Wallet card with another Ace Fence sign

You may remember I picked up some cards at a garage sale* this weekend. It was a "community garage sale" where families all across Malverne, NY had a garage sale the same day, so people would just walk from sale to sale. As I did I came across this great sign. It was on the fence of a private house so I did just a quick shot.

Last year I found a different ACE sign in Lynbrook, the next town over from Malverne. That one was blue but otherwise identical to this one. Ace Fence is still around, as are some of their 1960s signs with the classic Floralpark 4-5114 number.
 

* There were 11 packs of 1989 Topps stickers. I was looking for the last stickerback card I needed, #1 George Brett, and struck out like the Yankees with runners on tonight. Really poor collation on these. Anyone collecting the '89 stickers or sticker backs? 

1981 Topps Fernando Arroyo

 

The front: Extreme close-up of the Twins pitcher. He's 28 years old but doesn't look old enough to shave here.

The back: Arroyo shut out the expansion Blue Jays, 9-0, at Tiger Stadium on June 15. He allowed five hits, walked one and struck out one. This brought his record to 5-3, with a 2.83 ERA. It was all downhill from there, however, as he went 3-15 from that point on, with his ERA rising to 4.17.

The player: Fernando Arroyo pitched for the Tigers, Twins and A’s from 1975 to 1986, going 24-37 with a 4.44 ERA. His best season was 1981 with the Twins, going 7-10 with a 3.93 ERA.

The man: He coached for many years in the minor leagues as well as in Korea. He now owns a company, Armtrak, that manufactures a pitching instruction tool.

My collection: I have seven of his cards, from 1976 to 1982. I would be interested in trading for 1976 O-Pee-Chee #614.
 

Baseball card stories from Steve Woltmann

Photographer Steve Woltmann has been shooting professional and college sports for over 40 years. He has been the team photographer for North Central College and Loyola University for over 20 years, and has photographed numerous championship series across all the major professional sports. His work has included book and magazine covers (including Sports Illustrated), as well as Upper Deck cards in several sports. He kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.

"I started working for Upper Deck in 1992.  The first couple of years I worked for them, they sent me all over the country shooting minor league baseball.   As I tell people, I started out in the minors shooting all the up & coming prospects.

   Yes I am a collector, though I only collect Upper Deck’s cards, I’m a very loyal & traditional person, and since UD has been very good to me....  I try to put together a complete set of UD hockey every year.    I like to collect the cards that I’ve taken the photo of, but I also still enjoy the thrill of opening a fresh pack to see what I might find.   I collected when I was a kid, my first set was Topps 1969 Football.   The biggest difference from when I was a kid till now is that I don’t put them in my bicycle spokes like I used too.  I ruined many a Bart Starr  (being a Bears fan) card when I was young.

My favorite card(s) would have to Derek Jeter’s 2nd year card.   I shot this in Greensboro while he was in Class A ball.   I arrived early to set up for the session & walked into the gift shop where I saw a barrel of cracked bats for sale for $ 5.    On the knob, I saw the name ‘JETER’ written.   So I bought it with the thought of using it for the photo shoot (the year earlier when I shot his rookie card in Ann Arbor, he was doing fielding poses).   And yes, I still do have the bat!  My goal is to one day, have that bat & all my Jeter card mounted into a case.   The other BTS story on Jeter is the year earlier (1993) UD sent me to Ann Arbor with a full Yankees uniform, to shoot his rookie card.   He was a freshman at University of Michigan.   I picked him up at his college dorm, along with his roommate.   We went to the HS field across the street from the Michigan football stadium and did the photos there.  Dropped him off, thanked him, wished him luck, and told him I hoped to see him again.  The next year, I did in Greensboro.
 

My 2nd fave is my Jordan card from the Bulls 2nd Championship rally after they won the NBA title. "

 

Thanks!

 

Not as good a garage sale box

 Another week, dropped another $20 at a garage sale. This purchase wasn't nearly as good, maybe it'll make me less interested in going for a while. Bought one box, several hundred cards that turned out to be predominantly junk wax commons.

