Two posts in the same week? I am back, baby! Okay, not really. But I did manage to find a couple of cards I needed for my non-sports tobacco card collection.
This is the final card I needed to complete my 25 card 1889 Kinney N230 Famous English Running Horses set. It is diamond cut and a bit short side-to-side. I don't know if it has been trimmed, but I am not trying to put together a high grade set, so it doesn't really matter. I am mainly looking for affordable eye appeal and this has it. Now I need to get serious about N229 (Famous American Running Horses) and N231 (Great American Trotters.) I have exactly 3 and 1 from these sets, respectively. They seem much harder to come by. eBay searches turn up a lot of N230; considerably fewer of the other two. But, that is what the chase is for, no?
This my 10th card from the 1890 Allen & Ginter N18 Parasol Drill set. It is a 50 card set, so I have a long way to go.
What I am listening to: The Saint of Lost Causes by Justin Townes Earle
Life continues to be busy and my hobby activity has been hit and miss. Mostly miss, though I have picked up a couple random things.
This is a 1968 Sports Service Photo for my Paul Blair collection. I have held off on adding photos to a card collection, but I have finally weakened. I don't know a lot about Sports Service and some cursory research doesn't result in much. It is something I need to look into. I'll probably start over atNet54 and go from there. This photo is actually 4 1/4 inches by 7 1/4 inches. And, of course, I don't have any two pocket pages to put it in.
This is the final card I needed to complete my 1994 Ted Williams Card Company set. It is the checklist card for the Dan Gardiner subset. Interestingly, I expected that this card just reused artwork from the player cards in the subset. To be sure, some are very similar, but none are exact matches. I find that level of attention to detail admirable and makes me wonder what could have happened if this card company continued to issue sets after 1994. I'm not particularly fond of the card backs, but I really like the card front designs, which show the same level of attention that I reference relative to the checklist card above.
In fact, now that I think of it, it would be fun to a post on the set. Of course, working on those few 1970 Topps card back sets I did was fun and I have managed to not follow-up with a new entry in that series in forever. Winter is coming soon and I'll have more time then.
Anyways, now that I have the 1994 set complete, I have updated my Want List sidebar to show what I need to complete the 1993 Ted Williams set.
What I am listening to: Rogers Park by Justin Townes Earle (I have posted this once before, but I just heard last night that JTE has passed away at the age of 38. If you get a chance, listen to his "Harlem River Blues" album. It is brilliant.)
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
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):
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
After a long period of dormancy, I've made some additional progress on my Paul Blair collection. A new addition came in yesterday:
This is the last of the O-Pee-Chee cards I needed for the PC. It commemorates Blair's game winning home run in Game 3 of the 1966 World Series. It was hit off Claude Osteen, who had otherwise pitched a brilliant game. OSteen's final line was 3 hits, one walk, and three strikeouts in 7 innings pitched.
This is the 142nd unique item in my Paul Blair PC
What I am listening to: Follow You Like Smoke by Elizabeth Cook
Yesterday. I went to a card show for the first time in I can't remember when. Since it has been a while, I had a little more money that I normally would. Plus, I took the 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle I won in a break a while back to trade up with. My main goal was to make progress on finishing my 1970 set (3 cards to go), 1968 set (6 cards to go), and 1965 set (167 cards to go.) By that measure I failed miserably. I managed to find one 1968 card I needed. It was a good one, though.
Still 5 to go, including the Nolan Ryan rookie card.
So, with that I recalibrated and decided to work on my 1960 set, where I was sitting at about 30% completion and my 1955 set, where I was about 75% complete. I did much better here. I managed to snag about 57 cards, mostly commons, from 1960.
This was about as close as I came to a star card with this show.
In a recent post, Night Owl lamented to disappearance of manager cards. I have to say that I agree. These manager cards from 1960 Topps are wonderful. I found four manager cards yesterday. Far and away, these are my favorites from the new cards I added to my set.
I also like these types of cards, which were common in the 1960s sets. While both Rocky Colavito and Tito Francona were good players, this card did not age nearly as well as that 1968 Super Stars card above.
Interestingly enough, this was one of only to Topps cards of Jim Baxes, the other being his rookie card in 1959. 1959 was Jim's only season in the majors. He performed poorly in AAA in 1960 and was out of organized baseball after only 21 games in 1961. Fun fact: Jim Baxes first major league home run was the first HR hit off of Bob Gibson. It was in Gibson's ML debut on April 15, 1959.
As far as 1955, I managed to find 18 cards I needed, which brought me down to only needing 32 more to finish the set. Most were commons from the second, high number series.
That Williams (along with '68 Super Stars above) were the major scores in exchange for the '56 Mantle. I could have gotten more money selling the Mantle on EBay. But, with all the Johnny-Come-Latelys in the hobby, all the reports of buyer fraud scared me off. This Ted is really nice. It is in way better condition than I would have acquired if I didn't have some high end trade material.
So, that is about it, other than this 1966 Curt Flood I found in a dollar box.
I haven't given up on my 1970 card back series of posts. I have just been fairly busy out in the real world and just haven't had the energy to sit down and work on the next installment. It is coming, I just don't know when.
What I am listening to: Follow You Like Smoke by Elizabeth Cook
