Recent eBay Scores, Part 1
August 7th, 2010 by slangon

I made mention of this recently, but I’ve gotten a gaggle of cards off of eBay recently. I don’t know about you, but I’m realizing that I’m totally cyclical in my card collecting. Sometimes I go through stretches when all I’m doing is shopping on Sportlots. Sometimes all my cards seem to come from the 6 for $5 bin down at the card shop. Other times all I’m doing is snatching up retail pack from Target. These last few weeks eBay’s been supplying my cardboard fix. Having been caught up in Gint-a-mania recently, all these eBay cards have just been piling up without me showing them off here. That’s about to change.

Like most people out there, although my collection is primarily focused on a couple of specific types of cards, I have innumerable sub-focuses. That always seems to be especially helpful on eBay when you’re having trouble finding cards at a decent price from one of your main concerns. Of course I guess if you can’t find your main focus for a good price you could also just not buy anything until you do, but what can I say? When you need a fix you need a fix.

A month or so ago I was trolling the ‘Bay in search of the usual suspects. Vintage Mets. 1960 Topps. Keith Hernandez. Nothing was really jumping out at me. Then I started just going through some of my more minor focuses. Moe Berg. Walt Williams. 1973 Topps. Allen & Ginter. Old Goudey. Still nada. Then I tried for some 1953 Topps and I came across a pretty interesting looking auction.

It was a 3 card lot of ’53 Topps that was sitting at $0.99 with 1 bidder and only an hour or two left to go. I plugged in a $3.00 max bid thinking it wouldn’t do much good. To my surprise, that gave me the high bid at $2.91. I still had a little while to go however and was only 9 cents off of my huge bid, but I didn’t feel much like adding an insurance bid. I ended up just letting it go and if I won, I won. Turns out I did.

Obviously at just under a buck a card for over 50 year old cards, their condition leaves something to be desired. If undesirable condition is something that concerns you. Lucky for me it doesn’t.

The first card in the lot was #8 Clem Koshorek, who seems to be possibly playing in the Field of Dreams. There’s many things I love about this card. In general, I think the portraits from the ’53 set are possibly some of the most beautiful of any cards I’ve come across. I love that they’re actually painting, not photographs done up to look like paintings. It’s also pretty cool that a dude from Jersey named Gerry Dvorak painted them. From a design geek perspective, I like that the portrait is not full bleed, but the information box is. Lastly, on this card particularly, I always loved that old school Pirates logo.

These 53’s have a pretty sweet backside, too. I really love the giant sized baseball with the card number in it. The black type on the red bar up top gets a little sketchy, but the rest of the layout is pretty awesome. I like the vertical orientation. Another Jersey connection, the answer to the trivia question, “Sliding Billy” Hamilton was born in Newark.

Next in the bunch is a very serious looking Ed Bailey of the Redlegs. Looks like Topps tradition of using spring training images on cards started early, unless they started growing palm trees in Cincinnati. Actually, one of my favorite parts of these 1953 portraits are the backgrounds. Even though there’s not a whole lot going on in this one (and even less in Clem Koshoreks) I keep finding my eye wandering around back there.

I think I want to start incorporating the term “rhubarb” into my everyday vocabulary. I think it’s funny that the trivia question on this card concerns rhubarbs and Ed was born and lives in Strawberry Plains. Don’t rhubarbs taste very similar to strawberries?

Lastly is probably my favorite card of the lot. First, I really like it because I think it might be my first vintage card of a player from the St. Louis Browns. Second, I like it because I think it’s weird that a team called the browns has a weird alien / elf as their logo. Random. Thirdly, well, just look at him. How could Smilin’ Bob not be your favorite? Especially after looking at Clem “Scowler” Koshorek and Ed “Sourpuss” Bailey.

I find it sort of strange that 2 out of these 3 guys bat lefty but throw righty. Is that that common of a thing, or did I just get lucky? Actually, we just got my 1 1/2 year old his first bat and ball. Maybe I should start him in on switch hitting now.

Well, there you go. Three more beat up vintage cards for the collection. The only bad thing is that now I have to go to the hobby shop and get another 8 card binder page. Dammit. Oh well, while I’m there…

One Response to “Recent eBay Scores, Part 1”

  1. Very nice!!! The Browns alien guy is a brownie, like a little devil, imp thing. I love that logo. It works best on Satch Paige cards, but Bob Young will do… Great haul and good deal!

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