Dollar Cards & Oddballs; Card Show Recap #15 Part #2

If the Tribe-unal combo card above, possibly one of the greatest combo cards I've ever seen before in my life including cards from the '60s, was any sign as to how the rest of yesterday's baseball card show was going to go, then I was beyond excited to continue navigating my way through the vendor tables.

I was accompanied by my Dad to the Mansfield show yesterday, though I can't say we spend all that much time together while we're there. As soon as we arrive, we tend to go our separate ways, allowing each other to pursue what we like.

At the very end, we regroup and take one last look around together before heading out, double-checking to see if there's any last thing we want.

So, while I was searching through the dime boxes for player collection cards, my Dad was finding cards of his own that he liked, mainly $1 cards with a few oddballs and dime cards thrown in. This post is some of what he was able to track down.

I've started to become the main player collector out of the 2 of us while my Dad is more of a set builder or vintage kind of collector, more so than I am, at least. With that being said, he knows a good deal of the old-time players that we collect and even a couple of the modern ones as is shown here by the group of 2017 Allen & Ginter What A Day inserts that he picked up for 10 cents a pop.

One of the main reasons why I was ecstatic for the revival of Topps Gallery last year was that it would entail stupendous art like this being featured across an entire 150-card set. The 2017 Topps Gypsy Queen Hand Drawn Art inserts offer vibrant artwork unmatched by nearly any set produced nowadays. 

One of the strong points of the 2017 set, I was surprised to see them left out of the 2018 Gypsy Queen product.

Collectively, my Dad and I are both pretty into oddball cards, especially when we can find them for player collections. Whether they're as well-known by collectors as Hostess and Kellogg's or more obsolete oddballs like Jiffy Pop from the late 1980s, there's always been room in my collection for unique cards such as these, even if I don't have a player collection (yet) for Robin Yount.

Before the revival of the company in 1981 and continuous releases through the year 2005, Fleer produced a couple years of intriguing cartoon cards commemorating the various World Series' beginning with the very first one in 1903. A couple of these sets were produced in the late '60s and early 70s, resulting in what you see above; 2 different cards with cartoons commemorating the 1951 Fall Classic.

It's relatively difficult to classify an oddball and differentiate it from, say, a card or set that you're unfamiliar with. Usually, an oddball type of set is a product not released by a major card producer with a lot of the oddballs being released by food companies either in cereal boxes or, in the case of Hostess, on Twinkie boxes.

That's why, although still unfamiliar to me, I would not classify the Babe Ruth card above as an oddball. While I'm still not sure what set it's from or what year, the card was made by Upper Deck meaning it's nothing that would stump baseball card collectors left and right.

The unknown card of Babe Ruth commemorating the historic 1936 Hall of Fame Class is not the only card in the bunch of The Bambino. A duo of bright yellow cards with the word "Superstar" was also picked up for a buck each by my Dad when he was looking around yesterday's show. 

Unlike the 1st card of Ruth, I'd count this one as an oddball since it's easy to see how collector's, including myself, would have no luck identifying exactly what the card is.

Babe Ruth's Gold Tier player certainly benefited more so than almost every other PC at the show yesterday with another oddball commemorative set helping to prove why. Among the guys in the checklist of this seemingly art-based set from the 80s is Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx, suggesting it could pertain only to Hall of Famers or 20s and 30s legends.

From Babe Ruth to the guy that's been compared to Babe Ruth for quite a few years now, Mike Trout's 3D card from a past Opening Day set was one of my pickups separate from all the dime cards shown in yesterday's post. 

After spending a good deal of my day searching through the dime bins, I began to look more for cards of selected players for a bit more money, and one of the guys I decided on was Trout, a player collection closing in on reaching 50-cards or the Silver Tier status.

Along with Mike Trout, Hank Aaron, one of my top 2 favorite players of all-time, is another guy that I'm always willing to track down cards of separate from the dime boxes. Located in the $1-$3 per card bin that I searched through was a 2015 Topps Gallery of Greats card, something that I believe to be a higher-end insert set though I'm not very well acquainted with it.

While it's easy to spend a dime or a quarter on a card of a player, spending a couple bucks on a non-numbered card isn't for everyone, and certainly not something I can do for each and every player I collect. Thus, it's necessary to narrow it down to a short list of players that you're willing to spend the money for, and one of those guys, for me, is Hank Aaron.

Willie Mays is another player I'm willing to spend a bit more on even though his player collection isn't at the totals that fellow 50s and 60s stars Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron are at. For whatever reason, I'm almost always incapable of finding Willie Mays cards in the dime boxes, as if it's impossible or something for his cards to be there. 

I recognize the 2nd card, 2013 Topps Cut to the Chase, though the first card of "The Kid" is from some type of set that I've never seen before in my life.

What I've been getting at is I'm only willing to spend more than a couple dollars on a card that sticks out to me or is something I've been wanting for a while. This could mean a lot of things; cards of my favorite players, numbered cards, 3D or oddballs, and last but surely not least, rookie cards.

Giancarlo or "Mike" Stanton as he was known back in 2010 and '11 is now a member of the arch-rival New York Yankees, meaning I can't necessarily be cheering the guy on or rooting for him at every turn. However, I have no issues with collecting cards from his days with the Marlins, especially if it's a new Stanton rookie to add to his PC.