Labor Day Card Show

Normally, when I do a brag post about a card show haul, I present the cards in reverse chronological orders.   Today, I am not going to do that, as it seems more appropriate, in order to build suspense (I know you aren't exactly sitting on pins and needles reading this post, but work with me here.)

I picked up a total of 7 cards for the 1960 set I am slowly working on.  These were actually the last cards I picked up at the show as I sought to spend what little cash I had left. These few cards moved me up to having 260 of the cards in the 572 card set.

I just noticed that top edge on the Joe Morgan rookie card. Hoo boy, that is ugly. The experts over at net54 seem to be in agreement that it is a factory defect.  I guess I know now why it was so cheap. I may need to upgrade that some day when I am more concerned with set value.  But, that isn't any time soon. I found a total of 38 cards for my 1965 set. There was a lot more, but not at a price I wanted to pay.  

So, now I am sitting at 468 cards; needing only 130 to complete the set.  Of those 130, 20 are actually upgrades of cards I already have but are in poor condition.  However, even this close to completion, it will probably be a few years before I finish.  The biggest cards I have left include Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, and the Steve Carlton RC.

Also, since this post has been composed in several sessions, I would like to acknowledge the passing of Lou Brock on Sunday. I never got to see him play and only know him by reputation and baseball cards. But, like Ernie Banks, he always seemed to be smiling. As a person prone to melancholy, I have an affinity for people like Brock and Banks who radiate joy so easily.  Hopefully, the once teammates are playing together again. RIP Lou.

Speaking of which....

I found two of the remaining five cards I needed to complete my 1968 set. The final cards I need at the Hank Aaron All-Star (370), Lou Brock (520), and the Nolan Ryan RC (177). My guess is it will be a while before I finish this set. The first two cards are obtainable, but the prices on the Ryan have been outrageous and way more than I am willing to pay.  Even low grade versions, from reputable sellers, are going for $300 or more.  So, I am going to sit tight and hope the bubble bursts.

There it is.  The final card I needed to finish my 1970 set.  My blogging has been intermittent for a number of years now, so I can't determine exactly when I started working on 1970, but as near as I can tell, it was sometime in 2016. So, it took around 4 years to complete.  

This card is significant in a second way as it is also the final card I needed to complete the run of Topps sets from the 1970s.  I do need one card to finish the 1974 master set (599 - San Diego large print version,) but since I have two of the three versions of that card. I consider the set complete.  While I don't expect to ever seriously build 1952 or 1953 sets, I do plan to work on the remaining Topps sets. My progress on that goal is as follows:

So, what does the future hold?  Not sure. I'm sure I will still be dabbling a bit on eBay, but there is a big show coming up in November in Dallas that I am thinking of attending, if the COVID situation is under control. So, I will try to keep my powder dry and save up some funds if I do decide to go. Also, as the days get shorter and the lawn goes dormant, I am going to try to get back to some original content around here.

  

What I am listening to: God's Problem Child by Willie Nelson (and Tony Joe White, Leon Russell, and Jamey Johnson)

Fleer Autograph Project and More

I feel like things are getting back to normal.  Well, not really, but I am getting back to a less moribund level of hobby activity.  I am still not looking at going to any shows any time soon, so I am concentrating online.  This week saw a few things arrive,

This Frank Howard card was the card that was stuck in the Los Angeles distribution center for two weeks. It finally arrived and is the second to last card I need for my 1970 Topps set and for the complete run of Topps baseball sets from the 1970s.  The final card I need is Johnny Bench, which has been selling for prices way beyond what I was comfortable paying.  Granted, I was only looking at trusted sellers, who will command a premium.  I'm going to have to get a bit more serious about this one. I'd love to get that '70s run complete.

A new addition to my Paul Blair PC: 2004 Upper Deck Timeless Teams Auto Gold. As best as I can tell, there are 7 versions of this card (4 base and 3 autos at varying levels of scarcity/serialization) and I now have 3 of this card.  There is a second Paul Blair card in this set related to the 1970 team and I have 4 of those.  Since there are Platinum base and autos for each card that are 1/1, I don't expect I'll ever get all 7 versions of each card.  In fact, the serialized versions of these cards come up on eBay so rarely, I doubt I'll ever even get close to 6 out of 7.  Not a problem since that is what the chase is for, no?

