Billy Pierce Collection additions

Back in December of 2014 I was able to find an affordable Swifts Meats Billy Pierce. It took me by surprise to nab one in nice shape that I could afford. These are neat and unusual collectibles. When I posted that first one I did some research into how they were distributed when they were issued in 1957. 

It turned out that they came with packs of hot dogs AND via a mail-in order form. That post has much more detail and some links to info/checklists. Click here to go back to it. 

About a month or so I came across another listing for one of these in my general Billy Pierce search on eBay. The seller described it as a 'Type card', i.e. 'a piece of junk you can own just to say you have one'. But in the pictures it looked just fine, very collectible.  And he wanted $31 for it. I don't recall what I paid for my first one (it was 'graded' by some fly-by-night company) but it was over $100, maybe closer to $125. I mean these babies are pretty hard to find. And a quick search on eBay shows how much the going rate normally is.

So for $31 I had to take a closer look. It's got a stain and one of the punch-out body pieces is halfway 'punched out' but it's not that much worse than my slabbed one. I kept looking for the catch but I never found one so I grabbed it.

I would normally never buy a second copy of something of this ilk but at that price I simply had to pull the trigger. Heck, I'd buy one of these of a random player at that price. 

So anyway, I now have two of these. And at one point I never thought I'd even have one. 

I'm not sure which side of these is considered the 'front' so here are both sides. Click the link above for a look at what they are like when assembled and to see the game board they were supposed to used on.

This next item is much less significant in terms of hobby relevance but it was a more exciting pick-up for me. This is a J.D. McCarthy postcard of Billy Pierce that I never had seen before. I've refined my BP search on eBay to where I have eliminated the Topps cards and all the other common items that were showing up again and again.

One night this thing hit my screen and I didn't hesitate to nab it. McCarthy postcards are a great addition to player collections. I figured that a Pierce or two had been produced but there is no checklist available so I had no way to know for sure.

I'm a post card fanatic. Every season from about 1968 or so I would write to the Orioles requesting a price for their team issued postcard set. After a few years they began sending a souvenir list without my even writing. Once or twice someone in their PR office sent me the late season additions to the year's postcards unsolicited. I spent a decade or so putting together a listing of Orioles team issued postcards only to find out that it had already been done. At some point in the mid 1980s the Orioles got away from producing the sets, or at least including them on their price lists. I remember once calling their offices to inquire about them and getting no real answer. My collection really got moved to the back burner when that happened. (They have since resumed producing that cards but when they did so I have no idea.)

But meanwhile I had come across McCarthy's cards and I've amassed quite a few Orioles examples. The late Bob Lemke came into possession of McCarthy's files and you can read his post concerning that right here.

Well, I've made a short story long but the bottom line is that I've found a BP McCarthy and am glad to have done so. And to make it just a bit better the card was mailed between two of my favorite places, Chicago and North Jersey!

This last piece is another dupe that I added because it was cheap and available. It's a picture pack photo which was done by Jay Publishing as team sets in the early 60s. They were sold at stadiums, by mail order and at places like Manny's Baseballand across Jerome Avenue from the ballpark in the Bronx. I've posted this one and some other Pierce variations before. For a couple of bucks adding a signed copy didn't require much thought.

1958 Customs (Phantoms?) from Bob Lemke

Bob Lemke writes one of my favorite blogs. He has some great stories from bygone days thru his access to old copies of The Sporting News. Plus he was a mover and shaker in the memorabilia news industry for many years. 

He also produces some terrific customs, both sports and non-sports. After a brief hiatus he is currently selling them again and I for one am glad. They are not cheap but if you buy a few at a time they cost about the same as a Topps Now card and are far more interesting than a card of the latest walkoff passed ball incident. 

When I decided to go after the 1958 set I knew I'd be checking out what Bob had available. I did the same for my 1959 and 1960 projects. Both of those binders have a page in the back that contains a few Lemke creations. 

For 1958 Bob now has seven customs (plus a variation). I recently picked up three of them. Roy Campanella never got to play with the 'Los Angeles' Dodgers as his sparkling career ended with his auto accident late in  January of 1958.  Bob's custom is a spot-on take on what a '58 Topps Campy might have looked like. 

Next is Bob's version of the '58 multi-player specials. He found a nice shot of Don Newcombe and Johnny Antonelli and used it in a way I'm surprised Topps didn't think of. 

