Modern Day Benders

This post has been stuck in my drafts folder for so long I can't remember starting it.

Now, as we prepare for what may be a sizeable hurricane mid-week, I figured this may be the last chance to post for a while. No time to do any scanning.

This is a mix of Charles Bender 'art cards', legit issues, and nonsense I've picked up over the last few years.

These Helmar 'art stamps' pay homage to the original cigarette premiums smokers were collecting in 1911. The 'modern' versions are nicely done and look a lot like the vintage ones but differ in that these are not as wide.

Next up is a strip panel from the artist known as Gypsy Oak. I've picked up a few things from him in the past. We communicated when I was on Twitter buy he subsequently blocked me. Politics most likely. (ง •̀_•́)ง

The Topps Bazooka Chief Bender below comes from 1963. It's interesting in that it uses a photo of Bender from his coaching days. This set was unlike many of the candy/food issues in that it was not part of the box but rather a bonus that was inside the box. The checklist counts 41 players/personalities and were done in either silver (scarce) or gold tone. More info here.

Another modern piece done in throwback style. This 'Turkey Red' Bender isn't in front of me right now so I can't do much more than posting the scan. The real Bender Turkey Red has a different pose and is just a bit more costly.

Up last is a Panini 'postcard' that shows Bender's Hall of Fame plaque. I think I added this to my last SportsLots order. It's standard card size.

That's it for now. I hope anyone in the path of these two storms in the Gulf stays safe. See ya on the flip side.

Wrapping One Show, Ready For Another

With about a week to go until the Houston TriStar Winter Show, I thought I'd finish posting my meager takings from the last hotel show I attended.

First up, a handful of oddball Rusty Staub cards. I'm buying Rusty stuff without a checklist which is a little like driving around at night with your lights off...you rely a lot on memory.

Swell Gum:

Pacific:

TCMA (from the 12-card All-Time Expos set.

But I was positive that those were new to me.

Unlike this Charles Bender 1913 National Game card. I have a really nice one that is in a slab that I blogged previously. This one was a cheapie. You can never have too many of these, right?

'77 Topps Cloth Sticker Lee May:

I found a small stack of these things and bought a few to pass on to some other bloggers. I didn't realize that I already had one of these. Jim Palmer is the other Orioles guy in the set. I wanted to find a Staub but no luck.

Billy Pierce 1959 Baseball Thrills subset card. I had this one but used it for my '59 build.

1987 Fleer Akeem Olajuwon sticker card. Yes, he was Akeem before he was Hakeem. I have some funny Olajuwon stories from his days at UH but I'll save them for when I have a cool piece to show with them. All I'll say now is that if he crashes a soccer game you are playing in... don't get in the way of one of his shots.

I haven't shown much (anything?) of the '61 Fleer football set. Most because nobody would read it. But I'm almost done with it and I wasn't even half trying. As with the Houston college player photo I had on here recently, this pic has the UH practice fields as the location and the surrounding neighborhood as the background.

'87 Donruss Murray. Part of the bunch of Murray cards that I was gifted at the show. I always liked this design. This is probably the last set that I paid attention to before I lost interest in the hobby a few years later.

1960 Lenny Moore. I had this in my Colts collection but I just love this card. One of these days I might try to chase this set.

Finally a pair of Arm & Hammer Orioles cards from the 1930s. I'm shown the backs in XL so they can be read.

The TriStar show is next weekend. Brooks Robinson is a guest on Sunday. I may take my son to reprise this shot from 20ish years ago:

 Brooks and Brooks!

On A Bender

I hadn't added anything to my Charles Bender collection in months when I got a Twitter tip from Nick Vossbrink who writes a great card/photography blog and opines on Twitter using @vossbrink.

He pointed me towards this 4x5 Type 1 contact print produced by William Jacobellis who photographed many sports and entertainment figures over a long career that stretched into the 70s. He shot for the New York Journal-American and was responsible for many pictures used on Topps cards in the 50s. PSA's site has a lot of info on how these pics would up on Topps products. It's a link worth following.

