Stuff on my desk, Pt 2

Here are some other things I've had kicking around that I'm scanning today before they go into the right binder.

This c. 1963 Jim Rowe produced postcard of Billy Pierce was on eBay and pointed out to me by Jeff Wilk. I have a copy of this but I'm happy to have added a signed one for just a few dollars.

I spent more of my fantasy football winnings on some '67s. Those are on their way. Meanwhile here are some that came my way a week or two ago.

Bobby Tolan was among the last of the non-high numbers I was lacking. His is one of those cards that seem to command a premium for no apparent reason by a certain number of dealers while the rest list him at common prices. It's an odd phenomenon I've seen with other sets like the '61 T and '62T.

Fergie officially finished off the low numbers.

When I went to my first in-person Houston SABR chapter meeting I got a very 'cliche-ish' vibe. I felt like an outsider honestly. But I ended up sitting across the table from Larry Dierker and he was very friendly.

Now, something different.near the end of 2020 I bought a stack of twelve or so 1958 Atlantic Oil Film Stars cards from someone on NET54. Rather than cherry pick what he had I just grabbed the lot. Or at least what he had left after someone else had taken a few. Happy to add Janet Leigh to my Hollywood collection but the main draw for me was Ingrid Bergman.

Ava Gardner was a nice bonus.

I don't think Gregory Peck ever gave a bad performance. I scanned Lana Turner's card with a mosern card to show the size difference.

I've been adding to my SSPC Baseball Immortals set with the later-issued Hall members. I still need a few. Fun little set.

I also added to my '75 Topps mini build. Not sure I've mentioned that before. But it's a slow build that I may or may not ever finish. I had most of the Orioles and a few others before I bought a starter set years ago and just let it sit in a box. If you have some dupes lemme know. I'd love to trade.

I'll post a few of those and a handful of other odds and ends in the next week or so if we all don't go to hell in a hand-basket before then.

Collection Status...Part Two

Last week I posted about my progress with my primary set projects. I'll take a little time today to focus on the rest of what I'm working on these days. Public Service Announcement: Slabbed cards in this post will be freed as long as I have a binder page that will fix properly. (That's a PSA..get it? PSA? The grading company. Hell, never mind)

Player Collections, etc.  Nothing new on the Billy Pierce front. I add some oddball items from time to time but the 'White Whales', like his '59 Bazooka card, remain beyond the range of my harpoon.  I do grab vintage of him from cheap card boxes at shows. I just think I hate seeing him in quarter boxes, so undignified! LOL

My PC/Orioles Stars binder has fallen into disrepair lately. That'll get re-done in the next few months. Meanwhile, I discover fun stuff like this Dennis Martinez card by reading other blogs (thanks, Fuji!). It was pretty cheap on eBay and it just showed up.

Likewise, my University of Houston alum cards were put up in a box when I turned my hobby room into a nursery! After all these years I will re-binder them and fill in some gaps, next year probably.

Small/Oddball Sets I recently came across a box I had put away that continued a load of stuff like small Orioles sets, TCMA team sets, 1980s era Kmart and similar 33-card boxed sets, etc, etc. Some of those need to be bindered, many will just get broken up into teams and sent to fellow bloggers. Some will get burned in the fire pit.

Houston Aeros Over the last few years I've pulled this one on and off the 'back burner' of my collecting. Aeros games were fun, cheap entertainment back in the day. My friends and I made it to lots of them, particularly at the old Sam Houston Coliseum in downtown Houston.

A few years ago I decided to collect their team sets from the few companies making WHA cards back then. I already owned the Howe cards so finding the rest wasn't hard. I have all the base Aeros cards from the various O-Pee-Chee sets. I have a couple of the Quaker Oats cards and a few of the 75/76 team issued set. Those latter two sets are very tough.

I also add a few 'retro' set Aeros when I come across them cheap, mostly Gordie Howe cards on which he is shown with Houston.

More hockey...once I finish going through my boxes of stuff and sort out the Rangers I have I may try to finish some team sets.

