Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Cards to get the ball rolling

I mentioned a few times I bought a large lot of cards last week. It wasn't the best deal I ever got but it was good enough. Four trades already have come at least partly from it, with hopefully more to come. Plus I wouldn't have gotten the free '72 Clemente and those other '72 stars, so factoring all that in I guess I did pretty good.

It was my first deal from Facebook Marketplace. I find the asking prices there are significantly higher than on Craigslist. Sometimes I even see the same cards on both sites, with a higher price on Facebook. However this time I saw something that looked pretty good and I was feeling itchy to get some cards.

The original post was three boxes for $30. One was a 600-count box that appeared to be filled with '72s and '73s. Another was a box filled with what appeared to be mostly '76s and 78s. Another larger box, a 3200-count with modern cards. When I got there, the guy brought out another box, a smaller one, maybe 100-150 cards. All were stars (mostly baseball, some basketball and football) as well as '50s and early '60s commons. We went back and forth a few times and I ended up buying everything for $50. I did pretty good but with my new vintage-focus I am definitely spending more $ on cards than I used to, so I have to be careful not to do purchases like these too often.

Of the four-to-five thousands cards, there were maybe 100 vintage and 200-300 modern cards I needed. I did beef up my trading inventory a bit, especially with mid-70s to mid-80s cards.

I might do a separate post with just some of the trade bait, like the best vintage cards (such as 2 '78 Jack Morris rookies) and oddballs (several unopened packs of Desert Storm cards, for example). Hopefully this collection gets the ball rolling on a bunch more trades.

Here are some highlights from the purchase. I'll start with the modern, then go to the vintage.

Even within the late '70s cards, I found some cards I needed. Two '78 Burger King Yankees, the Bump Wills error card, and a ripped but still awesome Thurman Munson hostess.
 The modern cards fit mostly two categories. One was large stacks of cards from various late 90s sets. Pinnacle Online is a fun one for cards like these, all familiar names in unexpected uniforms.
 The other part of the box was filled with prospects of the late 80s and early 90s, many of whom had decent careers but none of whom became stars. Lots of Todd Van Poppel, Ray Lankford, and especially Dean Palmer.
 There were at least 800 cards from the 1998 Score set. Even though it is a 270 card set I still need 28 cards to finish it off. Mostly stars but some commons. Still need:

3, 5, 7, 13, 15, 24, 27, 34, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51, 56, 70, 73, 81, 85, 88, 105, 110, 131, 136, 138, 142, 186, 238, 249

One thing I noticed sorting hundreds of '98 Score is that teams that had blue ink on the back had variations that are clearly purple. Personally I don't consider back variations separate cards (for example '07 Topps red backs). If anyone has an interest in purple backs let me know, I've got a few to trade.
 What's in this bag with a '91 UD Tom Glavine showing?
 Several dozen more '91 UD Tom Glavines.
 There were a few UD HoloGrFX. I love this set.
 Now what you have been waiting for - the vintage. Let's start with the oldest. I've never gotten '50s cards from buying a collection in-person before. Here are five beauties from '56, including team cards. Ted Williams is on the Red Sox card.
 Six fantastic '57s.
 Lots of '59s, highlighted by a second-year Orlando Cepeda. It is now my oldest card of a Hall-of-Famer, by five years.
 Lots of early '60s cards. There were noticeably more Red Sox in these.
 Not much from the late 60s, but those three '68s were all high-numbered needs.
 There weren't as many '72s as I thought, but I was able to get a few I needed, including some big names. I had never gotten one of those blue award cards before, so I was excited to get that. And the Denny McLain was my first ever '72 Topps Traded card, though I would end up getting the Joe Morgan at SMR just a few minutes later.
 There were lots of '73 and '76s, and I was able to whittle down both of those. Some big stars too as you can see, including another Munson need. There were about five Joe Morgans in the '73s. There weren't many '75s but they did lean heavily to stars. I needed the Seaver and Perry, and now need just 13 more:
20, 61, 70, 130, 133, 176, 192, 356, 379, 404, 441, 555, 623
 Tom House and two others leave me needing just one more card to complete '76 Traded. Does anyone have the Fergie Jenkins card to trade?
 Finally, one more card that is not baseball but was excited to find. I am a huge fan of Mork & Mindy. I've watched every episode and have the first three seasons on DVD. I knew there was a card set, but this is the first one in my collection.

3 comments:

  1. I love the randomness of this collection! Sounds like you got a really great price too.

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  2. I remember watching Mork & Mindy when I was younger but surprisingly have no cards from the set...not sure I've ever seen any in person, although I can't remember everything I've seen at the almost weekly card shows we had in the 90s.

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