Sunday, September 12, 2021

Messing around with retro player interests

Continued from a card show, where I ended up grabbing a bunch of cards and maybe there was some buyer's remorse just as far as quantity goes - it's all fun and games digging for one, two, five or 10 more cards to add to my stack until I had to weed things out and realize the number of cards haven't been actually whittled down to a more saner number for what I'm willing to pay.

I overheard the seller's mantra, where basically if someone bought around 1,500 cards from him - that person would be made to pay $1,500, no discounts.

I'm not getting close to over a thousand cards but perhaps a 1/10th of that number and I realize you either pay the piper or walk away - go figure I've gravitated towards this seller's table just because he seems like he has the most accessible stuff.

He has countless monster boxes of baseball cards [in addition to most of the other sports and non sport like comic cards] to dwell on - where it's just not a lonely straggler box of bargain bin cards off a 'here and now' table that tend to focus on other than baseball.

I haven't prioritized chasing cards of retired legends and icons from the 1970s and before - but I'll take the more unique ones [either retro or actual playing days cards] as I find them to build up cards for a number of old school players whose cards I want to display in a binder.
The back of the Roberto Clemente oddball, Lou Brock oddball contest card and Johnny Bench OPC - besides any major manufacturer cards [at least at the time the cards were printed], maybe I'm trying to be more liberal in looking for cards that I may not have considered just 10-15 years ago.
I picked up a run of Hank Aaron cards and I like the Topps branded cards the best like the 1994 Topps Archives 1954, 2000 Topps Chrome reprints and 2002 Topps 206 mini - because the cards have been licensed and can use retro designs and/or images while the others feel like shabby oddballs from an unknown origin.
I thought the card on top left hand corner of the quartet was a 1984 Renata Galasso issue and this nearly confirms it - but the little copyright info on the bottom left corner is just a little different.
A modern rendition on an old time card can be weird at times, but while it's never going to ever have the history of the original - the Topps Chrome reprint of Aaron's 1956 Topps card is something real nice in hand.
Presumably the other Aaron was an unlicensed issue created for a card show event - it doesn't mean it's more collectible, but I'd prefer random cards that have a little bit of notable information rather than just something made up as a true 'fantasy' issue.
I thought I'd found some nice Pete Rose cards though the old-timey looking one from the left is a 1983 Starliner Stickers - it's nearly 40 year old, but it's unlicensed and not the 1960s.
I think the middle 'card' is a 1971 Dell MLM All-Star Stamps issue, though I'm not sure how it came to be where it was laminated - makes the odd size 'card' feel more sturdy, but how did it come to be?

The last Rose card looks to be a 1976 Wiffle Ball disc issue - I've always thought these cards without the big league logos from the 1970s and through the 1980s were rogue issues, though they are authorized by the players association, just not licensed by Major League Baseball.

2 comments:

Fuji said...

The MSA discs from the 70's and 80's are cool. They're one of a handful of sets where I can look past the lack of MLB logos.

Jon said...

Not giving discounts to big spenders isn't usually something that a seller should advertise. It may not be hurting this guy yet, but it certainly will one day.