WIREPHOTO: John Havlicek - [01/21/74] 'Lays Up Shot' (Celtics)

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WIREPHOTO: John Havlicek - [01/21/74] 'Lays Up Shot' (Celtics) Basketball cards value

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.

Autographed Gateway Cachets

Gateway Stamp Company has provided collectors over 1 MILLION authenticated certified autographs over the last 30+ years. Though a "stamp company", Gateway rarely dealt in stamps, going down a new creative road becoming one of the world's unique secrets in autograph collecting. They combined the best in art, color photographs, historical events and autographs with their full-color silk cachet envelopes. Gateway's first client was Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock and hundreds followed.
WHAT ARE FULL-COLOR SILK CACHETS?
A "cachet" is a design on an envelope marking an event. "Full-color silk" refers to the delicate material into which the art and photography are printed. After the silk artwork is applied it's signed by the player and then officially post-marked by the U.S. Post Office IN THE CITY OF THE EVENT !!!
WHY POSTMARKS?
The key to EVERY Gateway cachet is the postmark. A postmark is a great way to mark historical events. The rules governing the granting of postmarks GUARANTEE that NO Gateway issue can EVER be re-issued protecting the value of the autographed cachets !!!
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Allen Iverson basketball cards

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Dennis Rodman basketball cards

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Baseball card collecting terms (part C)

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.