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.

2(sday) x 3 Heroes Mailday

It seems like every time I get complacent in not blogging, JediJeff of 2x3 Heroes fame manages to lure me back in. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but he's one of the good ones.

Last summer, I noticed that the Cubs were featured on a regional cover of Sports Illustrated. In the good ol' Land of Lincoln, and probably a slightly larger area, fans were treated to this fantastic shot of Kris Bryant's walk off home run.

And don't forget Pedro Strop!

I think in my neck of the woods, we had a Serena Williams (tennis?!) cover.

I couldn't make up the following story if I tried.

The issue date of this magazine was August 31, 2015. The walk off depicted (#12 of last season's incredible 13) was Monday, August 24, 2015. Less than a week later, while this issue was probably still on newsstands, Jake Arrieta no-hit a playoff bound Los Angeles Dodgers team.

When I heard such a regional issue existed, I shot Jeff an email asking if he could procure such a treasure for me if he happened to see one in his area. A few weeks later, I fall off the planet again.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago and all a sudden two copies of this magazine have become a "burden" and possibly a "curse" to his home (despite his Pale Hose also owning a fine start and division lead). A little on the dramatic side if you ask me.

He confirms my address hasn't changed and a week later, they show up in my mailbox. What happens next? That's right. Jake Arrieta promptly throws another no hitter.

Jeff, when the Cubs land the cover again, I think you know what to do....

But JenerousJediJeff doesn't just stop at gifting me an awesome collectible magazine and a pair of no hitters. He throws in a some cards like he's Billy Freakin' Mays.

We've got some great horizontals:

2003 Topps #252 Joe Randa

2012 Topps #461 Victor Martinez

2015 Topps Stadium Club #282 Fred McGriff

2007 Upper Deck #418 Khalil Greene

Is this Khali Greene an Ivy card too? Hmmmm.....

Speaking of Ivy cards, we've got those too:

And even some interleague Ivy cards:

I see you sneaking a South Sider into my collection...

Aaaaaaaand North Siders! My Cubs collection is a bit of a mess right now because of storage situations but I was using Zistle prior to my hiatus. And according to that record, some of these are new and some of them are upgrades.



2006 Topps Chrome #261 Greg Maddux Award Winners



If any body ever figured out how to scan chrome cards nicely while I was gone, let me know.

2012 Bowman Prospects Silver Ice #BP75 Dillon Maples

2013 Panini Pinnacle Looking Back #LB2 Starlin Castro

And pretty much everything 2015 was going to be new to me.

These Cubs were dupes, but I haven't even started looking at the Cubs portion of my horizontal collection so they'll slide over for the time being.

1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #284 Jose Vizcaino



2010 Upper Deck #545 Wrigley Field



And for that extra extra extra bonus, Jeff threw in one of my first 2016 cards. And its a numbered relic to boot!

2016 Topps 100 Years at Wrigley Relic #WRIGR-RP Rafael Palmeiro

With a mailing like that, no wonder I came back just to show it off!

Thanks, Jeff! By the time this posts, there should be something going back your way.

Just Another Madlock Monday

Actually, this is the first (and probably only) Madlock Monday but who doesn't like a good song pun?

At any given time, I feel like I have a bazillion side projects within my overall umbrella of being a Cubs collector. One that's been on the back burner was trying to get all of the Topps All-Star Rookie Cup cards signed. Well, I guess everything has technically been on the back burner lately, haha.

Paul of Wrigley Wax recently did a write-up on all of the Cubs players with this honor with the recent additions of Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber in 2016 and another one from a few years back with Cubs from the "missing years" when Topps named the teams but neglected to put trophies on the cards. And here's the Wiki list of each year's teams.

Sometime before my hiatus, I had picked up a very nice copy of Bill Madlock's 1975 Topps card that showcased his All-Star Rookie Team honors. Sharp corners, nicely centered.



1975 Topps #104 Bill Madlock

And when an autograph appearance came up, I sent in my card to be signed. Not only that, but I knocked off my ATCRCS card too.

I mostly remember Madlock as a Pirate and Dodger, but as the blog title used to say before it was shortened says, Once a Cub...Always a Cub.

And speaking of which, he also joins my collection through my Ivy niche collection with those teams.

