Really like those 58 all-stars and the whole issue overall. What a dream outfield on the NL side...Mays, Aaron, Robinson...and then Stan the Man at first base!

Some really incredible cards coming in this month. Matt, good God, man. What can I say? I'd gladly chop off a foot, and hop around on one foot for just one of those. Two? Yikes. Your eye for great cards is only matched by your sheer aggressiveness in chasing, and acquiring what you want. Congratulations on now having two beautiful Micks.

Bob-truth be told, Erskine is one of my favorite Bums. He only had the one 20 win season, and a couple other pretty good years, but I liked him because of the things I read about him. He was one of the Dodgers that lived in the area (Bay Ridge), and when they weren't playing, it was said that Carl spent a lot of time at one of the local diamonds where kids were playing the game. He was a real positive presence in the community, and he was always encouraging the kids that were playing. How can you not like a player that does that? Those days are gone, unfortunately, but I will always have respect for Oisk. :p There's a really nice '53 Bowman Erskine on the current Joe's Vintage Sports Card auctions that I'm bidding on. It's in high excellent shape, well centered, beautiful eye appeal, and it's au natural. It would be a nice addition to my in progress '53 set. Once I finish the '75 Topps set, I'll hit that pretty hard.

Some really incredible cards coming in this month. Matt, good God, man. What can I say? I'd gladly chop off a foot, and hop around on one foot for just one of those. Two? Yikes. Your eye for great cards is only matched by your sheer aggressiveness in chasing, and acquiring what you want. Congratulations on now having two beautiful Micks.

Bob-truth be told, Erskine is one of my favorite Bums. He only had the one 20 win season, and a couple other pretty good years, but I liked him because of the things I read about him. He was one of the Dodgers that lived in the area (Bay Ridge), and when they weren't playing, it was said that Carl spent a lot of time at one of the local diamonds where kids were playing the game. He was a real positive presence in the community, and he was always encouraging the kids that were playing. How can you not like a player that does that? Those days are gone, unfortunately, but I will always have respect for Oisk. :p There's a really nice '53 Bowman Erskine on the current Joe's Vintage Sports Card auctions that I'm bidding on. It's in high excellent shape, well centered, beautiful eye appeal, and it's au natural. It would be a nice addition to my in progress '53 set. Once I finish the '75 Topps set, I'll hit that pretty hard.

Well, I don't have anything as astonishing as Matt's '52 Mantle, but I did get some nice cards in for my '75 set. I've got some more coming in yet, but I'll share these in the mean time. I've upped my list of cards that I'll have graded from the set to well over 30. I'm working on adding those stars and rookies all in PSA 8 or higher, and the Brewer team set, all near mint or better. I'm also adding some minor stars when I find them in really high quality at a good price. 660 cards is going to be a good exercise of discipline, but I'll get there.

Three graded to start: Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Phil Niekro, and another man I feel will eventually be in the Hall, Dave Parker.

http://imageshack.com/a/img908/3622/ESKAeO.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img673/6678/38sqDv.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img910/3041/UWs8zm.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img912/857/3zXtET.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img673/102/PFAmwr.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img912/4076/vDBcpN.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img743/209/W8Ge5l.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img913/7129/7mPRA8.png

And, some really nice ungraded cards. Recent Hall inductee, and longtime Chicago Cub great Ron Santo. A fine hitter, and an even better defensive third baseman (six consecutive Gold Gloves for the Rangers from 1979 to 1984) Buddy Bell. The 1974 American League MVP, also from the Texas Rangers, Jeff Burroughs. And two former Milwaukee Brewers, a pretty good right handed pitcher who won 32 games between 1978 and 1979, Jim Slaton, and catcher turned right fielder, and fan favorite, Charlie Moore.

Stache, have you read the back of the 54 Bowman Carl Erskine? The last sentence is a bit out of left field.

These are 3 cards I've picked up this month. I'm especially happy with the '60 Post. I've been looking for a nice one of these for a while.

Agree on Dave Parker. He was all-everything in the late 1970s. Parker, Foster, Rice, Lynn, and Reggie were the OF demigods of my childhood. I remember watching a game (1979 AS?) where Parker threw out TWO runners from the outfield. Unheard of, at least to a 9-year old.

And I remember much more vividly the 1988 WS game where Hershiser notched three hits, including two doubles, while holding the entire A's team to three hits. And all three hits were by Dave Parker!! This was a man who terrorized opposing pitchers and baserunners like no other, at least while in his prime.

It was in Seattle. The Cobra was my favorite player at the time. I was lucky enough to be sitting in the right field bleachers when he unleashed both of those incredible throws.

