THE TWELVE DAYS OF CARDMAS: LAUNDRY EDITION - DAY 12

CHRISTMAS EVE!!! TIME TO RELAX, MAYBE WATCH SOME FOOTBALL, DOWN SOME BREWSKIS AND WORK A FULL SHIFT IF YOU'RE ME BECAUSE MY SCHEDULE IS WEIRD. TODAY'S CARD IS ONE OF THE MOST CHERISHED IN MY COLLECTION AND UNLIKE THE REST, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE HOW I GOT THE THING. I VERY MUCH DOUBT I PULLED IT OUT OF A PACK BUT I CAN'T RECALL BUYING IT AT A SHOP OR FLEA MARKET EITHER AND I CAN'T REMEMBER IF I GOT IT ONLINE. MAYBE IT JUST APPEARED ONE DAY LIKE A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE? LET'S BE FESTIVE AND GO WITH THAT. BEHOLD, MY MIRACLE RELIC

MINNIE MINOSO IS FINALLY IN THE HALL OF FAME WHICH IS A WONDERFUL RELIEF. BUCK O'NEIL TOO! I'M GOING TO DIE MAD ABOUT DOZENS OF OTHER HALL OF FAME SNUBS BUT YOU ENJOY THE WINS WHEN YOU CAN. I LEARNED ABOUT MINOSO FAIRLY LATE, FOR A LONG TIME HE WAS THE GUY WITH THE RECORD BREAKER CARD IN 1977 TOPPS THAT SOMEHOW ALSO HAD A CARD IN 1953 TOPPS.  THE MORE YOU LOOK AT HIS BASEBALL RECORD THE MORE AMAZING IT GETS AND IT'S A BLACK MARK ON THE HALL INDUCTION PROCESS THAT HE WASN'T HONORED WHEN HE WAS ALIVE

CLEVELAND JERSEY ON A CHICAGO CARD. WHO CARES, IT'S AN OLD SWATCH AND MINNIE IS MR. WHITE SOX. THE EARLY 00S WERE A GOLDEN AGE FOR VINTAGE RELIC CARDS AND I SNAPPED UP AS MANY AS I COULD IN MY BUDGET WHICH WAS SURPRISINGLY MORE THAN YOU'D EXPECT. ONE THING THAT STUCK OUT TO ME WAS THE HEATHERED LOOK ON A LOT OF VINTAGE AWAY JERSEY MATERIAL. YOU DON'T REALLY NOTICE IT IN OLD PHOTOS OF PLAYERS IN THEIR AWAY JERSEYS BUT IF YOU LOOK VERY CLOSELY IT'S THERE. YOU DON'T SEE THAT KIND OF THING IN UNIFORMS AFTER THE 80S, IT REALLY MAKES THESE OLDER SWATCHES UNIQUE

I KNEW THAT NOT EVERY HEAD WAS GOING TO FIT PERFECTLY BUT CHARLIE BROWN'S HEAD IS EXTRA DIFFICULT. BEING A LITTLE OFF IS VERY ON BRAND FOR CHARLIE AND IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE, NO ONE CARES. WE'RE ALL READY TO SETTLE OUR BRAINS FOR A LONG WINTER'S NAP

September Vintage Card Show - '53 Set Needs

I have no idea how to write about baseball cards anymore so here's a 1953 Topps high number card I bought six months ago.

OMG BEAR

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

September Vintage Card Show - '54 Set Needs

The holidays are literally murdering me right now but I want to post cool stuff but I also want to be lazy and this card is already scanned and ready to go and I really need to finish posting these before 2014 but I probably won't make it and what I really really need to do is get an editor because this sentence is dreadful.

Have yourself a merry little RAABLONSKI

 

Here is my ranking of pre-standard size Topps sets:

#1) 1953 Topps. Best set of all time now and Forever

#1a) 1956 Topps. Best set of all time that doesn't have an actual Master Class Painting on every card

#3) 1951 Topps. Really neat oddball set that I wish was easier to find

#4) 1954 Topps. Great color and photo, but the flipped card backs infuriate my OCD

#5) 1955 Topps. The Beta version of 1956 Topps that had many bugs that needed to be worked out

#9001) 1952 Topps. Completely overrated ugly pile of impossible to collect junk AKA the precursor to all modern day Topps sets

Don't get me wrong, I love the set. I'll take a '54 Topps card over most anything. When I'm knee deep in  vintage cards at a show this set tends to take a back seat to other needs. I didn't completely neglect the '54s this time out, I'll take a cheap beater card of a '50s All Star any day.

