Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
Some folks will say the 1952 Topps set was the company’s first baseball card release because the 51s were more of a “game,” ignoring the baseball cards that were part of the 1948 Topps Magic Photos set.
Whatever you believe, this article from the second edition of Topps Magazine is an excellent primer to Topps’ early baseball card days.
I love finding advertisements for items I have in the Hobby Library; here’s one such piece from Allan Kaye’s Sports Cards News & Price Guides April 1992 edition for the massive, 1000+ page Charlton Hockey Card Price Guide.
The advertisement mentioned the release of their third edition, but the photo is of the second, so I’m going to take that as “close enough.” Here’s the cover of my “hobby used” copy.
There certainly aren’t as many hockey guides as baseball ones in the hobby, so the fact that this one is so extensive makes it a must-have for collectors; look at the vastness of the table of contents.
A highlight for me is that the book contains more than sets; there are pieces related to card grading and counterfeits.
You also get a few nostalgic ads within the book; not much was “limited” in the early 90s concerning production.
Keeping the scans in numerical order, here’s an example of how they described counterfeits.
Of course, most of the book is the price guide; here’s how they showed those: the price movement chart was a nice touch.
The Charlton Hickey Card Price Guide also includes an excellent player checklist.
And here’s the back cover.
I ran across the original color artwork used for Whitey Ford’s 1953 Topps baseball card while flipping through Sotheby’s February 1992 Important Baseball Cards and Sports Memorabilia Catalog. It represented a quick flip from its sale in Guernsey’s 1989 Topps Auction.
First, Sotheby’s included few details, just that it was a full-color original artwork and that the lot included an example card in near-mint to mint condition. They described the original artwork as being 3 1/2 by 5 in.
But like I said, Sotheby’s wasn’t the first auction house to offer this Topps original artwork. It was first made available to the hobby in Guernsey’s Topps Auction in 1989, along with the original full-color paintings of Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Bob Feller, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella’s 1953 Topps baseball cards.
Guernseys included cropped color photos of all six art pieces in the front (page 17) of the catalog; here’s a scan of the Ford.
The specific auction lots were found later in the catalog. Ford shared page 72 with Jackie Robinson. Notice the expected $2,000-3000 price.
The Ford did a little better than that; it sold for $35,200. Interestingly, less than three years later, Sotheby’s expected the Ford to be sold for only $20,000-25,000.
To round things out, here’s the original news photograph from the early 1950s that inspired Ford’s 1953 (and 1954) Topps baseball card. Heritage sold this PSA/DNA Type 1 example for $1,920 in November 2017.
This advertisement from Trading Cards magazine in February 1992 is pretty darn interesting for its listing of “older” Fleer and Topps basketball sets. What item would you most like to time travel back for?
When looking at this, I had to step back from the fact that the company behind this ad is called National Sportscard “Investments” and that 1989 Fleer in 1992 was considered “older.” That is three years, but 1961 Fleer basketball would be an “older” set to me.
Anywho, here are some “nostalgic” prices that stood out:
Happy collecting!
It’s incredible how many card collectors catalogs there were in the early 90s.
If you’re a hobby library collector, what’s funny is that despite massive distributions at the time, most of these don’t come up for sale very often (but they’re not much more expensive than a few dollars when they do). I hadn’t even heard of a few of these.
Also, things aren’t that different today. If we were to try to categorize the number of marketplaces that exist today, it would be pretty huge, too. Just think how many Facebook groups there are for sales alone.
PS, this ad is a scan from the April 1992 edition of Allan Kaye’s Sports Cards News & Price Guides.
Here’s some unopened hobby history from the 11th Annual National Sports Collectors Convention Official Program, including a photo of three 1986 Fleer basketball wax cases!
I shared the pictures on the Facebook Vintage Wax and Packs group, and one collector noted that “$160 seems cheap for a 1986 Donruss box in 1990. Canseco was still $100+ and McGriff and Fielder rookies were $20-25 each.”
And while that’s interesting, another collector highlighted the picture with the early Fleer basketball cases.
The picture isn’t very detailed, but it looks like three 1986 Fleer basketball cases are on the bottom of the stack, with three 1988 Fleer basketball cases sitting on top.
The dealer threw me off a bit at first since, just above the picture, he said they would have a limited amount of 1986-7 Fleer Basketball and 1987-8 Fleer basketball wax boxes available at the show. FYI, the 1987 Fleer basketball print run was smaller than the company’s inaugural print in 1986.
The 1987 Fleer basketball case is white with a basketball outline on it and I don’t see the distinct design in the stacks of cases.
And if you’d like to add this article to your Hobby Library, here’s the 11th NSCC Official Program cover for reference.
The Gold Book of Baseball Coins by Jim Nicewander was the first work of its kind concerning the niche of plastic or metal discs picturing baseball players; the 1982 Edition, of course, has a prominent place in the Hobby Library.
Nicewander was a prolific hobby writer for years, contributing to releases like Trader Speaks, The Wrapper, and Baseball Cards Magazine, among many others. But this piece was birthed in response to a repeated multitude of requests for it. So Nicewander took advantage of developing the condition and price guide to sell items from his collection, writing, “All coins listed in this book can be ordered through 1981 at the prices listed unless market conditions force price changes, although all coins may not be in stock at all times.”
The guide is short, at 12 pages; here are a few examples from it and the back cover.
