Five Underrated Baseball Rookie Cards

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There are so many criteria one could use to call a baseball card underrated. A baseball card’s merit has a lot to do with the player’s popularity. But a teammate could have overshadowed the player on the card. Some play in small markets and don’t get national attention. The card might not be as popular because they printed too many cards that year, or the card isn’t particularly good looking. The bottom line is that underappreciation comes from a multitude of variables.

The five examples below are of some post-war cards that I find underrated in the current market. The players all had immensely successful MLB careers, but for some reason, I feel their cards don’t get the attention they deserve.

Sometimes collectors have a bias and see value where others don’t. Maybe growing up, my dad mentioned some of these players more than others, so they stand out a bit more to me.

Another thing to note is I’m not saying these cards are inexpensive. Some are still quite expensive in high grade. I’m just saying these are cards that don’t get a lot of attention.

1949 Bowman Gil Hodges #100

1949 Bowman Gil Hodges #100

As I said, underrated doesn’t mean inexpensive. The 1949 Bowman Gil Hodges #100 sells for between >$2,000 (up from $600-$700 in early 2020) in PSA 8 grade. The controversy surrounding not making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame until being voted in by the Golden Days Committee in 2022 has much to do with it. I would have expected more people to collect Gil Hodges cards for an 8-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion (2x as a player, once as a manager) who put up 370 career home runs and 650 wins as a professional manager. But there has been more chatter here since he got into the hall.

1969 Topps Rollie Fingers #597

1969 Topps Rollie Fingers #597

Major League pitchers don’t seem to have equal popularity as position players. Their rookie cards follow suit. Fingers was a pioneer in professional relief pitching and finished his career with 114 wins and 341 saves while being a 7x All-Star, 3x World Series Champion, and winning the AL MVP and CY Young in 1981. The 1969 Topps Rollie Fingers rookie card, in PSA 8, sells for a little over $200 (double from early 2020). In this case, it could be that 1969 Topps isn’t one of the more popular sets of the era, or that the card features three players on the front. Additionally, Reggie Jackson was his teammate and had a rookie card in the same set.

1975 Topps Jim Rice #616 

1975 Topps Jim Rice #616

Jim Rice is another Hall of Famer who had an excellent statistical career. He put up 382 home runs and won the AL MVP in 1978. He played his entire career for the Boston Red Sox, which should help his popularity. Other Boston greats may have overshadowed Jim Rice, though. The popularity of the 1975 Topps set (Robin Yount & George Brett) and the high population report numbers may also be impacting this card.

1981 Donruss Tim Raines #538

1981 Donruss Tim Raines #538

The 1981 Donruss set is not iconic or particularly eye-appealing. But unlike his Topps rookie counterpart, at least Tim Raines has the card to himself in the Donruss set. Raines is also a Hall of Famer with impressive numbers for a few teams. And it could be that he played for seven teams that hold Tim Raines cards back from iconic status, in addition to Donruss playing second fiddle to Topps. But this card is ~$150 in PSA 10, and worth about grading fees, $15, in a PSA 8 case. The Topps variant sells for over >$1k in PSA 10, and it’s a three-player card.

1984 Donruss Joe Carter #41

1984 Donruss Joe Carter #41

Joe Carter helped bring the Toronto Blue Jays their first World Series title while smacking almost 400 home runs. Additionally, he was a 5x All-Star. Joe Carter entered the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003. However, other superstars of the 1980s like Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, Ryne Sandberg, Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens, and Mark McGwire overshadow his cards.

Wrap Up

The real value in collecting is in the eye of the beholder; what is iconic to one person may be irrelevant to another. The PSA Set Registry drives monetary value and additional demand for specific cards. Regardless, these five cards deserve more attention.

Happy collecting!

From Bowman to Play Ball: Schmierer and Taylor’s 1976 1942 Play Ball Set

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A couple of months ago, I shared an ad for the 1976-77 HRT/RES 1947 Bowman baseball card set; Ted Taylor and Bob Schmierer rode that momentum and released a 1942 Play Ball set shortly thereafter.

Schmierer placed this advertisement in the November 1976 issue of The Trader Speaks. The 36-card set was available for $6.99 and had a limited run of 1,000.

At a glance on eBay, the cards look pricier than the 1947 Bowmans, with complete sets priced over $200.

I’ll talk more about collectors’ issues later. Happy collecting!

