COMC Hoard part 8: Non sports

I wanted to start off by saying that is not even funny how far behind I'm getting on posts right now. I still have stuff from two card shows ago that I wanted to show, and now I have stuff from the card show yesterday to add to the pile.

 I still haven't finished with these COMC posts, and now there is another batch of cards coming from them. I have been very fortunate in the last couple of weeks to be right on the ball when sellers seem to be trying liquidate their inventory with 70 to 80 percent off sales, and you really have be on those soon after they are posted otherwise all the other sellers show up willing and able to cannibalize one of their own to then mark everything up for resale. So it hasn't taken me long to get to 100 cards and therefor get the $5 credit one gets for requesting shipment on over a hundred cards, plus I was able to use my free shipping that I got from one of the scratch offs that they included in the Black Friday shipments.

And on top of that there is trade material from Mark Hoyle that I will try to get posted this week, not to mention some of the other various acquisitions from Ebay, Sportlots, etc. Hopefully it's not considered a faux pas to show things that were gotten months earlier, since I will most likely be doing that for quite awhile.

All that being said, I guess it's better to have too much to show rather than not having enough. So let's get to the cards, shall we?

These will go from oldest to newest, starting with something a little different.

1910-ish tobacco college series felt blankets for the University of California:

Before getting this one I had never encountered these before. There doesn't seem to be very much definitive info about them available. It seems they were put in with many different tobacco products beginning around 1910 and ended around the time of the first World War. They came in two different sizes, this one being of the small variety measuring around 2.5''x 3.75". Also each school seems to come in a variety of different color combinations. It really amazes me that things like this have survived in such great condition, but that doesn't appear to mean much price wise as their doesn't seem to be very much interest in these.

1941 Goudey Sky-Birds Chewing Gum #9 U.S.A Curtis Pursuit Plane:

This is only the second card I have gotten from this set, and it is in far better shape than my other one. The vivid colors on the cards from this set are very appealing to me. The backs on these are intentionally blank so I didn't bother scanning it.

Next up is three cards from a set I absolutely adore!

1952 Topps Look n' See:

#127 Galileo

#30 Charles Lindbergh



#45 Amelia Earhart

I LOVE these cards. I was really happy to get the Amelia Earhart for the price I did as she is the third most expensive card in the set, behind  Rembrandt and Babe Ruth.

1953 Bowman Television and Radio Stars of NBC #58 Ronnie (Christopher) Walken:

This seems to be a very popular card amongst the bloggers, as I have seen it featured on multiple blogs. I don't know how many people are actually working on the set though.


1953 Topps Who-Z-At Star #79 Errol Flynn:

Another set being built at a snails pace. Cards from this set seem to be hard to get in decent shape for affordable prices. I was curious if anyone reading this has even seen any of Errol Flynn's films? If so, do you have a favorite? I have always been particularly fond of the Dawn Patrol remake.


Moving on. Here's two from the 1962 Topps Civil War News set:

It's funny how tastes change as on gets older. When I was growing up I really didn't like this set, and now I find myself liking it more and more as time passes.


1962 Topps Mars Attacks #46 Blast off from Mars!

It's hard to believe this is my first card from this set (although now there are more on the way). It has a small crease on the right side, but I don't care it's still neat.


 Here are four cards from the 1966 Topps Lost in Space set:

And one of the backs:

I didn't think there would be too many fans of the show reading this, so that's why I only scanned one of the back's. This is one of those shows that I watched a seemingly endless amount of reruns from, while growing up. I didn't realize until very recently how heavily collected this set is, which is probably why I can't find any singles cheap.


1969 Topps Brady Bunch #50:

Looking at this card all I can think is "Geez, I sure would like to have all the stuff that is pictured in Brady's boys room". Seriously look at all those neat things! Oh, I forgot to scan the back of this card before putting it away, so no back shot.


And finally a card of Rutherford B. Hayes from the 2007 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Americana insert set #'d 183/550:

I know that technically this comes from a baseball set, but the majority of this insert set is non sports figures. I can't remember how many cards are in this set (around 60-70) and each one is serial numbered to 550, which makes it a slow set build.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page!

TTM Triumph #13: Toby Kimball

Here's another successful recent return:

Mr. Kimball played four years of college ball at the University of Connecticut (1962-65) where he averaged 18.4 points and 17.9 rebounds a game over three seasons (freshmen were ineligible), in his senior season he led nation in rebounding with 21 a game. He was drafted in the third round of the 1965 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics.

