Card Show Report*

Well, the asterik should tell you how the 'show' went. Honestly, Darryl, the show promoter, did a good job with it. He mandated masks for everyone, reduced the tables by eliminating all but the ones around the walls of the room, and limited to crowd to 20 (or at least he tried). He told me that when he opened he had 45 folks waiting to enter. It's been a long time since we've had a show in the area so i was kind of expecting that. I waited until 10:30 to arrive.

 

And I only ventured about three feet into the room. That's not unusual for me. I normally only hit Darryl's tables and sometimes one or two others that have vintage stuff. Yesterday I poked my head in, Darryl handed me his 1967 Topps boxes, and I spent about two hours at a table in a corner the hotel  sorting through them. I'd finally gotten around to getting my 67s organized and correctly checklisted. I had my wants and needed upgrades listed and I went to town on those boxes. I came away with about 130ish commons which knocked a real big hole in my wantlist.

Some of those commons filled holes in that page I've posted above. I randomly picked it to scan and I'm glad I did. It contains a number of players I was interested in during the mid- to late 60s. Ron Fairly, Sonny Siebert, Art Shamsky (until October '69), Rich Rollins and Bobby Murcer all fit that bill. Of course Mike Cuellar is an all-time favorite of mine. 

And then there's Ray Washburn. He's the guy who told my younger brothers to 'go to hell' when they asked him to sign a program for them in the Astrodome. From a previous post I made:

In the 60's and 70's the Astrodome had a restaurant they called the Domeskeller (sp?). It ran along the outfield wall under the bleachers. They had picnic style tables tables and wire windows you could watch the action through. Before games fans (mostly kids) would congregate there during batting practice as pitchers did their running on the warning track. They would sometimes sign through the opening in the wire. 

Anyway, one Sunday afternoon in 1968 my younger brothers asked Ray Washburn of the Cardinals to sign their program. He clearly and loudly told them (and me) to 'go to hell'. We told my folks when we got back to our seats. My mom was pretty upset as I recall but I think my father was more amused than angry. Either way Washburn's career slid off the rails after that season. Karma.

Even with my limited view it looked to me that the dealers in the room were doing good business. Darryl likely lost money on the room by having only half as many dealers but he's got another show scheduled for next month. I think he's undecided on going through with it. We'll see.

That's all I did at the show. Darryl himself had hardly anything on his table (he usually has several full of vintage) but he was too busy policing to sell anything anyway. I sure hope things get better soon. This (very much needed) mask and distance business is getting old.

Pandemic Life

Things have been pretty quiet as far as my hobby activities are concerned. No card shows mean I'm cut off from my chief source of want-list killing. I've had some stuff arrive in fits and spurts so I figured they'd make a post if I stuck 'em together.

Up top is the Tom Flores card from the 1961 Fleer set. It was one of the three pricey rookies that I put off finding until the end. The others are Don Meredith and Johnny Robinson. This card was an absolute bargain due to the pencil mark on the front. Oh, and a worn-down corner. Paying $14 for a card that averages 10 times that is a small victory. The Meredith card is going to be much tougher to nab.

It was just announced that Flores is a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for 2021. He was the first Hispanic coach in the NFL. I hope he makes it into the HoF. But the good old boys that do the voting have some strange ways.

This next card falls into a category I mentioned in my last post, the "I'd have sworn that set was done but turns out I need it!" thing. When I bought the Bart Starr card for this 1960 Topps set I thought I'd put it to bed. Nope. Flipping through the pages showed me an open slot where Dave Middleton should have been so it was off the SportsLots I went.

Middleton played halfback and split end (I'm showing my age, I know what those positions are) for the Lions from 1955 through 1960 after a college career at Auburn. He finished with the expansion Vikings in 1961 (he's got a card in the '61 Fleer set). His claim to fame is catching a TD pass in the NFL title game in 1957 when the Lions destroyed the Browns, 59-14.


No story behind the rest of these other than the '79s being upgrades to that finished set. Yes, it really is finished, I checked.

I bought a '96 Topps set to commemorate my fantasy football title that season and the thing was missing the Farve card on the right. That's the second or third time in the last year that a set listed as 'complete' on eBay has arrived with something missing. Luckily, the cards I've had to track down were easy to locate and cheap enough.

I added the one of the left to the order because I liked it. And if I'm going to spend a buck for shipping on a 50 cent card I might as well buy a second fifty center and call it even.

