Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt – check out his website at www.jimhunt.us. To view a synopsis of the comic strip, past months’ strips, and sketches of the four characters with whom you will soon become quite familiar (Bernie, Tony, Leela, and, of course, Mike), please visit our custom eBay page dedicated to Mike DeNero's Neighborhood by clicking on the comic strip above or by clicking here.
In an effort to avoid being bested by their pal Leela, Tony and Bernie (the lovable twins from Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood) allow me to present Tony and Bernie’s “Big Apple” Stash. As the lads are twins, and are usually forced to share, why stop at toys, snacks, and sportscards? They will also take turns authoring this column, a monthly ode to their favorite vintage sportscards picturing New York legends. This month, Tony takes a stab at waxing poetic about one of his all-time favorite players. Unlike Bernie, Tony’s spelling skills are well honed, especially for a 5-year-old. Enjoy!
T206 Fred Merkle (Portrait)
by Tony
Hello everyone; Tony here. Glad to be back writing the current installment of my column, which Mike DeNero wants me to write every other month (my twin brother, Bernie, writes it on the months I get a break). My card of the month is the T206 Fred Merkle (portrait), who is pictured as one of the newest members of John "Muggsy" McGraw's New York Giants.
I absolutely love this card for a few reasons. First, it passes with, flying colors, two of the tests I give to all cards: is it visually appealing? The bright red background enhances the detailed portrait of a presumably 20-year-old rookie (the card was released in 1909 or 1910, so the portrait was likely 
taken in 1908 – I assume the card’s image is derived from a Carl Horner portrait). Which brings us to my second reason for loving this card and test number two: does the card picture an athlete early in his career? Certainly.
Third, and most importantly, through this card, Merkle tells me a story. He tells me that he is barely two years out of high school during the summer of 1908 and that New York City is quite far from his home in Toledo, Ohio – and while he relishes the opportunity to play for the greatest club in the game, he misses his family and the sweet comforts of home, especially during the long train rides to St. Louis and Chicago. He reveals that he was scared to death to meet his new manager, John “Muggsy” McGraw, when he arrived at the Polo Grounds in late September of the previous year, after the Gants purchased him from Tecumseh in the Southern Michigan League. He reveals that he is quite in awe of some of his new teammates – Christy Mathewson (even though he’s known as the “Christian Gentleman”), Rube Marquard, “Iron” Joe McGinnity, “Turkey” Mike Donlin, Roger Bresnahan, and Fred Snodgrass, to name a few – especially since he’s the youngest member of the team. He admits that he’s a bit scared of the filth and the hustle and bustle of New York City. He explains that while he’s aware that he’s a green rookie, he knows he can play ball with the best the league has to offer and he is frustrated that he has yet to crack the club’s starting lineup, even for one game. He tells me that he’s excited to have his portrait taken in the Carl Horner Studios in Boston today (September 1, 1908), so that he can send a copy to his family back home, and that he hopes to be in the starting lineup versus the Boston Doves (soon to be known as the Boston Braves) later today at the South End Grounds. He knows that if Mr. McGraw will just give him a chance to crack the starting lineup, he’ll give a good account of himself and earn a starting spot … for good.
One of Rob Dewolf's passions is collecting cards of Cleveland Hall of Famer Napoleon Lajoie. A former minor league baseball player who advanced to Triple-A in the Padres organization, Rob's current job in the newspaper field requires him to get up at 4 a.m., six days a week. Hence the name of his column, which happens to be when he finds time to write about various aspects of the hobby. Rob lives in central Ohio with his wife and daughter.
Local Shows Were About More Than Cards, Cash
by Rob Dewolf
As we celebrate the coming of another “National,” let us also pause with a moment of silence for a long-departed friend of the hobby: the local, monthly card show.
This week the 31st National Sports Collectors Convention will take place. Tens of thousands will flock to the Baltimore Convention Center. Enough money will be spent to make Congress blush.
Hall of Famers from three major sports will be on hand to trade their autographs for a fee, while card companies and auction houses will have smiling representatives stationed behind their tables in an effort to generate goodwill and business -- not necessarily in that order.
Cities that have hosted previous Nationals include Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Anaheim and Detroit. At one convention, 10 T206 Wagners were on display.
