1954 Bowman Baseball Cards

At only 224 cards, 1954 Bowman is a unique set. Due to Bowman’s fierce competition with Topps, Bowman established exclusive contracts with Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, Roy Campanella, Robin Roberts, and Pee Wee Reese. Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Whitey Ford, and Bob Feller are also found in the set, as well as the rookie card of Yankee favorite, Don Larsen.

However, the one that got away was Ted Williams. After returning from the Korean War, Williams signed an exclusive contract with Topps. As a result of this contract, Bowman was forced to pull card #66 of Williams from its set and replace it with a card of Jimmy Piersall (who was also featured on card #210). This short-printing of the Ted Williams card created one of the most sought-after cards of the hobby's modern era.

As with the 1953 set, 1954 Bowman cards measured 2-1/2 by 3-3/4 inches. The card fronts feature a color photo as in the 1953 sets, but they were accompanied by a small color box at the bottom corner which housed a facsimile autograph of the player. The only other element featured on the front of the card was a white border. On the back, Bowman added a trivia question across the bottom of each card, as had been done with the 1953 Topps set. The answer to the question ran just below the player’s statistics.

Interestingly, Bowman numbered all its 1954 cards based on the player’s team. A rotation was used where every sixteenth card in the set featured a player from the same team. For instance, the Yankees had card 1, 17, 33, 49, etc; the Red Sox were on cards 2, 18, 34, 50, etc. Each team set has fourteen cards.

Due to competition with Topps, the 1954 Bowman set was printed so fast that almost 20% of the cards issued had statistical errors. Bowman later corrected these errors. Thus, there are a large number of variations in the set. In addition to the Ted Williams card, there are several other variations worth noting as well:

• Cards #33 Vic Raschi and #163 Dave Philley mention that the player was traded, while others do not. To add to the confusion, there is a third Philley card which mentions the trade and also credits him with having played more games the previous year (157 rather than 152).

• After the 1953 season, the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, and Bowman's artists had no idea what the Oriole uniforms would look like. So they simply made the uniforms up.

Purchase 1954 Bowman Cards Here!