It's Dynamite!

Anyone else remember Dynamite magazine?  You should it was publised from 1974-1992 and was the biggest seller all time for Scholastic.  Even if you were not a kid during this time period you kid probably brought them home.  I found this one from April 1979 in an ebay auction and had to have it.  Now why would I want an almost 40 year old kids magazine?  Maybe, for the Superman poster advertised on the front?  Nope, some kid must have put that on his wall in 1979 because it's missing. Though it does still have a poster of Lynn-Holly Johnson as a skater in it.  You probably won't recognize her for her skating. 

But you might recognize her for this. 

This article inside reminds me of old times.  It tells you how to send a note with a rubber band.  Yeah you could use it to shot some paper to a friend with it but like the article says there is a better way.  You stretch it out write directly on the rubber band and then shoot it over to your friend.  The words just look like some squiggly lines until your buddy stretched it out.  That is the way we used to do it when I was a kid.  Now 10 a  year-old just send a text. 

I actually did learn something from this magazine.  Check out the last sentence of the rubber band article.  Now I'm going to have to bring home a bunch of rubber bands from work and try it out.

It does have some colorful comics in it but this isn't a comics blog.  You here for the same reason I bought the magazine, cards.

That would be a 4 card sheet of 1979 Topps Team Cards including one Bill Virdon.  (there are also Twins and Pirates on the other side of the staples)  I wonder when the last time a kid brought home a magazine from school with cards in it was.  I don' think they even do the Sports Illustrated for kids anymore. 

Tickets, Get Your Tickets

As a collector of a long retired player you don't often run into stuff that you haven't seen before.  When you do you run down the rabbit hole in case you might find more.  That happened to me not long ago when I found this ticket stub from 2000.

Fist I found this ticket.  Then I found out that this ticket stub was given out to Pirate Season ticket holders in 2000.  It is actually part of a collage made up of six season tickets. 

(Side note: The Pirates lost this game 7-5 even thought they hit three home runs.)

So once I found out that they put players on season tickets it was off to the rabbit hole for me.  Luckily or unluckily depending on how you look at it. I have only found one other set of season tickets that had Bill Virdon on them.  In 1999 the Astros released special season tickets to commemorate the final year of The Astrodome.

Here he is on a ticket from June 17th 1999 against the Braves.  I think that they used a different player for every single picture.  Virdon isn't too lucky on a ticket stub though because the Astros lost this game 8-5.

What to do once you get your White Whale

So what do you do after you get your White Whale?  Well you adjust your sites to find another Whale to hunt. 

Believe it or not I have found two White Whales.  The Hunter Wieners Virdon I posted about a few times and my original White Whale the 1959 Topps Venezuelan Bill Virdon that I picked up out of a Discount Bin.  Yes you read that correct, a discount bin.  You see the Venezuelan looks EXACTLY like the regular Topps the only difference is they are on different card stock. 

Not the Venezuelan but they look exactly alike (other than this one is autographed)

So what other Virdon's are out there that are Whale worthy? Well here are the contenders:

1964 KDKA Tag Bill Virdon.  It is an insert from a Pittsburgh area laundromat.  I have never seen the Virdon, I only know it exists because it is listed on Beckett's site but I have never seen even a picture of it.  All I can find are a few of the other players.

1972 Post/Gazette - I have seen this one as part of a team set only.  Normally I wouldn't include a newspaper clipping but it is to "card like" to not include.  There is actually a set on ebay right now.  But I just can't pay the $200 for a newspaper clipping it would require to pick up the whole thing.

1973 Post/Gazette - Same thing as the 72.  I've seen it in set form but never alone.

Team Issues constantly pop up. I might have all of them but I might not.  I have a bunch of team issues that I just don't know what year they are from.  I probably find one a month that I have never seen.

JD McCarthy Kneeling Postcard

1966 James T Elder Postcard

Postcards - Postcards are allot like team issues.  There seems to be an endless supply of them and I just never know what they are.  I just grab them all when I see them.  The two I know are out there to be had are above.  I missed out of the McCarthy one because it was part of a lot and the Elder is listed on The Trading Card Database.

Signa-Cuts are out there for me to find. Signa-Cuts are the scourge of player collectors.  I'll pick them up when I find a new one.  There are 3 different 1/1 Signa-Cuts out there in the wild but since I already have three of my own 1/1 Signa-Cuts they don't feel very Whaley.

Buybacks - Another scourge to the player collector.  The bad thing about them is there is no way to tell what was made as a buyback and what wasn't.  It was bad enough when it was just Heritage but then Topps expanded it to their base set and did it for four years.  Is there one of every Virdon card for each year of the buyback 2014-2017?  Who knows?  I doubt there is a 64 or a 72 in any of the years because Virdon was a high number but you never know.

1973 Topps with ear

Here is a 2015 Buyback of the 1973 Topps with ear card.  Is there one without an ear, who knows?  I haven't seen it yet but it could be out there.

Heritage 1/1's - I already have one Heritage 1/1 Stamp card but there is another out there.  There is also a Heritage 1/1 Cut Signature card.  I know who has the Cut Signature.  He is a team collector and won't let it go.  So I know that unless something changes I won't ever get this one.

So out of all the stuff I don't have how do I decide which is going to be my White Whale?  It's the one that got away.

1961 Harmony Milk - I saw it on ebay once.  I had no idea what it was.  But it looks JUST like any other team issue.  I put in a pretty good bid for it that I thought was way higher than I should ever have to pay for it.  Nobody bid on it until there were seconds left and my bid got blown out of the water.  I was really shocked at the bidding I thought there was no way anyone would pay that for a team issue.  I mean it is the same picture as a half dozen other team issues this one just says Harmony Milk at the bottom.  So I got out my Standard and found out it that nobody knew it existed.  Harmony was super short printed and nobody knows what the whole checklist is and Virdon isn't one listed in the catalog.  So for 6 years I have been kicking myself that I didn't look at the catalog before bidding so for that reason the 1961 Harmony Milk Virdon is my new White Whale.

Bargain usually means used and abused

Since I quit blogging my collecting pattern changed.  I no longer buy new cards. I still collect new cards but I don't actively seek them out.  I switched to just buying complete Red Sox team sets then I even quit that.  I focus solely on Virdon and vintage Red Sox.  Probably 90% of what I pick up is Virdon.  My vintage Sox purchases are almost always of the bargain variety.  Here is my latest Bargain:

1940 Playball Joe Cronin

Bargain usually means used and abused.  My newest bargain is Hall of Famer Joe Cronin. This card has really been used and abused.  I can't imagine what kind of person could fold a card down the middle twice like that.  I can't make myself do it to a common card from the late 80s early 90s not to mention a Hall of Fame member's card.

Somehow the back fared better than the front.  You can still see creasing but it isn't near as obvious as on the front.  The scan actually makes it look worse than it really is.  In hand you can barely notice the creases on the back.

Revealing my White Whale

Evidently only one commentor was curious what my White Whale that I posted about was.  So after waiting on USPS to do their thing, here it is:

1955 Hunter Wieners Bill Virdon

It may not look like much but is has been a loooooong time coming.  How bad have I wanted this card?  I have searched ebay for it every day for 10+ years.  Twice I have even given someone a handful of one-hundred bills on their way to The National to buy it in any condition.  But both times they came back with only my money.

Why was it so hard to find?  Well Hunter was a St Louis meat packaging company.  In 1954 and 1955 they put Cardinal players on the side of their hot dog packages.  Evidently for some reason people in the 50s were not to keen on saving their hot dog wrappers.  That means they are very scarce.  How scarce?  As an example it is a 30 card set and only 71 total cards have ever been graded by PSA.

In hand this thing is way smaller than I ever expected.  I always expected it to be oversized, regular card width but tall.  Like an Exhibit card cut in half from top to bottom.  It is in fact undersized by both height and width.   You can't tell from the scan but the sides have a couple little nipples where it was attached to the other part of the wrapper.  The only "cut edge is the top, the bottom scuffed up but looks to have a "factory cut".

While the front looks great that back doesn't.  Good thing it is in a case because I think that is hot dog mold.

A little (lot) more about my search for this card.


Now I had said in my original post that I have never seen on before but I have found where one was sold as part of a lot multiple times.  However each time was long after the fact.

I did kind of have a shot at buying one once.  When I first started the blog in 2008 I found one image for this card online and swiped it then added it to my Virdon wantlist on this blog before I moved it to google sheets.

