What You Can Get in Exchange for a Card of a Dude with Gunk All Over His Face
August 5th, 2010 by slangon

First off, I just want to remind everyone to go checkout the giveaway I’m doing to celebrate that this blog has turned a year old. Check it out. Okay, now onto the business at hand.

I usually don’t seem to have too much luck pulling cool stuff from packs. Don’t get me wrong, I get plenty of cards that I think are cool, but I just never seem to pull cards that other people would go ga-ga over. A few weeks ago however I busted a box of 2010 Topps Series 2 and I was lucky (lucky being a matter of opinion) enough to pull this:

Now, I enjoy getting short prints as much as the next guy, but I don’t really have much interest in trying to collect these particular pie face variations. Actually, I tend to find them slightly disturbing. I had seen some of them go for some pretty good money on eBay, so I figured rather than have this card take up space in my collection, I’d see what I could get for it. After one unsuccessful attempt at selling it, I was able to unload it for $30.

It didn’t take long for that $30 to burn a hole in my virtual pocket and I ended up getting a bunch of other cards with it. The way I look at it, I was basically trading that David Price card that I didn’t really want for some other cards that I did want. So here’s what dirty faced David got me.

First up is a couple of old beat up cards that don’t really belong in any of my wantlists but I thought were pretty awesome none-the-less.

The Cubs’ Clubbers cards has a few creases and dings but obviously isn’t anywhere near as banged up as old Eddie there. I think Eddie might rival Willie Mays for the most beat up card in my collection.

Here we have the Ol’ Perfesser himself, Casey Stengel. This one does knock off another card that I needed for my ’63 Mets team set. I’m pretty sure now I just need the ’64 Stengel to complete my Casey as a Met collection. By the way, when I was looking at this card when I first got it something about it was really throwing me off. Then I realized that the circle at the bottom of the card had the Mets’ logo rather than a small black and white picture of Casey in it. I never noticed that the managers from the ’63 set had team logos rather than a second portrait. I also love the expression on Casey’s face. I guess if I was managing a team as inept as the early 60’s Mets I’d have a similar expression. Actually, I think I do have a similar expression on my face from watching the Mets this season.

I got all 3 of those cards from the same seller. For some reason he (or she) also threw in these.

There was no explanation. Just a stack of Hal Morris cards. I don’t know if that quite counts, but I think I might have just gotten Bipped by an eBay seller.

I also got a couple of cards from another seller.

It’s always nice to be able to cross off a high numbered card, especially one of a Hall of Famer, from a vintage set that you’re trying to complete.

Usually when I’m buying stuff off of eBay, I try to buy from people who will combine shipping. I also try to buy as much as I can from the same seller just to justify spending money on shipping. Sometimes that involves bidding on things that I wouldn’t necessarily buy such as this Clydell Castleman cut signature. I’ll give you 2 guesses what my plans are for this one.

This might be my favorite of the bunch which is sort of funny considering that I didn’t really even know this set existed before I saw this auction. It’s a set from 1938 but out by Gum, Inc. which is the same company that brought us the Play Ball sets of the late 30’s / early 40’s. It’s called Horrors of War and it depicts various horrendous moments from various conflicts. It’s a bit gruesome, but pretty cool looking. I’ll eventually do a whole separate post about this one.

So I’d say that was a pretty successful swap. I gave up one short printed card from 2010 that I really had no interest in and got back 4 vintage cards of Hall of Famers, one cut signature of a dude who played his last game over 70 years ago and a card with a Rolls Royce full of people being dive bombed by a wacky looking airplane. And nothing in the bunch is younger than 1963. Pretty sweet deal, I’d say.

3 Responses to “What You Can Get in Exchange for a Card of a Dude with Gunk All Over His Face”

  1. I did the same type of thing recently. Its great to be able to “trade-off” newer cards for some great old ones.

  2. I’ll take your end of the deal any day!

  3. those last two items are frikkin beautiful.

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