A Post post (Part 1)

For someone whose generally as unfocused in all aspects of their life as I am, I've been surprisingly focused when it comes to card collecting the last few months.

I think I'm past the days of being distracted by shiny objects, and aside from a handful of guys, player collecting hasn't been doing much for me, so I'm pretty much left with just sets to focus on. And that's what I've been doing.

One of my primary focuses has been on the '61-63 Post sets. I've acquire maybe 30 across the three sets since October, and while most of them have just been commons, they've all been new to me, and even more importantly; each one of them is one card closer to completing their respective sets.

Not wanting to bombard folks with too many cards in one post (like I used to do), I thought I'd break the Post's into two posts, '61 and '62 today, and then, since there's more of them, give the 63's there own post next weekend.

Don Cardwell played on a lot of bad teams and more often than not, finished seasons with a losing record. In fact, all but three of his fourteen seasons were finished with a losing record. His first winning season would come in 1961 when he went 15-14 for a Cubs team that finished 64-90-2.

I generally strive for a bit better condition on my Post cards than this, but for less than two bucks I couldn't not get Saint Ron. Of course, one of the nicest things about Post cards is that they are one of the few types of cards that you can trim; and not be called all kinds of bad names my folks on the internet. And for the record, I did clean these edges up a bit before it went into the binder.

I've got a few more 61's sitting in my COMC account, but it'll be a while before I get those. I've done a bit better with the 62's though...

Usually overshadowed by brother Ken, Clete still had more than a respectable career; and one that most guys going into the pros would love to have. He also ended up with one more ring than his brother, though I'm sure playing for the Yankees played a bit of a part in that.

The good folks of Post wound up being a bit off with their prediction. Early finished the '62 season with a record of 7-15, which left him sitting at 299 wins. #300 would come the following season (his last). Between his gout and the mileage that he had incurred, those last two seasons sound like they were an absolute slog to get through. Of course, if he hadn't lost a few seasons to the war, he probably would've reached 300 a few years earlier, and most likely would've been retired before this set was released.

This card isn't a short print, but does tend to sell for a bit more than your average card in the set. Don't ask me why though. It's not a HOF bump, because there are a number of those from the set that sell for less. And to my knowledge, there aren't a lot of rabid Early Wynn collectors out there. I guess if anyone knows what's what, I'd love to hear about it.

After a poor start to the '62 season, Willie was traded to Cleveland after just 11 games. He put up serviceable numbers with the Indians, but still started the next season in the minors. He got called back up but struggled mightily during limited playing time, and would be done in the majors by seasons end.

1962 saw Albie set personal bests in games played (which naturally led to bests in plate appearances and at-bats), runs scored, doubles, and triples.

Harmon might just be the most common HOFer from this set, and is therefor often the cheapest. I probably could've held out for a nicer copy (I did clean this one up a bit though), but this one came in a small lot. I have no doubt a better one will probably be gotten in another lot (there's one in practically every '62 Post lot that ever shows up on eBay) at some point, and when it is, this one will be given away to whoever needs it.

Joe is one of only 18 players to hit four home runs in a single game, which he did against Brooklyn in 1954. I tend not to have a great memory when it comes to watched sporting events, but I do vividly recall watching Mike Cameron accomplish this feat back in '02. Of course, that game was also memorable because Seattle scored ten runs in the first inning, with four of those runs being a pair of back-to-back home runs by Bret Boone and Mike Cameron.

It's nice to have the both of the Boyer boys out of the way, at least for '62. I've noticed a big push in recent years for Ken to make the HOF. Admittedly, I'm terrible at figuring out who should and who shouldn't be enshrined, but with that being said, I've looked at his numbers on multiple occasions and am not seeing what the pro-Ken crowd is. I do see a really good player, just not one whose career screams HOF.

Despite my recent focus on set collecting, there are occasions where it's very difficult not to add certain cards to player collections instead. This is one of those instances. It's not terribly expensive, so I can get another one at some point, but the temptation to add it to Dick's pages was very strong.

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that I have some more Post's sitting in my COMC account, which were gotten during the recent Black Friday sales. I saw a number of a people lamenting online this year over the lack of deals during the sales, which is funny, I did quite well as far as finding things that I thought were good prices go. I'm not gonna try to bullshit anyone by saying that this years offerings were as good as they were ten years ago (those days are not coming back), but all-in-all I did pretty well. The lack of free shipping this year was kind of a letdown though. I was still gonna have my stuff shipped after the sales ended, but after thinking about it some, I figured I might as well wait until after the new year to do so. At least that way I'll be able to avoid the rush, and possibly be able to add a few more cheapies to the shipment in the meantime.

