Wednesday, January 28, 2009

1955 Bowman Billy Cox

This is another card I got at the baseball card show last weekend. This was the last set produced by Bowman before it was acquired by Topps. It is the design used in the 2004 Bowman Heritage set.

This is the first of these I've owned. Beckett lists commons from this set in near mint condition at $12 to $30 depending on the series. Beckett lists wrappers for the cards at $60. Imagine having had the foresight in 1955 to save a box of wrappers! If this card were near mint it would be in the $12 category. I got it for a dollar. It's in pretty good shape, good corners, no paper loss, a single unobtrusive crease. It is badly centered top to bottom however. I think no matter the physical characteristics of the card, the centering would keep it from being graded high. Which is why it was in a box of dollar cards.
Cox was an infielder who played between 1941 and 1955, mostly with the Dodgers. He seems not to have been a regular player (less than 100 games per season). He had a career BA of .262 with 66 home runs.

2 comments:

night owl said...

Cox was the Dodgers' starting third baseman between 1948-53. He was known as one of the best fielding third basemen ever. He was, as you said, a career .260 hitter.

Cox is a prominent figure in "The Boys of Summer" A very quiet, somber guy of few words (except for one off-color phrase that he used all the time). He lost his starting job basically because the Dodgers got too good. Manager Charlie Dressen wanted the best team on the field. Junior Gilliam had arrived and Dressen thought the best team included Robinson at second and Gilliam moved to third and Cox moved to the bench because he was "just a .260 hitter at age 34"

Very nice card.

deal said...

that is a really good looking 55 bowman. I have about a half dozen of them, mostly Phillies. They actually seem to be one of the Easiest to find Bowman issues.