I got my first real six-string ...

 

First of all, I want to apologize for putting that song in your head.

 

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, I have no use for Bryan Adams songs -- outside of the Cuts Like a Knife LP, and that's solely a nostalgia thing as it was released my senior year in high school.

 

But the song, as infuriatingly popular as it still is, sums up this summer quite well for my collection. There have been '69 Topps all over the place.

 

I didn't expect to be pursuing this set so immediately this year, but the stack of '69 Topps that I bought while reviewing an acquaintance's collection in July kicked off that "hey, I have more of these than I thought" feeling.

 

Then came a couple trade envelopes and now we arrive at this past weekend's card show.

 

My primary mission for this show was to get closer on my 1970 Topps mission, not 1969. Maybe I would even find a Reggie Jackson or Johnny Bench card that would take all my money but be worth it.

 

Well, none of that happened. 1970 Topps that I needed were not around, at least not at the tables I saw.

 

The show was the usual large one at the state fairgrounds. It was well-attended, but I could tell there were fewer people. I'm sure that's because it was the first Sunday of the NFL season (I would never turn down a card show for that) and also there was another card show going on 10 miles away! I don't know why they coordinated things like that, but I did notice a couple of dealers who are always at the fairgrounds show that were absent (one of them would've finished my 2022 flagship Dodgers team set, oh well).

 

So, per usual, I started my tour around the perimeter. About seven tables in I stopped at a table that was selling mostly vintage, with set binders -- my favorite set-up. I had spotted my usual vintage dealer so I made sure not to buy too much at this table.

 

Just two cards but this was a sign of how it was going to go. I had asked to see his stack-under-glass of '70 Topps but didn't need any of it. Then I got the two '69s for just 15 bucks (the Brooksie features a penciled-in number but getting it is better than throwing 30 dollars at the card).

From there, I traveled around the back ...

The "back" is all the way through that arch and to the back window. I was searching for some discount boxes, but just about every one I saw had some person camped in front of it. In the left corner in the back I found one of the many, many, many modern card sellers, who had some "discount" team boxes in which cards were 50 cents to a dollar to two dollars.

Sure, why not? There are shiny Dodgers in there that I need.

I grabbed 11 (I know that's just 9. Eleven is not a neat picture). I could have grabbed a lot more but vintage is a beast that keeps calling.

Just a quick review of three of them:

This is an insert from the pandemic-delayed 2020 Heritage High Numbers set. I'm still discovering what's in that set. I was amused to see a card, from Topps of all people, of Max Muncy's quip at a pouting Madison Bumgarner after hitting a home run into the bay. It's all detailed in the back. Just glorious.

I can't explain this card at all but I love it. In usual Panini fashion, this is the green parallel, arriving way before I've ever seen the regular base card. Parallels don't seem to have any meaning or rank for Panini beyond that there are a zillion of them. The "hot sauce" theme is related to a player's specific hot streak, in this case Betts' 2020 postseason run. But Panini writes it half-heartedly and in its usual tiny-font fashion.

This card is significant for something that I'll mention in a couple of days. Sorry, programming is important on this blog. If you follow me on Twitter you know what it is.

Those 11 cost me 10 bucks. After that I needed a palette-cleanser as I often do after swimming through modern Panini cards, and took a quick left to the vintage guy Gary.

I was sticking to my goal of finding some damn 1970 Topps cards and dug out the '70 Topps page stack from under someone who was looking through '69s.

But comparing blog want list to pages I kept coming up empty -- I guess I really am down to the final stages of this set. This is all I got of '70s:

I didn't even get the Blue-Tenace card from this particular table. That's coming up later. As for the rest, only the Francona is a new card for me. The other four are desperately-needed upgrades. All welcome, especially since this means I no longer need any '70 Topps under card #140. But not exactly the splash I wanted to make.

I asked the dealer to see the '70s under glass. Lots of Yaz's and Carews. Don't need 'em. I specifically asked about Reggie. Nope.

