Baseball Cards

Tom Seaver’s 1969 Topps Contract Extension

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Here’s another historically significant Topps contract, signed by Tom Seaver on March 8, 1969 – the spring of the year the Amazin’ Mets would win the World Series!

Mastro auctioned off this contract in September 2000 with the following description:

Not just any Topps contract extension, this one is dated 1969! Who would know that Seaver would finish with a 25-7 record fueled by a 2.21 ERA? Or that the Amazin’ Mets would win the World Series? Seaver got the Cy Young, and Topps got a two-year extension for the bonus payment of a whopping $75 or a gift – whichever he wanted to choose. The contract, signed and dated March 8, 1969, has a bold ballpoint Seaver signature that extends over two portions of the typing on the contract. It grades at least a 9.

The contract reads:

Agreement between George Thomas Seaver Player, and TOPPS CHEWING GUM, INC.

We, the undersigned, hereby agree to extend the term of our present contract, plus extensions, if any, for an additional period of two years or two full Baseball Seasons, as the case may be, on the same terms and conditions contained in said contract. This extension agreement shall be governed by the Laws of the State of New York.

A bonus payment of $75.00 (or as his choice an extension gift as offered by Topps in lieu of his bonus payment), will be due the player the first time after signing this extension that he is or becomes an active member of a Major League Baseball Team between May 15 and August 15.

Here’s a cleaner copy of the contract courtesy of PSA’s Tom Seaver AutographFacts page.

And here’s another extension contract signed by Seaver in March 1975. Lelands tried to sell it, but by the final bid of $838 in August 2006, failed to meet the reserve.

Happy collecting!

Fleer’s 18-Year Comeback Fight!

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A few weeks ago, after sharing an article from Baseball Cards Magazine about 1952 Topps cards, a collector wrote how much he missed baseball card journalism’s good old days. So here’s another excellent example about 1963 Fleer cards!

Rober L. Parker wrote this piece, which Baseball Cards Magazine published in their 2nd issue (Vol 1, No.2) in 1981.

“Reports of Fleer’s demise as a baseball card power in 1963 were, as Mark Twain would say, ‘greatly exaggerated.’…”

Happy collecting, but also happy writing!

Warren Spahn, an Original News Photo, and his 1949, 1950, and 1951 Bowman Baseball Cards

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Back in the middle of 2022, I was browsing through X (then Twitter), and a fellow hobbyist shared a photo of a 1951 Bowman Warren Spahn baseball card they picked up for their collection. It reminded me of three things:

  1. Early Bowman baseball cards are incredible.
  2. The hobby underappreciates Warren Spahn (and pitchers in general).
  3. The image Bowman used to produce the 1951 Spahn card was used a few other times.

Warren Spahn won 363 games in Major League Baseball, the most by a left-handed pitcher in the game’s history. He made 16 All-Star Games for the Boston/Milwaukee Braves, leading the team to three pennants and one World Series Championship in 1957, the year he won the Cy Young award. He had remarkable longevity, proven in 1963 when he threw against Juan Marichal in the greatest game ever pitched. He retired in 1965 with those 363 wins, 2583 strikeouts, and a 3.08 ERA. Spahn was a first-ballot hall of fame inductee in 1973 and, to me, is one of the game’s most underappreciated players.

In researching Spahn’s early cards, I ran across an original news photo that REA sold for $960 in the summer of 2019.

Warren Spahn Original News Photo – Front
Warren Spahn Original News Photo – Reverse

The photo’s letter of authenticity from PSA describes it as being from the 1940s and the one used in the production of Spahn’s 1950 Bowman baseball card.

Warren Spahn Original News Photo – Letter of Authenticity

But, that famous pose, featuring Spahn as a member of the Boston Braves (hence it has to be pre-1953), was also used for the 1949 and 1951 Bowman baseball cards.

In terms of early Bowman baseball cards, I’ve long believed that their 1950-52 run is the hobbies best trio from a single manufacturer. Obviously, a lot of collectors love the 1949 Bowman set, too. And the 1949 Bowman Warren Spahn’s bold red background pops and gives the card a great look. This PSA 9, which uses the same image as the Type 1 photo described above, sold for $9k in the Fall of 2021 by Robert Edward Auctions.

1949 Bowman #33 Warren Spahn – Front
1949 Bowman #33 Warren Spahn – Reverse

Spahn’s next card in this identical photo run is his 1950 example, card #19, which is a more complete replica than the 1949 example. There aren’t a lot of high-end copies of early post-war cards, and this 1950 Bowman Spahn example is the only Gem Mint 10 around. Memory Lane Inc sold it for $28k in their Spring 2021 Rarities Auction.

