Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: August/September 2009

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt (http://www.jimhunt.us). To view a synopsis of the comic strip and/or sketches of the four characters with whom you will become familiar, please click here.

Broadening My Collecting Horizon

Broadening My Collecting Horizon

by Mike DeNero

In this month's installment of Confessions of A Vintage Cardboard Junkie (see column below), K. Aaron Cohen explores the topic of obsession, as it pertains to our beloved card collecting hobby. While I will from time to time touch on the subject myself in our e-Newsletter, today, I would like to add some brief personal thoughts on my own newly discovered and incubated collecting interest: vintage Superman comic books (after all, man can't live solely on vintage sportscards).

The most interesting thing about my new obsession is how it began. Until fairly recently, the Man of Steel never was more than a fleeting thought in my mind. I believe my obsession began two weeks ago on the first day of our family vacation to the Jersey Shore (beautiful Sea Bright, New Jersey, to be exact -- my old teen-aged stomping grounds). On our way to Sea Bright, with my wife at the wheel (she's a better driver than I am -- I'm a little like Woody Allen's character, Alvy Singer, in the classic film Annie Hall) and our two young kiddies tightly strapped in what must be hideously uncomfortable car seats in the back, I was thinking about how when I lift my one son in the air, he always yells "Superman!"

That thought spurred me to go to Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash (yes, the Jay and Silent Bob's) shortly after we arrived at the Sea Bright beach house for the simple reason that I wanted to buy my son a Superman action figure of some sort. When I arrived at Jay and Silent Bob's, I found a few Superman figures to purchase and some old Superman comics from the 1970s and 1980s (bagged and boarded) -- not quite "vintage" comics, but certainly a passable way to learn about the comic book hobby.

Needless to say, that little visit to Jay and Silent Bob's was the impetus that created my new obsession with Superman! Within two weeks, I have learned a lot about the hobby, especially after exchanging several emails with one of our consignors, who is a Spiderman comics collector. That consignor also sent me a scanned image of one of his favorite "Spidey" covers (see below), just to push my new comics obsession along a little further, I think. Needless to say, after our email exchanges, and seeing the absolute coolness of the Spidey cover he emailed to me, I have resigned myself to building a Superman comic book collection of Volumes 1-250 (1939 through 1972).

But why Superman? Why not Batman? Spidey? To me, the reasoning is simple. Not only was he first introduced to us in June 1938 as "Superman! Champion of the oppressed. The physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!," but he's just cooler than the other Super Heroes. I mean, seriously, he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, he's faster than a speeding bullet, not to mention more powerful than a locomotive. Plus, his face is always visible, whether he's in the form of the mild mannered Clark Kent or the Man of Steel. Thus, he looks like one of us!

The odd thing (only one?) about my new obsession is that I resigned myself to building this collection before I opened any of the 1970s comic books I bought at Jay and Silent Bob's! Thus, the addict in me (that odd little man who sabotages my rational thoughts and, occasionally, my physical well-being) somehow believes that it is a good (and rationale?) idea to spend what could amount to $50,000 (depending upon the grade of the comics, of course) on 250 comic books over the course of several years. Obsession? Certainly. Addiction? Quite obviously.

That's all for now -- think I'll grab Superman (Volume 201) and see what the Man of Steel was up to at the time of that volume's release in 1967. I imagine that he was doing what he's been doing since 1938 -- defending "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: Aug./Sept. 2009

New Feature: Bob Lemke’s Cool Custom Cards

We are proud (and thrilled!) to announce the addition of a new monthly feature to our e-Newsletter and blog (www.MDsportscards.blogspot.com) called Bob Lemke’s Cool Custom Cards. 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 www.boblemke.blogspot.com.

The 1952 Topps Bob Hope and Bing Crosby

In this initial installment of Bob Lemke’s Cool Custom Cards, we decided to display Bob’s "fictitious" custom design featuring two of the most popular entertainers who ever lived: a 1952 Topps card of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Why would Bob Hope and Bing Crosby appear on a Topps baseball card from the 1950s? Read the card's back to find out!

