70's Scenario (Sort Of)

So after spending $5.50 at the first table (you can read about that post here), I walked on over to my favorite table, the one with all of the oddballs. I noticed an older gentleman looking at a binder and realized in horror that it was opened to a page of Hostess cards!

I panicked. He cannot have those! I searched my surroundings for some sort of weapon or possibly some Benchwarmer cards to distract him. Before I had to resort to such drastic measures, he moved on to another table. I'm pretty sure he knew those cards were not meant for him.

The first six are from the 1975 set, and the bottom three are from the 1976 set. The Denny Doyle card is obviously my favorite.

This page included four more from the 1976 set. The Don Sutton card was from 1978, and the other three Hostess cards were from the 1979 set.

The Mickey Mantle card on the bottom right is from the thirty-three card 1985 Circle K All Time Home Run Kings set. The checklist has thirty-four cards listed, but the Joe DiMaggio card (card number thirty-one) was never issued due to licensing problems.

I picked up a few cards from the 1992 Topps McDonald's Baseball's Best from him a couple of months ago. He had some full pages of them still, so I snagged four of them. It's a forty-four card set and with these additions I should be well on my way to completing it.

The first two cards from this page have me stumped. I have no idea what they are. They were probably cut out of a macaroni and cheese box or something like that. The backs are blank and they don't have any stats or even identification of the player (although it's pretty obvious who they are).

1992 Post Jose Canseco. This is from a thirty-card set that was available in cello packs found in specially marked boxes of Post cereal.

More Kellogg's cards to add to my collection! The Cedeno, Bell and Garvey are from the 1980 set and the Melton is from the 1972 set.

The Dave Parker card is from the fifteen card 1987 Ralston Purina set. A package of three cards plus a contest card could be found in certain varieties of Ralston Purina's breakfast cereal. You could also obtain the set (as an uncut sheet) through the mail. In addition to the version that I have (1987 Collectors' Edition), you can also find this card with "Honey Graham Chex" or "Cookie Crisp" printed at the top.

The Jim Rice card is from the thirty-three card (thirty-four if you count the offer card) 1986 Quaker Chewy Granola Bars card set.

The cards on these next two pages are from the 1981 Drake's Big Hitters Baseball set. Produced by Topps, this thirty-three card set features the top hitters from the previous year. You could find these cards inserted into specially marked boxes of Drake's products. The backs of the cards (except for the Drake's logo) have the same design as the Topps cards.

And look, it's a Joe Charboneau sighting!

This wasn't all...I've still got plenty more to brag about show in my next post!

(And pat yourself on the back if you got the obscure Hall & Oates reference in the title)

That 70's Show (Sort Of)

Hey kids, it's the middle of the month, so that means it's time for the monthly card show. I didn't spend all of my budget at one table this time, as I found a table with a dime box full of 70's Topps. There were a lot of dealers this time with 70's era Topps. Even my favorite oddball dealer had binders upon binders of these cards.

I had set my limit on thirty cards, so I picked out twenty from 1977 and ten from 1978.

I hadn't brought my lists, so I relied on my memory and we all know how that turns out. So I've probably got a few dupes here.

As I was leaving his table I noticed this.

I've been getting singles here and there but I've never seen a dealer with the full set.

Now it's mine.

It was 50% off, so I got it for $2.50.

So out of my twenty dollar budget, I've already spent $5.50. Time to head to the oddball table before I run out of money!

More to come!

1987 Minnesota Twins World Series Set

After a few months of inactivity, I've been spending some time here and there on Listia. It really hasn't changed a whole lot, there still are way too may listors thinking they're going to get 499 credits for a junk wax common, but occasionally I see something of interest.

Although I'm far from a Twins fan, this was just too out of the ordinary to pass up.

There is not a lot of information about these cards available. I found singles on COMC, but no information about the set.

Here is the back of the card. Along with some personal information, there is stats from the Championship Series and the World Series, and then a combination of the two.

After a bit of searching I was able to find a set on Amazon. It lists it as "Rare 1987 Fleer Minnesota Twins World Series Set". I don't see the Fleer name anywhere on these cards, unless the "F" in "BRF" at the bottom of the card stands for Fleer.

