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.