A Giant Project: Update #1

I have been working hard over the past two weeks to find a few more cards from the 1964 Topps Giants set that I am taking on as my first project of 2021.  I posted five cards the other week when I introduced the project, which included Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Warren Spahn, and Joe Torre.  This week, I have five more cards to cross off the checklist.

Here are my newest additions.  I will start out with the two Hall of Famers I found.  

I found the Al Kaline card on Ebay in an auction.  I am still amazed at how little these cards cost in comparison to the regular 1964 Topps cards.  This card was less than $10.  

This is a mid-career card for Kaline.  I did not realize that he never played a Minor League game until I looked up the batting title listed on the back of this card.  I thought maybe as a 20 year old he had led the league during his rookie season, but it turned out to be his third year.  Kaline played 22 years in the Majors, but retired before he was 40. 

The second Hall of Famer I found the past two weeks is Giants first baseman Orlando Cepeda.  

I have a few other Orlando Cepeda cards, but most of them are from his time with the Cardinals in the late 1960s.  I like this posed photo with the shot over his shoulder.  

The back of the card has a typo in his stat line from his rookie year.  The card states that Cepeda had 38 triples his rookie year, but that should have read doubles.  "Cha Cha" does not seem like the type of player who hit a lot of triples.  Looking on Baseball-Reference, he had a total of 27 in 17 years.  

Last three cards.  A little quicker.  All three of these players would be greats of the era.  They were all All-Star caliber players at some point in their careers, but just not enough to be Hall of Famers.  

I always think about Rocky Colavito as an Indian or Tiger, but apparently he played one season with the Kansas City A's.  He was an American League All-Star his only season in Kansas City hitting more than 30 home runs and driving in more than 100.  I learned something new.  

He hit four home runs in a game before Mark Whiten.  

I did not know much about Jim Gentile before buying this card.  I have an old Cadaco disc of him from the All-Star Baseball Game.  That's most of my exposure to his career.  Gentile had a short career, but had some great seasons, especially early in his career with the Orioles.  In 1961, he hit 46 home runs, drove in 141 runs, and had a .646 slugging percentage.  If it were not for Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, he would have likely won the MVP Award that season.  

The centering on the card is off on this card.  On the front scan, you can see the card is off left to right.   On the back, the print looks a crooked.  This was a really cheap card, so I might upgrade to a better copy if I can find it cheap enough.  Not a high priority, but still will put it on my list of things to do.  

Last card.  

Callison was a good player for the Phillies during the 1960s.  One of the eras "What if...." players.  He was an athletic outfielder from Oklahoma with some pop in his bat, so he naturally got branded the "next Mickey Mantle".  Callison was an extra base machine, hit his fair share of home runs, but also lots of doubles and triples.  According to the Phillies people on the internet, he was also about the only player on the 1964 team who did not completely tank during the last few weeks of the season.  Leg injuries wrecked his career along with vision problems.  

The back describes his home run in the 1964 All-Star Game off of Red Sox pitcher Dick Radatz, which was Callison's defining moment in the Majors.  

My updated checklist.  Ten cards down, fifty to go.  

1 Gary Peters
2 Ken Johnson
3 Sandy Koufax SP
4 Bob Bailey
5 Milt Pappas
6 Ron Hunt
7 Whitey Ford
8 Roy McMillan
9 Rocky Colavito
10 Jim Bunning
11 Roberto Clemente
12 Al Kaline
13 Nellie Fox
14 Tony Gonzalez
15 Jim Gentile
16 Dean Chance
17 Dick Ellsworth
18 Jim Fregosi
19 Dick Groat
20 Chuck Hinton
21 Elston Howard
22 Dick Farrell
23 Albie Pearson
24 Frank Howard
25 Mickey Mantle
26 Joe Torre
27 Ed Brinkman
28 Bob Friend SP
29 Frank Robinson
30 Bill Freehan
31 Warren Spahn
32 Camilo Pascual
33 Pete Ward
34 Jim Maloney
35 Dave Wickersham
36 Johnny Callison
37 Juan Marichal
38 Harmon Killebrew
39 Luis Aparicio
40 Dick Radatz
41 Bob Gibson
42 Dick Stuart SP
43 Tommy Davis
44 Tony Oliva
45 Wayne Causey SP
46 Max Alvis
47 Galen Cisco SP
48 Carl Yastrzemski
49 Hank Aaron
50 Brooks Robinson
51 Willie Mays SP
52 Billy Williams
53 Juan Pizarro
54 Leon Wagner
55 Orlando Cepeda
56 Vada Pinson
57 Ken Boyer
58 Ron Santo
59 Johnny Romano
60 Bill Skowron SP

A 10 Minute Break

It's the end of the school year, and there was so much to do last week.  The hardest part was going into my classroom, packing up my stuff for the end of the year, and also having to pack up all of my students' materials.  Luckily, I had taken down most of the things that were hanging on the walls of my room, and my students have bins with the majority of their materials inside.  Made it a little easier to organize.  No desks. 

