Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The "Dog Pound"

Monday's entry was about a set that was given to consumers who bought dog food...so today I figured I'd share a bunch of dog ears.

Back when I was beginning to get into collecting vintage material as a teenager, I was often forced by necessity to keep my expenses low. Back then, when I still lived in my parents' house and my hobby purchases were usually financed by the First National Bank of Mom, I usually opted to find low-cost material to add to my budding collection.

Fortunately for me, it was the 1980s and there were still dealers who had dime and quarter boxes on their tables that could get me some vintage material. While I knew I wasn't going to pull any key cards from those boxes, they allowed me to add more cards to my collection given my budget. For some reason, I seemed to get an awful lot of 1958 Topps cards from those boxes. In fact, at one time, my collection of 1958 Topps cards featured so many dog-eared cards I began referring to it as my "dog pound" set.

While many of those cards have been upgraded over the years, I still have some of those cards in my binder. For your entertainment, here are some of the ones I haven't put up for adoption yet:

Sherm's card looks as wrinkled as his shirt. I know he was known for being a durable catcher, but this card just looks worn out.

A player whose uniform number has been retired by the Yankees, the 1963 American League MVP, and the guy who finally displaced Yogi Berra from behind home plate? Definitely worth a quarter.

This guy looks like he's gone several rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson.



This card was worth it for the name alone. Those of us who remember the TV game show Press Your Luck might wonder whether this card managed to lodge itself into the deep subconsciousness of a 1950s kid and future TV executive who thought "Whammy" would be a great name for the gnome who pops up and takes away all of a contestant's winnings.

Finally, this was a card that wasn't picked up in a dime or quarter box but is holding a space in the binder for a future upgrade anyway. 1958 was the first year the Dodgers played in L.A. so the team players' cap logos are all airbrushed in this set (and the Giants players, too). While the Dodgers' caps look relatively clean, some of the Giants look terrible. I'll have to show them in a future post.

Monday, September 27, 2010

1954 Red Heart

Cards were sold along with many products over the years. Most collectors know that early cards were sold with tobacco products and many of us remember when they came with a slab of gum. They've also been used to sell caramel, candy bars, cocoa,cheese, snack cakes, potato chips, milk, cereal, hot dogs, dog food...

Wait...did that really say dog food?

Yes, it did. Red Heart was a brand of dog food sold in the 1950s through the 1970s or so. They even ran ads like this one in Life magazine:


The makers of Red Heart figured that families with dogs probably also had kids as well, so it should be easy to sell cards by placing ads on their cans so they'd be easily seen when it was time to feed ol' Rover his liver-flavored dinner. So, in 1954 they offered series of cards in exchange for labels.


There are 33 cards; the set was available in three unnumbered series of 11 cards each. Each series has a distinctive solid background behind the player.

There were cards with blue backgrounds:


Another series featured green backgrounds:


The other series featured red backgrounds:


Cards with red backgrounds are somewhat scarcer than those with blue or green backgrounds. Card fronts feature a hand-colored player portrait over a solid background. The player's name is inside a diamond-shaped box below his picture and his team is listed at the bottom as part of the card's white border.

Card backs feature the player's full name, position and team name above detailed biographical info. The player's 1953 and lifetime statistics and a Red Heart advertisement are also prominently displayed. An example back is shown below:



Though the mail-in offer on cans of dog food was begun in 1954, it has been said that these cards were still available to those who requested them as recently as the early 1970s. The fact that they were still available two decades after its promotion had run caused a lower demand for the cards for years, but they've come to be seen in the hobby as a classic set.


While the set is full of stars, there are two key cards: Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial (neither appear in the 1954 Topps set; Musial wasn't in the 1954 Bowman set either). Musial is especially tricky as one of the scarcer red background cards. While not as hard to find as other card sets of its day, the 1954 Red Heart set is still popular. It has a nice design and classic look that is appealing to many collectors.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Q&A

Through my Vintage Baseball Cards website, Amanda asks:

"I have a Tom Seaver card that I can't seem to find the value of anywhere.  It's card No. 7 of 75.  On the bottom of the card's back is XOGRAPH, 1968 MLBP Ass'n, Insignia TM of Major League Club, 1969 MLB PromoCorp.  Can you tell me the estimated value of the card please?"


