Vintage Frankenset kickoff! Page 1

Here's a new collecting project of mine I'm really excited about.. a Vintage Frankenset! 

Three simple rules for consideration:

• Pre-1981 
• Seeing as 1981 was when non-Topps cards became mainstream, this felt like a good cut-off point, and so cards released up through 1980 are eligible, though generally speaking "the older, the better" for this project.
• Must fit in a standard top-loader
• I've decided to house this project in a box, not binder. This will allow cards from different sized sets to be intermingled. Just have to fit in a standard top-loader, ruling out large cards.
• No flagship Topps baseball allowed
• This is sort of a sister project to my active Topps Flagship binder-- attempting to fill one page from each flagship baseball set, 1951-1980-- so it would feel redundant to allow those cards into this frankenset.

Those are my working guidelines. Oh, and I'm tentatively capping the frankenset at 333 cards, so any card numbered 334 or higher wouldn't be eligible. I'll try to not repeat sets and players too often, but won't go as far as to prohibit a little repetition. It'll be a "living project" in that a card is never permanently "locked in" and any incoming challenger will be evaluated in good faith. This is my first real frankenset, as the only other one I've got going is my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset, but that doesn't really count since at the end of the day it's all 2011 Topps cards.

This project will hopefully span a wide range of sets. I've got a subgoal to include at least one card from every Bowman set (1948-1955), every Hostess set (1975-1979), and maybe even one card from every eligible O-Pee-Chee baseball set (1965-1980), as well as all Topps football, hockey, and basketball sets from that period. Non-sports are welcome, too. This project will hopefully satisfy my interest in all these vintage sets and save me the undertaking of actually trying to complete any of them. I'm kinda thinking of it as a catch-all for all the non-Topps vintage sets I might consider collecting at some point. Now I can erase them from the "maybe someday" mental list and just get a sampler of them into this frankenset. I've got way too many setbuilds in the works already, so this should help.

I came up with this idea and started drafting this post back in September but waited to post it until I moved because I figure this'll hopefully stir up some trades. And then it took me a few days to find it after the move because it was buried in a box within another box, but now I've found it. 

"It's coming along pretty well and it's helping spice up my collecting headspace for the moment. Always fun to be excited about a new collecting project!" is what I drafted last month. The move has caused me to not spend much time on cards the past couple weeks, but as we get settled in, I hope to have more quality time to spend with my collection.

Though this isn't a bindered project, for blogging purposes, I'll plan to treat it how frankensets are typically handled on the blogs, which is to say each 9 cards are considered to be grouped as a page. So like, when I complete a new "page" is likely when I'd do a post featuring those 9 cards, you know? So when you see that I posted a new Vintage Frankenset post, you know you'll be in for a blast of 9 random-ass trading cards from back in the day. I think that'll make for some fun posts for us!

My plan-- at least to start-- is to take the frankenset in order.. like, today's post will contain "page 1" (cards 1-9). Then soon enough, I'll do "page 2" (cards 10-18), and so on. But I might have to start jumping around depending on how quickly I'm able to fill empty slots and complete pages. I'd like to rely heavily on trades rather than going out and purchasing cards specifically for this project. That would feel like going against the spirit of the idea, but perhaps I'll make an occasional exception and snag a neat card with its place in the frankenset being a motivating factor. We'll see!

But with all that out of the way, let's check out how "Page 1" is looking so far.

As this project kicks off, all these cards were pulled from "unincorporated" areas of my collection.. meaning I didn't raid PCs or setbuilds, rather they're essentially random cards in my collection that didn't really have a good "home" prior to this.

Now let's take a closer look at each of these 9 cards.

1 1934 Gallaher Champions Series 2 #1 L.F. Townsend

Card #1 goes to a British tobacco mini featuring cricket player L.F. Townsend. I like going old school to start the frankenset with a pre-war card.

According to Wikipedia, Leslie Fletcher Townsend (8 June 1903 – 17 February 1993) "was the leading all-rounder for Derbyshire between the wars and at his peak probably the most deadly bowler on a sticky wicket Derbyshire ever produced, owing to his perfect length and ability to turn the ball back from the off." 

Ha, I don't really understand what any of that means, but his name calls to mind Pete Townshend of The Who, which is another point in the card's favor.