Finally, I added two new cards to my signed 1960 through 1963 Fleer project. Since both Lloyd Waner and Marty Marion were prolific signers in their retirement, I was able to add these at a reasonable price.  To a certain extent, as it relates to 1960 and 1961, I am still bottom feeding. I think I am getting to the point that I am going to have to start opening the wallet a bit wider to add more.  Which will conflict with my set building. So, I expect this to slow down (not that it was ever fast to begin with.)  I do have a goal to get over halfway before the end of the year. Which raises the question as to where I stand.  Glad you asked. Here is my progress:

I have exactly one more card to add in the next 4 months to get to that goal.  I have not decided yet whether that will be another low cost addition or if I should splash out a bit more.  Stay tuned!

What I am listening to: Got the Time by Anthrax (a cover of the Joe Jackson original if you can
believe it):

Theme: Ink

Still haven't made any progress on that next post in the promised series on 1970 Topps card backs. In my defense, we had a huge storm a few weeks back and I lost 7or 8 large post oak trees and large limbs off at least a half a dozen others.  So, in addition to all my normal chores, I have been slowly cleaning up that mess.  

So, I am going to half-ass a post here of things that have an admittedly tenuous link to ink, in it's various incarnations.

A new addition to my Johnny Antonelli player collection, this is a 1960 Topps tattoo. I've got to get my Antonelli collection organized.  It is fine in the binder, but I haven't really done a good job of organizing the spreadsheet of haves and wants.   It is supposed to be hot this weekend, maybe I'll work on when I retreat inside after doing my morning projects outside.

One of the three remaining cards I need to finish the 1970 Topps set is this 7th Series checklist, unmarked by either pen or pencil.  I actually have bought one of the two remaining cards for that set, but there is a problem.

That is right, the card shipped and has been sitting in Los Angeles for over a week and a half.  This was purchased from Greg Morris Cards off of eBay. I have come to expect that such shipments will usually take 2 or 3 days to clear the LA distribution center.  But, this is way beyond that.  While I get that the Post Office is struggling with difficulties imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, I have to say that this isn't that.  This isn't a long simmering degradation in service. This happened all of a sudden early in July. There are stories being reported in the media about changes being made by the new Postmaster General that are bollixing up service, they aren't really breaking through the general election year noise being generated by the political class at the moment.  Here is a good article discussing the issue.

And finally, a new non-sports addition to my collection:

In a recent auction held by Vintage Non-Sports Auctions, I managed to pick up the two bookplates shown framed above.  They use the artwork for 16 of the cards from the 25 card 1892 N101 Duke "Breeds of Horses" set.  I am led to understand that these bookplates were contemporary to the same era.  Anyways, I just got it back from the framers yesterday.  I was looking for a Victorian feel and I think we captured it. Even if the Arts & Crafts wall color doesn't really match up well.  Now, I actually have to start building that N101 set. I don't have any yet, as they have tended to sell individually for $10-$20 dollars. That isn't horrible, but I have been able to acquire other horse themed tobacco card *sets* in the same range and it has been a little off-putting to get one card for that price.

Anyways, hopefully I will whole-ass a post soon.

What I am listening to: You Can't Rule Me by Lucinda Williams

1970 Card Back Follies, Part 2

Okay, I really need to get back to this.  I laid out the skeleton of this post about two weeks ago, but have been putting off doin the research and write-up.  So, without much further ado, here is part 2 of my examination of random, interesting card back cartoons from 1970 Topps.

David Nelson (#112) - Dave's hobby is saving clippings of his favorite athletes

I really didn't find much else about this other than Nelson was born at Fort Sill, Oklahoma (about an hour and a half drive from my home here) and his favorite athletes growing up were Oscar Robertson and Jackie Robinson.

