Ever Closer.... 1956 Edition...

Okay, so it's ONLY one card. I'm not really getting any closer to my set. But one card IS one card. And it's a beauty.

Big Bill set me back $1.13 shipped. It's been a looooong time since I found a good deal like that.

This particular version is a grey back, if you're into that kind of thing. It doesn't much matter to me.

This addition leaves me wanting #'s 10, 31, 95, 107, 172, 219, 254, 257, 278

Six relatively easy ones and three not so much. Some dudes named Aaron, Matthews and Spahn.

Pfffft. For now, I'm happy with Mr. Bruton.

Look! Actual cardboard! The kind that will actually burn!

another comc post. Yeah, I know. But hey! It's vintage! Everyone loves da vintage!

*ahem* Anyways... I managed to acquire six more 1956 Topps cards.

want to see them? Of course you do...

Gene Conley. All 6'8" of him. That's fairly commonplace now, but can you imagine seeing a 6'8" pitcher in 1956?
paid - $1.25

 by the way, Gene's cartoon mentions that he was a great basketball player in college. No doubt.

Chuck Tanner. Yeah the guy who managed the Pirates in the seventies. Oh, and Chuck is a #69 (giggity) and a gray back. According to the interwebs, #1-100 are more desirable in gray back form.
paid - $1.00

Ray Crone. Did you know that Ray had the game winning hit in the 10th inning to win his very first start? How many managers today would leave a rookie pitcher in his first start in that long?
paid - $2.30

Bob Roselli. ROOKIE CARD! You can tell by the monstrous rookie logo slapped willy nilly all over the front and back of the card.
Wait. What? There's no logo? Well then how did kids tell it was a valuable rookie card? Kinda like how did americans follow a black hockey puck on white ice before the Glowing Fox puck.
paid - $1.50

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny Logan!
paid $1.00

Danny O'Connell. Here we see second baseman O'Connell making the play at......... third? Huh?
Oh! That's actually Danny face down in the dirt. Looks like he's safe!
paid - $1.00

not a bad $8.05 if I do say so. I have no idea why I don't focus my entire comc sales money on buying the old stuff. Instead I grab all the shinies from the current players...... ah well. Every once in awhile I come to my senses and grab some old cardboard.

1956 a year with many meanings.

say the year 1956 to me and a lot of images go flowing through my head. It was a very influential year on my life. No, I'm not that old, I wouldn't make an appearance for almost another two decades. But 1956 still influenced who I am.

 

Mainly because of this.  LINK <--- clicky--="" clicky="">

I lost a lot of family in those two weeks. A lot of branches cut permanently off of the family tree.

 

One of my passions is cars. Yeah, I'm a car guy. Or rather more accurately a former car guy. Not much money left in the budget right now, or even the space to do it either. But it's still there, lurking under the surface.

And what car guy doesn't think of this when hearing 1956?

(I realize some of our female readers may be more inclined to remember the T-Bird or Baby Birds, and that's cool too.)

That's such a cool pic... if I ever need another hobby, it would be vintage card advertising. There's some really great stuff out there.

 

But for most of you reading here today, 1956 simply means this.....

some really great baseball cards. No fancy cars, no massacre or politics, just the unpretentiousness of beautiful cardboard.

 

I picked up these two at that card show I was rambling about in my last post.... the seller had a very big pile of these on his table. Including all of the Braves except for Aaron and Spahn.

For all of the Braves there were four marked at $30 or more... the rest he said were $10 each.

 

Now that's a bit steep. These can be had for under $5 most places.... but here in Calgary, the opportunity to shuffle through a stack of these, choose a couple, and purchase them, here, in person, was too much. So I bought two.

 

You've already seen Ernie there above. Ernie is a must have for any Braves fan. What a great man.

 

The second card was a bit tougher choice for me... so many to choose from, none of them wrong. But I finally went with Andy. Andy is smiling at me. And maybe the play at the plate in honour of my North Texas friend came in subconsciously too.

Other than being off center, the Pafko is amazing. Sharp corners, great colour, gloss intact. Amazing.

Both are dark backs if you're into that type of thing...

So while I always think of other things when talking about 1956, for today, it was just about baseball cards. And my two new friends. Who after 57 years have finally found their permanent home. Their journey is over.