1950 Bowman #19 Warren Spahn – Front
1950 Bowman #19 Warren Spahn – Reverse

Finally, there’s Spahn’s 1951 Bowman card. Memory Lane Inc sold the pictured PSA 9 in their Winter Classic 2019 auction for $3,888. The same card, cert 02107600, was resold on eBay for $5,500 in February 2021. Memory Lane sold another PSA 9, more recently in May 2023 for $17,764. One PSA 10 does exist and appears in Donald E. Spence’s collection on the PSA Set Registry; I’ve never seen a picture of it.

1951 Bowman #134 Warren Spahn – Front
1951 Bowman #134 Warren Spahn – Reverse

Despite Spahn’s popularity being limited by not being an everyday position player on a small market team, his incredible accomplishments warrant any of these cards additions to a post-war baseball card collection, happy collecting!

From Mastro to PSA to Heritage: The Journey of a Signed 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle

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I noticed a nice signed, raw, 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card while perusing Mastro’s September 2000 catalog and wondered if it ever got graded. Yup! Heritage sold it for $132k in August 2021.

Here’s how Mastro described the card back in 2000:

The prized possession of any Topps baseball card collection is the 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card. In prime condition, its cost is dear for the collector who seeks the highest grades possible. However, in the real world, most such cards passed through young hands for years, with the resultant wear that is necessary in creating the value for the very scarce high condition examples. This 1952 Topps Mantle, with rounded corners and creases, is an example of a card that LOOKS like a vintage card almost 50 years old. With that said, the card does have good color and an unmarred image of Mantle. In addition, the great Yankee slugger has graced the card with an ink signature which grades 8.5/9. The most sought afterTopps card, signed by Mickey Mantle, a perfect combination. LOA.

Here’s a nicer photo of the front and back of the card slabbed, as scanned by Heritage.

This is their description of the card:

The Mick leaves his mark…

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Signed #311 PSA Poor 1, Auto 8. If a mathematician were to undertake the task of calculating the probability of this card’s existence in the collecting hobby today, beginning with Mickey Mantle’s unsteady debut in pinstripes, we would see this relic for the lightning-strike-on-a-lottery-winner that it is. Though the Mick now stands near the pinnacle of the baseball pantheon, he might just as easily have fallen into anonymity had he not heeded his father’s advice to soldier on after early failures in Joe DiMaggio’s shadow.

Mantle’s early departure from the Majors alone might have deleted his number 311 card from the Topps company’s late season printing run of the rare and coveted high number series, and surely would have left little interest in having one autographed by a Yankee drop-out if its production continued. But, as it stands, this most famous baseball card of the post-war era remains painfully scarce despite the elite status of its subject. Planning miscues for the fledgling Topps company delayed the release of the final 1952 baseball series until far too late in the season, the packs made available to only a small fragment of American geography, and for a very limited time. Hundreds of cases were left to languish in a warehouse until the need for storage space was solved by a burial at sea of the obsolete stock.

This brings us to the final twist of fate. Today, there’s not a living legend who hasn’t autographed hundreds if not thousands of rookie cards. As a collecting subgenre, signed trading cards has never been more popular. But this hobby advancement was in its infancy when the Mick succumbed to liver failure in 1995. Only fourteen signed examples of this card appear in the PSA population.

Oddly, that population lists only the grade of the card itself, and not that of the autograph, and this is one of three listed at a Poor 1 assessment. Six are simply “Authentic.” While the significant edge and corner wear validate the grade, the image area is a beauty, far better than the technical rating. The autograph itself is applied in 8/10 blue ballpoint vertically, which proves to be the ideal position, making use of the largest area of blank space the obverse of this important relic affords. A wonderful autographed example of the hobby’s post-war trading card king. Encapsulated by PSA, Poor 1 Auto 8.

Today, there are 20 signed 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards in PSA’s signed Pop Report.

Happy Collecting!

An Extremely Rare 1950 Royal Pudding Salesman’s Booklet

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The rarest of the rare — here’s a 1950 Royal Pudding salesman’s booklet. It’s the only example I’ve ever seen and was available in an April 2003 auction catalog.

