Another six pack plus a check list with checks

Part of the haul I brought home from the card show on the weekend was a half dozen beauties from the '59 Topps set.

I really love the Rookie Stars subset, and these two cards have me owning just over half of the 31 cards needed.  What I didn't realize until looking at the scan is the other 4 cards provide a nice cross section of the different background color schemes that the 59 Topps set employs. 

While those 6 cards came from the monthly card show, I picked up this checklist as part of the '64 Topps purchase on eBay.  The '59 checklists are really cool, and this one turned out to be even better.

Not only is the front a great shot of the Chicago White Sox, it's in decent condition, and features the old flying white sock logo.  Excellent!!

As great as the front was, the back for me was even better...

How often do you see the boxes on a check list actually marked with check marks!!??  The person who originally had this check list only had 15 of the 88 cards featured on the list.  I'd love to know if anyone out there has ever seen a check list that used checks such as this.  Every list that I've seen has either had the squares colored in, or the names crossed out, or both.  If you have pictures of a check list like this on your blog, I'd love if you pointed it out in the comments.

With these cards in the bank, I'm just 48 cards shy of owning half of the '59 Topps set.  I never thought my progress on this set would move along this quickly.  Then I remind myself, there are a lot of big names that I still haven't even looked at yet.  Names like Mantle, Gibson, Berra, Aaron, Mays are all out there.

As someone mentioned in the blogosphere recently...it's a marathon, not a sprint, right?

If that's the case, I'm glad because I'm too old and out of shape for sprinting...

thanks for reading, Robert

Six Pack

I received a couple of more envelopes today in the mail--a couple of holiday weekend purchases finally arriving in my mailbox.  Starting off the multitude of cards that showed up is a 6-pack of 1964 Topps.

The lone card from the COMC envelope that took a piece of the '64 want list away was #583, none other than the father of long time Red Sox/Indians manager Terry Francona, Tito.  Very nice condition, and another high number off of the list.

Next up are a pair of Pirates, including the Deacon, Vern Law.  Law in '64 was in his 13th season with the Pirates, which included being a part of the '60 World Series championship club.  Law started games 1, 4 and 7 in the series, winning the first two and giving way to a team of relievers in Game 7 before Bill Mazeroski hit the infamous HR to win the series in the 9th inning at Forbes Field.

Gene Alley appeared in 17 games in '63, but McFarlane hadn't been on the Pirates roster since a 8 game, 2 for 23 stint in 1962.   The '64 season would be the last for Orlando in Pittsburgh, While Gene Alley would play for another decade in the Steel City, winning a World Series ring in '71.

3 more cards in the 400's round out the post.  The name Stenhouse rang a bell, but I wasn't sure why.  Those of you who are in their 40's like I am will remember his son (at least I hope you do), Mike, who was a utility player for 3 teams in the 80's.

Mike Hershberger was an outfielder for 3 AL teams between 1961 and 1971, compiling a .252 career average with 900 hits.  Mike led the AL in outfield errors for 3 consecutive seasons, along with compiling 5 straight double digit outfield assist totals between '63 and '67.

Norm Cash is easily the highlight of the 6 pack; his photo showing all us rookies the proper bunting stance is a great contrast to his power (377 career HRs).  Norm only had 17 sacrifices during his 17 year career.

These 6 cards bring the want list down to 51.  Still need some big name cards such as the Niekro RC, the AL Bombers card and the tops in NL card to name 3.  Those are going to hurt the wallet.  In the end, this set is going to be well worth it for me.  It's my proof that I can finish a vintage set, even while trying to maintain (although not always succeeding) a budget.

Thanks for reading, Robert

My apologies to Mariners, Diamondbacks and Cardinals fans

I will not bore you with a lot of fluff commentary with this post.

In a nutshell, first table I hit at the card show yesterday had a nice stack of A&G to go through.   I knocked off 65 cards from the want list.  I figured I would scan them by team for all the teams that had more than one card.  

