1952 Bowman on the Cheap

For today's trip down vintage Bowman lane, we're visiting 1952. I dug both of these cards up at my LCS, which more properly stands for local comic store, or better yet, local magic card store. I pointed the store out to one of my friends once--a guy whose spent a fair amount of time playing Magic and WOW--and he said, "I bet there's a lot of neck beards in there." Oh, yes. Neck beards galore as they gather over their Mountain Dews to play Warhammer in the back of the room. Don't get me wrong. I'm not picking on the neck bearders. I'm a grown man drooling over boxes of vintage. Sometimes I ask to see the box of 1953 Bowman just to gaze at the sweet Pee Wee Reese card. And if it wasn't for the neck bearders, few local card stores would even still be able to exist.

Anyway, back to the cards. Here's the first one:

Virgil Stallcup didn't have much of a career, with only 7 inglorious seasons in the majors. But it's not the player that makes these cards, at least not for me. I love the '52 design, which I believe the '07 Bowman Heritage set is modeled after.  I find the stands to be the most interesting thing here. We get a little bit of the crowd in full color, but even better is the black silhouette in the background of the higher seats. There's something ominous about those shadowed spectators, and the black struts and girders give the card an industrial feel.

Here's the next piece of 1952:

When I pick these cards up, the main criterion is price, because I'm cheap. Both of these were $1.50 a piece, and I always know I'm not snagging any hall of famers with that sad budget. And part of the joy in picking up these cards is finding out about an obscure player from the '50s. Jim Delsing had a modest career with 10 seasons of nothing too special. What I didn't realize, however, was that Delsing played 5 seasons with the Tigers. That makes this card better.

Once again, the 1952 design is so great with the cloud background and the halide lights in the bottom corner (were they using halides in 1952?). The thick black outlines around Delsing really stand out on this card, which was another feature of the '52 design. The manu-autograph is well-placed across the jersey. And that's another thing I love about this design: that the signatures aren't all in one place, but wherever they look best. I almost wonder if the players actually decided where the signatures would go.

What's on TV? Vintage Bowman!

I've been a fan of Bowman Heritage for a while, have been working on finishing up the '07 set. Since Topps ended Bowman Heritage I've had to find something better. And isn't vintage always better.

I picked up this pair from the woodgrain set off the ol' ebay for about a buck a piece shipped. 

Here's the first one:

Ned played fourteen seasons in the majors, five and a half of those with the Tigers. Sure, he's no hall-of-famer, but he had a very respectable 129 career wins and an All-Star game. Ned's action pose marks the classic vintage Bowman style, and of course he's a Tiger, so that makes this card a must-have.

The only bad thing is that we got Ned by trading for this dude:

Ned didn't pan out so great, but Vic came back for a double dip in 1961.

Vic wasn't the other card I got in this round; just a good excuse to show a great card again. Here's the second card I picked up in this deal:

Toby Atwell had a hell of a rookie year in 1952 and got an invite to the All-Star game, but he never lived up to that first year and retired after five seasons. So why did I pick up this card? I always like a good catcher card, especially one that features the full gear. Here, Toby's even reenacting an infield pop up. You gotta love the dramatics of these TV cards. It's something like taxidermy in the best way possible: obviously posed action, long-finished career-spans, all featured within a rustic wooden frame.

So the cards are in rough condition and certainly no hall-of-famers, but interesting and awesome nonetheless. It makes me miss Bowman Heritage a little less.

HOF Bowman Vintage, or Is that Pee Wee on My Woodgrain TV?

I showed off some of my Bowman vintage in a previous post. Here's the rest of my collection:

It's the 1955 Bowman woodgrain TV set. There's something so great about this set. Nothing says retro like the TV frame featured here. It's probably the most recognizable and memorable vintage Bowman set. It may be a bit cheesey to some, but you have to admit to the design's staying power. I wish Topps would take risks like this these days.

The condition here is super rough. Definitely my most beat-up card in a top-loader. But who could pass up on this card for a few bucks? If you're going to have one card from this set, you could do a lot worse.

And from the 1954 Bowman set, here's Hoyt. I snagged this one on Ebay, also for a few bucks. I love this card, but this was one of the weaker designs, to me, of the early Bowman sets. I like the way the signatures are so clear, but the big blocks of color in the corner look clunky, out-of-place, almost like a sticker auto nowadays. It's also a very headshot-laden set--not my favorite pose for cards. Both of these cards are jumbo-sized, too. Bowman really played around a lot with their cards sizes. Pee Wee barely fits in a regular top loader.

It's great to have Hoyt in my collection. I just realized today, when I was looking over his career stats, that he pitched 21 seasons. He was fifty when he retired. Granted, he started when he was 30. There aren't many Hoyts and Jamie Moyers out there. Jamie has 24 seasons down, is 48, but a big difference is that he debuted at the age of 24. Think about how young they debut pitchers now. By the way, all of these stats are from Baseball Reference--a great website you're probably all aware of. I have to cite my sources like I make my students do.

Well, I'm close to having one card from each vintage Bowman set. Still missing one from 1948 and 1953. 1953 has one of the coolest card ever made in the set. I wish I had this Pee Wee Reese card:

Vintage Bowman, Non-Minty Fresh Condition

I've always been a fan of Bowman, being a rookie collector. In the last year, I've made one of my collecting goals be to acquire a card from each of the vintage Bowman sets. I try to keep myself on a tight budget when collecting, always looking for affordable deals. So, these cards are loveably roughed up. I hope you enjoy their scars, their life experience, as much as I do.

Vic Wertz from the 1952 Bowman set. I snagged this one off of the Ebays for less than two bucks shipped. I consider that quite a deal since he's in a Tigers uniform and Mr.Wertz actually had a respectable career: 17 MLB seasons, a few all-star appearances, his name even tossed around in HOF voting. Sure, the card is so thin it almost feels like a threadbare T-shirt and there's that big crease in the middle, as if the previous owner liked to make Vic bow to the empty stands in the background. All that wear just makes me dig this card more. This was such a great set for Bowman. I miss the hell out of Bowman Heritage.

Here's Del Rice from the 1951 set. He also had 17 seasons and one all-star appearance, but he was no Wertz. This card is in pretty good shape, probably the best of my old Bowmans, and I dig the old catcher getup. The catchers seemed to have the most interesting cards from these early sets.

Another great looking catcher card from the 1950 set: Bruce "Bull" Edwards. This one has some crazy writing scratched into it. I love that writing, because that's what allowed me to pick it up from my local card shop for almost nothing. The back has some more mysterious writing.

Hmmm... Some kid wrote Dodgers and Cubs, and I guess he wanted to document the Bull's trade. Think of this as a Bowman Traded card, then.

The oldest card I own: Ray Lamanno from the 1949 set. Another catcher, too, with that extended thumb on the glove. Ray's looking up toward a pop-up, or maybe some incoming pigeon bombs, but what he doesn't know is someone has scratched "Grounder to 36" behind Ray's back. What are you doing looking for a pop-up, Ray? Obviously, it's a grounder.

On the back, someone has reminded us Ray's on the Reds. Thank, buddy. Really, thanks for making this card in my price range. The signature in red on the back looked so great in this set, although the fronts were much less interesting than the Bowman sets that would follow. And you gotta love that game and bank advertisement that eats up half this card. Too bad I just missed the expiration date to order one.

So, doesn't this make you miss Bowman Heritage? Bring it back, Topps! And just so you know, all of these cards cost less than two dollars respectively. You can't beat vintage collecting on a budget. I'll post my other vintage Bowman soon. Thanks for reading.