1954 All Star Photo pack questions
 

Hi Guys:

Can anyone provide info on the 1954 All Star Photo pack? I have seen at least three different checklists with differing numbers in the set set. 17, 20, 24.

AFAIK all of them have the players name in a small white box, however I see some that are on one or two of the checklists listed on ebay that the name is not in the white box.

Here for example is an Avila:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/33482582271...Bk9SR96x5O7BYg

Another is this Garcia:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/31461594320...Bk9SR-Sx5O7BYg

Are these from the set or rather an Indians team issue? Can anyone provide images of these two and Eddie Robinson from the All Star set? Or are there some without the name in the white box?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide

My set had 17 with all the names in the white box. I did not have the Avila, Garcia or Eddie Robinson. Now I'm getting concerned that I didn't purchase the full set!!

My OLD SCD Standard catalog mistakenly shows them as 1956 ( not 1954) All Star Photo pack lists 17 WITH Avila and Garcia but not Eddie Robinson. Others are:

Boone, Campy, Dark, Kuenn, Mathews, Mays, Minoso, Musial, Newcombe, Reynolds, Roberts, J. Robinson, Schoendienst, Snider and Williams.

Here is a Lelands listing that says there are 30 in the set:

https://lelands.com/bids/1954-all-star-game-photo-pack

What 17 are in your pack?

Not that it’s particularly meaningful, but the good folks at PSA do seem to view some of these as being from a separate set, listed as the Indians photo pack.

They also seem to have the player’s name in script rather than typed in a little white box.

My 17 are: Kuenn, Snider, Kiner, Mathews, Boone, Reynolds, Kluzewski, Roberts, Minoso, Schoendist, Dark, Mays, Musial, Berra, Jackie Robinson, Mantle and Williams. I have the envelope too, and I doubt that they could fit another 13 photos into it without causing damage. Mine are all pretty nice with sharp corners though a few of them have the diffuse dark printer splotches on the back that always seem to cause the grades to be pretty low.

Yeah, that auction listing is incorrect for 1954 because it includes Lumpe, and per Baseball Reference, he did not start playing until 1956.

I think the Garcia, Avila and Rosen photos are from the Indians team issued photo packs......Went through my big stack of assorted Cleveland Indians picture pack photos and found these 5.

The seller of the Garcia on ebay also listed Bob Hooper and Wally Westlake as "1954 Cleveland Indians All-Star Photo Pack" photos but they are just from team issued picture packs

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...bfc2dc5d_h.jpg

Years ago I won a near set at auction & had SGC slab them
Here's a scan of the envelope that they came in

https://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/asenvelope.jpg

This Leland listing is definitely in error. They include 14 Yankees as part of the All-Star set and we all know 14 Yankees were not part of the 1954 All-Star team. In addition, there is a 1956 Yankees team set that includes those 14 players plus 9 others (for a total of 23 photos). I think this is where the Yankee photos in the Leland auction are from. I also wonder about the other photos included in the Leland auction referenced above. And the reason for this is because the size of my 1956 Yankee photo set Mantle is different from the size of the 1954 All-Star Mantle that I have.

Attachment 585379

The All-Star photo is on the right. So, either my All-Star photo is trimmed (which unfortunately is a possibility), or the All-Star photos are slightly smaller than the Yankee set photos. If the All-Star photos are smaller and if all of the photos in the Leland auction were the same size, then none of them could be All-Star photos. I can't put my hands on my Mantle All-Star photo, but the Yankee photo set Mantle is 8-7/8" tall by 6-1/8" wide. What size do you have for your All-Star photos?

For what it's worth, which probably isn't much, PSA lists 20 players as part of the 1954 All-Star set - Ernie Banks, Larry "Yogi" Berra, Ray Boone, Roy Campanella, Alvin Dark, Al Kaline, Ralph Kiner, Ted Kluszewski, Harvey Kuenn, Mickey Mantle, Ed Mathews, Willie Mays, Orestes Minoso, Stan Musial, Allie Reynolds, Robin Roberts, Jackie Robinson, Al Schoendienst, Duke Snider, and Ted Williams.

Here is my Mantle, assuming PSA didn’t mistake it.

Hard to compare it to the borders above. Almost seems like it’s halfway between the borders from the two examples provided.

