1961 Topps #566 Paul Richards All-Star SCARCE HIGH # (Orioles)

1952 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values

1952 is often thought of as Topps 1st baseball card set, but it was not.
Topps issued several smaller baseball card sets prior to their huge 1952 set.
Topps buzz word was "BIGGER is BETTER" for their 1952 Topps set which Topps described as: "GIANT IN BOTH SIZE and NUMBER of CARDS" (407).

Key card in the 1952 Topps set is #311 MICKEY MANTLE. Often called Mickey Mantle's Rookie card - BUT IT IS NOT. That honor goes to his 1951 Bowman.
1952 Topps "High Numbers" (#311-#407), are very, very scarce with an interesting story:
This HUGE set was released in series weeks apart. By the last (6th) series, baseball season was over and football starting. Candy shops had plenty of baseball cards from earlier series so most cancelled their orders for the last series creating the scarcity.

Adding interest is how Topps disposed of the now un-needed cards including THOUSANDS of 1952 Topps MICKEY MANTLE's. They dumped them into the Atlantic Ocean like most of New York's trash in those days.

1952 Topps Baseball card checklist, values and prices.

1974 Topps Stamps
Checklist & Values

1974 Topps Stamps set had (240) 1x1-1/2 inch stamps, 10/team. Issued in 12-stamp panels in diff. combos of rows for 24 DIFFERENT panels in a complete 1974 Topps Stamps PANEL set.

NOTE: Your favorite may be on 2 different panels !!!
Set suffers from HORRIBLE centering and bad perforations. 1969/1974 Topps stamps are very similar except: 1974's oval vs 1969's banner.

1974 Topps Mini-Albums - seen - perhaps not released.

PACKED! Ryan, Aaron, Bench... With Pete Rose and seldom seen Winfield & Parker rookies.

1974 Topps Baseball Stamps

1961 Topps Baseball Stamps

1962 Topps Baseball Stamps

1969 Topps Baseball Stamps

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.

1961 Topps #566 Paul Richards All-Star SCARCE HIGH # (Orioles)

1952 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values

1974 Topps Stamps Checklist & Values

1977 Topps Cloth Stickers Checklist & Values

1952 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values

1974 Topps Stamps
Checklist & Values

1977 Topps Cloth Stickers
Checklist & Values