You know as a collector I thought today I would change it up by discussing what I collect and why. When I was younger, I started collecting Baseball cards and I remember that I had my favorite players. My team was the Boston Red Sox and the players I idolized were Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice. In those days when you purchased cards you either bought a box of Topps cards which had 36 packs and the price per pack was a dime. Imagine spending just $3.60 for a box of Topps Cards and each pack had 15 to 17 cards a pack and the complete sets usually had around 660 cards. Then I remember the 1975 Topps the price per pack jumped to 15 cents or $5.40 for the box of 36 packs.
Today the price per box is based on the memorabilia cards in the boxes and my interest years ago was the jersey cards, the colorful patches were nice but as time passed, I lost interest and was only interested in the autographs and that is how I got started on collecting autos.
So, I thought I would show some of my favorite cards by my favorite card best/worst design, my favorite autographs and favorite players. Let's go!!!
This card is the 2011-12 Panini Private Signings card of Charlie Simmer. Why I chose this card design as one of my favorites is because of the photo in the background as it looks like a lithograph type of photo as it has the faded look and the auto's are hard signed. I know there are a lot of hockey card collectors that also love these cards.
The next of my favorite card design is the Panini Play-Off contenders Leather Larceny autograph card of Tim Thomas. The first time I saw these cards I said to myself that I had to acquire the Thomas as I needed his autograph for my Bruins autograph collection. What I like about this design is you can see the grain of leather as it looks like small cracks on the cards surface.
This next card favorite is the 2011-12 Panini Crown Royale Scratching the Surface card of Brad Marchand. Just the rinks appearance and layout along with the name showing the autograph or Scratching's indicating the auto. Of all of the Marchand autographs that I have seen in person and online this is one of the best looking as he added more to it than others that I have seen.
This is the last one of my favorite card designs. This card is the 2005-06 Fleer Ultra Fresh Ink card of Kevin Dallman. The thing about this card that caught my eye is the ink spots as it is another indicator of an autograph type of subset.
This card is the 1994-95 Donruss card of John Gruden and my worst card design and the reason being is you can't see the players name easily. This card being autographed is near the players name but with the auto not being there you have to turn the card in the light to see the name and the overall design is very plain.
This card is the 1981-82 O-Pee-Chee card of Mike Gillis and this is the worst looking autograph in my Bruins autograph collection. To me it looks like the number 8, but I think it may be just the letter "G".
This cut autograph is of Bobby Bauer and is not only one of my favorite autographs but probably one of the toughest to find. Bobby Bauer passed away in 1964 at the age of 49. Since that was 58 years ago, it makes his autograph very difficult to acquire. I have seen only three to date these one and two others and others are in private collections. The autograph was signed in fountain pen and is a very beautiful autograph and I am very proud to own this autograph.
This autograph is one of my favorite autographs because of the inscription. When I sent the auto request to Shane, I asked him if he would add the Sheriff and boy was I ever happy when I opened the envelope up and saw that he added it.
Very cool cards - the ice rink design just begs to have autographs on it!
ReplyDeleteI just noticed that the autograph is in blue ink that matches the blue line.
ReplyDeleteEven as cheap as they were (at least when compared to modern prices), I can't remember reading about anyone who was child in the pre-'75 era ever getting an entire box of cards. From what I've been able to gather, that just isn't something that very often... if ever!
ReplyDeleteIt was highly recommended to me that I check out your blog by Jon (A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts). He saw that Simmer autograph in your post and immediately thought of me. That card has been eluding me now for over a decade. After reading your post, it's obvious that you have no intentions of moving it as I can see your Bruins autograph collection is mighty impressive. I'm curious to see your pack pulled autograph list to compare it to mine as I thought I had flawlessly done my research to find a player or two I had no idea of.
ReplyDeleteMarc as for the Simmer card it is one that eluded me for a long time. I posted a looking to buy on a hobby site and I was able to acquire that card and I even grabbed the Normand Leveille card from that set and that one was tough. As for my autographs pulled from packs, I have every known certified autograph of the Bruins players but only one auto per player. My goal is to get all of the Bruins players that played one game to whatever number of games and currently I have close to 800 different players. Some players never had a card, so I just send a index card and for the deceased players I look for cut autographs. A lot of people call me crazy but I call it fun. Now that I am down to the final ones there are a lot of difficult ones and my Wife, and I are close to retiring so I have cut back on spending but if I find a Cleghorn or a Coutu auto it would be difficult to turn down. And Jon when I was a kid there was several of us who bought the box of cards. The five and dime store got a lot of the boxes with the 36 packs, and it was us few that were right there waiting to buy. We also would trade each other for what we needed but of course we never got along that well but hey that is what made it fun.
ReplyDeleteOne of my collecting goals was to have a certified pack pulled autograph of every Bruins player pictured in a B's uniform. The Simmer is the last need besides any new players who happen to get an autograph. I like your idea of trying to obtain every player who played in Beantown. I wouldn't call it crazy but, that has to be brutally tough. How do you obtain addresses in which to send cards to?
ReplyDeleteI buy a complete list of hockey players. It lists the players alphabetically by NHL, WHA, Olympians. It cost just under $40 and it comes out each year. The person who compiles the list also send updates of new addresses twice a year and players that pass away. If you get back a RTS return to sender, you email him the players address and he will find the updated one but most times some players do not want to be bothered so that is why he can tell if that address is current and correct. If you search sports address list, you should find it
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