Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
Every ’90s hobby magazine wrote a feature on Topps World Series cards; in October 1995, it was Trading Cards Magazine’s turn!
Here are the links to the pieces about Topps World Series cards that were published in Topps Magazine (Fall 1990) and Sports Cards Magazine (April 1995).
Happy reading and happy collecting!
I don’t often dive into pre-war sets—they’re not my specialty. But when I spot an elusive premium issue in an old catalog with a ‘hobby-library adjacent’ aspect, it’s hard for me to ignore. Here’s a 1934 Gold Medal Foods set and its original envelope from Mastro’s December 2007 catalog.
Per The Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, the set was issued by Gold Medal Foods (the parent company of Wheaties) to commemorate the 1934 World Series. It includes six members of the Detroit Tigers and six members of the St. Louis Cardinals. The cards are blank-backed and 3-1/4” x 5-3/8” in size. The key card belongs to Dizzy Dean.
Here’s an SGC-graded Dizzy Dean card that REA sold for $300 in February 2022.
The set sold by Mastro included nine cards slabbed by SGC, and three more (Dizzy Dean, Goose Goslin, and Joe Medwick) were ungraded and labeled “factory miscut” by SGC.
The set’s history is a bit complicated, so I recommend checking out these two threads on the net54 forums for more information.
Happy collecting!
Today, I wanted to look back at and share information from the early days of Topps as a card company, particularly the Federal Trade Commission decision regarding a complaint made against Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., alleging unfair competition methods in gaining control of the baseball card picture industry.
As you can see in the image above, the court dismissed the case on April 30, 1965, because there was insufficient evidence.
While the complaint uses a lot of legal jargon to allege a “monopoly in the manufacture and distribution of baseball picture cards in commerce,” as a collector, I find equally fascinating the reporting of sports card sales numbers from Topps, Bowman, Goudey, and Fleer.
First Goudey Sales:
Next Bowman Sales:
Topps sales in those years were as follows:
Topps sales once there were no Bowman cards were (“Baseball card gum” being packs with gum in them, and “Baseball cards” being products like vending boxes, cello, and rack packs that didn’t have gum):
And finally, Fleer sales figures:
I’ll pour through this 112-page document in the future to see what other insights we can glean about the post-war baseball card market and the impact Topps’ actions as a company had on its competitors. That will come in the future as a Part 2 of this article. But these numbers are our best insight into figuring out how many cards Topps and other companies actually produced in the early post-war era.
Happy collecting!
Here’s the original artwork Dick Perez painted for the 1989 Donruss Frank Viola #23 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 and Bobby Bonilla cards from this lot on the blog.
Here’s the final card, followed by a side-by-side comparison.
Donruss obviously did some cropping for the final card. Happy collecting, and don’t forget to check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!
A few rare cards have managed to trickle into the hobby despite Topps’ intention not to release them. These cards were usually caught and updated or removed from production in the proof phase of the printing process. Topps had to make set modifications because of player rights (like the 1974 Topps Joe Namath card), trades (like the 1977 Topps Reggie Jackson and 1967 Topps Roger Maris cards), or printing errors. However, in the case of the 1980 Topps Yankees Team Card, it was for another reason entirely.
Billy Martin played 11 seasons of Major League Baseball, winning five World Series championships with the Yankees and finishing his career as a .257 hitter with 64 home runs and 333 RBIs.
But, it was Martin’s behavior as a manager who was often fired amid a scandal that led to the 1980 Topps Yankees Team Card proof.
You see, Martin’s first stint as Yankees Manager (after having already been the manager of the Twins, Tigers, and Rangers) was from 1975-1978. He resigned for health reasons in July of 1978, but he was probably going to be fired for cause if he hadn’t. After a lot more drama (which you can read about on Martin’s Wikipedia page), Steinbrenner brought Martin back as manager in June of 1979 to finish out that year after the Yankees’ slow start under manager Bob Lemon. Martin closed out the 1979 season with a 55-40 record. However, he was fired again in October 1979 for punching out a marshmallow salesman, which you can read about in a Lodi News-Sentinel article from October 31, 1979.
