1953 Bowman Baseball Card set

November 12, 2009
1953bowman

1953 Bowman Color Wax Wrapper

The 1953 Bowman Baseball Card set was Bowman Gum’s answer to Topps Giant Sized cards from 1952.  The 1953 Bowman Baseball Cards, with their beautiful color images are my personal favorite.  No names, captions or team logos – just great pictures.  1953 Bowman cards were a great leap ahead in the evolution of baseball cards and demonstrated the result of a competitive marketplace.

The 1953 Bowman Baseball Cards feature the multi-player cards and the first action shot – #33 Pee Wee Reese.  The Musial card is his last card until 1958.  The notable missing stars are Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, who were under contract to Topps, and Ted Williams, who was flying jets in Korea.

There were 160 cards in the 1953 Bowman set and rumor has it that the company spent too much money producing the cards.  In response, the last 64 cards were issued in the form of the 1953 Bowman Black & White Baseball Card set.  Because of the lack of stars and color, the Black & White set is the far less popular of the two sets.

The 1953 Bowman baseball card set was the most innovative card of it’s day.  The photography is beautiful and so well staged.  The pictures seem to fit the players’ persona.  Examples include: #9 Rizzuto bunting, #81 Country Slaughter leaning on his bats, #32 Musial in the dugout, #59 the graceful swing of the Mick, #121 Berra with his glove and mask, #62 the Muscles of Big Klu, and the multi-player shots #93 of Martin & Rizzuto and #44 Berra, Bauer & Mantle.

Also unique about these cards is that you do not see the images used in other years, as was the case of many of the Topps Cards of the 1950’s and 1960’s.  This is my favorite set of all-time.  Please vote for your favorite card and let us know what you think.

In addition to the original cards, both the 1953 Bowman Baseball Card Reprint set and 1953 Bowman Black & White Baseball Card Reprint set are available online at Dean’s Cards.

3 Comments | Vintage Baseball Cards | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

Dean’s Cards Featured in the Business Courier

November 12, 2009

A business he loves is in the cards

Dean Hanley

Dean Hanley has more than 850,000 baseball cards available through his online store.

Imagine surrounding yourself with baseball cards all day. Tons of cards. Hundreds upon thousands.

That’s the life of Dean Hanley.

He left his job in 2000 after 10 years in the software industry. Tech firms were cutting like crazy, and he had to find something else.

A collector since childhood, Hanley was searching online for cards to fill out a season’s set. Not finding many, he started Dean’s Cards – just him and his dog in his basement.

His company, which now has seven employees, has moved twice and operates out of a 3,000-square-foot space in Oakley. But it isn’t a typical baseball card shop.

There’s no walk-in retail business. The office, in a light industrial area, has no real card displays, just a few cards on the walls.

But behind the facade is a treasure trove. Hanley has more than 850,000 cards indexed and for sale at www.DeansCards.com.

Being a tech guy, using a Web site to sell was a natural. Hanley figures he has the largest vintage-card inventory online. “The Internet is the great middleman,” he said.

Taking an actual middleman out of the equation and avoiding the costs of a retail shop allow him to save money so he can buy and sell at better prices than others can.

Starting a business is a daunting task

“You have to have a product that’s better, faster or cheaper than the next guy,” Hanley said. “I knew marketing, and I knew baseball cards.”

At first, friends were skeptical.

“I was the laughingstock of our little village,” the Mariemont resident said. “People would say, ‘He’s selling baseball cards, for God’s sake.’”

It didn’t seem like much at first for a guy with an MBA. His wife, who also has an MBA, gave him two years to be able to support the family. They had small children, and she planned to stay home after that.

Hanley made it by first taking a modest income out of the business. Sales have surged 40 percent a year until this year.

Revenue is down about 25 percent this year, but he’s not disheartened. “Hopefully, this is a little bump in the road,” he said.

Industry insiders: probably is just a bump

Baseball card collecting has slowed overall. But the vintage part of the market – mainly pre-1980s cards – in which Hanley does most of his business is holding up, said T.S. O’Connell, editor of Iola, Wis.-based trade publication Sports Collectors Digest.

“The vintage end appears to have withstood a slowdown in the economy,” O’Connell said. “The last 18 months, we haven’t noticed the huge softness you would have expected.”

Hanley focuses on the customer, who mainly wants orders shipped correctly and quickly. He ships them out the same day the orders come in, tens of thousands of cards a month.

The cards in his shop are almost unfathomable. The oldest is an 1887 tobacco card, which is how baseball cards were delivered back then. The most valuable is a 1909 Ty Cobb card worth $5,000. He has 1933 Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig cards.

