Collections, Near and Far

I'm not even sure what that title means but whatever. This post will be the first of a handful I plan to write to summarize where I stand in terms of my set chases, what I've been picking up, and where I plan to go with collecting in the near and long term.

Let's start here:

Those are 1962 Topps cards and their 'parallel' Green Tint version. I dealt with them previously in detail while I was putting the '62 set together. If you are not familiar with the 'greenies', they are, in a nutshell, the product of the Topps second series being reprinted off-site due to unexpected demand. The story is that the original plates were damaged in transit and had to be re-done. You can check out this post to see what motivated me to just collect a subset of this goofy subset.

A few weeks ago I was paging thru my '62 set and when I got to the back where I had the green 'alts' I got the idea that I could collect the entire group without too much effort. So that's what I'm doing. No hurry. A already had a couple dozen of the 87 cards in the group. I found a few cheap ones on eBay so I'm at about 30.  This will be a 'low and slow' project, kind of like my 1960 Leaf build, only much cheaper.

These are old news to most everyone. Even I'd seen them and I don't see much of the Topps 'on demand' stuff. I bid on this set of 20 Graig Kreindler-painted cards from Topps' 150 Years of Baseball in a charity auction on Net54. The money raised went to a dog rescue organization.

Kreindler is really good. Much better (IMHO) than whomever they have doing the Living Set.

This Tony Gwynn is among my favorites. I like that he's wearing a Tony Gwynn wrist band.

At least I think it's a Tony Gwynn wristband.  Looking at it now it looks more like Bill Buckner.  LOL

I have another small set that I picked up but I'm saving that for a post of its own. So I'll finish with these:

Am I collecting the 1967 set now? Well, I'm not NOT collecting the '67 set. I lucked into some small lots and couldn't pass them up. I'm just going to see what I feel like once my other projects finish up.

If I look at too many of the cool vertical backs I will get hooked for sure!

These backs are damn close to perfect!

More on my ongoing projects and things I've wrapped upcoming next week. I hope everyone out there in blogger-land stays smart and safe. Don't take any chances, I have so few readers as it is. 😒

A Thing of Beauty

Most of the sets I collect appeal to me for nostalgic reasons, i.e. I collected the cards as a kid and they bring back memories of that time.

This is not one of those sets. I decided to collect the 1961 Fleer football set for one reason alone...it's flat out awesome. I have no recollection of having seen these things back in the day. I collected baseball starting around 1959 but the first football cards I remember having are the '63 Topps cards and the Philly Gum sets circa 1964.

But I've owned the Baltimore Colts from this set for a long time and the Lenny Moore card has always been one of my favorites from any set. You can see my post on this card by clicking here. And my look at the Colts in this set (and how they compare to the '61 Topps cards) is available by going here.

I think the set is beautiful in its simplicity. It was issued in two series, one for the NFL teams and the other of the AFL bunch. SCD has the background details in a story from 2017. I'm just going to throw some cards up here and comment on them.

That's not Jim Brown's best card but it's not his worst either. Bonus points for Brownie. The use of the cartoon-style logos, official or otherwise, is one of the set's charms.

At the TriStar show earlier this year I found myself with my needs list, sitting at a dealer's table leafing through a binder of these things. At that point, I was probably 40 or so short IIRC. When the guy saw what I was looking at he flipped out and went on and on about how much he loved this set, how beautiful he thought it looked in a binder (my kind of guy, obviously). He told me that it was the one set he had built in graded AND raw form.

I made big strides at that table and one other towards finishing this thing off. I can't remember exactly but I was down to needing less than a dozen when I walked out. As of this post, I still lack three, all rookies...Don Meredith, Tom Flores, and Johnny Robinson. I'm going to be patient with them as I've found some of the others pop up as bargains from time to time.

Whatever that is on the left side of  Bart Starr's head is part of the photo, not a flaw on the card's surface. And I didn't notice right away but the logo has Wisconsin flipped in the wrong direction. The logo on the back is the same way.

Speaking of the backs. They are simple, they are pale green on cream, they tend to fade, and the numbers seem to disappear on a lot of them. In other words, they suck. The back of the Don Joyce card is an example of a back that has survived without much fading. The Paul Maguire card back, on the other hand, is a pretty good example of what you'll find with the lower condition cards. Most of my set is somewhere in between. You'll also find that a lot of the cards are warped and a certain number are cut short top-to-bottom. I thought they might be trimmed but I believe it's just how they were cut at the factory.

The Oilers played their early games at what was then called Jeppesen Stadium on/next to the University of Houston campus. They practiced on fields that later became part of UH's recreation and intramural programs that I was heavily involved in through the early '80s. Those buildings in the background were across Scott Street from campus and were around when I worked there and some may still be.

