Tap tap tap...Is this thing on?

Has it really been two months since I last posted? Yes. Yes, it has.  In my defense, I haven't really been all that active in the hobby lately. Not by choice, mind you, but by necessity.  I've picked up a few commons for my vintage sets, but that is about it.  I did get a nice package in the mail recently that I'll talk about in a bit.  Feel free to skip ahead if you would like.

My wife and I don't have children, but we do seem to collect animals.  And animals can be expensive.  Take Missy:

Missy is our senior pup.  Very senior.  We don't know how old she is, but we believe she is at least 16 years old. Missy came to live with us in the summer of 2007.  She actually belonged to a family that lived about a half mile away, but they really didn't pay much attention to her.   I patted her on the head once when she was hanging out at the convenience store/bait shop across the street and she followed me home.  Without getting in to the whole timeline of events, suffice it to say that we would take her home to her family and she was usually back the next day. Sometimes, she'd be back in a few hours.

Finally, the other folks told us that we didn't need to keep bringing her back, because she would do so on her own when she got hungry.  Fair enough. Except that she didn't.  She camped out on our front porch.  We made sure she had water (it was summer in Oklahoma) but that was it.  The next day she was still there.  Another day passed and she hadn't left.  After the third day of her constant presence, we finally figured out that she had chosen to live with us and was just waiting on us to abide by her decision. So, we did.

We have had a wild and wonderful history with Missy, but fast forward to last year when she started having small seizures. They only lasted 3 to 5 seconds, but they were serious enough to cause her to fall over.  The vet thought they might relate to her extremely low heart rate.  We tried several treatments to help, but none offered more than a temporary relief.  The vet suggested she be evaluated for a pacemaker.  (You see where this is going, right?)  Again, leaving out a lot of detail,  she was actually quite healthy, other than her cardiac issue. Surprisingly so, for a dog of her advanced years. So, she got a pacemaker.

Alas, a month later, we found a growth on her hip which ended up being a mast cell tumor. Luckily it was highly localized and had not metastasized, so we had it removed. Some latent back issues have re-asserted themselves and we are treating those with therapy and non-narcotic pain medicine.  She isn't the fireball she used to be, and has good days and bad, but she is still a happy girl and is still engaged in our family life. So, I will continue to honor the trust she put in us over 12 years ago.

So, that is why I haven't been doing much collecting of late, since I have been investing a lot of time and much of my spare money in my sweet, old girl. You probably think I am crazy. You are right. I admit it and am not embarrassed in the least.  But, given that we all collect small bits of cardboard, a certain level of WTF is already baked into our lives.

Anyways, let's move on to the card stuff. A package arrived a few weeks ago from Night Owl, right before I left for my annual Ohio trip, so I've been remiss in posting this,  N.O. was apparently one of the three people that read my previous post about the blaster of Allen & Ginter I bought, where I professed my love for the Mares & Stallions and History of Flight insert sets.

These cards did not seem problematic to me like the Appaloosa card did.  So, props to Topps for not screwing them up.  With these six, I am now up to seven cards from the 15 card insert set. I had tried to set up a trade with another blogger for more of the Mares & Stallions back in September, but I had a total of zero cards from his want list. 

And, with these three, I now have four out of the 15 card History of Flight insert set.

 I'm probably going to start dipping my toes in the hobby water here again soon.  There was actually a card show in OKC this weekend, but I decided to skip it in order to catch up on my honey-dos around the farm while the weather is nice. My plan at the moment is to drive down to Dallas for a card show on my birthday weekend in November.  Hopefully, I'll find something to fill out my end of the aforementioned trade, plus hopefully get closer to completing my 1968 and 1970 Topps sets.  

Anyways, catch ya later.

What I am listening to: Methademic by Black Sabbath

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

Collecting Intersects with My Childhood and My Current Life

When I was but a boy, my family would spend a week in the Thousand Islands for vacation each summer.  We stayed in small cottages on Dingman Point Road just a short trip from Alexandria Bay. I think most of my fondest childhood memories were from there.  One of those memories is watching ships pass through our view as the navigated the St Lawrence Seaway to and from the Great Lakes.

So, image my delight when I looked through the 1931 W.D. & H.O. Will's Strange Craft tobacco card set and found this:

Fast forward to last week. I was back in Ohio visiting my mother for her birthday.  Although I grew up in Rochester, all my immediate family now lives in Cleveland (long story.)  Anyways, the Great Lakes Science Center has a restored Great Lakes Freighter as part of their collection, the William G Mather. I've never been able to work out a visit for a variety of reasons. But, this time I was able to go and see it.  If you ever find yourself in Cleveland in the summer, I highly recommend it. It sits on the north edge of downtown with a nice view of First Energy Stadium, where the Browns play.