Sparky Lyle (#116) - Sparky once struck out 31 men in a 17 inning game

This feat was accomplished in American Legion ball in his hometown of DuBois, PA and it was the thing that caught the attention of a major league scout, George Staller of the Baltimore Orioles, who signed him to a contract. It should be noted that Sparky only pitched in 14 of those 17 innings and manned frist base the other three,  There wasn't much primary source information I could find.  The local newspaper, The Courier Express, is indexed at newspapers.com, but there is a complete gap in the records between 1946 and 1969. By 1969, he was on his third major leagues season with the Red Sox.

Joe Coleman (#127) - Joe has particular success vs. the White Sox

This was a hard one. Not because of a lack of information, but because of too much information. I had a hard time deciding how to test this one. It is probably the sole reason that it has been over two weeks since my previous post on this topic. Finally, I just had to fish or cut bait.  I have a good idea why this was the cartoon caption.  Prior to 1970, Coleman had a 3-1 record in in 8 starts and one relief appearance against the White Sox, with all three wins being complete games.  However, that is where it breaks down.

So, I downloaded his entire career from Baseball Reference and did some analysis of his pre-1970 statistics.  Using the traditional pitching statistic of ERA, I calculated Coleman's results for each team and overall, then sorted.

So, you can see that Coleman's ERA is particularly poor against Chicago; worse even than his overall performance.  Now, I know that ERA can be affected by factors outside the players control, so I thought I would look at the modern Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP).  However, FIP is adjusted by a yearly league factor and I quickly decided I didn't want to put *that* much effort into this, so I backed off to using WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched.)

As you can see, Coleman was better against the White Sox than his overall average against the league. However, it was only marginally better than average and certainly worse than his performance against a number of other teams.  So, my last effort to understand this was to look at Win Percentage Added (WPA.) I understand WPA conceptually, though I don't know how it is calculated.  In general it looks at an individual players contribution to a game.  A positive number means they contributed towards a win (even though the game result may not have been a win.)A negative number means they were a negative influence on the game outcome. In order to control for the fact that the amount of playing time versus each team. I looked at average WPA per appearance.

So, my impression is that, overall, Coleman was a neutral contributor to the Senators.  Interestingly, based on this metric, he wasn't particularly successful against the White Sox. In fact, it was probably more accurate to say (accounting for all three above metrics) that he has particular success against the Angels, Athletics, and Tigers.

Richie Scheinblum (#161) - Richie's 1st homer in pro ball was a grand slam in the 13th inning

Scheinblum first pro homerun was with the Burlington Indians of the A level Carolina League in 1964.  The homerun referenced was in a game on June 14 against the Greensboro Yankees. It was hit off of pitcher Joe Riccardo.  Riccardo never made it out of A ball, with the 1965 season being his last.

What I am Listening to:  Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn

1970 Card Back Follies, Part 1

In my last post, I featured the 1976 Topps Record Breaker subset, I was surprised (not surprised) to find that Night Owl also had featured them in the past. His particular focus was on the great information on the back of the cards. That got me to thinking.  I have to admit that I don't pay enough attention to the card backs as I should.  At least partially due to the fact that they are often very hard to read, combining small print and colors that don't necessarily contrast well.

1970 Topps is different, though.  My old eyes can actually read it well with the high contrast colors.  So, a couple Saturdays ago, while waiting for the sun come out and the ambition to get outside and do yard work to strike me, I paged through my 1970 binder backwards. As I did so, I tossed around ideas for posts around the card backs.  My genius (not genius) idea was to identify cards backs with interesting or odd cartoons and see if I can find any information on the internet that supports the cartoon.

So, without further ado, here is the first 4:

Tito Fuentes (#42) - Tito's hobby is playing ping-pong

I've not had much luck finding anything about Fuentes table tennis hobby. It seems as if the only relevant link goes to a post about this card on the defunct "Stats on the Back" blog from May of 2009.

I'm not off to an auspicious start here, am I?