This is an accordion-style booklet containing 11 highly desirable trading cards produced by Royal Desserts during the early 1950’s. The “Royal Pudding” cards (listed as F219 in the American Card Catalog) are super-scarce in their own right. Veteran collectors consider themselves lucky whenever they find a single example from the series, most often at the National Convention or similar large venue. Due to their method of distribution as box panels, the cards are usually in rough shape when they do surface. They’re all tough, and every item in the set is a “key.” The offered mini-collection is even rarer than an assembly of high-grade singles. Carried outside the company only by sales representatives, a few booklets like this one were presented to favored contacts. When folded, the 4-1/4″ × 5″ booklet’s cover only hints at the remarkable contents: “23 New Stars to Help You Crown Your Royal Sales.” Opening the small volume reveals a gallery of nearly perfect Royals, including numbers 1-14 and 16 picturing baseball subjects and 1-6 depicting film stars. (The actual cards total 21 by our count, but the company must have felt its gelatin spoon and batting tips offers, also featured on the booklet’s pages, qualified as additional ‘stars.) Fully unfolded, a long slogan emerges above the cards to act as a display advertisement in banner form. The baseball stars included in the booklet form an amazing roster. Hall of Famers Stan Musial, Pee Wee Reese, George Kell, Warren Spahn, Phil Rizzuto and Luke Appling are among the baseball luminaries whose cards appear on leaves of this booklet. Dom DiMaggio, Andy Patko, Bobby Thomson, Ewell Blackwell and Tommy Henrich are among the other ballplayers present, and Forrest Tucker, Farley Grander, Tony Curtis, Joan Evans, Ann Blyth and Allan “Rocky” Lane represent the promotion’s movie star category. Externally, condition is a well-preserved and gently handled Excellent, and individual pages approach Mint in a number of cases. The booklet is dated “7/50,” in small print on the back cover. This is an almost never-seen item, created to promote an extraordinarily difficultspecialty issue.

Please get in touch if you have more information about this item and happy collecting!

Collecting Bobby Thomson and The Shot Heard Round The World Game

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One of Major League Baseball history’s most iconic games was the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World Game.” The shot refers to the game-winning home run that Bobby Thomson hit off of Ralph Branca on October 3, 1951, to win the National League Pennant. The three-run home run gave the New York Giants the win over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the best of three playoff series. The Giants went on to lose the World Series to the Yankees in six games. But, the fact that this was the first televised game nationally, coupled with an epic homer and cross-town rivalry, made it legendary. There are many theories on why the name “shot heard round the world” stuck, but I think it’s because of the extended media coverage.

Russ Hodges gave the epic live description of Thomson’s home run on WMCA-AM:

There’s a long drive … it’s gonna be, I believe … The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands! The Giants win the pennant and they’re going crazy! They’re going crazy! I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! I do not believe it! Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left-field stands and this blame place is going crazy! The Giants! Horace Stoneham has got a winner! The Giants won it by a score of 5 to 4, and they’re picking Bobby Thomson up, and carrying him off the field!

Russ Hodges

In this post, I’ll focus on some obtainable collectibles of Bobby Thomson and his legendary home run.

First, collectors can obtain signed prints of the moment as it happened.

Bobby Thomson Shot Heard ‘Round the World Signed Image

Encapsulated playoff tickets are also available, though they’re pretty rare. Nineteen stubs, fourteen full tickets, and eight “game 2&3” passes exist in the PSA Population Report.

1951 N.L. Playoff Game 3 PSA Ticket

Bobby Thomson also signed baseballs with the game’s date. Sometimes, he inscribed them with “shot heard ’round the world’. Some are available with Ralph Branca’s signature, too.

Bobby Thomson Signed Baseball – Oct 3, 1951

Three different cards described or commemorated the game: the 1953 Red Man Tobacco #25, 1961 Nu-Card Scoops #480, and 1991 Bowman #410.

1953 Red Man Tobacco #25 Bobby Thomson
1961 Nu-Card Scoops #480 Thomson’s Homer Sinks Dodgers
1991 Bowman #410 The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
1991 Bowman #410 The Shot Heard ‘Round the World Reverse

Additionally, the 1952 Topps and Bowman cards of Bobby Thomson enumerate the season he had played leading up to this epic playoff game,

1952 Topps #313 Bobby Thomson
1952 Bowman #2 Bobby Thomson

Other artifacts, like Thomson’s game bat and shoes, can be found in the National Hall of Fame and Museum. His game jersey is part of a private collection, but the location of the ball isn’t known. However, the other items described are a great way to grow your post-war collection and commemorate one of the greatest games of the 20th century.

Happy Collecting!

Dick Perez’s Original Artwork For The 1989 Donruss Mike Greenwell Diamond Kings Card

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Here’s the original artwork Dick Perez painted for the 1989 Donruss Mike Greenwell #1 Diamond Kings card.

Ron Oser Enterprises offered it in a lot with a few other signed Perez originals in April 2001. I think the piece is 11” x 17”. I previously shared the Mike Schmidt, Bobby Bonilla, and Frank Viola cards from this lot on the blog.

Here’s the final card, followed by a side-by-side comparison.

Happy collecting, and don’t forget to check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!