Card Spotlight: 1-15-10

1981 TCMA 1959 White Sox #2 - Nellie Fox (head shot, blue border)

After Topps sued and won a court case against SSPC, who made a few rival sets in the seventies, the parent company TCMA focused on increasing its output. TCMA specialized in sets of retired players and minor leaguers, since they could not use the images of current MLB players.

TCMA played a very important role in issuing lost card sets of the forties. It is very rare to find card sets between 1942 and 1947, due to war rationing. It wasn't until 1948 that the first major sets would start to come out. TCMA filled that void perfectly.

Once they completed that task with the continuation of the popular Play Ball series, TCMA started on other retro sets. And here you thought that this was a new idea. The company produced many different niche sets in the late seventies and early eighties.

One such set is the 1959 White Sox set. The complete set consists of 45 cards. This would encompass the entire team throughout the 1959 season and the coaching staff. All in all, this was a wonderful idea for a set. It's always a pet peeve of mine when a player is left out of a card set. This set solves that problem.

The Nellie Fox card has three variations. A head shot with a blue border. Another head shot with a white border. Plus a variation with a batting pose. I'm uncertain if the entire set is like this or just certain players. I have seen a batting variation on Luis Aparicio, so it could be entire set or it could be the star players.

Regardless of variations, this is a dream set for the team collector. The Nellie Fox card is my first card from this set, but it certainly won't be my last.