2 1971-72 Topps #2 Bill Bradley

Gotta love that 1971-72 Topps Basketball design. And Bill Bradley has lived quite the life. He won a gold medal as a member of the 1964 Olympic basketball team, then won a couple NBA championships with the Knicks on his way to Naismith, and became a US senator after retiring.

3 1971 Topps #3 Marty Schottenheimer

1971 Topps Football is a fun design with cartoons on the front and back. I'm familiar with Marty Schottenheimer because he coached the Chargers back in the aughts during the height of my interest in football. He actually ended up retiring before the '71 season, so this is a true sunset card as a player. Went on to be an NFL head coach for 21 seasons.

4 1980 TCMA Tidewater Tides #4 Wally Backman

Not all the cards in the frankenset will have much personal connection to me-- often they're just random old cards I've ended up with-- but between the Schottenheimer and this one, the first page has a couple cards with some additional "meaning" to me. Wally Backman is the most-accomplished big leaguer to come out of my wife's high school. I've got a solid collection of cards from players who went to my high school, so branching off into my wife's high school wasn't much of a stretch. Backman is best known as a member of the '86 Mets, but off-field issues dissuaded me from full-on PCing the guy. But I'm happy to fill slot #4 in the vintage frankenset with this terrific 1980 TCMA minor league card. Barely old enough for consideration, and technically number 914 overall in the set, but number 4 in the Tidewater team set, so it counts.

5 1979 O-Pee-Chee #5 Joe Morgan

Major League Baseball makes its first appearance in the frankenset at number 5 with a Canadian twist on Joe Morgan's classic 1979 Topps card. Morgan sadly passed away last month at age 77, but left behind a legacy as a baseball icon. One of the game's all-time greatest second basemen, plus went on to a long broadcasting career.

6 1909-11 T206 Sweet Caporal [NNO] Frank Owen

Oh, one quirk of my vintage frankenset I neglected to mention thus far is that I'm permitting unnumbered cards to be floating placeholders, limited to one per page. I don't have a card for the #6 slot yet, so I've called on Frank Owen to bring some T206 magic to the first page, at least for now. This was a generous surprise from Zippy Zappy back in 2015, and while it probably won't stick around in the sixth slot for very long, it'll be a valued pinch-hitter for the project, likely shaking out somewhere higher in the set where it's tougher to fill holes (hey, #206 is still vacant; it might eventually find a semi-permanent home there). As for Frank "Yip" Owen, he was thrice a 20-game winner with the White Sox and a World Series Champion with the 1906 squad.

7 1961 Post Cereal #7 Roger Maris

This is probably the closest that the first page has to a locked-in card. Even considering the bonus crayon artwork on the back, it'd take something really special to usurp the seventh slot. Roger Maris is of course best known for his thrilling 1961 campaign when he broke Babe Ruth's record for most home runs in a season. Very cool to have a card that some kid cut out of a cereal box during that run of 61 in '61. It's still the top AL mark, and some would say still the legitimate MLB record, if you toss out PED-tainted seasons that surpassed his total.

8 unknown year Famous Authors Game John G. Whittier #8A

Unlike the Maris, card #8 in the frankenset is primed to be replaced by a better fit, but this is the best I could dig up at the moment. I can't find much info on it, but searching on COMC points to a very similar set called 1890s Lion Coffee Famous Authors Game, though the one I've got seems to be a later reprint, probably 60s or 70s. (The originals are layed out a bit differently and have a coffee ad on the back.) But it fits in a top-loader, more than likely came out before 1981, and isn't a flagship Topps baseball card, so it makes the cut.

John Greenleaf Whittier is an 1800s American poet best remembered for anti-slavery writings, as well as his popular book Snow-Bound.

9 1922 Wills Do You Know #9 Do You Know What Causes the Blue Sky?

The first page of my vintage frankenset closes how it began, with a prewar tobacco mini from England. (Back in the day, these were called "f@g cards" [f@g being British slang for cigarette], but that's a bad word for us on this side of the ocean, so we'll just call them UK tobacco minis.) But yeah, these things are awesome for adding ~100 year old cards to your card collection for cheap. Love the artwork on this one featuring a beautiful day at the beach.

To recap, I think it's a pretty solid opening page of my vintage frankenset. I'd love an old hockey card to swap in for the #6 or 8 slots, since that's one major sport I wasn't able to work in with these initial nine.

