The new year has brought a report of a new team added to the opus of minor league baseball cards produced in the early 1950s by Globe Printing of San Jose, Calif.California collector Jolene Jordan has reported the existence of a card from the 1952 Visalia Cubs team, pitcher Max Milton.Jolene was given the card (actually a pair of them) as a birthday present by her grandmother some 20 years ago. Her grandmother lived in Visalia, so Jolene speculates the cards originated from a trip to a ballgame the night that the Max Milton cards were distributed. The 2-1/4" x 3-3/8" black-and-white, blank backed card is in the familiar Globe Printing format, with a borderless action photo and a white strip with the player name.Milton made his professional baseball debut at age 19, pitching for Visalia, the Chicago Cubs farm team in the Class C California League. He pitched in 26 games, only two of them as a starter. His record was 3-2 with a 5.58 ERA. In 71 innings he gave up 82 hits, 52 runs and 26 walks.Milton's only other engagement in Organized Baseball was in 1955, with Tucson of the Arizona-Mexico League, where he was 0-1 in two appearances. It's possible, likely even, the years 1953-1954 were spent in the military.The V-Cubs finished fourth in the league in 1952, 16 games out. Assuming the Max Milton card is, indeed, part of a team set, there are no former or future Major Leaguers to look for. There may, however, be a card of Milton's pitching staff mate, Chet Brewer; the legendary Negro Leagues pitcher was at least 45 years old in 1952.
While poking around on one of the baseball card forums that I frequent more frequently these days, I found an image of a 1952 Bowman card (#15) of Senators outfielder Sam Mele. On Mele's right arm is a tattoo. It looks like it might be rose or other flowers; it wouldn't surprise me if there was a banner below with "Mother" or the name of a sweetheart.I'm guessing this is the earliest card to show a player's ink. On the small black-and-white action photo on Mele's 1954 Topps card, you can also see a dark blob on his right arm, but can't make out any details.The '52B is the only Mele card I've seen that shows this body art. He appears on Bowman cards from 1949-52, and 1954-55, and on 1951-52 and 1954 Topps cards as a player, and on 1962-67 Topps as manager of the Twins. Mele appears with neither Topps nor Bowman in 1953. He was traded from the Senators to the White Sox in May, 1952, though you'd think that would have allowed plenty of time for the Bowman photographers and Topps artists to get a picture in his new uniform in time for the next year's cards.And, while he played the entire 1956 season with the Indians, Mele didn't make the cut for the '56T set, having signed with the Tribe as a free agent just before the season opened.Another bit of baseball card information I found on Mele concerns his 1954 Red Man card. He can be found depicted with either the White Sox, with whom he ended the 1953 season, or the Orioles, to whom he was traded on Feb. 5, 1954. It looks like the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards may have the relative values of those two variations transposed. A check on eBay shows 8-10 of the White Sox version available, and none of the Baltimore, yet the Sox card is priced at a 22% premium. Also in 1954, Topps and Bowman differed in their depiction of Mele; Bowman has him with the Sox, Topps with the O's.Today, of course, tattoos on players' cards in all sports are ubiquitous. That wasn't always the case, though. In the mid-1990s at least one of the card companys was airbrushing tats off player photos.
I didn't get any response to my posting of the other day looking for French Canadian help in translating the back copy for the third of my Carl Weathers football cards. So I got out there on the internet and hit the English-French translation sites. The resulting back copy is therefore more French-French than Canadian-French, but it was the best I could do at the time, since I wanted to finish this card and move on to other projects.But just to give you an idea of the vagaries of working with internet translation sites, here are the translations I got for the cartoon caption: Carl studies acting (I've omitted the diacritical marks on the vowels).- Action d'etudes de Karl
- Carl etudie agir
- Carl etudie l'acte
- Carl etudes agissant
- Carl etudie cinema
This was my first attempt to replicate an O-Pee-Chee card. Weathers played for the British Columbia Lions in 1971-1973. I decided to work with a 1972 OPC style because he joined the Canadian team in mid-season 1971, and because OPC did not issue 1973 CFL cards.I bought a '72 OPC Lions card on eBay and was surprised to find upon its arrival that (besides the card having been rather crudely trimmed) the stock used for the original 132-card set was much thinner than contemporary Topps cardboard. I've decided to embrace that, and when I print my cards I will print the front on a glossy postcard stock that I found at Staples. I'll print the backs as I usually do, on gummed label paper, and when I put the two together, I believe I'll have a pretty good replication.In looking over '72 OPC Lions card on the internet, I saw the most of the photos have the same empty-stands stadium background. The color photo of Carl Weathers that I had in a Lions uniform originated on an apparently postcard-size issue of B.C. Lions players of the week put put by Royal Bank. This the one of only two, so I've been told, "real" football cards issued of Weathers in his playing days. I've not seen the other, but was told it was similar in format, perhaps issued by a gas station.I excised the image from the bank card and put it into the stadium scene to achieve the result you see here. The cartoon on back, the same one I used on my 1971 Topps-style custom, came from a 1970 O.J. Simspon card. I'm going to hold off actually printing my OPC cards for a couple of days, in case anybody writes to improve on my back translation. After that, I'll "go to press." I'll have a couple of extra cards available at $7.50 each, you can email me at scbcguy@yahoo.com for details.
