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.
1934,1935,1936 Diamond Matchbooks
During much of the Great Depression, matchbook collecting swept the country !
Sports matchbooks started appearing in the 1930s, most issued by Diamond Match Company
of New York. Over the next few years, several series were issued with
similar designs; b/w photo of the player on front with short write-up
and stats on back. The player's name and team was also printed on the 'saddle'.
Please consider the following info as approximate.
1934's first baseball release featured 200 players, in 4 different background
colors (red,blue,green and orange) for a total of 800 different covers.
The set features plenty of Hall-of-Fame greats like Dizzy Dean and Mel Ott.
1935's issue was tiny with only 24 total covers (8 red,8 blue,8 green).
A third series was later released with 200 or more different covers (players/colors).
1930's matchbook covers appear to be huge bargains for collectors as their current values
are fractions of the value of Goudey and other baseball cards from the same era.
Click for complete
1935-1936 Diamond Matchbook Checklist and Prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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1952 Wheaties Champions
In 1952 Wheaties issued this set of cards on the back of their boxes.
The 2" x 2-3/4" cards needed to be hand cut from the back of the boxes
making high quality samples almost impossible to find. The set featured
30 different champions from a variety of sports in both "Portrait" and "In-Action"
poses for a total of 60 different cards. 10 of the 30 athletes are baseball players
with football, basketball, golf, bowling, diving and other sports also
included.
Top players in the set are Ted Williams, Stan Musial, George Mikan,
Ben Hogan and Otto Graham.
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Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs
Team signed baseballs were the thing well before single-signed
balls exploded on the market.
What is a "Team Signed Baseball" ???
Simple answer: A ball with XXX signatures of a certain team
for a certain year. What is difficult is the XXX.
Baseball tons of roster moves make it nearly impossible to
"Get Them All".
Generally, team signed baseballs from early 1900's had 10 to 15
signatures, the 1940's that jumped to 18 to 25.
Joyce Sports Research Collection (Notre Dame) says "signatures must
include only members of a specific team from a specific year, and there
must be some approximation of completeness."
Not concrete but to me a "team ball" MUST have ALL the team's
STARS (unless a rookie or in season trade) and in today's market
at least 20, preferably more, and the manager.
Determining Age of Team Signed Balls
"Official" league balls have stamped signatures of current league
presidents on the "sweet spot".
Starting 1934/1935 balls were produced by Spalding (NL)
and Reach (AL). Rawlings took over in 1977/78.
Have a possible team roster at hand, ESPN & baseball-reference.com
have great sites), decipher a few signatures then solve the puzzle.
Note: You may be on that page now.
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How long have sports cards been around ? (part 2)
The first important and mainstream basketball set was issued by Bowman in 1948.
Other than a Topps set in 1957-58 and a 1961-62 Fleer set, there were no
mainstream basketball sets issued until Topps started producing yearly sets
beginning with their 1969-70 set featuring the rookie card of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
who then went under the name of Lew Alcindor.
In hockey, there were a few sets issued in the 1910's and while O-Pee-Chee issued
some sets in the 1930's, the real modern sets began in 1951 with the itroduction
of Parkhurst's first set.
In racing, while cards go back as far as the early Indy car days of 1911,
modern racing sets began in 1988 with the issues released by MAXX.
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