Today’s piece of hobby history memorabilia is this 1936/37 Madison Square Garden Hockey Poster featuring Hall of Famer Mervin “Red” Dutton of the New York American Hockey Club.
Sotheby’s offered the piece in their March 1993 catalog. It shows the schedule of events at the Garden in November 1936, highlighting the New York Americans match to open the season on November 12th against the Chicago Black Hawks.
It was described as being printed on heavy stock with a blank reverse; “one of the finest hockey broadsides ever offered,” near mint condition. 11 in by 17 in. The estimate was $1,500-2,000.
A few days ago, I shared a post called Celebrating the Reverse – Card Backs With Jim McLauchlin. In it, I shared a fantastic article from the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine that jokingly presents the first quasi-annual Sy Berger Awards for Card Back Excellence (or Lack Thereof). Today, I’m doing something similar and sharing another fantastic piece from a magazine, this time from the official program for the 16th National Sports Collectors Convention in July 1995.
16th National Sports Collectors Convention Official Program
The convention organizers included five detailed articles from leading card and memorabilia magazines, and this one was from Beckett Baseball Card Monthly covering Cards That Never Were. Dave Sliepka and Theo Chen offered a visual look at what could have been in baseball cards but wasn’t. They limited themselves to active or recently active players and concentrated only on cards that realistically could have been produced. Given how popular custom cards are now, I think a lot of you will get a kick out of what they came up with. I’ll share the entire article at the end with the details of each card.
Ron Oser Enterprises offered these three 1961 Topps World Series baseball card original full-color artworks (card #’s 309, 310, and 311) in a lot together back in the spring of 2000.
All are from the “1960 World Series” specials. The full color artworks measure approximately 4″ x 5″ and each is accompanied by an original 1961 Topps example card. All are bordered by the artists color “wash” which runs into the artists board that the artworks are still attached to. Includes: #309 “Cimoli Safe in Crucial Play’ #310 “Face Saves the Day’ #311 “Ford Pitches Second Shutout Reserve $250.
Ron Oser Enterprises
Here are the final products:
Now, cards 306-313 make up the World Series subset, and I managed to find one other original artwork online; REA sold card #308 for $830 in the fall of 2013
Please let me know if you’ve seen any of the other four World Series cards’ original artworks.
In 1954 and 1955, when kids were ripping packs of Topps baseball cards, many were undoubtedly disappointed when they learned that they wouldn’t be pulling a Mickey Mantle card. And the reason why is simple, Topps never printed them. This article will explain why and show a few of my favorite custom 1954 Topps and 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle cards and the versions Topps has shared.
Topps didn’t print a Mantle card as part of its 1954 or 1955 baseball sets because it legally couldn’t. Bowman and Topps had such a fierce rivalry in the early post-war era that they each tried to sign exclusive agreements with the most popular players to differentiate their products. In 1954 and 1955, Bowman managed to sign Mantle. In 1956, Topps purchased Bowman, so Topps sets were more “complete” from that point forward.
However, even though Topps didn’t print a Mantle card in 1954, it didn’t stop them from publishing an example of what one would have looked like on paper stock. They partnered with Sports Illustrated Magazine in 1954 and printed a black & white Mantle “card.”
Sports Illustrated Black and White 1954 Topps Mickey Mantle
Sports Illustrated wanted to boost magazine sales and included 27 paper-thin cards in its first two editions. The first edition included stars like Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Duke Snider, and Eddie Mathews. The second edition was exclusively Yankees, and the 27 printed cards included a 1954 Topps-style Mickey Mantle card.
Sports Illustrated Magazine – First and Second Weekly Issues
Topps also, many years later, gave us an example of a 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle card. Topps was printing their own magazine during the peak of the junk-wax era, and in their third edition, released in the summer of 1990, they had a special on “Mantle Mania,” and the center-fold included a 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle style card.
Many other collectors and hobbyists have produced custom 1954 and 1955 Topps cards, but my favorites come from hobby pioneer Bob Lemke, who unfortunately passed away in 2017. On his blog, you can read about his custom efforts: “Ho-Hum … another 1954 Topps-style Mantle. But mine has a story” and “My ’55 Mantle completes Topps-style customs.” I think it’s fantastic that he re-used the portrait that he put on the 1954 custom on his 1955 Mantle, too, just as Topps often did back then.
Bob Lemke’s 1954 Topps Mickey Mantle Custom Card – Front
Bob Lemke’s 1954 Topps Mickey Mantle Custom Card – Reverse
Bob Lemke’s 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle Custom Card – Front
Bob Lemke’s 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle Custom Card – Reverse
Bob Lemke’s 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle Custom Card – Red Variation
Bob Lemke’s 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle Custom Card – Green Variation
I’m sure that many Mantle collectors are bummed that Bowman had the exclusive contract to print his cards in 1954 and 1955. But their pocketbooks must be thankful; can you imagine how pricey those Topps cards would be now? Leave your price estimates down in the comments, and happy collecting!
