So, this card probably won't be a finalist anytime soon for the portrait picture Hall of Fame (Wagner?) and honestly with the benefit of the years it's probably not that great looking of a card at all by any conventional measure - but it's an important one in my personal collecting history all the same. As about an 11 or 12 year old (the late 1980's, not the 1950's...) I happened across this Campy at a local card shop and gulped. Here was not only a BROOKLYN Dodger (Brooklyn being important to prove the card older, and thus much cooler to my adolescent self) but their HOF catcher who thrice won the NL MVP in 5 years. This was my first Brooklyn Dodger card, and despite the mediocre portrait (and what must be allowed is an odd looking, bowl-shaped cap on Roy's head...is it a helmet?) has been extremely important at least in my memory ever since. At some point before going to college, my original copy was traded off, but alas. As of this morning I finally have another one!
Campanella was a huge figure in baseball history to my child's eye, although in looking back with the benefit of a little history I realize he wasn't on the level of a Mays, Mantle, or Aaron. It does have to be allowed that for the brief period of the early 1950's he was indeed an NL powerhouse. It seems that since my first romance with collecting vintage blossomed in the late 1980's - he's not quite as popular a figure as he was back then, probably because a few better catchers have come along and then Bench went into Cooperstown - but Campy will always hold a special place for me. Shun the '54 Bowmans if you must (a lot of people do...) but I love this card.
