March Mystery Post

This post will be a mystery at first since I'm not sure what I'm going to post about. This month of March was lets just say a Family Thing Month. I prefer not to discuss it on my blogs. I try to keep mu family stuff away from here since this blog is primarily for Trading Cards. Even my regular blog Kirk's Knook I try to keep away from discussing some of my personal and family stuff.

While looking through my card hoard searching for something to blog about last night (30 Mar 2022) I came across some stuff I forgot I had. Among the forgotten goodies was this Wax Box Panel of 4 cards from 1991 Topps Baseball.

Wax Box Panel number 3 of 4 if they were numbered that way. The individual cards are lettered as the numbers. This panel has cards numbered lettered I, J, K, L Yes the top left corner is crunched. I think it has always been that way. I think I got this from some sort of trade, or perhaps a large card lot or oddball card lot purchase. It could also have come from my friend's Son's collection I had acquired a few years back.

1991 Topps Baseball Wax Box Card Panel:

I Willie McGee St. Louis Cardinals

J Dale Murphy Philadelphia Phillies

K Eddie Murray Los Angeles Dodgers

L Dave Parker Milwaukee Brewers

I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep this or not, but it does have a Fave Baltimore Oriole (in a different uniform). In fact 3 of the 4 players featured on this panel are in the uniforms of teams I am not used to seeing them in. Dale Murphy I am used to seeing as an Atlanta Brave, Eddie Murray the aforementioned Oriole, and Dave Parker a Pittsburgh Pirate. The completest in me sort of wants to find the other 3 panels, but oddly I don't normally collect box panels anymore.

Buccaneer Brothers O' 1954

 Here is a vintage card that has had a rough life upon the high seas of cardboard collecting. Before I show it here is a brief bit of it's story. I got it at auction from Sportlots for $1.75 plus $2.80 shipping. If the overall poor to good condition wasn't bad enough there was one annoyance that I managed to take care of. It took some patience lots of determination and accepting that there would be a little more damage in the end, but I think I kept the additional damage to a minimum. 

I should have taken a "before" scan to show what it was but I didn't. There is still a bit of debris marks in the final scan that shows where it was. For some reason a previous owner of the card, could have been the seller, or an owner before them, had attached some black Velcro, photo album sticker attachment or fuzzy padded non-skid "foot" felt-like thing to the back of the card covering the card number. It was about 1/2" by 3/4" rectangular with rounded corners. Using a hair dryer and tweezers, lots of patience and a whole heck of a lot of determination I managed to get the thing off the card. It wasn't easy and took many short hair dryer sessions and a little minor non-scar finger burning. I also tried using the microwave with short 10 seconds or less sessions but that didn't seem to do anything. With older cards such as this one since there is no foil, or plastic coating that "nuking" the card won't melt or burn or short out your microwave. The idea to get the glue or "gum" hot enough to loosen via a microwave isn't too crazy, but it takes a lot of heat. You need to make sure the card won't get burned or materials in it melt or explode. I was dealing with some paper loss to begin with and trying to pull that sucker off w/out heating the "glue" would have created much more paper loss. Like I said lots and lots of determination and patience. 

It was uglier than "Butt-Ugly" and really annoyed me because there had been no mention that any sort of "sticker" was attached to the back of the card in the auction description. As with a majority of  Sportlots listings there we no real mention of the condition of the back. I often just have to take it on faith, that there is little to no paper loss on low conditioned cards. There was no photo of the back either, yes I know that probably should have kept me from bidding on it, but I didn't have a copy of this card and I wanted it because it was a two player card and those can be hard to find sometimes.

1954 Topps Baseball 139 Ed & John O'Brian Pittsburgh Pirates

Those black marks on the back just under and partly over the card number on the left is where that "pad" sticker was. Some of the paper there just under the card number and where the baseball "stitching" is is the location of some just hanging on there paper. I could have lost a good portion of the card number and the "Home" and "Born" info if I had tried removing the thing just buy pulling straight off with no attempt at melting the adhesive from the sticker pad.

