Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now. Sports Illustrated sub-sets are really cool and represent an opportunity to have something your friends don’t have. For example – all the Jordan’s, or all the SOY’s, or all the 500-home run hitter covers, but one of the most interesting and often overlooked is the SI 1954 first year subset. The content is a mix of nostalgia, some of the most popular issues still today, and a high series which makes collecting a full set just a little more challenging. Issue # 1 – as it is the premier issue, most collectors want a high-grade copy. The unique situation here is that SI saved a bunch (nobody knows how many – my guess is between 1-1000) for aftermarket sale which suppresses value a bit but leaves plenty of opportunity for hard core SI collectors to own the coup-de-gras – first issue CGC 9.8. Issue #2 features two collector must haves – 27 printed Yankee baseball cards AND an exclusive Mantle card which does not appear in any other major card series. The top grade is 9.4 which leaves room for an eagle-eye collector. Issue #3 features the actual first swimsuit which is later popularized in 1964 with the start of the sequential series featuring Babette March. Get your Jones beach baby. Another SI well-kept secret. Commons include issues 4-14. Interesting content for the all-round sports guy. Issue #15 is the first high series issue – a great head shot, FC, of HOF Y A Tittle. Top pop is 8.5 which will tell you the difficulty in finding a 9.0 or higher. The high series issues 15 – 20 are tough in newsstand high grade. I’d say the population is about 5-1 against the first 14 issues. The 1954 set is a diamond in the rough. Get the highest grade issues you can. You wont be sorry. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. Many thanks for your patronage. Come grow with us. I hope you are enjoying the reads on the history of SI, SPORT, and BASEBALL magazines as well as an insight into relevant magazine collecting. Great collecting to you in our second century of blogs and best fortunes with Sports Illustrated/SPORT/BASEBALL magazines. For a complete review of previous blogs, please visit www.sportsillustrated98.com |