Needless to say, the National is a big deal where lots of big deals are made.
So like many, I celebrate its annual arrival. But I do so with a trace of regret.
Regret that the National pretty much has become the one "card show" I attend each year. Why? Because there simply aren't that many card shows anymore. Certainly not like the ones that helped lay a foundation for my love of sports collecting.
Growing up in northeast Ohio in the 1970s, I was a typical kid collector. Bought packs of cards at the Quik Stop on Route 62 and Monty's gas station on Wales Road. Traded doubles in study hall and put together multiple sets of whatever was in season. Discovered through hobby publications like The Trader Speaks and Sports Collectors Digest that my card transactions didn't have to be with just friends and classmates.
Buying cards via the mail certainly expanded my cardboard horizons, but it wasn't until the Canton Sports Card Collectors Club was formed and started hosting monthly card shows at the Nazir Grotto hall did the final piece fall into place. Attending these shows with Bob and Bill, two other "serious" card collectors at my school and the ones I hung out with most often, was something like a regularly scheduled epiphany. Here was a place we could go and pay fifty-cents admission to see tables and tables of baseball cards we could buy -- right then and there! No having to ask our moms to write checks, then mail the payments and wait weeks for our purchases to arrive. And no settling for just the current offering from Topps. We were able to choose from a cornucopia of T cards, Goudeys, Bowmans and 20-year-old Topps cards.
Heaven had opened a branch in Canton, Ohio.
And it got better. It didn't take long for Bob, Bill and I to figure out that we could just as easily be behind the tables as in front of them. Why not? We were buying regularly through the mail and amassing fairly impressive "inventories." Bill, thanks to stories about his collecting in a couple community newspapers, was able to buy several large collections. Bob, the truly innovative thinker in our trio, saw the wisdom in purchasing large lots of 1940s and '50s cards through the mail and breaking them down to sell individually at shows. I know: It sounds simple now. But at the time it was an impressive display of business acumen.
So there we were, three high school freshmen -- the only "dealers" in the room who depended on their parents to drive them to the show -- sharing two tables. The night before we would meet, usually in the basement of my house, and lay out our respective merchandise on the floor, within a 3-by-16-foot space marked off by masking tape. If you don't think a lot of painstaking thought was spent on deciding whether to place a binder of 1960s minor stars or a box on 1970s high numbers at the front of your selling space, well, you've never been a teenager who only recently discovered that good money could be made without sweating your butt off mowing lawns or shoveling snow.
The Sunday afternoons spent wheeling and dealing usually were capped by a half-mile walk down the street to the Spaghetti Tree. After packing up our unsold wares and safely hiding them in one of the dusty rooms down a dark hallway of the Nazir Grotto, the three of us would wait for our ride home while gorging on pizza, pasta and enough Pepsi to gag Denny McLain. Most of the time we weren't even hungry; it simply felt great to spend some of the money we had just earned … BY SELLING BASEBALL CARDS!
The joy ride continued for a few years, and the thrills were numerous (including arriving one day to find that Bob Feller also had paid the requisite $5 fee to set up shop, but that's a story for another time). In my mind, the beginning of the end came when the first Beckett guide was published. While heralded at the time, it also laid the groundwork for monthly card shows to become little more than tables covered with monster boxes full of cards of Mike Greenwell, Tommy Glavine, Gregg Jeffries and the like.
But before rookie-card fever hit the hobby, followed by the modern card entering a coma in the 1990s, the local card show was the place to be.
Sure, they still exist in some form in some locales. In fact, there's a fairly successful one held every couple of months about a half-hour from my house. I've debated about going but have thought better of it. I know I'll compare it to its predecessors, and that wouldn't be fair.
Plus, there's not a Spaghetti Tree within miles.
Leela’s Tips & Tricks is Leela’s first foray into writing a monthly column – she usually just appears in Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood. As such, she does not have an impressive resume … yet. But give her a break; she’s only five-years-old! We hope you find her vintage collecting tips useful, her butchered attempts at composing sentences in what she calls “Canadien-French” amusing (if not refreshing, albeit confusing), and her unabashed love for her Montreal Canadiens admirable. Enjoy!
A New Venture
(Translation: Une nouvelle entreprise)
by Leela
Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!