Paul Casanova (#84) - In 1961, Paul played for the Indianapolis Clowns

After a short, and unspectacular, 1960 in the Indians chain that saw Casanova appear in 10 games and rack up 9 plate appearances for Class C Minot, he was released. He did spend 1961 with the erstwhile Negro League Indianapolis Clowns, by then a barnstorming team.  While he did come to the attention of some MLB scouts, he left baseball behind at the end of the season to pursue a more remunerative  career in construction.  However, a couple  years later, a scout for the Washington Senators brought Casanova into training camp. In 1965, after two years in the minors, Casanova was called up and embarked on a 10 year career as a catcher for Washington and, later, the Atlanta Braves.

Juan Rios (#89) - Juan has amazing speed

There isn't any metric that I am aware of that objectively measures speed, though I am not, by any means, a sabermetric guru. So, I made my own up: stolen bases divided by total bases.  It's not  perfect, but I also didn't want to spend any more time on it.  I also didn't do exhaustive research on modern era performance, but did look at the career stolen base leaders, under the assumption that they, at some level, set a benchmark for speed. Among those, I found  Vince Coleman at 40.3% (752 SB and 1863 TB), Rickey Henderson at 30.6%, Maury Wills at 23.3%, Lou Brock at 22.1%, and Tim Raines at 21.4%.  So, let's set 20% as the benchmark.

So, how did Rios do? Difficult to say. By the time this card came out, he had played his last MLB game. In a major league career spanning 87 games and 208 plate appearances, he had a total of 1 stolen base and 54 total bases, for a miserly 1.8%.  In 8 minor league seasons, he swiped 49 bases and tallied 706 total bases, for a 6.9%. So, Rios may have had blazing speed, but it didn't translate on the base paths.

George Culver (#92) - George likes to wear "Mod" style clothes

I didn't manage to locate any pictures of Culver in his finest, but I did find some wonderful text from an article written by Bob Broeg in the St.Louis Post Dispatch about him:

“Culver is a good-looking, green-eyed guy who resembles his idol, golf’s dashing Doug Sanders, in physical appearance and sartorial splendor,” Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch observed."

On the day they met, Broeg reported, Culver was wearing “white shoes, cream-colored trousers and a brilliant orange sweater.”

Culver told Broeg he liked to wear purple or pink. “I know those colors aren’t very manly,” Culver said, “but they’re beautiful.”

According to the Bakersfield newspaper, Culver had a “purple Edwardian-style suit,” but he said, “I don’t wear that purple outfit anymore. I favor all-white suits now.”

Culver said he had 150 pairs of slacks and 50 Banlon shirts. “I’d rather spend 50 bucks on clothes than on a date,” he told Broeg.

Good stuff.

Anyways, that is it for now.  It was fun researching this, so hopefully I'll keep the series going on the regular.

What I am listening to: Here and Now by Letters to Cleo

Dallas Show - Part 1

So, how did I do at the Dallas show?  Quite well, thank you very much.

There it is. The final card I needed to finish my 1961 Fleer set. I have been sitting one card from completion for probably close to 3 years.  I've been goofing around acquiring autographed versions of cards from this set and had mostly forgotten I needed this card.  It was nice to finally finish it.  Actually, it felt good to finish any set.  The last set I completed was 1972 Topps and that was almost exactly a year ago.  

I walked into the show needing 34 cards to finish my 1970 set and I managed to find 27.  Of the 7 need for completion, 6 are commons though only one is a non-high number. The only star card I need for completion is #660 - Johnny Bench.  I am going to try and finish this set before the end of the year.  The major impediment to that is what I call the Gary V Effect. Prices on vintage star card have increased beyond where I am comfortable paying due to many new "investor-collectors" entering the hobby. 

Walking in, I needed 16 more cards to finish 1968 Topps. I found 10, including the Bench rookie card above. Alas, only one of the 6 remaining cards I need is a common.  I still need Lou Brock, Ernie Banks,the previously mentioned Aaron All-Star card, the Mays/Mantle/Killebrew Stars card (#490), and of course the outrageously expensive Nolan Ryan rookie card.  My best guess at this point is that I will get 5 more by spring, leaving only the Ryan RC for completion. 

