who wants to deal for vintage?

despite acquiring and posting some pretty nice vintage stuff lately (here's a 1953 bowman color billy herman card that i picked up on the cheap),

i am still in need of quite a bit.  and, since i not too long ago pared down my sampler vintage topps sets to just dodger team sets, i've got a lot of spare vintage.  so, why not make a trade?

now, i realize that dodger cards from the 1950's sometimes command a pretty penny. i'm not suggesting that you trade me a 1952 topps roy campanella card for a 1954 bowman fred baczewski, but you are certainly welcome to if you'd like.  what i'm offering is a minimum of five-for-1 vintage deal.  my top priority here would be the 1955 topps card that i'm missing.

that would be ed roebuck, because i've recently obtained the joe black,

clem labine,

and gil hodges

cards from the set.

i find it interesting that the cartoon on the back of hodges' card

is pretty much the same as the one on the back of jackie robinson's 1953 topps card - the subject, anyway.  i guess topps figured that kids would forget that nugget of information within a couple years' time.

i found the hodges online, and picked up the black and labine cards at the card show i went to recently.  when i told the dealer i was working on a 1955 topps dodger team set, he said 'hey - just like rocky.  you know, the kid from the movie 'mask''.  i did not know, as i had not seen that movie.  a quick check of imdb does indeed show that the character was working on a '55 topps dodger team set, and while i need ed roebuck to complete the set, he needed rube walker.

anyway, i've updated my 1950's want list, and added it below.  i've also updated my nefarious 9 list on the sidebar.  even though there are some decidedly modern cards on the nefarious 9, i'm willing to trade vintage for them - say a minimum of 3-for-1 for the non-vintage nefarious 9 needs.

here's how it works.  you find one of the cards listed below from your collection, on ebay, comc, sportlots, or uncle bill's attic and let me know that you'd like to trade.  i'll send you a minimum of five cards from the 1950's (or 1960's if you prefer) in exchange. we can work out specific teams or cards if you prefer.  again, if you have a high-dollar card from my list, the bounty would be higher.  condition is not too much of an issue, although the labine above is probably as bad as i'd want to go on some of these cards.

here's the list of cards i need from the 1950's:

1950 bowman - 21 reese, 22 robinson, 23 newcombe, 58 furillo, 59 branca, 75 campanella, 76 barney, 77 snider, 112 hodges, 113 hermanski, 166 hatton, 167 roe, 194 cox, 222 morgan, 223 russell, 224 banta

1951 bowman - 7 hodges, 31 campanella, 32 snider, 56 branca, 80 reese, 117 miksis, 118 roe, 189 palica, 190 hatton, 260 erskine, 299 king

1951 topps red and blue backs - blue 42 edwards, blue 48 cox, red 16 roe, red 38 snider

1952 bowman - 8 reese, 44 campanella, 128 newcombe, 224 schmitz, 240 loes

1952 topps - 1 pafko, 20 loes, 36 hodges, 51 russell, 66 roe, 188 podbielan, 198 haugstad, 250 erskine, 273 palica, 314 campanella, 319 walker, 320 rutherford, 321 black, 326 shuba, 333 reese, 342 labine, 355 morgan, 365 lavagetto, 377 dressen, 389 wade, 390 nelson, 394 herman, 395 pitler, 396 williams

1953 bowman black & white - 26 roe, 52 branca, 60 cox

1953 bowman color - 14 loes, 46 campanella, 117 snider, 124 dressen, 129 meyer, 145 shuba

1953 topps - 76 reese, 134 walker, 255 howell, 258 gilliam, 263 podres, 272 antonello

1954 bowman - 10 erskine, 58 reese, 90 campanella, 122 furillo, 138 hodges, 154 newcombe, 170 snider, 186 meyer, 202 shuba, 218 roe

1955 topps - 195 roebuck

and you can see a sampling of the cards available for trade by checking out these posts and looking at the non-dodgers in them.  here are some other cards from 1953 and 1954 that would be available as well.

what say you? can you help a blogger out?

a complete run of jackie

behold! my latest jackie robinson acquisition - a 1953 topps card

which is also number 1 in the set

i've always liked this card, but only in reprint or virtual fashion, so to have one in my hands is pretty cool.  i assume that the background is supposed to be some part of a stadium, but to me it seems more like the 'l' in chicago or some ancient roman aqueduct, had they made their aqueducts of metal.  this was the card i targeted a while back that was sold with about 17 other cards from the 1950's, including that 1953 bowman color gil hodges i posted a couple of weeks back.

anyway, adding the '53 jackie to my collection means that i now have a complete topps run of jackie's cards from his playing days.  let's run through them, shall we?

