My sports card buy of the year for 2025 came at the National Sports Card Convention in Chicago.
I spent just one day (Thursday, July 31) at the National and arrived there with no clear plans or vision for the day. I did have the notion of picking up a Pee Wee Reese card that I did not already have, however, and was surprisingly able to pick up a 1953 Topps card of Pee Wee.
One of the many highlights was seeing well-known figures in the hobby “in action” that I had only previously seen in advertisements. These card professionals are the stars of the National along with the many athletes signing autographs there, and I was able to enjoy briefly talking with a couple of these giants of the hobby.
But my 1953 Topps Reese purchase came from a gentleman who was there on the side with a couple of his friends.
1953 Topps cards feature paintings of players made by a handful of artists that were hired by Topps to work on this particular set. One of the artists was Gerry Dvorak, who spent part of his career working as an animator for Hanna-Barbera, and Dvorak used opaque watercolors in his work for Topps. The artists were given 8 by 10 inch black and white photos of the players to work with and were told what colors to use for uniforms. Creative freedom was given for the backgrounds, as long as enough detail was added. They were paid $25 per card.
An interesting article by George Vrechek explains how the artists, in order to work efficiently, may have used a method of projecting the photos, while also adjusting the size, onto a surface using an opaque projector. The projectors would have allowed the artists to paint following the outline of the projected baseball player photo.
Decades after the cards were produced, 117 of the original paintings for the 1953 set that had been kept by Topps executive Sy Berger went up for auction with REA in 2010. The Reese painting, which has glue remnants on it from the production process, reappeared in a 2018 REA auction and sold for $16,800. Also out there are Type 1 photographs of the original 1951 Reese image used to create the card, and in 2024 one sold through REA for $480.
Pee Wee has long been a favorite of mine after, as a youngster, I was given a 1958 card of his (this was written about in a January 2022 Sports Collectors Digest article). Reese is especially known for his friendship with Jackie Robinson and for his calming leadership on the Brooklyn club as the Dodger Captain. Of course, Pee Wee, a Hall of Famer, also contributed greatly on the field as a fine fielding shortstop and timely hitter.
The 1953 Topps card (which was ungraded) I bought was in, let’s call it, “Good” condition, and there was also a little stain on the wall in the background behind the portrait of Pee Wee. But in my opinion, 1953 Topps has a design that maintains an eye appeal even if the card has considerable wear.
I nearly moved on from the table where the Reese was displayed without even noticing the card. But my dad was lingering at the table, so I went back to take another look and then spotted it. The price of the Reese card was covered by another card and not visible, thankfully, because if I had seen the price sticker I would not have even asked the dealer about it.
After I had the card in hand, the dealer, who I will call Harold (which was also, of course, Pee Wee’s real name), told me a price that was half of what was on the sticker. He then knocked down the price a good amount further, then further yet. And I had hardly done any haggling at all.
Before I could get to my wallet, however, my dad pointed out one of the rougher corners of the card.
Following this observation, Harold offered me an even lower price. Hint: it was the same amount the artist was paid to paint the picture of Pee Wee (although that amount went a little further in the 1950’s).
Harold, it seemed, was a very reasonable and sensible person, and I was happy to purchase the card from him. A fellow fan of Pee Wee, he told me that I had made a “Good buy.”
He was right. Afterwards I saw other Pee Wee Reese cards at the show, but all were well out of my price range.
After buying the card, Harold, who was from the East Coast, told us that was a retired teacher of the blind. He still gave orientation and mobility services to blind students once a week, helping them learn how to do things such as safely crossing streets.