Yes, my classroom was in a trailer this year. 

This afternoon I am finishing up my report cards, and doing all sorts of paperwork.  I am not a huge fan of paperwork, but everyone has to do it.  I am jumping through the hoop, but needed to take a few minutes to do something else.

Let me share a few cards that I picked up this week.  Small additions, but happy with each of these cards. 

 My first card is a Bowman's Best autographed card of Yankees prospect T.J. Sikkema.  He's one of my sleeper prospects.  I have never seen him pitch in person, but he played at Mizzou in college and had an ERA under 2 pitching in the SEC his junior year.  That's really good, and it's in a really tough college league.  The Yankees picked him at the end of the first round last year, and he made four starts in A Ball before the end of the summer.  His ERA was under 1 in A Ball, and he averaged more than a strikeout an inning. 

This was a $3 card. 

Next. 

I like this Bowman card of White Sox prospect Andrew Vaughn.  The 1989 Bowman design caught my eye.  I saw him play while he was in college at Cal.  Vaughn played at least one year for USA Baseball, maybe it was two.  The scratches are on the sleeve.  

Next.  

I have already posted a few Brandon Lowe cards in the last two or three weeks.  This is from Topps Tribute.  Nice card, thick card stock.  

Next.  

I was not a big fan of Will Clark back in the 1980s, but Clark ended up on the Cardinals at the end of his career.  He played great.  The Cardinals made it to the National League Championship Series that season.  I have long since forgiven Will for being upset about Jose Oquendo kicking him in the crotch for sliding hard into second base.  

Anyway, this is a really nice card.  I am not collecting all of the 1985 Topps reprints, but I am trying to find most of the players connected to the Cardinals or Durham Bulls.  

Last card.   

At times, I am bothered by the mash-up of older players and modern baseball cards.  Al Kaline is well done on this Triple Threads card.  This was in the package with the Will Clark card.  I always appreciate a free baseball card, especially one this nice.  

Just Disappointed

We've have all seen pictures on the internet of people sitting in the card aisle of their local Target or Wal-Mart feeling up packs of cards, sticking them on scales, or sitting on the floor shuffling through the product.  It's a sad sight to see.....

is this guy barefoot?  Ugh.

In my cozy little corner of suburban Raleigh I do occasionally dabble in the retail card aisle of my local Target store.  The Wal-Mart near my house has the worst retail card aisle in the history of retail card aisles.  My retail purchases tend to be small quantities of products that I am not going to put together as a set, or sometimes something that I am not sure about collecting so I dabble first with some retail.

My wife recently sent me to Target to run a quick errand, so after completing the shopping list I walked through the card aisle and picked up a pick of Donruss Optic.  It's a product that I am not going to buy a box of, but I like the looks of some of the cards.  If Panini were a licensed card manufacture I would probably be more willing....

So, I quickly grabbed two packs and checked out.  I went out to my car, opened the first pack, and flipped through the cards.  Pretty nice stuff.  Then I went to open the second pack and.......

I really didn't have to do much to open the pack of cards.  The top of the pack was slit open with a knife, or a razor.  I am not sure how I missed it in Target, probably in too big of hurry, but I felt completely disappointed.  

First off, I ended up getting a couple of nice Cardinals cards out of the packs.  

I pulled two Magnueris Sierra cards.  The colored parallel actually came out of the pack that was cut open, the white base card came out of the sealed pack.  I also ended up with a nice looking Yadier Molina card.....

If only Panini would only make cards of catchers wearing their catchers gear........

Which brings me back to the whole retail pack searching thing.  I know many adults who go into places like Target and Wal-Mart, pick up some retail packs randomly from the card aisle, and open them after buying them.  Sometimes they are really happy, sometimes they are not.   I once had a great blaster box of retail cards.....

I will never forget pulling this card out of a pack at the same Target store where I bought my two packs of Donruss Optic.  You know who else buys a lot of retail packs?  Kids.  I work with kids.  I have given away packs of retail baseball cards in my class.  I have had kids pull really good cards out of packs.  One of my best ever was a 2015 Jeter photo variation card.....

