Wrigley Wax

An Oddball Upper Deck 2008 Variation

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

I paid 99¢ for eight Cubs 2008 Upper Deck cards. Then again, it was 99¢ for just one card. Take a look:

It's a single sheet of eight cards with the center card congratulating the 2008 NL Central Division champs. The cards are exact duplicates of the actual UD cards, same size, same pictures, same card numbers.

The sheet isn't perforated, so I don't think its supposed to be cut apart. I check ebay pretty regularly for Cubs cards, and when I found this sheet, it was the first time I saw it. I was the only bidder, which explains the bargain price. What I haven't been able to figure out is what this card is from. Was it given away by UD at Wrigley Field? Chicago area hobby shops? The Cubs Convention? I plan to keep an eye out for more of these to see if I can come up with any other information on it.

The back does have an Upper Deck oddity. Back when UD first came out in 1989, they played up the fact that their cards had a hologram on them to make the cards more difficult to counterfeit. To this day, they still use the hologram....

....but not on this sheet. The area where the hologram would go is blank. Boy, I sure hope I didn't waste 99¢ on a counterfeit product!

30 Years Ago Today, the Cubs Pulled Off A Good One

2012-01-27T09:00:00.008-05:00

Flick Friday will not be seen today so that we can bring you this special 30th anniversary presentation.

Whenever really bad trades are listed, the Cubs trade of Lou Brock to the Cardinals for sore-armed pitcher Ernie Broglio is usually near the top of the list. The Cubs catch a lot of flack for the deal, deservedly so.

But 30 years ago today, the Cubs made a trade that like the Brock trade, involved a future Hall of Famer. But this time the Cubs were on the up side of the deal. The trade was basically a swap of shortstops. The Cubs got an aging Larry Bowa and the Phillies got Ivan DeJesus (and his 1981 batting average of .194). But Cubs GM Dallas Green insisted the Phillies throw in a prospect, and the Cubs got a kid named Ryne Sandberg.

click on the picture to get a better look

Here is the AP article on the trade from the Pittsburgh Gazette. Sandberg is called a utility infielder and he gets one whole line in the article. The rest focuses on Bowa and DeJesus.

Sandberg spent his rookie season at third base, moving to second for the last month of the year. The only card of him from that year is this one...

....put out by the Cubs. It's also the only card that shows him as a third baseman.

In addition to this one, I've got 445 other Ryne Sandberg cards in my collection. That's more than any other player. Not bad for a throw-in.

While digging around for the newspaper article on the trade, I found another one that was very interesting. It was from the Milwaukee Sentinel on December 13, 1981. The Brewers were looking to make a deal or two at the winter meetings and guess who they were interested in?

It looks like Dallas Green wasn't the only GM who thought Sandberg had potential. Luckily, the Brewers weren't able to make a deal, and a month later the Cubs did. Otherwise, instead of this...

we may have had...

....this. Yuk!

Fixing A Couple 50 Year Old Hats

2012-01-26T09:00:00.005-05:00

There are a couple cards in the 1962 Cubs set with hat issues. I felt the need to fix them.

This card is up first. Poor Bob Anderson; poor hatless Bob Anderson. The iconic Wrigley scoreboard is in the background, so we know this picture was taken at home. But Bob isn't wearing a hat. When the Topps photographer tells you to take your hat off, that means he thinks you're not very good and they need a shot to use in case you get moved.

But Bob didn't. So why are they using this picture? Shouldn't there be a picture of him wearing a hat? We can't have a hatless Cub at Wrigley Field. That would just be wrong.

Consider the wrong righted.

On to problem #2

I have to give Topps credit for trying. Bob Buhl was traded to the Cubs on April 30, 1962. Topps scrambled to get the card updated and changed the team listing to the Cubs. But the hat, well, I'm guessing that they picked this picture because so little of the "M" was visible but forgot to airbrush out the "M."

Later on an airbrushed version of the card came out. That is all well and good, but with 2012 technology we can do better. Let's put Bob in a Cubs hat.

Much better!

Red and Blue Heroes

2012-01-25T09:00:00.009-05:00

In the post I wrote about the 2008 Baseball Heroes set I said I liked the base but was ambivalent about all of the different colored parallels. There were too many for my taste. Among the comments was one by Night Owl, who stated that the colored parallels were the only reason he cared about the set and that I should look into some of the parallels.

It was good advice and I took it. After looking over the different choices, I decided to get the red and blue sets. The reason for those to colors should be obvious: they are to two main colors you see on a Cubs uniform and I thought the cards and uniforms would look nice together. I was right!

Both colors are numbered, the red to 249 and the blue to 199. Yet despite the fact that they are in such short supply, I was able to get them all fairly easily and fairly cheaply. I don't understand how cards with such a low print number can go for only a dollar or two. I would have thought that there were 199 Ernie Banks collectors that would have snagged all of the blue Ernies and stored them away, putting them at a premium price. Luckily, that's wasn't the case.

With the numbered cards, that means that at most, there are 199 blue Cubs team sets put together. It's safe to assume that not all 199 of the cards ended up in team sets. I wonder how many blue or red Cub sets (or any other team, for that matter) have been put together? 50? 100? 1?

I'll display the cards side by side. You can really see how both colors match nicely with the Cubs uniform. Thanks Night Owl for nudging me towards these.

I like to store my parallels side by side in the binder so you can see how they looked together. Here is what the first page looks like:

Pretty nice!

Isaly's Ice Cream Cubs 1976

2012-01-24T09:00:00.005-05:00

Today's cards (actually discs) are part of the loot that Trey sent me about a month ago. I got so excited about all the relics that I forgot about these. Oops!

In the mid-late '70s there were a bunch of these disc sets released by various regional companies. These are from two Pittsburgh areas stores, Isaly's Ice Cream and Sweet William restaurants. I have never heard of either of them. The chain has died, but the Isaly brand name is still around.

The discs were produced by Michale Schecter Associates under a MLBPA license, but without an MBL license. The lack of the MLB license is pretty obvious, with the logos all removed.

The backs of the discs have the initials MSA on them, but no date is listed. I counted nine different 1976 regional variations of these discs in the Standard Catalog. They all feature the same 70 player checklist, which included five Cubs. With 24 teams, the average should be three players per team. It surprises me that the Cubs has five, since they were not very good at the time.

Stamp and a Milk Dud

2012-01-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

Here are the latest additions to my Billy Williams collection:

This is a stamp from the Topps 1962 insert set. The stamps are 1 3/8" x 1 7/8", a bit bigger than a regular postage stamp. There are 200 stamps in the set, 180 players and 20 team logos. That makes nine players per team. Winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1961 made it easy for Topps to include his as one of the nine Cubs.

This card is actually the back of a box of Milk Duds part of a set they released in 1971. There were three sets of 24 cards, though three players were double printed, making a total of 69 different names on the checklist. The most interesting thing for me is that team logos are on the cards. Most of the non-Topps sets from this era had only a MLBPA license and had logos blacked out. But, according to the side of the box, Milk Duds were the official candy of Major League Baseball, which meant they also got to use official hats.

Mine is just the card cut off the box. There is more of a premium if the entire box is intact. Here is a PSA 6 Billy Williams box that goes for $80.00. I paid five bucks for the cut card.

These two put the Williams collection at 140 cards (and growing!).

The Annual "I Found One More" Post

2012-01-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

This seems to have become an annual thing. I think I'm done with the base set and then I find a card I've missed. It happened in 2009 and 2010. And now, it's happened with the 2011 set.

This is the missing card; kind of. I suppose it depends on how picky you are as a collector. As you can see, its a relic card of Aramis Ramirez from series one. When series one came out,

I bought one. But if you look at the two cards, you'll notice a difference with the relic. The card I picked up last February was a jersey card. And in all of the auctions at the time, that's all I saw--jersey cards.

But apparently Topps also put out a second version, with a bat relic. I didn't even realize there was this second version until about six weeks ago, reading about it on another blog. You can debate whether this is a "different" card because of the different relic. Some collectors even consider jersey cards different if they have a home and away jersey. I'm not that picky, but a bat is not the same as a jersey, so I wanted both cards.

I did a quick search on ebay and found only jersey cards. It took about a month before a bat card turned up. Luckily for me, the seller didn't realize that the bat card was not as common as the jersey. The starting price was 99¢ and I got the card for $1.25.

So with this card, NOW I believe that I am finished with 2011 Topps. The final count: 268 cards.

1991 Star All Star Ryne Sandberg

2012-01-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

I started collecting the various Star sets about two years ago. I've come up with a checklist of 31 different sets of Cubs players and by September, 2010, I had picked up 21 of the sets. Since then, it's been very slow going as most of the remaining sets, from 1991 and 1992, were few and far between. I've been nibbling away as sets have become available, and a few weeks ago, I picked up my 27th set.

As you probably figured from the title, the recent addition was the 1991 All Star set. These were numbered to 500, though it's not the cards that are numbered. Instead, Star put numbered labels on the cases.

Here's my case, #370 of 500. As with most Star sets, there were nine cards, #28-36.

The four Star sets I'm missing are all of Ryne Sandberg. They are 1991 and 1992 Stellar and 1992 Millennium and Platinum. I'm sure they'll show up some day!

Flick Friday: 61*

2012-01-20T09:00:00.003-05:00

Spring Training doesn't start for another five weeks, which means five more weeks with no baseball to watch! To get me through, I'll be watching a baseball movie every Friday night for the next several weeks. It's a great way to keep my mind off of all the snow and cold.

Tonight's flick is 61*, Billy Crystal's homage to his boyhood heroes and his favorite team. It tells the story of Roger Maris and his chase of Babe Ruth's single season home run record during the 1961 season. Crystal did a great job of showing the pressures that Maris faced, plus the relationship between him and the true Yankee star, Mickey Mantle. It's a great story and it's well-told.

But even better than his storytelling was Crystal's attention to baseball details. You can tell that he is a baseball fan. He wanted to make sure everything looked right and he succeeded.

The casting was great. He got two actors who not only looked like the players, but also looked like athletes. Nothing is worse for me in a movie than to see an actor that is playing a major leaguer but throws like a gi....sorry ladies, but you know what I mean!

I made 1961 Topps cards of both actors and you can see the resemblance. In fact, on the Maris card, it looks like they tried to copy the same pose as on the actual Maris card.

In addition to the actors, they nailed the uniforms, not only of the Yankees, but of all of the team shown. A combination of a green spray painted Tiger Stadium and some computer generated images gave a nice looking representation of old Yankee Stadium.

CUBS CONNECTION:
In 1961 the Cubs were the anti-Yankees. They finished near the bottom as often as the Yanks were near the top. There is no mention of the Cubs at all in the Maris story. But they are prominent in the McGwire story that wraps the front and back of the movie.

McGwire hit #61 against the Cubs on September 7, 1998. The Cubs catcher is Scott Servais...

....who also congratulated McGwire after he hit #62 the next day. And of course, never one to let a national audience go to waste...

....Sammy also got into the act.

One last Cubs / Maris connection, though I didn't know it until I started working on this post. Maris was traded to the Cardinals after the 1965 season and finished up his career in St. Louis. Any idea who the Cardinals sent to New York? It's not a name you'll recognize.

The man traded for the single season home run king was...

