Set Breakdown: 1950 Bowman Baseball

brucemo

I saw that Cardbuzz had done one of these for 58T, so I did one for '50 Bowman.

The page.

bruce

qualitycards

BRUCE - I'm impressed. You did a great job. Made for some nice reading. But hey! I can't look at it again, I might end up starting a set ...jay

r00kies101

Great and informative read bruce! I wonder if it would be possible for PSA to include links like this on the registry for each set. I think it would give each set their own character and provide collectors insight to each set that they might not have known. It might also help some collectors in deciding what set(s) to pursue.

qmayer

Don't steal my idea! Great job on it though. I like the idea of having a lot of pictures on it, but you have to be careful of people still on 56k modems. How long did it take you to write all that?

brucemo

It didn't take that long to write. The hard part is trying be interesting while avoiding the temptation to make stuff up.

bruce

Mantlefan

Absolutely beautiful. I have never paid much interest to this set, but your marvelous work has me thinking about starting one.....hey you wouldn't be a 1950 Bowman dealer, would you?

You mention a similar page for 1958 Topps, how can I find it?

Stonegate

That is a fantastic piece of work, Bruce! You should put it in a pdf file submit it to Beckett or PSA for publication in their monthly magazines. It's been a while since I've looked at that set and I loved your pictures -- any idea where the heck Berra was when they took that photo -- looks like a horse's rearend over his left shoulder and two ballplayers standing way too close together behind his right side, and what are those brown things in the background - cattle? It's got to be one of the stranger background scenes - right up there with Fregosi fielding the truck.

Thanks for the effort in putting this together!

Kevin

jaxxr

Fine article, pictures truly add to interest. How did you get interested in this issue, and why not a year or two earier or later ? What would be your favorite cards from this set?

How about the size ? Do they fit in standard soft sleeves without too much movement ? Even the 51 and 52 Bowmans were a bit bigger and combined in total set size provided makers enough incentive to make some 12 pocket pages, maybe not available anymore though. Also the 51 and 52 cards had some similarity in size to the T206 and 205 cards so there is/was some holders suitable for raw examples. It is possible the size went up in 51 and thereafter to provide larger slices of gum ? The gum was the product, the cards the inserts in the "old days"

I am also curious as to box storage size, do you use bubble-wrap or similar to tighten up the cards in a standard starage box? Does any company sell supplies to fit the cards from before 1957 when card size became consistent ?

Please forgive excess questions and no need to respond if you don't care to, I am just quite interested in this set as it is not very popular compared to other 50s issues.

brucemo

I started out wanting the '53 Bowman Reese card, because I saw it in "The Top 100", around 1990. I couldn't find one. In 1999 I discovered eBay and bought the card, which led me to do the '53 set, which led me to start other Bowman sets, because it's hard to do one Bowman set without seeing the others. I spent some time doing '52, which is a beautiful set in my opinion, but I diverted my attention from that to '50, because '50 has Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson, neither of which appear in '53 Bowman.

'50 also has the advantage of being cheap compared with other pre-'54 Bowman sets.

Some of the cards are pretty boring, they are just straight portrait shots and they aren't don that well. A few others look more like the Parnell card, which I think is a beautiful card. For some reason, the low numbers look best. The keys I posted on my page are cool, and I especially like the Larry Doby card (the Cleveland Indian batting).

I like #82 Lockman because of the pose. I like #101 Bobby Brown because of the background of the card, but I don't have a scan.

As hard as it is for a baseball collector to say, I think I like the football set even better. Those are like the baseball set only the cards talk about some player being a salesman in the off-season, etc.

I've never bought pages to fit these cards, but there are pages out there that fit these very well, like perfectly. You can put them in Card Saver II's without any problem (they are the only cards that I've owned that actually FIT into the bloody things). I don't put them in top-loaders or boxes unless they are in something else. I do the set graded, so I haven't had much reason to store them raw long-term.

The same basic problems apply to 51's and 52's. I think they are easier to handle than pre-57 Topps, because it's easier to deal with storage systems that are too big than it is to deal with things that are too small.

bruce

brucemo

Encouraged by the respose, I added a lot more text and a few more pictures.

bruce

Cyphilissb

As of now I am not a vintage collector, I would like to start collecting a early 70's basketball set but right now funds don't allow it. However I do read this board all the time anyway because of threads like this, you find the most indepth thinking and posts here about very interesting things. As opposed to the community board where the threads are "NEW TRADELiST!" I would just like to thank you guys and say keep up the good work. Hopefully one day when money grows on trees i can join you guys in collecting a nice vintage set. Until then i'll just read about your sets.