Happy Birthday Number Nine!

23 August 2013:
It is NFL Hall of Famer Sonny Jurgensen's 79th birthday. Happy Birthday Sonny! Here is what was on Facebook this morning on the Redskins Page:

image from Redskins page at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redskins

Another birthday mention is on the blog "Can't Have Too Many Cards" with some cool Sonny pics, some of which I hadn't seen before.

Sonny J. is one of my All-Time favorite QBs if not my favorite. He is best remembered as a Redskin, but he started his NFL career in Philadelphia with the Eagles.

1958 Topps Football 90 Sonny Jurgensen RC Eagles

In 1964 Sonny was traded to the Skins in a trade that involved QB Norm Snead. That meant that a few of his late 1960s trading cards even though they were labeled as him being on the Skins, used  an old photo of him in his green Eagles jersey.

1968 Topps Football Stand-Ups Insert 10 Sonny Jurgensen Redskins

A couple of my fave Sonny cards I have scanned. There are a few more in my Sonny PC but I don't have them scanned or at least don't have the scanned images online anywhere yet.

1970 Kellogg's Football 53 Sonny Jurgensen Redskins

1970 Topps Football Mini Glossy Insert 20 Sonny Jurgensen Redskins

OK this last pic is not a card but it is cool memorabilia. In 1971 (and '72) The Mattel Toy company made little battery operated "toy" record players with 2.5" discs of the popular sports figures of the day. Called Instant Replay I got this Sonny Jurgensen one off of Ebay for $6.99 + $2.00 shipping.

Happy BirthdayGood old number Nine, I'm not sure why the Redskins have not retired his number yet. They should before some hotshot kid claims it and has a terrible career while wearing it, or someone from another team that wears the number like Mr. Romo gets traded to the Skins. Oh I did a quick Google and technically not retired, The Redskins have a sort of non-retirement policy, his number along with several other Redskins legends like John Riggins are "Unofficially" retired.

Random card thoughts

Sometimes I get into a little bit of a blogging funk and think "Why bother"? Any cards that I get, unless they truly are 1/1s, are just one of thousands, maybe tens of thousands and are most likely going to already be blogged about somewhere, or part of a preview review of some product that is coming out. The one thing that keeps me going when thinking like that is the thought that my take on the individual card is unique. I might be the only one who actually likes a particular card or set out of the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of card bloggers out in the blogiverse (Blogsphere to most).

I don't do those custom jobbers like some bloggers do. Well I don't normally make custom cards, I do have a digital one (front only) as part of some of my logos. I wonder how many of them (the custom cardmaker bloggers) actually print-out their creations? Or do they just keep them digital like E-Topps sort of was mostly? 

I do know that there are some super popular trends, or at least continual trends of the card manufacturers that I really can not stand *cough*rip cards*cough*. I could list them here but I don't want to offend any of my two or three regular readers that may like those particular trends.

**Sigh** Negative thinking often reminds me that most of my collection right now resembles a hoarders nest. I know what I want to do with most of it but gettting motivated to do it and taking the time it will take to do it is one of the things I lack right now. Oh and Yes I do use zistle.com (My Zistle) I am far from having EVERYTHING listed there.

Sometimes I wish there was an organizing company that you could ship a box of cards to with instructions on how you like your cards organized and they will sort and organize and put your cards into binders for you, or whatever containers you prefer. If I knew I could make money off doing that and "retire" from my regular job I would maybe consider doing something like that.That whole concept however would be impractical and would cost tons to ship the cards and then you would have to wait for your cards to be returned, and insure your treasure for tons and determining how long it would take to organize and... Oh it just wouldn't work out for anyone. Or would it? Getting fellow collectors to help you organize wouldn't work either because they would be envious of some of your collection and pester you for some of them. Some more devious collectors might even try to "palm" some cards off of you. OK forget I said any of that organization stuff.

OK now just to keep up with the randomness of this post here are some random cards (fronts only):

1972 Topps Baseball 11 Bobby Valentine Dodgers

 1976 Topps Football 145 Roman Gabriel Eagles

1984 Fleer V 21 "Ready For Action" 

Faye Grant as Juliet "Julie" Parrish

I feel like showing a ton more cards for some reason. OK maybe one more since the Hockey season will probably NOT happen this year here is a card I don't have anymore I either sold it or traded it away. It was my first freebie from sportscardforum I had won it in one of their forum contests. I think it was a new members contest.

