Back In The (Horizontal) Saddle

I don't like leaving things undone. And having two set-specific blogs started and more-or-less dormant has been bothering me for months.

After a few false (re)starts, I'm going to finish both my 1958 and 1960 set blogs. I'm going to work on one at a time. I've rolled out some 1960 Topps posts over the last few days and have more in the pipeline.

When I looked back at the first posts I published on these two new set blogs I saw that they were fairly long and detailed. I had done my 1959 blog that way, with what I thought was a good bit of research on each player featured. Attempting the same thing with two more sets, particularly producing them at the same time, burned me out.

I cut back on the length and the frequency of my posts but I still lost interest in working on them. And the fact that feedback for set blogs, particularly those dealing with vintage sets that are not considered classics, is almost nonexistent.

But I recently I've had time to go back and flip through many of my sets and have really fallen back in love with these old gems. I decided that I didn't want these blogs hanging out there undone.

Right now my plan is to work on the 1960 set and see where it takes me. I've condensed the entries to where I can finish them without devoting an entire evening to each one. I'll continue with the '60 set for a while and if I get tired of it I will jump over to my '58 blog and post there. Maybe I'll rotate by month. But I'm determined to finish them.

I hope I can have some folks along for the ride but even if I am posting for myself I like the idea that I am giving these pieces of cardboard a bit of a voice. Wish me luck!

Links to both sets are over in the sidebar. My 1960 blog has fresh content. I hope you'll take a peek.

You Gotta Have Faith

This is a 1960 Topps Venezuelan Billy Pierce. At least I believe it is. Unlike some of the other late 50s/early 60s sets that were distributed in that South American country the 1960 bunch had no identifying markings to distinguish it from it's US cousins.And it doesn't have a different color back like the '64 ones do.

The 1960 Venezuelan set is marked as 'PRTD. IN U.S.A.' along the right edge on the back and the reverse is all in English. The guides say that the cards have a lack of gloss which is sometimes helpful in distinguishing them. But sometimes not.

The scan makes the edges look better than they are, at least in the scan of the front. You get a clearer picture of the condition in the back scan.

I found this one on eBay not long ago and it was really cheap. Considering that it was the first example I've come across in my years of looking I was happy to nab it even in poor condition. Actually it's hard to find any of these in decent shape.

Truth be told if it was in better shape I'd be less inclined to believe it was actually a Venezuelan card. A high percentage of them I see for sale look a lot like this one.

Pierce was on two other cards released by Topps for the Venezuelan market. His 1964 (see below) and the 1959 Ace Hurlers #156 he shares with Robin Roberts. That one is another card I've never seen. The '64 Venezuelan is always on eBay, so much so that I've had to filter it out of my saved eBay search.

Here's a look at it, front and (black ink) back.

On a semi-related note I've discovered that the 1962 Shirriff Billy Pierce coin I've also been hunting forever was never issued. It was one of the 21 coins that were issued in the US by Salada but left out of Shirriff's Canadian version. The fact that it's included in checklists on the Trading Card Database and many other sites has been a false lead I've followed for years. 

'17 Archives...One and Done

OK, technically it's Two and Done since I bought a blaster and a single pack but what the heck. Nothing much to say about these that hasn't already been said a thousand times on better blogs so I'll keep it short. The collation in my blaster sucked. Bigly. I got 19 dupes. In a seven pack blaster. That's ridiculous! So any thoughts I might have had about buying more...gone.

The designs are fine. I liked the 1960 design in 1960. And the year they had it in Heritage. This is cool as well.

The orange Rookie Star cards are just as cool as the originals. One of my favorites.

I noticed that the Bregman RS card is on thinner stock than the other faux 1960s. Dunno why.

1960 card backs were awesome. Loved the Season's Highlights.

I got two Jeters. (shrug)

Same Bregman photo shows up in the '59 Bazooka-style cards.

Some sort of new/old design insert thing.

Coins!! I like these.

The '93 design is pretty nice on these. Congrats to Topps for not recycling the same old tired photos of the long ago guys. And stop the presses! I got an Oriole!!

I think Night Owl made the point about them going to the '82 well once too often. Yup. That Whitey Ford tho. He had one of the coolest cards in last year's Stadium Club and of the ones I got in this Archives blaster his is again the best card. Nice of them to do a Pettitte card with him not in a NYY uni.

Those are the highlights of my 2017 Archives venture. Blaster and a pack ran me $26+tax. This is me thinking about this.

Topps Bobby Locke PC

I never thought I would include Bobby Locke in my list of PCs but here he is. Before I pulled his autograph out of a Heritage pack I really had never given him much thought. I had his 1960 Topps card but I haven't featured it yet on that blog. He has no '58 or '59 cards so I had yet to do any looking into his career.

Locke appeared in five different Topps sets during his career. I picked up the ones I didn't have from eBay last week.

