Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Oddball Elmers

Continuing the COMC splurge, here are some Elmer Valo cards I added to my collection recently.

 GOLD.
 Classic Pacific.
 Most recent card, a Topps insert commemorating Valo's time in the U.S. Army during WWII.
 This one is the essence of simplicity. 1979 Diamond Greats - it has a blank back.

Valo has this card, a 1960 Leaf, and a 1960 Topps card depicting him as a Yankee, but he played in a grand total of 8 games for the Bronx Bombers in his 1800+ game career. Fantastic.

9 comments:

  1. He played 20 seasons! I had to look him up on baseball reference. The sabemetrics people would love him today. That obp is crazy high.

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    1. I think a modern comp might be someone like Brian Giles, though Giles spent more time as a starter and Valo's injury history turned him into a part time player / pinch hitter for a good chunk of his playing days.

      His Career OBP is tied with Joe DiMaggio.

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  2. Those Distinguished Service inserts are excellent. With as many players that served in WWII and Korea, I'm surprised it's not a concept used more often.

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  3. A vendor at the flea market had a big box of those Diamond Greats cards up for grabs a couple years ago. They're not the flashiest cards, but they're kinda cool in an oddball-ish kind of way.

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    1. I think it would be fun to go through a box of those.. don't know how many I would take home, but they'd be fun to dig through.

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    2. I've been buying up any of the Diamond Greats that had any connection to the Bosox. The Grandslam set from 78 is fun to collect also.

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    3. Mark I hadn't seen Grand Slam cards before, those are pretty neat! There's a George Halas card from that set apparently, I might have to seek that one out.

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    4. The same guy (Jack Wallin) made both sets

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    5. The Grandslam sets are not blank back.

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