What I Bought Instead of Allen & Ginter - 2012 Edition

Alright, 2012 Allen & Ginter has hit the shelves, and it's all over the blogosphere.  If you've been reading this blog for a while now you know that each summer I take the funds I would have used on an Allen & Ginter hobby box and try something a little different.  Here's a review of what I've done the past few years:

2009 - Cheated and purchased an entire base set with SP's, the 75 card National Pride insert set, and the 25 card baseball highlight sketch insert set.

2010 - Got a bit more creative. Used the money to make a variety of purchases...a Jim Lonborg auto, some pretty cool graded cards from Sirius Sports Auctions, finished my 1991 Topps Stadium Club Series 1 set, expanded my Will Clark collection by 125 cards (if you're a Clark fan definitely click that link), added to my 1993-94 SP hockey set, grabbed two graded second-year cards of Red Sox legends, and finally got my first Will Clark auto.

2011 - Built my own Check-Out-My-Cards "Hobby Box".

This year I just don't have the time for anything that requires as much effort as last summer's series of posts.  Instead, I'll have a handful of posts of completely random cards, much like in 2010.  Hobby boxes of Allen & Ginter are running for $90 plus $10 shipping on Dave and Adam's Card World at the moment, so I will use that as my benchmark and keep the total of my purchases to under $100.

Here's the first card for this year's project, a Shaq RC from the '92-93 Skybox set.  I mentioned in a previous post that there were a few O-Neal rookie cards that were the desire of all the kid collectors I knew back in the day, and this was certainly one of the cards I had in mind.  I was around 10 when the Shaq craze swept the nation, and although I didn't collect basketball cards I wanted this one so badly I could taste it.  When I spotted a copy in the small card case at a local pharmacy I knew I had to have it.  A full weekend of chores and yard work later I had come up with the required funds, and walked out of that pharmacy feeling elated with the card in hand.

I'm not entirely sure what happened to that card.  If I had to guess I'd say it's stuffed in a box somewhere in my parents' basement or garage.  Maybe I even traded it away, I don't recall to be honest.  It's funny how as a child something you desired so much in one moment can be forgotten in almost the next.  Now all these years later I have a copy again.  This purchase was totally worth it for the nostalgia factor alone, but aside from that this card has one of the worst backs I've ever seen:

Cost:  $9.00
Shipping:  $0.00
Running Total:  $9.00

1953 Topps Project - William Kennedy

As the second half of the 2012 MLB season is now underway, it seems like an appropriate time to post another card towards my 1953 Topps set:

Today's subject is William Kennedy of the Boston Red Sox.  He was actually the property of both the Yankees and Red Sox at different times as an amateur player in the late '30s and early '40s.  Bill debuted in the Majors in 1948 though, appearing in 32 total games for the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns.  The following season he made a career-high 48 appearances, including 16 starts.  In 1950, however, Kennedy had just a single appearance (2 innings).  I suspect this was due to injury, does anyone know for sure?  Whatever the case, in 1951 he was back for one final season with the Browns, but in 19 appearances went just 1-5 with a 5.79 ERA.  Before the start of the '52 season the Chicago White Sox purchased Bill from the Browns.  In that '52 season, his only with Chicago, he appeared in a league-high 47 games (all but one in relief) and lowered his ERA significantly to 2.80.

I think the White Sox knew the end might be near for Kennedy, because despite one pretty solid season with the club they dealt him to the Red Sox prior to the '53 season.  He was mediocre in 16 games for Boston in 1953, and didn't make another MLB appearance until he landed with the Cincinnati Reds for the 1956 season.  He pitched a single game that season, giving up 4 earned runs over 2 innings for an ERA of 18.00 on the year.  Kennedy got one last shot with the Reds in 1957, but his career was over after he went 0-2 with an ERA of 6.39 in just 8 games.

