Retired Players

Retirement is nice.

Though we've regressed to the point of staying up really late and consequently waking up close to 11AM most days.  We'll have to get back to responsible adulting in August when Angela goes back to work.

But there has been progress. The card room is shaping up nicely.  I'll do a post on it when the floor is completely cleared.  I've got all the boxes and binders pretty much in their place, and most of the extra stuff is within reach.  There are still piles to put away and cards in the spare bedroom to sort and move.

This past Tuesday, we even went to Kevin's Cards in Greencastle and spent four hours digging out singles.  She found several of her PC guys and I got some SPs and Jayden Daniels.  I haven't taken pictures of those yet, so hopefully I don't forget and you can see them.

But this post is for an eBay purchase I made in May.  (This is how far behind I am with certain things.)  The seller, andmalts, had all kinds of inserts, reprints, parallels, obscure issues, etc.  Everything from '60's Topps stamps, 80's TCMA and Fritsch sets, 90's base and insert singles, to last year's hockey parallels, and more.

I loaded up on my PC guys things that I didn't have and haven't seen very often.

Starting off with a reprint of Charlie Keller's Tip Top Bread from 1947.  I have a decent condition original, but sprung for the rerun anyway. 

Here's the back.

Another Charlie Keller original that I didn't have.  I don't think postcards are usually 3½" tall, but I might be wrong.  Bud is a standard size card for scale.  

The back doesn't feel like it matches the size, but it's real.

Bud is also paired with these two postcard size 1986 Big Apple 3x5 cards.  It's a 12 card set of Mets and Yankees.  They are blank backed.

More Mets, this time from Kahn's in '91.  These are well made.

Manny Sanguillen in the other of two TCMA All-Time Pirates sets.  This one has the front in red.  I think the backs on the other set are white too.

Julio Franco from the Starting Lineup figures.  I would chase the actual figures, but I don't have space to display things like that.  I took down most of the stuff I had on the baseball cabinet and boxed it up and sent it all to the basement. Trying to keep it simple in this version of the card room.

A pair of Carlton Fisk additions to his PC.  Starting lineup from the same set (1988), and a Mr. Turkey Superstar.  Hadn't heard of those until I saw this listing.  Tempted to get the whole set just for the goofy name.

 

And finally, two more from the humongous Target Dodgers set.  Ron Fairly (RIP) and a very young Pete Richert.

That's it for today.  I hope to get in a few more posts this month.  Have a couple in the works, but there's so much to do around here, we'll see.

Ephrata Is Not Fancy

Made it up to the Ephrata show again this year.  Since the Dulles Expo Center has been sold, the 3-per-year Chantilly show isn't happening until the fall when their new mall building renovation is complete.  So this may be the biggest show I get to for a while.  Ephrata is halfway between Lancaster and Reading and is still an hour and a half from the new Hivemind HQ, even though I'm farther north.

The show is largely vintage cards, which is more of a rarity these days.  I concentrated on my two 60's set builds, but still got a few other player collection things and some stuff for Angela too.

They always have one signer - this year was Penn State star Lavar Arrington.  I might have had him autograph something Redskins, but passed.  I still haven't really seen where they do the signing in the building.  It's not near the show floor.

On to the loot.  Found a couple more Jordan Addisons for my PC.  The Vikings picked up his fifth year option. 

Mahomes was one of the last two inserts I need for 2019 Score completion.  (The other is the Josh Allen Signal Callers.)  Brady is a promo for the 2005 Throwback set.  Been looking for that for a while.  Figured I better grab it even though it was five bucks.  His stuff will probably only get worse that way. 

Some interesting additions to my baseball PCs.  The Sutter was the first parallel for his 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversaries.  The other three were the only things I got from my usual insert guy, who lives near the show but I've seen him just about everywhere else but there.  He only had the current year Heritage, flagship, and Bowman.

Was hoping to find a few obscure Phillies issues of Puddin' Head Jones, but only found this playing card.  Bake is from the 1978 SSPC set, which I still need a lot of my other PC guys from.

The fancy parallel Brett Favre from the top is here with the rest of his that I got for quarters or dollars for Angela.  We just got a 230 count trade of all Bretts this past week, (thanks Jake Gepner from TCDB) so his numbers are soaring.  Had to put him in his own 3" binder already.

The Manning brothers made a brief appearance in those same boxes.  I'm still educating Angela on the distinctions between refractors and x-fractors etc.  She does like shiny.

On to my vintage builds.  Struck three of the checklist variations for 1961 Topps.  The first two have differences on the back, and the third is Aparicio's name as highlighted in red.

I had just traded for a 4th series checklist as well, but unfortunately, neither one of them will likely be the final resident of my set.  

