Cards From the Attic

If you follow Cards from the Attic on Twitter, you may have done as I did and partook in the wonderful sale of reasonably priced vintage singles. The man behind the account has a website also called Cards from the Attic where his cards for sale are listed along with other cool things like giveaways, videos, and trade wrap-ups.

I dove headfirst into his sale and bought a bunch of Braves that I needed for the Braves team set (and a few for my player collections). Let's go in year order -- 1960 through 1965 -- and see what I bought for a total of $50. What does $50 buy these days?



Two cards from 1960 -- a Lou [sic] Burdette and a Chuck Cottier without those strange lines that the previous Cottier I received had on them. Chuck and Lew are just the opening acts, of course. But with these two cards, my 1960 Braves want list is down to 8 cards: Hank Aaron, one Eddie Mathews, two Warren Spahns, Stan Lopata, two Eddie Mathews All-Stars, a Hank all-Star, and a Del Crandall All-Star.

Moving on to 1961, I got five cards, all of which go into my team collection. I feel like it's a rare thing to have cards like the Bob "Hawk" Taylor card with the player nickname in quotes. I mean, we've seen the "Rock Raines" cards, and frankly many of Taylor's cards just list him as "Hawk," but including the nickname (which he got in childhood because his favorite movie serial was "Hawk of the Wilderness," according to his SABR Bio). Hawk was a bonus baby so he made 7 appearances and got to bat once for the 1957 Braves. Unfortunately, he never even appeared enough as a Brave from 1957 through 1963 to lose his rookie eligibility.

But that name just seems weird to me. Anyone have any idea about that?

1962 is like the second wood-grain set, if you count Bowman's wood-grained TVs as being a wood-grain set. If you think about it, 1962 + 1968 = 1987. You can call 1968 "burlap" but that light tan made into wood grain literally is 1987. 1987 being 25 years after 1962 probably isn't a coincidence either.

At any rate, you can see Topps getting lazy with my Midwest players already -- using the same photo for Joe Adcock for 1961 and 1962 is 100% lazy, or Topps's photographers were simply negligent and failed to take his photo enough.

Also, Carl Willey has three different variations of his card -- two of which show him in a cap (one with a weird green tint) and this one, which does not.

Finally, Mike Krsnich is not the only major league baseball player to have his name start with four straight consonants. I can confirm this because his brother Rocky Krsnich also played major league baseball (for the White Sox in 1949, 1951, and 1952). The Krsnich brothers grew up in West Allis, Wisconsin, and attended West Allis Central High School. For what it's worth, Mike made 4 appearances in 1960, didn't play in the majors in 1961, and played in 11 games (and hit 12 times) in 1962 -- and that was it for his career. Of course, he was already 30 years old in 1962. His only three cards ever issued were this card, a 1966 James T. Elder Postcard, and...a 1962 buyback that came out with 2011 Topps Heritage.

Yes, there are more. As everyone knows, the 1963 Topps set was the design-father for 1983 Topps. This Lou [sic] Burdette was needed for the Burdette PC. You can really tell, though the terrible attempts at painting M's on the small photos for guys like Constable, Cline, and Johnson. The sizing is all off. And did the Braves have uniforms with the huge numbers on the sleeve like Cline has on? Nope...but the Cleveland Indians sure did.

 

I've been lucky to find a lot of 1964 Topps at card shows in the past, so my want list did not correspond all that well with what was available. McMillan came over to the Braves in December of 1960 from Cincinnati in exchange for Joey Jay and Juan Pizarro. Jay was just 25 years old when he was traded, and he promptly rattled off two straight 21 win seasons for the Reds. Pizarro was flipped by the Reds to the White Sox on the exact same day he came in for the Reds to get Gene Freese. McMillan stayed in Milwaukee for three years and 8 games (total of 399 Games) before he was traded to the New York Mets.

And finally, it's 1965. Billy O'Dell's photo kind of weirds me out, to be honest. Billy attended Clemson after he graduated from Whitmire High School in Whitmire, South Carolina. O'Dell was the Braves closer in 1965 racking up 19 saves in 62 appearances and finishing 42 games while throwing 111-1/3 innings with a 2.18 ERA. It being 1965, O'Dell also started a game. Joining him in the bullpen for most of the year were Dan Osinski (61 games, no starts, 26 GF, 6 SV) and Phil Niekro (41 games, 1 start, 21 GF), both of whom saved 6 games.

Toys in the Attic begets Cards from the Attic, after all.

So, what do your $50 of 2018 Topps Heritage look like? That's like what, 2 blasters and a hanging pack?