As I was Saying...

Yup, it's been a while since I posted. I've been busy, traveling, distracted, disinterested, socially distanced (been practicing that for years anyway) and much more.

I've also been to two card shows and received some really nice card gifts, so I'll wend my way through some of that in a few posts and see where we are after that.

Here are a few of the cards that came from Fuji. Behold the wonder!

Crazy, right? Autographs, Orioles, Cougars, shiny stuff, Colts! He hit many of my collecting interests in one envelope. All meat, no filler.

There was much more cool stuff including oddballs, Post cards, 1974 Topps needs (he finished my set want list!). One of the best hobby gifts I've ever received and I'm very grateful. I'll scan some others and post soon.

'Life as it is now' department:

I hit one of the last hotel shows before we were all shut down and scooped up a large cache of 1960 and 1979 Topps football cards. I've since finished both sets although COMC and a few eBay sellers are not shipping at the moment. They can wait, it's just cardboard.

I attended the TriStar show and met up with Marc Brubaker. He had some fun Orioles and Cougars for me which I am saving for another post. I took a huge chunk out of my 1961 Fleer football needs and added a couple of Rusty Staub items as well. I'll detail the show a bit in that post as well.

We were in New York, New Jersey and Baltimore in early March and had a great trip. Ellis Island tour, Rangers game at MSG, Fort McHenry visit, and more. I traveled up to Dallas to see the Rangers play the Stars when we got home. I thought it prudent to stop going to the Y a few weeks before they shut down and have been walking every day. It's boring but Bob Dylan and Miles Davis are good company.

Mini Travelogue...

NYC

Ferry from Ellis Island to SoL

Ft. McHenry in Baltimore

We are healthy and being smart and I hope you are as well.

More Odds & Ends

More random stuff I grabbed from my 'to-be-sorted' boxes recently. Just going to toss in a few words on each as I await my Amazon delivery of a case of white binders. Once those arrive I've got some work to do!

First up, a George Brace photo of Billy Pierce.

There is nothing on the back except for Brace's ID of Billy P. in his usual manner.

Paul Richards' '51 Bowman is just so damn odd that long ago I had to go grab one. It's nothing like the painted photos that make up the rest of the set. There have been a few discussions on various card forums as to why Bowman went with a caricature instead of the standard photo but nothing has ever been decided as far as I can tell.

One of our usual haunts for cheap dinners out with the kids was a burger place near us that had a big selection of vending machines and video games. My boys took their loose change and always spent it all on sports team stickers and gumball helmets. I'm sure that's where this Bears sticker came from.

Dormand postcards are one of the great overlooked collectible of the 50s. Allie Reynolds, as I've mentioned several times, was my father's favorite pitcher. I'd have bought this even if that wasn't the case.

I found a stack of Dexter Press 5x7s in a box of photos. I have no idea where I got them from but it included Yaz, Al Kaline, Joe Pepitone(!) and this creased Willie Davis. Another under-appreciated issue.

It's about to be hockey season and I am pumped! I'm excited to watch the rebuild my Rangers are in the middle of. I already bought tickets for their game in Dallas in March. And for the first time in years I signed up for the Rangers package on NHL.TV! I have had MLB.TV for years and I realized that over the last two seasons I probably hadn't spent more than a couple of hours with it. I found the place where they buried their opt-out for auto-renewal and cut the cord.

Bailing on the Orioles for awhile might cause me to be viewed as a shitty fan but honestly I can't see pouring money into a 100 loss hole anymore.

This Topps Ripken medallion card weighs more than any card I've ever held in my hand. If I was 'Commish For A Day' one of the things I'd do was take Landis' name off this MVP award. I'd do that right after I decreed that the majors would no longer use 'superballs'.

I met Vince Young at the Roger Clemens charity softball game a few years ago. He just walked up to my wife and I and introduced himself. He's had a difficult time post-NFL. I hope things are good for him these days.

Lastly, a Ted Williams Company item. It's hard to tell from the picture but these are die cut faux-milk bottle caps. If you look at this cropped image you can see what is supposed to be the 'pull tab'.

When I was little we had milk delivered to our homes on Long Island and later in New Jersey. The bottles had these sort of caps on them under a paper shield that covered the top of the bottle. They've been reissued as 'pogs' and in various other forms over the years. Slurpee disks are sort of the same thing. Here is a picture of an original milk cap I found on the 'net. These are the type I remember and collected.

That's it for today's randomness. I think I heard my binders being dropped off!

Catching Up

I'm a bit 😎 ok..really far behind in posting some stuff I've received over the past month or so from other bloggers, both in the mail and in person. Time to fix that.

I can always count on Joe Shlabotnik to remind me that, for better or for worse, I'm an Orioles fan. And these days it's for worse but that's OK. I'm far enough along in life to realize that the outcome of games isn't all that important. The sun still rises every day. But enough schmaltz, let's look at cards.

I was happy for Chris Davis when he finally got the huge monkey off his back last month. He handled the whole hitless streak about as well as any player could. He seems like a very good guy and it's nice to see that he's even begun to swing the bat better and have some luck as well. He deserves it.

Nothing says 90s baseball card like gold foil. That's actually the front of the Norm Charlton card.  The 'Online' bit reminds me of my mother-in-law who uses that term for everything internet-related. As in "Can you come over and see why my online isn't working?" and "Can I see the online on my phone?" Hmmmm.

