John – Page 2 – Post War Cards

The 1954 Blue Ribbon Set is a CFL Card Treasure

December 15, 2024 by John

Andy Malycky is a renowned Canadian football card-collecting authority who has literally written the book(s) on them. He describes the 1954 Blue Ribbon Tea CFL cards as “the jewel in the crown of Canadian football vintage trading cards.” While it seems the hobby has established that they weren’t actually issued with tea but rather with milk chocolate candy bars, I don’t want to dwell on that detail. Instead, I want to emphasize what a fantastic set it is, one that, unfortunately, many collectors don’t know much about.

1954 Blue Ribbon CFL Set Overview

The 80-card Blue Ribbon team features start players from six Canadian Football League teams – the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Ottawa Roughriders, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders, and Montreal Alouettes. However, there were nine teams at the time. No one is quite sure why the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Toronto Argonauts were omitted, but the British Columbia Lions might have been excluded since they were an expansion team.

Anywho, each 2 1/4″ x 4″ card includes a posed player photo printed within a white border. It’s the first CFL set to be printed in color. Each card was a four-color colorized version of a black and white photo supplied to Blue Ribbon directly from the teams. So Malycky surmises that it’s possible the excluded teams didn’t supply any photos, and that’s why Blue Ribbon didn’t include them.

The backs had black text on grey stock and included the card number along with the player’s name, position, team, a bilingual bio, and a mail-in offer for what is now a scarce and pricey album that I’ll discuss in a bit.

The set is generally the most expensive of all the major CFL sets, particularly in nice condition. It owes a lot of its popularity to the fact that a lot of great American collegiate greats played in Canadian leagues at the time since they paid more than the NFL teams did.

The set included 20 cards from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, presumably because Blue Ribbon was headquartered there. Malycky said the cards were more available in Winnipeg and Toronto (which is where Colorgraphic printed the cards).

PSA has only graded 531 cards across the entire set, with the typical card returning as a four or five. SGC has only graded 38 examples.

1954 Blue Ribbon CFL Set Distribution

Again, I don’t want to dwell on the set’s name, but it’s become widely acknowledged that these cards have been mistakenly associated with Blue Ribbon tea. In his book, Malycky notes that research and interviews with folks who acquired the cards as kids have established that the set was actually issued inside Blue Ribbon Milk Chocolate candy bars.

Now, I don’t have access to these interview notes, and rather than focusing the article trying to convince PSA (the most recent SGC slabs just say “1954 Blue Ribbon”) to re-label a bunch of cards, I think I’ll move on to sharing the set’s key cards.

1954 Blue Ribbon CFL Key Cards

1954 Blue Ribbon #1 Jack Jacobs

As a charter member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1962, Jack Jacobs is fittingly the first card in the set. He was a phenomenal all-around player at the University of Oklahoma, where he was the starting QB and punter. He was then drafted in the 2nd round of the 1942 NFL draft. Jacobs is credited as one of the key figures in making the forward pass a big part of pro football, so it’s fitting that the back of his card shares that he “owns every passing record in the west.”

1954 Blue Ribbon #7 Harry (Bud) Grant

Today, Grant is most known for being the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings for 18 seasons, but he’s also a member of the Canadian Football and Pro Football Hall of Fame. Plus, Grant has an awesome card in the 1950 Lakers Scott’s set – his play with the Lakers is mentioned on the back of the Blue Ribbon card.

1954 Blue Ribbon #47 Bernie Faloney

Faloney was an outstanding scrambling QB considered one of the CFL’s Top 50 players of the modern era. He was drafted by the 49ers and offered a $9k contract, but the Edmonton Eskimos offered him $12.5k – plus the Canadian dollar was worth 10% more than the USD at the time. He was elected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1974.

1954 Blue Ribbon #48 Jack Parker

Parker was another great all-around player who finished his college career at Mississippi State. He was drafted by both the New York Giants and Edmonton Eskimos, and despite the Giants offering more money, he decided to play for the Eskimos because his former QB coach had become the Eskimos head coach. Parker was a great runner and a strong QB, and he played solid defense as well.

