1953 Topps # 74 Joe Rossi (Pirates)

Book = $ *BOOK*
Price = $ 29.95
EX/MINT to NEAR MINT

Price = $ 29.95

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.

Top Vintage Baseball Card Auction Companies

There are more auction companies/houses than you can shake a stick at. Some offer inexpensive smaller groups and individual items while others offer massive groups with the average auction ticket price into the thousands.

www.Baseball-Cards.com (what, you thought I'd leave myself off my list?)

Huggins and Scott Auction House

Heritage Auctions

Lelands Sports Memorabilia and Card Auctions

Pristine Auctions

Clean Sweep Auctions

SCP Auctions

Sotheby's Auctions

Click for more info on my Weekly Vintage Baseball & Football card auctions

1974 Topps & Parker Brothers Football
In 1974, along with cards in wax packs, Topps also issued the football cards used in Parker Brothers' "Pro Draft" board game. The (50) Parker Brothers cards are skip numbered from the 1st 132 Topps cards and are all offensive players, mostly from the skill positions.
Most Parker Brothers cards are similar to the ones from packs except on the back where most Parker Brothers cards had 1972 stats instead of 1973 and (2)* rather than (1)* in the copyright line. BUT NOTE: Some regular Topps cards have both * and ** --- It's complicated! Six of the cards have totally different designs; three All-Pros and three with horizontal designs that were changed to vertical to match the rest of the cards.
Team checklist cards were randomly included in the Topps wax packs.
TOP ROOKIES: Joe DeLamielleure, Ray Guy, Bert Jones, Harold Carmichael, John Matuszak, Ahmad Rashad, Chuck Foreman, John Hannah and actor Ed Marinaro.
Click for complete 1974 Topps & Parker Brothers Football checklist and prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.

Click to visit a great blog on: 1974 Parker Brothers Football

Vintage Baseball Wire Photos

UPI/AP Wirephotos

Official authentic vintage UPI/AP Wirephotos/Laserphotos are very limited, normally only 1 sent to subscribing newspapers. Photos were black & white printed on electro-static printers, usually sent in 3 stages, Cyan, Magenta & Yellow, then combined into a color photograph. Photos are work products and VG to NEAR MINT. As a bonus, some have editor's blue-line cropping marks.

Scarce, interesting and snapshots of history, wire photos of major subjects and moments make for great collectibles. Wirephotos and laserphotos are no longer transmitted in this manner (stopping around the early 90's). Images are now transmitted from computer to computer with no need for hardcopies.
old UPI wirephotos old AP wirephotos Wirephotos images taken with low res camera so images do not do then justice. The wirephotos are nicer than in the image. Most wirephotos from San Diego Union Tribune archives and make nice additions to your collection.

Click for a complete listing and images of our UPI/AP Sports Wirephotos.

How long have sports cards been around ? (part 2)

The first important and mainstream basketball set was issued by Bowman in 1948. Other than a Topps set in 1957-58 and a 1961-62 Fleer set, there were no mainstream basketball sets issued until Topps started producing yearly sets beginning with their 1969-70 set featuring the rookie card of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who then went under the name of Lew Alcindor.

In hockey, there were a few sets issued in the 1910's and while O-Pee-Chee issued some sets in the 1930's, the real modern sets began in 1951 with the itroduction of Parkhurst's first set.

In racing, while cards go back as far as the early Indy car days of 1911, modern racing sets began in 1988 with the issues released by MAXX.