Ask and Thou Shalt Receive

A couple posts ago, I showed off some framed bookplates that featured artwork from the Duke N101 set. I mentioned that I didn't have any cards from that set.  Shortly thereafter, a dozen or so cards from that set came up individually on eBay.  Most ended up selling right in that $15-$20 range. I low bid hoping to bottom feed my way into at least one. And I did get exactly one.

I've got to be honest, I cannot find any information about Villous horses.  There is a lot of naturalist engravings and prints from the Victorian era. But, nothing modern. I have no idea if this references a breed or if it is a proper name.  Going to have to ask my horse friends that are more knowledgeable than I am.

What I am Listening To: No Man's Land by Bob Seger

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

Topps Wasn't The First

I've been around trading card blogs long enough to have seen a few complaints about how Topps keeps re-using images in multiple sets across a number of years.  This is something you may hear from team or player collectors,  I was struck today that this isn't an issue particular to Topps or even to modern trading card issues.

As you may know, I have a side collection of horse themed tobacco cards. I had recently acquired the 25 card 1926 British American Tobacco Prominent Racehorses set.  I was getting ready to put it in sheets and add it to my binder, but needed to move the collection to a larger binder first.  As I was moving the pages from one binder to the other, I saw something familiar.  A sheet of cards that looked identical to my new set; the 1926 Ogden's Derby Entrants  I normally check what I have before bidding on something, so I don't end up with duplicates. So, I had a sinking feeling that I messed up.  That is, until I looked closer. See for yourself.

So, I was relieved that they were different sets, but they did have identical card numbers.  So, it did raise a question in my mind as to how they were related.  Here is what I found.  Ogden's was a 19th Century British tobacco company. In 1901 it was bought by the American Tobacco Company.  Also in 1901, the Imperial Tobacco Company was formed by the merger of 13 different British tobacco companies; most notably W.D. & H.O. Wills and John Player.  The following year, American and Imperial formed a joint venture: the British-American Tobacco Company.  The joint venture was to do business globally, but not in either of the partners home territories.  

In 1911, the American Tobacco Company became one of the early victims of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and was ordered to dissolve (on the same day as the more well known Standard Oil.)  Presumably as part of the dissolution, American Tobacco sold off it's shares in B.A. T.  So, these two card sets that were issued 15 years subsequent, were both associated with the Imperial Tobacco brand.  

So, there you have it. Laziness in the production of trading cards is, at least, a century long phenomenon. 

What I am listening to:  Sing Along by Sturgill Simpson

Modern Mistake

I got back into sports card collecting in 2011 and, like most folks new to modern collecting, jumped in wholeheartedly. I was putting together vintage sets and opening up a lot of contemporary issues.  However, I became quickly disillusioned with modern collecting.  The plastic stock of cards like Topps flagship didn't appeal to me. I loved Heritage, but the artificial scarcity of the high number series quickly angered me.  As I struggled to finish 2011 Heritage, I was paying more for high number commons than I was paying for vintage.  I finally gave up in disgust.

Now, I still will add modern single cards to my collection and will occasionally build a modern set that catches my fancy.  But for the most part, I am a vintage set builder.

Yesterday, I got the bug and bought myself a blaster of 2019 Allen and Ginter.  For the most, part it didn't really interest me, although two subsets seemed like something I'd add to my collection.

The first was The History of Flight

The second, as any of you who have been around my blog over time (and there are at least 3 or 4 of you), was Mares and Stallions. I the Andalusian in the blaster and liked it so much, I decided to put that subset together and went online to see what the rest of the cards looked like.

And I saw this:

That, my friends, is not an Appaloosa horse.  That is a Paint Horse / Pinto with a tobiano color scheme.    Appaloosa color patterns generally include spots. Small spots.  Should you be interested, you can see examples and read more about Appaloosa color patterns here  and Paint color patterns here.  Seriously, that image doesn't even match Topps own description on the back.

I suppose I shouldn't expect better from Topps and just let it go. But, I cannot explain how much this ticks me off.  Get your shit together, Topps!

Anyways, if you have any cards from these two subsets and want to trade, hit me up.

What I am listening to: He's my Baby by Donna Hightower

The Secret Word is Fun!

So, I have been back from North Dakota for over a week now.  I had a great time hiking in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which included some up close and personal encounters with some buffalo.  I got home Tuesday evening last week and caught up on some badly overdue lawncare by Thursday night.   Saturday was looking bad weather-wise, so I decided to attend a card show down in Ardmore, about an hour and half south.  The show advertised pulling sellers from both Oklahoma and North Texas.  Since I skipped the big Dallas show in April, I thought this might be a good chance to visit with some of the Texas sellers who don't travel up for the OKC shows. And, since it was going to be a rainy day, my wife decided to tag along with the intent of wandering through some antique shops.

