Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
Roy Campanella was one of baseball’s great catchers. He played for the Washington/Baltimore Elite Giants in the Negro Leagues between 1937 and 1945 before moving into the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league system in 1946 as the team started preparing to break the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. Campanella went on to play for the dodgers … Read more
I was browsing through my Twitter feed the other day, and a fellow hobbyist shared a photo of a recent 1951 Bowman Warren Spahn baseball card they picked up for their collection. It reminded me of three things: Early Bowman baseball cards are incredible. The hobby underappreciates Warren Spahn (and pitchers in general). The image … Read more
Vintage baseball cards are incredibly popular, but people sometimes forget that baseball card manufacturers had to find original photographs to design the cards around. Here are some original photos of Mickey Mantle that Bowman, Topps, and Wheaties used on some of his earlier baseball cards. 1951 Bowman #253 and 1953 Topps #82 Mickey Mantle Cards … Read more
I mentioned the 1951 Bowman Snider in my article about the 1950 Drake’s Cookies Cards, and I showed that the 1951 Bowman and 1950 Drake’s Snider cards shared the same image. Since then, I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of the Bowman card, and many other people must be, too, since … Read more
I recently wrote about the Topps Mickey Mantle Cards We Didn’t Get. In the article, I talked about how in the early 1950s, Topps and Bowman would sign players to exclusive agreements to differentiate their products. In 1954 and 1955, Bowman signed Mickey Mantle, so Topps could not produce cards for him in those years. … Read more
With the NFL season kicking off and fantasy sports being as popular as they are, I thought it would be fun to draft sports card decades across the four major sports. I’m matching the four major sports (Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey) with the four major post-war decades (the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s). With the … Read more
Last week I wrote an article called Post War Baseball Card Superlatives. I said that the best looking three year run of post-war baseball cards was 1950, 1951, and 1952 Bowman. I think 1952, 1953, and 1954 Topps is the runner up for comparison’s sake, but 1954 Topps sets the run back too far to … Read more
In this article I’m simply going to go through a few of my “favorites” from the post-war baseball card era. Toughest Condition Oddball – 1969 Topps Deckle Edge I wrote an article about this set back in July, 2020. Toughest Condition Set – 1971 Topps Those black borders got scuffed in no time. Best Looking … Read more