Sunday, June 17, 2018

COMC Sundays: 2014 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures

This week's edition will be another relatively short one. And unfortunately, I didn't have any interesting animal encounters this week, so I don't have anything to pad this one out like I did last week.

Even though Butch Patrick has an impressive list of credits to his name, he is -- and always will be -- best remembered for his role as Eddie Munster on The Munsters, which by the way, was one of my favorite shows as a kid. Fun fact (even though everybody probably already knows it): Butch Patrick wasn't the first choice to play Eddie. Bill Mumy (Lost in Space) was in fact originally chosen, but his parents turned it down after they saw the makeup that their son would have to wear to play the part.

Richie Hebner was a member of the 1971 Pirates championship team. Even though it wasn't always reflected in his batting average, Richie was a pretty clutch player in the postseason, his timely hitting changed the outcome of a number of games when it mattered the most.

Laffit, while riding Swale, won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes (his third straight Belmont victory) in 1984. I don't pretend to be a fan of, or know anything about, horse racing... but as I've said before, I'm still glad for variety's sake that Panini added jockey's to the list of signers. Also, why is it that the jockey's seem to have some of the nicest signatures in the set?

In 1978, while riding Alydar, Jorge Velasquez finished second to Affirmed, in all three of the Triple Crown races. In 1981, now on the back of Pleasant Colony, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, but missed out on the Triple Crown when he finished third in the Belmont Stakes.

Looking ahead to next week: A handful of baseball cards from the 50's will be featured, as well as a discussion about some of the recent changes that I've been making to my collection (namely the vintage baseball part of my collection).


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

10 comments:

  1. Wow, I think that Golden Age auto set just picked out people with really nice signatures. Every one I've seen has a full signed name. Gorgeous!

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    1. Yes, no initials or squiggly lines allowed!

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  2. I agree, the signatures on those are really nice.

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    1. That's definitely one of the reasons why I like them so much.

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  3. While I do remember seeing the Munsters, I think more of Butch Patrick's appearance on the Simpsons. Laffit Pincay has one of the nicest signatures I've ever seen. A quick theory I got when reading this post: they take their time when signing these cards because they don't sign as often. When a ball sport guy is signing a few hundred for multiple sets every year, you'll have hand fatigue and boredom. A guy from a sport that doesn't get a lot of cards will have more time and less writing to do.

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    1. Since you brought it up, I'm kind of surprised that you don't have a side collection of autograph's from people who have appeared on The Simpsons.

      Your theory might have some validity to it. I also think that it's just because most of them are older, and most older people in general tend to have better signatures since they come from an era when handwriting was taught in schools. Most older athletes seem to still take pride in their signatures as well, I truly believe that most of them would be mortified by some (or all) of the younger athletes signatures.

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  4. Beautiful looking cards and signatures. I'll have to see who else is on this checklist. Hopefully I can find a few subjects that will fit into my collection.

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    1. I think there's a few that might be of some interest to you.

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  5. Panini surely must know by now, WE NEED MORE GOLDEN AGE!!!!!!!! I love these cards! The base set was awesome but the hard signed cards are designed so perfectly.

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    1. I think that those of us who do want Golden Age brought back are in the minority, which means our "want's" probably aren't of too much interest to Panini.

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