1957 Charlie Neal: Purchase inspired by Night Owl, Post inspired by Fuji

A day or so ago Fuji asked about 'impulse' buying among card collectors, more or less among vintage collectors. He called it a case of 'Love @ 1st Sight' and he asked readers to chime in with their thoughts. He asked specifically:

Have you ever seen a card and knew instantly that you had to own it? If so... what card was it?  What impressed you about the card? Have you purchased it? 

After my usual response to Fuji..."There he is, showing off his teachers' questioning skills again"... I knew instantly what he was talking about. Hell, I do that almost every day while I read these blogs. A couple of more recent instances jumped immediately to mind.

I don't remember where I first saw the 1961 Wes Covington but I do remember thinking "That's just gorgeous. It's art!" And I added it to my Most Wanted Cards page. I hunted for quite awhile for a nice copy at a reasonable price and nailed it earlier this year. Here it is again, just because...

You might remember awhile back that Night Owl showed off his 1957 Charlie Neal card. He expounded on it's beauty. I saw it and knew that I wanted a copy for myself. I thought that before I ever read his text describing the great Schaefer scoreboard visible behind Neal. Throw in the timeless Dodger uni, Brooklyn cap and classic card pose and you have a very collectible card.

I literally went straight to eBay and COMC to find a copy for myself. That's it at the top. In hand it's just as nice as I thought. A couple of added bonuses: the classic 50's era text that Topps provided: "... he can turn on the steam to take an extra base and is also a flashy fielder." Good stuff.

And one thing I hadn't known until the card arrived is that Neal came from Longview, Texas. Well, back when I was in college I made a few trips up there to visit someone I was seeing at the time. Good memories.

So, there you have it. Two cards that I saw and had to have. If I did a post covering all my purchases of that nature it would take all day. Sometimes I think PayPal should have a built-in 'cooling off' period.