Mailday Post: Vintage Maven Mark Hoyle

Mark Hoyle has been spreading the vintage extras from his collection around the blogosphere liberally.  His duplicates from the 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975 sets have made their way into my Brewers base set binder and filled some pretty significant holes there.  In honor of Mark, and I sure hope he doesn't hate this song, how about we turn to a song which hit #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the Easy Listening chart back in 1975 (and a song which I played numerous times during my college years as a part of the Vanderbilt Spirit of Gold Marching Band):

The song is a paean to nostalgia -- which in 1975 meant the 1950s -- and the lyrics mention baseball cards:

Old Days, good times I remember

Fun days filled with simple pleasures

Drive-in movies, Comic books and blue jeans

Howdy Dowdy, Baseball cards and birthdays

Take me back to a world gone away

Memories seem like yesterday

So, we've gotten easy listening crossed off as a genre represented on Off Hiatus.  Anyway, here are the cards from the PWE that showed up in my mailbox from Mark:

Let's start with something that may be retro but isn't vintage.  That hurts my eyes, honestly, but the Ted Higuera goes straight into my player collection for him and the other two cards jump into my Brewers oddballs.  

Seriously, though, what was the fascination with bright yellow cards in the early 1990s?  I remember the horrible idea style-wise in the late 1980s was wearing really bright fluorescent clothes -- an idea, by the way, that I ignored except, perhaps, for wearing those cheap rubber gas-station sunglasses in a fluorescent color. But applying that theory to baseball cards is one of those times when I want to quote a 25-year-old Saturday Night Live skit and ask, "Who are the ad wizards who came up with THIS one?"

The next card seemed a little out of character for Mark, but since I needed it, I asked no questions:

Let me put it this way: I hope Mark was the one who sent me this card, because otherwise I have no clue who sent me a 1999 Just Minors Kevin Barker card repping the Louisville Riverbats -- which were, for a short time, the Brewers Triple-A team.

After all that 1990s angst and bright colors, I was glad to see this last card come out of that PWE.  It restored my faith in vintage and is a great addition to my hopefully burgeoning Milwaukee Braves base set binder:

I know a lot of people are ambivalent toward the all-horizontal 1960 Topps set, but count me among those who actually likes it.  It's sort of a cross between the mid-1950s style of having an "action" photo with a posed photo, and I rather like it and want it used in Archives for more than relic cards.

Mark, thanks again for a great PWE, and I hope we exchange more envelopes along the way.

Card Show Purchases, Part 2 -- Glorious Vintage Pickups

Yesterday, I talked about my bargain bin shopping at the first table I stopped at.  Go ahead -- read the post. I'll wait.

If you're impatient and don't want to read yesterday's news, well, don't worry, I'll fill you in on the key details.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I went back to that same dealer's table later in the day.  When I went back, I was intending on more "dumpster diving" in those $1 bins.  I didn't get to do that, though, because by the time I went back the table owner had switched out his bins for his high-end items -- including a Life magazine from 1962 with the Post Cereal card insert with both Mantle and Maris on it...and I'm wishing I had bought that today.  His bottom line on it was $75, which was the starting bid in a higher end online auctions a few years ago.

I don't collect Mantle or Maris or Life magazines or even Post Cereal cards though, so that item was pretty well lost on me, I think.

More my speed was the fact that this dealer also had added about 6 of those 5000-card monster boxes of cards.  Those boxes had a sheet which said that the cards were 25 cents each, but if you got to 200 cards, it would be $20 and each card after that would be a dime as well.  So, basically, once you got to 80 cards, your next 120 cards were free.

Next to those monster boxes, he had a smaller box -- probably a 1000-card box -- filled with baseball and football cards from 1971 through 1975 with a few older baseball cards thrown in.  That's the box from which my purchases today came.

You guys are all aware that I'm a Brewers collector.  Yet, as I got into the range of 150 cards in my stack, I tired of looking through more recent cards (which I'll post later this week) and decided to pull a bunch of these older cards to finish out my 200.  Here's a sampling of what I got:

I picked up the one 1960 Topps card I found:

Those corners are almost sharp.  Seriously, no creases, no scratching, and no abrasions on a 54-year old card pulled from a dime box.  I'll take it.

From 1965 Topps, I picked up a couple of Milwaukee Braves for the complete base set of Topps and Bowman of the Milwaukee Braves (yes, ugh, Aaron rookie....$$$$$$$) I hope to build:

Santos -- a.k.a Sandy -- Alomar Sr.

 

Then, a preview of next year's Topps Heritage set thanks to six New York Yankees cards from the 1966 Topps set I found next to one another in the box:

Yes, more headshots without hats and guys with their hands balled up in their gloves for next year's photos are in store.

There were a fair amount of 1971 Topps in the box, but I only grabbed two of them -- a Ted Kubiak card for my Brewers team set and this little gem:

Similarly, I didn't find a lot of 1972 Topps that I grabbed -- nothing for the Brewers I need, for instance -- but I did pick up these four cards:

The only card of those four with any serious condition issues is that 1971 N.L Pitching Leaders card with three Hall of Famers and Al Downing on it.  That issue is writing on the card, but it's still a really attractive card for a dime.  And, I believe I am correct in saying that the LaRussa card is his only card as a player, so picking up a Hall of Famer for 10 cents isn't too bad either.

(EDIT: Oops, I was thinking of Bobby Cox having only one card.  Tony the Russian has two other cards.)

The box had a lot of 1973 and 1974 Topps in it.  The more I see both of these sets, the more I am thinking about putting them together.  I found one Brewer card from 1973 that I needed -- card #212, Joe Lahoud. But I found a couple of great cards from guys that I am collecting as Brewers-only player collections:

In addition to these two cards, I also picked up these cards from this box:

This one goes into my Eddie Mathews player collection.

It's fun picking up Hall of Famers on 41-year-old cards for a dime, as Eddie Mathews, Jim Palmer, Jim Hunter, and Ernie Banks display to great effect (even if seeing Jim Palmer in a pool float is a bit weird).  And seeing Popeye Zimmer in mustard and brown after so many years of him in Yankee pinstripes and Red Sox whites is a bit jarring but fun.

The big stash, though, came from 1974.  I picked up the unnumbered green team checklist for the Brewers along with George Scott, the Team card (which is miscut, so I can still use a better-centered version), Don Money, Bobby Mitchell, the Rookie Catchers card with one of my player collection guys Charlie Moore on it, the Rookie Pitchers with Kevin Kobel, the Rookie OF with Wilbur Howard, and Steve Barber just for my Brewers collection.  I'm down to just a couple of cards for 1974 for the Brewers as a result.

Here's the team card, which is pretty off-center:

After that, I started pulled other players, managers, and team cards.  There was a future Hall of Famer who also became a Brewer:

There were other future Brewers too:

Some team cards:

Managers:

Yeah, oops.  Grabbed two Weavers. 

I'm thinking I grabbed two Weavers future Brewer manager George Bamberger's inclusion on it.  Or I just lost track.

Finally, other players:

Miscut Maddox

Andre Thornton/Frank White rookie

Play at the Plate!

Two Hall of Famers

Two more Hall of Famers

Freisleben Washington Variation

Finally, there were some 1975 Topps and one 1976 Topps Traded too.  No minis, unfortunately, but definitely cool cards:

As you can see, I camped out in this vintage box to try to find cards I liked, cards I thought you guys and gals would like, and hopefully to pick up some trade bait as well.  If you see something you like, let me know.

And just think -- those cards were just one-third of the cards I dug out of the dime boxes!

Hope y'all have a great Father's Day!