When I looked at the checklist for the '58 set I saw that there was no card #145 and then remembered that it had originally been the spot where Ed Bouchee would have appeared. He was dropped from the set when his legal issues arose and he was suspended. Lemke fills the slot with a nice version of what the Bouchee card might have looked like. He has available both a yellow and black background. I picked the black since there are not as many black cards in the set as there are yellow. Bob was kind enough to also sent the yellow version as well. I have the yellow version at the bottom of this post.

Unlike the other Lemke customs I have or will pick up the Bouchee card will reside within the main binder pages as if it was an actual Topps card. I don't like having an empty slot on a page in a completed set. But to just 'skip' the spot would have thrown off my numbering and made my card-related OCD kick in to high gear. 

BTW...Bouchee was reinstated to MLB in the summer of 1958 and had cards in Topps sets again from 1959 through the end of his career in 1962 with the Mets.

The reverse of Bob's custom is a few shades 'brighter' than the original Topps cards but it's a great replication in all other ways so I'm happy to use it in that #145 slot. If it wasn't available I would have had to make my own lousy custom which in no way would have looked right.

There are four other Lemke '58s listed on his site. I'll snatch those up at some point along with the '59s and '60s that I missed the first time.

I'm still weighing my options as far as a '58 Topps blog goes. I'll figure something out.

Oh, and here is an image of Bob's yellow Ed Bouchee #145. 

A Koufax and a Jensen by Bob Lemke

I've mentioned before that if you don't regularly read Bob Lemke's Blog you are missing out. He has a long history in the hobby having worked as editor and publisher of the sportscards and memorabilia periodicals and books at Krause Publications as the editor of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. 

Bob's posts mix sports history, vintage cards and his own 'homebrew' cards. His cards are very high quality and calling them 'homebrew' is probably a disservice. Bob doesn't cut any corners and the attention to detail is pretty impressive. 

After deciding not to make the cards available to collectors for awhile Bob has (thankfully) reversed course recently and put them up for sale once again. "Cards that never were" may not be your thing but I enjoy Bob's work and have made a couple of purchases. The latest one brought me the '57 Topps-style Koufax seen above. 

He used a great photo of Sandy with the Ebbets Field scoreboard in the background. He discusses that card some in this blog entry. I have previously purchased two other of his Koufax cards and posted them on this blog.

Another card I obtained in my recent purchase was this 1960 Topps-style Jackie Jensen. The more I researched Jensen for my '59 Topps Blog the more interesting he became to me and I started a small PC. I am happy to add this one. I love the 1960 Topps set as it was the first set I actively collected pack by pack. 

And the 1960 card back design (and color scheme) is my absolute favorite. The cards with the 'Season's Highlights' fascinated me back in the day. Bob's '60 Jensen is a fabulous card.

Hard to imagine a guy retiring just a season removed from an MVP Award and back-to-back RBI titles. But that was Jensen. He attempted a comeback in 1961 and he had a Topps card that year but he was not in the 1960 set. Bob explores Jensen's career and his new card in these posts. 

I picked up another card in this batch but I'll save that for another post.

Satchel Paige '52 "Topps style"

I figured I wouldn't go out and buy a vintage Paige card anytime soon. But Bob Lemke did a nice job on this one so it'll fill a hole for me for the time being. And fill it nicely indeed.

Thanks again, Bob.

Koufax Cards by Bob Lemke



If you don't make it a habit of reading Bob Lemke's blog, you should. He has a background in this hobby surpassed by very few. He is the former editor and publisher of the sportscards and memorabilia periodicals and books at Krause Publications and former editor of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. I've been reading his output for so long I feel I know him.

Being a sucker for custom cards, cards 'that never were',and the like, I get enthused when Bob adds one of his to the blog. There are several folks out there who do a great job with that sort of thing and Bob Lemke certainly is among that group. He recently offered some of his surplus cards for sale and I jumped on the opportunity to add a few to my Koufax collection. Here are a couple of the cards he sent. You'll have to agree I think, whether or not custom cards are your thing, he really does them well. It's obvious Bob puts time into the backs as well as the fronts.

Custom cards are certainly not all he blogs about, he has access to lots of vintage printed material and ads, etc. Some of those will make you wish you had a time machine. Check his work out sometime.