1973 Johnny Pro Orioles Baseball #5, Brooks Robinson (fielding)

This is the largest of my "punch-out" type cards, measuring about 4" x 6". Johnny Pro Enterprises of Baltimore published a total of 28 cards in this Oriole-only set, numbered by player uniform. The set count includes alternate poses for Jim Palmer (wind-up and follow-through), Bobby Grich (fielding and batting), and Brooks Robinson (fielding and batting).

Collectors punch out the upper-right tab as a base for the player pose. I've only seen full cards for sale, so assume that's most of what remains in the market.

Card front (blank back)

Many years ago, I sent Mr. Robinson this letter with an autograph request and a few questions. As I recall, it was back in my hands less than two weeks later, pretty quick for a HOFer! Very fittingly, he wore #5, which the Orioles retired when Brooks hung 'em up in 1977.

(Click through for full-size scan)

Value: Nice condition HOFers Robinson and Palmer sell for $10 to $20 and "commons" cost a few dollars. (Johnny Pro also published a set of Phillies cards in 1974, which includes an early Mike Schmidt.)

Fakes / Reprints: I haven't seen any reprints of the Johnny Pro sets. It'd be hard to reprint this kind of die-cut card and probably isn't worth the money to try.

A Card That Puzzles Me

AMERICA, baby. Even if your team plays in Canada.

1994 Fleer All-Stars #5, Joe Carter

I really like the pose captured here. Great swing, obvious contact, ball going a long way. But WHY WHY WHY the American flag? This is even the "card year" after Toronto won back-to-back titles! At least The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame knows what it's all aboot, and elected Joe to their roster in 2003.

1979 Cramer Phoenix Giants Baseball #5, Rocky Bridges

What did classic players do after their playing careers ended? Rocky Bridges followed 11 years of utility service for 7 teams in the 1950s with 21 years of minor league managing for 3 more organizations.

Although his teams won a little less often than they lost, he did pick up a couple of Manager of the Year awards along the way. Find entertaining details of Rocky's run in the title story for I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad, edited by Ball Four author Jim Bouton.

This energetic shot of Rocky appealing to the Southwestern sun sits in the middle of a 9-year managerial run for San Francisco's AAA affiliate, Phoenix. They finished 59-88 in 1979, under-performing their already dour Pythagorean W-L record by an amazing (and depressing) 5 games. Exhibit A for the angle "they played bad." (Mr. Bridges' minor league managerial record.)

Cramer Sports Productions kicked off with these 1970s minor league sets, occasionally in partnership with a local business like Phoenix's Valley National Bank. As mentioned in my 1978 Spokane Indians #5 profile, they eventually became MLB-licensed cardmaker Pacific and were themselves acquired by Donruss in 2004.

Value: Minor league singles of "common" players cost from $.50 to $2 on Beckett Marketplace. Many guides price them only by complete team, but more and more dealers list individual cards.

Fakes / Reprints: It's highly unlikely someone would fake or reprint minor league sets, unless they contain big-name major leaguers.

What Upper Deck didn't do

2010 sets from Upper Deck don't have a license from MLB Properties, so (supposedly) aren't allowed to display team names or logos. They're now dealing with a lawsuit from Major League Baseball and it might boil down to whether or not printing a picture of a player wearing a logo is the same as reproducing the logo itself.

Of course, plenty of companies licensed the right to show player pictures in the past without getting MLB permission to show uniforms. This Nestle card's one example.

1988 Nestle #5, Ozzie Smith

While a great close-up of Ozzie Smith, Nestle calls the team "Cardinals" and airbrushed everything to solid red, as if The Wizard actually plays for a weekend softball team.

Upper Deck could've gone this route (by photo-editing each card) and clearly chose not to do so. I doubt that a 700-card set of bland pictures would sell well, so wonder--did they have much of an alternative?

CARD GIVEAWAY: 1974 TCMA Babe Ruth Postcards

[UPDATE: All 3 cards have been claimed! Keep an eye out for future giveaways.]

I'm pretty sure the TCMA founders culled these black-and-white photos from their own collections. This 6-count, postcard-sized set shows Babe in several outfits (player, coach, and civvies) and with contemporary players from the 1920s and 1930s.

