1970 Topps..putting a bow on it

The Seattle Pilots team card, #713 in the set of 720, arrived yesterday and I slipped it into the last nine pocket page of my 1970 Topps binder. that was the last open slot and ends another fun vintage card chase. I had a few setbacks along the way including having a large group of OPCs included in my starter lot and an eBay dispute over my first copy of the Pilots card that I am still involved in.

But those are minor details. I'm happy to put this baby to bed. I currently have no plans to blog it card-by-card, I have way too many irons in the fire as it is. But that may change somewhere down the line.

In the meantime I have a couple of posts in the works regarding the set. I thought I'd post the first and last binder pages today. Each has some interesting cards. Here is the page containing numbers 1 thru 9:

The most expensive card on that page is #1, the Mets team card witch (painfully for me) proclaims them as "World Champions". And so they were. I've long since gotten over it but at the time it was pretty traumatic. I can still remember watching Cleon Jones catching the final out as I sat in my best friends livingroom. I got up and left without saying anything and walked home. I came to discover that there is a 'Mets tax' on their 1970 cards. I've gotten used to paying a premium for Yankees players but doing so for the 1970 Topps Mets kind of sucked.

My fave on the page is #2, Diego Segui aka 'The Ancient Mariner'. He earned that nickname when he made his second go-round in a Seattle uniform as the Opening Day pitcher for the Seattle Mariners in 1977. He was 39 at the time. The '69 Pilots uniforms are among my all time favorites and I'll write a post showing them off before long.

The Grant Jackson card is a close second. Jackson was coming off his only All Star season and in 1970 he joined the Orioles. He was a handy bullpen piece for the O's until he was dealt to the Yanks in 1976. I have an Orioles game program and a couple of team postcards signed by him.

Now we will skip to the last binder page, cards #712 thru #720:

Most expensive card...easily the Nolan Ryan. It was the costliest card of all 720 by far. I set a budget and every card that fell within my limit had some flaws. I decided that I'd ignore the off-centeredness of this one in favor of the nice corners. This is Ryan's third Topps card, his second solo card. But the premium comes from it being a high number.

I found that there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to the pricing of the 1970 high numbers. I picked up some excellent copies of common players in the high number series for about $1.75 while others commanded $7 to $10 consistently. It made the chase just that much more fun.

My favorite on this page is the Pilots team card. It was costly in it's own right and I was lucky to find this one for under $20 shipped. It's kind of interesting the Topps never switched to calling the club the Milwaukee Brewers even though the sale and city switch had gone through before the late series cards were done. This is the only Pilots team card ever released obviously.

And this one is the second copy I purchased. The first was part of a buy I made of four high numbers, three of which arrived. The fate of the fourth card, the Pilots card, is a mystery. I'll let eBay and PayPal do their thing and whatever happens happens. If I lose my case it won't be the first time I threw $25 down the drain by dealing with a questionable seller.

Looking at the back of  the card it's fun to note that these records could be labels as 'Pilots Team All Time Records'. I love the fact that ex-Orioles Big Gene Brabender will always be the Pilots leader in seven pitching categories. That's him towering over everyone else in the top row of the team card picture.

As I mentioned I'll have some other 1970 Topps posts coming. I intend to look at the Pilots' uniforms and the great managers cards in the set.

I had doubts as to whether chasing this set would be enjoyable. Turns out it surely was.

Card Show haul

When I returned from my little Trump-inspired break from this blog I was kind of concerned that I'd have nothing to post. That's not been the case. I have all kinds of stuff. The problem actually is that I just haven't had much time. Not only have these posts been sporatic but I've largely ignored my two active set blogs. 

But I'll try to do better now that my work schedule has hit the 'off season'. These are some of what I picked up a couple of weekends ago at the hotel card show I frequent. Nothing like the fantastic stuff Mark Hoyle nabbed last weekend at a show and showed off on Twitter but whatcha gonna do? 

I bought a handful of  '57s from a bargain box (almost everything I get at shows is from vintage bargain boxes).  Some of the ones I nabbed went out to other collectors already but these are what I kept. 

I never pass up a Harry 'Suitcase' Simpson card. This is probably my third '57 Topps Simpson. One of them went out to a collector. I love this card with it's old Yankee Stadium background. 

Here's another dupe. I had this Juan Pizarro in my PC but for about a quarter I added this one to my stack. I know what you're thinking...'Who the hell has a Juan Pizarro PC?'.  Guilty as charged.

Same thing goes for this '62 Post Brooks Robinson. There is nothing nice about this card other than it being Brooks but for the price I figured I might just pass it on to someone who is looking for a placeholder.

Now these I bought for me. Is there anyone who doesn't love Kelloggs' cards, especially 1970 Kelloggs?  I have a long, convoluted and not all that interesting Joe Pepitone story that I may relate one day. But the bottom line is that he dated a girl who lived down our block when we lived in Nutley, NJ. She ended up as an item in the New York Daily News at one point and was the talk of the neighborhood. Those were fun times.

Rico Petrocelli had a brother who ushered at Yankee Stadium. He told me and my friends he was 'authorized' to sign his brother's autograph. I had a couple of Yankee game programs signed by him. LOL

When my daughter was young and mildly interested in sports she was a Nolan Ryan fan. These two oddballs were a dime each. I bet there is a Nolan collector out there who could use them.

This is a better '69 Bob Moose than I have in my ...errr... Bob Moose PC. I bought it hoping it would be so.

And then there is this Jim 'Mudcat' Grant Topps coin. My dealer friend always has a pile of these coins, always in pretty brutal shape. This is the first time I've spotted a Grant.

