Preparation for Retirement

Retirement is still at least eleven years away.  But that hasn't prevented me from starting to plan where I want to land.  Five years ago... I thought about settling down in Las Vegas.  Sacramento has also crossed my mind.  Then I started thinking about the Pacific Northwest.  But I always seem to come back to the Bay Area.  I love the weather, the diversity, and it's been the place I call home my entire life.

A lot will depend on finances... but even if I'm forced to move out of the area it'll always hold a special place in my heart.

That's why I recently started a small collection of defunct Bay Area sports teams.  It started a few years ago with the California Golden Seals.  Then back in June, I read a post over on Card Hemorrhage where Jay showed off some Pacific Coast League cards... which inspired me to head over to COMC and pick up this card the very next day:

1950 Remar #NNO

Remar was a baking company based out of Oakland that started their business a little over a century ago.   Information on the company is limited.  In fact when you look them up on Google most of the hits involve these trading cards.

According to my research on Beckett, the company produced Oakland Oaks trading cards in 1946, 1947, 1949, and 1950.  If I remember correctly, this Billy Herman popped up quickly in my search.  I shot the seller a $13.75 offer and he/she accepted.  Six months later it finally returned to the Bay Area.

Why Billy Herman?  I'm not gonna lie.  Outside of the name, I didn't really know anything about him.  But according to his National Baseball Hall of Fame page, he's a 10-time All-Star who collected 2,345 hits and finished his career with a .304 career batting average.  He also served two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

The same day I purchased the Herman, I also grabbed this hall of famer for my California Golden Seals collection over on eBay:

1970-71 Topps #72

Harry Howell played before my time... but it seemed like he primarily made a name for himself with the New York Rangers.  That's probably why I was able to land this card for $16 (shipping and taxes included).

Most people aren't going to remember either of these athletes for the tenure in Oakland... but that's the only reason I went out of my way to add these cards to my collection.

What's next?  When I have some free time... I'll look into possibly adding a San Francisco Seals minor league card from the 50's and maybe an Oakland Invaders card from the 80's.  But I'm not in any rush.  The goal is to have this collection displayed in my office by the time I retire.  But as I stated at the start of this post... that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

Whale and Seal Hunting

Tom Glavine is probably best known for his hall of fame baseball career where he won 300 games, 4 Silver Slugger Awards, 2 Cy Young Awards, 2 The Sporting News NL Pitcher of the Year Awards, and a World Series MVP Award.

But did you know that he was drafted with the 69th overall pick in the 1984 NHL Draft by the Los Angeles Kings?  He was chosen ahead of two guys who went on to have hall of fame careers themselves:  Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille.

Anyways... this was today's tidbit of baseball trivia and my way of showing off a trio of hockey cards I've recently added to the collection.  Don't worry... I'll keep things short since there aren't a lot of people interested in hockey cards among my readership.

Let's start things off with a whale...

1995-96 Seattle Thunderbirds #12

Patrick Marleau is one of my all-time favorite hockey players and this is his very first trading card.  This card has been on my eBay watchlist for years and it doesn't pop up very often.  So when I saw it with a $4.50 BIN price tag I got excited.  The only problem was the seller was charging $3.50 for shipping.

I decided to see if the seller had anything else for sale that I could use to justify the shipping rate.  That's when I found this for $1.12 (+ 50¢ shipping):

1997-98 Dynagon Ice Blue #34

This card won't mean much to anyone unless you collected hockey cards in the 90's.  Simply put... these Ice Blue parallels were tough to pull.  This is a very nice addition to my Joe Sakic PC, which I haven't officially announced... but have been actively building for years.

The final card is my most recent California Seals purchase:

1970-71 Topps #72

This card purchase was inspired by two bloggers:  Joe (@ The Shlabotnik Report and Jay @ Card Hemorrhage).  Both have featured Seals cards on their blogs which reminded and motivated me to buy this card.

Harry Howell is one of only a handful of Seals players who is inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame, although he is primarily known for his years with the New York Rangers.

The NHL restart begins today.  The San Jose Sharks didn't qualify, so I probably won't be following things too closely.  But best of luck to those of you who have teams in the hunt.

Here is today's question of the day:

Do you follow hockey?  Do you collect hockey cards?  Do you have a favorite team and/or player?