That's it for now. I'm taking advantage of the quiet hobby time to write up a bunch of posts for my 1960 blog and finish up my look at the many color combos that Topps used. Lots of work, but some fun research.

TCMA Cardinals, The Gas House Gang

A few years ago I was at the regular hotel card show buying a stack of cards for a set I was building at the time. As I was paying, the dealer, one of the few who has stuff worth looking at, handed me a paper sack. It was one of those in which you'd tote a school lunch. He said he'd bought a collection earlier in the day, and he had no use for the bag's contents so it became his 'gift' to me.

I peeked inside and saw an unruly jumble of Cardinal cards that I didn't recognize. I stuck it in my backpack and forgot about it until I was going back to the next show. Turns out that the cards were TCMA near-sets from 1974 and '75.

The first is the oddly interesting Gashouse Gang set of 31 cards issued in 1974. As with many TCMA issues, figuring out just what you have can be challenging. There are 26 different players represented. These are narrower than standard-sized modern cards, though just as tall.

Here are a few of the individual player cards. I say 'player', but player/manager Frankie Frisch and a coach or two are also in there.

This illustrates how they differ in size from standard cards:

Ernie Orsatti has two different poses, a portrait and a full-length shot of him with a bat.

There is also a card of the Dean brothers, Dizzy and Daffy. That brings us to 27 plus the Orsatti variation.

The backs of these have nominal stats for most players, a blurb for the coaches, and a notation of games played with other teams in 1934.

There are also four over-sized cards. These clock in at 3.5" x 4.5" and feature action from the '34 World Series, and one showing Dizzy Dean and Leo Durocher celebrating the title.

Here is the back of the oversized Dizzy and Leo photo card:

 And the others:

Oh, the backs are darker you say? Hold that thought, because, as with a lot of things TCMA, stuff gets a bit complicated.

You may have noticed that some cards have '1934 Cardinals' at the top, others show 'The Gashouse Gang'. I haven't seen both versions for every card, but I saw enough in my travels down eBay and COMC rabbit holes to be fairly confident that the whole bunch comes in both versions.

Then there's this....

The cards (all? some?) also have blue tint versions.

And then there's this:

I mistakenly picked up a second Daffy Dean card. When it arrived it was obviously printed on brighter paper. And the back, like those of the oversized cards, was on darker cardboard. The Trading Card Database calls these 'graybacks' but the checklist is identical. Were these reprinted by TCMA? Did someone go to the trouble to 'counterfeit' these? Surely not.

The whole deal is more than I can process. There is a 'regular set' with white backs and '1934 Cardinals' on the front, a set with white backs but with 'The Gashouse Gang' on the front. Plus a blue tint versions of both of the above. Then there are the 'dark cardboard' versions.

I may need to consult Twitter acquaintance Andrew Aronstein, son of the company's founder, Micheal Aronstein, to help me sort it all out.

Running down the checklist I found on the Trading Card Database told me I needed four cards. I was able to find them without too much hassle on SportsLots and COMC. Then, when I became aware of the multiple version fun, I decided that one of each player (and the two Orsatti poses) would be plenty for me. I went ahead and picked up a blue tint or two just as examples. 

Once COMC starts shipping again I'll have everything in hand. Then I'll turn to the other TCMA Cardinals set which was in the paper sack. That's the 1942-46 Cardinals set...it has 'red jersey Cardinals' variations. Oy vey.

Wrapping One Show, Ready For Another

With about a week to go until the Houston TriStar Winter Show, I thought I'd finish posting my meager takings from the last hotel show I attended.

First up, a handful of oddball Rusty Staub cards. I'm buying Rusty stuff without a checklist which is a little like driving around at night with your lights off...you rely a lot on memory.

Swell Gum:

Pacific:

TCMA (from the 12-card All-Time Expos set.

But I was positive that those were new to me.

Unlike this Charles Bender 1913 National Game card. I have a really nice one that is in a slab that I blogged previously. This one was a cheapie. You can never have too many of these, right?

'77 Topps Cloth Sticker Lee May:

I found a small stack of these things and bought a few to pass on to some other bloggers. I didn't realize that I already had one of these. Jim Palmer is the other Orioles guy in the set. I wanted to find a Staub but no luck.

Billy Pierce 1959 Baseball Thrills subset card. I had this one but used it for my '59 build.