Even under more normal market conditions, the Ryan RC would be a major purchase, consuming multiple months of my hobby budget. So, I'll probably wait until the Johnny-come-latelys have left the sports card market before I make any serious attempt to get that card.  I think what we are seeing right now is a classic bubble. A large influx of enthusiastic, but generally unknowledgeable, folks are buying up sports cards as an investment and will eventually move on to the next big can't miss investment (tulip bulbs or beanie babies, I think.)  When the bubble pops, I'll get more serious about finishing this set.

What I am listening to: O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Lauren Daigle

Trade with Stealing Home

Having given up collecting modern sets, my trading activity has pretty much ceased. And, since starting this blog was, in part, a vehicle for finding trade partners, I have lacked motivation to keep it going on a regular basis.  So, when I do complete a trade, I get pretty excited and have to talk about it.

A while back I had opened a hobby box of 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game, but didn't really like the set.  It was the first GOTG set after Upper Deck took over Fleer and the quality and design was far inferior.  There was a few nice hits, but they weren't enough to overcome the generally poor effort put in by Fleer Upper Deck. One of those hits was a Mike Schmidt relic card. Oscar/Stealing Home was interested in it, so we completed a trade.  He got Schmidt and I got some nice vintage in return.

 This was the main target of the trade.  A major upgrade to my 1974 set that I completed back in 2011.   It isn't often that I am able to upgrade a card in a completed set, so I am pretty happy with this.

Oscar also sent this NM version of one of the 1974 Topps Traded set, which is also an upgrade for me.

This card presents something of a dilemma for me.  It is in better condition than the Rhoden card in my 1978 set.  But, alas, this is the O-Pee-Chee version and, in 1978, the numbering didn't match between OPC and Topps.  This card is numbered 159, while the Topps Rhoden is 605.

I know some folks don't like 1970 Topps, saying that it is a boring design. But, I like it real well.  These two cards increase the number of 1970 cards I have by 40%.  I will be collecting the set at some point, although by my rough calculation in may not be until late 2014 / early 2015.  Nonetheless, I am quite pleased to have these.

 I'm kinda tickled with the idea of a Yankees fan getting a bunch of Dodgers and a Red Sock in a trade. If I was to hate any other teams, it would be the Dodgers and Red Sox. But, see, when you are a Yankees fan, you don't need to carry around a deep seated hatred of any other team.  The only emotion you can really ever conjure up with regard to other teams is pity.

All joshing aside,  this was a great trade. Thanks, Oscar!

Surprise Card Show!

It is still hellaciously hot here and, having had 100+ temperatures and no rain for weeks, the area is a tinderbox.  Yesterday, wildfires broke out south of here and, at their closest, were about 4.5 miles away. Needless to say, I have been stressed and in a poor mood lately.  But today, I got a little pick me up.

I had to head up north to get feed and West Nile vaccines. Just a bit further up the road, so to speak, is an LCS that holds a show the first Saturday of every month.  It isn't a big show, usually just 6-8 dealers.  But, I figured I'd stop in and see what was up. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, since next weekend is the two day bi-monthly show in OKC.  I figured I'd just paw threw a few quarter boxes and call it good.  Well, I had a good visit.

In the quarter boxes I found about 8 Heritage inserts that I will need at some point.  I also found some neat Sportflics cards.

This is a neat little card from 1989. Unlike most 3-D cards, which have two images, this one has three images.  And, unlike most multi-player rookie cards, this one has three players that all went on to long and productive MLB careers.

1991 Kellogg's Baseball Greats cards! I am showing Yogi here, but also got the Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Warren Spahn cards.  I am already a third done with the set!  Maybe I'll build it!

I also found a few vintage cards in the quarter box.

I would have called that a good day, but I found another dealer who had a about 4 cards I actually needed for my 1971 set, including this Tommie Aaron high number card.

With that, I was ready to leave when I spied a stack of 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards.

 
The guy made me a sweetheart deal on the entire stack, which was 70 cards. Of course, the deckle insert set was only 33 cards in size and the stack I bought only had 24 unique cards. So, I now have a stack of deckles available for trade including several Maury Wills, Juan Marichal, and Frank Howards.  Any one interested?