The half dozen people that responded favorably to my custom A&G cards of Malika Andrews inspired me to create some more. I'll call them Ginter Gap cards, since they are subjects that Ginter didn't include.
This time, it's the new owner of the Washington Commanders. He's already brought good fortune on the franchise - they're 2 and 0 on the season so far. There are also reports that a new stadium is in the works. Not to mention that he replaced the dark cloud over the team in general.
Since it's the first weekend of the NFL season, it's the perfect time to show the vintage football I got on vacation.
It's not a whole lot, but there are some cool cards.
Finished my '71 Topps Game with these four. Sorry about the glare on Bradshaw. Most of these were found at the National.
Some big names in the '68 Topps set. I should have shopped around for most of these, I ended up finding better centered copies for a lower price not long after I snagged these.
Have really been shopping more carefully for the last few '57s. Glad to find these nice ones for a good price. Of course, that Brown guy is gonna be a bitch to find cheap... (Again with the glare. it's just not possible to take pictures of cards in holders in this house.)
These aren't really vintage at 1988, but they're throwbacks nonetheless.
And neither is this one (1999 Fleer), but it depicts a cover from the 1970's.
And finally, I got this one at half the sticker price, along with a bunch of vintage baseball I'll show later. How many of you know what this is? It's a 1972 Topps high number. There were a couple more in the same box I pulled this one from, but they were either a lot more or a lot lower condition. It was the first time I've seen one in real life. They aren't all All-Pros, but the first 23 are. I don't have any illusions on getting the rest of them, but it was nice to add at least one to my set.
Hope your team does well this season - real and fantasy.
I've got a few more batches of shop & show loot to put on display, but I don't really have many more images of where they came from. So I'll just post them by type, rather than source.
This may be the only post in this series that the typical modern collector will pay attention to. It's all about the hits, and the shiny serial numbered stuff. There are other autographs, etc. in what I bought, but this is the bulk of them. If you know me at all, you know this isn't what I go after.
As you can see, this lot crosses three sports. Not all of them are jerseys or are numbered. I focused instead on the thickness of these cards.
They've all got a significant point size. Later shots will be on a darker background so the white edges show better.
The thickest one is this UD the Cup Kuznetsov, numbered to 249.
Here he is next to a regular 1978 Topps card.
And the back. I picked this one up with a few of the others in this batch at a table in the Lansing Mall show. Pretty sure it was a dollar box.
On to baseball and a couple player collection additions. Can't recall exactly where I found these, but they're both bonus pickups. Fisk is a manu-relic, which isn't attractive in itself, but it is in the 1980 design, so sentimentality won out. Jones isn't even a player collection of mine, but I have a mini-collection of his relics in consecutive years, and this will be a nice "header card" if you will.
Fisk is a little washed out because I left the sleeve on him, but you can tell it's several times the height of the normal card.
And the backs... Those Bowman Best are nice, but it's peculiar that the backs have the frame around them too.
They're probably the thinnest of the bunch, but are still multi-ply.
I didn't scan the backs of the Inceptions, nor did I separate the Doctson jersey, so I'm skipping to the back.
Terry is numbered to 299 and the swatches vary by color and whatever workout equipment this striped piece comes from. The gold scanned green on the closeup tilted toward the light.
Of course, there is no explanation of what they are on the back.
The quarterbacks one is pretty trippy.
This one I do remember distinctly. A very pleasant dealer at the mall show asked what kind of thing I was looking for, and was appreciative that it wasn't the same as the usual. I was thankful he took my offer of $15 for it.
Rear view and closeup of the low serial number.
Here's how the whole batch stacks up.
Luckily, most of them came in top loaders of the appropriate size, so I only have to spend two or three of my new ones.
What would you like to see next?
Vintage, or other newer miscellaneous things? Let me know below. I'll try not to take all month to show this stuff.
While I was on vacation, one of my co-workers (who is always after a deal) arranged for a few of us to see an Orioles game with one of our vendor companies. But this wasn't going to be just another evening in the stands making runs to the food counter and souvenir shop.
