Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Getting My Monthly Oddball Fix (Part 2)

Before I start my post about the second half of what I got last Sunday, I want to thank reader Mark Hoyle for pointing me in the right direction regarding the Grand Slam cards I featured last post.

They were made in 1978 by memorabilia dealer and later Donruss photographer Jack Wallin. He made these cards so they could be autographed by the players featured on them, so collectors would eventually have a complete 200 card signed set. This would prove to be practically impossible as two players in the set, Carl Reynolds and George McQuinn died in 1978. Reynolds died before the set was even released, so another card was issued in its' place featuring pitcher Sal Maglie. Only 500 of the Maglie cards were printed, meaning it is actually a 201 card set with two cards designated as card 53. There were only two thousand sets produced and no complete autographed sets apparently exist.

The closest I could find was a complete set with 199 of the cards signed (missing the Reynolds and McQuinn autos) auctioned off at loveofthegameauctions.com. (This is also where I got my information from.) According to the website, it sold for $2006 in November of 2013.

There also is a blog about the set at grandslam1978.blogspot.com. It is not complete as it stops at card 39 and has not had a post in about three years.

Well, let's move on to some more oddballs, shall we!


I bought a lot of discs as opposed to cards this time around. The bigger discs in the above page are from the 1994 King B Quality Meat Snack set.


You had to buy a can of their beef jerky to get this Fred McGriff disc. There were twenty-four discs in all.


I also picked up Jack McDowell, Albert Belle and Andy Van Slyke.


This Tony Pena disc is pretty cool. I like the "Sportflics" type front. As you can see from the pocket page that they are in, the discs are pretty small.


This is from the 1984 7-11 Slurpee Disc set. As you can see, it is disc eighteen of twenty-four. You are probably wondering what that "H" stands for. Could it have something to do with only being able to obtain this beautiful Tony Pena disc in a certain part of the United States?

How astute you are.

The discs were released in three regional sets (East, Central and West) consisting of twenty-four discs in each set.

The first six discs in each regional set were the same players.

1. Andre Dawson
2. Robin Yount
3. Dale Murphy
4. Mike Schmidt
5. George Brett
6. Eddie Murray

This particular Tony Pena is from the "East" set.

The rest of the page contains another Tony Pena, Bill Madlock and two of Rick Dempsey, all from the 1984 "East" set.


The first disc is this page is of Red Sox bust Pat Dodson. This was from the 1987 7-11 Slurpee set, which was even worse as there are five regional sets to collect. This was from the "East" version.

The rest of the discs on this page were from the 1984 set. The Wade Boggs, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Tony Pena and Mike Boddicker were from the "East" set, while the Ted Simmons, Bruce Sutter and Cecil Cooper were from the "Central" series.


These were all from the '84 sets.

Dale Murphy - (East)
Willie McGee - (Central)
Andre Dawson - (East)
Dale Murphy - (Central) - not a dupe but from a different regional set. If you notice the color is a bit different as well.
Lou Whitaker - (Central)
Lamarr Hoyt - (Central)
Mario Soto - (Central)
Dave Steib - (East)
Ron Kittle - (Central)


All of these were also from the 1984 set as well.

Steve Carlton - (East) x3
Keith Hernandez - (East)
Darryl Strawberry - (East)
John Denny - (East)
George Brett - (East)
Dan Quisenberry - (Central)
Tom Seaver - (East)


Now this page had discs from both the '84 and '87 sets.

1984 Dale Murphy - (East)
1984 Andre Dawson - (East)
1987 Don Baylor - (East)
1984 John Denny - (East)
1984 Gary Matthews - (East)
1987 Jim Rice - (East) x2
1984 Eddie Murray - (East)

One thing I noticed while I was typing this up is that the '84 discs have two images and the '87 discs have three.


Now this card is a reprint of the 1933 Goudey Napoleon Lajoie card.


But as you can see, the back offers no identifying information as to where this card came from. The back reminded me of the 1987 Hygrade Baseball All-Stars set that I've featured on this blog before.
I was able to find the answer on a message board at www.oldbaseball.com.

"In the early 1980s, Hygrade Sports Card Co. of New York City put together a hobby kit to acquaint youngsters with collecting baseball cards. In the kit, there was a 30-page guide to the hobby, an annotated price guide, a 9-pocket plastic sheet, a semi-rigid top loader, a set of five cards of great baseball players (Cobb, Ruth, Cy Young, Jackie Robinson and Mantle), and five reprint cards. The cards were:

: T206 Honus Wagner
: T206 Eddie Plank
: T206 Sherwood Magie
: T207 Lewis (Boston)
: 1933 Goudey Napoleon Lajoie


: Each card had a written description on the back about why the card was so scarce or valuable. Along with the description was a then-current value. "

So there you have it. There actually were two cards in the pocket, so I have a dupe if anyone wants it.


These six discs were from a 20 disc set that were inserted in packages of Holsum Bread in 1989.


I've seen discs from this set on eBay ranging from $2.50 to $3.15. I like my prices better.


In addition to the Mark McGwire, there was Darryl Strawberry, Greg Jefferies, "Dave" Cone, Matt Nokes, Bobby Bonilla, Jose Canseco and Frank Viola.

I said I was going to split my card show loot into two posts, but I still have a few pages of assorted oddballs to go, so it looks like I'm going to be able to squeeze a third post out of this.

More food issues on the way....


5 comments:

  1. You hit the jackpot with oddballs at the show. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. I had some of those Slurpee discs, but Slurpees were a big treat, so not too many. I have to see if they're still in an oddball box somewhere.

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  3. Love those Discs, I have some of them but not too many.

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  4. Those Slurpee discs are awesome. Living in Milwaukee and now Atlanta where 7-11s are nowhere to be found for the most part, I have never come across them where I can purchase them easily except on eBay. Great stuff.

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  5. The slurpee discs are cool. It's tough to keep track of them with all the varying distribution

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