where in the world is my wallet card? - local card shop edition

i paid a visit to the newest local card shop in the twin cities recently, and obviously, wallet card was along for the ride.  we got there a bit early...

the shop has been open for a little over a year now, and it's owners are a couple of regulars at the monthly card shows.  

once i got inside on this particular day, i was drawn to some of the bargain vintage - fifty cents a pop - and picked up a 1954 bowman fred baczewski card

i am not collecting this set, nor am i a reds collector, but the lack of the facsimile autograph, coupled with the mention of mickey mantle on the back of a card from 1954

was enough to get me to bite.

there were some 1956 topps cards for only slightly more, and i picked up a couple for the double play binder - tommy carroll

and pete runnels

funny that pete is enough of a nickname that it needed to be in quotation marks.

back to the cheap vintage, here's a 1955 bowman bob talbot

because i couldn't leave it there for fifty cents.

this is not a 1955 bowman card

but rather a 2001 bowman rookie reprint of don zimmer.  yes, there were modern singles to be had at the shop, too.

oddball stuff was in strong supply as well, as i picked up a few cards from the 1977-84 renata gallaso releases.  this particular card is from the 1983 set featuring the 1933 all-stars (the very first all-stars).  it's the national league team card

and it features a couple of dodgers - coach max carey and tony cuccinello.  here's the back

with connie mack and john mcgraw 'choosing sides'.

there was also a box of autographed cards going for fifty cents apiece, and i couldn't leave this 2006 grandstand st. lucie mets card of their trainer behind

although i won't be keeping it.

i will hold on to this 2003 grandstand vero beach dodgers card of willie aybar, though.

this wasn't all that i came away with from the shop - some of you will benefit from the haul by way of trade packages.  as for the shop itself, there's lots of good stuff there, and if you visit the twin cities i encourage you to check it out!

yes, the cards celebrate

or, perhaps more accurately, my card collection celebrates when i receive trade packages in the mail such as the one reader john sent not quite a couple of months ago.

he knocked quite a few cards off of my 1965 topps want list, like this world series card

as well as the game 6 recap card featuring the yanks' jim bouton

love those stirrups.

john also included bouton's base card

plus another yankee-ish card, the american league batting leaders featuring tony o, brooks robinson, and elston howard

that's card number 2 in the set.

here's the 1965 american league mvp and future dodger, zoilo versalles

there was a multi-player rookie card (hello sandy alomar, sr)

a bob chance rookie cup card

with him wearing a cleveland indians jersey as a washington senator

here's the angel manager bill rigney

i believe the halos became the california angels in 1965, with rigney staying on as manager into the 1969 season.  he later led the twins to the postseason in 1970.

here's the back of jim king's card

i'm showing it because i like the backs of 1965 topps cards, and this one also mentions double plays.  it's not a double play card, but it gets bonus points for a dp mention, even if it's related to outfield double plays.

john took a shot at my 2001 topps heritage want list, too.  he sent along dodgers darren dreifort

and chan ho park

along with some other cards, including some teams that weren't represented in the 1952 topps set

of course, the red sox and giants were in the '52 set, and the twins were the senators back then.  i just didn't take the time to separate the scan.  also, dig on cristian guzman's facsimile signature.

last, but not least, john included one of the unnumbered checklists.

thanks for the trade john - i hope we can do it again sometime!

my 1961 topps sampler set

this will be the last of my sampler set posts.  you'll just have to trust me that i put together samplers (at least one card for each team, subset, color combo, etc) for the 1962-69 topps sets.  this is what i had for 1961 topps.

if you're keeping track, the 1961 set has league leaders, rookie cups, rookie stars, team cards, managers, combos, world series highlights, checklists, baseball thrills, mvp's, and sporting news all-stars.  it also featured a couple of new teams - the twins and angels - to bring the total to 18.  here's the backs of the second sheet from my sampler

the team card is oriented properly, topps just printed the backs upside down. that's how i see it, anyway.

one of my favorite cards in the set is dick schofield's, and one card that i really wanted when i started this endeavor about 12 years ago was the lou gehrig baseball thrills card.  i settled for the rogers hornsby one, then picked up the chesbro and the cadore/oeschger later.  the latter card stays in my collection, since it features the brooklyn robins' pitcher (cadore) who threw 26 innings on may 1, 1920. here are all the dodgers from the 1961 set.

 

one of which looks more like a phillie.

i've thought a bit about it, and i'll probably go find a gehrig baseball thrills for my collection, even though i've disassembled the sampler.  if i applied reason to my collection, i would have stopped collecting a long time ago.

my 1960 topps sampler set

i haven't addressed my sampler sets for a while - in fact, i stopped with the 1959 set.  the idea here was that i would never complete a full set of any of the topps releases prior to 1970, so why not pick up a card from each team and each subset to create a sampler.  i've since decided to pare down the collection a bit, so i'm pulling the non-dodger cards.

before i do, however, i'm documenting the full sampler for posterity.  here's what i had for the 1960 set.

full disclosure: i used to have a 1960 topps al kaline card in here, but i used that as part of my entry into the traveling box put together by bad wax.  i saw the box a couple of times, and i assume that it is now defunct, especially since bad wax's site is no longer maintained.  it would be nice to know for sure, though.

you'll notice that the higher the numbers got, the fewer non-dodgers i picked up.

a couple of other things to note - the subsets in this set were team cards, rookie stars, combo cards, mangers, topps all-star rookies, world series recap, coaches, and all-star cards.  also, the manager cards are there to remind us that the 1960 set is not a completely horizontal set.

i scanned the back of one of the pages, and you can see that my set includes both white and gray backs

once i removed all of the non-dodger cards, this is what the pages looked like

that's what i consider the dodger team set to look like.  i decided to keep all 7 world series cards, including games 5 and 6 that are mostly white sox centric. the game 5 card features maury wills, so that was a no-brainer, and it seemed odd to only leave out one card from the subset.  on that second to last page, it's easy to see that it is pitching coach joe becker getting doused with booze on the celebratory card thanks to the coaches card being close by.

i'm not sure if i will bother to scan and display my samplers from 1961-1969.  they are larger in general due to the expansion of the leagues.  maybe i'll just show some selected cards from different teams and the different subsets instead.  stay tuned.