The Mick

That's a 1998 Fleer Tradition Mickey Mantle. I'm not a Yankees fan and I don't collect Mantle but isn't it a gorgeous card? This came my way as a 'bonus' from an eBay dealer who botched an order. He made good on the cards I'd paid for and included a couple of extras which I appreciated. Nothing valuable but nice cards nonetheless.

I scanned this one and was saving it for when I had nothing else ready to go. I'm in the middle of a couple of projects and I'm behind in my scanning (the past weekend's TriStar show didn't help me catch up) so tonite is Mickey Mantle Night here at the ol' 5 Tool blog.

Fleer sure packed a lot of tiny type onto the back of this one.

Let's Go Rangers

As this gets posted I'm on my way to Dallas to watch my New York Rangers take on the Stars tonight. Normally this would be one of the great events of the year. I've made this trip every year since the Stars arrived in North Texas.

But this year is going to be different. The Rangers are playing HORRIBLY lately and I see no end to the death spiral they are in. Normally my wife or my sons go with me but the schedule didn't work out for my guys and my wife is buried under her contract work this week. 

Wednesday Edit:

Well, best laid plans and so forth...I woke up Monday morning with the flu (Influenza Strain B to be exact). I never made it to Dallas or any farther than the Redi Clinic and pharmacy for that matter. I was able to cancel the post using my phone which is a minor miracle. But I had these cards on the post so I'll leave them right here.

And the Rangers' death spiral continues, tonite a 6-1 loss to the Bruins! At home no less. In 1970 losing 6-1 to the Bruins at home would have had me in a very dark place. But the Rangers and Bruins are no longer mortal enemies. (I've never lost the animus but most everyone else has apparently). 

So tonite it's just another crap performance in a string of them for my guys.

Here are two Rangers cards about which I can't think of anything positive to say tonite other than they are nice cards.

And last night my wife asked me how the Rangers did on Monday. When I told her they lost 2-1 to the Stars she said...and this is a direct quote..."So you didn't miss anything!" She doesn't really 'get' sports.

That Salada goodness

I've been fighting a bug for the last few days and haven't had much energy so I dug through my scan folder for something to post. (Tell me you've never done that).

I picked these Salada coins up off eBay a few weeks ago. I really only wanted a Colts example for my Baltimore Colts collection but Ol' Milt called out to me so I added him to my cart and checked out. These were issued from 1962 through 1963. I believe both of these are '63 vintage. A 'parallel' set of the baseball coins as well as hockey versions were available in Canada under the 'Shirriff' brand name at roughly the same time (and later that decade). I have the Salada Billy Pierce but the Shirriff one has proved to be elusive.

Jimmy Orr was a big deal in Baltimore during his 10 seasons there (then again every Colt was a big deal to Charm City fans). He always seemed to be catching TD passes from John Unitas in the right-hand corner of the endzone of Memorial Stadium's south end. That corner was dubbed 'Orrsville'. 

And with the Super Bowl coming up tomorrow it's appropriate (though painful for me) to note an infamous moment of Colts' lore. From Wikipedia:

Orr is known for his part in a play in Super Bowl III against the New York Jets. On the last play of the first half, Colt quarterback Earl Morrall handed off to Tom Matte, who threw a lateral back to Morrall in a flea-flicker play. Orr was wide open and waving in the end zone, but Morrall did not see him (perhaps because Orr was camouflaged by a backdrop of uniformed band members outlining the end zone). Videos of the play reveal that on an otherwise overcast day, the sun mysteriously came out just before the play, and shone directly into Morrall's face, while Orr was downfield in the shadows. Morrall threw instead to fullback Jerry Hill, but the ball was intercepted by New York Jets safety Jim Hudson.

I loved Milt Pappas before he was traded to the Reds for Frank Robinson in December of 1965. I was kind of disappointed that he was gone. But I got over it. 

As noted on the reverse of these coins they came in packages of Salada Tea and Junket desserts. I don't recall having either product in our home growing up. I do remember hearing and seeing commercials for Junket Rennet Custard. I had no idea what that was and didn't until a few minutes ago when Google enlightened me. Apparently the same company that now owns the rights to that name also owns the rights to the Salada Tea brand. Whatever.

Putting a bow on TCMA

My Fred Hutchinson 'sample card' from the 1979 TCMA Stars of the 50s set arrived this week. It follows the same pattern as the other sample card used by TCMA, Vic Wertz.

The front is identical to the regular card while the back lacks any stats or bio. And the card number, in this case it would be #138, is missing.

That finished off the checklists for my Michael Aronstein produced sets. But I was surprised when Tuesday's mail brought another 'extra' that I'll gladly slide into the binder. It's a three card set of proof cards of #232 Giants righty Al Corwin. These came courtesy of a generous Houston area friend/reader. 

All three have the regular back but all are mis-cut and have a ragged right edge. I don't normally go after these sorts of variations but this is a nice 'add on'.

As I was flipping through the binder I came across this wonderful Charlie Dressen which is #56 in the set. I don't know why I haven't posted it in previous looks at this set. The Dodger manager sits on a folding stool with what I believe is a 1950 Oldsmobile in the background. It's not Jim Brown's Caddy but it's still cool.

Another 80's Oddball Set

I hate spending more for postage than I do for the card I'm buying and because of that I find myself buying 'add-ons' to make my transactions 'worthwhile'. I can't recall what I was picking up or where when I grabbed these '86 Sports Design Products cards.

