|
Prewar Baseball Cards
Few people have a collection of old baseball cards from their childhood. These are either stored in boxes or other forms of storage. It is often not easy to determine how old a card is just by looking at it. Modern baseball cards are easier to identity than prewar baseball cards mostly because the name of the manufacturer and the copyright date are imprinted on it. However, you to need to know that sometime cards are designed a year before they are released.
Prewar baseball card or vintage cards as they are more commonly known are very difficult to identify, because the manufacturers info and copyright information is mostly written in an abbreviated form or not written at all. This poses a very serious problem to vintage or prewar baseball cards collectors. However, there are some quick tips used to identify prewar baseball cards.
The main manufacturer of post-war baseball cars was the Topps Company which held monopoly of production from 1950 to 1981. The company’s domination of the production of baseball cards in those three decades has made her name synonymous with baseball cards for many collectors. Most Vintage cards in circulation during the years 1950 up till the 1980 are likely to be Topps manufactured cards. In certain years of their manufacturing, some of Topps baseball cards were marked with the letters T.C.G at the back while many others had no identification at all. With only a few exceptions, the majority of Topps cards did not have a date of production. With all these barriers, how can you tell what year a vintage card was manufactured? The answer is simple. Many Topps cards list statistics on the back, often including the year of the statistics and from this information, you can easily figure out the cards year of manufacture by adding 1 year to the years of the statistics written on the back. For example, if a Topps baseball card has statistics through the 1965 season, then that card has to be a 1966 card manufactured card. This makes it very easy to date.
Secondly, every Topps card has a standard base design which can be used to identify most of the cards from the set. Topps sets include what is known as sub-sets which include all star cards, those commemorating the World Series and other cards classified within special categories. These cards have slightly different designs from the regular cards and this makes them even more difficult to identify.
Another question is, how do you tell if your Topps baseball card is an original or a reprint? Although most cards which appear to be vintage cards actually are, there are some reprints amongst them. If the player on the card is not Mickey Mantle, a picture of a major star, then it is almost certainly not a counterfeit. Topps Company in recent times began reprinting some of their vintage collections. These reprints are easy to identify because they contain certain copy right information that cannot be found on an original vintage card. They are also printed on noticeably higher quality card material.
| 