According to this listing, there were 5,000 of these sets produced but they were pulled because of licensing issues (no permission to use the World Series logo). Although it was sealed when I received it, cards are to be looked at, so I immediately took the shrink wrapping off (and it was quite a bitch to do so).

The cards are also a little bigger than your standard baseball card.

Here are all thirty-three cards:

1. Steve Lombardozzi
2. Roy Smalley
3. Tony Olivia
4. Greg Gagne
5. Gary Gaetti
6. Gene Larkin
7. Tom Kelly
8. Kent Hrbek
9. Tim Laudner

10. Frank Viola
11. Les Straker
12. Don Baylor
13. George Frazier
14. Keith Atherton
15. Tom Brunansky
17. Al Newman
18. Mark Davidson

19. Bert Blyleven
20. Dan Schatzeder
21. Dan Gladden
22. Sal Butera
23. Kirby Puckett
24. Joe Niekro
25. Juan Berenguer
26. Jeff Reardon
27. Dick Such

28. Rick Stelmaszek
29. Rick Renick
30. Wayne Terwilliger
31. 1987 Team Photo
32. Twins Championship Logo
33 Twins Logo/Checklist

It's a pretty cool set, and if the description of it I found on Amazon is accurate, something I'm probably not going to see very often. It was listed for forty bucks plus shipping and handling, so for "costing" only seven hundred and twenty-two credits it appears I scored quite a deal.

When You Just Have To Buy Something

Several weeks ago, I stopped off at Target to see what they had for cards. Since this was the day before Topps Update was released, the shelves were pretty bare. But I was able to find something to keep me going until then.

The front two cards were okay. Not great, but they would do.

The back two cards were acceptable as well. Once I was sure that there were no packs of 1989 Fleer in it, I paid for it and brought it home.

Now I present some of the highlights.

We're already off with a bang with just the second card. I have plenty of Conlon Collection cards, but this is the first one that I've seen colorized. What gives?

Aaaah yes, a "prototype". While doing some research trying to figure out what this is, I found a really cool blog called the Conlon Baseball Card Collector. It doesn't have a lot of entries, but it is full of information.

According to that blog, there were two versions of the color version of this card. One is marked "All Star Fanfest" although I don't know where, as I could not find an image of it anywhere on the web. I have the other version, which according to this blog was handed out at the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention. There were six cards that were part of this "prototype" set. Five of them were issued at the convention.

In addition to the Ty Cobb card, there was:

Card 331 - Christy Mathewson
Card 400 - Joe Jackson
Card 450 - Hughie Jennings
Card 500 - Ty Cobb
Card 520 - Goose Goslin

All of these cards were the black and white.

Now this is where some of the info is sketchy. The information on the Conlon blog was taken from a variety of sources, most notably Sports Collectors Digest. As you can see, I've listed six cards (including the Ty Cobb), not five. There was also a Babe Ruth card (in color), with a print run of 225, 000 that was distributed there as well. The Ty Cobb card that I have has a listed print run of 60,000.

Irregardless of what information is correct and what isn't, this is a cool card to have.

This is from the second series of the 1989 Pacific Baseball Legends set. I don't think I have very many of the 1989 set, most of what I have are from 1988 and 1990.

1994 Upper Deck Minor League Star Potential Brien Taylor. Probably the biggest failed prospect of the early 90's.

I do collect minor league cards as well. I have a small stack from this set, the 1994 Classic Gold set. This was a two hundred card set which included Eric Chavez, Torii Hunter and Derek Jeter as the biggest stars.

I professed my love for the '78 set numerous times on this blog...

...and this will be an upgrade in my set.

Somewhere there is an empty warehouse that was previously filled with boxes upon boxes of this set. I must have five of these fuckers by now.

I liked the Topps Lineage set (even though there were no stats on it).

Same thing with 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes, although I didn't care too much for all of the parallels.

I only scanned this because of the horrid airbrushing job.

One of the last cards in the package was this 1979 Topps Minnesota Twins team card.

Looks like whoever had this card before was short only the prospect card.

Who were the Twins prospects in 1979?

Sam Perlozzo, Rick Sofield and Kevin Stanfield of course!

