More 1964 Topps Venezuelan Progress (and a little bonus find!)

I'm still chipping away at this tough set, I am keeping my price at or below $10 a card, and limiting the budget month to month so I don't go broke doing this. It helps that I'm not going after graded cards and there seems to not be a ton of other collectors out there vying for these particular peculiarities. 

Really the only measure right now is glued backs / major paper loss. rounded corners are just fine, as these cards traveled a long way to get here. These cards have pushed me up over 200 for the set!

I almost passed on Nelson Mathews there, as there is a helpful "CF" written on the front, but I figured I won't find the same card any cheaper in that condition any time soon. I don't know how much upgrading I'll do on this set, it will depend on how close I can get to completing the set as is. 

I think the Tris Speaker trivia art on the back of Nelson's card is my favorite of this bunch too - another reason I'm glad I decided to add it. Mathews is not related to Ed Mathews, but Nelson's son T.J. Mathews was a middle reliever for 8 seasons in the 90s / 00s for Oakland and Saint Louis. FUN FACT.

 

The same eBay seller that has the 1964 Topps cards has a whole host of other random Venezuelan items like coins and paper money... and tobacco cards! This is one of several for sale from the same set, originally printed in 1943. This was the most interesting image of the group (in my highly subjective opinion). 

Any relation to José Briceño from the Rockies? The last names follow the mother's maiden name, rather than the fathers in most cases in Latin American countries, so this is probably not his great grandfather... who knows? Regardless, it was a fun little bonus to add to the collection!

Do you collect any cards from other countries (beyond the occasional O-Pee-Chee from Canada?)?

Thanks for reading!

Joy of a completed (sub)set - 1969 Topps Deckle Edge

Tell me if this has happened to you, fellow collector. You've checked everything off your checklist, and that last card (probably a shortprint, or a Yankee, or both) has just made its way into your collection. You did it! You finished the set! Time to put it all in a binder all nice and organized... wait. Where's the Luis Tiant card?

I could have sworn I had this one! Well, I was all ready to post this a couple weeks ago, but I was missing old "No. 7 of 33." After a careful search of stacks of Cleveland cards, and stacks of vintage oddballs, and going through several binders, it was time to bite the bullet and spend the $1.99 to fix this. 

 

And now it's all done! I started this set build back in 2015, around the same time I started pretty much all of my serious set building / collecting goals. 

I was very very casual about building it, too- I think I had most of it knocked out in a few card show trips back in 2015, but the two short prints ("11B" Jimmy Wynn and "22B" Joe Foy), eluded me for a long time.

This was a pretty appealing set for a budget - most of the cards can be found for a dollar or two (less if you're buying in 2015), it's really just the short prints that can be pricey. I waited a long time to get a good price for the Jimmy Wynn. 

This last page packs quite a punch- with the exception of Al Ferrara, these are all legends of the game!

The set is "out of 33," but there are actually 35 cards in the set, as there are two #11s and two #22s. 

I'm convinced I'm going to find that Luis Tiant in some random pile somewhere... 

Halfway Home! Building the 1964 Topps Venezuelan set

 Just received a stack of 1964 Topps Venezuelan cards in the mail today. Still haven't solved my scanner issue, so posting from my phone. Sorry in advance for the not so great photos...

I added 10 cards in total to my set build with this order, taking me past the 50% mark!

Not sure that I will ever finish this set as I don't think I want to pay $100s (or $1000s) to get either of the 2 Mantle cards in this set. 

Ironically, two MLB players from the 60s born in Venezuela are in the regular Topps set, but not in the Venezuelan version - Vic Davalillo and Luis Aparicio. Their cards are found after #370, the last card issued in Venezuela.

9 of the 10 cards were obtained for less than 10 bucks apiece, that's the price point I've set for myself for commons / minor stars. Right now, I'm only buying cards if they are free from glue residue on the back (When these were issued, Topps also sold an album for gluing the set into pre-printed pages, much like panini sticker albums.)

It might not look too pretty, but this was the big addition for this batch - Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal!

I'm not picky about condition, but I'm happy I found this card with no paper loss or glue residue. Sure, it's shape is more like an Oval than a Rectangle, but it's good enough for me!

