By popular demand, here are a few more nuggets we dug up over the weekend from coverage of the hobby decades ago. In 1959, Topps wax putting 250 million baseball cards and 70 million football on the market, mostly through penny and nickel wax packs. Cello packs were decent sellers, which proved to company officials that in many cases, it wasn't the gum that was the … [Read more...]
Meet the First No. 1 NBA Draft Pick to Appear on a Basketball Card
Pro basketball wasn’t exactly a powerful draw for college players in the late 1940s. The first number one pick of the BAA (later the NBA) in 1947 was Clifton McNeely out of Texas Wesleyan, who was honored but clearly not enamored. He became a high school coach instead. The top pick in 1948 was Andy Tonkovich of Marshall who was taken by the Providence Steamrollers, played … [Read more...]
5 Value Plays in the 1957-58 Topps Basketball Set
It’s easy to rattle off reasons why the 1957-58 Topps basketball set is expensive: Limited distribution thanks to modest national interest in the NBA, Bill Russell’s rookie, notoriously off-center cards…the list goes on. Heck, one out of every four cards in the set pictures a Hall of Famer. That alone lets you know you're in for a battle. Chasing a complete … [Read more...]
Flashback: Topps Had Lots of Unsold 1957-58 Basketball
Finding old news coverage devoted to baseball cards is always fun--especially when the articles reveal a little more about where the baseball card market may have stood at a certain period of time. According to an article that made its way to various newspapers in the spring of 1961, Topps estimated that 250 million cards were produced that season. The company often shared … [Read more...]