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.
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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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Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs
Team signed baseballs were the thing well before single-signed
balls exploded on the market.
What is a "Team Signed Baseball" ???
Simple answer: A ball with XXX signatures of a certain team
for a certain year. What is difficult is the XXX.
Baseball tons of roster moves make it nearly impossible to
"Get Them All".
Generally, team signed baseballs from early 1900's had 10 to 15
signatures, the 1940's that jumped to 18 to 25.
Joyce Sports Research Collection (Notre Dame) says "signatures must
include only members of a specific team from a specific year, and there
must be some approximation of completeness."
Not concrete but to me a "team ball" MUST have ALL the team's
STARS (unless a rookie or in season trade) and in today's market
at least 20, preferably more, and the manager.
Determining Age of Team Signed Balls
"Official" league balls have stamped signatures of current league
presidents on the "sweet spot".
Starting 1934/1935 balls were produced by Spalding (NL)
and Reach (AL). Rawlings took over in 1977/78.
Have a possible team roster at hand, ESPN & baseball-reference.com
have great sites), decipher a few signatures then solve the puzzle.
Team Signed Baseballs Values
Pricing team signed baseballs is difficult due to subjectivity and
factors involved suce as: Signatures placement, quality, strength,
number of autographs, stars, age, team significance, and
eye appeal considering fading, whiteness,
scuffs, shellacking, staining, overall wear...
Team autographed baseballs on official league balls get higher values.
They are "official", made better, preserve better and even help in
dating especially with balls signed at "Reunion" baseball card shows
which brought together great teams of the past.
Facsimile Autographed Balls
1960's/1970's machine-printed "autographed" team baseballs were sold
at stadium gift shops for around $1.95. Easy to identify as
all signatures were uniform in ink, color, size and look.
"Facsimile" signatures are also often found on baseball cards.
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Baseball card collecting terms (part C)
Cabinet Card Were oversized trading cards featuring paintings issued
mostly 1910-1915.
Card Show is a gathering of dealers & collectors looking to buy/sell/trade
sports cards and memorabilia.
Card Stock is the material a card is printed on.
Usually paper-based, today companies play with the card stock and sometimes
it appears to be wood or leather or see-thru acrylic ...
Cello Pack is a card pack whose wrapper is see-thru plastic.
Usually the top & bottom cards are seen. Unopened cello packs showing
major stars and rookies sell for heavy premiums.
Centering is the balance of the borders: top/bottom & left/right.
On perfectly-centered cards, top/bottom borders match as do the
left/right borders.
Centering is presented as a set of numbers & directions and often included
with the grade. Perfectly-centered is "50/50 t/b" AND "50/50 l/r".
As centering gets worse, one number increases and the other decreases.
For example: 90/10 t/b is considered extremely off-center top to bottom.
The numbers add up to 100 (50/50, 60/40, 90/10 ...).
Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) A document used to verify legitimacy
of a collectible. NOTE: Keep in mind that COA's are easier to fake then autographs.
Common A card of a non-star player is considered a "Common" as
opposed to cards of a star players or specialty/subset cards such as
league leaders, teams cards, World Series cards...
Condition (Grade) Centering, corner wear, photo clarity, edges,
creases, print flaws ... all combine to determine a card's condition or grade.
Along with rarity/scarcity it is the major factor in a card's value.
Crease Defect usually caused by bending the card.
Hard to see, or not, a crease lowers the card's grade (VG or lower) and
greatly diminishes it's value.
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![1961 Topps #570 Nellie Fox All-Star SCARCE HIGH # [#] (White Sox) Baseball cards value](/jpgs/6/1961-0918b.jpg)