1972 & 1979 - HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS Programs

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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.

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.

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.

1972 & 1979 - HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS Programs - Lot of (2)

Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs

Auction's Rarest Vintage Baseball Cards

Auction's most costly vintage baseball cards