A:

The Seaver card is from the 1970 Kellogg's set. As you might guess from the set name, the card was available as a free "prize" inside boxes of cereal (Kellogg's did that every year from 1970-'83 inside boxes of Raisin Bran, Corn Flakes and other brands). The 1968 copyright date is a little misleading; it's the year that the player's union gave permission to Kellogg's to make the set. "Xograph" was the process the maker used to give the card its 3-D appearance.

Even though 1970 was the first year Kellogg's made sets, they are plentiful. However, because they are prone to curling and cracking, they have never been very popular. While I don't normally toss out card values here, I've seen 1970 Kellogg's -- including Hall of Fame players like Seaver -- for only a few dollars at card shops. If the plastic coating on your card has cracked, it's worth much less.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A Couple More Cards From My Collection

Last time, I posted about football cards and will continue that with a couple of cards from my own Steelers collection. Here are two of my 1957 Topps cards:

As you can see, my vintage football cards often tend to be in much better shape than my vintage baseball cards. I think that focusing on only a single team is part of the reason, but the fact that vintage football cards sell for much less than their baseball counterparts also helps.

For instance, look at the Stautner card. It's a high number card of a Hall of Fame player, and I paid around $5 on eBay to add it to my collection. It's unlikely I'll ever find a '57 Topps baseball card of a Hall of Famer for $5 in any series regardless of scarcity that looks anywhere near as nice as this one.

However, the design of the '57 football set led some kids to use their imaginations. Why be satisfied with one card when you can have two? Thus:


At least the Stautner card was cut apart. It looks a little neater than the ripped Watson card.

Where the cards shown at the top of this post would normally be upgrades to the ones below them, the two (or four, depending on your perspective) "mini" cards were included in a trade as "unique" variations. They still sit in my dupes box if anyone's interested.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Are You Ready For Some Football?

With the NFL season now underway, it's a great time to look at a gridiron set of the past.


(The picture shown above was borrowed from this site, which auctioned off the lot shown above. The winning bid was $61.)

1972, Sun Oil Company (better known to us as Sunoco) did a promotion designed to spur sales and drive fans and collectors to their stations. Customers could buy two different stamp albums: one was a 56-page "Saver Album" and the other was a 128-page "Deluxe Album." The deluxe album was larger, but both were designed to hold all 24 stamps for each of the 26 NFL teams at the time. Each album included a "starter" set of 144 stamps, with six sheets of 24 stamps. Additional stamps could be obtained through books (several of which are seen above), which were given as a reward for a gasoline purchase.

There were several designs on Sunoco stamp books, but here's one from my own collection with a Miami Dolphins player featured:


When this book is opened, it reveals a block of nine stamps. This one is in my collection because a Steelers player is included, but it also has Hall of Fame Rams player, FTD spokesman and Little House on the Prairie actor Merlin Olsen, who passed away earlier this year:

The block of stamps had this advertisement (which was also the back of the booklet cover shown above):

While showing what each stamp book looked like, it also gave some added interest for those who'd missed the promotion up to the point where they had been given the booklet.

With 624 individual players, the '72 Sunoco Stamps make up a much larger football set than any that had come before. At a time when Topps football issues were made up of 132 or 264 cards, the set from Sunoco was able to feature many players who never managed to appear on their own cards despite playing several years in the NFL. Since football sets usually focused on the glamorous positions like quarterback, running back, wide receiver or linebacker, linemen and others would routinely get left out of them.

Each team was represented by 24 stamps. There were 12 offensive players and 12 defenders per team, giving more balance than what would normally be found in football sets. As a Steelers collector, there are some familiar names:
But there are also several names that don't exactly roll off the tongue, even among more rabid fans of the team:

It's easy to forget that when the stamps came out, the Pittsburgh Steelers were still underdogs. They still had yet to win a playoff game in their nearly 40 year history and were only a few seasons removed from a brutal 1-13 showing in '69. They were still developing young players like Joe Greene, Mel Blount and Terry Bradshaw. Their luck was about to change: the "Immaculate Reception" happened in '72 and they began developing into one of the strongest teams in the NFL.

Whether due to a hoard of unopened material that was dumped after the promotion ended or the time-honored "back door" method, 1972 Sunoco Stamps are readily available, as the auction picture shown at the beginning of this article attests. They're not overly expensive, either. However, as a larger set, they present an excellent opportunity for team collectors to pick up players, especially ones who didn't get a chance to appear in any Topps or Philadelphia sets during their playing days.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Q&A

Rob asks:

"I decided to look  through 1958 Topps cards online. I did an eBay search for a Stan Musial, and all that came  back was the all stat Stan Musial. Then I looked at my SCD book and saw no regular Musial.....My question is Why did Topps only print an All Star version of Stan Musial? Any help with this topic would be greatly appreciated."