Keith's Key Kard Korner: Aug./Sept. 2009

1955 Topps #164 Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente was more than a terrific Pittsburgh Pirates baseball player. His legacy climbed to legendary proportions when he perished in an aviation accident on December 31, 1972, while en route to deliver emergency supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims. His untimely death seemed to elevate this humanitarian’s legendary stature, although his unparalleled career need not have culminated with such a figurative tragic exclamation point to cement his legend.

The Pirates outfielder sporting #21 won twelve Gold Glove Awards, led his Pirates to two World Series titles, and carved out a .317 lifetime batting average. Clemente was the first Latino to win a World Series as a starter (1960), and first Latino to win an MVP award (1966). It is also remarkable that he finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits. This symmetrical statistic lends an eerie aura to his untimely death - as if destiny refused to intercede until Roberto met this hit benchmark so often associated with a Hall Of Fame threshold. Great play, humanitarianism, cultural pioneering, and circumstance of his passing all helped cement his popularity beyond his native Puerto Rico and into reverence as a true Latin American sporting pioneer.

Clemente’s 1955 Topps card (#154) is industry-recognized as his rookie card. The card’s very design and color appear nearly perfectly apropos for the celebrated icon.

With its rich forest-green background, the card is memorable as the hue fades from a saturated tone to a faded one as it moves from left to right, much like an abstract artist’s spewing paint sprayer nozzle being slowly extinguished as it moves eastward across the canvas. The crescendo of color gradually withering away seems to represent the "Field Of Dreams" that is baseball – brilliant chromatic grass through the spring and summer fading with the onset of autumn. In a more haunting fashion, the fading of vibrant color across the card symbolizes Clemente’s career: an endeavor that germinated into bounty and success fades into the blurry unknown like Roberto’s ill-fated flight somewhere over the Caribbean Sea.

Here, more than fifty years later, while the Pirates paint their seventeenth consecutive losing season in Pittsburgh, fans and collectors can still hold a most tangible representation of a man who knows how to win. Roberto Clemente reminds us that those who win off the field are those longest remembered ... and celebrated.

Confessions of a Vintage Cardboard Junkie: Aug./Sept. 2009

Obsession

I am told that collecting is most likely a manifestation of obsessive compulsive behavior. My older brother collects nothing – doesn’t have what I call the "collector gene." He’s quite well off, financially, and already has pretty much everything he wants, so until I discovered restaurant gift certificates, it was nearly impossible to buy gifts for him. Me? A nice vintage baseball card will never go unappreciated.

So it’s already well established how I slake my obsessive thirst – that constant stream of padded mailers arriving to my doorstep several times per month. My brother…? Well, he gives free rein to his compulsiveness by being a slave to neatness and orderliness. I couldn’t be more different – I’m a slob, except when it comes to my cards, where my inner neat freak emerges. All of my cards are well kept and organized in toploaders and binders, as one would expect.

Then there’s the "completion thing." In card collecting, I would say that the supreme beings of compulsiveness are the set builders, of which I am one. Many of my complete sets started with that one type card acquisition. Funny how that works!

I’d say there are set builders, then there are master set builders, those who truly occupy the summit of the cardboard-obsessed Mt. Olympus. Oh yeah, there’s the standard copout of those who choose to deem a set complete in spite of the absence of cards where popularity and rarity have conspired to make the cards virtually unattainable, at least for most collectors, with the T206 "Monster (minus the big 4)" being the most prevalent example of the compulsive cardboard accumulator’s willingness to compromise the purity of his normally uncompromising obsessiveness.

