Billy Hinton’s Impressive Vintage Collection
Three years before Topps produced its first baseball cards, Leaf released an iconic set in 1948 that featured the rookies of legends Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Stan Musial, and Warren Spahn. But it was one particular card in that set that drew special interest from collector Billy Hinton: the Detroit Tigers’ Hal Newhouser.
The pitcher isn’t a huge name amongst Baseball Hall of Fame members, but his card is rare. Hinton was on the verge of finishing a unique collecting project, and only the Newhouser held him up.
In fall 2021, Hinton finally picked up a Newhouser to complete the Hall of Fame Players – Post War Rookies set through the PSA Set Registry.
“That’s one of those cards, they probably pop up on eBay two or three times a year or an auction house,” Hinton said. “They’re not transacted often. I think I was done with the rest of the registry for about a year before a Newhouser popped up. So, you figure by the time I had started the project, he was always on the registry, so that was a card that was six, seven years in the making.”
Vintage Collecting
Prior to starting his set registry project, Hinton was an avid vintage collector. He enjoyed getting his hands on his favorite Hall of Famers.
“The original project was collecting a playing days card of every Hall of Famer,” Hinton said. “And then it just kind of evolved into this rookie card chase because you kind of realized that after the ’50s, outside of Seaver and Ryan and some of those guys, you’re like, these aren’t terribly expensive.”
After adding the cards of the Class of 2024 Hall of Famers this past year, Hinton’s Hall of Fame Players – Post War Rookies list stands at 123. Every year when the new Hall of Fame class is announced, Hinton just has the easy task of adding those players’ cards to his set.
“There’s not much cost that goes into keeping it going. I just think it’s an awesome collection,” said Hinton, who is the head of retail operations at Baseball Card Exchange (BBCE) in Schererville, Indiana. “Obviously, there are people on the registry that chase it as well. But there’s not a lot that do it, so I just enjoy kind of putting them together.” Hinton keeps his eye on likely future Hall of Famers as well. “If you kind of plan it out maybe before people are searching for them as much, you can save a couple bucks.”
Big-Name Rookies
For the PSA Set Registry for Hall of Fame Players – Post War Rookies category, there is a certain rookie card — in some cases two — designated for each player. For example, there’s the 1948 Leaf or 1949 Bowman Robinson, 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle, 1954 Hank Aaron, 1960 Topps Carl Yastrzemski, 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan, 1975 Topps George Brett, 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson, 1991 Bowman Chipper Jones, and 1995 Bowman Vladimir Guerrero.
Of the 123 cards needed to complete the set, 95 of the cards were either produced by Topps or Bowman. When Hinton checked the Newhouser off his list, he felt a sense of absolute accomplishment.
“Just finally complete, don’t have to worry about any of the big ones anymore, any of the real expensive ones, you have it all,” he said.
Hinton met a fellow collector who was knocking out a Hall of Fame Players – Post War Rookies set of his own. The two became friends and finished the set around the same time.
“When we both completed it, we were both like, it’s almost sad in a way,” Hinton said. “You’ve worked on it for so long, you had so much fun chasing all the cards and now it’s done. You’re like, okay, where do I go from here?”
A Few Favorites
Hinton loves all the cards in his set, but the 1951 Bowman Mantle serves as the centerpiece of his collection.
“That’s my favorite one for sure,” said the collector, who has his copy in a PSA 1. “My dad’s step dad was an airline pilot, but I grew up on stories of Mantle, Maris, and Berra, because they used to fly from Ohio out to New York to go to doubleheaders at Yankee Stadium. So, all the stories I grew up on were Yankee players. Mantle’s the one guy that even outside of the Hall of Fame registry, I collect a lot of his stuff.”
A few of Hinton’s other favorite cards from his project include the 1954 Topps Aaron, ’52 Topps Eddie Mathews, and ’51 Bowman Willie Mays. The ’49 Bowman cards of Robinson and Paige are also standout cards. “I think those are two of the most iconic rookies just in baseball cards in general given their importance to the game,” Hinton said.
As far as more modern-day players, Hinton has always loved the 1997 Bowman Chrome Roy Halladay, as well as the Adrian Beltre from the same set. When he was picking up some of the bigger cards for his Hall of Fame Players – Post War Rookies set, he realized prices on some were extremely affordable. It really showed him which former star players are undervalued in The Hobby.
“I think Ted Williams is undervalued,” Hinton said. “Musial had an incredible career and I don’t think his stuff is where it should be. I would say up until the last year or so, I thought Jackie Robinson was the most criminally undervalued vintage card in the industry.”
Hinton noted that Robinson only has a total of eight cards produced by Topps, Bowman, and Leaf during his playing days, so there aren’t many cards of him on the market. Sandy Koufax is also undervalued in Hinton’s opinion.
Hinton had such a good time collecting the Hall of Fame Players – Post War Rookies set that he encourages every collector to work on a similar project. It’s a fabulous way to track baseball’s amazing history and its greatest players.
“I think the thing that’s cool with it is that you can kind of take that checklist and go a lot of different ways,” Hinton said. “I went balls to the wall and did all of it. But if you’re a Braves fan or a White Sox fan, you can really use that checklist to kind of create your own checklist. I know people that have done that too that have said, ‘I don’t want to do all of them.’ Or, ‘I’m never going to buy a Mantle or an Aaron.’ But maybe they went through and picked out players that they really liked or players that their dad or their grandpa liked and they were able to pick off a few of those and create their own set.”
This Year’s Class
Hinton will be adding five players this year to his set. Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Dave Parker, and Dick Allen will all be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on July 27.
“I actually had them all prior to them being voted in because of the Future HOF Registry,” Hinton said.