This is his 'rookie' card, the 1960. Pretty standard card with a portrait and a b/w 'action' pose. I'm 99% sure this is a picture taken in Municipal Stadium. Those windows over Locke's right shoulder look a lot like the ones in this one of Rocky Colavito.

The back is where this one shines (well it does to me, I love the 1960 cream/orange/black early series cardbacks. Locke had pitched for the Indians in 1959 after nearly five minor league seasons. The pix were likely taken that season.

Second year Bobby Locke, his 1961 card. It's a high number and cost more than the other put together. It's also my favorite. Note that the picture used is the same as the one in the 1960 'action' shot. more of those windows...Municipal Stadium. 

I'm not a fan of the green cardboard but you get full stats and two cartoons.

Now we are up to 1962. Same background. More than likely the same photo-shoot with the photographer getting his cap-less pic, just in case. With Locke now with the Cubs the cap-less shot came in handy. 

A nice play on his last name in the cartoon caption. Locke didn't make it out of Spring Training as a Cub. He had issues with the the weird 'College of Coaches' idea and he was dealt to the Cardinals in April. He was with them for three weeks before being traded to the Phils. He spent most of the season in the minors.

The '63 and '64 seasons were also mostly minor league years for Locke although he was around in September of '64 to watch the club blow it's big lead in the NL. After a couple of years off Topps' radar in October of '64 he was sold to the Angels. Topps pulled out their 'Locke' file and made him another card. He is listed with the Angels but he never played for them, at least in 1965. He was in the minors before he went to the Reds in a July deal. He pitched a bit in Cincinnati the second half of the year. 

He is obviously in his old Indians uni again here. Only the cap logo is scrubbed out. The pose is also exactly the same as his 1960 'action' shot. This picture is obviously from that same photo session. 

The '65 set rightfully holds a place dear to the hearts of many vintage collectors. It's about damn perfect.

After a couple more seasons spent mostly in the minors Locke appeared in the 1968 set. This is the same photo they'd used in 1962.  It's well within the range of possibility that Topps issued five separate Locke cards over the course of nine years using the pictures taken at one 1959 photo shoot!

He'd returned to the Angels' organization about a year after they had traded him to the Reds and in 1968 he pitched in 29 games, easily his most since 1961. Topps crammed a lot onto the backs of these '68s.

I have two more Locke cards from Topps. This is the 2017 signed Heritage done in the '68 style.

And I picked up another version of the '68, a buyback issued in 2015.

So that's my Bobby Locke 'rainbow'. I know that's not the right term for whatever you call a complete run of a guy's cards but whatever. Bobby turned 83 earlier this month. Here's to many more years of health and happiness with his family.

I found a few other Bobby Locke items including a couple of cool minor league oddballs. Those will hold for another day. Here is a montage of his Topps cardback cartoons:

Let's wrap this up with a handful of off-the-wall facts I found on his SABR bio page.:...

• He debuted in the big leagues with a starting assignment against the Boston Red Sox on June 18 [1959], and in his second at-bat he hit his only major-league home run, a three-run shot off Frank Sullivan over Fenway Park’s Green Monster wall in left field. 
• Locke was born on March 3, 1934, in the little town of Rowes Run in the rough mining country of Southwestern Pennsylvania about 40 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. He was one of ten kids in the family.
• [In high school] he played fullback and defensive back in football and made several all-star teams. He excelled in baseball as a pitcher, throwing two no-hitters and averaging 13 strikeouts a game. His 1952 team went undefeated, and he pitched a one-hitter with 13 strikeouts to win the state championship. Locke played in the Sandlot Classic at the Polo Grounds in New York City as a member of the 1952 USA Baseball All-Star team.
• Locke accepted a football scholarship to Arizona State University but returned home to focus on baseball early in his first gridiron season.

You can read the rest here.

Upgrade Mania

After chasing the '59 Topps set a card or two at a time I decided that a more efficient way to collect a set was to start with a large lot purchase. Doing so gets you a big jump on the set at a reasonable cost per card. Downside being that large but affordable lots invariably contain some filler cards that will need upgrading. That's even true in my case despite my rather liberal view of what makes a card 'acceptable'.

I employed the 'large lot' strategy with the 1960 Topps set, the Civil War News set and most recently with the 1958 Topps set. Each purchased lot definitely had a card or two that fell into the 'I won't even put this into the binder' category.

1960 Topps Don Elston.

This beauty came in my 200 card lot. All-in-all the cards were pretty sweet but this one? Yikes.

Actually the corners were pretty nice but I think I went to eBay the day the cards arrived and found a better one:

Softer corners but at least Elston has a face.  I like to pass along my vintage dupes but there was no way I could put that first one in a PWE. It went in the trash.

