Ballad of Another Forty Bucks

Last month, I featured the details of a deal that I recently completed and promptly had the most successful post on this blog in a long time. Well, here's hoping the iron strikes again...

The opportunity to make another "dealer scum" deal arose with the same trader (Ed Schott of Baltimore). For another forty dollars, Ed sent the following cards:

1961 Topps #200 -- Warren Spahn, Milwaukee Braves

 At first glance, this card looks really nice. However, the bottom edge is uneven, showing that it's been trimmed. The condition was made clear before the deal was made, which is important whenever money changes hands. As you can see, the condition presents well but little things like trimming need to be brought up ahead of time to head off future problems when (not if) they are discovered. As a seller, you really don't need to get a reputation because you don't notice details. Even if it isn't your fault.

I say that now, because the other card from 1961 is certainly trimmed:

1961 Topps #226 -- New York Yankees Team Card

There's no question this card was trimmed, as all four edges show uneven borders. However, this type of card makes some collectors a little squeamish. Personally, I'd rather have a hole in the card than one in the binder. I can always upgrade later.

Trimming is about the only thing that isn't apparent on the next card:

1958 Topps #351 -- Braves' Fence Busters

In 1961, three of these players -- Aaron, Mathews and Adcock -- would team with Frank Thomas (on the Pirates in 1957) to become the first tandem to belt four straight home runs, in a game against the Reds. The mark has been equaled six times since, but has never been broken. Topps was noting their power three years earlier.

Not only that, but it was a chance to add a card featuring two Hall of Famers into my 1958 Topps binder.

1954 Bowman #154 -- Don Newcombe, Brooklyn Dodgers

I also enjoy sliding another 1950s Brooklyn Dodger into the binder as well. And this one cuts my 1954 Bowman wantlist to 92 cards, but a quick count shows I still need 10 of the 14 Brooklyn Dodgers including Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and Roy Campanella.

Fortunately, I'm not a fan of the Bums (even though I respect their impact on the game). The fact is, I'm a fan of this guy's team:

1954 Topps #50 -- Yogi Berra, New York Yankees

The flip side to being a Yankees fan is that I really need to adjust my expectations about how much I spend on the cards of the players who wore pinstripes over the years. This card -- beat up as it is -- accounted for about half of my $40 purchase.

So I ask again: would you have made this purchase? Or would the trimmed cards have made you reconsider?

Evolution of a Classic Design

Last week, I mentioned 1956 Topps cards and left out how the look had been part of a three-year "evolution" as Topps perfected what many consider a great-looking design. In some cases, Topps even used the same photo as they went. Let's look at Hank Aaron's first three cards as a prime example:

1954 Topps #128

In 1954, Topps went with a format that placed two pictures of a player against a solid-colored background. The larger picture was always a head shot, while the smaller one was a black-and-white action pose.

 1955 Topps #47

In 1955, Topps used the same format, but made the cards horizontal, which made better use of the two picture format. There were a couple of other changes, though. The action shot was now in color, and the background was a solid color that tapered to white.

The facsimile player autograph remained, as did the team logo (a standard element of all Topps sets since 1952). And Hank is still staring over to the left side.

1956 Topps #31

Topps once again used that picture in 1956 and retained the two picture format. This time, however, the action shot was given a full-color background that gave it some real character. Let's forget for a moment that the action picture is actually an airbrushed picture of Willie Mays...but the format allowed for some tremendous "play at the plate" shots, as well as players jumping into the stands (like Mickey Mantle) and fielding grounders.

However, the team logos were gone, even as the facsimile autograph remained. And Topps had taken three years to produce a great-looking baseball card. That's not to say that the '54 and '55 designs were bad (they weren't), but the '56 was just improved. The only thing they could do to improve on that was to use full-color pictures...which they did in '57.

An Early eBay Story

In 1999/2000, I discovered the great little online yard sale known as eBay. At the time, it was still a neat little auction site...this was before it became the big behemoth it is now that I mostly avoid today.

It was a nice boost to my collection, too, since it gave me a way to look for cards without having to search through card shops or calling dealers, only to have them look for half an hour and then either being a higher price than I wanted to pay or being told that there wasn't much in the way of vintage material there.