(Another card with "character" from this blogger's collection)
A:

If you look at all the major baseball card issues, you'll see that Musial wasn't in anybody's set between 1953 and '58. '54 Red Heart was the sole exception. His '53 Bowman card in the color set was his final one for that company, and that '58 All Star was his first Topps card in all. Additionally, he had been left out of Bowman's 1950 and '51 sets as well.

I'm not really sure why he wasn't in any of those sets, though. A similar question to Net54 was answered with several theories. Perhaps he was under some type of arrangement with another company like Rawlings, or he may have ignored attempts to get him to sign a card contract. He may have felt the card companies weren't paying enough money to be bothered. Perhaps one of this blog's readers has some insight and will leave a comment.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A Neat Type Card From My Collection

First off...I'm a little disappointed. On Monday, I wrote a lengthy piece about the 1959 Topps set. In two days, it became one of the most visited posts this blog has ever had. But not a single person could be bothered to leave a comment. Come to think of it, this blog had very few comments at all lately. So people are stopping by, reading and aren't making any effort to say what they think about it. That makes me wonder.

Is this blog so good that comments aren't necessary? I doubt it. Am I doing a lousy job? I have no idea. Because without any regular feedback (good, bad or indifferent), all this is...is one guy writing.

Anyway...here's the regularly scheduled post. Sorry for the off-topic ranting from a guy who probably should be sleeping in:



There are several specific "eras" among the history of baseball cards. Many of these eras began and ended due to business cycles (the rise of the tobacco monopoly around 1890, then the forced breakup of that monopoly around 1910) or historical events (for instance, World Wars One and Two). What collectors call the "postwar era" is generally believed to have begun in 1948 when Bowman and Leaf arrived on the scene. However, that isn't entirely correct; the second World War was over in 1945 and other card sets -- mostly regional in nature -- appeared before that.

Here's an interesting type card in my collection I'd like to share, along with a story about how the player featured came very close to making baseball history that season:


This card is from the 1947 Tip Top set, which was essentially a series of regional sets issued at the same time. There are 163 different cards, featuring players from 11 different teams. The cards were distributed in the regional area around each team's home city: Giants, Dodgers and Yankee cards were distributed in the greater New York Metropolitan area, the Braves and Red Sox were released around Boston, and so on. Each team had either 14 or 15 different players, many of whom are obscure because they played during the war and weren't around when Topps and Bowman were duking it out in the 1950s. Though ignored by many collectors (and sources like Beckett), cards of Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola in the set predate their generally-accepted "rookie cards."

The card backs contain an advertisement for Tip Top bread:


Advanced collectors know the Tip Top name from a 1910 set commemorating the previous year's World Series champion Pirates. That set had been designated D322 by Jefferson Burdick in the American Card Catalog, while the 1947 Tip Top set is D323.

The player shown above is Bill Bevens of the New York Yankees. He almost made major league history in 1947 when he worked a no-hitter into the ninth inning of Game 4 in that year's World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. With one out in the ninth, he walked Carl Furillo. Al Gionfriddo pinch-ran for Furillo, stealing second with two outs, causing Yankee manager Bucky Harris to order Bevens to intentionally walk Pete Reiser. As pinch-hitter Harry "Cookie" Lavagetto walked up to the plate with two on and two out, Bevens prepared to finish the game with a ground ball. However, Lavagetto lined a double that broke up the no-no and won the game for the Bums. Interestingly, that wild win was credited to Hugh Casey, the same pitcher who uncorked the wild pitch that got past Mickey Owen in the 1941 World Series.

Like many moments in baseball history, Bevens was so close...only to watch as Lavagetto got the glory. Even though the Yankees went on to eventually win the Series in seven games (and with Bevens pitching relief in that last game), Bevens was saddled with the "goat" label. After Don Larsen pitched his perfect game in 1956 against the Dodgers (some of whom also played in that '47 game), Bevens was largely forgotten. In fact, that final Series game in 1947 would be his last appearance as a major league ballplayer. He passed away in 1991 at the age of 75.

