Looking at the Complete 1969 Jewel Cubs Set

Yesterday I wrote about picking up the 1969 Jewel picture of Billy Williams.  The post inspired me to do some digging and get the scoop on the entire Jewel set.

There are 20 players in the set.  All of the big names were included and most of the semi-big names, too.  Featured were Ted Abernathy, Hank Aguirre, Ernie Banks, Glenn Beckert, Bill Hands, Jim Hickman, Ken Holtzman, Randy Hundley, Fergie Jenkins, Don Kessinger, Rich Nye, Paul Popovich, Jim Qualls, Phil Reagan, Ron Santo, Dick Selma, Willie Smith, Al Spangler, Billy Williams, and Don Young.

The pictures were issued four per week, starting the first week of August.  The pictures were not free.  You had to buy a specific product from Jewel and that would entitle you to one of the four.  Each week there was an ad in the paper that told which players were available and what you needed to buy.

Week 1...ad from August 4

Players: Ernie Banks, Randy Hundley, Ken Holtzman, Ted Abernathy.... three stars and a submarine-throwing reliever
Need to buy: Half-gallon of milk of a package of pretzels...two items that do not go well together

Week 2: ad from August 11 The ad uses the exact same layout as the first weeks, just changing the players and the food item

Players: Fergie Jenkins, Jim Hickman, Ron Santo, Al Spangler...three stars and a back-up outfielder
Need to buy: loaf of bread or jar of peanut butter....two items that go together perfectly

Week 3: ad from August 18...it's the same ad layout for the third straight week

Players: Phil Regan, Billy Williams, Willie Smith, Don Young....one star and three not-stars
Need to buy...cookies and ice cream, another perfect combination

Week 4: ad from August 29... this came out more than a week after the previous ad and the layout has changed completely.

Players: Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert, Dick Selma, Bill Hands...three stars and the Bleacher Bums' cheerleader.
Need to buy: paper plates or eggs...not much of a pairing here.

Week 5: ad from September 5...the Cubs were in free-fall mode at this point in the season and it looks like Jewel was bailing out.  The ad was just a small part of a full page ad.

Players: Hank Aguirre, Rich Nye, Jim Qualls, Paul Popovich...all bench players
Need to buy: laundry detergent or frozen orange juice... not much of a pairing here.

If you bought four of the cheapest items each week to get the four pictures, you'd have to spend $8.88 to end up with all 20 pictures.  Today it will cost you about ten times that.  

I was thinking of getting color images of the pictures off the web to show, but decided not to. I plan to keep an eye out for a set, and when I can get one at a decent price, I'll show the color pictures.

Billy from Jewel

In the late sixties there were several grocery chains serving Chicagoland.  Some had a smaller presence like High-Low, Kroger, and an up-and-coming Dominicks.  The big three were A&P, National, and Jewel.  My mom did most of her shopping at National.

In 1969 I wished she went to Jewel because Jewel had jumped on the Cubs bandwagon.  Look at this ad from the Chicago Tribune on August 18, 1969.  And the ad wasn't in the food section.  It was on page five of the sports section.

Jewel was offering Cubs pictures, mugs, Tee shirts, and autographed balls.

Four different pictures per week were available.  You can see from the ad that this was the week for Billy Williams' picture.  It only took me 45 years, but I've finally got the picture:

What a great looking picture!  It measures 6" x 9" and is on photo paper.  The color is still pretty sharp for something this old.  It looks to be a picture from 1967 (no '68 Illinois Sesquicentennial patch or '69 Baseball centennial patch on his right sleeve).  

For reasons that I don't understand, this is not on the PSA master list, though other photos and non-card items are included.  That didn't stop me though, and I'm glad to finally have the picture.

The 2016 Cubs Calendar

I've got the 2016 Cubs Calendar hanging in the WW World Headquarters.

There are a couple changes for 2016 to point out...

First, the actual calendar portion of the calendar has shrunk.  It used to be half the display, now its just a quarter.  The player's picture now dominates.  Since this is supposed to be a calendar and not a player display, it seems silly that the calendar is as small as it is.

The next big change is that almost all of the players featured are still with the Cubs!  Over that past few years the number of Cubs on the Cubs calendar was pretty small.  Case in point...of the 12 players on the 2015 calendar, only two (Rizzo and Travis Wood) are still on the team. But as of today, ten of the twelve on the 2016 version are still on the Cubs' 40-man roster.

