4 Off the Wall Claudia Cardinale cards

I picked up this small lot of cards off eBay some time ago. I've been a fan of Ms. Cardinale ever since I saw her in Once Upon a Time in the West. I have no idea what the origins are of these cards but they all seem to be European issues. This one and the next one are printed on stock that's thinner than what we consider 'normal', it's more like the paper that is used on those memorial cards that get handed out at funerals. The one up top has a odd back which features a recipe for oatmeal cookies in several languages. But that's not the weirdest reverse among this group.

This next one is almost certainly part of the same or a related set. The inverted name is in identical typeface and the back features another cooking reference, this time a picture of Chef Hans Hofer who pops up on Google as the proprietor of this Austrian hotel/resort. 

This one is blank backed and is printed on something a bit more like good old fashioned trading card stock.

This last one is smaller and the reverse is printed in French (teeny tiny French!). I dug around a bit and found cards from the same series that featured singers and boxers among others. The album shown at the bottom was up on eBay for a couple of hundred dollars. It seems that these cards were a premium somehow related to Victoria chocolate cookies.

I need a linguist.

These are not cards but rather just pics of the beautiful Claudia Cardinale. Enjoy:

This one is a still from Once Upon a Time ITW. Any wonder why I love that film?

Here's Johnny!!

One of my 'slow and aimless' projects/collections centers around Johnny Callison. Unlike my Billy Pierce PC I don't even have a checklist of Callison cards. I keep the ones I have in a box on a shelf and when the mood strikes or I stumble across one cheap online I have to go though my little stack to see if I really need it.

When I began seriously following baseball Brooks Robinson quickly became my favorite player, and he remains so today. But I also followed the Phils, to a lesser extent than the Orioles to be sure but I followed them nonetheless. I guess it was just to have an National League team as my best friend was a fan of the Giants and my closest cousin was a Braves guy. I suppose I didn't want to be left out.

And I latched on to Johnny Callison pretty quickly. I'm not sure why. With Brooksie it was simple... he was THE guy on MY team, period. With Callison it might have been his 1960 Topps card which showed him wearing his cool S-O-X cap form his tenure with the White Sox posing in Yankee Stadium which was the only ballpark I knew at that point and yet ID'd him as a Phillie.

Our maybe it was that cool 1961 Callison. I picked one of those up a few weeks ago and I remembered it from back when it was new (or I think I did). Connie Mack Stadium looks pretty sharp behind him in that picture.

I know for sure I had a '63 Fleer Callison. I remember those cards creating a stir when they came out. I remember the cookie that came in the pack but unlike Topps' gum, I can't remember what it tasted like. They were really neat cards, though. I had quite a few. I've picked up some over the last few years but I doubt I'll ever try for the whole set. I did grab a Callison though.

Maybe, just maybe I was aware of just how suave Johnny Callison was and that's why I latched on to him. Heck, just look at how he latched on to that beauty in this publicity pic I found (and didn't buy) on eBay.

OK, so he isn't 'latched on'. You know he wanted to.

1954 Red Heart Billy Pierce

I knew little about the 1954 Red Heart Dog Food set until I started looking for a Billy Pierce card a year or so ago. I found one in decent shape for $32 shipped. I think the dealer listed it wrong or something because I was the only bidder. As you can see it is suffering to breath in a plastic case and I'll be breaking it free soon enough. 

One reason I didn't know much about these is that there are no Orioles in the set and back in the 80s when I was on a mission to collect every known Orioles card I had no reason to pay attention to them.

PSA has a nice write-up on them (the fact that this one is PSA graded is just a coincidence) that you can access right here. It's a 33 card un-numbered set that you could acquire in 11 card chunks for four labels and a dime. And you could get a Stan Musial card which you couldn't do from packs of Topps or Bowman. If fact the checklist has quite a few Hall of Famers included. Exactly 1/3 of the included players are Hall enshrinees. Of course the 'chase' card is the Mantle. There is a listing on eBay as I type for a complete graded set, 8.5 overall with a Grade 9 Mantle. It's price? $26,500. I'll take two.

But I would like to find a couple more affordable ones, no graded versions needed. 

Here is the checklist with Hall of Fame members in bold.

• 1 Richie Ashburn
• 2 Frank Baumholtz
• 3 Gus Bell
• 4 Billy Cox
• 5 Alvin Dark
• 6 Carl Erskine
• 7 Ferris Fain
• 8 Dee Fondy
• 9 Nellie Fox
• 10 Jim Gilliam
• 11 Jim Hegan
• 12 George Kell
• 13 Ralph Kiner
• 14 Ted Kluszewski
• 15 Harvey Kuenn
• 16 Bob Lemon
• 17 Sherman Lollar
• 18 Mickey Mantle
• 19 Billy Martin
• 20 Gil McDougald
• 21 Roy McMillan
• 22 Minnie Minoso
• 23 Stan Musial
• 24 Billy Pierce
• 25 Al Rosen
• 26 Hank Sauer
• 27 Red Schoendienst
• 28 Enos Slaughter
• 29 Duke Snider
• 30 Warren Spahn
• 31 Sammy White
• 32 Eddie Yost
• 33 Gus Zernial

1955 Red Man Joe Coleman

It appears that Joe Coleman not only appears on a Red Man Chewing Tobacco card, but he uses the product as well.

