1935 Whitman Party Stunts - Lot of (63) different stunt,penalty,prize cards

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.

Autographed/Signed Team Baseball inventory

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.

1993 Topps Inaugural
Colorado Rockies Set

In 1993 Topps produced a limited number of special factory sets to honor the Colorado Rockies first season. A special gold foil Rockies logo was added to each card.

The initial print run of 5,000 ran out quickly so the Rockies had 5,000 more sets made. Cards were only available as factory sets so singles and team sets are a bit tougher to find.

1993 Topps Inaugural Rockies checklist & prices

1935 Whitman Party Stunts - Lot of (63) different stunt,penalty,prize cards

Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs

1961 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values

1993 Topps Inaugural Colorado Rockies Set

1961 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values

1993 Topps Inaugural
Colorado Rockies Set