Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
I’ve been reviewing my Baseball Cards magazine collection from late 1992 and have been seeing Studio cards everywhere. Hello nostalgia!
Here’s the cover of the December issue.
And this ad was on the back of the October and December issues in 1992; I might need to pick up a few packs.
The September 1992 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine is special because it deep-dives into Upper Deck’s earliest years. One of my favorite things they included was this checklist of all the sets, but primarily all of their promotional-sheet issues.
You can read that they credited Don Butler, with the assistance of Jeff Kurowski and Nigel Spill, with putting it together for Sports Collectors Digest.
Here are two of the sheets pictured in the magazine.
Here’s page 5 of the December 1981 issue of Trader Speaks.
1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards (#144 and #149) for $200 each! The Gehrig for $50 ain’t too bad either!
And in case you don’t remember, here’s what those Ruth cards look like (both photos are from Robert Edward Auctions).
It seems like the food-issue category is getting more hobby love lately – so here’s a 1962 Jello Baseball Advertising Poster featuring Mickey Mantle.
This example was offered for sale in November 2000. It was described as a 28” x 33” thin-coated stock display poster heralding the availability of baseball cards with JELL-O Gelatin Dessert featuring the most popular figure of his generation, Mickey Mantle.
Vintage, empty display boxes just weren’t as popular as they are today when, in April 2003, this trio was auctioned off in a lot TOGETHER.
Included were a two-piece red and blue 1951 Bowman 120 Count One-Cent Box, a one-piece red and blue 1952 Bowman 24 Count Five-Cent box, and an incredible two-piece red and green 1952 Topps 24 Count Five-Cent Box.
The 1952 Topps box is particularly rare. It has a blue and white “NEW SERIES” label on the front pane of the bottom of the box.
Check out The Unopened Archive for more!
The Spring 1982 issue of Baseball Cards has a great article by Bill Bossert called Uncut Sheets Tell the Untold Story. He shares this incredible proof sheet for Topps’ 1972 Candy Lids test issue in it.
Here’s what he wrote about the set and sheet:
I hope that sheet wasn’t cut up. However, I did find this 1972 Topps Candy Lid Test Proof Willie Mays card that was sold by SCP Auctions for $622 on January 29, 2008.
You can see that Topps printed the Mays card on previously used stock, and there are a few other proof’s out there.
Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!
Here’s a one-of-a-kind proof sheet of 12 three-card 1961 Bazooka panels. It was auctioned off in Ron Oser Enterprises’ April 2001 catalog.
Complete boxes are really rare, too. Robert Edward Auctions sold this PSA-graded 1961 Bazooka Box (tabs missing) #19/20/21 in February 2022 for $4800.
Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!