Most Wanted Baseball Cards By Collectors10/20/2021
And most collectors who pursued Topps’ challenge to “find the Mick” in the 1991 packs were very dissappointed to discover that after hundreds or thousands of opened packs, not a single vintage card, or for the extremely lucky among them, a VG 1974 Topps common!A player’s rookie card is their first ever card, sometimes printed before their first professional season. If you think of your favorite player, their most valuable card is most likely from Topps.1991 Topps is remembered by most collectors for it’s “1 of every card ever produced” sweepstakes. This segment of the hobby is filled with cards of legends like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, just to name a few.Topps is the baseball card brand the king of the castle. Pre-War Baseball Cards (Printed Prior to 1945) Some of the most valuable baseball cards you'll ever encounter were printed prior to World War II.Considered one of the crowned jewels for baseball card collectors, the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle is a thing of beauty. Here is a look at some of the toughest Topps variations from the 1991 issue:Estimated Value (PSA 9): 5 Million+. Though the 1991 set does boast some of Topps’ best photography up to that point and an already classic design, it’s also Topps’ most variation-heavy set ever produced! And since it was the last Topps set where the company made the effort to stop their presses and correct a large portion of errors, several of the rarest variations in Topps’ catalog can be found in this set. Both cards are some of the most valuable in the hobby, but the 1952 Topps version is worth much more since it is.Like the Drabek mentioned above, this scarce variety originally had a white photo frame before Topps’ proofers changed it. Eighteen of the most valuable vintage baseball card sets are listed.#42 Chris Hoiles with WHITE inset border. Sales have seen over $100 for this card in previous years!This app aims to offer the sports card collector the ability to get an overview of.
Topps’ decision to “correct” this card is a baffling one since a large number of players in the 1991 set can be found with appendages, hats, bats, etc sticking out into the white border area. Note ‘Hard-Hittin’s’ hand extends into the white border area – this was changed to look as though the border was printed over his hand. I have received many wantlists from master set builders, variation collectors and pretty much every other type of collector, asking for this card:#588 Mark Whiten with HAND OVER BORDER. My theory on this card’s issue is that it was likely found in one specific packaging type and corrected very early in the run.Next up, a mostly-unnoticeable but truly rare variation:#459 Tom Trebelhorn with A* in copyright on back. I have even pulled 2 vintage commons ( a 1968 and a 1975) in that time! I have found these in commons boxes, hand-collated sets and those weird team sets you used to find at the grocery store. I have personally opnened countless amounts of every packaging type, from the elusive 100ct jumbo packs to retail and hobby factory sets to vending boxes and everything in between from every possible region of the United States and have yet to pull one of these from Topps’ packaging. Most Wanted Baseball Cards By Collectors Free To EmailBoth were produced in seemingly equal quantities. Originally Topps airbrushed the area a brownish color to reflect Boyd’s wrist being printed over the banner, then it was changed to a pink color in order to place the banner on top of Boyd’s hand. Take a look at card #48, specifically where Boyd’s wrist meets the “40th Anniversary” banner at upper left. If anyone has a scan of an example, please feel free to email one and I’ll post it in this blog.Several other variations featuring E*F* or F* sheet codes exist in the 1991 set and are fairly common.#48 Dennis ‘Oil Can’ Boyd with Black-bordered banner tip.This is a tricky one. They are often on many want-lists that get sent to me and would likely bring a decent premium if offered at auction. Spi nand flashThe card number on back is colored red (or pink), the same as the background of the bio data area on the card. As I have found a handfull of boxes during my travels that are affected by this variation. This is more of a printing-flaw thing that seems to have occurred semi-frequently. But in recent years, a third variety showed up, one where Topps added a thin black border around the banner tip to further punctuate the banner’s dominance of Boyd’s hand! Topps was not messing around!! They felt so strongly that this miniscule conflict needed a third correction at the end of the print run! Still, today, I can only vouch for just 3 known copies! Maybe one day when all these variations are cataloged in the annual guides, more will creep out of collections and a true guage for their rarity will be determined, until then, this is one of the rarest of the 1991’s!#720 Cecil Fielder with RED NUMBER (and other D* sheet red numbers). All cards (except the Managers) that come from the A* and B* sheets can be found in a parallel version with a thick, dark red 40th Anniversary logo imposed over the statistics on back. A complete set of them can be a tricky task and I believe they are essential for a master set, but for the most part they are not scarce. They are less-common than your regular “ghosted” or “faint 40th logo” backed 1991 Topps cards. These are pretty tough to find and scarce in my opinion, so if you’re looking to build a master set, they’d be a great addition despite the ambiguous number of total affected subjects.Bold 40th Logo variations. The ones I’ve outlined above are the key toughies to knock-down in the pursuit of a master set, if you can locate them, then everything else can usually be found pretty easily ( I know because I have a 5000ct box full of them).Stay tuned for further blogs, hopefully if enough people start reading them, I can start doing giveaways and contests for unlisted variations.I wanted to help shed some light on which 1991 Topps cards may be available with an A*B* print designation on back. A quick google search will pull up a number of lists (fairly accurate) that give a breakdown on what numbers/subjects are affected by variations and what those variations are, so I’m going to skip listing all of those. Also, several cards already affected by variations such as Mark McGwire, Oil Can Boyd, Greg Swindell, Kevin Seitzer and Dennis Rassmussen, also come with Bold 40th logo backs as well…see, tricky stuff, just when you thought you had it all figured out!1991 Topps has a ton of easy-to-find, well-known and little-known variations: border colors, wrong photos, statistical errors, etc. Fujitsu 6240z user guideI had no idea until I started looking how many there are…. When I was a kid in 1991 I pulled a miscut Jose Canseco #390 All Star card and the miscut was aligned almost perfectly to make it look like it was a “Lopps” brand card.I still have that card thought it would be nice to simply have all the variations/errors/parrallels of that card. I hope this is found to be helpful.Having just recently got back into card collecting, you guys are killing me with all these errors and variations for the 1991 Topps. Finally, there is a variation on the Tom Trebelhorn card A* & B*, as well as a Darrin Fletcher variation (F* and blank). I suppose the Steve Olin E*F* card exists but for some reason I still haven’t come across it.
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