Some Cards That Recently Fell Into My Clutches
November 7th, 2011 by slangon

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything I picked up at the old Sportlots site. Shocking, I know. Well, that’s about to change because here’s a sack of cards that I recently got from that very institution, none of which coat me more than 2 bits (with the exception of one card). God, I love cheap cardboard.

Let’s start with a few modern cards from a few sets that I’ve been ignoring despite the fact that they’ve been intriguing me for a while.

I don’t know a whole lot about the Gypsy Queen set because I’ve done such a good job of ignoring it, but it certainly seems to be the type of set that a year or 2 ago I would’ve gone gaga over, spending all my extra cash on blasters and loosies down at the local Target. Now I just spend all my extra cash on pieces of 40 year-old tree pulp that look like they’ve been hit with a belt sander. That doesn’t stop me from picking up Mets from this set when I see them cheap.

Amazingly, these are my first Allen & Ginter cards of 2011. No joke. Although I’ve bought nary a pack nor box this year, like always Ginter has such a huge presence on the blogdom that I can safely say that this years offering has an especially strong insert showing. From what I’ve seen, the Floating Fortress cards look awesome and all the mini inserts are really interesting subjects, or at least subjects that are right up my alley. These 2 sets are one’s that I particularly find interesting. Weird figures in history fascinate me and I’ve long been a fan of the tradition of circus sideshows. I kind of like how the designers employed full bleed on these cards without you realizing that they’re full bleed, thus retaining their old-timey look. I do think they missed a major opportunity by not using old-time circus sideshow banners (which are freaking amazing) on the Step Right Up cards, but I think the design itself is pretty well done.

I also scored this Doc Halladay N43 Box Loader. Not so much because I have any love for Old Roy, but more because the dude was selling it for $0.18 and I couldn’t in good conscious pass it up for that price. Turns out though that they guy damaged the card in packing it up (or so he claims) so he refunded me my 18¢ but still sent me the card. Now I have a damaged Roy Halladay N43 card and an 18¢ credit at Sportlots. Yay me.

Rounding out the modern cards is this guy, which puts me one card closer to finishing out my 2011 Mets team set.

It’s funny how after so many disappointing seasons in a row, you start to look for any excuse to feel good about your team. Lucas Duda is one of those excuses this year. It’s good to know that the Mets announcers can dust off the term “moonshot”.

From 2011, we jump all the way back in time to the year 1973.

I’m coming closer and closer to starting to “officially” chase this set. Initially I wanted to keep it to once vintage set chase at a time, but my pursuit for the 1960 set is starting to reach that point where the majority of the cards I still need are either super stars or high numbers and slightly out of my price range. Here’s a couple of Cubbies that I needed. I think that guy over Rick Monday’s shoulder is the same dude from the grassy knoll.

I also scored this Johnny Bench/Dick “Don’t Call Me Richie Anymore” Allen Home Run Leaders, which I apparently already had. The funny thing is that I clearly remember checking my Excel sheet of all my cards. I have no idea why I still bought this one.

Finishing out the 73’s, I scored this beauty. One sort of cool thing about shopping on Sportlots is that unless you’re buying a $500 card, the seller generally doesn’t have a picture of the card. I ended up adding this to my cart because I saw from my checklist that I needed it, but had no idea what it looked like. You can imagine how happy I was when I pulled it out of the envelope. When 1973 Topps gets it wrong, they really get it wrong, but when they get it right, they sure get it right. Obviously, it would’ve been a little cooler if that pitchers ass weren’t in the way, but none-the-less, this is an outstanding example of 1973 Topps photography.

Possibly my favorite managerial name. Stanky. I’m LOL-ing in my head right now.

I scored a trio of 1964 Topps.

Thanks to my adoration of R.A. Dickey, I think I might start an all-knuckleballer collection. Wilbur Wood is a pretty good place to start. Although he started his career in the bullpen, the lefty knuckler was converted to a starter in 1971 and over the next 5 seasons made 224 starts and pitched 1681.2 innings. That’s an average of 45 starts and 336 IP per year. Crazy. Oddly enough, even though his given name is Wilbur Wood, his nick name is “Wilbah”.

Here’s a ’64 Braves team card, which has the exact same photo as the 1960 Braves team card. Which has the same exact photo as the 1961 Braves team card. And the 1962 Braves team card. And the 1963 Braves team card. and the 1965 Braves team card. But not the 1966 Braves team card.

