Oddballs and Vintage

Normally, this would be the post where I would detail my adventures in the yearly community yard sale. However, this year, aside from an old baseball calendar I bought for 50 cents (post on that coming in due time) and a board game I bought for a dollar for my son, this year was a bust. I knew it was coming, I'd been too lucky the past few years with giant hauls and scores of vintage. I could have kept looking but in the back of my mind, I knew that I still had cards from the haul my mom brought me in March to organize and write about. So, that's what this will be.

Normally, when I'm digging through mega-hauls, I'm expecting card from the mid to late '70s, so imagine my surprise when this 1955 Bowman surfaced. It's not exactly Ernie Banks or Mickey Mantle but any 1955 Bowman is good in my book. 

This is more like what I expected to find. A nice handful of 1978 Topps. This isn't all of them but I'd say these were probably the highlights. Check out that afro on Jose Cardenal!

More late 70s vintage .... some notable names here in Jerry Koosman, Ron Cey, Ray Fosse, Garry Templeton, and Steve Yeager.

More random vintage, a few 1974 Topps Traded, and 1973 Topps Bill Hands, and a 1976 Topps Lou Brock. I find the Bill Hands card to be interesting. He's listed as a member of the Twins, the uniform looks kind of like an early Rangers home uniform, and he's pitching in Wrigley Field.

Along with 1955 Bowman, another unexpected treasure were these 1982 Kellogg's cards. The Fisk card is a little beat up but I don't mind. 

On to the oddities now, there were gobs of these 1987 Hygrade Baseball's All Time Greats cards. Again, I didn't scan them all, just a handful to give a sample. 

More Cap'n Crunch cards. I now have four cards from this set. Maybe the cardboard gods are telling me I should put this set together.

Some Starline Long John Silver's cards. The background on the Glenn Davis card is old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

A couple of Don Mattingly oddballs. The Kaybee Kings card is just wonderful and fits in well with my defunct retail chain collection.

Here's a weird one. This is a promo card from the 1989 CMC Babe Ruth set. Since there were no other cards from the set in this collection, I'm curious now as to how this card ended up in here. According to the back, this was part of a 20-card set that came complete with binder, pages, a hanger box of the set, and a bio pamphlet of the Bambino. All that could be yours for the meager sum of $12.99 apparently.

And I'll close this out with a pair of random oddballs. I've never had a Topps Magazine card before so this will slot nicely into the Indians binder (once I finish purging what I don't want from there). The Revco card is another nice one to add to the defunct retail collection.

Even though the community yard sales were a bust, I still managed to find a few nice cards in my mom's mega haul. And it will keep on giving as there are some treasures I haven't shared yet.

You've Got Mail #77: Off the Wall Cards (aka Secret Santa 2017)

Yes, I know it's February and only a few weeks out from Valentine's Day but last Christmas Matt at BWTP organized another wonderful blogger secret Santa extravaganza. In the draw, I ended up having to buy for Matt himself but the person who pulled my name was Shane over at Off the Wall Cards and someone who I've interacted with on Twitter quite a bit. 

Shane's package arrived just a few days before Christmas and was one of those large size USPS priority mail boxes stuffed to the gills with all kinds of stuff that hit pretty much every collection under the sun. I won't show everything because if I did, we'd be here until next Christmas 

There were these 1982 Topps Bengals cards to start with. While I'm not a big collector of modern football cards, I still enjoy getting older cards such as these, especially Bengals cards and these are a great addition to the Bengals collection.

I wanted to take a moment as well and show the back of the team leaders card. It's so cool that it shows the results of all the games from the 1981 season. It makes me want to go back and look up the records on some of these games. You'll see this card again in the future too for a "Multi-Player Mayhem" entry.

1982 Topps wasn't the only thing in the way of Bengals cards that were included. There was also this smattering of random Bengals.

But here's the most interesting item of the Bengals portion, this sticker/pocket schedule. I checked the front and the back for any info on who may have printed it and there's nothing but a quick gander over at COMC turned up the fact this is a 1982 Fleer Teams in Action sticker. The sticker itself is cool but it's really the schedule on the back that does it for me. Kind of makes me want to go back again and look up the results of those games.

Bengals cards weren't the only thing included. There were these WWF cards from the early 90s as well, including three Ultimate Warrior cards.

Some reprints of cards of defunct teams, from both the Topps 1952 reprint series and 2001 Topps Archives. I wonder if it would be feasible at some point to put together a 1952 Topps set using nothing but the reprints.