So, we drove to Ardmore and parked by Heritage Hall, a decent sized venue where I saw a Merle Haggard concert a few years ago. I went into the building and it was almost completely empty. I counted three sellers, two who were selling memorabilia like mini-helmets and not cards, and one seller with a table that was just graded modern mojo cards.  I turned on my heels and was back to the car before my wife had even gotten out of the passenger seat.  So, we spent the day together, which was nice.

Anyways, you may be wondering about that box of Pee-Wee Herman cards. Well, let's get to it.  The box had 36 packs, each advertised as containing 3 trading cards, a sheet of tattoos, an activity card, a sticker, and a wiggle toy, I found a checklist which helped me identify whether I had  complete set (spoiler: I didn't) So, let's take a look.

There are 33 different trading cards, each with two variations.  The variation is found in the background graphics, which you can see above. I fell three cards short of having the full 66 card set. It is interesting that Topps was already dabbling with planned variations back in 1988.

There are 12 different sheets of tattoos. I did get all of them.

This is one of the activity cards. The checklist I found on line suggests that there were 5 different types of activity cards with 4-5 variations each. But, it wasn't detailed enough for me to determine what I did or didn't have. So, I really didn't bother trying to figure it out.

The sticker cards included letters, as seen above, as well as individual images.  The back of the stickers was flip card images.  Basically, you stack the 40 different sticker cards (plus 4 checklists) in order and fan through the, you see moving images. Considering the box only had 36 packs and horrible collation, I didn't get anywhere near a complete set of 44.

This is the wiggle toy. Better known to sports card collectors as a 3-D or lenticular card.  There are 12 different wiggle toys in this set, and I did get a complete set.  The card above is Miss Yvonne and the puppet bully Randy.  As an aside, I looked up the cast of Pee-Wees Playhouse, and the actress who played Miss Yvonne, Lynne Marie Stewart, is an accomplished actress who had \appeared such iconic movies and TV Series as American Graffiti, MASH, Arrested Development and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  She appears to have worked almost continuously since 1973. Seriously. Check out her filmography.

Anyways, that was s fun box to open, but the set didn't excite me enough to want to complete it. In fact, I am not even going to sleeve it up. 

What I am listening to: Machi Bhasada by Bloodywood

Reclaiming My Lost Youth

Hobby life has been, shall we say, rather quiet lately.  Each spring, we take on a home improvement project. This year, we resided the house.  The old siding was vertical sheet paneling that was in mediocre condition when we bought the house 15 years ago and has only gotten worse.  Of course, as is typical for this house, the original job was done poorly and we ended up going over budget to fix it. 

Normally, when siding a house, there is a plywood decking attached to the studs and the siding is attached to the decking.  With our house, the previous owner just attached the siding directly to the studs, so we had the contractor go back and install the decking and a vapor barrier. This added about $3000 to the project, so I am feeling a bit of a pinch.  

I ended up skipping the big regional show down in Dallas in late April and have only dipped my toes in the shallow (cheap) end of the hobby pool since.  I got a couple new Antonelli player collection items and have made a few small steps towards completing my 1968 and 1970 sets, but it hasn't actually risen to the level of being noteworthy.

So, what is with the title?  Isn't the whole idea of collecting sports trading cards about reclaiming some pure about your youth? Well, yes.  But I did have one fun auction win at Kevin Savage Cards a couple weeks back which adds a whole 'nuther level to it.  See for yourself:

I always rather enjoyed Pee Wee Herman's act. To this day, I firmly believe that "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" is the second best bicycling movie of all time, behind only Jorgen Leth's "A Sunday in Hell" which, to be fair, is one of the greatest sports films ever made. (Note that you can watch the entire movie at the Youtube link.  If you don't watch it all, I would suggest you watch for a few minutes starting at 55:10)  Anyways, even though it was on TV during my college years, I always enjoyed the Saturday morning show "Pee Wee's Playhouse," a show ostensibly for children but containing enough subtlely subversive humor to keep an adult watching.

There are 36 packs in the box, each containing (as can be seen) a sheet of tattoos, 3 picture cards, a sticker, a wiggle toy, and an activity card.  I have not yet busted the box yet.  I will probably start opening packs later in the week after I get home from a business trip. I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Watford City, North Dakota.  I am up here for a work thing on Monday and decided to come in a day early and do some sightseeing.  So, I will shortly head out to go hiking on the Caprock Coulee trail in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  

Stay tuned for what is inside!

What I am listening to: Feed the Tree by Belly