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.
1951 Bowman Baseball Cards Checklist & Values
1951 was Bowman's largest set to date, both in the card size and
number of cards. Thanks to the several major rookies, led by Mickey Mantle
and Willie Mays, the 1951 Bowman set is by far Bowman's most valuable.
Bowman again used hand-painted color reproductions of actual photographs.
The 1951 Bowman card fronts were very similar to the 1950 set, with several
players 1951 Bowman cards look like larger versions of their 1950 card.
Cards #243-#324 are scarce high numbers. The rookie cards of Mickey Mantle
and Willie Mays are in this series making them very difficult to obtain.
TOP ROOKIES: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Whitey Ford, Monte Irvin, Nellie Fox,
Joe Garagiola, Jackie Jensen, Jim Piersall ...
TOP STARS: Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Feller,
Warren Spahn, Duke Snider, Richie Ashburn & MORE !!!
Click for complete
1951 Bowman Baseball card checklist, values and prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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Team Autographed / Signed Baseballs
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.
Click for our current
Autographed/Signed Team Baseball inventory
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1993 Topps Finest Refractors Checklist & Values
Topps went all in in 1993 with their most premium baseball card set to date,
the famous 1993 Topps Finest set with RARE parallel issue REFRACTORS.
With only 199 cards, 7 per team, the 'Finest' set only had room for
the 'Finest' players !
Rare REFRACTORS were randomly placed in some packs.
REFRACTORS looked exactly like regular cards unless you knew where
AND how to look. Tilting a REFRACTOR in sunshine released a rainbow of
colors, "refracting light" Topps scientists liked to say.
Current info is only 241 REFRACTORS were issued of each card making
this parallel issue one of the scarcest. Collecting a complete set is made
even more difficult by the hoarding of certain cards by collectors AND even
major league baseball players !
Click for complete
1993 Topps Finest Refractors checklist, values & prices.
Note: You may be on that page right now.
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Baseball card collecting terms (part C)
Cabinet Card Were oversized trading cards featuring paintings issued
mostly 1910-1915.
Card Show is a gathering of dealers & collectors looking to buy/sell/trade
sports cards and memorabilia.
Card Stock is the material a card is printed on.
Usually paper-based, today companies play with the card stock and sometimes
it appears to be wood or leather or see-thru acrylic ...
Cello Pack is a card pack whose wrapper is see-thru plastic.
Usually the top & bottom cards are seen. Unopened cello packs showing
major stars and rookies sell for heavy premiums.
Centering is the balance of the borders: top/bottom & left/right.
On perfectly-centered cards, top/bottom borders match as do the
left/right borders.
Centering is presented as a set of numbers & directions and often included
with the grade. Perfectly-centered is "50/50 t/b" AND "50/50 l/r".
As centering gets worse, one number increases and the other decreases.
For example: 90/10 t/b is considered extremely off-center top to bottom.
The numbers add up to 100 (50/50, 60/40, 90/10 ...).
Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) A document used to verify legitimacy
of a collectible. NOTE: Keep in mind that COA's are easier to fake then autographs.
Common A card of a non-star player is considered a "Common" as
opposed to cards of a star players or specialty/subset cards such as
league leaders, teams cards, World Series cards...
Condition (Grade) Centering, corner wear, photo clarity, edges,
creases, print flaws ... all combine to determine a card's condition or grade.
Along with rarity/scarcity it is the major factor in a card's value.
Crease Defect usually caused by bending the card.
Hard to see, or not, a crease lowers the card's grade (VG or lower) and
greatly diminishes it's value.
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