Filling holes in a binder

Yesterday I finally got around to taking the 1974 cards I had acquired from COMC and thru the generosity of a fellow blogger or two (Hi Fuji!!) and putting them in my binder. It struck me that after all this time I still don't know what I think of this set. Ask me today and I'll tell you how much I like it, how I dig the team colors being used, etc

Ask me tomorrow and I'm liable to hand you the binder and never miss it. That sort of parallels how I feel about these specific cards, all coming from Fuji. They are all 'game action' shots. All show the player prominently but have sort of odd angles where the player isn't facing the camera. The backgrounds of each of them is out-of-focus. Are they brilliant, offbeat, quirky, artsy?  Or do they suck?

I dunno, ask me tomorrow.

Knocking off sets

Nothing remarkable here but I wanted to post the final cards from a couple of sets I've been working on for a while. Up top is the 1957 Bobby Richardson that came last week. The right border is there despite what my scanner did to it. Richardson is a clear-eyed rookie pictured with a faintly seen Yankee Stadium scoreboard behind him and the Bronx as a backdrop.

His card wasn't the last card purchased for the build (that honor went to his infield partner and fellow rookie, Tony Kubek) but it was the last to arrive and find its slot in the binder. Both the Richardson and Kubek cards were part of the shorter-printed 4th Series, both (as noted) were rookie cards and both, being Yankees, carried the 'pinstripe tariff'.

I actually have a few items on my '57 list, a couple of unnumbered checklists and some contest cards, all of which can wait for later. I have 'examples' of each in the binder and that will do me for now.

Below is a poorly scanned '74 Dave Roberts 'Washington' card. I ended up with three of these in my mailbox within a few days of each other due to some good fortune and generous friends. I actually have a few '74s coming from COMC that will be the last to make the binder but this was the last card I found for the set.

Back in early October I was bitchin' and moanin' about the problems I had putting this thing together and I'm still not crazy about it but looking at it in the binder I'm coming around to appreciating it again.

Meanwhile, my '73 build is a card or so from completion and a huge bundle of '71 Topps football cards came my way at the card show on Saturday. I'm now close to 75% done with that fun, colorful set just a few weeks after deciding to tackle it. I think the collecting gods were smiling Saturday as the lot of 71s were in amazing condition and my friend Darryl was in a holiday mood and practically gave them to me.

I'll post a few other pickups from the show and discuss my blogging plans next time.

Set Build Update

This sort of thing doesn't mean much to anyone else but sometimes I need to pause and take stock of where I am in my set building. It helps me to zero in on what I need to look at and determine what project, if any, I can look at tackling next.

The three sets I'm actively working on with expectations of finishing in the not-too-distant future are:

1957 Topps Baseball. I am at 391 392 of 407 in the base set (96%). Of the sixteen I need only the Sandy Koufax is high dollar although the others are also in the semi-scarce 4th Series. (Since I began typing this yesterday I've won an auction for the Koufax card.) Still, these are not hard to find and only a few dollars more than the rest of the set's commons. I figure to have this one 'complete' by the end of the year if I can make the hotel shows between now and then.

Once I'm done with the 407 'regular' cards I will add the four unnumbered checklists and possibly the three 'contest' cards I lack. I consider the checklists to be part of the set but I may be content to binder just the single 'contest' card I own.

I have several cards in this set that could easily be upgraded. My friend Darryl has a new supply of '57s in really nice shape. I'm going to have an upgrade list ready for his next hotel show.

1974 Topps Baseball. My want list shows twenty cards. Eleven of those are 'Washington' variations. One is a 'variation of a variation' (#599C which is a font difference on a 4 player rookie card that has both a Washington and San Diego version). Factoring in some cards that have been put aside for me by a fellow blogger I have four empty slots in my binder. Only the #1 card of Hank Aaron has any cost attached. I've just been fussy about getting a decent copy on the cheap.

As with everything else concerning this set build, figuring out a percentage is complicated. I have the full Traded set and one copy of all the unnumbered team checklists. I am ignoring the 'star variation' on the reverse of those. And I have representative pieces of the inserts. I need nine 'Washington' cards (two of the eleven on my want list are promised). I have both versions of the Alou and Apodaca 'errors'. Let's call this set 98.5% done. Let's also call it a pain in the ass.

1969 Topps Football. This set (thankfully) is pretty straightforward. I have 222 of the 263 cards (84%). There is one silly error/variation, the 'red dot/yellow dot' Jim Turner card. I have one of them and I'm not too concerned with the other. Only the Csonka rookie card among those 41 I need is anything more than a common. I'll have this one done by years end if I don't get lazy. I have a wrapper and a couple of the '4 in 1' inserts.

This next set is a long way from being completed. Not because I need a ton of cards, but because they are pricey and not available at shows very often.