AustinMike---

Heartiest of congratulations on your Mantle acquisitions. The '56 is great, but that '60 Post Cereal is a real honey. I never, repeat NEVER, get tired of gazing at either of those Mantle gems.

For whatever it's worth, I cannot agree with you more strongly regarding how hard it is to find a very pleasing 1960 Post Mickey. You should feel a deep sense of accomplishment with owning that regal card. ---Brian Powell

The Cobra was my favorite player as a Little Leaguer in the late '70's. I had his model glove and bat (not that they helped me all that much). However, in 1979, I did attend the Bucky Dent Baseball School and received first-hand instruction from NY Yankees, Ron Guidry (pitching), Reggie Jackson (hitting), Lou Piniella (hitting), Dent (fielding) but missed the final session on catching as that was going to be Thurman Munson's area but he had just died a couple of months earlier in the ill-fated plane crash.

Excuse the language here, but holy shit!

I just got off the phone with Toppcat and I asked him out of the blue "Do you think there are 1971 Topps Greatest Moments packs or wrappers in existence?" and he pointed me to this.

I'd say that is the T-206 Wagner of wrappers....

i agree, the 60 post is one of the better images i liked and the rich deep salmon color added great color. I sold mine a while back (sgc10) in August, but since i changed my collecting goals, i dont have any regrets selling it, since I still have the 51 wheaties

Not baseball but a card I can't believe was only $2...it just came today!

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...ac58b404f7.jpg http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...cd207fda26.jpg

It's a 1924 tobacco card of Sir Isaac Newton, the Babe Ruth of physics...minus the womanizing!

Brian - thanks for the kind words. The '60 Post Mantle was probably one of the first baseball cards I ever had. I followed that up in the summers of '61, '62, and 63 accompanying my mom to the store to advise her on what boxes of cereal to get. So besides the beauty of the card itself, there are the memories attached to it. Now, if I could just afford a nice '52 Topps Mantle before Matty buys them all up. ;)

Beautiful 60 Post. I don't think I've seen one that nice before. Mine is a beater.

I want to say Warren Brustar was a HR, but I could be wrong. 78 was my first packs and remember them fondly, including the game.

AustinMike some nice Mantle pickups. Post Mantle rocks the house! Congrats!

Bill some nice 75's you picked up. Those 8's look very strong and the raw pickups look great as well. How far along are you with this set? I know you recently started it.

Here are some mid-grade Mantles that I was very happy to add this month.

http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...97/1963-mantle http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...y-mantle-psa-5
http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...-mickey-mantle

Wow -- so much action here don't know where to begin. Let's start with the last. Those Mantles are EXACTLY what I am after these days. I'm floored by those three. They each have the best centering I've ever laid eyes on for those years. If I owned those cards I wouldn't need to buy them in a higher grade ever. Did you find them raw and self sub, in one lot, over years?

Many thanks for the props from you fellas on the new Mick. A centered 52 Mick is simply my favorite card in the world. Stings like hell to be selling cards to make it happen-- but one look at the centered 52 and it makes it okay. Not great, buy okay, LOL.

The 71 Greatest Moments is one of the more interesting (and tough) sets around, and anything having to do with a pack of those is wild.

The Newton has great style and I'd be curious to see the whole set. What a title: LEADERS OF MEN. That's baller, to make that set!

Stache, you are killing it on the selections for your 75 Set. That's the kind of curation that makes the sum much greater than the parts. As someone who spent six years building only a set of 75s (minis), I really appreciate the specimens you are choosing. Bold color, clean surfaces, centered, that set is gonna look insane when it is all together.

Matt, thanks for noticing the centering on the Mantles. After seeing a lot of your pickups over this past year of mid-grade cards with great centering it got me looking at cards in a totally different way. I picked all 3 of them off of Ebay as is. I scored the 63 for what I think was a great price of $115. Could not figure out why no one jumped on that one because I hesitated for a few days. The picts were not well taken as it was on an angle and had a reflection that made part of it look like it had a white spot on the bottom near the letter OF. I gambled and when I received it I could not believe the centering and overall condition.

One more in, this really nice Catfish Hunter.

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/1390/lSw4ho.png

Thank you, jb and Matt.

To answer your question, jb, the 5 other Brewers I have coming in will give me 25 thus far that will be part of the set. I have some Raymond (clydepepper) also sent me, a couple of which I will use as stand ins for the time being. Long way to go, but I'm going to do some more shopping tonight. I'll probably add another 20-25 or so by the month's end. I'm not in any hurry. It's about finding the right cards for me. I've looked at a lot of cards, and finding examples that meet all my requirements is time consuming. I have a few I've bought I know I'm already going to replace, the Winfield most likely. There's one corner that's touched.