The two that have left are...

 

...Mike Olt and Starlin Castro.  I'm not sure why Olt was even included on this in the first place.

Here are the other ten still with the team:

 

 

 

 

 

The early print deadline for these would be the reason that Kyle Schwarber was not included.  I'm sure we will see him next year, along with Jason Hayward and John Lackey.  And hopefully the inaccuracies of the past several years will be a thing of the past.

Topps Complete Set Prices 1969 - 2015

Here is my monthly look at Topps complete set prices for all the years in which I own a set, 1969 - 2015.  The prices are from Ebay sold listings taken on January 1.  The prices do not include shipping.

• Overall the average prices were up quite a bit.  I attribute this to ignorant holiday shoppers.
• I included best offer prices this month for the first time in a long time.  I stopped using them when Ebay took away the print option for finding the BO prices.  But recently l came across a website, Watchcount.com, that makes it fairly simple to look up BO prices.
• If you want to buy one of each set, it will cost you $6,488.53 and that was an increase of $1,462.08 over the December prices.

YEAR	Jan. 1	Dec. 1	Nov. 1	12 Mo. Avg.
1969	$1,110.97	$757.80	$1,076.22	$1,011.14
1970	$799.60	$605.31	$965.49	$902.05
1971	$843.60	$556.18	$716.29	$771.55
1972	$1,195.87	$736.18	$1,164.49	$962.99
1973	$503.44	$415.35	$426.80	$401.49
1974	$259.30	$288.00	$244.72	$240.33
1975	$293.85	$294.96	$282.75	$284.43
1976	$189.65	$128.77	$164.75	$164.52
1977	$122.93	$123.55	$119.72	$129.30
1978	$96.99	$67.60	$75.68	$90.43
1979	$100.60	$90.80	$85.68	$82.90
1980	$54.00	$46.55	$63.40	$60.93
1981	$33.58	$21.62	$17.80	$29.08
1982	$47.55	$40.39	$30.29	$36.22
1983	$36.11	$25.30	$28.65	$32.28
1984	$16.94	$18.70	$12.15	$19.44
1985	$28.90	$22.72	$24.40	$25.18
1986	$9.29	$8.30	$10.82	$14.16
1987	$6.63	$11.05	$6.36	$8.70
1988	$9.99	$5.59	$9.59	$8.31
1989	$7.85	$10.22	$7.24	$7.12
1990	$12.19	$7.25	$6.40	$8.62
1991	$22.30	$5.09	$4.71	$9.04
1992	$14.92	$6.04	$9.90	$10.28
1993	$26.48	$31.43	$20.69	$23.13
1994	$15.58	$25.99	$15.59	$19.53
1995	$32.18	$42.58	$19.59	$29.34
1996	$24.58	$20.09	$14.90	$19.70
1997	$29.89	$46.92	$39.18	$38.74
1998	$34.77	$29.03	$34.38	$32.21
1999	$23.78	$22.59	$23.79	$26.42
2000	$18.90	$16.70	$14.69	$19.23
2001	$35.28	$51.57	$52.99	$41.28
2002	$28.59	$27.12	$29.69	$27.46
2003	$49.18	$32.89	$39.27	$34.99
2004	$32.69	$34.27	$24.71	$26.30
2005	$23.33	$25.50	$37.28	$25.07
2006	$17.70	$42.99	$23.68	$26.93
2007	$25.39	$28.99	$23.70	$18.69
2008	$34.99	$35.39	$27.09	$29.75
2009	$32.00	$55.26	$44.19	$38.88
2010	$30.29	$27.67	$21.98	$21.91
2011	$25.28	$33.59	$31.27	$26.17
2012	$33.07	$23.74	$29.21	$23.93
2013	$43.77	$36.99	$21.32	$31.03
2014	$53.75	$41.84	$38.16	$43.33
2015	$54.17	$49.59	$37.82	$44.92

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 13,896 Cubs cards from 105 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s:  1971 Fleer World Series #36 1938 World Series What a horrible use of my favorite Cubs logos....stuffed and mounted by the Yankees.

