Joy of Inked Vintage: The Great Del-Ink Mystery

It's been a while since I posted about one of the vintage Bowman cards I picked up from my LCS. For those of you that don't know, they have a few boxes of '50s Bowman cards that are bargain priced because the guy they bought the collection from wrote in ink on the cards. But a little ink never scared this collector.

In fact, I love a little ink when it means I get an awesome 1950 Bowman card of catching great Del Crandall for 3 bucks. Not a bad price for an 8-time all-star and 4-time Gold Glove winner. Along with Tigers, I'm always looking for vintage cards of catchers in gear, and you get the full effect of the '50s gear here. The gear here is very cool, as is the background, and the signature '50s Bowman blue skies. This card just screams, "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks."

What I can't really figure out is the writing on this card. Usually, on most of the inked cards, the guy wrote the name of the team the player was traded to. But what do we make of this? I'm thinking this is in reference to Jesse Flores, a mediocre pitcher from Del's era. But why write Jesse's name here? What do the letters after mean? It's like a Ginter crack-the-code kind of deal. Oh well. The point that matters most is that this ink allowed this card to fit into my budget.

Card Show Show-off: Kaline, Rollie, and Ambiguous Keller

I usually start off my card show reviews with the dime boxes, but I'll flip things around this time and start with the big purchases. I went to this show a little over a month ago. It was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a mall show, but still good despite proximity to Gap mannequins and mind-numbing muzak.

Here's my big splurge. A pretty epic Kaline get for the player collection. I'm not a hug fan of 1960 Topps and all the extreme close-up portraits, but I love this card. There's some whimsy in Kaline's eyes and an awkward half-smirk. The color design really works well here, too, the yellows against the red, the old Tigers logo pulling it all together.

Here's the back, just for fun, complete with goofy cartoon rendition of Kaline catching a fly ball. Who knew he had so little hair under his cap?

This Kaline card was marked for $6, but I talked the guy down to $5 and got him to throw in this card for free:

I just always like these combo cards from the early Topps sets, and getting this card for free made the above Kaline all the sweeter.

I also picked up some game-used for a hell of a bargain:

My Rollie Fingers collection is quite casual, but he just looks so damn cool on cards I can't turn down a good deal. I love the green jersey here, which obviously is not from a Brewers uniform. I usually hate these kind of team mash-ups, but it works for this card.

When I first started collecting, as a kid, Boggs was my guy. The reason I liked him is kind of ridiculous: his mustache looked like my uncle's facial hair. Well, that was enough for me. And now I have a little bit of jersey from Mr. Flaming Mustache Fried Chicken Eater.

I also found a great dollar box from a guy dealing almost exclusively Tigers cards. Usually in Michigan Tigers cards are way over-priced, but I found some crazy bargains.

A 2005 Verlander rookie for a buck? Yes, sir, I'll take it. Plus it's from one of my favorite mid-2000s sets, Diamond Kings. I have to say, though, that this is just a horrible portrait of Verlander. I don't think it's just because he's missing his facial hair. There's something seriously wrong with Verly's mouth.

This was in the dollar box, too, a 1950 Bowman Charlie Keller. It's in fantastic shape. I couldn't believe this card was in the dollar box, and I even dared to ask the dealer if this was a reprint or an original. He gave it a glance, said it was original, and the whole time I was worrying he'd say, Oops, that's not supposed to be in there. But, no, he sold it to me for a buck. I still can't really believe this is an original, but I can't see anything that screams reprint on it.

The size is right, the printing and color look correct. There is a weird thing going on with the five stars logo at the top right crowding into the text. Here's a comparison with a card up on COMC:

The "Charlie Keller" in red at the top also looks like it's spaced a bit different. So, what do you guys think? Reprint or the real thing? I'd greatly appreciate your sagely insights. Regardless, for a buck, it's certainly worth the gamble. Hell, I might have still paid a buck for a reprint.

So, pretty nice hits from the card show. I stayed on target pretty well, mostly picking up cards that actually fit into the collection. Next post, I'll show off those sweet cheapo boxes.

Jo-Jo and Dizzy: eBaying for Vintage

I lucked into some swell vintage on eBay recently, and for a decent price. First off, another addition to the vintage Bowman Tigers team sets.

Dizzy Trout is looking pretty nerdy here, and this may be one of the worst backgrounds for a posed card ever. It looks like they caught Dizzy just turning away from the bathroom urinal. And all that awkwardness makes this card all the better. I got it for around $2 shipped, and it's not in terrible shape, despite the tape marks.

Pretty typical Bowman card back here. Some crammed stats. Signature Bowman sentence fragment.

The other vintage card I recently picked up I'm even more excited about.

