Finally, after months of searching, I found a copy of this HOFer's card with the Band-Aid on the forehead

Awesome, Glad you finally got one!

I never knew about this. Is there a story to it?

Several other variation collectors pointed this card out in another thread.....my guess is sometime during the early print runs of these 73s, someone at Topps noticed the BandAid on Al's head. Before more print runs were completed, one of the air brushing guru's at Topps jumped all over the opportunity to artfully "heal" Al's forehead. Not exactly sure how limited this card is, however, just on ebay alone, I looked several times a day for 3+ months for a copy to show up, so my guess is that Topps caught this early on. Another similar variation is the 66 Don Landrum button/no button card.

Thank you Ben.....

savedfrommyspokes, Congrats on landing that Kaline card. I remember reading the thread that someone had started. For sure not an easy one to find.

Here is my latest addition to my Johnny Bench collection. Very happy to find one that is nicely centered both front and back.
http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...sa-8.5-2-small

Thanks Chris that is a better picture. Guess I should have just used the one from ebay. The Orange Cal has a total pop of 19 now, 16 unqualified whole grades, a 3.5, and a qualified 5 and 6. I don't know about SGC or BVG but 25-30 total graded sounds about right. Pretty rare either way. Especially for a modern card. There aren't many cards from the 60s or 70s that are worth anything in a 1 or a 3, let alone 1980.

56 Berra
 

That 73 Kaline is awesome...now I want one....here's a 56 Berra I got today...

December Pick Ups
 

My very first Cobb. Enjoying this card a lot!!

@Gemmint: Nice Cobb you got there! Any plans on a greenie? or bat version
I know its pre-war, but man you goota love it. I noticed in my slections, i did not like the peidmont backs, i just dont know why.

Received these Sadaharu OH and Shigeo Nagashima Japanese HOF RC's to complete my 1959 Menko Doyusha Team Back Set courtesy of Rob Fitts.


http://i537.photobucket.com/albums/f...MenkoOH-RC.jpg

Loving the month so far. Some stuff rarely seen in these pages between the Japanese cards, the Cobb, the three Ripkens, etc.

[[

The centering is terrific, but the real standout to me is how rich the red is. Peter, you post nothing but gorgeous cards.

been concentrating on the signed rc cards lately, so a lil slow on regular pick ups, but thrilled to own her...

http://caimages.collectors.com/psaim...ron9%20(2).jpg

Sweet pick ups! Those are such nice looking cards, and Rob Fitts is great to deal with. Pretty sure I got my Menko Doyusha Oh from him. Picked these ones up last month, the Oh coming from him as well.

Nice Frank Robinson. Talk about a guy who is under appreciated.

+1

love the oh cards! and agreed on the robinson. brooksie as well!

@pawpawdiv9 I would love to add a Green Cobb to the collection!! Wouldn't we all?? But that will have to wait. I am slowly working on the T206 set, basic Mantle run & PSA 7 Clemente collection. Thanks for the comments.

Nice Robinson.

Just in today.....drum roll please...
 

http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/204295...MANTLE_NEW.JPG


...affordable only because of the condition ; got tired of waiting for a decent one .

..

..

Very nice Musial Peter. Congratulations.
Drew

Great pickup Mike. One of my favorite Mantle items.

Really cool Mantle...what is it? And great Musial! I'll bring the thread back down to Earth now with this one...http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/12...e2ae07f222.jpg

Nice Yaz Jason.

I have always liked the All Star cards and the 69's are no exception. The All Star cards as well as the All Star rookies are always neat sub sets to collect in my opinion.

Agreed. I suspect my vote would match that of many others that for all around look plus player selection, 1958 Topps can't be beat--Mantle, Musial, Aaron, Mays, Williams,... For me, next is 1961 followed by its 1970 clone. The 1970 AS card has a cool design concept but some of the action b/w shots are sketchy (like this Yaz), and I begrudge it for omitting Aaron.

The '57 Reese is one of my favorites. Hard to find one with much better centering.

Attachment 214999

Bob, how many of those proofs are known to exist?

nice catch, peter!

not exactly sure. 2 others that i know of for sure...

1 was actually auctioned off by topps vault in '04, i believe.

77 Jackson Oriole
 

very impressive

Glad to add this one to my collection.

According to Keith Olbermann's blog site "Baseball Nerd" there are at least eight known copies of the 1977 Topps Reggie Jackson proof card. There are only one known copy each of the 1977 Grote and 1977 Thompson proof cards.

very cool and thanks for the additional info, cliff!

i believe olberman has the one from toppsvault, if i remember correctly?

but if i had to guess, i'd say there are quite a few more out there than that.

maybe 50 or less total.

never know if some print tech stashed away a hoard... ; )

Nellie
 

http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0woflp7l.jpg

Now at 80/160 for the set.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/12...b650c5f9df.jpg

Pretty clean addition to my set run.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

1977 proofs
 

I think before he retired Bob Lemke told me he had a framed uncut 1977 proof sheet in his office that had all of the 77 Proofs he had check listed in SCD on it. I think that sheet may have been auctioned off by SCD after he retired. I will ask him if he can chime in on what he knows about those proofs

please do! i'd love to know if any of them have a printed back to them.

from what I have gathered only blank backs exist.

edit: also dimension sizes. i would assume that they are all originally cut from sheets and dims would vary...

but this one and another seem to be just a bit skinnier than the reg sized cards.

of course if those other cards that were mentioned are even rarer, that might explain why this one is oc on the left?

who knows?!?!

gonna try to get him to sign it eventually and then send it off to sgc. it's a shame psa wont touch proofs.

The half-sheet (66) we had with the '77 proofs was, indeed, blank-back. I don't know of any '77 proofs with printed backs.

As for the number of Jackson/Orioles proofs extant, I tend to agree with KO, probably fewer than 10.

The half-sheet we had was auctioned after I left the company; I don't recall the details as to selling.

Proofs
 

Even more legendary and scarce are the 3 1960 Proofs of Cimiloi, Hadley and Thronberry with different teams, but as I recall, Bob, the ones you have seen had finished backs, making them more like variations

Jumped all over this Kaline with the bandage on his forehead variation. I have to imagine there are very, very few out there graded this high. Love it!!!

Attachment 215130

Soon, I will add my pal Al to my ongoing 'errors and variations for trade' thread in the B/S/T.

R. Jackson
 

Didn't thetoppsvault auction one at one of the National events w/Reggie included? Think it was the same auction that had the N. Ryan rookie transparency, but I may be mistaken.

Thanks, I lost out by a dollar on that one. :eek: I was hoping no one else caught the bandage considering that you couldn't zoom over the photo.

Congrats. Major score with Kaline PSA 8.

Managed to have no cards of Luis Aparicio...till now.

Attachment 215144

This brings up a trivia question I definitely don't know the answer to: Aparicio and Nellie Fox made up a HOF middle infield for the Chisox from 1956-1962...ballpark 1000 games. What HOF middle infield played the most games together? A few pairings that come to mind are Tinker/Evers, Yount/Molitor, and Reese/Robinson. Definitely wouldn't be surprised if none of these were the answer though.

Trammell and Whitaker maybe?
http://www.thebaseballpage.com/commu...aseball-heaven

Great answer but missing the HOF piece. Still, I'd probably take this pair over Fox/Aparicio.

Good point Jason. Being a Tigers fan I some how conveniently overlooked that fact.