Epic Card Show Fail

 

OK, so it wasn't that big a deal but yesterday, for the first time I can recall, I attended a card show and walked away with every dime I brought with me. Blame it on my quirky wants, blame it on the explosion of interest in shiny stuff, blame it on the pandemic. But whatever is to blame, it felt weird. 

Coming home empty handed really was the result of all of the above excuses. I don't have much on my want-lists that dealers carry to small shows in the best of times.... '67 High Number SPs, '62 Post Cereal, '75 Topps Minis, and an admittedly odd selection of non-sport sets. The tables yesterday reflected the current trends in collecting. There were plenty of boxes of what I suppose are the kinds of cards people are in line for at Target these days. Display cases were generally filled with 'hits'.

Daryll, the promoter and my friend, did a great job with the show, the first hotel show since last year. COVID protocols were in place and enforced. I should note here that my wife, my mother-in-law, and myself are all fully vaccinated. If not for that I likely wouldn't have gone at all. 

He cut back on tables to give plenty of room for social distancing. But some of that is the reason for my striking out. With fewer tables the dealers cut back on what they brought. I normally spend at least 75% of my time at the hotel shows at Daryll's own tables since he usually has tons of vintage stuff. But he's limited what he brings and only sets up a few tables to give more to the dealers. After all, it's table rentals that pay for the room.

I struck out card-wise but getting to chat with Daryll for a bit made the trip worthwhile. And it was nice to get out of the house for a bit. I stopped at a few stores on the way home and bought binders and other hobby supplies so that made the trip worthwhile.  

Meanwhile, I have a few things that were picked up in my latest SportsLots binge and an eBay buy or two. The '62 Post Cereal McCovey up top brought me to just five remaining. There are also some variations out there which I don't plan to chase. If they fall into my lap I'd take them of course. I also added Juan Marichal. His card is a bit pricey but after a day or so of combing through eBay looking at '67 Topps SPs like the Rod Carew rookie, it doesn't seem so expensive. And it really is as nice as the scan shows. That level of condition is rare for a set that was generally cut from the backs of boxes by 10-year-olds with dull scissors.

Over on Twitter a hobby friend showed a couple of cards from a set I was unaware of, the 1968 Topps/Milton Bradley Hot Rods. I commented on them and did some digging. They reminded my of the George Barris 'Kustoms' that we loved as kids and he was gracious enough to send me the cards. Turns out I had a couple of these stashed away in a box of oddball singles and strays and had completely forgotten about them.

This turned out to be a 66 card set without any rarities so I'll work on it casually for now. I found a dozen or so being sold by an eBay dealer so I'm at 16 or so. Finding them, not cost, is the challenge. That's a much more enjoyable hobby predicament than wondering if nabbing the remaining 26 Topps 67s will take my whole stimulus check. 

There are some back color variations. The story behind these is a bit murky (I've read a couple of conflicting accounts) but I'm not going to worry about any of that. They will make a nice companion to the World On Wheels binder.

Too Cool For Words..and an OPC Update

Thought I'd post a few fun cards from the 1970 Topps set...and these are Topps, not O-Pee-Chees!!

That Lowell Palmer card had been shown on plenty of blogs but it's always worth another look. There have been other players shown wearing shades on baseball cards (my fave is the '59 Topps Ryne Duren) but Palmer's opaque beauties made it look like he had just come from having his eyes dilated.

Palmer, of course, appeared on other cards wearing his sunglasses. The always entertaining Fleer Sticker Project has posted those and many other photos of the righthander. He has to be one of the most discussed career five game winners in history.

Willie McCovey is another guy (like Warren Spahn) who never seemed to have a lousy card. This 1970 is one of his best and IMHO one of the best cards in the set.

Nothing really remarkable about this Rich Morales card other than the great look it gives at one of my favorite uniforms, the White Sox' roadies from 1969/70.

I always get a little twinge of nostalgia when I see a card with the iconic Yankee Stadium scoreboard on it. Fritz Peterson may be the only reason I ever visit Facebook. He posts constantly and always has some fun stories and memories to share.

Finally this George Scott brought a smile to my face almost as big as his. I can imagine Boomer being interrupted by some goofing teammates around the batting cage while the Topps photographer waited for him to turn back to the job at hand.  I really like this one. And it's one of the few that I don't remember from back when this set was fresh.

And I'll wrap up with a word on my set building 'setback'. In my last post I discussed my discovery that some of the cards I purchased in the starter lot that launched this set build turned out to be O-Pee-Chees. The final tally ended up at 47(!!!), all numbered between 460 and 550.

 After a day or two of considering my options I decided that a 'hybrid' set, as several folks referred to it as, would be unacceptable. Just before typing this post I spent an hour on COMC picking up Topps versions of the OPCs. I paid between $0.41 and $1.25 for nearly all of them. The two Mets cards seemed to carry a 'NY tax'. The cheapest acceptable Al Weis card ran me almost $2 which upped my average cost. The only two cards which ran me more than that were Tony Oliva and Bob Gibson. The Topps Gibby I grabbed cost $5 and is actually an upgrade over the OPC one that came in the starter lot.

