Somebody needs these

I frequently go through bloggers' wantlists to see if I might have anything they are looking for. I know most of you do this. Sometimes I see something that may help fill someone's needs that is close at hand. I keep a lot of my vintage dupes and other more current cards that I have no need for in storage boxes under a daybed our cat's lounging platform in my home office.

But sometimes I'm pretty sure I have an item stowed away in my hobby closet. Those take some digging to find and in that case I make a note to remind myself to look for it the next time I venture into the holy hell that is my storage area. I do the same thing with items I see that other people blog about that have peaked my interest.

A couple of weeks (months) ago I stuck this Post-it on my monitor:

I know it's not an 'I need to buy these' note because I finished the '63 Fleer set a year or two ago. And I ended up with a bunch of dupes. This morning I ventured into my closet in search of something else and came across my Fleer dupes and pulled out the Aspromonte and Pearson. So now I can fill someone(s) needs!

Except for one big problem. I failed to note whose wantlist(s) prompted me to make that note. I have the feeling that the two cards are sought by different people because I clearly added Pearson's name after I made the note with the Aspromonte. I've sort of half-assed it checking some blogs and I can't find the right one. Maybe whoever needed them has already filled the slots. But maybe not.

So I ask you...is either (or both) of these cards on your wantlist? If so get in touch and I'll get them to you on my next post office run.

1963 Fleer Checklist

The last card I needed for my 1963 Fleer set was the most elusive of the 67 cards. The checklist was substituted for Joe Adcock's card in some of the print runs and therefore both can be considered SPs. But of course kids tended to mark the checklist so finding one in 'collectible' condition can be problematic.

I'm not sure how many of these I looked at and almost snapped up at prices of close to $100 and above. And there are a lot around in the $60-$75 range that I could have lived with. But I was resigned to paying the price for one that wasn't really beaten up. I searched eBay and COMC every day once I decided to finish this cool little set.

Finally this one popped up on COMC. Looks like a couple of boxes were marked at one time but overall, with nice colors, good corners and barely a mark it was a steal at ~$50.

I don't know why I don't exercise the same kind of patience in all my hobby endeavours. But I'm glad I did this time because it paid off very well.

'63 Fleer Roberto Clemente

I was lucky enough to see Roberto Clemente play. He made two of the most ridiculous plays I've ever witnessed. One came in the very first game I saw in the Astrodome, July of 1967. Rusty Staub singled and when a subsequent Astro singled to right Clemente made a throw that reached third on a line and froze Rusty Staub who had to stop at second. Doesn't sound like a big deal but the throw just stunned the crowd.

A couple of years later he climbed the fence along the first base line as me made a catch in Bob Moose's no-hitter at Shea in September of 1969. I'd be surprised if that one isn't on YouTube somewhere.

Here is his 1963 Fleer card, the last of the regular cards I picked up in this set. I've since added the Checklist and I'll post that and a few others in the near future.

This may be my favorite Clemente card. The back reminds me that he was originally in the Dodger system. Sorry to bring that up Dodger fans but oh, what might have been.

Freeing Carl Yastrzemski

Nearing the end of my quest to complete the '63 Fleer set and I was down to just a handful of cards. Yaz was one of them. I found a decent enough copy very reasonably priced on eBay and won it with a $14 bid.

The down side? It was in a case. My vague rule of thumb....If it isn't some big-time valuable card and it's needed to complete a set it's coming out to breathe. Busting cards out of their plastic 'prison' always makes me nervous because I've messed up my share but Yaz wasn't all that difficult.

Ten minutes with a couple of small screwdrivers and the Boston hero was back on the scanner and then into his waiting slot in the binder.

You can tell by looking at the top scan that the corners are not as sharp as the scan of the 'free' Yaz make them appear. No matter, I'm very happy that Yaz is out of the case and in the house.

Just a couple of these to go. Let's hope my snipes hold up.

A Few More '63 Fleer

I'm close to finishing this set. I haven't scanned them all but I had a few scans ready to go. These happen to include some of my favorite 'enemy' players (read: non-Orioles).

