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.
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1948 Bowman Football Cards
Checklist & Values
1948 Bowman Football takes it's place in the early history of football cards.
While not as flashy as the 1935 National Chicles football issue the 1948
Bowman Football set had great players in real photographs !
The set was tiny (in both card size and number of cards) containing only
108 smallish 2-1/16" x 2-1/2" inch cards. The honor of top rookie in the
set is easily Sammy Baugh and there appear to be no variations in the set.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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1952,1953,1954,1955 Red Man TOBACCO
Checklist & Values
Tobacco cards were instrumental in the start of the baseball card industry
but were pretty much unheard of since 1920. That is until RED MAN TOBACCO
got in the game issuing baseball cards in 1952, 1953, 1954 & 1955.
For just 20 cents you got a pouch of Red Man tobacco and one awesome
3-1/2 x 4 inch baseball card with it's tab (3-1/2 x 3-5/8 without).
Exchange FIFTY tabs and you got one free big league style felt
baseball cap of your favorite team. This made cards with tabs much,
much harder to find and values 2 to 10 times higher.
25 players from each league were selected by "Sporting News" editor
J.G. Taylor Spink. A Player's artwork with different backgrounds
was used year after year. If a player changed teams, new team name
& logo were painted over the old one. To determine the year, just
subtract 1 from the expiration date on back of the card.
The 1954 set had four variations.
Click for complete
1952,1953,1954,1955 Red Man Tobacco cards checklist & prices
Note: You may be on that page.
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How long have sports cards been around ? (part 1)
The first baseball trading cards date back to 1869. For many years,
baseball cards were packaged in packs of tobacco as a way to increase sales
the same way that today prizes are packaged in boxes of cereal.
In the 1920's and 1930's, candy and gum companies started packaging baseball
cards in their products as well.
Baseball card production was virtually halted in the early 1940's due to paper
shortages created by World War II. The "Modern Era" of baseball cards began in
1948 when Bowman Gum Inc. offered one card and one piece of gum in a pack for a penny.
The first important football set was the Mayo set featuring college players
in 1984. Other than the 1935 National Chicle set no other key football set was
issued until 1948 when noth Bowman and Leaf produced sets.
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