Bowman

10 Original Mickey Mantle Photos Used For His Early Bowman, Topps, and Wheaties Baseball Cards

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Vintage baseball cards are incredibly popular, but people sometimes forget that baseball card manufacturers had to find original photographs to design the cards around. Here are some original photos of Mickey Mantle that Bowman, Topps, and Wheaties used on some of his earlier baseball cards.

1951 Bowman #253 and 1953 Topps #82 Mickey Mantle Cards

1951 Bowman and 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle Original Photograph
1951 Bowman #253 Mickey Mantle
1953 Topps #82 Mickey Mantle

1951 Wheaties Mickey Mantle

1951 Wheaties Mickey Mantle Original Photograph
1951 Wheaties #G Mickey Mantle

1952 Bowman #101 Mickey Mantle

1952 Bowman Mickey Mantle Original Photograph
1952 Bowman #101 Mickey Mantle

1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Original Photograph
1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle

1954 Bowman #65 Mickey Mantle

1954 Bowman Mickey Mantle Original Photograph
1954 Bowman #65 Mickey Mantle

1956 Topps #135 Mickey Mantle

1956 Topps Mickey Mantle Original Photograph – Headshot
1956 Topps Mickey Mantle Original Photograph – Action Shot
1956 Topps #135 Mickey Mantle

1958 Topps #487 Mickey Mantle All-Star

1958 Topps Mickey Mantle All-Star Original Photograph
1958 Topps #487 Mickey Mantle All-Star

1958 Topps World Series Batting Foes Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron

1958 Topps World Series Batting Foes Original Photograph
1958 Topps #418 Mickey Mantle / Hank Aaron World Series Batting Foes

1960 Topps Rival All-Stars Mantle & Boyer

1960 Topps Rival All-Stars Mantle & Boyer Original Photograph

The photo of Mantle and Boyer was taken in 1957, three years before Topps released the popular 1960 Topps Rival All-Stars card.

1960 Topps #160 RIval All-Stars Mantle & Boyer

Happy collecting!

PS: I put this blog post together ~ three years ago and am republishing it. None of these photos are of items in my collection, and I don’t have good records of the auctions/collections I pulled them from.

Vintage Baseball Card Sales Numbers And The Topps Monopoly

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Today, I wanted to look back at and share information from the early days of Topps as a card company, particularly the Federal Trade Commission decision regarding a complaint made against Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., alleging unfair competition methods in gaining control of the baseball card picture industry.

Topps Chewing Gum Inc. FTC Decision

As you can see in the image above, the court dismissed the case on April 30, 1965, because there was insufficient evidence. 

While the complaint uses a lot of legal jargon to allege a “monopoly in the manufacture and distribution of baseball picture cards in commerce,” as a collector, I find equally fascinating the reporting of sports card sales numbers from Topps, Bowman, Goudey, and Fleer. 

First Goudey Sales: 

Vintage Goudey Baseball Card Sales

Next Bowman Sales: 

Vintage Bowman Baseball Card Sales

Topps sales in those years were as follows: 

Early 50s Topps Baseball Card Sales

Topps sales once there were no Bowman cards were (“Baseball card gum” being packs with gum in them, and “Baseball cards” being products like vending boxes, cello, and rack packs that didn’t have gum): 

1957-1961 Topps Baseball Card Sales

And finally, Fleer sales figures: 

Vintage Fleer Baseball Card Sales

I’ll pour through this 112-page document in the future to see what other insights we can glean about the post-war baseball card market and the impact Topps’ actions as a company had on its competitors. That will come in the future as a Part 2 of this article. But these numbers are our best insight into figuring out how many cards Topps and other companies actually produced in the early post-war era. 

Happy collecting!