Monday, September 13, 2010

1959 Topps - A Glimpse

From time to time, I'll feature a set that's on my Vintage Baseball Cards website and expand on it, using cards from my own collection, rather than simply using the cards on the site itself. This time around, I'll take a look at the 1959 Topps set.


For the fourth consecutive year, Topps expanded the number of cards in its set, making the 1959 set its first with over 500 cards. The set features a sharp design that most collectors like and is loaded with specialty cards. It also has variations, goofs, errors and a somewhat tough but not impossible high-numbered series (507-572) to keep collectors busy trying to complete it.


Topps had a unique front design for its '59 set. A player's picture appears in a circular photo cut by the white border which frames the card. The rest of the card features a bright-colored background. The player's name appears in lower case letter above his picture, slightly tilted to the left. Below the player's picture are his team name, team logo and position. The only thing covering the player's photo is a facsimile autograph.

One thing noticeable about the cards is the way the background color changes. Duke Snider is shown above with a sea green color, as well as Tony Kubek with orange. Here's a red color (shared by many Yankees players...but I've already shown Kubek and there are already cards of Mantle, Ford and Berra all over the Web already):


There's also black:

Black should logically be followed by blue:

And then there's the ever-so-manly pink background:


There's also a yellow background, but I'll share that one a little later.

Card backs show year-by-year career statistics once again (Topps had used only past year and lifetime numbers in 1958), with a short written comment added where space permitted. The top of the card back features the card number inside a box, player info in an adjoining box, and a cartoon spotlighting one of the player's accomplishments. Cards #199 through 286 can be found with either white or gray cardboard stock, and here's a sample of each:


 For the sake of showing the difference, I'll even use two cards that are numbered back-to-back. In my opinion, the white card stock is better because the info is much easier to read.
 
The ink color on the back changes for the high series; cards 1-506 have player info printed in green and red ink and a white card number inside a green box, while the rest feature black and red ink and the card number inside a black box.Here's an example of that back, complete with an uncorrected error in the spelling of Mike Cuellar's last name:


Topps brought back some of the novelties of its 1958 set. Multi-player cards return, with players set against a 2-color background with a solid circle that lets collectors easily identify them as '59 Topps cards.


A similar background can be found on team cards, along with team name and logo.  Here's the Yankees team card (a high number card, which likely irritates collectors who find the team's cards expensive enough):


Checklists once again show up on the backs of team cards as they did in '58. Topps also brings back cards featuring baseball executives; card #1 is Topps' first card of baseball commissioner Ford Frick, and card #200 features N.L. president Warren Giles. This must have driven the kids at the time quite mad, considering they didn't belong to any team and were just old men who were analogous with the teachers, principals and parents who often stopped long enough to confiscate their cards. Both executives have the same red, white and blue background with a baseball design:


All-star cards also return in '59 and for the second consecutive year, they are the final cards in the set. The same two mangers who shared a card in '58 (Casey Stengel and Fred Haney) are back but this time each has his own all-star card. There are different designs for the All-star cards; players are pictured inside a shield, with an eagle adorning the shield.

American League players have a blue background:


 (Sorry it's another Yankee...right now, Turley's one of two American League All-Stars I own and the other is thrashed).

National League All-Stars are set against a red background:


For the first time in any card set, a special subset appears showcasing many of the season's rookies. Cards numbered 116 through 146 feature a much different design than the rest of the set. The "Sporting News Rookie Stars" subset features a player picture with a background of red, white and blue stripes on a black shield. Players are arranged alphabetically by last name, and have the same back design as the rest of the set. Of the 31 rookies featured, only a handful stayed in the major leagues, and some never played an inning. Nonetheless, the "rookie stars" subset would become a fixture of Topps sets for the next quarter century.

 
While few of the named rookies became stars, two regular cards in the set featured first-year players who went on to become Hall of Famers: Bob Gibson and George ("Sparky") Anderson (who made it in as a manager).

Another subset that would show up in later Topps sets makes its first appearance in cards numbered 461 through 470. Titled "Baseball Thrills," these ten cards spotlight some of the celebrated feats of the previous five years, and resemble the 1958 Topps specialty cards more than any from the '59 set. Collectors who are familiar with back design should be able to tell the difference. Most of the players shown on these cards are superstars like Mantle, Aaron, Mays and Musial, but some lesser stars like Rocky Colavito are featured as well: 

Roy Campanella has his last Topps card in this set, another specialty card in the high series titled "Symbol of Courage." Card #550 shows the soon-to-be Hall of Famer in his wheelchair (he was tragically paraylzed in a December '57 car accident).


