Something new on something old

If the Walt Disney Co. ever designed baseball cards, I suspect they would look an awful lot like Topps Archives. There is no other set on the market that plays (preys?) off collectors' nostalgia quite like Archives. Yes, there are other retro sets like Heritage, but they stick to a single design and the nostalgic effect only really works on people who remember the original version. 

Archives, by contrast, squeezes several generations into a single set. The 2014 edition had base cards modeled after Topps flagships from 1973, 1980, 1986 and 1989, plus insert designs from 1968, 1969, 1971, 1981, 1987 and 1997. With Archives, Topps is trying to tug at everyone's childhood memories. It's the Magic Kingdom of baseball card sets. 

And dammit if it doesn't work. 

This is the most expensive card I bought from COMC during the Thanksgiving week sale. Mike Trout is amazing and all that, but he's not someone I try to collect. And yet, I had to have this card. The concept of putting today's baseball stars on the arguably the most iconic hockey card design of all time was irresistible. Layer on top of that that fact that these are achievably rare inserts -- the 1971 hockey design cards fell at one in every 24 hockey packs -- and I couldn't help myself. Into the cart it went. 

If this had been a full set, I may be been able to restrain myself to just one or two examples. But, no, there are only 20 cards in this particular insert set. So how could I not try for all of them? At around $5, I believe this card of the 2015 National League MVP was the second-most expensive card from the entire 100-plus lot that shipped from COMC. 

The completely arbitrary -- and totally self-rationalizing -- rule I've set for myself with these cards is that I will spend no more than $3 per on average across the full set. This card of Masahiro Tanaka, which I believe is a rookie card, or at least a rookie year card, was the only other one north of that line. I generally detest the Yankees, but I really do kinda like Tanaka. Wish the Jays had signed him.

Like any good nostalgia-dependent set, this insert collection mixes a few retired greats in with active players. 

Goggles! Seriously, Chris Sabo has to be the most random inclusion in this set. How on earth is he one of the 20 players Topps chose for this treatment? (What's that? He was rookie of the year in 1988 and a hot collectible in the late '80s, when collectors who are now 40-ish adults with disposable income were young kids collecting some of their very first baseball cards? I see what you did there, Topps.) 

Probably the most bizarre thing about this insert set is how it is dominated by Cincinnati Reds. Along with Sabo and Phillips, there are also cards of Joey Votto and Eric Davis. That's 20 percent of the set, represented by one mid-market team. I would love to know the method behind this particular bit of madness. 

Every time I come across a Wil Myers card, I get a little jolt of excitement. For some reason, my brain insists on remembering only that he was once a top 10 prospect who won AL Rookie of the Year and not that he has since cratered and is now toiling away in San Diego. 

 

And one last modern-day star to round these out. I've since added two more of these (Jose Abreu via eBay auction and Miguel Cabrera, whose currently sitting alone in a newly begun COMC order). That puts me at 13 of the 20. I have little doubt I will complete this at some point. Nostalgia will see to that.

The collector's curse, or: How I wound up with a baseball card of Bill Clinton

First, let me say this upfront: COMC is fantastic. There's no better place on the Internet for card collectors. It's basically a 24-hour-a-day card show, with an almost endless inventory and the ability to haggle with dealers. I've lost hours of my life on that site, and I'm sure most collectors have, too. 

But COMC is also devious. Before the site lets you make an offer for a card, it requires you to buy enough store credit to cover the amount. The idea, I'm sure, is to make sure that every offer is genuine in binding -- if a seller accepts, the deal is done. You can't suddenly move the goal posts.

Of course, sellers don't always accept your offers. And when that happens, you wind up with a bunch of money that you'd already mentally decided to spend burning a hole in your digital pocket. And when that happens, this happens:

I liked Bill Clinton as a president, but I can safely say that I have never in my life wanted a baseball card of him. And yet, I own one. All because I happened to stumble across it while there was a bit of leftover cash in my account. And that's what I mean by devious. Most collectors (or maybe it's just me and I'm projecting) can't resist cards. All it takes a little nudge -- whether it's nostalgia, a nice design, a cheap price -- and they'll buy. That's the collector's curse. And what's what COMC preys upon.