The pic above was taken during Chief Bender's last baseball gig, pitching coach for the Philadelphia A's in the early 1950s. Bobby Shantz won the MVP in 1952 while under Bender's tutelage. Chief died of cancer and other health issues in 1954 at the age of 70.

I'm planning to be in the Philadelphia area in late February or early March and hope to find a chance to visit his grave just north of the city if I can squeeze in some time.

North Texas Card Show

I woke up early this past Saturday and headed up I-45 through Dallas and on to the North Texas Card Show staged at the Comerica Center in Frisco which is the Dallas Stars' practice facility among other things. It was a four hour trip and was the first time I'd traveled out of town for a card show since the National was held twice in Arlington, Texas in 1986 and 1990.

It was a nice 'medium' sized show, bigger than the hotel meeting room shows I hit all the time but smaller than the TriStar events. About 200 tables I'd say.

They had several former members of the Dallas Cowboys as autograph guests and I had no interest in them but I hadn't remembered that former major leaguer Eddie Robinson was going to be there. He served in the Navy during WWII and then played 13 seasons of baseball in the American League. He played for 7 of the 8 AL teams that existed during his career. He was a favorite of my Yankees fan father who always told me Robinson was under-appreciated as a ballplayer. He was pretty spry for a 98-year-old and I asked him to sign a copy of his book to me. Many years ago I came across one of his game-used gloves that he had signed at some point. I have it in storage and wish I had paid more attention to the show flyer and ads. I would have dug it out and brought it along.

There were several of the major auction houses with booths at the show. I didn't stop at them but I did enjoy the displays that they brought along. First is this beautiful Roy Campanella jersey that was in place near the Heritage Auction booth. Sweet, yes?

But this next display really had me drooling. A complete 1915 Cracker Jack set. Unreal to see it up close.

Just beautiful cards.

Of course, I had to find the card that is my personal white whale, the Chief Bender card.

I spent about four hours circling the floor, minus a Diet Coke break and the time spent with Eddie Robinson. I didn't spend a lot of money but driving up and back in one day kind of forces one to want to come home with something. And I did......here is a quick look:

This very nice 1954 Bowman Jackie Jensen is a fine addition to my rather informal JJ PC.

The same dealer had some very deeply discounted '57s which I snagged. I'm not ready for really begin my pursuit of the set but I pick up cheap cards that I know I need whenever I come across them. This Dodgers' Sluggers is a neat card...even with the wicked creases.

Speaking of Dodgers...I also chose this Duke Snyder. It was in very nice condition for the price.

As was this Red Schoendienst.

I spent most of my show budget filling my 1971 want list. I found several dozen, Here are a few. The Hundley card is a replacement for the one I bought and then lost at the last hotel show.

I also bought a stack of 1960 Leaf gems. I'll have more on these in an upcoming post.

When you entered the show everyone was given a stack of oversized Upper Deck hockey cards. I didn't get a Rangers card but this Joe Thornton is kind of fun. I've been watching a lot of the Stanley Cup playoffs. To say it's the craziest playoff season may be an understatement.

Thornton has played over 1800 NHL games without winning the Cup. That's the most of any player still working this year. I'm hoping he gets his shot.

                                                                          

And as I was sitting at a dealer's table I heard my number called for the hourly door prize. I was awarded a Panini Instant basketball card of this guy:

I enjoy the Rockets but my knowledge of the NBA is pretty limited. When the guy handed me the card he pointed out that it is numbered as #1 and advised me to keep the seal on the holder. Not sure what to say about it other than it's better to win than not win.

By about 4:30 I'd put about 9000 steps on my Fitbit and my back was telling me that it was time to go. Another long drive home has convinced me that I'm no longer built for 8-hour road trips. Next time I'll stay over a day. But it was fun. It's nice to see different dealers is a different venue.