September Vintage Card Show - Random Crap - Casey

lol it's december and I've barely posted any of these things

GTFO YOU LOOSER

Casey is one of my favorites and I've been subconsciously building a player collection of his without realizing it. His 1940 Play Ball card still eludes me however. This 1959 All Star card is cool and a scarce high number.

It also has drawings on the back! That sly ol' Casey... talking all funny... that couldn't possibly backfire and get him fired after a World Series loss and land him on an expansion team.

Oh.

Damn Yankees.

September Vintage Card Show - Joy of a Completed Team Set

Aww yeah. Team Set Wednesday. All ready to post a team set. But wait! I have a request from a reader! Scan all the backs of the cards! Because reasons! But that's a lotta work and I'm lazy. But I've only got about 3 readers left and I don't want to piss off a third of my fanbase. How am I going to get the hell out of this one?

Screw it. Posting a Vintage Card Show pickup instead.

Here's "Eddie" Miller of the Boston Braves Bees Braves. Well, he's a Bee on the card but the Bees were back to being Braves by 1941 when this card was released. Not sure why "Eddie" is concidered a nickname with the guy's name is Edward but Play Ball had a nickname gimmick going on and they stuck to it like glue. This is a pretty nice looking card for one that's 72 years old. If you get to be 72 years old and and you're only a little right of center with a few spots and wrinkles here and there you're doing pretty good for yourself. It does kind of look like he got the sunburn Richard Dreyfuss got in Close Encounters of the Third Kind though. People just didn't know to use high SPF lotion when witnessing alien beings back then.

And look at this! It's card #1! It's the Andy Pafko of Play Ball! Ok, there were two other Play Ball sets before this one but it's the first one in color. There were two Topps sets before 1952 Topps too so there. Eddie was a decent little player back in the day that no one remembers at all anymore. Seven time All-Star and picked up some MVP votes here and there in the '40s. Had some WARs and such if you're into that sort of thing too. Nice pickup, eh?

BUT WAIT THERE'S MOAR

Hey Babe, wanna wrestle? Ok that was inappropriate and I screwed up the quote but I can't help it. Beavis and Butthead have had a signifigant influence in my life. Which explains a lot, actually. But anyway, here's my Babe. Not Ruth, but a Babe nonetheless. It's a little worse for wear than Eddie what with all the creases but when 72 years old you reach, look this good you will not. Hell, I don't look that good now. Babe didn't have quite the career Eddie did, but he had a good 12 year run with an All Star selection for Philly in 1943. He didn't have much of a career for the Braves Bees Braves at all, only playing 44 games with the club before getting sold to the Cubs.

Ah ha, but look on the back! It's the Boston Braves now! Gotta love high series cards! Actually the switchover from the Bees to the Braves came in the middle series* as you can see from the COMPLETED TEAM SET Y'ALL

There's only 6 Beeraves in the set and I got 'em all now SO IT COUNTS. These two cards came as a bit of a surprise. I was actually thinking about dropping this portion of the budget on a single low-priced pre-war card when these two popped up. Just so happened to be the two I needed! Starting to think Roger reads my wantlists.

And here's the backs of 'em all since I scanned them way back when. It's easier to scan the back of one page than it is to scan the back of 30 pages. Pre-war cards should always be scanned front and back anyways.

So question time: You all really want to make me scan dozens of pages again to get the backs or will a list of the card numbers for each set suffice? Tell me quick because I'll need to scan 'em sometime in the next couple of days for the post next week. 

*Note - I'm assuming all this series stuff because the cards were printed on 12 card sheets and there are 72 cards and the last 24 cards are the scarce 'high' series and the first mention of the Braves is on card 25 which would make three series of 24 cards which makes sense even though it's all conjecture and I can't find anything to back it up in other words I just pulled it out of my ass which is the same thing respected journalists do nowadays so that's my story and I'm sticking to it

June Cards Show Loot - Phifity-Phour Phillie

Paul Penson looks at me in disgust at how many blog posts I've slacked oph on lately.

I don't care because I philled a hole in my '54 set phor a couple clams.

Don't be a hater, Paul.

June Vintage Card Show Loot: Floaty Head Goodness

Best thing about cards from the '60s: the league leader cards are cheap as hell and stacked with stars. The '60s also has a particular fondness for disembodied floaty heads. ESPECIALLY the 1963 Topps set. Check out this beauty:

 Frank, Stan and Hank of the same freaking card. Tommy Davis and Bill White weren't slouches either. There's about 14,000 hits on this card. Serious, serious star power right here.