Unfortunately for Topps, in October of 1979, they were already in the middle of the 1980 set’s production. However, they were probably only in the proofing phase because all of the known examples of the Yankees Team card with Billy Martin on it have blank backs.
By the time Topps issued the 1980 set, Martin had already been replaced on the card by rookie manager Dick Howser.
Now, there have only been a handful of public sales of Billy Martin’s 1980 Topps Yankees Team card.
In December 2003, Lelands auctioned off an uncut proof sheet with the Billy Martin variation. Bidders didn’t meet the reserve on this auction, but the description said the sheet was stamped “August 1989 Topps Auction NYC” on the back, referring to the famous Guernsey’s auction full of items from the Topps Archives; I’ve included a photo from that catalog showing the 1980 Topps baseball uncut sheets that were up for auction below.
In that same Lelands auction, they sold a lot of 78 1980-1983 Topps Archives uncut sheets for $926, including nine 1980 Topps progressives with the Billy Martin card.
A few years later, Robert Edward Auctions sold what appears to be a different 1980 Topps uncut proof sheet with the unissued Martin card for $406 in the spring of 2005 (you can see a corner is missing on Leland’s sheet but not on this one).
Finally, the last public sale of a 1980 Topps Yankees Team card with Billy Martin listed as the manager was from a 2016 REA auction lot of eight 1980-1984 Topps proof cards. The lot included a black-only and blackless progressive proof and sold for $1080.
You can find a few more examples shared on vintage sports card forums. As far as we know, the card only exists as a blank-backed proof and never made it into packs. So, it’s not a variation I would say is needed for a complete set; it’s just an unpublished proof. But that’s not to say the card doesn’t have a great story and isn’t a great card to own. Happy collecting!
PS: Martin went on to manage the Athletics from 1980-1982 and returned to manage the Yankees in 1983, 1985, and 1988.
Baseball Cards Magazine set the standard for hobby writing; here’s a piece by Tom Lamarre, published in December 1986, about the 1961 Fleer Baseball Greats set.
While Set Registry competition has driven up the prices of high-grade examples for some of the set’s key cards, complete raw sets in decent condition remain surprisingly affordable.
For example, Huggins and Scott sold an Ex to Ex-Mt near set of 152/154 cards for $390 in December 2023.
And Collect Auctions sold a similarly conditioned complete set for $566 in March 2022.
Happy collecting!
If you feel priced out of some of the more popular post-war baseball sets, consider collecting the 1952 Wheaties Baseball Player subset. The 1952 Wheaties set has 30 athletes across many supports, but just ten from professional baseball. However, each player has two cards, a portrait, and an action drawing, meaning there are 20 baseball cards to collect.
Each panel, the back of a Wheaties box, featured a variety of cards. Individually, the cards are 2’’ x 2-3/4’’ and have blank backs. The drawings are blue on an orange background with an ivory/white border. Under the picture are the player’s name, position, and team.
Many publications say the borders are rounded, and they are if you look at the white border. However, grading companies like PSA seem to grade them inconsistently. High-grade variants exist with borders cut off in squares, with rounded borders including a blue background, and rounded borders at the white edge. Because of this, I’d recommend focusing on authenticity and eye appeal and disregarding the numerical grade.
The key card of the set is Ted Williams, but none of the ten players are commons:
PSA has graded over 3,300 1952 Wheaties cards across all 30 trading cards. The baseball players average well under 100 combined between both their Action and Portrait cards. Williams has the most, with 162 Action and 150 Portrait cards (in February 2025). George Kell has the fewest graded examples, with 21 Action and 40 Portrait cards.
Mid-grade examples of Ted Williams cards have shot up in recent years, but most other cards can be picked up for ~$50 on average.
Wrapping up, the 1952 Wheaties baseball subset is a visually appealing 20-card series that, with some patience, remains financially accessible for collectors seeking a graded set. Featuring a distinct design unlike the major releases of its time, these cards make a fantastic addition to any collection.
Do you collect any other 1950s baseball sets? I’d love to hear about them in the comments—happy collecting!
PS: Be careful if you’re buying raw copies. The Standard Catalog mentions that the set was extensively counterfeited around 2002.