So, having a way to toss out small bids on cards and knowing what I was going to get was a great way to justify my internet connection.

I was also looking to work on my 1956 Topps set. My first wantlist page consisted only of 1956 Topps cards. One day early in 2000, I saw this card being auctioned off:

I put in a bid, and ended up winning it, for about $4 plus shipping. So, I mailed out a money order, placed the line for Hoyt Wilhelm in red (which I still do sometimes when I know something's coming) and waited for the card to show up in my mailbox.

About a week and a half later, an envelope from the seller showed up. And this was the card inside it:

While I was satisfied about getting an older card than expected, I was working on a 1956 Topps set and really wanted that card. I wrote a quick email to the seller explaining that the wrong card arrived and asked if I could get the one I actually won for my '56 set in progress?

Of course, I said I'd return the '54 once it arrived. However, I'd lost or tossed away his address and needed it again so I could send it back to him.

He wrote back, apologized for the mix-up and told me my card would arrive as soon as he could get to the post office. And sure enough, in a few days it arrived. However, he didn't put a full address on his envelope and never sent it in his reply. When I had the card in hand, I sent another email thanking him and asking once again for an address so I could give back the original card he sent me.

He told me I could keep it, since he screwed up the order. So, $4 plus shipping got me two cards of a great Hall of Fame pitcher from the 1950s. I really wish I could remember who the seller was, though. I'd love to give him a plug if he's still around.

eBay was great before it became bloated.

Pet Peeves...1954 Topps Edition

Two things irritate collectors about the 1954 Topps set.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad set. It has a great design with a large-format picture and a smaller action photos that would be tweaked each year through 1956. There are four Hall of Fame rookie cards (Hank Aaron, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, Tommy Lasorda), two Ted Williams cards and dozens of stars, even if Mickey Mantle isn't one of them.

No, there are two things that look wrong with these cards:

There is no top border,which gives most cards the appearance of being miscut. While long-time readers of this blog know I have no trouble at all with that little imperfection even in cards that should have them, some of the more obsessive/compulsive types in the ranks of our hobby have issues with it.

However, flipping the cards over shows something I don't care for:

Half the cards in the set are "upside down" when compared to the others. That must have been a real source of frustration to the kids of 1954 when they flipped over their stack of cards to read the backs. Even in binders today, it makes it harder to read the backs.

This is a result of the way the cards were set up on the printing sheet. Cards with matching background colors were paired up like this:

 (Note: Lopat and Lollar were probably not paired up on the sheet, but are joined here for demonstration purposes.)

When flipped over, they both align perfectly...that is, if you consider their placement on the fronts.

 That said, there are some cards that don't exhibit the "miscut" look of the other 1954 Topps cards. That's because they were given solid white background colors and the top border isn't a noticeable issue.

There's a neat little story about how I ended up with this Wilhelm card during the early days of eBay. I may share it here sometime when I don't have other stuff to show.

Q&A

This one comes from Alex:

Q: "I recently bought a violin at a flea market and at the bottom of the case, I found an autographed 1954 Billy Hunter card, and I was wondering how much it would be worth."

A:  You didn't say whether the Hunter was a Topps or Bowman card, but both 1954 sets had an autograph in their design, so what you see is likely a facsimile. Topps included an autograph wherever it fit into the card's design, which for Hunter's card was along the bottom. Bowman used a solid-colored box in its set design that contained a player's signature. While a few cards were given block letters instead, Hunter's wasn't one of them.

Interesting that Hunter's signature is actually different on each card. Topps has his sig as "Gordon W. Hunter" while Bowman shows "William Hunter." The W and the last name are similar on both cards, but perhaps he signed his contracts differently for each company as a result of the battle between the two companies about which one had the rights to certain players.

Common 1954 cards in VG-ish condition (or, what you'd expect for a card that has been in a violin case for years) usually fetch about $2 or so at card shows.

Watch the Birdie...

