Some random old cards for Wednesday: '79 Stadium Club

A few more cards I picked up in a lot the other day.

Johnny Bench! As far as top tier HOFers from the 70s go, he's got lots of affordable cards. One day I'll see about completing his standard cards.

Check out that miscut Molitor! Now imagine that you're a kid in early 1979 ripping your first waxpack of just-released 1979 Topps and that card is on the top. You'd be like, "Wow! Topps has started experimenting with full-bleed photography! Only half the card has a border! COOOOOOL!!!" But you'd soon realize that it's just a wonkily cut card, and you have to wait over a decade till Stadium Club comes out to finally free cards from the shackles of borders. (I suppose some oddballs beat them to it, such as Mothers Cookies.) This might be a rare case of a miscut card actually being an improvement. If all '79 Topps cards looked like that, it'd probably get a lot more love from collectors for being so fresh and innovative for the time.

I love crafty old pitchers who stuck around forever.. Phil Niekro, Jim Kaat, Gaylord Perry, etc.

Luis Tiant was a fun character. Nice to score another card of him.

Tony Perez and Gary Carter.. HOFers representing the great white north.

I actually just picked up that funky star-cap Stargell in my recent Just Commons order, so consider this one trade bait or possibly prize pool material.

Steve Carlton has a lot of great cards and a lot of crappy cards. This 81 Topps might be the worst.. Boring headshot.. Lefty's face hidden in the shadow of his cap, and his unfortunate white-guy fro bursting out on the sides.

Eddie Murray is a badass. Excited to add an early card of his to my collection.

Ok, that's it for today. Back tomorrow to continue this week of random cards from the late 70s and early 80s.

Some random old cards for Tuesday: Brock vs. Lonnie

Here are a few more highlights from the big vintage-y lot I got a few days ago.

Love Lou Brock. Even if advanced metrics in recent years suggest he may be overrated (according to Hall of Stats, he falls well short of Hall-worthy.. wha?!), he was an exciting player and has some great cards (..though this Record Breaker might not be one of them.. a photo of Brock swiping that record-breaking base would've been infinitely better). And as a former high school sprinter, I have an affinity for speedsters.

J.R. Richard and Ron Cey are a couple guys that I didn't give time of day to when I was a younger collector, but since getting into reading baseball card blogs in recent years, my eyes have been opened to their greatness.

Keith Hernandez is a cool character I don't really have any older cards of. Till now, I guess!

Growing up watching plenty of Braves games on TBS in the early 90s, it's neat to finally have a Lonnie Smith rookie card. Hopping back to Hall of Stats, Lonnie Smith has an identical "Hall Score" to Lou Brock. Really?!? I like that site, but don't always agree with how the numbers shake out. No offense to Lonnie Smith, who was a fine ballplayer, but compared to Lou Brock? No contest!

As a casual Doors fan, it's cool to me that Jim Morrison shares Lonnie's rookie card. And please don't point out that this isn't the Lizard King himself.. just let me keep on pretending that Jim Morrison faked his death because he was sick of being a rockstar, and became a professional baseball player instead.

Remember when Barry Bonds eclipsed his father Bobby Bonds? Who would have guessed that Barry would later sink so far that Bobby would posthumously eclipse Barry back again.. at least in the hearts of baseball fans, not the recordbooks. Bobby has some great cards. This 81 Topps card catches him just waking up from a good dream, by the looks of it. "Ah man, you guys wouldn't believe it! I was riding a polkadotted unicorn through a syrup waterfall!"

George Foster, a recent Happy Card honoree, is always a welcome addition to my collection.

Goose looks funny here without his trademark mustache. Pretty sure I needed this for my PC.. he fits into my top tier collecting goal of "former Padres who are in the Hall".

Speaking of which, Garvey is hoping the Veteran's Committee adds him to that list one of these years, too. (Interesting read: Why Isn't Steve Garvey In The Hall Of Fame?)
Don't take this the wrong way, but Steve Garvey's 81 Donruss card here might be the "sexiest" baseball card until Score started putting out subsets of guys with their shirts off. Garvey's womanizing charm is hard to deny, even on baseball cards such as this one. You can just picture him seductively holding a glass of red wine out of frame. "Well, hello ladies."

Ok, that's it for today. Check back tomorrow and we'll take a look at 8 or 9 more cards.