I am allowing the very smallest of print imperfections, so long as they're really only obvious upon closer inspection. And some of these the left-right centering is slightly off, but nothing more than 60-40, and eventually, I'll work on getting it to 55-45. The ones i have thus far are all real beauties. Some, like the Gibson, will be sent in for grading.

Being picky is sometimes a little maddening when you're looking for a specific card. But I've just learned to just move on to the next card on my list, and come back to something I can't find now. Once I have a little more freedom in my spending money, I'll start putting some want lists up here on the BST.

I'm having a lot of fun, and that's the most important thing. :D

Here's my checklist this far

1975 Topps Checklist

29. Dave Parker (PSA 8)
35. Ron Santo
38. Buddy Bell
61. Dave Winfield
74. Mark Belanger (PSA 8)
99. Mike Hegan
123. Johnny Briggs
130. Phil Niekro (PSA 8)
140. Steve Garvey
150. Bob Gibson
175. Don Money
220. Don Sutton
223. Robin Yount
230. Jim Hunter
260. Johnny Bench (PSA 8)
280. Carl Yastrzemski
281. Jim Slaton
325. Tony Oliva
360. George Scott
370. Tom Seaver (PSA 8)
432. Ken Berry
470. Jeff Burroughs
556. Tim Johnson
636. Charlie Moore
640. Harmon Killebrew (PSA 8)

One card at a time. :D

Very nice Catfish Bill! Good luck with the set.Looking good so far!

Thank you, Steve. :) The '75 set is perfect for me right now. I have the money to buy more expensive cards if I wanted, but I'm like the prize fighter that's abstaining from sex before the title fight. I'm resisting the urge to reach my goal. So, instead of spending $100 on a common T206, or $500 on a Hall of Famer, I spend $15-20 on a Hall of Famer, and a couple bucks on a common. There will, of course, be some more expensive cards. The Yount will be replaced by a PSA 8.5 or a 9. The Brett will be costly, Misters Ryan, Schmidt, Aaron, etc can cost a pretty penny, as can the other rookies. But I'll just keep chugging along, having fun, and when I hit my goal, the next check will be spent on a big pickup or two.

Doing what I am, and seeing these beauties you guys are bringing in, keeps me going. The attaboys are much appreciated, gang. I'm not doing anything that hasn't been done before, but it's fun for me because it's the first time I've really done it. It's like popping a girl's bra the first time. Until you do it, you can hear the stories, but that rush can only come when you do it the first time.

Of course, it's pretty darned cool every time after that, too, because a good time usually follows.

I enjoy this board, and the pre-war board over der, much like I would enjoy sitting at a bar with you guys, tossing down a couple of beers, watching the Sawx and damned Yankees playing at Fenway on a Saturday afternoon. It's all the greater because right now, getting out and going to the real sports bar right now is a little tough on the back. So this is the next best thing.

I am really having fun, everybody, and I thank you all!

1968 bazooka baseball shipping carton
 

Hi Guys:

Not really something I collect, so I will be looking to move it, but could not pass it up. I just got a shipping carton for the 1968 Bazooka set.

If you can't read the side of the box because of the flash it says:

NEW! BASEBALL BOX PROMOTION

4 All-Star Baseball Cards on each box

PLUS

Informative Baseball Lesson on Back of box

24 boxes 25 count

Nice Erskine story, Bill!

Some cards
 

Since getting back in to the hobby, there are certain cards I remember ogling from afar when I was a kid...legendary players whose exploits reached Bunyan-like levels of legend....this was one such player for me... despite having no Cardinals affinity, I remember looking at this rookie at one of the many Valley Forge Convention Center shows that my dad drove me to (with my $50-$75 in pocket to spend)...to finally attain such a nice copy, even with that slight bit of off-centeredness, has been one of the true thrills and highlights of my collecting renaissance....and what was especially nice was showing this to my dad while visiting him in Pennsylvania today, 25+ years later after these shows and having him say, "Wow...Bob Gibson!! Did I ever tell you about this guy...."

Gibson
 

I am a Cardinals and Gibson fan, even though at age 9 when I first got this card I had no idea who he was...and he had lousy stat on the back. My personal favorite is his 60 card...but he still had lousy stats. I wonder if whoever picked pink for his 59 card lived long enough to see the irony in it. Except for this card, who would ever think pink in the same thought with Bob Gibson :)

Nice card Carl

Topps Scoop Ruth
 

One of my favorite Ruths but I got carried away last month and got an unopened pack. I also picked up an empty wax box to go along with. A complete set would be nice in the future.
http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=16697http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=16698

Ok, I have now. What the heck? LOL. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

"Chief, did you see the one they call Erskine threw a no hitter tonight?"

