who wants to deal for vintage?

despite acquiring and posting some pretty nice vintage stuff lately (here's a 1953 bowman color billy herman card that i picked up on the cheap),

i am still in need of quite a bit.  and, since i not too long ago pared down my sampler vintage topps sets to just dodger team sets, i've got a lot of spare vintage.  so, why not make a trade?

now, i realize that dodger cards from the 1950's sometimes command a pretty penny. i'm not suggesting that you trade me a 1952 topps roy campanella card for a 1954 bowman fred baczewski, but you are certainly welcome to if you'd like.  what i'm offering is a minimum of five-for-1 vintage deal.  my top priority here would be the 1955 topps card that i'm missing.

that would be ed roebuck, because i've recently obtained the joe black,

clem labine,

and gil hodges

cards from the set.

i find it interesting that the cartoon on the back of hodges' card

is pretty much the same as the one on the back of jackie robinson's 1953 topps card - the subject, anyway.  i guess topps figured that kids would forget that nugget of information within a couple years' time.

i found the hodges online, and picked up the black and labine cards at the card show i went to recently.  when i told the dealer i was working on a 1955 topps dodger team set, he said 'hey - just like rocky.  you know, the kid from the movie 'mask''.  i did not know, as i had not seen that movie.  a quick check of imdb does indeed show that the character was working on a '55 topps dodger team set, and while i need ed roebuck to complete the set, he needed rube walker.

anyway, i've updated my 1950's want list, and added it below.  i've also updated my nefarious 9 list on the sidebar.  even though there are some decidedly modern cards on the nefarious 9, i'm willing to trade vintage for them - say a minimum of 3-for-1 for the non-vintage nefarious 9 needs.

here's how it works.  you find one of the cards listed below from your collection, on ebay, comc, sportlots, or uncle bill's attic and let me know that you'd like to trade.  i'll send you a minimum of five cards from the 1950's (or 1960's if you prefer) in exchange. we can work out specific teams or cards if you prefer.  again, if you have a high-dollar card from my list, the bounty would be higher.  condition is not too much of an issue, although the labine above is probably as bad as i'd want to go on some of these cards.

here's the list of cards i need from the 1950's:

1950 bowman - 21 reese, 22 robinson, 23 newcombe, 58 furillo, 59 branca, 75 campanella, 76 barney, 77 snider, 112 hodges, 113 hermanski, 166 hatton, 167 roe, 194 cox, 222 morgan, 223 russell, 224 banta

1951 bowman - 7 hodges, 31 campanella, 32 snider, 56 branca, 80 reese, 117 miksis, 118 roe, 189 palica, 190 hatton, 260 erskine, 299 king

1951 topps red and blue backs - blue 42 edwards, blue 48 cox, red 16 roe, red 38 snider

1952 bowman - 8 reese, 44 campanella, 128 newcombe, 224 schmitz, 240 loes

1952 topps - 1 pafko, 20 loes, 36 hodges, 51 russell, 66 roe, 188 podbielan, 198 haugstad, 250 erskine, 273 palica, 314 campanella, 319 walker, 320 rutherford, 321 black, 326 shuba, 333 reese, 342 labine, 355 morgan, 365 lavagetto, 377 dressen, 389 wade, 390 nelson, 394 herman, 395 pitler, 396 williams

1953 bowman black & white - 26 roe, 52 branca, 60 cox

1953 bowman color - 14 loes, 46 campanella, 117 snider, 124 dressen, 129 meyer, 145 shuba

1953 topps - 76 reese, 134 walker, 255 howell, 258 gilliam, 263 podres, 272 antonello

1954 bowman - 10 erskine, 58 reese, 90 campanella, 122 furillo, 138 hodges, 154 newcombe, 170 snider, 186 meyer, 202 shuba, 218 roe

1955 topps - 195 roebuck

and you can see a sampling of the cards available for trade by checking out these posts and looking at the non-dodgers in them.  here are some other cards from 1953 and 1954 that would be available as well.

what say you? can you help a blogger out?

my 1953 topps set sampler

about 10 years ago, i went about the task of completing a sampler set for every topps flagship set from 1952 through 1977, excluding the 1970 set which i was working on fully completing. since then, i have completed the 1973, 1974, 1976, and 1977 sets, and i am currently working on 1971 and will soon have want lists up for 1972 and 1975.  i will also put a want list up for 1957 and 1965.  the other samplers are being recorded here for posterity before i strip them for dodger parts.

