It's always nice when building a set, to be able to get the most expensive card from it out of the way early on in the process. Which is exactly what I did with this 1962 Topps Civil War News Checklist:
Even though it's marked and has some noticeable condition issues, this would still go for anywhere between $10-$30 on eBay. I was able to procure this one a couple of months ago for $4 in earned credit.
I have no doubts that this will end up being the worst conditioned card in my eventual set, as I don't see myself paying $50 or more for an unmarked example.
Every time I'm looking at cards from this set or the '62 Mars Attacks! (in an upcoming post),it reminds me of when I first read about these sets in or around 1997-ish. I was enamored with both sets immediately, but at that time, it seemed very improbable that I would ever own a single card from either set due to the then exorbitant prices. If I hadn't taken such a long break from card collecting (2000-10), I probably would be done with this set by now. Better late than never though, right?
It has been over a month since I featured a success, so for this one I will dip into the backlog and show this neat return from the 1970 AL Cy Young winner:
I didn't see that Mr. Perry charges $5 per signed card, until after I had sent the request. So I figured the best case scenario would be to get the card back unsigned with a note about the fee, and the worst case scenario being the card wouldn't come back at all. So I was pretty surprised when a month after being mailed, it came back signed, and there wasn't anything included about card signing fees. I guess I will have to chalk it up to my awesome letter, or more likely, a very generous Jim Perry.
As always, I would like to send a big thank you out to Mr. Perry.
Last Saturday was the annual book sale to benefit a senior care center in the small town of Pleasant Hill, which is about five miles up the road from me. They do three different charity sales a year, the other two being a trash to treasure sale in March, and a silent auction in September.
Pleasant Hill is primarily a retirement community of about 600 people, consisting of mostly folks from outside the area. I don't really know why so many people retire to there, but they do, and I'm glad they do as there seem to be some very interesting people living there. There seems to be a big difference between the older people that move there compared to the elderly locals, in that a lot of the older people from around here tend to have that " the lights are on, but no one's home" look in their eyes, the Pleasant Hill transplants all seem to be much more active and lively.
Even though I went to the book sale and silent auction last year, I still find going to Pleasant Hill to be a bit of an odd experience. After traveling the two lane highway for about five miles, you turn onto a narrow two lane road which is pretty dark even during the day, due to the dense woods on either side. About half a mile down the road you see an old cemetery and then a small market and gas station before you reach a stop sign. At that point you turn left, and it's like all of sudden there's just this town in front of you with a lot of newer looking buildings and well manicured trees and lawns. If anyone has ever seen Big Fish, it's like the town of Spectre in the movie, not so much in appearance--but how it seems hidden away in the last place you would think there would be some kind of community.
For this sale, they have a pretty simple pricing system of $1 for hardbacks and 50 cents for paperbacks. With a small section reserved for a couple of pricier books ($4-5 range).
So I might as well start with this one, as it was the only sports related book purchased:
There weren't too many to choose from in that category. Actually there were only six, one of them being a book all about antique golf clubs, and as exciting of a read as that sounded, I decided to pass.
A little slice of home:
Definitely an odd book to find in landlocked Tennessee.
The myths/folklore section was pretty decent this year, which is a good thing, since it's one of my favorite subjects:
Next up is two that fit into the BOAB (big ol' art book) category:
The one on top, Cities and People, is really quite good. I was almost tempted in to doing an entire post about that one alone, but I'm guessing that would get an even fewer views than this one will.
Right when you walk through the doors on your immediate right, in the corner, they also have a couple of tables set up with cassettes, CD's, DVD's and videos at various fixed prices. Because I'm a video hound (yes, I still actively seek out VHS tapes), this was where I went first. The selection wasn't as good as it was last year, but I still managed to find a couple of things that were of great interest to me.
I don't know how familiar any of you are with The Teaching Company. For those unfamiliar, they have a program called " The Great Courses" which are college lectures (although some of the newer courses are not college subjects
) on an array of subjects that have been available across all the major forms of media over the years. I have been a big fan of theirs, since getting a random catalog in the mail sometime in my late teens. The catch has always been that their products are a bit on the pricey side, even when on sale (which is often). Finding them used in the wild (not counting eBay) has been pretty much impossible for me over the years, so I was very surprised to find a couple at this particular sale.
All of these are in the old clamshell packs, which consist of six cassettes with two 30-minute lectures per tape.
This one is part of a much larger set. Unfortunately the rest of the set wasn't there, but this one by itself still looks like it should be pretty enjoyable.
I'm pretty neutral when it comes to religion, but I still enjoy learning about the beliefs of others. These four cassette packs came to a total of $4, not bad for 24 hours worth of listening (and hopefully learning too!).