From time-to-time readers of my blog/column and fans of my 1955 All-American style custom cards suggest that I should include coaches in my "update" set. Bear Bryant is among the most heavily lobbied-for choices.I've also given that some consideration, and have even put aside some photos for possible use in such a subset. I just haven't made it enough of a priority to actually get started. When I do, you can bet I'll start with Bobby Bowden.The FSU legend is on a list of "10 Legendary Coaches in College Football History," that is posted on the Best Universities website. I'm not sure that all 10 of the site's choices would make the cut for my checklist, but most are on my radar if that project ever gets underway.Here's a link to that article: Top 10 College coaches .
I'm in the final stages of creating a 1972 O-Pee-Chee style football card for Carl Weathers.The assistance of any of our Northern neighbors fluent in Canadian French is earnestly solicited, since OPC back them had bilingual backs.I'd like to have this translated to Canadian French: "Carl came to the Lions in 1971 after playing the previous season with the Oakland Raiders of the NFL. In the off seasons, Carl studies acting."After poking around some on the (free) translation sites available on the internet, I am not confident that they would do the job is a manner that would not be laughable to French Canadians.But please, don't try to stick in any dirty words, I think I can recognize most of those.Please email your translations to me at scbcguy@yahoo.com.Merci!
A report of yet another variation among the scarce 1967 Topps Punch-Outs has reached us, hopefully in time to make the 2012 edition of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.The variation is, probably to the consternation of Mickey Mantle specialists, on the most expensive card in the set, i.e., the Mick.Texas collector Al Richter, who specializes in Topps cards, including test issues and both cataloged and uncataloged variations, reports that the Mantle Punch-Out can be found with a background behind the portrait photo that is either "stadium (left)" or "sky (right)."As with all of the Punch-Outs, the Mantle is also found with variations in the line-up on the card. We covered a few other recently discovered Punch-Out variations in the Dec. 17 posting.Al is the only collector I have heard of that has completed the master set of '67 P-Os not only by "Captain" photo, but also by the two or more line-ups that can be found for each.
Just in under the deadline for the 2012 edition of the Standard Catalog of Baseball is a confirmed report of the existence of the last two unchecklisted baseball subjects from the 1955 Topps Hocus Focus set.Collector Jason Eggert recently bought a lot of nine '55T HF to aquire the Jackie Robinson card. Among the others that were "thrown in" on the purchase were the two cards that had been "missing" from the checklist all these years.In researching his purchase, Jason found my blog posting from June 26, 2009, about Tom Akins' discovery of three other then-unknown '55T HFs: Mayo Smith, Wally Moon and Spook Jacobs. In that presentation, I speculated that since the checklist for the 1956 version of Hocus Focus, was the same as #3-18 and #22-23 of the 1955 set, that when 1955 cards #17 and #23 were finally confirmed, they would be Hal Smith and Mel Parnell, who are #15 and #18 in 1956.That proved to be correct. In case you're unfamiliar with the Hocus Focus sets, I'll provide a recap from that earlier posting. HFs are very scarce cards, particularly in what collectors call "well-developed" condition. Hocus Focus cards were one of a genre of "spit-to-see" card novelties that Topps tinkered with in the 1940s and 1950s. Instructions called for wetting the front surface of the card and holding it to the light to develop the hidden picture. The quality of the resulting image resulted from the volume and evenness of application of the wetting agent, the exposure time and intensity of the light source, and probably other factors that neither Topps nor kids of that generation completely understood. I'm guessing that a quick dip in a tray of water probably was more effective at evoking a decent image than the spit-spray method employed by most kids on the sidewalk out front of the candy store.
There is a lot of confusion about how, and even when, the Hocus Focus cards were issued. There was a 252-card set issued in 1948 known as Magic Photos. They measure 7/8" x 1-1/2", but neither the name Magic Photos nor Topps appears on the cards. There are 19 baseball subjects in that issue.
The 1955 set may or may not be complete at 126 subjects, half the number of 1948 Magic Pictures cards, but no complete checklist exists. Besides the ballplayers, there are subsets of airplanes, world leaders, "Westerners," sports cars and other non-sport topics. These cards are 7/8" x 1-3/8," carry the name Hocus Focus on the back (but no mention of Topps) and, according to information seen on other forums, were probably issued in six-card strips in a nickel bubblegum pack. Besides the number at top on back, designating the card within the 23-subject baseball series, there is a number in the lower-right corner in a black circle indicating its position among the complete set.
The same format was repeated in (presumably) 1956 when a slightly larger -- 1" x 1-5/8" -- version was issued with 18 baseball players. Jason is naturally interested in what the value might be of these discovery examples of Smith and Parnell. Unfortunately, Hocus Focus is not one of those ancillary Topps sets that has a competitive following among the PSA and SGC set registry crowds. There is only one 1955 set registered (and one card in the set) in the PSA universe, and none for SGC. This would mitigate against any bidding war for the discovery specimens of Smith and Parnell.Postscript, Jan. 14: Well, I guess I was wrong about that! When they were put up for auction on eBay, closing Jan. 8, the Parnell and Smith cards sold for a total of just over $2,250!