Well, my beloved Canadiens are still playing golf in the off-season -- but just wait 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)
Anyway, before I get back to enjoying my summer camp activities and the local pool club, I must provide you with my top of the month. My tip is that if you were forced to choose between all characteristics of a card’s condition (e.g., corners, centering, surface) and could only have one be perfect, the one you should choose is registration. There’s nothing that drives me more nuts than looking at a blurry card! Cartes floues obtenir me bonkers! I mean seriously, how can you stare at a blurry card?
Gotta go. My dry cleaner just called to say that my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater has been found – it’s been missing for a month! Last month, when I went there to pick it up, they handed me a Joe Pepitone jersey instead -- C'est stupide, incapable, âne. Je vais descendre à son magasin et l'ont battu à une pâte! So, I guess I’ll bring Mr. Pepitone back to the shop and swap him for my beloved Richard! Ah. Tout va bien dans le monde quand je peux porter mon chandail avec fierté Richard.
Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!
1958 Topps All-American Roman Gabriel
by Bob Lemke
I've finally added a Roman Gabriel card to my checklist of 1955-style All-American football cards. But it wasn't easy.
I've always had G
abriel on my mental to-do list for the project, but had never run across a useable college photo. The Rams were always among my Top 5 favorite NFL teams in the 1950s and early 1960s, and when Gabriel finally got off the bench and became a starter, he became a player of more than moderate interest to me.
Maybe it was because he was the NFL's Joe Namath before there was a Joe Namath. He was literally tall, dark and handsome (he was once described as the "world's biggest Filipino) and his long hair made him stand out from the establishment quarterbacks like Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr, with their crewcuts. To a rebellious teen-ager (at least as rebellious as you could be in the mid-Sixties when you're white, middle class and living in a small Wisconsin city) who hadn't yet been brainwashed to hate pro football as a metaphor for The War, Gabriel was a player whose career I followed for a time.
I thought I'd struck paydirt in my card quest when I discovered Gabriel was included in the photo spread for Playboy's All-American team in the magazine's annual Pigskin Preview issue in 1961. I bought a copy on eBay for six or eight bucks, but when I got the magazine in hand, my hopes were dimmed considerably.
Creating a custom card from a magazine photo is always dicey. I knew from the preview I'd seen on line that Gabriel's image in the group photo was going to be small. It also turned out to be a bit fuzzy upon enlargement and the color printing was somewhat out of register. I diddled the image for a couple of hours last weekend, then plopped it onto the card's background. I didn't like the result (shown at left).
Another hour searching the Internet for a suitable image didn't turn up anything useful; everything was either too small or too low-res. Fortunately, the search turned up an image of the cover of the 1961 NCAA record book, with an action pose of Gabriel.
An eBay browse offered my choice from among a handful of copies. Most were priced in the $15-25 range, which is more than I like to pay for the materials I use. I spotted a copy that had some items clipped from the interior pages and my low-ball offer was quickly accepted.
I was able to colorize the black-and-white cover photo and achieve an acceptable result, the image shown here at top.
As is almost always the case, boiling down the copy for the back of the card to about 90 words was a challenge. Even though he never won an NCAA Championship or a Super Bowl, Gabriel had a great career and has led an exemplary life.
He was a three-sport star in high school and after sifting through college scholarship offers, elected to stay in his native state at North Carolina State. While he played freshman basketball and varsity baseball (a slugging first baseman, he once hit three home runs in a game), eventually he came to focus on football.
Even though the Wolfpack was mediocre during his three seasons as quarterback (11-18-1 from 1959-61), he caught the pro scouts' eye. He was both All-American and Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year in 1960 and 1961, and was academic All-American in 1960. He completed 285 of 506 passes in his collegiate career, for 2,951 yards. He threw for 20 touchdowns and ran for 15. During his days at N.C. State, his fans developed a new Wolfpack fight song, "Throw, Gabriel, Throw."
The Oakland Raiders made Gabriel the No. 1 overall pick in the 1962 AFL draft, while the L.A. Rams chose him with the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft. Back in those heady days of NFL vs. AFL bidding wars, Gabriel's football fortune was assured. He signed with the Rams, but later said that's because while he was being "baby sat" in a hotel room by the Rams' Elroy Hirsch, a phone call from the AFL with a $100,000 offer was intercepted by Hirsch, who being mistaken for Gabriel's agent, assured the upstart league that Gabriel was firm in his desire to play in the NFL.
