I skipped a card show this past weekend.
That's practically unheard of for me, but this card show landed on my wife's birthday. She would've headed off with me anyway, and then we'd split -- me, card show, her shopping mall -- but the mall has been plagued by robbery and shooting lately, so best to celebrate that birthday at home.
There's another one next month, which is good because I'm really getting sick of the dumb online prices for cards that I want. Shows are about the only place I can find price tags that make sense, which sounds kind of funny considering some of the complaints about show dealers I've read -- and made myself -- over the years.
My vintage set building has completely stalled since the start of the year and only a show is going to break that impasse.
Blogger mailings help a little bit, but that's dwindled quite a bit as well. Thank goodness for Bob, on both fronts.
The third of his rapid-fire envelopes arrived while I was still searching for a few cards to send him -- "now wait, is he the one who collects dirt-flying cards?" -- contained exactly what I'd pick up if I was at that card show.
Bob sent a nice batch of 1970s Hostess needs! Focused mainly on 1979 and 1977. Excellent!
Oddball sets are really what I'm after lately, everything else seems to take too much time or is too expensive.
But Hostess sets aren't exactly easy to complete, as my recent '76 Hostess journey demonstrated. I'm just at the beginning of my pursuits for the other '70s Hostess sets, so expect to see these cards over and over for ... um, like the next several years.
My eyes light up when I see stuff like this. A brand new look at a familiar player in a uniform that I know straight from my youth but a whole new look at it!
I love this photo. John Denny in the classic baby blues, flanked by his bodyguards and that sea of red seats. Hostess just doesn't credit for some of its pictures.
I started with the 1979 Hostess cards because the '77 ones have a few more examples of one of my favorite elements of '70s Hostess cards -- they were one of the few "traded sets" of the '70s. Where else are you going to get Sparky Lyle painted into a Texas Rangers uniform?
Topps isn't going to give it to you. Not even O-Pee-Chee, which kept the same Lyle Yankees photo and just added a Rangers ribbon (still fantastic, by the way).
OK, on to the fun 1977 stuff:
Here is a sunny, hatless Mike Torrez beaming in Oakland, completely unconcerned by the harmful sun rays thanks to his darker complexion and that head of hair.
It's a different look from the Topps card from the same year, but obviously from the same photo shoot. I can't say the Hostess card is more interesting but it's nice to have a couple of choices.
Neither card, though, tackled the matter of Torrez moving on to the Yankees. You have to go to the Burger King card for that (for the record, I NEED this card).
Two different takes on Bert Campaneris switching to the Texas Rangers. I think Hostess looks a lot better, he certainly doesn't look like a statue.
I always under the impression that Hostess got the leftover pix from Topps for their set, but maybe not. Or maybe timing of production played into it.
This Andy Messersmith card is a classic. Any Dodger fan from this time period can recognize instantly that this is a paint job that uses the '76 Topps Messersmith card photo.
In this case, maybe Topps didn't think the airbrushing used for Hostess wouldn't work for its own set because it used a different photo with a different paint job:
One last card to show and no updating with this one:
Jon Matlack was still a very worthy third option for the Mets at this point, behind Seaver and Koosman. It would all blow up very soon though with the Seaver trade and Matlack having shipped to the Rangers.
I'm not saying that there are no online options for cards anymore. I did just place a Sportlots order earlier today for very reasonably priced cards. It's more ebay that's gotten really annoying of late.
Maybe I just need to wait it out a little longer.
But the best cure for me would be a card show.
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