1954 Blue Ribbon #51 John Bright

Bright is a Canadian and College Football Hall of Famer. He played college ball at Drake before being drafted by the Eagles. However, he decided to play for Calgary because he didn’t know how he would have been treated as the Eagle’s first black player. Bright was a great RB who was the CFL’s all-time leading rusher when he retired.

1954 Blue Ribbon #68 Sam Etcheverry

Etcheverry was elected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1969 after leading the CFL in passing from’ 54-’59. He famously threw for 586 yards in a game in 1954 – that record stood for 39 years!

1954 Blue Ribbon Photograph Album

The back of the cards called for folks to “Collect Picture Cards OF OUR FINE CANADIAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS” and to “Mount them in Our Blue Ribbon PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM.” It was available for 25 cents.

The album is incredibly scarce today. Classic Auctions offered the following example for sale in June 2011, along with a complete set of 80 cards; it sold for $5825.63. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down any sales of an album on its own, but I think they’d be valued between $500 and $600.

1954 Blue Ribbon Original Photographs

I don’t think any of the original photos that the teams sent to Blue Ribbon to colorize for the set have emerged, but a few team issue sets have been written about that share pictures that were the basis for the Blue Ribbon set, including the 1954 Stampeders Team Issue Action set, the Mid-1950’s Eskimos Team Issue Action set, the Mid-1950’s Tiger-Cats Aggus set, and the Mid-1950’s Alouettes Birmingham Portrait and Action sets. All of these photos are extremely rare, and I suppose if any came up for auction, they’d cost a small fortune to acquire.

1954 Blue Ribbon Significant Sales

Just because I said the set is a little under-appreciated and unknown doesn’t mean the cards are cheap. There aren’t a lot of graded copies, and as the crown jewel of CFL cards, demand from those targeting the set can be a little intense. Heritage sold both the PSA 5 Bud Grant pictured above in July 2014 for $621 and the pictured PSA 8 Jack Jacobs for $690 in January 2022.

I already shared that Classic Auctions sold a complete set for $5825.63 in 2011; well, a year earlier, in May 2010, REA sold a complete set with an album for $3818.75.

1954 Blue Ribbon Set Examples – REA May 2010

More recently, in August 2021, REA sold a near-complete set of 72/80 cards for $4680. Years earlier, in November 2005, Lelands sold a high-grade near-set of 59 cards for $4571.

PWCC sold a complete set for $3383 in January 2019, described as mostly being in Vg-Ex to ExMt conditions with a few lower.

1954 Blue Ribbon Set Graded Examples – PWCC January 2019

In November 2023, the following complete set was available on eBay, in Pr to Ex-Mt condition, for ~$5000.

Conclusion

I think the 1954 Blue Ribbon Milk Chocolate set is incredible, and I’ll be watching for complete sets and copies of the Jacobs and Grant cards, in particular, for my collection. If you’re interested in learning more about the 1954 Blue Ribbon CFL set or any other Canadian Football collectible, pick up the two volumes of Andy Malycky’s Collecting Canadian Football books.

The 1950 Pittsburgh Pirates Photo Pack: A Rare Team-Issue Set with 1951 Bowman Connections

December 16, 2024December 15, 2024 by John

One of the rarest team-issued photo sets, the 1950 Pittsburgh Pirates Picture Pack is a 26-photo gem, with several images used as the basis for 1951 Bowman cards. Kiner is the set’s highlight, but its original envelope is rarer and nearly impossible to find.

Mastro and Stenbach’s August 1997 Fine Sports Auctions Catalog offered this example.

The Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards describes the 26-card 1950 Pittsburgh Pirates Photo Pack as follows:

The player photos in this picture pack that was sold at Forbes Field measure 6-1/2” x 9” and are printed in black-and-white on heavy, blank-backed paper. A facsimile ‘autograph’ is printed on front of each picture, though all were written in the same hand. Several of the photos from this set were the basis for the color paintings found on 1951 Bowman Cards. The unnumbered pictures are checklisted here alphabetically.

A few past auctions have said that perhaps the set only has 25 photos, noting that maybe the Dillinger didn’t exist. However, the Standard Catalog includes it, and I found the following photo of one on eBay as part of a complete set that was listed for $160 in November 2024.

The eBay asking price of $160 is reasonable considering how few set sales I managed to track down and because Huggins and Scott sold a partial set of 20 for $172 in August 2022.