Sorry, I missed one that was doubled up in a top loader with another player. I also have Campy, so that makes the total number, that I received with the 1954 All Star envelope, to 18. I do not have a Kaline or Banks.

in my 2008 Standard Catalog, the complete set is listed as 24 and the aforementioned Indians players are listed in there with all 24 having the names in the boxes.

So. does anyone have any of the Indians like Avila or Garcia with their names in the white box? If so please show here.

So I tried to do a little more research and while I could not uncover the 2 Indians players you were looking for, I did notice something interesting about the 1954 All Star Photo Pack Ernie Banks. The position of the name is different. I don't have all of them in front of me at the moment, but to my recollection, in all of the others examples in my photo pack, the name of the player always appears in a rectangle located in the lower right corner of the photo. Likewise, I found a Kaline in the PSA APR section, and the location of the name, while in the general vicinity as the names in my other photos, is noticeably higher. Not sure what to make of that.

Even PSA has problems with these. I have seen a 1956 Mantle holdered as the 1954 AS but was clearly the larger size. All of the 1954's are the smaller than most team issued photo pack issues.

I have: Ernie Banks, Ray Boone, Roy Campanella, Al Dark, Al Kaline, Ted Kluszewski, Harvey Kuenn, Mickey Mantle, Ed Mathews, Willie Mays, Minnie Minoso, Stan Musial, Don Newcombe, Robin Roberts, Jackie Robinson, Al Schoendienst, Herb Score, Duke Snider, Ted Williams -19 different, presumably others...

Are your Banks and Kaline pics like the ones I showed, or do they have the names in the lower right hand corner? Just curious if all the 1954's had the same layout.

No they are higher on the photo as are several other players, not all are lower right.

I might just be fooling myself into thinking that I have a complete 1954 set, but I’m not showing that either Banks or Kaline were included in the 1954 set. But the odds are good that I'm wrong, and not just a little.

Just went back and looked at my list. I have 18 total. Basically your 17 plus Campanella.

So if we tally up the confirmed in the threads we are up to twenty-one.

Ernie Banks, Yogi Berra, Ray Boone, Roy Campanella, Al Dark, Al Kaline, Ted Kluszewski, Harvey Kuenn, Mickey Mantle, Ed Mathews, Willie Mays, Minnie Minoso, Stan Musial, Don Newcombe, Allie Reynolds, Robin Roberts, Jackie Robinson, Al Schoendienst, Herb Score, Duke Snider and Ted Williams.

I don't collect these, just buy and sell, but I don't think I have sold anyone else not on this list.

54 AllStar set
 

I still think it is strange that Bob Lemke listed Avila, Garcia and Eddie Robinson as being in the 17 card set in the 2004 SCD Standard Catalog.

Wonder where he got that info?

They may very well be, that would bring it to an even 24... Bob was usually fairly thorough to confirm things he put on a checklist.

In a later post I mentioned that I'd overlooked the Campy in my count, so I had 18 as well.

Again, in my 2008 catalog (the latest that I have), there are 24 listed included those Cleveland players. Agreed, Bob was fairly thorough, but I often find updates entered into his old blog, or an article here or there in SCD or other magazines in which he updated his checklists or made corrections.

We may not have the answer until someone finds an unopened pack of 1954 All Star photos. But I guess one has to be willing to then open it. I picked up what I believe to be an unopened 1948 Cleveland Photo Pack earlier this year, so there's a chance some untampered/unopened envelopes containing the 1954 All Stars still exist in the wild!

There is also the possibility that the ones included in a "complete pack" varied as the year progressed, that is certainly true of team issued photo packs as players were traded or a new star emerged. So perhaps the 54's were the same way.

So, a 1954 photo pack just sold on ebay and included 23 different, oddly no Jackie Robinson(perhaps it was pulled out decades ago) as the pack had been in storage since the 1980's, but that seems unlikely that someone pulled it out back then. Anyway it contained:

Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ernie Banks, Al Dark, Billy Martin, Jerry Lumpe, Gerry Coleman, Bob Turley, Robin Roberts, Gil Mcdougald, Johnny Kucks, Elston Howard, Eddie Robinson, Ray Boone, Ted Kluszewski, Al Schoendienst, Yogi Berra, Andy Carey, Joe Collins, Duke Snider, Don Newcombe and Ed Mathews.