Lots of junk wax (and slightly earlier). Maybe the Donrusses will have some useful dot/no dot variations. 

Some less junky wax, highlighted by an unlicensed Griffey and a Finest promo of Mark McGwire.

A small smattering of vintage, nothing that I needed but some decent names, especially the '75 Carlton.

Always nice to get some BBC Magazine panels!

Lots of football which will go into my collection. I still need most junk wax football cards so I don't mind passively adding them to my collection like this.

A smattering of other sports, mostly hockey. I've never seen so many boxing cards at once. They're '91 Kayo cards, hopefully I can find someone who can use them. Hopefully someone can use the random hockey and hoops, too.

Lots of cards were in cut-up nine-pocket pages. If nothing else the pages will be useful for PWEs. 

Some unopened packs. I have to check if I still need any '89 Score Magic Motion cards; if I don't I'll leave the pack unopened. The yearbook stickers I still need most of for my yearbook, and maybe I'll find the one stickerback card I need, #1 George Brett. 

 

1976 SSPC: Steve Yeager

 

The card, in brief: Schafer - The One Beer to Have When You're Having More Than One.

Playing career, in brief:  Yeager was one of baseball's premier defensive catchers. Though he never won a Gold Glove, he was renowned for his strong throwing arm and his game-calling abilities. He was not a great hitter (.228 lifetime average) though he did have a little power (102 HRs in his 15 year career). Yeager was at his best in the postseason: in 21 World Series games he hit .298 with 4 HR and 10 RBI, much better than his regular season numbers, and was co-MVP of the 1981 World Series. 

Post playing-career, in brief:  Yeager had a reputation as a macho tough guy like his famous cousin Chuck Yeager, but he was also a partier who enjoyed the LA nightlife. In 1976, he married rock singer Gloria Giaone, who had toured with the likes of Steely Dan and Three Dog Night. The wedding took place on the steps of City Hall, with LA Mayor Tom Bradley as Yeager's best man. After his playing career Yeager was a longtime minor league coach for the Dodgers, owns a Jersey Mike's franchise, and appeared in the Major League movies.

My collection: I have 35 of his cards, from 1973 to 1987. I would be interested in trading for 1978 Hostess #51. 

Two from the '60s

It's real late so time for just a quick post! Two recent 1960s Yankees cards I got off of eBay for cheap recently.

This semi-high is semi-tough to get cheap. I believe this completes my Topps run of Elston Howard, underappreciated Yankee great.

This card was more expensive than the Howard, but not a lot more considering it has four of the best ALers of the 1960s. Mickey Mantle is undoubtedly the star of the card, but there's plenty of firepower beyond the Mick here.

Wallet Card at Herman Leff Stationery & Printing

Some cool ghost signs at 120 Prince Street in NYC.

 Lithographing - Manifold Books - Special Forms - Engraving

Stationery - Office Supplies - Paper & Twine

These cool signs have been posted on a lot of other websites, but I haven't seen anyone attribute them to a specific business. I looked a the terrific 1940s.nyc website, which has 1940s tax photos of every address in Manhattan, and found the answer - Herman Leff Stationery.

I couldn't find a whole lot online about this business, other than a 1959 New York Times article about the business cited for a safety violation at this site. Still, it's cool that the signs have lasted such a long time.

1990 Topps Big Deep Dive: Fred McGriff

Pretty standard spring training photos of McGriff.

"Hey! This looks like a fun job!"

It was a job for McGriff, who as a teenager worked as a hot dog and soda vendor at Al Lopez Field. He would also collect used bats and other discarded equipment from the Reds. As a teenager in Tampa, McGriff was cut from the baseball team his sophomore year, but came back the next season to make the team. He put himself on scouts' radar with a moonshot home run off of highly heralded pitching prospect Dwight Gooden.

Cake or gum? 1977 Toby Harrah

Last time it was a big 11-0 win for Topps. Will this be closer?