Another great thing about this sale is the free section that is set up by the exit, this is the stuff that they just want gone, so there are no limits on how much you can take. There wasn't as much to choose from as there was last year, but I still managed to come away with a couple of things.
All start with my favorite:
Honestly, I find it hard to believe that this book was free, I mean my heart actually skipped a beat when I saw it. It's a third edition from 1916 and they apparently didn't think anyone was going to buy it for $1, heck, I would have bought it for a couple of dollars. Now I have to find part 1.
This was simply a rescue mission. I couldn't leave this 1970 Scholastic edition toiling at the bottom of the box I found it in any longer. Sure it's got some water stains (I hope) and some bends and folds, but it's Scholastic! And if I didn't take it, I fear that the garbage was going to be it's final destination.
The essays in this book are apparently held in high regard. And I only grabbed it because I liked the cover. So, in this instance it was okay to judge a book by it's cover! (Side note: That is a common practice for me)
Another one that I don't understand being free.
Even though I'm not a big fan of the direction that National Geographic has gone in the last 15-20 years, I will still grab one from 1950.
And finally:
This was my first time seeing an issue (or four) of the Smithsonian magazine in person. Hopefully their as good as they look.
All in all, I spent $11 (sales tax included). Once you add all the free stuff to the pile, it turned in to a pretty good haul for not a lot of money. It's also nice to know that the money is going to a very good cause.
A couple of months ago I had a card show recap post, which contained a couple of Pro Debut Commemorative Hat Patch cards that I had just come across for the first time. And I can honestly say that this was definitely one of those love at first sight moments for me. I know I shouldn't like these kinds of cards, but I find the patches of minor league logos to be absolutely charming.
Later on in the evening after the show, I set out to find all the pertinent information that I could about the set, and of course see if there were any cheap examples to be had. I ended up getting the three cheapest ones on COMC that night, which consisted of one from the 2013 edition (#'d to 75) and two from the 2014 release (#'d to 99). As much as I enjoy these cards, I always forget to look for them, hence the reason you're only seeing three here.
2013 Pro Debut:
#'d 39/75
Hak-Ju Lee hasn't made it to the bigs yet. He is currently with the Sacramento River Cats, where through 47 games this season he's batting .265.
2014 Pro Debut:
#'d 99/99
Nestor Molina hasn't made it to the majors yet, either. He is currently with the Oaxaca Warriors in Mexico. In 14 appearances on the mound so far this season, he has a 5-2 record with a 5.25 ERA.
#'d 24/99
Mikie Mahtook is currently playing for the Tampa Bay Rays. In 24 games this season, he is only batting .154 and unfortunately for him, it was just announced today that he will miss the next six weeks with a fractured left hand.
As far as current products go, these would easily be in my top five.
It's amazing how quickly a week can go by without a post. Over the last seven days I have spent just about all my free time card organizing, stamp sorting, and reading a very enjoyable book. I can honestly say that in this past seven day span I have only thought about writing a post once or twice, and those thoughts were fleeting at best. The idea of stopping altogether has started creeping in to my mind as well. I don't know if that's normal for bloggers or not, but for the time being I will try to suppress any such thoughts.
My COMC order finally arrived last week, it looks like I might have been part of the last wave of shipments. Rather than show everything in five or six large time consuming posts, I plan on doing a number of smaller posts that will be sprinkled in here and there, which could potentially go until the next shipment in December.
As I usually do before showing anything from COMC, I will reiterate that all these cards were gotten with credit earned from doing challenges. I always feel the need to mention this because there will be a few expensive (in my opinion) cards being shown, and I don't want people looking at this and thinking "Yeah, it must be nice to have that kind of money to spend on cards" and think I'm some kind of Mr. Moneybags or something (which couldn't be further from the truth). Also, everything being shown was acquired between January and this last Spring cleaning sale. I'm way too cheap to pay the $3.00 (now $3.99) shipping, so I just wait until the Spring sale and the Black Friday sale when shipping is free, to get my stockpile shipped.
Since there was one card in the box that was head and shoulders above the rest, I figured it decided it's own post. That card being this 1958 Topps World Series Batting Foes #418
With the corner wear and the noticeable printing line, this card is definitely not in perfect shape, but it was (and is) certainly good enough for me.
Seeing that this card has been covered on a few blogs already, I won't go too in depth into the history behind the image. I will just mention that the card shows a 25 year old (soon to be 26) Mickey Mantle and a 23 year old Hank Aaron before what I'm assuming is game 1 of the 1957 World Series, with a great shot of old Yankee stadium in the background. The Braves would of course go on to beat the defending champion Yankees in seven games, in a still much talked/written about series.
In case anyone is curious (I would be), this card cost me $37 in earned credit. I think I may have overpaid a little, but since it wasn't out of pocket money, this would be one of those instances where it doesn't bother me all that much.