Interestingly, none of these 3 cards put the Babe in pinstripes. The Dodger coaching uniform looks particularly unusual, considering his immutable image as the King of all Yankees.

Cards shown:

• Babe and 1934 AL All-Stars
• Babe and Tony Lazzeri (another former Yankee great)
• Babe, manager Joe McCarthy, and Lou Gehrig

Interested in one of these cards? Add a comment to the post and let me know!

1978 Cramer Spokane Indians #5, Jamie Quirk

I recently picked up a large quantity of minor league #5s, thanks to some of the larger dealers on Beckett Marketplace. The haul included this interesting--or at least colorful--Spokane team issue of long-time major league Jamie Quirk, then playing in the Brewers system. (He went on to log 17 years in the bigs, primarily with the Royals.)

Card front

Jaime's full name comes off very stilted for a baseball card. Doesn't "James P. Quirk" deserve to be followed by an "Esquire?" (It might also explain his puzzled expression.)

Card back

That's right ladies, Mr. Quirk was single back in 1978. Wait, did we really need to know this? Who can Jamie collar for that random, third-party disclosure of his marital status?

Cramer, who would later become Pacific, produced a bunch of minor league sets in the 1970s. Quirk's stats include a mixture of MLB and minors performance, something often seen on Topps cards. If Spokane's team set came out in mid-1978, I assume the set editor cribbed them from the back of Topps #95. (Scan at CheckOutMyCards.com.)

Value: Guides typically price minor league cards by the full team set, since they're rarely broken up. Most individual players that didn't become big names in the majors cost $.50 to $2 on Beckett Marketplace.

Fakes / Reprints: I doubt there are any reprints of this Spokane set. Quirk's teammates from that year include future managers Ed Yost and Tony Muser. (Checklist at TeamSets4U.com.)

Can cards be investments?

Mario of Wax Heaven posted worthwhile commentary on Upper Deck's current situation today. Collectors and bloggers seem to like their late-2009 and early 2010 products, but the company faces a murky future after MLB properties quickly served up a lawsuit over the unlicensed portrayal of team logos.

The article also pointed back to a 2009 interview with author Pete Williams, who profiled Upper Deck's early history and explosive business influence in the book "Card Sharks." This question from Mario (and Pete's answer) caught my eye.

Q: If given just one choice, which card would you invest in and why: a 2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols autograph or a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle?

A: I would never, ever invest or even talk about investing in sports cards or memorabilia. The notion of sports memorabilia as investment is a huge misnomer and everyone who perpetrates it should be ashamed of themselves. If someone offered me one of these two cards, I’d take the Mantle. Any value the Pujols card has is manufactured by the perceived scarcity of Pujols’ signature. Last I checked, Albert is still with us and signing on a daily basis. Admittedly, Mantle appears to have signed quite a bit since his death in 1995.

In the modern age of collecting, whether you start with Fleer and Donruss in 1981 or Upper Deck in 1989, card values appear to swing with the economy or performance of individual players. Unfortunately, most don't actually swing; instead, they start at their highest point and drop, fast. Cards hidden in an unopened pack, which will be mostly "commons," are worth significantly more before you tear the foil. Most become giveaways the moment light hits them. As a buyer, you pay a premium for the fun of discovering what's unknown.

One encouraging side effect of dropping values is that most vintage cards cost much less than you think they would. Even seemingly big-time "investments" from a generation ago, like the 1975 rookie cards of George Brett or Robin Yount, now qualify as cheap. According to a search of eBay's completed auctions, most Yount RCs sell for under $15 shipped, less than a new blaster box at Target. You can also build or buy many 1970s sets for under $100, less than many new hobby boxes.

This isn't a call to flip the card market, despite my own focus on vintage stuff. After all, I could simply amass scans of old cards for free from Google Image Search and eBay. Rather, it's to frame how Topps, Upper Deck, and MLB's licensing wing promote their products as right-now investments, when history shows they have little direct influence over what will be popular another generation from now.

