The Finer Points of Baseball For Everyone Instructional Booklets

Between 1957 and 1966, a series of 12 instructional booklets titled The Finer Points of Baseball For Everyone offered baseball insights and hints for little, junior, midget, and Babe Ruth players. They had copyrights attributed to Vital Publications, Inc. and later WM. C. Popper & Co. and were promotional products that provided advertising on the back for … Read more

Beyond Borders: Comparing the 1965 Topps (AFL) and 1965 Topps/OPC (CFL) Football Card Sets

This article’s journey began a few months ago in The Post War Cards Newsletter. In Issue 49, I wrote that the 1965 Topps Canadian Football League (CFL) set was criminally underrated. The cards from this release have remained relatively obscure in the world of football card collecting, overshadowed by their Topps American Football League (AFL) … Read more

Celebrating the Reverse – Card Backs With Jim McLauchlin

So many of us overlook card backs in this day of hard plastic card encapsulation and grading, so I was super happy to have run across an article dedicated to them while perusing the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine. Jim McLauchlin penned an article titled “Card Backs” in which he celebrated the reverse … Read more

True Mint – Mr. Mint’s Price & Investment Guide to True Mint Baseball Cards

I wrote about Alan “Mr. Mint” Rosen’s first book, The Insider’s Guide to Investing in Baseball Cards and Collectibles, previously on the blog – and had really wanted to get a copy of his second book, published three years later in 1994, but resellers on eBay and Amazon had wanted $70-100 for a copy for a … Read more

Collector Issues Part 3: Mike Cramer

This article marks the conclusion of my series on collector issues, which began a few weeks ago with my look at Mike Aronstein and TCMA and was followed by an article about Larry Fritsch. This week, I’ll be looking at Mike Cramer, who, as T.S. O’Connell wrote, “parlayed his initial foray into minor league cards … Read more

The Enigmatic Cincinnati Reds Burger Beer Sets

While researching 1978 Topps Burger King sets for my recent series about Topps baseball sets that year, I stumbled upon something interesting in The Standard Catalog – the vintage Cincinnati Reds Burger Beer sets. These sets, largely unknown and mysterious, seemed like a fascinating addition to the Oddball Archive. However, there’s surprisingly little information available … Read more

Player Cards and Yellow Headers: The 1971 Topps Baseball Rack Packs

There are so many nuances to collecting vintage unopened products that you need to be aware of if you don’t want to waste a ton of money on fakes, and another one that has been brought to my attention lately. Unfortunately, I don’t have any hands-on experience with this one, which has to do with … Read more