That's a tough pull right there and it made the kids day.  Guess what happened later that week?  Same kid walks into my room with a stack of cards that he and his mom picked up at Wal-Mart.  We sat down before school, flipped through the stack and talked about what cards he liked and what players were his favorites.

More recently, I had a students pull a Luis Gonzalez autograph out of a repack box I had bought and given the packs away.  Nice looking card numbered out of 25.....

After researching Luis Gonzalez, the student is a Yankees fan, they decided that they liked the idea of pulling an autograph, just not Luis Gonzalez.  I brought in a few Yankees autographs and swapped them out for Luis.

I have been on this soapbox before, but there are many adult collectors and not many kid collectors.  It would be nice to attract my kids into baseball card collecting, but having people pack search and wreck the chances of a kid getting a nice card out of a retail pack is reprehensible.

How much does a Luis Gonzalez autograph cost?  Not enough for grown up to sit on the floor of Target and feel up a bunch of packs of cards for an hour.  Just disappointed.

The Greatest Box of Retail Ever

So, I ventured into the world of retail baseball card last week.  I was having an extremely busy week and needed a little mental diversion for a few minutes.  What better diversion is there from the stresses of work than opening up a few packs of baseball cards?  I cannot think of one, so I picked up a blaster box of Topps Heritage High Numbers at my local Target.

I had seen a few Hobby boxes opened the previous week at a card show in Raleigh and seen some nice pulls, nothing to write home about, but solid pulls.  I was honestly hoping for a copy of the Bryant or Jung Ho Kang rookie card.  So, I unwrapped my box and started opening packs.  I got down to the final three packs in the blaster when I stumbled across both the Bryant and Kang rookie cards in the same pack......

I was honestly very happy with my blaster the moment that I saw these two cards.  Not to say that I have no expectations for a retail box, but the bar is not exactly high.  I understand that the odds of pulling good cards is steeper.  Completely understand and I know when I am beating the odds.  Which reminds me, I did not tell you what came out of the last two packs.  Second to last pack netted me this Kris Bryant Bazooka Mini.....

This was a great retail pull.  The Bazooka minis have long odds in retail packs of Heritage High Numbers, but it's not a completely impossible pull.  The Bryant card sells for around $40 on Ebay, so combined with the rookie cards, I had more than made up the $19.99 I spent on my blaster.  But, then there was one pack left.  Just when I thought the box could not get any better......

I was stunned.  I have not pulled many cards this cool from Hobby Heritage boxes over the last fifteen years the product has been around.  I did pull a Bonds autograph numbered to 25 in 2001, but this might be second on my list.  Easily the best retail box I have ever opened.  I have seen several other collectors have some good luck on Heritage High Number retail boxes, which makes me consider going out and getting another box, but I think I will not press my luck.  No whammies.

2012 Topps Tier One Al Kaline Autograph

I try to save my Ebay Bucks away for a raining day.  Sometime when I see a card that would look good in the collection, but does not necessarily fit the card budget at the moment.  I've done well with trading the past couple of weeks and spent little when I've need to buy, so the Bucks have been sitting on the sidelines.   Last week I received a use or lose it email from Ebay, so I decided to find the best possible card to use my bucks on and came up with:  

This Al Kaline Topps Tier One Autograph cost just enough that I ended up spending a whopping fifteen cents out of my own PayPal account for this card.  I am not huge on many of Ebay's policies and have noticed many card collectors fleeing the site in recent years for sites like Check Out My Cards, or more recently the Collector's Revolution.  However, I do really enjoy the Ebay bucks program which offers a small rebate back on purchases made on the site.  Ebay issues a certificate quarterly which I like to think about as basically earning a free card, or a discounted card every once in awhile.  

As far as the card goes, Tier One was a really nice product last year and I already have several of the autographs from the set in my collection.  Adding this Kaline autograph is a really nice late addition.  He's a Hall of Famer with a really nice clean signature.  Especially when it's on the card and not on a sticker.  

2010 Topps Sterling Al Kaline Triple Bat Card

I am spending some time today to work on my collection.  I have cards to put away, cards to trade, cards to sell, and various other errands dealing with my cards.  I figured before I got into the real work of the day I would post I card I received in a small trade last week.

2010 Topps Sterling Al Kaline Triple Bat Card

I have added several Topps Sterling pieces during the past year and also think they are pretty sharp looking cards for the most part.  The checklist tends to be filled with older players, usually Hall of Famers, and and the designs of the cards tend to be very nice.  The Topps Sterling set has sticker autographs, but the relics cards are awesome.  I actually already own another copy of this card, but couldn't turn down another one for helping to fill out a 2008 Topps set.  I am hoping to find the six piece relic of Kaline from this set, but in the meantime I happy owning two of this great looking card.  

