And Our Long National Nightmare...

...is over! Leroy Ellis, newly minted (in 1970) Portland Trailblazers pivot, had an eventful trip (in cardboard form) from North Carolina to my house recently. Ellis' card was the last I needed for my 1970-71 Topps basketball set. It was one of several SPs that finally dipped into my price range in the last few months.

My patience paid off when I found one at a really nice price on eBay. It was even bundled with a second card (Hi Earl!) at a cost below what I had been seeing online for just the Ellis card. So I grabbed it. Weeks went by and then I received a note from the seller..."Your package came back as 'undeliverable, no known forwarding address' ".

That was pretty weird considering I've lived in the same house since 1983. But the seller, HomePlateCards, said they would resend and refused to let me at least help with the re-shipping. A couple of days later I had Leroy Ellis in hand and soon 'in binder' and another set is put to bed.

Leroy Ellis was a durable, quick center for a decade and a half in the NBA. He averaged 8 rebounds and just under ten points a game. He was never an All-Star but you don't play that long without skills. That card shows him in his Bullets warmups.

The second card, of Earl the Pearl Monroe, isn't an upgrade on the one in my set already but it'll find a spot in my 'favorite hoops guys' binder. He was fun to watch with his head fakes and spin moves.

 I'm expecting the final card from the other set I've been actively chasing to arrive in a day or so. That one will be the case for more celebrating.

A little bit of Earl Monroe as the NBA season approaches:

A Not-So-Great Show

I spent last Saturday at the summer edition of Houston's twice-yearly TriStar shows. I've been to countless shows of theirs so I thought I knew what to expect. But I was wrong. The show, at least for the five hours or so I was there, was underwhelming. The crowd was thinner than usual, few dealers with vintage bargains were on hand and the fun, oddball type stuff I usually come across was nowhere to be found.  Even the usual madcap autograph lines which normally hinder getting around that area of the show were missing.

After dropping $27 for parking plus admission I was pretty disappointed. I ended up making just a handful of purchases. I hit one dealer who had '62 Topps at decent prices and found a couple of dozen for my set build. He cut me a deal so the cards came in under what I would have paid on eBay. I also bought a sorting tray and several boxes of 9 pockets. You know the show isn't good when I browse the supply vendors for an hour.

I spent quite a bit of time at my friend Darryl's table. He had a newly arrived '62 Gibson which happened to be one of the last remaining 'big ticket' cards I was in need of. It's a beauty as you can see. For once my scanner does a card justice. It's got nice coloring, no scuffs, and sharp corners.

He had marked his dollar bin cards at 10 for $6 and I picked up my usual assortment of  '60s and 70s cards. I grabbed players I collect and stuff that catches my eye. I should know better than to add to the cards I have stacked on my desk waiting to be sorted but I can't help myself.

It was a nice surprise to find this Walt Frazier for my 1970 Hoops set. The stain puts it on my 'upgrade someday' list for about sixty cents it'll do for now.

This Billy Pierce is a dupe but will fill a need when I get around to chasing the '57 set. And that day is coming.

Even if I abandon my 1975 Topps plans I'm going to have a spot for these next two cards. Three player collection guys here among the four pictured. Plus a third baseman I think I've heard of.

Howard Cassady is in rough shape but what the heck, it's a card of 'Hopalong'.

Getting bargains from Darryl is always fun but I came away thinking that I could have picked them up at his hotel show and not paid any admission or to park.

I also found a few vintage cards on other tables. Maybe the lack of customers worked in my favor. I was able to pick up a few and not get elbowed out from in front of the boxes. The cards were either lesser names or in lesser condition.

This next card was my favorite buy of the day (other than the '62 Gibson). The great Bill Russell looking about as 'Seventies' as you can possibly look.

Finally a non-show card. France (and Manchester United) star Paul Pogba. I'm hoping he leads France to a World Cup title tomorrow over Croatia. In WC when I'm out of countries root for (Portugal, Italy, England, USA, Mexico) I root for players.

Project Post inspired by Night Owl

A week ago Night Owl posted about his various hobby projects and that post spurred quite a few other bloggers to do the same. I'm kind of late to the party as usual. I had a very similar post in the works for awhile so NO's entry got me to dust it off and revise it for posting today.