There were 7 teams with single cards.

No Mariners, D'backs or Cardinals cards.

Have fun with the scans!!

There you go.  65 cards, 14 scans, 27 teams.   Easy.

thanks for reading, Robert

Three stars of a different sort

What's great about the vintage dealer that I've found at the card show here in my new neck of the woods is that he doesn't just have 50's and 60's cards to choose from, there's a whole cavalcade of great cards at his tables to go through.

The three cards I'm going to show off on this post are a great example of this. 

I've seen quite a few of these cards on the blogs lately, and when I saw this at the table for a buck, I figured why not.   Maybe someone will need/want it as part of a trade.

Like a lot of other cards I've seen from the other bloggers, this isn't perfectly cut.  But maybe out there, someone needs card #3 from the '76 Hostess set.  Let me know if it's you....

The other two cards are hockey legends, and just happen to be two of the 3 cards that I needed to finish the 1987-88 OPC set.   I had no intention what so ever of looking for these, they just fell into my lap.

A very nice condition 2nd year Patrick Roy card!  Remember when goalies and goalie equipment looked like this?  Yea, I thought not.

Even better, I got the Mario Lemieux from the same set.   This might be the only year that I can ever remember Lemieux wearing the 'A' on his jersey.  Plus, this jersey he's wearing here is similar to the 3rd jerseys that the Penguins now wear.  One of the best designs the Pens have ever had in my opinion.

These 2 cards knock down the 87-88 OPC want list to just one card.  It is #53.

Anyone have a spare Gretzky to trade?

thanks for reading, Robert

Three Stars

Usually a phrase used in the hockey world to describe the top 3 players of a hockey game, the 3 stars I'm going to feature in this post are from 3 eBay auctions that I won last weekend.  I spent a few bucks under one week's budget (including shipping), but for me to add these cards at such a reasonable rate was worth it.

 
This McCovey might be the most beat up of the 3, but for me it is still in nice enough shape to add to the '64 set build.  Small crease on the left, corners are soft, but no matter.   It's mine.

This Santo was a tad cheaper than the McCovey, but there are no creases.  Love the old Cub logo on the left sleeve.  The card is off center, but the back is clean and for $5 this was well worth it.

Another off center card, but in better condition, this Bob Gibson was the most expensive of the 3.  At $13, I couldn't pass it up.  These 3 cards put me over the 90% completion mark for the '64 set.  Just 57 to go.

I have another half dozen on their way to me as well; I got those much cheaper than these 3, but the names don't have the star quality that these have. 

thanks for reading, Robert

Onwards and Upwards

The Black Friday weekend was a productive one for me, collection wise.   I took some time and money to make some purchases on both COMC and eBay.  Not only did I knock off some more base cards for my 3 player PC's, I grabbed a few cards off of a couple of vintage want lists.

Not only did I buy cards, but I actually took some time to think about the "final five".  My final five are the last 5 vintage sets that I will actively pursue in the near future.  Before I talk briefly about those sets, let me confirm that those 5 sets will not feature sets that I'm close to finishing, such as....

1964 Topps.  This is my baby, the original vintage set that I've spent the most time working on.  Going into the holiday weekend I was 60 cards away from completion, a number that was reduced with a couple of eBay purchases that feature some stars and some high numbered cards.  I'm already anticipating their arrival.

Another set that I'm close to completing is this classic...

1973 Topps.  Coming into the weekend, I was 16 cards away from completion (not including upgrades).  That number was cut in half during the holiday, and of the 8 cards that remain, only the Schmidt/Cey RC would be considered pricey.  The hunt will be on this weekend at the card show to find a decent copy at a decent price.

Finally, the 3rd set that I'm not including in the final five is the one that the blogosphere mandated I complete...1959 Topps

I also took some time during the weekend to get the '59 cards I own into a binder.  That little exercise made me realize that this is a wonderful looking set, and picking up the remaining 60% will be very enjoyable. 