Gabriel was among the first of the "big man" quarterbacks in the NFL, at 6'4" and 235 lbs. He had an incredibly powerful arm and took the Rams to two NFL Championship games. He was a four-time Pro Bowl selection and was league MVP in 1969. Plagued by knee and shoulder injuries, he went to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973, when he was named Comeback Player of the Year, and retired after the 1977 season.
As a starting quarterback in Los Angeles, and given his physique and dark good looks, it was natural that Hollywood came calling. He played an unnamed prison guard in the 1968 LSD film trip Skidoo, and had his biggest role as John Wayne's adopted Indian son Blue Boy in the 1969 Western, The Undefeated, which also included in the cast teammate Merlin Olsen. He had a number of television appearances, including as a headhunter on Gilligan's Island, and also appeared in the Raymond Burr series Perry Mason and Ironsides.
Gabriel did some assistant coaching in the USFL with the Boston Breakers and Arizona Wranglers, and in the World League of American Football in 1991-92 was head coach of the 0-10 Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks.
Though slowed by a stroke in recent years, Gabriel has devoted enormous time and energy since his football days to raising money for charities in and around North Carolina. I'm glad I was finally able to add him to my checklist of '55-style college custom cards.
*****
Bob Lemke is a collector of bubblegum cards in the 1950s-1960s, Bob Lemke's hobby today is creating cards of current and former “players” in those "golden age" styles. He currently edits the vintage sections of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards and maintains a hobby blog at boblemke.blogspot.com.
Our Consignment Program: We offer our consignors affordable and fair consignment rates and the ability to sell their sportscards, ticket stubs and memorabilia through one, two, and/or three channels: our eBay store, our eBay auctions, and our website.
Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 449-3470 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.
Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt – check out his website at www.jimhunt.us. To view a synopsis of the comic strip, past months’ strips, and sketches of the four characters with whom you will soon become quite familiar (Bernie, Tony, Leela, and, of course, Mike), please visit our custom eBay page dedicated to Mike DeNero's Neighborhood by clicking here.
Strasburg + Me = ?
by Mike DeNero
What does Stephen Strasburg mean to me? I’ve been seriously pondering that question since spring training.
I must confess that although I, as a wee lad, became a diehard Yankees fan in the mid-1970s, the Yankees and I started to drift apart when we both started seeing other people – me, the lovable, lowly Nats in 2005; the Yanks, players of whom I didn’t approve (e.g., Bobby Abreu, Randy Johnson, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi 
– my Yankees were Louisiana Lightning, WPIX and the Scooter, Burger King cards in 1977 and 1978, the Reggie Bar, Mick the Quick, Big Dave Winfield, and, later, Jeter, Mariano, El Duque, and Matsui).
I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1998, and while I carried a torch for my beloved Bombers for the ensuing five or six years, the Montreal Expos (soon to be Washington Nationals) caught my fancy. Immediately upon the Nationals’ arrival in D.C. in 2005, I became a dedicated fan (and season ticket holder) who only occasionally secretly pined for the Bombers … at least until they became nearly unrecognizable to me, courting the likes of the aforementioned players, who I would never consider “Yankees” in the truest sense of the word.
I supported the Nats through thin and thinner -- tough times, save for Opening Night at RFK Stadium in 2005 and the opener in 2008 at the new Nationals Park (see picture of me in front of the Red Porch arm in arm with broadcaster and former Reds/Mets 3rd bagger Ray Knight, who is currently a Nationals broadcaster -- if you look closely to the right of Ray Knight, you can see the back of then Nats first baseman, Nick Johnson, who was presumably giving a pre-game interview on that Opening Night at Nationals Park).
One day, in late 2008 (another lean year for the Nats), my father, who still lives in New Jersey, told me that as one of the league’s worst teams, the Nats were 
in the “running” to get a young pitcher named Stephen Strasburg, a nineteen year-old kid phenom who pitched for San Diego State. “He throws the ball over 100 miles an hour,” my dad said. My reply? “We’ll see.”