1952 topps

1953 topps

1954 topps

1955 topps

and 1956 topps

that is some fantastic cardboard, if i do say so myself.

a nice way to close out 2014 - 60 year old cardboard completed!

i very seriously doubt that i will complete the 1955 topps dodger team set in 2015, but that is the only set that stands between me and having a complete run of topps flagship dodger team sets from 1954 through 2014 (minus a few short print photo variations from 2014).  that's because i recently picked up the last card i needed for the 1954 team set - this jackie robinson card.

it's a beauty.

jim hughes

and ben wade

were the other dodgers i picked up for the team set this past year.

i've got my eye on a 1953 topps jackie robinson card for 2015 - it's the only jackie topps card i don't have - although i am more certain about not being able to complete the '53 team set than i am about the '55 set.  but then again, i never thought i would get this far either.

the evolution of the dodger second baseman - beginning with jackie

just two positions left to review in my evolutionary posts.  this one is special to me because i spent most of my playing days at second base, and even though i was a steve garvey fan, i marveled at the dodger lineage at second base.  as a little leaguer, i traced it back from dave lopes to jim lefebvre to jim gilliam to jackie robinson.  i later learned that it wasn't quite that clean, but still.  at some point, it traces back to jackie, which is where i will start.  besides, it gives me a reason to show my 1952 topps jackie robinson card again, now freed from its plastic cage.

jackie robinson (1948-1952)

jackie was named the rookie of the year in 1947 when he was the dodgers' first baseman.  in 1948, brooklyn traded their second baseman, eddie stanky, to boston and gil hodges took over at first with jackie moving to second.  he stayed there for five seasons, winning the mvp award in 1949 and leading the league with a .342 average as well.

jim gilliam (1953-1957)

like jackie, gilliam was named the rookie of the year, but he won the award as the dodgers' second baseman in 1953.  that's his 1954 topps card - i unfortunately don't have a copy of his 1953 topps issue.  although gilliam also played some outfield in 1955 and 1956, he was the team's primary second baseman through 1957.  he finished fifth in the league mvp voting in 1956, when he hit .300 and helped the dodgers return to the world series.

charlie neal (1958-1961)

gilliam moved to the outfield in 1958 as the dodgers moved west, and so charlie neal moved from short to second.  he remained the dodgers' second baseman until he was traded to the mets following the 1961 season.  he made two all-star teams for the dodgers in his tenure as their second baseman, including the 1960 team as noted on his 1960 topps all-star card, and he also won the gold glove at the position in 1959.

jim gilliam (1962-1963)

with neal in new york, jim gilliam returned to the position in 1962, which is the year that the bell brand card shown above was issued.  he finished 6th in the mvp voting in 1963 as the team's second baseman, but once the world series came along, he moved to third base and dick tracewski played second in the dodgers' four game sweep of the yankees.

nate oliver (1964)

oliver was a second year player in 1964 when he hit .243 in 99 games and played more second base than any other dodger.  tracewski and gilliam also spent time at the position that season, but oliver started 97 contests there.  in 1965, however, he played second in only 2 games at the big league level.

jim lefebvre (1965-1966)

another dodger second baseman to win the rookie of the year award, lefebvre (shown on his 1965 topps rookie card) hit .250 with 12 homers en route to the honor.  he did better in 1966, hitting 24 homers with a .274 batting average while being named to the all-star team for the only time in his career.  he also began playing some third base, and spent most of the 1967 season at the hot corner.

ron hunt (1967)

hunt was acquired by the dodgers after the 1966 season from the mets in the tommy davis trade.  topps was abel to get him into the 1967 set as seen above, although the card is a bit of a high number (525).  he spent the 1967 season in los angeles before being traded to the giants prior to the 1968 campaign.  during his stint with the dodgers, hunt started 89 games at second base batting .263 while hitting 3 homers and driving in 33 runs.

paul popovich (1968)

with hunt going to the giants, the dodgers turned to popovich, an offseason acquisition from the cubs, to man second base in 1968.  his 1968 topps card there identifies him as an infielder, and he lived up to that billing by playing second, short, and third in '68.  still, his 80 starts at second base is what qualifies him for a spot in the team's evolutionary chain.  he hit only .232 on the season, and was traded to the expos early in the 1969 season, meaning that the merry-go-round of dodger second basemen would continue...

