Favorite Cards of 2012 #1 - A Great Man

Being the wild guy that I am, I was in bed by 9:30 on New Year's Eve and, despite not having to work today, was up at around the normal time, 4:30.   Not much on the agenda today, other than to cook up a batch of black eyed peas for luck in 2013 (It's a southern thing.) 

So, finally, we come to my favorite card of 2012.  It is also one of the last I acquired this year, a 1954 Topps Jackie Robinson.   It isn't the most expensive card I have ever bought, nor does it have the highest "book value."   My reasons for liking this card follow logically from the previous entry.

That entry, the 1940 Play Ball cards of the Waner brothers, appealed to me because of their age and the opportunity they presented for me to consider, quite speculatively, their path through history to get to me.

This card is special to me not because it passed through history, but because it is history.  Baseball Reference indicates that 17,943 individuals have appeared in a major league baseball game since 1871. Many of them never made a career of baseball. Fewer still were ever stars.  And it is a very exclusive club of players who continued to be widely known and admired a generation removed from their playing days.  But, it is a very small group of players that not only changed baseball, but the very arc of world history.  I suppose you might make a case for Jim Bunning, the Hall of Fame pitcher turned US Senator. But, politics are in the eye of the beholder, and most politicians will have a mixed legacy.  Jackie Robinson is the only baseball player I can think of that figured prominently in the advancement of society as a whole and will have an uncontroversial legacy as time advances. While we still have a long way to go to achieve a truly integrated, color-blind world, we have advanced quite far over the past few decades.  Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball was a great step forward in that trajectory. But, for him to become one of the all-time great players while maintaining a preternatural grace and dignity cannot be underestimated.

Jackie Robinson changed the world.  And it is for that reason this is my favorite card of 2012.  And, to be perfectly honest, I have a hard time imagining any other card ever being as valuable to me.  It is, at this moment, and for the foreseeable future, my favorite card of all time.

With that, please accept my best wishes to all of you for a happy and successful 2013.

Favorite Cards of 2012 #2 - More Local Boys

Following on from the previous entry,  number 2 on my 2012 favorite cards count down are these two 1940 Play Ball cards of the Waner brothers, Paul and Lloyd.  They are also native Oklahomans, hailing from nearby Harrah.

I think what I like most about these cards, the oldest in my collection, is the they provide me the opportunity to consider the expanse of time that they have travelled to come to me. When they were first distributed my father was but a boy, still a year shy of starting elementary school.  They have traversed 72 years in great condition.  72 years that saw a world war, significant social changes (most for the better), and the entire electronic revolution.  When these cards were printed, ENIAC, the first all-purpose computer was still six years in the future.

Who first pulled this card? Is that person still alive? How many hands did it pass through before it came to me? Who owned it during a snowy day in late 1965 when I was born.  The answer to all these questions, and more, will never be known.  But it is fun to just contemplate such matters and gain some perspective as to what a rare and special thing it is that they have come to me.

Favorite Cards of 2012 #3 - Local Boy Made Good

I try to be methodical about my collecting.  When I start a set, I set up a binder and create a checklist of all the cards. I carry that checklist through until I complete the set. Once I have a card in my possession, it is checked off the list and, as soon as possible, placed in it's designated spot in the binder

I hate having too many sets underway because it makes the collecting more haphazard. Which to work on?  How to allocate my funds for a given day across the sets?  How some of you have want lists with dozens of sets on it is beyond me. More power to you, but I would feel completely lost and out of control. Heck, I feel that way with 6 or 7 sets underway.

This card should not have been mine, because acquiring it did not help me in the quest to complete any of the various sets I have in process. Indeed, the $20 this 1948 Bowman Allie Reynolds cost me could have bought 3 or 4 1971 high numbered cards.  Or 5 to 7 Heritage short prints and inserts.  Or even a couple 2004 Fleer Greats autographed cards.

But, obviously, it is mine.  It is a playing days card of a star player for my Yankees and also represents a connection to my adopted home of Oklahoma.  I can't think of anything that could make this pickup any better.

Favorite Cards of 2012 #5 - Pop

My player collections got short shrift this year, particularly my Johnny Antonelli collection. I'm sure a few of you may be wondering why Johnny Antonelli? Well, growing up in Rochester, New York there was a chain of Firestone tire stores owned by him. I don't recall now when I realized he was a former baseball player. I do, however, remember how I decided to start a Johnny Antonelli player collection.

A while back I got a friend request on Facebook from a guy who went to the same high school I did.  I think he was a year or two ahead of me and his sister was in my class.  As I looked over his page, I realized that he organized sports figure autograph signings in Rochester and Minneapolis. I looked over his upcoming events and saw that Antonelli was going to be at one of them.  I had a couple Antonelli cards, but I quickly acquired a few more in better condition and sent them in.

I don't think I actually have featured this card before. It is a 1955 Hires Root Beer card that was given away with the purchase of Hires pop.  Cards like this are reasonably affordable, but get more expensive if the tab is still attached (click here).  There are also what is known as test cards. I am not sure what the back story is with those, but will have to research it some day.  They are ungodly expensive.  There is an Antonelli test card at COMC, but I am pretty sure I don't want to drop $125 on one.