....Charley Smith, who would end his very mediocre career with the 1969 Cubs (two games, two at bats, no hits). Note the respect that Topps shows Charley by misspelling his name.

24 Year Old Cardboard from 30 Year Old Cardboard

2012-01-19T09:00:00.005-05:00

I'm starting to feel like a real baseball card blogger. I've gotten several packages in the past couple weeks from other bloggers and readers and have sent out several too.

Today I've got a generous stack of Andre Dawson cards that came from Brian at 30-Year-Old Cardboard. He offered to help add to my Dawson Player Collection and I gratefully accepted. With these new cards, I've got 44 cards in the PC along with another 128 in the team collection, making a total of 172 cards of the Hawk. That leaves me only 800 or so behind Brian! He is that master collector; I'm the wannabe!

The earliest of the cards are from 1988, the season after Dawson won the MVP with the last place Cubs. Most of these are cards I had never seen before. I didn't realized there were so many different brands and subsets back then. The cards progress through the years, ending with a Gypsy Queen Mini from 2011.

Thanks you Brian for your generosity. I've got a couple "gently worn" 1969 and 1970 Bob Gibson cards on the way for you.

Before I get to the Dawson cards, I'd like to say "Happy Birthday" to one of my regular readers in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Barney Sterling

2012-01-18T09:00:00.002-05:00

The 2011 release of Bowman Sterling came out in late December and featured Darwin Barney on two cards. He wasn't a part of the base set; instead his cards are relics. I picked up both for the Barney player collection.

This is the relic refractor. There is a blue pinstripe at the left edge and dirt all over. His jersey in the picture is filthy, too. Darwin likes to get dirty.

This is the second card, a nice dual relic with the Cubs double play combination for years to come, Castro and Barney.

One more thing today: the post title actually has a double meaning. Long-time Cubs fans might recognize the name Barney Sterling. He was the team photographer from the '60s through the early '80s.

Here is the team directory from the 1979 Roster Book, which lists Sterling as the "Cinema and Still Photographer."

Sterling's name also came up when Theo Epstein was hired. Last October Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander wrote a piece about a press conference that Dallas Green held soon after he was hired by the Cubs thirty years earlier. It's pretty funny:

Ponder this, Theo.

Back in 1982, the Cubs were announcing their new season’s motto — “BUILDING A NEW TRADITION’’ — at a press conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Dallas Green had been with the Cubs as president only a few months, but the new slogan was his way of thumbing his nose at the Cubs’ losing ways.

As the lights dimmed for an inspiring video presentation, marketing assistant Buck Peden got his tie caught in the screen which was lowering from the ceiling. The film that came on was nothing but un-reviewed spring training footage of pitcher Fergie Jenkins making endless pickoff moves to first base.

As new PR man Bob Ibach saw with horror what was unfolding, Cubs cinematographer Barney Sterling keeled over with a stroke. The camera toppled sideways and the film kept displaying images on the wall. In the back of the room, the real Fergie Jenkins was partway through changing from street clothes into the new Cubs uniform, pants on the floor, and chaos reigned.

Ibach remembers that he couldn’t let go of the spring-loaded screen or Peden would be strangled, and that through all of it Green stood in the back of the room, stunned.

Classic Cubs!

Scrub City: #126

2012-01-17T09:00:00.003-05:00

A player's Topps card number is often a good indication of how his career is going. If the number ends with a 00, you're a superstar. End in a 0? You're a top player on your team. End with a 5? You're doing all right.

But if your card ends with anything else, you haven't made it yet or your career is going south. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting, after earlier looking at #1, to now look at the history of a "scrub" number. I came up with #126. I wanted triple digits and "26" is my favorite Cubs player's number.

I've got each of the 60 #126s below. Was it Scrub City? Well, out of 60, there was one Hall of Fame player

(very early in his career)

another that made the HOF as a broadcaster

and one more that might make it as a manager.

Two Cubs got the number, and both were scrubs (hey, don't say "Aren't all Cubs scrubs?" That's not nice!)

But yes, for the most part, its a cast of unforgettable characters. Do the names Bob Wiesler or Stan Palys ring a bell? How about Marty Martinez or Rod Gilbreath? Scroll through and count how many of these you've heard of, especially the guy that played before you started following baseball. I bet you have a hard time reaching double digits.

And who gets #126 in 2012? The early checklist says...

...Eduardo Nunez. I'd say that fits right in!

Name the Game: Matt Williams On the Back Style

2012-01-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

I've got a couple more today, this time from Upper Deck 1991. With both of the cards, I'll be ignoring the front of the card, which just has a posed shot. It's the back of the card that I'll be dealing with. And with both cards, it's the same player, the Giant's Matt Williams, who is the key.

Up first is the Yankee's skipper, Joe Girardi.

Like I said, there's nothing on the front. It;'s just a standard pose shot in front of the batting cage at Wrigley Field. So we'll flip it over.

Here we see Matt Williams slide into home plate at Candlestick Park. The Cubs played only six games at Candlestick, so that really narrows things down. The card shows a day game, and four of the six were day games, narrowing things even further. One final clue: the umpire has a 4 on his sleeve. Those clues should all be enough....and they were.

The game is from game one of a doubleheader on July 8. In the first inning, Matt Williams hit a deep drive to left field. He chugged all the way to third and then scored on an error by center fielder Doug Dascenzo. Umpire Jerry Layne (#24) called him safe. Williams was not known for his speed and I bet he was gassed when he got back to the dugout.

Card #2 is of shortstop Shawon Dunston. The front is posed, with Dunston smiling. I have 125 different cards of Dunston and I bet he's smiling in every one of them.

Here's the back, and again, we've got Matt Williams involved. This time, he's not scoring; he's out at second. All I need to do is check the six games the Giants played in Chicago in 1990 and find a Williams force out at second. There was just one game that saw Williams out at second, on May 30. In the eight inning he led off with a single. Two hitters later, Terry Kennedy grounded into a 3-6-1 double play.

I'm two for two today, Hackenbush....does that restore your faith in me?? :)

Five Random Cubs Cards

2012-01-15T09:00:00.002-05:00

I've got 9,818 Cubs cards from 64 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1950s / 1960s: Topps 1961 #364 Moe Drabowsky Moe didn't even pitch for the Cubs in 1961; he was traded to the Braves at the end of March.

1970s: Topps 1971 #121 Cubs Rookies The Cubs were 0 for 2 on this one. Jim Dunegan was a right handed pitcher the Cubs drafted in the second round in 1967. He made seven appearance in 1970, going 0-2 with a 4.73 ERA. His last game in the majors was Roe Skidmore's first and only major league game, September 17, 1970, against the Cardinals. Skidmore pinch hit for the pitcher in the 7th inning and singled to left. The next batter grounded into a double play, and with that, Skidmore's major league career, was over. He ended up with a 1.000 batting average! He bounced around the minors until 1975.

1980s: Topps 1982 #537 Doug Capilla Capilla never pitched for the Cubs in 1982. He was traded to the Giants in the off season. He went to spring training with the Giants, but didn't make the team and was released at the end of March. He spent the 1982 season in the minors with two different organizations and retired after the season.

1990s: Star Nova 1990 #144 Ryne Sandberg This card is one of the nine card Nova set. Most of the Star cards highlight a different portion of the player's career. One, though, has nothing on the back except a team logo. This is the logo card.

2000s: Topps 2011 Gold #558 Carlos Zambrano The random number generator is playing a cruel joke on me! I thought I was done with this guy. But no, the RNG won't let me forget him! I'm really looking forward to the Ozzie / Zambrano combo in Miami. Should be very interesting.

Name the Game: Upper Deck 1990

2012-01-14T09:00:00.004-05:00

It's time to play my favorite game, this time with a couple cards from Upper Deck 1990.

Up first is Gred Maddux's card.

A look at the front tells me this is Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. The Murph is easy to spot because of the outfield wall that got moved forward in the early 1980s. If there is any doubt, the back of the card....

....removes any.

It's easier to try to identify a game on a pitcher's card since pitchers, especially starters, play in a fraction of the games that a position player does. And since the Cubs visited San Diego only twice a season, that makes it even easier for this card. In fact, Maddux made only one start in San Diego in 1989, on July 13. So, boom, I'm done. The picture on the front is from the bottom of the fourth inning, when Tony Gwynn put down a bunt to sacrifice Garry Templeton over to second base. On the back, Maddux leads off of second after doubling in the top of the sixth.

As easy as the first card was, the second one, Ryne Sandberg's...

...wasn't. It started out simple enough. The Braves at Wrigley in May, as told to me by the uniform and the ivy. The Braves were in Chicago on May 15-17, 1989. So far so good. Now I just need to find a play in any of those games where Dion James is forced out a second base by Ryne Sandberg. The first game, on May 15, saw Dion James walk in the fourth, and then ex-Cub Jody Davis hit into a 6-4-3 double play. I'm done!

No I'm not!! The next day, in the sixth inning, James led off with a single. Two batters later, Dale Murphy hits into another 6-4-3 double play. So how can I tell if the picture is from the 15th or the 16th?

I can't! Sorry, but I'm not that good.

60 Years Worth of #1

2012-01-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

I know that you couldn't wait until today's post to find out how many players from your team made Topps card #1. The suspense was killing you. Well, you can relax now, and read...

Would it shock you to know that the team with the most #1s is the Yankees? Though that wasn't a big surprise, it was surprising to find out that Topps never gave #1 to Mickey Mantle.

Here's the list of all #1s by team. On cards with multiple players, each player was counted for his team (except the World Champion cards....teams didn't get credit for 25 on those, only one!).

8 - Yankees
7 - Red Sox
6 - Pirates
6 - Cardinals
6 - Orioles
5 - Dodgers
4 - Braves
4 - Brewers
4 - Giants
4 - Phillies
4 - Rangers
4 - Senators/Twins
3 - Cubs
3 - White Sox
2 - Reds
2 - A's
2 - Blue Jays
2 - Padres
2 - Royals
1 - Angels
1 - Mets

All of the other teams....Tigers, Indians, Expos/Nationals, Astros, Mariners, Rockies, Marlins, Diamondbacks, and Rays....were shut out.

And in case you want to double check my counting, here are all 60 years worth of #1s (I lifted most of these pictures from Topps; I was too lazy to scan all of my #1s and I only go back to 1969 anyway).

Preliminary checklists show this card to be 2012's #1

I wonder if Topps will stay with it or make a change.

#1

2012-01-12T09:00:00.001-05:00

I've recently had posts with #3 (for the blog's 3rd birthday) and #2 (second place finishes) in the title. Being the orderly person that I am, I have to have a #1 post. So here it is...

For most card sets, the player given card #1 is usually a superstar. You don't give the top spot to a scrub. So do you want to guess how many times in the 60 years of Topps a Cubs player has graced the coveted card #1?

Three Times*

Why the asterisk? Because they weren't player cards...they were these...

....League Leader cards. Dick Ellsworth had the second-lowest ERA in the NL in 1963. By virture of his 1976 batting title (in fact, his second in two seasons) Bill Madlock shared card #1 with George Brett. Bill Buckner also got to share #1 with George Brett, on this 1981 card.

When Topps put League Leaders, Record Breakers, and World Champions on the first card, that left the Cubs out except for these three. But no individual Cubs player has ever been a Topps #1. The closest a Cub has ever been to the top spot was in 1966 when a Cubs player was card #2. I bet you'll never guess who it was.