Several variations appear in mid-series cards. During that era, Topps often took advantage of the fact that its cards were printed in series by notating trades, options and releases on card backs whenever time allowed. Five cards numbered 316 through 362 exist with and without lines on the back. Early print runs do not have the notations and are the scarcer variations. Among the five, #322 Harry Hanebrick is among the toughest cards of the 1950s to find in top condition. Another variation involves Warren Spahn, with three different variations on his year of birth.

Kids have always enjoyed finding errors, typos and goofs on their cards, so the kids of 1959 must have been especially busy. Camilo Pascual (see his card above) has his name misspelled "Camillo" on his own card and is the player pictured on teammate Ralph Lumenti's card (Lumenti is one of the players with the "option" variation).


Perhaps the best known card of the '59 set is #440 of Lew Burdette for two reasons. First, Topps spelled his first name as "Lou," an error they never corrected and made again in 1960. Second, Burdette had some fun with the Topps photographer; when posing for his picture, the right-handed pitcher grabbed teammate Warren Spahn's glove and posed as a lefty (According to the story, Spahn posed as a right-hander with Burdette's glove but Topps never used the photo). According to Topps legend Sy Berger in an interview, the picture got past Topps' proofreaders, but didn't fool hundreds of kids who wrote in to let them know they messed up.

Finally, collectors who truly enjoy collecting 1959 Topps can occasionally search out other items, such as packs, wrappers and boxes. The wax packages were sold in boxes that looked like this one:


Having the year showing is helpful, but note the way the player is shown inside a circle, just as he would be on a 1959 Topps card. The same design shows up on the penny pack below:


There was a second design for penny packs in 1959 as well, with a batter:


The same batter design would be part of the nickel pack:


And note the way the solid circular shape in the background is a consistent part of the design.

This was a much longer blog entry than I usually do, but the 1959 Topps set was loaded with all kinds of surprises for the kids handing over their pennies and nickels that year to buy them. Even after more than a half century since they were printed, shipped, purchased and opened, they are a great set to put together.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Q&A

I've had my Vintage Baseball Cards website online for nearly 10 years. Sometimes, a Google search for something else directs visitors to my site instead. Fortunately, I'm happy to answer those questions as well.

After looking at my 1948-'49 Leaf baseball page, Cheryl writes:

"I found a Kenny Washington Leaf Gum Co. All Star Football Gum card in an old book. Copyright 1948. I don't see it on the list of cards for this set and was wondering what set it belonged to. Kenny is wearing a blue jersey with #39 with orange back drop and yellow stripe with black lettering.  Back of card says 17-Kenny Washington

Just curious to find out more about the set."

 (Image from Dave's Vintage Football Cards...a great seller)

A:

In addition to their baseball set, Leaf issued similar-looking sets in 1948 for football and boxing. A second football set was released in 1949 before Leaf stopped making cards. Your Kenny Washington card is from the 1948 Leaf football set and in average condition is worth about $10-15. There are 98 cards in the set (just like the 1948/49 baseball set, only there is no number-skipping in the football set) and the last 49 are much rarer than the first 49.

The seller whose website provided the image above has several cards from the set available. Interestingly, Kenny Washington's card isn't one of them. In any case, click the link above and check out what he has.

Despite issues with color registration and notoriously bad centering, I like the 1948 and '49 Leaf sets. They look terrific when the colors are aligned properly, although I don't mind when they're not.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Mail Call

These cards arrived in the mailbox a short time ago:


The players are all beloved to fans of 1950s baseball:
  1. Vic Wertz, who hit the ball in '54 that caused Willie Mays to make that amazing catch.
  2. "Puddin' Head" Jones, third baseman for the 1950 "Whiz Kid" Phillies.
  3. Andy Pafko, best known as '52 Topps card #1.
These 1951 Topps cards are fairly worn.

Okay, they're beat to hell. They exhibit paper loss and water stains. They're in lesser shape than my other 1951 Topps cards (which is saying a lot). However, look at the backs:

As 1951 Blue Backs, they increase my own collection from only four cards to seven, so I have no problem adding them. They were sent to me for free, with two stipulations:
  1. I give them a good home.
  2. Should I ever upgrade, they are sent for free to a new owner.
I think I can handle those terms.

