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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1952 Topps Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
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Vintage Topps 1956 Baseball Cards Checklist & Prices
1956 Topps were slightly larger (3-3/4" by 2 5/8") horizontal cards
similar to 1955 Topps cards, some even sharing portraits with 1954 and 1955
Topps cards. Team cards & checklists appeared for the first time in 1956.
With Bowman gone, after missing the last 3 years, Mickey Mantle was back !!!
A fun & simple set, 1956 Topps had no high numbers or expensive rookies
but for serious 1956 collectors, there are over 200 variations.
Most variations deal with card stock (gray or white back).
For #101-180 gray appears to outnumber white about 9-to-1.
Many team cards had 2 or 3 variations with team names
Left, Center or Right.
There are 2 great cards: #31 Hank Aaron which actually pictures Willie Mays
sliding home and #135 Mickey Mantle.
Mantle shown leaping high into the stands robbing a home run !
Artist did a great job showing Mantle making the catch !
BUT ... Mantle looked great leaping but the ball flew over his glove.
The 1956 Topps Pins used same portrait photos as the cards.
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1956 Topps Pins Checklist and Prices
Click for more info and complete
1956 Topps Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
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1969-1970 Topps Basketball Cards Checklist & Values
The 1969-1970 Topps Basketball set, (99) "Tall Boys" (a huge 2-1/2 x 4-11/16)
, sold in 10-card packs for 10 cents, was history making in card size
& players. WOW !!! Lew Alcindor's ROOKIE (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar),
John Havlicek, Dave Bing, Earl the Pearl Monroe,
Bill Bradley, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Elvin Hayes & more.
Brightly-colored "Rulers" were random inserts.
Delicate 2-1/2 x 9-7/8, printed on thin paper,
they featured a cartoon drawing and a ruler measuring
his height. Planned for 24, #5 Bill Russell was not issued.
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1969-1970 Topps Basketball card values and prices
Note: You may be on that page.
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Baseball card collecting terms (part H-R)
High Numbers - vintage cards were issued in the ‘50s-‘70s in a series. During the
baseball season, the largest number of cards were made. As the schedule
progressed into September, when there would be less interest in baseball cards
, Topps for one, specifically decreased production and hence much less product
was available. As a result, a scarcity-factor was created and a premium holds
for these first type of "short-printed" cards.
Inserts - special randomly-inserted cards which are not part of the regular set.
Many modern inserts are sequentially-numbered and rarer than the card sets into which they are inserted.
O-Pee-Chee / OPC - a subsidiary of Topps, this card issue was produced specifically for distribution
in Canada.
Promotional Card - generally referred to as cards issued to show what the product
will look like on release and intended to help spur future sales. Often called
a "promo" card.
Reprint - cards issued to reproduce the originals. With the current trend of
vintage reprints, the new versions have a distinguishing characteristic
evidenced by numbering.
Restored - a card or piece of memorabilia which someone has tried to return to a
"like-new" condition. A restored card is considered to be of very little
value.
Rookie Card - any league-licensed, widely distributed card to feature a player in
his first year of trading cards.
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