The one I got at the show turned out to have creases on the top corners.... 

And the one I traded for had been marked and erased.  The previous owner had alerted me to this ahead of time.  If anyone wants one for their collection, let me know.

Moving to 1963, these are all high number short prints.  Felt good to find most of these for half or less of the typical $15 price tag without being in lousy condition.

The rookies are the variations with either '62 or '63 up top.  I have the other flavors already.  Maris looks so sad, I'm not sure why.  Herzog and McDaniel were a couple of the low series I hadn't found good copies of until now.

And finally, I got a bargain on Roberto, and the only catch is the small crease through the top of his hat, and a pencil mark in the upper part of the inset circle that rubbed off pretty decently.  I'll take it for two digits instead of three. 

And that wraps up my show haul.  Not sure when the next show will be, but it will probably be one of those where half the tables have Pokémon, which is fine.  See you then!

Speaking Of Assimilations....

Not sure if five weeks is the longest I've gone without posting, but it's probably close.  I feel like half the time I'm apologizing for my absence on here.  Well, I am sorry I haven't been around, but I'm not sorry about why.  Without going into too much detail, it's basically been a whirlwind romance.  It started late last year, took a while to get going, and then took off about April or so.  We've been dating steadily since May, and it just keeps getting better.  We match so well on so many levels, that it's been relatively easy.  It's amazing to both of us how it's gotten to this point.

But anyway, enough of the mushy stuff, you guys want to see cards!

I did manage to make the July Chantilly show on what used to be Sneak Preview Day (Friday) but is now basically a whole third (first) day.  The show now runs 1PM to 8PM, instead of starting at 5.  I got through the bulk of it all, but really just hit most of my favorite dealers.

This is an amalgamation of several purchases, all of which are for player collections.  The first things I found were the Safelon discs from '76.  I have a big list of '76 and '77 discs for my PC guys, but this flavor wasn't even on it.  Got all but three or so of the guys I seek.  

The Sutter is a '79 Hostess, which are somehow the most elusive year.  I still need about a half dozen of my guys.  Have just about all the rest except for a few SPs.   Bo Jackson was from yet another new unknown football set that just came out.  The Dusty & son is from the current Archives issue, and of course, I will snag anything Jordan Addison.

Knocked out the better part of my '62 Post HOF'ers with this batch from my man Steve B.  Still looking for a good starter lot of commons, but most of the big names are found.  I continued to strike some other vintage-ish wants with him too...

Almost finished the '69 Fleer World Series from the starter I got from the set hoard.  If I'd have started them with Steve, they might be even better.  These were nicer than any I have already.  

These aren't the ones with the team logo stickers, they're the blue backs.

Stepped over to my regular current insert guy and massacred my list of silver parallels to '24 A&G.  There were still two full snap boxes that I didn't go through, but my list was so huge, I was afraid of too many duplicates.  Still ended up with a half dozen of these that I actually didn't need.  Also got some '23 Heritage short prints and a few other misc. items.

Moved on to Stan's and filled out these '61 Golden Press'ers.  Down to Ott, Ruth, Foxx and  and Wagner.

Also got three of the four '65s from him.  The last purchase of the day was the "C. Canizzaro" flavor of the 1st Checklist from Uncle Dicks.  This completes my '65 Topps set!

Thanks for stopping by!  Can't guarantee any better frequency of posting, but I can say that I'm jumping right into the 1963 Topps set.  Stay tuned for that!

Adiós El Tiante (part 2)

Luis Tiant was my favorite baseball PC player.  He passed away on the 8th at the age of 83.

Here is everything I have of his that isn't really a plain standard card.

I've got a bunch of these Sportscaster game cards of my PC players.  One of these days I'm going to have to plow through all the listings to see which ones I'm still missing.  They aren't necessarily listed by player - like this one - so it's a bit tougher to research.

These Linnett portraits are a little smaller than the Sportscasters.  They are very colorful and very '70's.

This Metallic Impressions is from 1993.  I just got this one last month or so.  Actually got two of them - bought one and got one in trade around the same time.  Might work out if I can trade it for the other four PC guys I need from that set - Blue, Bonds, Foster and Lolich.

Also from 1993, the BAT card from UD All-Time Heroes.  Technically, this is the base card.  There are no other kind in the set.  I always think these are an insert from the 1994 set, but I'm wrong.  The whole deal in '93 are these derivatives of the old T202 Triple Folders.

One of the seven PC guys in these 2024 Oversize '75 box toppers from Heritage.  I still need Guidry and Tenace to finish them.  I wish Heritage did more with retired players, but I guess that's what Archives is. 

Speaking of which, here are two autographed Archives cards.  But these are just in-person signed, as opposed to the officially sanctioned flavor with the bigger stamp - like this one.  I didn't remember these were what they are until I pulled them for this post.