Great Plains Greats set

I bought the Chief Bender card out of the 1975-76 Great Plains Greats set a month or so ago at one of the hotel card shows. Oddball sets can be fun and I got curious about the set and dug around online. I found a "complete" set cheap and bought it on a whim. It's full of Hall of Fame players and other big names. All the pics used are black and white.

Here's that Bender:
 

The seller (and a lot of other online sellers) list the set at 24 cards. But that's not technically correct. Hence the quotation marks around 'complete' in the first paragraph.

But first here is a look at some of the cards that I received. They come in groups of eight with each group in a different color, both front, and back. The artwork that is printed behind the players' name is different for each color as well.

The Allie Reynolds and Bob Feller appear to be different shades of blue but I think that's just a quirk of the printing process.

Carl Hubbell, star of the 1934 All-Star Game.

Walter Johnson and Dave Bancroft. Two very serious guys.

The green group has three of my favorite photos in it. Yogi, Cool Papa Bell, and Roger Maris.

The backs have a few brief essentials and a write-up, brief stats and an ad for the set's sponsor, Sheraton Hotels. Each color group has a different Sheraton. The back colors are a variation of the fronts..the red cards have purple-ish reverse accents.

Green fronts got a darker shade on the back...

Blue fronts got a lighter shade...

One eBay seller says the cards were distributed mostly in Iowa. But the Sheraton hotels listed in the ads were in Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas, so who knows? These cards are larger than standard modern cards which will make storing them a problem. They are only a whisper wider than the pre-57 cards from Topps so I may try using the 8-pocket pages. Here's one with a standard card for comparison.

I mentioned that sets are usually listed as complete at 24 but there were two groups of nine cards each that were also distributed which brings the total to 42 players. The additional 18 cards were not Sheraton sponsored but carry an ad for NU SASH windows, a company that now seems to be active across the MidWest.

There are also some that I have found with a promo blurb for the Great Plains Sports Collectors Association. I can't find any reference to that group now and I'm also unsure of which cards carried the back promoting it. I'm fairly certain it was the last two (highest numbered) groups but that's just a guess. That grouping also contains the Mickey Mantle card. I might dig around on eBay and COMC and try to puzzle it all out but I'm not sure it's a big deal.

Here is the 42 card checklist. I've coded them in the colors that are found on the front.

1 Bob Feller             
2 Carl Hubbell             
3 Jocko Conlan             
4 Hal Trosky             
5 Allie Reynolds            
6 Burleigh Grimes            
7 Jake Beckley            
8 Al Simmons           
9 Paul Waner            
10 Chief Bender            
11 Fred Clarke            
12 Jim Bottomley            
13 Dave Bancroft            
14 Bing Miller            
15 Walter Johnson            
16 Grover Alexander            
17 Bob Johnson            
18 Roger Maris           
19 Ken Keltner            
20 Red Faber            
21 Cool Papa Bell            
22 Yogi Berra            
23 Fred Lindstrom            
24 Ray Schalk              
25 Lloyd Waner            
26 John Hopp            
27 Mel Harder            
28 Dutch Leonard            
29 Bob O'Farrell            
30 Cap Anson            
31 Dazzy Vance            
32 Red Schoendienst            
33 George Pipgras          
34 Harvey Kuenn            
35 Red Ruffing            
36 Roy Sievers            
37 Ken Boyer            
38 Al Smith            
39 Casey Stengel            
40 Bob Gibson
41 Mickey Mantle
42 Denny McLain

There are also two unnumbered checklists that cover only the #s 1-24. They can be found in either red or blue.

Here (scan from TCD) is what the checklists look like. The back had a 'Buy the set' coupon:

And from COMC and The Trading Card Database comes scans for the alternate(?) backs. I found a couple with the club promo...

....but mostly I see them with the NU SASH advertising back.

If I could find the #25-42 cards as a group I might be inclined to go after them but as singles, with the Mantle going for $10 or so, I'll pass for now.