Two of the final five sets have been on my want list for quite a while, so they aren't a mystery.  Two others are sets I really like from the 60's.  The fifth set is where I'm stuck; I have a couple of starter sets, but neither really jump out at me.  I'm hoping that a trip to the monthly card show on Friday will inspire me to find the final piece of the puzzle.

I'm sure that some card at the vintage table will pop out at me and say "this is the set".  Once that happens, it'll be onwards and upwards.  I'm hoping it does.....

thanks for reading, Robert

Building A&G is helping me get back into the swing of things

Even though I was late to the party, starting to build this years Allen & Ginter set has got me into the swing of things as far as trading.

My regular readers know that I have never been a big fan of inserts, and I usually will scour the blogosphere looking for people that do enjoy putting insert sets together.  A&G has always had a large following, and there are plenty out there who collect most, if not all of insert sets that it contains.

One of those so inclined is a trading partner from the past that I am ashamed to say is someone that I hadn't contacted in a long time for a trade.   That would be Colbey from the Cardboard Collections blog.  I had quite a few inserts that he was looking for, along with some of the base set, and he was able to knock off a nice chunk of my base set and Starting Points want lists.

What I just noticed, which is very surprising, is the 22 cards from the base set that Colbey sent consist of 21 baseball players.  A&G is famous for the entertainment/other sport personalities that take up a decent part of the set.  Guess I was just lucky in this case to be able to show off a great lot of baseball players.

The Night Owl had already sent his envelope by the time I had completed my trade with Colbey, so I wound up with a couple of duplicate Starting Points cards.  No matter, I still knocked off 16 cards from that want list.  The one card from this lot of 16 that hit home for me was the Starling Marte card.   His starting point in 2012 was a HR on the first pitch he saw as a big leaguer against the Astros.  I remember watching that game on TV up in Pennsylvania, and the hype surrounding the Marte call up was quite heavy.  I remember Tim Neverett's call of the HR, which was hit off of 2015 AL Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel.  Another card that was interesting (for me) was the Pablo Sandoval card.  I did not remember that his first game in the majors was played behind the plate.  I could only ever remember him as a 3rd baseman, so reading that was great for me.

Colbey, thank you very much for the trade, it really is appreciated!!  We shouldn't go so long between trades in the future.

thanks for reading, Robert

A little here, a little there

Was I so desperate for posts that I broke up an envelope of about 20 cards over 3 days?  Absolutely.

It's great though that Greg's envelope hit a lot of different lists.  The final post consists of cards that hit 3 sets and one of my PC's.  First, this years A&G receives a dent with these 5 cards coming off of the 2 lists.

The Evan Gattis may or may not be short printed, depending on who or what you believe.  The 4 starting points cards bring the total I have to over 1/3 of the 100 card set.  Sometime soon I'll be receiving another envelope full of A&G cards from another recently completed trade, which will knock both of those want lists down even more. 

Most of the envelopes that Greg and I have sent back and forth have contained at least one vintage card, if not more.   This time, 2 of the vintage sets on my want list were reduced by one card each.

I had no idea that Maury Wills played for the Pirates.  I learned today that he spent the '67 and '68 seasons in Pittsburgh, hitting a combined .290 over the 2 seasons and stealing 81 bases.  After his 2 years in Pittsburgh he was part of the Montreal Expos original roster, as he was selected 21st in the expansion draft by the Expos in 1968. 

Another card from the '59 set is off the books.  The condition of the Frank Malzone card is right up my alley, corners are nice and soft and rounded, and there's a crease in the lower left hand corner, right through the Red Sox logo.  I have 231 of the 572 cards now towards the '59 set.  I'm a lot farther along than I ever thought I would be with this set.

Seeing the '68 and '59 cards made me think some more about the vintage collection that I've been building over the past few years.   I've decided to really concentrate on a handful of sets once I finish of the '64 and '73 sets that I've been putting together.   I'm going to go over the 5 sets that I really want to finish over a few posts coming soon.