No, not Ernie Banks. Not Santo or Williams either. It was....

..

..

....Ted Abernathy...hatless in an Indians uniform Ted Abernathy! Told you you wouldn't guess it.

Though not in the top Topps spot (try to say that three times quickly!), other companies have deemed a Cub worthy of #1.

Bruce Sutter was #1 in Kelloggs, 1979

Ryne Sandberg was Donruss 1985's #1

and Upper Deck put Mark Prior in the top slot in 2004.

Otherwise, that's it.

Any idea how many players from your favorite team made Topps card #1? Check back tomorrow and find out!

Second Place Loot

2012-01-11T09:00:00.006-05:00

On Monday I got a package in the mail from Wes over at Jaybarkerfan's Junk. I finished second in his Blog of the Year Poll and all sorts of Cubbies came my way. Thank you Wes!!

Mr. Cub himself leads off the loot.

There were lots of Sammys from the late 90's. I hadn't seen any of these before. Most are from the late '90s, when Sammymania was at its peak.

He also sent over this nice card of Mark Grace. Its from the 1997 Pacific Invincible set, and the writing on the back...

...is en Espanol.

Grace's Donruss rookie card was in the package, too.

Ryno didn't get left out; a nice cards from Sportsflicand Topps Gallery were included.

A couple interesting oddballs rounded things out.

This Sosa coin was part of Pinnacle's 1997 Mint Condition Coins set

And a 1990 Heads Up of Dwight Smith. There were only 24 cards in this set and three were Cubs, Sandberg, Smith and Jerome Walton. I may have to pick up the other two and complete this funky set.

Thank you again, Wes for having the contest and sending the cards!

The Best from Trey

2012-01-10T09:00:00.002-05:00

In addition to a bunch of Wood, Prior, and Sosa cards, Trey sent a few more, which I consider the best of the lot. All five cards feature Hall of Famers, and include my favorite players:

Topps Tribute 2010 Bruce Sutter, 20/50. Sutter went into the Hall as a Cardinal, but to me he's always a Cub. He came up through the Cubs farm system, won two All Star games in blue, and picked up his only Cy Young as a Cub. Plus, he looks much better as a Cub with a Fu Manchu, than as a Cardinal with the Grizzly Adams look.

Topps Tribute 2010 Fergie Jenkins, 66/75. The card has an action shot of Fergie from 1972 and a bat piece. Fergie was a decent hitter, hitting 13 career homers, including six in 1971 alone. In his case, a bat relic for a pitcher is ok.

Topps Tribute 2010 Billy Williams, 12/25. This is a great looking card of my all-time favorite Cub.

What can I say about this beauty? This Triple Threads card, from 2010, #09/36, has three great Cubs, with Mr. Cub in the center. Totally awesome!

And finally, the cream of the crop:

From Topps T206 2010, a jersey card of Johnny Evers! I've got a piece of a game worn jersey of a world champion Cub! Genuine flannel!

Now that I've got this card, I know which card will be the first authentic T206 cards I'll chase.

Thanks again to Trey for his amazing generosity. I was speechless when I first opened the package on Christmas Eve, and still today, I can't believe the great cards he sent me. Thanks!

A Christmas Surprise

2012-01-09T09:00:00.003-05:00

A week or so before Christmas I got an email from a reader, Trey, who said that he was getting out of collecting. He had gotten back into the hobby about a year ago after returning from Iraq (thank you for your service to our country!) and collecting cards was a nice diversion while he looked for a work. When a new job came, time for collecting went. He thought I could make a nice home for some of his cards and offered to send a package my way. I gladly accepted.

On Christmas Eve, the package came, and was I surprised! It wasn't a pile of commons; it was a nice sized stack of jersey and bat cards, mostly of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, with some Sammys mixed in too. I was completely blown away by Trey's generosity.

Take a look at what he sent.

I'll start with the Kerry Wood stuff, eight cards:

Here are the three Mark Prior cards....

And a couple of Sammys

The Power Deck was new to me. The card is actually a mini-CD. Though issued in 2000, it still worked in my computer. It has videos, pictures and stats on it.

While all of these cards are great, I'm holding back on you. Tomorrow I'll show the five that I consider the best of the lot.

All-Time Fan Favorites 2005

2012-01-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

Today I've got the third and final installment of the All-Time Fan Favorites, this one released in 2005. While Topps reduced the size of the set by eight cards, the number of Cubs went up by one.

Only one player was included in all three years of FF....

...the newest member of the Hall of Fame, Ron Santo. The card's design is from 1965, though the picture is from 1969 at the earliest. Does the picture on the '65 card look familiar?

You saw it yesterday!

A couple Cubs were in two of the three sets:

Ernie Banks, 1954, Banks' rookie card. But again, Topps messed up with the pictures. The action shot is from 1957 (the one season the Cubs wore road unis that said "Chicago Cubs" while the portrait is no earlier than 1962 (the first year the Cubs wore the sleeve patch that we catch just a glimpse of). I kept looking at the action shot and thought the picture was familiar.

It was!

Andre Dawson, with the 1990 design, was the other repeated Cub.

The three new Cubs were all members of the 1989 NL East Champs.

Shawon Dunston, like Dawson, with the 1990 design.

Mark Grace, 1988, his rookie year. Looks like Topps got this one right, since the picture is of an awfully young looking Grace.

Jerome Walton, 1989, when Walton was the NL Rookie of the Year. He was an odd choice for a set called "All-Time Fan Favorites." I doubt that there are many Cub fans that would list Walton among their all time favorites.

So that's it. Between the three years there were 19 cards of 14 players. Topps did leave out one player who, ironically, is at the top of my personal All-Time Favorites list, Billy Williams. It's a glaring omission, since every other major Cubs player from the Topps era that ended up in the Hall of Fame was included in the set. I hope they include him in the 2012 version of these, though I doubt that will happen.

All-Time Fan Favorites 2004

2012-01-07T09:00:00.002-05:00

In 2003 Topps released another 150 card set of All-Time Fan Favorites, keeping the same format as in 2002. The cards featured vintage designs with a different photo than in the original card. The number of Cubs in the set took a hit, dropping from eight in '02 to only five in '03. Two of the five were repeats, while three were new to the set.

As I did yesterday, I'll have the Fan Favorite on the left and the original card on the right. I'll start off with the repeats.

Fergie Jenkins, 1967, though based on the size of his sideburns, the picture looks like its from '69-'70. The picture on the '67 card has to be from 1966, Fergie's first season with the Cubs. You can see that the font for "CUBS" on the FF card isn't close at all to the original.

Ron Santo, 1961 rookie card. The flaw here is that Santo's picture was taken at Shea Stadium. In 1961 Shea Stadium didn't exist. Heck, in 1961 the New York Mets didn't exist.

Here are the three new Cubs

Don Kessinger, 1972. This picture was definitely taken in 1972, since that was the only season the Cubs wore the style of road uniform that Kessinger's got. The picture in the FF card looks much better than the original.

Ryne Sandberg, 1990. A nice shot of Ryno at Wrigley on the FF; the home uni looks much better than the softball road uni.

Rick Sutcliffe, 1984. Topps give us a picture of the Red Baron at spring training. I'll take the action shot from the '84 and the insert picture from the FF. Here's what the combo card looks like:

Tomorrow I'll have the final All Time Fan Favorite set (at least until the 2012 cards come out).

All-Time Fan Favorites 2003

2012-01-06T09:00:00.001-05:00

Excuse my stupidity, but it took me a while to figure out the difference between the Topps Archives sets of 2001 and 2002 from the All Time Fan Favorites set of 2003-2005. I'm a bit slow but eventually I catch on.

The Topps Archives sets are just reprints. 2001 focused on the player's rookie season while the 2002 set zeroed in on their best season. Since they were reprints, and I already had the original cards of all the Cubs, there was no reason to collect them. I just ignored them.

When I saw Fan Favorite cards, I just assumed that they were Archives cards, but something always seemed different about them. Then I finally decided to check the sets out and I discovered that I liked what Topps did (for the most part...).

There are two basic concepts for the All Time Fan Favorites set
1...The cards feature a player's time with just one particular team, not his entire career.
2...Though using a Topps design from one of the seasons the player was with the featured team, the picture on the card is different from the picture on the original card. To me that makes the cards collectible. I'm not just getting a reprint of a card I've already got, I'm getting something different. My only complaint: as with most of Topps' recycled designs, they are not exactly like the original. Usually the fonts are off. To me, that's distracting. I know exactly what a 1967 card looks like and when the reprints don't match, it bugs me.

The 2002 set had a checklist of 150 cards, with eight of those being Cubs. I'll show the Fan Favorites card on the left, with the original on the right. You can decide which picture you like better, and you can also spot the design differences.

Ernie Banks, 1958...the hatless card looks worse than the original. The FF card also has a much smaller Cubbie bear. How could they get that wrong?

Bill Buckner, 1981...two different action shots of Billy Buck in the Cub's road pinstripes. The FF card gets points for having Herman Franks in the background. But that points out a flaw: the 1981 card is using a picture from 1978 or 1979.

Andre Dawson, 1987 Neither of these look particularly good.

Fergie Jenkins, 1971 Fergie always seems to be looking away from the camera.

Bill Madlock, 1975 Nice to have two pictures with the home unis. Check out the trophy on the FF card: its smaller.

1966 Ron Santo The 1966 style card has a picture from 1969 -1971 on it. Both are at Shea, so that ruins them for me! Plus it looks like the same photo shoot as

the 1971 card.

1983 Lee Smith...

1979 Bruce Sutter...game face on the left, long fingers gripping the ball on the right.

I'm #2

2012-01-05T09:00:00.002-05:00

It's been said that finishing second in like kissing your sister. I don't have any sisters, but if I did, they would want to stay away from me because I've been finishing second lately.

Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk had his First Annual Blog of the Year Poll recently. There were 32 different blogs nominated, included this one (thank you Hackenbush and Matt!). With over 300 active sports card blogs out there, it's nice to just be nominated. And before the poll even opened, I bet most bloggers knew which one should win...Night Owl.

And rightly, Greg did get the most votes. But in a shock to me, this blog finished second. Does that me that WW is the second best blog? Hardly! But it is humbling that 13 different people actually did send a vote my way.

Now the weird part: this is the second time in two months that WW has finished second. Back in November, John at Donruss 1982 counted down his 20 Greatest Sport Card Blogs. He had Night Owl at number 1, but put me in the second spot! Not only did it surprise me, but it surprised him, too.

So how ironic is it that a Cubs blog twice finishes near the top, but just can't get to the peak. Apparently 100 year droughts also apply to blogs!

In honor of my second place finishes, I give you my favorite Cub to wear #2,

manager Leo Durocher, who led the 1969 Cubs to....

....Second Place!

Topps 1969 - 2011 Complete Set Prices

2012-01-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

Here is my monthly look at complete set prices, taken from the first five completed sales listings on Ebay on January 1.

The prices at this time of year are interesting. You have people unfamiliar with the hobby buying sets as Christmas presents, paying inflated prices. On the other hand, you have auction ending on the 24th and 25th getting ignored, meaning a savvy buyer can get some good deals.

Overall, it will cost you $6,335,07 for one of each, an increase of $500 over last month.

