I'm Batman

Chasing a bunch of football sets has kept me off the non-sports trail for a bit. I did pick up a couple of new Batman sketch cards over the last few months. Nothing remarkable but I think I've already cherry-picked the supply that was out there on eBay and Etsy. But these were cheap so I figured 'why not?'

Actually, I'm saving my money for the new Kickstarter Mars Attacks set. Gonna be fun. But here's the Dark Knight:

Collection Status...Part Two

Last week I posted about my progress with my primary set projects. I'll take a little time today to focus on the rest of what I'm working on these days. Public Service Announcement: Slabbed cards in this post will be freed as long as I have a binder page that will fix properly. (That's a PSA..get it? PSA? The grading company. Hell, never mind)

Player Collections, etc.  Nothing new on the Billy Pierce front. I add some oddball items from time to time but the 'White Whales', like his '59 Bazooka card, remain beyond the range of my harpoon.  I do grab vintage of him from cheap card boxes at shows. I just think I hate seeing him in quarter boxes, so undignified! LOL

My PC/Orioles Stars binder has fallen into disrepair lately. That'll get re-done in the next few months. Meanwhile, I discover fun stuff like this Dennis Martinez card by reading other blogs (thanks, Fuji!). It was pretty cheap on eBay and it just showed up.

Likewise, my University of Houston alum cards were put up in a box when I turned my hobby room into a nursery! After all these years I will re-binder them and fill in some gaps, next year probably.

Small/Oddball Sets I recently came across a box I had put away that continued a load of stuff like small Orioles sets, TCMA team sets, 1980s era Kmart and similar 33-card boxed sets, etc, etc. Some of those need to be bindered, many will just get broken up into teams and sent to fellow bloggers. Some will get burned in the fire pit.

Houston Aeros Over the last few years I've pulled this one on and off the 'back burner' of my collecting. Aeros games were fun, cheap entertainment back in the day. My friends and I made it to lots of them, particularly at the old Sam Houston Coliseum in downtown Houston.

A few years ago I decided to collect their team sets from the few companies making WHA cards back then. I already owned the Howe cards so finding the rest wasn't hard. I have all the base Aeros cards from the various O-Pee-Chee sets. I have a couple of the Quaker Oats cards and a few of the 75/76 team issued set. Those latter two sets are very tough.

I also add a few 'retro' set Aeros when I come across them cheap, mostly Gordie Howe cards on which he is shown with Houston.

More hockey...once I finish going through my boxes of stuff and sort out the Rangers I have I may try to finish some team sets.

Non-Sports Cards This covers so much that I will break it down, mostly for my benefit. I think I need to re-assess where I'm going with these. 😏

Batman I have the three original Topps 1966 Batman sets, red, blue and black bat. There are dozens of modern Batman sets and I have a handful. I made it a point to buy the boxed sets that were associated with the first Batman movies. I am nearing 50 Batman sketch cards. Every few months I'll remember to check for cheap sketch cards on eBay. I added this one for a few bucks some time back. I have no current 'goals' when it comes to my Batman collecting.

More or less related to this... my Civil War News set has long been finished. Once in a while I find an upgrade. Topps continues to add to the Mars Attacks franchise. I have several of the reprint/update/continuation sets from this franchise. 


Presidents I finished off a couple of JFK sets in the past two years and am currently working on the '64 Topps LBJ/Goldwater set. I have exactly half of the 66 cards and little hope of finishing it anytime soon. They don't pop up often for sale/auction online.

My vintage Topps/Bowman presidents cards are in a small box, unorganized. That needs fixing. I also have several oddball sets of Presidents/famous historical figures which need bindering. My hodgepodge of oddball & modern presidential cards (Panini, European etc) also needs sorting.

Entertainment My pursuit of the Topps Soupy Sales set has been very slow. Once I found that each card has different possible backs (Topps flipped the sheets in the middle of the press run apparently) I backed off. I need to figure out what I have and what I need which is tough with the cards being unnumbered and the backs being unrelated to the fronts. Ugh.

I continue to add actress and actor cards, from the old tobacco sets thru 'fan' sets of the 50s and 60s. I bought a small lot of Exhibit cards of actresses recently. There is no goal or checklist for this stuff. I just pick up what I like when I find it at reasonable prices.