If you'd like to help find me cards for this project, or simply want "spoilers" to see what else I've got in it so far, I've got a Google Sheets spreadsheet up here. Page 2 could use candidates for #12 and 15.. then expect another post not too long after I've filled at least one of those numbers.

I'm back, baby

Ok, I took a little break from blogging while I moved, but I think I'm ready to get back at it. I'm loving the new house. The final couple days at the old house and the first couple days at the new house were extremely stressful and exhausting. It was overwhelming and I felt like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown for a while there, ain't gonna lie. Just so much crap to move and find a new place for. But then I turned the corner and have been good since. But it's been an ongoing process and we're still working on bringing over daily carloads of stuff from the old place, taking it right up to the last day of the month.

And things are still shaking out into their new places, with lots of boxes left to unpack and things to find. I've got my drum set up, but haven't found the sticks yet. And I had intended to post about a new collecting project of mine I'm excited about (a vintage frankenset), but well, I can't find the thing at the moment, so it'll have to wait.

Instead, here's a post showing off the first new incoming cards of the new house.

I feel like this one was a gift from the cardboard gods. Adding to my stress levels when we moved in was the fact that there was a problem with the internet. On one hand it was kinda nice being "off the grid" for a few days (no politics to read about, for one thing), but my wife and I need to be able to get online for work, so not having internet was a big problem.

But then the cable guy worked on it for an hour or two and got it going. When I went to test the connection, I clicked on my most-often clicked link: the bookmark to a Topps Retired eBay search that I typically check several times per day. And wouldn't you know it, the top new listing that met my eyes was this beautiful 2005 Retired Dwight Gooden refractor auto for a very decent price. Again, I check that bookmark a lot, and it's pretty rare that a refractor I need pops up.. like less than 1% of the times I click the link is there a card I want... but when there is, I'm a very happy man and if the price is right, I'll jump. So to stumble upon this card in my very first moment online in the new house seemed like a good omen and was a real "rainbow after the storm" moment for me. I hopped on that Doc Gooden buy-it-now so quick that I didn't even have a chance to update my address with eBay, so it ended up going to the old house. And although of course I set up mail forwarding, the USPS dropped the ball and delivered to the old address. But as I say, I've been popping over there daily picking up crap and cleaning up, so it wasn't a big deal.

By the way, around the time this post is published, I'll send out the bulk email to my trader buds with the new address. So if we've exchanged cards sometime in the past couple years or so, check your inbox for that, and please reach out to me if you didn't get the email but want my new address.

I've already got a couple Gooden autos featuring him with the Mets, so I don't mind this Yankees card, even if it's not his "heritage" team or whatever. He pitched a no-hitter for the Yankees in '96, but it was one of the few highlights after his heyday with the Mets. (As you can see from the stats, it was his final shutout and/or complete game.)

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Anyways, later in that same day, I again clicked my eBay Topps Retired search bookmark and was again excited to see a card I'd been after.

I've been wanting this Lou Whitaker autograph for a long time. Ideally I'll get a refractor parallel someday (still kicking myself over the one I just missed a few months ago), but I jumped at this base auto listed with a reasonable buy-it-now price. I had updated my address with eBay by this point in the day, so while it was the 2nd card I bought in the new house, it has the distinction of being the 1st card to be received at the new location.

Lou Whitaker is next eligible for the Hall of Fame via the Modern Baseball Era Committee in 2023. I'll be rooting for him.

As regular readers know, I'm a bit obsessed with Topps Retired and it's rare that I score 2 needs in one day (or even in one week). Definitely a nice pick-me-up when I really needed it!

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I also pulled the trigger on this glow-in-the-dark Teenymate. It's my first one of these things. I was expecting it to be a little bigger. It's just about an inch tall.

Here it is glowing in the palm of my hand. You might remember me talking about my "glow-in-the-dark shelf" at the old house? Well, I've got big plans for the new house. There's a seldom-used bathroom in the basement, and my wife has given me approval to make that into a glow-in-the-dark (bath)room. So I'm excited about that, and I'm sure I'll be posting updates on the blog, regardless if you guys care, lol. But the stuff from the glow-in-the-dark shelf is still hiding in a box somewhere, so I haven't been able to deck out the bathroom yet. But yeah, I'm excited to get that all set up and add more glowing stuff to it.