I ended up with this card of Bill Clinton because I wanted a framed Masterpieces card, which, to my mind at least, are some of the prettiest parallels around. I chose this one, which is a "green linen frame" parallel, because I thought it was an interesting and unusual image. And because it was less than a buck.

Of course, if I was going to get an example of the green linen frame, then I figured I should also pick up an example of the allegedly different "Windsor green frame." I mean, what if I decide to pursue a whole parallel set? I really should know which version looks nicer in hand, right? That's how Kirk Gibson wound up in my COMC cart, too. I chose it because this was a moment I remember from my childhood -- although I don't remember it fondly, since I was rooting for the Bash Brothers-and-steroids-fueled Oakland A's that year. Nostalgia is a powerful force. Just ask Disney. (For what it's worth, I cannot for the life of me see any discernible difference between the green linen and the Windsor green.)

I wound up with one other framed Masterpiece card in the form of this rookie of current Blue Jay shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. What can I say, other than that I'm a total sucker for framed cards. This is the green linen again, by the way.

Here's another rookie-parallel-of-a-current-Blue-Jay card. This time, though, the player is Russell Martin and it's a mahogany parallel from 2005 Bowman Heritage. This is actually a fairly thick card, thicker, I'm assuming, than the base cards in Bowman Heritage. Beyond that, though, it's a fairly boring card. It's between this card and the Clinton one for title of, "My worst (recent) impulse buy."

Staying true to the impulse buy/parallel cards theme, here's one more: A gold parallel of Jose Bautista from Topps' 2008 flagship set. Unlike the Martin, though, I don't regret this one at all. I've seen some other blogs rip the design of 2008 Topps, but I actually kind of like it. The team name in alternating colors looks really good, I say. And while I'm generally not a big fan of the gold parallels in Topps' flagship sets, I make an exception when A)It meshes so well with the team colors and B)It is off a guy who is in the conversation for Greatest Blue Jay of All Time.

That's it for today. Hopefully it's obvious by now, but this was another post of stuff I picked up mostly during COMC's Thanksgiving Week sale. I've decided to ditch the "Black Friday binge" title for these posts, though. It was beginning to feel too...well...gluttonous.  

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. It has been since I was a little kid. It's a day of anticipation: Waiting for family, waiting for Santa, waiting for morning. When I was very young and we lived in Toronto, we would drive around visiting a few extended family members who we wouldn't see on Christmas Day. As we drove through the city, my parents would point out the red lights atop the antennas on the roofs of tall buildings. That might be Rudolph leading Santa's sleigh, they would say. I would nearly pass out from the excitement.

Now that I'm older, of course, the joy of Christmas has become giving gifts rather than receiving them. (I'm particularly proud of an absurdly big Lego set I picked out this year for my nephew). And instead of a day of anticipation, Christmas Eve has become a day of nostalgia, taking me back to cold, snowy days in Canada when I was a little kid waiting for Santa and imagining the possibilities.

All of this is a roundabout way of bringing me to today's card:

I never expected I would ever own a Wayne Gretzky autograph card. They're usually insanely expensive and far, far beyond what I'm willing to buy. But this is my single favorite card (non-Steve Yzerman division) from my favorite modern hockey set. And when I found it a few weeks ago listed on eBay at a reasonable price by a seller who was willing to negotiate a little further, I decided to treat myself. It's Christmas, right? And even big kids still like Christmas toys.

This is just about the perfect card for me. For starters, it is absolutely beautiful. All of the Signature Renditions cards are, but this is especially so. It's almost an Impressionist painting of the greatest hockey player of all time. I know, I know, it's a digital alteration, not an actual painting. To that I say: Whatever. It's gorgeous.

Then there's the autograph. It's the freakin' Great One! A big, flowery "W" at the beginning, the iconic "99" at the end and quick underline to tie it all together. It's incredible to think that Wayne Gretzky himself actually held this card in his hand.