1987 Fleer Akeem Olajuwon sticker card. Yes, he was Akeem before he was Hakeem. I have some funny Olajuwon stories from his days at UH but I'll save them for when I have a cool piece to show with them. All I'll say now is that if he crashes a soccer game you are playing in... don't get in the way of one of his shots.

I haven't shown much (anything?) of the '61 Fleer football set. Most because nobody would read it. But I'm almost done with it and I wasn't even half trying. As with the Houston college player photo I had on here recently, this pic has the UH practice fields as the location and the surrounding neighborhood as the background.

'87 Donruss Murray. Part of the bunch of Murray cards that I was gifted at the show. I always liked this design. This is probably the last set that I paid attention to before I lost interest in the hobby a few years later.

1960 Lenny Moore. I had this in my Colts collection but I just love this card. One of these days I might try to chase this set.

Finally a pair of Arm & Hammer Orioles cards from the 1930s. I'm shown the backs in XL so they can be read.

The TriStar show is next weekend. Brooks Robinson is a guest on Sunday. I may take my son to reprise this shot from 20ish years ago:

 Brooks and Brooks!

Card Show Potpourri

I hit the hotel card show on Saturday. Having nothing in the works in terms of set building gave me the chance to just schmooze with some dealers and pick through my friend Darryl's cheap vintage boxes and cherry-pick a few things I thought were nice. I went home with about twenty vintage cards. Here are a few of them. And note that my scanner likes to cut off borders and I'm too lazy to re-scan anything at the moment.

Do I collect Dick Allen? Mmmmmmmaybe. I have plenty of his cards, that's for sure. I bought the '64 because I'd given mine away to a friend who was lamenting losing his childhood Phillies collection. I put together the 1964 Topps Phils team set for him. It was really neat to see how much he enjoyed the cards from his favorite Phils club ever.

This '76 is an upgrade to the one in my set.

'75 Luis Tiant. I have this in my '75 set of course but it's also gonna have a spot in my 'cards I like just because' binder.

Not my favorite Gale Sayers card but it helps fill out his page.

Darryl had lots of '69 Topps football in really nice shape. This set is very condition-sensitive and I could use a bunch of upgrades. I don't yet have a list of cards in my set that could be improved upon but here are three I bought for the simple reason that they were nice enough to buy on spec.

Vintage Giants cards remind me of my father.

I think I already had this Elvin Hayes card. He does UH basketball radio color commentary and walks right by us every game. I still haven't asked him to sign anything. I haven't seen anyone else ask either, so I'll wait.

Artis Gilmore came thru Houston when he played for Jacksonville U. He was part of a 7 foot-ish tandem post with a guy named Pembrook Burrows. Both schools were sort of wild, outlaw programs at the time and the games were a blast. Jacksonville made the NCAA final in 1970. Burrows went on to become a Florida highway patrolman and Gilmore had a long pro career and is in the hoops hall.

Darryl pulled out a huge box of 80s/90s cards that were part of a buy he made a few months back. He had promised me some Eddie Murray cards because of a friendly argument we had over Murray's Hall of Fame credentials. I had the mainstream cards of Eddie with the Orioles but few, if any, of him in other teams' gear. Darryl said I could just take anything I wanted.

The box had all the routine Topps, Fleer, Donruss cards and some oddballs as well. I ended up pulling one of each different card even knowing I had many of them already. I'll post a sampling of them.

I wish Upper Deck was still in the card making game. If they were I might still be in the pack buying game.

Back in 1988 I bought a box of those Topps-issued schoolkid folders that were replicas of this Topps card. There were 15 or twenty in the box. Over time, I gave them away to kids at my school I still have two.

1990 Fleer. Junk wax at it's finest.

'92 Topps something or other. Topps Kids?  I don't remember this.

I normally ignore stuff like this but it's actually sort of fun. The back is cute.

Stickers posing as cards. Why?

Another nice Upper Deck Eddie. At this point in his career, Eddie had decided that appearing to have some fun out there wouldn't kill him.

'93 Fleer. I don't even know if this is the regular issue for that year or not. By '93 I was out of the card hobby and close to being out of the fan business as well. I was hanging on by my fingertips and a year or so later the strike/lockout/stoppage came along and stomped on those fingers.

That's it for tonight. This show was the first one I've attended without a want list in hand. TriStar is coming up so I better get to work on something.