Coming Off-Hiatus

A number of weeks back I was contacted out of the blue by Tony over at Off-Hiatus Baseball Cards asking if my want lists over there on the right sidebar are up to date. Even though I am an infrequent blogger, I do keep those want lists up to date.  As it was, Tony had 4 of the 8 cards I needed to complete my 1991 Kellogg's Sportflics set.

I really have a soft spot for these 3D cards.  They are, for the most part, ugly as sin. But, they do have a certain charm.  I have considered that it would be fun to collect the entire run of Kellogg's 3D cards.  However, I have too many open projects at the moment, so I am going to resist taking that on. 

Anyways, thank you, Tony!  I found a little something to send back to you.  The envelope will be thin, but I think you will like the contents. I will try to get it mailed out this weekend.

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?

Card Show Haul - Leftovers

This is second to last post for what I bought at the show the weekend before last. The last will be about the next set I intend to work, on after I finish off 1977. That will probably go up over the weekend. If I can get it done, I have a post for tomorrow regarding a trade package I got in the mail yesterday.

So here are the few loose odds and ends from the show haul:


Another SP Etched in Time. I had previously picked up the Satchel Paige from this series and now added Ty Cobb. If rumors are true, I better not put them next to each other in my miscellaneous binder.


Not sure why, I just like the Kellogg's 3D cards.


I actually bought two 1973 Clemente's at the show. This was the first and is in decent condition, although the corners show a fair amount of wear. The second had alot better corners, but had a small surface crease and a pen mark on the back.

Like a Moth to a Porch Light

So, I went back to the show to look through Roger Neufeldt's 1977 boxes and went a little wild. I ended up getting 43 cards for my 1977 set, but after seeing how cheaply I can get vintage cards if I don't obsess about quality, I started pawing through the discount boxes again. My Sunday haul included:

1. 12 more 1956 crds


2. 3 1952 cards


3. Another 1973 Roberto Clemente


4. A 1975 Kellogg's 3-D Super Star Reggie Jackson

I had saved up some and had $220 with me and I walked out with $25 in my pocket. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some honey-dos to take care of in order to stay out of the dog house.

Now Appearing in 3D

I've been neglecting my blog lately but, dang, I just haven't had the energy to do much of anything related to card collecting or blogging about card collecting. Work has been busy and the weather has been hellacious. We are on our 12th straight day of 100+ degree temperatures (high yesterday was a nice round 110F) and (at least) fortieth straight day of 90+ degree temperatures. Having grown up in the Northeast, I suffer in this type of weather. After a full day of work, and an evening of chores (something you have in abundance when you live on a farm), I just don't have the inclination to do anything except fix a dinner with a minimally acceptable number of food groups and go to sleep. To make matters worse, the only significant precipitation we had was a 1.6 inch frog strangler on May 14 that a) came down so fast that it mostly ran off into the pond and didn't soak in, and b) was accompanied by enough hail to basically total the roofs on my house and barn.

Baseball cards? What are those?

Well, it isn't quite that bad, but almost. I have made progress on Topps Series 2, and only need 30 more cards to complete the series. And I've had a few mail call deliveries. I did manage to add 1966 and 1971 O-Pee-Chee Paul Blair cards to my player collection and picked up a neat card that I've been trying to acquire for a while.


A 1971 Kellogg's 3D Paul Blair. I got this from Burbank Sportscards for about $12 delivered, including shipping. I have seen these cards sell graded for up to $100. Why, you might wonder? It is an interesting, but not particularly noteworthy card of a minor star in the late 60s/early 70s. Well, let's look at the back.


See that? No? Let's look closer.



See it now? No? Okay, don't waste alot of time on this. Look at the 1970 runs scored total. Then go here and compare. Yep, this is a jen-yoo-wine error card. Which means I may need to track down the corrected version. I haven't decided if I will or not. After assessing everything I have put into assembling a master set of 1974 Topps (only one card short), I think a better use of my card budget may be to forgo chasing variations and just stick to finding unique cards for my PC.