"That's it! We shall name him honorary Chief in recognition of his baseball mastery!

Been wanting a decent Nuxhall for my 1952 High number run......up to 22 now. Pick away SLLLOOOWWWLY....
Also got my FINAL low number card.....Gil Hodges red back in about EX from Chris and Kris Buckler (somersetvelvet on ebay).....great card.....great people!
Have 1-310 and 1-80 in both red and black. Now the highs.....and upgrade about 10 or so from the low number set to get rid of creases..........

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n...00/nuxhall.JPG

Man, I love just looking at the stuff you guys have picked up!

Indeed....the entire card - with the friendly smile - is a sharp contradiction to what you got from Bob on the field. Thanks, Al!

Just arrived today in the mail SGC 45 Rookie Aaron. I cannot believe the richness of color on this card given the grade. My second Aaron rookie in the past month. Was not looking for one but when I saw this one I had to go for it. Now I have to decide which one to keep.

http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...-rookie-sgc-45

Recent pickups
 

Recent rookie card pickups. I think all except one was from an N54 board member.

Re: November pickups
 

I have to imagine whatever kid pulled that from a pack 60 years ago was saying, "Never heard of this guy!" Who would have believed just 20 years later the player on this card would break baseball's greatest record!

Here was the All-Time Home Runs leaderboard going into the 1954 season--the 500 Club had only three members! And unless you go back a long, long ways as a fan, I think #5 will shock you!

1. Babe Ruth - 714
2. Jimmie Foxx - 534
3. Mel Ott - 511
4. Lou Gehrig - 493
5. Joe DiMaggio - 361

Wow, how long ago that was. 10 points if you can name the only three players in the history of the National League besides Mel Ott to have attained 300 HR by the start of the 1954 season.

Great stuff Dan.I really like that J.Robinson !

Stan Musial? Still trying to figure out the other ones.

Dan those are very nice. Some serious eye candy with the centering on all of those.

Musial entered 1954 at 257 HRs. Notably, two of the three players enjoyed their final Topps card in the 1953 set. The third was a bit more contemporary to Ott.

Here is one of my recent acquisitions

Another

One of these days I hope to join the club with a high-grade big time card. But in the meantime, I am so excited about the great stuff that came in today's mail--

At long last, and thanks to a kind Net54 member, the Eau Claire Bears Hank Aaron minor league mini-bobble!

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...1fe4d9c333.jpg http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...05747b8097.jpg

And three vintage Jackie Robinson mags (1949, 1950, 1951), three more Isaac Newtons, a '69 Joe Morgan, and a '64 Killebrew!

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...87dc6d2a76.jpg

Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize I believe and the 3rd one I am still struggling with but will hopefully figure it out. I think it is Al Simmons.

Really well done!! Kiner and Mize are correct. Meanwhile, Simmons was AL, but the right answer is essentially the Al Simmons of the NL.

I was going to say Mize also but his card is with the Yankees and the question was with what 3 NL players unless you count Mize when he was with the N.Y. Baseball Giants, but it was his last Topps card. But definitely Kiner, hands down.

Never mind, late to the party.

I am counting Mize because 300+ of his HRs were with NL teams (Cards, Giants). Ditto for Kiner even though he played for the Tribe a bit at the end.

That was a great trivia question. Thanks for making me strain (exercise) my brain a little.

Just to close the book on the trivia question, the final NL 300 clubber was Chuck Klein...exactly 30 HRs while playing for the Phils, Cubs, and Pirates.

I got Kiner within about 10 seconds. It just took thinking about when his rookie year was.

1946. :D When you think of what he accomplished, playing on that terrible Pittsburgh team all those years, Kiner is easily one of the top five pure home run hitters in the history of the game. He lead the NL in home runs his rookie season with 23 round-trippers. Then he led the Major Leagues in home runs for the next six seasons.

Pretty amazing.

Ok, back to the pickups. Nothing really big, jut a few more Brewers came in. I'll post them because...what the heck.

http://imageshack.com/a/img674/2360/kaGZql.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img661/5065/A7mfk1.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img540/5259/mF4TTW.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img540/5781/gXrML1.pnghttp://imageshack.com/a/img746/9901/E8hoVM.png

All I can say is thank God for Robin Yount, because Tim Johnson was awful. He had 1,408 career plate appearances, and a -0.5 WAR for his career.

Tim Johnson never hit a home run.
Tim Johnson was a career .223 hitter.
Tim Johnson's career OPS was .539.

In 1976, Johnson hit a whopping .275 in 306 at bats.
In 1977, Johnson hit .061. He had 2 hits in 33 at bats. His slugging was .091. His OPS + was -23.

Thank God for Robin Yount.