Monday, November 26, 2018

The idiocy of youth (or, vintage from the card show)


As incredible as it may seem, there was a time not long ago when I didn't look for vintage at card shows, mostly because I was an idiot.

It was basically dime boxes or bust for teenage Nick. If vintage happened to fall out of a cheapie bin, terrific -- but rarely did I ever seek it out. I don't know why...maybe it was extreme frugality, but it might've something more. Perhaps I just didn't think vintage had the bells and whistles modern cards offered. This is stupid because a) collecting is about more than funny photos and shiny cards, and b) who says vintage doesn't have bells and whistles?

This '58 Topps Hal Smith, for example, is freaking FANTASTIC -- featuring not one but two baseball card rarities with the old-time catcher's mask and hand signal! -- and I'd never once seen it before last weekend's show (which is kinda amazing given how often vintage is discussed on the blogs).




I often wish I could go back in time and berate my teenage self for such ignorance, but given the impossibility of that (at least as far as modern science is concerned), I'll have to live by the old better-late-than-never adage.

It's hard to believe I didn't own cards like these before last weekend -- the dual Bucs rookie was a 50-cent find that completes my run of Al Oliver's Topps cards, and the Matlack was a beautiful '74 from the dime box that had somehow flown under my radar.




Seems to me that I'm among the extreme few who really enjoys these old Fleer World Series cartoons, which is good because they were out in bulk at Saturday's show (including all of these for a buck a pop!).




As I've grown older, I've learned that targeting specific cards at shows can indeed be fun, rather than simply taking the unanimous find-what-I-may approach of my youth.

These two have been MIA in my collection for a while -- the Kranepool semi-high number was $1.50 while the Pumpsie Green was a buck, his first of two Topps cards as a Met (with his '64 sunset issue), which is fascinating considering he played all of 17 games for them.




But that's not to say most of my vintage buys aren't scattered, willy-nilly purchases, because you bet they are.

These four cards have nothing in common aside from the fact that they were cheap, well-loved, and sorely needed -- the vintage trifecta.




Oldest Card of the Day honors goes to this masterful '56 of blogosphere favorite Virgil Trucks, mine for all of a dollar.




I didn't buy my first Topps Mini until I was well into my teens, which means that there are still a handful I haven't yet snared, like these two biggies from the 50-cent bin.




I forget why, but my dad and I were recently discussing Gil Hodges's untimely death -- and I just so happened to bring up his '72 OPC "Deceased" variation, a longtime want of mine (perhaps morbidly so).

Turns out I didn't have the standard Topps version of Gil's ultimate sunset card before Saturday, and -- wouldn't you know it -- I snagged the aforementioned OPC issue just hours later from the very last table of the day for three bucks (quite a deal since the others I've seen on the 'net have gone for over ten times that).




Dad factored into another huge find of mine earlier in the afternoon -- at one point while I was off immersed in some kind of dig, he came up to me and said: the guy at the next table has an old Mickey Mantle for a dollar, the design kinda looks like a newspaper.

Instantly the questions ran through my head: vintage...newspaper...NU-SCOOPS?! Also known as one of my favorite oddball sets of all-time? And a Mickey Mantle? For a dollar?! Could it be?

IT WAS: somehow a Nu-Scoop Mick -- easily the most expensive card in the set -- ended up in the dollar box, taking along a few friends for the ride (thanks, Dad!).




I enjoy these '50s All-Star subsets if for no other reason that they're a whole lot cheaper than the standard Topps cards of said players.

Mr. Cub was a mere $3, while Looie ran me a buck-fifty -- good luck finding their regular '58 Topps issues at those prices.




More well-loved, heavily discounted, and just generally awesome big name vintage here -- the Spahn (his last Braves card) cost just $4 and Brooks became mine for a cool fiver.




As the minutes waned, the impossible seemed to be happening: I hadn't yet found a single Hostess or Kellogg's card in my hours at the show.

Remember in my last post when I said I finished off that dime box challenge with about five minutes left till closing? Well of course I couldn't let those five minutes go to waste, mostly because Dad informed me that a dude had a lot of cheap vintage a few tables down.

Enough said: I marched right on over and bought what would turn out to be my lone Hostess find of the day with this two-dollar Rod Carew.




But these two other Carews (a buck each!) would end up being far from my only Kellogg's purchases at this table.




As a retail employee myself, I'll admit I hate when people linger about the store minutes before closing...and yet that's exactly what I did to this poor vintage vendor.

But when you have the chance to buy such awesome Kellogg's cards for a buck a piece, can you really blame me?




