Art Cards...by Edward Vela

I went a little crazy a few weeks back and picked up a pile of Edward Vela's cards from his website. I think he's about as good as there is when it comes to stuff like this. I'm not going to delve into them deeply, just post a few today and over the next week.

I'm posting a handful of football cards first since this is the first day of NFL play (for me...I ignore most Thursday night action).

The Johnny Unitas up top is one of two in the post. Next, my current favorite QB, Pat mahomes. He's fun to watch.

I like this Unitas even more than the first one.

Tommy McDonald. He was a childhood favorite. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Vela had done a card of him. He's not exactly a household name.

Now for some baseball cards. Mr. Charles Bender kicks it off.

Eddie Murray. Nice, right?

Brooks Robinson. Vela was working off a picture we've all seen many times.

Dick Allen. Is that Tiger Stadium?

Spahnnie...I picked up a couple different. I'm a sucker for Spahn cards.

Same for Koufax. I now have several different Vela Koufax cards.

And a couple others...hoops and Ali.

That's The Stilt, of course. And below Ali tries to knock some sense into Joe Frazier.

Vela has changed up the backs of his cards as he has gone along. Here are some random backs.

These are prints, not original sketch cards like those I collect for my non-sports sets. But wonderful nonetheless. More to come. I just remembered that I added a Billy Pierce card not long ago. I don't have it scanned though.

Artsy Fartsy Billy P

With only two items* on my Billy Pierce 'wish list', and both of them being costly/hard-to-find, I haven't really done much to bolster my Pierce collection lately.

I added a couple of 'art cards' which fall into the 'I'll add them if they are reasonable' category. They weren't 'must-haves' but they are attractive pieces that I was happy to pick up.

Almost all my Batman art cards are original sketches. I rarely give a second glance to prints, no matter how limited. When it comes to sports art cards I'm not as fussy. I really like Edward Vela's style. He's done a handful of Pierce cards previously. I have bought and posted two others. This one is the best of the bunch. It's based on a photo that I've seen used multiple times on cards.

That card back is signed which is unique among the Vela Pierce cards I own. The fact that it has "#4" after Pierce's name means there is one more I might eventually track down. I bought a stack of his cards a few months ago and still haven't scanned them. I'll get to that soon enough.

The other addition is a Gypsy Oak 'faux' vintage postcard. I believe it's a woodcut and it's done on old cardboard. This came from a third party seller on eBay. I purchased a few items from the artist directly some years back and I see some of his work on Twitter. Earlier today I tried to locate his home page by looking at his Twitter profile and found that he has blocked me. 👀😏😄 This could be due to the fact that I declined his offer to sell me a large Pierce commissioned piece. (too costly and I couldn't display it anyway) or, and this is more likely, due to my left-leaning, socialist (LOL) Twitter posts and re-tweets. Sigh.

Nonetheless, it's a nice piece and it'll go into the Pierce binder postcard pages. I hold no grudges. Besides, I think I blocked him first. ᕦ(ツ)ᕤ

LATE ADDITION:

Today's afternoon mail brought something that fits this post perfectly. A postal cachet featuring BP with the Giants canceled in NYC in 1985. I don't think the date has any significance at all. One reason I liked it is the fact that it mentions his duels with Whitey Ford. I saw a couple of those at Yankee Stadium with my father.

But it's another oddball Pierce item. 

*= they are the '59 Bazooka Short Print and the 1959 Topps Venezuelan Ace Hurlers #156 with Robin Roberts

Billy Pierce Print card

This is the second Billy Pierce card done by Edward Vela that I've picked up. The first was an 'unlimited' print card with BP in a portrait pose. As I mentioned in that post I really like this guy's work.

I've always felt good 'sports art' is hard to come by and when I find someone whose work is enjoyable I'll pick up things I can afford. Vela does all sorts of stuff and releases all kinds of cards but his baseball work is what I like the most.

This one was numbered to 9 as are most of what he puts on eBay. It cost $8 with free postage which is 2 bucks more than I paid for my 'jumbo' Archives packs which yielded me nothing much to speak of.

Billy Pierce Sketch Card

I bought this on a lark. While I usually like oddball issues (and I have lots of Pierce oddballs) a 'sketch card' seemed kind of...I dunno...'out there' I guess. But I've bought some here and there and I liked this one and for the price I figured "why not?"

The artist has a lot of more limited types of cards on eBay but this is an 'unlimited' edition, whatever that means...probably that he made a bunch of them. I put in a bid for a numbered Johnny Unitas sketch card as well. That will be ending soon. It's rather nice and I'd like to win it. In fact the artist does some pretty good work. I've seen a lot of sports art and some of it is pretty awful but this Edward Vela has talent.

Anyway this is the first addition I've made to my Billy Pierce PC since his passing back on the 31st of July. It'll fit in nicely.