Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs
Team signed baseballs were the thing well before single-signed
balls exploded on the market.
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Autographed/Signed Team Baseball inventory
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
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1974 Topps DECKLE EDGE |
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.
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Topps Vault, Proofs & Blank-Backs
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.
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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.