Set Progress:  47 of 274 (17%)

Shaq and the Nostalgia Factor

Yes, I'm still around.  It's been a great summer here in New England, and I've been spending most of my free time enjoying it to the fullest.  I haven't been buying many cards, and I certainly haven't been very active with posting here.  Instead, I've been wasting my hours out on the ocean, watching fireworks shows, eating fresh lobster and drinking beers in the hot sun.  What can I say, some things in life can be more enjoyable than little squares of cardboard.

I haven't given up on collecting though.  This is just something that seems to happen to me every year around this time.  I've still been keeping up with reading the other blogs in my blogroll, and I've still picked up a few odd cards here and there.  Here are a few examples that have arrived recently...

If you were a 10-year-old like I was in 1992, and you collected sports cards, there was no escaping the Shaq craze.  It didn't matter if you were a die-hard NBA fan, or had never watched a single game.  Whether you collected basketball cards or not, you wanted a Shaq rookie.  Among my group of card-collecting friends, these were just about the most valuable cards on earth, at least for a couple of years there.  I swear there was a time when you could have flipped this Fleer Ultra card for a vintage Hank Aaron no questions asked.  Fast forward 20 years...the market's bottomed out and I paid $6 shipped for this mint copy (and probably overpaid at that).

This card doesn't really fit with my collection at all, but it was cheap enough and I couldn't pass it up for the price just because of the memories it brings back.  Have you ever purchased any cards that fall well outside the scope of what you normally collect just for the nostalgia factor? 

There are a couple of other Shaq rookies that I recall fondly as well, I'm probably going to track those down.  Since I picked this card up from one of my favorite eBay sellers, I decided to browse around to see what else he was offering.  I stumbled upon one of the best looking '80s baseball cards that I had never seen:

When I first saw this card I did a double take.  I couldn't recall exactly what Gooden's '85 Donruss card looks like, but I was sure I hadn't seen this photo before.  A quick eBay search confirmed that this was not his base card from the set.  This card is actually hand cut from an '85 Donruss wax box.  The photo selected for this one is far superior to the somewhat boring portrait shot that appears on Dwight's standard '85 Donruss card.  I don't stumble across too many '80s baseball cards that are "new" to me, so I was really happy to add this one to the collection.

Here's the back.  From reading the career highlights section you can definitely tell that this was released right in the middle of the Gooden hysteria.  There are also Ryne Sandberg and Ron Kittle box panel cards numbered PC2 and PC3.  Neither of them look as nice as the Gooden in my opinion though.  I picked up one other card from this eBay seller to complete my order, another basketball card believe it or not:

This one's from the 1970-71 Topps set.  Like a few Topps basketball sets from the era, this one uses the tallboy format, which I love.  At the very end of the base set is a small subset containing a card for each game of the NBA finals between Los Angeles and New York.  This particular card, for game 6, features a great shot (and facsimile autograph) of Wilt Chamberlain.  I know this isn't a true Wilt Chamberlain card per se, but it was a chance to get a vintage Chamberlain in my collection for a very reasonable price.  The card is in really great shape and set me back all of $8 shipped.

The back of each card from the subset gives you a breakdown of the game.  As you can see Wilt put forth a monster effort in game 6.  Had he shot a bit better from the free throw line, he would've topped 50 points.

Here's my latest '52 Bowman, Omar "Turk" Lown of the Chicago Cubs.  I seem to pick up one of these cards every few months.  I don't know anything about Lown, this one was purchased solely based on aesthetics.  I really love the way this card looks, with the sparsely populated grandstands in the background and Turk's gigantic cleat in the foreground.

Finally, we have one more basketball card.  I picked up the Robert Parish card from the '86-87 Fleer set a while ago, and instantly realized why this set is so prized amongst basketball collectors.  I've wanted to pick up a Larry Bird ever since, and recently found one in a condition and at a price that I was happy with.

Well, that's all for now.  I do have some other great stuff to get posted, including an extremely generous surprise package from Casey at Drop the Gloves, I hope to find the time to get it all posted soon.  In the meantime, I hope you're all enjoying summer...