My MO is to be working on a 'primary' project (likely a vintage set) while having others churning in the background. Those secondary ones are usually just my long term PC searches. That's pretty much where I am at the moment. Truth be told though I'm spending most of my time on a project that isn't directly hobby related but certainly will effect my collecting. More about that at the bottom. First things first.

Here is my primary project right now:

1970/71 Topps Basketball

I'm enjoying the ride on this one. It's challenging without being impossible. I'm in need of 32 cards to complete the 175 card set. Plus I'd like to nab the Checklist Two variation. I've got the biggest names knocked off, at least in terms of their regular cards. I need a few All Star cards and some second tier stars. The rest of what I lack are mostly short-printed common players.

I was happy to pick up a very nice Wilt Chamberlain last week. It was significantly less expensive than other examples in similar shape. Patience pays off.

In the same transaction I grabbed these two. The Championship Series cards which land at the end of the checklist command a premium about equal to a semi-star card. May be because NY and LA stars appear on the fronts.

My secondary, ongoing projects:

T206 Baltimore Players

Here's a word to the wise: If you get your checklists from the 1977 edition of the Sports Collector's Bible you are likely going to end up disappointed.  Trust me on this. Years ago I wrote down six cards from Bert Sugar's book into my wantlist thinking they were the Baltimore Orioles represented in the iconic T206 set. Over the course of a few years after I began looking I was able to acquire all six. Turns out that there were nine! I only found this out recently. Luckily none of the three Orioles I was missing were stars or otherwise hard to find.

This card of Sammy Strang is one of the 'missing' three. I picked it up not long ago on eBay. Strang had played 10 major league seasons, mostly with the Giants. He played on their championship 1905 squad and got one at bat in the World series against the Athletics. He led the NL in On Base Percentage in 1906. He finished his career with three seasons in Baltimore with the Eastern League Orioles. He played both the infield and outfield. After his playing days Strang, whose father was a baseball executive, served during World War I and later was a minor league manager and coached baseball at West Point and Georgia Tech.

I hope to complete this small group of cigarette cards in the next few months.

Player Collections

I always look to add to my player collections. I have too many of them for sure and only a few are really being actively pursued but I get a lot of satisfaction from building them. 

My Billy Pierce collection is at a point where the last pieces are going to take some time. There are only a couple of vintage pieces open on my checklist. One is his 1959 Topps Venezuelan #156 Ace Hurlers card that he shares with Robin Roberts. The other is his 1959 Bazooka card. It's an SP and doesn't show up often and when it does it is out of my price range. The other things I look for are 'one offs' and oddballs like ballpark pins and team issued postcards. These things are difficult to checklist and may not even exist. I find press photos all the time but I just don't buy every one that comes along. Outside of those two cards I mentioned I figure my Pierce collection is complete. Of course there are also cards issued post career by Topps and other companies. I collect them as well but do so without a lot of effort or zeal. The ones from Topps use the same photo over and over (sound familiar to you Koufax collectors?) and the differences are just silly in my eyes.

This card, the 2011 Topps 1952 Black Diamond Pierce autograph card, is an example of that sort of thing. It's probably the most costly of the lot and I shouldn't have picked it up but whatcha gonna do? I don't know how collectors who chase some of the more popular players deal with stuff like this. 

A couple of years ago I read Chief Bender's biography and found him to be a fascinating baseball figure. Since then I've tried to collect his cards. Obviously many of them are very pricey and will never find their way into my collection but combing through eBay for bargains is fun. Right now I have about a half dozen vintage Bender cards. This 1940 Play Ball was issued after his career was over obviously but it's still a great card.

Other player collections...Elston Howard, Johnny Callison, Bob Moose, Juan Pizzaro, Connie Hawkins, numerous Orioles and Baltimore Colts players and several more are all checklisted to one extent or another. I poke around at card shows and online and add things that I come across but none are complete nor am I confident that my checklists are even accurate. That's a long term project.

After ignoring many of these collections for awhile I checked a few of my eBay saved searches recently and found this Bob Moose ARCO collectible. It's an 8x10 photo and I like that the back mentions his no-hitter that I witnessed at Shea Stadium in 1969.