Hostess shows Harrah at Yankee Stadium, while Topps has him posing with a bat at Oakland, his Texas patch obscured by the facsimile autograph. Harrah came up with the Washington Senators in 1969 and became their regular shortstop in 1971, the team's last year in Washington. He was powerful for a shortstop (five 20+ HR seasons) and over time shifted to third base. He spent almost all of his career with bad teams in Texas and Cleveland. He had high walk totals (1,153 compared to 868 strikeouts), which was perhaps partially attributable to teams pitching around him with little lineup protection. Overall in 2,155 games he hit .264 with 195 HR and 918 RBI. After his playing career he had a long coaching career in the major and minor leagues, and he is now retired.
 

Wood vs. Wood #299

 Last time there was a 3-3 tie. Will we have a winner here?

Not only does Don Wert's Tigers logo look airbrushed, the whole cap looks artificially added. Not only had Wert been a career minor-leaguer to this point, he would spend all of 1962 in the minors as well. When he finally got called up to the big leagues in 1963 he quickly nailed down the Tigers' starting 3B job, and held it for the rest of the decade. Best known for his glove, Wert had an OK bat until getting beaned in 1968; he never hit close as well as he did before the beaning. Overall in nine seasons (eight with Detroit) he hit .242 with 77 HR and 365 RBI. After his playing career he mostly worked outside of sports in fields like farming and advertising, but was the head baseball coach at Franklin & Marshall College from 1976 to 1981. He died in 2024.

Joel Davis wears the SOX cap and jersey at spring training. Davis was a starting pitcher for the White Sox for parts of four seasons from 1985 to 1988. In 49 games he went 8-14 with a 4.91 ERA. Since 2002 he has been a high school health teacher in the Duval County school district in Florida. He had also been a baseball coach but lost that role in 2020 after a domestic violence arrest involving violent incidents with his wife. Court records showed that he had similar incidents with his first two wives.
 

1974 Topps Deckle Dating: Carlton Fisk

Fisk is looking a little shifty as he peers over his shoulder at the camera.

June 16, 1973.

In a Saturday day game, Fisk went 0-for-4 as the Red Sox fell to Oakland, 4-3. Deron Johnson broke a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the seventh with a base hit to score Billy North for what would prove to be the winning run.

In other news, Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev arrived in the United States and flew to Camp David; Americans marked the first anniversary of the breaking of the Watergate scandal, and Skylab, rehearsed the maneuvers necessary for it to return to Earth.

 

1981 Topps Ernie Whitt

 

The front: Whitt poses with a mitt but not catchers gear in the distinctive Tiger Stadium dugout.

The back: Whitt singled to right off of Ron Davis in the top of the tenth inning on September 17 to give Toronto a 4-3 lead. Right fielder Reggie Jackson's error allowed Whitt to score on the play, and later in the inning Roy Howell hit a two-run inside-the-park home run to give the Jays a comfortable 7-3 lead. Toronto turned to second-year starter Dave Stieb to close it out. Stieb, in his first career relief appearance, hit Reggie with his first pitch, walked three batters, and allowed an RBI single by Bucky Dent and a three-run double from Willie Randolph to tie the score. The game remained tied until the 13th inning, when Dent was the hero with a walkoff double scoring Johnny Oates.

The player: Whitt was a good catcher with a powerful bat, with double-digit HR totals for eight straight seasons. He was an All Star in 1985, when he hit .245 with 19 HR and 64 RBI. The last original Blue Jay to play for the team, he spent most of his 15-year career in Toronto. In 1,328 games he hit .249 with 134 HR and 534 RBI.

The man: Whitt was a part-owner of the Mother's Pizza chain in Canada in the 1980s. Later he had a long coaching career in the Blue Jays and Phillies organizations. He retired in 2021.

My collection: I have 52 of his cards, from 1978 to 1991. I would be interested in trading for 1987 Donruss Opening Day #33.
 

Wallet Card at a big old Coca-Cola sign

I do enjoy old soda signs. This painted ad for Coca-Cola on Manhattan's Grand Street is probably mid-20th century, as you can see some older signs that it was painted over. Half of this sign is now covered over by a regularly-changing parade of current ads. Right now there's an ad with Giants QB Russell Wilson. (Hey, they were actually competitive last week!)