One note about this card: The text in the back doesn't mention that Blair's solo homer in Game 3 of the 1966 World Series was sole run in a 1-0 Baltimore win. I would have thought that would be more of interest than the note about breaking up Jerry Koosman's no-hitter in the 1969 Series, given that the O's won in 1966 and lost in 1969. But, I don't write copy for baseball cards, so what do I know?

An interesting Paul Blair note: During his first stint with the Yankees, Blair wore uniform number 2. Following his release in 1979, Number 2 was worn in succession by Darryl Jones, Bobby Murcer, Tim Foli, Dale Berra, Wayne Tolleson, Mike Gallego, and finally, Captain Clutch himself, the star of this weekend, Derek Jeter. I would guess that no future Yankee will ever wear Number 2 again.

Coming tomorrow, before I probably neglect my collecting and blogging for a few more weeks, will be an update on some progress towards a set I had almost given up hope on completing.

Arriving in the Dark of Night

A short time ago, I had sent some cards off to Night Owl, including the 2011 Heritage Dodger Stadium card. Most of the rest of the cards I sent were obscure crap. They were primarily crap, like a 1989 Topps Bazooka Shining Star Kirk Gibson. But, they seemed obscure enough that maybe he didn't have any of them. What other hope would a new collector like me have in sending cards to an established presence like Night Owl? Anyways, his end of the deal arrived in the mail, including a good number of cards off my Heritage want list. Let's take a look at some of what I got:



I was admiring this card over on Night Owl's blog because Hooton is the pitching coach for the Oklahoma City Redhawks this year. He had a duplicate and was good enough to send it to me. I also have to admit a growing fondness for these Kellogg's 3D cards. It might be fun to start collecting them in earnest some day. But, I have my plate full now with the Topp's sets from the 1970s and the 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game, so it will have to be some day rather than today.



As a kid, I followed the Yankees pretty closely, but never more closely than 1978. And what a year it was for Ron Guidry. He was practically invincible at 25-3, with a 1.74 ERA and a phenomenal 18 K performance against the Angels on June 17. This card came out in 1986, the year after his third, and final, 20 win season.



Pikachu Ichiro!




The Bambino!



The middle infielders for my Yankees. Jeter is sucking pretty badly right now with a .221 BA, with only 1 extra base hit, through 17 games. But Cano seems to have picked right up where he left off last year.

This was definitely a great trade from my end. I still feel a little embarassed about what I sent, so I have set aside the Jackie Robinson chrome refractor card from the Topps Value Pack I bought the other day for him.

Card Show Haul

So, I am back from the card show, where I dropped around a C-note, mostly on my 1974 set. When I got home a lot of 9 1974 stars that I picked up off of Ebay was in the mail box. The haul breaks down like this:

86 from the 1974 Base set which brings me to a total of 541 of 660. My haul includes a fair number of stars, one of which I will come back to in a moment. The only disappointment was the Dave Winfield rookie card from my Ebay lot which had one slightly bent corner and a three soft corners. But, given I paid $29 including shipping for cards that booked at over $130, I won't complain.

2 from the 1974 Traded set, which brings me to 43 out of the 44 card subset.

6 out of 16 of the rare Washington Nat'l Lea. variations, including Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, to match up with his Padres card that came in the mail. The hair is courtesy of one of my dogs.

A couple of Kellogg's 3-D Super Stars. This was a risk buy. I have been keeping my eye out for a Kellogg's 3-D Paul Blair for my player collection. They have been listed for $15 or higher. At $3 for both of these cards, I figured I might have a chance to turn a little profit. Alas, the Blair is a 1971 Kellogg's and these are from 1980. I might still be able to sell them for more than I spent, but it probably isn't worth the effort for a couple, three dollars. Live and learn.

The last two cards here I bought solely because I like them and they were only a buck each. They are a 1999 Topps Chrome Hank Aaron '55 and a Topps Archive Satchel Paige '53 Refractor.




So there it is. I had hoped to knock of more of the 1974 commons than I did, but I am happy with the day nonetheless.