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... 

The InternationAlous

While working on building the 1964 Topps Venezuelan set, I have run into several other sets from other countries. I'm not going to even think about building those sets (yet), but every once in a while I see something I can't ignore. I am a big fan of the Alou brothers - Felipe, Matty and Jesús.

I found this 1962 Topps Venezuelan of the big brother Felipe. The original Topps version mentions his brother Matty Alou, but the Venezuelan version only includes the first factoid about Felipe, noting that he's getting better every year for the Giants, and became a "top star" in 1961. It also mentions his PCL betting title from 1958. The cartoon is the same for both, mentioning another batting title, this time for hitting .380 in the D-League in 1956. 

Speaking of brother Matty, after being released by the Padres in 1974, middle brother Matty traveled west to Japan. He played 50 games for the Taiheiyo Club Lions in 74, hitting .312 with 12 doubles and a pair of home runs. This card is from the 1975-1976 Calbee set, and features a full bleed photo like Stadium Club some 15 years later in the States. He actually has a pair of cards in this set, you can read about the other card on the blog "Getting Back into Baseball Cards . . . In Japan" 

Here's the back of the card - I don't speak or read or write Japanese, but I can tell you that this was card #602 in the set. I randomly stumbled across this card while waiting for a different eBay auction to end.

And just for the sake of a full set of Alou brothers, here's an American Jesús. Overwhelming millions everyday, like the song says. 

Jesús may not have had the same statistical success as his older brothers - he didn't win batting titles like Matty, he didn't go on to managerial success like Felipe, but he did manage to win 2 World Series championships while playing with Oakland, more than both his brothers combined. 

I'll continue to keep my eye out for more Alous, no matter where their cards were printed. Thanks for reading!

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!

A Moving Target

Not talking about the retail world, no, the moving target is my want list. Thanks to the generosity of several folks, I am finding it hard to keep track of all the new cards in my collection. Bo from the excellent Baseball Cards Come To Life! blog sent over a PWE of early 70s Topps, including the Bud Harrelson (with Nolan Ryan cameo) shown above.

Some 1970 Topps from Bo - I wish I knew the thought process behind using a player's full name or nickname - there's plenty of room there for "Blue Moon" Odom!

Ever since I started the series on which 70s set I wanted to build, my vintage want lists got a big boost. Just as quickly as I beefed the lists up, traders were coming out of the woodwork to knock them back down again.

Yep, these were all in the same envelope from Bo! Rick Monday was celebrating an anniversary recently - the day he was drafted #1 Overall in the first MLB entry draft! Thanks a bunch, Bo! 

Fellow MN resident blogger Jim from cards  as i see them also got a PWE through to me recently - It looks like I am still a few days behind on receiving mail (but my goodness, give the USPS a hearty round of applause for resuming mail delivery just 2 business days after losing 2 post offices!). 

Some great Twins Greats made it in the envelope - interesting to see Wrigley Field on that Paul Molitor card - he played only 2 games there in his career since he was a career American Leaguer, mostly pre-Interleague play. I am guessing all the cards in that subset have the same background.

This is me, cross-checking all my lists after the avalanche of new trades. Thanks Jim!

Blog reader Mark from Oregon has been dropping big mailers of vintage and 90s cards on me for the last month or so, and he sent over another doozy recently.

The main portion of this mailer was from 1976 Topps, which is easily a top 3 set for me from the decade. 

Getting all choked up by all this great stuff!

This doesn't really do it justice, but this is just a small representation of the variety in the latest mailer, attacking both vintage and modern wantlists with equal fervor. 

Thanks again Mark! Going to keep working on a decent return package for you. 

Which 70s Set Should I Build? 1978 Edition

I've been trying to decide which 1970s set to start building for my next vintage set build, but I can't seem to make up my mind. So, I'm going to take a little closer look at what I already have in my collection and try to narrow it down.

The big rookie card of 1978 was Eddie Murray, complete with Topps' All-Star Rookie honors and 500ft stare to dead center.

But Murray was joined by a trio of Tigers. One of those Tigers shared his rookie card with another Hall of Fame talent, Paul Molitor. Other notable rookies included long time MLB manager Art Howe, 1984 AL MVP Willie Hernandez, Moustache MVP Tim Blackwell, Expos fan favorite Warren Cromartie, Blue Jays mainstay Jim Clancy, Dodger favorite Glenn Burke, and Tiger/Angels great Lance Parrish.

Of course Reggie was going to make an appearance in this set after the 1977 World Series.

The backs are fine I guess - nothing to write home about. Here's a page of some of my favorites from this set that are already in my collection.

I find this set to be very blah. I don't think I would really have much interest in trying to build this set. But maybe I am not giving it a fair shot? 

What do you think are the Pros and Cons of the 1978 Set? I'd love to hear your opinion!