Dollar box diving: Part 1

One of my favorite sellers on eBay has been featuring a nice quantity of vintage cards in his store at a buck apiece.  I dove in a couple of times during the month of January and found a nice mix of 60's and 70's cards in a trio of sports (wasn't feeling frisky about the basketball portion).  I showed off just one card so far in the Air Coryell post a week or so ago, but now I've got the time, along with a bit of organization, to show off the rest.

First up will be the hockey portion, which totals just 13 cards over 3 different sets from the early 70's, all of which have a long way to go in the set building category.

The lone add from the 72-73 set features Gary Edwards of the Kings.  I've had him confused with another goalie from that era, Gary Smith of the Chicago Black Hawks.  Maybe it's because Mr. Edwards bounced from team to team similar to what Mr. Smith did.  

Edwards' most productive time came with the Kings, where he played 6 seasons with the club.  Gary shared the duties in between the pipes with Kings legend Rogie Vachon, playing 44 games and winning 13.  That club also had the rookie season of Billy Smith from the Islanders dynasty of the late 70's early 80's fame.

The first scan got cut off a bit, but I wound up with 5 cards from the 73-74 set which I have barely touched during my collecting time.  

This is one of the more colorful sets of the 70's, which makes me wonder why I haven't added more to my collection than the paltry 13 cards that I own.  

For the longest time (we're talking years), the only card I had from the 70-71 OPC set I had was Joe Szura of the California Golden Seals.  

Was I ever surprised to see these cards in the dollar "box" on eBay, so I snapped up a few to add to the group.  Names that I recognize as well, such as Pit Martin, Ted Irvine (Chris Jericho's dad if you're into wrestling), and Joe Watson.  I now own 15 cards from the set, which is the same size as the 73-74 set, just 264 cards.  

More to come, next up will be the football portion, including a few from the '69 Topps set that I have really taken a liking to.

Robert

Getting ready for the first storm of 2020

With Isaias approaching the eastern coast of Florida in the next 24 hours, I've got some time to write a quick post (or 2) before tomorrow's day of preparation ahead of the first hurricane to hit south Florida this year. 

I've been holding these cards for a bit over a week now, my last purchase on eBay for probably another week at the least, maybe longer if I hold my grudge against the USPS.   I showed off the first card of the 5 card purchase earlier this week  with the Ryan/Seaver '74 Topps strikeout leaders card.

The only other baseball card I decided to purchase was part of my latest fascination, the '55 Bowman set. 

There's a couple of creases on the lower right corner which you can easily see, and the corners are well worn, but the back is clean with no ink marks, so this card is right up my alley.  Mike Garcia is the 5th card from the '55 Bowman set that I own, and while I do have a want list up on the TCDB, there's absolutely no hurry for me to chase this set.  330 cards is a great size for a mid 50's set for me, and what I think I'll have some fun going after are the umpire cards. 

The other 3 cards that I bought were also what I perceived to be great buys, all of them from early 70's OPC sets.

Back to the early days of the Buffalo Sabres for this 70-71 OPC card of Bill Inglis, whom I never heard of before purchasing this card for less than $2.  A quick look at the Hockey Reference page is in order!!

A quick look it was, as Bill only played 3 seasons in the NHL, managing just 36 games and 1 goal over that time.  Bill had one goal in the playoffs with the LA Kings in the 68-69 season.  Bill's best professional season would come in 1972-73 for the Cincinnati Swords of the AHL, scoring 40 goals and 97 points.   Seeing this I had to find an image of the team's logo, and here it is in case you were curious...

Next up is a pair of Phil Esposito cards, which I believe are quite underpriced from the early 70's when you're finding them for $2-$3

Up top is the Art Ross Trophy card from the '71-72 set that I'm working on, and for $3.25 it was in my cart in no time.   Even better is the Esposito/Clarke card scoring leaders card from 73-74 OPC which was just $2.  Esposito was the runaway scoring champion in the 72-73 season with 130 points, 26 more than Bobby Clarke.  Only 2 others hit the century mark, Bobby Orr at 101 and Rick MacLeish had 100. 

With the impeding storm coming up, we'll see how long it takes before the boredom kicks in and I start surfing online for more cards....

