1953 Bowman Pee Wee Reese

[spaidly]

Originally Posted by 1966CUDA

I believe I read somewhere that this card was actually the only card in the set that was a black & white photo and then colorized. Anyone else know if that is true?

That would explain the red sleeves...

[Volod]

Originally Posted by spaidly

That would explain the red sleeves...

I think it's more likely that a photo editor would color dark sleeves as the normal Dodger blue, no? But, I guess he might have been sniffing photo chemicals for too long on the job. I have seen other players wearing red undershirts in spring training games, so the red sleeves on Pee Wee seem to argue more for an actual color photo in my view. Might it be that it is the unusual red sleeves, in addition to the great action pose, that made the card as memorable as it now is?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

This is my all-time favorite card. If I'm in a position to acquire a high-end one it may become the only card in my "collection." I do also love the 1952 Berk Ross. They loved showing Pee Wee in action.

[CW]

Hmmm, the red sleeves is an interesting argument against a colorized B&W photo.

When I mentioned "good authority" in my post above, I was referring to Griffins here on Net54. He mentions it in this old thread on CU, and I also found it referenced in a very thorough article on the '53 Bowman Color set by Dean Hanley which appeared on SCD in 2010.

The most famous card in the 1953 Bowman set, #33 of Pee Wee Reese is actually a painted over Black & White photo.

I wonder where this idea of the card being a colorized B&W photo originated. Maybe Griffins will see the thread and chime in.

BTW, one thing I learned from Dean's article about the set (I never noticed this feature on the backs):

The card backs also had empty spaces below the player’ s statistics so that the kids could write in the player’ s statistics for 1953. Thank goodness, that only a few of the kids took Bowman’s suggestion to deface the cards with handwritten numbers.