Several of these are new names(in bold) to the list above, however several of them are Yankees and appear to be slightly larger, so they may be the 1956 Yankees mixed in with the 54 All-Stars???

https://www.ebay.com/itm/11590157341...rue&nordt=true

Probably raises more questions than answers.

No, I think the images give more answers than raise more questions. Based on his records to the midpoints of the seasons in 1953 and 1954 there is no way that Bob Turley would have been considered an all-star worthy of inclusion in the 1954 All-star set. Likewise, Banks' stats wouldn't merit inclusion either. Moreover, all of the 18 in my photo pack have the names in the same place: Lower right hand corner. The Banks and I believe all the others not mentioned in my earlier post do not have the names in the white box in the lower right hand corner. I believe they are from another issue, and maybe a couple of other issues.

I suspect the use of the "All-Star" moniker might have been loosely applied. Hard to say for sure why these regional stars might have been included??

I can say for certain, no 1950's Chicago Cubs Team issue photos have the players name in a white box like the Banks. I am pretty comfortable including the players with the box located in different locations as part of this issue.

I guess the only way we would know for sure is if one were to locate an opened or confirmed untouched pack. I do know that one sizeable group that I obtained with an envelope, touted as being original did have a Banks in the group.

We may never know, especially since they did print the names of the players on the envelope, just the teams.

As I mentioned previously, most of the Yankees included in the "1954 All-Star" sets sold in auctions mentioned above most likely came from the 1956 Yankees team photo set. I think as proof of this, Jerry Lumpe did not play in the majors until the 1956 season. Johnny Kucks did not play in the majors until the 1955 season. Therefore, there is no way they would be included in a 1954 set.

It would be so much easier if they measured and listed the sizes. The 1956 are larger than the 1954's. In some images you can clearly see size differences when side by side.

I wish I could accept that as definitive proof that the Banks belongs in the set (or rather, that it doesn't, since it wasn't in the envelope that I got with the 18 1954 All Stars, and that would mean I bought an incomplete set, LOL!!).
But I can't, because otherwise I'd have to accept that Bob Lemon was part of that set as well, because I received a Bob Lemon included in my envelope when I bought my 1954 All Stars. But Lemon simply couldn't have been part of the set. It is much larger than the others photos, and has a signature in script across his body rather than his name printed in a box in the lower right corner (or anywhere for that matter). The fact that you can't find an example of a Banks in any Cubs team issue is probably more compelling from an evidence standpoint (although I guess it's possible it came from another all star set or possibly was a stand-alone photo used as a promotion for signing at a store opening?).

Yup, I noted as well that the only definitive proof would be obtained in a "break" of a sealed envelope. I did purchase a 1949 Cleveland Indians unopened photo pack recently, so I believe there could be some out there...

It would be nice to have some closure regarding this set!!

I agree. I'm just curious about all these 1954 All-Star sets with the larger photos in them. Don't the sellers notice the different sizes? Also, why are there so many sets with the larger photos? Why are the larger photos being added? So many questions, so few answers.

Another duplicate post.

How do you know? Right now it is Schroedinger's picture pack: could be a 1949, could be a stack of blank paper in there.

Schrodinger's picture pack! I like that! And the reference is not lost on me.

As you well know, the best one can do is assess the integrity of the container, as one might do for much of the unopened material that a buyer hasn't seen packaged with their own eyes (or cannot view through the wrapped with a high-intensity light). Sure, we try to create theories from best available evidence. But even if you have a real unopened rare pack and you're trying to base a conclusion about a set on it, you really can't. If a card isn't in there, you need to reproduce the event to make sure there wasn't an error at the company level. That, along with the memory of the many times I've pulled non-mint cards out of packs from packs I purchased myself from boxes at the candy store during the year of issue, is the reason why I don't buy much in the way of vintage unopened product. I only buy when I feel like I'm getting a great deal, can be reasonably sure that the pack hasn't been opened, and also never bet more than I feel I can lose in the gamble.

Ahh an optimist. You probably think the cat is alive. I always assume it is dead; that's what pulling six Sixto Lezcano cards and not a single Nolan Ryan in all the packs I busted in 1976 will do to a young boy's impressionable mind...

Another oversize one in Leland's, SGC labeled 1954??

https://auction.lelands.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=117239

photo pack
 

Just found this... list of players shows 19