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Here's a random-act-of-kardness sent my way by Dub Meñtality, a popular personality on card Twitter. He tweeted this Stadium Club auto up for grabs to a Padres fan. I was interested, but held off in case anyone wanted it more than me. But then a couple hours went by and somebody tagged me in a reply and no one else had spoken up, so I figured I'd call dibs. Dub's dibs did delight. Thanks, Dub!

After a promising debut in 2019, Michel Báez only pitched 4.2 innings for San Diego in 2020, but the Cuban righty still has potential and is one of the young arms the Padres will need to develop if they're going to make a championship run in the near future.

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Wrapping things up with a PWE from earlier in the month that I didn't get around to showing off prior to the move. Reader David G. in San Diego has been finding cards to send me in return for random Cardinals I can scrape up for him. This time he surprised me with a few Kellogg's needs and some new stuff. And yes, they were again packaged with a cologne ad. Fragrant cards are his trademark!

Thanks, David! Your return was the last outgoing cards from the old house.. hope you liked.

One thing I noticed about 1979 Kellogg's is they have a tendency to get a washed-out effect to them like these 5 from David. I wonder why that is. It might happen in other years of Kellogg's 3D cards, but seems like '79s are especially vulnerable.

For comparison, here are a couple Dwight Evans in my collection... one with crisp coloring, and one that's succumb to the washed out effect. Not that I'm picky about condition of my Kellogg's cards, but just making an observation. I wonder if it's due to sunlight exposure?

Anyways, that's it for this post. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Definitely the last Incoming Cardboard Post before the move

Ok, I'm in the middle of moving. It's exhausting. It's times like these that I really wish I didn't have the "collecting gene"! I'm excited to get settled in at the new place, but it's gonna be a lot of work.

Here's the last cards triaged in from my old house. It's a very generous "thanks again for your help" gift from Alex T., whom you may remember for the fantastic guest post he did for Baseball Card Breakdown a few weeks ago about his mission to create a TTM masterpiece featuring Jim Walewander and the Dead Milkmen.

These are a coupe low-key iconic cards that maybe not everybody knows about, but those who know.. know. This pair has been in my Desperate Double Dozen wantlist for several months, so it's great to cross those off the list. Canseco's zero year card with the Expos means I now only need a card with him on the Yankees (a much higher population of card) to complete another 9-card page in the Vagabond Binder. And that box-bottom Doc Gooden is such a perfect shot. Got recycled in Stadium Club not long ago, but hard to beat it on a vintage (excuse the term) 1985 card. Panini needs to go their own version of Project 2021 going and should be sure to include this card among the selections.

But really what Alex wanted to share with me were a couple extras from his big project. I picked these 2 from the few available options because I like how the lyric seems to match with the photo. I forgot to grab a picture of the backs (and now they're all packed up and I may not see them again for weeks... lol!), but the backs are both autographed by Mr. Walewander. Awesome off-the-wall addition to my collection. I need to find strength in the real joy-sparking parts of my collection like this during times I'm overwhelmed at the mountain of cardboard I'm stacking all the way up into the heavens.

Muchos Maas! Alex also kicked up my Kevin Maas PC with this little complete set of Star cards dedicated to the rookie phenom of 1990. I've mentioned it before, but I first started collecting cards in 1990 (Celebrating 30 Years theme), and even though his comet burned as briefly as it did brightly, I still get a thrill of adding new cards of his.

Some other long-time loves of mine, glow-in-the-dark and black gold.

A pair of Padre fan favorites from the time. Silver Signature Bip and a blue signature Dave Staton.

And Bip is back, here snug in the womb of the packs that birthed him so many times. Forever Bipping. Cool to add a couple unopened packs to the Bip Roberts PC.

Big thanks, Alex! Always a pleasure. (If you guys know Alex, ask him to share the story about returning a signed ballcap to the family of a deceased former player. It's something special.)

And thanks to everyone reading. I'll see you on the other side of this move.

Evacuation Keepers

Earlier in September when wildfires were ravaging Oregon, I was getting pretty nervous and figured I should round up some important stuff to have handy just in case the flames made their way into my neighborhood. I didn't waste time packing boring stuff like legal documents, food, or clothing, but rather just focused on my card collection. LOL. Well, I did grab a couple external hard drives that have a lot of stuff backed up on them like family photos and the custom cards I've made over the years and my music collection, but yeah mostly I just took a quick look around my card room and made a lot of snap decisions as to what was must-save if I was forced to evacuate.. and what I was sorrowfully willing to leave behind if it came down to it.

