It's done this time!

I don't know how long ago it was now, but some years ago I got the last card I needed, John Havlicek, to complete the 1976-77 Topps basketball set, did a blog post to proclaim it's completion, and if I recall correctly, received a collective yawn. 

I know that blog folks don't care about basketball cards, so the crickets were no surprise, but as it would turn out, those chirps were premature. 

At the time of it's completion, I had the set in a binder, but in an effort to free up some space, I moved to a box (one of those graded card boxes that COMC always sends my stuff in) shortly thereafter. Fast forward a handful of years, and I decided that I wanted to put it back in a binder, which I did, only to find that something was eschew; namely that I was missing a card, #21 Steve Mix. At first I thought maybe I had just put the cards away originally slightly out of order, but a couple of passes through my "completed" set told me that that wasn't the case. As big as these cards are, there's no way I could've misplaced one, so it was obvious that an oversight had occurred and I was still one card away from completing the set.

I have a decent amount of duplicates from the set, but as you can probably imagine, no Steve Mix. The only thing left to do was to hit the interwebs in search of my needed card. And boy was that fun. Given their size, and the fact that they're "vintage" basketball, which apparently has become considerably more desirable since the boom started, not to mention increased postage costs in recent years, and you get a perfect recipe for a lot of overpriced singles. After halfheartedly looking off and on for a few months, I finally settled on the above copy from COMC for $2.48, which just recently arrived along with 36 other cards that I had shipped for just a couple of bucks thanks to the $5 shipping coupon that they gave me after taking a ridiculous amount of time to send the previous order (this one took "only" six weeks). 

Considering that this set is loaded with HOFers (some of whom have two cards), Steve Mix was an unlikely fellow to need last (Hondo made a lot more sense), but oh well, it's done. And this time I'm sure!

But wait, there's more...

I have a number of other vintage basketball sets in progress, or at least I do now, again. I hadn't added any cards to these builds for a few years, probably since before the boom started. In fact, prior to just a couple of months ago, most of them had been long since been cannibalized for player collections. But, as I mentioned in the previous post, I've started rethinking a lot of my player collections, which has led me to put all of my old basketball set builds back together (minus the couple of cards that I gave to someone else so that they could finish two of their sets -- those I'll have to re-buy).

Now that all of these sets are back on, I'd very much like to be done with them; just one thing less to have to look for. A lot of the prices on COMC have gone up considerably since the last time I looked to add any cards to my sets, but even so, I've been able to find a few cards in recent months whose prices were more akin to what they used to be. 19 of the 37 cards in my most recent shipment ended up being of the vintage basketball variety.

The oldest basketball set that I'm working on is the '69-70 set. Finding four that I need for less than $2 apiece seemed like a pretty good deal in today's market. Bob Boozer, who was just coming off his best season (21.7 PPG with Chicago), is the highlight here.

Number of cards now needed to complete: 32

This is probably the cheapest of the league leader cards from the '70-71 set. And poor Darrall Imhoff, he was given one of the all-time worst photos on this card (Jerry Sloan's card in this set is even worse).

He's not talked about much anymore, if at all, but Jeff Mullins had a really solid stretch of about 5-6 years there with the Warriors. 

I thought for sure that I'd be able to add a few more needs from this set, but alas, two was all that I was able to manage.

Number of cards now needed to complete: 40

Having been so many years since I last worked on it, I was a bit surprised to find that I still needed so many from the '72-73 set. Thankfully, I was able to get all of the most expensive cards long before they jumped in price. Some big names here up on that first row. At around $2.50, Mel Daniels was the most expensive one from this group. Merv Jackson was a much needed upgrade.

Like the year before, the '72-73 set has separate checklists for the NBA and ABA, and for reasons unknown to me, the NBA checklist from the '72-73 set has gotten quite expensive. This one showed up on the site for like $17, which there was no way I was gonna pay that much for a checklist, but a few weeks later it went on sale for $5, and while that seemed like an awful lot, compared to sold prices on the eBay, it was actually quite reasonable. Obviously I ponied up the five bucks for it. I believe that this was the most expensive card left that I need.

Number of cards now needed to complete: 11

Similar to the '72-73 set, I thought I only needed 2-3 from the '75-76 set, but that number turned out to be 10; half of which I was able mark off with this order.

