WIREPHOTO: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - [06/09/85] 'Happy MVP' (Lakers)

Grade	Bot. rt. corner bent
Book Value	n/a
Our Price	$ 9.95 Add to cart

WIREPHOTO: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - [06/09/85] 'Happy MVP' (Lakers) 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.

1960 Fleer Baseball Cards

The 1960 Fleer baseball set contained 79 regular-sized cards honoring the careers of Hall-of-Famers like Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Ted Williams and more !!!
Fleer was prevented from using current players by Topps' exclusive rights, so they issued their Baseball Greats set using retired players, managers, executives and the two league commissioners. Luckily Fleer had their own exclusive rights deal with Ted Williams, who quickly became the most in demand card in the set. Unfortunately the weak card design and retired players made it a giant dud with kids and the product was not well received.
There are very scarce variations with Joe Tinker,Eddie Collins & Lefty Grove fronts, all with #80 Pepper Martin backs. They are usually found cancelled or hand-cut from sheets. Likely Pepper Martin's card was pulled due to contract issues. The variations are not considered part of the complete set.

Other issues you may be interested in:
1960 Topps Baseball Greats checklist, values and prices.
1960 Leaf Baseball checklist, values and prices.
1960 Nu-Card Hi-Lites checklist, values and prices.
1959 Fleer Baseball Greats checklist, values and prices.
1960 Fleer Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
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1961 Fleer Baseball card checklist, values and prices.

Yogi Berra Baseball Cards

ABOUT Yogi Berra
Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra was a legendary baseball catcher, manager, & coach. His 19-year playing career included (18) seasons (1946-1963) with the New York Yankees, (10) of them ending as World Series Champs. He briefly appeared in 4 games with the Mets in 1965.
Yogi is well known for his unique "Yogi-isms".

"I don't know if we're the oldest battery, but we're certainly the ugliest"

"It ain't over 'til it's over"

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"

"You can observe a lot by just watching"

"Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical"

"It's like d�j� vu all over again"

"The future ain't what it used to be"

"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore"

"I can't think and hit at the same time"

"So I'm ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face"

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History Of O-Pee-Chee

O-Pee-Chee (OPC) based in Ontario Canada, is mostly thought of as the Canadian version of Topps but it actually pre-dates Topps by many years.

In 1933, OPC issued their first sports card set, the V304 Hockey cards and is currently in the tens of thousands. Their first baseball set was issued in 1937. It was similar to the 1934 Goudeys and Batter-Ups and the top player was Joe Dimaggio.

O-Pee-Chee created baseball card sets similar to TOpps from 1965 into the 1990's. At first OPC sets were much smaller than Topps and included just the first few series. Fronts & backs were nearly identical but with a small "Printed in Canada" on the back and the card stock was slightly different.

Baseball being much less popular in Canada, OPC print runs of their early years were between 1% and 10% of Topps making them exceedingly scarce !!!

Starting in 1970, Canadian legislation demanded all items produced in Canada carry both French & English so OPC baseball cards became bilingual with both languages included.
Other OPC differences include:
1971, OPC even changed the back design to a much more interesting back and also offered 14 different card photos not in the Topps set.
1972 OPC included a card of Gil Hodges mentioning his death that was not a part of the Topps set.
1974 OPC did not include any "Washington Nationals" variations.
1977 the card format remained like Topps but almost 1/3 of the OPC set had different poses/images than Topps.
In late 1970's, OPC card fronts appeared similar to Topps but sometimes included traded information saying "Now with XXXX". They were able to do this as the OPC cards were printed much later into the season.