RIP Dan Even...Postcard Guru

Over the weekend I got word of the death of Dan Even. Dan was a longtime collector/dealer for sure. But he was much more than that. He was one of those collectors who got more enjoyment out of helping others with their collecting than his own.

He had multiple interests but chief among them was team-issued postcards. He set up at shows across the country through the 80s and 90s and dispenced help and advice to anyone who stopped by his tables. He made Houston shows a couple of times a year. My collecting interest back then was primarily Orioles postcards.

Dan was a Cardinals fan but he knew quite a bit about Orioles cards and he helped me fill in gaps in my collection.  Once we became acquainted at shows he took to bringing me small boxes filled with postcards he'd picked up since his last Houston trip. I'd buy them sight unseen knowing that there would be some gems in the group.

I hadn't spoken to him in quite a while. I think he still attended National shows in the summer but I haven't made one in many years.

It was a pretty shitty weekend, to be honest. No need to discuss what everyone is aware of. But the obituary written for Dan that I found this afternoon is an absolute gem. It made me grin and then laugh out loud. Even if you have never heard of Dan Even I recommend reading it all the way through. Every collector will certainly appreciate it.

Dan Even Obituary

I'll wrap this up with some team issued Orioles postcards, a couple of which I know I received from Dan (Johnson, Grich).

RIP, Dan. And thanks!

Not bad for $4.01

I'm not an autograph collector per se but I do add them to my collection when I come across ones that fit and are not too costly. Case in point the six Orioles signed items I nabbed for four bucks and a penny on eBay.

Half my 'saved searches' are Orioles related so I guess that's why the listing turned up on my eBay feed (that row of stuff they tempt you with on the bottom of your pages). I'd probably have ignored it but six pieces with a $2 start price caught my eye. I tossed in a small bid and ended up winning. When you look at them they are really not that much of a bargain but the 8x10's will be fine on the walls over my desk at work. I can spend my last year there repping the Birds.

The Frank Robinson photo had a stain but in a cheap from from Dollar Tree it'll hang just fine.

The 1960 Topps Ron Hansen comes from one of my favorite subsets ever. That's 57-year-old gum residue on the front. I've been pretty successful at removing that gunk so I'll give it a whirl. I'll stick this one in my 1960 set after I clean it up a bit.

Ken Singleton was a class act with the Orioles. Signed '83 Donruss Singleton? I have a spot for it.

Here is a slightly abused Orioles team postcard of one of my all time favorites. Ellie was a fan friendly as they come. RIP

Finally a couple of flawed photos. One from Boog Powell.....personalized to someone whose name isn't readable (I'll make believe it's to me) and.....

...my umpteenth Brooks Robinson sig. Looks like the Sharpie was petering out. Oh well.

All in all a decent buy for the price. Hey I spent a dollar more than this on a hanging pack of '17 Topps Series 2 and got nothing I was remotely interested in. When I look at it that way I figure this buy was a real bargain!

Hoyle's Spoils

I'm way behind in posting stuff, particularly the cards that I've received from you guys so I better get to work. Mark Hoyle hit me up with Orioles from this year's Heritage set. I buy a few packs of new card issues and have terrible luck when it comes to scoring Orioles. I really like the set this year so I'm glad to have these and as an added bonus the Joseph, Gausman and Trumbo cards fill holes in my fantasy baseball binder for this year.

I was in Baltimore for Gerardo Parra's Oriole debut last July. I was hoping he'd return but this Joey Rickart kid had done well so far filling an outfield spot and he adds some speed to the turtle-like Orioles so that's a plus.

Mark knows me well and knows how much I love postcards and team issued paper items. This David Segui postcard is done in a style I have never seen before. My first thought was that it was something Segui had done to answer autograph requests. But the text on the back has me thinking that it is actually a team produced card. I'd guess that it is something that was included in 'fan packs', the stuffed envelopes teams send when you wrote and asked for schedules and stuff.

Either way it's a nice addition to my Orioles postcard collection.

Side note: I'm assuming that this is an item from Segui's first go-round with the Orioles in the early nineties. The Orioles had black brims on caps and helmets then. And I'm also guessing that the opponent is Cleveland. I think they were the only team with those awful sleeve stripes in that era. Dressed To The Nines seems to back me up on that.

Thanks again, Mark. Much appreciated as always.

Signed Orioles Team Postcards

I have a pretty big collection of Orioles team issued postcards. The bulk of them come from the 70s and 80s but I have a few from in the 50s and 60s. These old black and white ones are kind of special as they were sent out by the players themselves.

The Orioles used many different styles through the years. The Gene Woodling postcard at the top comes closest to the style they used for their color cards in the 70s and 80s.

Gus Triandos didn't have a name on the front but he had the standard postcard back, adrress box, stamp box, etc.

This Bobby Grich is the only one of this style that I own. Not many players were issued on these. I've tried to track down a few through the years without any luck. Maybe if I concentrated on less esoteric things I wouldn't have so many frustrating eBay searches.

Eddie Watt's card comes from a style that I love, mostly because the late 60s/early seventies unis mean good times to me.