1981 Donruss #252 Bill Madlock

 

1987 Fleer #445 Bill Madlock

The Ivy Frankenset Begins

Last week, I talked about streamlining my two niche collections into Frankensets. As far as organization goes, the Ivy Collection seemed liked the easier of the two to tackle so during the masterful performance by Jake Arrieta in front of a national audience on Sunday evening, I was a scanning, cropping and cataloging machine.

While I know I still have a couple dozen, if not a hundred, more Ivy cards tucked away somewhere, I was able to get a good start towards my set. I still owe some people stuff from before my hiatus, so I won't be putting out a wantlist, or even my checklist until I get caught up with the outgoing mail. But thanks for the offers I've received already, they're appreciated!

In the meantime, I am a bit of a spreadsheet/statistics geek so I thought I'd share a few tidbits about the collection.

To start, I have cataloged 181 cards that feature the ivy of Wrigley Field in the background. No Cubs cards will be included in this set, although Cubs players can (and do) make cameos. National League teams will have an advantage but I will try to find as many American League teams as I can. As of this cataloging, the AL collection includes one card from the White Sox and one from the Orioles. The Houston Astros are the overall team leader with 23 cards, but they are all from their NL days. Likewise, the one Milwaukee Brewers card I have set aside from this collection is from their AL days.

The majority of the cards so far are from the junk wax era. The oldest card so far is from 1981 Donruss. The newest card is from 2014 Donruss. I don't have many 2015 cards and what I do are predominantly Cubs. And the way this Frankenset was culled together, many sets are over represented here in the beginning. I hope to diversify as much as possible, but a few of these sets had multiple nice cards.

Pitchers take the cake for the position tally with a count of 109. I was quite surprised to find cards with a catcher and a DH with ivy in the background.

The lowest card number was 1 and the highest in this small sample was 817. I'm not sure my set will go that high, but I'll try to fill as many holes as I can.

I know, I know. Enough with the numbers, show you some pictures. Of the 181 cards, 19 cards numbers were duplicated and one was triplicated. So let's duke it out and pit a few against each other to see who makes the set. Comment below to let me know which one you think should make the set. I'll say a few things about each one and why they interest me (or don't).

The Battle of #94:

1989 Upper Deck #94 Tim Leary vs. 1995 Donruss #94 Orlando Miller

Tale of the tape: The 1989 Upper Deck set is represented 4 times, while the 1995 Donruss set has 7 cards. The Dodgers have 18 cards. The Astros have 23. Leary is one of 109 pitchers while Miller is one of only 19 shortstops. The player photography is probably better on the Miller card, who is also a Rated Rookie, but the ivy is clearer on the Leary card.

Next up is the Battle of #112

1993 Fleer Ultra #112 Lee Smith vs. 1993 Upper Deck #112 Bip Roberts

Tale of the Tape: In one corner, we have a Hall of Fame-worthy former Cub. In the other, we have a blogosphere fan favorite with some flipped up shades. This is Fleer Ultra's lone representative so far while the 1993 Upper Deck set has seven cards on my spreadsheet. That 1993 Upper Deck set is one of the ones I mentioned earlier that has some great shots, in and out of Wrigley. Both are NL Central rivals so that's a strike against both. Lee Smith falls into the overused pitcher category, while Bip Roberts is one of eight in the collection with the infield designation.

And for our final matchup of the day, we have the Battle of #170

1993 Topps #170 David Justice vs. 1995 Donruss #170 John Hudek

Tale of the Tape: Like the first matchup, we have a similar set count of 4 vs. 7. And the 1995 Donruss card is another Rated Rookie Astros player. The Braves have 13 cards so far, compared with the Astros leading 23. David Justice is credited as an outfielder on the back of the card, one of 19 represented. I do have a soft spot for seeing nameplates and jersey numbers like the John Hudek card, but personally, I think Justice wins this matchup.

Let me know what you think. I'll post winners next Friday and come up with some more battles. The losers will stay in the collection, they just won't get the binder treatment.

The Ivy Collection - 2009 Upper Deck #817 Brandon Moss

This has been a semi-regular feature for a little while and I'd like to kinda, sorta unofficially give these posts a home here on Fridays. Some breakdowns will be a little more in depth depending on the amount of information I can find.

