The first set of baseball cards ever printed is considered to be the Old Judge cigarette cards, which have the catalog designation N172. These small-size cards measure 1 7/16” by 2 ½” and feature some of the earliest professional baseball players. The Old Judge baseball cards were printed over a three year period from 1887 to 1890. The Goodwin & Company cigarette manufacturers inserted these cards into packages of cigarettes. Goodwin & Company also owned the Gypsy Queen brand of cigarettes and released the same images with different advertising on the cards.
The Old Judge cards are examples of the one of the earliest photography techniques. Using the albumen from egg whites along with photographic chemicals, a “positive” was created on the paper. The albumen print technique would later be replaced by color lithography.
King Kelly
The entire set consists of 576 cards, but the actual number of surviving cards is low. Many of the cards have a population of one or zero, particularly in nicer conditions. One of the highest population cards is # 48 California Brown in full catcher’s gear. One of the most expensive cards N172 cards is considered to be # 12A Cap Anson in his White Stockings uniform. Cap Anson had one of the longest careers in professional baseball, spanning 27 seasons. He was also the first player to collect 3,000 hits.
The Old Judge cards were the first of their kind, but they quickly changed the future of two major industries in the United States. Goodwin & Company was bought by the tobacco giant American Tobacco Company, which was owned by James Buchanan Duke. Duke believed that the future of cigarettes was directly tied to the advertising, which included sports and actress cards. Duke poured money into producing not only cards, but large-size cabinets. Despite the very first wave of anti-smoking sentiments across the US, Duke continued to print baseball cards and insert them into cigarette packs. These early tobacco cards are some of the rarest cards ever printed and DeansCards.com is looking to buy more. If you are looking to sell Old Judge baseball cards, please click here. To see our selection of Old Judge cards, please click here.
Here at DeansCards.com, one of our most popular sets is the 1962 Post football card set. Collectors remember these cards being printed on the backs of their favorite cereal boxes when they were kids. The Post Cereal Company printed these cards, which were supposed to measure 2½” by 3½”, to be cut out of the box manually. Very few of these cards exist in nice condition because young children were usually the ones doing the cutting. Unlike baseball, which had a three year run on both Post cereal and Jell-O cards, there was only one set released for football.
The set consists of 200 cards total, organized by team and then alphabetically by player last name. The teams were organized by the order in which they finished in 1961. The Green Bay Packers, who finished 11-3 and went on to win the NFL Championship, start the set. The Washington Redskins finished 1-12 and are last. Post also released booklets about how to play offense or defense. These were give-aways that could be acquired from grocery stores by purchasing Post cereal products, Gravy Train dog food, or Duncan Hines cake mixes.
The most expensive card that we currently have in stock is # 10 Tom Moore, the Packers running back who would be selected for the Pro Bowl in 1962. The first card of the set, # 1 Dan Currie, a linebacker for the Packers, is the best selling card. Post also released a Canadian Football League set in 1962. These cards feature players from the Argonauts, Eskimos, Alouettes, Rough Riders, and Stampeders teams and include a French translation of their English biographies. DeansCards.com has yet to come across CFL Post football cards, but we are always looking for collections including these unique cards. We do have hundreds of Post cards online and ready to buy.
DeansCards.com recently finished organizing all of our Sporting News issues and we decided to write about our favorite weekly sports newspaper in three different parts. The Sporting News can be divided into three distinct periods: Black & White, Color, and modern magazine. This article will focus on the Black & White issues that are some of the most interesting baseball publications ever printed.
The Sporting News magazine was founded in 1886 by Alfred H. Spink, a former newspaper reporter and the current director of the St. Louis Browns. At the time the Sporting News was first being printed, the Browns were experiencing some of the greatest success in the history of the franchise. The Browns won the World Series in 1886, inspiring Spink to publish a weekly newspaper devoted to baseball.
The early Sporting News editions measure 17-5/16” by 11-5/16” and cost five cents per issue. In 1899, Spink handed his publication over to his brother Charles and eventually phased himself out of the operation entirely. Charles continued the emphasis on baseball, particularly on box scores. Before the Sporting News, baseball box scores were hard to find, especially for baseball fans that did not leave near their favorite teams. Circulation remained low for The Sporting News during the early part of the 20th century, possibly due to unflattering events such as the Black Sox scandal. Fortunately for the Sporting News, baseball’s golden age sparked a new interest in the sport and circulation peaked.
The black and white Sporting News layout is consistent with the daily newspapers of the time. Under Taylor Spink’s direction, the Sporting News relied heavily on caricatures and catchy headlines. Many of the covers of the early Sporting News issues look somewhat juvenile due to the cartoons on the front. However, the articles inside the Sporting News were serious journalistic analyses, box scores, and opinion pieces. The Sporting News was one of the most important sources for baseball news all over the United States.
In terms of sales, DeansCards.com has compiled information since we started selling old issues of The Sporting News several years ago. The earliest issue that we have had was the August 30, 1902 publication that featured Hughie Hearne on the cover. Hearne was a mediocre catcher for the Brooklyn Superbas. His major league career spanned only two years, but somehow earned himself a spot on a cover. The most expensive Sporting News currently in stock on our site is the October 6, 1927 issue. Babe Ruth’s 60th home run is one of the lead stories, while the Pirates team is the photograph on the front.
