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.
1961 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values
The 1961 Topps baseball card set had 587 cards (#1-#598 with some missing numbers).
In addition to the missing cards, 2 cards were accidently numbered #463
(the Braves Team card was supposed to be card #426).
1961 Topps set was packed with special "subsets":
League Leaders (10 cards), World Series cards (10),
Highlights (11 cards), MVP's (16 cards), Checklists (7 cards plus several variations),
Team cards, Special Multi-Player cards, Managers,
Topps Rookie All-Star Trophies, & Sporting News All-Stars
Of note - 1961 Topps were the first cards bearing the very popular Topps Rookie All-Star Award Trophies.
"High Number" cards (#523-#589) are very scarce.
The least attractive aspect of the 1961 Topps baseball card set
were the capless players !!!
Baseball expansion led to the problem when
Los Angeles Angels were added,
the Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins
and the Washington Senators got a new franchise.
Because of these changes, tons of players were capless
and looked awful. picture you 50 year old grand-dad.
Life was obviously tougher back then.
More 1961 Topps card info:
Card #1 was All-American basketball player Dick Groat
Card #2 was Roger Maris, right before his record breaking 61 Home Run season
Mickey Mantle was on (6) 1961 Topps cards adding to the sets cost.
Topps released 3 other sets in 1961: Topps Dice Game, Topps Magic Rub-Offs & Topps Stamps.
Click for complete
1961 Topps baseball cards Checklist and Prices
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Click for complete
1961 Topps Autographed baseball cards Checklist and Prices
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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.
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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
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Baseball card collecting terms (part G)
Grade/Condition Centering, corner wear, photo clarity, edges,
creases, print flaws ... all combine to determine a card's condition or grade.
Along with rarity/scarcity it is the major factor in a card's value.
Graded Card As values increased the condition of cards and the
determination of fakes and alterations became increasingly more important.
Various companies became "graders" of your cards. For a fee they would grade
your card (usually on a 1 to 10 scale) and then placed in a sealed plastic
holder with labelling of the vital information.
From past experiences, most people are NOT HAPPY with the grades they receive.
To keep values up, graders can be extremely picky. Things you don't see,
they do so don't be surprized when the NEAR MINT card you send in ends up
with an EX or EX/MINT grade.
There are TOO many grading companies - if you do, do choose carefully.
PSA / SGC / GAI / BGS are some of the many companies.
It is good to know that getting a card graded by a company that people
do not recognize or respect will usually just cost you time and money
and not help you in any way.
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