I owe everyone a bunch of Black History Month posts - I will be tinkering with some combo of phone, old broken laptop, and new laptop to try to get the scanner reconnected. I've had plans to talk about:

- The Birmingham Black Barons (think Willie Mays, but also Piper Davis and Artie Wilson among others) ,

- One of the lesser known / underreported baseball families (The Hairstons) ,

- MLB Labor pioneer Curt Flood,

- The Cool Papa Bell book I just finished, 

to name just a few ideas I have cooking. I wanted to post more this month but I find using my phone to be about 150% less enjoyable for blogging. I might instead try to find appropriate dates throughout the year to post those, since Black History can and should be celebrated all year long!

Fixin a Hole (in my set build)

Oh don't mind me, just trying to finish last year's Heritage set. What's taking so long, you may rightly ask?

Elvis has entered the building, but he is part of a large group of MLB players that are found only in the artificially rare "SP" series that makes up cards 401-500 in the set.

I've been not so patiently waiting for the price to come down on these short printed cards. While I was waiting, Topps released an extension to the 500 card set, as it has done for several years, which they call the "High Numbers" set. I was ready for this! I pre-ordered a hobby box of the stuff way back in 2020, so I would receive the cards promptly in early 2021. Ernie Banks has an insert set in the High Numbers section of this mammoth set. Just found one in the box.

There's a 1971 World Series highlights subset, Award Winners, and Now & Then, which is a common Heritage insert set.

The "Hits" were a pair of plain white fabric swatches. I've pulled Hoskins before in something else, can't recall the product but I sent that away some time ago.

Freddie Galvis was in the box as well. I added the Adam Eaton (Springfield, OH represent!) and the Eddie Rosario as eBay singles. 

 

 

The box topper was pretty sweet, if difficult to store. Greatest Moments was a similarly oversized offering back in the day, and it's always a welcome sight to add a super prospect like Luis Robert.

The one oddity? Well, if you notice Freddy Galvis is both a SP from the regular set AND a High Number card. I believe there are a couple more examples of this, but another indication of the sloppy and/or indifferent quality control at Topps. One of those cards could have been a missing player. Then again, with 725 cards, there's plenty of roster spots!

Have you attempted to complete one of these Heritage sets? Are you working on 2021 right now? 

Thanks for reading!

Good Riddance 2020, Hello 2021!

 Happy New Year Everyone!

This time last year I posted a good bye to 2019, reviewing my collecting goals, and looking ahead to 2020.

My goal from 2019 to organize my collection only got worse in 2020, things are way out of hand, I may need to hire an intern to help me sort and catalog everything.

My "At the bat rack" mini-collection has continued to grow, and more pages from the "Frankenset" will be posted in 2021.

The "Call Me, Maybe" mini collection I started in earnest in 2020 did not grow very much. 

The 1959 Topps Set build nearly stopped entirely. Sure, I could have just bought all the singles online, but how is that any fun? In hindsight, with the Project 2020 hype and his untimely passing spiking demand, I should have purchased the Bob Gibson rookie last year.

The "I Love the 80s" and the "Topps All-Star Rookie" posts will come back again in 2021, I still have plenty of material to cover there. 

I only attended 2 card shows in 2020, the last one coming in February. I don't know what the future holds for card shows in MN, selfishly I hope they survive and can rebound in 2021 at some point. I still will hold off from attending until I am vaccinated- I have elderly parents and I'd like to avoid passing anything on to them.

and drumroll . . . I bet you all forgot that I held a contest last January first to guess which 1970s set I was going to start working on. Well, last month I finally took the initiative and bought a 400+ card lot of:

1974 Topps! So, Jim (cards as i see them) and Chris (The Collector), congratulations! You've won by also guessing that I would start a 1974 topps set build. 

As far as actually building that set... well I have no idea what cards I need right now, the 400+ lot is still in the box it shipped in. I will be looking to buy a nice, big binder (or two?) to house the set, and I'll need to get more 9-pocket pages. I haven't started to figure out what I have.

But the good news is that card collecting will continue in 2021. 

Thanks for reading, I owe you all a ton of posts, and a shout out to everyone that has reached out via email and or snail mail with cards and notes. This year can be better if we make it better!

Ponce, Puerto Rico is Bat Rack City!

