January Mini-Show Haul

Last Saturday, I drove up to Edmond to go to the monthly mini-show at Al's Sportscards.  I was up in the neighborhood to buy horse feed and hadn't seen one of the main sellers I deal with since summer, so I stopped in to say hello.  I didn't spend much, but was productive nonetheless.

I actually found a box of 1979s in Al's inventory and was able to get 16 more cards, leaving me a mere 4 to complete the set.  I really like the JR ultimately redeemed character.

I managed to find two more cards towards completion of my 1975 set.  This also leaves me 4 cards from completion.  My intent will be to finish both 1975 and 1979 before the end of February.

I found another 1961 Golden Press card. I also bought 6 cards for my 1956 set, but managed to forget to scan them.  The seller of the 1956s was rather proud of them, asking around $7 each for cards I would normally pay 4 or less for.  But after taking up space at his table, I felt like I needed to buy something.  I left at least 20 cards I needed behind as there is a limit to my generosity.


What I am listening to: Ghost of Highway 20 from the upcoming Lucinda Williams album of the same name (skip forward to around 2:00 if you just want the music:)

Card Show Haul - Vintage Sets

The show ended up being quite fruitful with regard to working on vintage sets.  Two of the three main vintage sellers were there and I made a little progress on a lot of sets.

I managed to pick up 8 more cards towards my 1979 set; leaving me 17 to go to completion.

I managed to find this 1978 TCMA The 60s Sandy Koufax in a dollar box.  I have a good deal of the 293 card set, with about 40 to go to completion.  This set, and other 1970s TCMA and SSPC sets, are what I intend to work on during the long dry spells in the quest to finish pre-1973 Topps sets.

I found 3 1975 Topps cards, leaving me only 6 to go to complete the set.  The Munson however, is not one of the three.  The scanning process doesn't make it obvious. but it is actually a mini. I don't really intend to ever collect the 1975 minis, but how could I pass up acquiring the card of one of the Yankee's iconic players for a mere buck?

I found five more 1961 Fleer cards leaving me 6 to go to completion.  The Ross Young is one of the more expensive cards in the set with a book value of $40.  Why? I'm not sure, but the best explanation is that it is the last card in the set, and like the 1952 Topps Andy Pafko, it is hard to find in good condition because of damage from the rubber bands that held stacks of cards together back in the day.  Alas, two of the remaining cards I need are Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, which both come in at a $120 book value.  I'm hoping to find both for under $30, so it will probably be a long search.

I picked up four more cards from 1961 Golden Press, leaving me 12 to go. It is just a small 33 card set that, as I understand it, came together as pages in a book; explaining the perforation chads along the edges.

I picked up this 1956 Al Kaline for $5.  I am not sure why the seller (who tends to price high) had it for such a low price.  It appears to be a little off color, but the discoloration is uniform and the card has great eye appeal.  The seller had a large number of 1956 cards with him and I could have made significant progress on my set.  Except I managed to leave my 1956 want list at home. However, that didn't turn out to be a major issue.

Since I couldn't work on my 1956 set, I decided to have the seller put together a 1972 starter set for me.   I now have about 235 cards towards the 787 card set.  Among the cards he pulled for me are the 4 cards above, which includes the infamous Billy Martin card. (If you don't know why it is infamous, please look closely at his hand.)  This set will undoubtedly be a long haul to completion, with over 260 high number cards.  I expect that it will take a minimum of two years, since I'll only be able to get small groups of high numbers at a time....when I can find them.

So, that was the bulk of my card show finds. I did get one card towards a player collection, but will save that for a PC specific post.

Mini Sets!

And by that I don't mean sets of minis (Sorry, N.O.)  I mean small sets. Nowadays, they usually take the form of inserts.  To a certain extent, so they did in the distant past. But, not always.  I am, first and foremost, a vintage Topps flagship set collector. I have been working my way through the 1970s and will keep working backwards through time. I figure I will finally get to 1952 when I am an old man.  I will empty out my bank account, cash the Social Security check, buy a 1952 Mantle, slide it in the Ultra Pro pocket, stare at it for a few minutes, then die completely broke and completely happy.

But, being a vintage set collector means dealing with long dry spells, especially when working on a set issued prior to 1974.  Before then, Topps issued sets in series and the high number series were issued late in the year, overlapping with football. Consequently, they didn't print as many of the cards from those late series and high number cards are difficult to acquire cheaply.  Luckily, I can be a capricious collector. While I have a single main focus, I tend to come across things that catch my fancy.  These have (inadvertantly) served to help fill in those long dry spells set collectors often encounter.

In my case, these diversions are often small sets. By small sets, I generally mean sets with less than 50 unique cards.  Sometimes, they are insert sets, like the 1968 Topps Game cards or the 1969 Topps Deckle Edges. Sometimes they are standalone sets, like 1961 Golden Press. 

At a show last year, I encountered Golden Press in the form of about 12 cards that I snapped up for a song. This is a 33 card set that, in my understanding, came as an attachment to a book, from which they needed to be detached.  That said, I put them in my miscellaneous vintage binder, added a want list to my sidebar, and promptly forgot about them.

Fast forward to a short time ago when, out of the blue, Greg from Plaschke Thy Sweater is Argyle contacted me saying he had a few of these cards at the cardshop he worked at and asked what my condition requirements were. I responded that as long as they didn't look like they were used by a baby as a pacifier, I was good.  Fast forward to yesterday and a package arrived in the mail containing these:

Now there is a problem here. Greg was under the impression that he owed me something for a card I sent him a time back. Problem is I sent that card because he went way overboard on his half of a trade we made back in 2012.  So now, he thinks we are even, but I think I owe him.  In and of itself, that isn't a problem.  Card bloggers will often just send things to each other without any formal trade having been worked out.  The problem is that Greg is working in a card shop in Cali. How the heck am I going to find anything out here in flyover country to send back that he doesn't already have access to? How I ask you? How?

PS Thanks, Greg! 

August Card Show Haul

I wouldn't say the card show was a total bust, but I definitely don't have much to show. Indeed, I actually spent more time pawing through discount box for other folks than I did on myself. Roger Neufeldt wasn't there, and I wasn't able to find any 1973 Topps or 1960/61 Fleers that I needed with any of the other sellers.

For myself, I found a card game called Authors, the rules of which seem to be the same as Go Fish. 

It doesn't really fit in my collection, but it struck my fancy so I got it. Doing a little research on the game, it appears that there are several versions of the game, each with different authors as subjects. It would be interesting to work on building a binder with all the different versions of the game. I didn't really find a lot about when the set I have was produced, but I didn't look super hard either.

My one sports card pick up for myself was a lot of 12 cards from the 1961 Golden Press issue, a 33 card mini set.

Here is what the back looks like:

The set consists, as mentioned above,  of 33 cards, all Hall of Famers. My cursory research indicates that these cards came in a booklet, which explains the perforations you can see on the edge of some of these cards.  I have to admit to having a weakness for these types of small vintage sets.   As a set builder, it takes me a while to complete a Topps set, what with them having anywhere from 660 to 792 cards. I am generally finishing one set a year. These small issues allow me to get the satisfaction of completing a set more frequently.

So, that is it.  I walked out with most of my cash still in my pocket.  I'll just have to tuck it away in a drawer until the October two day show, just in case Roger Neufeldt is there.