YEAR	Jan. 1	Dec. 1	Nov. 1	12 Mo. Avg.
1969	$990.50	$1,500.00	$1,500.00	$1,109.38
1970	$670.94	$972.57	$972.57	$974.67
1971	$1,500.00	$791.71	$791.71	$870.58
1972	$812.49	$1,098.75	$1,098.75	$1,032.42
1973	$418.80	$476.71	$476.71	$398.88
1974	$285.99	$177.50	$177.50	$243.83
1975	$247.50	$263.52	$263.52	$278.07
1976	$158.66	$138.47	$138.47	$170.54
1977	$162.19	$112.50	$112.50	$135.07
1978	$92.41	$91.70	$91.70	$96.25
1979	$58.53	$68.91	$68.91	$79.65
1980	$60.49	$63.78	$63.78	$63.58
1981	$25.34	$24.90	$24.90	$28.26
1982	$39.39	$44.20	$44.20	$35.19
1983	$44.80	$32.21	$32.21	$34.80
1984	$23.11	$22.51	$22.51	$23.26
1985	$22.63	$22.89	$22.89	$24.39
1986	$20.09	$13.30	$13.30	$15.73
1987	$21.00	$8.39	$8.39	$10.14
1988	$9.17	$9.45	$9.45	$8.14
1989	$7.40	$9.09	$9.09	$6.99
1990	$8.34	$7.25	$7.25	$7.57
1991	$10.20	$8.79	$8.79	$9.37
1992	$6.45	$9.75	$9.75	$9.94
1993	$17.37	$31.69	$31.69	$21.58
1994	$26.01	$19.08	$19.08	$22.90
1995	$61.09	$41.34	$41.34	$45.08
1996	$23.00	$22.24	$22.24	$20.75
1997	$47.11	$48.41	$48.41	$47.43
1998	$29.00	$41.59	$41.59	$43.85
1999	$24.30	$22.00	$22.00	$24.07
2000	$22.38	$25.66	$25.66	$19.27
2001	$75.77	$63.10	$63.10	$53.03
2002	$35.31	$43.69	$43.69	$37.10
2003	$47.16	$39.50	$39.50	$32.88
2004	$26.49	$29.90	$29.90	$24.64
2005	$24.60	$26.98	$26.98	$25.26
2006	$23.20	$29.61	$29.61	$20.88
2007	$18.90	$24.05	$24.05	$17.14
2008	$29.75	$31.94	$31.94	$25.14
2009	$42.20	$39.89	$39.89	$37.11
2010	$24.42	$31.99	$31.99	$37.11
2011	$40.60	$38.46	$38.46	$29.92

State of the Collection: Looking Ahead

2012-01-03T09:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I reviewed my goals from 2011. Today, I set the goals for 2012.

Goal #1: Keep up with the new releases. Topps cranks 'em out, I scoop 'em up. That's just the way it is. Warts and all, Topps is baseball cards. I'll continue to add all of my usual suspects. I'll wait and see on any of the new lines, though Fan Favorites is coming back and I do plan to add those to the collection.

Goal #2: Ease off on the parallels and inserts. I tried in 2011, but when the Platinum diamonds came out, I fell off the wagon. This year I'm going to stay sober....for the most part. I plan to get any insert Cub cards, but no more relics, autographs, fake patches, and parallel sets.

Goal #3: Finish the Cubs team-issued set from 2002. I have three cards left and for over a month, not one has seen the light of day. I will continue to hunt them down!

Goal #4: Add more autographs I picked up several last year and plan to keep that up this year. Instead of adding the entire autograph set from Topps flagship, I plan to only pick up cards of players that I have no autograph of. That way I don't end up with four Tyler Colvin autos. One should have been plenty!

Goal #5: More Oddball team sets Every day I do a search on ebay for "Cubs Team set" and I've found some interesting items. My oddball binder is bursting and I will probably need to start a second binder this year. I hope to fill it!

Goal #6: Keep adding to the player collections of Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and Darwin Barney. I stumbled into the player collection arena last year and started to put together a decent assortment of cards. My Barney collection is off to a nice start, so I'm curious to see how it will play out....and how he will play out.

Goal #7: Continue sharing, daily. After three years I've settled into a decent routine for blogging and see no reason to slow down.

Check back in 365 days to see how I did.

State of the Collection: Looking Back

2012-01-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

A year ago, I set some collecting goals for myself for 2011. Today, it's time to see how I did.

Goal #1: Keep Getting New Stuff I will continue to add to my collection the new cards for Topps base, Heritage, Opening Day, Bowman, Allen and Ginter, Pro Debut, Chrome, and probably Gypsy Queen. Since I have the complete Cubs collection for these, I really don't plan to stop any time soon.
Grade: A; I picked up all of those sets, plus Lineage

Goal #2: Add more oddball sets. I had a lot of fun with this last year and plan to continue with it this year. In the past I was interested in sets with at least ten Cubs cards per set. Now I'm ready to lower the number of cards to get more of these odd balls.
Grade: A; I really enjoy finding these oddballs. Among the sets I added were Hostess, Victory, Fan Favorite, Baseball Heroes, Upper Deck Spectrum and Upper Deck X, plus TCMA All Time Cubs from 1977 and 1979, and the 1969 Cubs from 2004 Timeless Teams.

Goal #3: Complete 2005 Turkey Red Set This was a goal from last year that I didn't touch. I'll try again this year. I have about 50 cards to go, but most are expensive SPs; hence the lack of action last year.
Grade: A, I wrapped this up in late June.

Goal #4: Pick up Topps 1952 Cubs: The 1952 Topps Cubs that I've got are reprints. I think I'd like to start going after the real things. This will get very expensive because there are 28 Cubs in the set and the high number cards can get super pricey. We'll just have to see how far I get. This may be a multi-year project.
Grade: B I got off to a quick start and picked up the 19 Cubs in the early series. Since then, nothing. Those stinking high number cards are out of my price range. It's going to take nearly $1,000 to add the nine high numbers, and I'm not willing to put that much money into only nine cards.

Goal #5: Add more relics and autographs: I started picking these up a few months ago and have had some fun doing so. I'm going after one autograph and one relic card from Cubs from the '70s and '80s.
Grade: A, I've been able to add a bunch of players including Joe Pepitone, Sammy Sosa, Rick Reuschel, Steve Trout, Rick Sutcliffe, and Dave Kingman.

Goal #6: Enjoy what I've got: As long as I do this, I've got a hobby. If that ever changes, then I got a chore instead of a hobby and it will be time for me to get out.
Grade: A, I'm still interested and I'm still having fun!

Goal #7: Share with you: Every day at 9:00 a.m. you can expect something new to pop up here.
Grade: A, 365 days in 2011, 366 posts!

It was a nice year for the collection. Tomorrow, I'll set some goals for 2012

3

2012-01-01T09:00:00.006-05:00

The blog hits the 3 year mark today.

It's been a very quick three years. Over that span I've written over 1,100 posts, made some trades with other bloggers, received some great gift packages, and acquired a boatload of new cards, and have had fun along the way.

Having a card collection led me to blogging and having a blog has kept me moving forward with the collection. They both go well together. I'm not at a point where I'm tired or bored with either, so the plan is to keep up with each.

Thank you to all of you who've been reading, whether you came in at the start, or have joined in along the way.

To celebrate 3, I've got cards of all the Cubs players that have worn #3 over the years. The list is a shorter list than other numbers because 3 has been worn by many coaches/managers. Traditionally the Cubs set aside numbers 1-5 for the non-playing staff. That custom is pretty much gone these days, but it has kept the 3 list small.

I'll show the players chronologically, starting with the oldest.

Hall of Famer Kiki Cuyler, 1932-1935

Gene Lillard, 1936

Ripper Collins, 1937-1938

Phil Cavarretta, 1939-1940

Walt Lanfranconi, 1941

Hal Jeffcoat, 1953

Gale Wade, 1955

Owen Friend, 1955-1956

Jim Bolger, 1957-1958

Chad Hermansen, 2002...the first active player the wear the number in 44 years!

Jeromy Burnitz, 2005

Ryan Theriot, 2006

Cesar Izturis, 2006-2007

Eric Patterson, 2007

I do also want to show one of the non-active Cubs to wear #3....

Manager Herman Franks, an infamous....

dirt kicker!

That's Gotta Hurt...Fleer 1999

2011-12-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

I found these two cards in the Fleer 1999 set, and thought, "That's Gotta Hurt!"

Scott Servais is making a play at home plate and it looks like he got run over. You see lots of cards with catchers wearing their mask, but not too many have the mask turned sideways. Looks like a game against the Braves. In fact, it's this game on May 29, 1998, against the Braves. On this play in the fourth inning, Michael Tucker (#24) scored on a double by Andruw Jones. Jones took third after the collision at the plate.

I have no idea what's happening here! Manny Alexander is scoring, and a ball is just about to hit him in the gut. I can't think of another card that's got a ball just about to nail a runner. Luckily for Alexander, the ball is not a foot lower! That would really hurt!

Only Two Bucks

2011-12-30T09:00:00.005-05:00

I'm a sucker for a bargain, and when I can pick up a relic card of a Cubs star from my youth for only two bucks, I'll usually grab it.

Of course, it is one nasty, ugly card. But hey, for two bucks, you can't be fussy. Dave Kingman could hit a baseball a long way, but he wasn't the most photogenic person. He looks either hung over or constipated. The card is from the 2005 Topps Pristine Legends set. I don't see anything to pristine about the card. Not only is the pictue nasty, but the colors and design of the card as just as nasty.

What intrigued me about the card wasn't Kingman's face, it was the knob of his bat. Look again and you'll see a handwritten #10 and some more writing. This wasn't going to be another infamous

Billy Ripkin FF card was it?

Nope. I turned the picture up sided down and did some cropping for a better view. It looks like it says "game". Apparently Kingman had different bats that he used in games and in BP...

....kind of like this guy.

1969 Topps Decals

2011-12-29T09:00:00.005-05:00

Here's another insert set from the '60s that I recently knocked off, the 1969 decal set. Topps put out 48 decals in the set, two players from each team. The two Cubs were

Fergie Jenkins

and Ron Santo.

As you can see, the decals were almost identical in design to the '69 base set. There were a couple differences, though. First, the decals were much smaller, 1 3/4" x 2 1/8" Second, the color of the inside of the circle changed. In the base set, the Cubs were all orange. With these, you see that two different colors were used.

The final difference may be the most noticable: different pictures. For most of the players, including the two Cubs, Topps used a picture that was different from the base set picture.

Here are the two Santos side by side.

For Fergie, different need to be "different" because though Topps didn't use the same picture with the two from '69

the decal is the same picture that they used on the '68 card.

Ken Hubbs Peel Off Sticker

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I added the 1963 Topps Peel Off insert to my Ernie Banks collection. There were just 46 stickers in the set and only one more Cub, so I decided to get the other Cub.

Here it is. Ken Hubbs was an up and coming player in 1963, having won the Rookie of the Year in 1962. Topps was pretty quick in adding him to the checklist, skipping over other young Cubs stars Billy Williams and Ron Santo.

It's still surprising to me how many of these stickers have survived after nearly a half a century. I know that if I got one of these as a kid it would have been stuck to something. It's hard to believe that there were that many kids with the will-power to leave the sticker alone.

