1950 Bowman Baseball The Boys of Summer highlight this 252 card classic from Bowman. The beautiful color reproductions of actual photographs represents a marked improvement over the previous two baseball efforts. Cards in the first two series (1-72) are scarcer than the remainder of the set. Cards such as the #1 Mel Parnell card is virtually impossible to find in high grade, while many of the stars such as Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Ted Williams and Yogi Berra are are highly sought by collectors due to their striking designs.	1951 Berk Ross Berk Ross Co. of New York issued this 72 card set in 2-card panels featuring star athletes from Baseball, Football, Hockey, Hoops, Golf, Boxing among others. The set was issued in small boxes - each containing a series of 18 cards attached into 9 panels. Attached panels list for a 50% premium over the combined value of the single cards. Since the set followed closely on the 1950 Series, the Phillies and Yankees are prominently featured. The set contains many important cards including baseball stars DiMaggio, Berra and Musial along with athletic greats such as Jesse Owens, Jake LaMotta, Bob Cousy and Ben Hogan.	1951 Bowman Baseball Bowman increased its output to 324 cards in 1951 by including many ML prospects including the first ever cards of the Mick and Sey Hey Kid. The classic #1 card in the set featured a cocky lefty who went on to a HOF career for the Yankees. Outside of the 1953 Color set, the 1951 issue is the most popular of all the Bowman baseball issues. With Topps still finding its feet issuing Team cards, die cuts and Game cards in 1951, Bowman's released one of its finest efforts of the decade.
1952 Berk Ross Berk Ross Co. of New York issued this 72 card set in 1952. Unlike the previous issue, this set contained only Baseball stars - making it a classic set for the period of the golden era of baseball. The set mirrors the change over in the Bronx as it features the last active player card of Joe DiMaggio and an early card appearance of his successor Mickey Mantle. Other super stars included are Ted Wiliams, Jackie Robinson Willie Mays and Stan Musial.	1952 Bowman Baseball Bowman's final under-sized set was highlighted by several key rookies. It's bright color and multiple HOFers make this a collector favorite. The 252 card set features a tough run of higher numbers (217-252) along with the rookies of Gil McDougald, Billy Loes, Minnie Minoso and Lew Burdette. Second year cards of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle are the keys to the set, with the #1 card of Yogi Berra presenting itself as a significant condition rarity in high grade.	1952 Topps Baseball The 'grand daddy' of all card sets, the 52 Topps BB issue is the benchmark by which all other cards are compared. This 407 card classic has it all - beatiful photography, tough SP's, scarce High Numbers and the key card in the hobby, Mickey's first Topps card. According to Topps, the 1952 high numbers were poor sellers since they were issued very late in the season - hundreds of cases were dumped in NY harbor a few years later. The first appearance of many key HOFers in the high number series, such as Campanella, Jackie Robinson and Eddie Mathews, make these cards among the most sought after of the decade. Several commons present major condition rarities, selling for 10-15x their book values.
1953 Bowman B/W Bowman's death battle with Topps was evident in 1953, when the company's 160 card color issue - possibly the most beautiful card set ever produced - caused the company to revert to Black and White photos for the final 64 card series. In all other aspects, the set is identical to the color variety. Despite its likely unpopularity in 1953, the set today is recognized as many times scarcer in high grade than the color version.	1953 Bowman Color The 1953 Bowman color baseball set marked a landmark for 50's baseball sets. These beauties feature pure color photography that puts you 'right in the ballpark' from days gone-by and is consistently voted as one of the most popular sets in the Hobby. The set is highlighted by an extremely tough series of cards numbered 113-128 that also features Bob Feller, Duke Snider, Billy Martin and Yogi Berra. Also popular are several combo player cards, especially the Mickey Mantle, Hank Bauer and Yogi Berra card. The first (Davey Williams) and last (Cal Abrams) cards are extremely difficult to find in high grade.	1953 Topps Baseball One of Topps finest efforts of the decade, their 1953 set marked the high mark in card portraits highlighted by beautiful close-ups. As with 1952, the higher number series contains many very difficult cards to find in top grade. The 1953 set also marks the first appearance on a Topps card by Negro League great Satchel Paige, and possibly the most difficult Willie Mays card - a single print high number. The set also contains many of the stars of the day including Robinson, Feller, Ford, Berra, et al - but it is more notable for the exclusion of the game's top sluggers Musial (under exclusive to Bowman) and Ted Williams (who was not featured in a major issue card in 1953).