As mentioned above the rest of what I bought went out thru the postal system last week. I spent three hours and about $20 total. I resisted an urge to buy a 1970 Topps 'starter' lot and headed out for a Banh Mi and Vietnamese coffee. It was a good day all around.

Random 80's Crap from my Hobby Closet, Pt.4 (Why do I save this stuff edition)

Recently I pulled a random box out of my 'hobby closet' and opened it just for the hell of it. I have about a dozen of these boxes, most are the document storage-type things and I haven't looked at them in years. Inside the one I chose I found all sorts of junk I had picked up in the 80's. There is no logic to any of it. I bought whatever struck my fancy back in those days and I saved everything. 
I found small boxed sets that I had pulled the Orioles out of, commercially produced and team issued postcards, odd ball TCMA trash, unlicensed photo cards, pocket schedules, ticket stubs and much more. While I'm off visiting the Big Apple I thought I'd put up a few posts showing the 'stuff' I once valued so highly. 

I used to keep everything. No matter how useless it might be. Like ticket stubs, business cards of people who I knew I'd never need to deal with again, Reggie Bar wrappers, etc. Here's proof from my box of 80s junk:

First up a Ted Williams photo card that had a subscription ad for Baseball Card News on the back, dated 1983. I have six of them. Lord knows why. But I did like Baseball Card News. I liked all the publications, Tuff Stuff, The Trader Speaks, SCD. I got them all at one time or another.

This is a Mother's Cookies Nolan Ryan. I guess any Nolan item is worth saving. I bet a Ryan fan would like this. I always took my kids to Mother's Cookies giveaway days at the Astrodome. They liked the cards a lot. The distribution was intended to encourage kids to swap dupes to obtain a full set but I never knew anyone who did that.

I was puzzled when I looked up the date August 14th on the Yankee's 1980 schedule and it showed them to be in Baltimore that night. I had gone to Yankee Stadium on that annual summer trip and the Yankee logo caused me to assume it was from the game we saw against the White Sox. Then I realized that this was from a game in Baltimore against the Yanks that same week. The section number should have tipped me wise when I saw it. 

I had a brief fling as an Expos fan in the first few years of their existence. My family took a vacation in Montreal and Quebec City in the summer of 1969 and on August 13th we were at Parc Jarry when the played, and lost to, the Reds. It was a wild experience. The fans were really rabid and it was 'Bat Night'. You've never lived until you have listened to the sound of thousands of bats pounding on aluminum seats all at the same time. 

Another memorable thing about that night was following Jim Palmer's no-hitter via the scoreboard. The Expos game ran 11 innings and was over late and Palmer had wrapped things up by the time we left. The scoreboard in Montreal was updating the Orioles-A's game every inning. It was a very great night!

All of which is a roundabout way of explaining this Mack Jones postcard. I bought it and several others including Rusty Staub, at the concession stand that night. For a few years the Expos eclipsed the Dodgers as my NL team of interest.

How cool is Mack Jones?

College sports schedules are another thing I have tons of. I guess I ought to just keep one of each. This Phi Slama Jama one is pretty cool. That's Akeem (he was 'Akeem' before he was 'Hakeem') Olajuwon. That was a terrific team to watch. 

Why I have a small stash of 1984 Rice Owl football schedules is a mystery to me. 

This ticket stub comes from the Colts visit to the Dome in 1984. The Colts won, 35-21. Since the wounds of the Colts' departure from Baltimore were still fresh I was cheering for the Oilers despite having so many of my favorite players, Curtis Dickey, Ray Butler, etc. in Indy. Earl Campbell, one of the most fun players to watch ever, scored twice. Section 502 was behind the west end-zone upstairs. I also sat there for University of Houston games for many, many years.

And finally here is a USFL schedule for the Houston Gamblers. By all accounts they were a fun team to watch with the early version of the Run-N-Shoot triggered by Jim Kelly. I never saw them play. Not even on TV. I had no interest in any pro football league other than the NFL. I did meet Jim Kelly once though. One afternoon he walked in to a memorabilia store I frequented. the folks who ran the place were huge USFL/Gambler fans. He poked around, posed for a pic or two, signed a few things for them and left. I might have said 'Hi' or shook his hand. I don't remember.

1992 Coca Cola Nolan Ryan

I think I got this card through Nacho Grande's group break, but I wouldn't swear to it. I was never a fan of the various versions of the Astros' rainbow duds, but that's a pretty sweet jacket that Nolan is rockin'.

The back of the card is dedicated to Ryan's 1987 season. He went 8-16 for a rather mediocre club. But, as the write-up states, he was the the first (only) pitcher to lead his league in Ks and ERA and not win the Cy Young.

I've probably mentioned previously that my wife and I attended Ryan's Houston Astro debut in 1980. Heck of a lot of hype. And Nolan responded with, not a win although he pitched well, but a home run! It was his first ever homer and one of only two in his career. And he hit it off Don Sutton! I remember watching in disbelief as it went over the left field wall.

The game lasted 17 innings with the Dodgers winning, 5-4. My wife and I were not there at the end. We had plans to go to Gilley's Club that evening to see a John Conlee show. He was (and still is) a favorite of ours.

We were sitting at one of those 'picnic-style' tables near the front waiting for the show to start. Then a guy came up and asked us if we'd mind sharing our table with Kenny Stabler (he was the Oilers qb back then) and his group. Hell, why not?!?! And so he sat down with a couple of other people and introduced himself and said thanks for letting them sit there.

He bought a couple of rounds of beer as I recall and had a guy fending off autograph requests while the live show was going on. He signed during the break and he signed an Astros cap my wife was wearing and a Gilley's bumper sticker I dug up. We felt like big shots. LOL

All in all, a very cool day. One I won't forget, that's for sure.