 

Fabulous fifties

Picked up a nice little lot on eBay. The more I get from '53 and earlier Bowman, the more I like them. I already had the '53 Charlie Grimm is available for trade, but the other three are all new to me. '51 Bowman card of Cubs pitcher Johnny Schmitz in spring training, the mountains of Santa Catalina Island behind him. The two '50 Bowman cards are less interesting images but two big names of superstars at opposite ends of their careers - one of the last cards of Joe Gordon and first cards of Ted Kluszewski.

The same day those came in, I received this wonderful surprise from OBC's Larry Leonard. 1954 Topps Billy Martin! Despite his many flaws he's a favorite of mine, and this is a great card of the Yankees' "Pepper-Pot", as he's described on the back.

 

Spirit of '74

Bought a little lot of '74 Topps Stamps from eBay.

Rogelio Moret and John Milner with the big sideburns stand out here.

Some more great '70s hair from Andy Messersmith and, of course, Oscar Gamble.

I know I have some of these already, still have to check but if you think you need any, let me know.
 

1976 SSPC Paul Ray Powell

 

The card, in brief: The trees behind Shea Stadium stand out here.

Playing career, in brief: Paul Ray Powell had brief appearances in the majors for the Twins in '71 and the Dodgers in '73 and '75. An outfielder who could also play catcher, he hit .167 with 1 HR and 2 RBI in 30 MLB games. Despite modern sources like TCDB, Baseball Reference and Wikipedia insisting on calling him "Paul Powell", he was always known as "Paul Ray Powell" and socially appears to go by "Ray".

Post-playing career: Powell has had a long career in real estate, currently at Realty Executives in Scottsdale, AZ. 

My collection: This is my only card of Powell, a Night-Owl-certified "one card wonder". I would be interested in trading for the only other playing-days card of Powell, 1974 Albuquerque Dukes #NNO. 

1990 Topps Big Deep Dive: Don Robinson

The veteran right-hander delivers.

Gee, where should I have supper tonight?

The establishment was not called "Don's Eats" but Robby's, and it was less a restaurant and more of a night club. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was very popular, considered "the" place to be on a Thursday night in downtown Huntington, WV (pop. 55,000 in 1990). It operated from 1984 to 1995.

Baseball cards and broken glass

I saw a FB marketplace post for a garage sale the next town over, which had a photo of boxes of junk wax, 20 for $1. I figured it might be fun to poke through and see if I could get a few dollars worth of cards. When I got there, the person said I could take all three boxes for $20. I decided to go for it.

There were a few hundred worth keeping for my collection or for trades, but they are still about 95% full and it's not worth the space for 1980s cards so I plan to sell or give away the boxes locally. There was a ton of duplication, almost all Yankees and Mets cards. Before I get rid of these I want to make sure I hang on to anything anyone here might be able to use.

If anyone is looking for any card of a Yankee or Met from ~1980-1990 do let me know. It's not all junk wax - one box was 75% 1982 Donruss, but just hundreds of cards each of a few Mets with mid-alphabet names. Anyone love Dave Kingman enough for a few hundred copies of his '82 Donruss card? Ron Gardenhire? Doug Flynn? Tom Hausmann? Ed Lynch? Maybe someone wants a few hundred '89 Topps Keith Hernandez or '88 Topps Traded Jay Buhner.

Bottom line, if there are 1980s Mets or Yankees you want me to look out for, whether one copy or 100+, let me know! I plan to do one more pass through the cards looking for those I can pass along later this week, and try to get rid of the boxes this weekend. I'll check wantslists for anyone who needs cards from sets like '84 Donruss, but I welcome any specific individual requests, the odder the better! I do draw the line at things like Donruss dot variations or UD hologram variations. But a specific card variation, like the '89 Topps Gregg Jefferies - happy to look for those.

Most of the contents seemed to be frozen around 1990, probably for someone who was selling Yankee and Met cards locally. Heavy on the common cards but there were plenty of Mattinglys, Strawberrys, etc. However, there were enough random newer cards to be worth it (not very many oddballs). A bit of vintage too.