1954 Topps Baseball As in the previous two years, Topps opted for oversized cards, beautiful color portraits with rich green backing. However, those backs were very unforgiving for chipping, making the 1954 set very difficult to complete in high grade. sets of the decade. The set features three roookie cards - those of all-time HR king Hank Aaron, Mr. Cub Ernie Banks and HOFer Al Kaline. These cards -plus the inclusion of TWO Ted Williams cards - make the 1954 set one of the finest Topps.	1955 Bowman Baseball Color television was becoming vogue when Bowman issued its final baseball set after an eight year run. The classic wood grained television motif - complete with a "Color TV" tag - puts the games greats into their proper perspectives of the time, that is, prior to the early fifties, baseball seemed designed for radio. The high number series is considerably scarcer than the rest and the inclusion of 31 umpire cards makes those especially scarce. Overall the dark wood grain border are unforgiving of wear making this set very difficult in high grade. Complete at 320 cards, the 1955 Bowman set features many classic cards of players with exclusive contracts to Bowman, notably Mickey Mantle, who had not appeared on a Topps card for two consecutive seasons.	1955 Topps Baseball The 55 Set is the toughest set of the fifties to find in high grade. The sets bright colors and beautiful gloss make this set one of the classics of the fifties. The set features two of the hobbies most important rookie cards, those of Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente. Other difficult cards to find, especially in high grade, are the #1 card, '54 Series hero Dusty Rhodes, and the last card, Dodger slugger Duke Snider. The latter is usually found with a severe loss of gloss and major centering issues. This widely collected set contains a difficult run of high number cards which include the stars Rizzutto, Mays and Berra.
1956 Topps Baseball Topps produced another winner with this popular over-sized set in 1956. Complete at 320 player cards, the set utilizes two color photos on the front in great harmony. The set introduced the first ever Team cards, two unnumbered checklists, and cards representing the league presidnets. Cards 1-180 may be found with either white or grey backs, with a premium placed on the grey backs for numbers 1-100 and for the white backs for cards 101-180. Team cards in the 1-100 series were issued in three different variations. The set's notable rookie card is HOFer Luis Aparicio but given this is Baseball's Golden Era, the set is chock full of legendary teams and their great players.	1957 Topps Baseball 1957 represents Topps finest effort - a beautiful full color set that marked the introduction of the standard size card with full statistics on the reverse. The set is especially notable for its difficult "middle series" (#265-352) - a change from the usual higher number scarcities found in '52, '53, '55 and from '59 through the sixties. With its sharp, natural photos and crisp player and team names, the 1957 Topps set has earned the pre-eminent spot as the favorite collectors set of all time and one of the companies finest issues. The middle series contains several of the sets key rookie cards including Brooks Robinson, Jim Bunning and Bobby Richardson, as well as the popular card of Sandy Koufax.	1958 Topps Baseball Topps innovative design in 1958 created one of its most colorful and popular sets of the decade. The set contains a 33 card run of color variations in the first series, where the print run initial put "yellow letters" instead of the appropriate white letters. The scarcity of these variations and the number of big names in the run (Aaron, Clemente, Kaline, Richardson, Wynn) make them extremely popular with collectors. The 1958 set also includes one of the scarcest variations in the hobby, #433 Pancho Herrera which may be found without the last "a" in his name. Popular colorful cards include the #150 Mickey Mantle, likely his most beautiful card, the rookie cards of Roger Maris and Orlando Cepeda, and the first ever appearance of Stan Musial in a Topps set.
1959 Fleer Ted Williams Fleer issued a 80 card set in 1959 highlighting the career of assumed to be retiring star Ted Williams. Williams decided late in the fall to resign for another year, but the card which featured Ted with HOFer Joe Cronin was withdrawn early in the run for contractual reasons. The set features Williams career highlights and also features Ted with many all time greats from various sports including Jim Thorpe, Babe Ruth and Sam Snead.	1959 Topps Baseball Topps 1959 issue has a round photograph on the front with a colorful solid color background, a design previously used by the company for their 1958 football set. The 572 card set was the largest issue by the company until that time. Speciality cards include popular combo cards featuring punchy titles such as "Run Preventers," "Batter Bafflers," and "Destruction Crew." Other subsets include scarcer Team cards, Baseball Thrill highlight cards, and high number All-Star cards. While the higher numbers are still by far the most scarce, the first 110 card series is also difficult to find in high grade due to poorer stock.