Different Types of Baseball Cards
Most valuable Baseball Cards
The Honus Wagner T206 baseball card is known as one of the most valuable cards in existence. One of the reasons that the card is so valuable is because it stopped being made, and in turn there are very few in existence. The two most widely accepted reason for the stop of production are, that Wagner didn't like that kids were buying cigarettes, and that he wanted financial compensation for the use of his image, and forced the companies stop the production. The stop of production resulted in as few as 50 being left in existence, this extreme scarcity has resulted in the card selling for more than $7 million dollars,
The 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card is the most valuable baseball card ever. In 2022 it sold at auction for $12.6 million dollars. The reason that the card is so valuable is, that it's part of the first modern set of baseball cards and was part of the high number series, which was printed in much smaller quantities. Another reason is that there is speculation that the set wasn't selling well, so a Topps executives dumped cases of cards into the sea. This just adds to the legend of the Mickey Mantle rookie card.
Evolution of Baseball Cards
Originally baseball cards were either hand drawn or lithographs (where the image was etched into a stone and ink was rolled over the stone to print the image).
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In the early 1900’s cards were printed using half-toned printing (where the image was made up of many small dots).
In the mid 20th century cards started being mass produced and color printing improved so the cards became much more colorful and vibrant.
Nowadays printers are very high-tech and are able to print cards that are very vibrant. They are also able to print special cards like Chrome (where the card has a very glossy finish).
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