OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #6

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. I should be able to retire on these cards but alas they are mostly in poor condition. My Father recently passed them on to me and I will feature them periodically here on my blog.

1965 Topps #350  Mickey Mantle

The other day when AJ from The Lost Collector showed off his '67 Mickey Mantle card that he won in an ebay auction it immediately reminded me of my own vintage card of #7.  I had almost forgotten about this ongoing little series of posts about the great cards I have that are in terrible condition.  I'm going to try and revive this series a bit and try to post a few more of the cards every now and then.

So, onto this card.  It doesn't seem to be in as bad of condition as some of the other vintage cards I've shown.  There aren't any creases or rips or even paperloss.  Just some soft corners and a few minor stains (probably from rain, chicken poop, or both!)

I guess this is my required vintage Mickey Mantle card for my collection.  Its the only solo of his I own and I'm proud to have it even though I'm not a Yankees fan.

My Bridal(?) Shower haul

My Fiancee had her Bridal shower last weekend and I was lucky enough to get some baseball loot along with all of the kitchen hand towels, mixing bowls, and silverware sets.  I wasn't in attendance but several of her friends were nice enough to think about me while shopping for gifts that are (mostly) for her.  To say the least, I was surprised to see that I actually got some gifts of my own.

First off I got this book  "Orioles Essential" by Thom Loverro.  Its got Cal Ripken on the cover so I'm pretty sure its a good book.  I'm still learning about the Orioles history so this book will come in handy when I get around to reading it.

Another one of her close friends bought me a pack of this year's Topps series 1.  While I got nothing of real interest in the pack, it was still nice of her to think of me.

And last but not least, one of her former co-workers and still close friend gave me a small gift bag filled with VINTAGE CARDS.  This is the same friend that had me look up some values last summer for a '66 Pete Rose and couple of vintage Yankees for her.  Apparently, she had been cleaning out her mother-in-law's house and came across these old cards.  I'm sure glad she did.  Look at some of the nice cards that I now have:

'58 Ernie Banks!

'66 Lou Brock!

'68 Ron Santo!

A couple '68 Topps Game cards

A few '65 Topps Embossed inserts

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  There was probably over 100 cards in the gift bag so I'm very grateful to have them.  My vintage collection is lacking good quality cards (condition wise) so I couldn't be happier with these.

If my haul was this good, I wonder what I might get as wedding gifts when the big day comes?

OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #5

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. He recently gave them to me and I will feature them here on my blog.

1953 Bowman Color #18 Nellie Fox

This card I've been wanting to post for a while now, watermarks and all.  This poor card seems like it could fall apart at any moment and I was scared to take it out of the penny sleeve and toploader to put it on the scanner.  Nevertheless, it is being shown here in all its vintage-y goodness.

I never gave Nellie much of a thought before but he was one hell of a ballplayer.  I knew that he was in the HOF but I never really looked at his stats as closely as I did for this post.  While he was not much of a base stealer, he wasn't a big power guy either.  The stat that really jumps off the page at me is that he only struck out 216 times in his 19 year career!  Mark Reynolds has surpassed 200 strikeouts in each of the last 3 seasons.  Nellie Fox seems like the kind of ballplayer who was just solid all around and did all the little things to help his team win.  I guess that's how you stick around so long and end up in the Hall of Fame.  Unfortunately for him, he was posthumously honored in Cooperstown 22 years after his death.  

He was born on Christmas Day 1927 and passed away December 1 1975 at the age of only 47 in Baltimore, MD.

OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #4

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. He recently gave them to me and I will feature them here on my blog.

1963 Fleer Carl Yastremski

No you aren't seeing double. I don't really like putting the enemy teams on my blog but couldn't resist on these cards of Yastremski. I have two of these bad boys but they are in bad, bad shape. The Yaz on the left is terribly wrinkled in its lower left corner and has some water marks on it. The Yaz on the right has a little better color but still has some issues. There is some paper loss in the upper left and lower right corners. The back probably has about 50 percent of the original printing on it.

OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #3

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. He recently gave them to me and I will feature them here on my blog.

1962 Topps #25 Ernie Banks

I'm not sure what happened to this card but it looks like it mayb have been stepped on when it was laying in that outbuilding by and animal or a Cardinals fan. If it was a Cards fan, why didn't they just hide him in a nice cardboard box instead of throwing him on the floor?

OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #2

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. He recently gave them to me and I will feature them here on my blog.

1958 Topps #187 Sandy Koufax. Overall, this card is not in as bad a shape as some of the others in my collection. This card has some surface wear and a crease extending from his chin to the right side of the card. It's a little off-center, well a lot off center from right to left. I really like this card because of the yellow background because in 1958 Sandy was a bright, up-and-coming star in the game.

OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #1

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. He recently gave them to me and I will feature them here on my blog.

1962 Topps #394 Hank Aaron Sporting News All Star

Welcome to the first post of my new feature OH No!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection. I am really, really excited to show some of the cards that I am going to show off in this recurring theme. I chose the name as an indication on the condition of the cards.

This card is especially funny because the front is so badly faded but the back isn't faded nearly at all. Hammerin' Hank must have been sitting in directly in the sun face up for the duration of its stay in the old farm building. It really does make me sad to see the condition of this card, because it doesn't show the classic Braves uniform in all it's glory. It almost reminds me of even older cards that were black and white photos.