Another thing that happened this past week was that I had a moment of clarity, possibly an epiphany, in which I realized that there is just no way I can keep working on all the sets that I currently am, with any reasonable hope of completing them all. So I have started going through and thinning out a couple, one of which is the 1958 Topps set. That doesn't mean that I can't still enjoy this card and some of the other big name players that I already have. Although I will probably still try and complete the All-Star subset and try to get a few more of the key cards on the cheap when I can.
And for your listening enjoyment, the top song in the country during the '57 World Series:
In the last couple of months I have found myself purchasing more and more from members of the Sports Card Forum. So much so in fact, that I actually bought more from there than eBay last month. Which is a good thing, as I'm always looking for alternatives to eBay.
After being a member of the site for a little while now and seeing how smoothly the buying process goes, I would highly recommend that everyone go check it out. There always seems to be good deals to be had from genuinely competent sellers. I should probably mention though, that while I endorse folks going there to make purchases, I can't say the same when to comes to the trading aspect of the site (more on that in a future post).
One of my recent purchases was a fairly large one, by that I mean a lot of cards were gotten. Since the seller was highly motivated, everything ended up being far less than the original asking prices. Amongst all the cards in said order, were quite a few cards from all three years of Panini's Golden Age, which is what this post will focus on.
My scanner doesn't seem to like cards from these sets very much, so prepare yourself for lots of subpar images.
I will start with all the mini's first, and for all one of you out there that cares about the different backs, I have included those as well.
2012:
If I remember right, the Ty Cobb backs were supposed to be distributed at one per box. All though those odds didn't apply to me apparently, because when I opened my lone box of 2012 last year, I didn't get one. But, I'm not going to complain, since that was the box that I got the case hit in, which came in the form of an original 1933 Goudey Fred Fitzsimmons.
Moving on to the three 2013 mini's:
And the 2014's:
Three Bill Russell's + Three different backs = Happiness!
That's it as far as the mini's go. On to the inserts:
2012 Batter-Up #23
2012 Newark Evening World Supplement #'s 6 & 7
This was one of those times where even though I have very accurate checklists at the ready, I decided instead to guess at what I had, and didn't have, so this Joe Jackson ended up being a card I already had.
2012 Headlines #14
2013 Bread for Energy #4
2013 Playing Cards #29
I really like these playing cards. For me personally, these are one of the better inserts to come along in quite a while.
It's probably hard to tell from the scan, but this is one of the 2013 white bordered parallels. These are easily my least favorite thing that Panini did over the course of the three years worth of Golden Age. That being said, if you broke down my entire purchase, this probably cost around 25 cents. So, even if I don't like them, it's hard not get it at that price.
2013 Delong Gum #14
2014 Star Stamps #'s 1,10, and 20
Sorry for the crookedness on these, the static electricity on the scanner wouldn't let this group stay straight.
#'s 15 & 16
2014 Headlines #9
Serial #'d 42/50
This First Fifty parallel was only 25 cents too!
I was even able to get two box toppers, which are proving to be the most difficult things from these sets for me to acquire.
2012 Ferguson Bakery Pennants Blue #9
2013 box topper exhibit card #21
These cabinet cards are really great. The clarity of the image (in person) is absolutely amazing. This is card I wanted the most out of all the Golden Age stuff that I got in this order.
Now is where we get to the autograph and memorabilia portion of things. From here on all the images come via cell phone camera, so you should notice some much clearer images.
2013 Museum Age #38
This is one of the more common memorabilia cards, but at least mine has some stitching included in the swatch.
2012 Museum Age Authentic Collection Material #35
2014 Historic Signatures #GAM
That concludes the Golden Age part of that purchase. However, I have picked up a few more things in the last couple of months that I might as well tack on to this post as well.
First up will be an eBay purchase that set me back a whole $4:
2012 Historic Signatures #VB
Next is a Sportlots win from around three months ago. I was thinking of doing a single card post just for this autograph of Bo Duke himself, but I just haven't got around to it, so I might as well include it in here:
And since I finally just got my COMC shipment, it makes sense to add the couple of Golden Age cards to this post too.
2012 Historic Signatures #SC
2012 Authentic Collection Material #11
Another fairly common memorabilia card, but for $1.50 in credit, it was impossible to pass up.
I will finish up with my favorite of these three cards from COMC:
2013 Museum Age #27
During the Spring cleaning sale I got this for $5, which I thought was pretty decent, especially when looking now the lowest price for one is $30. I have been infatuated with her for as long as I can remember, which probably stems from watching way too many syndicated episodes of Bewitched on Nick at Nite at a very young age.
Outside of one card, this post get's me completely caught up with all things Golden Age. That "one" card is big enough that it will get it's own post sometime in the upcoming weeks.
How about this for a tie-in to the last card shown?
Thanks for taking a moment (or two) to look at my page.
