June Vintage Show Top Ten #3

All righty then. back to the countdown. Today we have a card from a pre-war set about Indians featuring a white dude who founded Texas.

1933 Goudey Indian Gum No. 61 Sam Houston

The groundbreaking 1933 Goudey baseball card set had a sister non-sports set featuring Indian Chiefs. If you look on the back of a '33 Goudey card you'll see an ad at the bottom "Made by the originators of INDIAN GUM". Well, these cards were the inserts in those Indian Gum packs. There are 216 cards in the set, but the set was issued in a gigantic number of different series so there are 432 cards in the master set when you account for all the variations. The cards are even more colorful than the baseball series, and if you find the '33 baseball cards to be too pricey, you can find copies of the Indian set really cheap instead. While the early cards in the set focused on Indian Chiefs, somewhere along the line it devolved into a Wild West theme and cards were produced of distinctly non-Indian subjects such as General Custer, Billy the Kid and The Pony Express. Sam Houston was at least an adopted member of the Cherokee Tribe and fought for Indian rights while in the US senate.

There is absolutely nothing I can say about Sam Houston that isn't better said on the back of this card.

This adventurous daring pioneer when a mere boy left home and joined the Cherokee Indian tribe. At the age of 21 he was fighting the Creeks in Alabama receiving wounds from which he never fully recovered. In 1836 with 783 men, he surprised the Chief, Santa Anna, and in fifteen minutes killed and captured all of the 1300 Indians including Santa Anna himself. Always the good Indians' friend, while a Texas Senator at Washington, he arrayed himself in full Indian costume and pleaded the cause of the Redman.

They just don't write card backs like that anymore. Things I learned from this card:

• Sam Houston was a member of the Cherokee tribe.
• Sam fought people from Alabama, which is perfectly reasonable for anyone from Tennessee.
• General Santa Anna was an Indian Chief of the Mexico tribe. Wait.. what??
• Sam was a member of the Washington Senators, and helped engineer their move to Texas by wearing a Cleveland Indians uniform. 
• Sam is a great fan of Redman, which means he probably also loves the movie How High.

Makes you wonder how ridiculous all these blog posts will be 80 years from now.

Time to Play Real, Fake, Reprint - 1933 Goudey edition

Mark over at Mark's Ephemera requested some hi-res scans of a real Goudey card because one he just got looked dodgy. Lucky for him, I not only have real Goudeys, but fake ones too. I've been planning this post for months so there's no better time than now. Cards are scanned at 600 DPI, details at 1200 DPI so click for a better look.

REAL FRONT:

Here's Shanty Hogan, this one's real. Note the even wear on edges and corners. The toning and stains on the card are also fairly even. There's a distinct texture to the cardboard as well. Card stock is fairly stout, a small crease wrinkles the card but doesn't break it. The card has a fairly matte finish and is not all that glossy.

FAKE FRONT:

Hall of Famer Mel Ott looking sour on a badly faked Goudey card. The color on the card looks oddly faded but the card stock is still much whiter than the real Goudey. Instead of a matte slightly bumpy finish, the card is very smooth with some gloss on it. There are very light scratches all over the card revealing white underneath the ink. The name and copyright look like an overprint on the original card, is the same type of ink on the fake. The wear on the edges is uneven and pushes out the card stock unlike the original where the edges are rounded and smooth. The card stock is slightly but noticeably thinner.

REPRINT FRONT:

First, let me say that reprints are highly collectible. However, if a dealer tries to pawn one off as an original, or worse, price it as an original, you should always explain to him why he is so very wrong and walk out, never to return. Legitimate reprints usually are printed on obviously different card stock (In this case thinner, white and glossy), are specifically marked as reprints and are slightly different from the originals. This card is 5% larger than original Goudeys, others are slightly smaller or have perforated edges (for example, Dover book reprints).

Here are details from the three cards so you can get a good look at the dots that make up the printing on the card.

REAL:

FAKE:

REPRINT:

I'm not an expert on printing methods, but I can tell that the top one looks different than the bottom two. There's a name for that circular pattern on the bottom two, anyone remember what it is?

REAL BACK:

Like the front, this card has fairly even wear and toning to the card. There are a few smudges and creases, but overall everything is even. The wear is rounded and smooth, almost soft. The small amount of gloss on the back is about the same as the gloss on the front. The text I'll get to in a minute.

