Tile Tuesday: The Conlon Collection

From 1991 through 1995, the Sporting News and Megacards put out the Conlon Collection.  The cards featured the works of sports photographer Charles Conlon.  A total of 1430 cards were issued.  For the first four years, the cards featured an identical design and were in sets of 330 cards.  They were numbered consecutively, from 1 - 1320.

In 1995 a change was made to both the design (the cards were green instead of black, and glossy) and in number.  The set was going to be released in two series of 110 cards.  The second series never saw the light of day, and so the set ended with 1430 cards.

I like the cards enough that I've purchased the entire run.  The first three years are easy and inexpensive.  The 2004 set is tougher and the 2005 is a real pain.  I think I waited almost a year for a set of the 2005s to show up at an affordable price, and I was able to get the entire set in an unopened package.

There are 88 different cards that featured Cubs players.  We get cards of Hall of Fame guys like Gabby Hartnett, Dizzy Dean, and Mordicai Brown and cards of anonymous players like Art Nehf and Curt Davis.  It's a very eclectic set.

If you want to get a better look at the cards, click on the Conlon logo below the tile and it will take you to my Photobucket page.

More OPC Billy Williams

My next two Billy Williams OPC cards have arrived, from 1970 and 1971.

The 1970 front is identical to the Topps card...

 but the back isn't.

You can see how OPC used the blue box only for the player's personal information.  The write up was with a white background.  My guess is that was done due to the smaller font necessary to get both the English and French text included.  I do like that the cartoon has the words written by the cartoonist.  They did drop the little speech bubble; not enough room for dual language, I suppose.

The 1971 card again has an identical front.

The back, though, has more differences than any other OPC set.

Pretty much the entire design was changed.  That was quite a bit of work for OPC to make all those changes.  Probably more than they wanted, since no back was ever so different again.

These cards bring my Billy OPC total to four, with three more left to go.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 10,879 Cubs cards from 71 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades. 

1950s/1960s: 1954 Topps #60 Frank Baumholtz  Like so many players from his generation, Baumholtz came to the major leagues at an older age due to military service in World War II.  He was a 28 year old rookie for the Reds in 1947.  The Cubs picked him up a couple years later, and by 1954 he was an aging part time outfielder.  He played in 90 games and hit .297

1970s: 1979 Topps #716 Scot Thompson  Do you suppose Thompson is so sad looking because he knew the picture was going to end up on an ugly, black and white rookie card?  He was the Cubs first round draft pick in the 1974 draft and he made it to the majors at the end of the '78 season.  He hit .417 in 19 games, so there was lots of optimism about him when the 1979 season opened.  He had a decent rookie season, hitting .289 in 128 games.  He didn't hit for any power, though, with only two homers.

1980s: 1988 Fleer Glossy #414 Jody Davis  This is a nice action shot of Davis tagging out some Cardinal.  I can't tell exactly who the Cardinal is, but he is wearing one of those big arm bands with the picture patch.  The 1988 season was Jody's last with the Cubs.  The wear and tear of being an everyday catcher had caught up with him and his numbers were dropping.  He played in only 88 games for the Cubs before he was traded to the Braves at the tail end of the season.

1990s: 1990 Big #109 Mitch Williams   I liked these Big cards!  Wild Thing was riding high into the 1990 season, having helped pitch the Cubs to the division crown in 1989.  But a knee injury limited him to 59 games.  He was 1-8 and saved only 16 games.

2000s: 2005 Donruss Elite Turn Of the Century #157 Ernie Banks  This card is from my player collection.  There's an overused picture of Ernie from 1969, but at least Donruss got the Cubs logo correct, using the one with the small blue circle that was the Cubs primary logo in the late '60s and most of the '70s.

Excited About Rafael Dolis' Autograph

Why on earth am I excited about getting this update card, with Rafael Dolis' autograph?

It certainly isn't his 2012 record of 2-4, or his ERA of 6.39 that's got me excited.

Actually, it isn't Rafael at all.  It's the seller that I bought the card from that made my day.  First, the card was listed as a BIN for only $1.99.  On card autographs for a couple bucks, what a deal.  But even better than the price was the shipping.  Look at how the card arrived...

....Blue tape sealing up the toploader!!  I've been on the blue tape kick for a couple years, now.  Why?  Because it peals off so easily and leaves no residue behind. The toploader can be reused without a sticky mess left on it.

Go green...recycle...use the blue.

Barney Rainbow Grows

Topps decided to include Gold bordered cards of all 660 from the base plus the 330 update cards in the update set. They are all numbered /2012. In the past the gold borders were included in series one and two. I'm not sure why the waited until the update set this year.

I'm not bothering with the golds for the entire Cubs team. All I need is the Darwin Barney card to add to the rainbow. That makes a total of ten different versions of the Fabulous Flying Barney.

Here's all ten together

 

2012 Update Extras

In addition to the 16 Cubs base cards from yesterday, there were another seven Cubs in the insert sets.

Golden Moments

Two Cubs made the list, Ernie Banks (his 500th Home Run) and Starlin Castro (two hits on June 14, 2012 to help the Cubs beat the Brewers in extra innings).

Golden Greats

 

Mr. Cub and the Hawk (fresh from being pulled out of the ivy) were included.

Blockbusters

Ryne Sandberg is in this subset, but I wouldn't exactly call Larry Bowa and Ryne Sandberg for Ivan DeJesus a blockbuster trade.  It was Dallas Green looking for a field leader (Bowa) and getting a prospect, too (Sandberg) while the Phillies got a younger shortstop with better range.

Minis

 

Ryan Dempster is in the base update set as a Ranger, but the minis must be printed much earlier, so he's still with the Cubs.   Bryan LaHair got the mini set as a consolation prize instead of an All Star card.

2012 Update Cubs

My update cards have arrived!

There were 24 different cards in my Cubs update package, and I'll have them all over the next couple days.

Today, its the base cards and the gold sparkles.  There were eight different Cubs cards in the 330 card update set.

Two Cubs, Starlin Castro and Bryan LaHair, made the All Star team, but just Castro got an All Star card.

 

Shawn Camp and Jeff Russell did a nice job out of the bullpen this year, a bullpen that saw plenty of work.

The other five cards are of guys that probably won't be on the Cubs opening day roster in 2013.

 

They're either rookies that need more time in the minors....

....utility role vets....

 

...or roster-filling no-names.

Here are the golden sparkle versions...