1951 Topps Red and Blue Backs Baseball

The Topps Gum Co. produced their first real regular baseball card set in 1951. Oddly enough, however, the set was split into two groups: cards with red backs, and cards with blue backs. The two series of cards, each measuring 2"x2-5/8", were sold separately, usually in packs of 2 for 1 penny; but for the purposes of this website, we will consider them to be one large set. There were 52 cards of each color produced.

In addition to showing the photos of popular players, the cards in this set contained baseball game 'situations' on the front, allowing kids to use a number of the cards to play a sort of card game with them. The situations are identical in both the red and blue sets.

The Red Back set is considered more common than the Blue Backs, and thus less expensive; this is mainly due to a warehouse find of the Red Backs in the 1980's. The Blue Back set is thus about twice as expensive, although it contains no major stars.

The Red Backs were also reportedly sold with a fold-out game board as part of a bagged set for 29 cents.