1960 Leaf Baseball. This is the black sheep of post-war vintage sets. It's not very popular and the 'second series' is scarce and costly on a per card basis. Try asking a dealer at a show if he or she has any 1960 Leaf. LOL You get 'the look'. Sigh.

There are 144 cards on the checklist plus the corrected Jim Grant/Brooks Lawrence wrong photo error. I have 100 of the 145 cards (69%) including both Grants. The 45 I lack are all part of the scarcer 'second series' and routinely list for over $20 a shot, much more in some cases (thanks, Yankee tax!). I've been trolling eBay lately and have found a few 'bargains' in the $8 to $12 range but those are rare. At the rate I'm going I figure to finish this, well, never. But everyone needs a goal, yes?

My other ongoing project:

1961 Topps Stamps. My other 'ugly duckling' chase! Topps issued 207 unique stamps plus a second Al Kaline. I won't go back over the oddity of this thing (some teams have more stamps issued than spots for them, other teams with fewer stamps than spots)but if you are interested you can check out this post I did in 2018.

The bottom line is that I need 42 stamps to fill the maximum slots in the album. I'd need 72 stamps to have a copy of each one issued. My goal is to just fill the album.

My effort to achieve that has been stalled lately. COMC has been my best bet for finding stamps but nothing I need has come up lately. Like the 1960 Leaf set these things never show up on dealers tables except for a few superstars like Mantle and Mays. But digging and scrounging keeps me occupied. Gluing that final stamp into the album is going to become cause for celebration!

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My lists of needs for these sets can be found over on the right side column. Any help is most welcome.

I also have some other ongoing set chases (sports and non-sports) and player collection needs and I'll delve into them next time.

Oh, I did mention upcoming projects. I've gotten suckered into one with another blind buy of a card lot. Hopefully this goes better than the '74 chase. Here is a hint...

My '74 Topps Tale of Woe

I had never really thought about chasing the Topps '74 set. Not hat there is anything I dislike about it. It's just that it didn't catch my eye..not then, and not in the years since. I remember picking up a pack or two at the discount store near campus. I usually bought a few in those days just to see what Topps was up to. And in the early 80s I completed the Orioles team set as well as picking up some San Diego/Washington cards.

Over the last few years I've put together several vintage sets, including some from the 70s. But '74 just never seemed 'in the cards' (pun intended). Then I happened to come across someone selling a huge lot of the thing at a very good price. I don't remember what the actual numbers were but it was a big enough group that I figured I'd get a large head start on a set I could finish for not much money laid out. Wrong.

The seller (this was not on eBay, BTW) was up front and mentioned that there were dupes in the lot. I should have asked 'how many dupes?' among some other questions that occurred to me later. I ended up with less than 1/3 of the set, multiples of multiples of those I did get, and a big stack of the Traded set. Seemed like I either got one copy of a card or 10 copies. That's an exaggeration, but not much of one.

But I decided to make the best of the situation and finish the set as cheaply as possible. The hotel card show yielded a ton of my needs, cheaply (thanks, Darryl). A Twitter friend helped with a stack, And of course, some fellow bloggers, Joe Shlabotnik and John of Johnny's Trading Spot hooked me up with some really nice ones (more on them in a moment).

As have the other sets I'm put together, the '74 has grown on me. I'm always in favor of team-related colors in the design. All the teams didn't quite get them, but many did. And lots of the 'stars' have really neat cards.

Topps seemed to have some issues cutting these things. The top edge of the Bobby Murcer cards is a good example.

This is one of my favorite Nolan Ryan cards. A nice action shot.

Dock Ellis' card has a pic that would be at home on a '57T (if you ignore the gold uni).

And here's my guy, Jesse Jefferson. Once, in a transaction not unlike this '74 Topps purchase, I bought a big stack of Orioles postcards, blind. About half of them were JJ. 👀

I mentioned Joe and John. I really appreciate their generosity. In keeping with the rest of this FUBAR build I did something I had (amazingly) not done previously with the many packages I've received over the years. I stacked their contributions on my desk but then, when a few from COMC arrived, I put the whole bunch in my set binder. Ergo, I can't acknowledge which cards came from which generous blog buddy. I'm a dolt, but a very grateful one nonetheless.

Thanks again to all who kicked in. I'm pretty much up to date on my needs list. The cards in italics are incoming.

Why Ask Why?

Having an eBay seller pad the toploader with a bonus card is a fairly common occurrence. At least for me. I buy a lot of single cards because when I pick up a guy for my fantasy teams I lack the patience to wait until a COMC order makes sense.

Usually the card is trash worthy...a 1994 Flair Stan Javier or something along those lines. But a couple of weeks ago I pulled a toploader from a small envelope and in addition to my purchased card I found this 1974 Topps Ellie Rodriguez.

Is it in pristine condition? Nope. Is it a star player? Nope. Is it even a great shot? Nope. Is it even worth anything? Nope.