Here's a bunch of random cards that I pulled out that I might need. Some I know I probably don't need, but I was pulling out just cards from sets I haven't completed. 99% of the baseball cards were from sets I've already completed. Some cool inserts and even a couple of Topps Tiffany, including a Tiffany Eric Davis rookie. 

Some more from that pulling out - I was initially happy to see a big run of '88 Donruss Baseball's Best, but turns out that's just the same Mets over and over. Some other small piles to go through here. When I do my second pass through I'll have to check the Donrusses carefully for Leafs. That 2001 Best pile is all the same Alex Escobar card.

A fair amount of football, mostly early 90s. These are just about all stars, too.

Vintage! The only one I needed is the '75 SSPC Piniella in the middle, but it was nice to see a random 60s or 70s card once in a while. That '71 Topps pile is all the same Steve Kline card.

This was a great find - Broder Mattinglys!

A few '62 Yankees, didn't need any but they were cool to find.

Finally, a bit of odds and ends. This '87 Rick Anderson is a blank back, I know those sometimes generate interest. There was a random Staten Island Yankees pocket schedule; I don't collect these but I know some people do. Finally, these boxes must have been sitting in someone's garage. I kept finding little shards of broken glass in two of the boxes. About the thickness of car window glass. Broken glass mixed with baseball cards is a new one for me!

 

 

Cake or gum? 1977 Lou Brock

Last time it was cake with the 5-2 win. Is this gum's turn?

Hostess has Brock in the bicentennial Cardinals uniform of powder-blue jersey and pillbox cap, before a game at Shea Stadium. The same photo with the Topps logo (from Topps Vault?) can be seen on the Cardinals Uniforms & Logos site. The Hostess cards are not Topps cards but Topps sold them their photos, I believe. His actual Topps card shows him at Candlestick, wearing the even less frequently seen pillbox-style batting helmet.

A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and the 3000 hit club, Lou Brock was the former all-time and single-season stolen base champion. In his nineteen-year career he was a six-time all-star and earned MVP votes in ten different seasons, finished second in 1974. His 938 stolen bases are currently second all-time. He was also one of the best World Series performers of all time. In 21 games he hit .391 with 4 HR, 13 RBI and 14 SB. After his playing career he was a successful businessman in various fields, including flowers, airport retail concessions, child safety and mobile marketing. He owned two patents for the “Brockabrella” umbrella hat. He was also active in many charitable endeavors, most notably in spreading awareness about diabetes management. He died of complications from cancer and diabetes in 2020. In 2012 he shared his thoughts on baseball cards with this blog.

Street trade 2 x 2

Gave Al some Mattingly's today. They were oddballs and since he didn't recognize them he's adding them to his own collection instead of selling them.

Here's what I took for my end. Quite accidentally I ended up with four pairs of similar cards.

Two silver pack cards. Two Yankees. Two Yoo-Hoos. Two Stadium Clubs. Fun cards all around!
 

Roundup

Couple of weeks worth of incoming cards. Starting with nine from Canadian OBCer Andrew Goguen. I virtually never upgrade cards but I will try to upgrade the '62 Pascual. The face being completely blocked is the reason why. I tried to scrape off whatever was stuck to it but the card front was coming off with it. Still a great PWE with some big names

Another OBCer, Jason Christopherson, sent this mixture of two sets I really like, even though they're really different.

Parzival42 of TCDB sent some nice Yankee cards.

This month's Diamond Jesters trade ended up being a couple of error cards. Hostess misspelled the surname of George Hendrick, and inexplicably shortened his name to Geo., even though there is plenty of room for George. And a football card of one of the best C/Kurt Warners in NFL history, in a reverse negative shot.

49ants sent two VJ Lovero cards. The fronts are good . . . 

. . . the backs are better, more fun photos and good writeups.

Joel Freedman of OBC sent a marvelous quartet of 1960 Topps.

Finally, Robert08 of TCDB knocked a couple of Fleer Stamps off my wantlist.