1952 Topps Baseball 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.
Click for complete
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.
Note: You may be on that page right now. |
![]() Vintage Baseball Wire Photos![]() UPI/AP Wirephotos |
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Official authentic vintage UPI/AP Wirephotos/Laserphotos are very limited,
normally only 1 sent to subscribing newspapers. Photos were black & white
printed on electro-static printers, usually sent in 3 stages, Cyan, Magenta
& Yellow, then combined into a color photograph. Photos are work products
and VG to NEAR MINT. As a bonus, some have editor's blue-line cropping
marks.
Click for a complete listing and images of our
UPI/AP Sports Wirephotos.
Scarce, interesting and snapshots of history, wire photos of major subjects
and moments make for great collectibles.
Wirephotos and laserphotos are no longer transmitted in this manner (stopping
around the early 90's). Images are now transmitted from computer to computer
with no need for hardcopies. |
Die-Cut A special card that differs from a basic card by "Die-Cutting", cutting away portions of the card to create a special design. Most are serially numbered & limited.
Error Card Baseball card history is filled with error cards, many of them very interesting. Hank Aaron is on 2 of my favorite error cards. Aaron's 1956 Topps card action photo shows Aaron sliding home but it is actually Willie Mays not Aaron. Topps again goofed on Aaron's 1957 "reversed negative" card showing Aaron batting left-handed.
"Error Cards" are usually found early in print runs and often corrected. When this correction happens a VARIATION is created. Some variations are extremely interesting and very expensive while others are totally boring and you wonder why they were even made.
Extended Set Also frequently called Update Set or
Traded Set.
They are sets issued after the original release to update the regular set
with new and traded players.
Facsimile Autograph is an autograph printed on a card to show what the player's actual signature looks like. They are not "real" autographs.
Factory Set are complete sets usually in special boxes produced by the manufacturer. "Hand-Collated Sets" are sets collectors have put together card by card from packs.