My Top 10 Reason I like '50s BB Cards.... Care to add?

[mintacular]

1. Harkens back to a golden era
2. Cards were collectibles then, a fun thing to own for a kid
3. A couple main brands but not too many (Bowman, Topps, a few oddball)
4. Simple designs. Team Logos, mugshots, a little artistry, cartoon on back. Rinse and repeat.
5. Fun and relatively easy to build a full set
6. High #'s and short prints make them challenging to find (and "investable" too I suppose)
7. Full of HOF stars that emerged post-war and had companies like Topps to display them on cards for the first time
8. Due to centering and other common defects REAL CONDITION SCARCITY can make it fun to find diamonds in the rough
9. Easy to identify a true "rookie"
10. Did I mention simplicity? Oh yeah, that attribute basically pulses through the other nine above!

Feel free to add yours!

[Seven]

To keep with the number theme:

11. Early 50's sets had dedicated rookie cards for each players. There was no split cards as we see in the 60's
12. Screams Americana. 50's were a time of hope and renewal, I think the cards do a good job of capturing that
13. The art style. While controversial I love the 52 Topps art style. 51 and 52 Bowman are Beautiful as well. 53 Topps was a great set too.

[Butch7999]

14. They feel like baseball cards, not like paper-thin glossy bits of ephemera that all seem like bonus inserts from a pack of real cards
15. They smell like baseball cards, the scent of the stick of awful gum still lingering on well-kept examples
16. Better typography -- easily legible bold lettering in the backside text, not microscopic 4-point fonts

and we'll say "hear hear" to 4 and 13 above -- frank, simple portraits and the occasional unembellished action shot,
not a psychedelic miasma of image-distorting swirls and swooshes and artificial colours

[John1941]

The Yankees ruled the world.

[ALR-bishop]

The Topps v Bowman card war from 51 to 55 was epic

[mortimer brewster]

Nothing excites me more than the moldy smell of a finely aged baseball card, especially from my favorite year 1957.

[John1941]

Originally Posted by mortimer brewster

Nothing excites me more than the moldy smell of a finely aged baseball card, especially from my favorite year 1957.

I like that. "Finely aged" captures it well.

The designs are great, the players are interesting, the cards are usually affordable - what's not to love?

[skooter]

I can't explain it, but at 79 years old, I can still look at a 1954 Bowman and taste the gum!

[cannonballsun]

I liked the gum. Am I the only one ?

[G1911]

I like art over photos. Topps through 1956, Bowman most years, Red Man, Red Heart, it was a golden era of artwork-centric cards. Also, they are much cheaper than the 1933-1934 or 1909-1912 periods of great artwork-centric cards. The 50's are kind of a sweetheart spot. I'm running out of 50's Topps and Bowman cards I don't have, and am kind of bummed I'm hitting the end of the line in collecting them. I pull my 53 Topps set out probably more often than any other baseball issue.

[Harliduck]

I agree with everything already brought up. To me pre-57 cards are just art. I love the size, the look, the players...I also like that I don't mind lower grade cards pre-57...doesn't bother me a bit. Just having an example matters...

[Lucas00]

The 50s regional releases and oddball cards are absolutely the best of any era imo. So many players best looking cards come from these releases and sets that I just love them that much more.

[thatkidfromjerrymaguire]

As others here have mentioned, for me it's all about the artwork. ESPECIALLY 1950, 1951, and 1952 Bowman. Masterpieces!

[Volod]

Originally Posted by cannonballsun

I liked the gum. Am I the only one ?

As long as you're recalling opening a '50's waxpack in the 50's, Wayne, and not sometime recently. But, I guess I also enjoyed card gum at the age of eight or nine, myself. The one really bad memory I have of confections in card wrappers from that era is the god-awful caramel candy that Topps put in its first year cards. That evil stuff was so stale and hard by the time it hit store shelves, it could break a kid's baby teeth before it had time to rot them.

[jchcollins]

In general, I think 50's cards just speak to a simpler time, and their images and feel and smell are highly evocative of nostalgia.

