1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Baseball Card Set and Checklist

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Specs

Year: 1979

Title: TCMA Baseball History Series: The Fifties

Size: 2-1/2″ by 3-1/2″

Number in Set: 291

Overview

Some publications call the 1979 TCMA Baseball History Series: The Fifties cards the TCMA Stars of the 50’s set. It has 291 standard-sized cards with stars and journeymen baseball players from the 1950s. TCMA started making sets of non-active players since Topps blocked them from printing cards of current players.

TCMA took inspiration from the 1953 Bowman Color set in its design. The front features color photos within a white border (a pure format), while the backs use red and black ink to share the usual player information, a career summary, and statistics.

1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Complete Set

Each set sold by TCMA came with two large-format (5” x 3-1/2”) team-photo cards.

1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Dodgers Team Card
1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Braves Team Card

TCMA printed promotional cards for Fred Hutchinson and Vic Wertz; the backs of those cards have “SAMPLE” printed where the career summary and player statistics would have been.

1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Fred Hutchinson Sample
1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Vic Wertz Sample

Next, is an advertisement featuring the set from a back issues of TCMA’s Baseball Advertiser.

TCMA Baseball Advertiser – The 1950’s & 1960’s

I found this photo of the set on SABR’s Baseball Card Research Committee’s site of a complete set box.

1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties

Complete sets sell for between $60 and $100. Here’s an example of a set sold through Baseball Hobby News.

1979 TCMA Baseball History Series The Fifties Complete Set Sold Through Baseball Hobby News

Example

1979 TCMA Baseball #10 Ted Williams History Series – Front
1979 TCMA Baseball #10 Ted Williams History Series – Reverse

Key Cards

The set’s key cards are Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, the Dodgers and Braves Team cards, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, and Jackie Robinson.

Checklist

For a complete checklist of all 291 players, I recommend checking out the Trading Card Database.