Throwback Thursday

 

Is there anything sweeter than Sweet Lou? How about Sweet Lou, presented by Coca-Cola? One can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar. That's pretty sweet!

This card is from 1981, and of course it has a pretty much identical design to 1981 Topps, save for the Coke logo in the corner. Of course, Coca-Cola and the Tigers have been linked to each other for a long time. The Georgia-based soda giant was one of Tiger great Ty Cobb's first big investments. 

At first glance, nothing too special about these early to mid 70's cards (maybe you notice that the position "Outfield" is missing from Jesus Alou's card), but flip them over and see... 

O-Pee-Chee! I don't really keep any kind of checklist for these, but I picked these up on eBay for a reasonable price. Everything in this post came my way in either November or December.

My brother pointed out this 1963 Fleer to me, and I sent one to him for Christmas. But I kept the saved search in eBay and eventually found this one to add to my own collection. The buy it now prices are out of control right now, but the auctions are the way to go if you can find one. 

Roberto Clemente - good at baseball.

Throwback Thursday

 Nothing fancy, just a post of some "recent" vintage (pre 1980) pickups!

I found a seller on eBay that had some very sharp vintage. More than I would pay for cards at a show, but still I thought a fair price for cards that aged very well. Jerry Kindall is from my hometown of Minneapolis, MN!

I bought Bob Elliott, Frank Linzy, and Angel Scull as upgrades to cards I already had. Davey Johnson is a '67 Venezuelan release- hence the odd/missing border. I found that card looking for more 1964 Topps VZ for that Quixotic set build. 

Showing a little love for the other pastimes, including my first vintage Parkhurst card! 

Here's a look at the back of the "Parkie." ooh la la!

A few more cards that are just barely off the beaten path- an OPC of Andre Dawson, 1977 Cloth Sticker of Mike Schmidt with the Liberty Bell Bicentennial arm patch, a 1960 Leaf Junior Jim Gilliam, and a non-sport tobacco card that struck my fancy:

This is a 1910 "T30" Hassan Tobacco card. This is from a set of 25 cards with Arctic scenes. Just thought it was pretty! " F.N.A.G.S. " was pretty odd, I tried to figure out what it stands for, and I got as far as "AGS" being "American Geographical Society". Albert Operti is the painter that the card's image is based on- he was born in Italy but  grew up in England, then came to the United States and joined Robert Peary on an exploration of Greenland and the Artic in 1896 and 1897. 

Before we get too much farther, here's the backs of those foreign language cards from VZ and Canada!

One more oddball for the road, a 1977 Sertoma Stars Tony Oliva

And the back . . . When Tony came to the U.S., he used his younger brother Pedro's passport. That way he was 18 instead of 21 in the eyes of scouts. 

These all came to me in the mail over the course of the pandemic, generally I'd fall down one rabbit hole or another to find these cards, I don't think a single one of the cards in the post was the card I was looking for when I started. 

Where do you turn for cardboard inspiration? Have you been exclusively buying online this past year, or have you been to a Card Show / Shop / retail location?

Thanks for reading!

Saturday is Card Show Day

Well, Campy, how do you think I did at the Card Show today?

Thanks!

Before getting to the main event, my April Fool's post last Sunday did remind me that there are a few players I do collect outside of baseball. That last card is from 2016. Can you imagine a baseball card made by Donruss in 2016 that looked that good?

Had to pick up some cheap Twins, too!

What Twins collection could be complete without a Bob Bailey rookie card?

I have been working on the 1959 set for a couple months now, and I've noticed that I'm not the only blogger that's building this set. I'm still very very early in the set building process, so I'm not ready to toss up a want list.

It was the main focus of my card show trip today, however, and I added 33 more cards to my set, most of them for just a buck each!

I decided I would take advantage of a few big names that were being offered at a deep discount.

The biggest name of all today - Willie Mays! It's hard to see in the scan, but there's a healthy crease running vertically from the top center of the card, stopping at the top of the "S" on his cap. The rougher condition means I could afford to take it home! It was a great day at the card show.

The Secret is Out!

Let me start by saying that (Secret) Santa Claus is a Super cool dude. Jared of Cards My Mom Didn't Throw Out sent over these cards, stuffing the stocking to overflowing proportions! Jack Morris was just inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Tony Oliva has not. No disrespect intended to Morris, but Tony O is overdue, and this big Topps card should remind everyone that it's Tony's turn.

Johan is on the ballot for the first (and quite likely the last), and that too seems like a mistake in judgement. Santana didn't have the lengthy careers of many of the all-time great lefties, and doesn't have the post season resumes of his contemporaries like Pedro and Schilling. What he does have is a stretch of 5 straight 200 K seasons, a pair of Cy Young awards, and a career ERA+ of 136. He easily could have won the Cy Young the year Colon won it, making it 3 straight, but it was not meant to be. He's destined for the Hall of Very Good, not the worst place a guy can end up. Would have enjoyed the debate on his candidacy to continue a few years longer, but it's an overcrowded ballot.