FAKE BACK:

This one is really splotchy and messy as if someone stained it with tea or coffee to age it. The edges are pushed up as if someone rubbed the edge on a corner of a table or desk to wear it down. While the front is glossy, the back is extremely matte with zero gloss whatsoever.

REPRINT BACK:

This is as obvious as you can get for a "this is a reprint" disclaimer. Reprint sets that also reproduce the original back text will put REPRINT in bold letters somewhere on the back, usually underneath the copyright text.

Here's details of the actual text. This is a dead giveaway.

REAL:

 Letters are bold, unbroken and very readable. The text is solid ink.

FAKE:

The text is broken, faded and muddled. It may have been printed that way on purpose, been a shoddy reproduction job or the ink simply worn away during the aging process. Occasionally it will have the same dot pattern as the front.


The reprint back is fairly obvious so no hi-res text.

This fakery was bought in a quarter box a while back for a laugh. I thought it was pretty funny when I saw it in there but unfortunately the guy who made it may have honed his skills and created better ones later on. Also a card like this which is obvious in person might not be so obviously fake in an eBay listing especially if the image is a crappy photo. Caveat emptor ALWAYS on vintage expensive cards.

Hope that helps Mark, hopefully you didn't get scammed.

Thursday night panic atttack

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!

I'VE BEEN CRAMMING FOR MY CISCO TEST FOR TWO WEEKS AND I STILL CAN'T GET A 90% ON MY TRANSCENDER TEST!!!!!!

WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER THE FREAKING OSI MODEL?!?!!? THERE AIN'T BUT SEVEN LAYERS, IT'S LIKE A DELICIOUS NETWORKING DIP WITH SOUR CREAM AND GUACAMOLE AND CHEESE AND THE TRANSPORT LAYER. THAT MAKES THE PHYSICAL LAYER THE BEAN DIP. NOONE EVER EATS THE PHYSICAL LAYER

EVERY TIME I OPEN THE BOOK THE WORDS MORPH INTO A WEIRD COMBINATION OF RUSSIAN AND KLINGON. THE CHAPTER ON WAN CONNECTIONS MAY AS WELL HAVE BEEN A DIRTY LETTER IN TENGWAR THAT JRR TOLKIEN WROTE TO HIS GIRLFRIEND WHILE DRUNK AT 3AM.

OH DEAR GOD I HAVE TO PASS THIS EXAM AND I DON'T KNOW IF I'M LEARNING ANYTHING ANYMORE OR JUST MEMORIZING THE PRACTICE TEST ANSWERS

Oh, look, a 1933 Goudey card of Boston Braves pitcher Ed Brandt...

GODDAMN HELL THERE ARE TOO MANY OIS COMMANDS!!! OR IS IT ISO COMMANDS? I DON'T KNOW!!!! ISO, OSI, POE, OPE IMPURIFYING OUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!!!!

WHY DIDN'T I WRITE ALL THOSE COMMANDS DOWN AS I WAS GOING THROUGH THE BOOK??? OR DURING THE CLASS??? AND THE ACRONYMS! OH GOD THE ACRONYMS! LIKE AN ALPHABET SOUP FACTORY GOT BLOWED UP! WHY DIDN'T I MAKE SOME DAMN FLASH CARDS OR SOMETHING??? I'M SO FRIGGIN LAZY WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!??

STUPID! STUPID!! I'M SOOO STUPID!!! WHY DIDN'T I STUDY MORE WHEN I HAD THE TIME??? I'VE BARELY LOOKED AT THE LAB BOOK! THE ONLY THING I TRULY GROK IS THE SUBNETTING AND I'M SO PATHETIC AT MATH I SCREW ALL THOSE QUESTIONS UP WITH SIMPLE ADDITION ERRORS!!!

Oh, hey, here's the back. Dig the crazy text. He spends the winter months with his gun. heh.


WHAT AM I GONNA DOOOOO???? EVEN IF I PASS THE TRANSCENDER THE ACTUAL TEST ALWAYS THROWS CRAZY ASS CURVEBALLS!!! I'M GONNA GET TRIPPED UP I KNOW IT! I USED TO BE GOOD AT THIS STUFF BUT NOW I'M OLD AND STRESSED AND TIRED AND CAN'T THINK ANYMORE! AND THIS IS THE EASY TEST!!!! I STILL HAVE TO PASS THE HARD ONE AFTER THIS! OH MAN I GOTTA FIGURE OUT HOW TO CHEAT! NO, I CAN'T CHEAT ON A CERTIFICATION EXAM, THEY'LL SEND ME TO GEEK JAIL!!! MAYBE I COULD USE SMART BRAIN DRUGS! NO, THEN I'LL GO TO REAL JAIL! PMITA JAIL WITH CONJUGAL VISITS! AAARGH I GOTTA DO SOMETHING!!! I'M DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!!!!!