Anyways, I spent a couple hours wandering around the good ship and here are a few pictures:

What I am listening to: Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot (of course)

Oh Boy

Looks like I'm going to have to change my header photo.

What I am listening to: Temporary Nature (of Any Precious Thing) by Lucinda Williams

So Far Off Topic That I am Back On

It's still fairly quiet on the hobby front.  We've just about clawed out of the hole left by the issues that came up in our recent home improvement project.  Add in an unexpected vet bill and I've been mainly on the sidelines.  I did, however, participate in the recent Vintage Non-Sports Auction. 

I threw out some lowball bids and actually managed to win the following two cards for $25.

I was mainly interested in the N32 World's Racer card.  I already have 5 cards from this 50 card set, issued in 1888. But, I have to say that the N7 Fans of the Period card is actually my favorite of the two. I can't explain why, it just is. It has this feel of Victorian gentility, though I am not sure that is quite it.  I just like it.  

Which brings me to the rather cryptic title of this post.  I still consider myself a sports card collector.  I have finished 10 of the 28 Topps flagship sets issued between 1952 and 1979 (1956 and 1971-1979),  am within striking distance of two more (1968 and 1970), and have three more in various states of being started (1955, 1960, and 1965).  But I have found some needed hobby joy in the sheer randomness of collecting these old tobacco issues.  

To a certain extent, building sports card sets is a restricting hobby. To be sure, you can define your collection any way you want. But, once you do, you have set the boundaries of what you collect.  There is a defined group of sets with a fixed checklist.  I suppose player collectors are similarly constrained.  I can see where team collectors may have some additional freedom, but are still, ultimately, contained within a box of their own creation.

Collecting these tobacco issues, though, has opened up a whole world to me. If you can imagine a subject, there is probably a tobacco issue covering it.  I started out wanting to only collect horse themed sets, since my wife and I have a small horse farm.  But, I have learned to embrace serendipity and just collect sets that speak to me.  At some point, I will put together a post (or posts) about tobacco issues that appeal to me.  Suffice it to say, there is some cool stuff out there.

Until then...

What I am Listening to: A Stór Mo Chroí by Bonnie Raitt and The Chieftains

Royally Surprised

It has been a while since I last posted my great mail day.  The centerpiece of that haul was a large lot of pre-war British tobacco cards from a seller in Great Britain who was auctioning off his duplicates. There was approximately 1000 cards representing well over 100 unqiue sets.  I'm not through sorting through them yet, though I am pretty close to being done.

I will, sometime in the (hopefully) near future will publish a post of some of my favorite cards from the lot.  But, I did find something I wanted to share.

I don't know how y'all are with your cards, but when I am sorting through my cards I generally am engaged in the process and not necessarily paying attention to the subjects.  I've tried, not entirely successfully to be sure, of the history I am holding in my hands.  Not just the history of the subjects, but of the cards themselves.

With sports cards, it is easy to lose track of that since the overwhelming majority of my sportscards were created within my lifetime.  With these tobacco cards, not only were they printed and distributed before my time, many often existed before my parents were born.  It is a bit overwhelming to sit back and wonder who has owned these cards and what history did they see themselves.  As much as I have used them to escape from life's stresses, did a previous owner use them to escape the stress of the Second World War?  It really makes me want to care for these cards to honor that unknown history.

I did also often stop and look at the cards and wonder about the subjects, since many of them were people.  And I wondered if any of the subjects of these old cards were still alive.  So, occasionally when the card's subject was a particularly young looking person,  I would Google them to see. For the most part, I struck out.  But, near the end I did find one card subject that is still among us.

Look familiar? No?  Here is a clue:

That picture is a 9 year old (future) Queen Elizabeth.  Cool, huh?

Okay back into my hole. Hopefully I'll emerge again soon and show off some fascinating cards.

What I am listening to: The Sade Café by The Eagles.

Mail Day!

I'm still mostly on the hobby sidelines recovering from the home improvement cost overages and some unplanned vet bills.   But, I have dabbled a bit in the shallow end of the pool and picked up a few low cost non-sports lots.  They all arrived today:

The main arrival was a large lot of another collectors extras.  There is a whole lot there and it spans a large number of sets. So, I am looking forward to sorting through them and see what is there.  More soon.

What I am listening to: Frightened by the Sound by Justin Townes Earle