OT: Does anyone collect TCMA cards?
 

Always wanted to know, have some great pre-rookies of HOF'ers.


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Brent:

I am very interested in the TCMA minor league issues. It's fascinating to see what the stars of yesterday and today looked like prior to the beginning of their major league careers. I have just begun the process of going back and collecting scans of all minor league star cards dating back to the 1950's but they start becoming prominent much more so in the mid-1970's.

Unfortunately, TCMA also produced a boatload of commemorative cards from teams and players of the distant past and more collectors relate these issues to TCMA rather than their minor league productions. Unlike the minor league cards, I have no interest in these issues.

Here are a few of my favorite TCMA minor league star cards..............

I always felt like the TCMA cards were cheap, ugly, knock-off's....

Knock-offs of what? They cornered the minor league market and ushered in some of the first "retro" themed sets. Admittedly, they were never going to win any design awards but I think they filled a necessary void in the hobby for several years.

Yeah, love TCMA issues -- and still pursue them.

As a kid, the 'all-time greats' themed sets gave me a needed perspective on the history of the game.

Look again at that Willie McGee card Phil posted, and tell me thats not a sharp looking XRC?

Love TCMA.

Collect is a strong term. I pick up any I find of former Marshall players or card that picquet my interest. I don't pay a lot for any of them. I think perhaps the most interesting card TCMA ever made was the Scott Boras card of which I have picked up a couple over the years.

Those cards you posted are awesome. I haven't seen too many other issues or searched, but there are some great images and some signed look stunning.



I've seen SSPC cards that look familiar, know anything about that set?

Cards are not mine.

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...fabe699785.jpg

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...f0b6a1e59e.jpg


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A few more minor league star cards to enjoy.............

Collected TCMA cards in the early 80's .
Started with the minor league sets , figuring that some of these
guys might become big stars one day and a couple might even make it to the HOF.
Well , many went on to have nice careers in the Majors and a couple did make it to the Hall. Glad I have them in my collection.
As for the sets depicting teams and players from the past , I liked and bought a number of them too . Used a lot of these cards for TTM autograph requests
.... here's a few of the many I've had for a long time.
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/y...Picture042.jpg
.
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/y...Picture039.jpg
.
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/y...Picture044.jpg.
........
Let's not forget some of the lesser known names .....
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/y...Picture041.jpg
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http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/y...Picture040.jpg
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http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/y...Picture037.jpg
.
.
TCMA's time may have come and gone , but I'm glad I was able to enjoy what they did ,
Ken

Hey guys, thanks for the show of support :) . My father is Mike Aronstein of TCMA. Let me know if you have any questions regarding TCMA issues and I can likely answer many of them. If not I'd be happy to ask the man himself :cool: .

What would you like to know about SSPC? I can tell you that SSPC was just TCMA under another name and wasn't very well liked by Topps :) . At least not the 1975 set of current players of the day.

I have some cards that the women depicted in "A League Of Their Own" were signing and handing out. Do you know if TCMA had a hand in creating those cards?

Not to my knowledge. I just did a quick google search for them and it looks like they were done by Larry Fritsch cards. IIRC TCMA did print the cards for The Natural that you see running through a printing press during the film.

SSPC is TCMA under a different name :) . If you go way back there was also SCFC (Sports Cards for Collectors) that predates TCMA. Apparently my father has a thing for acronyms, lol.

Bumped, I like this thread :cool: .

Any chance of a Topps-style "TMCA Vault" sale of remaining TCMA production materials?

"TCMA" PostCards
 

http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/2042957/view/TCMA_NEW.JPG


...The TCMA editors knew what they were doing. I like these . Just really like them.

...

Bingo. Before these here Interwebs could help you find info and photos for just about any player, I valued affordable cards such as these a means to learn about the history of the game and put faces to names I'd read about.

Actually, some of these materials do still exist and are in our possession. Don't think there's much there we'd part with though. All of the negatives are now owned by Photo File and they continue to offer prints from some of the negs used on TCMA cards. With all the modern technology and improvements in printing the finished products look
MUCH better now than they ever did.

For example, here are some from the TCMA 1950's set:

https://www.pinterest.com/andrewaronstein/tcma-1950s/

These have always been my favorite TCMA cards. The 69 SCFC are cool too.

I collect and sell TCMA cards
 

As an oldtimer who recalls fondly SCFC and the line drawings of Hall of Famers and regular guys who comprise that 1968-69 set (as well as SCFC's well-done postcard size set), I both collect TCMA and sell quite a nice volume on eBay.

My personal favorites are (in no particular order): The 1950's (291 full-color cards plus 2 teams), The 1930's (504+ cards), The 1960s (482 full-color), Photo Classic Baseball postcards (40), 1942 through 1949 Play Ball (45 cards per year), Play Ball postcards (18), Great Players of 1950s & '60s (both series) and.... There were some truly GREAT cards issued by TCMA starting in 1972 and running for well over a decade.

There was actually a time when Topps was virtually the only game in town - except for TCMA. But TCMA was much more: TCMA cards filled a great void left by Fleer following the 1960 and '61 Baseball Greats sets.

If TCMA should ever get back into the game, sign me up!

Steve Mitchell

In my Almanac Days, I always enjoyed adding TCMA sets to our data base as we got information.

It's a shame people would think those commemorative sets, many of which featured, at the time, the only known card of a player, were not cool

Rich

I wish there were some financially practical way for TCMA to produce some new sets. I would still love to see "retro" style TCMA sets of minor league cards for players that never had a TCMA minor league card. I think "new" minor league cards of 70s-80s superstars could be a hit.

To that end, Andrew, does TCMA have any minor league photos of players or teams that never actually got cards produced? I've got gaps in my Bernardo Brito collection for 1982, 1984 & 1985 where his teams didn't have any sets produced.

I recently went on a mini-splurge at my local comic book shop. While thumbing through Daredevil 187, one of the issues purchased, I ran across this ad and thought it would be neat to share.

Love it! Thanks for sharing that :) .

I have a near complete run of TCMA minor league sets including most of the variations. The 1977 sets are particularly tough with all the variations.
Great stuff. I remember them well.