Canya believe I only need two card to have a complete 1933 Goudey Braves team set now? Yep, I just need Rabbit Maranville and Tom Zachary. Every time I look at Tom Zachary's reprint card in my binder I think his name is Ed Zachary. 'Cause his face looks Ed Zachary like his ass! Ha! I kill me.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH SO SCREEEEEWWWWEEEEDDD!!!!!!!
BLLLUGGGGHHHERARGHAADJSFNA;IRJFAHHBAXZ,BMNXBCJSFURGH

Card Show part 2 - The Weird

When I left off I had just descended the stairs and gotten to the floor with all the dealers. the set up was a ring of dealers by the wall and 5 rows (or 4, I forget) of tables in the middle of the floor. Like I said before, I went to a card show in this very building in the '80s and the whole thing seemed massive to me. Today, it looked a lot smaller. I think I was just in a foul mood to start off with. Work has been grinding on me, I haven't been getting enough sleep and I was generally cranky right at the moment. When I hit the floor I was really not into the whole thing at all and I was wondering if I had wasted the entrance fee.

I sucked it up and chose to circle the outer ring clockwise. This was either a dumb move or a lucky break. The first table I hit had a lot of high priced memorabilia on it. Pins, jerseys, programs, lots of stuff in cases. The high prices got me in a more sour moodand I looked but didn't touch. There was a table full of shoeboxes (card storage, not loafer storage) filled with top loaders, but I didn't see any price clearly marked on any of them and I didn't feel like tracking down the dealer. I looked though a box briefly, found a lot of mid '90s stars and moved on.

The next guy had more high end stuff, but over on the side there was some cheapo stuff. The boxes of $10 auto balls (with no Bobby, *sob*) a couple of baskets fulled with weird oddball magazines and pins and tchotchkies for 5 and 10 each and some just plain random stuff. There was some interesting things there like an old magazine on Hank Aaron, but nothing striking enough to get me to buy right away. About halfway through I recognized a dealer from last year's Braves Fan Fest from his box of Braves autographs ranging from $2-$8 each. That's the guy I got my Terry Pendleton auto from. I was still not in a buying in a mood though and didn't really go through the box that much.

The entire outer ring seemed to be filled with really high roller stuff. Signed everything - jerseys, shoes, hats, prints, etc. 0ne guy had a wall of autographed balls built about 8 or 10 high with seemingly nothing backing them up to keep them from toppling. These were all in the $40 and up range so I briefly looked before getting scared off by the ricketyness of the structure. One bump and the whole shebang go boom! This same guy had books and books of autographed vintage cards, all with no prices to be seen anywhere. That was a killer for me at this show and at shows in general. I don't like dealing with sales people. Card dealers are ALL sales people. Even though we share a common interest it doesn't make a high pressure sale any more appealing to me. If I have to pester one of these guys for a proce, I just don't bother. I figure it's too expensive and walk on. Keep that in mind, future card dealers of America...

About this time I was sick of seeing really expensive crap with no prices and decided to treat the experience like a museum trip. Get a good eyeball full of the cool stuff and find some discards to bottom feed off of. There was a ton of cool stuf there, I'll admit. I lingered for a while over an original Turkey Red Cabinet card. I stared longingly at a 1969 Braves-Mets NL Championship Program with a $50 pricet tag. I checked out some prints and jerseys. As I rounded third, or first actually since I went clockwise around the room, There were a ton of bats ans I got sick of the museum experience and wanted some damn cards. Then I hit the jackpot.

Some guy named Uncle... somebody had about 6 or 7 tables piled with vintage stuff. A few cases for high end, a big pile of binders for commons and a row of shoeboxes filled with bargain cards. Dang I wish I could remember the guy's name now. Uncle Phil? Uncle Pete? Was it even Uncle somebody? I don't know but the guy had a crapload of vintage stuff and he's the guy I gave the most money to that day. I scrounged the bargain bins mostly, although I looked through his '53 Topps binder very carefully. I think I could have spent a grand there easy if I had a grand. This is why I said going around to the left was lucky, if i had gone there first I might not have gone anywhere else. While I'll go over by '53 cards soon enough, I also got some oddball stuff from him.