Ponce, Puerto Rico was founded in 1692 and is named after the great-grandson of Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon. The Leones, you would think, would be a nod to that lineage - but the team's name actually was coined after the team owner was photographed cracking a whip like a lion tamer. The Leones were formed in 1938, and were champions 11 times. The team folded following the 2016 season. Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, and the league had to combine some teams and contract others completely. Eduardo Perez (son of Hall of Famer Tony Perez) managed the team to its final championship season in the 2008/2009 season.

The team's Dirigente, (aka Manager) was future / former Cubs skipper Jim Essian in 1988/1989 when this set was produced. Essian had played in the league himself years earlier for Caguas, teaming up with Gary Carter, Willie Montanez, and Mike Schmidt to name a few. Essian was the Cubs' AA manager the same season he took the helm for the Leones.

"VIVE Y RESPETA AL COLECCIONISMO"

Live and Respect Collecting! I love that. The backs of these cards feature various things to live and respect, such as "sports," "Country," "Religion," and "Culture." 

The league was known for providing a place for players to hone their skills in the "off season" - many future MLB players find their way onto the Leones roster - how many of them are memorable to you?

The main reason I picked up this set was for the awesome bat rack cards. As I try to keep the bat rack frankenset going, it's heartening to see all the guys to help me out in a few pages down the line. Ponce is Bat Rack City, baby! Plus, I love adding some less common cards of future former Twins players like Junior Ortiz and Pedro Munoz. 

Last but not least is the big name in the set, Juan Gonzalez. Pictured here he is still a few months away from his MLB debut, but he had already picked up his nickname IGOR, which was based on his favorite wrestler, the Mighty Igor. He called himself "Igor the Great," his friends were willing to compromise and just called him Igor. 

Live and Respect the Culture everyone!

Taking the Long Road

The last time I added a card to this set build was in January of 2019, and that was because I found a lot on eBay of  4 of the 5 checklists. Since then it's been all quiet on the 1964 Topps Venezuelan front.

I don't really like to build sets by buying them on eBay, it feels a little like cheating. But I decided to spend a little on this set build now since I can't go to card shows or card shops- since I'm limited to online sales anyway, might as well put them to use on this!

These are in pretty typical shape for this set, the cards were printed on less hearty stock, and the photos have a tendency to fade on the front. Not to mention that it's just not the same industry in VZ at it is here to maintain these collections.

I'm now up to 159 cards from the set, which is a little under half. There will be some cards, like Mickey Mantle, Pete Rose, etc. that I will likely never find for a reasonable price. Finishing the set will require some kind of savings plan or successful get rich quick scheme...

My scanner chose to pixelate this one, but you can see for the most part these are in good shape for Venezuelan Topps, which were sold with a scrapbook and jar of paste back in '64. Only the Roman Mejias card has signs of being glued into a book previously. Unlike the U.S. release, the trivia answers were revealed in red ink- no need to rub with a coin. The kids of VZ would probably need a translation though, so it wasn't exactly giving the answers away!

The Joy of A Completed (Base) Set (and bonus Vintage Bonanzas!)

There it is - card # 333 was the last one I needed for the base set (cards 1-400) of the 2020 Topps Heritage Set. I still have a long way to go to get all those Short Prints from 401 - 500, but it still felt good to get that all done.

I definitely could not have done it so quickly without the help of several traders reaching out to me. In particular, the last few cards were knocked out by a collector and blog reader Mark from Oregon. Not only did he get me most of the way to completing the base set. . .

He's also sent me several short prints, and that alone would have been a very generous trade. But just like last time, Mark didn't stop there.

I'm still keeping my options open, but every time I look at the 1974 set, I like it a little more. I am leaning towards this one for my next vintage set build - still gotta finish '59, but hey, no reason to not multi-task.

1973 has some bright spots too, even though the colors never seem as bright as the two next Topps designs. Always been a big fan of the horizontal cards from this set.

The 1972 set is another fun one, the "In Action" series has a lot of great variety.

Goodness - I did sent some cards back to Mark, but after going through these, I feel like I need to send some more! Love that Gene Baker card.

The Moose! This whole mailer was one pleasant surprise after another, and it hit a bunch of different collecting goals. Thanks so much Mark! I will try to keep the line moving with some fun cards heading back your way.