A 1939 Hillerich & Bradsby Advertising Display

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When REA partnered with eBay for an auction in July 2000, this incredible Hillerich & Bradsby advertising display featuring Cobb, Ruth, Collins, Lajoie, Sisler, Gehrig, Wagner, and Speaker was included!

Here’s how they described it:

Stunning large and colorful cardboard store advertising display is one of the most impressive and rarest H&B advertising pieces ever produced. Issued in 1939, in conjunction with Baseball’s 100th anniversary celebration, the colorful cardboard display with easel back features a front view of the then just opened Baseball Hall of Fame bordered by cameo portraits of some of the game’s greatest stars. Pictured are Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, George Sisler, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner and Tris Speaker. One of the two crossed bats at the base of the sign is a Ty Cobb model, the other is a Joe DiMaggio model bat. An illustration of two Greek columns has the year “1839” printed on both bases while the frieze above reads “These Members Of Baseball’s Hall Of Fame Are Also Listed On Louisville Slugger’s Honor Roll.” This is one of only two survivors of this magnificent display piece we have seen offered during the past thirty years. There is a very slight crease in the lower right corner which is mentioned only for the sake of accuracy, otherwise in bright, crisp, clean Near Mint condition. 21 1/2″ x 27 1/2″ Matted and framed.

Heritage sold the following copy for $7,170 in April 2010.

If you want to display a copy but don’t have that kind of money, replicas can be found on eBay for ~$25. Happy collecting!

MSA And Its Vintage Oddball Food Regionals

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If you ever decide to research regional food sets, you’ll come across the initials MSA on many of them. For example, the 1978 Papa Gino’s Discs baseball card set has MSA printed in small letters towards the bottom of the back of the disc. MSA stands for Michael Schechter & Associates, and in this post, I’ll share some information about MSA and food issue collectibles.

1978 Papa Gino’s Discs #36 George Brett – Reverse

Schechter was an entrepreneur who partnered with various Players’ Unions, so the team logos on many of these oddball cards are airbrushed out. It was cheaper to secure a license from this single source, rather than including Major League Baseball, for example, to include team logos (trademarked) on players’ uniforms or hats.

In an archived Baseball Weekly article, I’ve read that in 1977, Marvin Miller, the MLB Players’ Association president, signed an agreement with Schechter’s Tampa Bay, Florida, firm to allow them to license players’ likenesses. MSA got a 10-25% commission on deals that purportedly generated more than $100M for the players’ union. Later, there was a lawsuit, and in “1989, Schechter agreed to amend his contract, taking a 25% commission on licensing agreements made after Jan. 1, 1989, for the first three years, followed by a 10% commission over the next three years.”

1990 MSA Super Stars Ken Griffey Jr – Reverse

The majority of MSA releases were in partnership with the food industry. The bigger brand oddball and food issues that MSA helped license were Ralston Purina, Kraft Singles, Jimmy Dean, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Slim Jim, M&M’s, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut. Schechter also occasionally brokered deals with popular non-food brands like Sony and Sega. 

Hardcore hobbyists may also recognize brands like Buckman’s, Crane, Dairy Isle, and FBI food. Bottom line: If it was a food release without logos, MSA was likely involved.

1976 Buckmans Discs Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – Reverse

The back of a 1976 MSA Customized Sports Discs disc shows that they were available to advertisers with MLB players, NBA players, NFL players, tennis players, and other people, places, and things through MSA, Inc in White Plains, New York. The discs were manufactured through Gugler Lithographic Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

1976 MSA Customized Sports Disc – Reverse

While most MSA products were in the baseball market, some other MSA sport products include the 1976 Buckmans Football Discs and the 1976 Coca-Cola Chicago Bears discs. And for basketball, the 1976 Crane Potato Chips discs were also developed in partnership with MSA. 

Crane Potato Chips Disc

I suspect there are so many more oddball MSA baseball products just because the sport was so popular in the card market compared to other sports at the time.

And regarding oddballs, since most were regionally distributed, some MSA sets are far more challenging to find than others. For example, 1976 Crane Potato Chip discs are relatively common, while the 1976 Red Barn discs are very scarce.

Source information about oddball cards is already pretty tough to find, so information about a broker who licensed the cards, MSA, is, unsurprisingly, equally scarce. But from what we know, Schechter made a pretty good living for himself and the players’ unions by brokering deals to produce oddball sports cards.

If you happen to have other information or corrections to this article, please reach out to me. Eventually, I’d like to publish a printed volume and master checklist about the various MSA sets from the 1970s and 1980s.

Happy collecting!