Bob Gibson was just emerging as a standout when this card was issued. He had been a regular in the Cards' rotation for a couple of seasons and as a first time All Star in 1962 he pitched a couple of innings and allowing a run. I can't say for certain Gibby is the best righthander I've ever seen but he was definitely the most intimidating. Rather than repeat my favorite Gibson memory I'll just link to that post.

Bobby Richardson was a steady Yankee in the middle of their infield for most of the years I watched games at the Stadium growing up. He was an excellent 2nd baseman and pretty good hitter most years. My Dad (and Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto) loved the guy. He's a good TTM signer as well.

I was always a fan of Tommy Davis and always thought of him as a Dodger. In the 1970s he came to Baltimore and showed he had something left in the tank. I was looking at his Baseball reference page and was reminded that he played for the Astros in 1969/70. I had absolutely no memories of him in a Houston uniform and I realized that it's because I was living back in New Jersey during the bulk of those two seasons.

In fact Davis played for ten different teams in his 21 year career. I had no idea. hey, he was third in the 1962 MVP balloting and picked up some scattered MVP votes 14 years later as an Oriole. Cool.

Frank Lary was a really good and very popular pitcher for the Tigers from 1955 thru 1961. He won a career high 23 games in '61 and led the league in complete games, finished third in the Cy Young voting, seventh in the MVP race and earned a Gold Glove. Then his career fell off a cliff thanks to shoulder problems. He had a terrible '62 season but Fleer included him in the set anyway.

When I wasn't rooting for the Dodgers as my NL team I was a fan of the Phils. This isn't among the better cards in the set. Ruben Amaro has his face obscured by the shadow of his cap brim and he doesn't fill much of the frame. But we do get to see some of Wrigley Field so there's that.

I was looking up some stuff on Amaro and clicked thru a couple of links to where I saw that his son, Ruben Jr., is now the first base coach of the Red Sox. Has anyone else ever gone from being a major league GM to a job as a first base coach?

'63 Fleer Don Drysdale and Ron Santo

I've just about wrapped up the '63 Fleer set. I won a cheap auction for a Yaz and I'm looking at adding one more player card, Roberto Clemente as well as the elusive checklist.

Meanwhile here are a couple of the 'stars' of the set, Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Ron Santo. That horrific looking 'crease' across the middle of the Drysdale isn't anywhere near as visible when the card is in hand. That seems to be a recurring theme with these. I'm not sure of why it happens. I guess my scanner just doesn't mesh with this set.

Both of these are Polo Grounds photos. I like how on the Santo card you get a hint of the apartment buildings on Coogan's Bluff behind the stadium.

I scanned the backs side-by-side for some unknown reason but it does serve to show the wide variety of shades of green you can find on these things.

Santo's card points out how his average fell off in 1962 from the previous season. In fact he lost about sixty points from his average and it was the lowest of his career until his last season which he spent with the White Sox.

Drysdale, on the other hand was coming off a career year. He had 25 wins pitching 314 innings. Three hundred inning seasons are a thing of the past. The last pitcher to reach that was Steve Carlton in 1980. If you have a minute scroll down to the bottom of Drysdale's Baseball Reference page and check out how many times he ranked among the leaders in various pitching categories.

1963 Joe Adcock (Short Print)

I picked up the Joe Adcock out of the '63 Fleer set quicker than I thought I would. It's one of the pricier cards in the set. Fleer is said to have pulled the card late in the production run and replaced it with the checklist card (which is the highest cost card of them all).

Note that Big Joe is listed as being on the Indians. But his uni and place in the set (right after Frank Bolling and Warren Spahn of Milwaukee) tells you that he was on the Braves when the set was being planned. Adcock was traded to Cleveland on November 27 of 1962 so Fleer must have had the preliminary checklist in place before then.

Interestingly his name should have put him in front of the other two Braves since the players for each team were numbered in alphabetical order by last name. My guess is that Adcock not only was pulled from production but he was a substitute for another player in the first place.