One of my goals, if you remember was to find Something Weird. Weird has a very loose definition. Basically something you wouldn't normally expect to find in a baseball card blog. You guys know what I like though and I found three things I Really Like from Uncle Whozit (someone who went to the show tell me the guy's name, it's starting to bug me), I'll start with the oddest thing first:

1933 Indian Gum No. 133 Flying In A Circle

Indian Chewing Gum... Hmmm... Does that sound familiar to any of you out there? Does the card look familiar at all? Here, let me give you some help:

Look more familiar now? Check out the copyright at the bottom. Goudey Gum Co. Boston. That's right, this is the same Goudey that produced baseball cards in the '30 which Upper Deck ripped off in the '00s! If you look on the back of a Goudey baseball card it says "By the Originators of Indian Gum". This is that Indian Gum! I've always wanted one of these to stick in my Goudey collection (he is a Brave you know) but I never pulled the trigger on an eBay sale. This card at $2.50 cost me about what shipping would cost on eBay and I didn't have to deal with Paypal. I'm very happy with my cruel, desperate Sioux Brave and he'll probably be a subject of a future Card of the Week (which is getting postponed today so I can catch up with stuff). That's not the only non-sport card I got, but it's the only one in this particular post. Can you guess what others I got?

1955 Topps All American#72 Endicott Peabody

If you've tuned in on Saturdays at all in the past few months you'll know that '55 Topps is my favorite vintage football set so I had to get at least one. This one was not only the cheapest in the box, but the guy's name is Chub. He looks like he's trying to take flight in the picture there. A big chubby red bird. Sqwawk! The best part about the card is that he plays for Harvard. Now I have an excuse to link to Tom Lehrer's Fight Fiercely Harvard! Fight! Fight! Fight!

20 Different Basketball Cards for $4.00

I like grab bags. they're like packs, except without any chance at something good. Well, good is in the eye of the beholder I guess and as far as I'm concerned old Topps basketball is great. I was torn between this pack and a pack of 12 '74-75 Topps hockey cards for $6. I picked the hoops for three reasons: 1) two bucks cheaper (what can I say, I'm a scrounge) 2) '74-75 is my favorite hockey set but I already have a ton and I didn't want to pay for doubles. 3) Dr. J. This is getting ripped on A Pack A Day later this week so look out for it if you like old basketball cards.

Those are the three oddballs I got from Uncle ??? (big green sign right on the right when you came down the stairs, help me out people) and they're not really that oddbally. I did get something neat and strange from that first table I passed when I came in because I was grouchy, the one with the seemingly unmarked boxes. I found this in one of those boxes:

1980 R. G. Laughlin Famous Feats Complete Set

R.G. Laughlin was an artist who worked closely with Fleer in producing cartoony cards to sell along with their stickers (FleerFan can tell you all about him). He did a few one off sets too and this was one of them. It's a 40 card set and I had to hand collate it out of the piles of cards in those boxes. It was worth it though, as I got a cool oddball set for $4. I chose Casey to represent the set because he's a favorite of mine and I love the nonchalant look on his face as he says "Yeah, I got 5 championship rings... and I'm gonna get some more." This is another set that will get it's own writeup after I'm done going over the show.


That's all for tonight folks, up next is the not-so bargain cards, then the vintage Bravos. Vote in the comments on what order to do the last three posts:

Awful Autos
'53 Topps
El cheapo cards

Card Of the Week 9/22/08

I don't need to explain the rationale behind the Card of the Week, but I will tell you who the guy is. Billy Hargrave's nickname was "Pinky" which is easily enough for someone to be honored as a Card of the Week. His full name is William McKinley Hargrave, which makes the Pinky moniker even more amusing to me. But wait, there's more... His brother's nickname was "Bubbles". That's right, Pinky and Bubbles. They were both catchers too. Can you imagine catchers today named Pinky and Bubbles? Pinky Mauer and Bubbles McCann? Bubbles was a hell of a hitter too, he was one of the very few catchers in the majors to ever win a batting title. Pinky never competed for a batting title, but he was a good enough catcher to stick in the bigs as a backup for ten years with Washington (and was part of the 1924 Championship team!) St. Louis Browns, Detroit and the Boston Braves. But wait, there's more... Pinky started off his career as a right handed hitter, learned to switch hit, and then abandoned the right side altogether and hit from the left side exclusively to finish his career. My tale ends sadly however, as Pinky died of a heartattack while converting a baseball field to be used for football at the way too young age of 42. And that's actually a pretty terrible segue into the picture of the actual card:


Now you know exactly why this is the Card of the Week. This is Billy's 1933 Goudey card made incredibly fantastic by an unknown artist. Quite possibly Salvador Dali by the looks of it. The cap and the devil mustache/goatee combo is utterly amazing but I think the real key to the piece is the nose. You just don't see a masterwork like that very often. You have to wonder just how many noses did the artist actually punch in order to fully conceptualize the superlative schnozz they expressed upon Pinky's visage. As you can see this is also one of the few Goudey cards without the red "Big League Chewing Gum" band across the bottom.

