The Christmas Haul

As most of you probably read just before Christmas, my in-laws bought a collection for me for Christmas. I've gotten through a lot of it already. I spent a bunch of my time in the week after Christmas pulling cards from sheets, stacking up binders, triaging sheets to determine which ones to keep and which ones are too crumpled, curved, or stained to keep.

So, my home office is a bit of a mess right now. I still have almost 40 binders to go through, but that's much better than the nearly 100 I started with.

Having gotten through 60 or so binders already, though, I've started to accumulate some interesting items. As always, if it isn't either a Milwaukee Brave, a Milwaukee Brewer, or a player collection item, then it's available in trade.

First off, there was a bind of the Upper Deck Hologram MVP set from 1992. It was accompanied by a familiar visage:



Griffey collectors -- I assume that you guys count this as a Griffey item for your collections, right? It's so limited in its release -- just 216,000 of them!  Here's what the cards look like:

I will admit that these hologram sets look far better than I expected in the scan. In the binders, these things just looked like a bunch of cheap mirrors. As a checklist, though, this is a pretty good set -- two Ripkens, Robbie Alomar, Bagwell, Boggs, Bonds, Brett, Clemens, Eckersley, Griffey, Maddux, Molitor, Puckett, Ozzie Smith, Frank Thomas, Sandberg, and Nolan Ryan are all in there. Anyone need one of these other than the Molitor or the Bill Wegman?

Another group of cards in a binder together was the 1992 Score Superstars set. 

Granted, this set isn't exactly rare, but it's not a set that I have run across with any regularity. I suppose it's that the vendors don't bring these cards because they aren't rare and don't sell well, meaning I never see them. If you need something from this set, let me know.

Okay, it's time for comic relief.



I haven't the foggiest idea which cards this "certificate of authenticity" applies to. As you can see, my predecessor in interest in these cards bought his 500 "Rookie/Superstar" cards from Sears & Roebuck in mid-1993.  

I seriously doubt that those same cards have the same minimum catalog value of $100 now.

Basically, these binders are organized in one of two ways. A number of binders are just players, sorted by name. Many others are "factory" sets -- I don't think he used that term correctly -- sorted by team and then alphabetically by player name within each team.

The third type of binder, though, has been my favorite. It contains the smaller sets -- like that Score card above. And, it also contains this one:



Perhaps he paid the $100 to get this card from BTS -- I don't know. No matter, though -- I really like this 1990s "Archives" reprint of the 1953 Topps set. That was the first Topps set to feature players identified as Milwaukee Braves. As with most sets I own, I haven't decided about busting this one up for distribution and trading or whether I'll keep it intact.

Other interesting, random finds:

The previous owner bought and tore up (and apparently loved) those Dover reprint books. I've gotten a ton of pretty cool reprints from these binders, including a recycled portrait:




Man, Hassan tobacco must have been pretty lazy just to recycle the same portrait that Piedmont tobacco used for its cards. Don't they realize that this type of activity will be used as an excuse by card makers for the next century for recycling photos?

Ducky Medwick was always one of my favorite players to read stories about as a kid because, I mean, ducky! And, I loved the story about the 1934 World Series: how Medwick slid hard into third base on a triple, leading Detroit fans to pelt him with garbage. As a result, then-Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis ordered that Medwick and Tigers third-baseman Marv Owen be benched for Game 7 of the World Series. As Medwick's Wikipedia biography mentions, Medwick is the only known player to be thrown out of a game for his own safety.

In addition to tons of those Dover reprints, there are a bunch of these player sets from Front Row. Now, unfortunately, I don't have the Derek Jeter autographed card -- at least that I've found at this point. But, I do have a bunch of these cards. Most of them come in sets of 5 to 8 cards with a certificate of authenticity:



On the left is the Hal Newhouser set serial numbered to 2000 (because one card was autographed) and on the right is the one for Frank Thomas -- 11,028 out of 30,000.

Speaking of the Newhouser autograph...

Front Row was quick to remove the logo from the hat, but they didn't care as much about leaving the name on the uniform.  Here are a few more random players from those sets:



Lots of Hall of Famers...and Dan Melendez...the Dodgers 1992 Second Round Draft pick out of Pepperdine University who never quite overcame injuries and the bias at the time against slick-fielding, lighter-hitting first basemen who hit .260 with a .350 OBP.  

Now, the Kaline, Clemente, Ryan, and Yaz cards are not autographed -- obviously, for Clemente, it was a complete impossibility to have signed the card without time travel being involved. Instead, they have a metallic gold inlay in the card providing a facsimile autograph.

Also, the Leonard and the Dandridge cards have me thinking that I should do a mini-collection of Negro League cards. The problem with that idea is trying to find the cards to create a checklist, I suppose, and the lack of contemporaneous cards to a great extent. So, I am going to hold on to the Leonard and the Dandridge cards to give myself time to think about it.

But, anything else you see here is fair game. Even Dan Melendez or the next card:



Because Todd Steverson actually made it to the major leagues for a grand total of 30 games and 51 plate appearances in 1995 and 1996 (with Detroit and San Diego, respectively). Steverson was the Blue Jays first round pick in 1992 out of Arizona State, and his cousin is former Tiger Ron LeFlore. Steverson played in Mexico in 1997 and eventually managed in the Oakland farm system for a few years as well.

Okay -- a few more cards. First, two "Playball U.S.A. Cards":



Both of these are parts of larger sets, so let me know if you need them.

I was quite pleased to find this next group of sets. It looks to be a fairly complete set of the TCMA "Greatest Teams" cards from 1987, including the 1957 Milwaukee Braves:



Going with the Braves were:



One card from all the different teams right there. I picked Poosh Em Up Tony over Babe Ruth for the 1927 Yankees, and who doesn't love a man named Granny? Also, was that Johnny Evers card using a photo from his playing career or from his dotage? Otherwise, these all appear to be fairly contemporaneous photos from around the time that the team was together.  

So, does anyone need one of these sets?

Finally, let's go to the fun and the random.

The fun:

Because Don Mossi and his ears and ugliness are always fun.

And the random?



Is anyone a Robbie Gordon supercollector who needs this die-cut card?

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you want anything in this post that I'm not keeping.