Ernie Banks Baseball Card News

Today's card is another oddball recently added to my Ernie Banks collection.  It comes from a 1982 set put out by Baseball Card News.  The set is not listed in the Standard Catalog, so I had to do my own digging to find out more about it.

There are a total of 20 cards in the set, each featuring a black and white photo of a player.  Its a pretty plain looking card, with no wording at all.  The cards have rounded corners.  The black border on my picture is from the scanner...I left it there so you can get a better look at the corners.

Most of the players are hall of famers from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  Ernie is the only Cub.    The back gives the history of baseball cards.

I don't have the complete set, but I was able to track down pictures of each of the other 19 cards.  Take a peak...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tile Tuesday: Airbrushed Cubs

I really thought I'd have a lot more of these than the 44 I've got.

For today's tile, I went through my Topps Cubs and picked all the cards that were airbrushed.  I started with 1957 since that was the first year that Topps used actual photographs on the cards. The last card is from 1984.  By then, Topps had the Traded sets coming out each year.  The base set went to press much earlier, and players were shown with their old teams.

In more recent years the airbrush has been retired and replaced by photoshop.  I din't use any of those. They're a little tougher to spot and not as kitschy as the 'ol airbrush.

Nine of the 44 cards are rookie cards.  That is understandable, what with prospects being traded around and rookies not in major league uniforms at spring training.

Since there are only 44 cards, I made the tile a little bigger than usual. That should give you a better look at the fine work done by the Topps artists.

Topps 1969 - 2012 Complete Set Prices

Here is my monthly look at set prices for all the year in which I have a complete set, 1969 - 2012.

The prices this month generally took a nose dive.  The '69 and '70 sets were well below the 12 month average.  Most of the modern sets were down too.  As the baseball season wears down, I wonder if collectors get tired of baseball and stop buying.  With Ebay, fewer buyers would mean lower prices.

The price to buy one of each set in September was $5,974.32.  That's $824.42 less than a month ago and $1,333.64 below the June average.

YEAR	Sept. 1	Aug. 1	July 1	12 Mo. Avg.
1969	$974.60	$1,467.21	$1,386.49	$1,205.65
1970	$807.29	$981.00	$901.10	$943.58
1971	$822.33	$668.77	$572.16	$828.49
1972	$1,028.55	$1,199.02	$1,121.40	$1,032.28
1973	$392.22	$358.30	$438.60	$403.88
1974	$258.49	$189.85	$256.72	$238.21
1975	$318.30	$426.92	$358.26	$300.84
1976	$124.42	$115.19	$173.49	$170.69
1977	$113.50	$148.62	$157.07	$136.40
1978	$108.20	$89.85	$82.78	$93.75
1979	$72.20	$78.64	$79.60	$83.36
1980	$56.00	$70.80	$79.40	$67.45
1981	$27.29	$31.51	$31.60	$31.36
1982	$50.74	$53.05	$39.39	$41.32
1983	$30.80	$30.84	$33.40	$33.14
1984	$30.24	$29.07	$20.74	$27.47
1985	$33.35	$31.99	$31.95	$28.99
1986	$19.88	$26.59	$12.28	$15.77
1987	$11.44	$7.30	$8.60	$9.70
1988	$9.88	$9.58	$11.31	$8.55
1989	$11.29	$6.36	$7.00	$7.44
1990	$5.49	$13.89	$14.78	$8.29
1991	$9.83	$8.65	$11.48	$10.04
1992	$10.40	$10.20	$6.65	$9.99
1993	$27.19	$36.28	$25.82	$25.46
1994	$20.20	$23.57	$23.65	$22.25
1995	$38.69	$33.20	$35.19	$44.70
1996	$13.71	$15.90	$22.53	$21.31
1997	$45.29	$64.99	$42.30	$45.56
1998	$41.41	$57.18	$40.95	$44.66
1999	$21.59	$33.45	$22.60	$25.10
2000	$21.69	$20.92	$25.80	$21.14
2001	$70.39	$41.14	$53.30	$58.54
2002	$38.43	$52.58	$37.11	$35.30
2003	$26.28	$55.66	$36.60	$36.26
2004	$30.02	$38.37	$26.83	$28.15
2005	$34.40	$31.98	$31.65	$30.97
2006	$28.22	$29.18	$21.99	$24.23
2007	$18.62	$10.75	$24.78	$21.18
2008	$28.18	$32.68	$33.15	$29.18
2009	$52.61	$62.36	$46.65	$46.62
2010	$27.09	$34.58	$29.98	$30.87
2011	$29.89	$30.59	$32.39	$36.43
2012	$33.69	$40.22	$30.19	$34.70

Signing For the Fans

Isn't Rey Sanchez a nice guy.  He's signing for the fans.

