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.
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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1934,1935,1936 Diamond Matchbooks
During much of the Great Depression, matchbook collecting swept the country !
Sports matchbooks started appearing in the 1930s, most issued by Diamond Match Company
of New York. Over the next few years, several series were issued with
similar designs; b/w photo of the player on front with short write-up
and stats on back. The player's name and team was also printed on the 'saddle'.
Please consider the following info as approximate.
1934's first baseball release featured 200 players, in 4 different background
colors (red,blue,green and orange) for a total of 800 different covers.
The set features plenty of Hall-of-Fame greats like Dizzy Dean and Mel Ott.
1935's issue was tiny with only 24 total covers (8 red,8 blue,8 green).
A third series was later released with 200 or more different covers (players/colors).
1930's matchbook covers appear to be huge bargains for collectors as their current values
are fractions of the value of Goudey and other baseball cards from the same era.
Click for complete
1935-1936 Diamond Matchbook Checklist and Prices
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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Are sports cards valuable ?
Like all collectibles, over time some sports cards go down in value,
others go up and some can even become very valuable.
Card values are based on many factors:
player popularity, scarcity, condition & collector interest.
A card can be scarce but without demand value may not be great.
Q: What are some ways to collect cards ?
* Complete sets by year & issue
* Cards of your favorite player
* Cards of your favorite team "TEAM SETS"
* Rookie cards
* Hall-of-Famer cards
* I even had a girlfriend that collected Don Mossi (checkout his ears),
players whose last name start with "Z", and the Brett brothers George &
Ken (she had a crush on George).
* "TYPE COLLECTING" (everyone should at least do a little of this !)
"Type Collecting"
is collecting at least one of each different "type" of issue.
On scarcer issues you can add a less expensive common
while on others you can select your favorite player or team.
© 1995-2019 "InterNet's Baseball Card Store" / Joseph Juhasz ... All Rights Reserved
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The 1969 Topps Stamps set contained (240) 1x1-7/16 inch stamps.
Stamps were released in both horizontal & vertical panels
with the player's name in a banner. 1974 Stamps, the name was inside
an oval. 
Topps issued a mini albums to hold complete 10-stamp team sets and
the back cover had facsimile autographs of each players.