Lastly, the highlight of the envelope  for me was a Brett Lawrie card, #'d out of 99.

This 2011 Bowman Chrome card is easily the rarest card of my burgeoning Brett Lawrie PC. 

Working through the Thome and Sakic cards that I've purchased over the past few months really has made me want to work on my player PCs more.  In order to do this, I really would like to finish some of the sets that I've been working on for a long time so I have less on my plate.

I have varying portions of most of the '60s and '70s sets up to and including 1976.  I'm probably going to take the cards from the sets that I don't plan to build and use them in trades or sell them off to concentrate more on the final 5 vintage sets that I've decided on.   

Recently, I've purchased a few '73s on COMC, and over the holiday weekend I'll try and find a few more in order to get closer to finishing.  The '64 set will be next; now that I'm down to just 60 cards to go, I'll start knocking those off one by one.

Not only did this envelope help me whittle down  some want lists, it helped me prioritize what I want to do with my collection in the near future.  

Greg, thank you for the cards, they are greatly appreciated!! 

thanks for reading, Robert

It's always nice to get a little boost from the master

I'm sure that over the time that I've been blogging that the number of packages that Greg from the Night Owl Cards blog and I have sent back and forth to each other has to be in the double digits.  I can count on at least 2-3 a year from him, and it's always quality and quantity in combination.

Today's post features the Blue Jays portion of the envelope, which was about 60% of the cards he sent.  Greg always manages to send me something Blue Jays related that I haven't seen or heard of before.

Case in point, here's a '93 Donruss card of Blue Jays lefty Bob MacDonald

I thought to myself as I looked at the '93 Donruss portion of the want list "I already have the complete team set for this".  Then I looked again.  Look above the Jays logo.   This is from the '93 Donruss commemorative set to celebrate the '92 Jays World Series championship!!  Never have I seen these, until now.  Fantastic.

Over the past couple of decades, my thoughts when you said "SP Authentic" always focused on hockey.  Upper Deck always did a great job with the SP Authentic set, creating a great chase by numbering the rookies to 1999.  This 2002 Mike Smith card may be the first SPA card that I have that features a serial #'d  Jays rookie.  I had no idea that Mike actually pitched for the Jays (2002).

The top 2 I already have.   The Seaver/Halladay card, I'm not so sure about.   I'll be getting my computer (and the remainder of my Jays collection) down here in about 2-3 weeks, so I'll check then and see.


Greg also sent me gold:

I'll have to figure out why I don't have a checklist for the '93 Topps gold parallels, I'm sure I don't have them all.   The Thames and McDonald were both knocked off the '11 Update gold parallel list.

There were a couple of cognac parallels in the mix:

The cognac effect really scanned well here, especially with John Buck card, which features one of my all time favorite catchers masks.

And finally the 2011 Blue Jays retrospective wouldn't be complete without a diamond parallel, right?

Another scan that turned out really well.  The Davis is #'d 56/60 and is a great addition to the Jays PC.

Not only did the cards give my collection a boost, but I noticed that my page hits yesterday took quite a boost.   No, it wasn't the bi-annual bot parade to my blog, Greg also posted about the cards I sent him yesterday.  Yes, I do consider NOC the master when it comes to card blogging, because it's true.  He's the reason I started this blog, and it will be a sad day for me if he ever leaves the blogosphere.

Part 3 comes tomorrow...some older, some newer, and a very nice addition to the Lawrie PC.

thanks for reading, Robert

Now this is pretty cool

Over my time as a blogger, I've seen quite a few unique items that people have added to their collections.  I can't say that I've ever seen one of these. 

It's from the 2000 National, which was held in Anaheim that year.  I'm guessing that this was a VIP reward from Fleer, and lucky me it's a Jim Thome Fleer Tradition card, which made its way into my hands today courtesy of Greg of the great Night Owl Cards blog. 

