1953 Topps # 37 Ed Mathews [#] (Braves)
Grade |
EX |
Book Value |
$ 250 |
Our Price |
$ 135
Add to cart
|
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.
1960 Leaf Baseball Cards

The 1960 Leaf baseball card set featured 144 regular-sized high-gloss
photo quality cards. Back then Topps had a monopoly on baseball cards
packaged with gum or candy so Leaf packaged their cards with marbles.
The marbles were from Sports Novelties Inc. and the cards, called
1960 Leaf, bear copyrights by Sports Novelties Inc.
Hall of Famers Luis Aparicio, Orlando Cepeda and Jim Bunning were the
top stars in the set. The set came in two series, with the second
series high numbers (#73-#144) produced in very limited quantities.
Scarcest card in the set is the corrected version of Jim
'Mudcat' Grant (#25). The more common error variation pictured
Brooks Lawrence on the front with Jim Grant's info on back.
To promote this set, Leaf also produced (8) very scarce Big-Head
PROOF variations.
There were also (3) different variations of the back of Hal Smith's
card #58. Leaf also produced (8) very scarce and extremely expensive,
Big-Head PROOF variations to promote their set.
Click for complete
1960 Leaf Baseball Cards
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1963 Fleer Baseball Cards Checklist & Values
1960 & 1961 Fleer baseball card sets of old-timers
like Babe Ruth bombed. Kids wanted Willie Mays & Mickey Mantle.
Topps had rights to baseball cards & gum so Fleer
tried something new ... COOKIES !!!
Cherry flavored cookies with 1963 baseball cards.

1963 Fleer baseball card set was cut short at 66 cards & checklist
by Topps lawsuit. But what 66 cards! Attractive & packed:
Clemente,Koufax... & 2 very scare Short Prints.

Maury Wills 'rookie' card is a story.
Majors in 1959, quickly superstar. But 1963 for rookie ???
In 1959 Topps deemed Wills NOT WORTHY.
Wills was upset. After 1962 MVP, Topps came knocking but he said "NO!".
Finally, 1967, Wills first Topps & most costly card.
Note: 1961 Post Cereal card, years BEFORE
'official' rookie. He also photo-bombed a 1960 Topps card.
Disclaimer: Above mostly true - but Wills has said "no feud".
Click for complete
1963 Fleer baseball cards Checklist and 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.