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.
1961 Topps Baseball Cards
Checklist & Values
The 1961 Topps baseball card set had 587 cards (#1-#598 with some missing numbers).
In addition to the missing cards, 2 cards were accidently numbered #463
(the Braves Team card was supposed to be card #426).
1961 Topps set was packed with special "subsets":
League Leaders (10 cards), World Series cards (10),
Highlights (11 cards), MVP's (16 cards), Checklists (7 cards plus several variations),
Team cards, Special Multi-Player cards, Managers,
Topps Rookie All-Star Trophies, & Sporting News All-Stars
Of note - 1961 Topps were the first cards bearing the very popular Topps Rookie All-Star Award Trophies.
"High Number" cards (#523-#589) are very scarce.
The least attractive aspect of the 1961 Topps baseball card set
were the capless players !!!
Baseball expansion led to the problem when
Los Angeles Angels were added,
the Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins
and the Washington Senators got a new franchise.
Because of these changes, tons of players were capless
and looked awful. picture you 50 year old grand-dad.
Life was obviously tougher back then.
More 1961 Topps card info:
Card #1 was All-American basketball player Dick Groat
Card #2 was Roger Maris, right before his record breaking 61 Home Run season
Mickey Mantle was on (6) 1961 Topps cards adding to the sets cost.
Topps released 3 other sets in 1961: Topps Dice Game, Topps Magic Rub-Offs & Topps Stamps.
Click for complete
1961 Topps baseball cards Checklist and Prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.
Click for complete
1961 Topps Autographed baseball cards Checklist and Prices
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1971 Kellogg's
1971, Kellogg's second and by far scarcest and most valuable set,
contained 75 different players on 2 ¼” by 3 ½” cards.
The cards were plastic coated giving them a 3-D look !!!
The plastic coating also made high grade cards nearly impossible find.
Over time and the elements, most cards would curl making light and heavy
cracks very common.
As opposed to Kellogg's other issues which were available from the company as complete sets,
1971 Kellogg's cards were ONLY available one in each specially marked box of Kellogg's cereal.
The only way to complete your 1971 Kellogg's set was to pester mom to buy, buy, buy more boxes of cereal.
In addition to the 75 different players, numerous scarcer variations exist
with minor differences in the stats on back. In addition, all 75 cards and
some variations are found with 2 different forms of copyright on the back:
XOGRAPH ( 80 total cards)
@1970 XOGRAPH (121 total cards)
The numbers above may not be 100% accurate.
The "toughest" cards appear to be:
# 7 Alou (1970 Oakland NL)
# 28 Wright (Angles Crest Logo)
# 54 Johnson (Angles Crest Logo)
# 64 Fregosi (Angles Crest Logo)
# 70 Osteen (No Number on back)
# 2 Seaver (ERA 2.81)
# 41 Gaston (113 Runs)
# 65 Rose (RBI 485)
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Auction's most costly vintage baseball cards
The history of vintage baseball card auctions is long and colorful.
T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco cards have sold for upto $2.8 million in
auction. The "Holy Grail of Sports Cards", it's extreme-high auction
value can mostly be attributed to great PR and "auction fever".
It's not close to being the rarest baseball card and Honus Wagner is not
Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. Yes, the T-206 set is beautiful & special but
because of the # of cards and scarcities, few collector's try to complete,
which should keep auction competition down compared to say 1933 Goudey
or 1952 Topps baseball card issues.
BUT IT DOES NOT...
There's a story Wagner banned his card because he was anti-tobacco
but there are other stories about financial considerations.
You surely have heard of PSA and may even know that this card was the
FIRST they ever graded. But did you know that dealer (B.l. .ast.o name
encoded) admitted tampering with the card, perhaps having it trimmed
down to size, before PSA graded it so highly for the auction.
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Baseball card collecting terms (part H-R)
High Numbers - vintage cards were issued in the ‘50s-‘70s in a series. During the
baseball season, the largest number of cards were made. As the schedule
progressed into September, when there would be less interest in baseball cards
, Topps for one, specifically decreased production and hence much less product
was available. As a result, a scarcity-factor was created and a premium holds
for these first type of "short-printed" cards.
Inserts - special randomly-inserted cards which are not part of the regular set.
Many modern inserts are sequentially-numbered and rarer than the card sets into which they are inserted.
O-Pee-Chee / OPC - a subsidiary of Topps, this card issue was produced specifically for distribution
in Canada.
Promotional Card - generally referred to as cards issued to show what the product
will look like on release and intended to help spur future sales. Often called
a "promo" card.
Reprint - cards issued to reproduce the originals. With the current trend of
vintage reprints, the new versions have a distinguishing characteristic
evidenced by numbering.
Restored - a card or piece of memorabilia which someone has tried to return to a
"like-new" condition. A restored card is considered to be of very little
value.
Rookie Card - any league-licensed, widely distributed card to feature a player in
his first year of trading cards.
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