BTW, notice I replenished the prize pool and gave it its own page in the sidebar. I'll get another contest going soon with another chance to win ya some cards.

Some random old cards for Monday: Templeton n' friends

This week I'm taking the familiar "hey, check out these cards I got recently" route for blogging. As I mentioned the other day, these are from a big lot I got on Listia of 350+ cards from 1970-1982. Here's another flatbed-full of favorites:

30-Year Old Cardboard was dissing that 81 Donruss Fisk a couple weeks ago, but I think it's a nice, simple card. The photo has a vintage, washed-out feel to it, and it's one of Pudge's few happy cards.

That '82 Fleer Palmer on the other hand.. wow, that's a blurry photo!

I love Bill Madlock.. glad to see him pop up 2 or 3 times in this lot with additions to my ever-growing Mad Dog PC.

I used to collect Garry Templeton back when I was young and foolish.. perhaps because his name reminded me of the rat in Charlotte's Web, which was a book I liked as a kid (though yeah, it's sad for a children's book), plus he was the captain of my hometown Padres back when I first got into baseball. While I'm not much into him anymore, I still appreciate old cards of him from back when he was putting up impressive numbers with the Cardinals.. before he followed that with a decade of mediocrity in San Diego. sigh.

In my Greatest Gavins of All Time post a few weeks ago, I expressed gratitude that there hadn't been any Garvins to ever play baseball. Sadly, I stand corrected. Jerry Garvin here seems to know he's committed a grave offense. There was also a guy named Garvin Alston who pitched in 6 games for the Rockies in '96. Not sure why the name Garvin bothers me so. I wonder if guys named Kevin can't stand the name Kelvin?

That's a pretty strong HOF bottom row, though not the best condition. I'm pretty sure I've already got that Yaz, so it's probably available as trade bait. The Tom Seaver has some paper loss at the bottom, but otherwise a fine card. Jim Rice's warm smile must've inspired a former owner of the card to give it many hugs, as the corners/edges are definitely well-loved.

That's it for today. Back with 8 or 9 more cards to admire tomorrow.

Some random old cards for Sunday: trade baiting

I had some Listia credits burning a hole in my digital pocket, so obviously I'm going to spend that on cards. I splurged a few days ago and spent a big chunk of that on a lot of 350+ vintage-ish cards (1970-1982) for the rough equivalent of $15-25, though it's hard to really nail down a Listia credits-to-dollars ratio.

Some great stuff in there. I picked out a good portion of guys I like/collect to keep, some highlights of which I'll show off below. But there are probably about 250 cards that are essentially available for trades, etc. If any of you guys are trying to complete a Topps set or team set from 1970-1981 and still have some commons to check off your list, feel free to get in touch with a needs-list and I'll take a look and maybe we can work out a little trade (my wantlist). Elsewise, I'll likely throw some of them into my prize pool for future contests, and/or offer some PWE lots on Listia to make back some credits.

trade bait!

Most of the cards are from 78, 79, 80 and 81 Topps, and lots of 81 Fleer too. And then a small handful of cards each from 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, and 77.

The only year I think I'll take off the table is 1973, as I'm still coyly considering the idea of deciding to try to complete that set someday. But that's a topic for a future post, I suppose.

Anyways, I think everyday this week I'll post a flatbed scanner-full of baseball cards from this lot I won. Seems like "low hanging fruit" for getting some posts out. (Work has been super busy lately, with somebody leaving and me picking up the slack, so I've had much less downtime for drafting up posts during the day.) These below cards are mostly ones I want to keep, though, not the trade bait unless noted.

First up..

Some Schmidts, Roses, and Nolans. Some of these I think I already have, but will need to check/organize. Pretty sure I have the 2 "1981 Highlight" cards and the '80 Schmidy.. so I suppose those 3 are probably trade bait if anybody wants 'em.

I love the Ryan Express, but Phil Niekro on that LL card takes it from a very good card to a great card. The '82 Donruss Ryan was the only card in the lot to come in a top loader, so I'll take that as a tip that it might be the most valuable card in the lot.

Mike Schmidt is notorious for being a great player who got screwed with crappy cards. Not sure why Topps apparently hated him and always seemed to use boring photos for his cards. Even his "In Action" card isn't really action, but rather anticipation of action.

That's it for today. I'll be back with 8 or 9 more cards tomorrow.