Card Show part 5 - The Cheapos

When I last left off, I had given up on the rest of the dealers out there and beelined back to the vintage guys up front to pick up a few more oldies. But first, I had to take a perfunctory look at those dime boxes up front. I hastily looked through a couple of boxes and yawned. I looked through a couple more and was intrigued. I looked through a couple more and a pile started to aggregate. Then I found the R.G. Laughlin cards and built a set. At that point I looked through the pile, picked out 6 dollars worth to make an even Hamilton, paid the nice lady and headed for Vintage. There are way too many to list individually, so I've grouped them into piles that are mostly alike to discuss. Click on the image to get a better look at the cards.

14 1971-1978 Fleer World Series

These are the ones with the black backs that Fleer released throughout the '70s. The original set came out in 1970 and features blue ink on the pack and some different artwork on many of the cards. As usual, if you want to know more about these cards, FleerFan has THE definitive article on these sets.

I love the hell out of this set and one day I might try to complete it. Here's 14 cards to that end, featuring 6 Hall of Famers: Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Cochrane. Two Braves series in the mix too, '57 and '58.

Football and Basketball

A small handful of cards here, I wasn't really looking for non-baseball stuff but these snuck in my pile. The coolest is a 1970 Xograph card of Bill Brown. Xograph created the 3D technology seen in the old Kelloggs baseball cards of the '70s and '80s. I'm not sure if the football set was from Kelloggs or not, I'm not familiar enough with vintage football. The '82 Topps Montana LEagers card was non-pass-uppable even though it's beat and I probably have it already. I will never ever pass on '70 Topps Basketball cards and I wish I had found more than just this lone1975 Indana Pacers ABA team card. George McGinnis was a helluva player. The other three are local heroes. A 1993 Classic plastic Garrison Hearst in the Bulldog red jersey, an '89-90 Fleer card of 'Nique and... um, that other guy. FINE. I bought a Michael Vick card. I do not regret it. I miss those legs, man. The head, not so much. God, what a waste. I'll always have the Rams playoff game though. The feds can't take that away from me.

'70s Topps Mania!

Sadly some '70s card were left behind, but I got all the good ones. In order:
76 Dave Concepcion
76 Ron Cey
76 Rusty Staub Traded
76 Bobby Bonds Record Breaker
76 Cecil Cooper
73 Claude Osteen
74 Dwight Evans
76 Fergie Jenkins Traded
76 Joe Torre

'80s Topps Mania! And a couple of '70s too

You thought I was done with the old Topps didn't you? Nope. These are just as good as the last pile.
81 Carl Yastrzemski
81 Steve Carlton
81 Mike Schmidt Record Breaker
81 Eddie Murray
80 Dave Stieb rookie card
80 Willie Stargell
77 Catfish Hunter
79 Andre Dawson
84 Darryl Strawberry rookie card

Holy Crap! Old Inserts!

These were the most surprising things in the box as far as I was concerned. The 1968 Topps Game card of Frank Howard was the oldest thing I got out of the dime box. Dig that old skool senators cap! The Baseball Scartch off Game was an insert into packs of 1971 Topps. Topps put scratch off cards in to packs in both '70 and '71, this is identified as a '71 card from the red interior border around the scratch off boxes. (1970 cards are white inside) Sorry David, there's no way you can do a scratch off tournament with these things. The boxes just won't scratch anymore, there are three trashed boxes inside this one that someone took a coin to. I actually tried it on one back in the mid '80s and it woudn't scratch for nothing even twenty years ago. Don't look at me like that, it was a double and it wasn't anyone good anyway.

Fleer and Donruss Are Lots of Funforuss

Lame title, great cards. All Hall of Famers here, except for Hustle McGamblepants. Well, and Raines, but the voters can't keep him out forever.
82 Donruss Phillies Finest Schmidt & Rose
81 Donruss Tim Raines rookie card
81 Fleer Mike Schmidt
82 Fleer Tom Seaver
85 Donruss Wade Boggs
82 Fleer Yankee Powerhouse Jackson & Winfield

Random stuff that couldn't fit anywhere else

A couple vintage, an insert that looks like vintage, another insert that blends vintage and futuristic and an error card, maybe. First up, 1972 Topps American League ERA Leaders. Jim Palmer is the star on the card, but MVP Vida Blue and Wilber Wood are great pitchers in their own right. Next, a 1982 rookie of Mike Marshall, Ron Roenicke and Steve Sax. These three combined for 33 seasons in the majors with each playing at least 8 seasons. How many tri-rookie cards had success like that? The 1990 Upper Deck Jeff Innis card had "ERROR" on the top loader so I'm guessing it's the scarce version with David West's picture on it. Can anyone confirm? I don't want to go digging through my set. You may think that's a 1984 Rickey Henderson card, but you're WRONG. It's a Special Commemorative Anniversary Edition card inserted into packs of 1994 Donruss. I desperately wanted this set back in '94, but they were tought to pull out of packs and the inserts were more expensive than the originals. Now they're in dime boxes! BWAHAHAHA! Finally, a supercoolawesome '92 Upper Deck insert of Dave Winfield with the Padres then, and the Blue Jays now.

And at Long Last, the Braves

You knew I'd pick out some Braves, didn't you? To be honest, I probably have all of these cards already, but I gotta have my Braves. In order:
2004 Ultra Chipper Jones
1989 Score Superstar Greg Maddux
1990 Upper Deck Dave Justice rookie card (marked $3.75 on the top loader, heh)
1990 ProCards Ryan Klesko minor league
1990 Dubuque John Smoltz
2003 Leaf Limited Andruw Jones #513/999
1995 Score Dave Justice Hall of Gold

Nice haul, eh? In addition to all this I got not one, but TWO autographed cards. out of the dime box. No, seriously. One can be seen here, I'll have the other posted by next week. I also got that 1980 R.G Laughlin Famous Firsts complete set out of the boxes, but as I said before they will get their own post sometime in the future.

Ok, only one more post and the card show will be a wrap. The Grand Finale: 1953 Topps.