So I had this image on the blog for years then out of the blue I get an email one day.  The guy said I have the 1955 Hunters Bill Virdon that you want.  Not only is it the card you want it is the exact one you stole the image of, you can tell because how it is hand cut.  He said he was selling his collection and wanted to offer me this card before he sold it as part of a big lot, how much would I give for it?  I made him an offer and never heard from him again, no response.  Guess I didn't offer him enough.  (side note - the offer I gave the guy was more than I just bought this one for)  Month's later I found an already completed auction on some oddball antique site where it was sold as part of a lot.  (For ALLOT!!)

Funny thing is when you go to PSA and look at the registration report, right now, look what comes up.  It's that same card I grabbed the image of, that I was offered then not responded to, then sold in a lot, and now it's PSAs example of the card itself.

Lost in the Draft Folder - Cardboard Collection Group Break??

So, I got like 40 hits on my White Whale post.  That isn't too bad after taking off a couple years.  (Strangely enough my most read post is was the one right before the Whale post.  The 2015 post with the picture of a Topps car sticker.  It has THOUSANDS of hits.  

Anyway, I found a draft in my Blogger from 2013.  Only someone that has taken a few years off of blogging can find a 5 year old draft.  I had saved a title "Cardboard Collection Group Break" and had two scans, no other info.  So evidently 5+ years ago I was part of a group break and I got at least these two cards.  Seems and odd thing to get from a break in 2013.  Maybe I got skunked and this was a conciliation package?  

John Valentin is an often forgotten valuable part of the team in the 90s.  He hit at or around .300 for almost half a decade yet is almost totally forgotten.  Topps didn't forget him though.  Here is a nice Stadium Club action shot, sort of.  It really a Chrome version of Stadium Club.  

                                      

Also in my draft folder was this currently underrated Topps Laser card.  I remember when Laser came out, they were crazy expensive per pack.  Even the commons were sought after.  That crazy expensive back then was probably only like $5 but they still seemed glaringly overpriced considering they are pretty darn ugly. Now they are in dime boxes wherever dime boxes are found.

There she blows! When you find your White Whale

My heart skips a beat.

Scratch that, it skips a whole bunch of beats.

I'm short of breath.

My hands tremble.

My mouth is dry.

I'm Shocked!!

I shouldn't be that shocked.  I've done this search every day for the last 10 years.  But still it's hard to process.

I closed it and opened it again.

Yep, still there.

Heart still pounding.

Now to wait. 9 Days 6 Hours 5 Minutes.

Nine days is a long time. 

I check all the time, is it still there?  Yesss!!!

Days go by and my nerves build.

Finally it's the day of, I look at it over and over again.

The time can't pass fast enough.

It keeps getting closer.

2 hours

1.5

1

40 minutes

20 minutes

At eleven minutes I quit checking and just watch it countdown.

My alarm, that I set a week ago, so I don't miss it goes off.  Two more minutes.

I realize I'm sweating.  The I'm going to need a shower kind of sweating. 

I don't hear my heartbeat but I feel it in my ears.

Bump-Bump-Bump-Bump-Bump-Bump

I enter a big number, the biggest number I've ever paid for a card or even bid before.  Heck, I've bought a car for less. (a very crappy car, but still a car)

Resume the countdown

At 7 I submit because I always submit at 7.

6

5

4

3

2

1

And then the noise. Notification, Email, Paypal all trying to ring through at the same time.

My wife, who has been staring at me because I've been pacing the living room for a half hour asks, "did you win?"  I respond with, "yeah."  But it doesn't come out like YEEEAAAHHH!!! as I expected before hand.  Instead it's a whisper, "yeah".  I've waited a long time for this; I should feel euphoric but I don't.  Instead I just feel.... Relief. 

I sit in my chair. 

I relax for the first time in the last few hours. 

The beating in my ears slows and goes away.

Then the next beating comes to my ears.  "How much did it cost?"

I think to myself why does it matter, did I ask you how much those ugly boots with the fluffy shit coming out the top cost; but I  respond with, "it wasn't so bad". 

"How much is not so bad?" 

Jokingly I say, "well we don't have to cancel Christmas anymore."

"HOW MUCH DID IT COST?"

Am I the only one who thinks things are funny that their spouse does not?

"It didn't even come close to what I thought it would, you won't even notice it's gone",  I say.

Satisfied she goes back to watching her program.

But, for me the wait starts over because it's 6 to 8 days shipping and even more importantly there is always a new whale to chase.