Buccaneer Brothers O' 1954

 Here is a vintage card that has had a rough life upon the high seas of cardboard collecting. Before I show it here is a brief bit of it's story. I got it at auction from Sportlots for $1.75 plus $2.80 shipping. If the overall poor to good condition wasn't bad enough there was one annoyance that I managed to take care of. It took some patience lots of determination and accepting that there would be a little more damage in the end, but I think I kept the additional damage to a minimum. 

I should have taken a "before" scan to show what it was but I didn't. There is still a bit of debris marks in the final scan that shows where it was. For some reason a previous owner of the card, could have been the seller, or an owner before them, had attached some black Velcro, photo album sticker attachment or fuzzy padded non-skid "foot" felt-like thing to the back of the card covering the card number. It was about 1/2" by 3/4" rectangular with rounded corners. Using a hair dryer and tweezers, lots of patience and a whole heck of a lot of determination I managed to get the thing off the card. It wasn't easy and took many short hair dryer sessions and a little minor non-scar finger burning. I also tried using the microwave with short 10 seconds or less sessions but that didn't seem to do anything. With older cards such as this one since there is no foil, or plastic coating that "nuking" the card won't melt or burn or short out your microwave. The idea to get the glue or "gum" hot enough to loosen via a microwave isn't too crazy, but it takes a lot of heat. You need to make sure the card won't get burned or materials in it melt or explode. I was dealing with some paper loss to begin with and trying to pull that sucker off w/out heating the "glue" would have created much more paper loss. Like I said lots and lots of determination and patience. 

It was uglier than "Butt-Ugly" and really annoyed me because there had been no mention that any sort of "sticker" was attached to the back of the card in the auction description. As with a majority of  Sportlots listings there we no real mention of the condition of the back. I often just have to take it on faith, that there is little to no paper loss on low conditioned cards. There was no photo of the back either, yes I know that probably should have kept me from bidding on it, but I didn't have a copy of this card and I wanted it because it was a two player card and those can be hard to find sometimes.

1954 Topps Baseball 139 Ed & John O'Brian Pittsburgh Pirates

Those black marks on the back just under and partly over the card number on the left is where that "pad" sticker was. Some of the paper there just under the card number and where the baseball "stitching" is is the location of some just hanging on there paper. I could have lost a good portion of the card number and the "Home" and "Born" info if I had tried removing the thing just buy pulling straight off with no attempt at melting the adhesive from the sticker pad.

Say Hey Hey Willie

I got a great deal on an excellent card in a Sportlots auction. Not sure if it is a true White Whale or not. It is a vintage card of a Super Star of the game. I am a little surprised I didn't have to fight tooth and nail for it. It is that classic 1959 Topps Baseball design, based on the 1958 Topps Football. When I first started looking back to vintage cards before my time I discovered the Baseball version first I think. Well whichever I found first I like the overall design. I don't remember how old I was when I first saw the design but I think I was kind of young and it may have taken me a year or two to realize that they are in fact the same design. OK so the football is oval and the baseball is a circle so what?

Of course it isn't in the greatest of shapes but it is good 'nuff for my collection. So the financial damages were $15.50 plus $3.95 shipping. Not bad. The low starting bid of $15 was what drew me to the auction. I think I put $25 as my max bid, maybe just $20 due to lower condition. For some cards I don't mind well rounded super soft corners.

1959 Topps Baseball: 50 Willie Mays Giants

Fearsome Foursome Fan Faves

For collectors of vintage cards this design is an homage to the 1966 Topps Football design, which in turn is sort of an homage to the 1955 Bowman Baseball design. The most prominent feature is the wood grain look with the television screen image. In 2005 Topps produced an All-Time Fans Favorites Football set (although the TradingCardDataBase lists these as being 2004) The All-Time Fans Favorites set is similar to the Topps Archives type sets where they use older and vintage card designs for newer cards. Most of the designs from this set appear to be from the 1980s and late 1970s.

Here is a 4 card subset from that set the features the best players from my fave (and by fave I mean tied for number one) NFL team the Los Angeles Rams recently returned from being in St. Louis for 20 years (1995-2015). These four players individually had impressive careers primarily played for the Rams together they were known as the FEARSOME FOURSOME. OK one of a few defensive lines that went by that name, but the Rams were perhaps the most widely known. The Giants, Lions and Chargers have also had that nickname applied to their defensive line around the 1950s to 1970s era.

