June Vintage Card Show Loot - Part 1: The Best

Time to show off the Vintage show loot I teased this weekend. Previously I counted down to the best card I picked up at a show with varying results. This time I took my crippling writer's block into consideration (Heritage Frankenset, anyone?) and said hell with it, I'm starting at #1 this time.

NUMBER 1 CARD: 

1955 Bowman Hank Aaron

Isn't that a beautiful light standard? The fake wood grain is also quite classy. And check out that font! Bold but understated, not flashy. And it's also a friggin second year Aaron card.

The last few times I've been to this card show I've been tempted by a pricey card and mostly stayed away. I've passed up Yogis and Satchels and at least one Jackie. Last year I did bite the bullet and snagged a Phil Niekro rookie for a little more than I'd usually spend. Once I get over a certain price point, it gets really hard for me to pull the trigger. Do I want one nice card when I could fill a couple dozen holes in my 1956 Topps set with the dough? That didn't happen this time. I looked through the cheapskate case (not to be confused with the bargain box, which was hit with great ferociousness) passed on another '53 Yogi that was slightly more expensive than the last one I saw, saw a '56 Topps Aaron that I already had (and was probably picked up by MadduxGlavineSmoltz) aaaaaaaaaand then I saw this card.

And then the price.

And then because Roger was across the room I pulled a card show no-no and reached around the glass and snagged that sucker before anyone else even had a chance to walk into the room.

Mind you, by this point I had only glanced at a couple rows in the bargain box so I didn't have much on my plate so far. Even though this card was going to cover about half that plate I knew I had to finally pull the trigger on a pricey one. It's Hank. From the '50s. There's a warter stain at the top and the right side is bent exactly as it would bend if some fool put it in a holder that wasn't big enough for it or stacked it in with a bunch of standard sized cards but who the hell cares? Honestly I have problems finding some Hanks from the '60s at this price, I hadda do it. This came at a price though, as this was the first card show I went to in years where I didn't pick up a '53 Topps card. I've hit that point where everything left is going to be a Jackson at least and I had to decide on priorities this show. Other things left behind: Yet another Niekro rookie in wonderfully horrible condition, a 1952 Topps Brave card I needed and not one but BOTH 1953 Bowman Joe Adcock cards. Oh well, Hank is better than all that.

Another thing I didn't do at this show was finish up any sets or series or team sets. I really wanted to complete something so I could show it off and let the world know how cool I was but it didn't happen. Struck out on '72 Topps cards. Sorta struck out on '74 Topps cards. Nibbled away at quite a few Braves teams sets but didn't seal the deal on any. I did pull off something that will go a looong way toward the completion of a set, but that's another post. Even this Hank didn't kill off my '55 Bowman set. I still need a couple of high series cards and '55 Bowman high numbers ain't easy, even for commons. BUT... while the very last card needed to finish off many a Braves team set will end up being the Hank, that's not the case with this one. Let's stare at it some more, shall we?



Aaaaaaaaaaaah..... it's so pretty. I could stare at this all day.

Twelve 12s for 12/12/12 part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Here's the numbers, now here's the cards.

 Did you guess all of them? (ok so I cheated on Heyward)

Vintage Show June - My Bowman Beaters

I just put the old card show to bed, that means you're going to have to deal with the stuff from the new card show. Don't worry, It's cool. Just good old-fashioned baseball cards. There's only one card in the bunch that is not a true baseball card, but it's tied in with one of the top five sets of all time so you'll probably like it. I went to this show with a plan. You gotta have a plan. Run into a card show half-cocked and you'll end up walking out with bent 1974 Topps Dock Ellis card and three boxes of 1990 Upper Deck. Here was my plan:

1) Hit the Braves team set needs
2) Find a 1953 Topps card I don't have
3) Hit these sets hard:

• 1960 Topps
• 1963 Topps Series 1
• 1965 Topps Series 1
• 1972 Topps 

4) get some cheap stuff for the 1954-1956 sets
5) find a really cool non-sport card