Only 45 left to complete the set!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Yogi!

Here's a neat card in my collection than many haven't seen before:

I've never been much of an autograph collector. The few signatures I own are either things I specifically had signed at shows or have ended up in my possession through trades or other hobby doings. This Berra was something I acquired through a "take a card, leave a card" box that I once received and then sent on to another collector.

This ballpoint pen-autographed photo of Yogi Berra crouching in his familiar catcher's pose isn't exactly a baseball card in the general sense. It's a postcard. The back shows some additional details:

It's a J.D. McCarthy postcard, post-dated July 17, 1959. Notice how the ZIP code (which debuted in 1963) isn't used in the address.

J.D. McCarthy was a photographer who took an awful lot of photographs over the years. While many of his pictures would wind up on Topps baseball cards through the years, he also sold player images to be used on hobby-only sets (mostly consisting of retired players and sold through SCD and other hobby magazines or sellers like Larry Fritsch) as well as postcards. On this website devoted to the Seattle Pilots, this little nugget was provided:

"Striking as McCarthy's work for Topps was, however, it is his postcards that have caught the eye of modern day collectors. If a player liked a shot McCarthy took of him, the player could order a supply of postcards made from the photo. These postcards, in turn, were used for responding to requests for autographs."

It appears this photo of Berra was one of those postcards. When a particular fan in San Francisco wrote to the Yankee catcher in 1959, he took one of those McCarthy postcards, autographed his name onto it and mailed it as a keepsake. Or he gave a stack of pre-signed postcards to an employee of the New York Yankees to send back to any fan who sent mail there. While I'm not sure about the method, I'm guessing a team secretary wrote out the fan's home address (though I'm not an autograph expert, perhaps somebody can tell me for sure...any Yogi Berra handwriting experts out there?).

In any event, it's a cool piece that shows how players expressed appreciation to their fans more than 50 years ago.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Read My Past Hobby Articles

Like many, I recently went looking for a new job.

I wasn't fired from my old one...I actually walked away -- on my own terms -- after 12 years there. There's something about realizing you're where you are and not going anywhere. And when you get told you can't move within the company because you're "too qualified" (which is corporate shorthand for "too expensive" or "not as easily manipulated") and can't move up the ladder unless somebody dies or retires...at a time where nobody's retiring due to economic conditions. So, I realized I needed to either suck it up, stick it out and hope for a promotion that might never arrive or else walk through the exit door.

In a way, it's like the guy in the song "Take This Job and Shove it." Except I actually left, where Johnny Paycheck sang he only wished he'd have the nerve to do it.

This is not a time where a lot of people would take the door...but there I went. It wasn't an easy decision but once I pondered the option, it didn't make sense to stay.

In case you're wondering, I was a technician for a cable company. And while I could have stayed there as long as I wished and relatively secure that my position would be there, it wasn't the job I started doing back in 1998. Seniority meant little, the company was making the job more burdensome (perhaps because they knew we'd deal with it because we weren't certain we'd quickly get another job) and we were being held to standards that shifted focus on a seemingly monthly basis. So, I decided it was time to put the tools back in the van and park it for good. And to do that without having any idea where I'd go next.

I haven't regretted doing it, even when my mother-in-law asked me why I was doing something so crazy.

But that has absolutely nothing to do with vintage sportscards.

While looking for something else to do, I was looking for a way to share some of my past writings to prospective employers without running off a bunch of copies and mailing them. What ended up happening was that I scanned them and converted them to PDF files. That way, I could send them in emails. As for my hobby-related writings, I am now able to share them with readers who are interested in seeing what I've done.

The articles can be found by clicking here.

Among the articles are this one, which I wrote about the 1973 Topps set and its photography (something I also blog about):

Or this one, which I wrote about collecting off-condition cards:


One article isn't available for download yet. I wrote a cover story for Old Cardboard's second issue about baseball players in the service. However, the publisher feels offering the article when he's still selling the back issue is unfair. So, I've added a link to their site. It's worth it...in fact, if you like seeing much of what appears on this blog, you should subscribe to the magazine.

Lastly...I did get another job. I'll be returning to my roots (the media and entertainment business, the field of my bachelor's degree) and writing for the company that does TV ratings. I have a pretty fair talent for writing (or so I've been told) and begin next week. I'd have never found it if I decided to stick it out in a dead-end job.