I love this Blanda card, btw. High tops, wonderful Oilers uni and nearly matching blue sky and puffy clouds. Sweet.

The Titans played in the Polo Grounds before they became the Jets. Here's the guy who would become Joe Willie's favorite target in his navy and gold.

My guy, Tommy McDonald. This card doesn't match the rest of the Eagles in the set which is a bit odd considering he was in his fourth year with them. One of the neat things about the set is that so many cards within each team grouping 'match' in terms of background, style of photo, poses, or all three. More on that below.

I found a signed Paul Hornung. The sig is kind of faint but it's there. I gravitate to 'all-purpose' players like Hornung, Lenny Moore, Gale Sayers, etc and I collect a lot of their cards.

Here's former US Congressman, HUD Secretary, and 1988 presidential hopeful Jack Kemp. It's his rookie card and one of the pricier ones in the set.

The great Ray Berry. His pose, hands-on-hips at Memorial Stadium, is very much like that of Lenny Moore.

The Bears are the first team in the checklist, which is arranged using team nicknames alphabetically. They have nine cards in the set so it makes a perfect example of 'matching' cards within a team subset. This is Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, so I'd venture a guess they were photographed before the Colts-Bears game there in 1960. Colts won that one on a Johnny U to Lenny Moore TD pass late. Their second scoring hookup of the game.

A page of Chargers (with a Bronco sneaking in) shows that some Fleer photogs switched things up just a bit with their poses.

The Giants cards get that terrific Yankee Stadium-based logo. I know that some don't like the fact that a team nicknamed 'Big Blue' uses so much red but I gotta tell ya, these unis (and therefore cards) are fantastic. I love the Robustelli card. It's easy to imagine the photographer yelling 'Hey, Andy!' and snapping when Robostelli turned from the group of players he was standing with.

The Eagles were, for the most part, pictured in Franklin Field where they played back then. The stadium is on Penn's campus and still in use today. UPenn Quaker football, concerts, and the Penn Relays are regular occupants.

The fieldhouse in the background is distinctive.

Still looks about the same, yes?

Cowboys got their pics taken at Yankee Stadium. The date was December 4 of 1960 and the Cowboys tied the Giants, 31-31. It was the only game that they did not lose during that initial season for the club. The Giants, meanwhile, went 1-3-2 at home and Jim Lee Howell was canned.

1961 was the first season for the Minnesota Vikings and Fleer made cards of seven players who had been photographed the year before. Like former Colt Don Joyce.

Finishing up with an interesting card. Randy Duncan was one of the best college players you've never heard of. At Iowa in the late 50s, he was Big Ten MVP, Walter Camp Award winner, Heisman runner-up and led the Hawkeyes to consecutive Rose Bowl wins. He was drafted by the Packers as the first pick in the 1959 draft but opted to play in Canada. The BC Lions offered him a better contract. Oh, how times have changed.

After two seasons he returned to the States and was signed by the AFL's Dallas Texans. He started two games for the '61 Texans and retired after that one season after Hank Stram drafted Len Dawson. He returned to his other love and finished law school at SMU. He's in the College Football Hall of Fame.

This card is very different from the rest of the Texans' cards and I decided to poke around on the web.

Sure enough, I found this photo of Duncan from his days at Iowa.

My first thought was that Fleer had painted a helmet on him (in addition to obviously colorizing the uni in Texan's red/white) but I noticed that his left arm is in a different position. And the barely visible numbers on the side of his helmet match Iowa's helmets exactly. If  Fleer had created the helmet artistically they wouldn't have used those numbers I don't believe.

More likely is that the photographers at Iowa's picture day had players pose with and without helmets, etc.

Well, so much for that little side trip down a rabbit hole.

To paraphrase Bum Phillips on Earl Campbell...the 1961 Fleer set may not be in a class by itself but it damn sure doesn't take long to take roll.

Yes, I was busy

Just because I wasn't blogging here doesn't mean I wasn't doing hobby stuff. In fact, I was really getting after some sets I had been considering for a long time. They were all football sets and that was one reason I wasn't motivated to post. Not much interest in vintage football in the blogging world.

But I decided that I'd throw some stuff up here just because. I nabbed some oddball baseball sets as well and maybe they will find themselves here, too.

I posted some of the '71 Topps football set last year. I finished it off a few months ago with some COMC pickups. It's a fun set with the obvious colorful 1975T baseball set vibe going. The majority of the set is comprised of posed training field 'action' shots like Joe Willie here.

For the most part, the rest of the set consists of portraits. Many of them are practice field shots as well like this one of fellow Hall of Famer Paul Warfield, who will always be a Cleveland Brown in my mind. Some portraits were just cropped into headshots.

