Paying Too Much

I'm the last guy who should be weighing in on the current state of the hobby but since when has that stopped me from opening my mouth? I see tweets and read blogs about guys sitting in lines for hours, not for COVID vaccines, but to buy boxes of cards at Target. I'm guessing they are trying to hit it big on shiny stuff. 

I used to buy a pack here and there, baseball and football mostly, just to see what the companies were up to. Then I stopped seeing anything on the shelves. One thing leads to another and card prices are way above where they were just a year or so ago. Where this leaves the hobby, how it affects kids trying to collect...I don't know. I have opinions but as someone who doesn't care about new cards my opinions aren't worth much. 

What does mean something to me is that the 'bubble' has tricked down and elevated the prices on almost everything. Pre-War cards shot up and not long after I noticed the prices of the cards that interest me, mid-50s thru late 70s stuff, followed the upward trend. I saw it in the cost of the 1967 Topps high numbers I am lacking. Run-of-the-mill raw cards in that group went from about $15/$18 to $27/$35, sometimes much higher, for anything better than VG-EX. I wish I had been more aggressive when I began the set because now, unless I get lucky with a bid group, I grab anything under $25 that doesn't have a chunk missing. 

Even the prices for 1962 Post Cereal cards, those that were 'short printed' (issued on the backs of unpopular cereals) have risen quite a bit. It kills my soul to spend big bucks on cards that appear to have been sliced off the boxes by seven-year-olds with a butter knife. But I'm too close on this set (and the '67T) to turn back or abandon the build. So here we are.

For the Post set I'm long done with the easy cards. Most of those are still available for 79 cents to a few dollars. But the ones in this post were somewhat tougher. That's why I was okay with paying for the Jerry Lynch card up top even with the penciled-in team change. Lynch, btw, was traded from the Reds to the Pirates in May of 1963. So either the box was on the shelf awhile or some kid liked updating his cards.

This Joe Amalfitano card was, believe it or not, the better of the two available on SportsLots. I've blocked out of my memory what I paid for it. LOL It's hard impossible to read but the card has a notation that he had been drafted by the Houston Colts.

Marty Keough had a younger brother and a son who played big league ball. At nearly 87 years old Marty has outlived them both.

 Then there's this Early Wynn. His card is a 'tweener', somewhat tough but not crazy overpriced. I'm always impressed by the fact that Wynn pitched his first big league game in 1939 and his last one in 1962. The card mentions that he's 'Seeking the charmed circle of 300 major league victories... He hit that goal in July, 1963 in his second to last career start. He was 43 that year and had a nice season overall with a 2.28 ERA and a 1.175 WHIP in 20 games (5 starts).

Wynn was also a pretty good hitting pitcher with a .214 average and 17 career homers. here is his Hall of fame plaque. He was elected in 1972 with 301 of 390 possible votes.

But back to my rant...I've been able to throttle back my usual urge to complete sets as soon as I can. I'll get these two done when I get them done. The '67T, in particular, will take some time because I'm going to wait out the bubble I think. 

And I doubt I'll start another set chase anytime soon.

Billy Pierce (and a friend or two)

I've added a few Billy Pierce photos to my binder over the past few months. This first one is a promo shot of Billy P with the much-traveled Virgil Trucks. It's been signed by both. Trucks came over to the White Sox in June of 1953 and pitched in the rotation with Pierce for two and a half seasons before being dealt away following the '55 campaign.

This wasn't the first time the two had been teammates. Trucks was an established vet whit the Tigers when Pierce debuted with them at the age of 18 in 1945. Trucks was still there when Pierce got a longer look and won a job in Detroit in 1949.

Both of these guys were cordial and prolific signers after their careers. For the life of me, I can't remember why I thought it was a good idea to scan these in black and white mode. It makes the sigs look fake but they are real. LOL

This signed George Brace photo is my second copy, the first with a nasty fingerprint on the surface of the photo.

