I got a couple of packages from bloggers yesterday filling in some of the Nolan Ryan sets I accumulated cards from in that big Ryan lot I picked up for the '71.
Today's post has eight cards from the 1992 Donruss Coca-Cola set. I like sets with big Coke or Pepsi logos. The vintage Ryan photos are great also. These come from Crocodile Sports Cards.
The player: Considered the greatest Puerto Rican player in history, Roberto Clemente is one of the all-time great outfielders. An excellent fielder with a rocket arm, his diving catches in big games were legendary in Pittsburgh. He won 12 straight gold gloves from 1961-1972. One of the best hitters of his era, Clemente won four NL batting titles. From 1960 to 1972 he hit over .300 every year except the anomalous 1968 season, when he still hit an impressive .291. Though he was a perennial contender for the batting championship, Clemente was not a big home run hitter, topping 20 HR only three times in his career. Perhaps that is part of why he was somewhat underrated until the early 21st century when there was a greater appreciation for all-around talents. A great clutch hitter, Clemente starred when it mattered most. He played in two World Series, both 7-game wins for the Pirates, and had a hit in all 14 games. He was MVP of the 1971 World Series, where he hit .414 with 2 HR.
The man: Clemente has been a hero for Puerto Rican baseball players since he became a star, and is a great role model for anyone, with his history of charitable actions and grace under pressure. During his playing career, he developed a reputation, largely undeserved, for having a thin skin and being a "hypochondriac". Much of this was based on stereotypes of Latin Americans. Clemente served in the US Marine Corps in the offseason from 1958 to 1964, and is a member of Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame and Puerto Rican Veterans Hall of Fame. Clemente, who lost two stepsiblings at young ages, often thought he would die young, even saying so on-air in an interview during the 1971 All Star Game. On December 31, 1972, he died in a plane crash delivering emergency supplies to Nicaragua after an earthquake.
My collection: I have three of Clemente's Topps cards: 1969, 1972 and 1973.
Topps followed up their popular 1983 baseball design, with an action photo and inset headshot, with a very similar look for 1984, squaring up the previous round design. Presumably without another action photography to pull of that look in football, Topps went with an angular design that was itself rather unique.
After a year off from hockey, Topps came back to the sport with another attempt to follow up on the popularity of the '83 baseball set.
1984 was a big year for non-sport sets at Topps. They always seemed to put more effort into the design of their music cards than they did for their movie cards. The Michael Jackson set had a typically busy design.
Among the movie/TV sets released that year, the Gremlins set probably had the most interesting design. The jagged design has been done a few times, but at least there was a logo in the design so you knew what movie this was a set for.
Topps didn't put logos on any other movie/TV sets in 1984. Such was the case with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with a design very similar to the previous year's Return of the Jedi.
No logo on the Masters of the Universe set either.
Finally, another logo-less set was the Supergirl sticker set. If Supergirl is not in costume, you'd have a hard time knowing what set this was. As it was a sticker set there wasn't much design consistency other than the yellow borders, and many of them look rather amateurish.
As I slowly but surely input all my cards for trade onto TCDB, I haven't been actively seeking out trades, but occasionally have someone reach out to me. I find that junk-wax-era copyright variations have a definite appeal to that crowd. In a simple one-for-one trade, I was able to turn a 1987 Topps Glossy All Star Dave Winfield into a 1973 Topps high number need, because there were two asterisks on the back of the Winfield instead of one. Thank you Bldrprof for this one.
I was able to scoop up 13 vintage cards for a dime each. Needless to say there were a lot of condition issues, but it was an easy choice for me to pick up these cards so quickly.
I needed eight of the cards in the lot. The best one is the '61 Konstanty, but I'm glad to add all of these to my various vintage setbuilds. The two Official Baseball Quiz cards were something I had not seen before. Apparently they came in packs of Fleer patches in the early 1970s. They have a 1968 copyright date on them, but that actually refers to the MLB logo, which was still pretty new at the time.
Five cards that are "trade bait". The two cards of Giants pitchers are actually in pretty good shape. Not so much for the other three, including the Frank Howard card, where the line out has become a home run, maybe due to some early instant replay.
The few of us bloggers who like getting free cards have been participating in the daily giveaways at Johnny's Trading Spot. I recently got my third freebee envelope from Johnny.
I got a fantastic surprise package from The Best Bubble. The package had cards and publications.
Each of these vintage cards is a high number or semi high number.
I gambled on a couple of 1969 lots from a seller on eBay. They just showed a pile of cards so you couldn't really tell what was in them. There were several lots of baseball cards from 1969 and 1970, 50 for $10 shipped. There was also one lot like that for football. I got the football lot and one baseball lot.
I gambled on the baseball lot because I didn't have the card on the top of the pile, the '69 Willie Horton All Star. As it turns out, it wasn't a great gamble because I only needed two other of the 50 cards. However one of those was the '69 Bob Gibson so that salvages it.
Some better cards available from 1970
I did quite a bit better on the football lot. Here are the commons.
As promised a few days ago, here are some of my favorite cards from the 1991 Pacific Nolan Ryan cards I acquired the other day. There were plenty of duplicates so some of these are available for trade.
I think this was the only card in the set with a Yankee Stadium photo, and it's fantastic. It's a nice, somewhat unique angle.
I recently completed a trade with Casey - he doesn't have a blog but he is crh614 on TCDB and has been commenting on the blogs lately. I sent him some set and PC needs, and he responded with a lot of my set needs.
Nine cards from Ultra sets. How did I still need so many '91 Ultra commons? Even a Yankee had eluded me all this time. The four left I need are mostly commons as well (200 DeSheilds, 290 Lankford, 391 Bonds, 392 Fielder). The '95 Hawk leaves me needing just two more for that set, 133 and 331. Nice symmetry there. (Smoltz and A-Rod)
Are you checking out the daily giveaways at Johnny's Trading Spot? I'm trying no to comment every time but anytime I see even one card I'd particularly like, then I comment. In this case it was the Judge card. Every other card in this envelope was of a retired player (except for the Guidry Sportflics). Weird to see Jeff Bagwell fit that category. Fun stuff as always - thanks Johnny!
As a longtime blog reader and trader, I've accumulated a fair amount of custom cards over the years, and even have a couple of Baseball Card Breakdown magnets on my metal card shelves. As much as I appreciate the creativity of custom card creators and enjoy seeing the images of the cards, as a set collector they don't really fit into my collection, so I don't seek them out. However, when Nine Pockets was giving away some of his recent rock 'n' roll customs, I had to claim a card of my favorite band of all time, Black Sabbath.
This card is really nice - in person it looks and feels exactly like a Topps card of the 1970s or 1980s. I believe this is a 1974 Topps basketball design.
I bought a lot of 350 Nolan Ryan cards for a dime each. Ryan's a great player, generally has good cards, but normally I wouldn't buy that many of a player at once. But one of the dime cards was this one:
I've always loved this card from afar, particularly for the RC Cola ad in the background. I know $35 for this card alone is a good price, but I would never pay $35 for just one card. Throw in 350 more cards that I may or may not need, and I'm in.
The vast majority of the lot was cards from the early '90's (mostly 1991) Nolan Ryan sets that Pacific put out. They are nice looking cards, a lot of fun photos. Later on I'll do another post with some of my favorites. There was a lot of duplication, but I am now at about 80-90% complete on the first two series (#s 1-220). The stack on the right is the cards that I am keeping; the stack on the left is duplicates for trade. The card in the middle is a silver-bordered insert; those go for $10 or so apiece online, so that's a cool card to get.
