Just over a decade after it first opened its doors, the Baseball Hall of Fame jumped into the baseball card market with a commemorative set primarily featuring the players who had been enshrined in Cooperstown. The Callahan baseball cards were first issued in 1950 as a set of 62, then updated annually with more cards as new players were elected. The total number of cards reached 91 before production ended in ’56. This week, we’re offering a group of 10 cards from this interesting set, all graded between PSA 8 and PSA 9 including the highly desirable Lou Gehrig and rare Happy Chandler, who was the commissioner at the time but lost his job not long after the set was issued. Ironically, Chandler was later elected to the Hall. The card we’re offering is one of less than a dozen PSA 9 copies ever graded. All of these cards we are offering are of exceptionally high grade. Considering its relatively small size, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for collectors to tackle this set one-by-one and these listings make a great case for starting a high grade set. The 1 ¾” x 2 ½” black and white cards were originally sold as a boxed set at the Hall and some are believed to have been sold in some big league ballparks. The artist for this set was Mario DeMarco who didn’t sketch them, but rather used a method that involved the placement of thousands of tiny dots. It was a skill not known to many artists but the result of each portrait was truly remarkable. On the backs is a biography of the subject. We’re anxious to see how the bidding ends on these as collectors return from the National Sports Collectors Convention searching for more items to add to their high grade collections.
