Minor league team issued cards and sets

[lakesidez]

Curious if anyone dabbles in minor league team sets and cards? Do these not get looked at all the favorable because they are not issued by the mainstream brands like Topps, etc?

[TarjetasBéisbol]

Collecting minor league team sets or individual cards is another great part of collecting. I have a few minor league sets and many are very limited, some as low as 1,000 but unless it is a super star like Trout there really isn't much interest. One of the main problems for these sets is that there are many counterfeits out there, like Trout, Ripken to name a couple of players.

Although not a minor league card, I was in Alaska when Mark McGwire started hitting all his home runs during his rookie year of 1987 and the Anchorage Glacier Pilots printed up some cards. The card was printed with "1982" on the card but it was printed in 1987. The owner printed a few of the cards but he also went back and printed more. There is a way to tell the difference but it can be tough and it has also been counterfeited.

Some sets are very inexpensive and sometimes I see sellers at shows with tables full of some of the older sets.

[clsports]

Almost exclusively.

They are all issued by a few major brands such as: Grandstand, Multi-Ad, and Choice.

They do not have the mass appeal that a major brand like Topps has, but there is plenty of interest.

Counterfeits are a part of the business and knowing how to spot them is critical. The Trout DAV card for example has several counterfeit copies pop up on Ebay, but there are easily recognizable factors to determine if it is authentic or not. Others were older 80's cards that were counterfeited. Not too many really. Top dollar ones are obviously a target.

The over-printing issue has also been blown out of proportion a bit. It happened, but not very often. Most are very low in their production numbers. 500-1000 is a common number for most teams to produce each year and when they are gone they are gone. Most minor league teams have very limited budgets and do not produce many of these cards. There were teams that made more when a player got hot, and I know who they are and steer clear of them for the most part. This is rare however.

I have a lot of knowledge about minor league sets over the years. If you have specific questions about sets, teams, or players, please send me a PM.

[tedwilliamsfan]

I love Minor League Team Issued cards/sets. It's such a great way to get the first card made of a player. Some sets and singles I've picked up over the last few years are:

2012 Lowell Spinners Mookie Betts
2018 Princeton Rays Wander Franco
2000 Utica Blue Sox Miguel Cabrera
2000 Peoria Chiefs Albert Pujols (Blue)
1994 Birmingham Barons Michael Jordan
2016 Rome Braves Ronald Acuna x2

Here's a scan of a Ronald Acuna that's graded:

2016 Rome Braves Ronald Acuna
[IMG][/IMG]

[cjstark72]

This is an area I've started to focus my collection on. I've acquired a number of first minor league sets of some of the current young stars including Acuna, Bellinger, Betts, Bichette, Robert, and Soto. I like that these are affordable and more limited than the mainstream Bowman and Topps cards. It may be a challenge to find some of them, but that is the fun of collecting minor league sets.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[clsports]

Very impressive list TedWilliamsfan.

[towerymt]

I recently went back in time to grab some Soto minor league cards. I bought two sealed team sets for each of these issues and opened one of each.

[clsports]

Both of those Soto's have a print run of only 500. Smart Buy IMO.

[WizardofOz1982]

I have tons of old Star, Line Drive, Classic, and ProCards minor league sets. It wasn't uncommon for teams to find a local printer to print sets for sale at the local stadium either. I have several that the Tulsa Drillers had printed locally that have about 1,500 copies or less printed.

I was out of the game the years that Choice, Grandstand, and others were making cards.

[hammertime]

I've got that 2018 Soto card and a couple unopened sets stashed away, although I'm not convinced they're actually limited to 500...and a Griffey Bellingham Mariners card...I'd definitely like to get deeper into this stuff.

[OscarOne]

I collect Cleveland Indians MiLB cards; sets for their Low-A clubs and Columbus, and singles for the good players.

My collection

I enjoy it. It gets a little frustrating though when you find need sets/singles that are really hard to find because sometimes they are REALLY hard to find.

[UCCF]

I think these days, with every prospect worth anything showing up in Bowman Draft and Leaf and everything else, the allure of the minor league cards has worn off a bit. Back in the Topps/Donruss/Fleer era, when a guy might have only a handful of different cards printed every year, minor league cards were your only option.

For example: Ryne Sandberg has TCMA minor league cards from 1980 (Reading) and 1981 (Oklahoma City) that are his only 2 cards from those years (unless you count the Venezuelan League stickers from 1981-1982). In high grade those are very sought after by Cub collectors. In 1982, his only card was one put out by Red Lobster.

Those were the days.

[jefflasvegas]

One of my collections is to have one card of every mlber. Many late round picks that get cups of coffee never make a topps or bowman issues so I usually end picking up 20-30 minor league sets a year to plug the gaps.I’ve had good luck picking up some singles on comc. I would prefer to pick them up on sportlots as centering and conditioning don’t matter to me but few sellers list minor league singles there.

I sell me extras on comc.

https://www.comc.com/Users/jefflasve...ails,i100,_PRC

[WizardofOz1982]

Dave at minorleaguesingles.com has the biggest inventory of minor league stuff that I know of.

[jefflasvegas]

Originally Posted by WizardofOz1982

Dave at minorleaguesingles.com has the biggest inventory of minor league stuff that I know of.

Thanks for the info! My top three go to spots are:

1. milb.com
2. https://stbsports.com/
3. https://www.gosportscards.com/