The card is from Topps, 1994.  It looks like this was taken in Mesa during spring training, 1993 (he's wearing a home uniform, but Wrigley Field doesn't have a fence above the dugout.

And what is Rey signing?

His card from Topps 1993.

If you want the exact same card, signed by Rey, there's one on Ebay right now.

It will cost you $12.  Its been sitting there since December, and its probably going to be there for a while longer, too.  I'll wait for the price to come down.  A few weeks ago I paid ten bucks for an autographed Billy Williams card.  I don't think I'll pay two bucks more for Rey Sanchez.

Victory!

They've been pretty slim for the Cubs this year, so this may be the only way I can talk about Victory...

Upper Deck Victory.

From 1999 to 2003 Upper Deck released a set titled Victory.  The sets ranged in size from 660 cards (2001) to 200 cards (the last year, 2003).  It came out the year after Upper Deck discontinued its Collectors Choice brand.  I wonder if Victory was supposed to be its replacement.  Both brands were fairly similar in size.

The cards I've got today are the 1999 Victory Cubs.  The 1999 season was similar to what is happening this year....not many  victories.  The Cubs are having a miserable August, their worst since...1999.

The 1999 Victory set has a checklist of 470 cards.  The list was arranged by teams, a feature that Fleer used back in the day.  The Cubs are #73 - 87.

Twelve Cubs were base cards.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 In addition to the base cards, there were several subsets.  Cubs were featured in most.

Rookie Flashback, Greg Maddux

Big Play Makers, Sammy Sosa.  Remember, this came out the year after the McGwire/Sosa home run race.  Sammy was big.

Power Trip Sammy

History in the Making, Sammy and Kerry Wood (who had his 20 K game in 1998)

So there, 17 Cubs Victories....about two months worth in 2012!

2012 Chrome Cubs

This will be a small post, since Topps Chrome didn't include too many Cubs.

In fact, the checklist includes a grand total of three whole Cubs, two vets and one rookie. By comparison, in 2010 there were 11 Cubs and last year nine made the list.  How the mighty have fallen....well, maybe not "mighty" but I'm still used to more than three cards.

Here are the three.....

Starter Matt Garza, perennial trade bait now shut down for the season

Starlin Castro, the $60 million man, who seems to be the one Cub that shows up on every Topps checklist

Rookie Adrian Cardenas.   Who?? you might be saying.  Until this season, Cardenas was a minor league lifer, spending the previous six seasons in the minors.  The Cubs picked him up off of waivers in February and he made him major league debut on May 7.  He's got a .234 average in 32 games.  I don't expect to see him with the Cubs next year.

And that's it.

Darwin Barney....National League Record Holder

There hasn't been too much to get excited about on the north side this year; this may be one of the highlights of the season.
Last night Darwin Barney set the National League record for consecutive errorless games in a season at second base......barely.  In the seventh inning he was charged with an error on a throw to third baseman Luis Valbuena.  It was a perfect throw, right on target, and should have been caught.  After looking at some replays, the official scorer changed his call and charged Valbuena with the error.  

It's especially nice for me, since last year I decided to start a Darwin Barney player collection.  He's the type of player I really enjoy:  plays the game the right way, consistent, not flashy, a team player.

Up next for Barney is the major league record, 141 games, set by Placido Polanco of the Tigers in 2007.  Without any rainouts or days off, Barney would tie the record on September 27 and break it the following day.  The overall record is 186 games, which would take up to game 40 next season...if he gets that far.

I've got 75 different Barney cards.  In honor of his accomplishment, I've created another, based on the Record Breaker cards in the 1979 set...

Congrats, Darwin!