Side jobs and snow days

Posted by cardboard hogs on December 8, 2016

Today was a snow day, well a partial snow day. I braved the overnight warnings and headed in to work this morning thinking i could work a few hours before heading back home…i have a looming deadline and was anxious about getting some stuff done. I’m glad i went in today…about half the office was there, but i was the only one from my project team that made it in…kudos to me! I tend to be a little stubborn and as my wife was texting me to hurry up and come home before the snow storm actually hit…but i decided to hang out. Easily distracted and self assured, i ended up waiting until it was quite blustery and everything was becoming white washed for a few moments. Our ould ’97 Ford Explorer has seen better days and isn’t too fond of climbing hills with snow and some hints of ice on the road. Needless to say the commute home was a little more treacherous than i like…but i made it home safe and was able to have a few hours with the wife and kid. We live on a pretty steep drive so sleds are fun this time of year, assuming of course there aren’t any cars coming around the corner! My son had a blast going down the street a few times and plowed through a couple of trees and once off the edge of a 2′ wall. I know, i know…i’m a terrible parent, but hey…he had a blast and in his usual voice and candor shouted “I WANNA DO DAT ALL DA TIME DADDY!!!” How can you resist that?

Not sure what tomorrow holds for weather, but i took advantage of the extra time at home to scan some more cards. Here are a couple of note.

The first card is Laurie Niemi from the 1952 Bowman set…the large version. The ’52 cards are some of my favorite football cards of all time. The full color art work is fantastic and the emotionally intense facial reactions are priceless. In doing some research over at PSA Cards these were issued as a test run of cards at the same time the “small” version was issued. Same photos, same backs…just different sizes. These were more popular and i can see why. Holding them you can see the great level of art that these cards posses. I’m a little partial to the small version of these cards…but i’m not gonna be picky here…plus i need these two handsome fellas to complete a set, you know how it goes.

The large cards were printed in a shorter run than the small version and thusly have been difficult for me to find in decent condition. Still need a few cards to complete the large set…believe i’m done with the small set though.

Bowman produced some great product early on with both baseball and football cards. I would love to see them do a modern set that reflects the history of this beautiful era of cardboard.

One of the things i love about these cards is the write up on the back. When athletes today are not working, they are selling something or hopefully doing something positive with their free time. These older guys though, they sold things and worked in offices.

Mr Badaczewski sold cars in the offseason and taught geography and history. My high school history teacher was the basketball coach…if he played for the Redskins i may have gotten better grades! The other thing that is really noticeable is the military service that professional athletes did during this era, in a time when the military is a polarizing subject, i have to admit that it’s quite interesting to see these guys take a break in their careers to provide a service for our country.

A New Year, A New Post

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 4, 2015

Man, oh man…it has been a very, very long time since i’ve had the time to post anything here. Not sure if anyone has checked in periodically or just assumed i’ve dropped off the face of the blogosphere earth. I still collect, i still read other blogs and i still am trying to get organized. That has been the main reason for my absence, well, that and a very active and passionate 2 year old exhausting all of my free energy. I love him dearly, but i have cards to write about…

As i mentioned, i am still doing all the things that we do as collectors and i’ve managed to make some great progress in getting organized and up to date on my checklists…thanks to a few late nights on the home computer and an extended vacation from work. My main focus has been on getting everything logged from the 1950’s-1990’s. Everything was sweet until i hit the abyss of the mid 90’s when subsets and serial numbers and various parallels became all the unreasonable rage. This was also the period of time when i put the hobby aside to be a 20 year old male. I’ve regained my focus and will have some checklists updated in the next few weeks to months as they get incorporated in to google docs.

Enough with the words. Here are some photos of a few cards from the 1950 and 1952 Bowman sets i’ve picked up the past 6 months.

Normally, bloggers like to save their best for last. Not me. This one cost a few nickels but was very much worth it to me. It’s a beautiful card and centered fairly well…the corner are in pretty nice condition too. I looked at a few 8’s that were available on eBay and were well outside what i could spend and feel ok with myself. This one wasn’t too bad and it’s in great shape.

One of the things that i wanted to do with my set was get each of the Redskins cards from 1959 and earlier graded, so i searched around and picked up what i could from eBay and from the local card shop just around the corner from me, Hoopla Sports. The guys there are great and have nice deals on what i’m looking for…this isn’t one of them though. This one was scooped from eBay. Love how i drop the curve on you huh? completely unrelated story and then this image.

I love the smaller format cards from the 50’s. The card designers and artists did an amazing job with them and holding these pieced in your had you can really appreciate the amount of work that had to go in to each layout.

Collecting redundancy happens quite a bit in our hobby. You pick up multiple variations of cards…red cards, yellow cards, blue cards…rarely, but sometimes, you pick up the same card that comes in two different sizes like this large Dick Alban…large Dick…

OK, here’s my shot at ending on a high note. Another Slinging’ Sammy Baugh card…1952 Bowman Small. I waited and waited on this card in hopes of finding one at a great price from eBay and finally stumbled across a guy that had it listed as BIN. I made him an offer that he quickly refused and came back with something a little better. After another number from him, i finally got it shipped. A little more than i hoped to get for it, but much less than others had their versions priced at.

We have two shows coming up this month and i’m hoping to make one of them. The Cedar Hills show is much closer to me but tends to be less occupied by dealers and i end up walking away feeling like i wasted my time…but it is closer…if not, i will hit up the show at Mall 205 to see what they have going on…hopefully my friend from COMC, Tom will be there?

One last item, i am going to attempt to do the wallet card “challenge” and see what 365 days in my side pocket will do to a 1986 Topps Rickey Henderson. I chose this card because it has my favorite player on it in my favorite baseball teams jersey…and it was the first set i ever completed. Here is day one, which started yesterday…so 363 days in my side pocket.