The Baltimore Colts

As with Billy Pierce I don't have much in the way of vintage mainstream cards to find for my ongoing Colts collection. Just a few of the Fleer Super Bowl cards and a Topps premium/insert or two remain. In the meantime I pick up the stray modern card of Baltimore Colt players and oddball pieces that turn up here and there. I had this this on the front bumper of my '64  Malibu SS back when I was tooling around campus back in the 70s. That is until a cop stopped me and informed me that I needed to put my state-issued plate back on or get a ticket. I since lost the Colts plate but found came across it in my garage a year or two ago. It now sits proudly on my office wall.

Non-Sports Sketch cards

I've set this aside for the time being. Every few weeks I check eBay for Batman and Mars Attacks sketch cards but not much has surfaced that looks nice (and affordable enough) to go after. I won't call these 'complete' but I am satisfied with what I currently have. The same can be said for my pins and postcards. I'm in a holding pattern at the moment. 

Publications

I've finished my goals for the most part. I have a straight run of Orioles yearbooks and media guides from 1954 through today with the exception of the '54 and '56 guides. I collect game programs but have never worried about having one from each year. Maybe one day I'll see if I'm close to a full run. I'm pretty sure I am. My Baltimore Colts media guide collection is complete. As with the Orioles I dabble in game programs but don't have very many. I have spent some time working on my New York Rangers publications lately. I have about half of their Blue Book/media guide run that they began in the early 60s. I'll never finish it but filling in the gaps in my 80s and 90s shelves is cheap enough.

Fantasy Sports Collection

I have been running a fantasy football league for college friends and some new arrivals since 1980. I've been playing fantasy baseball in multiple leagues for about the last seven years. Every player I've ever 'owned' on all those teams is represented in my fantasy baseball or football binders. Sometimes I've had to make my own custom cards, sometimes I've bought custom ones on the net. But the vast majority are actual cards and my goal is to have as many different sets represented as possible.

The only current cards I seek out are those of my players. This '18 Heritage card of Alex Colome came in my only pack of this year's Topps I've bought. It will push out his '17 Topps card since I have a bunch of those in my baseball binder.

Over on the football side I'm always looking for cards of players who are now represented by those custom cards. A real card, even a throwback always bumps a custom. But I doubt I'll see Elton Veals or Kyle Mackey for example in a Donruss or Score set anytime soon.

With this year's baseball draft coming up in a couple of weeks I'll be back in the market for singles of my players. I wish I had the internal fortitude to wait until the season was over and nab each one in a single transaction on COMC. Not happening I'm afraid. I'm too anal. I need a card of the guy I picked up on waivers NOW! The good thing is I've stockpiled a 400 count box of current players so hopefully that'll cover most of my players.

My next project:

1962 Topps(?)

I told myself I wouldn't take on another vintage Topps baseball chase after I finished the 1970 set. And I'm not sure I really will. But the itch is still there. I recently picked up a small '62 Topps lot. through a collector I know via an online forum. The cards are in 'collectible' condition (for me that's VG or better) and came pretty cheaply.

Even in my weaker moments when I was thinking about a new project I hadn't really considered the '62 set as a goal. It's not terribly popular (but that might make it more easily obtainable). Plus I was leaning towards 'bookending' my '59-'60 run with either the '57 or '61 set if and when I did give in to my urge. I also considered doing the '1966 set to commemorate the Orioles first title.

If I do take on the '62 set I have a decent head-start. I have the Orioles of course, some stars and dupes of guys in my PCs. Plus I have the starter lot now. Darrell at the hotel card show has plenty of these in his bargain bins and always cuts me a good deal. My secret weapon though might be my friend Bobby who has a boatload of all the early '60s sets and could probably be persuaded to sell me some dupes. His cards are in remarkable condition.

There is no urgency to this one. A vintage set chase is a big commitment in terms of cash and time. I still might back out. 

My over-riding and most urgent project

Organization and re-claiming space!!

I mentioned above that I've run a fantasy football league for almost four decades. This fall we will play our 39th season. For most of that time I printed and saved all sorts of statistical stuff. Sometimes it was for or five pages a week or more. That's not counting draft and transaction histories, rosters etc. And until about 2007 or so I produced, printed and mailed a weekly newsletter to all the owners. And I've kept every single scrap of it in binders. Those binders took up multiple shelves and I had more sitting in the top of my closet. I finally decided enough was enough.

