Most iconic baseball cards

[easysurfer]

The 12 most iconic baseball cards:

News Headlines

Got me thinking about what cards I have..any iconic or rare ones?

I know I have one of "Chipper Jones...future stars" somewhere. the most strange one is of a non-player. A batboy...that's descibed in this link:

Vintage Sportscards: Practical Jokes on Baseball Cards

 

[RunningBum]

I've got the Ryan/Koosman rookie, it's the most valuable of my collection. And I have the Rodriguez batboy card. I remember the Billy Ripken card but I don't know that I have it, at least not an unretouched one.

One of my favorites is a late 60s football card. On the back they'd have a cartoon with a little factoid about the guy's hobby or off season job or something like that. For one guy, and I can't remember who without finding it, it says "Tom likes to drink beer" and a cartoon of a guy with a helmet holding a mug with a full head of beer.

 

[easysurfer]

I also got a Don Drysdale card (1968, I believe). Yeah I remember those cartoon factoids on those football cards. They were funny. Also remember the Topps baseball cards. One year they had them "In Action" as opposed to posing for the photos. Another year, there was a big lettering saying "Traded". My brothers and I would laugh at the "Traded" ones as we felt it would be a bit embarrassing for the player to show in big letters, "Traded"

 

[HFWR]

When I was growing up (such as it was) in the 60s, lots of future HOFamers were still playing: Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Robinson, Killebrew, Kaline, Koufax, Drysdale, Gibson, etc. Had most all the cards during my Little league years, and this was when you had to buy them in individual gum packs, not buy the whole box...

Alas, my mom decided they were in the way, and they disappeared into the trash can of oblivion. Would still like to have the Yastrzemski Triple Crown card from 1967...

 

[scrabbler1]

I also got a Don Drysdale card (1968, I believe). Yeah I remember those cartoon factoids on those football cards. They were funny. Also remember the Topps baseball cards. One year they had them "In Action" as opposed to posing for the photos. Another year, there was a big lettering saying "Traded". My brothers and I would laugh at the "Traded" ones as we felt it would be a bit embarrassing for the player to show in big letters, "Traded"

The "In Action" cards were part of the 1972 set (1971 season). They may have been part of other years, too, but I know they were part of the 1972 set. In the 1973 and 1974 set (at least), some of the players had "Action" cards instead of posed pictures.

The "TRADED" cards were part of the 1974 set (1973 season). I have that full set. On the back were little newspaper-like articles about their trade.

As for those little cartoons with trivia about the player, my favorite was always the one on the back of NBA Hall-of-Famer Bob Lanier's card (1973-74). It said he wre a size 22 sneaker and it had a cartoon drawing with an exaggerated foot-wearing sneaker which was bigger than the rest of him!

 

[ziggy29]

The Wagner card is known to be the Holy Grail, but when I was growing up collecting cards in the '70s the most iconic was probably the '52 Topps Mickey Mantle card.

 

[Bob1958]

I've collected my entire life. There are plenty of odd cards out there, far too many to list, and a bunch of stuff done on purpose and by accident. Bob Eucker batted left for his '66 Topps card even though he was a right-handed batter. Billy Martin's '72 (or maybe '73) manager card shows him giving the middle finger on a bat - I don't think we'll ever know if that was on purpose or not.

 

[easysurfer]

I've collected my entire life. There are plenty of odd cards out there, far too many to list, and a bunch of stuff done on purpose and by accident. Bob Eucker batted left for his '66 Topps card even though he was a right-handed batter. Billy Martin's '72 (or maybe '73) manager card shows him giving the middle finger on a bat - I don't think we'll ever know if that was on purpose or not.

Considering it was Billy Martin.. I vote for on purpose

 

[Texas Proud]

I've got the Ryan/Koosman rookie, it's the most valuable of my collection. And I have the Rodriguez batboy card. I remember the Billy Ripken card but I don't know that I have it, at least not an unretouched one.

One of my favorites is a late 60s football card. On the back they'd have a cartoon with a little factoid about the guy's hobby or off season job or something like that. For one guy, and I can't remember who without finding it, it says "Tom likes to drink beer" and a cartoon of a guy with a helmet holding a mug with a full head of beer.

I was not a collector... but my next door neighbor seemed to have them all...


A funny thing is that I have a friend... and he started to talk about his cards... (not the neighbor)... he said he had the Ryan/Koosman card, but cut it in two when one of them changed teams... he wanted to keep the players by teams... don't know if he still has the two halves...

 

[RunningBum]

A funny thing is that I have a friend... and he started to talk about his cards... (not the neighbor)... he said he had the Ryan/Koosman card, but cut it in two when one of them changed teams... he wanted to keep the players by teams... don't know if he still has the two halves...

We did that on a few of those rookie cards, fortunlately not the Ryan/Koosman card. We invented some games to play with the cards, and sometimes we wanted to use both players separately. I remember the Bench rookie from the same set, one of us took a pencil and put an X through the other guy, I think it was Ron Tompkins who never did anything. That hurt the value too. It's regrettable now, but as I think about the cards now, they still have a lot of sentimental value and I don't regret anything I did with them as a kid to enjoy them.

 

[jimnjana]

Most of my older cards I used to "flip" with buddies, that caused them to be damaged, it also didn't help using some of them in the tire spokes of my bike to "motorize" it. I remember trading a whole bag (over 300 cards) of 1972 cards for a couple of dollars to buy new 1973 cards... I did pull off a great trade for a 1971 Roberto Clemente card, I don't remember what I gave up for it, but the father of the kid I traded was not happy...