Then there are the other memorabilia. Cards make up about 85 percent of sales. But Hanley also has every issue, ever, of Sports Illustrated. He has a batch of old issues of The Sporting News. Stacks of “Who’s Who in Baseball” guides. He has media guides, yearbooks and old sports magazines.

Source: http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2009/11/09/story22.html

Leave a Comment » | Dean's Cards News | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

Johnny Bench Baseball Cards

November 12, 2009

Johnny Bench was the greatest catcher of the 1970’s and possibly of all-time. When you look back, Bench was the best hitting, best fielding, 62070-004-62D5E304best running, best throwing and hit with the most power for his position for the entire decade.  How many players can you think of that dominated any position like that?  Bench gets my vote for the MVP of the 1970’s.  I would love to hear your comments.

As far as the  Johnny Bench Rookie Card from 1968 goes, it leaves much to be desired, but was typical of cards from that era. Not that I have anything against Ron Tompkins, but it is hard for collectors to get excited about this card.

I think that Johnny Bench baseball cards are one of the best bargains – when you consider how great of a player that he was.  Bench is not as popular of a person as many stars and seems to be overshadowed by the personalities of Pete Rose, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan.

The 1969 Topps, 1970 Topps and 1975 Topps cards of Johnny Bench are nice posed catcher position shots. The 1969 Topps Bench Card photo was taken in spring training one year before he made the team and shows him wearing #55.  Also be sure to check out the action shots in the 1972 through 1974 years at Dean’s Cards. Bench may have the best Topps Baseball Cards of anyone of the decade. His cards in the 1980’s were fairly boring portraits.

To see Dean’s Cards inventory of Johnny Bench Baseball Cards and Magazines, please click here.

2 Comments | Player of the Week | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

1933 Goudey Baseball Cards

October 22, 2009

The 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Set is recognized as the first important gum release.  America was deep in the depression in 1933 and kids did not have many pennies to spend.  For a product to get that penny, there had to be value.  The Goudey Gum Company of Boston launched its revolutionary “Big League Gum” product.

The 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards were printed on thick cardboard stock, with bright colorful pictures and came with a nice big slab of gum.  They were a great improvement over the smaller, thinner cardboard tobacco and candy cards that preceded them.  It is important to remember that 1933 Goudey cards were the first color portraits of these stars that most people ever saw.

The Goudey Gum Company tried hard to give the customers what they wanted.  The greatest stars of the game had multiple cards.  There are 4 different 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards and #144 Ruth was double printed.  The 1933 Goudey Baseball card set also has three cards of Joe Cronin and two cards each of Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott.

Dean’s Cards has a great selection of 1933 Goudey baseball cards.  If you can not afford the original Goudey cards, please check out the 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Reprint set.

6 Comments | Vintage Baseball Cards | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

Double X – Jimmie Foxx

October 22, 2009

When I was writing the article for this week’s featured baseball card set 1933 Goudey, I did a little research to see who won the MVP for 1933.  I was guessing Ruth or Gehrig.  I was mistaken.

Jimmie Foxx won the MVP award in 1932 by hitting .364, 58 HR and 169 RBI’s.  In 1933, Foxx’s number slumped to .356, 48 HR and only 163 RBI’s.  This was good enough to win the Triple Crown and another MVP award.

Jimmie Foxx was discovered in High School by Frank “Home Run” Baker.  Baker was manager for the Class D Easton team and he signed Foxx in 1924. As the story goes, Baker owed his old manager, Connie Mack, a favor and told Mack about Foxx.   In 1925, Foxx came to the Athletics as 17 year old Catcher.  The A’s already had a Hall-of-Famer at that position in Mickey Cochrane, so Foxx spent the first 3 years sitting on the bench next to the Old Professor.  Jimmie finally got a real chance to play in 1928 and in 1929. Connie Mack installed Foxx at 1B and the Athletics won the AL Pennant for the next 3 years.

Mr. Mack had to eventually sell off his great players due the depression and Foxx soon was sent the Boston Red Sox.

Dean’s Cards currently has quite a few Jimmie Foxx cards in stock.  Some originals and a full supply of reprints.  Either way, they are all fun to look at.

Leave a Comment » | Player of the Week | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

1970 Topps Baseball Card Pricing

September 24, 2009

I just adjusted the pricing of the 1970 Topps Baseball Cards in the Dean’s Cards inventory and made the following observations:

  • 1970 Topps cards 1 to 546 are well populated and readily available in all conditions.
  • The League Leader cards are very attractive and easy to find.
  • The toughest cards to find are the guys who played for the Mets and Cubs.
  • The World Series cards of the games that the Mets won are much harder to find than those of the games that the Orioles won!
  • Some of the star cards for this year sell for more than their book values:  Killebrew, Olivia, Rose, Bench.
  • Dean’s Cards always seems to be missing #600 Willie Mays when building 1970 Topps Sets.

