Buyback Franken-set: HOF Hurlers Edition

I nearly went the entire month of September without a buyback franken-set post, so I'm sneaking one in here just in time.  Today I've got the very last of the large lot that started this project off for me, and this post will start and finish with HOF pitchers.  Let's see what we've got...

1974 Topps #330 - Juan Marichal

This fantastic Juan Marichal buyback is probably the single best card that I got out of the 97 buybacks that were included in the lot.  I love the framing on this shot of the infamous high leg kick delivery from Marichal.  This card would have probably bumped any other card #330 with little to no thought required, but as it stands now it makes the set without competition.  I really don't see this one ever being replaced in the set, but I guess you never know.

1974 Topps #404 - Jim Howarth

Two straight '74 Giants to start the post.  Unlike Juan Marichal though, Jim Howarth here actually has some pre-existing competition for his binder slot:

Wow, talk about a couple of no-namers squaring off against each other.  I don't really know the first thing about either player, but there's just more going on in the Brinkman card, plus he's rocking those killer glasses so...

You're out Jim!  Relegated to the rejected pile.

1978 Topps #54 - Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson and his curly hair are in, but only because I don't have any other #54 buybacks yet.  He played for just five seasons as a reliever, and this is a fairly boring card.  I wouldn't bet on Tom hanging around too long as my franken-set continues to grow.

1969 Topps #403 - Bob Miller

I guess nobody had a comb handy when Bob Miller was posing for this shot.  My mom would have been angry with me had my grade school pictures ever turned out this way.  I understand why Topps took hat-less photos, but as a general rule they really bother me.  I don't have any other #403 buybacks though, so Bob is safe within the binder for the time being.

1974 Topps #556 - Dave Campbell

1974 was actually Dave Campbell's final season as a player, but he carved out a decent career for himself as a broadcaster later in life.  Either way, it's nice to start filling the binder with some higher numbered cards like this.  Speaking of which...

1973 Topps #620 - Tommy Harper

This Tommy Harper represents the best Red Sox buyback I landed in the entire lot.  Tommy had a great year in the lead-off spot for Boston in 1973, swiping 54 bases (a team best mark that stood until Jacoby Ellsbury broke the record in 2009) and even getting a few MVP votes.  I'd say this is one of the top 5 cards that I received in this big lot, and I'm happy that it doesn't have any other cards #620 to compete with.

1978 Topps #543 - Larry Harlow

Larry Harlow looks about as excited in this photo as I was to pull his card from this buyback lot.  About the only interesting thing I can say about this card is that Larry pitched 2/3 of an inning in relief during a blowout in 1978.

Unfortunately for Larry he's got some competition for slot 543 too, and it's a much more interesting card in my opinion.  Not only do I like this card itself better than the '78 Larry Harlow, but Clyde also tossed a no-no in 1970, so this is an easy call...

Off to the rejected pile, a sad fate for Larry Harlow indeed.

1974 Topps #165 - Willie Davis

Willie Davis was coming off of three straight Gold Glove awards when this card was printed up.  He was actually dealt to the Expos in the 1973 off-season for Mike Marshall, who would win a Cy Young with LA in '74.  As the only #165 buyback I've got so far, he's in.

1973 Topps #446 - Jerry Reuss

Next up we've got a smiling Jerry Reuss from '73 Topps.  Jerry is probably most known for sticking around forever.  He's one of a small group of players who've appeared in MLB in four different decades, and he racked up more than 200 career wins despite never enjoying a 20-win season.

Bart Johnson was already in the binder in slot 446, but I'm not particularly attached to this one.  Between the border colors and that hair there's some kind of clown vibe going on here.

So long Bart!

1976 Topps #250 - Fergie Jenkins

Last card for today, another HOF pitcher as promised.  This one wasn't actually part of the lot, picked it up while browsing eBay late one night for $2.22 with free shipping.  Obviously it would be preferable to have a buyback in the franken-set that features Fergie with the Cubs (or even the Red Sox), but for just a couple bucks this is what I've got for now.  It's also the only #250 buyback I have, so Fergie makes the cut for the time being.

Nice to get back on track with the franken-set here, it's been a lot of fun so far.  Now that I'm finally through the initial big lot I can hopefully show off some higher quality singles that I've picked up over time as I've been working my way through posting these.  More to come soon, but for now I'm at a nice tidy 125 unique buybacks in the binder!

Franken-set Progress:  125/792 (16%)

One Card Post - Old School Rosen

What:  1951 Topps Red Back #35 - Al Rosen (PSA EX-MT 6)
Where:  eBay
How Much?:  $10.99

Why?:  While I don't pursue this set with much vigor, I'll always jump at the opportunity to add a nice example from the first Topps baseball release to my collection.  I was especially excited to find this beautiful card of The Hebrew Hammer, because I had $9 and change in eBay Bucks that I had to use up at the time, which means this fine piece of cardboard set me back all of a dollar out of pocket.  Can't beat that! 

COMC - From Canvas to Yoda

Nothing seems to illustrate my all-over-the-map, complete inability to focus in this hobby better than my COMC orders do.  To help prove that point, I've got 30 or so cards that have come in my last couple of orders to show you today.  Let's dive in!

Thanks to Upper Deck's e-pack promotion the site is absolutely flooded with hockey cards from this past season at incredibly cheap prices.  I finished off the 2015-16 Canvas Series 1 set earlier this year thanks to these cards, and in a recent order I got a good start on Series 2.

I'm not going to bother showing all of the Canvas I picked up in my last order, but I did pick out three favorites.  These cards really work well with the horizontal layout, as evidenced by these Kane and Howard cards.

