Group Breaks: Including One from the Daily Dimwit

Group breaks are great if you are a fan of a specific team.  You know, the life-long affiliation with one team that makes you care about the utility infielder from 1967 and reliever from 1985 as much as your home town superstar.  I lack that commitment to any baseball team.  In fact, the only team I possess any kind of life-long loyalty to is the Pittsburgh Penguins, not that I've ever lived in Pittsburgh, I just like flightless birds.

When it comes to baseball, I am nominally a Braves fan, due to the Superstation and getting cable around the same time the Houston Astros ditched orange from their uniforms and relegating Mike Scott to a secondary role.  I also have a strong affinity for the New York Giants of the Christy Mathewson/John McGraw era.  My fandom for this team and era in general led me to collecting tobacco cards.  In fact, here is a T205 McGraw I bought on a whim a few months ago. The portrait portion of the card managed to survive for many years unscathed, something the name portion of the card cannot claim.



Nonetheless, my lack of a team for life makes it harder to participate in group breaks, as it isn't like, "Oh, there is a group break, let me go claim the Royals."  I always need to break out checklists and research.  Half the time, once I've finished my research, any team that I wanted is usually claimed.  However, I joined my second group break over at the Daily Dimwit, selecting the Giants after much internal debate.  The boxes included in the break were 2012 Topps Triple Threads, 2001 Playoff Memorabilia and 2002 Fleer Legends of the Game.

Let's see what I managed to pull in the break starting with 2001 Playoff Memorabilia



And we're done.  I had low expectations for this box and they were met.  The Bonds was the only supershiny card in my package. 

And on to the 2002 Fleer Legends of the Game.  It was these cards which led me to choose the Giants, who are well represented in the set.  Out of 100 cards in the base set, there are nine Giants, all of which ended up in my pile, including a second of the Wilhelm below.  I included the highlights, since to be quite honest, no one needs to see a picture of Bill Terry, unless it is some kind of technicolor, art deco masterpiece. 



Finally, we are on to Triple Threads.  As we all know, the element of the gamble exists in every group break, as there are some winners and some losers in every deal.  On the good news side of the ledger, I beat the odds and ended up with a card from the box.  Even better, the card was numbered and contained Willie Mays.  The downside is that it is a base card numbered to 625. 



It's a pretty great card in its own right, but not the hit everyone hopes for, since aspires gives the wrong impression that there was work involved.  So, there is the results of the group break with the Daily Dimwit. Thanks again for running this break!

30 Minutes At The Card Show: Part 4 Odds and Ends

Not content to take the two Diamond Stars, get into my car and drive on to the Meadowlands, I continued to search through my regular dealer's stacks of cards.  I was also able to pick up the worst card I've ever seen for sale and let me tell you, I have a few T206s which I cannot fathom how they survived to this point in their weakened condition.   But feast your eyes on the below:



Poor Willie.  The left hand side of the card is missing a piece of the picture.  The right hand side has a clear piece of tape along the card, but not in a load-bearing way.  Dirt covers a fair portion of the card as well.  Weakened, chipped corners frame the card.  A pinhole of some sort pierces through his arm.  Thankfully, the writing is actually not on the card itself, but instead on the holder, with the 40 representing book value and the 2 representing a pre-purchase price.  But it fills a gap in my 1973 Topps set.



What can I say, I've always had a soft spot for anyone who can sell clothes with the line, Buy your rags from Daddy Wags.  Surprisingly, this is my first Leon Wagner card and even though there is a small amount of penmanship on the back in the baseball, I am quite pleased with owning this card.

As a general rule, I don't care for basketball cards.  I'm not much of a fan of the sport, but I have soft spot for any card which you can separate into three pieces.  So, I always purchase any 1980 Topps Basketball cards where I can recognize at least one player on the card.





As you can see, there is Bob McAdoo, Adrian Dantley, Wes Unseld and Lloyd "World B." Free.  All stars of the late 1970s, even though Photobucket refuses to rotate the cards for your viewing pleasure.  However, there is one basketball player I would consider myself a fan of and enjoy collecting. 



In the middle, highlighted with arrows on the toploader is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, right around the time of Airplane.  You can never go wrong with Airplane or Kareem, who might be the only basketball player I regret never seeing live.  Also, Kareem was most certainly not a ninny.

And with this stack of cards added to my collection, I was able to leave the show and get on my way to the Meadowlands.