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.
1955 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values
1955 Topps was the first of 2 years of horizontal card designs.
As with 1952, 1953 & 1954, cards were again a tad larger than today's
standard. A nice feature, facsimile autographs, again appeared on the cards.
The set came in 2 series, #1-160 and scarcer "High Numbers" #161-210.
Due to the contract battles between Topps & Bowman, Cards #175,186,203 & 209
were never issued. Topps eventually won the war, buying Bowman making 1955
the last year for Bowman cards. But the damage was done as Topps had to
leave out many stars including Mickey Mantle & Stan Musial.
There were a total of (15) Hall of Famers in the 1955 set !!!
Top ROOKIEs: Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax & Harmon Killebrew
Top Stars: Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn,
Jackie Robinson, Eddie Mathews, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra & Duke Snider.
"The Golden Greek" Harry Agganis, a popular 1955 Topps card, is a tragic
story, Agganis, a rising young star, died after his first card was issued.
A football star at Boston U., he turned down an offer from the Cleveland
Browns and became the starting first baseman. Shortly after he came down
with pneumonia and died of a Pulmonary Embolism.
Click for complete
1955 Topps Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
|
1954 Bowman Baseball Cards Checklist & Values
Competition was raging between Topps and Bowman in 1953 and 1954 leading to
problems with both companies sets. Bowman caused Topps to missing 6 cards
in 1953 with Topps getting revenge by signing Ted Williams to an exclusive
contract in 1954. Bowman then had to pull Ted Williams card #66 from their
set shortly after they started printing, replacing it with Jimmy Piersall,
who also was on card #210 making the 1954 Bowman Ted Williams #6
one of 50's scarcest cards.
Perhaps distracted by it's competition with Topps, the 1954 Bowman set was
filled with errors and variations. Nearly 20% (40/224 cards) had some sort
of variation, with some having more than 2.
The St. Louis Browns recent move to Baltimore also made things interesting.
Bowman's artists had no idea what an Orioles jersey would look like -
so they just madeone up.
TOP ROOKIES: Don Larsen, Harvey Kuenn, Frank Thomas
TOP STARS: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider,
Roy Campanella, Whitey Ford, Phil Rizzuto ...
Ted Williams is not considered part of a complete set.
Click for complete
1954 Bowman Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
|
1955 Topps All-American Football Checklist & Values
In 1955, college football was much more popular than the NFL. Topps response
was the 100 card 1955 Topps All-American Football card set. Topps first major
football issue featured the greatest college players from first half of the 20th century.
The 1955 Topps All-American football card set was issued in 1-card penny
packs, 9-card nickel packs and 22-card cello packs with tons of rookies
& stars including rookie card of former Supreme Court Justice Whizzer White.
TOP ROOKIES: The Four Horseman, Whizzer White, Fats Henry, Doc Blanchard,
Don Hutson, Amos Stagg, Tom Harmon, Ernie Nevers ...
TOP STARS: Knute Rockne, Jim Thorpe, Sammy Baugh, Red Grange, Otto Graham ...
Click for complete
1955 Topps All-American Football cards checklist, values and prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
|
Baseball card collecting terms (part S-Z)
Series are groups of cards in an issue released together.
Example: Series #1 (cards #1-100) are released in April;
Series #2 (#101-200) released in July; and so on. This allowed
kids to easier complete sets. A side-effect was the creation of scarce
"High Numbers".
Short Print (SP) is a card printed in lesser quantity than other cards
in the set. Recent short prints are often serially-numbered.
Team Set is a group of all the cards of players for a certain team.
Test Issue is a small printing by a card company to see if
products are of interest to collectors. Some of Topps neatest items
are "Test Issues" like 1956 Topps Pins & 1974 Topps Puzzles.
Tobacco Card is typically from the early 1900's and were issued with
tobacco products, the most famous of which is the T-206 Honus Wagner card.
Traded/Update Set is a set issued after the original issue primarily featuring rookies
or players who were traded since the original issue came out.
Trimmed Card is a card reduced in size mostly to hide
damaged edges or corners. Trimmed cards have very little value compared
to the un-trimmed version. In some cases such as the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle,
even trimmed cards can go for thousands. The most famous 'trimmed' card
is the T206 Honus Wagner purchased by Wayne Gretzky. The card was actually
too large before it was trimmed down to size.
Unauthorized Issue is a card release which is not licensed by the
league, player's association or player.
Variation is a card printed by the manufacturer that differs
in some way from the normal card.
Wax Pack is a generic term for a pack of cards.
The "wax" came from a time when packs were sealed in wax paper wrappers.
Today it is still used for packs even though they no longer use wax paper.
© 1995-2019 "InterNet's Baseball Card Store" / Joseph Juhasz ... All Rights Reserved
|