1964 Topps #442 Pumpsie Green (Mets)

Grade	NEAR MINT to EX/MT+
Book Value	$ 10
Our Price	$ 11.95 Add to cart

1964 Topps #442 Pumpsie Green (Mets) cards value

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.

1960 Fleer Baseball Cards

The 1960 Fleer baseball set contained 79 regular-sized cards honoring the careers of Hall-of-Famers like Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Ted Williams and more !!!
Fleer was prevented from using current players by Topps' exclusive rights, so they issued their Baseball Greats set using retired players, managers, executives and the two league commissioners. Luckily Fleer had their own exclusive rights deal with Ted Williams, who quickly became the most in demand card in the set. Unfortunately the weak card design and retired players made it a giant dud with kids and the product was not well received.
There are very scarce variations with Joe Tinker,Eddie Collins & Lefty Grove fronts, all with #80 Pepper Martin backs. They are usually found cancelled or hand-cut from sheets. Likely Pepper Martin's card was pulled due to contract issues. The variations are not considered part of the complete set.

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1956 Adventure cards

Issued by Gum Products Inc., this 100-card set covered a variety of subjects. Featuring mostly non-sport like military or wild life, it also had a few sports related cards. The most famous being Max Schmeling's card, removed very early from the set for featuring the Nazi symbol, making it by far the scarcest and most expensive in the set.

The information on back of many cards was somewhat spotty and sometimes wrong. Card #39 claims Yamamoto was shot down in 1953 rather than 1943. Another in demand and interesting card is Boston Red Sox Rookie sensation Harry Agganis and mention of his death on back.

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Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs (P2)

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.

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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.