Card(s) of the Moment #5
October 15th, 2009 by slangon

Finally a post that’s not about The Post-Season Hootenanny.

1963 Topps #59 Craig Anderson, Autographed
1963 Topps #93 Galen Cisco, Autographed
1963 Topps #174 Larry Burright, Autographed
1963 Topps #197 Roger Craig, Autographed


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I bought this lot of 4 autographed Mets cards off of eBay a while back. I guess the danger of buying autographs like this off of eBay is that you have no way of knowing if the autograph is legit or not, but in this case, I feel pretty confident that they are. First of all, I can’t recall exactly what I ended up paying for the cards, but I know that it wasn’t really any more than what un-signed copies of the cards would go for. And secondly, why would anyone bother forging these guys’ autographs? I mean, no offense to them, but I can’t imagine there being a huge demand for their John Hancocks.

That being said, I’m pretty psyched that these cards sre autographed, even if it is just Roger Craig, Larry Burright, Gale Cisco and Craig Anderson. How often do you get a chance to own an autographed card from the early 60’s? Further how often do you get a chance to own 4 autographed cards from the early 60’s? All from your favorite team?

Aside from the autograph, I think the ’63 is defiantly in my top 5 of Topps designs. I really love the solid circle down the bottom with the masked out “action” photo of the player. There’s something really nice looking about the super bold colors against the black and white photo.

I won’t bother scanning in all the backs. Instead, I’ll just focus on Mr. Craig.

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Like most 1960’s cards, the back is just awesome. A perfect mix of stats, bio and comic. It’s interesting too, to look at Roger’s stat line with the Mets in ’62. Obviously, a 10-24 record is nothing to be very proud of, but when you put that in the context of the Mets 40-120 record that year, I’d say Mr. Craig was one of the Mets best pitchers. He also threw 13 complete games that year.

Interesting side note: While I was doing research on Craig’s 1962 season, I saw that one of his team mates was named Vinegar Bend Mizell, who went on to become a congressman. Tell me that isn’t one of the all-time greatest baseball names.

2 Responses to “Card(s) of the Moment #5”

  1. Cool cards. It would be cool to collect an autographed team set.

  2. Gotta agree with you on the ’63 design. It’s one of my all-time favorites as well.

    Cool cards!

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