Today's card came as part of a package from JediJeff of 2x3 Heroes fame a few weeks back.

2009 Upper Deck #817 Brandon Moss

Does anybody else miss cards numbered in the 7, 8 & 9 hundreds?

Anyway, on July 31, 2008, Brandon Moss was involved in a three-team trade that moved him from the Red Sox to the Pirates. That trade though is probably more well known for sending Manny Ramirez from the Red Sox to the Dodgers.

His first series with the Pirates? The Cubs at Wrigley Field, which ran from August 1-3. All three were day games, so the fact that Moss is wearing sunglasses doesn't really help narrow things down. Quick Getty Images and AP Images searches show that the Pirates apparently wore those jerseys all three games, but I didn't see anything remotely close to this photo. That means, unfortunately, that's as definitive as I can get here.

On a speculative side though...

There's no break in the ivy to give me any indication where exactly in the outfield Moss is playing. My first instinct on the picture was that he was playing right field, which he only did during the August 1st game (Cubs lost). I'm not sure why I think that though as he could easily be playing left field where he was the other two games (Cubs won both). 

I took at look at all of the box scores and there's just too many opportunities for Moss. He had multiple putouts in each game, but we can't even tell for sure this was an out. There were a couple of hits listed as shallow line drives that went his way. There was also at least one "shallow double" that he could have dove for and come up short. Too hard to tell.

Usually, I like it better when a different photo is used on the back but I'll let this one slide since it repeats the ivy picture.

The Ivy Collection - 2013 Topps #296 Didi Gregorius

I recently launched a new series I'm calling The Ivy Collection. I probably have hundreds, if not thousands of Cubs cards that feature ivy in the background, but this separate collection will focus more on visiting teams. You can find a link to the cards I already have in my collection in the right hand side bar under the Niches heading. If you come across any I don’t have, I’d love to add them to my collection.

For the past few years, Topps has used Getty Images as a source for their photographs, making today's card a lot easier to place than the older cards I've already showcased. Rather than jump right into Getty though, I decided to try to find the game using context clues first.

From the front, we know that the Reds played the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The ivy is green and full. As a Cubs fan, I know that's Darwin Barney sliding in to break up the double play.

We can also see from the back that Gregorius played in 129 minor league games in 2012, not leaving much room for time in the Majors. The last sentence in the blurb also mentions him being a September call up.

My first stop is over at his Baseball-Reference page.

From there, I see that he played in just eight games in 2012.

And luckily for me, just one of those eight games came against the Cubs and at Wrigley. The next step was to find when Barney got on base.

Darwin Barney grounded out in the 1st, 3rd and 5th before finally reaching on a single in the 7th. But as you can see by the inning summary above, he made it to third base on a single by Anthony Rizzo. Not a potential double play ball.

In the 9th, Barney followed up a David DeJesus single with another of his own. This time however, Rizzo grounded to second baseman Henry Rodriguez (not the former Cubs outfielder nor the former Cubs pitcher with the same name) who fed the ball to Gregorius to force Barney out at second. Rizzo was safe at first, thus no double play.

Maybe that's why Jeff of 2x3 Heroes sent me this card. He knew it didn't belong in his double play collection. Or it was a duplicate. Potayto. Pototto.

One more thing I wondered though, was if Gregorius even made an attempt at Rizzo. I would think that the fact that Gregorius still had the ball in hand and Barney is already underneath him, he would have just eaten it. Usually, the runner is still a few feet away from the bag when the relay is made.

Let's take a look at the original Getty Image.

See? Barney is already at the base and Gregorius still has the ball. Unless Barney was already on the move, which is possible with a first and third, no outs situation, there's probably no shot at Rizzo.

Anthony Rizzo isn't a Rickey Henderson type guy on the base paths, but he's no Cecil Fielder either.

But as you can see by the picture above from later in the sequence, Gregorius did make the throw. I guess since they were sacrificing the run anyway, he may as well try to turn two.

Well I didn't stop there, I found the video too. I tried to embed it, but it wasn't working so here's the link via MLB.com

Rizzo's RBI Fielder's Choice

Sorry if an ad comes up, nothing I could do there. That was closer than it should have been at first. Just saying.

Thanks again, Jeff for the card!