I came across some boxes of Stranger Things 1 & 2 packs really cheap. My wife and I really enjoy that series, so I bought the boxes. They are under my desk, waiting for a rainy day. 

Baltimore Colts Collection  I still lack some Fleer Super Bowl cards but those are not a priority. I do come across oddball and retro cards here and there.

I have a lot of new postcards and publications but I'm sticking mainly to cards with this post. Those will have to wait for another day.

A Good Week For Batman

I've added to my Batman sketch card collection with a couple of beauties I found and won via eBay. The artist, William Rivera, is awfully good, and very prolific! It's crazy how sometimes scans will make the piece being scanned look better. Not here. These two cards are far nicer in hand than they look in these pics.

And then yesterday I was at my old school helping during state testing days and an old friend and colleague gifted me with some terrific Batman display items. Again, a lousy pic of some really cool stuff. 

The action figure is about a foot tall. And I'm about at the point where I'm going to have to have a dedicated Batman display shelf. I'll have to get Alfred on that ASAP!

Thanks to my friend Harry for the Batman items. He's an artist and he's already contributed sketch cards he did especially for me. It's nice to have folks looking out for you, even when you're retired.

10 Posts, 10 Cards, 10 Books, 10 Songs (#4)

I had just about given up on finding Batman sketch cards on eBay. I check once a week or so and the same old stuff was there, most of it not close to being worth the asking prices. Then a few weeks back I saw that Nathan Parrish had put up a bunch of his work at very low prices. I've picked up some of his 'cards' before. He uses several different tools in his sketches, pencil, colored markers, and so on. I also like how he portrays the different eras of the Dark Knight saga. The one above is my favorite of the latest batch.

As a really cool bonus, he wrapped them in a Japanese paper, similar to how I believe cards were traditionally distributed. Although the paper was likely not this beautiful. Here are a couple:

When my kids were very young we had them enrolled in the daycare facility at San Jacinto JC (yes, the place where Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte pitched). The program they had was top notch. They required that one of us be enrolled so I took night and/or Saturday classes each semester. I ended up with an IT certificate. But that's a long way to my point...I took one 'for fun' non-credit class, Intro to American Roots Music aka...Jazz Appreciation 101.

The instructor was a huge fan of tenor sax legend Dexter Gordon. From that class, I came away with an appreciation of him as well. I nabbed this book when it came out a few months ago and read it over the holidays. Gordon was a remarkable talent, grandson of a Medal of Honor winner and son of a doctor. He also had his share of trials and failings. But the sum total of his music is staggering. The book, written by his widow (actually she finished his autobiography), is very readable and insightful. I enjoyed it. It's too new to be out there at a discount though.

I could have picked any one of dozens of Gordon videos out on the net. If your life is spinning too fast try this: pour a drink (Makers 46 is my current choice), find a comfortable recliner, and crank up some Dexter Gordon.

More from The Dark Side

I hadn't found a Batman sketch card that I thought was worth picking up in quite some time. I actually had gotten out of the habit of checking for them after a few months of coming up dry.

I found this for just a few bucks and thought it was nice enough to grab. Now I need to find my Batman binder, blow the dust off it and stick into an open slot.

Tip of' the cap to artist Nathan Parrish for his fine work. I liked this one so much I bought one of his bigger pencil sketches and another sketch card. Looking forward to receiving those.

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.

Batman Sketch Card and a couple of mystery Batman cards

I added a Batman sketch card before 2017 ended. I haven't been looking for them aince I filled up my designated pages but this one sort of fell into my lap.

Before I get to the card it's worth mentioning that one year ago today I was contemplating a return to this blog after a few months off. I did so later in January but I didn't really have my heart in it. And at times it showed. I'll try to do better in 2018. Maybe America can as well.

The Batman card is by Jeff Ward and I think I was the only bidder. Hard to beat one this nice for a buck plus shipping. Maybe I'll have to start a new binder page and find 8 more sketch cards. Maybe not.