Also, contrary to the standard catalog, some auctions mentioned that the photos are on thin stock, not heavy-backed paper.

Finally, here are two photo pack images, Bell and Law, that were the basis for the ’51 Bowman cards.

I believe Pete Castiglione, Cliff Chambers, Murry Dickson, Vic Lombardi, Bill Macdonald, and Clyde McCullough are the others who match.

Update 16 December 2024: After I shared the article on my socials, SABR Baseball Cards shared the following photo of Pirates GM Joe L. Brown with a stack of the photos!

Unopened Packs – To Open Or Not To Open?

December 14, 2024 by John

Here’s another great mid-90s article from Sports Cards Magazine about the unopened collecting niche; this one from Doug Koztoski includes info from Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid.

Here are a few key takeaways:

“For every pack that is opened from a particular year, all remaining packs are that much rarer.”
Doug interviewed Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid, for insights; he was the Steve Hart (The Baseball Card Exchange) of the hobby then.
Murphy said that Wax was the pack of choice with unopened collectors; I think that’s still true.
At the time, a 1-cent 1933 Goudey Sports Kings pack was ~$600
The article highlighted that ’59 football penny packs were pretty common, but a penny pack from ’60 is tough to find.
A run of 1950s baseball nickel packs was estimated at $61,500 in the mid-’90s.
Fake packs were already very commonplace at the time.

Just A Penny – 1954 Topps Baseball 1 Cent Packs

December 13, 2024 by John

After REA sold a 1954 Topps One-Cent Wrapper for $480 last October, I wondered if there were any complete packs out there. Yup, here’s an example Mastro offered for sale in April 2006.

By the way, here’s the 1954 Topps One-Cent Wrapper from REA.

It turns out there are a handful of these packs out there, but the most interesting one of these dated varieties has Jackie Robinson showing on the back. REA sold it when it was in a GAI holder in the Spring of 2018 for $1,645.

The owner then crossed it to PSA before selling it with Memory Lane Inc. for $3,392 in May 2011 (this pack would have to be at least an order of magnitude more expensive if it came to market today)

Speaking of Memory Lane Inc., they have sold a few other copies: GAI 7.5 for $2,603 in December 2007, one in a PSA-8 slab (but without the one-cent designation on the flip) for $1,261 in May 2008, and another GAI 7.5 for $2,921 in January 2015.

And to satisfy my OCD, here’s a copy of the 1954 Topps One-Cent Dated Display Box.

A Rare Gem: The 1952 Shelby Bicycles Yogi Berra Promotional Card

December 11, 2024 by John

There are a lot of unique sets in the post-war hobby, but many more exclusive releases exist, not entirely fitting the traditional classification of an oddball set like individual promotional issues. These cards are usually only known by folks who collect specific players but not the rest of the hobby. In this article, I’ll spotlight one such hidden gem: the 1952 Shelby Bicycles Yogi Berra promotional card.

The card itself is 5″ x 7″ and features a black-and-white photo of Berra in a squatting catcher’s pose. Along the bottom, an endorsement in white script reads, “Ride Shelby, The Winner’s Bike, Sincerely, Yogi Berra.” The back is blank.

The following example currently sits in the current #1 Yogi Berra Master Set on the PSA Set Registry

The date of issue on this card is conjecture. The first driver is the familiar photo of Yogi Berra that Shelby used for this card. Robert Edward Auctions sold a circa 1949 Yogi Berra Original New York Yankees (their propriety stamp is on the back of the photo) PSA/DNA Type I image that was used for the Shelby Bicycles promo, his 1950 Bowman card, and his 1950 Drake’s card; it sold for $2880 in August 2023.

Here’s the front and back of the Type I photo.

Yogi Berra New York Yankees Type 1 Photo – Front

Yogi Berra New York Yankees Type 1 Photo – Reverse

And here’s Berra’s 1950 Bowman baseball card.

The second reason the hobby dates the card to around 1952 is from the advertisements featuring Berra promoting Shelby Bicycles. While you will see many of them referenced to 1954 and 1955, Shelby Cycle Company only manufactured bicycles in Shelby, Ohio, from 1925 to 1953 before being purchased by AMD in 1953. One specific advertisement features the Shelby Cycle Company name (and a Shelby, Ohio address) and features an illustration of the offered promotion card. It was free, along with a 16-page catalog, to anyone who requested it.

