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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.
Each set sold by TCMA came with two large-format (5” x 3-1/2”) team-photo cards.
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.
Next, is an advertisement featuring the set from a back issues of TCMA’s Baseball Advertiser.
I found this photo of the set on SABR’s Baseball Card Research Committee’s site of a complete set box.
Complete sets sell for between $60 and $100. Here’s an example of a set sold through Baseball Hobby News.
Example
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.