The Rams Fearsome Foursome were: Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy, Merlin Olsen and Rosey Grier. In my book they are the FEARSOME FOURSOME of note.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Football - 19 Deacon Jones

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Football - 58 Lamar Lundy

Dag-nab-it I thought I had straightened/rotated this back image

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Football - 68 Merlin Olsen

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Football - 78 Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier

For Reference:

 1955 Bowman Baseball

 1955 Bowman Baseball: 104 Bob Porterfield Washington Senators

1966 Topps Football

1966 Topps Football - 32 Cookie Gilchrist Denver Broncos

Sugar Daddy 1953 Comic Characters

Remember when you were a little kid and you looked forward to getting the Sunday edition of the newspaper so you could read the full color comic section? Back the early 1950s comic strips were super popular more so it seems than they are now days with the Anime comics and graphic novels and computerized shows on the internet and on television. In 1953 a company called James O. Welch Co. produced a set of trading cards that were inserted into the Sugar Daddy candy wrappers. There were 50 cards in all. Each with a comic character from one of the popular comic strips of the day. The character name was not included instead there were a series of blank boxes, like a crossword puzzle, that collector's were encouraged to fill out the name. When you collected 25 different cards you were to send in the cards, filled out with your guesses of the character's names and you would win a giant sized Sugar Daddy lollipop candy on a stick.

A second series was produced using the same 50 cards, except these include the name of the character and at the bottom of the card there was a coupon that kids were once again encouraged to send in. This time if you sent in 10 coupons and .25¢ you received a beanie cap or if you sent in 10 coupons and just .10¢ you received 12 beanie buttons.

Anyway you wanna see the cards. I have three cards with two different characters 2 from series 1 and 1 from series 2. Some months back I had mentioned these cards on the card forums where I mention my "mail days" so the description paragraphs I have more or less just copied from those posts to set up showing each of the cards, so there will be some repetitive information in this post.

On 05 June 2015 I got a lone card Non-Sport sweetie for $9.95 + $3.20 Shipping. A single nice condition 1953 R757-1 Comic Character Card "Sugar Daddy" series 29 The Dragon Lady from Terry And The Pirates. This was from a set of 50 cards where there are blank boxes that the collector was to fill in the blanks identifying the character and then after collecting 25 cards mailing the correctly identified cards in to the candy maker they would get a GIANT sized Sugar Daddy "lollipop". There is an identical second "series" R757-2 that has a "coupon" on the bottom of the card (similar to the tabs on the Red Man Tobacco cards). The coupon was for a beanie or set of beanie buttons.

On Wednesday 01 July 2015: I had a one envelope one card mail day. From Ebay for $24.99 + $3.00 shipping. Yeah I know the card was a bit expensive but I think worth it. a 1953 Sugar Daddy Comic Character Cards R757-2 #29 The Dragon Lady from Terry And The Pirates comic strip. A few weeks back I had gotten the other variant of this card the R757-1 variant for much cheaper. The first variant with the fill-in-the-blank for the name is slightly easier to find since it didn't have to be mutilated, this R757-2 variant the one with the coupon is sometimes difficult to find with the coupon intact and in such good shape as this one is in.

On 11 July 2015: From Ebay single package forget if it was a PWE or a small cardboard mailer. If I recall the contents (a single vintage non-sport card) was well protected by a cardboard sandwich and was in a penny sleeve. IN pursuit of my set build of the 1953 Sugar Daddy Comic Character Cards R757-1 (and -2 set) I got card #46 Indian Chief from the "Smitty" comic strip. The blanks are Unmarked of course as this is the way I am collecting this set. At first I was concerned that the card edges were TOO straight and it was "cut" but it seems to be the same size as my other card from this set. Oh the auction details it was a BIN purchase for $7.50 + $4.00 shipping.

I plan on getting the rest of this set both variants eventually. The sets are nearly identical 50 cards in the individual sets so that is 100 cards total. The dash one set I'll try to get unmarked and the dash two set I want with the coupon intact so both sets will take me a while to get. As usual I want to get it on the cheap.