Although this contained mostly junk wax (as expected), it still was an enjoyable way to wind down an evening.

Sox For Sox

The past couple of months have been quite good to me in regards to increasing my collection of oddball cards. Reader Mark Hoyle (who I would guess is the most popular non-blogger here) requested a few of the duplicate Red Sox oddballs I had accumulated.

He sent me a PWE of very sweet (and much appreciated) Red Sox cards in return.

Cards like this get my attention immediately. It's a 1980 Kellogg's 3-D card and it's Carlton Fisk. It doesn't get much better than that...

...unless it's the 1980 Kellogg's Jim Rice card. My favorite player of all time.

This is a cool oddball. This Wade Boggs is from the 1990 Sports Collectors Digest set. Inserting uncut panels of two or three cards based on an older design (in this case 1957 Topps) in baseball card magazines was very popular in the early 1990's.

I never bought any issues of Sports Collectors Digest. I generally bought issues of Baseball Cards, Beckett, and if I really wanted to think my cards were worth more that they really were, Tuff Stuff.

And as far as the comment at the bottom of the card stating that his rookie card would never be cheaper than thirty-five bucks? The latest issue of Beckett lists it as fifteen.

1970 Topps Gerry Moses. I don't have a clue as to who he is because my knowledge of pre-1975 backup catchers is woefully inadequate.

After a quick search on Wikpiedia it turns out he wasn't the backup catcher, but the starting catcher for the 1970 Red Sox and made the All-Star team that year (well, that was embarrassing). He also was traded with Tony Conigliaro and Ray Jarvis after the season to the California Angels (which I also should have known).

He played in four games in 1965 hitting one home run and making him at eighteen years old the youngest Red Sox player to hit a home run.

I definitely should have known who this player was.

Here's a player that I do know. Rico Petrocelli as shown on his 1975 Topps mini. 1975 would be his last full year with the Red Sox (injuries made him miss a lot of the 1976 season, his last).

He also was the host along with Bob Gamere of Candelpins for Cash in the early 80's, which I used to watch religiously (although I don't remember him hosting it. I only remember Bob Gamere).

(Thinking about it more now, I used to watch it in the late 70's when only Gamere was the host.)

1990 U.S. Playing Card All-Stars Baseball Ellis Burks. My second favorite player of all-time, and a card I don't have.

(If anybody has any relics or autos of Ellis, I would be interested in trading for them, regardless of what team he is with.)

I remember all the anticipation for the debut of Aaron Sele back in the early 90's. The Red Sox really sucked then. He never did turn into the ace that he was projected to be (even though he was the Red Sox Rookie of the Year in 1993) and was traded in 1997 to Texas with Mark Brandenburg and Bill Haselman for Damon Buford and Jim Leyritz.

That should tell you how far his stock had fallen with the Red Sox.

Well look who we have here! Ray Jarvis! He actually never pitched for the Angels after the trade as his last game in the majors was in September of 1970.

1972 Kellogg's Sonny Siebert. Another cool oddball card. I was one of those kids that would pester his mom to buy the cereal these cards were in and then never eat the cereal. Did my mom really think that I was going to eat those boxes of Raisin Bran?

1983 O-Pee-Chee Bob Stanley. I have the completed 1983 Topps set, but only about a half-dozen of the O-Pee-Chee version.

Why was it so easy to get the O-Pee-Chee version of the hockey sets but not baseball?

You're going to have to help me with this one, Mark. I figured out it was from the 1983 Boston Herald Sox Stamp set (which I was unaware of until just now). I'm assuming you could get certain stamps each week with the paper? Or did you have to get a fill-up at a gas station or something? I checked eBay and found a complete set of these for forty bucks.

There are two major papers in Boston, the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. I always preferred the Boston Herald because I liked the sports section better. The only time I bought the Globe was when they had the team pictures of the Red Sox or Patriots in the Sunday paper.

1983 Boston Herald Sox Stamp Dick Radatz. This is from the same set as the above stamp.

Mark, I'm still putting something together in addition to the cards you wanted to (hopefully, but probably not) match the very cool trade package you sent my way. I'll get it out to you this week today!