coVIdNTAGE

 Time to show off the vintage from my big COMCOVID shipment.

I miss finding pre-Topps beaters for cheap at the card show. This well-loved pair of 1950 Bowman cards each ran me a buck-something. Love the artwork on these!

Bob Scheffing and Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones. Sure, in a perfect world I'd love to have these in EX/NM or whatever, but I don't mind wear on really old cards. Adds to the character. These cards lived. Kids in the 50s shoved these pieces of cardboard into their pockets, played with them down by the schoolyard, and at least in the case of the Jones, apparently ran them through the wash.

These non-sport tobacco minis were each under a dollar.

1968 Brooke Bond History of the Motor Car #48 -1967 Ferrari P4, 4 Litres

1925 Wills Life in the Tree Tops #28 Young Kestrels

I wanna say I saw some of these History of the Motor Car cards on somebody's blog, and went out to find one for myself. This was a year ago, before I started doing my Vintage Frankenset, so that didn't play a factor, but serendipitously I had an opening at #48, so this Ferrari will be pulling into a parking spot there.

Sadly the same can't be said for the Young Kestrels or above 1950 Bowman cards, as their numbers are already filled, but I suppose you can never have enough old-ass cards, right? Pulled the trigger on the 1925 Kestrels back in September 2019 for 75¢ from COMC seller MashingDingers, who I recognize as a Twitter acquaintance of mine (who has expressed an interest in writing a guest post, so who knows, might be a Baseball Card Breakdown collaborator at some point), but I don't think I bought it because it was from him, but probably just trying to find the oldest/cheapest card available that caught my eye.

I wanted to pick up some more Pumpsie Green cards and did just that by grabbing his '61 and '62 Topps. I remember reading his SABR bio while waiting at the vet during the final days my previous pup Annie's life, so there's an additional emotional component towards getting a little PC going for him, the first black player for the Red Sox.

Here's an unassuming 1969 Topps card that I heard about and had to score myself a copy. The highlight of this Mel Queen card is the back..

Both pitching and batting stats! Seems like Topps is usually too lazy to make a special back like this for 2-way players, so the extra effort is appreciated.

Lastly for this post, I picked up a couple cards for vintage sets I'm building. Bob Purkey is a nice semi-high number I found a good deal on for my '64 Topps set that's just over ¾ of the way complete, but one of the cards in this shipment I was most excited about is this particular Gene Baker for my '57 Topps set that's also inching towards 80% complete.

According to TCDB, 1957 Topps #176 Gene Baker is the only card in the set with error and corrected variations listed. As for which variation this one is..? Welp, it's actually a "missing link" between the two! Check it out:

The variation involves a printing flaw with the player name on back. Apparently some of the pressings had a bit too much red ink or something, flooding the last letter of text in the player's first and last name. "EUGENE W. BAKER" became "EUGENF W. BAKEP". I found a curious copy on COMC where the troublesome letters in question are not at their full errored state, but also not quite their fully formed correct versions either. The last E in Eugene has a shorter bottom compared to the top, and the R in Baker has a noticeably thinner tail.

The corrected variation is common and typically sells for under 5 bucks in average condition. I paid $1.25 for mine last fall. In researching around for this post, all recent completed listings on eBay show the error selling for comfortably in triple digits... except for one that sold for "just" $57, but in my opinion it's a fake. Take a look:

Really looks like some dipshit used a red pen to obscure the R in an attempt to increase the value of his 1957 Topps common. You can tell the coloring seems just a little off right there. And notice how the last E in Eugene is conspicuously full. If it was an authentic error variation, both the R and that E should have been affected (Correct me if I'm wrong, but they sure seem to go hand-in-hand). Yep, pretty sure this particular "error" card was faked. Lame. I feel bad for whoever bought it.

Anyways, I don't intend to drop $100+ on the error card-- no offence to Gene Baker who was an All-Star in '55 with the Cubs and got a ring as a bench guy on the 1960 Pirates-- but I'm glad to score what might be an even scarcer variation. What do you guys think, should mine be added to TCDB as a 3rd variation for the card, or would that just piss people off and I should continue to appreciate it as a printing-flaw oddity, not a true variation?

Thanks for swinging by and going down this Baker street with me.

cards I was thinking about getting and then I got them

Remember when I found a Pumpsie Green rookie card in a dimebox at the card show a couple weeks ago? That was the catalyst for me wanting to pump more Pumpsie into my collection. I went looking for an autograph-- first eyeing a similar auto but on a Red Sox card that ended up going for a lot of money-- so instead I ended up going with this Mets one that wasn't nearly as expensive. Maybe not as nice as the other one, but I like it a lot too.

This is a reprint of a of his 1964 Topps card. If you think he played major league baseball in 1964, pump the brakes! He actually spent all year with the Mets AAA affiliate (Buffalo Bisons). In 1965 he played with the Bisons some more, plus a few games with the Syracuse Chiefs (Tigers AAA) before retiring. So this is a true sunset card with complete career stats on the back. I want to read his SABR bio soon to learn more about the man.

I still need the original version of this, not only for my budding Pumpsie PC, but also for my 1964 Topps sebuild. It's been stalled at 72½% complete with no update to my spreadsheet since April. Looks like I won't be finishing that set in the current decade. Oh well. Someday it'll be done. Bo told me he has a couple needs coming my way soon, so that'll be nice to pump a little life into that setbuild.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm posting this on Pumpsie's birthday! If you don't believe me, look at the vitals on the back of the card. It's right there in capital letters: OCTOBER 27. Sadly, he passed away earlier this year, so he's not here to welcome another year of life, leaving us at 85. It happens to us all eventually.
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Next card.

Bobby Cox! I was thinking I wanted a Bobby Cox autograph in my collection. Then I bought this one. I assume cards where he's pictured in a Braves uniform generally sell more than cards with him on other teams, but this Blue Jays card will do the trick for me without pumping too much money out of my account.
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It's got his complete MLB stats on the back (just a couple years on late 60s Yankees teams-- yeah, he's not in the Hall of Fame for his playing career!), plus some managerial mumbo jumbo. Hey look, it's the Syracuse Chiefs again.

Bobby won a World Series with the Braves in 1995 and got them pretty close a bunch of other times too.

This is probably the last card I'll be showing today. I heard that there were rare Gold parallels of the 1993-design cards in Archives this year. I thought that was cool so I decided I'd like to add one to my collection. This Jose Ramirez turned out to be the one I got because the price was right, but hey, I also PC the guy a bit, so it's cool for me. I think there are only a handful Topps Gold parallels of these per card (10? 20?), though they're not serial numbered.

José Ramírez had a down 2019 after a pair of very good seasons where he pumped a bunch of home runs over the fence. Looks like a pesky injury slowed him down. He just turned 27, so he should be able to bounce back and put up a few more quality seasons in his prime.
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Pump is a great album.

Don't forget to check out my 1991 MusiCards blog. I think it's fun.

Thanks for reading, gentlemen (as well as any ladies who might happen to be reading, but with Cracked Bat Julie being missing in action for a few months, there haven't been any ladies commenting here for quite a while unfortunately.)!