Updated: 30 Mar 2017

My needs for the sets:
R757-1: (Fill in the blank) 2/50:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50

R757-2 (coupon version w/coupon): 1/50
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50

Card of the Whenever: Willard Sherman Rams 1956 Topps Football

CARD OF THE WHENEVER:

1956 Topps Football Willard Sherman

Here is another installment of my "Card of the Whenever" posts. Since doing a "Card of the Day" or a "Card of the Week" or any other regular schedule doesn't work for me I came up with the "CotW". I haven't been keeping track of these but this is the second one so far and the second vintage card from the 50s. The last one was baseball and the first of the series this one is football.

Wow look at that miscutting. The back is missing the bottom copyright info which you can start to make out the copyright info from the next card at the top. Back then the copyright lines didn't have a year just the TCG (if they were made by Topps), so with this card if you didn't recognize the design as being from 1956 you wouldn't know exactly which year it came from. From the info on the back with "Topps Football" around the card number you could tell it was made by Topps, and by mentioning 1955 you would know that it had to be at the earliest late 1955 seasoned collectors would just assume 1956 since '55 was the last year mentioned (and if they researched the "year" stats it would turn out to be for 1955). Wow his career high of 11 interceptions was the '55 season.

I don't recall when or where I got this card, probably from an auction at sportlots.

1956 Topps Football 66 Willard Sherman Rams

(Front and Back)

EDIT: Wow had to do some editing (adding) to make some of this make a little bit of sense. Even then some of it still doesn't make sense. So much for making blog writing a paying gig. That is what I get for drafting posts after midnight.

Card of the Whenever: 1959 Topps Baseball Roy Campanella

After coming up with an idea for my Curly W Cards blog of showing off one Washington Baseball Card and calling the feature "SeNators Singles", I have decided to do something similar here. If you read enough card blogs you will notice that some of the bloggers have a "card of the day" or a "card of the week" feature where they feature a random card from their collection on a regular basis. Some blogs ARE that feature. Due to my posting nature I won't be able to do a daily feature, and sometimes a weekly feature I get lazy so for this feature it will be "whenever".  It won't necessarily be "regular" in the sense of having a fixed schedule. It will just happen when it happens. So Deal with it. Speaking of deals...

I keep surprising myself with cards that I have failed to mention on this blog but I had mentioned in some of my very seldom "mail day" posts on various card forums. This card is one such card. It is a highly sought after card that often sells for ridiculously over inflated prices even for vintage cards and even for a Hall of Famer. I can understand high prices sometimes for vintage and super Hall of Famers. What I can not understand those ridiculous overinflated prices for a brand new card that has an autograph, on a sticker I might add, and/or a tiny piece of what is supposed to be part of a uniform they supposedly wore at one time. Sometimes for a player that hasn't even played a single professional game yet. OH come on seriously people? Yeah I am a bit of a cheap scape.

Now for the steal: Before I won this card I had seen some auctions for it go for a little less than (but not much) what I ended up paying and I missed bidding on them or was outbid cause I was low-balling a little. The price I ended up paying hits close to my upper limits for an individual card, but for a card like this I might have even gone a little over my top price. The card is in what I would say is Pretty Good to Very Good condition, the dealer had it marked as being in Fair to Good condition.

THE CARD:

1959 Topps Baseball 550 "Symbol of Courage" Roy Campanella

Here is the back:

Nope didn't get it for that little, but I would love to have. That is the price sticker that was on the penny sleeve it was in, it was also in a toploader but I scanned it "naked" without the glaring toploader. I also scanned the back raw so all the info can be read.

I received the card on Wednesday 06 March 2013 (This year? Really I thought it was last year). I got it for (hold on to your seat) $24.99 Shipping was FREE. I have seen it listed on Ebay with starting bids of twice or three times as much sometimes in much worse condition. Copies in better condition I could see paying a bit more heck I might have even gone up another 5 bucks but $30-$40 is my upper limits for a single card at this time, even vintage cards of Hall of Famers. I am glad I found one at an affordable price. It makes trying to complete these vintage sets that much easier.