Another question such an individual asks oneself – Is the ’33 Goudey set complete sans Lajoie (see card scan above)? The card fits into the numerical sequence of the 240 card set (card number 106), but it was issued in 1934. Or the same question can be posed with regards to the 30 card Canadian Maple Crispette set, which presents a similar quandary. It seems that only one Casey Stengel, card number 15, is known to exist. It positively boggles the mind when one is forced to confront and contemplate the incredibly weighty philosophical conundrums of set building.

The anomalies cited above make total completion of the Maple Crispette set close to impossible for most. The much more frequent bane of the set builder is the existence of error and variation cards. Is my ’54 Bowman set incomplete because I lack some of the cards with stupid little player statistical mistakes on the back? How could Bowman be so careless? Need I mention Sherry Magee (see T206 spelling eror card above right)?

Even more pernicious are the variations within certain sets. Did the card designers of yore purposely set out to drive later generations of collectors to the brink of insanity? Surely not, but it sometimes seems like it. What would it take to put together a complete run of E94 George Close Candy cards with all of the different background colors? Who decided that ’52 Topps cards would be offered with red and black backs? And maybe the mack daddy of all variations, the ’52 Topps Mantle card (see card scan at left) with two variations in the stitching of the baseball on the back. Imagine, only another $10K to truly finish off your master set. Oh the humanity!

I have often thought that these sorts of errors and variations were put on this Earth to torture the obsessive compulsive mind of the set builder. Those sadistic card manufacturers of yore must be yucking it up from that big card factory in hell.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: July 2009

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt (http://www.jimhunt.us). To view a synopsis of the comic strip and/or sketches of the four characters with whom you will become familiar, please click here.

Keith's Key Kard Korner: July 2009

1953 Topps #244 Willie Mays

In my inaugural release of Keith’s Key Kard Korner, it’s easy to peak in waxing poetic on the most attractive, important cards in the hobby. That’s because it is the only time I have every card ever produced to choose from. Must any reader wonder why I chose the subject?

The player depicted needs little introduction. Often considered the greatest all-around ballplayer ever, and the quintessential "five-tool player", it is appropriate that Willie Mays is depicted employing one of his five tools – fielding – in a 1953 Topps card issue where cards show most players with a neck-and-shoulders portrait.

Printed in fewer numbers than some other 1953 Topps cards, the Mays displays the issue’s signature namebox in the lower right – a black one for National League players, a red one for American Leaguers. The namebox is also decorated with the team logo in the corner.

No matter the pose, this 280-card Topps issue may exemplify miniature artwork better than any sportscards in existence. After fifty-plus years, even mildly worn examples retain handsome artistic quality, such as the details in Mays’ focused face, and each uniform wrinkle articulated to life-like form. The artist’s canvas looks saturated with color and the most appropriate choices of the pallet appear thereon.

I’m hardly the only one who’s noticed this is a special card. Based on individual oil paintings by Gerry Dvorak of New Jersey, these 1953 Topps card images are so iconic and enduring that in 1989, the Marriott Corporation bought the original painting that this card was based on for $80,000. Often, the value of the sports card trumps that of the art - the solitary PSA 10 Gem Mint example of this card has fetched a lofty $95,000. That’s a remarkable coronation to the man whom humbly began his pro career in 1947 with a team named the Chattanooga Choo Choos. Additionally, PSA named the 1953 Topps Willie Mays one of the Top 250 Sports Cards in the Hobby.

Even in the face of a strong 2009 recession, I noticed that the card reflects a price increase in the latest Sports Market Report price guide. In being forthright, I still don’t own a copy of this comely rectangle. Hopefully, my column won’t make the demand and price spike higher before I can address my glaring deficiency.

Confessions of a Vintage Cardboard Junkie: July 2009

Pandora's Box

Having related my memories of my first pre-war baseball card purchase in last month’s column, I shall now indulge myself with various thoughts on the veritable Pandora’s Box that said purchase opened. It thrust me into the labyrinth that is the seemingly infinite variety of baseball cards produced between 1885 and 1960 – where there is something, I dare say, for all tastes.