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

Sometimes you get lucky

I've chronicled my love for the 71-72 OPC hockey set on this blog on a couple of occasions.  Right around Christmas, I was fortunate to see a few of these available on twitter courtesy of Dave from the Wax Stain Rookie blog (twitter ID : @parkhurstcards) . 

Dave originally posted the following 70-71 Cesare Maniago card:

Sold!   I asked him if he had anything else from the early 70's.  Out come these three beauties.

Yes, creases, tape marks/stains.  I didn't care.  When you find Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr cards from a guy you trust, you have to take the leap.  

Dave said "make me an offer".   I really panicked a bit, as I looked up the values of the cards, and knowing that players such as Orr and Hull tend to hold their value even in lower conditions I was worried that I might not offer Dave enough.

I threw Dave a number, hoping not to insult him.  My offer was $10 over what he thought.   Whew!!

I love that I have these 4 cards in my collection.   Dave even threw in a Joe Sakic card that I needed.

If you ever have a chance to grab some cards from Dave, don't hesitate.  If you ever have a chance to read his blog, or his twitter feeds (he's going through 90-91 Pro Set right now, a fun read on twitter), don't hesitate.

The most entertaining part about this transaction?  The time it took for the cards to arrive.  My next post will have me do something I don't normally do, taking a shot at the USPS.

Thank you Dave for the cards, they are great!!

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Ice Breakers

I decided during my last COMC purchase to pick up a single card from a few 70's OPC sets from which I hadn't owned one.  Naturally, I went on the cheap route and grabbed a few cards for $1.50 or less.  No stars, just commons to get the sets started.

This was the most expensive card of the 5 at $1.53.  I had no idea who Joe Szura was when I bought the card, but I figured what better way to start the set than grabbing a player from the California Seals franchise.  A quick look at the Hockey Reference website shows that the 69-70 season was the last of 2 NHL seasons that Joe would play, totaling 90 games and 10 NHL goals.  Joe would be claimed by the Los Angeles Sharks of the WHA a couple of years later, and play for them in the 72-73 season.  The next year Joe would be a member of the WHA championship Houston Aeros team (the same one that had Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe) before finishing his career in the 74-75 season in the minors.

I knew of Dunc Wilson before I picked up this card, as he spent some time during his career with the Maple Leafs.  The only image I could find of Dunc's mask during his time in Vancouver was the old style pretzel mask.   Dunc's mask in Toronto was much better...

Dunc's career spanned the entire 1970's between 4 NHL clubs, with one game in the 69-70 season in Philly.   My copy of his 72-73 OPC card cost 60 cents.

I could probably count on one hand the number of 73-74 OPC cards I've seen with smooth borders and no chipping.  Putting this set together in anything better than VG-EX could be a time consuming and costly process.   I knew that Ed had finished his career with the Islanders, but what I did not know is that he was claimed by the Islanders in their expansion draft from the Bruins. 

Rey Comeau was a name I recognized quickly when I started looking through the 74-75 list on COMC.  He only played a handful of games during the 71-72 season for the Canadiens before being traded to the Flames for cash considerations.  He had a decent career for the Flames, playing there 6 seasons before moving to Colorado to finish out the decade with the Rockies. 

The 78-79 set is one that I remember buying a lot of as a youngster, but unfortunately those cards got thrown out by my mom, a fate I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with.  Nick Fotiu was a name I also recognized quickly, mostly from his days as a Ranger.   I didn't remember while looking up his stats that he played a couple of years in the WHA as a member of the Whalers, before signing as a free agent with the Broadway Blueshirts.  He would spend 3 years there before going back to the Whale for a season and a half.  He would be traded back to the Rangers and play 3 seasons there before moving on to Calgary, Philly and Edmonton to finish out his career.  Nick was a tough player to play against, having 150+ penalty minutes in 4 seasons and he scored 10 goals in a season just once during his 15 year career.

I still have a few OPC sets for my 20 year run that I don't own a card of yet, such as the famous blue border 79-80 set, and 75-76 which was the first set that I remember buying cards of.   Next COMC order I'll probably break the ice on those.

Thanks for reading, Robert