I hit all my goals except for 1963 Topps. I just didn't find anything that jumped out at me. I'm also alyways prepared for the unexpected and something really unexpected jumped out at me at the show. 1955 Bowman. Here's an example:

Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. With paper stuck all over the front of the card. I didn't bother to scan the back but there's paper missing from there too. Basically what appears to have happened is that a box filled with a bunch of '55 Bowmans got some severe water damage, which caused the cards to stick together. In the process of pulling them apart, many of the backs of some cards ended up on the fronts of other cards. This was mostly around the edges however, so the picture of the player was in most cases unobscured. I'm guessing Roger either purchased these cards in a collection or had one of his own boxes fall into the toilet. at any rate, there was about 400 poor abused Bowman cards at the show for sale. Dodgers and Yankees were $2.00 each, Everyone else was a buck a pop. Except for a stack of really awful looking cards like this one. These Bowmans were a quarter each. How could I pass up '55 Bowmans for a quarter? I couldn't. that's what. I snagged 28 of the quarter Bowman beaters. If you would have bet me that I would come back from the show with over two dozen 1955 Bowman cards you would have made a lot of money.

Picking out the Bowmans was pretty much the last thing I did before cashing out at the show. I had already been shuffling through cards for over an hour at that point and in retrospect I probably could have done a better job. My basic criteria while picking out cards was to pull any Hall of Famers like Robin here, pull anyone who I thought should be in the Hall of Fame, pull cards of players I liked, and then grab a few that weren't all that beat up. Looking back on it now I wish I had gotten a few dollars more worth of the beaters and I also regret not picking up a player from each team. I got no cards of the Cubs, Cardinals, Tigers, A's, Senators or Yankees. I don't think there were any quarter Yankees in the pile though. At the very least I should have picked up all the Cardinals, Cubs and Tigers just to trade off to bloggers. Oh well, what's done is done.

I'm going to show off all my horribly abused Bowmans over the next couple of weeks (or months if I get lazy). I'll post them by team to make things easy for me. I betcha can't guess from which team I got the most Bowmans!

Someone has to have done this already

It's just so... obvious, ya know?

Oh well if someone's done it already, I just did it again.

(inspiration for this came from here)

Georgia v. Tennessee

I've been so busy I almost forgot the game was today. That off week threw me for a loop. I'm saving my vintage Bulldog cards for the games against Florida, Auburn and Ga. Tech, so here's a couple of old Vol cards today.

Hey, that's a Colt, not a Vol. Don't worry, he played for Tennessee. Bert Rechichar was drafted by the Browns in 1952 and moved on to the Colts the next year. While the position on the card says halfback, Bert was more of a two way player. Make that a three way player actually, as he logged time on offense, defense and special teams. His best position was at defensive back, where he picked off 31 passes in his career.

See, I told you he played for Tennessee. You just have to check the back. While D-back was his primary position, he also did a lot of kicking for the Colts. He had a leg, too. In his first field goal attempt in 1953 he kicked one 56 yards so set the distance record in the NFL. This record stood until Tom Dempsey kicked a 63 yarder in 1970. His leg was strong but not too accurate. He kicked a 91% clip on extra points but was only 31 for 88 on field goal attempts. He made up for it with his play of defense though as he was a three time pro bowler.

Here's Bert's 1956 Topps card, look familiar? Bowman shoulda sued even though they had been bought by Topps already. Topps did make one signifigant change to the card and they stuffed the frot of Bert's pants with about three rolls of toilet paper. Topps wanted everyone to know they had the manliest cards around.

Here's the back of the '56 card, a pretty tight design if you ask me. Bio, stats, cartoon and a nice big number with a football around it. Backs like this is why Topps keeps mining their old sets for designs. The Topps card still says halback as the position, but you'll notice they put his kicking stats on the back. Bert never distinguished himself on offense as far as his stats were concerned. He caught 7 passes for three touchdowns, but his only rushing attempt went for a loss of one. The text talks about his "amazing kicking accuracy (35%??) and the fact that he was in the Cleveland Indians farm system for a while. If things had gone a little differently, David of Tribe Cards might be after Bert's cards instead. The cartoon featuring "Hoppy" Dave Middleton gave me a good chuckle.