The Sporting News has been around for 124 years. It has been around for some of the most significant events in the baseball world. It serves as an important relic of the baseball memorabilia world and continues to provide new and interesting information. DeansCards.com has hundreds of The Sporting News issues online and ready to buy.
DeansCards.com just received a complete 1933 World Wide Gum baseball card set. These 2⅜” by 2⅞” cards are also known as the “Canadian Goudey” set because some of these cards were printed in English and French. The World Wide Gum Company was the Canadian branch of the Goudey Gum Company. This unique set includes many of the biggest stars of the day and serve as a great example of Pre-War bilingual baseball cards.
The 1933 World Wide Gum baseball cards were printed in two different variations: English only and French and English. Today, the French and English versions are slightly more expensive than the English only cards. The Goudey Gum Company was located in Boston, so at their peak of gum card manufacturing, they opened a factory in Granby, Quebec. Because World Wide Gum printed both English as well as English and French, it is suspected that these cards were sold in different parts of Canada based on local language preferences.
# 55 Lou Gehrig
The 1933 World Wide Gum set checklist is complementary to the 1933 Goudey set. The first 52 cards are the same, but cards 53-94 are in a different order. The 1933 Goudey set is also significantly longer, with 239 total cards. For most of these players, the 1933 Goudey cards are considered their rookie cards. The Goudey set is also much more difficult to collect than the World Wide Gum version. The individual cards are at least 25% more expensive than their World Wide Gum counterparts.
# 93 Babe Ruth
The 1933 World Wide Gum has a strong emphasis on the stars of the day. Babe Ruth has two different cards: a close up of the Babe in a batting stance (#93) and a shot of him swinging the bat in what appears to be an on-deck circle (#80). #55 Lou Gehrig is also featured swinging. The attractive, hand-drawn pictures of the players are mostly action shots, with a few portraits included. This set also includes cards that were oriented horizontally with the Big League Chewing Gum banner on the left side of the card. #60 Waite Hoyt is a good example of a different orientation from this set.
The 1933 World Wide Gum baseball card complete set was difficult to find, especially considered the small market in which it was released. The basic idea of this set would be repeated, as demonstrated by the O-Pee-Chee sets, but it is still fascinating to see one of original bilingual sets.
DeansCards.com just received one of the rarest boxing sets that we have ever encountered. The 1910 T225 Prizefighters boxing card set consists of 50 cards that measure 1⅞” by 2 ⅝” and feature the most prominent boxers of the time. The set was released in two series of 25 cards each and organized alphabetically by the boxers’ last names within each series. Currently, we have the first series in stock.
The set was probably released over a series of two years (1910-1911) and could be purchased by sending $1.00 to the manufacturer, as stated on the back of the card. All 50 cards would have been mounted on a piece of parchment and then placed in a frame. A few examples of the framed set still survive today, though many of them have experienced significant damage in their 100 years of existence.
Back of a T225 card
These cards are a good example of the booming tobacco business in the early part of the 20th century. The Subrug Company out of New York City produced the cards to be sold with their Intermission Little Cigars and the Arab’s Turkish Cigarettes. An advertisement for these two products is printed on the back of each card. The Subrug Company was purchased by the Khedival Company, a larger tobacco manufacturer, in 1912, right after the T225 boxing card set was already printed. Therefore, these cards are often referred to as the Khedival boxing card set, although that company’s name never appears on the card.
The boxers featured in series one are some of the most interesting characters in all of the sports world, especially when one considers just how popular boxing was at the time these were printed. One of the most famous boxers in the set is Stanley Ketchel, who is still considered by many to be the best middleweight boxer ever. Ketchel was famous for fighting heavyweights, who would have outweighed him by at least 30 pounds. He was eventually murdered in a robbery after his most famous bout, a 12 round fight against Jack Johnson. Also featured in this set is Abe Attell, who was implicated in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Attell had befriended Arnold Rothstein, a New York-based gambler, and allegedly connected him with several White Sox players. Rounding out this set are the twin brothers Jack and Mike Sullivan. They were both known by their nicknames, which happened to be “Twin” for both of them.
These unique cards have some of the richest history for any sports memorabilia and we hope to learn more about all boxing cards in the future.
The month of December is always the biggest sales month of the year for old Sports Illustrated magazineback issues at DeansCards.com. The old Sports Illustrated covers and given as a gifts for the holidays. Quite a few guys like to decorate their offices and "man caves" with old SI covers that feature their heroes of yesteryear, but not every back issue of Sports Illustrated ends up in a frame. Some people simply enjoy reading the articles in the old Sport Illustrated back issues.
Sports-related newspapers and magazines have been around since the 1920’s, but no magazine encompassed all of the sports world. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, several publications called Sports Illustrated were started and quickly failed. Sport Magazine, which had limited success was the largest non-specific sports publication throughout the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Sport Magazine featured color covers and attractive photos along with their stories, but was issued on a monthly basis. Media giant Henry Luce had taken notice of Sport Magazine’s success, but wanted to change several aspects of the magazine. Luce wanted a weekly issue that focused on all aspects of the sports world and included opinion pieces or analysis of current athletic events.