The Bulls had an awful lot of talent on their roster during the mid 70's, unfortunately for them, a number of teams had more.

Number of cards now needed to complete: 5

But wait... there's even more!

The '77-78 offering is my least favorite vintage basketball set, and as such, I've never put a lot of effort into completing it (either in white or grey back form). That being said, I couldn't pass on this very reasonably priced Robert Parish rookie (white back) that I saw on Sportlots. Cards from this set always scan poorly, so you'll have to take my word for it when I say that it's even nicer than I thought it would be. Despite my not being a huge fan of it, I am now making a bit of a push to complete the set, if only so that I can say at some point that I've got a complete run of 70's basketball sets. This was by far the most expensive card left for this set that I needed.

Number of cards now needed to complete: 45

It's a lofty goal, but I'm hoping by year's end that I'll be able to complete at least one of the sets seen in this post, or one of the two that wasn't, those being '71-72 (14 needed) and '74-75 (4 needed).

Another one bites the dust

It was just a couple of weeks ago that I was celebrating the completion of my 1973-74 Topps basketball set, well, it's time to celebrate another completed set, this time it's of the 1976-77 Topps basketball variety.

Heading into the COMC Black Friday sale, I was three cards away from completing the set, two of which I was able to get during the sale (an badly needed upgrade was gotten as well), and the final card was... well, you'll find out about that a little further down. For now, I just want to get to the cards:

In case you've forgotten, Rich is here to remind you just how cool the old ABA red, white, and blue balls (no jokes please) were... and still are.

Having had six (I'm not counting the '69-70 season) very successful seasons in the ABA, it's a bit of a mystery to me as to why Rich only ended up playing for one year in the NBA following the merger of the two leagues in 1976. Since that particular info hasn't been, and still isn't, available online, I'm thinking that the only way to find out about his "one and done" in the NBA... will simply be to write to him and ask.

This is a great in-game shot featuring Phil getting off his patented "zenhook" over the great Wes Unseld.

You might be surprised (sarcasm) to learn that, to date, Phil Jackson is still the only NBA player to have been born in Deer Lodge, MT. This card had been eluding me for quite some time  now, so it was very nice to finally be able to cross it off the checklist.

This was a badly needed upgrade, as my other one looks like someone had spilled coffee on it at some point in time. As you can see in the scan, this card came with a wax stain, said stain has since been removed.

Unfortunately, Gail no longer holds the Lakers consecutive free throws made record, that honor belongs to Kobe Bryant (boooo!), with 62.

After being left just one card away from completing the set, I decided that I wasn't going to wait any longer for a cheap copy to be added to the site, so I turned to eBay. After a few short weeks, I was able to plunk down a virtual five spot and officially wrap this one up!

Hondo is shown guarding Dave Bing, one season later they would be playing together after Dave joined the Celtics. That next year would also be the last for the two of them, as both of the future hall of famers would retire after the 1977-78 season.

The card does have a wax stain on the back, but that doesn't really bother me, as I'm just happy to have finally completed the set. I would still like to upgrade two cards (Sam Lacey and Charlie Scott) at some point, but for now, I'm content just basking in the glow of this most recent accomplishment.


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Colossal card show recap: Part 2

Welcome back to the second installment of this three part series. Today's post will start with what I consider to be my best purchase from Saturday's show.

Seller #6:

There was a father/son duo with a two or three table spread in one corner of larger gym, who from a distance, appeared just to have pretty much all graded cards. And since graded cards aren't my thing, I was just going on walking by without stopping.

On the far right of their set-up, there were three boxes filled with what looked like all graded cards (I know, big surprise!), the boxes were marked $3, $5, and $10 respectively. I still wasn't interested, but as I got closer, I noticed Hank laying out on top one of the rows in the $5 box -- now my interest was piqued!

The bad news was, their was a guy looking through that $5 box, and with the way the card was just sitting on top, I figured he had just found it and laid it there while he continued to look. I decided that if there was a '64 Aaron in one of those boxes, it might be worth my time to stop and look through them, which I did, all the while thinking that if I would have just gotten there a minute or two earlier, Hank would have been mine (I think everyone that's ever been to a show knows that feeling).