Sure enough, the Nats won the right to draft the kid and did so in June of 2009. At the time, I was cautiously optimistic, as I seriously thought the Nats would likely be bullied by Strasburg’s agent, Scott Boras, and the deadline would pass without getting him to “sign on the line which is dotted,” as Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry, Glenross would say.
I recall being on vacation in late August of last year (2009) at the wonderful beach house my family rented in Sea Bright, New Jersey. Each night, I watched SportsCenter to see if the Nats had managed to sign Strasburg. As luck would have it, they got him with a few seconds to spare before the deadline. Optimistic? Yes, with a side order of pessimism (“Sure, they signed him. But the Nats will surely screw this up somehow,” I thought).
Fast-forward to spring training 2010. The reports from Florida were that he was already the Nats’ best pitcher, even though he’d never stepped foot on a pitcher’s mound in a Major League regular season game. Again, “we’ll see,” I thought.
Like many Nats (and other baseball) fanatics, I followed his every move in the minors as the early season progressed, knowing that he’d probably arrive in D.C. by early June and that I would be in attendance at his first Major League game.
As that early June target approached, I grew more and more anxious. On June 8th, my wife and I attended his first Major League start (see photo below) – we sat five rows from the rail in the upper deck, midway between home plate and first base. The outcome is already the stuff of legend – thus, no need to recount each strikeout and 100 mph pitch here. I, for one, got my money’s worth as soon as he blew away former Nationals underachiever and head case extraordinaire, Lastings Milledge, for his first Major League whiff.
A funny side note is that my wife recorded his final two (of fourteen) strikeouts on her new iPhone camcorder. At one point, with one strike on the final batter, who would be Strasburg’s 14th strikeout victim of the evening, a barely audible comment – “c’mon, mow this bum down” – can be heard from the froggy throat of yours truly. It was within moments that my wife and I agreed to try to attend each game he pitches in D.C. this season. Thus far, we’ve kept our vow (we’re currently four for four, and have great seats for this Saturday’s matchup against the Metsies and then the July 9th game versus the Giants).
But back to my question posed at the outset of this essay – what does Stephen Strasburg mean to me? I am still not entirely sure. I know it’s not grotesquely over-hyped, new “1 of 1” manufactured scarcity cards. I do know that because I (as does everyone else) have a family to support, children to help raise, a career to develop, and a small business to run with my business partner and good friend in our free time, the time I can (or choose to) dedicate to sports fandom is dwindling every day (as it should). But this baseball season is different, solely because of Strasburg.
Because he plays for my Nats, he represents to me something that each underdog (and heaven knows the Nats and, consequently, their fans, are underdogs) longs for or, if he’s lucky, has already witnessed – that precise, glorious moment at which he feels his fortunes begin to turn for the better.
After the Nationals made the final out in their final pre-Strasburg era game (an extra inning affair during which the Nats blew a two-run lead in the ninth inning), Nationals President, Stan Kasten, turned to a friend and said, “Thank goodness that era is behind us.” Kasten acutely recognized that the Nats’ final out in the pre-Strasburg era was the turning point – the worst days were suddenly beginning to appear in the Nats’ caravan’s rearview mirror.
While the Nats have struggled mightily since the June 8th Stras-Mania began (e.g., losing 1-0 to the Royals on June 23rd after Strasburg fanned 9 and yielded no extra base hits; back-back-back blown five and six run leads to the lowlier Orioles just last week; and a total of one run scored in the last three games Strasburg started), and will likely continue to struggle for the near future (at least as long as guys like Nyjer Morgan continue to bat leadoff, our middle infielders continue to kick the ball around the infield, and our non-Strasburg starters continue to roll the ball to home plate), it would be shortsighted for anyone to believe that Strasburg’s mere presence in the Nats’ dugout has not already resulted in the team’s fortunes starting to take a u-turn.
While witnessing Strasburg’s sheer dominance on the mound from my perch in the upper deck of Nationals Park on June 8th (see photo above), I began to believe. Not just in the Nats’ chances of becoming a baseball force within the next few years (although that’s a really fun, yet nearly unfathomable, thought), but in the possibility of the things in our everyday lives that can sometimes seem impossible – the beacon of light at the end of, at times, a seemingly endless tunnel.
It’s always been there, and it always will be, but sometimes it takes a 21-year-old fireballer to remind us.
