I have my ways of knowning that some of you haven't checked out my new 1971 Topps and 1985 Topps blogs. So get over there, take a peek, and please, please add it to your blog rolls.
If you need another reason to visit those blogs, how about this? It might help you in some blog research some day.
Don't laugh. I do research for my blog all the time. Without it, my blog would be:
Look.
Card.
Like.
Done.
I try to make things a tad more interesting.
So here is my example of how one of those set blogs can help your own personal blog:
I received some great 1975 Topps cards from Steve at The Greatest 21 Days. Most of them were minis, which are the best cards ever and which I'll show some other time.
But he also threw in some terrific miscut cards, like the Cubs team card that you see above. It's funny how great miscut cards are from vintage sets, but if we see one in a current set we start dialing the president of Topps and THEN The President Of The United States! (Yes, I've written that post before).
One of the best parts of miscut cards is trying to determine the other card on the piece of cardboard.
For instance:
A less perceptive collector might think that Bill Russell was traded to the Indians. But don't be silly. Of course that's just some other Indians card attached to Russell's Dodgers card through the wonders of errant trimming machinery.
Who might that Indian player be? Well, we know that the card has an orange border at the top of its card. For more clues, we go to the back of the card:
The Indians portion of the card back is at the bottom, obviously. We could go through a list of all the players born in "Bogalusa," wherever that is. Or we could compare cartoons on the great resource web site, otherwise known as 1975 Topps (it's far out, man)!
I knew that thing would come in handy.
First, I do a search for all the Indians cards in the set. Then I find the ones with orange borders at the top, and then I look for a cartoon of a guy who appears to be trying to balance on a log.
Voila!
The partial card attached to Bill Russell's card is Charlie Spikes!
And the cartoon character isn't balancing on a log. He's getting the hook. Or, rather, Ted Williams is getting the hook. And Bogolusa is in Louisiana!
Wasn't that fun?
Here's another:
It's ballplayer-by-day, accountant-by-night, Rich Folkers. And there's a White Sox card attached to him.
Right away, Bill Melton springs to mind, because I know that Melton was a White Sox in '75, and he has an orange border in the set.
But let's turn the card over to see for sure.
OK, I know I'm wrong already. Because the cartoon on the miscut portion of the card is surrounded by a squared-off box. In the 1975 set, that means this is a card of a longtime veteran, with lots of stats.
That can mean only one thing:
It's Ron Santo!
The cut-off cartoon is a winged Hawk Harrelson. A pair of announcers on one card.
Another mystery solved.
Let's try another one:
Poor Tommy Helms has a stinkin' Giant attached to his card. But which one?
A search of all the Giants cards in the '75 set comes up with four players with orange borders on the top.
So, here is a look at the back of the card:
OK, there appears to be a cartoon figure socking a home run on the back. A search of all the cartoons on the Giants cards comes up with one player with that cartoon.
It's Jim Barr's card. And the cartoon is of Willie Stargell.
Jim Barr has an odd connection to my childhood. It has to do with stuffed animals and the weird imaginations that kids have. If I can dig up the card of Barr's, and think I can keep myself from dying of embarrassment, I'll show the card here someday.
OK, let's try one more card. This is a toughy.
This card isn't cut as drastically as the others. I can tell that the other card is another Giants card. I also know that the top of the card has a blue border.
But the back of the card tells me nothing.
Searching through all of the Giants cards on the '75 Topps site turns up these candidates:
But which one?
The back won't tell me.
Fortunately, there is this post.
Through the help of Jon of the Fleer Sticker Project, I looked at all five scans of the 1975 Topps uncut sheets, and the fifth and final sheet yielded the correct card.
First column, sixth and seventh cards down.
The card attached to the Jerry Moses card is Charlie Williams.
And that's the cartoon you couldn't see on the back of the miscut card. (The answer is in error, by the way. The distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound is not 60 feet, 60 inches. It's 60-6).
So that's the kind of info you can get from reading a set blog.
If that's your kind of thing.
I'm updating the '71 Topps and '85 Topps blogs about once every other day. So it'll take some time to build up some research goodies. But I'll get there.
Many thanks to Steve for these cool cards. Who knew you could pick up miscut 37-year-old cards at a card shop. You certainly can't at mine.
Until next time, at Miscut Detective ...
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