What's on TV?

These days, the answer to "what's on TV?" is pretty much, "what do you want to watch?" With hundreds of cable/satellite channels, Netflix/Amazon Prime, internet-based networks, and even TV from overseas, the only things that limit the answer to the question "what's on TV" are your language skills and your imagination.

In the 1950s, that was not true. People had three or four TV stations -- tops -- and that was it.  Indeed, color TV was quite a novelty.  I guess that's why Bowman decided to use TVs for its card design in 1955, its final season as an independent card issuer.  

I've always loved that design, so I was pleased to find a few 1955 Milwaukee Braves to buy at the last card show I attended:

This Bob Buhl has honest-to-goodness sharp corners.  It's too bad that there are other imperfections.  But those sharp corners made me think there's a strong possibility that those corners came from trimming. I measured the card, though, and it comes out right.  Still, as anyone who's tried to collect a top-condition set of 1955 Bowman will tell you, finding these cards in good condition and well-centered is nearly impossible.  

Later Braves TV Announcer Ernie Johnson has some dodgy printing going on, and the corners are more rounded.  Maybe it's just the coloration, but Dittmer and Johnson both look to be night game cards.

And then, there was the 1955 Bowman addition to my Lew Burdette collection, which doubled in size thanks to that relic from Monday's post and the cards I picked up in McDonough.  The Nitro, West Virginia, native's card has a little writing on it, so it was a throw-in to the purchase.  I don't mind that much.

Adding to the large card glory was a single 1955 Topps Card:

Melvin Earl Roach, the card back tells me, was a slugger from the University of Virginia. Rather than having me tell you about it, have a look for yourself:

I love these old cards.  It reminds me that people in the 1950s thought that the Ozarks made people grow beards and dress like members of the Three Musketeers...without shoes, of course.

The vendor from whom I bought these four cards was seriously excited to have someone interested in his old Braves vintage cards.  He was an older gentleman, and he gave me a pretty good deal.  It was MUCH more than I wanted to spend on cards at the show, but I have to be honest -- vintage in good shape and without having any "drawn-on-beard" parallels was worth it.  Well, there was one card I am disappointed in condition-wise:

The paper loss at Hank's face is the part that disappoints me.  Still, if it were in great shape, this card would be a lot more expensive, so I'm not really complaining.  Especially with all the nice cards that came along with Hank:

A quintet of 1957 Braves, all in very good shape with some centering issues.

I know I got more from this seller besides these, but I'm pretty sure that I mixed up the cards I bought with others before I scanned them.  

Oh, wait.  There were two cards for player collections:

It's a late career Mathews along with a Burdette in his pomp -- the 1958 Topps card issued the year after he won three games in the 1957 World Series against the Yankees.  

Whew.  What a great pack of vintage.  

I picked up some other, random Milwaukee Braves of a more recent vintage.  The same guy who had the 20 items for $20 table had some boxes of all Braves along with some boxes of inserts available being sold at 100 for $15.  Here's what I grabbed from that:

Three Joe Adcock cards -- two from SP Legendary Cuts with the exact same photo used on consecutive year's sets and a "Swingin' for the Fences" card from the Ted Williams set in the mid 1990s.

Two Warren Spahn cards -- including a Chasing History that I was shocked I did not have. The other Spahn there is from the 1994 Topps Baseball Archives Ultimate 1954 Series. This Spahn is a "Gold Parallel" version.  

Indeed, most of the cards I found from that set were the Gold Parallels:

Only poor Johnny Logan is a "normal" card.  All the rest are from the Gold Parallel.

Which means, of course, that I need to find the "normal" cards.  

The final pickup from this same guy was one that was an impulse buy: the 1988 Pacific Legends Series 1 set.

But, with three of my "vintage" PC guys represented, I had to get the set.  And, other than the Milwaukee Braves represented in the set (which may be only Felipe Alou), the rest of the cards have started getting parceled out into packages that all were sent out yesterday. If there are certain cards from this set that you want, let me know and I may still have them to send to you.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with me through four days of card show posts!