

Like all collectibles, over time some sports cards go down in value, others go up and some can even become very valuable. Card values are based on many factors: player popularity, scarcity, condition & collector interest. A card can be scarce but without demand value may not be great.

Q: What are some ways to collect cards ? * Complete sets by year & issue
* Cards of your favorite player
* Cards of your favorite team "TEAM SETS"
* Rookie cards
* Hall-of-Famer cards
* I even had a girlfriend that collected Don Mossi (checkout his ears), players whose last name start with "Z", and the Brett brothers George & Ken (she had a crush on George).
* "TYPE COLLECTING" (everyone should at least do a little of this !)

"Type Collecting"
is collecting at least one of each different "type" of issue. On scarcer issues you can add a less expensive common while on others you can select your favorite player or team.

Mike Piazza - Sports CHAMPIONS Magazine #1 PREMIERE ISSUE (1994)

1952 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values

1993 Topps Finest Refractors Checklist & Values

Auction's Rarest Vintage Baseball Cards

1952 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values

1993 Topps Finest Refractors
Checklist & Values