Here's both sides of the same situation.  The one on the left is an encased and serial numbered issued autograph.  The one on the right is a base card with an IP auto.  That one was probably cheap.

Here are two more recent officially issued signatures.  The Prizm is a bit over the top gaudy - must have also been cheap or I might have passed it by.

Surprisingly, this is the only jersey I have of Luis.  I don't strive to pile these up for most of my PC's except for the few I'm going for supercollector status with.  Nice looking card though.

And finally, a quadruple dual jersey of Boston's finest numbered out of 75.  You could argue I need a second one for my Fisk collection.  I would say that it's too bad that Dwight Evans and Cecil Cooper weren't the other two players featured.  Then I would have 100% player collection guys on it.  Oh well, I like Rice & Lynn too. 

And that wraps it up for my Tiant collection.  Hope you enjoyed. 

A lot of my PC's started when I had a few cards of the same player and I just liked him.  Tiant was definitely one of the coolest dudes to play the game.  He was funny and kinda badass at the same time.  Plus, he was a loyal and caring family man, as you could see in the program about bringing his parents to America.  I appreciate players much more when they're good people too.

Adiós El Tiante (part 1)

Just a day after I posted about my favorite football PC player's birthday, my favorite baseball PC player passed away.  Luis Tiant was 83.

This 6" x 9" MLB photo decorates the cover of the first of nine binders that house all my baseball player collections.  Luis' cards are right up front.  There are 13 pages from the binder and several other things, so I'll split this into two posts since there are 27 images.  

Here is everything I have of his so far....

It all starts with the personalized IP autographed 1965 Topps rookie card.  Somewhere I had a picture of he and I when I got that signed, but I can't find it.  Not a great shot anyway and he seemed like he wasn't enjoying himself that day.  I just started the '65 set, so I'll need another one at some point for that.  

Found one of the '69 Topps highlights with his signature on it too.  Don't think it was very expensive.  Going through my collection to make these scans, I realize how bad some of these vintage cards are as far as centering.  That '66 is terrible.

The second page is a 9-pocket mini sheet with several inserts and oddballs.  (The bottom slots are empty so I cropped them out.)  A '69 Topps transfer, the regular and OPC deckle edges, a Dell photostamp, a Milton Bradley, and the '70 Kellogg's.  

The O-Pee-Chee versions of the '69 League Leaders cards begin page 3.  As a rule, I put Topps first, then Hostess and Kellogg's, then any others after that.  That changes in 1980 when Topps is no longer the dominant company.  The middle card is a Kahn's.  It might be '70, but only fits in the middle page slot sideways.  There will be a bunch of odd-sized items later that live in the odd-size binder, but that Kahn's just didn't have a good spot in that one, so it stays here.  And those '70 "Supers" aren't really super-sized.

The next page has holes - mostly for OPC versions.  Tiant has no '72 cards.  He was injured and spent significant time in the minors in '71 according to the back of the '73 cards.  I left a slot open for the OPC ERA Leaders below the base card, and for the '74 OPC below the base Topps too.  It works out better to show the pairs this way with an odd number of pockets. 

More from the '75 design later.  That SSPC is such a funny shot.  It looks like he's thinking "If this fool doesn't take the picture and get out of my way, I'm gonna sock him in the mouth!"

More OPC's, a cloth sticker, and a '79 Burger King that is like a Traded card.  Ya gotta love the pairings of the late '70's Topps & OPC's when a player changes teams.

Here's where the order switches.  All companies are in alphabetical order now.  I stuck that little stamp from '83 with the Donruss.  It's actually in a folded penny sleeve draped over the card.

Now it gets really diverse.  Senior Leagues, Swell, Line Drive, Minor Leagues, and Action Packed.

Moving on to post-career issues.  Ted Williams, Upper Deck, Fleer, etc.

Lots of reprinted images in this section.  Archives, Fan Favorites, Retired Signature, and the more uncommon Shoebox Topps issues, among others.

Now the finishes get more fancy then the photo selections.  I'm sure there are a lot more out there that would expand this part of the PC.

More retired player sets, more repeated pictures.  I think there are even more parallels of those Absolute Heroes.  I'm sure I'm still looking for the pewter '06 Greats.

And finally, you have the Topps Chrome Anniversary premiere edition and all the parallels, along with a few of the other issues from around the same year.  The base and Mustaches card are online exclusives.  The Archives '75 isn't what I was talking about before.  This year's Heritage box toppers are even nicer.

Had one straggler stuck on the back of the last page.  Didn't want to start another sheet just for one card.

Stay tuned for part two - all shapes and sizes - plus the mojo hits and a non-card item or two.