It'll be interesting to see what percentage of my readership actually cares about the sport.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Sayonara Salute

2019 Topps WWE Undisputed Autographs #A-KS

2019 Topps WWE Undisputed Autographs #A-SU

I've made it pretty clear that I'm not an avid wrestling fan, but over the past year or so... I've casually followed Asuka and her tag team partner Kairi Sane.  Earlier this week, Kairi said goodbye to her colleagues and fans as she plans to head back to Japan to spend more time with her family.  Sayonara Kairi!  You will be missed.

1967 Vintage Cardboard Lessons

They say you learn something new every day.  Well on Christmas day, I learned a bunch of things about vintage trading cards from 1967ers over at Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains.  He sent me a very generous care package of vintage sports cards.

It was literally a vintage card collector's dream come true.

I'll kick things off with these 1971 O-Pee-Chee San Diego Padres:

Looking at them, they're exactly the same as their sister set: 1971 Topps.  Same font type and color.  Same photographs.  Same colored borders.

However I quickly learned that their backs are completely different:

All these years, I thought that O-Pee-Chee baseball were identical to Topps baseball... except for the card stock, French translations, and the number of cards on the checklist.  Obviously, I was wrong.

By the way... I absolutely love the floating head in the middle of the card.

Next up, 1976ers sent me seven hockey enforcers for my collection:

At first I was scratching my head... wondering... who are these guys?  But thanks to Wikipedia, I quickly put the puzzle pieces together.

In fact, I read up on each of these guys and found out that two of these guys were in the headlines in recent years.  Eleven years ago Keith Magnuson was killed in a car accident, while driving with fellow enforcer Rob Ramage.  Ramage was driving while impaired and was sentenced to four years in prison.

In other tragic hockey news, Gerry Hart is the father of Jordan Hart.  Who's Jordan Hart?  He's a former minor league hockey player who sold painkillers to former NHL enforcer, Derek Boogaard.  On May 13th, 2011... Boogaard was found dead in his apartment.  Apparently he died from an accidental overdose involving Hart's painkillers.

Okay... enough of the dark tales of unfortunate events.  Let's get back to more positive thoughts.

Anyone know Gary Sutherland's claim to fame?

1971 Topps O-Pee-Chee #434

Unfortunately, I didn't.  I had never heard of Mr. Sutherland.  But thanks to 1967ers, he sent me this card... which led me to doing some research... which led me to discovering that Sutherland scored the first run in Montreal Expos' history.  Damn, I miss the Expos.

Another sports franchise that's no longer with us is the California Golden Seals:

Back in April, Mr. Hoyle kicked off my Golden Seals PC with a nice stack of vintage hockey cards, including eleven cards from the 1973/74 Topps team set.  At first glance, I thought that these three singles that 1967ers sent me would be duplicates.  But I quickly discovered that I didn't have the Croteau and there was something peculiar about the Patrick and Johnston.

Once again... O-Pee-Chee switched things up.  This time they changed the color of their borders on several (possibly all?) of their cards.  The Patrick that Mr. Hoyle sent me looks exactly the same as the one you see above... except it has a yellow border.  The Johnston I received earlier in the year also has a yellow border.

Pretty cool, right?  I had no idea there were so many differences between vintage Topps and O-Pee-Chee.

Here are a few more O-Pee-Chees that 1967ers sent:

And once again... another history lesson.  Did you know that Frank Fernandez holds a record involving home runs?  He has the most home runs in MLB history for someone with a career batting average less than .200.  Before Christmas, I had never heard of the guy... but thanks to 1967ers... that's no longer the case.

Okay... just realized that I've spent over an hour on this post and based on word count... it's one of the longest posts of the year.  Time sure flies by when you're having fun and learning new, exciting, and interesting things about your favorite teams and the hobby you love.

Don't worry... I only have three cards left to share:

First up is a 1963 A&BC Footballers card of Les Massie:

1963 A&BC #45

Now believe it or not... I actually have seen these 1962 Topps baseball look-a-likes.  From what I understand, Topps had a licensing agreement with ABC Chewing Gum, similar to the agreement they had with O-Pee-Chee.  I have seen singles from these sets floating around blogs for a few years and have always wanted to add one to my collection.  However what I didn't realize is that they aren't your standard card size.  They're actually the same size as the 1975 Topps Minis.