Non-Sports Cards This covers so much that I will break it down, mostly for my benefit. I think I need to re-assess where I'm going with these. 😏

Batman I have the three original Topps 1966 Batman sets, red, blue and black bat. There are dozens of modern Batman sets and I have a handful. I made it a point to buy the boxed sets that were associated with the first Batman movies. I am nearing 50 Batman sketch cards. Every few months I'll remember to check for cheap sketch cards on eBay. I added this one for a few bucks some time back. I have no current 'goals' when it comes to my Batman collecting.

More or less related to this... my Civil War News set has long been finished. Once in a while I find an upgrade. Topps continues to add to the Mars Attacks franchise. I have several of the reprint/update/continuation sets from this franchise. 


Presidents I finished off a couple of JFK sets in the past two years and am currently working on the '64 Topps LBJ/Goldwater set. I have exactly half of the 66 cards and little hope of finishing it anytime soon. They don't pop up often for sale/auction online.

My vintage Topps/Bowman presidents cards are in a small box, unorganized. That needs fixing. I also have several oddball sets of Presidents/famous historical figures which need bindering. My hodgepodge of oddball & modern presidential cards (Panini, European etc) also needs sorting.

Entertainment My pursuit of the Topps Soupy Sales set has been very slow. Once I found that each card has different possible backs (Topps flipped the sheets in the middle of the press run apparently) I backed off. I need to figure out what I have and what I need which is tough with the cards being unnumbered and the backs being unrelated to the fronts. Ugh.

I continue to add actress and actor cards, from the old tobacco sets thru 'fan' sets of the 50s and 60s. I bought a small lot of Exhibit cards of actresses recently. There is no goal or checklist for this stuff. I just pick up what I like when I find it at reasonable prices.

I came across some boxes of Stranger Things 1 & 2 packs really cheap. My wife and I really enjoy that series, so I bought the boxes. They are under my desk, waiting for a rainy day. 

Baltimore Colts Collection  I still lack some Fleer Super Bowl cards but those are not a priority. I do come across oddball and retro cards here and there.

I have a lot of new postcards and publications but I'm sticking mainly to cards with this post. Those will have to wait for another day.

Joe2019

Did the title throw you? This is NOT about politics, it's about cards from Joe Shlabotnik. Nice ones, too.

But there is a president involved. JFK led off the thick manila envelope that arrived from Virginia this week. He appeared on a Topps and an Upper Deck card, both new to me. My presidential binder is going to have to be upgraded to a 4-inch model soon.

In this Topps Opening Day card, JFK is tossing out the first ball, not at an Opening Day but at the '62 All-Star game as LBJ watches.

Here is the UD from their 2012 Goodwin Champions set. These are really, really well-done cards.

Also in the package from the same set was this addition to my actress/actor stash, the beautiful Carole Lombard.

She was the queen of the 'screwball' comedy craze of the 1930s and was reportedly the highest-paid star in Hollywood. She was killed in a plane crash outside Las Vegas in 1942 while returning from an appearance to promote war bonds. She was 33 years old.

Of course, Joe included some Orioles cards, new to me, of players known and obscure. I like the design of this '94 UD Miggy Tejada more than anything being produced these days. But, then again, I'm an old fart and prefer the less flashy designs.

I grouped these Bowman/Topps/Paninis together but the scan came out smaller than I thought it would. If you can't tell there are a couple of Trey Mancini cards in there. I'm accumulating a lot of his cardboard. Odds are he gets dealt to a contender this week.

This GQ Palmer looks very familiar but I didn't see it in my quick look thru the binder where it should be so maybe it's new to me.

But the stars of the bunch were these terrific '57s! Joe knocked close to a dozen off my needs list.

Don Kaiser is the first of what is a Chicago-heavy group of cards from Joe. He was 6-15 over parts of three seasons with the Cubs and '57 was his last in the majors.

When I was a kid I often heard the 'Moooose' call at Yankee Stadium. I just love this card. Nice to get it as a gift so I can avoid paying the 'Yankee tax'.

He has a Chicago connection as he was a native of there. If you think 'deep dive' stats are a new thing, check out the blurb on the back of Moose's card.

Harry 'I'm NOT the guy from Night Court' Anderson in Connie Mack Stadium. '57 was his rookie year and he got some scattered MVP votes after hitting at a .268 clip.

Dick Donovan had a fine season in 1957 and finished second in the Cy Young voting to Warren Spahn. OK, Spahn got 15 of 16 votes and Donovan got the other one, but still.

