The Industry

Upper Deck Promotional Sheet Checklist

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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.

1962 Jello Baseball Advertising Poster With Mickey Mantle

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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.

1957 Topps Paul Hornung Rookie Card Original Artwork

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Here’s the original artwork used as the foundation for the 1957 Topps Football Paul Hornung rookie #151.

The flexichrome, a full-color painting on a black-and-white photograph, is 3-3/8” x 4-3/4”, larger than the finished card. The back of the art piece has working pencil marks and adhesive residue.

The item came from the 1989 Guernsey’s Auction, where Topps sold a large portion of their archives.

1972 Topps Candy Lid Test Issue Uncut Proof Sheet

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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.

Signed 1953 American Card Catalog

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The American Card Catalog is a foundational piece of the hobby. It was the first major attempt to categorize all known American card issues under a common numbering systems. So older American Card Catalogs are highly collectible, but this 1953 copy is special because both Jefferson Burdick and Charles Bray signed it. 

Here are some later reprints from the hobby library (1960, 1967, and 1988).

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