1958 Topps Hank Foiles.

The guy who sold me the big lot of '58s had them in a box in card number order. That meant that Hank Foiles here, card #4 in the set, was  right on top. I remember immediately thinking that I'd made a huge mistake. The cards in the listing looked to be in at least Fair shape, most looked better than that. But if this card was representative of what I was getting then even at under a buck a card I was going to be very disappointed.

Luckily the Foiles card was the worst card in the box. By quite a wide margin. Again I had to wonder why the seller had even bothered with it. I didn't do as I did with the '60 Elston and find a replacement right away but I found one for sale on eBay from a seller I've dealt with and loaded it in my cart. I bought it a few days later with some others. Again the replacement Foiles card isn't perfect but it is perfectly fine for my binder.

The new one looks even better when placed alongside the original.

1962 Civil War News 'The War Ends'.

This card came with the original lot I picked up on eBay that averaged about a dollar each. It may be definitely is the worst card I've ever paid for. I had fair warning though. The seller went out of his way to make the condition of some of the cards very clear. He even emailed me about it after I paid.

It was obviously trimmed to include the card number.

With the cost of nice ungraded cards from this set being pretty high (routinely in the $7 to $10+ range) I did well with the lot I bought. So I didn't feel bad for paying $8 for the replacement

It's off-center but nearly every card in the set was miscut, or so it seems from looking at what I have and what is for sale. But other than that it's the nicest example of the nearly 50 CWN cards I now have. Bottom line...CWN #82 went from worst to first in my binder.

I'll continue to play the upgrade game with my 1958 set. But other than the Foiles that will have to be when I'm finished with the thing. 

I think I did pretty well

Please allow me to pat myself on the back (and after the debacle of my last post I need it). What you see above is the photo of the cards contained in the eBay listing that fell into my lap for $21 over the weekend.

Nine 1960 Topps cards that cost me $2 and change apiece with shipping factored in. Even when you take into account that I had the Nellie Fox card already that's quite a deal. Now the Gibson and Mathews cards have creases, and the Colavito isn't great but the others more than make up for it. The Whitey Ford card is in at least excellent condition and the Robin Roberts and Nellie Fox cards are close. The Fox will be an upgrade over the one in my binder now.

I'm saving the actual scans for my 1960 Topps blog but I was so pleased with the cards when they arrived I wanted to show them off.

My New Baby!

After debating this with myself for months I've finally decided that it's time to chase another set and to blog it on a regular basis. I settled on the Topps 1960 set for reasons I explain in the first post over there which you can get to through this link:

1960 Topps Baseball Set...Horizontal Heroes 

I hope you will check it out and after a few reads you'll join it and/or add it to your blogroll. Here's a small preview of some of the cards I've picked up. 

  

As you'll read in post #1 the format is very fluid. I haven't added anyone else's blog to the blogroll over there. That's all coming over the weekend I hope. Let me know what you like and don't like in set specific blogs. All feedback, suggestions and criticisms are very much appreciated!

Topps 1960 Managers Subset... AL Edition

The American League managers in the '60 Topps set have some interesting photos and back-stories. 

Casey Stengel needs no words from me. He's Casey. Paul Richards (his middle name is 'Rapier'... how cool is that?) was a baseball 'lifer' who managed the White Sox and Orioles among the numerous jobs he held in the game. He was the Tigers' regular catcher during the mid-40s and helped them win the 1945 World Series. BTW.. his 1933 Goudy is IMHO among the best baseball cards ever produced:

I like the fact that Memorial Stadium is visible on Richards' managers card.  

Al Lopez played in the majors for 19 years and managed for another 17 winning pennants with the Indians and White Sox. After a 22 year playing career Jimmy Dykes managed six different clubs in the majors, mostly with the White Sox. He never won a pennant.

I love the Nats uniform worn by Cookie Lavagetto on his card. The 'reverse drop-shadow' "W" and pinstripes and not features I usually associate with that team. Billy Jurges never managed a full season. He was hired during the '59 campaign by Boston and fired during May of 1960. He was a three time NL All Star middle infielder.

Joe Gordon's card shows Municipal Stadium in the background. A nice touch. Joe Gordon played for 11 seasons with the Yankees. He made nine All Star squads and was the 1942 AL MVP. His managing record isn't nearly that good but he is a Hall of Famer. 

Bob Elliott is shown in his only year as a big league manager. His playing career covered 15 seasons. He hit .289 and he was selected to multiple All Star squads and was the 1947 NL MVP with the Boston Braves. His nickname was "Mr. Team". And while his card makes him look like everyone's favorite goofy uncle he is not to be confused with the Bob Elliott who made up one half of the radio comedy duo of Bob and Ray. Look 'em up, kids.

Here is a look at the backs of a few of these. I've included the Jimmy Dykes card because it's about as pristine a 1960 card as I've seen outside a grading slab. The back is even whiter than the scan shows. The backs of the '60 set cards tend to brown over time as shown in the Gordon and Alston cards. Jimmy Dykes has escaped that fate for whatever reason. Sharp corners as well.