1974-75 Topps Hockey - Oh So Close!

I kind of strayed on this project for a while, but here are my two most recent pick-ups towards my 1974-75 Topps hockey set.  Both are Hall-of-Famers, and both are pretty great cards.  I think they're significant enough to deserve their own post.

First up is Borje Salming's rookie card.  Borje was one of the NHL's first great European players, and was one of the better defensemen of his era.  Salming became the first Swedish player elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996.  These can be found pretty cheap, a great way to add a HOF RC to your collection without spending much cash...

The other pick-up was Guy Lafleur.  I've wanted a copy of this card for a long time, and as it turns out Guy ended up being one of the final few cards I needed towards my set.  What a great photo of the Canadiens' star.

I like that this card is from early enough in Lafleur's career that the back says he "could be ready to move into a 'star' category".

The best part about these is that they are in much better shape than most of my '74-75s, certainly good enough that I'll never need to bother with upgrading them.  With these two slid into place in the binder, I'm now just three cards short of a set.  I need to track down #2 (Assist Leaders/Bobby Orr & Dennis Hextall), #130 (Bobby Orr AS) and #260 (Bobby Clarke) and then I can finally put this one to bed!

Back in Action!

I'm happy to report that after a brief outage I'm officially back online with scanning capability.  I work in the IT industry, so not having a working scanner was eating me up, sort of like a plumber with a leaky sink in his own kitchen.  The best part is that the new scanner blows the old one out of the water.  It's faster, quieter, and works wirelessly so no more printer cable.  My timing was pretty good too, because just after getting the scanner online yesterday I found a package in my mailbox containing four recent pickups from one of my favorite eBay sellers:

It amazes me how little collector love Juan Marichal gets.  According to many (I tend to agree), he was the best starting pitcher of the '60s.  You can always seem to find his cards at a very reasonable price, so I've ended up with a few of them over time.  This card, which I would say is in NM to NM-MT condition, set me back all of $10, which seems criminal given how good Juan was.  1964 Topps is an absolutely gorgeous set in my opinion, vintage baseball at its best.

Okay, maybe not the backs, but the fronts sure do look nice...

I've picked up a few new Spaceman cards lately.  His signature sure looks a lot different nowadays than in did back in the '70s.  I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to pick up a '71 Topps, most of his cards aren't that expensive and this one's no exception.

I like that the back of this card mentions his screwball.

The 1985 Topps set doesn't do much for me, although I have been learning a bit about every single card recently.  I don't think I'll ever bother collecting or buying this entire set, but I have always wanted a Puckett RC, and now I can cross that off the list.

Finally, a card that falls a bit outside of my normal collecting boundaries.  For the second straight post, here's a basketball card:

This Dr. J card is from the 1975-76 Topps set.  When I saw this card I just had to have it.  I like that the design is nice and simple, which really lets you focus on the photo.  And what a photo it is!  The two Kentucky Colonels defenders to the right are twisted in such a way that it looks like Erving literally exploded off the floor.  Just a great looking vintage basketball card.

This is the first '75-76 Topps basketball card I've ever owned, and when I purchased the card I could only see the front, so I wasn't sure what to expect on the card back.  I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.  I could see myself picking up some other stars from this set.

Thursday Night Randomness...

Here are some random scans from my draft folder while I wait to get a new scanner online...

This fantastic Mario Lemieux card is a Canvas parallel from this past year's flagship Upper Deck hockey set.  I've seen it posted a couple of places already, and just had to have one of my own.  I believe the retired stars at the end of the Canvas checklist are short printed...they sure fetch pretty good coin in the secondary market.  This one set me back $14.99, which was an absolute steal.  It was a buy-it-now auction, and I must have stumbled onto it shortly after it was listed, because at that price it wouldn't last long.  These have been regularly going in the $30-$35 dollar range believe it or not.  At the time of this post there are just two listed on eBay, both between $45-$50.  The photo is from a shoot for Sports Illustrated, and was taken at the Pittsburgh Zoo.  This is one of my favorite purchases so far in 2012, I think just because it's so unique.

