COMC Hoard part 3: Pre 1958 baseball

Hopefully everyone had a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve. For me it has always been just another night, but I would like to think that a lot of you are leading a more exciting existence than I.

Since I haven't done anything else from my COMC stash for about two weeks now, so I thought I should start getting some more of it shown.

Technically the Goudey's I got should have been in this post, but I decided they deserved their own separate post instead.

I will mention too, that outside of the last three cards shown in this post, all these pictures were taken with a cell phone instead of the scanner. The reason being is that I knew some of these cards would not scan well, so I chose the clarity and slightly off angles that the cell phone would give over perfectly aligned and overly pixilated scans.

I will try to keep these in chronological order, but don't be surprised if that goes askew at some point.

First up are two from the 1939 Play Ball set:


Jim Bagby, Jr. #40

While looking at Jim Bagby's career, I found an interesting item that I didn't previously know about. That being the fact that Mr. Bagby and Al Smith were the two Indians pitchers on the mound to end Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak at Cleveland Stadium on July 17th, 1941. The reason it's interesting to me is because that is my birthday and if you look at other historical happening's for that day it usually involves death, more often than not in masses. Russian royal families being executed, commuter airplanes being shot down, many terrible war related deaths etc.

And the other Play ball card:


Emmett "Heinie" Mueller #63

These were and are my first two cards from this set.

Next up is something a bit different in the form of a Cuban baseball card set.

1945-46 Caramelo Deportivo (Felices):

Emilio Cabrera #17

I had never heard of/and or seen these before coming across this one. These cards are printed on an extremely thin paper and are about the same length as a normal sized tobacco card, but are somewhat wider. I don't speak or read any Spanish, but it's not too hard to figure that the short bio on the back mentions his playing for the Richmond Colts in the Piedmont league in 1945. There are a few sites with Mr. Cabrera's minor league stats, but other than that I haven't found too much info on him.

On to the most expensive card in this post.

1948 Bowman Bobby Thompson rookie card #47

This is my first card from this set as well. What a beauty, huh?

Next up are three from a 1948 Signal Oil Oakland Oaks set:

Loyd Christopher

Johnny Babich

Robert "Gene" Lillard

This was the first time I encountered these cards. I have a great interest in the history of the Pacific Coast League, so these were a very welcome addition to my meager vintage PCL collection. The Gene Lillard on the bottom is especially neat as notched up some incredible numbers in his minor league career. Here is the link to his Wikipedia page, but in case you are not interested in reading it, I will list the stats for his 1935 season: 170 games played, 56 HRs, 232 hits, 147 RBI's, 157 runs, and batted .361 for the season.

Two from 1949 Bowman:

Vic Raschi #35

Clint Hartung #154

Speaking of the PCL. I think it's pretty neat that on the back of Mr. Raschi's card it mentions him playing for the Portland Beavers. A little slice of home on vintage cardboard.

I'm going to power through the last three because this post has taken longer than expected to put together and I have other things I want to do tonight.

1953 Topps Cal Abrams #98:

1955 Topps John "Windy" McCall #42:

1957 Topps Gus Triandos #156:

I will plan on having the 1958 and newer post up on Sunday. I will warn you in advance that it will be very picture heavy.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.