One of Rob Dewolf's passions is collecting cards of Cleveland Hall of Famer Napoleon Lajoie. A former minor league baseball player who advanced to Triple-A in the Padres organization, Rob's current job in the newspaper field requires him to get up at 4 a.m., six days a week. Hence the name of his column, which happens to be when he finds time to write about various aspects of the hobby. Rob lives in central Ohio with his wife and daughter.
Sometimes, Luck Conquers All
by Rob Dewolf
Sometimes the collecting gods smile down at you. Granted, they also can be fickle. My 800-count box of 1987 Topps Bo Jackson rookies is proof of that. Rob knows bad buys.
But there are those times when fortune is so good that you almost feel guilty. (But then you remember Cory Snyder, and your conscience is cleared.)
This is a story about one of those times.
For about the past nine years, the highlight of my Cleveland Indians collection has been a 1948 World Series ring. I can't imagine owning a collectible that I'll enjoy more. After I bought it, I somewhat seriously thought about not buying more Indians memorabilia because I knew everything else would pale in comparison. That idea lasted for about a minute, and I returned to my senses.
The ring isn't linked to a player. There's no inscription of a name or anything else that identifies the original owner. Maybe it was given to a front-office employee. I've also heard told that Indians owner Bill Veeck ordered "extra" rings from L.G. Balfour as gifts for special friends, business acquaintances and bar owners.
No matter. It's a ring from Cleveland's only World Series-winning team in the past 90 years, and that's enough for me.
Almost.
As much as I love this Indian artifact, there was this gnawing feeling. Kind of a mix of emptiness and incompleteness. A longing, if you will.
It wasn’t overwhelming, mind you. More like how you feel walking to the car after 2½ hours at a seafood buffet and you realize you forgot to have a cup of the clam chowder.
You're fulfilled, no doubt. But still, the chowder would have been nice.
In this case, my soup du jour (more accurately, soup of the decade, I guess) was a presentation box that once housed the ‘48 rings. Though I'd never seen one, I knew they existed. In the mid-1990s, one was sold by an auction house and, at the time, I had a passing interest. But because I didn't own a ring, the desire to have a box that one came in wasn't very strong. Let someone else have the hood ornament, I'll hold out for the Rolls Royce.
Except now that I had a ring, I was in the driver's seat. And I wanted the complete package. So I kept my eyes open and waited. And waited. I watched three more 1948 rings come up for auction but no presentation boxes.
Then, this spring, one literally fell into my lap.
A group of personal items from the estate of a former Indians player hit the auction block. There were no headline-grabbing pieces but enough interesting things that I ended up buying the lot. The collection was shipped in three fairly large boxes, meaning I got to enjoy a mini Christmas in May – minus the annual houseful of relatives, in-laws and other guests. Yes, I gave thanks.
As I sat on our family-room floor and unpacked the boxes, I mentally checked off the items I knew should be included. All was going as expected as I dug to the bottom of the final box. Then, while scooping handfuls of packing peanuts I also retrieved something that wasn't on the manifest in my mind. After dropping it in my lap (the word literally isn't used liberally in this blog), I picked up a worn, wooden box that measured about 4 by 5 inches.
There were no markings on the outside, so I immediately figured it to be some kind of generic knick-knack box, maybe presented long ago by a local civic organization at an off-season banquet. After opening it, I realized how wrong I was. Printed in red lettering on silk-like lining on the underside of the lid were these words:
WORLD SERIES
CHAMPIONSHIP AWARD
CLEVELAND INDIANS
1948
***
L.G. Balfour Company
Attlesboro, Massachusetts
Realizing what I was holding, I sat in stunned silence. I grabbed the auction catalog and double-checked to make sure I hadn't missed a mention of a presentation box for a 1948 World Series ring. (Yeah, like that would have happened.) Nope. Not a word.
Yet here it was. Just goes to show you really shouldn't believe everything you read.
Missing was the insert that should have sat in the bottom of the box. That was remedied a week or so later with a bit of craft work that required covering a piece of cut-to-fit Styrofoam with black velvet. A few nips, tucks and curse words later, and I thought the finished product looked pretty darn good. Finally, my ring had found a fitting home.
A home run that would have made even Bo proud.
