Used For

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.

Unearthed History – The Exhibit Supply Co.’s Original Football Photo Archive

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In August 2003, Mastro sold a treasure trove from the Exhibit Supply Co. archives: 60 mostly 8″ x 10″ photos used to produce the iconic football Exhibits. Featuring legends like Otto Graham, Marion Motley, and Y.A. Tittle, plus production notes and proof sheets, it’s a remarkable piece of football and hobby history.

Here’s the lots complete description:

A box from the archives of the Exhibit Supply Co. containing 60 photographs that were the original “art” for the production of football Exhibits in the 1950’s. Most measure 8″ x 10″ and average EX in condition with the usual editorial enhancement and tissue overlay. Leading players include Sammy Baugh, Charley Conerly, George Connor, Tom Fears, Otto Graham, Elroy Hirsch, Bobby Layne, Sid Luckman, Johnny Lujack, Ollie Matson, Marion Motley, Y. A. Tittle, Charlie Trippi, Emlin Tunnell, Bulldog Turner, Bob Waterfield and Tank Younger. Also included are production notes and a folded proof sheet for some of the cards.

I wish Mastro had included a photo of that folded proof sheet! Also, I believe the Exhibit football cards (W468) are dated between 1948 and 1952, but those details aside, I think the set features some of the most incredible photography of any set ever made, so owning the originals would be really cool!

Here are a couple of examples of the final production cards pictured above.

By the way, Mastro sold 342 original baseball photos from the Exhibit Supply Co.’s photo archive a few months earlier.

Happy collecting!

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

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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!

1952 Topps Baseball Type Photos and Crossovers

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The 1952 Topps Baseball set is the crown jewel of post-war cards. Driven by my passion for uncovering the original photos behind iconic cards, I’m building the ultimate resource for the photos used in this legendary set. And since many of these images appeared across other sets of the era, I’m including those crossovers too.

If you have any additions, please reach out to me via e-mail or on X.