Oh wait, no it isn't. Someone just hacked the thing off with some scissors. Maybe the scissor-wielding maniac was an early advocate of political correctness and could not abide with the offensive "Indian Gum" advertisement on the bottom of the card. Most likely I have simply acquired a piece of a sociopath's card collection. This card is definitely the collector's equivalent of a mean little kid going after ant hills with a magnifying glass on a hot day.

I know, I know... you all want to know where I found this lovely specimen. What's that? You really want to know why the heck I paid good money for this card? Well that's simple enough, I've been on a bit of a vintage kick on eBay lately. I got sick of losing auctions for 2008 A&G and Goudey inserts so I decided to try to pick up some originals instead. This was actually in a group of 4 pre-war cards I picked up from the same seller. I got a decent looking '33 Goudey Leo Mangum card, a '39 Play Ball Fred Frankhouse in good condition and a thoroughly beaten up 1940 Play Ball card of Tony Cuccinello. The '40 Play Ball is my first Brave from that set, so I don't mind the condition that much. Well, obviously condition isn't really my first priority from the look of this Tipton. The thing is, this is the card I bid on first. I pretty much bid as soon as I saw it. All the others I found when I looked through the rest of the guy's auctions for more Braves. This here is a truly unique card. Most of the other collectors on the planet would look at this card and see a mess - which it is - but I see something more. I, like Charlie Brown looking through the Christmas tree lot, passed up on all those fake plastic trees and instead chose this little dinky crummy looking twig. And really, I can get a good looking '33 Goudey card of Pinky pretty much whenever I want, there are plenty of them out there. I'll never find anything like this ever again. It's not such a bad little card. It's not bad at all really, maybe it just needs a little love.

Card Of the Week 07/21/08

The knife has been thankfully pulled from my back, now I have to catch up on all the stuff that's been piling up during my convalescence. Here's a preview of this week's Card of the Week. I'll do a proper write up and scan the back of the card eventually but in the meantime enjoy one of the all time super sweet glasses cards.

1933 Goudey Danny MacFayden

"Deacon Danny" pitched 17 years in the bigs, 13 of those in his home state of Massachusetts. He wasn't a great pitcher, but he could be counted on to chew up 200 or more innings a year as a starter. Danny broke in with the Red Sox in 1926 and didn't have much success with the cellar-dwelling Sox until a 16 win season in 1931. After starting 1-10 for Boston in 1932 he was traded to the Yankees, the team he is listed with on this '33 Goudey card. Danny unfortunately didn't get to pitch in the 1932 World Series and the Yanks missed out on the Series in '33 and '34. He was sold to the Reds in '35, who quickly gave him back to the Yankees. The Yanks cut him and the lowly Braves took a chance on Danny and picked him up off waivers. McFayden had his best years with the Braves (now Bees) including a career year in 1936 where he went 17-13 with a 2.87 ERA. Not bad concidering the Bees won 71 games total that year. After 58 wins in 5 years with the Bees, he was traded to Pittsburgh, pitched a couple of months with the Senators and had one last hurrah back with the Braves in 1943.

Of course none of that matters because the man had fantastic eyeglasses. As you can see from the back of his card, Danny was the Jackie Robinson of four-eyed pitchers in the Junior Circuit. Pitchers wearing glasses is nerve wracking enough on a hitter, but imagine seeing those crazy octagon specs staring back at you in the batters box. Dude looks like a villain from a German Expressionist film or something. Actually, Goudey's anonymous artist may have taken some liberties with the picture as other photos I've seen of Danny show him with round glasses. Goudey was based in Boston, so maybe there was some early Yankee - Sox resentment going on there. This is one of those cards I've been obsessed with getting ever since I first saw it. Danny's myopic blue eyes hypnotized me into tracking down this card. I found it when I bid on another '33 Goudey card for my Braves collection and figured it was destiny. The fact that the good Deacon was later an ace for the Braves Bees is just a bonus.