Favorite Cards of 2012 #8 - A Cliche, of sorts

As we continue the countdown of my favorite cards of the year, we come to this 1958 Mickey Mantle card.

This card didn't make it higher on the list because of how Topps has overdone Mickey Mantle.   Every year since 2005, card #7 in Topps Flagship has been Mickey Mantle.  Indeed, if you go to the search by player page at BaseballCardpedia, and plug in Mantle's name you will get 5,232 results.

Here is the breakdown by year of the number of Mantle cards issued (more text follows):

Year	Cards
1951	1
1952	5
1953	4
1954	5
1955	6
1956	5
1957	3
1958	5
1959	4
1960	9
1961	9
1962	14
1963	9
1964	14
1965	5
1966	3
1967	9
1968	4
1969	4
1970	1
1971	1
1972	1
1973	2
1975	2
1976	5
1977	3
1978	2
1979	2
1980	6
1981	1
1982	15
1983	7
1984	6
1985	4
1986	19
1987	3
1988	3
1989	25
1990	11
1991	19
1992	32
1993	2
1994	56
1995	8
1996	147
1997	93
1998	29
1999	15
2000	22
2001	122
2002	71
2003	73
2004	67
2005	109
2006	1980
2007	1092
2008	695
2009	36
2010	70
2011	78
2012	179
Grand Total	5232

Did you catch that?  Of all those cards, only 114 were issued during his playing career.

So, while Mantle was a great player, and I do love this card, I think his cachet has been devalued by Topps' insistence on adding him to every freaking set they issue.  The value of this card for me was that it was the card that made me realize that I could own great vintage cards if I bargain hunted and, in retrospect, was the catalyst for my decision to finally eschew collecting virtually all modern cards.

Favorite Cards of 2012 #10 - An Autograph

This year I caught a mild form of the autograph bug. As you may know, I am working on getting as many 1963 Fleer baseball cards autographed as possible. At only 66 cards in size, it is a modest undertaking. And that represents my approach to autographs. Modest. I enjoy having the cards signed, but I am still ambivalent about doing through-the-mail requests (I have only done one TTM so far and it just went out in the mail Tuesday.) So far, I much prefer sending cards into formally arranged signings. That is how I got this card.

Oisk here was not my first autographed card. That was Johnny Antonelli at a signing arranged by a former high school classmate of mine. Nor is he necessarily the biggest name. That is reserved for my 1963 Fleer Bob Gibson or another 1963 Fleer that was signed yesterday and should be delivered back to me tomorrow. (Stay tuned!) I think why I love this particular card so is because it was signed right after I read Roger Kahn's "Boys of Summer," in which Erskine features prominently and is favorably portrayed. Carl and his wife are devoted to their developmentally disabled son, Jimmy. At a time when such children were institutionalized and forgotten, Carl and Betty made the decision to include Jimmy as a central part of their life and have continued to do so ever since. I think it is a great reminder that these ballplayers we mythologize are still just human beings and have all the everyday triumphs and challenges we all do.

Favorite Cards of 2012 #11 - Trade Loot

Okay, so this is four cards, not one.  But, with regards to subject matter and how I acquired them, they are all quite similar. So, rather than trying to pick between them, I am going to just show all four.

The theme here is relic cards of current Yankees that I acquired through trades.  Yes, I do recall that I have officially forsaken modern cards for vintage.  And, yes, I am familiar with the scandal surrounding relic cards.   But, neither of those facts matter, since what put them over the top is the part where I traded for them.  I will have more to say about the card blogging community later in the countdown, but suffice it to say it is meaningful to me to be a member of this community (virtual though it is.)

This Lineage '75 CC mini (MIIIIINNNNNNIIIIIIIII!!!!) came from Night Owl.

The above two A&G minis came from Scott over at the aptly titled Sports Cards Ate My Brain.

Lastly, this Mo relic came from Ryan at O No! Another Orioles Blog

Favorite Cards of 2012 #12 - My only 1/1

The most short printed card I ever pulled from a pack was a 3/5 Carlos Santana that I got from a box of 2009 Obak and traded that off to Plaschke, so I didn't really have any super exclusive cards in my collection until March of this year.

I had made dayf a "custom card" based on the 1976 Big League Brothers insert and, in return, I got back a bunch of Heritage and 1976 Topps cards, plus the 1/1 you see above.

This card seems to see ponies through the eyes of an 8 year old girl. As many of you know, my wife and I have a small horse farm and even have two fer-realzy ponies.   And trust me, folks, the realities of ponies are not quite so sparkly.  It isn't all pink jodhpurs and glittery bridles.  The etymology of the phrase "there must be a pony in there somewhere" is grounded in a dirty reality.

But, this is still on my list of favorite cards of 2012 because dayf took the time to conceive and execute it with me in mind.  Topps can never top that.