But most importantly of all is the moment. Gretzky has just completed a hat trick in game seven of the 1993 Campbell Conference finals inside Maple Leaf Gardens, in what he later called likely the best game of his career. The goal, scored midway, through the third period, would prove to be the winner in one of the best playoff series in NHL history. The Toronto team that the Kings beat was arguably the best in the franchise's last 50 years. Most importantly, from my perspective, is that I remember it well. Everyone in Toronto had been caught Leafs fever that season, as a team that had been a doormat through much of the 1980's had been completely revitalized by star forward Doug Gilmour and rookie sensation goalie Felix Potvin. No Leafs fan will ever forget the sight of goal celebration that Gretzky (and Pat Conacher and Charlie Huddy) are in the midst of on this card.

And that's what the best cards do. They take me back to a moment in time and let me enjoy the memories all over again. Just like Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas!

Black Friday binge: Brushstrokes

Some of the nicest autograph cards, at least that I've found in my hours of mindlessly browsing eBay and COMC, are the Brushstrokes inserts from the Upper Deck's 2008-09 Legends Masterpieces set. The main set itself, comprised of 89 painted cards of retired NHL greats, is one of the best looking hockey sets of the last decade (far, far better looking than the ugly Masterpieces set Upper Deck released last year). The Brushstrokes use the same painted look, but add paper-framing and big, on-card signatures. 

Just look at that card. It's gorgeous. The other nice thing about these cards is that some of them can be found fairly cheap on the secondary market. So I try to pick them up whenever I find them at a reasonable price (read: $5 or less). 

There appear to be more than 50 cards in the Brushstrokes set, including some fairly rare folks such as Vladislav Tretiak and Manon Rheaume. Most are and will likely always be beyond my price range. But there are a fair number of "rank-and-file" NHL'ers like Rich Sutter who collectors of a certain age all remember well from watching hockey games as kids. (It's almost like these card companies know what they're doing.)

MacLeish was key member of the Broad Street Bullies, the Flyers teams that won back-to-back Cups in the mid '70's. He was also the first Flyer to score 50 goals in a season. 

You might call Tkaczuk the Pete Best of Canada: According to Wikipedia, Team Canada invited him to its training camp for the 1972 Summit Series. But he turned down the invitation and was subsequently replaced by Bobby Clarke. 

I saved the best for last. Rod Langway  was past his prime when I started watching hockey. But the guy I knew as "the old guy on the Capitals" was better known as the "Secretary of Defense" and one of the top defensemen in NHL for years. He began his career with the Montreal Canadiens where he was part of the last Cup run of the Dryden-Lafleur dynasty years. Traded to Washington before the start of the 1982-83 season, (along with Doug Jarvis and others for Ryan Walter Rick Green), he proceeded to win two consecutive Norris Trophies and become the first American-born player to make the year-end All-Star team in more than three decades. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002. 

A Hall of Famer, a fantastic '80s jersey and a large, almost-legible autograph. Cards don't get much nicer than this.

Cards on color TV

Taking a break from Black Friday posts to focus on a few cards that are quite a bit older than anything I bought off of COMC.

It's a Canadian icon on an iconic card design. Paul Henderson is the guy responsible for the most famous moment in Canadian sports history: The series-winning goal against the Soviet Union during the 1972 Summit Series. It's probably only a slight exaggeration to say that every Canadian alive has heard TV announcer Foster Hewitt shouting into his microphone, "Henderson has scored for Canada!" I'm always surprised when I remember that he's not in the hockey Hall of Fame. The moment was so indelible, it should almost be enough on its own.

And, of course, the 1966 Topps set is instantly recognizable for the wood-framed TV design. I really enjoy this set for the nostalgia value. While I wasn't around in the '60s, these cards remind me of Saturday nights when I was just seven or eight years old watching Hockey Night in Canada on a grainy TV and trying to not fall asleep during the Molson and GMC commercials.

Sometimes my scanner has trouble with slabbed cards...But as you can see, Topps continued with the TV design on the back of the cards, making them all the more memorable. This was Paul Henderson's second hockey card and it's my fourth in the 1966 set -- Paul joins Harry Howell, Red Kelly and Pit Martin. I'm hoping to keep adding more cards from this set over time, although I doubt I'll ever complete it thanks to the fact that it includes Bobby Orr's rookie card. One can dream though.