A few weeks after I retired in December I began a long term project to get rid of it all. I pulled all the binders, culled out the multiple copies of some stat sheets I kept and began a huge scanning project. I'm turning the whole mess into digital format. I tried out different .pdf freeware programs and have settled on a good one. Each season's paperwork is going to become a single file. It's slow going but I'm making headway. I have ten seasons of paper scanned, saved digitally and then tossed in the recycling bin. I have other seasons through 2004 in manila folders under my desk and ready to scan. It's amazing what reducing a dozen 3" and 4'' binders to one thumb drive and one remaining binder will do for your shelf space.

That space and those binders will be put to good use. All my PCs and sets currently in boxes will be put in sheets and bindered. That is something that is long overdue. I also plan to combine the digital files that all this fantasy stuff has generated since we went fully online in 2008 into single .pdf files. My goal is to finish this all by the end of the year.

That's it for my hobby project update. Apologies if you fell asleep halfway through and hit your head on the keyboard.

The Best Thing About Card Shows....

...is enjoying them with friends, both old and new. I hit up the TriStar show here in Houston this past weekend. I thought it was one of the better shows they've had in awhile. That may be because there didn't seem to be the huge autograph lines that I've encountered in the past. Mostly I think it was the quality of the dealers in attendance.

And I mentioned friends. I met up with Bru who pens the entertaining Remember The Astrodome blog. Great guy and I enjoyed talking collections as we walked. If you check his latest blog entries you'll see he did pretty well at the show. Local collectors like him had a real bonanza of Astros 'stuff'' to drool over. Winning a title does that. I'd like to hit a Baltimore area show one day. I'd probably go broke.

I also bumped into one of oldest friends. Bobby has by far the best collection of vintage cards I've ever seen. He's considering selling off a chuck of it and it was fun to watch the dealers go bug-eyed when he showed them what he had in his case.

As for me..well this was one of those rare shows that I left without having bought a single baseball card. But I did end up with this:

I've had this 1958 All Star program on my want list for many years. I never seemed to be able to find on in decent condition with a price tag I could live with. One of the show dealers had a terrific variety of vintage publications, and what a display it was. I paid dearly for this but he also had a '93 ASG program so I made him an offer on the pair. He accepted without counter-offering which makes me think I could have gone lower but it was worth the cost.

Both programs came with ticket stubs from the games. Pretty good selling point!

I'm going to do a separate post on the '58 program so I'll save the details for that one. But there was more at the show than just programs.....

Bro surprised me with a sweet 8x10 of Milt Pappas. My collection of Orioles photos needs to see the light of day so Bru's gift (he got it in a lot of pics at an estate sale) inspired me to snag a box of binder pages for them. One of my retirement projects is to organize my photos. I love the fact that this one was taken at Yankee Stadium where I saw so many Orioles games as a kid. That's Herm Starrette in the background.

Next to the programs my biggest purchase was a stack of '70/'71 Topps basketball cards. One dealer had multiples of most every common and some SPs in wonderful condition. His prices were reasonable so I knocked about 50 cards from my wantlist.

It's a weird and wonderful set full of odd poses, reversed jerseys,dopey expressions and tons of color. I love it. I'll just post a handful here.

Jim Barnes as an Olympic gold medal winner with the US team in 1964 and led an interesting if somewhat tragic life.

He bounced around the NBA and carried with him the nickname of 'Bad News'. I love that Topps used it for his cartoon in this set.

Here's a closer look:

Nate Thurmond may be the most overlooked star in NBA history. He could flat out play. When I was coaching my sons in youth basketball one of the opposing coaches came over after a game and said "Your big boy rebounds like Nate Thurmond!" When he said that I knew the guy knew his hoops.

This is one crazy card though. 

Gus Johnson was a fun guy to watch. He played for the Bullets when I was a fan of the club and would fly down the key and rattle the rim with slams. He was like Connie Hawkins with a bit less 'flash'.

And again Topps did a great job with the cartoon.

Behold! "Gus has a gold tooth."

Topps also threw in actual un-retouched photos like this one. Like I said, a weird set!

I also came one card closer to finishing off my 1972 Icee Bear NBA set. The Hawk looking very badass.

My last purchase was a spur of the moment thing. One of the bigger private signing outfits always has a large table at TriStar shows and sometimes sells off excess merchandise at good prices. I have a rather tattered copy of the actual SI cover but I wanted this Big E signed photo-copy for the UH wall in my home office.

I like the big card shows but they are hard on my hip and back. I'm looking forward to the upcoming small hotel shows. I'm sure I won't leave the next one of those without at least one baseball card!