Strive For '65 Saturday: A Little Help From Sportlots Stores

STRIVE FOR '65 STATUS:

30 Mar 2019 Strive for '65 | 1965 Set Build | Master Want List Current card count: 294/598 (296/600) 49.2%

Here is the link to my last update from November of last year. Once again I am slipping slipping with this ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK! Procrastination is making this post closer to being a Sunday post than a Saturday, not quite though still a few hours before that happens.

I made a big jump with some purchases from Sportlots stores. But Ouch not yet at 50% but oh so much closer. I also got some 1965 OPC cards (2 Senators and 1 Orioles Rookies pair) on 25 Mar. I really need to get all the Senators from that set, as well as the Orioles (for both sets), the team cards, some of my PC players, and the World Series cards. I might as well build the OPC set also. Right now I only have 4 of those though.

 

Thursday 21 Mar 2019:

Got two packages (a large PWE and a small bubble mailer) that had a total of 16 cards 13 of which are 1965 Topps (plus the three 1965 OPCs and a 1970 OPC card). Total shipping for the two packages was $5.50 card prices ranged from 49¢ to $1.99 with most being between 75¢ and 99¢.

Here are the cards:

192 Jim Coker Reds

213 Jim Davenport Giants

223 Dan Osinski Braves

227 Bobby Klaus Mets

229 Lou Clinton Angels

230 Ray Sadecki Cardinals

235 Chuck Hinton Indians

237 Bernie Allen Twins

251 Billy Herman Red Sox Mgr

283 Fred Whitfield Indians

287 Gary Kolb Braves

288 Jack Hamilton Tigers

392 Bob Friend Pirates

Interesting the back of Bob Friend's card does not have a cartoon/comic making the back of his card look almost like a manager's card.

The Latest Additions:
Thursday 21 Mar 2019:

192 Jim Coker Reds

213 Jim Davenport Giants

223 Dan Osinski Braves

227 Bobby Klaus Mets

229 Lou Clinton Angels

230 Ray Sadecki Cardinals

235 Chuck Hinton Indians

237 Bernie Allen Twins

251 Billy Herman Red Sox Mgr

283 Fred Whitfield Indians

287 Gary Kolb Braves

288 Jack Hamilton Tigers

392 Bob Friend Pirates

Bonus 1965 OPC Cards:
I already have the Topps versions of these, even the 1965 Orioles Rookies card. These '65 OPC cards count into my Senators PC, Orioles PC and Kirk/Curt niche PC

Strive For '65 Status Saturday: Been SportLotin'

STRIVE FOR '65 STATUS:
23 January 2016
Strive for '65 | 1965 Set Build | Master Want List

 Current card count: 246/598 (248/600) 41.5%

As I mentioned last status update post (the first of this kind of post sort of) I did some ordering on Sportlots. The first cards that came in (last Saturday of curse the day my last update was posted) were all from one dealer at $1.00 each. There were five more modern cards with them from the 2003 Topps Bazooka set, but that doesn't matter here for this post. This post and any later posts will only mention cards from the 1965 Set build, even if it was just one card from a box of thousands.

I will list the cards newest arrivals listed first and grouped as they came.

The Latest Additions:

Friday 22 Jan 2016: 7 cards from Canada
46 Bob Lee Angels VG
47 Tommy Harper Reds VG
52 Ed Roebuck Phillies VG
57 St. Louis Cardinals Team Card VG
74 Red Sox Rookie Stars: Rico Petrocelli and Jerry Stephenson VG
82 Braves Rookie Stars: Santos Alomar and John Braun VG
431 Cardinals Rooke Stars: Nelson Briles and Wayne Spiezio EX

Wednesday 20 Jan 2016: One '65 card only
60 Jim O'Toole Reds VG/EX

Tuesday 19 Jan 2016: Wow I tied my record for most packages received for a card mail day at 13 packages (3 bubble mailers, 10 PWEs). Not all had 1965 cards, but I got a total of 13 cards to add to this set. Most of the envelopes had 2 or 3 cards with 4 cards being the most cards in an envelope (that one had no '65s) So here we go for this day:

64 Lou Burdette Cubs EX/NM

4 NL 1964 Home Run Leaders: Willie Mays Giants, B. Williams Cubs, J Callison Phillies, D. Cepeda Giants, Jim Hart Giants VG/EX
209 Pittsburgh Pirates team card VG has crease

19 Gates Brown Tigers EX/NM

338 Philiadelphia Phillies team card VG/EX

83 George Thomas Tigers EX

173 Detroit Tigers team card VG Front blot thing right side, back very clean

29 Felix Mantilla Red Sox VG front has medium to dark gum stain, dent/ding indentation left side by team banner
78 Dal Maxvill Cardinals EX/NM
426 Milwaukee Braves Team Card EX Back off center on bottom part of a cartoon top is on right.