After failing to negotiate the purchase of Sport Magazine, Luce bought the rights to the Sports Illustrated name and the first issue of Sports Illustrated was released on August 16, 1954. The first issue featured Eddie Mathews batting in Milwaukee County Stadium and included small set of paper baseball cards. Although Sports Illustrated started out with a mainstream sport, the goal of the magazine would be to cover all sports. Sports Illustrated would go on to feature hunting, bridge, diving, bowling, fencing, badminton, and even bullfighting on the cover. In fact, the second issue would have a set of golf clubs on the cover and is the considered the most valuable issue because the SI "baseball cards" inside of the Yankees, one of which was Mickey Mantle.
One of the milestone issues of Sports Illustrated was first printed on January 20, 1964. The very first annual swimsuit issue focused on skin diving, but it proved to be a wildly popular idea, especially because it was released when the entire country was firmly entrenched in the winter season. Although models in bathing suits had already graced the cover of Sports Illustrated prior to 1964, the editors at SI wanted it to become a yearly event. Currently, Sports Illustrated allows its customers to opt out of receiving the swimsuit issue, but only a small percentage of its customers actually do so.
Sports Illustrated also features important commentary and opinion pieces about sports. The “Point After” focuses on the personal stories of athletes, journalists’ analyses on the current sports events, and even humorous pieces.
In terms of our sales here at DeansCards.com, we have sold the most copies of the February 6, 1978 track issue featuring Dick Buerkle and Filbert Bayi. Carl Lewis is included in the popular “Faces in the Crowd” feature in this issue. The most expensive issue we have ever sold is the first annual swimsuit issue with model Babette March on the cover. As people uncover the old Sports Illustrated back issues in the basements around the country, those same issues continue to decorate walls of homes.
The 1974 Topps baseball card set was the first issue in which all the cards in the set were released at the beginning of the baseball season. The 1974, Topps abandoned its previous practice of issuing the cards in time-released series as the baseball season progressed. There was no longer a short-printed high-number series as there was in previous years.
The Semi-Vintage Era of Baseball Cards
The “Pre-War Era” of baseball cards ended when Japanese planes appeared over Hawaii and ended the successful run of Play Ball sets that were issued from 1939 to 1941. The paper, ink and chicle (which was used to make the bubble gum) were now needed for the war effort.
The “Vintage Era” of baseball began when Bowman issued a set in 1948. The beginning of the “Modern Era” is also well-defined at the point that Topps lost its legal monopoly and competing companies began issuing sets in 1981. Interestingly, the 2011 Topps set will probably signal the beginning of the next era for baseball cards, since Topps has regained it’s monopoly over the market.
The Topps sets produced from 1974 to 1980, which I refer to as “Semi-Vintage” cards, do not neatly fit in either the vintage or modern categories and deserve to be considered as their own era. What makes semi-vintage sets unique from the sets of the vintage era is that all the cards in the sets were issued at the beginning of the season, but these sets were not produced in the massive numbers of the modern cards.
The lack of a tough high-number series means that the semi-vintage card sets are much easier to complete than the pre-1974 sets. Because the semi-vintage cards were not produced in the mass-quantities like modern cards, semi-vintage cards have a higher value than modern card sets.
“Semi-Vintage” is a term that I coined years ago to help to assist selling in assessing the value of their collections. Dean’s Cards buys over 500 collections a year. It seems to me that their has been more confusion over the value of these sets than the sets from other years.
Vintage cards sets tend to have nice value. Modern sets tend to have a low value. The term “semi-vintage” intuitively indicates that the cards from 1973 to 1980 have a middle-of-the-road value. The term has stuck over the years.
A new era begins
There was huge spike in the number of babies born from 1948 to 1955. The men returned from World War II and Americans started having families and making babies. These so-called “Baby Boomers” overloaded the hospitals when they were born and then flooded the schools in the 1950’s. The Boomers have influenced almost every aspect of American life that they have touched and baseball cards were no exception.
For the boys of the baby boom, collecting baseball cards was a right of passage. Vintage baseball cards and the baby boomers were both born just after World War II and grew up together. The boomers feasted on the improved sports cards that evolved during the gum wars of the early 1950’s.
Topps marketed their cards to boys and they responded. We played with them for hours on end. Baseball card trading sessions were often reason that we gathered socially. We learned math from studying the statistics on the back of the cards.
A survey of 339 boys, from the early 1960’s, showed that 89% of them collected baseball cards. This percentage is lost on us today. Can you imagine getting that percentage of the population to agree on anything today? To put this huge percentage into perspective, only 60% of today’s “tweens” (ages 10 to 14) own cell phones.
Topps had an addicted audience. Boys of the Baby Boom generation would collect the cards religiously from ages 6 to 15, until we became hopelessly distracted by the female of the species and were lured away from our real true love. We soon became involved with college, careers and family and temporarily forgot about our boyhood passion.
America grows up
Topps had two major problems facing them in 1974. The first was the economy. The oil crisis of 1973 had hit the American wallet hard and baseball card sales were affected.
The second problem that Topps faced was that the population of kids of card-collecting age was at its all time peak and the U.S. birth rate hit the lowest since WWII. The Topps baseball card monopoly was still firmly entrenched, but the low 1973 birth rates meant that in 10 years, the Topps target market (boys aged 6 to 15) would decrease by 25%. Please see the chart below.