Love this Felix Mantilla card shot in Ebbets Field.

Willard Nixon practicing his look to first. He was in his eighth of nine seasons in the bigs, all with the Red Sox. 

Ron Negray had fought his way up the steep Dodgers minor league system and then got dealt to the Phils. After a couple of years there ('55-'56) he was traded back to the Bums and was again in their system when this card was being pulled from packs.

Ray Jablonski looks and sounds like a tough Chicago dude. He also looks like a guy painted into a Cubs uni after being pictured as a Redleg with whom he'd spent the previous two seasons The thing is, he never played for the Cubs as they traded him to the Giants a day or two prior to Opening Day in '57.

Interestingly, his Baseball Reference thumbnail photo shows him in a Cubs cap.

Showing the back of his card here because I love the backs in this set.

Speaking of the Cubs...doesn't Jim King look like dozens of other players from the 50s? He also was on another team for the '57 season. The Cubs had dealt him to the Cardinals during the first week of the season. They had taken him from St. Louis in the Rule 5 draft two years prior.

And then there's Dixie Howell. He had begun his pro career in 1938 in the Cleveland organization and here we are, 19 years later,  and he's in his fifth big league season. He had done a LOT of pitching in the minors. He returned to the Sox in 1958 but saw action in only one game and spent that year and the next back in the minors. At the age of 40, in the Sox spring camp in March of 1960, he suffered a heart attack and passed at 40 years old.

There was another card in the bunch from Joe, a common, but one with an interesting quirk that I thought would make a good stand-alone post. That's coming soon.

Again, thanks Joe for a great envelope full of Orioles and '57 set chase cards. It's a much appreciated boost at a time I was shoving the hobby towards the back burner.

The Acting Bug

I picked up this small group of Exhibit cards recently. Exhibits are a fun collectible and usually very affordable. Sometimes it's hard to date these things but based on what I've seen these were printed in the 1950s.

I've been ignoring what I've come to call my 'show biz' binder recently but these and a nice addition that came as part of a gift package have gotten me back to searching the nooks and crannies of eBay once again. I'll get to the gift package(s) I've received in an upcoming post.

I'll let the cards (all at blank-backed) speak for themselves for the most part. The three actors need no introduction. 

If I was pushed to a wall and asked to name my favorite actor I'm not sure I could do it quickly. I have quite a few who I'd consider. Humphrey Bogart would be right there at or near the top (with Paul Newman).

Favorite Bogart movie: Casablanca. Close behind, however, is The Caine Mutiny

Clark Gable was a heartthrob back in his day, at least he was according to my mother. He's best known for his role as Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind in 1939. 

Favorite Gable movie: Run Silent, Run Deep. It's among his last features. It's hard to beat a great submarine movie.

Gregory Peck was a talented guy who played a wide variety of roles in his long career. He's got a defining career role in To Kill A Mockingbird, of course.

Favorite Gregory Peck movie: Twelve O'Clock High

The beautiful Eva Marie Saint was a 1950s sensation who did more television than movie work over her career which stretched over seven decades. Her most famous role was opposite Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront. She won an Oscar for that one.

Favorite Eva Marie Saint movie: Hitchcock's North by Northwest with the always terrific Cary Grant.

These take up one four pocket page in my Hollywood binder. A welcome addition for sure.

Norma Shearer Postcards

Over my Christmas/New Years travels I was able to put together enough free time to watch a few movies on TCM and some online outlets. One was The Divorcee starring the fantastic, and usually under appreciated, Norma Shearer.

Late last year I had picked up a small lot of British postcards of Ms. Shearer. I had scanned them but didn't have a reason to post. Now I do. Nothing much to say about the postcards other than they all have a 'postcard back' and depict her in various roles from her days at MGM. Her best movies came in the 'pre-Hays Code' days of the late 20s/early 30s. The freewheeling productions of that era were a lot more 'racy' than those produced after the Code was strictly enforced from about 1934 or so.

Norma Shearer was a big star in her time but she retired from Hollywood at a relatively young age and disappeared from the screen and most people's memories.

I always like adding some inexpensive things to my vintage actress collection and these English postcards fit the bill. Honestly these cards just don't do her justice. I added a few photos of her at the bottom of this post.