Musing about my five collecting interests: All things Orioles and BALTIMORE Colts, 50's Baseball, team publications, Japanese cards and even some football and hockey.
You might find some beautiful women, soccer stuff, presidential pins and life advice from time to time. I don't charge extra for any of those.
I'm always surprised at how affordable vintage tobacco sets are (especially English sets). Twenty bucks, give or take, can get you 50 cards that include some of the best boxers in history. And the sets are easy to find. I've had my eye on this for a while and found one in nice condition at around that price.
Up top, we have the great Jack Johnson. A product of Galveston, Texas, just down the road. Here's the back.
Max Baer and one of the greatest fighters that nobody talks about, Henry Armstrong. He was my grandfather's favorite.
Max Schmeling and Jack Dempsey
Four more great ones...James J. Braddock, made famous to modern audiences through Cinderella Man, one of my favorite boxing flicks. Primo Carnera was well known as a wrestler after his boxing career. I grew up going to school with one of his nephews. And below them, Gene Tunney and Joe Louis, considered by many the greatest of all time.
The back of Braddock's card....
The full checklist. These were numbered using last names in alphabetical order. The last 11 cards are of managers and refs.
1 Lou Ambers 2 Henry Armstrong 3 Max Baer 4 Jack "Kid" Berg 5 Eric Boon 6 James J. Braddock 7 Primo Carnera 8 Georges Carpentier 9 Dave Crowley 10 Arthur Danahar 11 Al Delaney 12 Jack Dempsey 13 Jack Doyle 14 Jim Driscoll 15 Tommy Farr 16 Ben Foord 17 Larry Gains 18 Len Harvey 19 Frank Hough 20 Jack Johnson 21 Peter Kane 22 Jack Kilrain 23 Johnny King 24 John Henry Lewis 25 Ted "Kid" Lewis 26 Joe Louis 27 Benny Lynch 28 Jock McAvoy 29 Tommy Milligan 30 Harry Mizler 31 Walter Neusel 32 Jack Petersen 33 Eddie Phillips 34 Max Schmeling 35 Gene Tunney 36 Paolino Uzcudun 37 Jimmy Walsh 38 Billy Wells 39 Jimmy Wilde 40 Moss Deyong 41 C.H. Douglas 42 Jack Hart 43 Jack Smith 44 Victor Berliner 45 Ted Broadribb 46 Sam Russell 47 Johnny Sharpe 48 Arthur J. Elvin 49 Sydney Hulls 50 John E. Harding
Settle down over there, Mark Hoyle...this post is NOT going to be about Dan Osinski and Joe Foy. No, I'm asking (myself, probably) a question I have thought about more than once in recent years. And it's one that was asked recently by someone on Twitter.
The question is "Would you chase a set that you have no hope of completing?" I'm thinking mostly about vintage sets here but it actually could apply to modern ones as well. Many collectors have picked up base sets of current issues and don't bother with the inserts, hits, parallels, etc. Or they pick and choose what is important to them. But that really comes under the header of 'what is a complete set?' which I defined for myself when posting about the 1962 Topps baseball set.
Here I'm thinking more along the lines of sets like the '52 Topps, the iconic T206 set and others like them. The 1952 Mantle, unless you will accept a copy the looks like it was run over by a bulldozer and put in the washing machine, could set you back more than your car did. The same holds true for the T206 Wagner, some other Mantle, Ruth and Mays cards and many, many others.
My most recent cause to debate this with myself was a nice lot of 1948 Leaf Boxing cards that were being auctioned. I grew up around a grandfather who had two interests, I mean outside of working long and dangerous days as a pipefitter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and spoiling me rotten .....Friday night TV boxing and Mitch Miller's music.
From watching the fights on Friday nights with him I developed an affinity for the sport that has waxed and waned through the years since. There are two boxing sets that I really dig, the 1951 Ringside and that 1948 Leaf.
I've considered trying to complete the Ringside set from time to time. I have a handful and even with the few SPs and a tough card or two, the set is easily within reach of a dedicated collector. The 1948 Leaf? That's a different story. There are 50 cards, skip-numbered to #102. 49 of them, the 'originally issued' 49 are relatively easy. Not cheap, some of them, but not tough to find in decent shape. It's really an outstanding set, what with the colorful fronts that parallel the Leaf baseball cards of that era and the checklist full of stars. But, oh, that 50th card!