Topps sees an opportunity
The kids that began collecting the 1948 Bowman set were now in their 30’s and they now had money. The boomers needed a hobby. Starting in the late 1960’s, many guys began retrieving their collections from their mother’s attic and buying cards to fill in the holes of their collection.
A kid has plenty of time on his hands, but a limited budget. Kids could easily go to the store every few weeks and buy packs of the latest released series of cards – but there was a limit to what he could spend. He could then entertain himself for hours, by trading with his buddies. Adults do not have this amount of free-time, but they have much more money to spend than kids.
Card shows soon began to appear across the country. For the first time, grown men were now seen in public collecting sports cards. As their sons came of age, their fathers brought them along. My father and I were a part of the new trend.
This changing landscape was not lost on Topps and in 1974, Topps modified its product. The 1974 Topps Wax Pack contained 10 cards and the price was raised to 15 cents. For the first time, baseball cards sold for more than a penny-a-piece.
Topps decision to release its 1974 set in just one series was a direct response to the wants of the adult collector. Cards could now be bought in 500-count vending boxes. Cards were also marketed as complete sets for the first time and sold in the J.C. Penny catalogs. By selling the cards in large amounts, Topps was able to save money on packaging and gum. The savings was then passed along to the buyer.
Adult collectors could buy cards quickly and sets could be assembled with little effort. Topps increased the price of the cards. By producing the all the cards at once, Topps was also able to lower their costs. It was much easier and cheaper for Topps to manage and distribute one series of cards rather than seven.
Business wise, it was a great decision. Topps raised it prices, while at the same time, decreasing production and distribution costs. Even though there was a recession throughout the 1970’s, baseball card sales still increased! Topps started a trend of record profits that would continue to grow for several decades.
How kids bought and traded vintage cards
My friends and I would space out our card buying over the summer, so that we could participate in every series of cards. Each series of cards was limited to about 100 cards and the collector would end up with many doubles. Trading cards with friends was the obvious next step. It was a social ritual among friends.
Topps carefully managed each series of cards, making sure that there was an equally distributed amount of stars and players from each of the teams. Beginning in 1958, Topps would ensure this equal separation by giving the super stars the card numbers of 100, 200, 300, etc. The next lower tier of stars would have numbers ending in 50, such as 50, 150, 250, etc. The next tier of semi-star players would be numbered 10, 20, 30, etc.
At the beginning of the season, we would all buy cards from Series 1, sort through them and pick out the “doubles”. Then the trading would sessions with our friends would begin. There was no reason to buy more cards until the next series hit the stores.
Every time my parents would run an errand to the dime store or go pick up a gallon of milk, I would tag along to buy some more cards. Merchants became well aware of this cycle also, as their cards sales would spike when the latest series appeared on the counter. Mom and Dad would often anticipate my need while at the store and bring me home a pack of cards. After all, they only cost a nickel.
Card collecting grows up
Starting in the spring 1974, the collector had the possibility of getting any of the 660 possible cards in every pack, instead of the just the usual 100 or cards contained in a single series. This meant that kids had much less doubles to trade. Kids (or their dads) also began buying complete sets. This took them out of the market and trading quickly dried up.
In 1974, I was 9 years old. 1974 Topps was the sixth baseball set that I had collected and the changes in distribution hit us kids like a ton of bricks. I can remember gathering with my buddies in 1974 to trade cards, just like we had in previous years. In past years, the “trading sessions” would take hours and we would pass the idle time by looking at the cards and discussing the exploits of our diamond heroes.
In the spring of 1974, we quickly discovered that none of us had as many doubles to trade and the sessions did not last very long. We soon decided that there was no longer a reason to meet. The gatherings quickly dried up and disappeared. Topps killed decades of tradition with one simple business decision. The era of kids trading baseball cards was over.
Cards could now be bought more efficiently at card shows or through the mail - from guys who were calling themselves “dealers”. There was no reason to buy pack after pack of cards and waste your time trading.
There was no longer any reason spread the buying out over the summer because you could buy the complete set in April. It took much less effort. The local five-and-dime stores saw sales evaporate and eventually quit carrying the cards.
The tradition of building sets with each years release was done, but collectors still loved the challenge of building sets. If you wanted to build sets, you had to do it with the vintage cards, in which Topps no longer had control. The set building focus soon shifted to the older sets that had to be assembled.
Vintage set building appealed to grown men who wanted to relive their childhood and complete their collections and created the hobby that we know today – but not with out a cost. Our fathers had hijacked the hobby. From this point forward, more money would be spent on trading cards by adults than children.
The impact of the 1974 Topps set on the hobby
For most of the vintage card sets for which I write commentaries, I have taken on the role of a “cold case detective”. Although I have seen tens-of-thousands of the cards from each of the set that I write about, I was too young (or not yet born) to have collected many of those cards as a kid. As I sit down to opine about the 1974 Topps baseball card set, I find myself in an unusual position – an actual witness to an historical event.
It always amazes me that when I sit down to write these set commentaries for SCD, I never seem to know where the story is going to lead. The first thing that I do is to take this week’s featured set from the DeansCards.com inventory and do through it card by card. From there the story takes on a life of its own.