I was able to pick this one up for half the price of the Ernie Banks sticker. I was expecting it to go for at least the same price as the Banks, given the tragic end to the Hubbs story. But I think over time, he has become a forgotten player, and that keeps the price of his cards down.

1961 Cubs Had Five in the Hall and Finished.....

2011-12-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

The 1961 Cubs had five future Hall of Fame players on the roster during the 1961 season.

Richie Ashburn played in 109 games and hit .257

Ernie Banks hit 29 HRs and knocked in 80 runs

Ron Santo avoided the Sophomore Jink by belting 23 HRs and driving in 83.

Billy Williams was the NL Rookie of the Year, hitting .278 with 25 homers and 86 RBIs.

Lou Brock got his first taste of the bigs with a September cup of coffee, playing in four games.

And how did a team with all this talent finish?

The 1961 Cubs finished in seventh place (in an eight team league), winning only 64 while dropping 90. That come to 12.8 wins per Hall of Famer. I bet there isn't a team with a worse wins per HOFer score in MLB history. Yea Cubs!!

More Coins in the Pockets

2011-12-26T09:00:00.007-05:00

Once I picked up the 1971 Cubs coins, I knew I would have to go after the '64s....and I did!

These were going to be a little tougher. First, they are a bit older than the '71s, so that means they're a bit more scarce. Second, of the seven Cubs coins, five are of Hall of Fame players. That'll make them a bit pricier.

I lucked into a nice lot of the '71 Cubs, but wasn't as lucky with the '64s. It was going to be a coin at a time, until I got all seven. I was patient, and eventually, I was successful.

I'll start with the two non-Hall players, both pitchers

Dick Ellsworth, who won 22 games for the Cubs in '63

and Larry Jackson, a 14 game winner (though he lost 18).

And now the Hall of Famers, all familiar names....

Ernie Banks

Lou Brock, Topps apparently saw his as an up and coming star by including him on the coin checklist. Its too bad the Cubs brass didn't see him the same way!

Billy Williams

and two of the newest member of the Hall of Fame, Ron Santo.

And here is a look at all seven together in the tobacco card page

Merry Steve!!

2011-12-25T09:00:00.001-05:00

I knew this guy played a few games for the Cubs, and I knew that I just had to get a card of his. He played only three games for the Cubs in late April of 1986, and he was just one for nine, a crummy .111 batting average. As far as I can tell, this card from the Cubs team issued set is the only card that features him as a major leaguer, though he did play with the Reds in 1983 and the White Sox in 1984.

He didn't have much of a big league career, but once a year his card will be here on Wrigley Wax

Merry Steve Christmas to all!

The Christmas Story

2011-12-24T09:00:00.003-05:00

If the networks can run A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph, and the Grinch every year, then I think I can re-run this post every Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

From the Gospel according to St. Luke, the second chapter:

In those days

Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire

world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So

also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of

because he belonged to the

and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the

to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a

because there was no

for them in the inn. And there were

living out in the

nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at

An

of the

appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

May the simple, yet miraculous truth of the Christmas story touch your heart anew this year.

Peace,

Paul
Wrigley Wax

Cubs Alternate Vest Jersey

2011-12-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

In addition to their home and away jerseys, most teams now have a third alternate jersey. A couple clubs wear a vest as their alternate. But did you know that the Cubs were in the forefront of both the alternate jersey and the vests? In fact, according to Topps, the Cubs have been doing this since the late 1950s. Want proof?

This card of Ray Jablonski shows the 1956 version of the Cubs alternate jersey vest.

Move ahead to this 1960 card of Harry Bright and we see again the Cubs vest. The action pose on the left gives you a great look.

And the Cubs kept with the alternate jersey into the 1970s. Look at Rick Monday's 1972 card to see the vest and blue sleeves again.

So while you may have thought that alternate jerseys were something from just the last 10-15 years, now you know that it was the Cubs that pioneered the idea back in the 50s.

Because if we see it on a Topps card, it has to be true!

Now, truthfully, the Cubs were actually the first team to wear a vest, and they did it all the way back in the early 1940s. Here is what they wore:

1940

1941

1942

I wouldn't mind seeing those some day when the Cubs do a throwback jersey game.

Team Issue 2004...I Didn't Know!

2011-12-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

In my most recent post on the team issued Cubs cards, I mentioned that the 2003 cards were the last from the Cubs. Well, I was wrong.

JayBee left a comment that pointed out that the Cubs had two team issued cards in 2004. I have no idea how I missed those. But when I checked the giveaway list in the 2004 media guide, there they were. Thanks, JayBee for pointing that out.

Luckily, one of my primary sources for Cubs team issued cards, AU Sports on the Beckett Market place had both cards. After a few clicks, the cards were headed my way.

As they had been doing for the past three years, the cards were made by Topps especially for the Cubs. Each card had the special Wrigley Field logo on the front and was numbered to 20,000 on the back. It's curious that the Cubs cut back to only two card giveaways in '04. I wonder what the reason was?

One of featured players was an active player, Mark Prior, and one was from the past, Shawon Dunston.

Prior's card is from 2003. What's a little unusual is the back of the card.

His card in the 2002 base set was #10. The back of this card says 2 of 2. This was the second of two that the Cubs gave away, but on every card over the past four years, the regular card number wasn't changed. Odd.

Dunston's card is from the Cubs division winning season of 1989. He's the fourth member from that team to get one of these cards. Dunston was popular, but not as popular as his first baseman, Mark Grace. But in 2004 Grace was still on the outs with the Cubs brass for trashing the team after the 2001 World Series.

NOW I believe I can say that this was the final year of Cubs team issued cards.

I am still on the hunt for three from the 2002 set: Lee Smith, Don Cardwell, and Dave Kingman. If anyone ever happens to find one at a shop somewhere, please let me know!

Baseball Heroes 2008

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

After a two year hiatus, Upper Deck brought back the Baseball Heroes in 2008. As in 2005, the set was a full blown set instead of inserts, this time with 200 cards. Unlike previous releases, this one featured a single card of 175 different players instead of 5-10 cards of a small group. There were nine Cubs among the 175 cards.

The last 25 card in the set were with dual or quad cards, featuring a combination of current and former players. Two Cubs were included in that group.

The hook for this set are the parallels. Upper Deck put out a whopping ten different colored parallels. It was a stretch to come up with ten different colors: Sea Green, Red, Purple, Navy Blue, Light Blue, Emerald, Charcoal, Brown, Black, and Beige. I've got absolutely no interest in chasing any of these. I've read the tales others of you have told about these and it seems like everyone is missing at least one, usually the purple.

The base cards are good enough for me, and here they are:

Baseball Heroes Ryne Sandberg

2011-12-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Upper Deck released its first Baseball Heroes cards as inserts in the 1990 set. The sets were usually comprised of an eight to ten card tribute to one particular player. The 1990 set had ten cards of Reggie Jackson. Other heroes included Nolan Ryan, Ted Williams, and Willie Mays. But Upper Deck never saw fit to honor a Cubs player. (There were a couple Cubs in sets that Upper Deck called Heroes of Baseball, but I'm not counting them as Baseball Heroes sets, since, well, since they have different names!)

The first Cub to show up as a Baseball Hero was Ryne Sandberg in 2005. But the set had been changed to a stand-alone set of 100 base cards and another 100 short-prints. Ryno had five cards in the set, numbers 66-70. Each card highlights a different event in Sandberg's career. My only gripe is that the picture on the card doesn't always match with the event on the back.

#66: 1984 - The Sandberg Game....but the picture on the front is from 1997 (that is the Jackie Robinson 50th anniversary on his sleeve)

#67: 1984 - Wins NL MVP...and another picture from 1997

#68: 1990 - Sets Record For Second Baseman

#69: 1997 - Sets HR Record in 1997, but this card doesn't have a picture from 1997. Go figure!

#70, a nice looking end to the run.

Upper Deck brought Baseball Heroes back one last time in 2008. I'll have those Cubs tomorrow.

Thoughts on Topps Archives 2012...aka Heritage II

2011-12-19T09:00:00.004-05:00

Topps recently announced a new release for 2012, Topps Archives. Not new, actually, since there were Archives sets in 2001 and 2002; I guess resurrected is a better word. Included in the Archives set will be another resurrected product, All-Time Fan Favorites.

I just recently discovered the 2003-2005 All-Time Fan Favorites, and I really like them. Cards of my favorite players in original designs but with different pictures than on the original cards: great! I've got all the Cubs ordered and hope to have them within a week. When I heard that Topps was bringing back Fan Favorites, I was excited.

The excitement died the next day. Topps made another announcement: Fan Favorites won't be a stand alone set, but will be a SP insert in Topps' new Archives set. Archives didn't do anything for me like Fan Favorites did because the Archives cards were reprints of the originals. Since I have all of the Topps Cubs, there was no reason to get reprints.

But for 2012, Topps has changed the Archives concept. First, because of MLBPA rules, Archives can't be made up entirely retired players. Current ones have to be mixed in too. That alone destroys "Archives." How can you have "archives" of modern players? Topps should have kept the "Lineage" name they used in 2011.

To mess things up even further, the 2012 archives cards will have their design limited. The earlier version of Archives feature the player's rookie card design (2001) and best season design (2002). But in 2012, the designs are limited to four years: 1954, 1971, 1980, and 1984. When you limit the design to certain years, that's not called Archives. It's called HERITAGE! Did the people at Topps forget about Heritage?? Wouldn't a better name for Archives be Heritage II?

Why did Topps do all of this? Who knows! My guess is that Lineage, a nice set that I've grown to appreciate, didn't sell as well as hoped. So they dumped the name and brought back a name collectors would recognize.

Will I pick up the 2012 Archives Cubs? Probably. Will I buy a complete set? Nah.

Here is what the a 2012 Archives/2020 Heritage card may look like. I think I'll wait until 2020.

And if you're really patient, you can pick this up....

in Heritage 2029

Five Random Cubs Cards

2011-12-18T09:00:00.004-05:00

I've got 9,697 Cubs cards from 62 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1950s / 1960s: Topps 1959 #147 Cubs Clubbers The Cubs didn't show up in too many of the multi-player cards that Topps put out in the '50s and '60s, so this card is a bit of a rarity. This card could also be renamed "The NL MVP and a Couple Other Stiffs." In 1959 Banks hit 45 HRs, Long had 14 and Moryn added another 14 for a total of 73 homers.

1970s: Topps 1974 #598 Jim Tyrone A seventh round draft pick in 1971, Tyrone had a cup of coffee with the Cubs in 1972, but spent most of '73 in AA. He was with the Cubs for a good part of the 1974 season, but he was not very good, hitting .185 in 81 ABs. Most people don't think of this card as the Jim Tyrone card; the guy above Tyrone got most of the attention.

1980s: Donruss 1983 #477 Leon Durham The Bull had a mixed season in 1983. He made the All Star team for the second straight season, going into the break with a .310 average. But injuries to his back and thumb put him on the disabled list twice after the break and he played in only 100 games for the season.

1990s: Bowman 1997 #214 Jeff Yoder As a 20 year old in 1996, Yoder was 12-5 with the Rockford Cubbies. That impressive debut got him featured on this card. But he was injured for the entire 1997 season, and when he recovered, never got about AA ball. His last season was 2000, making only eight appearances.

