Card Show-Off: Vintage Rookies at WAR

I'm finally getting to posting the rest of this card show. The magic word today is vintage. Well-loved vintage, of course. Read on for the big rookie WAR.

But first, we'll start with this beauty. For $2 the thrill of Duke Snider's wall catch is mine to behold. Now, Topps might have their fancy-smancy short print Great Catch cards this year, but they're not as cool as this one. Which would you rather have, a slightly scuffed-up '59 Snider in action or some over-hyped picture of Mark Reynold bumbling over a tarp roll? Gotta love that vintage.

The deals go on. These were dime and quarter box finds, and finds they were. Bask in the glory of a rare smile from Mr. Gibson. I think my favorite in this group is the Post Minnie.

Now we're getting into my favorite finds: vintage rookies. These, also, were quarter box finds. Sure, these aren't Hall-of-Famers, but they're names we know and love. Those are exactly the rookies I'm always looking for. Let's play a little game. Of these semi-star rookies, who was the best bargain statistically, going by the very simple stat of career WAR. In order, Tasby has a sad negative WAR of -0.6. Tommie Agee, who was 1 hit shy of 1000 career hits, has a WAR of 25.5. Frank the Tank Tanana (no one called him that), who is a Detroit native and one of those Tigers pitchers from my youth, has a WAR of 57.5. Finally, poor Bill Buckner had a surprisingly low 14.7 (they must be counting a certain game against him).

These, too, were amazingly quarter box finds. Are you kidding me!? Look at those giant trophies! Let the games continue! Matty Alou's WAR is 23.3. Crusty Rusty Staub has a WAR of 45.8. And finally Bert Blanco Campaneris racks up a sweet 53.3.

So, the biggest bargain by WAR is Tanana.

And in case you don't know like I do exactly what a WAR is and how it's calculated, here you go (according to Wiki):

where

Well, that's some highlights anyway. Simple as a quarter box.

Card Show-Off: Vintage Dime Box Treasures

The Vealtones are so backlogged we actually have two card shows to showoff. To start, this one was a mall show in Grand Rapids, a show that happens a few times a year. It takes me about an hour to drive to, and it's usually worth it. This time, yup.

I love the Baseball Thrills subset, and this triptych of Mays' famous catch might be the coolest card in the set. The price tag was--you won't believe this--one dollar. That's right, for just some round corners and subtle creases it was just a single solitary buckaroo.

I didn't even look at the back of the card until I got home, which is when I said, Oh, I see.

I'm not even sure what this is, but I'm pretty sure this giant glob of tar or spit chaw would ensure that Beckett would refuse to ever slab this card. Still, I'm thrilled to get this for a buck.

I have a very modest and informal Rollie Fingers player collection, which I was able to add to. These all came out of a dime box. I love the Kellogg's card. Rollie's mustache may've been at its creepiest in his Brewers days.

More randomness from the dime boxes. These will all be making their way into trade packages for my pals eventually.

More from the dime box: semi-star rookie cards. I'm a huge fans for rookie cards, especially when they cost me a dime. Dang, I didn't realize Mr. Kingman had 442 career home runs. And Reuss had 220 wins. Nettles, well, he had a brother named Graig.

Two fellas I can never turn down for a bargain: Sparky and Bill. Sparky will eventually become a formal player collection, once I get my crap together. Did you know he own a baseball signed by the Pope?

Out of all these great vintage treasures, these were my favorite find. Out of the dime box comes these presidents. I love political cards. I love art cards. I love minis. These are all of the above. I guess they're 1974 Panographics, according to COMC. I don't know anything else about them, but I'm curious. I especially love the Teddy Roosevelt card. I took a doctoral lit class based on literature associated with Teddy. The man was brilliant, read a book a day and remembered every single word he read. Too bad our presidents don't herald literature like that anymore.

Anyway, great finds. Next post, I'll show the modern cards.