Leela’s Tips & Tricks is Leela’s first foray into writing a monthly column – she usually just appears in Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood. As such, she does not have an impressive resume … yet. But give her a break; she’s only five-years-old! We hope you find her vintage collecting tips useful, her butchered attempts at composing sentences in what she calls “Canadien-French” amusing (if not refreshing, albeit confusing), and her unabashed love for her Montreal Canadiens admirable. Enjoy!
A New Venture
(Translation: Une nouvelle entreprise)
by Leela
Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!
Well, my beloved Canadiens are now playing golf in the off-season. But just wait 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)
Anyway, before I get back to enjoying this 95 degree weather with 85% humidity, I must provide you with my top of the month. My tip is that if you are a collector of sportscards and have never ventured into collecting non-sportscards, you might want to start your venture by purchasing just one card. After you buy it, keep it for one month before you buy another. If after that month you still want to buy more, your first purchase was probably the beginning of a new collecting interest, rather than a passing fancy! It worked for me. I ventured into non-sports with the 1940 Gum Inc. Superman cards and still love ‘em – Superman est de la bombe!
Gotta go. My dry cleaner just called to say that my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater is missing! C'est stupide, incapable, âne. Je vais descendre à son magasin et l'ont battu à une pâte!
Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!
Mike DeNero’s Layaway Program
In a recent conversation with my aunt about our sportscards business, I mentioned that our company offers a layaway program. She sort of snickered at the thought. While it may sound a bit humorous, it has been our most successful program that we have offered to our customers to date. In fact, nearly half of our revenue for 2010 been generated through that program. Here’s how it works:
- Customers can purchase items for layaway through any of our channels: our website, www.MDsportscards.com, our eBay site, or over the telephone;
- We require a 10% deposit (or more, if the customer wishes) via PayPal, direct credit card payment, money order, or check;
- We provide the customer with six full months to pay off the balance and allow the customer to make as many payments during this time as he or she wishes;
- We email to the customer a brief 2-page layaway agreement that they can either sign and mail back to us or indicate their acceptance of the terms via a return e-mail; and
- We provide full insurance (at no additional cost to the customer) for the purchased products from the date of sale through delivery to the customer; and
If you have any interest in purchasing some of our products through our layaway program, please contact us by telephone at (571) 449-3470, or by e-mail at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
1957 Topps Sandy Koufax (alternate)
by Bob Lemke
One of the best (at least for us old-guy card collectors) player photos to come out of the Topps Vault series of internet auctions caught my eye and provided the inspiration for not one, but a pair of, Sandy Koufax custom card creations. (The photo also caught the eye of some serious Koufax collector specialists and Brooklyn Dodgers team collectors, and it was
bid up to $1,275.)
The image was an original Topps color transparency described as dating from 1957. Indeed, the then-21-year-old Koufax is pictured at the top of his wind-up with some of Ebbets Field's outfield signs in the background.
I'm not going to second-guess the designers at Topps in 1957, who chose to go with a great close-up portrait for the Koufax card in their short-printed Fourth Series. But to me, the photo from the Topps vault just seemed like it would have also made a very nice card . . . so I made one.
I haven't often, in my several years of custom card making, tried to improve on an actual card from Topps, Bowman, etc. It's my belief that the graphic artists who created those originals so many decades ago, working with what today is viewed as ancient technology -- a roll of rubylith and an Xacto knife -- do not deserve to have their legacy usurped by me and my computer graphics tools.
But the image of the '57-style card that could be created from this newly re-discovered Koufax photo was just too vivid in my mind's eye, so I made it a reality.
As my custom card projects go, this alternative '57 Koufax was pretty easy. I just had to match the name/position/team typography from 1957 and lay it over the photo. On back, I just made a couple of subtle changes so that the card can't be confused with a genuine 1957 Topps issue.
This Koufax alt card represents my first work in the 1957 Topps set, which is surprising since that issue remains one of my all-time favorite baseball card sets. I have several other '57s on my to-do list, including a Stan Musial, who didn't appear on a Topps card until 1958.
*****
Bob Lemke is a collector of bubblegum cards in the 1950s-1960s, Bob Lemke's hobby today is creating cards of current and former “players” in those "golden age" styles. He currently edits the vintage sections of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards and maintains a hobby blog at boblemke.blogspot.com.