my pared down 1954 topps sampler

earlier today i (hopefully) posted my 1954 topps sampler.  since scanning and writing that post, i have extricated the non-dodgers and reassembled the remaining cards.  so, my 1954 topps sampler is now a 1954 topps dodger partial team set.  here's how it looks:

as with my 1953 topps sampler to team set, i have added a card in between.  this time, it's duke snider's card

i picked this one up at the last card show i went to.  my vintage bargain bin guy was there and gave me a good deal on duke.

i think all of these players have been featured on the blog before, except charlie thompson.

thompson was better known as tim thompson, and his big league career as a dodger began and ended with a 10 game stint in 1954.  he was later traded to the kansas city a's and also spent some time with the tigers.  welcome to the blog charlie.  i mean tim.

i only need three dodgers to complete the 1953 topps team set, but one of them is jackie robinson.  if anyone has an extra jackie, or a ben wade or jim hughes card to spare, please let me know!

my 1954 topps sampler set

for the 1952 and 1953 sampler sets, there really weren't any variations to worry about.  16 teams to represent, and that was it.  in 1954, topps introduced a variety of backgrounds that were not team specific.  there were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white backgrounds, plus a combo card of sorts.  here's how i completed my 1954 topps sampler

a lot of nice cards there, including the o'brien brother 'combo' card, but the tommy lasorda rookie is probably my favorite.  i also discovered during my pursuit of these samplers that yankee cards from the 1950's are tough to find on the cheap.  that's why the lone yankee here is also in the roughest shape.

here's a scan of the backs of the first 8 cards above.

topps was not consistent with the orientation of the backs.  many people find that frustrating.  i certainly understand, but i was more frustrated when donruss and fleer came on the scene in 1981 and didn't match topps' orientation.

i was a craigslist genius

remember those great posts over at bad wax about the people advertising on craigslist who wanted thousands of dollars for some 91 donruss cards?  good times.  earlier this year, i was able to parlay some junk wax stuff into this - a 1956 topps sandy koufax card.

i was visiting my parents and needed to clear out my old closet.  i had left mostly complete sets behind, and it certainly wasn't worth shipping a 1989 topps set, or any of these other sets, back to myself.

i did bring a couple of sets back with me, plus some loose cards that i had forgotten about, and i also scavenged some cards from my 1981 fleer set, 1991 upper deck set, and a couple others before posting the above photo on craigslist. in addition to those partial sets, there was a 1989 topps set, 1990 topps set, 1991 topps set, 1990 donruss set, 1994 topps set, 1992 topps set, 1993 topps set, a score set from 1991 i think, and a few others too.  i asked for $50 with same day pick up for the lot.

 

i received two bites.  the first guy wanted the cards.  the second guy wanted to know if $50 was for the whole lot.  i met up with the first guy in a nearby grocery store parking lot.  he got out of his truck and walked towards me holding a beckett. 

 

turns out he was mostly concerned with the derek jeter cards in the 92 and 93 topps sets.  we opened the sets, but the cards were out of order (thanks topps).  i assured him that i had not taken cards out of those sets (except for the throw-in gold parallels topps put in the factory sets back then) and he handed over $50.

 

so where does sanford koufax fit in, you ask?  i have mentioned before that my dad collected cards for a couple of years as a way to spend time with me.  while i went for post-1970 dodger topps team sets and steve garvey, he went for stars and earlier dodgers.  now he was looking to sell his collection.  i offered him $50 for the koufax (he had a complete run of sandy's cards, but this was the only one i needed).  i also said i would take the fam out to dinner.  sold.

 

he also threw in a 1954 topps card that i needed, clem labine  

i left behind a full run of nolan ryan cards (didn't even ask how much for the 68 rookie), tom seaver, mike schmidt, george brett, carlton fisk, etc. 

