Roundup, not roundball

I couldn't care less about basketball, so while everyone around me is losing their minds about the Knicks, I'll just post the great baseball cards that I've gotten from generous bloggers and traders over the past two months.

 Nice mixture of real vintage, fake vintage, and fun shiny from yobshabob, TCDB.

Two minis, two Canadians, and a generous throw-in of two Posts, from threegreatgirls, TCDB.

May time travel winnings from Diamond Jesters. Those Canadian oddballs are great, as is my first '81 Fleer "finger" card. The "finger" is so hard to see and kind of looks like another body part.

Four fun oddballs, including my first '84 Nestle, from srose007, TCDB.

SirNailhead, my favorite new blogger, sent this dazzling shiny mizture. My favorite is the bottom middle card of Hilltop Park, home of the New York Highlanders.

Batting Out of Order, TCDB/blogger. This is our 11th TCDB trade, a personal record for both of us (on that platform, at least). My favorite is the oddball among oddballs, a Joey Meyer magazine card. It is not sitting on top of another card, that is the design.

A small lot from eBay, plus a '57 single that came in at the same time. A couple of dupes in here, but most I needed.

One card but a good one, a '72 high number of Dirty Al Gallagher, from pcantara, TCDB.

It's hard to find affordable Topps stars on eBay anymore, but this '57 Banks slipped through, probably because of the insignificant paper loss on the front.

A couple of '30s matchbooks from eBay. I believe Walter "Jumbo" Brown, who I believe is my first Yankee matchbook. I looked him up and it turns out he lived on Long Island, only a couple of miles from where I live now. Very cool!

Another affordable pre-WWII card from eBay.

It's been so long that I rounded up that we're onto the second TTT from Diamond Jesters.

Three affordable '52 Topps cards, from eBay. Really got lucky with these. I did already have the Mitchell.

Got some Posts in the post, from Mark Camps, OBC.

Two shiny birds from philliesphan, TCDB.

Love those '80s oddballs! And Yankee cards of course. MDog23, TCDB.

When I added my '84 Topps Traded needs to TCDB, mattheinz23 pounced!

ILLRIMESAYA does some damage to my '98 Metal needs list. TCDB

Finally, two trimmed cards printed a decade apart, from eBay.

 

Bottled up

Here's something a little different. This came up in some eBay search for baseball cards, and as most of you readers know, I have a think for old soda advertising. It had no bids and it was under $15 shipped, which is a very good price. I made a "what the heck" minimum bid and it was enough.

I love the disco-era 7-Up package, the logo really pops in person. And if you look closely you can see that these are no ordinary 7-Up bottles. 

The six bottles salute the 1978 All Star Game in San Diego. Here's the front . . . 

. . . and the back, with the scores of all the All Star Games through 1977.

There are six identical bottles in the cardboard. I don't necessarily need six of the same bottle, so I'd consider trading bottle(s) for cards if someone has an interest in one or more. I'd have to figure out how to ship a single bottle, and the cards would have to be worth the postage of sending the bottle, but maybe it fits into someone's collection.
 

Thanks, Johnny!

I got a nice PWE from Johnny's Trading Spot today. He was giving away some vintage football cards and I claimed this 1957 Topps card of Giants great Kyle Rote.

Rote was a star wide receiver on the great Giants teams of the late 50s and early 60s.

Don't like old football cards? Maybe shiny new baseball cards will cheer you up. Johnny generously threw in these with the football freebie.

Cake or gum? 1977 Ray Burris

Last time was a 6-2 victory for gum. Who will win here?

Looks like two photos that were taken in the same shoot at spring training. 

Burris had some decent seasons with some bad Cubs teams in mid-70s, winning 44 games between 1975 and 1977. He pitched badly in 1978 and by 1979 he'd lost his place in the rotation. That year the Yankees traded popular reliever Dirt Tidrow for Burris, and Burris was awful for the Yankees, who released him before the season was over. He signed with the Mets and wasn't much better. He hung around the majors for a few more years, and had a brief resurgence with the A's in 1984. Overall he pitched for seven teams over 15 seasons. In 480 games (302 starts) he went 108-134 with a 4.17 ERA. He has since had a long career in coach, and for the past decade has been the rehabilitation pitching coach for the Phillies.
 

1981 Topps Dave Roberts (#431)

The front: The second Dave Roberts in the set, this Dave is captured pregame at Tiger Stadium.

