The Original 1953 Topps Reprints

When "1953 Topps Reprints" are mentioned, many collectors think of the glossy, standard-sized cards that hit the market in 1991. Not this:

The front may look familiar, but the back is more in the style of a 1930s or '40-style back than the way it was presented in its original Topps form:

The term "1953 Topps Reprints" is something of a misnomer. Hobby legend has it that the cards were produced for a banquet dinner and the cards were printed for the attendees as party favors. It's possible the Sy Berger or somebody with connections to Topps was in attendance at a banquet that had ex-sports figures in attendance and the cards were printed to remind everybody that they were once young and athletic.

There were eight cards in the set, three of whom are misidentified by their pictures.Here's a genuine 1953 Johhny Mize for a comparison:

As you can see, the back of the original card had much different info on it, including a different biographical write-up:

By the way...Roy Face went 18-1 in 1959, eclipsing the record that Johnny Allen is credited with. And Johnny Allen wasn't a member of the Yankees in 1937...the Yanks dealt him to the Indians the year before that.

Campy!

(Today's post is the 100th I've written for this blog. Since starting a little more than six months ago, I've been able to keep writing new stuff for it. Hopefully, there will be more as time goes on...but I'd like to take the opportunity here to point out the bit on the left-hand side asking for submissions. Specifically, I'm not a collector of basketball or hockey...but I'd love to get some stuff on here about vintage cards from both sports and make this truly a "Sports cards" blog. Now, I return to the regularly-scheduled entry, already in progress...)

The Brooklyn Dodgers are still beloved by their fans even after more than a half-century since leaving their borough for the California sunshine. I grew up in Upstate New York in the 1980s, and remember how people were still heartbroken by the move...in fact, the father of one of my friends used to tell me that he quit paying attention to baseball the day he learned the team had moved. As far as he was concerned as a young man, if his favorite team was going to leave, he had no business with the sport at all. A little extreme, I suppose, but I respect the hell out him for sticking to his guns.

Here's one of the most popular players on his boyhood team, from my 1953 set-in-progress:

I picked this one up for about $4 on eBay a little while back. The low price was due to the seller not featuring a picture in the auction. She did accurately describe that it had damage, which likely kept prospective buyers away if they couldn't see the extent of that damage.

The worst part for me was waiting for the card to arrive. I wanted to see for myself if it was a good deal. While I was satisfied when the card arrived, my imagination made me think it would look a lot worse than it did. I wasn't exactly worried due to the low selling price, but I shudder to think about the anticipation if I'd blindly spent an awful lot more on a pictureless auction out of faith.

Anybody else have an eBay story like that? Winning an auction where you didn't know what was going to show up?

This Card's Too Big...

Now, most collectors know that in the 1950s card sizes were all over the place.

In 1950, Bowman had a nice, almost square card. They made them taller in '51 and then Topps came out with huge cards in'52. So Bowman had to make theirs bigger in '53. So, after '56 Bowman is gone and Topps decides to cut down the cards to a smaller size.

Let's say you didn't care for those '52-'56 cards. Perhaps they were too big and didn't fit right in your pants pockets. Maybe it just bothered you that they were so much bigger than your cards from '57 and later. To a kid, all you need is some good ol' American ingenuity and a pair of scissors.

Problem solved.