Here's something pretty cool, a 1970 Topps poster of Don Mincher, first baseman for the Seattle Pilots. One thing I really find interesting about 1970 Topps is that it features cards for the Pilots but by the time the season started, the Pilots had morphed into the Brewers. One of my collecting goals is to get every Pilots card from both the 1969 and 1970 sets. If you've got Pilots cards to send, feel free to let me know.

Here's a handful of 1984 Topps cards for the set build. This reminds me, I really need to update my want list for that.

I'm not sure if these are TTM autographs or in-person autographs but this is probably my second favorite batch of Indians cards in the package. I think the one I like the most has to be Dave Burba, who was kind of a forgotten about pitcher. He was pretty solid with the Reds in the mid-90s and was part of two major trades the Reds made. He was acquired by the Reds in 1995 as part of a July deal that also netted Mark Portugal and Darren Lewis from the Giants in exchange for Deion Sanders and a few other players. The Reds would then flip Burba to Cleveland on the eve of Opening Day 1998 for a young first baseman named Sean Casey. The rest, as they say, is history.

I always enjoy it when vintage cards are hidden in a trade package and this is no exception. First, there's a well loved 1955 Bowman card of George Strickland, then a 1962 Topps Woody Held, and a smattering of 1959 Topps cards, of which I had none until just now. 

This is a sampling of the 1983 Reds yearbook team set. I really like the card with the aerial shot of Riverfront Stadium and the Coliseum. I look at that picture and realize that 20 years after the fact the stadium would be gone and a new one would be built right between it and the Coliseum. As for how the Reds did in 1983, they finished 6th (aka last) in the NL West with a 71-91 record.

Pretty much this whole post has been about oddballs and stickers so here's more. This time some Star stickers made by Fleer in 1981 featuring the remnants of the Big Red Machine.

Here's more vintage, this time with cards from 1958, 1957, and 1963 respectively and all three of popular Reds players in that era. The Gus Bell card will go well with the Vada Pinson and Joe Nuxhall cards I already have from that set. We also have another well worn 1955 Bowman card, this time of Fred Baczewski, a man whose major league career spanned only three seasons and in 1955, the year this card was produced, pitched 1 inning of one game and amassed an 18.00 ERA.

Moving on to more modern territory, there was a nice selection of Barry Larkin cards, these four I know I didn't have previously. I really should inventory my Reds player collection cards sometime but that's a major project and something I don't have time to do currently.

To go along with the Indians autographs previously shown, here's a nice IP/TTM auto of the newest Reds Hall of Famer Adam Dunn, and it's on his rookie card.

I'm nearing the end of this massive mail day but just wanted to touch on a few more newer cards that were thrown in before I show the major cards. First, there were these minor league cards

And a bunch of newer cards, including a nice Adam Duvall Donruss card from last year. I've said it before and I'll say it again, even though Panini doesn't have an MLB license, I think they do pretty well with what they've got and Donruss has been one of my favorite products to buy the last few years. I think last year and the year before, they really started to hit their stride.

Now the two big ticket items of the package and two cards off my most wanted list. First, a card that been haunting me seeming forever, that being the 1984 Topps #8 Don Mattingly card. I've seen it for sale at numerous places but the price was always a bit more that I wanted to pay. Now a glaring hole in my 1984 Topps set is complete and I can focus on getting the rest of it whittled away.

Here's another card I placed on my most wanted list and quite honestly forgot it was on there, that being this 1969 Tony Perez. This is really a nice early career card of Perez and trying to find a card like this around here isn't cheap since local dealers then to jack up the price of early cards of Big Red Machine.

A big thank you goes out to Shane for his generosity and all the awesome stuff both pictured and not pictured. Some stuff I scanned in but ended up cutting due to space but believe me, there was a lot of stuff and things that'll take me a while to organize. I definitely recommend getting in on the Secret Santa deal, it's a ton of fun.

My First Taste of 2017 Topps

I'm woefully behind on the new releases. Topps Heritage and Donruss have released and I'm just now talking about 2017 flagship. Oh well, someday I'll be caught up with the newest trends. Anyway, I bought 10 packs of Series 1 when I visited Magic City Sports Cards during a family trip to Akron in mid-February. I could have spent the same $20 on a blaster at Target but to me it's more fun buying hobby packs as each pack is a mystery. Let's see what I pulled

The honor of first new card of the year goes to Matt Strahm, who isn't exactly a household name in my neck of the woods. However, looking up his stats, he's pretty impressive. Last year he was 2-2 with a 1.23 ERA in 21 appearances. He's also the #1 rated prospect for the Royals. Not bad for a guy who until I pulled this card, I had no knowledge of at all.

