1954 Wilson Franks, PSA 1 (MK): Roy Campanella, A True Cardboard Beauty!

A rare and tough to find vintage oddball food set? Check. A great shot of a catcher crouched down with a huge mitt and his fist ready to pound said mitt as he awaits a pitch? Check. Great color scheme? Check. Floating food? Check. My all-time favorite vintage player and one of my most enjoyable collections? Check and mate.

I quite adore that Campy appears to have a thought bubble of hot dogs appearing out of thin air. These oddball cards are usually tough to track down and you have to jump on them when they appear as months and even years can go by without one popping its head out into the collecting world.

They are even tougher when they come in a food product like hot dogs which doesn't exactly lend itself to keeping the card anywhere near pristine. Low-grade is really what works best for my budget at this time in my life and as a general rule the most important thing for me is owning the card, not owning a gorgeous copy of it unless I can somehow find one at an absolute steal.

At the time I purchased this beaut it was one of the pricier cards I had ever acquired but I couldn't be happier with it and shelling out the cash was an easy decision. I bought the card raw (see, it took this long for a hot dog pun!) and sent it in to PSA through work knowing it would get a 1, but I needed it in a holder nevertheless for protective reasons alone.

It's hard to see on the scan but the back has relatively faint writing on it which garnered the MK notation on that PR 1 grade. It looks like somebody signed their name on the back or attempted to sign their version of Roy's name.

Here's the aforementioned back which details Roy's MVP awards up until this point and various other exploits. The previous year's statistics as well as lifetime stats up through 1953 are given, and I really really love the black background at the top surrounding Roy's name, position, and team. An overall simple yet exceptionally well-done and fitting card back.