The third and final pic isn't signed but it's my fave of the group since it's a wire photo from Spring Training, 1958.  In case you can't read the cutline Pierce is shown alongside Dick Donovan and Early Wynn.

The Sox finished second to the Yanks in 1958, ten games back. They were still a year away from their '59 World Series appearance. The Athletics finish 7th, 19 games back that year so the Sox were actually closer to 7th than they were to 1st. For whatever that's worth. The three guys in the pics didn't disappoint, though. They won 17, 15 and 14 games respectively.

Speaking of Early Wynn...I'll leave you with two things I read while poking around the 'net: 1) He whiffed more hitters than any other pitcher during the decade of the 50s and 2) on July 18, 1956 he was hit in the face with a line drive off the bat of the Senators' Jose Valdivielso. He needed sixteen stitches and lost seven teeth. He was back without missing a start and shut out the Orioles on six hits (and got a pair himself) in a complete game win on July 22. Damn.

'58 Topps..the new project

Over the last couple of weeks I committed to chasing the third and final of my three 'cornerstone' sets, the 1958 Topps set. Along with the '59 and '60 these sets were the first ones that I dealt with as a kid and the ones with the most nostalgic value.

The 1958 isn't the most popular of the 50s era sets but it's colorful, relatively easy to track down and it doesn't have lots super expensive rookies. I set about to begin my quest in the same way I started with the 1960 set. I gathered together the '58 cards I already owned. I had all the Orioles, a few stars (Sandy Koufax!), a couple dozen commons and the entire All Star subset. 

Then I found a large lot (240+ cards) of cheap '58s on eBay and nabbed it at a price that netted me 210 new (to me) cards that included some stars in lesser condition. Even disregarding the 25 or 30 cards I already owned the lot cost me about 80 cents a card. The Frank Torre card at the top comes from that lot and more or less exemplifies the average condition of the lot. Trust me, some of the ones I received no doubt spent some time being attached to bike spokes.

Finally I took my wantlist to the monthly hotel card show and combed through my favorite dealer's vintage boxes and came up with about 60 more commons in really nice shape. He cut me a nice deal on a few stars as well. 

I spent last Sunday sorting what I had and making notes on cards that will need an eventual upgrade. I also looked closer at eBay and COMC to get an idea of what it will take for me to finish this thing off.

Here is a peek at some of what I have. This Luis Aparicio was part of the eBay lot. I so love the old Flying Sock logo. 

Frank Sullivan came in the lot, too. Soft corners and a bit scuffed. But this one is way down the upgrade list. Down far enough that I'll probably never do it.

Another Flying Sock guy, Jim Landis. This one came from the show. Nice card for the fifty cents or so that it cost.

Daryl Spencer sports a logo-enhanced cap. Topps modeled these on the old San Francisco Seals caps. Close but no cigar. This is another card show pickup.

Fianlly here is Hall of Famer early Wynn. I didn't intend for this to be a Sox-centric post but whatever. He came over from the Indians for 1958 as the cardback notes. And he had plenty of arm left. He won 49 games for Chicago between '58 and 1960 when his effectiveness diminished. 

Topps packed a lot of stuff on the reverse of these. Stats, cartoons, personal data and a blurb in most cases.

When the weekend was done I ended up with a total of 332 cards. That's roughly 2/3 of the 494 card set. I did have one surprise. I just know I have the Frank Robinson and Ted Williams cards from this set. But try as I might I couldn't come up with them. I'll keep digging. 

In addition to all the actual '58s I have I picked up some of Bob Lemke's customs including the 'missing' #145 Ed Bouchee. I'll post them soon.

I'm still debating whether of not I will have a dedicated '58 Topps blog. I'm waaaay behind on my 1960 blog. The idea of undertaking a new one is rather daunting. But nobody (that I have found) has blogged the set and I'd like to fill that gap. I'll try to come up with an idea for a simple way to do it.