Looking at the Braves roster from 1962 shows that only Joe Torre is a possibility...his name comes after Spahn's... but he was just a part timer in 1962. The more likely scenario is that Adcock filled the slot originally designated for Richie Ashburn of the Mets who were the next team on the checklist. Ashburn retired after the 1962 season but he had hit .302 and made the All Star team so he was a likely candidate. And that slot would have fit his name since Roger Craig comes next on the checklist.

All that and $2.99 will get you a pack of Topps something or other at Target I think.

But back to the card. For some reason going in to my chasing this set I was under the impression that this card would be second in cost but that wasn't the case. I didn't pay as much for it as I did for the Maury Wills (and maybe the Koufax but I bought that years ago and I don't remember what I paid). I expect to pay more for the Clemente, maybe the Yaz and certainly the checklist. Those are the last three I'm looking for.

Like a lot of the '63 Fleers it's off center but otherwise it's in pretty fair shape. My scanner makes the corners look a bit sharper then they are but overall it was a pretty nice example for the cost. I saw a bunch of these going for more that were not in nearly the condition of this one.

1963 Fleer....Willie Mays and his National League friends

When it came time to pick up the pricier cards from the '63 Fleer set I figured I'd settle for lesser conditioned examples. I mean I'm not opening an art museum or anything. I just like to be able to flip through a binder and appreciate the cards for what they are. 

Willie Mays' '63 Fleer card came from COMC. It was one that had a "Warning: this card has issues" pop-up when you clicked 'add to cart'. Which didn't deter me. The creases aren't as pronounced in hand as they show in the scan. there is some back damage that seems to come from being pasted onto a page but it wasn't a deal breaker for me. The card of a smiling Willie in his old stomping (Polo) Grounds is very welcome in my collection.

Hey kids...It's Maury Wills! On a baseball card! 

Topps failure to sign a young Maury Wills is one of the more well known baseball cards 'legends'. He made a cameo on Topps' 1960 World Series Game #5 card but other than that this is his only appearance on a standard issue card. The yellow diamond on his card got a special MVP designation instead of the usual generic player artwork.

As a kid growing up with a lot of Dodgers fans as friends I was well aware that Wills never had a card from Topps although we never knew the story as to why that was. 

The rest of these were commons from the same purchase.

Bob Aspromonte posing in front of a brick wall. I always think of the old hockey sets that had so many photos of players seemingly taken in the hallway outside the clubhouse. I like the old .45s cap. I have one of those and wear it on my visits to Minute Maid Park when I'm rooting for the Astros (i.e. when they are not playing the Orioles).

Smoky Burgess, pinch hitter deluxe.

And finally one of my favorite Mets, lefty Al Jackson. Yes, back then I did have 'favorite' Mets...right up until October 16, 1969. After that it took about four decades for me to look at the Mets as 'just another team.' Yes, I held a grudge and was pretty bitter, sue me.

But anyway Al Jackson was a Texas-bred member of some terrible Mets' clubs and he always had the reputation as a hard-luck guy who deserved more support. He attended Wiley College which never was much in sports but had a top flight debate team that was made famous in a Denzel Washington movie.

After his active playing days Jackson was a pitching coach in several organizations, including the Orioles. Here is an interesting fact from Al Jackson's Baseball Reference Bullpen page: "A number of pitchers from that awful 1962 Mets team that went 40-120 became pitching coaches besides him, including Roger Craig, Bob Miller and Galen Cisco."

I'm down to seven cards on my '63 Fleer want list including the elusive short printed Checklist. None of the cards are actually hard to find. I just haven't seen them in the condition/price 'sweet spot' I have targeted. I'm very patient.

1963 Fleer Warren Spahn (and friends)

With Spahnie it's all about the angles. Smile tilted one way, nose bent another way, cap brim cocked to a different angle altogether. Add in the terrific Milwaukee Braves gear and the result is almost always one fine baseball card.

I'm now at 56 60 of 66 in my pursuit of the 1963 Fleer set. Spahn was the first 'star' card I picked up once I knocked off almost every common. To get those commons I set myself a goal of collecting them in decent shape and priced at $2 or less. I couldn't quite pull that off but I wasn't much over in most cases. I don't have all 60 in hand yet but with the group I nabbed off COMC last week in route it won't be long.

