The T201 Mecca Double Folders set was interactive, long before the term came into vogue. Each card featured two players with a long vertical image of one on one side and the top of of a second on the other. The cards had a factory 'fold' and when the top half was folded down, the second player's upper body would be displayed against the same lower body of the player on the … [Read more...]
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1960 Tacoma Giants Set Featured HOFer Juan Marichal’s First Card
The 1960 Tacoma Giants boasted three future Hall of Famers, a former World Series hero and a member of a famous baseball family who had a career average of .307 in the major leagues. The squad was a Triple-A minor league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, and to welcome Pacific Coast League baseball back to the City of Destiny, 3-inch by 5-inch cards were sold at … [Read more...]
Ultra Rare 1866 CDV of New York Team Coming to Auction
Baseball took root in the east as the nation tumbled toward the Civil War that ended the dreams of many would be players for the game that would become America’s own. Relics from the era are few and far between but one extreme rarity believed to date from the year after Generals Grant and Lee signed papers to end the four-year conflict is about to go on the market. In … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1973-74 Topps Hockey
Forty-five seasons before the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues battled it out for the 2019 Stanley Cup, you could still go to the local drug store and pick up a pack of hockey cards (10 cards plus a stick of that bubble gum that got extra hard in the winter). The cards were colorful and there was something extra inside that was perfect for sticking on the box that … [Read more...]
Frank Brimsek: Mr. Zero, American Hero
The days of old time hockey had a scant few American-born stars outside of Hall of Famers like Frank Goheen and Hobey Baker, but no player from the United States had been a superstar in the NHL before the arrival of Frank Brimsek with the Boston Bruins in 1938-39. Today's collectors may not realize his significance within the game and the hobby itself, but now is as good a time … [Read more...]
1978-79 O-Pee-Chee: Goodbye Bobby, Hello Mike
With the NHL and WHA in the final stages of their seven-year battle, hockey card collectors were surprised to see that there would only be cards from one of the leagues and welcomed the 1978-79 O-Pee-Chee set with open arms. For the fifth straight season, O-Pee-Chee's set was made up of 396 cards. The set is a major source of frustration for those wanting to put a high-grade … [Read more...]
Hockey’s 10 Most Underrated Rookie Cards Of The 1980s
For the generation that grew up watching hockey in the 1980s, there are plenty of heroes from that era which are still heavily praised. The exploits of players like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy and many others are well-remembered, but there are also those that were stars at the time which have been forgotten or are in danger of fading into the ether of hockey … [Read more...]
Beantown Beginnings: Collecting the Original Boston Bruins
With the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final once again, it is a perfect time to reflect on the team’s rather humble beginnings and examine the first hockey cards featuring one of the game’s most popular franchise. Before the 1924-25 season, the National Hockey League was in its infancy and limited itself to just two Canadian provinces. In Ontario, you had the Ottawa … [Read more...]
Chasing Tobacco: Winding Down (Part III of III)
This is the final part of a three-part series covering the early history of tobacco cards from the pre-war era. In Part I and Part II of this series, I reviewed the earliest tobacco cards from the 1800s as well as tobacco cards produced from the boom of 1909-11. While tobacco cards remained popular internationally for decades to come, American tobacco cards featuring … [Read more...]
10 Important Old School St. Louis Blues Cards
The St. Louis Blues are challenging for the first Stanley Cup in franchise history and it conjures up memories of some of the players that helped pave the way along with their best O-Pee-Chee (and in some cases, Topps) hockey cards. As part of the NHL's great expansion of 1967, the team was an early success with three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final thanks to a … [Read more...]