• Wax Heaven: "Upper Deck: Where Do We Go From Here?"
• Wax Heaven: Hobby Interview: Pete Williams
• Upper Deck settles lawsuit with Konami over card counterfeiting

1980 TCMA 1959 Dodgers #5, Dick Gray

Just four years after capturing their only World Series in Brooklyn, the re-minted L.A. Dodgers turned the trick again in California. They beat the Chicago White Sox in 6 games despite being shut out twice. (In game 5, Sandy Koufax failed to clinch, losing 1-0 at home; Larry Sherry finished the series in Comiskey Park two days later.)

Card front

Dick made his MLB debut as L.A.'s opening day 3rd baseman in 1958 and hit 2 homers to key a 6-5 win. Unfortunately, he never locked down a regular role and the Dodgers traded Gray to St. Louis partway through 1959.

Card back

Many fans know Bill Mazeroski anchored 2nd base for the Pirates for 15 years and eventually made the HOF, largely on his defensive abilities. You might not know Pittsburgh had another excellent player, Julian Javier, stuck behind him at the same position. Dick Gray was one part of a 1960 trade that moved Javier to St. Louis, where Julian became the Cardinals' everyday 2nd baseman for a full decade and made 2 All-Star teams.

Value: This card cost $1.50 on Beckett Marketplace in January 2010, typical for oddball singles from the 1970s and 1980s. Superstars from this set like Koufax, Drysdale, and Snider cost about $5-10.

Fakes / Reprints: I've never seen reprints of TCMA highlight sets and assume the value and demand are too low to be worthwhile.

Related set profiles on this blog:

• 1980 TCMA 1914 "Miracle" Braves #5, Gene Cocreham
• 1980 TCMA 1950 "Whiz Kids" Phillies #5, Curt Simmons
• 1980 TCMA 1957 Milwaukee Braves #5, Bob Buhl
• 1980 TCMA 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates #5, Harvey Haddix (coming soon)
• 1980 TCMA 1961 Cincinnati Reds #5, Gene Whisenant

Number 5 blog now on Twitter

This blog's now on Twitter as Number5TypeCard, another handy way to track site updates.

• New articles (also available by RSS and email)
• Article updates with higher-quality card scans or new info (doesn't show up on RSS or email)
• Interesting links from other sites (doesn't show up on RSS or email)
• Card giveaways (to be determined if they'll be in RSS and email)

Also on Twitter? If so, I'm also asking a two-fold favor!

• Follow the blog and add it a baseball Twitter list, if you keep one
• Nominate other baseball sites you contribute to or enjoy reading (and I'll promote them)

As a bonus for people reading this far, I wrote up the 1967 Topps posters Hank Aaron for "Things Done to Cards" in December. It's one of my favorite Hammerin' Hank "cards."

1962 Shirriff Baseball Coins #5, Woody Held (aka Woodie Held)

Today's picture of Woodie Held might look familiar--this blog already covered a nearly identical issue, the 1962 Salada Tea coins, in June 2009. Both sets feature hand-colored paper head shots inserted into plastic holders about the size of silver dollars. The international food packager Salada-Shirriff-Horsey, Inc. debuted this design for the NHL's 1961 hockey season (scans on Google Image Search) and started producing baseball sets in 1962.

It's hard to tell how much of each player picture is "real." Woodie's shoulders look suspiciously narrow for a 20HR-per-year slugger, so I assume they hand-drew a uniform below an actual head shot.

While the backs say "200 baseball coins," both Salada and Shirriff sets actually contain 221. Shirriff packaged individual coins in bags of potato chips and wrapped them in plastic slipcovers to prevent food stains, just like Kellogg's went on to do with their cereal cards. (Find the full 221-coin checklist at OldBaseball.com.)

Value: As of Feb 2010, eBay includes ungraded 1962 Shirriff baseball coins with Buy-It-Now prices from $15 to $50. That's significantly higher than recent completed auctions, which averaged $3 for commons and $15+ for HOFers. (I bought my Woodie Held coin for $3 in 2006.)

Fakes / Reprints: I can imagine someone faking the paper picture of a superstar and inserting into a real plastic back, but haven't seen it happen anywhere in the market and don't know of any reprints.