I love Bert Blyleven's expressions during his windup. These 4 cards were all parallels of one form or another, with Corey Koskie being numbered to just 99 copies.

Hrbek was still just watching wrestling in 1982 instead of executing his best moves in the 1991 World Series - Big Dave was still bringing the aggressive swing in 1994, 21 years into his MLB career.

Another Hall of Famer, this time with a sweet tooth!

A nice round of Pucketts, and one big surprise...

Probably should have used a camera instead of the scanner, but this is a very cool piece. The pin packaging has career stats on the back, almost like a baseball card, along with mentioning a few of Kirby's more notable career highlights through the 1991 season.

Thanks so much, Jared!

Sometimes, Crime Does Pay

Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown fame had a big fun game, and the best lot in the whole game (in this humble Twins Fan's opinion) was the one that I won stole from Nick from the Dime Boxes blog. Stealing is bad! Stealing is wrong! But thems the rules of the big fun game, and I just couldn't say no to the card above. My scanner makes it look a little blurry and dusty, but in person it is anything but. Just a gorgeous card!

Also included in the lot were these three Baseball Card Breakdown originals. Really outstanding work on these customs, not just the look, but also the feel of the cards in hand is impressive.

Gavin being the generous fella that he is, also included a stack of Twins, like hometown hero Joe Mauer.

Some great older Bowman (always a fan of Metrodome shots like A.J.'s card)

The base card Tony O to match the autograph, and some sweet Kennys!

A Bonus Joe Relic!

And Frankie from the Futures game waaaaay back in 2005. He's still kicking in 2017.

Thanks very much Gavin, for the big fun game, and for all the extras!!

Day Ten - 1965 Topps Tony Oliva #340

Day 10: A Favorite Card From the 1960s

Taking the lead from Tony at Off-Hiatus Baseball Cards this will be the tenth of 30 posts, using the prompts provided. I won't necessarily post one every day, but I will do one for each card, toss in a few "insights" (as insightful as I can be, anyway), and usually include an honorable mention or two, just because I'm like that.

Here's my pick - I thought picking just one card from the 1950s would be difficult, the 60s was also tricky. Tony O's first solo card of his career came on the heels of winning the A.L. Batting Title and being named rookie of the year. The 1965 set is my favorite design of the decade - I completed the O-Pee-Chee set, as well as the Heritage sets in 2014 that used the same look. This card in particular may be the one that pushed me over the edge to get all the Topps All-Star Rookie cards.

Since these are basically one card posts, why not show the backs, too? Pretty impressive that winning the batting title and hitting .323 actually lowered Oliva's career average. If not for bad knees and a balky back, Tony O would be in Cooperstown already.

Oh so many honorable mentions!

Horizontal sets came back in 1960, then disappeared again. But Topps continued to churn out some great horizontal cardboard. Ryne Duren has a few awesome cards, where he's rocking shades in both the main photo and the inset. The triptychs in the 1962 set like the Killebrew above make for a very nice 10 card subset. The World Series sets are a personal favorite, and "SEALING YANKS' DOOM" will always get my attention.
I ranked the 50s, so let's do something similar for the 60s. 65 is my favorite, then 61, 64, 60, and 63. The rest are kind of bunched at the bottom of the list, but I think I just need to see some more from 62 to decide for sure. 67, 68 and 69 have some great cards, but lots of bad ones. All the hatless players make sad.

The 1960 managers were a hint of things to come in 1965, Wes Covington's 1961 card is the '57 Valo of the 1960s, The Topps All-Star Rookie set looms large in 60s, even though Topps seemingly messed it up every year by missing one or more of the award winners... And Dave Ricketts was the most athletic hipster until James Harden.

I know I am only supposed to pick one card, so officially the answer is Tony O, but these are all winners in my book.

A Gold Label Card Show Day

What a day! Headed out to the monthly show and found some awesome deals.

First of all, this show was the first time that I found multiple dime boxes - usually I am lucky to find one vendor selling cards for .10, but this time there were three different vendors, selling everything from the late 70s to the new 2017 Topps releases.

A great variety in the dime boxes!

All of these for just .90 - been a long time since I could find Diamond Kings for such a low price.

There were lots of other deals to be found on Twins cards - The team card is numbered to /65. I was pleasantly surprised to find when I got home that I didn't already have the two patch Kennys Vargas card.

Same powder blue patch for Killebrew, Hrbek, and Tony O.... It's possible that these all came from different uniforms, but who knows? Jacques Jones gets lost in the shuffle sometimes, but he was awesome back in the day.

Now we come to the big news - after today's haul, I'm down to just 12 cards remaining in the 1956 Topps set build! The 6 above were just a dollar apiece!

A pair of Braves, a Moose, and the original Big Red Machine.

Here was the biggest score of the day! Have to share the back too:

The last dozen cards have some pretty big names, lots of Yankees... I'm going to be patient and save up to get those last cards checked off the list.

A really exciting show for me, found more than I thought possible!

P.S. - Twins' Opening Day is in just . . .

2 Days!