Two weeks ago, around 6:30 evening, I was at the front door, distributing Reese's and Hershey's to a steady stream of costumed tiny tots as is the ritual in our neighborhood, apparently THE place to go for Halloween door-to-door begging.
I heard my phone ring on the end table behind me but I couldn't get to it. When I finally freed myself from the door, my wife said, "Angus called you."
Angus? That Angus? On Halloween night?
I called him back right then. He was in a card shop. In Arizona. It wasn't Halloween time there. It was 3:30 (4:30? Mountain time always confuses me). Although we did have someone ring our bell at 4:30 in broad daylight and that's not proper Halloween etiquette.
He had come across a few 1970s Hostess panels, which he had witnessed my love for in person at a card show three or four years ago. He wanted to know if I needed any.
Well, you never saw the kids, the bags and bags of candy, the entire bleeping holiday melt away so fast. I ditched my station and practically sprinted to my card room to check my Hostess binder and get a clear listen to what Angus was telling me. Did I need the 1975 Hostess panel with Don Money, Rick Monday and Dick Bosman? Yes! Did I need the '75 with Zisk, Hendrick(s) and Bobby Murcer? Yes! How about the one with Tenace, Cardenal and Bill Lee? Yes! Yes! Yes to all three!
Angus is one of the most generous card collectors I've come across since starting this blog. He told me they would be an early Christmas present. I heard him talking to a shop employee, doing my shopping for me.
Then those panels arrived -- way earlier than I had expected them. It's not time for Christmas! Heck, it's not time for Thanksgiving! This was a Halloween present! Happy Halloween to me! Heck, I was just happy to get away from the kids on the porch for five minutes!
Good gracious, that's so much fun.
Hostess panels aren't really that expensive, except for the short-printed ones. It baffles me somewhat because they are among my favorite card items on this planet. It's three cards in one! Of a bunch of dudes from the '70s when baseball was everything to me.
That doesn't mean I haven't thought about cutting these up for my Hostess set-collecting projects. This would put a good dent into the very hefty '75 Hostess want list.
I'm not above doing that. I've done it on this very blog, this very year with a couple of '76 Hostess panels I purchased. I was in the middle of collecting each individual card in that set (I still am, I should be down to one card needed in a week or two) and when you're on that kind of mission, nothing gets in your way, panels and everything else be damned.
I'm not there yet with the '75 Hostess set. So we'll see what happens. I may be ruthless or I may have a heart.
Angus also sent a few Hostess singles, all Dodgers.
I have accumulated all of these for my Dodgers binders already but they will go nicely with the set missions.
The '79 Ron Cey with the 50 cents sticker is very interesting to me, because that's an SP and it took me months, with like four people scouring ebay for me, to land this card six years ago. And then Angus turns it up for a couple quarters in an Arizona card shop.
Oh, and one more thing I'm assuming came from that shop:
That's a 1953 Bowman Color Bobby Morgan card off my want list (no, the scanner didn't crop the bottom, there is no bottom and I don't mind).
Woo!
That's pretty awesome. It's even more awesome because I know that life has been pretty hectic for Angus lately. I'm honored he thought of me with so much going on.
Pretty neat to have my own Hostess panel supplier, from a Canadian, by way of Arizona.
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