After picking up a
Canvas Mathew Barzal RC I had just a hair over $20 left on my $50 Amex gift card. I knew I wanted to go vintage baseball with the remainder of what I had on the card, but was pretty open as to what exactly I ended up spending it on. In the end, I righted a major wrong in my collection and finally added my first true, vintage, career-era card of the great Sandy Koufax! Check it out...
What a beautiful '64 Topps card. I love that this one comes from smack in the middle of Sandy's period of absolute MLB dominance that lasted from around 1961 through his retirement in 1966. I'm not going to go into painstaking detail trying to summarize Sandy's many achievements here, everyone knows the 4-time World Series champion and 3-time Cy Young winner was one of the most dominant southpaws the game has ever seen.
This card received a grade of just a 'Good 2' from PSA, and I think it's due to that light surface crease along the right edge just over Koufax's shoulder there. A bright card though with great centering and overall impressive visual appeal. Perfect for my collection, and I could not be more pleased with this addition.
I'm pretty lousy at scanning the backs of PSA slabs, but included this one just to show that it's in as good a shape as the front is, no pen marks or paper loss, or any of that nonsense.
So happy to finally have Koufax represented in my collection proper. This one will also pair quite nicely with the
Pete Rose I nabbed in the same grade earlier this year. I was shocked that I won this card for a mere $16.50. Made me wonder why I waited so long.
Well, that's a wrap for my $150 in Amex gift cards. That reward for 15 years of employment landed me a '58 Hank Aaron, '71 Nolan Ryan, a Sean Burke auto, the Barzal Canvas RC and this Koufax. I'm pleased with how I divided up that gift, but from here on out it'll be back to tracking actual expenses for the year on cardboard...yikes!
1964 Topps Sandy Koufax - $16.50 (Amex Gift Card)
2019 Running Total - $34.81
Nice! I wonder if it would have gone for more if it were listed ungraded.
ReplyDeleteVery nice! Considering I paid only a couple bucks less for a '63 Koufax that looked like it'd been in someone's Tour De France bike spokes, I'd say you got a good deal there.
ReplyDeleteWow. That's the nicest PSA 2 I've ever seen. Great pickup!
ReplyDeleteFantastic haul for that gift card! As I just saw with my '61 Jim Taylor, the grading world seems to penalize scratched-off cards significantly more than us collectors do. I've got a PSA 2 Goudey card that looks like it was run over by a truck..your Koufax is much, much nicer!
ReplyDeletegreat price. for a sweet card.
ReplyDeleteGreat overall use of the gift cards! (And so much better than a pewter letter opener or gold-plated business card holder, or something.)
ReplyDelete