Of course I was excited to also land everyone's favorite aging star, Jaromir Jagr!

Every so often I run a one-off search for serial-numbered Red Sox cards and pick off some low hanging fruit.  This Glossy parallel from Fleer Tradition Update is one such example.  Numbered to /200, it set me back all of 62 cents.

Filip Forsberg is a very bright young player for the Nashville Predators, and has paced the team in points for each of the past two seasons.  He's a true offensive talent who has seen his goal total climb from 26 to 33 over the last two years, during which he has not missed a single game.  I fully expect him to score 30+ again this year, and he probably has a shot at 40 with the right complementary players around him.  All of this, and he's still just 22 years old!

One area of my collection I'm trying to wrap up before the end of the year would be the Kellogg's Red Sox cards.

Couldn't miss out on a chance to add two HOFers that I needed from the 1980 release, especially in completely mint shape for less than a dollar each.

From one Fisk card to another, here's my latest conquest in my attempt to gather as many of the Topps Legends parallels as I can.  Already had the Cognac version of this one, nice to add the standard Diamond Anniversary parallel as well.

Since we're on the topic of shiny cards for a moment here, how about a couple of tough to find refractors from 1995-96 Finest hockey?  I mentioned a few posts ago that '90s Finest hockey refractors are always on my radar to some extent, and I was able to land a couple of big stars (both HOFers) here with Sergei Fedorov...

...and Cam Neely.  These are really quite stunning in hand, and if I had an unlimited collecting budget I'd be going for a set.  As it stands right now I just grab one or two from time to time when the price is right, and I'm now up to 16 of them from this particular set.

Why would I ever spend my hard-earned cash on a lowly 1988 Topps card?

Because it's Topps Tiffany!

Snagged the other Red Sox All-Star Rookie from the '88 Tiffany set while I was at it.

Impulse buy here, just because I've always enjoyed the retro feel of the 3D inserts from 2012 Archives (and because this card was around 50 cents if I recall).

It's difficult for me to pass on a nice vintage Seattle Pilots card, and this one featuring Jerry McNertney donning the tools of ignorance just spoke to me for whatever reason.  1970 really is an under-rated Topps set as far as I'm concerned.

I've written a few times here that I think Panini did a great job with this past season's Diamond Kings release.  When I stumbled upon this Gil Hodges Artist's Proof parallel (#'d to /99), into my cart it went!

Vincent Trocheck is another young star on the up-and-coming Florida Panthers whose career I am looking forward to watching unfold.  In his first truly full season last year (76 games played), Vincent surpassed the 25-goal and 50-point marks and displayed some great offensive chemistry.  In my opinion a late season injury that he suffered was at least partly responsible for the team losing the momentum that they did early in the playoffs.

Next we've got a couple of soccer cards, just because.  I've been enjoying Premier League quite a bit again this season, especially with my favorite team (Liverpool) off to a very promising start.  If you like soccer cards, shiny cards, and serial-numbered cards, then I can't recommend the Panini Select set enough.  Both Luis Suarez...

...and Yaya Toure are orange parallels, numbered to /149.  The Toure is a base card, the Suarez an insert.  Yes, even the inserts in this set have colored parallels.  I'd like to accumulate at least 9 cards of each color because a page of these would look pretty great in my soccer binder.

Sticking with the orange theme for just one more card (though it looks closer to red in the scan), here's a nice Big Papi from 2011 Topps Chrome.  Hard to believe he's got just a handful of regular season games left to go here.

This is not some insert or reprint from a modern set, it's a genuine '69 Topps Deckle Edge of Luis Tiant.  Cost me all of 55 cents if you can believe that!  With enough digging you can certainly uncover some real bargains on COMC.

Here's a nice Prism Refractor of (your 2016 AL MVP?) Mookie Betts.  These parallels aren't that expensive, and a set of them would probably look impressive in a binder, but there's no way I'm ever trying that.  I'll still grab all the Red Sox players I can though.

Ah, one of my favorite parallels from the past 5 years or so, the 2014 Bowman Chrome Bubbles Refractors.  At 99 copies each they're just rare enough to feel significant, but just common enough to be affordable.  They scan marvelously, that's for sure.

This one looks kind of lame when coming after that beautiful Bubbles Refractor, but I didn't have a copy and it cost me just two quarters.

Every so often I dabble in some vintage on COMC as well, nothing too high end or expensive but rather cheaper cards that I just find attractive for one reason or another.  I paid around $2 for this '64 Rusty Staub, which is now probably my favorite Colt .45s card!

I don't know the first thing about Bill Faul, but something about the image on this one looked to me like the photograph could have come from the 1920s.  Not entirely sure why, just does.

My single favorite parallel from the time since I've returned to collecting would be the Atomic Refractors from 2011 Topps Chrome.

I just acquired a big ol' lot of these that will get me well on my way to the 220-card set (separate post and want list coming soon), but in the meantime here are four more.

These cards are just beautiful, I wish Topps would have printed as many of them in other years as they did in 2011.

Though it's 5 years old now, putting together this small set is one of my top collecting priorities at the moment.  It's going to be a real challenge, but not impossible.

I love the Wire Photo cards from Parkhurst Champions, but I stupidly picked up two copies of this Wayne Gretzky over time.  If any of my trading friends need/want a copy just let me know and I'll drop my spare in your next PWE.

Yoda seems like a nice exclamation point to put on the randomness that was this post, so here you go!  Unfortunately this is only my second favorite Yoda card, not quite as cool as the Tek one I picked up almost a year ago now.

So there you go, COMC randomness!