Not long after this arrived in the mail, I wound up at one of the two local hobby shops around here. The place has very little hockey, but a ton of baseball. So I decided to see if I could find any cards from the baseball set that likely inspired this one...

And I lucked out! The shop had five random singles from 1955 Bowman mixed in with a bunch of 1955 Topps singles. I'd never actually seen one of this cards in person before. It turns out that they're actually quite a bit larger than modern baseball cards. Was this a Bowman or were mid-50's Topps cards larger, too? It's also remarkable how closely 1966 Topps hockey mirrored (a nicer word than "copied") this design; it can't possibly have been a coincidence. My favorite detail? The fact that the designers at Bowman felt to add a "Color TV" label to the front, presumably because televisions were still so new back then that some kids may not realize what they were looking at.

But here is the absolute coolest part of these cards: Some of them include a little essay that was written (allegedly) by the player! Eddy Fitzgerald's ode to Ted Williams isn't the most interesting blurb in the set, but it's still a cool detail. I wish modern sets would do something like this.

None of these cards were in great condition, although Bob Friend was especially worse of wear. But the shop owner was willing to sell them all for a buck each, which struck me as more than fair for baseball cards that are now more than 60 years old.

And the big crease on the front of this card is more than made up for another cool essay. Stay in school, kids! As you might expect at a buck apiece, none of these guys were huge stars. But Friend carved out a long and successful career in the bigs; He was a four-time All-Star and lead the National League in ERA in 1955 and the majors in wins in 1958. That 1955 season seems to have been especially good: Friend became the first pitcher ever to win a league pitching title while playing for a last-place team. He even picked up some MVP votes that year.

Another oddity about these cards: Some use dark brown TV frames while others, like this one, use a light brown frame. You can actually see the two different shades on the left of this card, thanks to some poor card-cutting.

A nice look at the former Kansas City Athletics uniforms.

The last player in this lot is also the best: "Moose" Skowron was a six-time All Star and a key supporting piece alongside Yankee legends like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford. He was a part of World Series-winning team in five of his 14 years in the majors. Four of those rings came with the Yankees between 1956 and 1962. New York then traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers before the 1963 season. The Dodgers (led by pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale) wound up beating the Yankees in the World Series that year -- helped by a Skowron home run in a game 2 win.

Not a bad career. Not a bad group of cards, either.

Black Friday binge: More vintage hockey

If all goes as planned, I'll finish off the 1971-72 Topps set sometime in 2016. And once that happens, I think I've decided on the set I'm going to work on next:

I stumbled across a batch of 1973-74 Topps a few months back in a quarter box at the local card show. It was the first time I'd really paid attention to these cards. There's a lot not to like: Aside from the color, the design is pretty bland. The photos, for the most part, are boring -- there are a whole lot of players, like Rogie Vachon here, posed up against a bland brick wall, presumably deep in the bowls of some poorly lit arena.

And yet....I really dig 'em. The colors are so obnoxious, so ill-matched that they actually work (kinda like the 71-72 set, in fact). And even boring brick wall photos can be interesting -- again, like this Vachon here, which offers a fantastic look at early '70s goalie gear and haircuts. I also get a kick out of how many players' shadows you see in this set -- it's a reminder of how old these cards are and how old the technology was that was used to make them. (And I also love the way Vachon is barely squeezing into the frame here, like he's some sort of giant bear).

Another handy aspect of this set is that there aren't any crazy expensive cards. The biggest rookies are probably Bill Barber and Billy Smith, both of which can be found for a few dollars on eBay. (The same can't be said of the O-Pee-Chee set, though, which includes Larry Robinson's rookie card and seems to command astronomical prices on eBay.) This is Marcel Dionne's third-year card, although it is just his second Topps card.

For as garish as the borders can sometimes be, they stumble into genuine beauty every once in awhile when they match up with the team colors. That's the case with both the Sittler and Delvecchio cards shown here (which, by the way, are also rocking awesome shadows).

Zistle tells me that I have 50 cards altogether from this set, which puts me about 25 percent of the way there. This is a set that will definitely move up the priority list next year.