These other two cards were sitting on my desk under some football cards. I think they were sent to me by Tom of The Angels, In Order blog. I scanned (and posted) the great Sky Box set he sent and I think I remember that he included these as a 'bonus'. I probably put them to the side and promptly forgot I had them. Getting old can be difficult.

But here they are now, better late than never. They are from Topps' 1993 Batman: The Animated Series set which is based on the show that ran from 1992 thru 1995. More great Batman art from a cool animated series. Not much for me to add.

This is card #1 (of 190) which the Trading Card Database describes as the 'cover card'.

This one I'm guessing is a promo card. There are several listed on TCD but not all have scans. So which one this is will take some detective work.

I'm at the point where I'm going to need a separate binder for my various Batman cards. That's not a bad thing.

Thanks again, Tom. I have a few things that'll be on their way to you this week.

Batman #26 and other things

Several months ago, in the midst of my Batman sketch card frenzy, I received an email from an artist who offered to do one for me. After a bit of back and forth and a few stops and starts I received the sketch card. It's a nice addition I think. Along with two done for me by one of my school's art teachers I've now filled three binder pages with sketch cards. I think it's time to call it a day and put the Batman binder away for a bit.

When the artist (he called himself CCM) sent me the sketch card he was kind enough to fill the envelope with some other things from his collection.

First and foremost was this Leaf sketch card of the late Lee MacPhail, the long time baseball executive.  According to Wikipedia MacPhail had an extensive baseball resume. He spent 45 years in the game serving as the director of player personnel for the New York Yankees, the president and general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, chief aide to Commissioner of Baseball William Eckert, executive vice president and general manager of the Yankees, and president of the American League.

I honestly had never seen a baseball sketch card that was issued by a major card manufacturer. A trip to eBay showed me that Leaf has done a bunch of sketch cards with subjects ranging from Stan Musial to Sting.

Of the ones I saw the many of best were from Rich Molinelli who did this MacPhail. Here's a shot of MacPhail outside Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

The Orioles card CCM sent included some pretty cool ones. Like this manufactured patch of Jim Palmer's rookie card. Topps put this out in 2013.

Among the standard cards I got were these two 1960 gems. Both of these were upgrades to the ones I had in my 1960 Topps binder.

A week or so ago someone on FB or Twitter asked about the first baseball card you remembered owning. I know I had some '59s and I saw a friend's 1958s but the first card I specifically remember pulling from a pack was the 1960 Albie Pearson. I got a few packs of cards in my Easter basket as a kid and I remember getting Pearson. That was just about the time I was developing my own ideas about favorite teams and players instead of following along with my Dad's Yankees/NY football Giants preferences. I had decided that since I had been born in Charm City the Orioles and Colts were 'my' teams so I bet I was thrilled with this card. that's probably why I remember it rather than the rest of the packs. Maybe.

Wrapping up the Batman sketches

These are the rest of the Batman sketch cards I've picked up to date. I've decided to add two more to fill up three full pages but I'm going to be patient and selective. I have one I commissioned that is on it's way to me (supposedly...it's a long story). 

Meanwhile check out the last of the bunch. Lots of variety and lots of talent in these. I'd be hard-pressed to choose a favorite.

I found some old threads on various hobby card forums that debated whether or not the AOJ Lithocards are prints or original work. Well, the two I have are original. And very good. I showed the other one in the previous post. BTW..the artist is Aaron Laidley who doesn't seem to have much of a web presence..

I have 2 sketch cards by Andy Duggan....

I really like this one from artist James Bukauskas aka Bukshot. It's one of a couple from the Rittenhouse Batman Archives set.

I didn't see the Batman vs Superman movie on the advice of my sons. But here is Ben Afleck as Batman. Card done by Javier Gonzalez.

This one is another insert from the Rittenhouse Batman Archives set. It was done by Steve Russell.

This next one is unique in that it was drawn around an official USPS postage stamp. Robert Kraus certainly has a unique still. Lot's on interesting stuff on his website.

Finally another great card, this from Eric Merced. He uses digital tools to draw his cards. Pretty interesting.

That wraps up my Batman sketch cards. It's been fun tracking these down. As I noted earlier I will add another card or two to fill up my three binder pages.

Right now slot #26 is occupied by an outlier from the DC Batman Legend set....the Joker: