Vintage Card Show Buys

Being a trial lawyer is a difficult job in many respects.  The standard to which trial lawyers are held are lawyers on criminal justice shows -- everyone expects flash, bravado, Perry-Mason-like intuitiveness, and quivering witnesses on the stand.  

The reality is much different.  Things are rarely as smooth as they appear on television. Indeed, being a trial lawyer is a craft and an art all at once.  Law students take courses in trial practice, and those courses are much like teaching a baby how to walk -- it's basic building blocks...one foot in front of the other...that begins the process of honing talent in the courtroom.

One lecturer from the early 1970s that continues to influence trial lawyers today is Irving Younger. He staked his claim in the realm of trial practice by setting forth his "Ten Commandments of Cross Examination."

That's an excerpt.  A 43-minute excerpt, mind you, but still an excerpt.  One of the key commandments he has is "Limit Questioning."  In this regard, the point is that lawyers should not ask too many questions.  Directly from his outline: "Don't ask the one question too many! Stop when you have made your point. Leave the argument for the jury."

Bloggers can ask one question too many, in a manner of speaking.  By this, I mean that you can ask too much of your audience -- whether it is because the post is too long, does too many deep dives into minutiae, or just tries to be too cute.  I fall victim to this all the time, I fear -- many long, deep dives into minutiae that only a baseball card collecting Brewers fan alive in 1982 could appreciate.  In other words, it's a post only I can appreciate.

In the interest of avoiding this in today's post, I am going to put up the cards I bought at my last card show a couple of weeks ago that are the vintage cards.  Lately, I have spent more and more and more on the vintage Braves cards and less and less on newer cards of the Brewers.  That is a reflection, in part, on what is available to be purchased from the dealers at the show, what cards Topps is making, and what cards I've bought and focused on buying in the past.  

So, to cure my overly long bloviations, here are the vintage cards I bought with very little commentary.

Hank Aaron

I love the look of those 1958 All-Star cards.  I can understand why Topps brought it back for the special onsite All-Star game giveaways at last year's All-Star game.

Ed Mathews

The "Fence Buster" cards being repeated from 1958 to 1959 seems as unimaginative as the "Then-and-Now" cards that populate inserts in Topps Heritage every year.  But I do like the 1958 version -- with Joe Adcock and Del Crandall added in.

Warren Spahn

That "newspaper" All-Star card is in rough shape -- it cost me just $2 -- but the front of the card is great.  It's the back that looks bad.  The guy selling the cards explained that he got a ton of 1960 Topps cheap -- pasted into a scrapbook.  But it looks good to me.  Not as good as that "1958 All-Star Selection" card, though.  That may be one of my favorite cards of all time. It just looks awesome to me.

Joe Adcock

Only one addition to the Joe Adcock collection this time, but it's a beautiful 1959 Topps card. 

Other Vintage, Newest to Oldest

1964 Topps

1961 Topps

Quick note: I had no idea that Billy Martin ever played for the Braves. The Braves bought his contract from the Cincinnati Reds on December 3, 1960. He played a grand total of six games -- 6 at bats -- for the Braves without getting on base before the Braves shipped him to the Minnesota Twins on June 1, 1961, in exchange for Billy Consolo.  

And yet, he got a card on the Braves.

1960 Leaf

And, I'll close with cards from two sets that I never had held in my hands before.  The first is this 1960 Leaf card of Juan Pizarro.  I am not sure that I even knew Leaf made any cards in the 1960s prior to buying this card.  Now I own one.

And finally....

1953 Topps

I bought all five of these from the same guy who was selling the Spahn All-Star.  We had a good laugh about Topps taking its best guess about what the Braves hat would look like in Milwaukee -- black brim or red? Blocky M, thin M, Straight sides or crooked?  And then there is the nice touch of Murray Wall apparently doing his own artwork and creating scoreboards in the background that would have had his named spelled out in lights if we saw the whole thing.  

It's unclear why Wall got a card in the first place -- he hadn't played for the Braves since 1950 -- and then for just one start -- and would not make the major leagues again until 1957 with the Boston Red Sox...other than, perhaps, Topps had a contract for the right to use his face on a card.

But seriously, these cards are 1953 Topps cards, and they are in wonderful shape.  It certainly made my card show.