2000s: Bowman 2009 BCP10 Jose Ceda Originally a Padres draft pick, Ceda came to the Cubs in a trade for Todd Walker mid-season 2006. He never rose above AA ball with the Cubs and was traded to the Marlins in November 2008. But forget about him---the big question is whose signature is on the card, because that sure doesn't look like it says "Jose Ceda"?

What The Beckert '74 Should Have Looked Like

2011-12-17T09:00:00.002-05:00

One more from '74

The Cubs were in the trading mood after the 1973 season, dumping several of the stars of the '69 team. Among those traded was second baseman Glenn Beckert. He was sent to the Padres for outfielder Jerry Morales.

The deal was made on November 7, 1973. Topps had already made up the 1974 Beckert card with him as a Cub, and apparently there wasn't time to do much with it. What they did do was change the team and border colors to match a Padre card, but as you can see...

...they left the picture alone. They didn't switch to a hatless photo, or one where they look up at the player, hiding his hat. And they didn't fire up the 'ol airbrush either.

I wonder if Beckert felt slighted, knowing that Topps didn't care enough about him to do anything with his picture. After all, the Padres had acquired future Hall of Famer Willie McCovey in October, 1973 (just 13 days before Beckert) and look what Topps did for Willie

A magnificent airbrush job!

I couldn't let this injustice from 38 year ago go on, so I took it upon myself to create a cheesy airbrushed card for the former Cub.

Behold!!

It was fun to not have to care how good the card looked! If I was too good with Photoshop, the card wouldn't look like a Topps job. So instead, I was sloppy, and I think I got it right! I even kept the red stripe on the Cubs uniform sleeve since Topps never paid that much attention to any details.

A bad Photoshop job; an injustice remedied!

You're welcome, Mr. Beckert.

Saturday, August 18, 1973

2011-12-16T09:00:00.005-05:00

Indulge me, I'm in a slight 1974 kick

I can say with 99.99% certainty that this picture of Billy Williams was taken on Saturday, August 18, 1973.

This was one of the toughest "Name That Game" quests that I've been on, but also one of the most fun and most interesting.

The card doesn't give me much at all. Obviously, the game is at Wrigley Field, but there isn't an opponent in sight. So one of the biggest clues is missing. But scanning the card more carefully, I spied something that told me this had to be a Saturday game.

It was this...

....the TV camera. As a kid who watched a lot Cubs games on WGN, I knew that this was not a camera position that WGN used. In fact, in the '70s, WGN didn't use any field level cameras.

But NBC did, with their Game of the Week, on every Saturday. So this has to be a Saturday game. But which one? The Cubs played on Saturday at Wrigley Field thirteen different times in 1973.

It was another card that helped narrow it down,

this one of Claude Osteen. He too is at Wrigley, and I wanted to figure out the date of this game. He pitched at Wrigley twice in the '73 season, and one of the dates was a Saturday, August 18. So far, things are matching up. Now I need to find a schedule of NBC Games of the Week in 1973.

You would think that you could find a list of just about anything on the internet, but so far, no one has put together a list of all the 1973 Games of the Week. Rats!

I moved on to a search of the Google News Archives. I did a search for "Dodgers" and narrowed the date to August 18, 1973. The first paper that came up was the St. Petersburg, Florida Evening Independent. Once in the paper, I headed to the TV listings for the day. This is what I found....

click on the picture for a better look, and to see what all six channels were showing that day...yes all six channels!

...at 2:00 p.m. on the NBC station, WFLA, it was Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the Chicago Cubs!! Pretty convincing evidence that both the Williams and Osteen card were taken on August 18.

It gets better! The Cubs pitcher that opposed Osteen that day?

Burt Hooton! That would make three different 1974 cards taken at Wrigley Field, with no opponent visible, that I can say with 99% certainty were all taken on August 18, 1973.

And the game itself? This is where it gets real interesting. The Cubs won 2-1 as Hooton outdueled Osteen, pitching a complete game and giving up only one run on seven hits. Osteen gave up only five hits, but one of them was a two-run homer, hit in the bottom of the sixth inning by....want to guess who hit the homer???

Cue up the Twilight Zone music, because this is going to freak you out....

The game winning home run was hit by Billy Williams!!!!

Is this his home run swing? How awesome would that be!!

A Few More Home Parks in '74

2011-12-15T09:00:00.001-05:00

When I was a kid, most cards featured players in their away uniform. That's because the pictures were taken in a limited number of ballparks. If it wasn't a spring training shot, it was either

New York

The Bay Area

or Chicago, because those three metro areas had teams in both leagues. Topps only needed a few photographers to snap all the teams.

But by 1974 Topps was using more game action photos and more stadiums started showing up. It was good to see some other teams in their home duds.

Looking through the set I found four ballparks that were rarely seen in baseball cards

Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium

Riverfront in Cincinnati

Veteran's Stadium, Philadelphia, and

Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

When these cards came out in 1974, three of the stadiums were almost brand new, Riverfront, Three Rivers, and the Vet. I liked seeing these "modern" ballparks, Astroturf and all. And now, of the ten stadiums I've got pictured today, only two, Oakland Coliseum (or whatever they are calling it nowadays) and Wrigley Field are left.

Big Daddy Autograph II

2011-12-14T09:00:00.001-05:00

This one was too good to pass up. Plus I had a couple ebay gift cards from my birthday waiting to be used. So I grabbed it...

....a "Big Daddy" autograph of Big Daddy! Several weeks ago I showed a recent Rick Reuschel autograph pickup. But when I saw this card, I had to at least try for it. My Standard Catalog lists a price of $20 for the card. I paid less than a third of that. Not a bad deal for a nice looking card.

This is the third Cub in the Fleer's 2006 Nickname Greats set, and now I've got all three. The other two were

Pepi and

Rainbow.

A nice little set!

Topps 2011 Cubs Wrap Up

2011-12-13T09:00:00.004-05:00

With the Sandberg Die Cut in hand, I'm finished with Topps 2011!The total number of Cubs cards I ended up with is 267. That is by far the most number of cards from one set that I've ever had. It was all those wacky parallels that boosted the number. The Platinum, Cognac, Walmart, Limited Edition, and Gold parallels added 150 more cards than usual.

Here is a breakdown of all 267 cards:

Topps Base	23
Platinum Base	23
Gold Base	23
Walmart Base	23
Limited Edition Base	23
Cognac Base	23
Legends SP	2
Legends SP Platinum	2
Legends SP Cognac	2
Sparkle	2
Castro black	2
Castro Target	2
Update base	10
Update Platinum	10
Update Gold	10
Update Cognac	10
Update Legends SP	1
Update Legends SP Platinum	1
Update Legends SP Cognac	1
60 Years of Topps	5
Diamond Duos	2
Diamond Duos Relic	1
Gloves Base	5
Gloves Black	5
Toppstown	4
Kimballs Champions	5
Castro NL All Star	1
Castro '52	1
Castro Purple	1
Castro All Star Relic	1
Topps 60	5
Topps 60 Auto	9
Topps 60 Relics	17
Next 60 Auto	1
Diamond Die Cut	7
Throwback patch	4

Before Series One came out, I said I was going to skip all the extra stuff. Then the Platinum Diamond cards showed up and I caved. I didn't just cave, I Mammoth Caved! But next year, I promise that I will not cave, I will stick to the base cards and an occasional insert.

If you have two minutes and forty-nine seconds of your life to waste, take a look at all 267 of my Topps 2011 Cubs

And Topps 2012 is out in 50 days!!

Topps 2011: My Last Cub!!

2011-12-12T09:00:00.002-05:00

My first post with Topps 2011 cards was back on February 7. Now, a little more than ten months later, I'm finally wrapping things up. My last card came this weekend and here it is:

...the Ryne Sandberg Diamond Die Cut. I got the card over a month ago, but Topps didn't make it available until November 30.

Guess what I did on November 30? I was surprised that the card was ready on the date that Topps said it would be ready. I really expected that there would be a delay. So I was thrilled that when I clicked on the card to get it shipped, I was taken to the checkout area.

Kudos to Topps for the speedy service, too. It took only a little more than a week for the card to end up at the WW Headquarters. But lest you think that Topps has it all together....

On the same day that the card arrived, I got an email from Topps telling me that the card was shipped and giving me the tracking information. So now I could track the package to see that what I had in my hands had actually been delivered. Awesome.

It gets better. Here is the text of the email:

Thank you for your order

2011-BB-DDC-DDC-15 Ryan Sandberg 1 12/09/11 SHIPPED

Order # 275219-1 Order Date: 12/01/11 0299EDI
Shipping Method - USPS

(UPS Shipments only):
To track your UPS shipment online, simply visit UPS online at
www.ups.com and enter the tracking number above.

Yup, I am the proud owner of a Ryan Sandberg card! At least they got his name right on the card.

With this final card, my 2011 Topps Cubs total sits at 267 cards. Tomorrow I have a breakdown of all of the cards and wrap things up.

Adding Another Heritage Card

2011-12-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

I hate it when I thought I had a set complete, and then find out I missed one. That recently happened with my Heritage set. The card I missed was this one:

…from 2005. I know I double-checked the New Age Performers checklist a couple times, yet Nomar still slipped passed me. I guess I forgot about his quick stay on the North Side. It started with so much optimism, as he was added to the team for the stretch run in 2004. Adding Greg Maddux in the spring, and Nomar in August seemed like enough to put the Cubs over the top.

But no, not the Cubs. They didn’t even qualify for the post-season. They finished 16 games behind the Cardinals, and lost out to the Astros for the wild card by three games. Losing seven of their last nine games killed the wild card and the season ended on a bitter note.

But hey, at least I got a new Nomar New Age Performer card for the collection.

One Last Barney Rainbow

2011-12-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

I've finished with my last Barney rainbow, from Bowman Chrome. The rainbow consists of...

...the base card

....the refractor

....blue refractor 004/150

....gold refractor 24/50

....and the orange refractor 18/25

I've skipped the red refractor (/5) and all of the 1/1s.

These put my Barney PC at 47 cards. Now the sad part....I've got 58 Ron Santo cards in my collection. Next year the Barney collection will pass the Santo. Shame on me!

Theo/Jed is a Genius!

2011-12-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

They're geniuses! What else can you say about someone who can get rid of a player who hit only .150....

and get a player in return that hit .156????

Brilliant!! We picked up six points!!! Make those World Series reservations now!!

2003 Wrigley Field Giveaway Cards

2011-12-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

In 2003, for the third consecutive season, the Cubs and Topps combined to produce cards for the Cubs to give away at Wrigley Field. As in the past, the cards were replicas of past Topps cards. They were also numbered, to 20,000 and included a special Wrigley Field logo.

The number of giveaway dates shrunk by five, so there are only six cards. Another difference is that there were a couple of "up and coming" Cubs among the six. In the previous two seasons, the only current player featured was Sammy Sosa; the majority were stars from the past. The two rising Cubs were no Sammy Sosas. I'll start with them:

Bobby Hill, given away on May 3, this card was his 2001 Bowman card. Hill was a bust and was traded to the Pirates later in the 2003 season for Aramis Ramirez. Thank you Pittsburgh!

