Some Non-Mets Sportlots Gets
March 5th, 2010 by slangon

I snagged another mini-haul from good old Sportlots. This one started with one specific card that I had wanted for a spell that someone was selling for a nice price so I decided to jump on it. I couldn’t very well buy just one card though. That would make no sense. I saw a few other cards from the same seller that I had also had my eye on and bought me some cards all for the price of lunch.

Let’s see what’s in the bag, shall we.

Firstly, I snagged a trio of ’63 Topps. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the 1963 set might be my favorite of all the ’60’s sets. Recently, the 1960 has been shooting up the charts though, I think right now it’s #4 with a bullet. Look out ’63.

I think my favorite of the three is the Al Spangler card, just because I think the Colt .45’s is one of the most awesome team names in the universe. Also, that green stripe with the red dot is pretty slamming. That’s complimentary colors right there, kids.

Is there any better feeling than crossing a card off of a wantlist? I guess looking at a wantlist and not seeing any non-crossed-off items looking back at you is up there, but knocking one off is pretty satisfying as well. I love that his name is Mayo. Actually, his name is Edward Mayo Smith, but he gets extra points for chosing to be called Mayo. This card is coming off of a very impressive season in which Mayo led the Tigers to a 103-59 record, eventually winning the World Series.

I’ve officially decided to try and finish this insert set. It’s small, only 33 cards. I already have about 6 of them. It’s a pretty stacked checklist, including the likes of Yaz, Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Gibson, Clemente and Rose. The nice thing is that even the big boys can be had pretty reasonably. A quick eBay search for “1969 Deckle Edge Rose” returned about 20 cards ranging from $0.99 to $15.00, not counting graded cards.

This was the specific card that I alluded to at the beginning of this post. I had wanted this card for quite a spell for two reasons. First, 1953 is defiantly my favorite of all the 50’s sets. Thats right, I like it more than the ’52, ’54, ’55 and ’56 sets. I don’t think I could ever commit to collecting the set so I decided to just get a few of the cards here and there and looked at the checklist to see if there were any specific players I would want to try and get. The first name my eye fell on was “Peanuts” Lowrey. My mind was instantly made up that if I was going to get any 1953 Topps cards, it would be of Peanuts Lowrey. Sadly, they don’t use his nick name on the front. On the back, as a background to the biography, there is a facsimile signature that reads “Harry ‘Peanuts’ Lowrey” so I guess that’s cool. Apparently, he got the nickname as a kid by an uncle who claimed “Why, he’s no bigger than a peanut.” Interestingly, also as a child, he acted in the Out Gang comedies. I also can’t remember ever seeing quite that much chest hair on a vintage card.

I also snagged a few other cards, but I’m saving them for a rainy day. A rainy day once football makes its return, that is.

2 Responses to “Some Non-Mets Sportlots Gets”

  1. Love the ’53 Lowry. I remember Peanuts from his time as a coach with the Cubs in the 70’s.

  2. Nice sportlots haul. They are nice for getting some cool vintage at good prices and also for filling in some of the gaps in set collections.

    On the subject of “Peanuts” I have an uncle named Charlie that we used to call “Uncle Peanuts” because of the Charlie Brown comics. He would even sign birthday and holiday cards “Uncle Peanuts”.

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