Friday, April 13, 2018

April CSA Show Part 2 - A Smigdeon of Vintage

Apparently, I'm going in reverse order around the card show because today's post features cards from the penultimate table I visited. It just so happens that I started bigger and tapered off towards the end which means the first cards needs more scanning and cropping.

I don't always need to have the newest, shiniest in baseball card design but in the past, I've tended to shy away from vintage tables. One, they make me realize how unprepared I am for a card show no matter how much I may think otherwise. Watching the elder statesmen of the hobby with their hand written checklists hunched over the boxes to complete their sets can be a little intimidating. This isn't Black Friday where I can just throw on the elbow spurs and push my way through the crowd to get the deals.

Two, growing up in the junk wax/baseball-cards-can-be-investments era, I can be a bit of a condition snob. I realize that. I own it. But trust me, with my low bankroll, those two things don't go hand in hand. So I generally keep moving.

Three, pricing. I've noticed "book value" is a term most vintage dealers still use and while there's nothing wrong with that, I don't know what that means anymore. Which makes me feel unprepared (see #1).

And finally, four, in light of all of the above, I don't have much of a want list for vintage, because I pretty much need everything. And where do you start when you need everything?? I need to finish up cataloging my collection so I can start attacking this hole in the collection before it takes a mortgage payment to do. It's both motivating and demotivating at the same time.

Anyway, on my first loop around the show, I saw one dealer with vintage in card savers, stacked about 25 high and rubber banded by year and in numerical groups (1-50, 51-100, etc). One card in particular caught my attention because it was right on top, a 1961 Topps checklist. The prices were marked in sharpie on the card saver itself with designations like 15/7. This meant the book price was $15, dealer price was $7.

Did I want to pay $7 for a checklist? It was unmarked, pretty well centered, good edges, slightly soft corners. That seems like a pretty ok price for a card in that condition that was nearing voting age by the time I was born (and I'll be more than twice that this year!)

But for a checklist? Good thing this was my first pass, and as I mentioned yesterday, I was in hands in pocket mode so didn't have to make this decision just yet.

I finished my lap, and having satisfied the modern itch by this point, I came across a different vintage table that was very well organized. Boxes of "common" vintage were labeled by price points (condition based, I'm guessing) and by year within each box.

Not having anything in particular in mind, I started at a $3 per or 2/$5 box at the 1961's. Maybe the checklist would be cheaper here?

No dice, but then further down the table I notice a dollar box, or 6/$5. Organized the same way, I went straight for the 1961's. And for my only vintage purchases of the day, I had no trouble finding six cards.


The Ivy collection has some new oldest cards! These beat the recently acquired 1973 Topps Dave Roberts by more than a decade! This was the worst of the bunch condition wise, with creases above the O in Topps and first B in Baseball. Somebody had also stamped the back of the card. The horizontal marks along the back aren't creases, but some kind of scuff/scratch. I'm pretty sure that's Ernie Banks in the card above.


This one had some corner issues, but was unmarked otherwise. Somebody in a pickle!


This one has some soft edges that are cropped out but otherwise really nice. A meeting of the minds at second base.


Same with this last one. And another one that I'm pretty sure is Banks.

Obviously, I was much happier picking these up for less than what the other single that was $7 by itself, condition be darned. Though technically not Cubs cards, I might upgrade these at some point for the Cubs collection. For now these are Ivy cards.

If I can find some time, maybe I'll try to game date some of these as well.

After getting home, and doing some research, all of these have variations as well. They range from the color of the circle and card number being reversed to alignment of the copyright information to the color of the word checklist on the front. Now I wonder if the $7 version was a variation?


On top of the checklists for the Ivy collection, I also picked up a very nice Don Zimmer from the same dollar box. Slightly off center, but with relatively good edges and corners, I am pretty sure this is my first Popeye from his playing days.

For those of you that can count, the missing sixth card is off into the blogosphere somewhere, where I've noticed my packages are starting to pop up.

3 comments:

  1. Any chance that the stamped card is up for trade?

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    Replies
    1. Sure. I'll set it aside for you.

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    2. Awesome - I love old-time phone numbers and old baseball cards. I'll send you an email re a trade.

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