Fits Like a Glove! CGC Cards Introduces New Holders for Vintage Sports Cards

CGC Cards™ is pleased to introduce new holders for vintage sports cards! The new holders are tailored to the unique sizes of many cards that previously required an insert to be safely encapsulated. Now, these cards are protected and secure in the CGC Cards state-of-the-art holder with nothing obscuring the clarity of the encapsulated cards.

While most modern cards measure 2.5” x 3.5”, there has not always been a standard size. Early sports cards were typically included inside the packaging of assorted products and their dimensions varied depending on those products. For example, the iconic T206 set from the American Tobacco Company in the early 20th century has cards that measure 1.4375” x 2.625”. A generation later, the pioneering cards in the 1933 Goudey set were nearly twice as big, a major change from many of their predecessors.

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The road to a standard size

By the middle of the 20th century, baseball card sets continued to vary significantly in size. The 1939 Play Ball set had cards measuring 2.5” x 3.125”, while the 1948 Leaf set had cards measuring 2.375” x 2.875”, the same as the 1933 Goudey set.

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Baseball card manufacturers continued to experiment with sizes. For instance, Bowman's 1948 cards measure 2.125" x 2.5". Just three years later, while the width stayed the same, the height had increased to 3.125". At least one young collector preferred the Bowman 1948 dimensions, trimming subsequent cards in his collection to that size, including a Mickey Mantle from the 1952 Topps set that CGC Cards recently certified as Authentic Altered.

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Unaltered and highly graded Mantle cards from that set are among the most highly prized collectibles in all of sports. The 1952 Topps set also helped usher in the modern look of baseball cards, with its colorful designs and enormous dimensions of 2.625” x 3.75”. A few years later, Topps cards shrunk slightly to 2.5” x 3.5”, which is the standard in sports cards today. The current size allows collectors to hold cards with detailed player photos and statistics in their hands as well as to store them easily in albums.

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Fitting 'like a glove'

For many card sizes that are encountered less frequently, CGC Cards previously used sleeves that were encapsulated within the holder to secure the card in place. New custom-sized holders mean there is not a sleeve to obstruct the clarity of the holders. The holder is designed to better fit non-standard sized cards while still seamlessly stacking with standard CGC Cards holders.

"CGC Cards continues to look for ways to innovate and enhance our industry-leading certification and encapsulation services," said Andy Broome, CGC Cards Vice President. "For many vintage sports cards, these new holders truly fit like a glove."

Submitters do not need to do anything differently; the CGC Cards team automatically selects the appropriate holder when encapsulating cards. (The sleeves will continue to be used in a limited number of cases.)

CGC Cards has graded more than 6 million cards, including more than 1.5 million sports cards — a number that encompasses thousands of vintage pre-war collectibles. If you have a CGC-certified vintage sports card that you would like to be encapsulated in a new holder, submit for the ReHolder service at just $5 per card.

Need more info?

For questions, contact CGC Cards Customer Service at [email protected]. All CGC services can be reached at (+1) 855-GRADE10 (855-472-3310).

About CGC

Since revolutionizing comic book grading in 2000, CGC has grown to include certification services for a vast variety of pop culture collectibles. These divisions include CGC Cards, CGC Video Games and CGC Home Video. CGC Cards provides expert card grading for TCGs, sports cards and non-sports cards. CGC Video Games is dedicated to video game grading for the most popular consoles, including Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation and more. The newest division of CGC, CGC Home Video, provides expert VHS grading in addition to other types of home media, such as Blu-ray and DVD.