Old habits die hard

A lot of good things have been showing up on eBay lately (non-sport autographs and hard to find cards for my Portland Beavers collection) and I've been having some success with my bidding, which has been both good and bad. Good from a collecting standpoint, but very bad from a financial standpoint. I've mentioned it before, but with very little money to play with these days, usually if I win something on eBay of any real cost, it means that I need to sell something else to cover that won item. This may sound sucky to some, but I have a lot of unwanted things, so this cycle just acts as a motivator for me to get rid of said unwanted things.

This routine has also made me reevaluate a lot of my stuff, finding out that I no longer care about certain things that I had been fond of, and conversely, finding out that I still care about certain things that I previously hadn't. Such was the case when it came time to put up my various Post Cereal cards. I had already pulled out various cards for player collections, but was still left with a decent sized chunk of 61's and 62's, and a much smaller selection of 63's. There was a small amount of '63 Jell-O's that also needed to be dealt with.

I had decided a couple of years ago now that set collecting was no longer for me, and even though I still felt a little something for the Post (and Jell-O) cards, they were still added to one of my boxes of cards to sell. However, when it came time to list them, I found myself having trouble doing so, sort of.

Upon seeing again how many cards I had from '61 and '62, and still feeling some affinity for them, I decided that I just couldn't list them, and instead put them in a keepers box; thinking that maybe someday I'd give the sets another go. The same couldn't be said for my 63's (Post and Jello-O). Having only about 15 or so of each (after those that fit into player collections had been removed), I figured I was so far away on those that I might as well cut my losses and sell them. Which I did, and very quickly too. I want to say that that was back in February or March when I had been making a big push to list my abandoned set builds. 

Fast forwarding to last month, I started feeling like something was missing with my card collecting. Thankfully it didn't take long to realize what it was; I needed a set to build. This led me to getting out my stacks of '61 and '62 Posts, and deciding that someday was now, and that I was gonna start working on the sets again. 

The first step was to decide if I wanted to remove all the cards from player collections, and even though I didn't really want to, I did it anyway. The second step was to make checklists...

For 1961, I found that I had 57 of the 200 cards. Not bad, not bad at all. Above is what I figure are the best cards from those 57 (I haven't looked up short prints yet, so I may have one of those and not even know it). This set came in two different versions, the ones on boxes, and the ones you could get through the mail. Mine are all from boxes, and those will be the only kind that I'll be seeking out.

As far as the 1962 set goes, I've got 59 of the 200, and as you can see above, and below, I do have a few of the bigger names.

I can't remember if I ever mentioned it on here or not, but a few years ago (maybe five?), I accidently won an extra Clemente on a Sportlots auction. I wanna say it was around six or seven bucks, so it wasn't the end of the world, but was still something that I didn't really need. Since it is fairly nice, I took with me to a card show not long after getting it in hopes of either recouping my money, or at the very least, trading it. None of the dealers who regularly buy from people would even look it at the time. Later that day, since I was already there, I also took it to the card shop in Nashville, hoping that the owner would have some interest in it. He didn't. I was told, and I believed him, because he isn't the sort to mince words, that no one ever came in looking for Roberto Clemente or Post cards. Obviously the card world has changed a bit since then, and looking online now, it appears that there'd probably be more interest in it now than there was back when I got it. Ideally, I'd like to trade for another need, but given how poorly my attempts to pull off formal trades online have gone thus far, I'll probably just have to sell it, and then use that money for some set needs.

After bindering the the 62's, I found that the most cards I had for any one page was four. This by far was the better of the two. And what's more, I was able to add another card to it during the recent pre-Black Friday sale on COMC when I picked up Elston Howard (#8) for $1.48.

I realize too that I've stated many times here on the blog over the last couple of years that I was done with set collecting, forever, which now makes me look like a real hypocrite. Yep, I'm full of shit. But wait... it gets worse!

I've also decided to chase the 1962 Post Canadian set as well. And I'm doing so despite only having one card from it (I think that this is the third time that this Ernie has appeared on the blog). I really should think twice about this one, especially given what happened just a couple of weeks ago.

I found someone on the TCDB who had 19 of these up for trade, so I sent them a message to gauge their interest. It seemed high, so I went ahead and started trying to find things off of their wantlist. While doing so, I noticed that their profile said that they like doing bigger trades, so I decided to try and make it into a bigger trade. I spent a good three hours looking for things, and probably another hour just composing the trade, only for them to turn it down and say that they don't like to trade with my sort. Apparently, I didn't get the memo that asking about the condition of vintage cards that I can see is now a faux pas? I guess I'm that sort. It's ironic too because I was told by a fellow blogger some years ago, that I should try and avoid this person. Unfortunately, I saw that they've been trading with other bloggers recently, and that combined with their huge positive feedback rating made me ignore that old warning. Obviously I should've just listened to it and saved myself the four hours. Lesson learned though, don't ignore warnings from fellow bloggers; they usually know better -- especially when it comes to the TCDB. [I'd still try again if they ever changed their mind though]

And I may be the sort who asks questions about card conditions, but I'm not the sort who makes year-end lists for the blog. However, if I was, this would surely take the #1 spot for the biggest card related disappointment this year. It's been weeks, and I'm still pretty bummed out by it.

