1957 Topps Rookie Card.
Archive for Frank Robinson
Thrift Treasures 72: Three Baggies Of Cards, $1.99 each. I spy vintage!
Posted in Thrift Treasures with tags baseball, baseball cards, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, O-Pee-Chee, Thrift Treasures, Tom Seaver, Topps on September 13, 2014 by Cardboard Icons
I recently heard from one of my Twitter followers that he enjoys the Thrift Treasures series, but wished they were more frequent. Believe me, me too. My time these days, however, is occupied by work and my kids. It’s easy for me to stop into a store and buy something, which I frequently do, but finding the time to chronicle it on my blog is another.
That said, here’s a trio of baggies I found earlier this week that set me into a small, cheap cardboard frenzy.
I’ll say this up front: It is NOT uncommon for me to find bags of cards in thrift stores. I see them everywhere, but it is worth the time to look closely and see what should be inside. Notice I did not say OPEN them or to do a full-on search of them like a pack searcher. But look closely and see if you see flashes of shiny inserts, drab-looking vintage or something else. Something that might lead you to believe there is more than a stack of 1989 Topps or something.
Heck, with the exception of the baggie shown here on the right, which has a 1974 Topps Boog Powell showing on the back, you might just gloss right over the other ones. After all, it looks like the bag contain nothing more than junk wax era filler.
But a little visual inspection shows that the one on the left had a small section of a dozen or so cards that appeared to be 1992 Japanese Baseball Magazine (BBM) cards, the one in the one in the middle had some parallels and inserts, and the one on the right had multiple vintage cards within.
For the price of two retail packs, I figured I’d roll the dice. You know I love to share my Thrift Treasures.
We’ll start with the middle bag.
In 1995, Pacific released this pretty decent looking base cards set that had full bleed photos on three sides, and then a strip of gold foil along one border. It’s a very 90s design, one I actually enjoyed. Within this particular bag, I could see a small section of about a half-dozen cards that had blue edges instead of the gold. Obviously they were parallels. Additionally, I could see the sweet die-cut crown insert peaking out from within the stack.
There were no big names among the parallels, but the die-cut was Drew Bledsoe, and there were other inserts, notably the Dan Marino “Hometown Heroes” an the Jerry Rice “Gems of the Crown.” And the base cards weren’t half bad: Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and John Elway were the highlights. Not a bad stack of cards for $1.99.
Next we’ll turn our attention to the left baggie, the one with the more modern cards.
As noted earlier the primary reason I wanted this one was the small section of what turned out to be 10 1992 BBM Japanese baseball cards. Ichiro’s rookie is in 1993 (I own it) and Hideo Irabu and Hideo Nomo are in 1993 (I own those as well). So who is in 1992? No clue. But I don’t get to see these very often.
As you can see there are a total of 10 Japanese BBM cards here, nine players and a checklist. One name is familiar — Carmelo Martinez, who played in the Majors — but the others are guys I’ve never heard of. My favorite is, of course, the rookie card of one Jun Takeshita. What a fantastic name.
The remainder of this bag had a few notables: a 1990 Bowman Larry Walker rookie card, a 1989 Bowman Ken Griffey Sr. card that also features the younger Griffey as a rookie, and these pictured.
And the last bag is where the fun really begins as it contained some cards that were some 30 and 40 years old. And they weren’t just commons. The first card on the outside of the bag is a 1974 Topps Boog Powell, who was a member of the Baltimore Orioles on this card. There were a few other Orioles in the bag as evidenced by the 1972 Frank Robinson and 1974 Brooks Robinson also in this lot.
There were a few Cincinnati Reds too …
Like Hall of Famers? Me too. They were in here as well.
Loving my new 1971 Topps Tom Seaver, even if the borders appear to have been touched up at some point.
This is a sweet 1972 Topps pitching leaders card with THREE Hall of Famers on it …
How about Hobby King Mickey Mantle? He’s on this 1967 Topps Yankees checklist somewhere …
How about four more HOFers: 1974 Topps Billy Williams, 1978 Tony Perez, 1978 Rich Gossage and a 1983 OPC Gaylord Perry …
And three more HOFers: 1981 Fleer George Brett, 1985 Topps Ryne Sandberg and 1986 Donruss Highlights Steve Carlton (shown as a member of the San Francisco Giants)
Can’t hate on a 1963 Topps rookie card of Diego Segui …
Know what else I really like? O-Pee-Chee from the 1970 and 1980s. Check out these 1978s … Love the fact that I have an Montreal Expos Team Card from OPC. Also dig the Bob Bailor Topps Rookie Cup OPC card.
And finally a few random lots of …
1974 Topps (LOVE this set)
and 1978 Topps
Sure, the condition on these older cards may not be top quality, but if they had been, they would not have been on the thrift store peg hooks waiting for me to save them.
Total cost of these treasures: $5.97
To see more Thrift Treasures posts, click HERE
The Home Run King and 4 other HOF autos for $25
Posted in Newspaperman with tags Auto, autographs, Bob Gibson, Duke Snider, Frank Robinson, HOF, Jim Palmer on February 18, 2011 by Cardboard Icons
It’s not hard to find hall of fame signatures on cards these days. The price of these autographs has been dropping over the years, partly because collectors have so many different ones to choose from.
But fact remains: If you can get them at a budget price, you’ve got yourself a nice little collectible.
Over the last 10 days, I’ve acquired five hall of fame signatures for the low price of $25.
They may not be the most sought after cards of these players, but they are what they are — autographed.
The Hank Aaron shown at the top of this post is from a special 1992 Front Row set. Some 25,000 sets were created, but 5,000 of them featured a card that was signed by The Hammer. Problem is though that the cards are not certified. Before paying $17 for this Aaron I compared it to others that have been slabbed by PSA/DNA and it looks to have the same characteristics. I have no problem believing this is the real deal. What I like about this Aaron is that it comes from 1992, a time when Aaron signatures were still relatively smooth. Look at any of his newer autos, most of them are pretty jittery.
Before finding this Aaron auto, I found a lot of four 1994 Nabisco autographs for less than the price of three 2011 Topps packs. Nabisco? As in the cracker company? Yep.
In 1994, the cookie, cracker and biscuit manufacturer created a four-card set that was part of a giveaway. In a nutshell, purchasers sent in a few bar codes from Nabisco products along with the cost of shipping and handling, and in return they received ONE hall of fame autograph. I managed to get the whole set for about the same price someone paid for shipping and handling on one card. Awesome.
Duke Snider is a common signature to get through the mail (just add like $10) and he’ll sign whatever you send him. But it’s nice to have a signature from the early 1990s, one that is not as shaky as his latest returns have been.
Jim Palmer autos can be had for $15 these days, but most of them are on shiny stickers that were produced by Donruss in the early part of the 2000s. Hard-signed autos are always a plus.
Frank Robinson’s signature might be one of the most awkward looking legible signatures on the market. I think his autos are more desirable on Reds cards, but there’s no complaining with this hard-signed card.
Gotta love a signature from Bob Gibson. He was one of the most intimidating pitchers in the history of the game, yet has one of the most gentle signatures.
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