1965 Old London Coin - WILLIE MAYS (Giants)

The 1953 Topps set is a collection of gorgeous portraits drawn by the leading sports artists of the day. Key cards in the 1953 Topps set include: Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays & Satchel Paige. Satchel Paige had his name spelled incorrectly (2 'L') on the card front.

As with all Topps sets from the 1950's & 1960's, 1953 Topps was issued in series, (#1-85, #86-165, #166-220 & #221-280) with the final series "High Numbers" the least produced, least available and thus the most costly. Topps and Bowman still at war likely accounts for the 6 missing #'s from the High Number series.

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.

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.