This card, given away on May 7, was a variation of Hee Seop Choi's 2001 Topps rookie card. Here is the original

They Hee Chopped out the other rookies and just left in Choi. In 2003 Choi was doing OK until he got hurt in a June game against the Yankees. He never really returned to form and after the season was traded to the Marlins for Derrek Lee. That was another good deal!

Now on to the four Cubs who weren't busts!

The 1971 Glenn Beckert, given away on May 28, honors Beckert's best season, when he hit .342, finishing 3rd in the NL.

Bill Madlock's 1976 card was given away on August 1. In 1976, he won his second consecutive NL batting crown, hitting .339 and finishing 6th in NL MVP voting.

The 1969 card of Ron Santo was given away on August 3. Santo led the ill-fated '69 Cubs in RBIs and appeared in his sixth All Star game out of the previous seven seasons.

The Cubs gave away the 1975 Steve Stone card on April 12 because Steve Stone was the Cubs TV color man. He had his best season of his three with the Cubs in 1975, going 12-8.

These cards are the last the Cubs have ever given away, which is too bad. I hope they return to a card giveaway in the future.

I'm still trying to hunt down three more of the 2002 giveaway cards (Dave Kingman, Lee Smith, and Don Cardwell), and once I have them, I'll get them up.

Thank You Padrographs!

2011-12-07T09:00:00.004-05:00

Rod over at Padrographs was giving away some of his doubles and I was the lucky recipient of a stack of his Cubs.

Some of the cards were from sets that I don't collect, but now maybe I will!

Bowman Platinum 2010 Starlin Castro

Bowman Platinum 2011 Carlos Pena

Bowman Chrome 2011 Marlon Byrd

There were also some blasts in the past

1993 Topps Gold Ryne Sandberg; this will go into my Sandberg player collection

1993 Topps Gold Greg Maddux, though Maddux left the Cubs for the Braves after the '92 season.

There were also several cards which I've already got. They will be added to WW Jr's collection or else I'll give them to some of the kids in my class. They here me talk about my collection; maybe its time to get them going on a collection of their own!

I saved the best for last. I got my very first 1/1!

A custom Padrographs Darwin Barney card! That will be a nice addition to the Barney PC.

Thanks Rod!!

Bittersweet

2011-12-06T09:00:00.006-05:00

For me, the word "Bittersweet" best describes my feelings on Ron Santo being elected to the Hall of Fame. It would have been nicer for his election to have happened before

this, but that's not the way it went. Still, its nice to see him finally elected. Bill James has Santo ranked sixth all time among third baseman, yet he is the 15th to be elected to the Hall. Seems to me his election is long overdue.

Baseball-reference.com wasted no time on updating his page.

But this should be a happy time, so let's celebrate with nine more of my favorite Santo cards, in no particular order.

A New 38 Year Old Card For the Fergie Collection

2011-12-05T09:00:00.005-05:00

I found a new card to add to the Fergie Jenkins collection, though the card is 38 years old.

While paging through the '73 binder a while back, I noticed on this card of Pat Corrales that the action was against the Cubs. You can see the Cubbie Bear patch on the sleeve and the Cubs logo on the front.

Somehow I had missed that for all these years.

As soon as I noticed that it was a Cubs game, I had to figure out what game, and it wasn't too tough. The Cubs player is black, so that helps. Plus it looks like a 3 and 1 on the jersey.....meaning it's Fergie Jenkins.

With that information, it was off to Baseball Reference to see if there were any home plate collisions between Fergie and Pat Corrales in 1972 (which was Corrales' first year with the Padres).

The first common game of the two players was June 14, 1972. Guess what happened in the bottom of the second inning? Fergie singled (he was a decent hitter) and then Don Kessinger followed with a double. Fergie came around trying to score but was thrown out at the plate. On the card, you can see Corrales holding onto the ball in his right hand.

So that makes three Fergie cards in the '73 set...

...his base card

....the team card (he's in the second row, fourth player from the left)

...and the collision card.

Five Random Cubs Cards

2011-12-04T09:00:00.005-05:00

I've got 9,638 Cubs cards from 61 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1959s / 1960s: Topps 1960 #27 Dick Drott Bursting onto the scene as a 20-year-old rookie in 1957, Drott posted a 15-11 record for the Cubs. But that was his peak season, and three years later he was 0-6 with a 7.16 ERA.

1970s: Topps 1975 #233 Billy Grabarkewitz This is a nasty airbrushed card, as the Cubs picked Grabarkewitz up from the Phillies midway through the 1974 season. He was the first player to wear #10 after Ron Santo was traded to the Sox, but Grabarkewitz was no Ron Santo. He didn't even make the Cubs team in 1975, being released at the end of spring training. The A's picked him up and he played in only six April games before getting sent to AAA, where he spent the rest of the season.

1980s: Donruss 1989 #513 Jeff Pico Pico spent the 1989 season pitching middle relief and making an occasional start. He had a total of 51 appearances and was 3-1 with a 3.71 ERA. He would last one more season with the Cubs before spending the next couple seasons in AAA.

1990s: Upper Deck 1994 #199 Kevin Roberson He sure looks cocky in this picture. I guess that when you hit .194 in 1993 you're entitled to be cocky. He followed that up with a robust .218 average in 1994.

2000s: Topps Update 2009 #39 Jake Fox He was a classic Cubs prospect, a one tool player. No speed, no glove, but he could hit with power (or strike out). Fox got a decent amount of playing time in 2009, getting into 82 games. But he was a man without a position. He didn't have the speed or glove to play the outfield, and he wasn't going to displace Derrek Lee at first. But when the Cubs played an AL team at their park, Fox was ready to DH. After the season he was traded to the A's for a couple unknown prospects.

Topps 1969 - 2011 Complete Set Prices

2011-12-03T09:00:00.001-05:00

Here is my monthly look at complete set prices, taken from the first five completed sales listings on Ebay on December 1.

*the price of the '69 set came back down to more of what it should be; last month only one high end price was sold

*only one 1971 set was sold, at almost $150 less than average. I guess no one was interested in the tough black borders.

**prices on both the '78 and '79 sets were way below the 12 month average.

*If you want one of each set, it will cost you $5,835.26......or you can just put them on your Christmas list.

YEAR	Dec. 1	Nov. 1	Oct. 1	12 Mo. Avg.
1969	$974.67	$1,500.00	$707.07	$1,101.04
1970	$1,025.94	$972.57	$859.00	$959.92
1971	$661.09	$791.71	$894.50	$817.20
1972	$980.75	$1,098.75	$1,004.03	$964.71
1973	$373.30	$476.71	$516.00	$397.54
1974	$248.95	$177.50	$206.61	$241.12
1975	$237.11	$263.52	$256.00	$288.37
1976	$157.46	$138.47	$140.60	$168.08
1977	$121.52	$112.50	$141.20	$131.25
1978	$67.75	$91.70	$101.59	$96.21
1979	$54.61	$68.91	$102.58	$83.06
1980	$62.71	$63.78	$60.42	$65.07
1981	$27.16	$24.90	$30.45	$28.59
1982	$30.41	$44.20	$34.01	$34.74
1983	$25.30	$32.21	$34.90	$33.57
1984	$34.47	$22.51	$17.01	$23.72
1985	$29.69	$22.89	$28.07	$25.01
1986	$17.95	$13.30	$11.44	$15.12
1987	$7.49	$8.39	$8.40	$9.00
1988	$6.97	$9.45	$5.62	$8.32
1989	$7.38	$9.09	$2.12	$7.37
1990	$11.25	$7.25	$0.00	$8.01
1991	$12.97	$8.79	$6.99	$9.35
1992	$10.83	$9.75	$9.79	$10.13
1993	$31.10	$31.69	$20.50	$21.48
1994	$23.19	$19.08	$15.28	$22.34
1995	$57.68	$41.34	$44.82	$43.49
1996	$21.29	$22.24	$13.24	$20.02
1997	$44.89	$48.41	$33.88	$46.53
1998	$59.32	$41.59	$49.89	$44.65
1999	$16.89	$22.00	$39.84	$24.19
2000	$14.29	$25.66	$21.39	$18.23
2001	$63.39	$63.10	$38.00	$52.75
2002	$31.67	$43.69	$24.58	$37.18
2003	$43.67	$39.50	$7.50	$31.80
2004	$24.87	$29.90	$19.99	$24.86
2005	$29.08	$26.98	$31.00	$26.28
2006	$22.01	$29.61	$22.41	$20.80
2007	$19.66	$24.05	$17.25	$16.82
2008	$26.09	$31.94	$26.79	$24.77
2009	$32.77	$39.89	$49.48	$37.02
2010	$35.12	$31.99	$26.39	$37.02
2011	$50.58	$38.46	$32.93	$30.92

Topps Finest Darwin Barney

2011-12-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

I've completed another Darwin Barney rainbow, this time from Topps Finest. There are only 100 cards in the set, so it's nice to see Barney on the checklist.

In addition to the base card, there is the usual boat-load of parallel refractors. I picked up all except the die-cut mosiac ( / 10) and the purple ( /5), and the 1/1s.

Red 25/25

Gold 17/50

Orange 82/99

Green 182/199

X Fractor 152/299

Refractor 253/499

There are also a bunch of autographs on different colored refractors. I just picked up one,

the dual jersey/auto refractor 253/499

My final Barney rainbow for the year will be with Bowman Chrome. I'm just about done with that one. Look for it soon.

Sammy Auto

2011-12-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

There was a glaring hole in my autograph collection: Sammy Sosa

I don't think I intentionally left him out. After all, I do have a relic card of his. But it doesn't seem like there were a lot of his autographs out there. Low product means high price. So I never really pursued a Sammy auto.

A couple weeks ago, just for the heck of it, I did a Sosa autograph search on ebay. A card caught my attention, with both looks and price. I decided to watch the auction and see how it went. With only a day to go, the price was still reasonable, so I set my sniper to do its thing. It did it and I won!

Here's what I ended up with, a Leaf Certified 2004 Blue Mirror card.

The cards are numbered to /25, and as you can see, mine is #1. Of all the numbered cards I've got, this is the first #1. I don't know if that adds any value, but having #1 seem cool.

The autograph is a sticker, but there is an imprint that is on both the sticker and the card, which tells me this is the real deal. The Standard Catalog give the Red Mirror card a value of $100, and there were 100 of that card. No prices were given for the Blue Mirrors, but since they are numbered to only 25, I assume it would be a bit higher than the red.

Well, I paid a fraction of that. While I wanted to fill a hole, I wasn't going to break the bank doing so. I ended up with a nice card at a decent price, and another hole filled in.

Ernie Banks Peel-Off Sticker

2011-11-30T09:00:00.003-05:00

This sticker comes from the 1963 Topps Peel-Off insert set. As you can see, the front has a floating head picture of the player, along with a listing of his team and position.

There were a total of 46 unnumbered stickers in the set. Banks was one of two Cubs in the set; second baseman Ken Hubbs was the other.

I would assume that these would be more scarce than other inserts of the era, since many of them ended up getting stuck on notebooks, book covers, and other assorted items.

If you're wondering who else the set included, here is the checklist, sorted by team.

