Panel decision 2024

 

Probably the final card purchase of 2024 has arrived and it's a really, really good one, something I've wanted for a long time.

 

Ever since I was a youngster I have been fascinated by the SSPC sets from the 1970s, those cards that were nothing but photos during a time when that was unusual in the hobby. I first came to know them through the 1978 Yankees yearbook, something so pervasive in my neighborhood that I eventually bought my own copy from the local CVS because it seemed like everyone had one.

I was a card-carrying Yankee hater even back then but I knew the yearbook contained the SSPC Yankees as a panel insert. I didn't know these cards as "SSPC" or that they were part of a larger set, as panels for other teams were also inserted into publications. I just knew them as cards I didn't have and therefore needed, even if they were Yankees.

Since that time I became aware that it's a 270-card set and there are cards for other teams -- most notably the Dodgers. I have wanted the rest of the cards in the set ever since, but especially the Dodgers.

For years I would pick up a '78 SSPC Dodger here and there. It's been a slow process and every card costs 2 or 3 or 4 bucks or more.

Over the life of this blog I've managed to obtain six of the SSPC Dodgers. I've loved every one, but that's not a very efficient way to get all of them, in fact it's been painfully slow.

What I really needed was the whole panel, But any time I thought to look (I admit months would go by before the next search), I didn't find one that met my cost requirements (i.e. "cheap").

But I finally struck gold a couple weeks ago when I spotted a Dodgers panel that didn't really advertise the panel so much as the autograph on the panel.

This blog layout doesn't work well with super horizontal images but look toward the bottom left of the panel and you'll see that the Don Sutton picture has been signed by Sutton.

 

The focus of the ebay advertisement was the Sutton autograph. I knew the autograph was legitimate because I own a couple of Sutton autographed cards, including a certified auto. The signatures match.

 

This would be an excellent display item. If I was really into autographed cards, I could send this out to multiple players and try to get as many as I could. But that's a lot of work, a few of the players are no longer with us, and it would be a longer project than getting all the team cards in the set one-by-one!

 

No, this panel was obtained for one reason only. My decision in getting this was not to keep it intact but to cut it up! Into individual cards!

 

And that's what I'm going to do -- maybe it will be a New Year's Eve celebration! Woo-hoooo!!!

 

Here's a closer look at the three pages that make up the panel before they get trimmed.

 

 The Tommy John card has always been hilarious. I already had the Glenn Burke card but it's super-cool to get an early Rafael Landestoy card, a full five years before he appeared with the Dodgers in Topps.

 

This page contains a lot of guys that aren't easy to identify even for a '70s follower like me, kind of a drawback of going without type on your card front. Across the top is Vic Davalillo, Ed Goodson and Ted Martinez. In the bottom right is Mike Garman. I don't know what happened to the Terry Forster picture, some sort of accident in the dark room.

 

The third-and-final page contains a lot of well-knowns as well as Jerry Grote (middle left) and a key "zero year" card of pitcher Bill Butler (lower right), who never played for the Dodgers. He appears on Topps cards with the Twins and Royals.

 

The backs contain nifty dotted lines for cutting! It was meant to be!!

It's interesting how the backs are the same for all the teams featured in the '78 SSPC set except the Yankees and Phillies (which are similar). Maybe because those two showed up specifically in yearbooks.

The best part of this panel and my decision to trim it down is that the autographed Sutton card isn't even a concern as it could be.

 

One of the individual '78 SSPC's I owned already is the Sutton! So I can slip the unscrawled-on Sutton in with the regular SSPC Dodgers and the autographed version can go into my Dodgers autograph binder.

This is working out quite well for my final card project of 2024.

As for those other 2024 card happenings, stay tuned for tomorrow's post, the usual extravaganza is planned.