Tracking a Treasure: The 1955 Bowman Salesman Sample Featuring Willie Mays

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I’ve been researching salesman samples for a long-form piece for quite a while, so I was thrilled to find this 1955 Bowman example featuring Willie Mays in Mastro’s November 1999 catalog. It sold for $1,093.

Here’s the auction’s full description

In the 1950s, it was the custom for card manufacturers to promote their next issue by delivering examples of the forthcoming designs to retailers in the form of these sample cards. Offered is an uncut strip of three cards with promotional information on the back. This is a rare 1955 Bowman baseball sample that uncommonly includes, as one of its three subjects, Willie Mays. The piece is in extraordinary Near Mint to Mint condition, as fresh as it was then. These items tended to get tossed around or discarded, leaving few in their pristine, original condition.

It presumably changed hands a few more times before being slabbed by PSA, and then it was resold by REA for $1,440 in the fall of 2015.

REA included this detailed description:

Presented is an incredible three-card salesman-sample advertising panel from the 1955 Bowman set highlighted by New York Giants Hall of Famer Willie Mays. This is one of three rare salesman-sample panels from this set offered individually in this auction; the other two also feature top-level Hall of Famers in Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle. (A collection of ten panels from this set is also available in this sale.)

Salesman-sample panels were issued for use exactly as their name suggests: Salesmen were provided these panels in very limited numbers to show and distribute (in person or by mail) as samples to prospective vendors to illustrate what the upcoming series would look like in the hope of promoting sales. The front of the panels appears just like regular-issue cards while the reverse features a short advertising pitch about the new product. The reverse of the offered panel boasts “the greatest line-up of major league baseball stars ever presented in full color pictures” and advises retailers to prepare for “big demand” by encouraging them to stock a dozen boxes or more of the new product. Complete salesman sample panels have always been extremely desirable and quite rare as they were obviously produced in very modest quantities due to their intended purpose of advertising only to vendors. The offered panel is extremely bright and clean, presenting as Ex-Mt to Nr/Mt overall (centered slightly to the bottom). Free of any creases or wrinkles, and boasting brilliant colors and crisp images. The reverse is entirely clean. This is an extremely noteworthy Bowman advertising panel that is likely missing from even the most advanced Willie Mays collection and of course would be at home in any salesman-sample panel collection or would serve as an ideal companion piece to any 1955 Bowman collection. Encapsulated “Authentic” by PSA.

PSA has slabbed three 1955 Bowman samples featuring Rush, Katt, and Mays. I ran across another one at last summer’s National in Cleveland (2024), with a $9,500 sticker price.

Let me know if you know the whereabouts of the third 1955 Bowman Salesman Sample featuring Willie Mays, and happy collecting!

PS: Since I’m writing a magazine about Salesman Samples, I’d appreciate any insight from anyone on the hobby niche!

Sal Maglie, His Rookie Card, and a 1980 Jersey Card Show Throwback

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This advertisement, from the February 1980 issue of The Trader Speaks, for the Central Jersey Baseball Card and Sports Memorabilia Convention gives us a chance to look back at a great pitcher, Sal Maglie, and some of his cards.

First, Sal Maglie was a dominant right-handed pitcher known for his fierce demeanor and sharp-breaking curveball. His tendency to throw close to hitters earned him the nickname “The Barber.” He found success in both the National and American Leagues during the 1950s, but most notably with the New York Giants with whom he was a 2x All-Star, World Series champ in 1954, NL Wins leader in 1951, and NL ERA Leader in 1950. He finished his career with 119 wins and a 3.15 ERA.

His rookie card is in the advertisement above, card #127 in the incredible 1951 Bowman set.

If you’re interested in graded copies, they won’t be too tough to find; PSA has graded 346 (as of April 17, 2025). Ultra-high grades are scarce, though, no 10s, and just seven 9s. PSA has graded eight signed copies, too. I wonder if any were signed at this show on February 17th, 1980!

This signed example sold for $135 on eBay in February 2021.

PS, notice the card show was advertising the auction of two 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards!

Happy collecting!

Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Bowman Giveaway I Overlooked

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I recently republished a piece titled Collecting Bobby Thomson and The Shot Heard Round The World Game, but I missed something! In the spring of 1992, Topps Magazine gave away 25 1991 Bowman “The Shot” cards signed by Thomson and Branca.

I found the following example, with gold signatures like in the ad, for sale on eBay (mid-April 2025) with a buy-it-now price of $124.99.

Happy Collecting!