528. 1953 Topps Complete Set (274)
The massive popularity of the 1952 Topps baseball set presented a unique challenge to Topps’ designers: how do you follow up a near- perfect set? The answer was the beautifully-designed 1953 issue. With card art consisting of hand-painted renditions of player photographs, each player’s team and position information appears in a dark border at the card bottom (red for American League and black for National League) along with a team logo. The reverse contains statistical and biographical information as well as a trivia question. The designs were so beautiful and vivid that many collectors today prefer the 1953 set to its predecessor. The 274-card set includes a number of challenges to completion, including second-year cards of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays (really third-year cards, of course), an extremely tough run of high numbers, a host of difficult single prints, an extremely condition- sensitive #1 card of Jackie Robinson and tough rookie cards of Johnny Padres and Jim Gilliam. While the 1952 issue can be a nightmare to complete, the 1953 set is certainly no picnic.
original owner, who completed the set in the year of issue. The cards have been well-handled, as the consignor was a youngster back in 1953. A fair amount of the cards have creases or water damage that has slightly warped the cards or created surface wrinkles. A technical breakdown of the cards is as follows: 6% VG/EX, 27% VG, 36% GOOD, 22% FAIR, 8% POOR with a few stronger than VG/EX. Ten of the cards have been graded by PSA or SGC. A breakdown of those cards, along with the other keys, is as follows: #1 Robinson (SGC GOOD 2), #27 Campanella (SGC VG/EX 4), #37 Mathews (SGC VG 3), #41 Slaughter (G), #54 Feller (SGC VG 3), #61 Wynn (G), #62 Irvin (VG), #66 Minoso (VG), #76 Reese (P), #77 Mize (G), #78 Schoendienst (VG), #82 Mantle (PSA GOOD 2), #104 Berra (SGC VG 3), #114 Rizzuto (VG), #138 Kell (G), #151 Wilhelm (G), #147 Spahn (VG), #191 Kiner (SGC GOOD+ 2.5), #207 Ford (F), #220 Paige (SGC GOOD+ 2.5), #228 Newhouser (SGC VG 3), #244 Mays (PSA VG 3), #263 Podres (VG), #258 Gilliam (VG). One of the most beautiful postwar vintage baseball sets, completed during its year of issue, consigned by its original owner. 274 cards total.
Presented here is an attractive collector-grade set, consigned by its
MINIMUM BID: $2,500
FALL 2024 PREMIER AUCTION − CLOSES NOVEMBER 30, 2024 107
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