I know most people disagree (and part of me can understand why), but for some reason I've always kind of liked the yellow-helmet-era Penguins look.  Very nicely done card back right there.

These next three cards might not look like much.  Don't recognize the name Glenn Mulvenna?  Neither did I.  He played 2 career NHL games.

Ryan McGill played 151 career NHL games, registering 4 goals, 15 assists and 391 penalty minutes.

Kjellberg here?  Slightly more successful with 394 career games played and 160 points.  So what is it that ties these three cards together?  They're the final three I needed for my 1992-93 Upper Deck hockey set.  Feels good to cross that one off the list!

Finally, I don't really collect basketball cards but here is one of the few that I do own.  Great shot of The Chief being defended by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Whole lotta high socks in that photo.  I can definitely see why '86-87 Fleer is considered one of the best basketball sets of all-time, these cards are beautiful.

That's all for now...

1953 Topps Project - Al Zarilla

I managed to get nearly all of my 1953 Topps cards scanned in before the scanner kicked the bucket, so this will give me a good chance to make some headway on this project...

Today's card is #181 in the set, Al Zarilla of the Boston Red Sox.  Allen Lee Zarilla played a total of ten seasons with the St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox, and apparently liked to wear his hat quite high!  He was a decent line drive hitter who enjoyed two seasons with a .300+ batting average.  The first came in 1948, where he hit .329 with 12 HR and 74 RBI in what was definitely his career year.  He was named an All-Star for the only time during that 1948 season.  Zarilla topped .300 again in 1950, when he and teammates Ted Williams and Dom DiMaggio formed the "all-.300" Boston outfield.  Believe it or not he had a better batting average than the Splendid Splinter did that year!

1953 was the end of the road for Al, as he appeared in his final MLB game on September 26th of that year for Boston.  From what I can tell, Zarilla didn't stay involved in professional baseball after his playing days were done.  He passed away in Hawaii in 1996, at the age of 77 years old.

Set Progress:  46 of 274 (17%)

RIP HP Deskjet F4180 - 6/11/2012

It's a sad day here at Shoebox Legends world headquarters.  My trusty friend, the HP Deskjet F4180 scanner that has sat alongside my desk for what seems like forever now, has scanned in its final card.

This little piece of machinery is responsible for every single one of the thousands of card scans I've posted here since I started back in January of 2008.  In fact, this thing has produced more than 20,000 card images in total over the years.  Earlier today though, it just kind of sputtered out and died doing what it enjoyed most (some O-Pee-Chee mini hockey cards were on the scanning bed at the time).  It's not a software or configuration issue, in fact it makes an awful grinding sound and does try to scan, but the hardware is shot.  Definitely got my $50 worth out of it I guess.  Anyone have any recommendations for a basic all-in-one that just prints and scans exactly what you have in the bed without cropping edges or anything?

In the meantime, I've got a healthy backlog of scans to keep me going for quite some time.  In fact, I'm usually so far behind in posting that you probably won't notice a difference.  For now, here's one of the final cards that made it in before the scanner went to pot.

Great looking card of Brooks.  The Orioles logo in the corner is cool, but the patch on Robinson's shoulder is even cooler.  This one set me back less than the cost of a blaster, which is a good reminder to myself as to why I should stick with vintage.

Well, that's about it for tonight.  Guess I'll go haul my scanner out with the recycling...

Members Only

I found these in a small stack of cards from my childhood collection given to me by my Dad not too long ago.  Both of my brothers and I were indeed members of the Topps Stadium Club back in the early '90s, and we each received our small black boxes containing our 1991 Stadium Club Members Only sets.