Everyone and their brother by now has shown what the cards look like so I'll just give my general thoughts. My first impression is that these are much cleaner looking and nicer than the 2016 release. The pictures on these are bright, there are no smoke effects, and it just doesn't have a general feeling of darkness and doom. 

The backs are also bright and cheery. The colors match up with the team colors and all the basic stuff you'd find on the back of a Topps card is there. This is definitely a win.

The horizontal cards are even nicer this year. Although the graphic seems like its a little stretched out, these have a Stadium Club-ish feel to them. My absolute favorites of this batch are the Jesse Hahn and the Tyler Naquin.

Obligatory Reds cards. Brandon Finnegan proved himself to be more than serviceable last year and was one of the bright spots in an otherwise dismal rotation at points. Bailey was bitten by the injury bug (again!) right before camp opened as he had bone spurs removed from his elbow and will start the season on the 60-day DL more than likely.

I'm really digging these 1987 style insert cards, complete with the rainbow "Future Stars" logo. They also have vintage stock which gives them a bonus point.

These are the "Topps Salutes" inserts. I really like the design of these first off but I'm not sure what the point of them is. I guess it's to salute special holidays, legends, and rookies. Regardless, I'm not disappointed at all. Overall these, plus the 1987 style cards, are leaps and bounds better than last years Perspectives (which I honestly didn't get at all) and Berger's Best reprints.

Buybacks are back and while they're not from the 70s, these will help boost the buyback mini-collection. I know there are different levels of these things and I think the silver one (Palmerio) is better that the bronze (Scurry) but I'm not too sure.

The remainder of the inserts and parallels I pulled. I love me some First Pitch cards but there's only a handful of them that I'm actually interested in this year (Goodman, Shatner, and Joan Jett) but I'll take one of Victoria Justice, even though I'm not exactly sure who she is. The pull of my 10-pack batch though was the black Yoan Moncada #'d to 66. I had to look up exactly what it was called but I'll take it nonetheless. 

Overall, I'm definitely a fan of Topps flagship this year, the inserts are range from decent (Salute cards) to really cool (87 Topps style). I'm definitely going to be buying more of this when I hit up the card shop.

The Yard Sale Find Pt. 3: Some 90s Junk

It's time to close out the yard sale find with the third and final part, the load of 90s stuff that was thrown in. While I wasn't as excited pulling these out of the box while sorting, there is still some love to be had. There's not enough here to warrant dividing up by year as I've done in the previous parts but here's what I dug out to share.

The four cards from 1990 that were included. Barry Larkin and Billy Swift in all their Donruss glory and Topps in their somewhat bland glory. One of the things I always did like about 1990 Donruss was the way the players name was written on the top. On the other hand, 1990 Topps always struck me as bland and uninspired. Tommy Helms was the Reds manager in between when Pete Rose was banned and Lou Pinella was hired. I didn't even think he was the manager long enough to warrant a card but I guess he was. 

Between the red 1990 Donruss and the bright yellow 1991 Fleer, I'm not sure which one is a bigger assault on the eyes. At the very least, they're memorable. Mixed in with a bunch of 91 Fleer commons were these. Five hall of famers and one borderline hall of famer. I can't believe that Blyleven was still pitching in 1991. I think my favorite of this batch has to be the Roberto Alomar card.

The more I see 1991 Topps, the more I tend to like it. It's a really cool design that sometimes gets lost in the midst of the junk wax era. I think this year it's been appreciated lots more thanks to its inclusion in this years Archives set. The design is such a drastic difference from the previous year. The team logos have a neat design and I've found that there are a lot more action photos. All six of these cards are fantastic but that Clemens card is great, as is the Griffey card.

And thus we've reached the end with these cards from 1992 Score. I thought Score's early sets were pretty good but then 1991 and 1992 came along. Not the biggest fan of this design but I really do like the fact that there's a full logo for the team and the fact the picture bleeds into the colorized background giving it a bit of a 3D look. That Albert Belle card is just awesome though. While I never was the biggest fan of his, this has to be one of my favorite cards now

Hope you enjoyed reading about this giant yard sale find. I know I certainly enjoyed sharing it with you. This just goes to show you that with a little patience and a bit of asking around via social media, you never know what you'll find. Since this is out of the way now, I've got a few small trade posts to catch up on and after that, a giant four part epic detailing my card show haul from earlier this month. 

Stay tuned!