My initial pre-war purchase, a T206 Walter Johnson, served as my "gold standard" for some time thereafter. However, in retrospect, given the panoply of stylistic choices out there, dare I blaspheme by stating that I do not consider the T206 anywhere near the top of the list in aesthetic and intrinsic appeal? I suppose that’s the beauty of our hobby – we can collect what we like without causing offense to anyone else. We can even argue over such things without getting emotionally invested in any real sense since, none of this really matters, right? Somewhat analogous to the "boxers or briefs" or Mantle vs. Mays debates, I suppose.

Different folks seek different things in their pursuit of these little pieces of cardboard. Back to the T206, the main reason they fell down in my estimation was their absence of biographical information (other than each subject player’s name and team) and the striking photographic imagery and vivid, rich background colors of the early caramel issues (e.g., E93, E94, E95) These "Caramel" cards constituted my primary passion following my two-year T206 craze.

I love the sojourn through the endless smorgasbord of tiny archival documents (I use the term archival to give a serious spin to a fifty-something year-old man’s love of a child’s diversion).

The 19th century gave us the state of the art photographic images of Old Judge and Mayo’s Cut Plug – contrasted by the artful and "cartoonish" renderings of Buchner Gold Coin. The same stylistic choices were offered in the early 20th century – from the generic funny paper illustrations of E91 (Honus Wagner? -- More like Honus Schwartz!) to the meticulously shot images of the Fatima team and player cards. The large American Caramel E90-1 set merged the two concepts, offering very accurate portraits on some cards, and action cartoons on others, the player being recognizable only by the name on the card. Of course, the tobacco pushers gave us more ornate offerings, such as the fancifully framed T204 Ramly and the T205 color lithograph mug shots. By the way, were these not the first cards with statistics and biographic data on the back?

The 1920’s were generally ruled by the austerity of the no nonsense black and white photographic images of American Caramel’s E120, 121, and 122 sets. The Great White North gave us Neilson’s Chocolates and Willard’s Chocolates that used the same photos. Does one conclude that Canadians were big chocolate eaters whereas the Yanks were voracious consumers of caramel?

The 1930’s ushered us into the rise of the gum card and a sort of "artsy-fartsy" period -- the predominant issue being the 240 card (if you count Lajoie) extremely popular 1933 Goudey set with its absolutely mesmerizing artwork. Look into Mickey Cochrane’s eyes. The dude is staring right back at you. Of course, no mention of 1930’s cards would be complete without paying homage to the art deco depictions on the Diamonds Stars and Tattoo Orbit cards, and the truly unique concept of Delong. Imagine Godzilla-like baseball giants trampling and lording over an entire stadium.

World War II seriously curtailed card production due to paper shortages. The truncated 1941 Play Ball is interesting inasmuch as most of the cards were colored artists’ depictions of the previously issued cards in the 1940 Play Ball set. Nothing much else happened until the Bowman Gum Company hit the scene in the late 1940’s.

Over the years, my tastes have evolved, and broadened, whereby cards I found singularly unattractive have risen dramatically in my pecking order. One such issue is the 1949 Bowman set, the primitive appearance of which I originally I found to be a turn-off. It is now that very aspect that lures me -- I now find them kind of funky. Also, were their designers influenced by the early caramel cards -- colored black and white photos on a rich uni-color background -- all this with a biographic capsule on the back to boot? Plus, the set is anchored by the terrific Satchel Paige card.

With the surfeit of baseball card issues released over the years, the above is obviously nowhere close to exhaustive. I have only tried to give voice to my perceptions of the broad brush of stylistic changes over the last 100 years or so. This evolution goes to the essence of my fascination with these little pieces of cardboard which were, after all, produced for no other reason than to market a product (e.g., tobacco, cigarettes, bubble gum).

I admire those who manage to maintain some semblance of specificity and focus to their collecting. Myself? Forget it. I’m an easy mark -- a card slut. The lid to Pandora’s Box is stuck open.