Thursday, June 3, 2021

A Vintage Bounty


Who needs overpriced hobby boxes and resold retail when @Thorzul breaks all of the vintage you can handle? 
 
The latest batch of box break cards to be featured here is a bit different. Instead of chasing shiny this and numbered that and weird half-heartedly drawn squiggly lines by distracted young players, Death Stare Cards bought a quality batch of vintage cards online and turned it into a team break. I have been dreading this post for a bit, because my scanner likes to randomly crop out borders on pretty much any card made before 1980. I don't really understand it, but it's a thing. If you see any missing or incomplete borders, you can be assured that the cards themselves don't really look that way.


Obviously, there's a bit of risk with something that's being packaged together by someone on the internet, but I know that Thorzul has a pretty good eye for eBay lots, which isn't something I'd necessary be good at. Most of the Cardinals cards in the bunch were from the '70s and '60s, with a couple of nice condition late '50s cards thrown in.


This one has a big crease down the middle, but it's my first card from the 1960 Fleer set. This one turned out to be the worst victim of my scanner cropping issues.


Is it me, or does it look like Nelson's mitt is really huge? It's not, like, 1986 Fleer Mickey Hatcher huge, but maybe there's just something weird with the camera perspective.


When I first saw this Kellogg's card, I was hoping there would be more like this, but it turns out that this Cardenal the Cardinal was the only one in the lot for me. 


These next two were the biggest finds for me. This 1969 Steve Carlton isn't in perfect shape, but there's no visible creases, writing or paper loss. It's great!


In even better shape is this second year Curt Flood card. The 1959 set is my favorite of the era.


I figured I had most of not all of the 1977 Topps team set, but the Forsch Brothers card was new to me. I'm glad that I ended up with this and not the Astros slot.


Here's one from everyone's favorite woodgrain set. (Not 1987.)


It's maybe not the most power packed pair of Rookie Stars, but it still filled a need of mine.


There was another one from 1977 that I needed. I'm down to three left.


When I was young, Dal Maxvill was the Cardinals GM that everyone blamed everything on, so the thought of owning one of his baseball cards would have seemed absurd to me. 


Apparently Tim McCarver was considered for the GM job before Maxvill was hired. That would have been wild.


I don't have a ton of love for the 1973 set, but they do have some of the best manager cards I've ever seen. Will next year's Heritage set actually include managers?


Ray Washburn definitely looks like a rook here.

That's all for the cards from the break that I needed, although there's another stack of several dozen that I need to go through to see if they're possible upgrades. That pile includes a Keith Hernandez rookie card and a 1972 Bob Gibson. That's not nothing!


I also bought a stack of test issue 1987 Topps Stickers that were included with the break. They look identical to their more common counterparts, aside from having a darker back and much thicker stock. They wouldn't have made for a very interesting scan. If you aren't familiar, they're very similar to the early 2010's Topps album stickers instead of the more common thinner Panini style stickers.

5 comments :

  1. I never noticed it before, and someone can certainly correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like Stan Musial is standing behind Curt Flood on that '59.

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  2. Some great stuff here. My favorites would be the Kelloggs Cardenal, 69 Carlton, and the 2nd year Flood. Not just cards though... I had no idea that Maxvill was a GM. He went 2 for 2 with the A's on the day I was born and was my first (and I think only) successful TTM request so far.

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  3. Carlton and McCarver both got promoted to the Phillies.

    Flood - well, we don't need to talk about that.

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  4. i was very pleased to buy a spot in this break! i have a post coming up where i reference cardenal the cardinal - fun stuff. finally, i was thinking the same thing as jon and now i need a 59 flood card for my lurker collection.

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  5. Good stuff. I avoided this because I'm fairly well set with Dodgers vintage but the Fleer stickers would be worth it (although I have the Dodgers there, too, I guess it would be smart then to claim Yankees? Eww).

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