Miller Press Baseball Cards - any knowledgeable collectors here?

[ocjack]

My friend recently mentioned that he had acquired several lots of Miller Press cards. I had never heard of them. Found them on the Google, but not alot of background info or history/values.

Anyone here familiar with them and able to give me a quick education on the subject?

Thanks ahead of time.

[mrmopar]

If I recall, these are basically just homemade customs. Monarch/Corona are a couple other names on some similar cards, which I believe were all done by the same person or persons. There is an ebay seller who sells them, LOTS & LOTS of them

I bit on a lot of the customs early on, but as they gone more prolific and better quality, I stopped buying every one I saw. For my custom money, I will pick up a couple well made pieces like Banty Red. That maker/seller is a member here, I know. Found another similar one that is Sporting Life, or something close to that.

The other difference is that some of the better sellers are clear in what they are selling/making, clearly marking their product as a modern card made to look old, or better yet, date them with a copyright so it is clear in the future that these are not vintage cards, but modern pieces of art. A lot of these others were likely meant with the hopes or tricky people into thinking they were something they are not.

[ocjack]

Thanks Curt. I did an Ebay search and you're right, they are all over the place. Doesn't look like they were meant to deceive, but wonder if they received appropriate rights to the photos.

Thanks for chiming in.

[Exhibitman]

Some of the 'Broders' are nicely done, some are POS. I have quite a few in my boxing collection because sometimes that's all you can get for a fighter.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Some of the 'Broders' are nicely done, some are POS. I have quite a few in my boxing collection because sometimes that's all you can get for a fighter.

I actually like a lot of that stuff.

The whole "oh they can always reprint it so it's trash" never seemed to actually happen, as the placed doing it sold what they made and moved on to the next hot topic or set design.
The only places caught reprinting were Star and Upper Deck, who got caught reprinting, and a couple years later faking their own non-sports stuff to sell to Treat.

Some of the designs on the unlicensed stuff were actually pretty good.

The Miller Press Cards are not handmade cards. They were limited printed runs designed by the printer and printed on a commercial printing press. Only a few hundred were made of each series mostly to be used as a promotional cards to be handed out at trade shows and to potential printing customers. They were never reprinted. When a series was done it was done never to be reprinted. Typically they were printed at the end of a customer job to minimize paper waste on the jobs. The press owner was a baseball card fan and decided to make cards that never existed. The cards are clearly marked monarch corona printing and are dated with the year so they can’t be confused as a vintage card. They made cards from 2004 - 2014. The seller on EBay acquired the remaining cards after printing business was sold by the original owner. The series are documented and I have a fairly extensive checklist. The cards are very well done and are more professionally done than the handmade sporting news cards or Banty red cards. I have some of those as well and they are nice but the sporting news cards are printed on a laser printer and any moisture will make them bleed. I recently learned the original Miller Press owner has bought the company back and may start producing some new series.