New Arrivals From the Great White North

There's this guy I buy random packs from every now and again who's based up in Ontario. He'll put together 25-card packs, a mix of vintage and junk wax, and always with an autograph card inside. The autograph is usually from a no-name or a washout prospect, but hey. The price is right on these, and he always surprises me with great 50s, 60s and 70s card that I want and need - and because he's Canadian, there are often O-Pee-Chee gems from the 70s and 80s in there too. I don't really collect those, but they make for great trade bait!

It's been helpful ticking off a few needs for my 1965, 1971, 1972 and 1973 set builds for sure. 

I recently gathered up a batch of these and scanned a few from the pile, somewhat at random. You like looking at baseball cards, right?

The 4 Greatest Years in Baseball Card History?

Reasonable collectors and non-collectors and scholars and non-scholars may disagree, but Card Hemorrhage would like to posit that the years 1969-1972 were the 4 greatest consecutive years of baseball card design in baseball card history. That's 1969 Topps, 1970 Topps, 1971 Topps and 1972 Topps if you're keeping score. Every one of these sets is a total gem to look at, with the art deco 1972 set likely being the greatest of all time.

They happen to be among the sets I'm chasing, though I'm actually a little more interested in 1965 Topps than, say, 1969 and 1970. All in good time, I suppose. I recently received two different trades in the mail - one from David in Michigan and another from Ken in Missouri, and both gentleman provided me with cards from these four magic years. Let's take a look at them, shall we?

First, this 1972 Topps Cubs team card really just might be one of the Top 20 cards of all time. It's so daffy and bizarre and so unlike the other cards in the set. I'm mesmerized by its brilliance. Thank you, David!

These two guys sent me a bunch of 1969-1972 card wants, but I only scanned up ten representative examples for this particular post. Representing 1969, here's Mr. Felipe Alou:

A couple of 1970 Topps baseball ringers were part of the new arrivals, both dudes who were excellent at their craft if not superstars:

And actually, the rest of this post will be given over to my favorites of the 1971 Topps cards that Ken and David provided me with. What do you think - was there a better four-year run in card design that these four years? And come on - who out there knew that Diego Segui had the best American League ERA in 1970?

Random Acts of Scanning

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay there. Been a big 11 days since we last blogged over here; since then I've traveled to New York City, Tucson and back home again twice. Meanwhile, new cards arrived in the mail, and I thought I'd scan a few of them up here as I return back to blogging about cards. You know what I mean?

Like how about this guy, currently getting ready to dispatch the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS? This is an early card in the early Topps Throwback Thursday online series, something I secured off of eBay last week just because I dig Ozzie Albies and thought I might like to have this card. It's apparently based on a 1977-78 Topps Footballers design, by which I believe they mean soccer football. 

Another thing I've been working on for a while now is the complete San Francisco Giants Topps team sets from 1962 through 1981. The struggle has been the 60s, of course. A card that had remained out of my reach (and price range) was the 1969 Bobby Bonds rookie card - so what I did was buy this kinda off-centered one. I mean, it is what it is. I know many of you collectors like to upgrade when you're collecting a set, and I suppose I might do the same with this Bonds card at some point.

One set I've completed already - base cards, at least, is 2020 Topps Heritage Minor Leagues. I love this set, as it's based on 1971 Topps, including the "Play Baseball Scratch-Off" inserts. I'm now trying to pick those up, and secured these two recently:

Also saw this 1980 Kellogg's Ross Grimsley card on the Dime Boxes blog a couple of weeks ago and that was it - I leapt into SportLots and bought one immediately:

My Wilbur Wood collection also got two cards stronger! "Baseball's Greatest Pitchers"? Sure, why not?

Here's another one I needed to build up the San Francisco Giants team sets - this one a Gaylord Perry rookie season appearance for 1963 Topps:

...and another pitching legend here as part of 1972 Topps:

And finally, two superstars of their day on some Canadian cards. See you next time.

The Young Hunter Pence

A couple of months ago we took a look at the beginnings of my Hunter Pence player collection. I've subsequently improved it a little, primarily by focusing on bringing in some of his earliest cards from his Houston Astros days.

He came up in 2007 and just started hitting, pretty much, and while he wasn't quite a superstar, I knew that when they traded him to Philadelphia in 2011 that they'd made a pretty big mistake. As fate would have it, he'd end up on my favorite team a couple of years later, and become a San Franciscan and a San Francisco legend, one whom you could actually see riding his scooter in full uniform to games he was about to play.

I really dig these early cards of his from the 2006-2011 timeframe, when he was one of the best things going for the Astros. Also love the way this 2007 Bowman Heritage card scans...really wish it was this blue. It's a fantastic card nonetheless.

Here's a card of his I already had, albeit now in a different version, and numbered on the back (hey hey!):

And a minor league card from 2006, showing the man on the Corpus Christi Hooks!

Here are the rest of today's "Young Hunter Pence" cards for your perusal.

More Gems From My Local Card Shop

Talked last week a bit about my very recent trip to Lefty's Sports Cards in Burlingame, CA. I didn't just pick up 1963 San Francisco Giants cards. No, I made my way through as much as they'd allow me to, and found some stuff that I thought might look better in my collection than it did just sitting in their store. Generally, that's how I feel about most cards.

Frank Robinson is a player I collect. It's nice to see that his cards can be had for not too much $$. It's weird - I'm not really collecting Willie Mays, except as someone whose 1960s cards I need to eventually get to complete my SF Giants team sets, but the price differential between a Mays 60s card and a Frank Robinson 60s card is like 30:1. Every time I put a $15 bid, say, on a Mays 1969 card, it ends up selling on eBay for $80 or $90. I think this Robinson here was $3; the 1972 Topps was probably $4. I daresay that Willie was not thirty times the player Frank was.

I have found myself overly excited by young players who are excelling in the minors or in their early majors seasons, and when I see their cards available at prices I like, I tend to strike. Here are a few guys I picked up who definitely fit that category:

Fried, as I'm sure I've mentioned, is a player I collect. I did some serious damage to my Fried needs in a recent CardBarrel order, so other than relics and numbered cards and such, I'm already more than halfway there with this guy.

Here are two Orlando Cepeda cards that I knew would also be important to have in my collection:

How about these two young fellas? I had to get a card of #1 pick Mark Appel, the pride of Stanford and one of baseball's great draft washouts, in my collection:

I know we're jumping all over the place here, but did you know that Jack Sanford was 24-7 for the 1962 San Francisco Giants - the NL champs - and finished second in the Cy Young voting that year?

Finally, a card from 1970 Topps that felt like a good one to add to that slowly-accumulating group of 1970 Topps cards I'm putting together. Until next time!

A Sextet of New Age Performers

Each year Topps Heritage baseball contains a subset of "New Age Performers", typically rookies. I guess it's pretty much always rookies, or at least "new guys". I like this subset. I'm going after the entire 2021 Topps Heritage set, so naturally I need these to be a part of my completist quest for the whole thing.

My most recent CardBarrel order netted me another six of these. Max Fried I already had, but he's also one of the player collections I'm building, so of course I needed another one. These are short prints and a little tougher to track down; I was at a card show in South San Francisco a month or two ago and some of the earlier New Age Performer subsets were in a 25-cent box, so I excitedly grabbed as many as I could without fumbling them all over the floor.

Anyway, here's the sextet I just grabbed from 2021 Heritage.