Vintage Cards on Cards

There's a dealer who frequents the monthly card show that I try my best to frequent who has figured out that I'm "the Cardinals guy". I wouldn't say he's pegged me as the blogger, yet, but he now looks for me whenever I happen to be around. He's a very nice guy who has helped Erin in the past to look for old Cliff Mapes cards. I'll save the Cliff Mapes story for another day. The problem is, he's more than once put me in situations where I feel compelled to buy his stuff because he spent time setting it aside for me, something he surely didn't have to do. This is pretty much how I ended up with a bunch of beat up old vintage Cardinals cards, something I really don't regret. I just don't like to feel pressured.

I also just never know what to say about old cards. They look awesome, I know this. These ones all have flaws, some more ridiculous than others. Blasingame here has a ton of creases. He has all of his borders, but my scanner refused to acknowledge one of them.

Burton's corner was cut off by a nefarious scissors-wielding child. At least, that's what I'm choosing to believe. Didn't anyone believe in child safety in the '50s? Of course they didn't! He is also creased so badly that the card is fully punctured in a couple of places.

Hal is also creased and sliced, but his slice is very small and less obtrusive. Maybe they had kiddie scissors by 1960.

Ennis seems like he's suffered some water damage as well as a piece of tape. It's also clear that someone wasn't fond of his name, as there's some ball point pen running through it. Del and his killer specs would have the last laugh, though. This is apparently the more common, non-yellow name version.

Boyer is one of the more prominent names from my purchase, but he's got multiple notches taken from his card. It's almost as if someone thought about making a paper snowflake out of him, but thought better of it.

More like Larry Kson, right? Here's a jersey that I have yet to see St. Louis use as a throwback concept.

More from the Larry Jackson department: this brings my total of weirdly damaged Larry Jackson cards in my collection to 3.

This is the card that's sitting on the psychiatrist's couch, telling the world about all of its problems. Glued to something and removed? Yes. Creases upon creases? Sure. Even my scanner hated this card, as it's slim upper and left borders were rendered useless.

Hmmm... Jeff Goldblum's dad?

So why did I focus on the condition of all of these cards? Like I said, I really don't have a lot to say about most cards older than I am, so I chose to focus on something fairly trivial. I like to look at them. I want to own them if they are Cardinals cards. I just don't have the personal connection to them that I might with a card that was there during my own youth. I'm learning to appreciate the oldies but goodies, but I will just never have any Morrie Martin stories to pass down to future generations.