It may not appear so in the scan but the card of Glen Hobbie shown below is the worst of the 'commons' in terms of condition. That visible crease on the lower right is much longer and more pronounced in hand. But for a dollar card I'm good with it.

Sometimes my friends and I would be captivated by a player due solely to his name. Bill Monbouquette was one such player. We'd like to imitate Red Barber describing a Monbo outing against the Yankees. I can still hear that in my head.

With what I know of Turk Farrell I'm guessing he was a real blast to have as a teammate.

I dabbled with the Phillies as a NL team to follow way back when and Demeter was a favorite of mine. The crease on his card is pretty ugly. This one may some day get upgraded.

Dick Howser on a card that includes a bat rack and the iconic old Yankee Stadium facade and lights. Bonus points for the cool Athletics sleeveless tops. One of my favorite cards in the set. RIP Dick Howser. A baseball 'lifer' whose life ended much too short.

Bob Purkey in the Polo Grounds.

That's old Griffith Stadium behind Tom Chaney. I have no memories of those caps. This is another creased card. Since I bought this one I've seen others in better shape for $2 or less. Sometimes my impatience costs me.

I've posted my remaining needs for this set over near the top of the right side column. I have no illusions of someone discovering that they have a spare Joe Adcock and dropping it on me but, hey you never know.

Like A Hole In My Head

I really should know better than to take on a new project right about now. I am barely posting as it is and I just got caught up on scanned cards over at my 1960 Topps blog. But the 1963 Fleer set jumped into my line of sight at the local card show a couple of weekends back and I couldn't look away.

I recall how my buddies and I loved this one when it hit the stores in New Jersey back in the day. We were amazed that someone other than Topps had put out baseball cards in packs...and with a cookie no less!! I mean we had plenty of Post cereal and Jello cards but these came IN PACKS!

It wasn't that these cards were especially attractive, they are fine as far as that goes, but it was the fact that 1) they weren't Topps and 2) well, they weren't Topps, that held our fascination.

In the back of my mind I've always thought I might one day chase this thing down. I've had the four Orioles cards forever and I have picked up a couple others including the Koufax along the way. Hitting that local show clinched the deal.

I rarely get too far past the very first table at the show. That's the promoter's table and he always has boxes of vintage that he sells cheap. Dime, quarter, dollar boxes, etc. One box he had at the latest show was marked $2 and I dove in. Immediately I found a nice cache of these Fleer cards and heard my wallet screaming to be opened.

I culled out the half dozen dupes and the Orioles in the stack and ended up with 22 cards....one third of the set exactly if you don't count the elusive checklist.

They were in really nice condition for $2 cards. Not mint certainly but they were not 'filler' cards either and none will require upgrading. They were mostly commons with a couple of minor stars like Jim Kaat and Vern Law sprinkled in.

The Leon Wagner up top is among my favorites (we loved his 'Daddy Wags' nickname) and here is a look at the back.

Nothing special about the backs. As usual you could easily mistake them for a Topps product based on the typography Fleer used. But, whatever.

I randomly scanned a few of the others. I think I'll wait until I knock off some of the stars before I post all that I have. I'll post my want list over on the right side column when I get the chance.

Jerry Lumpe in one of the few drab unis in the otherwise colorful Athletics' history.

Lots of Yankee Stadium shots in the set. Here is Jim Landis.

Al Spangler in the Polo Grounds. The Colt .45s  always seemed sort of, I dunno, exotic or something in that era.

Elroy Face in another Polo Grounds setting. I saw maybe two games there as a kid, Mets games not Giants. I hardly remember being there.

Clay Dalrymple at Wrigley. Are his pants split or in that some sort of elastic insert to keep them from splitting?

Awesome Yankee Stadium shot of Tito Francona.

Gene Freese at the Polo Grounds. WABC was the local radio home of the Mets' broadcasts back then. That was also THE station to listen to for rock'n'roll in the 60's. Unless you were a WMCA ("The Good Guys") or WINS ("Murray The K and his Swingin' Soiree") guy.

And finally a very young Jim Kaat.