These have popped up on other folks blogs from time to time. They use photos from the collection of J.D. McCarthy who did postcards for sale to fans and players over the course of several decades. I love old McCarthy postcards and have quite a few in my various collections. Hobby icon Bob Lemke purchased the McCarthy archives and was in the process of cataloging it when he passed away about a year ago. So we may never see much more of that huge treasure trove of photos any time soon.

These are obviously a riff on the 1969 Topps cards. At least the fronts are. The backs are spare and look pretty amateurish compared to the front side. These remind me of the sorts of cards I'd see alongside Broders, Bammers and phone cards back when card shows attracted lots of 'dealers' looking to cash in on the sports card/memorabilia boom.

I think the seller had most of the set available but I just grabbed these because they struck my fancy. I don't have a favorite but I sure do like this shot of Sandy Koufax.

Just to slide a bit off-track I found a postcard that would seem to be from this same photo session. It's a McCarthy postcard. You can see his logo in the lower left corner. He used that on most of his postcards but not all of them.

Back to the cards at hand..... aren't those stirrups on Roberto Clemente grand?

I add Whitey Ford cards to my collection from time to time because he was a favorite of my father. And because I saw him pitch more times than I could count. I can't decide if this shot comes from his playing days or not. Ford had a couple of stints as a coach with the Yankees and I know he spent a lot of spring training time with the team after his retirement.

Looks like Yaz' picture was taken on the same day as Ford's. Maybe McCarthy drove from Ft. Lauderdale to Winter Haven one day in the mid-60s.

This last one, listed as #1 in the set's checklist is a bit different in that there only the rounded frame mirrors the '69 Topps theme. If you clicked on the Wrigley Wax blog link above you saw that the other duel player card in this set, Banks/Hodges, uses this same design. This one shows J.D. McCarthy himself posing with Ted Williams. I'd never seen McCarthy in a photo so I added this to my 'stack'.

There isn't much online concerning this set. Sports Designs put out a two part set in the years prior to this one. It used artwork by Doug West. It was featured in a couple of posts on The Oddball Card Collector blog.

For those interested here is the SDP/McCarthy checklist:

1 J.D. McCarthy / Ted Williams
2 Lou Brock
3 Carl Yastrzemski
4 Mickey Mantle
5 Roger Maris
6 Walter Alston
7 Ernie Banks
8 Billy Williams
9 Hank Aaron
10 Brooks Robinson
11 Joe DiMaggio
12 Casey Stengel
13 Juan Marichal
14 Jim Bunning
15 Matty Alou
16 Eddie Mathews
17 Sandy Koufax
18 Roberto Clemente
19 Gil Hodges / Ernie Banks
20 Duke Snider
21 Robin Roberts
22 Willie Mays
23 Willie Stargell
24 Whitey Ford

1968 American Oil ('Mr.') Tom Matte

In my never-ending quest for Baltimore Colts items I somehow came across this oddball item (or half an item) and recently added it to the Colts binder. It's from 1968 and is an American Oil (aka Amoco) Mr. & Mrs. NFL game piece. The idea was to buy gas, get a game piece, match the two halves and win a car or a cash prize. I'm just a bit put out by the fact that the Matte pair only netted you 4 bits. 

BTW...Amoco was behind one of the strangest NFL promos ever...the 1966 NFL Stamps contest. same basic idea...gas station visits netted you a stamp that went on a game card. I blogged about that one in 2016. 

Captain Obvious is here to tell you that the other half of this was a photo of Mrs. Matte (or more likely the whole Matte clan). I've been on the lookout for one of those but so far haven't had any luck. 

It measures 2 1/8" by a 3 1/2" more or less. Here it is with a standard card for perspective.

I found this page with a detailed look at the set. Some of the 'Mrs.' photos are a hoot. Well worth a peek. If you stumble upon a Jim Grabowski or Mrs. Joe Morrison game piece Amoco owes you a 1969 Ford. Ask for a Mustang.

TCMA Bonus and Sample cards

I recently took advantage of my free time to organize and binder the SSPC and TCMA sets I completed in the last year or two. Lots of cards, lots of nine-pocket sheets. I always print out a checklist and stick it in a one pocket and stick it in the binder.

When I dug up and printed the checklist for the TCMA Stars of the 50s  set I saw this:

And I was stumped. I googled a bit and found that the BC1 and BC2 cards were 'bonus cards' of those two iconic 1950s teams. A few of the Google hits led to fellow bloggers' work so I probably should have been aware of them but I wasn't. A quick trip to eBay turned up several copies so adding them was easy.

They are 3 1/2" x 5" cards done in the same style as the rest of the set. I didn't find any info on how these were distributed but the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards says they 'came with' the regular sets so I'll go with that.

The scan of the backs reminds me that the set was officially called the Baseball History Series although the Stars of the 60s version doesn't carry that designation on the back nor do any of the other TCMA sets as far as I know.

Just for the sake of perspective here is the Dodger version again scanned with a regular Billy Pierce from the set.

The listing of the Wertz and Hutchinson cards at the end of the checklist, which I thought at first was some sort of mis-print, is for 'sample' cards. I went back to the dupes I'd culled out of my original large lot purchase and sure enough I had the Vic Wertz sample card.

The front is the same but the back has no stats or write-up.

No such luck with the Fred Hutchinson version but SportsLots had one. As soon as it arrives I've got myself what I guess is now a master set of the TCMA Stars of the 50s.