I got through the boxes very quickly, as their were only a few non-graded items, which were all contemporary cards of kids I haven't heard of. As I was just about done, the guy who I thought was about to be Hank's new owner, was paying for his card... and his card wasn't Hank! I couldn't believe it, now it was just me standing there, and Hank just laying there. I started to wonder if it was even supposed to be in that box, or even worse -- somebody bought it somewhere else, brought it there, and accidently walked off without it.

Now that he was gone, and nobody was running over to claim their missing card, I was finally able to pick up the card and turn it over. I was expecting something to really be wrong with the back (like being skinned), but as you can see, while not in mint condition, it's not exactly disastrous either. Now that I had the card in hand, the only thing left for me to do, was find out it if it actually was going to be only $5. It might not be word for word, but the rest of the story played out like this:

Me: Get the guy's attention, and hand him the card without saying a word.
Dealer: "Yeahhhh, which box was this in?"
Me: "The $5 box"
Dealer: (Makes a hesitant sound that I don't know how to duplicate in written form) "Yeahhhh, somebody moved that there from somewhere else"
Me: (In my head "dammit, I knew it")
Dealer: After a few seconds that felt like an eternity "What the heck, let's do it, five bucks"
Me: "Really?"
Dealer: "Yeah, why not? (pause) It's a heckuva a deal"
Me: "Yes, it is. Thank you!" (I may have thanked him more than once)

So even though I still don't have a lot of cards from the '64 set, at least I can cross another big name off of the checklist. Oh, and if the dealer ever happens to see this post, thank you again!

As a quick aside, if anyone cares about the card that the guy who I thought was buying Hank got, it was '77 Topps Mark Fidrych PSA 8. Out of curiosity, I looked up what it goes for, and it would appear that for five bucks he got a pretty good deal.

Seller #7:

Back in March, at the last big show, there were two guys who's wares consisted mainly of $1 insert boxes. I had gotten a bunch of really great stuff out of their basketball boxes, which were packed to the gills with 90's inserts and parallels, and because of this, I was really hoping they would be back again. Well, they were, and even though they didn't has many boxes this time around, I still came away with some solid finds, including the 1997-98 Bowman's Best Atomic Refractors shown above and below.

I ended up getting 40 cards from their boxes, but due to so many of them not photographing/scanning well, I'm only showing 19 of them. By the by, how fantastic does that Eddie Jones look?

Another atomic refractor, this time from the Best Techniques insert set.

After the atomic refractors, these regular refractors (still from the same set) seem kind of bland. Some big names though.

Even though I usually love die-cut cards, these 1997-98 Topps Generations have never been one of my favorite insert sets. But, I needed both of them, and a buck apiece is a really good price on these.

I already had both of these 1998-99 Skybox Premium Soul of the Game's, but since this is an insert that just keeps getting more desirable as the years go on, it doesn't hurt to pick up a few cheap extras here and there.

I'm not quite as fond of the 1998-99 Topps Roundball Royalty's as I was almost twenty years ago when they first came out, but again, they were well priced and I needed 'em.

This Iverson 1996-97 EX2000 Star Date 2000 was a pretty good get too.

Now here's a pair of something's that I wouldn't usually care about, but for whatever reason, I ended up buying them. I had to wait until I got home to find out that they are from the 2005-06 Topps Pristine set.

I know these aren't part of the base set, but other than that I don't know anything about them. Being in sealed cases, it makes me think that they might have been like a one per box bonus in addition to the packs? Like I said, I don't know. I'll figure it out at some later date, for now I'll just clean off the old price tag sticky, and call it good.

I didn't expect to find any newer Prizm in the boxes, so I was kind of surprised to come across this lone 2013-14 Blue, White, and Red Wave. I sure would have liked to have found more of these, but one was better than nothing.

After I got done going through the basketball boxes, I moved on to the baseball, of which there was only one box of. Like 99% of it ended up being stuff from the last year or two, so that was a little disappointing, but I did manage to find this 2000 Pacific Paramount Fielder's choice. I had never seen one of these in person before, so it was pretty cool to finally get one. Granted, I would have liked to have found someone other than Sammy Sosa, but whaddya gonna do.

That's it for this installment, stay tuned for the final part, which might be up as early as tomorrow.


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