My original thought was to write about the 1974 Topps cards themselves. Upon examination, the 1974 Topps baseball cards gives one much to comment on. The blurry action shots, the difficult-to-read card backs, the ridiculous four-player rookie cards, the Washington error cards, the full-sized Dave Winfield Rookie Card and the numerous subsets - including a nice tribute to Hank Aaron.
The 1974 inserts with the Red Team Checklists and the innovative (but ugly) Traded Set could be an article within itself. With that said, I have left those interesting comments to others and decided to focus on the impact that the 1974 set had on the hobby.
My next theme was “Our Dad’s hijacked our hobby”, but then I thought about how great is was spending time with my Dad and how sports cards still connect us today. I have so many found memories from that time of my life that this story angle quickly changed.
Today, vintage card collecting is all about middle-aged men reliving their boyhood. Sorting through the cards takes us back it a simpler place and time. We are magically transported back to a warm summer day, sitting on the porch with our boyhood buddies, chewing gum, swapping cards and telling stories about our heroes
As the owner of DeansCards.com, I have sold millions of vintage cards over years. I have the pleasure of interacting with many collectors and I have heard many similar stories for other collectors.
Bringing adults into the hobby was a great thing for our generation. If adults never started collecting cards, the hobby would not have ever reached the great heights that it did in the early 1990’s.
Not just for kids anymore
The great part of this story for me (and many guys under 45 years old) is that card collecting became a Father-Son event in 1974. Dad and I spent many hours together building our collection.
When I abandoned (or as I often say “escaped”) my software career in 2001 and started DeansCards.com, my father supported my decision. Just about everyone thought that I was having a mid-life crisis.
My Dad is a collector and was excited by the idea. He even gave me all of his “doubles” to help start the Dean’s Cards inventory. Today, my father still sorts cards for us and reads my SCD articles religiously.
Over the years, the baby boomer generation has literally bought millions of cards from Dean’s Cards. I feel blessed that I have been able make a living off of my boyhood passion. The hobby never gets old for me. I love it as much today as I did back then. In this sense, I never had to grow up.
Innovative 1974 card design
If the changes in the manufacturing and distribution of the 1974 Topps cards were not enough, the product itself was also loaded with innovations. The most distinguishing characteristic of the 1974 set has a pennant or banner design that wraps around the photo of the player. The most innovative feature of the 1974 cards are that so many contain action photographs.
Topps introduced action shots in 1971. In 1972, Topps made separate “In Action” cards for stars and some semi-stars. Many of the 1974 cards are in fact action shots and some even cards even have a horizontal orientation that includes the stadium or the crowd in the photograph.
A negative of the 1974 issue is that Topps printed the player’s statistics on a dark green background, making it difficult to read. Another common criticism of the 1974 set, especially from today’s collectors, is that the photographs appear blurry or feature unattractive shots of the stadium in the player’s picture. Although the photos do not stand up to the action shots on today’s cards, they were quite inventive at the time. As a collector at time, and accustomed to the posed shots of the past, I was stunned by the amount of movement on the cards
Although some of the cards may be a bit too busy, Topps did produce some very aesthetically pleasing cards in 1974. One of the most attractive examples from this year is #85 Joe Morgan. The shot of Morgan right out of his batting stance, about to run to first base, with the opposing team’s dugout in the background.
This type of action shot tends to work best on a baseball card, because the rest of the card acts as a frame and presents the photograph within it very nicely. As many other Topps issues demonstrate, the action shot does not work well in a “busy” card. Topps photographers applied these “lessons learned” to future releases and action shots remain a staple on today’s cards.
In terms of rookie cards, the 1974 set initially looked very promising. Dave Winfield, Dave Parker, and Bill Madlock all had their rookie cards in the 1974 set. By the early 1980’s, all three players were super-stars and seemed like a like a good bet to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall-of-Fame, but only Dave Winfield would make it to Cooperstown.
Winfield’s rookie card brings up another key feature of this set: the Washington “Nat’l League” variations. At the time these cards were being printed, San Diego Padres franchise was planning to relocate to Washington D.C. Topps printed the Padre cards with the Washington as the franchise city. However, the Padres were eventually bought by McDonald’s owner Ray Kroc and the team remained in San Diego. The Washington cards were printed in much lower quantities than the San Diego version of the cards.
This set features three error cards. The first is the #608A Rookie Pitchers card with a misspelling of Bob Apodaca’s name and the second is the #645 Jesus Alou “no position” card . Card #599 Dave Freisleben has three possible team variations: Washington, San Diego in large print, and San Diego in small print.
Bring on the subsets
The 1974 Topps set also features one of the highest numbers of subsets in the decade. Cards #1-6 commemorate all of Aaron’s Topps cards dating from 1954 to 1973.
Cards #201-208 feature the League Leaders. These cards are oriented horizontally and frame the American League leader with a pink banner and the National League leader with a blue banner. The top ten leaders from each league are listed on the back.
Playoff and World Series Highlights can be found on cards #470-479. The 1973 World Series went all the way to Game 7, with the Oakland A’s prevailing over the Mets to win their second consecutive championship. The action shots work best on these cards. Each card shows a decisive play on the front and the stats for all the participants on the back. The red, white, and blue banner on the World Series card distinguishes them from the rest of the set.
