Monday 30 July 2012

Old Ball Players...


Aside from the Olympics (which has this week interrupted the baseball season as far as my armchair sporting activities go),  I have been steadily working my way through the excellent Ken Burns documentary on history of baseball. Whilst I have owned the series on since it first landed on DVD, I have not watched it for a number of years and had forgotten how it did an excellent job at covering the early history of the game. So much so, that it had me trawling through eBay looking for affordable vintage cards featuring the starts for the first half of the 20th Century.

Fortunately, the same UK seller that listed the T206 cards that I posted about last week, also made available a partial set of the 1950 Callahan release. These cards were by B.E.Callahan of Chicago and distributed as a box set at both the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and ball parks nationwide. I was fortunate to pick up 56 cards for just over $16. Not bad when you consider that each card has a book value of at least $2 - $5.

In addition to cards from Grover, Alexander, Lefty Grove, Rogers Hornsby & John McGraw, the partial set included one of my favourite old school ball players; the great Walter Johnson.

Grover Alexander (Cardinals), Walter Johnson (Nationals) & Lefty Grove (Athletics)

Napoleon Lajoie (Naps), John McGraw (Giants) & Rogers Hornsby (Cardinals)

Joe Tinker (Cubs), Carl Hubbell (Giants) & Eddie Collins (Athletics)

This is the last 'new' set that I am likely to feature on the blog this year. I am going to make a conscious effort to try and complete as many of the unfinished sets I have on the go; before commencing any new chases. Consequently, I am not going to purchase cards form any releases that I do not already own. 

Over the coming posts, I will though look to showcase some of the sets in my collection, that I have not shown before. Thanks for reading!

3 comments:

Will Clapton said...

Hey Warren, I really like the vintage cards! I trust you receive the Topps Finest cards safely? Will

threepointplay said...

Will - yup cards arrived safely! Time to post about some basketball cards next!

Fuji said...

These cards are awesome. I've never seen them before, but they're on my radar now. Thanks for sharing.