30 Year Top 50: 1998 Upper Deck Retro

#29- Today, the countdown continues with a trendsetting set of the late 90s.  Several card companies had dabbled with bringing Hall of Famers from the 50s, 60s, and 70s to modern cardboard, but this set kicked off something special that would allow modern collectors access to cards of the previous generations stars.  Before I start breaking down the set I just wanted to mention the packaging.  The boxes for these cards were old school metal lunch boxes.  In my several moves since 1998, I do not have mine anymore, but I encourage you to look around and find one.  Really cool.

1998 Upper Deck Retro Al Kaline

Upper Deck always had some good photography and decent designs with their cards.  The Upper Deck Retro set isn't the flashiest or shiniest designed card set they've assembled, but I like the basic design given the premise of this set being a "retro" set.  The photographs are not all up to the usual Upper Deck standards.  For example, I have always hated the Lou Brock card in this set.  Upper Deck has made hundreds of Lou Brock cards with a decent photo.  Why is he in a celebrity softball game or something with a goofy white hat?  

1998 Upper Deck Retro Lou Brock

The set also has some cool inserts and great autographs.  The autographs are all on card, but are condition sensitive.  Similar to the Upper Deck Sweet Spot autographs, the Retro autographs have a slight tendency to fade.  I own two autographs from this set and unfortunately both are on there way downhill.  The first, Nolan Ryan, isn't bad since I can find other autographed cards.

1998 Upper Deck Retro Nolan Ryan Autograph

More unfortunate is the condition of my second autograph from the set which belongs to Kirby Puckett.  Puckett was not a huge signer and has few autographs out on the secondary market.  He also passed away in 2006 after being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  

1998 Upper Deck Retro Kirby Puckett Autograph

Most Puckett autographs from this set have some degree of fading which is quite sad.  Beyond the Ryan and Puckett there are actually a lot of great autographs in this card set.  Many of the autographs can be found in other products, but the condition sensitivity makes them a great collecting challenge.  

Like the 1998 Upper Deck Retro Set?  Not in my Top 50 is the 2001 Upper Deck 70s set.  This set is filled with big hair and polyester.  The base cards have a similar simple design like the Upper Deck Retro set, but photography might be a little bit better.  There are also fewer autographs, but these are still great cards worth looking into for your collection.  

2001 Upper Deck 70s Andre Dawson

I was thinking of putting a Bellbottoms insert card in this space, but I am going to go with this Disco Dandies set.  The inserts are one of the coolest parts of the Upper Deck 70s set and can all be found generally for under five dollars.  

2001 Upper Deck 70s Disco Era Dandies Tom Seaver

There are autographs in this set, but the list is short and the relics checklist is much longer.  There are some cool relics out there though.  

2001 Upper Deck 70s Eddie Murray Bat 

A Case Break, A Trade, and A Purchase

I have four pretty sweet cards to show off tonight.  I am going to start with a case break of Topps Museum Collection that I bought into while I was out of town the past few days.  I got my beloved Cardinals and Rays and ended up with a good array of base cards, but more importantly, I got two Cardinals hits.  The first is a Jon Jay Signature Swatches.  The card has two pieces of Jay's uni and an autograph.  There is a print run of 250 cards, which is giant by today's standards, but still a good card.  My second card is a Matt Holliday Primary Patches quad relic with a red and blue patch.  It's a nice addition to my Holliday collection and definitely my good card from this case break.  I know that Holliday has an autograph in Museum collection that I will be on the look out for along with an Allen Craig autograph.

2012 Topps Museum Collection Jon Jay Signature Swatches Autograph 13/250

 2012 Topps Museum Collection Matt Holliday Primary Pieces Matt Holliday Quad Jersey/Patch 81/99

My next card came to me in a trade and I was really excited to land this card.  This card is from the 2000 Fleer Greats of the Game set.  The first two years of this set, 1999 and 2000, were the best two years in my opinion with the 2000 being slightly better.  The 1999 cards featured a picture of an SI cover with a small white rectangle in the bottom corner where the player signed on the card.  I like the 2000 version better because of the empty space.  Good, clean pictures with a simple frame and the autograph.  Great looking cards.  This one features Al Kaline.  Great card, great 'graph, and a definite keeper.  

Last card tonight is a purchase.  I will always try trading for a card before I buy, but I found a good value on this card from the 2011 Topps Update set.  The card is a Cliff Lee autographed patch card numbered 22/25.  I am sure that it will bring me something good back.