There is a sprinkling of game action shots. Dennis Shaw is one. Like everyone else seen in this set wearing a helmet, his is airbrushed.

Joe Greene's rookie card is the most expensive (and one of the least interesting) cards. But it's by no means hard to find. It was the last card I picked up for this bunch because I took my time to find one with the right balance of affordability and condition.

I pulled a random page to show off the colors and variety. AFC guys with red borders, NFC got blue. And the All-Stars got the combo treatment which really foreshadowed the '75 baseball set.

Kind of an interesting page there as I look at it. Alan Page has his game face on for sure. He is among the best defensive players I've ever seen. Spike Jones is not related to the 40s-era comedian and bandleader of the same name. But he does share the nickname. Duane Thomas was a real talent in the early 70s. His Wikipedia page is worth scrolling thru. Daryle Lamonica was known as the 'The Mad Bomber'. I always think of my childhood friend who called him Daryle Harmonica. It's no funnier now than it was then. 

And finally, there is Dick Anderson. He was a Pro Bowl level corner for a decade in Miami. He also sent a dagger through my heart in the 1971 AFC title game when he found a Johnny U pass in his arms and took it back 60+ yards for a soul-crushing score. Almost 50 years later and I'm still not sure I've ever recovered.

Because I like torturing myself I dug up (several) videos of the play on YouTube. The one below is in black and white but it features the NBC call by Curt Gowdy that still haunts me. Curt, of course, was an AFL guy and that came through in every broadcast. In this one, he all but explodes with joy. Funny thing, I never resented Gowdy. He was a fantastic broadcaster. I could stand watching more than I had to of this tape but it appears to be Curt's own analysis of the play from some sort of TV show. Whatever.

So that's the '71 Topps set. I have several more vintage sets complete. A couple have a few empty slots and are awaiting my COMC delivery scheduled for Tuesday.  I hope a few folks are interested in them because I'm going to keep posting 'em whether you like it or not. 😉😄

More from Fuji

Gonna post some more from the package I got from Fuji. Honestly, I wasn't really planning on blogging anymore so I had placed quite a few of the cards into my binders, particularly the '73s and '74s which he sent. Those finished out my wants and I was anxious to get them in pages.

But let's move on.

This first item is one that stopped me in my tracks when I saw it. I had no idea what it was and I'm somewhat embarrassed that I completely missed it in my Baltimore Colts Card History series here. I think that because it's not a 'card' it wasn't included on any of the checklists I was using.

This is a 1971 Mattel Instant Replay disc of John Mackey. Clicking that link will send you to an SCD story about these and the disc players they were used with.

It was hard to get a good photo of the back but this gives you an idea of how they were styled as full-sized vinyls.

They are a shade under 2.5 inches in diameter and look like this next to a regulation card.

This YouTube video will give you an idea of what they sounded like.

Poking around the net for a checklist (haven't found a complete one yet, I was told the TCD list is incomplete) and I see that CaptKirk42 blogged this very set back in 2010 (with a comment from Fuji!).

2014 Framed Rookie Card Reprints Eddie Murray!?!?

I had no idea that these were a thing either. But apparently so.

If you've never seen one they are fairly hefty and an eighth of an inch thick. Interesting item. In my previous post I mentioned that I had a question. This answered it...I had whiffed on my first attempts to figure out what it was.

There were more neat Orioles/Colts but the dolt that I am I folded a few into Bru's gift cards and others were binder-ed before I thought to scan them. So let us skip to the largest part of the package.

Fuji finished off my 1973 and 1974 Topps needs. Well, technically, they were the last ones into the binder. I bought the last cards I needed at a show after Fuji sent me the list of what was coming my way so Fuji's cards were actually the last ones in the books. It's a special feeling to fill that last slot.

I'll just post the few that I scanned before I booked the lot of 'em.

Walter Johnson from the '73 All-Time Leader subset.

And, woo, Johnny Bench. Never cared for those 70s baseball stadiums with dugouts you can just run into. There was also a '73 Clemente with 50/50 centering. Now THAT is a rare bird for sure. I was in on a long conversation with a couple of dealers at a hotel card show last fall while they discussed how tough it is to find that card well centered.

Same deal with the '74s. These filled the last open holes in the binder. A few were dupes but those were upgrades, so it was perfect.  Tony Oliva. What a great, underappreciated hitter. I was just a few seats away from where his lead-changing two-run homer landed in the first game of the 1969 ALSC in Baltimore.

Fuji also sent some of the Washington "Nat'l Lea." cards I needed.  I like the story behind these. It's a neat 'subset', true parallels.

All in all this was a pretty great gift package. I've been thinking about him and my other teaching friends. Challenging times for them as they navigate this remote lessons deal.

Please continue to be smart and safe out there.