AND IT AIN'T NOTHIN COMPARED TO THIS MONSTER:

HANK. FRANK. ERNIE. CHA-CHA. AND WILLIE-FREAKING-MAYS. ALL ON THE SAME CARD.  Ain't even estimating on this one. There are Two Thousand Eight Hundred And Ninety Two career home runs on this card. All without Biogenesis. Think about this: On this card, ORLANDO CEPEDA IS THE SCRUB. Holy crap I love this card. It also allowed me to do this:

'63 Topps Team set complete page. So many bright colors. The third League Leader card ain't too shabby either. Gibby, Drysdale and Sandy-Frickkin-Koufax? And Bob Shaw too boot! If only the high numbers were this fun to collect...

Stuff you can find at the vintage show this weekend

I've got my card show haul in a pile on my desk waiting to be scanned. I'll get to it soon enough since I really want to show off a couple of jaw-droppers I found. But since Roger was kind enough to let me take some pictures I figured it'd be good to show you all what you can get at the vintage card show in Marietta while it's actually going on. Photo dump in 3... 2... 1...

Let's start with heartbreak. Some poor guy got this 'inventively aged' Mickey Mantle photocopy on fleabay and dropped it off with Roger because he never wanted to see it again. Hopefully he doesn't read this blog...

Here's some REAL Mantles.

Oh hai thar big ol' pile of 1952 Topps

Also old hockey cards and even more Mantles.

Like the football? You can haz football.

Choo Choo!

I like baseball though. Here's some '60s cards with oddballs mixed in

ACTUAL '64 Venezuelan cards with the black backs. And check out that run of Reggies!

I don't even know what the heck these pink cards are but one of 'em has a Milwaukee Braves cap.

The only thing better than cards from the '60s is cards from the '50s.

Wouldn't you rather spend your money on this Hank instead of the 2013 Heyward knock off?

Hank: Baby Bulls and Yellow Letters and Felt Logos, oh my!

BOWMAN'D

(Drools over ugly Spahnnie)

The only thing better than cards from the '50s is pre-war cards.

A Tattoo Orbit card of a Boston Brave is one of my collecting dreams.

Me likey the Big Heads

Here's a couple Bowman Braves that I'll likely never get for my team sets because they are ugly and 'spensive

Let's have something pretty instead. JIM BROWN ROOKIE

This is the 'kickass case' that I'm always raving about. Coolness all the way down

Among all the other insane cards here THERE'S A BIG PILE OF KOUFAX ROOKIES

Here's something you may have never seen before... Season passes (?) for the 1960 AFL Dallas Texans.

ODDBALLZ! Double Header Hank and Red Heart Spahn

A whole case of oddball odd-sized stuff.

Hassan Triple Folders! I love these things

Now this is an oddball lineup. Goudey premium Pepper Martin, PCL card from 1910, '51 Topps Team card, '59 Bazooka giant card and a little bit of an ancient Yankee ticket stub.

Here's the cheapskate case! I got a card out of here!

The 1953 Yogi I would have regretted passing up had I not found a different card in the case.

BARGAIN BOXES. I destroyed these things and still left some really good stuff behind.

Topps Team poster from the late '60s-early '70s. This thing is huge

Official Mickey Mantle pencils. A-Rod ain't got no pencils

Buncha lotta Sporting News record books

World Series Program from 1940!

I was fortunate enough to see a lot of choice stuff displayed while I was there. I think this all came from a recent purchase where the owner keps all his cards in a plastic tub under the house. No, really. Go to the show and ask Roger.

T205 Mathewson!

T206 Mathewson!!

T206 Walter Johnson!!!

T206 Ty Cobb!!!!!

An old T202(?) Ramly card. This is another one of my Boston Brave (um... Beaneater) white whales.

Reaaaaaaaly clean 1915 Cracker Jack card

Goudey Premium of Joltin' Joe. I've only seen pictures of this before

Back of the Cobb (I just wanted to touch the case)

Lots and lots of cards from whatever year you're looking for.

OH HELLO OLD JUDGE KID NICHOLS BRAVES/BEANEATERS HALL OF FAMER FROM THE GARFIELD ADMINISTRATION IN BEAUTIFUL CONDITION

again the back of the card simply because I wanted to hold the case that held this card in my hand for just a sweet, sweet moment

And here's the whole Shebang. IT's happening right now at the Courtyard Marriott on Delk Road off of I-75 in Marietta see my previous post for details be there or be square or wait till he goes to the National. If you see this post on Monday well that's your fault for not checking over the weekend, eh?