For me, a child of the 1980's - the 1950's were when my parents were kids. I can flip through a group of 50's cards and wonder if my Dad might have had any of them. I didn't experience the 1950's in person, but if that must be the case - I think the cards today are at least a decent substitute. I can do that with cards and be in any era I want - and to that end, I feel like it's the right hobby for me because I can get rid of what Jefferson Burdick called "work a day cares" and ride off on a magic carpet with my cards. I'm instantly 12 again, or 10 - and for those few small moments where i can be totally focused - nothing else in the world matters.

[profholt82]

I also grew up in the 80s, and was fascinated by the 50s as a whole. Perhaps it was seeing Back to the Future, I don't know. But the music, movies, tv shows, fashions, they all appealed to me. When I got into card collecting with the wood grain bordered 87T set, my dad got me a binder for them shortly thereafter, and it featured many 50s cards on the cover, and I just thought they looked amazing. It was this one:


As a fan of the sport, I knew many of the names, but not all. That Richie Ashburn card in particular really called out to me. I ended up getting his biography from the library and became fascinated by him. But while I liked the Topps sets of my era, and later the great photography of sets by Upper Deck and Score, I knew that they paled in comparison to those beautiful cards of the 50s. Later in life, since I got back into card collecting, I've focused almost exclusively on the 50s, and it's no coincidence.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by profholt82

When I got into card collecting with the wood grain bordered 87T set, my dad got me a binder for them shortly thereafter, and it featured many 50s cards on the cover, and I just thought they looked amazing. It was this one:

I wanted that binder so bad as a kid! Never could find it.

Back to the Future also likely had some influence. I was 9 when that came out and remember seeing it in the theatre. The 50's seemed like some mythical world that was hundreds of years ago, not just 30 or so. It's like trying to compare today to the early 1990's. Just not the same.

[whiteymet]

Richie Ashburn was my baseball hero. I got to know him pretty well in his later years and the thing he was most proud of was that he had the most hits of any player in the decade of the 50's! Yep, look it up.

I asked him why?

What he said sort of "fits" in this discussion. Something I had never thought of.

He said it was the the best baseball ever played because it was post integration and pre expansion!

[Volod]

Originally Posted by whiteymet

Richie Ashburn was my baseball hero. I got to know him pretty well in his later years and the thing he was most proud of was that he had the most hits of any player in the decade of the 50's! Yep, look it up.

I asked him why?

What he said sort of "fits" in this discussion. Something I had never thought of.

He said it was the the best baseball ever played because it was post integration and pre expansion!

Richie made some really astute observations. I loved his quote about a new member of his team: "The kid doesn't smoke, chew, drink, curse or chase women...I don't see how he can possibly make it in this league.":

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by John1941

The Yankees ruled the world.

+1!

Everyone who bashes them is ate-up jealous.

[egri]

Originally Posted by Volod

Richie made some really astute observations. I loved his quote about a new member of his team: "The kid doesn't smoke, chew, drink, curse or chase women...I don't see how he can possibly make it in this league.":

Around the same time he said that, the Red Sox had a rookie pitcher, Paul Hinrichs, who asked Ellis Kinder how to succeed in the majors. Kinder asked him, "Do you drink?" "No." "Smoke?" "No." "Stay out late chasing girls?" "No." "You'll never make it."

Hinrichs' career lasted two games.

[Volod]

Originally Posted by egri

Around the same time he said that, the Red Sox had a rookie pitcher, Paul Hinrichs, who asked Ellis Kinder how to succeed in the majors. Kinder asked him, "Do you drink?" "No." "Smoke?" "No." "Stay out late chasing girls?" "No." "You'll never make it."

Hinrichs' career lasted two games.

I kind of suspect that the similar quotes reflect a general attitude around clubhouses in '50's. Maybe straight laced young guys were viewed with a jaundiced eye by veterans going way back into past decades.

[Exhibitman]

One word: Flexichrome

http://www.thetoppsarchives.com/2011...rome-away.html