3 Comments | Collecting Sports Cards, Sports Card Prices & Values, Vintage Baseball Cards | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

1969 Topps Baseball Card Prices

September 24, 2009

I just adjusted the pricing of the 1969 Topps Baseball Cards that Dean’s Cards has in stock and made the following observations that you might find interesting.

  • The 1st Series of the 1969 Topps Baseball Cards are definitely the most populated.  The nice thing about this is that the league leaders cards are relatively easy to acquire.  1969 has some of my favorite league leaders cards.
  • The #47 C Paul Popovich error card with “C” on the helmet is hard to find and worth more than most price guides give it credit for.
  • The scarcest team to find is the Mets – because of their World Series victory.  1969 Topps cards of the Mets players are extremely difficult to find, with the exception of J.C. Martin.
  • Less scarce, but still difficult to find  are guys who played for the Cubs and Tigers.
  • When we are building 1969 Topps sets, we are often missing the World Series Cards.
  • The 1969 Topps Last Series is not as tough as most years, but some of the cards sell for more than the Beckett Price Guide gives them credit for.  It often depends on the card.  Some High # cards we have dozens of, but others we have none.
  • We always seem to be missing the Rollie Fingers Rookie Card when we are building sets.
  • The white letter variations are greatly under priced by both Beckett and SCD Price Guides.  These cards are harder to find than a purple unicorn.

Another interesting note is that Dean’s Cards sponsors the 1969 Topps Blog .  This is one of my favorite blogs and is a great read if you have not seen it.  We donated about a dozen cards that we have 14 or more quantity in that particular condition.  Among them was the Rod Carew All-Star card and the Pete Rose card.  I was very surprised that we have that many of Pete.

Leave a Comment » | Sports Card Prices & Values, Vintage Baseball Cards | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

Vintage Baseball Card Pricing

September 24, 2009

Vintage baseball card pricing and baseball card values are often a point of debate among collectors.  What a card will (or will not) sell for is often a surprise for many sellers.

A few years ago when Dean’s Cards was a new site, I would often list items online at the Beckett Adjusted (for Condition) Book value or ABV.  There were a few times, when a dealer would go online and buy out the entire inventory and resell them at a profit.  Even worse, some book values were too high and the items would sell slowly or not at all.  That is a very frustrating feeling.

Although Beckett Price Guides and the Sports Collectors Digest Price Guides are a decent reference for sports card pricing, Dean’s Cards has developed our own retail pricing over the years.  I truly feel that the pricing that Dean’s Cards uses is more accurate for us than the Beckett or SCD Prices.  I do not make this boast lightly.

Both Beckett and SCD  sell their pricing, but neither actually buys or sells sports cards!  It is much like the Priest who gives marriage advice.  He may be very intelligent and well educated on the subject matter, but there is no substitute for experience.

Dean’s Cards buys cards from private collectors, online sellers and other dealers.  We also sell hundreds of thousands of sports and non-sports cards through the Dean’s Cards eStore.  We know when something moves fast or does not sell at all.  We also know which cards are scare and which are plentiful.  We build dozens and dozens of sets each year.  Quite often we will notice that a particular card always seems to be missing.

Please do not get me wrong.  Both Beckett and SCD Price Guides are good products and are a credit to the hobby.  The people that work there know a lot about cards, but Dean’s Cards has the advantage of having an 850,000 card (and counting) inventory of which to gather information.  We can look at a simply look at our online inventory for a particular year and observe that we have twelve of card #253, twenty-three of card #254, seventeen of #255 and only one of card #256.

A great example of a rare common card is the 1970 Topps Al Oliver.  It seems that we are always missing that card.  What is so special about it?  I have no idea, but we always seem to be missing it to complete the set and it is usually hard to find when I go shopping for it online.

Another example is the 1969 Topps World Series Cards.  We have built dozens of 1969 Topps sets and we always have to go looking for those cards.  Those cards are way under priced in the official price guides.

A final example are the 1966 Topps high number baseball cards can rarely be bought for below book value in any condition.  For that reason, a 1966 Topps set is one of the hardest to complete.

As we adjust the pricing for different sets over time, I will make a blog posting of our observations.  Hopefully, we will be able to make our pricing available online in the near future.

Please leave your comments and examples of other cards that are “mis-priced”.