This Is What Happens When You Get Traded

Wow talk about getting traded all over the place. Here is a case of a player being traded late in the season to a team that moves to another city the next season but he gets traded to a third team before playing in the new city then before he can play for team number three he gets traded again. I'm talking about this player and his card.

1954 Topps Baseball 19 John "Johnny" Joseph Lipon

1954 Topps Baseball 19 Johnny Lipon Orioles/White Sox

(Front and Back)

It wasn't until I looked at this card closely while I was scanning it when I noticed all the crazy team changing. Looking at this card one can get all sort of confused. ON the front Johnny in the main color portrait is shown in a Red Sox hat and in the small black and white action photo he is wearing an Orioles cap. The card states he is with the Orioles and shows the Orioles Team Logo. Now on the back it says he is with the White Sox. It also mentions that he was traded late "last season" (1953) and played only 7 games with the "Browns". It then goes on to say he was traded to the White Sox in February of 1954. So how does ONE player go to FOUR different teams within one year? Wait I just did some researching and it is even stranger. He never played for the White Sox before playing a single game for them he was traded to the Cincinnati Redlegs (Reds).

So to try to get things straight: John Lipon was playing with the Red Sox when he was traded to the St. Louis Browns in 1963 late in the season. The Browns would move to Baltimore and become the Orioles in 1954, however, Johnny was traded in February of 1954 to The White Sox before playing in Baltimore. The White Sox then traded him to the Cincinnati Redlegs before he even played a game for them. The card doesn't say so, but my research shows he only played one game for Cincinnati then got sent down to the minors where he played a few more years and then started coaching. So as Nick at Dime Boxes would say this is a "Zero-Year" Card. Well sort of he never played for the Orioles but did play for the franchise that moved and became the Orioles, and he never played for the team he is listed with White Sox on the back.

Redman Senators 1953 With Tab

When I was a kid I had heard about Red Man Tobacco cards from the price guides I had picked up at my local card shop (or though the mail) and they even had some on display for $20 and up and that was for the ones without the tab, the ones with the tab were much more. At the time I could only dream of one day picking one maybe two up and spending a fortune. I never thought I would ever be able to afford one with a tab. Well time and the internet has changed all that. Of course I prefer to get the ones that are complete with tab. I will only get these things from places where I can see what I am getting, or that have it in writing that you are getting one with a tab. For some of the bigger named stars I might have to settle for a very poor conditioned without tab.

I currently just have Two* 1953 Red Man cards both Washington Senators, both I purchased from Ebay. The first one I received on 18 December 2009 and purchased for only $10. I didn't note what the shipping was, I don't think it was free but it wasn't more than $2 or $3. It was the first Red Man card I ever owned, and to get one in such decent shape WITH The Tab was a super bonus.

1953 Red Man Baseball w/Tab - AL19 Bob Porterfield - Senators

The corners of course are dinged and there are a few very light creases on the front , but over all a very nice specimen. 

1953 Red Man Baseball w/Tab- AL19 Bob Porterfield - Senators (back)

This second one I received on 16 February 2010 for only $6 Delivered! FREE SHIPPING!

1953 Red Man Baseball w/Tab - AL6 Jackie Jensen - Senators
 (Front and Back)

Now I am spoiled with being able to get two nice looking complete cards for such a nice price.It wasn't until I got around to scanning the backs of the cards that I realized the backs all say the exact same thing and have no indication of the card number. I do understand that there are some other offers on the backs of some other cards. I guess I'll have to see when I get other cards from this set then.

NO I don't actually have the vintage unopened pack of Red Man Tobacco. I got the image from robertedwardsauctions website, the card side showed Mickey Vernon also of the Senators. Man I'd love to have that one with the Mikey Vernon card it started at opening bid of $200 and sold for $1,058.

* I have since gotten (25 Feb 2012) a third 1953 Red Man card this one is not a Senator and it does not have the tab and is in pretty awful shape. I got it as part of an 18 card lot of Baseball, Football and 2 Hockey cards ranging from the 1950s to 1970s there were two 1970 Kellogg's Football cards in the mix which was one of the big reasons to get it.. I got the lot from sportlots for a total of 75¢ plus $4.49 postage I got two other lots/auctions from the same seller of about nine 1970 Kellogg's Baseball cards. Four or five of which were in terrible shape.