The final subset of 1974 is the rookie cards, which return to their four-player format not seen since 1963. Cards #596-608 are now farily difficult to find because they were quickly thrown out by many of the collectors at the time. The framing that worked so well on the player cards, makes the rookie cards feel busy. Adding the players’ names and teams to the photographs with stadium backgrounds proved to be too much for these cards.
1974 Insert sets
Topps rounds out 1974, with the first traded set and a red team checklist set. Both of these sets were inserts to the 1974 Topps Set. Topps had originally introduced the concept of a traded card in 1972, but included it as part of the original set. In 1974, Topps decided to make an entire new set of cards for players who had been traded after the 1973 World Series.
The card number in the Traded Set corresponds to that player’s original 1974 card, but then added a “T” to the number. Unfortunately, almost all of the Traded Cards feature players with airbrushed hats. As if that was not ugly enough, Topps added a large yellow “TRADED” banner with red lettering across the player’s photograph. In short, the idea of the Traded Set was very innovative, but still need some refinement. Traded Sets are still issued to this day.
The Red Team Checklists are also considered a separate set. Like the blue team checklists from 1973, these cards featured a checklist on the back and the signatures of all the players on the front. These cards were unnumbered, but organized alphabetically by the name of the city.
Aftermath
The 1974 Topps baseball card set was the first issue of the “Semi-Vintage Era” of baseball cards and influenced the card collecting hobby more than any set issued since 1952. The action shots and Traded cards remain a staple to this day, but the most important long-term effect of the1974 Topps Baseball Card Set was not the individual cards contained in the set, but the issue’s overall impact. The 1974 Topps set bought the adult collector into the hobby.
Card collectors came of age in 1974 and Topps, like many other companies of the era that wanted to survive and prosper, followed the money. Topps modified its products to follow the huge population of baby boomers, who were then entering into adulthood. The Topps monopoly continued unimpeded until 1981, until other manufacturers were legally allowed to produce baseball cards.
Some may think that Topps sacrificed its original target market, the kids of the baby boom generation, but that is simply not the case. Topps did not betray us. They followed us into adulthood, like a loyal and trusted friend. For many of us, our life-long bond with Topps remains firmly intact.
Collecting sports cards is the only pastime in life that I am still as passionate about today, as I was when I was a boy. Topps has made this world a lot more fun.
I truly pity today’s generation of kids who will never experience the pure fun of collecting sports cards. They missed out.
The 1968 Topps baseball card set design is one of the most eye-catching of the entire decade, with its distinctive speckled borders. The 1968 Topps set features two great rookie cards: Nolan Ryan (#177) and Johnny Bench (#274). The 1968 set features two players per rookie card, so Nolan Ryan is paired with fellow pitcher Jerry Koosman. This is the greatest pair of players ever featured together on a rookie card. The two would combine for an astounding 546 wins and 8,270 strikeouts over their careers.
The subsets for the 1968 sets are League Leaders (#1-12), World Series Highlights (#151-158), and The Sporting News All-Stars (#361-380). The player cards are vertically oriented, while the rookie cards, league leader cards, and World Series cards are all horizontal. When properly aligned, the All Star cards have a photograph of Carl Yastrzemski on the back.
The 1968 Topps set features the final cards for 28 players, including #330 Roger Maris, #167 Elston Howard, #99 Rocky Colavito and #58 Eddie Mathews. Unfortunately, none of these fellows' cards feature them on the team of their glory years. Maris’ last card shows him as a Cardinal, Mathews as a Tiger, Howard with the Red Sox and Colavito with the White Sox.
The 1968 Topps set also features three of my favorite multi-player cards. Manager's Dream (#480) had a latin theme, with Clemente, Oliva, and Cardenas. The Super Star card (#490) featured Killebrew, Mays, and Mantle. Both pictures were taken at the 1966 All-Star Game.
The third multi-player card was #530 Bird Belters, showing the Robinsons – Frank and Brooks. What is interesting about this photo is that it was taken at the same sitting as 1967 Topps card #1 “The Champs”, which also included Hank Bauer. Bauer stepped out of the photo and the photographer moved in a couple steps. You can tell because of the same positioning of the towels in the dugout and fans in the stands.
The world was upside down 1968 was one of the most turbulent years of the 20th Century. The Vietnam war was at its worst, the Tet Offensive dominated the television and way too many of our boys were coming home in body bags. Everyone seemed to be protesting something, whether it be on college campuses against the war or for civil rights in the streets of almost every major city.
As if that was not enough turbulence for one summer, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated, there was a 3-way race for President, a politically charged Olympic Games in Mexico City, and to cap it off the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia.
The game of baseball was also having a very strange year. Marvin Miller, became the executive director of the MLB Player’s Association in 1966. The players were becoming “organized”. Miller’s career had started with the United Steelworkers’ Union and he applied many of those principles to the MLBPA. Miller organized the MLB’s first collective bargaining agreement in 1968. As the 1968 season opened, the players were “revolting” and the owners were pushing back. The tension was thick.