Now that I'm a little more comfortable here in my new home, I got around to sending out a trio of envelopes over the past 10 days, including a few cards that headed Greg's way.   In return I got this and quite a few other cards that will hit a few want lists (always a great thing).

I debated whether I should open this plastic container and get the card out (I'm a very hands on person when it comes to cards), but I decided against it.  It's survived 15 years so far, so who am I to end such a good run?  I'll find a single pocket page at the next card show and place this in the Thome binder for eternity.

Naturally this wasn't the only card in the envelope, but I've decided to save the rest for another post or 2.

thanks for reading, Robert

A pocket full of cards for a Posey

I was fortunate enough on my days off last week to receive an email from Jim, also known around the blogosphere as "Mr. Haverkamp".  Jim was interested in making a trade for the Buster Posey A&G relic card that I posted about last week.

Jim and I hammered out a quick trade (actually he made an offer I couldn't say no to), and today I received my first package down here in the south.  Between his envelope and the one I sent to the Night Owl last week, it was nice to get the first two envelopes on their way from my new location.   It was good just to find a couple of post offices!

Jim managed to hit a few different portions of my want list, starting with a page worth of Starting Points from this year's A&G.

These 9 cards bring me to just a hair under 1/3 of the 100 card set; 32 of these are off of the list.

Next up was a few Blue Jays to add to the collection:

It was hard to believe that it's been 4.5 months since I removed any Blue Jays from the want list, but it makes sense since I really have put this portion of my collection on the back burner until I get all my cards down to the new home.  By the way, the top row of cards aren't that off center, my scanning skills just weren't up to par on this effort.

I was also surprised that I didn't have the '87 Fleer Update card of Fred McGriff.  Glad I have it now, because that is another set that becomes part of the list of completed sets.  One day I will have to get around to updating the 2015 sets.

A trio of '59s were also part of the envelope, bringing the amount that I have now over 40%.   Still a long way to go to complete this classic set, but I'm still well ahead of where I thought I'd be. 

Finally, Jim added a Ron Fairly card from the '64  Topps set.  It had been quite a while since I featured a '64 card on the blog, so this was a welcome sight.   Doesn't matter that it's off center and the corners are soft, it's still a welcome sight for this collector's sore eyes.  The '64 set is finally down to 60 cards to go.  Maybe a card or 2 is in line before Christmas comes (39 days away...yikes!!).

All in all, a great package for my first deal with Jim.   Thank you for the cards Jim, they are greatly appreciated!!!

thanks for reading, Robert

A fine A&G blaster if I do say so

I'm off for a few days, so the better part of my midday today was spent running some errands.  One of those errands was to return an item to Wal Mart that would net me $40 of fun money.

Naturally, cards came to mind with said fun money.  With UD Series 1 hockey still a pipe dream down here in the south, I turned to an A&G blaster to continue my quest for the set.

I did OK with this particular blaster...I knocked off 3 of the Starting Points inserts from my want list

I was also able to shave 18 cards off of my base set want list...still a long way to go there, but it's improving.

I pulled a jersey card of Buster Posey that is available to the masses (Update: Mr. Haverkamp has already claimed the Posey jersey card).

And this final pull told me that I need to be careful when dismissing the minis.   Case in point, card # 163 of Zach Lowe, sportswriter.

Thought nothing of it at first, then I just happened to flip it over to see if it was an A&G back (of which I have quite the growing pile), and I saw something that I hadn't seen yet...

A hand numbered A&G flag back card!!  #'d 10/25. (UPDATE:  This card has also been claimed)  Not a bad pull for a guy who doesn't get to enjoy very many limited # pulls out of retail packs.  I figure I'll wait a few days and see if there's anyone out there in the blogosphere that is interested in the card, then if I don't hear anything I'll put it on eBay.

Maybe I need to have a few more days off

thanks for reading, Robert