It’s always a notable hobby event when original Bowman art comes up for sale, so I wanted to share this 1952 Sam Mele piece that was offered for sale in April 2000 in case anyone is looking to track them all down.
Ron Oser Enterprises offered this one, framed and matted with an example card. Here’s the full auction description:
Striking 4″ × 6 1/4″ one-of-a-kind full color artwork for 1952 Bowman card #168 Sam Mele. The artwork has been professionally framed and matted (along with an example of Mele’s original 1952 Bowman card) to measure 13 x 13 inches. Early Bowman artwork has become increasingly desirable in recent years. Reserve $500.
I apologize on behalf of whoever wrote that description confused Mele’s 1951 Bowman #168 with the number of his 1952 Bowman card (#15), the subject of the art piece. Card #168 is Preacher Roe in the 1952 Bowman set.
So many of us overlook card backs in this day of hard plastic card encapsulation and grading, so I was super happy to find an article dedicated to them while perusing the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine.
Baseball Cards Magazine – September 1991
Jim McLauchlin penned an article titled “Card Backs,” in which he celebrated the reverse side of cards. He kicked it off by stating that he likes card backs more than he likes card fronts! Here are the first two pages of the article.
Card Backs – Jim McLauchlin
He talks about the plethora of data that has been included on them, chats about some growing pains in card back design in our hobby’s history before digging into the real story, the specific card back highlights over the past 50 years of sports cards that he jokingly called “the first quasi annual Sy Berger Awards for Card Back Excellence (or Lack Thereof).”
I thought the Set Awards were so well-researched and accurate that they deserved to be shared with folks who don’t have junk-wax-era card magazine back issues, so I’ll share a highlight card from many of the categories before sharing the rest of the article.
Best Cartoons: 1977-78 Topps Basketball
He noted their incredible variety.
1977 Topps Swen Nater
I’ll also note that Guernsey’s sold a lot of original card cartoon art in the 1989 Topps Auction.
Topps Basketball Cartoons – The Topps Auction 1989
Best Cartoon Theme: 1974 Topps Football
Leisure-time activities.
1974 Topps Ken Stabler
Best Back Photography
Anything by Upper Deck.
1991 Upper Deck Jose Lind
Best Narratives
1955 Bowman Baseball.
1955 Bowman Vern Law
Best Non-Use of the Word “Defenseman”
1990-91 Pro Set Hockey for using terms like rugged blue liners, crafty blue liners, veteran blue liners, and bruising blue liners.
Best Bios
1961 Fleer Football.
1961 Fleer Gene Lipscomb
Word Card Back Idea
Puzzles.
Worst Use of Stats
Classic.
Best Quote
1990 Score Football Johnny Johnson.
1990 Score Johnny Johnson
Best Trivia
1975 Topps Carlton Fisk.
1975 Topps Carlton Fisk
Best Prophecy
1958 Topps Sandy Koufax.
1958 Topps Sandy Koufax
Best Cartoon
1971 Topps Football Spider Lockhart.
1971 Topps Spider Lockhart
Best Overused Bio Material
He challenged readers to find a Joe Nuxhall card that didn’t say he was the youngest player in the majors.
Best Obscure Information
1990 Pro Set Football Chris Singleton.
1990 Pro Set Chris Singleton
Worst Use of Stats
1971 Topps Football Charlie Krueger.
1971 Topps CHarlie Krueger
Best Hobby
1958 Topps Stan Lopata.
1958 Topps Stan Lopata
Best Expansion of Standard Height, Weight
1963 Topps Dick Radatz.
1963 Topps Dick Radatz
Best Culinary Card
1974-75 Topps Basketball Louis Dampier.
1974 Topps Louie Dampier
Best We’ll Find Something Nice To Say About This Spud If It Kills Us
I thought some of you might enjoy reading about this motherload of 1976 Topps Football Cello cases that REA auctioned off in July 2000 (the auction with eBay that presented ‘The Wagner Card’).
At the top, you can see that the three lots included five full unopened cello cases, four full cello boxes, 43 cello packs, and ~2,000 loose cards. And as mentioned, 1976 Topps has Walter Payton’s rookie card!
More recently, BBCE had a case with one of the same product code (same case?) at the National in 2015 and one with wrapped boxes ($110k) at the 2018 National.
These days, BBCE-authenticated 1976 Topps Football Cello Boxes sell for $10-15k.