Jerry Lumpe	A's
Norm Siebern	A's
Bob Aspromonte	Colt 45s
Dick Farrell	Colt 45s
Bob Rodgers	Angels
Lee Thomas	Angels
Hank Aaron	Braves
Warren Spahn	Braves
Ken Boyer	Cardinals
Stan Musial	Cardinals
Bill White	Cardinals
Ernie Banks	Cubs
Ken Hubbs	Cubs
Tommy Davis	Dodgers
Don Drysdale	Dodgers
Sandy Koufax	Dodgers
Orlando Cepeda	Giants
Willie Mays	Giants
Jack Sanford	Giants
Rocky Colavito	Indians
Dick Donovan	Indians
Johnny Romano	Indians
Richie Ashburn	Mets
Al Jackson	Mets
Brooks Robinson	Orioles
Jim Gentile	Orioles
Johnny Callison	Phillies
Art Mahaffey	Phillies
Roberto Clemente	Pirates
Bill Mazeroski	Pirates
Bill Monbouquette	Red Sox
Carl Yastrzemski	Red Sox
Bob Purkey	Reds
Frank Robinson	Reds
Chuck Hinton	Senators
Dave Stenhouse	Senators
Jim Bunning	Tigers
Al Kaline	Tigers
Camilo Pascual	Twins
Harmon Killebrew	Twins
Luis Aparicio	White Sox
Ray Herbert	White Sox
Floyd Robinson	White Sox
Mickey Mantle	Yankees
Bobby Richardson	Yankees
Ralph Terry	Yankees

I Learned Something New About the 1967 Set

2011-11-29T09:00:00.005-05:00

The title says it all...

I think most collectors are aware that in 1968 Topps made a pretty significant design change after series one. They went from the wide burlap background of series one...

...to the tighter burlap for the rest of the set.

But not too long ago as I was looking through the '60s binder, I had one of those "Duh!" moments. It came from a look at the first two player cards on the page. Here they are side by side:

Can you spot the difference?

It shouldn't be too hard, since the design is pretty minimal. On the series one cards (like the Altman), the top line has the player's name and position. But after series one, Topps added a dot between the name and position. See it now?

I've had 1967 cards since, well since 1967. But I never noticed the missing dot.

The question I have is, why the change? Did Topps get complaints about the lack of design features?

The meeting of the Topps execs may have gone like this:

Boss: Men, we've got a problem. The first series is out and the sales numbers are down. I think the design on these cards is just too simple. It's missing something; it needs some pizazz. Anyone got any suggestions to spruce things up?

Flunky One: Sorry boss, I got nothing.

Flunky Two: Me either boss, sorry.

The boss, getting agitated, shouts, "I'm surrounded by incompetence! We are Topps...we are known for our design innovation. Now someone give me something!"

Flunky Three, with some trepidation in his voice says, "Well, what if we add a dot to the card. We could put it between the player's name and his position."

Boss: Brilliant! That's the kind of thinking we need more of around here!

And the rest is history. The dot was added to all of the series two through series seven cards.

But I still don't understand why!

Disappointment at the LCS

2011-11-28T09:00:00.003-05:00

In my neck of the woods, there are no local card shops, unless local mean about at least a 40 mile drive. I don't consider that to be local, so I've use the internet as my LCS. Because of the distance, I think I can escape the guilt that some in the hobby try to lay on those who don't buy from their local card shops.

I spent a couple days over Thanksgiving at my parents house in the SW Chicago burbs. There is a card shop only a couple miles from their house, and Steve at White Sox Cards has said good things about it, so I thought I would check out the place.

Specifically, I was going to be looking for cards that the Cubs handed out at Wrigley Field in 2002. In this post I wrote about the 2001 giveaway cards and mentioned that I would be on the hunt for the '02s and '03s. I was able to come up all of the '03s and seven of the eleven '02s from my usual on-line sources. I figured that a shop in the Chicago area might be an excellent place to look for the missing four '02s. So I was pretty excited to be able to set foot in an actual card shop.

The plan was to head there on Friday. The shop I was heading to has no online presence (disappointment #1; how can a shop survive today with no website? Apparently you can't, because it turns out that there is a For Sale By Owner sign in the shop window), so I was unsure of their hours. I slept in a bit and then figured I would get to the place a little after 10:00, which I did. That led to disappointment #2.....the store was closed. They opened at 11. I turned around and went back to the folks'.

We had other plans for the middle of the day, so I didn't return to the shop until about 3:00 p.m . When I walked in I saw the same guy I see in every card shop. You know him-- the overweight guy with greasy hair who talks about everything but doesn't really know much about anything. He also doesn't seem to have a job, other than hanging around the card shop.

I milled around a little while until I was able to grab the attention of the guy behind the counter away from the fat guy. I told him what I was looking for, cards that the Cubs gave away at Wrigley Field in 2002. I expected him to say something like, "Sure, let me go in the back and see what I've got." Instead, I just got disappointment #3, a completely blank stare. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. He muttered something about the All Century team set (which was given away in 1999). I said no, and repeated about the cards given away at Wrigley in '02.

He pointed at a quarter-a-card box of Cubs on the opposite counter and said I could look through it. I humored him and rummaged through it, but of course, the cards weren't in a box of early '90s junk.

I told him, nope, not in there, but thanks anyway, and headed out of the store. What a bust! Maybe if the shop was on the north side, I would have had better luck. But still, this was in Chicago, so wouldn't you think the guy would at least have had an inkling about these cards?

I got back into the car and headed back. Along the way, while waiting at a stop light, I noticed a card shop shop on the other side of the street. This was less than a mile away from the parents' house. Turns out the place just opened and my folks never noticed it before. Well, maybe my luck was changing! I crossed the street, parked the car and headed in.

This place was empty except for the guy working there. I guess they haven't had time to get a fat guy regular yet. The worker greeted me and I explained what I was looking for. He then greeted me with another blank look. Disappointment #4! He too had no idea what I was talking about. The best he could do was say that they might have the cards at their other store, which was in another suburb over 30 miles away. That wasn't going to do me any good. I thanked him for his time and left the store.

Two local card shops, two uninformed workers, too bad for me.

And if of you happen to be in your LCS, do me a favor and check and see if they have any of these four:
Dave Kingman, a 1979 replica, given away on July 25, 2002
Lee Smith, a 1984 replica, given away on September 28, 2002
Billy Williams, a 1961 replica given away on June 19, 2002
Don Cardwell, a 1961 replica, given away on May 7, 2002

I've never seen an actual copy of these four, though the Kingman card should look something like this:

...a replica of the 1979 card with

a special 2002 Wrigley Field label added ( I just guessed where the Wrigley label would go).

And if the shop owner gives you a blank look, check with the fat guy. Maybe he has a line on the cards!

Name The Date, Super Vintage Style

2011-11-27T09:00:00.009-05:00

With modern cards, it's become a fun game to try to name the date the picture was taken. But on vintage cards, it's not so easy, mainly because there were so few action shots.

And on cards from the '50s its next to impossible, since there were no action shots, only posed ones. But notice I said, "NEXT to impossible."

I found a 1957 card that I can pin down to a three day span.

First, I know for a fact that the picture on this 1957 card was taken in 1957. That was the only season that the Cubs wore this style of road uniform. Since the picture for a '57 card was taken in the same year the card was released, I have to assume that it is from the early part of the season.

Second, I know that the picture was taken in Philadephia at Connie Mack Stadium. Behind Singleton is the famous "Spite Fence" that Connie Mack built to block the view of the ballpark from the houses across the street.

So it was just a matter of checking the schedule to see when the Cubs were in Philadelphia in the early part of the season. The answer? They had a three game set against the Phillies from May 2-4.

Another clincher for those dates is that Singleton only pitched in games in April, May, and one in September.

So a combination of '57 uniforms, Connie Mack Stadium, and games in April-May give me pretty conclusive evidence that the picture was taken on either May 2, 3, or 4, 1957.

And this one too!

Harry With A Patch

2011-11-26T09:00:00.006-05:00

All right class, raise your hand if you can tell me something about Cubs pitcher Harry Perkowski.

Anyone?

Then allow me. Harry Perkowski pitched for the Cubs in 1955. He had spent the previous seven seasons with the Reds. His best seasons were 1952 and 1953, when he won 12 games in each season. He fell off badly in 1954, winning only two games. That somehow made him attractive to the Cubs brass, and they put together a five player swap in October, 1954 to bring him to the Cubs.

Topps felt he had something left because they included him in the '55 set as one of only 12 Cubs. They wouldn't have had any pictures of him in a Cubs uniform, but since all of the cards were paintings, that shouldn't have been a big deal. Plus, both the Cubs and the Reds had a wishbone C on their hat, so all Topps had to do was switch some colors.

That they did with no problem. But look at the action shot. Poor Harry has a blank uniform. Topps didn't take the time to put a Cubs patch on his chest.

But I did!

The back of the card says that they Cubs picked up Perkowski "to strengthen their mound staff." So how did Harry do?

Not very well! He was 3-4 with a 5.29 ERA. The 1955 season was his last in the majors. He bounced around the minor through the 1960 season but never did enough to get recalled.

A Big Hunking Patch

2011-11-25T09:00:00.002-05:00

I wasn't collecting in 2007, so I had no idea about the felt logo patches that were a part of the Heritage 2007 set. When I saw a Cubs patch listed on ebay a couple weeks ago, I thought it would make a nice little addition to my collection.

Heritage 2007 was based on the 1958 set. The Cubs logo on the patch is the same one that I have as my photo on my Google profile, so that made me want the patch even more. I figured that it was about the same size as the patches that kids in my era wore on jackets or hats, which were around two inches in diameter.

No one else seemed to interested in the Heritage patch. I was the only bidder and picked it up for 99¢. What a deal!

When the patch arrived, I was shocked. It was huge! This wasn't some little two inch patch, it was five inches! What a nice ~~little~~ big surprise.

This gives you some perspective on how big this thing is. It dwarfs a baseball card. Because of their size, they were not included in rack packs; instead they came one per hobby box. Those boxes are going for around $99 right now. I'll gladly skip the box and just take my 99¢ patch.

Turkey Red for Turkey Day

2011-11-24T09:00:00.002-05:00

My Thanksgiving tradition is to post a couple Turkey Red cards on Turkey Day. Topps is making that a little harder since they didn't put out any Turkey Red cards in 2011. So I'll have to dig back into the WW archives for a few older cards.

After browsing through the sets, I decided to show a few real turkeys.

2005 Corey Patterson...a true turkey, good ol' KKKKKKorey Patterson

2006 Phil Nevin. The Cubs picked him on May 31, 2006 and traded him away exactly three months later. Topps thought that those three months were good enough to include him in the set. I disagree.

2007 Felix Pie: I'd much rather be thinking about some French Silk Pie than Felix Pie.

I hope these guys haven't ruined your appetite. Now go enjoy some real turkey!

1966 Billy Williams Rub Off

2011-11-23T09:00:00.004-05:00

Today I've got a recent addition to my Billy Williams collection.

It's a Rub Off insert from the 1966 Topps set. It becomes the second oldest card in my Williams player collection (which is made up of cards other than the regular Topps cards). It's in really nice shape; I've seen others of these that get all cracked and ugly looking.

The set was made up of 100 players and 20 team pennants. Other Cubs included Ernie Banks and Ron Santo. There isn't a single one of either of these on ebay right now. If an Ernie Banks pops up I'll go after.

Since this is a rub off, that means it reversed. I don't have any plans to actually rub it off, so through the magic of photoshop, here is what it would look like if it were rubbed off on a piece of paper.