There were also strange things happening on the field, and 1968 became known as “the year of the pitcher”. The hitting seemed to disappear and the pitchers dominated the game. The combined batting average for both leagues was .237 - the lowest ever. Carl Yastrzemski led the AL in Batting with a .301 average – the lowest ever. Bob Gibson had an ERA of 1.12 and Denny McLain won 31 games. Since that time, no pitcher has come close to either one of those feats. In 1968, both MVP winners were pitchers. That did happen once before in 1928 with Walter Johnson and Dizzy Vance.
The Players Organize Although greatly overshadowed, trouble was also brewing in the world of baseball cards. The images of the players were the reason the kids bought the cards, but players received very little of the profits. Topps had historically signed players to exclusive baseball card contracts (with helpful pressure from the clubs) while they were in the minor leagues for a whopping $5!
Miller soon turned his attention towards baseball cards and approached Topps President Joel Shorin, to renegotiate the Topps contract on behalf of the players. By 1967, major league players were locked into long-term baseball card contracts and received only $125 a year to have their pictures on a Topps card. What Miller really wanted was for Topps to also give the players’ union a percentage of Topps’ sales. Shorin politely refused, saying “ I do not see the muscle in your position.” Miller quickly left the office and the war was on.
Miller encouraged players to hold out over spring training to avoid signing new contracts with Topps. Although most players were still under contract to Topps, many players refused to let Topps take their picture. Topps soon discovered, as the owners had the year before, that players were now organized and did indeed have leverage. As a result, Topps was forced to use old photos for the 1968 set, as well as to decrease the total number of cards in the set.
Although the baseball card “strike” was eventually resolved in November of 1968, it took Topps a few series to get the pictures taken at spring training onto the 1969 Topps cards. It greatly hurts the image of the 1968 set becausemany of the photographs can be seen again in the first few series of the the1969 set. Examples include #45 Tom Seaver, #110 Hank Aaron, #355 Ernie Banks, and #144 Joe Morgan to name just a few of the stars.
If this resistance continued for another year, Topps would have a dwindling number of players for their cards and few new images. These first few series of cards in the 1969 Topps set used many previously seen pictures. The first 327 cards of the 1969 Topps set are a collection of boring head shots and recycled photos from the past. In my opinion, if Topps did not settle the dispute with the players when they did and the 1970 Topps set was a further decline in quality and quantity, Topps might have alienated a generation of collectors.
Shorin eventually caved to Miller’s demands. The newly negotiated contract required Topps to pay each player $250 (double the previous $125) per year and, more importantly, Topps would pay the Players’ Association 8% of sales up to $4 million and another 10% after that. The way that Topps compensated the players had changed forever.
The new contract that Topps agreed to in November of 1968 was a huge financial victory for Marvin Miller and the player’s union just when they needed one. The Topps contract added much needed funding for the MLBPA’s coffers. The union now was generating revenue outside of the player’s dues.
More importantly in the long run, the MLBPA’s victory over Topps showed the players an example of the power that a strong union has in a profitable industry. The “small” victory over the Topps Gum co. would serve as an example and fortify the player’s resolve against their primary nemesis, the owners. This new found resolve would eventually culminate in the elimination of the reserve clause in 1975, which allowed free-agency, guaranteed contracts, and insured the continual increase in player’s salaries and that has yet to crest.
Completing the 1968 Topps set Another notable feature of the 1968 cards is the fact that the high number or 7th series doesn’t have the steep increase in card prices that is so common for previous years. In 1968, (and again in 1969), Topps did a good job in getting the 7th series of the set to market before the season ended. In many vintage Topps sets, the cards from the high numbers series are often ten times more expensive than their low number counterparts. The price difference is even greater for some cards, considering the extremely low population that exists for the high number cards.
For that reason, DeansCards.com builds and sells more complete sets from 1968 than just about any other set from the 1960’s. The three vintage sets that we find easily to build- in no particular order – are the sets from 1958, 1968 and 1969.
The distinctive speckled edge of the 1968 set also serves to hide corner wear very well. Therefore, it is still possible to find many 1968 Topps cards in nice condition. All of these factors combine to make the 1968 Topps the least expensive vintage set to complete.
Photos needed In 1967, Topps broke the “600 card barrier” for the first time by issuing a set that had 609 cards. The 1968 Topps cards were released in seven series, as in previous years, but the 1968 Topps set only contains 598 cards.
The lack of fresh photos, greatly reduced the cards that Topps could issue in 1968. For example, the 1968 Topps set had only 29 Rookie Cards. (There is not a Giants Rookie card.) In comparison, 1967 Topps set had 43 team Rookie Cards.
Although the 1968 sets only had 598 cards, Topps struggled to even reach that number. The 1968 Topps set featured several players for whom had past photos, and were still under contract, but had not been in the major leagues in several years. Some examples include: Tommie Aaron (#394), Dick Calmus (#427), Jimmy Schaffer (#463), and John Tsitouris (#523). The list goes on, but seems as irrelevant as the players on the cards themselves. As the saying goes, Topps was “trying to make chicken salad without much chicken”.
Old Photos and Hat less Players Almost all of the photos used in the 1968 Topps set were actually taken in 1966 or before. Back in the days when Topps had a monopoly on the gum card industry, they would cut expenses by not taking a full portfolio of pictures every year. Topps would also take several pictures of each player and also take a “back-up” photo, just in case he was traded. This back-up picture was usually a portrait of the player without his cap.