The back: Roberts was the #1 overall pick in the 1972 draft, and the sixth player to go straight from the draft to the major leagues. He came into the game in the 12th inning, and went 0-for-3 as the game went on for 18 innings.

The player: Roberts never lived up to the hype of being the #1 pick. By mid-1973 he was in the minor leagues, and he bounced around for four teams over 10 seasons as a utilityman. Overall in 709 games he hit .239 with 49 HR and 208 RBI.

The man: Roberts seems to have kept a low profile since his career ended, and a brief stint coaching and managing in the minor leagues in the 1980s. He now lives in Texas.

My collection: I have 17 of his cards, from 1973 to 1983. I would be interested in trading for 1977 O-Pee-Chee #193.
 

1976 SSPC Derrel Thomas

 

The card, in brief: Not a whole lot to say about this card, but it's interesting that the photographer lined up the shot so the camera flash reflected off the bridge of Thomas's aviator glasses.

Playing career, in brief: A true utilityman, Thomas played in 1,630 games over 15 major league seasons, including over 300 games each at 2B, CF and SS. He played for six different teams, primarily the Dodgers, Padres and Giants, hitting .249 with 43 HR, 370 RBI and 140 SB.

Post playing career, in brief: Thomas had a lot of personal problems before and after his career, including cocaine-related arrests in 1989 and 1997. He seems to have turned his life around, and his Derrel Thomas Foundation provides mentorship programs to challenged youth. 

My collection: I have 29 of his cards, from 1972 to 1986. I would be interested in trading for 1984 Stuart Expos #28.

1986 Renata Galasso Mattingly #19

Too bad we don't get to see who's sitting next to Mattingly here. Winfield? Randolph? Henderson? Who knows.

Nice job fitting three cliches into an answer of less than 40 words.

Braving a big street trade

Al texted me a few days ago saying he had a guy who wanted all of the Braves cards he could get. I organize my dupes by set, so to fill a box quickly I went through sets that are sorted by team, like 80s Fleer and 90s Upper Deck. I filled up a 200-count box and grabbed a big pile of cards from one of his boxes (we didn't have a lot of time). It was another one of those deals where I'd take what I needed and return what I didn't. I evaded junk wax and Topps base sets while still snagging a sizable pile of cards.

Starting off with this rather gray collection of '01 UD MVP and '00 Bowman. I wasn't sure how much of these sets I would need, but it turned out I needed plenty. 

Some 2014 Topps Traded, I've built most of this set from Al over the years. Plus one '88 OPC snuck in there.

Some shiny silver pack cards! Also there was what appeared to be the contents of a single opened pack of '25 Topps, with a parallel and an insert (a Brave, no less) that I needed.

Like last time, I'm offering up the dupes for trade before I give them back to Al. Starting off with some '00 Bowmans (some of them got cut off and I'm not taking the photo again. If you know you have common needs from this set, or an '88 Alvin Davis Fleer Star Sticker, let me know).

Some '14 Topps Traded, plus on '08 Traded and a Chance Sisco silver pack.

Ending with a few '00 UD MVP and the base cards of that '25 pack.

 

Trouttrader: Vintagetrader

Lots of fun vintage in a recent trade with TCDB's Trouttrader. Starting off with some 1963 Fleer. They really put out a nice set the one chance they got back then.

On to Topps, starting with some solid '50s portraits.

Six cards from 1958 with some real character.

Finally, some particularly interesting 1961s. The Joe Cunningham is a nice card but ordinary enough. The Dropo card is very interesting. As you can see it is very misshapen, looking like it was cut with kid's scissors, while still having a border at least as large, if not slightly larger, than the normal card next to it. It is also a little thinner stock, almost reminiscent of a magazine cover, though the back is still the regular standard back, even down to the regular texture. I almost wonder if it was some kind of promo card of some time, though it's probably just a miscut. I didn't see anything online about thinner stock 1961s.

 

 

 

Posterized

Two PWEs in two days, with vintage posters given away by generous bloggers. 

Crocodile was giving away this 1971 Topps poster. It's my first in the set. I don't usually think pink when I think of the Steelers, but this is a delightfully early-70s design. 

This '67 Topps baseball poster was given away by Too Many Verlanders. Far from my first from this set, I'm actually close to completing it. This great photo of the Capitol Punisher leaves me needing just four more '67 posters - Roberto Clemente, Bobby Knoop, Matty Alou and Willie McCovey.