Oh, and about this whole deciding to 'start up some old sets again' thing, yeah, it gets even worse...

After bindering up the '61 and 62's, I got to thinking about 1963, you know, that I mentioned selling 15 or so cards from, yeah, that one. Digging through player collections yielded a couple of big names, although the Maris isn't ideal with that cut. Still an okay start though, I guess. None of the 15 cards that I sold would be overly difficult to get back, as I see a lot of them in almost every single lot currently on eBay. I guess I'm doing this one again, too. But wait, it gets worser (and yes, I know, that's not a word)...

I'm picking back up with the '63 Jell-O's too. This was what I still had left. The majority of the one's I sold were poorly cut, and were not SP's or HOFers, so with a little patience, those won't be too difficult reacquire.

A couple days after paging everything up, I remembered that I had overlooked at least one card, and after setting out to look for it, that one card ended up yielding four.

A couple more '63 Posts that I had held onto. Dick Groat came from my miniscule collection of his, and Maury came from a page of his stuff that I have. That page looks a lot less interesting now :(

To the '63 Jell-O's, I was able to add, Boog, who came from the Boog collection, and Curt, who came from a page of his stuff that I've got going.

And in case anyone is wondering, yes, I know, there are some expensive and hard to find cards in these sets; don't harsh my mellow. I'll deal with those later. I'm under no illusion that any of these sets will ever be completed, but since making this decision, that feeling of something missing that I mentioned earlier has dissipated, and I've really been enjoying the process so far; it feels like old times. Well, sort of, I don't feel like I absolutely have to complete the sets to enjoy them, like I used to.

The only real negative for me so far is that after looking at these sets online for the last couple of weeks, I've come to the conclusion that if I want to work on these, I'm gonna have to start going to shows again; because the online prices are just not very good anymore. That being said, I did get that Elston that I mentioned earlier, as well as a '61 Lee Walls (for 55¢) and a '61 Bobby Shantz ($1.34) during the COMC BF sale. Other than those though, the pickings were awfully slim on COMC, lots of beaters for way more than they should be. Sportlots and the Beckett Marketplace don't appear to be much of an option either. And eBay seems like it takes so much more effort these days, especially when trying to land set needs at reasonable prices. Having been away for so long now, I'm not sure if anyone who's setting up at the twice-a-month Nashville shows would be bringing any Post, so I think I'll just wait until the next big show in March. 

There used to be this couple that only set up at the big shows who only did vintage, and I remember them having many binders full of Post cards. And I guess even if they aren't going there anymore, with probably close to 800 tables, one would have to think that somebody would have some Post for sale, right?

Not bad for four bits

There was a time when I lived within thirty minutes of half a dozen (or more) antique malls, and with me being a fan of antique malls, this was a good thing. Nowadays I live within thirty minutes of just one, which has been a bit of an adjustment, but thankfully for me, and everyone else in the general vicinity, this particular antique mall just so happens to be really, really good. It also doesn't hurt that the fellow who owns it is a stand-up guy as well.

Despite it's goodness, I usually only go in there about once every three months or so, if only because it's a little out of the way. Because of this, and because I know that I'll want to have a sufficient amount of time blocked out to look through everything, I will normally go on a morning where I don't have anything else that needs to be done. I switched things up though a couple of Saturdays ago, when I realized that one of the errands I was running had put me within a mile or so of the mall, and decided to stop in for a quick impromptu visit.

It's not uncommon for me to spend two hours at this place on those days when I have nowhere else to be, but on this day, when I had more stops to make, and wanted to be home by lunch, I figured that at best I'd have 20 minutes to hit a couple of the better booths. In other words, it was gonna be like a real-life version of Supermarket Sweep, minus the screaming banshees.

Having now been going to this place for almost six years, I'm very familiar with which booths switch out their wares on a regular basis, and which ones don't. So my goal was to hit at least four of the better ones, aka the ones with ever changing inventory. This goal was not achieved, for on my way to my favorite booth, I was distracted by some shiny objects in a plastic tray that was sitting on top of the glass case...

As it turned out, those shiny objects were 1964 Topps Coins, with a few 71's mixed in as well. This was quite the surprise, for this booth has never had anything of interest to me before. I'm terrible about trying to estimate things, but I'd say that there were around 40 coins total, most of which unfortunately were in abysmal condition. That isn't that uncommon though, as folks didn't have fancy ways to store these back when they came out, so they were often just stored in a bag, or a sack some sort. After sometimes spending decades rubbing against each other, and more normal than not to find them with their finish worn off in places, or even altogether. Rust seems to be fairly common too, most likely from moisture in the air (humidity). 

