Wednesday, May 25, 2011

My Favorite Babe Ruth Card

I was bored again and decided to make another homemade card creation last night. Here is Babe Ruth in a vintage Brooklyn Dodger uniform on a 2007 Topps card design. This time, though, I decided to use photoshop.

Auto Collection: Ron Cey- An Originals Auto

Unfortunately, the scan did not come out very well.

In 2004, Topps bought back certain quantities of a vintage Topps cards from dealers and had the players sign them. They then made a special wax box called Topps Originals and sold them as limited and encased vintage autographed cards. The big pull was a 1952 Topps card signed by Willie Mays. They were quite a rage back then and unopened boxes are hard to come by today.

Here is a the 1983 Ron Cey autographed card number 38 out of 87.

REA: A Rare Vintage Jackie Pin

According to REA, this is a newly discovered, possibly one-of-a-kind, pin featuring Jackie Robinson. I'll let the auction description tell the story.
The late 1940s and early 1950s were the heyday of the "stadium pin," so in the years that followed his Major League debut, additional Jackie Robinson pins were also issued. Aside from Babe Ruth, perhaps no player has ever been the subject of more pins (and more interest from pin collectors) than Jackie Robinson. Because of the nature of pins, advanced collectors know it is always possible that significant new discoveries will surface, but these discoveries are naturally very few and far between. We thought we had seen and handled every Jackie Robinson pinback that had ever been produced but when sorting through the Ron Menchine Collection we found that Ron had one that was, to the best of our knowledge, previously unknown.
Considering it does not have a photo it sold for an impressive $1,700.00.

REA: That Cuss Old Hoss

These next group of items from REA's recent auction features probably one of the more colorful ballplayers every to play the game. Some of you may now him best from his, back from the dead, raspy twitter feed known as @OldHossRadbourn. As his frequent twits suggest, he was tough, surly, arrogant and vain. Charles Radbourn could drink anyone under the table then beat you to a bloody pulp for not being man enough to take him down. He was difficult to like, but must have been a joy to see on the field.

"Old Hoss" was one of the best of all time on the mound. In 1884 he started 73 games and completed all of them. Yes, ALL OF THEM. He also won 59 games that year and pitched a total 678 2/3 innings. It took him only 11 seasons to win 300 games. His radiant personality, though, came out during games. In fact, he was suspended once for throwing at his own catcher and knocking him down. The catcher had committed the offense of dropping a third strike.

Anyway, REA's auction featured several vintage cards featuring that old cuss. Check them out below.

Here is a N172 1887 Old Judge card showing Billy Nash tagging out Old Hoss. It sold for $1,200.00.

This next item is even better. This is a 1884 National League scorecard with Radbourn on the cover. It sold for $1,700.00.

This is the rarest item of all. This is a circa 1887 cabinet card of Charles Radbourn. It sold for $4,500.00.