this is the second installment in this 'sampler' series - 1953 topps.   a fully painted set, there are some nice looking cards in this set.  the sampler consists of (at least) one card from each team - the a's, braves, browns, cardinals, cubs, dodgers, giants, indians, phillies, pirates, red sox, reds, senators, tigers, white sox, and yankees.  there were no subsets, and the only coloring variation was black box for national leaguers, and red box for american leaguers.  i didn't bother to pay attention to positions, so i don't have a manager card here.  there is a coach, though (john riddle).  i only specifically worried about those cards when there was a specific subset that was different from the rest of the set, except for 1976 when the positions dictated the small player graphic on the front of the card.

enough of that - here are the cards.

my approach to filling these samplers was to obtain cards of former/future dodgers and players that i had actually heard of.  valo and lund were dodgers, and i knew who joe nuxhall and hal newhouser and, of course, ralph kiner were.

here's a sampling of the backs. 

thankfully all oriented in the same direction.  there is one other variation there - some cards have the personal data text in black, some in white.  i couldn't care less about that sort of variation here.

in the end, my sampler set contained 31 cards - that's 11% of the 274 card set.  former dodger don lund's card is number 277 in the set, but there were a few numbers that were never released.

documenting my 1952 topps sampler set before it's gone

while i like the idea of frankensets - serial numbered frankensets; mini card frankensets; team specific frankensets; dime box goodness frankensets - i am not working on any.  i did, however, put together some sampler sets about 10 years ago.

you see, i started collecting in 1978 as a set collector.  from that time until 2010, i completed a topps flagship set each year, along with fleer and donruss from 1981 through 1987.  i also started working on a 1970 topps set sometime in the 1980's (and completed it about 7 or 8 years ago).  i had no illusions of completing the flagship sets dating back to 1952, and was content to have some dodgers and a few other cards from those other years.

then, sometime around 2003, i had the idea to build sampler sets for all the years that i would not complete as a way to appease the set collector in me.  a sampler set would include at least one card from each team featured in the set, as well as at least one card from every subset - league leaders, combo cards, team cards, etc - as well as one card from each color (think of the 1954, 1958, and 1959 sets) or orientation (horizontal cards in a mostly vertical set, like 1952).  i put together a spreadsheet for every set from 1952 through 1969, along with 1971 through 1977, and hit the vintage bargain bins at the local card shows and bought vintage lots on ebay.  i wound up with some nice cards and completed the sampler sets in fairly short order.

in more recent years, i have completed the full sets from 1973, 1974, 1976, and 1977.  i am (somewhat) actively working on a 1971 set. and, i have just decided to complete the 1972 and 1975 sets (i was torn on the 1975 set since it is my least favorite from the decade, but not completing it would leave a large gap in my set collection).  want lists for those two sets will be up soon.

as for the other years, i have decided to break my sampler sets and only keep the dodgers from those years - it has to do with paring the collection and all - although i might hold on to the extra 1957 and 1965 cards (the only sets from those decades that i would ever try to complete).  so, i figured i should show off the sampler sets before dismantling them.

in 1952, there weren't any subsets (but there were horizontal cards) - just player cards - and there were 16 teams in the big leagues - the browns, red sox, white sox, indians, tigers, yankees, a's, senators, braves, cubs, reds, dodgers, phillies, pirates, cardinals, and giants.  without further ado, here is my 1952 topps sampler set.

so, 24 total cards, including two horizontal ones.  that is one card from each team except the white sox (2), red sox (2), and dodgers (7).  this represents less than 10% of the set, and only about 20% of the dodger team set.  i still have some work to do, even to finish off the low-number team set.

the backs have some variations represented in the sampler, too.

only one black back, but a few white backs.  no high numbers, though, which is a bit of a regret.  at least the backs are all oriented the same way.

now the enterprising young reader in you might be wondering what i am going to do with all the non-dodger goodness you have just seen.  well, i'll post later tonight about an upcoming contest in which you could win one of the 1952 topps cards from this post.  stay tuned...

the curious case of satchel paige

i saw the benjamin button movie last week. not too bad, although a tad long for my tastes. i was thinking about age a lot afterwards, which brought me to good ol' satchel paige.

estimated to have been born in 1906, satchel was 42 years young in 1948 when he debuted in the major leagues. as a "rookie", he went 6-1 for the indians with a 2.48 era. he joined the browns after being released by the indians and spending a year barnstorming, and promptly won 12 games for them in 1952. paige was released by the browns after the 1953 season, when he was around 47 years old.

in 1965, charlie finley signed the approximately 59 year old paige to a one-game contract. paige started against the red sox and pitched 3 scoreless innings, allowing only one hit (to carl yastrzemski).

after considering age and the career of mr. paige, i think i will 'jangle' more often.