2006-07 Upper Deck "Be A Player" Signatures -

JS Jason Spezza Senators

OK so there you have it how much more random can I be? Oh one final thought If you are following me and have my blog linked on your blog, but I don't have yours linked Please let me know so I can reciprocate.

1974 Wonder Bread Football Update

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 1-9

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 10-18

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 19-27

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 28-30

Catching up on an old update on my 1970s NFL Wonder Bread hunt. It is now over. I have edited what I originally drafted for posting since it was written when I still had some of the cards incoming..

As I previously stated at one time (see links below at end of this post) I have been pursuing the football sets put out by Wonder Bread in the mid-1970s. It took me quite a long time to finally complete the 1975 set. I had started out with just two cards (Franco Harris and Ted Hendricks) I had acquired back in '75 and for the longest time just sat on them without looking for the rest. I eventually found the rest I needed mostly from Ebay Auctions in small lots of a handful here and a handful there I think I also hit sportlots for the some of the final ones. I lucked out on Ebay when I found and bought the 1976 full set.

After that it was onto the 1974 set they are the ones that look like 1971 Topps Football.

1971 Topps Football 257 Mark Moseley RC - Eagles

Except they don't have the little position player guys (in the early 80s when McDonalds did their "Build a Big Mac" game the little characters building the Big Mac reminded me of those 1971 Topps guys - I found the image below of the ad for the game here at flickr).

I thought the actual characters on the game pieces looked more like the position characters and were more "cartoony", but maybe I was wrong. I haven't seen those since '81/82 when they had the game running so maybe my memory is just too fuzzy on this one.

At the time of my original writing  I only had 2: My first card from that set was #15 Tom Mack Rams.

 

I now have 2 because in the mad rush of bidding on Ebay and ordering through Sportlots to complete the set I forgot I had it, I thought I just had the next card as my only card. That second card is #19 Jim Plunkett Patriots his name looks pink from a big ol' bread stain on the card that looks like a huge storm cloud rolling in behind Jim there.

I ordered most of what I needed of the '74 set from sportlots.com individually because that is how they roll there. The rest of the cards I bid on Ebay for 9 of them (and won) and the remaining 3 I ordered "Buy It Now" from one Ebay Store. The cards from Sportlots came in 3s and 5s and how many I ordered from individual sellers again that is how they roll. The three cards I used the BIN feature on at Ebay, I requested confirmation on the shipping and the dealer only discounted. 75cents on the shipping. If I recall correctly they were $2.50 per card and total shipping came out to $6.75 which means I paid $2.25 per card. UGH dealers need to COMBINE shipping for small numbers of cards. That's par for the course though because this particular dealer specializes in vintage cards no newer than 1972. His prices for most stuff is outrageous  but these cards were $5.00 a piece (one was $4.00).

With this set the Offensive players have a red border and the Defensive players have a yellow border. Yes the color combination reminds one of McDonalds.

1974 Wonder Bread Football - 16 Jim Otto - Raiders

1974 Wonder Bread Football - 9 Chris Hanburger - Redskins

THE CHECKLIST:

Back of Card 2 Cool Pic Huh?

01 Jim Bakken - Cardinals
02 Forrest Blue - 49ers
03 Bill Bradley - Eagles
04 Willie Brown - Raiders
05 Larry Csonka - Dolphins
06 Ken Ellis - Packers
07 Bruce Gossett - 49ers
08 Bob Griese - Dolphins
09 Chris Hanburger - Redskins
10 Winston Hill - Jets
11 Jim Johnson - 49ers
12 Paul Krause - Vikings
13 Ted Kwalick - 49ers
14 Willie Lanier - Chiefs
15 Tom Mack - Rams
16 Jim Otto - Raiders
17 Alan Page - Vikings
18 Frank Pitts - Browns
19 Jim Plunkett - Patriots
20 Mike Reid - Bengals
21 Paul Smith - Broncos
22 Bob Tucker - Giants
23 Jim Tyrer - Chiefs
24 Eugene Upshaw - Raiders
25 Phil Villapiano - Raiders
26 Paul Warfield - Dolphins
27 Dwight White - Steelers
28 Steve Owens - Lions
29 Jerrel Wilson - Chiefs
30 Ron Yary - Vikings

