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.
1971 O-Pee-Chee Baseball
Also referred to as OPC or Topps Canada, most vintage OPC sets were near replicas
of the Topps cards from that year. Exactly same in design they usually only
differed with the addition of French to the backs and some fronts.
To the benefit of collector's OPC made several changes in their 1971 set.
The most obvious and useful was a complete redesign of the card backs and the
addition of another player photo ! Additionly, over 20 cards were changed including
the inclusion of what could be considered the first "Traded" cards. Another
difference: Topps cards #202 and #289 were changed to allow the addition of 2
more Expos to the set.
The 1971 OPC set is legendary for its short print run, estimated at perhaps
just 5% of Topps’ Production. This issue is considered quite elusive, even in Canada.
TOP ROOKIE: Steve Garvey
TOP STARS: Nolan Ryan, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks,
Pete Rose, Ted Williams, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Don Baylor/Dusty Baker RC & MORE !!!
Click for complete
1971 OPC/O-Pee-Chee Baseball checklist and prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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1938 Horrors of War - Gum Inc.
One of the most famous card sets of all time,
it began as a 240-card set featuring the Chinese-Japanese War,
the Spanish Civil War and the Ethiopian War. 48 cards were later
added on Germany and the buildup to World War II.
Cards #25-192 appear to be slightly more common than the others
cards in the series. Cards 241-288 are similar to more recent
high numbers in that each pack held one card from the high series
and one card from the low series.
The set is extremely popular and card "values" have increased
ten-fold since the early 1990s. Cards #1, #240, #277, #283, #286 & #288 are particularly valuable,
especially in prime condition.
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1972 Manama Official Postage Stamps
These beautiful official government issued postage stamps from
Manama were made of a plastic like material and used a an advanced
printing technique to show multiple images as the card was moved.
This technique was later used on a baseball card issue called
"Sportflics".
Each of these postage stamps pictured 2 different players as the
stamp was titled. There were 8 different stamps issued, 4 with
American player-combos and 4 with Japanese player-combos.
A special stamp picturing BABE RUTH alongside the famous
Yankees "MURDERS ROW" was also issued and appears to be
significantly scarcer than the others.
For more info on postage stamp issues click below:
1972 Manama Baseball Postage Stamps Checklist & Prices
1969 Ajman Baseball Postage Stamps Checklist & Prices
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History Of O-Pee-Chee
O-Pee-Chee (OPC) based in Ontario Canada, is mostly thought of as the
Canadian version of Topps but it actually pre-dates Topps by many years.
In 1933, OPC issued their first sports card set, the V304 Hockey cards and
is currently in the tens of thousands. Their first baseball set was
issued in 1937. It was similar to the 1934 Goudeys and Batter-Ups
and the top player was Joe Dimaggio.
O-Pee-Chee created baseball card sets similar to TOpps from 1965 into the
1990's. At first OPC sets were much smaller than Topps
and included just the first few series. Fronts & backs were nearly identical
but with a small "Printed in Canada" on the back and the card stock was
slightly different.
Baseball being much less popular in Canada, OPC print runs of their early
years were between 1% and 10% of Topps making them exceedingly scarce !!!
Starting in 1970, Canadian legislation demanded all items produced in Canada
carry both French & English so OPC baseball cards became bilingual with both
languages included.
Other OPC differences include:
1971, OPC even changed the back design to a much more
interesting back and also offered 14 different card photos not in the Topps set.
1972 OPC included a card of Gil Hodges mentioning his death that was
not a part of the Topps set.
1974 OPC did not include any "Washington Nationals" variations.
1977 the card format remained like Topps but almost 1/3 of the OPC set had
different poses/images than Topps.
In late 1970's, OPC card fronts appeared similar to Topps but sometimes
included traded information saying "Now with XXXX". They were able to do
this as the OPC cards were printed much later into the season.
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