OK, very well, let me look at the 1969s.

"🎵 Bought it at the five-and-dime ..." (Sorry, sorry).

That's a whole lot of success on the '69 Topps set and completely unexpected. I was there for a good while, pulling and pulling cards that I needed. Gary's cards are always in quality shape, which suits my needs. I'm not looking for top-slabbing-material here, but I don't see the point of putting together a moldy set if  I can afford not to.

Once again, there is no Jackson, Bench or Ryan in that series of photos, and I can't believe I've picked up a set in which that particular trio is an issue for BOTH sets that I'm chasing. But I did get a couple of notables in Phil Niekro and Ted Williams' first manager card.

Speaking of that ...

I didn't notice this until after I was going through the cards I purchased last night but there are two Senators manager cards in the set. How, oh, how did I ever miss that?

 

The cartoons on the back -- marvelous -- tell the reasons why. Topps had all kinds of things thrown at them for the '69 set.

So all of that got my '69 wants down to below 200. It's all good even though this is a set that came out when I was not even 4 years old. I've mentioned before that I saw a lot of these cards (and the '71s) when my friend brought his older brother's collection onto the porch of my other friend and we started trading. I thought the '69 cards were bizarre -- so many haircuts and why did teams wear black hats with nothing on them? But I knew they were old and that was good (this seems to be lost on a lot of collectors these days) and I wanted them.

Over the years I didn't warm up to the set much and I traded away some of those long-owned cards for stuff I wanted more. I've regretted it and am trying to get them all back. That's why I'm collecting it -- not because of the '69 scene per se, but because of what I saw of it from 1978. So it's good to see Ortega, Sembera, McDowell, Santo, Hiatt and Phil Niekro back in my collection again.

For whatever reason, I got into a conversation with the dealer and another collector about the '67 Topps set and how impossible it was. I rarely talk when I'm shopping for cards, but the crazy '67 set just got me going. The dealer said the '67 set is by far the most popular one that people are asking for from him. But he said trying to get a Seaver or Carew for him to sell would require him buying the entire set and that just tells you why I'm holding off on trying to complete that set. Didn't seem to stop the guy next to me, though, who bought a good smattering of '67s there.

Also, I got to tell the dealer about my encounter with my friend's collection and how all those vintage cards he had, the entire '72 set, etc., looked as if he had pulled them out of a pack and put them directly into a box never to be touched again. The dealer was properly amazed and said what I wanted to hear -- if he did that as a kid, his parents would have taken him to a psychiatrist.

So, anyway, that's a lot of words without pictures. I left that table with not much cash left. I took it out of my pocket for a recount and looked for what little I could get to finish off the show. A table with 1961 Nu-Scoops caught my eye. I need like 3 Dodgers cards, let's see what I can do. I added one card and then found a bin of baseball cards that -- wow, I wish I saw these first. Just about everything in there was interesting. Kellogg's cards, a couple of 1971 Thurman Munsons, just about every Pete Rose cards from the '70s and some from the '60s, a few modern Bellingers, everything in there was quality. But I could afford next to none of it.

I picked out three more cards and asked for a few dollars off.

He accepted and I headed for the exit. The '52 Bowman Dressen is the find (along with that annoying Blue-Tenace that I should have already, rookie hunters get out of my way).

I'd like to add that all of this money came from a payday for one of the Beckett magazine articles I wrote. That nicely eliminates any guilt for spending what I spend at these things.

Clearly I don't spend as much as the guy I saw with the black case that stored dozens and dozens of graded cards. But aside from that, it was blissfully free from those high-roller types. Collecting isn't the same as it was back in 1985. We may have to still suffer through some of '85s lousy music (although some of it is very good), but there's no going back to three sets to collect with no parallels.

Anyway, there's another show coming up next month, but I don't know if I'll be going because there will be a lot of cards somewhere else I'm going.

Sorry for being vague again. As I said, programming.