Here is my third 1953 Red Man Tobacco Baseball card:

1953 Red Man Baseball w/out Tab - NL2 Bobby Adams - Reds

(Front and Back)

Vintage Ramskins 3 Feb - Part 1 Topps

This is part one of two posts of some Vintage RamSkins (Rams + Redskins = RamSkins) I got nine cards on 03 February 2012 from one sportlots seller I have dealt with before OK lets get on with the roll call.

First Up Here's Johnny! John Carson, not the late late-night talk show host but rather the Washington Redskin End.

1958 Topps 47 John Carson - Redskins

The cartoon on the back is hard to read. The answer to the question: "What is John Carson's nick-name?" - "Long John because he uses his height to catch passes". The cartoon shows a pirate reaching for a football pass.

1958 Topps 47 John Carson - Redskins (back)

Next up: 1959 Topps 15 Del Shofner - Rams Don't know what to say about this one.

1959 Topps 15 Del Shofner - Rams

The back's scratch off "Magic Answer" looks to be incomplete or it's an order for a Chinese restaurant.

1959 Topps 15 Del Shofner - Rams (back)

OK so at first this card doesn't seem to fit because the player is in a previous team's uniform The Pittsburgh Steelers. 1969 Topps 111 Roy Jefferson - Steelers. Roy became a Redskin in 1971.

1969 Topps 111 Roy Jefferson - Steelers

This next player has a solid strong name for a Tackle Rock.

1969 Topps 146 Walter Rock - Redskins

It's Rookie Time. From 1975 a player who would have his career cut short by a horrible leg injury Joe Theismann. Joe started his pro career in the CFL (Canadian Football League) on the Toronto Argonauts. Although this is Joe's Rookie Topps Card and Rookie NFL card it is not his TRUE Rookie card because he had a 1971 O-Pee-Chee Rookie Card when he debuted with the Argonauts. So Canadians are laughing at us silly American's thinking this is Joe's RC!

1975 Topps 416 Joe Theismann RC- Redskins

That does it for part one. The next post part two the conclusion is the Philadelphia Cards will be posted "tomorrow" in about two hours. Gotta love scheduled posting.

1954 Bowman Redskin

From the bay $6.75 delivered:

1954 BOWMAN 110 Steve Meilinger Redskins

Where some of my Rams cards from this set look like colorized photos this card looks like a watercolor painting of sorts.

1959 Team Card Washington Senators

One of the fun types of cards to collect are the ordinary team cards. Here is one of my older ones from the 1950s barely.

1959 Topps 397 Washington Senators Team Card

I didn't scan the back but this card has the Sixth Series Checklist for cards #230-495. Sometimes the team cards have the recent team stats on the back, other times a team specific checklist. The team checklist cards come in handy when trying to finish off a team set.

1954 Bowman Football (Mostly Rams)

I got a few 1954 Bowman Football Cards from the Bay (Ebay) for $5.00/each on average. The lowest was $3.00 and $5.00 was the high. The Los Angeles Rams cards I got from the same dealer so I saved on shipping.

I think part of the appeal to me on these cards is the early color photos. They seem to be hand colored from black & white photos, maybe early machine colored. I'm not a photo expert so I don't know exactly and don't really care other than I enjoy them. I also like them for the team logos.

8 Norm Van Brocklin Rams

 

20 Tom Fears Rams

32 Elroy Hirsch Rams

127 Joe Koch Bears

The dealer that I got the Joe Koch from also sent me a couple of  "bonus" cards. He at least was keeping with a theme as the cards he sent were Chicago Bears, although more modern ones. Some dealers send bonus cards that make no sense other than the fact that they are sometimes the same sport (I'll get into that with another post soon hopefully). The "Bonus Bears" I got were a 1990 Fleer Neal Anderson #288 (a player I collect since he has a similar name to my brother but spelled different) and a 1991 Pro Set Brad Muster #105. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to collect the rest of the 1991 Pro Set. Back in the day I had collected quite a few, but over the last few years of being a member of various trading card forums I have traded a few away. As for the 1990 Fleer. A few months back I bought a full set of them along with the All-Pros Sub-Set. So I have at least one dupe of this Neal Anderson card.

1990 Fleer 288 Neal Anderson Bears