Leave a Comment » | Collecting Sports Cards, Sports Card Prices & Values, Vintage Baseball Cards | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

Dave Concepcion – Best Shortstop of the 1970’s

September 21, 2009

The biggest injustice of the Hall of Fame is that they refuse to allow the great shortstops of the 1960’s and 1970’s through the door.   The only exceptions are Luis Aparicio and Robin Yount.  The Dean’s Cards player of the Week is Dave Concepcion who played in four World Series and was named to the All-Star Game 9 times between 1973 and 1982. 

The Hall-of-Fame selection committee prefers the hard hitting first basemen and outfielders to the slick fielding infielders – but the saying goes “you can not win a pennant unless you are strong up the middle”.  As much as I like Concepcion’s old road game roommate and Hall-of-Famer Tony Perez – Concepcion would have been much harder for the Reds to replace than Perez.  In fact, the Reds had Danny Dreissen waiting in the wings for four years until they decided to trade Perez for a couple journeyman pitchers.

Shouldn’t there be at least one shortstop in the Hall of Fame for every 1B or every LF?  OK, I realize that hitters are more exciting. What about just one SS for every three 1B?  If that were the case you would see guys like Jim Fregosi, Maury Wills, Don Kessinger, Larry Bowa, Bert Campaneris and Davy Concepcion elected.  They were the best at their position during their time.

The first game that I ever attended was at Crosley Field on April 16, 1970.  My parents took me to the game as the Reds were going to move to the new stadium after the All-Star game that year.  The Reds beat the Dodgers 12 to 2.  Nineteen year-old Rookie Don Gullett relieved (soon to be retired) Jim Maloney for the first win of Gullett’s career.  Gullett also had a triple and a stolen base.  Concepcion went 0 for 4.

I was 5 years old at the time and did not notice any of those things.  What I do remember is that about a dozen Reds signed my glove.  At Crosley Field, the players had to walk past the fans to get from the clubhouse to the dugout.  With only 6100 people in the park that night, almost all of the players stopped to sign my glove.  You just do not see that anymore.

Concepcion was a 21 years old rookie who would start his 7th major league game that night.  Dave was so tall and skinny (6′2″, 155 pounds) that he towered over me.  He handed me his ”super sized” Coke through the green wrought iron fence that separated the fans from the players- which I needed both hands to hold – while he signed my mitt.   I was a bit surprised when I had to return the Coke to him because I assumed it was a gift!  My mother later told me that she was afraid that I would spill the Coke all down Concepcion’s bright white uniform.

Davy was very nice, but could not speak a word of English. At just 5 years old, I had never met someone who didn’t speak English and I remember being worried for him because he could not communicate with other people to get food or find his way around.  My parents reassured me that the other Spanish speaking players on the team would help take care of him.  This is how I will always remember Dave Concepcion.

It is doubtful that many more of the great shortstops of the 1960’s and 1970’s will make the Hall-of-Fame anytime soon, especially since the shortstops in today’s game now routinely hit 25 HR’s and bat .300 each year.

2 Comments | Player of the Week | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

Selling a Baseball Card Collection

September 19, 2009

Whether you are thinking of selling your boyhood collection or you have been handed the responsibility of liquidating the collection of a family member, it can be a very daunting task. This article reviews the options open to a person selling a vintage sports card collection and will hopefully assist in “parting the fog” on how to get the most money possible for your collection.

If you are interested in selling a collection, or just a few cards, Dean’s Cards will buy your collection. Dean’s Cards spends thousands of dollars each week on Vintage Collectibles. We will purchase Memorabilia, Magazines, and pre-1980 baseball, football, hockey, basketball and even non-sports cards. The older the better. We will buy the whole collection. We will also buy complete sets from 1985 and older, plus any Reprint or Archives Sets. If you have sports magazines or books to sell, please see our article on selling magazines.

While there is no shortage of dealers who will buy vintage collections, Dean’s Cards is able to offer higher percentage of the collection’s actual value than most traditional card dealers. Dean’s Cards can usually pay more for vintage card and memorabilia collections simply because what we buy goes directly into our own online inventory of 750,000 cards. In fact, quite a few card shop owners who buy collections will regularly send them to us – knowing that they will make a nice margin on the cards.

We offer the best selection of vintage sports cards and memorabilia available online. In order to do so, we are continuously purchasing collections. Dean’s Cards makes selling your collection an extremely easy process. When we receive your cards, we are usually able to provide you with our bid within two business days. We make our top offer right away. If you accept our offer, we will mail you a check.

I sincerely hope that we end up writing you a large check! This means you have some nice cards and we always need the inventory. If the amount that we offer for your cards falls below your expectations, we will pay the postage to return the collection to you.

If you are looking to sell your cards, please contact Dean

Leave a Comment » | Selling Your Collection | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by deanscards

« Previous Entries