Neat little set these Red Man cards. This is the only one I own other than the three Billy Pierce examples I posted earlier this month. Coleman is one of only two Orioles to appear in the set's four year run. The other is Sam Mele who was shown as an Oriole in one version of his '54 Red Man and as a member of the White Sox in another. I read someplace that the Oriole version is more common but I think that is a mistake. I can't find one on line for any price and yet the ChiSox Mele is readily available. I need to do more checking.

Joe Coleman won 13 games for the Birds in 1954, second to Bob Turley's 14 wins that first year of the relocated franchise. He won 52 games over 10 seasons with the Athletics, Orioles and Tigers. He is the father of the Joe Coleman who pitched in the majors for 14 years beginning in 1965 and who twice won 20 games. He is also the grandfather of Casey Coleman (the 2nd Joe's son) who last pitched for the Cubs in 2012 and is still in their system.

1962 Orioles Yearbook

I recently mentioned that I had bid on and won a '62 Orioles yearbook for the grand sum of $2.50 plus shipping. I picked it up at the post office today and I'm pretty happy with it.

Here is a look at both my 'new' and 'old' copies of the '62:

The old one had been 'updated' by an unknown (but obviously detail oriented) Orioles fan sometime in 1963. The coaches page had been edited with 'fired' notations on the write-ups of a couple of the staff. My upgrade copy is on the right.

Here is a closer look at the one with the notations:

And every player had his 1962 stats added. LOL And in some cases his new team. Here are the two books for comparison sake.

Both these pages are from my upgrade. First the Jim Gentile entry:

And the obligatory staff/behind the scenes page. I like how the photos attempt to capture the folks 'in action' as it were..... on the phone, conferring seriously. Good stuff.

Sorry for the pics. This is one of the Orioles' early 60s over-sized yearbooks and is far to big to place on a scanner. So I had to take phone pics. I knew you couldn't live without seeing my latest 'prize'.

Honest Abe and two Dons

February 12th is the birthday of (IMO) our greatest president and the (IMO, again) most remarkable man this country has ever produced, Abraham Lincoln. I'm a Lincoln-phile and have a couple of shelves of books written about him (not all of which I've read yet). I have a couple of modern cards that depict him. This is some sort of Upper Deck card. I've never really looked into the whole set.

There are two other birthdays of note (to me) today. First off is former big league reliever Don Stanhouse. He spent two seasons ('78/'79) as the closer in Baltimore and took at least that many years off my life. I was working at the late, much lamented Houston Post back them and most evenings I'd hang out in the sports department tracking the O's on the AP ticker. His innings took forrrevvver. Seemed like he'd go 3-2 on every guy he faced and he worked so damn slow.

I know Earl Weaver called him 'Full Pack' because he claimed that's how many smokes he'd go through in a Stanhouse inning. So Happy Birthday Don Stanhouse, wherever you are.

I spent the 1967 season as a temporary resident of Houston. My father was 'on loan' to the Shell Oil's Houston division helping the company get ready for the moving of their headquarters from New York. That year my father and I got to see a lot of games in the Astrodome using the Shell corporate seats right behind home plate. And I DO mean right behind it...we were in the second row behind the ump. That was my first look at Don Wilson. Maybe it was the vantage point but he was incredibly impressive as a pitcher. He threw serious high heat. The sound of the catchers's glove was something my father always commented on. I'd never been that close to a major league pitcher-hitter confrontation and I wondered how those guys had the guts to stand in against Wilson.

And oddly it seemed that through the years (we returned to Houston for good in 1970) Wilson was always the Astros' starter when we went to a game. It became a running joke. Because of that Wilson became one of my favorite Astros player. When he died so mysteriously at the age of 29 in 1975 it was pretty shocking.

I'll always remember reading about his second no-hitter and wishing I could have seen it. It came in May of 1969 against Cincinnati a day after the Reds' Don Maloney had no hit the Astros and supposedly shown some disrespect or at least that was how Wilson and the Astros saw it. Reportedly after the last out of his gem Wilson charged the Reds' dugout and had to be restrained. He was just that kind of guy.

Japanese 1948 Blue Baseball Backs

It's been awhile since I posted anything from my Japanese card collection. I've been trying to get my cards organized and these were shoved down in a top loader screaming for air so I popped them out and onto my scanner.

These 'Blue Baseball Backs' (set designation JCM 2) are from a small set that resides among the many Menko cards produced after World War II. The set numbers only 19 known cards and mixes real ball players with a couple of generic players representing Japanese teams and some 'cartoon/entertainment' figures such as Popeye and Betty Boop.

The big blue baseball on the reverse is fairly unique among the sets of that time. Is that trophy the Japanese equivalent of the Topps rookie trophy? The menko number is a multiplication problem. 

1365x21 is Takeshi Doigaki, reported to be Japan's best catcher in the era immediately after WWII. He was a coach, scout and commentator after his playing days.

Juzo Sanada is card 2465x56. He won 39(!) games for the Shochiku Robins in 1950 including 2 no hitters. He is a member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hideo Shimizu is portrayed on card 3955x21.  He was a pitcher as well as a first baseman and outfielder for 11 seasons beginning in 1940. 

And finally we have 8765x18. Identified on the checklist as 'Hankyu' which means this is one of the generic team cards. This players represents the Hankyu Braves, a franchise that is currently the Orix Buffaloes.

Like most cmenkos of the era these are smaller than contemporary cards, measuring 1 1/2 by 2 3/8". Here is one scanned with a Topps Murray for comparison.