Previous Wonder Bread posts:
 Mid 1970s Wonder Bread NFL
Mailday Mostly 1972 Topps  (at bottom of post)

Before There Was Tebow

For those who thought Tim Tebow and his "Tebow" ritual was something brand spanking new. Well it wasn't that sort of thing has been going on for years. Players have been going down on one knee for many years. Here is a 20 year old (OK 21 now) example of "Tebowing" before it was known as that.

1991 Score 220 Keith Byars - Eagles

OK so Keith there isn't exactly praying there, it looks more like he is crying. Bad Example but the thought is there. Sheesh I can't believe I even wasted time posting on this subject, but when I noticed this card in my collection I thought I just had to mention it. Maybe when I have more copious free time I will show more "Before There Was Tebow" cards if I have any.

Roman Gabriel APWire Photos

One of my all-time favorite NFL Quarterbacks is Roman Gabriel who played for the Los Angeles Rams from 1962 - 1972 he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973 and retired as a player in 1977.

From Ebay I recently got a couple of Photos that are originally from AP (Associated Press) Wire Services for $10 (plus postage = $13 almost $14 delivered). These photos were sent by AP Wire to broadcast stations, newspapers and other news services for publication. The backs of these photos are stamped "TV MAG" I'm guessing they had been used by a magazine. Both have some editing marks for cropping the picture or making a zoomed in enlargement.

The caption on this first photo reads:

(NY22 - Dec.4) No.2 CHOICE IN FOOTBALL LEAGUE DRAFT - Quarterback Roman Gabriel of North Carolina State was the No. 2 choice in the National Football League draft in Chicago today and was chosen by Los Angeles Rams. He was N0. 1 choice in the American Football League draft last week and was chosen by Oakland. (AP Wirephoto) (see AP wire story) (pr21419fls) 1961

There is also a caption on the left side that gives some correction information for the last sentence of a news story for a soccer game between Czechoslovakia and Scotland.

The back has some copy notes on it and also two date stamps DEC 6 1961 and DEC 12 1965.


This second photo has a tear at the top where the down arrow is. It goes from the top edge of the photo to the top of Romans head, it makes it look like he has a bald spot. The vertical editing marks for cropping the photo to a head shot are slightly deeper than those in the other photo.


The caption on this second photo reads:

(NY6-May 27) GABRIEL STATES HE'S A RAM -- Quarterback Roman Gabriel states he belongs to the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League "for many years to come," But the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League contend he belongs to them starting in 1967. (APWirephoto) (see AP sports wire story)js60600fls)66 (THIS IS A 1963 PHOTO)

The back has a date stamp of JUN 2 1966. It is interesting that there is a note on the upper left corner that reads "Rams-Colts"

The American Football League (AFL) would merge into the National Football League (NFL) in 1970. This would create the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC).

A White Whale From One Of My Fave QBs

SONNY JURGENSEN NFL Hall of Fame

One of my favorite QuarterBacks growing up was Sonny Jurgensen. He began his career with the Philadelphia Eagles but is best known for my Homie Team The Washington Redskins. Recently from Ebay I got one of the "white whales" I had been looking for quite a while.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term "White Whale" in the trading card hobby it basically is a card that you have been hunting for your personal collection (PC) that has been pretty difficult to acquire. Often a white whale will elude you for some time, often teasing you by showing up just out of reach. It is a reference to Moby Dick the white whale in the classic book of the same name by HERMAN MELVILLE. Moby was the nemesis to the main character Capt. Ahab.

Well this card, and many cards now-a-days thanks to the internet, is not so much a "White Whale" anymore. The card is the 1958 Topps Rookie Card (RC) of Sonny Jurgensen.


It fast became one of my favorite Sonny J. cards. Another of my fave Sonny J. cards is:

1971 Topps Game Card Insert

And also the companion to the Game Card is the Pin-Up.

1971 Topps Pin-Up.