But the horrid airbrushed beauty of a '74 Topps Rodriguez  beats the hell out of a '94 Flair Stan Javier any day of the week. 1974 was Rodriguez' busiest year btw. He had 485 plate appearances and career highs in homers (7) and RBI (36).

He was originally a Yankee and was taken by the Royals in the '68 expansion draft. As a first year Royal he made the '69 All Star team but didn't play in the game and when he made the '72 All Star team while with the Brewers he again sat and watched. But hey, that's two more All Star teams than you or I made.

He twice led the AL in throwing out would-be base stealers and was in general a fine defensive catcher. He now serves as a consultant to the independent Atlantic League.

40 Years Ago Today

On September 24, 1974 one of my favorite non-Orioles players reached a milestone in a way that showed great symmetry (or great something).

Baltimore native and Hall of Famer Al Kaline got his 3,000th hit that night in Baltimore Memorial Stadium off Orioles starter Dave McNally. It was a double into the right field corner for Kaline, the first of two hits he got that night while serving as the Tigers' DH.

The Orioles won the game 5-4 with a bottom of the eight 2-run rally. Reliever Bob Reynolds got the win with two and a third innings of one hit ball. The O's finished the night a half game ahead of the Yankees and won the Eastern Division that year by two games and then lost the AL title to the A's.

Kaline has four cards in the 1959 Topps set. His base card is my favorite:

He is featured on one of the Baseball Thrills subset cards:

A hideously ugly pink and red combo card with Yankee killer and my Dad's least favorite player, Charlie Maxwell:

And a The Sporting News All Star Selection card.

This post is both a tribute to one of the greats of the game and one final plug for $30 a Week Habit's 'best set' tournament. It's a close contest at the moment with this '59 set slightly ahead of the '74 in the finals so your vote may tip the scales one way or another.

In another bit of symmetry here is my 1974 Topps Dave McNally.

Go vote!

Al Capone Sez.......

I thought I'd throw in a plug for $30 a Week Habit's Topps set tournament which has reached the finals. The last two sets standing are two of my very favorites, the 1974 and the 1959.

I love the fact that the color scheme of the '74 Orioles cards matches the teams' colors. That's not true for all the teams in the set but the O's are the only one I care about. In binder sheets the O's team set looks very sweet. 

I have a few '74 Orioles scanned from other posts and here they are:

It's really a great design with some fine photo choices. If it wins I'm not going to complain.

But the other contender, the Topps 1959 set, is very close to my heart. I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears, not to mention coin, into building and blogging it over the course of several years. I've mentioned several times previously that the 1958 Topps cards are the first ones I can remember seeing in person. A kid (a girl!) in my neighborhood had a stack of them that summer and all the rest of us little knuckleheads were mesmerized by them. The 1960 is the first set I tried to collect for myself although I had to rely on the generosity of my parents and grandparents for pack purchases so I never came close to finishing it. For sentimental reasons it's still my favorite Topps set.

But 1959 Topps baseball cards were the first ones I ever held in my hand and could say they were mine. And the set is about as fun as a set can be. I discovered so many great stories while researching my posts and I really came to love so many of the cards. Here are a few of my favorites:

Bob Shaw's card reminds me of spending Sunday afternoons with my Dad watching Yankee doubleheaders.

Not only is Willard Schmidt's card just plain gorgeous with the color combo and the black frame but when I posted it I came in contact with several of his family members, one of which, his nephew, has become a friend.

Then there the superstar cards that I value a lot:

The Mickey Mantle, a key to the set obviously. I was happy to get it for $100. I bet I bid on 25 of these while trying to get a decent example within my budget before I won this one.

The Bob Gibson rookie card which is one of, if not the only, '59 Topps that has survived from coming straight out of a pack into my grubby hands in 1959. And it looks it.

So get on over to Robert's blog and cast your vote for your preference. He's going to put together the set that wins. I won't try to influence you either way other than to note that I can give him a nice boost if the '59 wins. Just sayin'.

2013 Topps Archive Paul Blair Auto

"I don't know if he's in a class by himself, but whatever class he's in, it don't take long to call the roll."

That great line was uttered by Bum Phillips in describing Earl Campbell. And that's how I'd describe Paul Blair's fielding prowess. Is he the best? Dunno. He's as good as anyone I've ever seen, that's for sure. The cliche was that Blair could go back on the ball so well he could play very shallow and take bloop hits away from opposing batters. Like a lot of cliches, that one was based in fact. And my Dad, who saw DiMaggio and a young Mickey Mantle was always duly impressed with Paul Blair. That's enough of an endorsement for me.

I don't usually go after autographed cards but I liked this one and it was dirt cheap so I bit. I have always liked the way the '74 Topps Orioles cards reflected the team colors. 

The back reflects the original card back and has Blair's facsimile autograph. It sure looks different from the Archives '13 version, doesn't it?