Early Custom Baseball Cards

I haven't posted anything in a couple months, but I wanted to get one more blog up before the end of the year. Today I will share some of my custom cards from the early baseball card sets.

1909 T206 Connie Mack

1910 "Fan for a Fan" Honus Wagner

 1911 T205 Joe Jackson

1912 T202 COBB-JACKSON

1915-1916 Cracker Jacks:
     Dutch Leonard

    Wally Pipp

    Babe Ruth

    Casey Stengel

    Jim Thorpe

        Buck Weaver

1915 E106  Babe Ruth

That's it for today, stop by again - I'll try not to wait 2 months again before the next post!

What-If Baseball cards, Topps sub sets

With the exception of a few combo cards in the 1953 Bowman or 1954 and 1957 Topps sets, sub sets did not catch on until the 1958 Topps set. The 1958 set marked the start of Topps including sub sets like all stars, highlight cards, MVP's, league leaders, etc. The uniqueness and relatively lower price point of these cards have made them very popular with collectors.

Although Topps was very clever with the design of these cards over the years, I couldn't resist the opportunity to put my spin on a few of the more popular sub sets of the 50's and early 60's Topps issues:


                                                     1957 Topps Ford/Mantle/Martin

1957 Topps Mantle/Kluszewski

1957 Topps Mantle/Martin

1957 Topps Yankees

1958 Topps Musial/Williams

1959 Topps Stan Musial All Star

1959 Topps Ted Williams All Star

1959 Topps Babe Ruth Baseball Thrills

1959 Topps Mantle/Williams

1960 Topps Stan Musial All Star

1960 Topps Ted Williams All Star

1960 Topps Berra/Howard

1961 Topps Stan Musial All Star

1961 Topps Joe Dimaggio MVP

1961 Topps Joe Jackson

1961 Topps Mantle/Musial/Maris

1962 Topps Joe Dimaggio Special

1962 Topps Maris/Mantle

1954 Bowman Custom Baseball cards

All my What-If blogs so far have focused on Topps, so I thought it was time I showed some custom Bowman baseball cards.

In 1954, Bowman cards were hand colored black and white photographs - a departure from the popular 1953 set which utilized Kodachrome photographs. The set was numbered at 224 cards with card #66 being available as either Jimmy Piersall or Ted Williams due to Topps forcing Bowman to remove Williams after signing him to an exclusive contract.

Here are some more custom baseball cards of the other players that appeared in the 1954 Topps set but not Bowman:

All-Time Greats in 1956 Topps style

The 1956 set was the first issue by Topps without competition from Bowman, and the designers at Topps did not disappoint. The 1956 set includes a close up portrait of the player as well as an action shot in the background and is one of the most beautiful baseball card designs ever released.

Two years later, Topps began the practice of including sub-sets in their releases. Cards featuring All-Stars, MVP's, World Series highlites, league leaders and former Hall of Famers became staples of Topps sets. However, there were no cards like this yet in the 1956 set - and I always wondered, "What-If they had made a Babe Ruth card in the 1956 Topps set?"

So, here I present what it might have looked like if Topps had included a sub-set of All-Time Greats in the 1956 set: