Throwback Thursday: A Simpsons Hand of 1952 Topps, a Pair of Clementes, and a Stargell

Nothing beats vintage deals

Here's a lot of cards I recently purchased from a vendor at a mall card show for $50.  A pair of Clementes and a second year Stargell along with a Simpsons handful of 52s.  I couldn't be happier to add these to the collection.

Hopefully by showing off some vintage, the Bucs can get back to their vintage ways and win some games again.

#tbt: A Trio of 61s

Every few months, my local mall has a cardshow where you can find some nice vintage cards for very cheap.  I generally get great deals from one seller in particular.  Below is a trio of 1961 Topps that I purchased for $2 combined.

Gene Baker

Vern Law

Smoky Burgess

Throwback Thursday: You Complete Me 1968

One of my collecting goals for 2015 was to complete 2 vintage team sets which you can see on my Vintage Needs.  I can now cross off almost two from the list and we are only a month into the new year.

Because of our work schedules and the hour difference between us, I didn't get a chance to see my mom on Christmas.  Instead it took us a few weeks into the new year to exchange gifts and enjoy some drinks and holiday cookies.

My mom went above all expectations and hooked me up with some vintage cards I needed to complete some team sets I was working on.  She filled in the remaining 5 cards needed for my 1968 team set by adding 4 cards sporting Hall of Famers (2 Clementes, 1 Stargell, and 1 Jim Bunning).

In addition to the 5 cards I needed for 1968, she also scored me a handful of 1962s which brings my team set needs for that year to only #10 Roberto Clemente.

Thanks so much Mom for knocking these out for me.

Throwback Thursday: My Name is Earl

Last Month, I attended the local mall sports card show that is put on every 8 weeks and grabbed a small amount of vintage needs, some supplies, and a few Jackson Jaguars cards for my brother as a Christmas gift.  

Among the overpriced Clemente cards I needed were these two vintage beauties stashed away in a box labeled 2 for $1.  Grabbing early 1960s cards for a half buck?  Count me in!!!

I needed both of these cards for my vintage needs.

There's not much on Earl Francis on the internet.  He was born in 1935, and passed away in 2002.  He was a member of the 1960 World Series Pirates, but wasn't part of the World Series roster.  He finished his career having pitched in 103 games for 405 innings pitched.  Based on what I can view from his Baseball Reference page, he was mainly a mopup middle reliever/spot starter with poor command (4.0BB/9)

Throwback Thursday: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE

I set out to complete several Topps Vintage Team Sets for the Pirates in 2014.  I succeeded in that goal when I completed the 1965, 1969, 1971, and 1972 Topps Team Sets.  As the days come close to an end for 2014, I can ALMOST cross off another.

1955 Topps

By grabbing this Gene Freese piece of cardboard for only a few bucks I have gotten down to only 1 more card for the completion of the 1955 Pirates Team Set.

It just so happens that the only card I need is Roberto Clemente's rookie.  Anybody have one looking for a good home?

No?  Ok...
Then I will just show the back of this Eugene Lewis Freese card and call it a day I guess.

Throwback Thursday: Vintage 58s

It's been too long since I've shown off some true vintage (pre60s) on my page.  

I managed to grab the above 8 cards I needed for my Topps Flagship sets for $4.90 delivered.  In addition to the 8 cards above I also grabbed Gene Freese, Frank Thomas, Dick Groat, and Buddy Pritchard in the same lot.  None of these cards are museum worthy, but for the price I just couldn't resist adding more vintage cards to the collection.

Football Sunday: Mean Joe Greene

The Steelers season has been a lot of highs and lows as they have put up crazy lopsided numbers against teams and also lost 3 of their games to sub .500 teams (Buccaneers, Saints, Jets).  The Steelers are a franchise that expects greatness since the 70s when they went on to win multiple Super Bowls over a short period of time.  One player who was recently aknowledged from that Dynasty era of Steelers football is Joe Greene.  Joe became just the 2nd Steeler ever to have his number retired despite having 22 players in the Hall of Fame.

I will start to announce my 2015 Collecting Goals over the next few weeks but one of the major goals of 2015 will be to add autographs of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Hall of Fame.  I'm hopeful that I can add 4 to the collection next year.

Throwback Thursday: I completed a 69

If this title doesn't draw you in, maybe these two sweet 1969 cards of Hall of Famers Willie Stargell and Bill Mazeroski will.  The former Bucs greats were the last two cards I needed to complete my 1969 Topps Pirates Team Set and it ran me just shy of $18 to do so.

Both cards are in beautiful shape and feature no major creases, chipping, or writing.  Absolutely awesome deal I got for these two at my local sports collectors show at the mall.

Throwback Thursday: The Dock is in!!!!

A few months ago I made a large purchase of over 100 cards on COMC that helped complete some vintage teamsets along with parallels and inserts of some of my favorite Pirates.

I already showed off my 1965 Topps Strikeout Leaders featuring Don Veale that completed my 1965 team set.  Today I'm going to show a card that ran me just over an Abe ($5) to complete the 1970 Topps Pirates team set.

Last card needed for the 1970 team set: Dock Ellis

Card Number: 551 (high number)
Player's most notable moment in Pirates career: threw a No Hitter on LSD

Dock Ellis recently passed away in 2008, but before his passing he would often tell a story of how he threw a no hitter on the drug LSD.  For more information of the No Hitter as told by Ellis, visit this site.

There's currently a documentary called No-No: A Dockumentary the Dock Ellis story.  The trailer can be seen below

Throwback Thursday: Tracking down the Holy Veale

I needed one card to complete my 1965 Pirates Team Set and that was a card that featured the 1964 NL Strikeout Leaders including Bob Veale.  Veale lead the National League in punchout in 1964 with 250 in 279 innings pitched.

The card which also features Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale ran me $3.20 and helped me complete 3 Topps Team sets with a recent COMC purchase.  I will show off the others as part of my Throwback Thursday segments.

Throwback Thursday: Sluggers Supreme 1958 Topps

It's hard trying to find a vintage Topps card of one of the greatest hitters of all time on it, but I managed to do it when I added this Ted Williams and Ted Kluszewski 1958 Topps Slugger Supreme to my collection.  I grabbed this nice piece of cardboard for only $7 delivered.

It's not known if the Big Klu is truly a Pirate in this card, but since he played the 1958 season for the Bucs, I added it to my ongoing attempt to collect every flagship Topps Pirates card.  Klu didn't play long in the Steel City as he was only in 160 games over a season and half.  During that time he batted .284 with only 6 HomeRuns, but did maintain a very good strikeout to walk rate (30:31)

Throwback Thursday: Vintage 1964s

As anyone that follows my blog knows my card collection consists mainly of the following:

• Supercollection of Charlie Morton (over 90% of all cards produced)
• Nearly 500 unique Andrew McCutchen cards including over 150 relics/autos
• over 500 unique Jason Bay cards including over 125 autos/relics
• an almost complete rainbow of Tony Sanchez 2009 Bowman Chrome Autos BGS 9.5 or higher
• too many autographs, relics, shortprints of other Pirates to count
• an attempted run of every Topps flagship Pirates card produced from 1952-2014

I was able to knock off 3 more needs from the latter and pick up 1964 Topps Pirates set by adding the following for the low price of $4.

Isn't it nice to know that I only need 4 more cards to complete the 1964 Topps Pirates team set.
They are
7 NL Leaders
342 Willie Stargell
472 Vern Law
570 Bill Mazeroski

Card Show Pickups pt2: Vintage Edition

Yesterday I showed off some very cheap cards I was able to grab for under $1.

I was able to continue my success to one of my favorite parts of the hobby, VINTAGE!!!!
Nothing excites me more at these local card shows than digging through 50% off vintage and 5 for $10 bins.  I came away with a few steals in my search which I will immediately show off.

Up first are my $2 Roberto Clementes, I found in the 5 for $10 bins.  $2 for vintage Clemente????!!!! Hell yeah!!! Who cares that there is a major crease on Hank Aaron.  I sure as hell don't.

Next up are 3, yes 3 vintage Willie Stargells I grabbed for $5 each.

A trio of 1963 Topps I grabbed for $60 including a really nice looking Clemente

To finish up is four 1964s and four 1969s I grabbed for a total of $12.

Buc Hill Aces: 1961 Edition

The Pirates pitching staff looked incredibly strong last year lead by veterans AJ Burnett, Fransisco Liriano, and closer Jason Grilli.
Back in 1960, the World Series Champion Pittsburgh Pirates, had 2 other aces that catapulted their record to the best in the NL with a 95-59 record.
The Pirates pitching staff in 2013 allowed 577 runs compared to the 1960 pitching staff which allowed 593 runs.  If the Pirates are going to continue their success in 2014, they will have to depend on the arms of Gerrit Cole, Fransisco Liriano, Charlie Morton, and the effectiveness of the bullpen.  It's only been one game so far, but it looks like the Buc Aces are back!

Here's hoping for success from the aces in 2014, so that the Pirates can be champions much like Vern Law and Roy Face pictured above.
I bought this card for $6 when I went on vacation in February.

I went to Virginia Beach and all I got were these old pieces of cardboard...

Last week, my girlfriend and I were traveling to North Carolina to see Luke Bryan and Lee Brice perform.  It was my Valentine's Day gift to her and I made sure we had really good seats (6 rows from the stage to be exact).  On our way down, she told me to google to see what card shops we may hit in Virginia Beach since she wanted to go to a Western Wear country store anyway.  We decided to hit up Heroes Sports Cards & Collectibles before they closed up for the day.  

I'm not going to lie, I was very hesitant to stop in and check it out since we were on a time restraint, but I sure am glad we did.  

Within a few minutes of walking around, I found the vintage section of the store.  I pulled out my phone and loaded my vintage want list from the website.  I hit a homerun on the 1960 needs.  I was able to add 11 new cards to the collection, allowing my needs to drop to only 7 cards for that team set.  1960 is one of my favorite vintage sets so grabbing this many cards including the high number Paul Giel really helped make the trip worth it.

Above are the rookie cards for Manuel Javier and Jim Umbricht along with the Pirates coaches card from the 1960 set.

I also picked up a single 1961 Topps card I needed for my set.  This card commemorates Bill Virdon's great catch in game 1 of the 1960 World Series when the Pirates won 6-4 over the Yankees.

Here's the back of the card with the highlights for the game.

Most of the cards I grabbed were in the $4-$6 range, the lone exception being the High Number Paul Giel, which ran me a little more than the price of a discount blaster. 

2 new 57s for the Treasure Room...and they're sharp

For $16, I add two new 1957 Topps cards to my ongoing pursuit to collect every flagship Topps Pirates card.  These fine specimens of vintage cardboard feature the 1960 Cy Young winner Vernon Law (#199) and outfielder Roman Mejias (#362).

In six seasons with the Pirates Mejias batted .245/.286/.367 while providing 17 homeruns and 83 RBI over 800 plate appearances.  He would leave to go to the Houston Colt .45s during the 1962 season and hit a team leading 24 homeruns over 610 plate appearances.  He finished out his MLB career with the Red Sox in 1964.

Vern Law played all 16 seasons of his major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates.  His best season was in 1960 when he won the Cy Young award by going 20-9 with a NL leading 18 complete games and a 3.08 ERA.  He finished his career with a 162-147 record pitching with a 3.77 ERA, 119 complete games over 2,672 innings.

It's the little things in life...

In my haste to complete and organize every Topps flagship Pirates baseball card, I didn't realize I was missing card #611 from the 1973 Topps Set.  This high number card features a rookie card of Pirates outfielder Richie Zisk. 

Zisk was a member of the Pirates famous Lumber Company in the 70s.  However Zisk's best years came after leaving the burgh.  In 1977 and 1978 Zisk was a member of the American League All-Star team when he played for the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals respectively.  He finished his career batting .287 with 207 HomeRuns and nearly 792 Runs Batted In over the course of 12 seasons. 

The other players depicted on this rookie card went on to have meaningful careers as utility players and 4th outfielders.  Wohlford played 15 seasons, only getting more than 500 at bats in a season once and Coggins played 5 seasons finishing sixth in Rookie of Year voting in 1973. 

I won the above card for only 99 cents and as a bonus, the seller included these two stickers below.
He must've known that I was a big Pirates fan.  It's the little things like this that just put a smile on my face.

You Complete Me: 1972 Topps

My brother got me several hands full of Pirates Topps baseball cards from 1954-1973 for Christmas and I have finally gotten around to crossing off the cards I needed from my Topps Flagship needs.

Amongst the 44 cards were several 1972 Topps I needed including two of the most beloved Bucs of all time, Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell.

 The cards are all in fairly well condition.  They all have soft edges, but with the exception of the Clemente they have no noticable creases.  All worthy of going into the binder and stored safely.

With the addition of the high numberes Davalillo, Virdon, and Hebner along with the 2 Stargells, Roberto Clemente, and In Action Bob Robertson I can now cross these off my needs.  This marks another Goal of 2014 complete and we are only a few days into the new year.

Roberto Clemente 1966 Topps

I recently picked up another vintage Roberto Clemente for my PC.  This one ran me $25 from a vendor I've dealt with on several occasions.  The card has general vintage wear.

1966 Topps #300 Roberto Clemente

The corners are a bit rough and the surface of the card has general wear.  Either way you look at it, it's vintage Clemente bringing my Topps Clemente needs down to the following:
1972 Topps #309
1968 Topps #1 (Batting Leaders)
1968 Topps #3 (RBI Leaders)
1968 Topps #150
1968 Topps #480 (Manager's Dream)
1967 Topps #361 (Checklist #5)
1967 Topps #400
1963 Topps #540
1962 Topps #10
1961 Topps #388
1960 Topps #326
1958 Topps #52
1957 Topps #76
1956 Topps #33
1955 Topps #164 ROOKIE CARD!!!!

As you can see, I need a lot between 1955 and 1963, since I only have his 1959 in that span.  I really don't like the 1968 Topps design so I think that's why I'm so hesitant to pull the trigger on any Clemente's in that year.

You complete me....Duffy Dyer

The final card to the 1975 Topps Pirates team set is now in my hands.  I grabbed this for only .50 along with a few 1969 cards and a 1964 Clemente at a local mall card show.  I've never been more happy to add Duffy to my collection.  

Dyer may not have the name recognition that other players in the 1975 Topps set or even amongst Pirates players for that matter, but his career was still impressive.  He was a member of the 1969 World Series Mets team, caught John Candelaria's no hitter on August 9th, 1976 and was inducted in the Arizona State University Hall of Fame.  Not a bad career for a backup backstop.  He most recently has been the San Diego Padres catching coordinator.

Duffy Dyer, ladies and gentleman....Duffy Fricking Dyer!!!!!!!