I also got a pre-floating heads Cubs team card. Which also has the same photo as the 1960 Cubs team card. And the 1963 Cubs team card. And the 1965 Cubs team card. But, oddly enough, not the 1961 or 1962 Cubs team cards.

Way back when I first got back into collecting, I had this crazy notion to try and collect every Mets card ever made. At some point I got a little more realistic and decided to pare it down to every Topps base Mets card. I might relax those rules a bit though to include some of these earlier non-Topps sets. This ’63 Fleer set is pretty damn awesome. I’m actually slightly shocked that I got this card for a quarter, even with that San Andreas sized crease in the middle. I feel like they’re usually much more.

I also snagged a handfull of 62’s.

I used to not be so jazzed about the 1962 Topps set, but I have to admit, it has grown on me quite a bit. Ironically, I think it was the Mets that turned me off of the set. Not surprisingly, pretty much all of my first 1962 Topps cards were Mets and being that they were an expansion team, most of their cards from the set were of the painfully boring, super close-up, no hat variety. Now I know there’s great cards like this Hank Foiles. I love the wacky looking cartoon Oriole on his sleeve and the random glove stuck on the batting cage behind him.

Of course there’s a fair share of boring looking non-Mets cards, too. At least they’re wearing hats, though.

I also landed this Steve Boros card, which I initially believed to be one of the so-called “green tint” variations. I mean, look at it compared to the other 3. It looks green, right? It also looks like it some some sort of weird registration issue that’s causing that strange shadow looking line on Steve’s cheek. I had read somewhere that the green tints have noticeable registration defects that cause them to look almost blurred. Turns out though, that only the second series cards from ’62 (110-196) have green tint versions which means that the Steve Boros card is the only one of these 4 that doesn’t have a green tint. This one is just messed up.

I put a slight ding in my Managers wantlist by picking up this guy. I always king of liked when Topps had a completely different design for their manager cards. This is my first 1961 manager card. I kind of wish every 1961 Topps card was done in this design because the base design is hurtin’.

THis was the lone card that cost more than a quarter. This one ran 2 quarters. You know, I’m starting to see why the 1961 design was so bad. Apparently the designers used up all their good ideas on the sub-sets than year.

This is another set that I’m not a huge fan of but really love some of the subsets. What makes it a little different in this instance is that the subsets (team cards, multi-player cards, etc.) are still tied into the mail design, which I think is pretty cool. That’s quite different from, say, the ’61 or ’60 set where the subset designs are really nothing like the main set. I also like this particular card because it was from the McCarthy era, when the Cincinnati red officially changed their name to the Redlegs so as not to be confused with the Commies. And since I started this, this team photo is not reused, but it is really, really similar to the photo used in the 1960 Reds team card, which was used in the 1961 Reds team card, which was used in the 1962 Reds team card, which was used in the 1963 Reds team card, which was used in the 1964 Reds team card. Geez. Apparently Topps saved a butt load of money on team photography during the early 60’s.

Speaking of the Redlegs, here’s a George Crowe card that’s going straight into my Nerd collection. I love that he coordinated his glasses with his uniform. Tres elegant, Monsieur Crowe.

I really don’t give a dang about the San Francisco Giants, but I have this thing about snatching up New York Giant cards when I can, mostly because before the Gints skedaddled for the left coast, my old man was a Giants fan. I also like this card because to me it just screams 1950’s baseball.

Not that Andre up there is in great condition, but compared to Mickey here, he’s in dead-mint condition. Somehow, he fits right in, though, with the other Mickey Vernon card in my collection.

These last 2 cards are pretty awesome and I swear that they were only $0.25 a pop. These are exactly why I personally don’t really buy new cards any more.

You know what’s kind of frightening? I’m as old as Hank Sauer was when this card came out. I’d like to think that I don’t look quite as grizzled as he does, but that’s a weird realization to make.

Back before I actually owned and 1954 Bowman cards, I never really liked them. I guess when you compare them to the early 50’s Bowman sets, they do fall a little flat, but they’re pretty cool. They’re almost like the ’57 Topps of early Bowman cards.

Well that does it. That’s what I got on Sportlots for $9.16, shipping included. If that won’t keep you out of the Walmart card aisle, I don’t know what will.

One Response to “Some Cards That Recently Fell Into My Clutches”

  1. Nice pickup on the Roger Craig card. I don’t go looking for the 1963 Fleer cards, but when I see them they’ve been at least $5-$10.

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