It was the August 8th matchup with the Houston Astros. We left work around 4:30 and arrived about an hour before first pitch. The first bonus was a parking pass that put us really close to the home plate entrance.
It was the first time I had used an app for tickets to an event. The MLB Ballpark app is pretty much about tickets, even though it talks about following any player, and other things. It's about the tickets. Anyway, we went in the door and then in the elevator to the fourth floor.
We stepped off into what felt like a hotel lobby. It's the Club Level. There's a reception desk and tons of historical information, artifacts, trophies, and artwork about the history of the Orioles on every wall and in the hallways and lounges all the way around this floor of the building.
This is a stock shot I took off the internet to show some of the other areas. I snapped the rest of the pics, but stuck to the stuff that interested me. I haven't asked my friends to send me theirs yet. I'm sure they shared them on social media.
These jerseys were right behind the main lobby.
This Frank Robinson panel was down one of the walkways to the upper seating sections.
This side room was all about Cal Ripken. I don't think these were the original numbers that hung on the side of the warehouse when he was breaking the streak, but I could be wrong. Seems like they'd be a lot bigger.
This painting was in our actual suite. There were cafe tables, couch seating, the buffet (quesadillas, hot dogs, salads, sodas, adult beverages, the whole works!), a private rest room, and a glass wall with two sliding doors that lead to the outside seating. You sat in rolling office-style chairs outside. Here was our view:
We were up the third base line. It was a great evening to watch a game. Not too hot or cold.
I snapped pics of the starting lineups.
The O's got off to a rousing start with two home runs from Adley and Mountcastle. They built a 6 - 3 lead into the 9th inning. Unfortunately, the closer Bautista, who came into the game with great fanfare ~ flashing lights and dramatic music ~ couldn't get anyone out and they lost in the top of the 9th. Stupid Astros...
Other than that it was a stellar experience. One of the hosts knew the Orioles Alumni Director, who came by and brought Larry Bigbie in to meet our group and sign autographs. (I passed.) The other company that sponsored the event bought several different hats for everyone. They were nice. I got a regular O's hat with the Jackie Robinson 42 patch on it.
Hopefully, we can do that again before the season is over.
I still haven't watched more than a few games this year. I should pay more attention since they're going to be in the playoffs. I'll watch more of them then.
In recapping my card hunting in the various shops, flea markets, shows, and antique malls in Michigan, I'm not going to go in chronological order, nor am I going to cover every card. Mostly because I don't remember exactly and am lucky to keep straight what I got where.
I'm leisurely collecting the 2011 sparkly legends...the Gullett is an OPC upgrade...Mattingly is a set need....Nettles is the Craig back variation. The others are the start of my official set build, before it became official. More on that in a later post.
Dave also had a couple boxes of the typical shiny football I kept running into at about every shop we visited. I tried hard to meticulously pick these out and not get anything I already had. And then I went back through them and put back the duplicates. Of course, I missed one as you can see. (Hint: third row). The first row of Bowman are all serial numbered except for the last one.
One of the more unusual finds was among several stacks of non-sport cards. I have been looking for sets or boxes of this particular set for a while. Most of the time the boxes are outrageous, and actually very impractical since this is only a 40 card set. I keep thinking these are from the '90s, but they're actually 2008 PopCardz. The above photo is not mine, I snagged it off the internet to save time.
Here is a sample back. The info is rather whimsical, but interesting. As you might guess, I just got them for the gorgeous gals. I don't even know who a few of the dudes even are.
Here are my top picks. I threw in Anton since he was in the alternate universe Star Trek movies. But the women outnumber the men by about three to one in the checklist. Perfect!
So as we were settling up, I mentioned to Dave that I was an aspiring Priest Holmes collector. He said he had something I would like and pulled this out:
It's 5 x 8 inches and is a deluxe addition to the other two I have that are just plain red or white swatches. This one's a sick patch that appears to me to be the upper left corner of his nameplate (the bottom of the H in Holmes) and the top corner of the 3, all turned 90°. What a surprising find that was!
We actually returned a day or two later to see what else we could dig up, but I don't recall which of this stuff I got on which trip. Thanks again to Dave.