1980s: 1986 Team Issued #36 Gary Matthews The Cubs gave these cards away at Wrigley Field on Thursday, July 17, 1986.  There were 30, 598 fans in the park who saw the Giants top the Cubs 6-4.  Sarge was 0 for 4 as his average dropped to .231.

1990s: 1995 Fleer Ultra #140 Steve Trachsel  This card is from an odd numbered year and during his time with the Cubs Trachsel did not like the odd years.  His record in 93. 95. 97, and 99 was 23-40.  During the even years he was a different pitcher, going 37-24 in 94, 96, and 98.

2000s: 2005 Heritage #69 Mark Prior  Heritage had two versions of this card, the one you see and another with an old Cubs logo on the hat.  There were two versions of Mark Prior in 2005 and the Cubs were stating to get the second, injured and not-very-effective Mark Prior.  

2010s: 2012 Topps Stickers #204 Alfonso Soriano  The 2012 season was Soriano's last full year with the Cubs and he had a bit of a resurgence.  He smacked 32 homers and drove in 108 runs and even got a few MVP votes.

Collection Goals for 2016

I won't call it a rut, but my collections goals for the upcoming year aren't much different that my goals from 2014 or 2015.  I'm content with where things are at and am not bored with what I'm doing.  I see no need to change things up just for the sake of change.  As long as I'm happy with what I'm doing I'll keep doing it.

GOAL #1: Add my usual Cubs team sets as they are released: Topps flagship, Heritage, Opening Day, Factory Team set, Bowman, Allen and Ginter, Chrome, Gypsy Queen, and Update.

GOAL #2: Add the complete sets of the flagship, update, and Allen and Ginter.  I've got a flagship run starting with 1969 and the complete run of Traded / Update and Allen and Ginter.  I see no reason to stop.

GOAL #3: Add any autograph and relic cards for Cubs players that haven't previously had one.  I'm done with players from previous seasons, so now its just a matter of adding new guys as cards are issued.

GOAL #4: Continue adding to the player collections.  I'll continue filling in missing Barney parallels and PSA Billy items.

GOAL #5: Add odd-ball sets. I plan to keep up my daily search of ebay for these.

GOAL #6:  Harpoon a white whale....the 2014 Barney clear acetate card and/or a Kris Bryant autograph.  I don't have too much control with this one, though.

GOAL #7: Write something about the collection every day.

GOAL #8:  Enjoy working on goals 1-7. I'm in trouble when I can't meet this goal.

Grading My 2015 Collection Goals

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2016, the year of the World Champion Chicago Cubs!

As I've done each January 1, I'm going to go back and review my goals from the previous year.

GOAL #1: Add my usual Cubs team sets as they are released: Topps flagship, Heritage, Opening Day, Factory Team set, Bowman, Allen and Ginter, Chrome, Gypsy Queen, and Update.  If Topps adds anything that is new, interesting, and affordable, I'll probably go after it.  All accomplished, but nothing new tickled my fancy...Grade: A

GOAL #2: Add the complete sets of the flagship, update, and Allen and Ginter.  I've got a flagship run starting with 1969 and the complete run of Traded / Update and Allen and Ginter.  I see no reason to stop.  All accomplished...Grade: A

GOAL #3: Add any autograph and relic cards for Cubs players that haven't previously had one.  I'm done with players from previous seasons, so now its just a matter of adding new guys as cards are issued.  Almost all accomplished...just missing a Bryant autograph and I may be missing one for a while...Grade: B+

GOAL #4: Continue adding to the player collections.  This year I'd like to go back and fill in some Barney holes.  I know that there are several parallels that I need so I'll try to get those.  I won't be buying and 2015 Barney cards, so I figure that what I don't have to spend on 2015 cards can be used for the older ones.  I started on completing the Billy Williams PSA Collection and I've added lots of extra Barneys....Grade: A

GOAL #5: Add odd-ball sets. I plan to keep up my daily search of ebay for these.  I've got my eye on Upper Deck Ovation to start things off.  Ovation was added, and a couple others, but this is getting tougher....Grade: B

GOAL #6: Write something about the collection every day.  Done!  Grade: A

GOAL #7:  Enjoy working on goals 1-6. I'm in trouble when I can't meet this goal.  Done! Grade: A

Overall, 2015 was a good year for the collection as it continues to grow.  This year I added 616 new Cubs cards.

Here's hoping that 2016 will be just as successful for me and the Cubs!