Since he knew he wouldn't get to play very much in his rookie season he talked coach Auerbach into letting him play in Italy for a season, where he led his team his team to an Italian Cup Title as well as the World Cup Championship. He came back and played one season with the Celtics before being selected by the San Diego Rockets in the 1967 expansion draft. He would go on to play for six teams over nine seasons in the NBA. Over his career he averaged 6.1 points and 6.8 rebounds a game. He suffered multiple injuries during his career, so his full potential was likely never achieved.

As always a big thank you goes out to Mr. Kimball!

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Cardboard Art

I thought I would do a quick post to show the five 2015-16 Panini Court Kings box toppers that I got from Sportlots about two weeks ago. I had originally thought I might want to try and get a box of these, but after seeing how few cards make up a box and seeing the base card design (which I don't really like) I decided to pass. That being said, I really like the look of the box toppers. And with fifty cards in the set, it seems like completing them might be possible, especially if I can get the rest as cheap as I got these (they averaged out to about $1.50 each).

The fifty card set is comprised of 25 Career Progression cards and 25 Panoramic cards.

These first two are from the Panoramic group:

#20 Derrick Rose

#22 Kevin Durant

And one of the backs:

And these next three are from the Career Progression group:

#7 Brandon Knight

#12 Ray Allen

#21 Gary Payton

And the back:

These cards have a neat canvas type feel to them as well. The only real problem with collecting these is the size, as the 5x7 aspect ratio makes them hard to store. I do have two minor complaints with the set though. 1: Since the set isn't very big I don't like that there are a couple of guys in both groups, but I guess people might lose their minds if Lebron James didn't have two cards in the set (I would have been just fine if he didn't have any). 2: With the inclusion of player's from the past in most sets these days, I don't know why they include a couple in the Career Progression group. I know Gary Payton is technically from the past but I would have liked to have seen a Bob McAdoo, Tiny Archibald, Alcindor/Jabbar, etc. included in here as well. But even with these minor complaints, I fully intend to try and complete the set at some point (probably when everyone else loses interest in them, which will most likely be in a few weeks or so).

On a completely different note I wanted to show a couple of pictures I took during the recent snowfall. We had around 9 inches of snow. And yes I know a lot of places had considerably more, but I think that what we had is considered quite a bit for Tennessee.

This first picture is a view from the back porch:

The frog pond that is towards the back of this picture could double as an ice skating rink.

This next one is from the front porch:

And the last one here is my favorite:

This little fellow (or gal) was temporarily separated from the rest of it's herd after I accidently scared them away. But don't worry the mom came back and waited about 100 yards away for him (or her).

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

TTM Triumph #12: Larry Seiple

Today's post will feature my first non basketball return:

Mr. Seiple played three years of college ball at the University of Kentucky (1964-66) where he served as running back and wide receiver. All the while he was also handling the punting duties, kickoff returns and punt returns. His most famous college exploit came in 1965 against Ole Miss where on a 4th and 41, he ran a fake punt 70 yards for a touchdown.

He was drafted in the seventh round by the then AFL Miami Dolphins. His best all around season came in 1969 where he netted 577 yards and 5 touchdowns leading the Dolphins in both categories. In his 11 seasons with the Dolphins he played many positions, although not with the same regularity as he did in college. It's interesting to note as well, that Larry had the green light from coach Shula to run fake punts any time he thought he could get the first down. Mr. Seiple would go on to win two Super Bowl rings during his career, most notably with the 1972 team that went undefeated. Many people of a certain age might also remember his 37 yard fake punt run to set up Miami's first touchdown in their eventual win against the Steelers in the 1972 AFC title game.

As always a big thank you goes out to Mr. Seiple.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A small Webstore purchase

I don't really have the want to do a post today. But I also don't want to go more than three days with out doing one, so I will show off the three cards I recently purchased via Webstore. I have been a Webstore user since Wensy (anybody remember Wensy?) shut down. It seemed like the site was really starting to take off there for awhile, but in the last six months or so it seems like the site may be nearing it's end.

I really like all the various "players of yore" sets out there, I also really like that I can slowly build those sets almost exclusively thru ten cent boxes at the card shows. That being said, I only recently learned of the blue parallels for the 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game set. I know I shouldn't be surprised they exist since just about every set now has at least one parallel version, which by the way, I don't mind as I generally like the various parallels. And in case you're wondering how I didn't know of their existence until very recently, I probably should mention that I was taking a break from sports card collecting from around 2000 to 2010 so I'm still playing catch up on a lot of the stuff released during that time period.

So without further ado, here are the three cards from the 2004 Fleer Greats that I got.

1. Jim Palmer blue parallel #'d 444/500:

2. Rollie Fingers blue parallel #'d 24/74:

According to baseballcardpedia (and other sites) the blue parallels from both series 1 and 2, are all serially numbered to 500. But I have seen a few from the first series that are numbered lower and it seems like the majority of the second series have a lower print run, the card above being a perfect example. If anyone has any info on the print run situation, please let me know.