The Rocky Graziano is simply impossible for the average (and above average!) collector. It commands astronomical prices and is almost never seen in the wild. According to the article I linked to at PSA there have been less than 10 copies that have surfaced.
This one is not mine. LOL
Again, as that PSA article states there is no definitive story as to why the Graziano card is so hard to find. Obviously, it was not issued along with the rest of the set. Test issue? Unauthorized? Nobody is sure. But to me, it is part of the set until I find out differently, with evidence. Which means that a set without it is a nice 'collection' of 1948 Leaf Boxing, but not a 'complete set'. The backs are awesome as well. Love the write-ups and stats.
Hey, I'm the first guy to say 'collect what you want, a set is what you want it to be'. I have the Baltimore players from the T206 set and some others. That's not chasing a set. It's just picking up cards I like/want. I now own about four cards from the set including that Bob Montgomery above. But for me, looking at the 49 attainable 1948 Leafs in a binder and having the empty spot where the Graziano would be is just not something that interests me. Now if I saw proof that the Graziano was just a 'test' issue or maybe produced for a family member I'd reconsider and call the set 'complete' at 49. Then you'd better believe the chase would be on. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
I used to be a boxing fan. Probably stemming from my days as a kid when we lived with my grandparents in Brooklyn. My grandfather watched lots of boxing and wrestling. Nowadays other than viewing some Showtime fights (usually repeats) I haven't a clue about the current state of the sport or many of the fighters.
But that doesn't keep me from nabbing a few cards from the 1951Topps Ringside set when I come across them at a good price. These two Sugar Ray Robinson cards were offered by a guy on Net54 and I bought them. I usually wouldn't bother with graded versions but these were a bargain.
Ray Robinson, who died in 1989 and won the middleweight crown five separate times, was considered by many to be the best boxer in history. I remember him only as a former champ who fought in the early '60s while well past his prime.
The top card is a beauty on the front. Probably my favorite in the set. The poor grade comes from issues on the back.
The action card is one of a handful in the set that features a specific fight.
Pretty sweet both front and back.
I'll let these two sit in the graded cases until I get more of the set (I have about a dozen of the 96 in the set) and into a binder they'll go.
I recently knocked an item off my 'bucket list' by returning to Brooklyn and visiting the house my parents and I lived in when I was very young. We lived with my paternal grandparents who had been there since the 1920's and who had raised my dad and his sisters in it. I spent a lot of time there even after my family moved to New Jersey. My grandparents moved out in 1967 or so and both passed away within a couple of years.
I easily recognized the block but the fronts of the homes had all been redone over the years. It was as quiet and neat a little Brooklyn neighborhood as I remembered it to be. I have tons of memories of the place and especially my grandfather who I was very close to.
'Pop' was a tough little Portuguese pipefitter/boilermaker, born in the Azores, who had stowed away on a ship to get to the States at the age of about 14. He worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and loved three things, his family, TV's Mitch Miller and 'the fights' which for him included both 'pro' wrestling and boxing. I spent a lot of time watching all of the above with him.
I no longer follow boxing, haven't for a long time, but I do pick up the occasional vintage boxing related item here and there. The card I've posted is from the 1951 Topps Ringside set. 96 cards, issued in two series, and featuring popular boxers and wrestlers of the day. Glancing through the checklist I recognize a lot of the fighters and even a lot of the wrestlers. In Brooklyn (where Bob Montgomery won his first bout, btw) Friday nights was boxing's fight night on TV while Thursday, IIRC, was wrestling night.
The Topps set is a lot of fun and very popular among collectors. The cards are all over eBay with some pretty serious bidding wars over some graded cards but in general very affordable. The Rocky Marciano card is key. I own a handful and won't ever even try to finish the set. Some of the cards feature a specific fight and others, like the Montgomery, have his name under a championship 'belt'. Other feature fighters with a gold champion's crown that reminds me of the Topps rookie awards cards they've done in other sports.
In this shot in my aunt, my grandparents and my father (circa 1942) standing in front of their Brooklyn row-house.
Same house, earlier this week. It was hard for me to recognize. But I knew the house number.
And finally, my father, mother (holding me), aunts, and Pop. He'd be glad to see that his house was looking nice, still. But he'd hate the state of 'the fights'.
