C.A.: 1979 Hostess L-shaped panel - Steve Carlton, Reggie Smith, Enos Cabell

 (Happy President's Day. No, I don't have this day off or the week off. I do have an extra day off thanks to the post office not delivering today. But that'll be Wednesday, not today. Wish me luck as I will have ventured out into 13-degree weather with the wind howling at 30 mph tonight. Time for Cardboard Appreciation! This is the 348th in a series):

 

I received this 1979 Hostess panel from Max of Starting Nine. Every time I land a Hostess panel the debate begins -- cut or leave intact!

 

Each item is a special case. I am collecting both panels and individual cards for all the '70s Hostess sets and sometimes the decisions are tough. So let's go through what we know:

 

1. You can see that the panel is scuffed and creased. This means almost nothing to me when it comes to Hostess cards. They practically came out of the package beat up (or more accurately "stained up"). This was long before every card had to be pristine and imprisoned. But it sometimes affects whether I cut or leave intact.

 

2. You can also see that this is not a standard horizontal panel with three cards/players across. It is L-shaped. There is not a lot of information online about the L-shaped panels, which appeared on boxes for the 1976-79 Hostess sets. One site mentioned that L-shaped panels appeared on Hostess CupCakes boxes. It would make sense if they were associated with just one Hostess cake product because the L-shapes are rarer than the standard panels (though not tough to find in most cases).

 

3. The last thing to know is I own the individual '79 Hostess cards of Steve Carlton and Reggie Smith already. Only Enos Cabell is new to me. I have two Reggie Smiths actually as one is in the Dodgers binders. My copies of the Carlton and Smith are adequate, maybe trimmed a little closely but otherwise fine and not scuffed or creased.

 

So with all that back-story, this is what I will be doing: I will keep this panel intact.

 

I own only one or two other L-shaped panels. So it's still a novelty for me. Also since I have two of the three individual cards already, I can add an individual Enos Cabell easy enough some other time. He's not a star.

 

This case-by-case approach came up for another panel just last week. I ordered a 1975 Hostess panel that featured Rollie Fingers, Bob Watson and John Ellis. Two of the three players -- Fingers and Ellis, I needed in regular-card form. Fingers is not pricey but a Hall of Famer. With needing two of the three and one being Fingers, I decided to cut that panel. And now I have an extra Watson for an Astros fan. Hostess Ho-Ho's for all!

 

Anyway, here are some other cards that showed up with the L-shaped panel:

 

 

The key item here is the 2013 A&G mini of Josh Beckett, which was a previous Nebulous 9 need. (I'll be updating that Nebulous 9 list in the next month).

 

Thanks, Max, for the bit of sunshine in my mailbox during what has been a very wintry February. You should see the snowbanks.