Ok, that's enough love for Tennessee, go out and KILL 'em Dawgs!
WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF!

UPDATE: Good home victory against a rival. The penalties are getting ridiculous. We need to fix that against Vandy next week, because the schedule is brutal after that. As for tonight's game, GO LSU!!!

A Good Day for Georgia

Georgia and Georgia Tech both won today in the first weekend I was able to enjoy a full slate of football goodness. The Dawgs pounded on Central Michigan as Knowshon scored three more touchdowns to raise his total to six for the year. Moreno is going a good job padding those stats against the cupcakes for a Heisman run. The Dawgs won last week over Georgia Southern and dropped from #1 to #2 in the polls, they will probably drop to #5 after this week's slaughter. Maybe if we lose next week to South Carolina, we can jump back up in the polls since winning doesn't seem to be that important to the voters.

Tech stole a win on the road against the Boston College Eagles. I only watched the fumbleriffic first half so I missed the game winning 43 yard run by Jonathan Dwyer. Even worse, I missed a safety! Their first safety since 2004, oh why did I switch the channel? A nice win for the Jackets in Paul Johnson's ACC debut. Let's see if they can do it again next week at Virginia Tech.

I don't have a card for Central Michigan, but I have one for Boston College...

Charley was a deadly accurate passer and a fine runner. He beat Tennessee too, so he's all right with me. The awesomely cheesy passing pose is overshadowed by the manic background action shot. It looks like they are playing kill the man with the ball, not organized college football. What the heck is #55 doing in the middle of all those defenders? I'm also curious to know where Topps swiped the photo, as you can see an arrow pointing to the man obscured by the football. Even better than that though is the 'piling on' cartoon. Between the orgy going on all around and the ref copping a feel on the flattened player's butt, the penalty for this smutty display of hedonism should be a lot more than 15 yards. At least they are all wearing protection.

I Gotta Post Something

Today is going to be a long, painful day for uncle Dayf. I might not even see my computer again until late this evening. I don't want to leave my faithful readers out in the cold though, so here's a random 1955 Bowman card.

New York Yankee Eddie Robinson. Eddie played for 7 of the original 8 American League teams during his career. Anyone know which one he didn't play for? Whoever wrote in Eddie's status as a coach did it after 1957, when he became a coach for the Paul Richards led Orioles. Eddie followed Paul around to a few places, including the Braves where he became the General Manager from 1972-1975. Eddie won a championship with the Indians in '48, his first full season in the bigs. He had his best seasons with the White Sox, tallying 71 homers and 294 RBIs in just over two and a half seasons with the Pale Hose. While Steve, David, Kevin and I can all clain Eddie as one of our guys, on this card he is a proud Yankee with a ball superglued in the pocket of his glove.

You learn something new every day

I ripped a pack of 1991 Bowman the other day, and I noted how the back of the card looked really odd compared to all the other football products out on the market. The stats are almost non existent, and there's this huge wall 'o text on the back. I didn't like this at all when it first came out and I didn't buy much of it even though there was a full box of it gathering dust at the local Revco. I spent my football card money on flashy Score instead. I have all my Bowman cards from the 50's in a binder, including the football so I pulled it out and saw the back of a 1955 Bowman card:


Topps was in the Heritage game back in 1991! There's a few subtle differences, and the ink is black and green instead of blue and red, but that's the same back. I'd never seen a vintage Bowman football card at that time, so the homage was lost on me. A few of the other '55 Bowmans I've seen have play diagrams on the back along with the text, those would have been cool to see in the '91 product. Too bad Topps used the design from the '91 Bowman baseball set instead of the original '55s.

Mel Gray would look cool with a radioactive glow around him. Oh well, the Cardinals ain't in Chicago any more. You had to move along with the times back at the dawn of the modern era of card collecting. Nowadays card companies steal designs from damn near anything they want without retribution.