Holy Hawaii Batman!

I got two more sketch cards one on Wednesday 02 February 2012 and one the following day. These cost a bit more than the pencil sketch cards I had mentioned before. First up is a sketch of DC Comic Heroine Batgirl on her Batcycle.

 

This card is a pencil sketch with pen & ink with gray shading, watercolor? The back is signed by the artist Lyle Pollard and dated "2k'12" it has ink bleed-through from the ink on the front.

I like his style but I have a problem with some of his faces, there were other cards I saw where I liked the subject but there was something about how he did the face that didn't sit with me well.

 After studying this particular sketch I noticed that Batgirl has a scrawny pencil-neck. I also noticed that her windblown hair seems to be too high behind her, maybe her pony tail is high and that is the loose hair below the hairband.Those are my only complaints about this sketch. I got it from Ebay for $14.99 w/Free Shipping.

 Next up we have a card from an "upcoming designer of non-sports trading cards" of the Hawaii Five-0 Character Kono Kalakaua played by Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica).

 It is a pencil sketch colored with what looks like watercolor. The artist uses thin paper stock that is textured to simulate canvas. The back is actually a second piece of paper stock that has a certificate and is serial numbered to 250. Each of this artist's print runs is numbered to 250. It is sealed in a toploader (no penny sleeve though). I got this one for $12.99 w/ $1.95 shipping. This one is numbered 224/250.

 At first I thought and assumed (dangerous to do I know) that the seller was the artist his Ebay ID is vinestreetstuff. It doesn't look like he is the artist as the guy has a couple of other artist's work for sale. One of the artists this guy sells cards of is named Michael Celona, but this signature doesn't match the one for him. The signature on the back looks like it starts with a "P" maybe "Phil"?

It seems that sketch artists don't put their cards in a penny sleeve before putting them in the toploader. At least most have the sense to use toploaders and not those silly "card savers". (see my post on My Cal Ripken RC) The card saver is better than nothing, unfortunately a lot of card sellers and card collectors will put cards in them and ship them in a thin envelope (bad) or a PWE (worse). They are usually OK if put in a bubble mailer or a more substantial mailer or box. Cardsavers are OK for storage and display, but not for shipping.

Mid 1970s Wonder Bread NFL

Back in the day one of the biggest food companies and Topps produced some nice card sets that were included in the food product. I am talking about WONDER BREAD. In 1974 -76 they made some nice, although small, Football sets.

The designs are both nice and pretty plain. The 1974 set takes the design of the 1971 Topps Football set, while the 1975 and 1976 seem to be unique to themselves.

I will concentrate this post on the 1975 set as that was the only one I had any cards of way back then. My mom wasn't much of a fan of the bleached white Wonder bread so we would usually get either the store brand or Whole Wheat breads when I was a kid. So it was sort of rare when I would get some of these things. Wonder Bread also did some non-sport sets the most popular would probably be the STAR WARS and maybe the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (The original series) sets. (I'll try to post some pics of those sometime later, I don't think I have any scanned).

OK so way back in '75 I managed to get these two cards from this 24 card set:

#21 TED HENDRICKS

#17 FRANCO HARRIS

Those two cards were pulled directly from the product, the only way to get these cards back then. A few years later when trading card shops started popping up during the hobby boom of the early 1980s it was possible to start getting these from other sorces and even some of the factory sets. So my copies of these cards are pretty yellowed on the back and the white parts on the front from being in actual contact with the bread. I forget if they put them in those little plastic packs back then or not. Even if they did cards pulled directly from the bread bags are most likely never going to be anywhere near NM.

For the longest time those were the only two cards from this set that I had. It also seemed that I would be forever doomed to only having just those two, um this was before the internet and places like Ebay where now if you are patient enough you can find a decent set for a pretty good price, but I had to do things the hard way and find the set in bits and pieces So I do have a few cards from this set for trade (I'll list those toward the bottom of this post). OK so I pieced the set together mostly by winning some Ebay auctions, and I think maybe one or two purchases from sportlots.com (either in the direct stock, or in the 1,2,3 Auctions they have).

Here are a few of my fave cards from this set:

#4 KEN HOUSTON#7 TOM MACK

#13 BOB GRIESE

The Bob Griese card was not too difficult to get with today's internet. I got it from Ebay and the seller appologized for it being in such poor condition. When I got it I was like "What's wrong?" OK so the corners are not prestine sharp and the edges have a tiny bit of wear, but that doesn't make me sad about it.

Now the cards that eluded me the most and I had Dicken's of a time trying to pin down. They were cards #15 Chuck Forman and the first card #1 Alan Page. Since they both are Vikings maybe it was an ancient Viking curse I was a victim of. I would keep finding partial sets, that had almost everyone but these two, especially Mr. Page. He was the very last card I managed to find. Odd as often people manage to get the first card of a set or some of the early ones and decide to acquire them in order. Anyway it took about 34 years to complete this 24 card set, with probably only about 10 years of actually trying hard to find the cards other than in passing.

#15 CHUCK FOREMAN

#1 ALAN PAGE

One thing about the design of this set that for several years I couldn't place since I only had the two cards was how they were organized. I haven't quite figured out the reason for the numbering but I eventually discovered the pattern to the RED and BLUE borders. At first I thought it may be the traditional AFC/NFC thing, but after getting more cards from teams of the same conference with different color schemes I knew that wasn't it. It isn't by team either as there are a couple of teams that have 2 players as you can see there are two Vikings and one is Red the other Blue. Well with the full set and studying the cards carefully, I discovered that The DEFENSE is RED and the OFFENSE is BLUE. Mystery Solved.

I don't have any of the 1974 set yet. I'd like to start getting some of those or find a nice conditioned set. UPDATE: I now have my first 1974 Wonder Bread Card: # 15 Tom Mack - Rams. Received in mail on 13 Nov.

I do have a complete 1976 set. Over the years, now many of the players from each of these sets are now in the NFL Hall of Fame.


Here are my Duplicates from this set and also my lone duplicate from the 1976 set that are up for trade.

1975 Wonder Bread
#2 Emmitt Thomas - Chiefs
#7 Tom Mack - Rams (2)
#9 Isaac Curtis - Bengals (2)
#22 Levi Johnson - Lions (2)

1976 Wonder Bread

#14 Jack Youngblood - Rams