During these off years, Topps would supplement their photo library by contacting or purchasing photographs of the handful of players who were traded and changed teams during the winter. A few photos that appeared in the 1968 topps set that were clearly taken in 1967. Examples include: Clete Boyer, Bob Bailey, Ted Abernathy and Roger Maris. All four players were traded before the 1967 season and appear in their new uniforms on 1968 Topps cards.
If all else failed, and Topps was forced to use a photo of a player in an outdated uniform, Topps would simply “black out” the emblem on the players cap. This was clearly the last resort, because it looked so terrible. Because there were expansion years for baseball, the 1961, 1962 and 1969 Topps sets feature quite a few cards of players with airbrushed or blacked out logos or missing hats. Topps had little choice but to use these inferior images, as they did not have current photos of the players.
The 1968 Topps Astros and A’s cards look the most unnatural thanks to their blackened hats. The Athletics moved from Kansas City to Oakland and therefore had to change their logo. Due to the feud with the players association, Topps was unable to get pictures of the A’s in their new uniforms.
The unsolved mystery of the 1968 Topps set is why the Astros’ cards have them all pictured in Colt .45 uniforms, which means they were taken no later than 1965. The Colt .45s moved into the Astrodome and became the Astros in 1966. Not only are the pictures on the Astros’ cards old, they were boring. Most of the 1968 Topps Astros card featured head shots. What makes this so interesting is that Topps had some great cards of Astros players, in the new Astros uniforms, in both the 1966 and 1967 Topps sets.
One curious note about this set is that although Reggie Jackson’s major league debut was in 1967, Topps was unable to make a card for him until 1969 due to the MLBPA’s activities regarding contracts. The addition of a Reggie Jackson rookie card to the 1968 set would certainly have increased the value of this set significantly.
Was the 1968 Topps set their weakest offering ever? By the spring of 1968, Topps desperately needed updated photographs, but because of the fight with the MLBPA, they were unable to secure them. The 1968 Topps set would have to go to press with an outdated portfolio of photos.
The result was arguably the worst vintage set that Topps ever produced, at least in a non-expansion year. Of the 598 cards in the 1968 Topps set, 114 of the cards feature players without hats and 48 cards have blacked out hats. Two of the cards (#481 Chuck Harrison and #566 Ken Harrleson) were taken so you can only see the underside of the cap. A surprising 28% of the 1968 Topps cards do not show the logo on the players cap. This has to be a dubious record, particularly for a non-expansion year set.
The 1968 Topps set is the “low water mark” of the Topps vintage sets in terms of the number of cards issued, the players pictured on the cards and the the tired photos used on the cards. In spring training of 1969, Topps restocked its portfolio of player photos and issued a 664 card set. The number of cards in the Topps sets would continue to expand and never again reach below 660 cards. The photos used on the cards would also continue to evolve in creativity and quality.
1968 Topps was a set of “lasts” Topps would never again use the speckled border design employed in the 1968 set. The 1968 Topps set was also the last set in which the players did not share in the profit that Topps made on the cards. 1968 was also the last year that baseball had 20 teams. In 1969, baseball added four new teams and divisional playoffs. More teams means more players, which means more cards to print.
Although few collectors would choose 1968 Topps as their favorite vintage set, it was a solid issue that featured a bold and creative design. Considering the challenges that Topps faced in 1968, I think that they made a strong effort, considering the obstacles to producing the set. The reputation of the 1968 Topps set is greatly enhanced by having the two high-profile Rookie Cards of Johnny Bench and Nolan Ryan. If Topps could have gotten Reggie Jackson into this set, you would probably be reading a much different commentary. We would be discussing the set with the greatest Rookie Card class of the 1960’s - but it was not meant to be.
If you are still hungry for more details on the individual 1968 Topps cards, there is a great blog by “Jim from Downington” located at http://1968topps.blogspot.com/ Jim is a long-time customer of DeansCards.com and has written a page of information for every card in the 1968 Topps set! Some of the interesting facts in this article were taken from his blog.
Prologue Most people remember 1968 as a dynamic year in our country’s history. As a student of baseball card history, I can think of no other set that mirrors the ill effects of the world around it, like the 1968 Topps baseball card set does. Almost every niche of American society was touched by the turmoil of the times. It stands to reason that the hobby of collecting baseball cards would also feel the effects of this incredible social friction. Along with the vivid pictures of the Vietnam War, the Mexico City Olympics, the protests at the universities and the riots in the streets, the assasinations of RFK and MLK, the volatile presidential campaign, and the Russian tanks in the streets of Prague – the photos on the 1968 Topps cards helps to document that strange and troubled year.
May none of those (mostly terrible) things happen again, but hopefully we have a better nation, a better world and even a better hobby because of the events of 1968. Although baseball cards surely pale in importance to the other events of 1968, the players now had a share of the the hobby’s profits, and also an example of what a strong union could accomplish. The MLB team owners no longer seemed as intimidating to the players. Over the next few years, the owners would begin to feel the sting of the players’ union and new found confidence. The status quo had changed forever.
