1952 Wheaties #24A Jim Pollard PORTRAIT (Basketball)

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.

Highlights of the 1979 Topps baseball card set are:
* Hall-of-Famer Ozzie Smith's rookie card,
* (2) Bump Wills variations; Rangers and the ERROR Blue Jays,
* Special All-Time Leaders with Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan...
* Packed as (37) or more cards featured Hall-of-Famers !!!

Given all of the above, the 1979 set is very affordable.

TOP ROOKIES were Hall-of-Famers Eddie Murray, Paul Molitor, Alan Trammell & Jack Morris.

NOTE: Ozzie Smith is by far the most value card in the set. Unfortuantely, for some reason, it suffered from poor sheet cutting and most Ozzie rookies are well off center.