9 AL 1964 Pitching Leaders: Dean Chance Angels, Gary Peters White Sox, W. Bunker Orioles, J. Pizarro White Sox, D Wickersham Tigers Overall good offcenter to bottom some back has some pencil marks underlining all the Chicago players.

36 Bobby Wine Phillies Excellent front has some printing goof dots on players hat and a light printing streak line.

423 Jesse Gonder Mets - In Excellent shape

Received on Saturday 16 Jan 2016: One package 3 cards.

61 Chris Cannizzaro Mets (The guy whose name was misspelled, well missing the first name initial actually, on checklist no. 1 card 79 to make that variant)

151 Kansas City Athletics Team Card - Very off-center to the bottom edge, very noticeable on the back

234 Chicago White Sox Team Card

A Berra Full of Yogis

For as long as I can remember Yogi Berra has been an icon of Major League Baseball. He is one of the classic vintage players that I keep a lookout for to find a deal on his cards. Most of the cards issued during his playing years and somewhat his managing years are bloody expensive. Anyway I thought it would be fun to show some of his cards that I have. So I will just show some of them mostly because I don't have all of them scanned (and I noticed one of these I didn't have the back scanned silly me)

First here is a card from when he turned coat from New York Yankee to New York Met. It is his 1965 Topps card. This is also a fortunate but sneaky way to mention my "Strive for '65" Goal to have that entire set by April of 2015. I got it from Ebay for a steal back in 2012 for $7.95 + $2.25 shipping. (here is my mention of the card on the TCC forum Steals board. The thread lies because it has been scanned since then).

 1965 Topps Baseball 470 Yogi Berra Mets

(Front and Back)

Next up: From 2005 Donruss Signature Series. I forget if this was a purchase or a trade. Purchase I think along with a handful of other HOF cards. I might have overpaid but I don't recall.

2005 Donruss Signature Series HOF-32 Yogi Berra Yankees

(Front and Back)

Now one of those modern retro cards from 2009 Goodwin Champions made by Upper Deck. I have two of these I think one I had bought and the other I either pulled from a pack or traded for it. I think at one time I might have had 3 of these. Anyway I was lazy a few years back when I scanned it. I had scanned it in the toploader and never got around to scanning the back so the back image appears "Courtesy of COMC.com"
 

2009 UD Goodwin Champions 62 Yogi Berra Yankees

(Front and Back)

Ooh this next one is pretty darn cool. I got this one back in the day from the original source of how you normally got them. It is a food product card. It is card number one from a five card gimmick "pop-up"card set of Hall of Fame players. The idea was to pull the tab on the top up and the card "pops" open. I never to my best recollection "popped" mine. I took it out of the original plastic wrapping. Maybe a bad move there. To think at one time in the late 90s I was tempted to sell it, but NOT NOW. I plan on keeping it I was insane then and didn't remember who was on the card. The number is on the front "1 of 5" but it is not a serial number 1 of 5. I want to get the other four cards some time (hmm I noticed a full set on the bay I started watching it). In 1995 Stouffer's food included these "Legends of Baseball" cards in some of their frozen dinner products. Hmmm back in '95 they might have still made "TV Dinners" for standard ovens with the aluminum foil with special instructions on if you wanted to microwave the meal. I forget exactly what product it came in. Was it meat loaf, or turkey w/ gravy?

 1995 Stouffer's Legends of Baseball Pop-Ups 1 Yogi Berra Yankees

(Front and Back)

Yogi has three sons two of which went into professional sports like dad. Dale followed dad's footsteps into baseball. Here is a father/son card from Topps 1985.

 1985 Topps Baseball 132 Father Yogi Berra Yankees Son Dale Berra Pirates

(Front and Back)

While son Tim decided to go into Football:

 1975 Topps Football 301 Tim Berra Baltimore Colts

(Front and Back)