I've got some snipes in on small lots of cards from this set. I won one last night and was able to pick up five cards (four new) for about $3 a card including the shipping. I'll get there but I'm in no hurry.

Old Time Card Show

I spent some time yesterday at a small hotel card show north of Houston. There used to be at least one every weekend somewhere in town back when card shows (and card shops) were really popular. Free admission, one small meeting room (used to be a ballroom or large meeting room back in the day), a dozen or so dealers and a lot of cheap vintage. And trust me, cheap vintage (of all kinds) was easily the most prevalent collectible in the room. Dime, quarter, fifty cent and/or dollar boxes were on about every table.

I've got about an hour's worth of uninterrupted standing and bending in me these days so that's about how much time I spent there. I ended up spending about twelve bucks and came home with 25 or 30  cards. I had no want list so I just picked out cards that struck my fancy. That may not be as satisfying as finding a 'white whale' in a dime box but it is a lot of fun nonetheless.

First up, a 1967 Frank Howard. I can't look at a Hondo card and not be reminded of my Strat-O-Matic game playing days. His 1969 Stat card was just astounding. He just tore up my replay league with it. 

1965 Masanori Murakami/Dick Estelle rookie. I already have this card but it's one of my favorite Topps cards ever, for reasons I've blogged about previously. The Japanese native is the draw here but Estele has a backstory, too.

It's a scuffed up copy but I couldn't pass it up, even as a dupe.

1979 Willie McCovey. For a quarter? Done deal! McCovey just has an aura. Willie Mays was the Giant you couldn't hardly take your eyes off of. But when you did it was usually to follow the flight of a huge McCovey blast.

1963 Fleer Tom Cheney. I have this idea in the back of my mind that someday I'll seriously chase this set. I don't think anything caused as much of a stir in the St. Mary's School playground in the early 60s as the appearance of the 1963 Fleer packs (that cookie though!) at drug stores in Nutley, NJ. 

I have the Orioles and the Phillies in the set, the Koufax and a couple of others. Yes, I used to like the Phils and I bought the Fleer Phillies in a wave of nostalgia years ago. When I find a '63 Fleer card cheap I'm going to pick it up

1956 Topps Calvin Coolidge. The other night I found a copy of his biography on the 'last chance' rolling cart at Barnes & Nobles. Even with about a half dozen unread books waiting on my book shelves I bought it. This will make a neat bookmark for it. (Tell me you don't do that yourself.)

There was a fairly nice stack of these things on the dealers table, I should have bought more. Maybe I will next month. I have the Lincoln, the Teddy Roosevelt and the LBJ (that one is from the '72 re-issue). So this one is my third card from the '56 set.  The show runs regularly and it appeared to me that the dealers were all regulars. So they will still be around. 

Here's the book, by the way. It got some good reviews. As a 'fan' of the presidency and it's history I'm ashamed to say I know almost nothing about Coolidge, but that'll change once I get around to reading it. 

Here is my wacky card pick-up of the day. It's from the 1966 AB&C Battle Cards set. This is a re-issue of the Topps set of the previous year with a few additional cards tacked on. AB&C did a lot of sets in England,mostly 'soccer' ones and they had ties to Topps. Lots of their footie sets were based on Topps baseball designs.

The set shows 'scenes' from World War II. Why there is a Revolutionary War era soldier gracing the back is a mystery to me. Again, the dealer had a handful of these but I just picked up one. I chose this one because, well, there's a torch carrying Nazi and a leggy blonde damsel-in-distress. My 14-year-old inner self from 1966 made the choice!

I have never heard of this set but here is how Dean's Cards describes it (you can see the checklist there as well):

The original Battle set produced by Topps in 1965 contained 66 cards depicting various battles from World War II.  One year later, A &BC Ltd, an English company, produced a replica set of the Topps issue.  The most notable difference is that the English version consists of 73 cards instead of 66.  The additional seven cards depict leaders and fighters from World War II, including President Roosevelt, General Eisenhowever [sic], the US Marines, the Nazi Army, and several others.  Card #73, the last card in the set, is a checklist card.

I have a bunch of other cards from the show but this is enough for today.