As a 9-year-old at the time, I figured the cards would earn me hundreds one day.  After all, you had to be a member to get your hands on these.  I couldn't have possibly imagined that 20 years later they would not be worth the cardboard they're printed on.  Oh well, they're not half bad looking cards at least...

There were 30 cards in this set in total, I've picked out just a few of my favorites to highlight here.  We'll start of with Jeff Bagwell, one of the worst trades in Red Sox history...

Here's my favorite card from the bunch.  I'm always happy to add a new Nolan Ryan to the collection.  I've got over 200 different Ryan cards now, not too bad for someone who's generally a set collector I guess...

Rickey Henderson just looks fast on his card...

Here's one commemorating the combined no hitter thrown by Kent Mercker, Mark Wohlers, and Alejandro Pena of the Atlanta Braves on September 11th, 2001.  Great card.

The Rocket represents the only Red Sox card in the set...

Bret Saberhagen's card features what I think is the best photo in the bunch.  He's got a card in the set due to his no-hitter against the White Sox during the '91 season, I'm guessing this photo was taken after that game.

The only problem with this card is that Carlton's in the wrong Sox uniform.

Here's the AL Home Run Leaders card, featuring Cecil Fielder and Jose Canseco, who each clubbed 44 round-trippers in 1991.

Fittingly, I'll leave off with Cal Ripken Jr.  Cal's 1991 season was absolutely insane.  It is up there statistically as one of the best single seasons in the history of baseball.  If you believe in the WARP stat (wins above replacement player), which I confess I only have a general understanding of, it was the fourth best statistical season in baseball history, and the best since 1923.  While I don't understand the ins and outs of how WARP is calculated, I can appreciate Ripkens .323 / 34HR / 114RBI stat line as a shortstop.  He also smashed 46 doubles and another 5 triples.  Cal was the AL MVP, was the home run derby champ and the All-Star Game MVP (first player to do so), won Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards, and was named Player of the Year by both the Associated Press and the Sporting News.

Were any of you Stadium Club members back in the day?

Grab Bag - Vintage Baseball and a Hockey Auto

Here are five more random cards from the bag in my closet...

This 1959 Topps Ray Narleski came from the dollar box at the hobby shop, and is in well-loved condition.  I don't know much about Ray, but it looks like injuries forced him into an early retirement.  He never pitched in the bigs again after the '59 season.

This card's a little off-center and has plenty of wrinkles, but when you see a card you don't have that's over 50 years old for a buck you have to buy it.  It's one of the rules of collecting.

Here's a Rich Peverley rookie from 2007-08's SP Game-Used set, numbered to 999.  I actually ended up with this card long before Rich was dealt to the Bruins.  It came in a small lot of these that I purchased because I wanted the David Krejci.  I'm not particularly attached to it, so if anyone would like it this card is definitely up for trade.

Here's a Daisuke Matsuzaka rookie from the 2007 Upper Deck Goudey set.  This one's appropriate as Matsuzaka will be making his very first MLB start since last year's Tommy John surgery in about half an hour.  This guy can either be really effective, or absolutely maddening to watch.  As a Sox fan, I hope we get the former this afternoon.

These were actually the first cards I bought in pack format when I returned to collecting in 2007.  I think it's a great set.  I need to get around to organizing all of mine and getting my want list updated.  I'm fairly sure I have the entire 200-card short set and maybe half of the SPs.

My favorite card from this bunch is this 2008-09 Upper Deck Legends Masterpieces Richard Brodeur.  If I see these cheap I will always grab them.  I think this card only set me back around $5 shipped.  I love the framed look and the fact that they're all on-card.  That is one busy Canucks sweater right there.

Unfortunately, the backs of these are as atrocious as the fronts are beautiful.

Finally, we have a 1970 Topps Billy Williams.  This one came from the hobby shop as well.  I think I paid about $3 for this one, just couldn't leave it there at that price in this condition.

That's all I've got time for today, hopefully a more substantive post will be up soon...