I had no idea who Bryan Bass was but his card has some nice bronze foil. It's from 2001 but UD was still in 90s mode.  BTW...Bass was a prospect out of Florida who banged around the Orioles chain for about seven years. His career, which began in 2001, came entirely during my time away from paying attention to baseball.

Speaking of my time away from baseball...

I came in at the end of Brian Roberts' career.  I had seen him play in Baltimore in 2005 in my first trip to Camden Yards and it was a 'who are these guys?' night.

Joe included some really great cards of recently and not-so-recently departed Orioles...

Has anyone gone from good guy to dispised as quickly as Manny Machado?  That's OK, I'm still a Machado guy.

I watched a bit of an Arizona game the other day. Looked odd with Adam Jones in that terrible dark gray uniform.

With modern card designs that mimic old designs nowadays, I frequently have to turn them over to see if they are actually older cards. This Leaf Eddie Murray is original.

Well, obviously this Heritage one is modern.

Did Topps sue UD over this.....

Either way, UD did a nice job of mimicking the '71 design.


There were plenty more baseball cards in Joe's envelope but let's skip to hockey and another of my teams that is in a rough patch, the New York Rangers.

I don't think I've scanned cards that were partially clear plastic before. These two Upper Deck cards didn't scan half bad but they are much nicer in hand.

And let's wrap it up with the most fun card in the bunch...it's my favorite mascot, Orbit!

All that adds up to about a third of what Joe sent. I'm getting some stuff together for a return and I'll try not to procrastinate much longer.

Harry Howell, RIP

Harry Howell, long time Ranger standout defenceman and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee died earlier this month at the age of 86.

I grew up among Rangers fans. All my friends, no matter their baseball or football loyalties, loved the Blueshirts. And we all had our favorite players. I idolized Eddie Giacomin, my two closest pals were Rod Gilbert devotees. But I never remember anyone claiming Harry Howell as his favorite. Howell was not flashy. Most blue line guys back then usually stayed back, rarely getting involved in the rush so they didn't score much. (Bobby Orr changed all that.) They were defencemen and they played mostly, well, defense. Howell was my father's favorite Ranger. If you had known my father that fact would not surprise you.

I had one brush with Harry Howell and it happened when he ventured into the WHA after 17 seasons with the Rangers. He was playing for the NY/NJ Golden Blades (or maybe it was the Knights) and they came through Houston to play the Aeros. As usual, my snowbird college buddies and I would make our way down to the concourse of the old Houston Coliseum before the game and during intermissions to watch the players tromp back and forth from the ice to the locker rooms. They had to come right through the crowd 'walking' on a rubber mat and protected by a rope held by security guards. It was not unlike what happens when pro golfers exit a green to make their way to the next tee box. Anyway, on this night I wore my Rangers tee and when Howell passed by I said something witty like "Hi, Harry!".  I remember that he replied, "Hey, Rangers" and moved on by.

All that is a too long introduction to the item at the top. It's a 6"x6" ceramic tile from a group known as H.M. Cowan/Screenart Hockey Tiles. They are a 1962/63 item that has a very murky history. Supposedly, and I only found one source of info (and no checklist), they were designed with the intention of being souvenirs to be sold in NHL arenas. But they were unlicensed and the project never got very far. Most (again, supposedly) were destroyed but obviously, some have survived and are neat little period pieces. The tiles depicted players and coaches from the six franchises in existence at that time. The number of different tiles is estimated at 104 but that's just someone's guess. I've been poking around eBay and auction sites and have seen about six different Rangers on these things, including Gump Worsley (a tile I'd give my right arm for).

I was completely unaware of these until the February TriStar show. I spotted a couple of Ranger's tiles (Howell and Dave Balon) in a case on a table near the front. They were listed at $150 each. The dealer(s) who manned those tables had nothing but rare and fascinating oddball items. They had one display case filled with loads of unusual Roberto Clemente items. Another case has Topps rarities and test issues from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Crazy rare stuff like the '68 Plaks, the '67 Punchouts and on and on. They also had zero interest in chatting with a schlub like me dressed in a Baltimore Colts tee-shirt and Ping cap. I stood around for quite a while as they dealt with neighboring dealers, a guy with a briefcase of graded cards and their cell phones. Meanwhile, I had $150 in cash in my hand waiting to get their attention.

Finally, I gave up and figured I'd come back later when they were not quite so busy. But the tiles had me hooked. I went and sat down and pulled out my phone to find out exactly what I had been looking for. After a few minutes I had a decent amount of info and on a whim I checked eBay. Well, what do you know? I found a guy selling the Howell tiles for about one-third of what the Snooty Table© dealers were asking. I bought it without a second's hesitation. Even the $15C shipping didn't faze me...heck that's just $10 American! 😏


For the curious, here is the back of the tile.

So, there it is. A great Rangers display piece now on my shelves. Oh, and I spent the money I saved with other, more appreciative dealers. Not all of it there at TriStar but a week later with my dealer friend at his hotel show. His ever-rotating cheap crap boxes featured some hockey and I was happy to dig these cards up:

I've already made this post far too long so I won't comment on each card very much. But I have to say that I hated Ken Hodge with the searing heat of an exploding sun when he played for the Bruins. To see him in Rangers gear takes at least a month off my life.

These Rangers' unis were almost enough to make me an Islanders fan.


No, not really, but I  consider them the worst mistake in team history. Given the Rangers legacy, that's saying a lot.

And finally, Eddie!! I told Darryl (a fellow Rangers fan from NJ) that this card should have been in his glass case instead of his quarter bin.