Pete Ward is a Portland guy, well sort of, he moved there during childhood and went to high school there. He even came back to coach after his playing days had ended. This makes him collectible to me. I have most of his Topps run, but didn't have this coin. It's missing a bit of the finish around the rim, as well as a little on the back, but overall was one of the better conditioned coins.

Aside from home runs and on base percentage, Pete set career highs across the board in 1963. Had a pretty good year in '64 as well, then came the car accident and subsequently mistreated neck injury, followed by a back injury, both occurring in '65. He'd play for five more seasons, but never got back to his pre-injury level.

Saint Ron's finish is completely gone, but the coin doesn't look overly bad because of it.

Unlike Pete, Ron would top all but two of the career numbers that he had set in 1963, the 187 hits, and .313 batting average, would remain career highs for him. '63 also him selected to the first of what would become 9 All-Star appearances.

The prices on the coins were all over the place, most seemed a bit high to me, especially given their conditions. These two however, set me back a whopping 50¢ apiece. That I could dig!

The coin booth also had some cards for the first time as well (they're hot don't cha know), which I wasted too much time going through, and then only made it to two other booths before my self-allotted time ran out. I had a good time though, got a couple of neat things, and didn't have to break the bank to get them. This also marked the first time that I've seen any Topps Coins in the wild, other than at card shows, since I moved to TN... hopefully it won't be the last!

And finally, on a completely unrelated note: Ryan has started up a rather unique Blog Bat-Around, and is looking for participants. Given how many creative people populate the blogs, this could potentially turn into quite the thing, so if you haven't done so already, you might want to go see what's what while there's still time.

COMC Shuffle #5

Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC hoard!


1955 Red Man Tobacco All-Star Series #14

My first Red Man! It's a little rough, but it does still have the tab, plus it was really cheap (under $2). Solid player too. Having never seen one of these in person before, I was a bit surprised at how big they are. I always thought that they were Play Ball sized, nope, they are considerably larger.


2014 Topps Red Hot Foil #580 (x3)

It's a red out! I'm gonna go on record and say that this might be the best looking individual parallel of the 2010's. Am I wrong about this? If so, Prove me wrong.


2013-14 Panini Prizm Red, White, and Blue Wave Prizms #22

I've said it many (many) times before, but there will never be another player like Tim Duncan! Countdown to the hall of fame in...


1994 Pacific Crown Collection Knights of the Gridiron #3

Drew Bledsoe used to receive a lot of hobby love, now he gets next to none, (cue Fred Willard) Wha' Happened?


2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures #LP

Laffit Pincay is one of the signers who has an autograph in both the 2013 and 2014 sets, which I now have both of. I know nothing of horse racing, but with a signature as nice as this, I have no problem with him being in two out of the three Golden Age sets.


2013-14 Panini Prizm Red, White, and Blue Mosaic Prizms #230

This was my sixth R,W, &B Dave DeBusschere. I really want a full page (or more) of this card!

1973 Kellogg's #54

This is yet another purchase that I can blame on Chris' bad influence! Sorry for the lousy picture, I have a lot to learn when it comes to taking photos of graded cards. After buying this card last year, I, just for a split second mind you, had the brief notion that I would try to collect the entire set in PSA 9 form... thankfully that idea didn't stick around for too long.


1909-11 T206

I got my first three T206's last year, all from the same seller, and all within a couple of days of each other. Condition wise, Danny Moeller here would probably receive the lowest grade, he's obviously got a bit of a crease, but the colors are still really crisp.

There isn't a great deal of info on the interwebz about Danny Moeller. He spent the part of seven seasons in the bigs, playing for Pittsburgh, Washington, and Cleveland. In 1912, while in his first season with Washington, he finished 21st in the AL MVP voting -- and in 1913 (still with the Senators), he racked up 62 stolen bases, which were second in the majors only to teammate Clyde Milan's 75.

Obligatory shot of the back.


1998-99 Upper Deck Ionix Reciprocal #R55

The '98-99 Reciprocal's is are one of my favorite 90's basketball parallels, easily in the top ten, maybe even in the top five... I might have to do a personal top ten 90's basketball parallels list one of these days (that'll really bring in the views)?


1971-72 Topps #172

Although drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1967, Ron decided to instead join the newly created ABA, playing for five teams during his six seasons. In 1975, he traveled to Europe to play in the European Professional Basketball League, a league that only lasted for one season.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed another week's worth of picks. The shuffle button will now get a much deserved week off, after all... being asked to choose ten random cards isn't as easy as it sounds :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.