1964 Topps Stand-Ups/Standups - Jim Gentile (Kansas City A's)

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.

Autographed/Signed Team Baseball inventory

Topps Vault & Proofs

Auctioneer Guernsey's went thru Topps offices gathering over 3,000 items for the auction. Topps spokesman reported auction sales of OVER $1.5 million !!! Additional sales were made from a mail-only auction. Collector Keith Olbermann, at the auction, described it as an archaeological dig.

Topps archive material continued to accumulate after the auction ending up with another treasure of over 250,000 transparencies, uncut sheets, color separations, art, photos, slides, proof sheets & wrappers, canceled checks, contracts and one-of-a-kind items to sell.

Topps Vault, Proofs & Blank-Backs

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.

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.

1964 Topps Stand-Ups/Standups - Jim Gentile (Kansas City A's)

Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs

Topps Vault & Proofs

1952 Topps Baseball Cards Checklist & Values

1952 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values