 

i did, however, get him to add one more card to my collection, a signed 1963 topps jim gilliam

that is super sweet!  i now have cards signed by all the dodger retired numbers except for jackie and campy.

some may wonder why i had to pay at all for the cards. well, they aren't mine and i have never assumed that they would just be given to me. i am sure that my dad would have given them to me if i had asked for them, but i didn't.  i was pleased to find out, however, that the prospective buyer of his collection fell through, so the rest of the cards are still there.

so that's how i turned a few junk sets into a 1956 topps koufax (and more).  for the record, i borrowed $5 from my dad later in the trip, so the cards just cost me $45 plus a dinner.

the topps dodger autograph project - the brooklyn years

when i started doing ttm in 2009, i didn't really have a plan other than getting some players from the early days of my collecting to sign some cards.  shortly thereafter, i decided to try for all of the 1978 topps dodgers, and then former dodgers in general, along with other players featured in the 1978 topps set.  i finally included current dodgers with varying degrees of success.  about a year or so ago, i found a post at the lost collector about his topps yankee project in which he was trying to obtain, via ttm, a yankee autographed card from each year that topps had produced cards.

i took stock and realized that i was only a couple years short of doing this with the dodgers, so i decided to finish it off.  unfortunately, one of the years i was missing was 1951.  both gene hermanski and duke snider, good signers through the mail, had passed away, so i wound up purchasing a preacher roe signed 1951 topps red back online.  

it's jsa certified, if that truly means anything.  i could have picked up a ralph branca card and looked for a private signing to send it to, but decided to go this route.  so, already i am off the track that the lost collector followed.

my 1952 topps entry, however, cost me just two stamps beyond the cost of the card itself.  rocky bridges was kind enough to sign his 1952 topps card for me

this was one of the requests i sent out after deciding to complete the topps run of signed dodger cards.  before that, i didn't really think too much about getting a 1952 card signed - not sure why.  wayne terwilliger still signs occasionally so there were some opportunities.  anyway, the bridges cards sits alone in the binder as the sole 1952 ttm representative.

i have a couple of 1953 topps cards signed.  one is from dick williams (which required his signing fee of $25), and the other is this bobby morgan card

which was obtained through the mail free of charge.

1954 was the other year that i had to purchase a card online.  i found a billy herman card and picked it up.

herman is a hall of famer who obviously coached the dodgers in the 1950's.  tom lasorda was the only 1954 option through the mail, but the cost of buying (another) 1954 lasorda rookie card was not appealing to me.  especially knowing that it would cost me more to have it signed at a private signing.

for 1955, i chose don zimmer

i've had a couple of successes with zimmer, and this is the only signed 1955 topps card i have in my collection.  same goes for 1956, where the randy jackson card is all by itself

jackson had also signed a 1957 card for me, but i will feature each player only once, just as the lost collector did.  that means that 1957, the dodgers' last year in brooklyn, will be represented by carl erskine.

erskine is one of the best signers out there, so he's a great friend to the hobby.  i've sent a few cards his way, and they always come back looking nice.  the aforementioned jackson and this oisk card are the only two signed cards from the underappreciated 1957 topps set that i have in my collection.

as always, i am appreciative of the players who sign through the mail, and i am glad that there are so many former dodgers who do so.  i'll post some of the early los angeles dodgers to have signed for free through the mail in the next post.

mission accomplished! and then some.

so, i went to the big card show last night.  no mr. mint, but there were a lot of people who were there to have things authenticated.  i found that strange.  i was there before the doors opened so it wasn't crowded at all.  there were dealers from all over the midwest, including a guy i have bought from before who hails from indiana.  he fulfilled my goal of picking up a 1959 topps sandy koufax

which completed my dodger team set from that year.  the best thing about this dealer was that he was charging pretty much the same that i would have spent on ebay for a similar card.  that's nice.  he also sold me a 1964 topps koufax

which completed my 1964 topps dodger team set.  i was on a roll.  i also completed my 1961 topps dodger team set by picking up this 1961 topps nl strikeout leaders card featuring both koufax and don drysdale

i also trimmed some other team set needs by picking up a 1954 topps gil hodges

and a 1958 topps duke snider

i even picked up a few cards for some fellow bloggers.  this one (or the one i already owned)

will go to jacobmrley towards his rookie cup quest, and this one goes to captain canuck.

i should have scanned the front - clyde king has some serious charles nelson reilly glasses.  i picked up a couple of things for some other folks too, so watch your mail.

i also picked up a card that wasn't on my want list, but had to be had thanks to the price and the double play on the front

yes, it's beat up, but i wouldn't have a 1956 yankee card be any other way.

i also completed my 1973 topps set (assuming that i get the cards i ordered last week in the mail) and picked up some other cards as well.  all in all it was a good run through without having to deal with the autograph crowds that i'm sure are there today and will be there tomorrow.