1958 Topps #238 Bill Mazeroski [#] (Pirates)

Book = $ *BOOK*
Price = $ 29.95
EX/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.

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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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.

1993 Topps Finest Refractors
Checklist & Values

Topps went all in in 1993 with their most premium baseball card set to date, the famous 1993 Topps Finest set with RARE parallel issue REFRACTORS. With only 199 cards, 7 per team, the 'Finest' set only had room for the 'Finest' players !

Rare REFRACTORS were randomly placed in some packs. REFRACTORS looked exactly like regular cards unless you knew where AND how to look. Tilting a REFRACTOR in sunshine released a rainbow of colors, "refracting light" Topps scientists liked to say.

Current info is only 241 REFRACTORS were issued of each card making this parallel issue one of the scarcest. Collecting a complete set is made even more difficult by the hoarding of certain cards by collectors AND even major league baseball players !

Click for complete 1993 Topps Finest Refractors checklist, values & prices.
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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.

1958 Topps #238 Bill Mazeroski [#] (Pirates)

1954 Bowman Baseball Cards Checklist & Values

Vintage Baseball Wire Photos

UPI/AP Wirephotos

1993 Topps Finest Refractors Checklist & Values

1954 Bowman Baseball
Cards Checklist & Values

1993 Topps Finest Refractors
Checklist & Values