After spending many seasons as a perennial cellar-dweller in the American League, the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore for 1954 and became the new version of the Baltimore Orioles. This move led to a small crisis on the part of the two major baseball card companies. They needed to produce cards showing Baltimore Orioles but most of the players were pictured as St. Louis Browns. To complicate matters, an Orioles uniform wasn't necessarily available. So, what does a card company do when faced with the problem of getting cards out to eager young customers in time for baseball season?

Here's what you do...You make something up. It's been my experience at work that when the boss says he needs something "NOW" there really isn't a lot of time for explaining things like the fact that somebody else hadn't delivered what you need. It wasn't any different back in the 1950s. You just get it done and hope it doesn't come back to bite you in the rear.

Bowman's cards featured airbrushed caps. With the rough idea of the new logo provided from the team, the artists imagined what the new team's logo would look like.

Don Lenhardt's cap shows the oriole more upright but facing to the right. The Orioles shirt logo is an obvious airbrush job as well.

For Bob Young's card, the oriole is facing to the right (and the shirt logo appears to have an apostrophe in it as well). Again, the bird is standing more upright than the actual Orioles logo. Topps used a more correct logo when they airbrushed Young's card for their set:

Sometimes, they just didn't bother changing the logo at all. One of the early Oriole cards in the set featured Johnny Lipon. This card is likely to confuse collectors because it shows Lipon as a Red Sox player, identifies him as an Oriole on the front and a White Sox player on the back.

However, a blown up picture of his smaller photo shows up something interesting:

Despite not changing the logo on Lipon's old Red Sox cap, they changed the one in the smaller photo to look like the logo seen at the top of the card:

Since the smaller picture was likely too small to see any detail with the naked eye (indeed, I didn't even notice this until I saw it magnified), perhaps this was Topps' way of getting an Orioles card into the early series of 1954 cards.

For the record, Johnny Lipon never played with Baltimore. Acquired by the St. Louis Browns at the end of the 1953 season, he played seven games for them. During the offseason, he was traded to the White Sox (which is noted on the back of his card). On April 18, 1954 he was traded to Cincinnati, who released him less than two weeks later without giving him any playing time. Those games with the Browns in '53 would be Lipon's last in the big leagues.

Where's the Chief?

Tom writes:

Q: "Thanks for putting up the webpage about the 1956 Topps set!


When I was about 7 years old (1958) a neighbor boy handed me about 30 of these beauties... I loved baseball but had never seen anything like these before!  That's how my collection got started and I think I still have every one of those original cards.


I also have a question about the set you may be able to answer.  Looking at some of the Cleveland Indians cards, I noticed that some have a "C" emblem on their cap while others have the "C" but with the Chief Wahoo emblem inside.  Do you know why that is?


Did they have 'home' and 'away' hats?  I know teams today have home & away uniforms but I never noticed if their hats are different too or always the same."

A:  I didn't have an answer right away, so I asked some members of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research).  It looks like the Indians added Chief Wahoo to their caps in 1953. There weren't separate "home" and "away" caps back then.

After finding that out, I went through my 1954 Topps and Bowman cards. All the Indians in those sets have the wishbone "C" without Chief Wahoo. I'm guessing that the pictures were taken in 1953 Spring Training before the cap change took place.

For my 1955 cards, I see that Topps Indians show both cap designs. Most have just the wishbone "C" but four (Hal Newhouser, Ray Narleski, Dave Hoskins, and Don Mossi) have the Chief.  Looking a little deeper, I discovered that none of the four was on the team before '54. As I wrote in my 1956 Topps page, they were known for recycling pictures from year to year (for example, Hank Aaaron's "head shot" photo was the same in '54, '55 and '56).As for Bowman in 1955, all my Indians cards seem to show Chief Wahoo.

If you look through your '56 Topps cards again, you'll see that the Tribesmen with the newer-style caps (Mossi, Santiago, etc.) weren't with the team before the change, and a few veterans who were (Feller and Wertz) but didn't appear on Topps cards in 1954 and '55. Many of the photos of the players without the Chief are recycled.  In fact, Rosen, Avila and Hegan all have "head shots" that were used in the 1955 set (and Hegan's was used in '54 as well, just compare the card below to the first one shown in the post).

What a great question...I'd never noticed that before.  It was fun looking through my cards for an answer.