This one ran me $6 shipped, which is a hell of a deal for an original Diamond Stars card in this kind of condition. I found this as a Buy It Now, and that took me about a minute to make my decision to click. I absolutely love the design of this set, the art deco backgrounds, the primary colors, the comic book-looking players. I'd love to go after the Tigers team for this set, but there are some cards in there I'll probably never be able to justify spending.

One of the coolest elements of this set is the card back. Rather than stats, Diamond Stars opted for mini-lessons on playing baseball, geared toward children. Remember when cards were for kids? They still are for me. Collecting brings out the twelve-year-old inside of me. Here we get a lesson on sliding, discussing Jo-Jo's "kicking slide." And Jo-Jo was pretty successful at stealing in his career, being top ten in the league for steals three different seasons. I love what they say about the kicking slide: "This is not recommended to boys, for the reason that even ordinary types of sliding are dangerous unless carefully practiced." You can tell they were a little worried about liability here. They didn't want little Timmy's mom to sue them after he snapped his shin.

So, pretty nice work on the eBay vintage here, eh? Has anyone else snagged any Diamond Stars deals online? It's such a great set, but hard to not break the bank collecting it.

Let's Go to the Card Show: Big Spender, AKA the Dollar Box

I'll follow up my last card show post about the dark and mysterious back-alley slum-world of the dime boxes with an exciting conclusion: the pristine, shimmering sidewalks of the dollar boxes. But, really, the sidewalks can be just as dangerous. Check out what happened to Dick Kryhoski.

Dick's clean, smiley mug got all beat-up. But Walker got it worse:

This card has every bit of damage a vintage card could have: paper-loss, tape lines, creases, rounded corners, pen doodles, rat nibbles. Beckett would have to make a negative scale if they were to grade this card. I think I was actually drawn to it by how terribly this card was abused. That, and I thought the dealer would give me a good deal. These two Bowman cards actually didn't come out of the dollar boxes. They were in a pile of vintage cards with no pricing--I hate that. I ended up paying $4 for the pair, which was probably too much, but oh well.

Next up, my first-ever coin purchase in Boog, followed by my second-ever coin purchase in Mr. Santo.

I didn't really need either of these, but I thought someone else out there would enjoy getting them in a trade package.

Another two dollar box purchase here. Walt Dropo makes for my first 1954 Tigers card. Now I just need to find a good deal or a trade for a Tigers card from '53 and '52.

I also found this in the dollar box. I can't turn down these group photos from the 1960 Topps set, and in the same box I found my best deal of the show:

The most notorious card of the junk wax era. I found the black box in a quarter box once, and there seems to be as much variance on the price of this card as there are versions. But I didn't expect to ever see the genuine uncensored Fancy Face version in a dollar box. These are the rewards yielded from hours of scrounging through the cheap boxes. Do we need a closer look? Yes we do:

Bryce Harpukkah: Day One, Tigers Vintage

I scored a Bryce Harper International card a while back in a retail pack of 2011 Bowman, and I was thrilled. Not because I give a crap about Bryce Harper, but because I missed out on Stras-Fever. I put the card right up on the ol' Bay of e and sold it for $35. Now, that's not much of a haul for most of you bloggers, but that's a big budget for me. I gave myself the joyous task of spending that $35 as soon as possible, and I thought I'd post what kind of jolly tidings old St. Harper could bring me.

Oops. Strike that. This is Harpukkah. Napkin Doon owns the rights to the Brycemas holiday, and I credit him with the inspiration for this post and the string that will follow. Thanks for the idea, Nap. We still have a trade to get going soon.

So, there's eight days of Hannukah, and thusly eight days of Bryce Harpukkah. That's about what it took me to spend my sales. Well, let's say I spent my Harpukkah cash in eight days. That just makes this whole thing tidier.

I think we'll start off the first day of Hannukah with some vintage:

1954 Bowman Fred Hatfield. I snagged this one off eBay for less than the price of a stamp. Sometimes I feel kind of guilty when I win these auctions, when the seller actually loses money. Well, OK, I don't feel that guilty. This card has a crease right through the middle and some serious damage in the top left corner, but you get what you pay for. How's that Harper trade looking so far? Kind of dreary? Fear not. We have many cards to come.

And what's so wrong with this one? It's vintage Bowman; it's a Tigers card. All seems right with the world so far. And Fred "Scrap Iron" Hatfield led the league in being hit by a pitch in four seasons. I guess that's why he became scrap.

Here's something a bit more Bryce-worthy:

1950 Bowman: Walter "Hoot" Evers. This is just a fantastic looking card. It has everything I love about these vintage Bowman cards and more. While many of the pictures are posed portraits, this artwork looks inspired by a semi-action shot, Hoot taking practice swings on deck. Hoot cards only go up to 1954, so there aren't a ton of them, and I'm glad to own this one. It's a little roughed up, but in pretty great shape overall for a little over $2 shipped.

That does it for day one. Much more to come with Harpukkah in October.