For me, the diamond anniversary wasn't all that bad

Good Wednesday evening to you all, I hope that none of you are out there doing some manic last minute shopping for the perfect gift.  Shame on you if you are!!

I wanted to wax a little bit this evening on the Topps Diamond Giveaway this year.  I did not get any of the diamond die cuts, which seem to be very popular.  For me, this was no great loss.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Reading other blogs over the past few months has helped me start to develop an appreciation for older cards.  I would love to someday collect a vintage set, but alas the time it will take and the financial outlay will likely be too much for me to bear. 

The diamond giveaway for me was an affordable way to take a chance on obtaining some older cards, basically from packs I was going to buy anyways this year.  For me, I feel that I was pretty lucky with some of the vintage cards I pulled.

The '55 Topps Leo Kiely card pictured at the top was especially interesting for me to obtain, because I had never held one of the '55's in my hand.  I also never knew that they were slightly larger than cards that were released in later years. 

The Camilo Pascual card was another card I enjoyed receiving.  I had heard of Camilo, but did not know much about him as a player.  A couple of 20 win seasons for the Twins in the early 60's, had some pretty decent statistical seasons as well for some Twins teams that didn't fare well (led the AL in shutouts in '61 with 8, but wound up with a 15-16 record).

I also pulled a couple of '68 Topps cards, #21 John Briggs, and # 284 Ron Davis.  Ron's hat, as you can plainly see, is a victim of the airbrush.

Three more vintage cards finish off the display for today.  The first is a '57 Topps Charlie Silvera card.  The card back reads "Charlie will get his chance to play a complete season in 1957 after being a part time operator with the Yanks for 8 years."  Sadly, Charlie only had 53 ABs with the Cubs in '57, which also turned out to be his last year in MLB.  Don Blasingame's card back says that he finished 2nd on the Senators in batting avg in 1964, he hit .263.  One of Don's teammates was a 33 year old utility player named Don Zimmer.  The Bill Wakefield card from '66 Topps features him a full year after he played in his only season in the bigs, which was 1964. 

I also managed to grab a couple of cards from the early to mid 70's, along with a bunch of cards between the years 79-82 as well. 

Nothing great for sure, but just having them is cool. 

Plus who knows, maybe someone out there will recognize one of these as a card they need for a set they are putting together.  If that's you, just let me know, I'm sure we can work something out.

Thanks for reading, Robert