Card Show Hit & Miss

I hit the hotel card show last Saturday in hopes of knocking out a chunk of my 1974 set needs. I don't think I've yet relayed the backstory on that set. I bought an 800 count box of '74s with the hope of obtaining a fair-sized number of the 660ish cards. Nope. The 'some dupes included' turned out to be multiples upon multiples of many cards. Plus a couple hundred of the traded set. Ugh. Lesson learned.

With want list in hand I spoke to my friend Darryl who runs the show and learned that he had decided to travel light this time, and he had left most of his cheap vintage boxes at home. He had just a few '74s sitting in general bargain boxes. I picked them up and will be happy to see his '74s at this weekend's edition of his show.

Meanwhile, I added a few '57s. I'll have a post showing off some big name, auction house-acquired, '57 star cards this week. Meanwhile, I'll show some of my faves from last Saturday's show.

Not much to say about these other than I'm really getting to love this set with every handful of cards I go through. Elmer Singleton wearing the 'full name' Cubs' jersey with the cap that has the piping. This is an awesome look!

Gus Zernial at Yankee Stadium. Nice card but not as cool as his 1952 Topps!

Here are a couple of Phils at Ebbets Field.

As I noted, I did find some '74s. About a dozen or so. I already had this Don Baylor but I bought this copy because I dig the Yankee Stadium scoreboard background.

I think I already had this Dick Allen card but it's hard to pass on another cheap one. I can keep the first one where it is, in my small, unofficial Dick Allen collection.

Mays as a Met. I'll never get used to it. This card led me down a rabbit hole. I'll get to that in a bit.

The Astros have gone back to wearing orange and blue but their current threads don't hold a candle to the sets they wore back in the day.

Darryl had a stack of Exhibits on his table. Only one interested me and when I looked closer I saw it wasn't an Exhibit card after all. This Guy Lombardo is actually a Mutoscope postcard. Mutoscope was known for it's 'girlie' cards. Like Exhibits, these were sold in vending machines for the most part.

I mentioned that the Willie Mays '74 World Series card sent me down a 'rabbit hole'. I was looking into what he did to merit being the 'face' of Game Two of the '73 series. Turns out (and I had no memories of this) he entered the game as a pinch runner and stayed on as the game went into extras. He got two at bats and drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the 12th in the Mets' win. I noticed that George Stone got the save for New York and I had this Dean Stone card (note the Sox logo on his cap is an artist's addition) on my desk at the time.

I looked to see if Dean was related to George. He's not, but I read a neat story about Dean Stone's only All Star appearance and how he came to become the winning pitcher in that '54 ASG without throwing a pitch. His SABR bio is the best write-up. Recommended reading!

EDIT: Dean Stone passed away almost exactly a year ago at the age of 88. His obit in the Washington Post is here.

So I added a few cards to my two baseball chases. I have added a BUNCH of '74s in the week since but those came via various blog and Twitter friends. I'll catch up with those soon.

Oh, and I will be adding a want list for the 1969 Topps FOOTBALL set today. On the odd chance you have any of these available I'd love to hear from you.