Bottom line is that I have solved my issue for under $45. Of course that's money I could have used to knock off several more high numbers but I'm considering it a lesson learned. And there's always a chance that I will offset my 'losses' by selling the OPCs and/or working something out with my dealer buddy who sold them to me in the first place. That'll be something that'll be discussed at next Saturday's hotel show. Stay tuned.

Batteries refreshed

I took a few days away from blogs and blogging (and just about everything computer related) after I got back from my road trip. Along the way I bought a few items including some Stadium Club. I realize that SC is now old news since Topps has released about four sets since then but whatever. It was new to me.

I'm just going to post the cards that are not plain old base cards that I got.....plus one or two that I liked.

Here's a gold foil Jeff Bagwell posing in Busch Stadium II (or was that III?).

Nolan Arenado reflector/refractor/3D version. 

Sc always has some neat pics of old school guys like this. Here Willie McCovey is waiting his turn to launch a few baseballs into downtown Phoenix during Spring Training.

Gold foil Todd Frazier.

I like catcher cards of catchers doing catcher things. And I like Stephen Vogt even though I never know how to pronounce his name.

This is a black foil card. One of these two guys is Danny Santana.

Washed out Brian Dozier card with bronze foil. I liked the old time babe Ruth set with the sepia photos. These modern pics done that way leave me cold.

Finally here are the SC and my '16 Topps Now cards of Joe Musgrove. I picked up the TN version when I nabbed him for my fantasy team last year. Interesting that they used the same pic. I don't look at many TN cards but I haven't seen this happen other than here.

So there you are, one and done for Stadium Club. It's easily my favorite Topps current set. I may pick up a few orioles here and there but as far as buying more retail I don't think so.

Next post...my disillusionment with repacks.

1970 Topps...I'm in

Months ago when I finished off the 1958 Topps set I was thinking that I was done chasing vintage sets for awhile. But at one of the monthly card shows my friend runs he told me he had a couple of 1970 'starter' lots and asked me if I was interested. 

Willie McCovey All Star. These are such a fun subset. Love the design! This is one I have had for awhile. He'll be happy to reunite with all his 1970 buddies.

Back while I was still chasing the last of the '58s we had talked about what I planned to do next project-wise and I had told him that long term I was either going to continue forward with Topps sets (1961, '62 etc) or perhaps collect the sets that represented the Orioles' championship seasons ('66, '70 and '83). 

 Bobby Murcer. A guy I saw play countless times including the day in 1970 that he hit four homers in a row.

I wavered initially on the 1970 lots but he promised to bring them to the next show anyway. He kept forgetting to do so which was fine by me. I was still determined to wait until I was much further along with posting on my 1960 and 1958 set blogs before tackling a 'buying' campaign.

Jim Palmer. This is one of my original '70 Palmers. It's about as nice as the one that came in the starter lot. When that happens..tie goes to my original card!

Then a month ago, after I'd skipped a few shows, I returned to one and Darrell pulled out a big white binder. Yup, it was one of the 1970 'starter' lots. It was laid out in 9 pocket sheets and I could see immediately that the cards were in really nice shape...and there were more of them than I thought should be called a 'starter' lot. There were about 460 of the 720 cards included. 

I'll admit to an unhealthy fixation on these White Sox road unis from 1969 that are all over this 1970 set. And this Gail Hopkins card with his big glove dominating the shot is pretty sharp.

I'd started the 1960 and 1958 builds with lots of about 200 cards of questionable grading while having some of the stars and all the Orioles already in hand. I started my 1959 build with my battered Bob Gibson rookie, a few stray, poor condition stars and the Orioles.

If I went with this group of 1970 cards it would be different. I'd be chasing a lot of the high and semi-high number, almost every star outside of the Robinsons and a couple more. I spent some time looking at a few other tables, went to lunch and returned still not having made up my mind. Funny thing was that we had never discussed a price. I always know Darrell will be more than fair. I trust him enough to just pull cards from his boxes and let him price them as I wander around. On the way out of the show he'll tell me what I owe for them. It's always less than it should be.

The Pilots! They were the Brewers by the time these cards were hitting the shelves. But these unis will never be anything but classic.

In the end though it was the price that lured me in. At fifty cents a card it was too good a deal to pass up. Let's face it...the 1970 set is not the most popular ever cranked out by Topps but it's full of the stars from the heart of my days as a fan. It'll be the best conditioned set I own once it's finished. I'm determined to at least approximate the condition of these nicely centered 'commons' with the cards I'll be buying to fill it up. 

My needs list is in the sidebar to the right. Lemme know if you have some dupes you might like to trade. I will NOT be blogging this set. I have way too much going on as it is. I'll post on my progress from time to time. Maybe I'll scan a few stars as I gather them in. Wish me luck.

1969 Topps #572 Giants Heroes

Two great players. One cool card. 

I saw Juan Marichal go 13 plus innings against the Mets in 1969 and lose on a Tommy Agee homer in the 14th. That wasn't the last time Agee pissed me off in 1969. I vaguely recall seeing Marichal pitch in Houston but I don't remember anything about what he did.

I do remember that Willie McCovey hit a whistling foul that banged off the armrest of the seat in front of me one night in the Astrodome. That thing was spinning and buzzing as it ricocheted past my ear. Scared the crap out of me. That was the closest I ever came to getting a ball at a game (or getting killed at a game) until earlier this season when my wife was hit with a foul at an Astros-Cardinals game.