Shelby Cycle Co. Ad Featuring The 1952 Berra Card

That advertisement, along with three others (AMF moved bicycle production to Cleveland in 1953, which is where Shelby is addressed to in the next three ads) and a PSA 2.5 copy of the 1952 Shelby Bicycles Yogi Berra card, was sold by Robert Edwards Auctions in October 2015 for $1320. The card was part of Al Johnson’s All-Time Finest Yogi Berra Master Set, but that was retired in July 2017, so I suspect he purchased it.

At the time of sale, that PSA 2.5 graded Berra was the only one that PSA or SGC had graded. Its sales history after the initial REA auction and I suspect the retirement of the Master Set, is fascinating.

Heritage Auctions resold the PSA 2.5 for $430.20 in November 2016. They noted that the card has a vertical crease.

Memory Lane Inc. then got its hands on the item in August 2017, but it went unsold with an opening bid of $300. It was still described as the only example ever graded by either PSA or SGC. But today, PSA shows five cards and two autographed cards in their pop report, while SGC shows a single copy.

1952 Shelby Bicycles Yogi Berra – Memory Lane Inc.

Clean Sweep Auctions sold one of those signed PSA-encapsulated cards in February 2022 for $775.20.

1952 Shelby Bicycles Yogi Berra – Clean Sweep Auctions

The 1952 Shelby Bicycles Yogi Berra card is a particularly significant post-war collectible. It’s rare, features a Hall of Fame Yankee, and is directly connected to a classic American company and a post-war classic Bowman set.

Jack Wallin’s 1979 Diamond Greats Baseball Card Set

December 11, 2024 by John

This 1979 Diamond Greats baseball card set advertisement published in the February 1980 issue of The Trader Speaks offers a fascinating look into Jack Wallin’s tribute to baseball’s icons.

First, Jack Wallin, a collector and dealer and later a Donruss photographer, produced the set, not TCMA. He focused the set on autograph collectors since each of the 400 players was living when he printed it, and he included home addresses for all of them. You’ll find a ton of signed examples across eBay and the major auction houses; for example, Leland’s sold a near-complete set of 380 in June 2021 for $4,041.

I presume this is why he printed the 2-1/2” x 3-1/2” black-and-white cards with blank backs; he wanted collectors to focus on player autographs on the front.

The ad shows that the complete set of 400 cards was available for $23.95, each lettered series (A, B, C, and D) was available for $7.50, and team sets were available for $2.50.

The set’s key cards include Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Stan Musial, and you can find raw unsigned sets for a few hundred dollars.

While Wallin wrote in the ad that all the players were living at the time of printing, a few died in late 79/early 80, so I’m unsure if a complete signed set is possible.

I’d love to see the original address list, so if you have an example, please e-mail me.

It’s Like Deja Vu-Hoo: 1990s Yoo-Hoo Baseball Sets

December 10, 2024 by John

I ran across the following promo for the 1993 Yoo-Hoo Baseball Legends set in the Summer 1993 issue of Topps Magazine. Berra had a promotional relationship with Yoo-Hoo dating back to the ’50s.

The ad covers most of the set’s basics, but after some research, there’s no difference between the design of the two series cards. However, the Standard Catalog says Series 1 had Yogi Berra, Joe Morgan, Duke Snider, Steve Garvey, Jim Rice, Bob Feller, Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Gaylord Perry, and Graig Nettles while Series 2 had Johny Bench, Lou Brock, Stan Musial, Willie McCovey, White Ford, Phil Rizzuto, Tom Seaver, Willie Stargell, Brooks Robinson, and Al Kaline.

There was another ’90s Yoo-Hoo set issued in conjunction with Rawlings in 1994.

Rawlings sponsored the Gold Glove award, so the set features past winners. The set is relatively common, but apparently, Yaz signed a few copies that were randomly inserted, though I haven’t found a copy, and apparently, they weren’t certified on the card in any way. BaseballCardPedia wrote that the 1994 set was released in two, 10-card series consisting of eight player cards and two fact cards which is backed up by this piece I found on eBay.

Also, note that since the set’s weren’t licensed so all the team logos were airbrushed out.