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.
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.
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.
Click for complete
Topps Vault, Proofs & Blank-Backs
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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1955 Topps All-American Football Checklist & Values
In 1955, college football was much more popular than the NFL. Topps response
was the 100 card 1955 Topps All-American Football card set. Topps first major
football issue featured the greatest college players from first half of the 20th century.
The 1955 Topps All-American football card set was issued in 1-card penny
packs, 9-card nickel packs and 22-card cello packs with tons of rookies
& stars including rookie card of former Supreme Court Justice Whizzer White.
TOP ROOKIES: The Four Horseman, Whizzer White, Fats Henry, Doc Blanchard,
Don Hutson, Amos Stagg, Tom Harmon, Ernie Nevers ...
TOP STARS: Knute Rockne, Jim Thorpe, Sammy Baugh, Red Grange, Otto Graham ...
Click for complete
1955 Topps All-American Football cards checklist, values and prices.
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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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