3. Thurman Munson The Glory of their Time insert #'d 504/1977:

In case anyone is curious, these three cards set me back about $3.50.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

TTM Triumph #11: Don Kojis

I think most people would agree that if you were to send one item to be signed and received five signed items back, it could be considered a pretty successful TTM attempt. Well, that is exactly what happened here:

Do you notice anything slightly off with this card? Go ahead and take a closer look, I'll wait. Done? Okay, hopefully you noticed how wonderfully miscut this card is, which is the main reason I chose to send it. I do have one other card from this set that is actually wonkier than this one, unfortunately it's of a fellow who doesn't sign through the mail.

Now for the extras:

How cool are these? The answer to that one is....pretty darn. These are actually business cards. Each one has the regular business card type front and as you can see, each back has one of these nifty scenes. At first I thought the signatures were pre printed, but after seeing that each one is slightly different and the fact that you can see some of the gold pen soaking through to the front tells me their not pre printed. I don't know if these are given out to everyone that writes him or if he just really liked my letter. I prefer to believe the latter as I have been trying to personalize them as much as I can. Either way they are very neat.

A few notes on the career of Don Kojis: Drafted in the 2nd round of the 1961 NBA draft by the Chicago Packers, played for 6 teams over 12 seasons, was a two time all-star (1968 and 1969), played for the gold medal winning U.S. team at the 1963 Pan American games. And even though Team USA finished fourth in the 1963 FIBA World Championship, Mr. Kojis was one of the five players (and the only American) named to the All-Tournament Team.

As always a big thank you goes out to Mr. Kojis for going above and beyond what I had hoped for.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.
                              

COMC Hoard part 7: Autographs

Usually in my twice a year COMC bundles I tend to have more autographs. But I guess it makes "sense" that there would be less to show, now that I actually have a few blog readers to show things to. Oh well, there are still some neat cards in here.

All start with football since there is only one to show.

2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures Carl Eller:

I think over time I'm going to try and complete master sets of all three years worth of Golden Age. I seem to be slowly finding a lot of great deals on the autographs especially, with this one being no exception. A neat signature from a HOF'er.

Baseball's next with a whopping two.

2012 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Dick Groat #FFA-DG:

Very cool!

2013 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Bob Welch #FFA-BW:

Early last year I saw one of these on sale on the site and hesitated because the price still seemed a little high to me, but the price didn't seem to bother someone else as it was sold within an hour or so of me coming across it. I, of course then proceeded to question my cheapness as I always do in a situation like that (it's happened many times). So a few months later this one was added to the site for about five dollars cheaper and I'm happy to say this time there was no hesitation.

On to the non-sport portion. This first one isn't an autograph, but this is the only post it fits in to (theme wise).

2003 Inkworks The X-Files season 9 Pieceworks Skinner #PW5:

Even with all the flaws, I was a big fan of the X-Files. I always thought that Chris Carter was great at creating interesting shows, but had no idea which direction to go once said interesting shows got going. And even though I know it won't likely be very good, I'm still looking forward to the six episode revival that will be starting in a little over a week from now. I like the fact that this card actually says which episode the pants piece was supposedly used on.

Back to the autographs.

2015 Cryptozoic Arrow Season 1 Chin Han:

Certainly not the best signature in the world but Mr. Han was in The Dark Knight, which is why I had to have it.

2012 Unstoppable Night of the Living Dead-- John Russo and Kyra Schon:

In retrospect I have no idea why I didn't scan these two separately, but I guess they don't look too bad. Unstoppable is a UK based card company that I hadn't heard of until I came across these. This set seems to have had a fairly limited release. But I think because the audience for these is also somewhat limited, the prices haven't really gone up in the last couple of years.


I will finish with the basketball auto's, as they are the greatest in number.

1997-98 Skybox Premium Autographics Bobby Hurley:

2007-08 Upper Deck Chronology Jack Sikma and Thurl Bailey:

Both of these were under $2.00 each, and at that price there is no way I can pass them up.

2009-10 Classic Gold significant signatures Spencer Haywood #'d 7/50:

This too was under $2.
 

2012-13 Panini Preferred Signatures (red) Bob Dandridge #'d 35/74:

2013-14 Panini Intrigue Red, White, and Blue Autographs Terry Porter #'d 32/99:

Because of the shiny colors this one didn't scan very well.


2014-15 Panini Prestige Old School Signatures Wayne Embry #'d 87/149:

This card didn't scan well either, the background came out as a kind of sickly pink instead of the nice shiny dark red that it really is. I didn't even know Mr. Embry had any officially signed cards out there, so I was pretty excited to find this one.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.