Tales from the Card Show

OK, I really don't have any 'tales' of this past Saturday's hotel card show. I didn't even stay that long. But I did bring back a rather large piece of a set I've been working on (off and on) for a very long time...the Pete Maravich rookie from the 70/71 Topps hoops set.

It's a weird and wonderful set, maybe the last set I bought from packs before college life took over and I put collecting on a back burner. I'm waiting on an Amazon delivery of the six pocket sheets these cards require. I'm going to finally get this one organized and make an attempt to finish it in 2018.

It's also one of those sets in which the backs are more interesting than the fronts. The Pistol gets a glowing write-up on this one to go along with his vitals, his college numbers (he averaged over 44 points a game at LSU) and a cartoon that mentions that his father (Press Maravich) was his college coach.

I never saw Pete play in person as a collegian but I had just started working for the UH Rec/IM department when LSU played in a holiday season tournament against the Cougars in the Astrodome in 1971/72. Press was still their coach but the Coogs prevailed.

Speaking of the University of Houston....I was thrilled to see Case Keenum's magical moment on Sunday. That last play TD pass to Stefon Diggs and the ensuing media attention is something Case richly deserves after a long uphill fight to grab a bit of NFL glory. He was overlooked coming out of high school (UH was his only offer), ignored by the Heisman voters despite his eye-popping stats, spurned by the NFL scouts ('too small, weak arm, system qb' etc)and undervalued by the teams he played for. He's a class guy who deserves every second in the spotlight.

Houston's first alum to play QB in the NFL was this guy, Bobby Clatterback who was drafted by the New York Football Giants in 1954. He was a 27th round pick! He muscled his way past a couple of much higher previous picks to win the back-up job in New York and played for several years before finishing with the AFL's LA Chargers in 1960.

I guess finding his 1955 Bowman in the dollar bin at the show on Saturday should have tipped me off that Case was destined for a memorable weekend.

Almost all the hockey cards I add to my collection come through the generosity of fellow bloggers. But I managed to find a couple of Rangers in the bargain bins. Unless you were a Rangers fan in the 60s and early 70s it's hard to fathom just how popular Rod Gilbert was.

Jean Ratelle partnered with Gilbert and Vic Hatfield on a line known as the "GAG Line"...as in Goal A Game. When the Rangers traded him AND Brad Park to the Bruins for Phil Esposito I was beside myself.

These cards are from the 1969/70 Topps set. That was my last year to live in hockey country. I don't remember the stamps that apparently were inserts and were supposed to be applied to the back of the cards. The Cardboard Connection site says this:

Any card that has a stamp attached to its back will be considered to be damaged. 

To which I bull. Those stamps are awesome additions!

I grabbed a few other vintage cheapies as well. No specific reason other than I liked them and I knew that Darrell, the show promoter whose tables I haunt, would knock the price down to nearly nothing since I was buying the Maravich from him.

Love the old Browns uni and mascot on Lou Groza's 1955 Bowman. 

Of course Topps bought Bowman the following year and used the same pic on his '57 card.

Chuck Bednarik was famous for being a two-way player. He was a center and linebacker for the Eagles and was the guy old farts always mentioned when they were comparing the 'toughness' of then-current players and those of days gone by. I once bought a large print of the famous Bednarik photo of him standing over a KO'd Frank Gifford and was intending to mail it to him for signing when he passed away in 2015. He was a prolific signer who famously would inscribe a few lines about the hit. Check out the video below the '56 Topps I bought.

George Shaw's '56 Topps was one of several Colts cards I bought because they had a chance to be better than the ones in my All Time Colts collection binder. Shaw's card wasn't but one or two others were.

Finally I selected this 1956 Sandy Amoros. Why?  #1) I dig the set (who doesn't?) #2) It's got Yogi Berra there on the card, a fun guest appearance and #3) I'm sure someone out there needs this card.

That's pretty much all I could do in my short visit. I grabbed a few cards for some other bloggers but Darrell seems to have rotated his oddball box off his tables which was a disappointment. He had some real gems in that thing in months past. I forgot to ask him about it. 

The huge TriStar show blows through Houston next month. It's always fun to wander around a couple of hundred dealer tables of 'stuff'. Negotiating around the lines of folks waiting for the (seemingly) 4000 autograph signers..well that's a different story.