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.
1955 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values
1955 Topps was the first of 2 years of horizontal card designs.
As with 1952, 1953 & 1954, cards were again a tad larger than today's
standard. A nice feature, facsimile autographs, again appeared on the cards.
The set came in 2 series, #1-160 and scarcer "High Numbers" #161-210.
Due to the contract battles between Topps & Bowman, Cards #175,186,203 & 209
were never issued. Topps eventually won the war, buying Bowman making 1955
the last year for Bowman cards. But the damage was done as Topps had to
leave out many stars including Mickey Mantle & Stan Musial.
There were a total of (15) Hall of Famers in the 1955 set !!!
Top ROOKIEs: Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax & Harmon Killebrew
Top Stars: Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn,
Jackie Robinson, Eddie Mathews, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra & Duke Snider.
"The Golden Greek" Harry Agganis, a popular 1955 Topps card, is a tragic
story, Agganis, a rising young star, died after his first card was issued.
A football star at Boston U., he turned down an offer from the Cleveland
Browns and became the starting first baseman. Shortly after he came down
with pneumonia and died of a Pulmonary Embolism.
Click for complete
1955 Topps Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
|
Autographed Gateway Cachets
Gateway Stamp Company has provided collectors well over 1 MILLION
authenticated certified autographs over the last 30 years.
Silk Cachets from Gateway Stamp Company
Even though a "stamp company", Gateway rarely dealt in stamps, going down
a new and creative road becoming one of the world's most unique secrets in
autograph collecting combining the best in art, color photographs, history
and autographs with their full-color silk cachet envelopes. Gateway's first
client was Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock with hundreds to follow.
WHAT ARE FULL-COLOR SILK CACHETS?
A "cachet" is a message or design on an envelope marking a postal event.
"Full-color silk" refers to the delicate material into which the
original art and photography are printed. After which each silk is applied
to the envelope, signed by the player and then officially post-marked by the
U.S. Post Office IN THE CITY OF THE EVENT !!!
WHY POSTMARKS?
The key to EVERY Gateway cachet is the postmark.The best way to mark a date
in history is with a postmark. The rules governing the granting of
postmarks GUARANTEE that NO Gateway issue can EVER be re-issued protecting
the value of the autographed, postmarked cachets !!!
|
1952,1953,1954,1955 Red Man TOBACCO Checklist & Values
Tobacco cards were instrumental in the start of the baseball card industry
but were pretty much unheard of since 1920. That is until RED MAN TOBACCO
got in the game issuing baseball cards in 1952, 1953, 1954 & 1955.
For just 20 cents you got a pouch of Red Man tobacco and one awesome
3-1/2 x 4 inch baseball card with it's tab (3-1/2 x 3-5/8 without).
Exchange FIFTY tabs and you got one free big league style felt
baseball cap of your favorite team. This made cards with tabs much,
much harder to find and values 2 to 10 times higher.
25 players from each league were selected by "Sporting News" editor
J.G. Taylor Spink. A Player's artwork with different backgrounds
was used year after year. If a player changed teams, new team name
& logo were painted over the old one. To determine the year, just
subtract 1 from the expiration date on back of the card.
The 1954 set had four variations.
Click for complete
1952,1953,1954,1955 Red Man Tobacco cards checklist & prices
Note: You may be on that page.
|
Baseball card collecting terms (part S-Z)
Series are groups of cards in an issue released together.
Example: Series #1 (cards #1-100) are released in April;
Series #2 (#101-200) released in July; and so on. This allowed
kids to easier complete sets. A side-effect was the creation of scarce
"High Numbers".
Short Print (SP) is a card printed in lesser quantity than other cards
in the set. Recent short prints are often serially-numbered.
Team Set is a group of all the cards of players for a certain team.
Test Issue is a small printing by a card company to see if
products are of interest to collectors. Some of Topps neatest items
are "Test Issues" like 1956 Topps Pins & 1974 Topps Puzzles.
Tobacco Card is typically from the early 1900's and were issued with
tobacco products, the most famous of which is the T-206 Honus Wagner card.
Traded/Update Set is a set issued after the original issue primarily featuring rookies
or players who were traded since the original issue came out.
Trimmed Card is a card reduced in size mostly to hide
damaged edges or corners. Trimmed cards have very little value compared
to the un-trimmed version. In some cases such as the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle,
even trimmed cards can go for thousands. The most famous 'trimmed' card
is the T206 Honus Wagner purchased by Wayne Gretzky. The card was actually
too large before it was trimmed down to size.
Unauthorized Issue is a card release which is not licensed by the
league, player's association or player.
Variation is a card printed by the manufacturer that differs
in some way from the normal card.
Wax Pack is a generic term for a pack of cards.
The "wax" came from a time when packs were sealed in wax paper wrappers.
Today it is still used for packs even though they no longer use wax paper.
© 1995-2019 "InterNet's Baseball Card Store" / Joseph Juhasz ... All Rights Reserved
|