1950 Callahan Baseball Cards ?????

mj23kg21

Just wondering if someone could tell me who to look for in this set. Are there any difficult cards to find in the set or is it easy to obtain. Are they easy to find in high grade? I have someone who wants to sell me a group of 61 of these cards and I know nothing about them. Thanks in advance for anyone willing to help.

bowdowntome

According to the BIG BOOK, they were sold by the BB Hall of Fame from 1950-56 and depicted, in drawings, all of the HOFers to that date, including Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, etc.... Supposedly, 82 (unnumbered) cards makes a complete set.

milbroco

If I remember correctly, the only difficult card to locate is the Chandler card. Naturally, the others to look for are Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. I am not sure who else to look for and I am not sure how difficult they are in higher grades.
Good Luck,
Bob

brumbach

Also according to the Big Book, generally speaking earlier issues are easier to find since they were continuously released throughout the time the set was produced from 1950-56. Chandler and DiMaggio are the two money cards booking out over $100. Several players have variations on the write-ups on the backs, there doesn't seem to be any premiums related to one or the other regarding those.

bxb

You might want to contact Paul Jas at PaulJAs@aol.com.

He has the #1 all time registry set and has tremendous knowledge about this set.

Live long and prosper.

baseballjeff

This is a great set!

There are actually quite a few of hard to get cards for this set. By all means the Chandler is hard to get, as it is very valuble to HOF collectors because Chandler doesn't have many cards, and for Callahan set makers. So yeah, if you can get this puppy, then get it!

Other hard to find cards are:

Ted Lyons, Bill Dickey (ends in during his first year), Ray Schalk, Chief Bender (Died in 1954), Homerun Baker

I know a lot about this set, and as the collection get larger, the more fun it gets!

Good luck!

baseballjeff

Also, Leo Gabby Hartnett is tough, and the DiMaggio!

mj23kg21

Thanks for all of the responses. I was able to get the cards. There were 63 cards and a box that the set came in. It was kind of a good news/bad news deal. About 2/3rds of the cards were very very nice and about 1/3rd of the cards had some water damage. The town I live in had a flood a year ago and somehow some of the cards got wet on one of the corners. Some of the damage is minor and some of the cards are ruined. I did get an Albert B. Chandler which is extremely nice all the way around but has a small amount of water damage in the top right corner. The Mickey Cochran I got is spelled wrong on the front The Lou Gehrig card is probably the nicest conditioned card of all. There was no Dimaggio, Lyons, Dickey, Bender or Schalk.

ChrisStufflestreet

Here's the reason some of the Callhan cards are scarcer than others...

The Hall of Fame sold these sets in their gift shop. It was a way to show every member of the Hall of Fame together. The set was initially made in 1950 and included all the inductees through that year. In 1951, the same players were re-issued, along with the 1951 inductees. In 1952, the same players were re-printed, along withthe 1952 inductees, and so on through 1956 (the year DiMaggio entered the Hall).

So if you consider how the cards came out, there are seven times as many Cobb, Ruth , Young, Wagner or Johnson cards as there are of DiMaggio. The 1951 inductees are only slightly scarce, the 1952 inductees slightly more so, and so on.