I'm actually a lot further into the 1979-80 Topps set, at about 75 percent complete. But I don't own a Wayne Gretzky rookie, so I may as well be at 1 percent. I don't see myself shelling out for one anytime soon, so this set is sort of sinking down my want list. But I did grab a few of the bigger non-Gretzky singles I needed when I saw them discounted to decent prices.

I may not have the Gretzky rookie, but at least now I can say I have the Linesman rookie!

Another non-Gretzky rookie. This is probably the most famous hockey set ever, thanks to the Great One. But even if it that card didn't exist, it would still be a fantastic set. It's a legitimately elegant design.

Guy Lafleur and Brian Trottier had pretty good years, eh?

I'm sorta jumping around here chronologically, but the awards subset from 1974-75 Topps are some of my favorite cards of the decade, probably because of the same clashing color dynamic that draws me to '71-72 Topps and '73-74. Sure, this particular one is a bit off-center vertically and there's a printing blemish near the top. But it's Bobby freakin' Orr and it only cost a couple of bucks!

Finally, I'll wrap this post up with the oldest card I bought during Thanksgiving week. This is from 1970-71 O-Pee-Chee (the "spotlight" set). I believe it is the final card issued during Hall of Famer -- and Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters alum -- Andy Bathgate's career.

Black Friday binge: My favorite vintage hockey

A whole bunch of the cards I picked off of COMC during the Thanksgiving Week sale came from two particular hockey sets. One was the Panini Classics Signatures release from a couple of years back, which I'll get to in a future post. The other set was this one:

I'm not a hockey card historian or anything, but the 1971-72 Topps/O-Pee-Chee is easily my favorite set of the 1960's or '70's. It's such a distinctive design that fits so perfectly within the era these cards were made. The bright, clashing colors, the bubbly font for the team names. These cards shouldn't work, but they do. They definitely do.

I ended with 33 cards from the set (two of which it turned out I already had...d'oh!), including this second-year card of Flyers legend Bobby Clarke, which was one of the bigger names I had left on my checklist. As you can see, the card isn't mint; it's a bit off-center and the corners are all slightly rounded. But I'd say it's definitely excellent or better. And that's about the level I've been shooting for with these cards because, alas, my wallet's not big enough to chase an entirely mint set.

Here's another big star on the checklist. It's not quite as nice as the Clarke, but still plenty good enough for my set.

Bright red, pea green and light blue. If this card was an outfit, they'd say it was power-clashing.

This was one of the two cards it turned out that I already had. Idiot. I really need to start keeping my Zistle library current. But it'll make a nice addition to a trade package at some point.

The set begins with six of these league leader cards. I would have much preferred Topps made six more base cards instead (and maybe squeeze in some folks like Guy Lafleur, Tim Horton and Gump Worsley, who were all only in the O-Pee-Chee version of the set). But I suppose any card that finds a way to squeeze Bobby Orr onto it is a good one.

Oh, and how good must Boston have been that year? My goodness.

And here's one of the three guys on both of those leader cards.

Clear the track -- here comes Shack!

Dale Tallon played more than 600 games in the NHL. But he's probably best known as the initial architect of the current Chicago Blackhawks dynasty. (It's okay to consider them a dynasty at this point, right?) He was run out of Chicago a few years back amid all the cap trouble, so he's missed some of the glory years. He's now the GM of the Quebec City Panthers.

One more Hall of Famer in this batch. Eddie here is probably among the worst cards I bought, condition-wise, although it's more than acceptable for my collection.

A Guelph Biltmores alum! In a horribly air-brushed Toronto Maple Leafs jersey!

I had to get at least one Golden Seals card into this post.

And those are the highlights of the '71's from this particular buying binge. After moving them all into the binder, I'm now just five cards away from the set. Of course, that includes several biggies: Bobby Hull, which is probably the third- or fourth-most valuable card (behind Ken Dryden and Bobby Orr, and probably, but not definitely, ahead of Gordie Howe). I also still need card #1, the goals leader card with both Hull and Phil Esposito on it, and the checklist, which for some inexplicable reason is always one of the priciest cards in vintage sets. (The other two are easier: The goals-against average leaders, which is the last of the six leader cards that kick off the set, and Chris Bordeleau.)

But it's a hill, not a mountain at this point. Finishing this off will be one of my collecting goals for 2016.