Luke Appling coached the Orioles in 1963. And he got a postcard. Hard to see the sig because in those days we never thought of Sharpies. He's a Hall of Fame shortstop who held quite a few records when he retired. He played for the White Sox and ironically several of his records were broken by another Sox shortstop, Luis Aparicio.

This Billy Gardner was a card show pickups many years ago. Looks to me like he addressed the card himself.

I have an old Brooks Robinson black and white postcard in this style that he sent to me in response to a letter in 1966 or so. I think I still have it squirred away someplace. I'd give almost anything to find it.

O-R-I-O-L-E-S!!!!!!!!

I don't have to tell you that tonite the Orioles open their 2014 Playoff bid against the Tigers. I thought I'd put myself in the mood, and maybe drum up some good karma by posting a crapload of postcards of my favorite Orioles from the 'Glory Days' gone by.

And my favorite postcard:

Go Birds, Give 'Em Hell!!!

Sometimes it's the little things

I've mentioned my previous obsession with collecting postcards issued by the Orioles in days gone by. Recalling those days is one reason I never will criticize anyone else's collecting habits. 

The Orioles have issued postcards since their days in St. Louis. Through the late 1960s the cards were black and white, sometimes with a 'postcard' back, sometimes blank backed. I got my first one sent to me by Brooks Robinson when I wrote to him with my first 'fan letter' to any athlete about 1966 or '67. I bought a full 'team set' at Memorial Stadium around 1975 and that's what got me hooked. I'd write to the team each year and get a price list and order 8x10s and a set of postcards. Most of the cards would be the same as those issued in the previous season with new players added. Sometimes a new card for an established player would be included.

That what really started my in depth collecting habits. Over time I became obsessed with finding every postcard of every player and every variation... and brother were there variations! For example look at the Chico Salmon card at the top and compare it to the one below. His name is not only no longer in (f'd up) quotes but the font size has changed. 

The same sort of thing applies to the two Elrod Hendricks postcards below. And notice how the pictures are cropped ever so slightly differently. You can see it if you look at the piping on his collar. I cataloged all those differences. I used to use a small ruler to measure the distance between the picture and the name. 

It didn't help that a collector out in San Francisco who specialized in team issued postcards (particularly Orioles postcards) issued a thick bound 'checklist' with photocopied examples, updating it every couple of years. There were also guys like Dan Even who traveled the card show circuit selling player postcards. More than once I bought huge stacks of Oriole postcards from him blindly hoping that when I got home and sifted through them I'd find more variations or, even better, completely new cards for my collection. 

Poking around my binders and boxes of Orioles postcards is a lot of fun. I made pencil notations on the back of some with the date of issue if I could determine it. For example both of the large letter examples above I figured to be 1971 cards. I have no idea if that's correct or how I came to that conclusion. In later years I decided that marking the cards was a bad idea so I went with adhesive stickers on the four pocket pages I kept them in. Yesterday, as I flipped through one binder all these little white dots, the now detached stickers, floated out onto the table. Time to start over!

Camp Happy Bird

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. -Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The 1964 through 1971 Orioles. Oh, how good those days were. Even the crappy '67 Birds managed to entertain me, in a razor blade cutting sort of way. Other than that team the Orioles were in contention or winning outright the AL/AL East. The Robinsons, Jim Palmer, Boog Powell and Paul Blair were the stars. I loved them, but I also loved the 'other guys' just as much.

Here is a look at postcards of a couple of players that rank high in my baseball world. These all come from my huge stash of Orioles team issued postcards from that era. Back in the early 80s I collected postcards like a man possessed.

I just might be the owner of that cap on Andy Etchebarren's head. My then-uncle picked up a game hat from Etch at some banquet back in the late 60s and gave it to me. I doubt it's that exact cap but I like to pretend it is. Of course with it being about a size 7 and me being a size 8(!) I've never worn it and I doubt I could even find it without tearing apart my hobby closet.

Moe Drabowsky just looks like a cut-up doesn't he? Drabo is, according to Chicago columnist and baseball fan Mike Royko, "still considered the best pitcher that Ozanna, Poland, ever produced."

Dave Johnson, one of my all time favorite Orioles. I have never figured out why he was 'Dave' Johnson as a player but 'Davey' Johnson as a manager. Whatever. If Peter Angelos had fired himself instead of Johnson in 1997 the franchise would have been much the better for it.

Dave McNally is rocking the Orioles sleeveless unis that they wore at times in 1968 and 1969. They were the perfect alternate unis IMHO, different enough to be cool and worn infrequently enough to be fresh when they did.

McNally pitched the fourth and final game of the 1966 World Series and beat Don Drysdale, 1-0. I remember that like it was yesterday. He also hit a grand slam in the 1970 Series and gave up Al Kaline's 3000th hit. Kaline is a Charm City native, so that's fine by me.
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Small note following up yesterday's Don Zimmer post: Tim Kurkjian wrote a terrific piece on Zimmer that ran yesterday on ESPN.com and I think you'll enjoy it if you haven't already.