5 Great Sports Card Books For Your Library!
Reading about sports cards in your collection (and ones you want to add to your collection) is nearly as great as buying those sports cards!... Sort of.
The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!
This Week’s Highlights!
🏈⚾🏀 5 GREAT SPORTS CARD BOOKS FOR YOUR LIBRARY!
🏈⚾🏀 SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
🏈⚾🏀 IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS!
🏈⚾🏀 REMEMBERING THE BEST ROOKIE CARDS FROM 1958!
🏈 NEW HAPPY HOBBY ZOO MEMBER
The links in this newsletter are affiliate links with eBay or Amazon, which means we will make a commission on any purchases off those links. So, thank you! Also, all sports card images come courtesy of BuySportsCards.com. This is the FREE version of the “Happy Hobby Sports Cards” Newsletter, with the PAID version coming again next week.
🏈 5 GREAT SPORTS CARD BOOKS FOR YOUR LIBRARY
In an era where we take in content in 10-second video clips and push notifications on our phones, sports card collectors need some longer forms of content. We only have so much money to spend each week on cards, and we can only sort, re-sort and sort our cards back again so many times. I’ve found five different sports card books I believe are worth your while.
These books will entertain you, inform you – and inspire you to build a better sports card collection!
1. Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession
By Dave Jamieson – Buy on Amazon Here!
In my opinion, this is the greatest book about the hobby ever written! Unfortunately, it was written in 2010. Just think of how many amazing things have happened in the hobby in just the past five years, much less the past 15. My hope is that Jamieson feels the need to write a sequel to this, just to document the card-collecting boom since the pandemic. If you don’t read any other hobby book, read this one.
2. The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History’s Most Desired Baseball Card
By Michael O’Keefe & Teri Thompson – Buy on Amazon Here!
If you have to ask, “Which card is considered ‘The Card,’?” then you’ll really want to read this. It’s all about the T-206 Honus Wagner that was owned by NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky at one point. There’s a lot of controversy and news about this card – enough to fill a book! This was written in 2007, and there has even been more news about the card since! But this will at least help you understand the backstory!
3. Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child’s Hobby Into a High Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business
By Pete Williams – Buy on Amazon Here!
Once again, a book written well before the rest of the story unfolded, Williams helps understand how Upper Deck changed the industry and became the biggest players in the hobby. Of course, now they’re relegated to mostly hockey cards, but at one point, Topps was considered a minor-leaguer compared to the All-Star Upper Deck hologram.
4. The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets From 1948 to 1955
By Dean Hanley – Buy on Amazon Here!
We know how the mid-20th-Century card war ended, but the battle between these two legends is an interesting one worth a closer look! This book was published in 2012, with everything you really need to know about this period and the battle between these two gum manufacturers.
5. The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book
By Brendan Boyd & Fred Harris – Buy on Amazon Here!
The truth is – I haven’t read this one. But it sounds fun!
“This New York Times Notable Book of the Year is a trip down memory lane to the days when baseball was king and baseball cards ruled the schoolyard. In fuller-than-living-color, the authors present more than two hundred baseball cards with outrageously funny bios, accompanied by definitive observations on trading, hoarding, collecting, flipping, "and other aberrations of the baseball card life."
I also loved this line from the Amazon page: “This irreverent and affectionate look at baseball in the halcyon days of the 1950s ("before the graphics got better and the game got worse") is sure to appeal to even the most sober of baseball fans.”
Want to see more posts from this Seed Pod or join in on the fun? Head over to our thread to learn more!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS: #10 of 23
Imhoff breaks down all the moves Fanatics should make, just two years away from when they unify the baseball, football and basketball card licenses in 2026. He shared his first move in our June 20 newsletter, and he’ll continue to share more of these going forward.
Here’s Patrick’s latest move on how he’d do things differently if he were the CEO of Fanatics:
No. 10 – Pre-Sale Releases
I would still use these to get a full picture of the demand for the product. However, there would be two stipulations:
If the price was dropped on release date compared to what it was on the pre-sale, you would get store credit in the amount of the difference.
The other would be that the checklist would be available before the pre-sale. If this was not possible, you would have the option to cancel when the checklist was released if it was not what you desired. You would then receive store credit for a future purchase.
Subscribe to Patrick Imhoff’s Substack newsletter and get his “Thrifty Thursday” column! He shares underrated prospects and rookies whose cards we might want to pick up!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀 SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
Send me the answer to this question – you could win a free card from me!
Which Hall-of-Famer’s rookie card came from the first year of the Topps All-Star Rookie Team?
Email your answer to gonoscards@gmail.com!
The answer to last week’s question: Which Baseball Hall-of-Famer didn’t get his first Topps card until his 18th season in the majors?
Stan Musial’s first Topps card didn’t happen until the 1958 Topps set, 18 seasons after he joined the majors!
🏈🏒Remembering the Best Rookie Cards From 1958 in Each Sport⚾🏀
In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock gave Jimmy Stewart a bad case of “Vertigo,” Elvis got drafted into the U.S. Army, and the four most popular shows on TV were westerns (“Gunsmoke,” “Wagon Train,” “Have Gun – Will Travel” and “The Rifleman,” starring Chuck Connors, who broke into baseball with the Dodgers in 1949!). In the sports world, the Yankees won again (yawn!), and the St. Louis Hawks won the NBA Championship over Boston. But in the NFL, well before the Super Bowl, the Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in the NFL Championship, forever known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” Here are your top sports rookie cards from 1958!
Baseball:
Johnny Roseboro – 42 – View on eBay!
Roger Maris – 47 – View on eBay!
Orlando Cepeda (HOF) – 343 – View on eBay!
Vada Pinson – 420 – View on eBay!
Curt Flood – 464 – View on eBay!
Basketball:
No Basketball cards produced this year.
Football:
Jim Brown (HOF) No. 62 – View on eBay!
Sonny Jurgensen (HOF) No. 90 – View on eBay!
Hockey:
Bobby Hull (HOF) 66 – View on eBay!
🏈 NEW HAPPY HOBBY ZOO MEMBER
Here’s our latest Artificial Intelligence re-creation of one of the most iconic sports cards ever.
“Hairy Rice” is retired now, but decades ago, this workhorse mule used to help ‘49ers mine gold in San Francisco for many years.
Is there a classic card you’d like us to get AI to re-create with an animal replacement? Let us know!
Coming Next Week!
⚾ 9 SWEET TIPS FOR BUYING CARDS ON eBAY!
🏈⚾🏀 SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
⚾ PREVIEWING 2024 TOPPS UPDATE BASEBALL!
🏈⚾🏀 IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS!
***Important Card-Collecting Articles on DavidGonos.com***
Connect with David Gonos on:
Email me: mailto:gonoscards@gmail.com
Have a #HappyHobby!
Podcast Music: "I dunno" by grapes - 2008 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)
This is a great take on the libraries theme, David! 😁