Since I had absolutely no time to waste and a good amount of cash still burning a hole in my pocket, I bought absolutely any and every Kellogg's card I even remotely thought I needed from the guy, which turned out to be quite a few.




But even with the greatness of all the 3-D stars I've just shown, none of them hold a candle to Willie Mays here.

Eagle-eyed Dad was, once again, the one who first scoped it out: and six dollars later, I had myself my first Kellogg's single of the kid they called Say Hey -- long ways away from almost coming home with no Kellogg's cards, innit?




With literally seconds to spare, I plucked this '62 Musial from the bottom of the dude's discount bin, and I just about had to rub my eyes when I saw the paltry seven-dollar price tag.

I didn't realize it till I got home later that night, but this actually completes my 1958-63 run of Stan the Man's Topps cards (he didn't have a contract with Topps for most of his career) -- hooray!




And right after the Musial came what was to be my most expensive purchase of the day (by a wide margin), as well as my most treasured (also by a wide margin) -- a 1961 Topps Roger Maris!

Fate works in funny ways sometimes. This card -- from Maris's record-breaking "61 in '61" season, of course -- appeared on my "Keep Dreaming" list after I conquered the impossible dream of owning a '58 Maris rookie from a dude's discount at the last convention hall show I attended. Now, a few months and $20 later, down went the '61...and it turned out to be from the very same dude's discount bin!

Over time, collections grow, collections change, collections reflect the shifts of life -- I can't honestly expect to collect the same way I did when I was in high school. But still, I know for a fact that my adolescent self would've scoffed at the prospect of paying $20 for a '61 Maris (that's 200 dime cards!), $7 for a '62 Musial (70 dime cards!), $6 for a Kellogg's Mays (60 dime cards!), and so on, and so on...

Me, I'll take the '61 Maris in the here and now, thank you very much -- and shut up, 16-year-old Nick.

15 comments:

Jon said...

Most kids aren't interested in vintage cards, so you weren't being an idiot for not collecting vintage when you were younger... you were just being a kid, and having fun collecting what you were interested in at the time, there's no shame in that.

Lots of great stuff in here as usual, but that Maris sure is something! That was a really great price for a card that is as desirable as that one is.

gcrl said...

$3 is a steal for the 72 opc gil hodges! well done!

when i was a kid my dad started collecting as a way to spend time with me, and he went for player collections that included vintage - koufax, drysdale, etc. at that time i took my collection only back to 1970, and only really expanded into the 50s and 60s when i was in my 20s.

night owl said...

My '61 Maris for 7 cents is a story I will tell to my final breath.

When I was a teenager, all there was to find at card shows was vintage! What else would you buy?

Hackenbush said...

Great stuff. Love the Musial!

JediJeff said...

Which show was this?

The Shlabotnik Report said...

Young Joe Shlabotnik would've loved that Maris card because it was featured on one of the 1975 Topps MVP subset cards. Fantastic buys, as always!

Fuji said...

Wow. Awesome stuff. As much as I enjoy 90's inserts and parallels... I'd much rather have one $20 vintage card instead of 200 dime cards. However... five years ago... it was a completely different story.

Nick said...

Jeff -- 'Twas the big Fanatics Rosemont show.

Bo said...

"I often wish I could go back in time and berate my teenage self for such ignorance" - we all feel that way about one thing or another. I regret not getting into vintage sooner too. But I don't think I'll be at the point where I want to drop even a dollar on an individual card unless it was the last one I needed for a set. I've done OK in the past few months with big-time cards that have been in larger lots, or - the best way - getting cards by trade.

Matt said...

Great finds! Love the Fleer World Series cards!

Mike said...

Always a great day out,dude!

Defenders50 said...

I like vintage, and wish I could get more into it, the problem is that as someone under 35, the guys whose names I know tend to run into the type of money that I don't have.

That and as a set collector still trying to piece together the sets from my youth, I haven't devoted the time to finishing a pre-1981 set either. One day I may start by tackling 1983. One day.

Oh, and Brooks Robinson just looks so happy on that card. That's a good card.

Eric C. Loy said...

Pretty sure that Carew Hostess is the "Big Head" Variation.

Nick Vossbrink said...

Wow that's a haul (especially the Kelloggs!). I remember as a kid just wanting to get into vintage but honestly not knowing how. Most dealers I remember had only the heavy hitters out in cases and something about digging through boxes as a kid felt like more interaction (or risk of interaction) than I ever wanted to deal with.

shoeboxlegends said...

Congrats on that beautiful '61 Maris Nick! I landed one a year or two ago on Black Friday and it remains one of my most prized baseball cards to this day. Also love that '58 that you led off with.