Next up is the final and coolest enforcer card in my collection:

1973-74 O-Pee-Chee #3

Once again... I had never heard of Phil Roberto before receiving this package and unfortunately there's not a lot of information about him on the internet.  But that doesn't matter, because the photograph on this card is what makes it special.  I haven't seen to many hockey cards that actually picture guys fighting.  In fact, I'm guessing that outside of a few ITG Enforcer cards, this is my only copy.  Best part about it... it's forty years old!

Finally... I've saved the best for last:

1968-69 O-Pee-Chee #29

Now normally, I'd reserve throwing around a superlative like "BEST" in a "thank you" post, because I appreciate any card that anyone sends me.  However this card isn't just "any card".  It's a card that's been sitting on my Top 10 wantlist for a long time.  It's the most beautiful hockey card ever and to put things into perspective, in my humble opinion... it's the 1956 Topps Jackie Robinson of hockey.

One of the things I want to do is create a personal sports card hall of fame... and when I find some time to do it... I can promise you that this card will be in the inaugural class.

Thanks Chris!  I have a stack of vintage basketball I've accumulated over the years.  Hopefully it'll help you with your collection as much as you've helped me with my vintage hockey and baseball collection.

Happy holidays and sayonara!

Swapping Stuff at the Swap Meet

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend.  As usual... I spent part of mine at two flea markets.

On Saturday, I set up at the Branham High School Flea Market with a couple of my buddies.  I brought some boxes of cards that were gathering dust, some books and DVD's, a bunch of brand new aquarium supplies, and a box of Bay Area sports memorabilia that didn't exactly fit my collection.

I ended up taking home a lot of the stuff I brought, but I was able to sell most of the DVD's and a couple of boxes of cards.  Plus I traded the box of memorabilia to my buddy, because he wanted some fresh items for the 18th Annual San Francisco TRISTAR Collector's Show that's taking place next week.

The key items in the box were a pair of 49ers Super Bowl programs, a 1997 NHL All-Star Game program, and some San Francisco Giants ticket stubs.

In return... he traded me the following items:

Casey Stengel Business Card

I can't seem to find any information about this card, but it's a unique oddball of one of the greatest managers in MLB history.

2011 Topps Triple Threads Relic #TR111

My buddy had a bunch of A's, Giants, and 49ers rookie cards in his display case... but the main card that caught my attention was this Jim Plunkett relic.  He's a Bay Area boy and was one of my father's favorite players when I was a kid... so this will make a fine addition to the collection.

I don't stumble across Golden Seals memorabilia on a daily basis, so I also targeted this vintage decal.  It goes well with the stack of vintage California Golden Seals cards Mr. Hoyle sent me last week.

Finally, I grabbed a handful of oddball sets.

First up... the 1991 Heisman Collection Series One set.  The 21 card set highlights popular Heisman Trophy winners like: Tim Brown, Bo Jackson, Earl Campbell, Tony Dorsett, and Jim Plunkett.  There are randomly inserted autographs in this product, but the odds are tough:  one autograph inserted into every fifty sets.  Odds are that I'll just keep my set sealed for now.

1992 Manning 1919 Black Sox Reprint Set

My buddy had a ton of these sets, so I took three.  Up until recently... I had never seen these before, but if you're interested... I found a nice write-up over at Pack Addict.

1994 Post Sets

And wrapping things up are these three sets of 1994 Post Cereal.  These cards were originally issued in three card cellophane packs inserted into specially marked boxes of Post cereal.  I've always been a fan of oddballs, but do I really need three of these sets?  Probably not.  That's why I'll be giving the extra sets away in a future contest.

In the end, I'm pretty sure I got the short end of the stick in terms of monetary value.  But I'm okay with that.  My buddy makes a living off of selling memorabilia and I don't.  And in the end, I was able to get rid of stuff that doesn't fit my collection, while boosting a couple of my PC's and finding a pair of items to giveaway all of you who support my blog.

Stay tuned.  In my next post, I'll show off some of the goodies I picked up with the money I earned from my flea market profits.

Until then... happy Monday and sayonara!