But now it looks like we'll be ok. Before I go putting everything back into its place in my collection, I figure a recap of these selections would make for an interesting post.

I filled up 2 reusable grocery bags full of cards that I had ready to grab and throw in the car in a moment's notice. One was just all my Topps Retired refractor autos. Those are "my babies" and I'm not even joking when I tell you I would save them before I saved my dog. (My departed sweetie pie Annie, no, but my current fuckface Ruby, yes.)

I didn't grab all of my ¾-setbuild of 1957 Topps.. at least not the "commons".. but I did get the "big cards" from it.

Some highlights of my Tatis PC made the cut.

More heavy-hitting favorites of my collection that would've hurt to leave behind.

Some of my all-time best pulls plus a Yaz rookie.

Had to grab my Sandlot collection.. that Archives autograph set was tough to put together, but honestly it's the personally-signed customs from the Bambino and Karen Allen that wouldn't let me consider leaving this lot behind.

Well, that's all I'm up for today, but I think I've got enough left for a "Part 2" post to cover another day.

Update (a couple weeks later): no part 2.. But here's a little more..

A few more highlights of my collection.
Thanks for reading

untitled p0st for Oct 10, 2020

Here's a peek at my card room today. I'm not proud of this cluster-kerfuffle. And the other walls in the room aren't really any better. 

I'm moving in a few days. 

Oh man, it's gonna sucks transporting all this stuff. At least the new place is less than 5 minutes away. I'll just take a lot of trips, I guess.

I was thinking my new card room was gonna be a little smaller, though my wife said she thinks the new one is bigger. I don't remember it much. I've only been inside the new house once so far, over a month ago back when we first looked at it. The market is so competitive here right now that you can't pussyfoot around if you want to buy a house. Excited to get the keys soon and finally start moving in.

Anyways, I hope the new room won't get so messy. When we first moved into this current house, I hadn't quite gone so hard back into card collecting yet. There was the thought when we moved in that the room would be like my "music room" where I'd get Fiberoctopus going again and work on some tunes. But I just found myself turning to cards in my spare time, not picking up my instruments. But yeah, that room has really gotten away from me with all the cards n' crap over the past 7 years. A semi-fresh start should be good.

Tradeathon cards from Wes! I'm not a big football collector, but I've got some favorites like Walter Payton, so I pounced when Wes offered that PSA'd '78. I don't really know of the player David Grayson, but jumped at that one because of my recent infatuation with old Kellogg's cards. I've got a bunch of Kellogg's baseball cards, but this is my first football one, not to mention my first graded Kellogg's card. Pretty neat. Also called dibs on the yellow Soto rookie cup, Gwynn pinstripe, and Padres triple relic with a trio of past Padres pitching greats (wish we could have had some guys like that in 2020 on the mound against the Dodgers in that last series. Oh well, waitin' till next year. Go Braves.) Great package all around thanks to the Pancake King.

Big thanks, Wes! I hope I don't make you wait too long for the return your way.

Back to old house stuff, here's my glow-in-the-dark shelf as it stands before the inevitable clear-out. Everything here glows in the dark at least in part. I hope I find a good shelf to fill up with glowing stuff somewhere in the new house to keep that project alive and growing.

Happy Halloween-time.

Speaking of different glowing colors, check out this new card I got recently.....

This is an 1997 Oddbodz from Australia.. it's actually a "Combo Glo" parallel that includes two glowing colors.

Cool!

In my previous post I mentioned I loved cards with "hidden" glowing parts, and the cards that Farley's distributed with their pouches of Dinosaurs fruit snacks in 1993 are an excellent example of that. 

Skeleton! 

I recently tracked down 3 of the 4 cards. Just need the Brontosaurus.

Today my dog Ruby turned the big "Five Mo.".. 5 months old, that is. Here's a video of her getting a bellyrub out in the backyard the other day. There wasn't any sound because my phone's broken, so I put a short song over it that I made back in 2007 that happened to be about the same length. (I ran that "big five mo" joke by my wife and she said it wasn't as funny as I thought it was, but I'm using it anyways, lol)