It's Not Always About The Ladies or is IT??

 My post today involves not just ladies but male players from different sports. Years ago I started collecting just Baseball cards. I remember going to my local five and dime store. I can still remember walking in the store and hearing the floor boards creak the smell of a old country store and the candy counter. The penny candy and of course the reason why I went there the Topps Baseball cards. I remember buying the 1975 Topps Baseball cards and paying only 15 cents a pack and those cards in my opinion were some of the better designs Topps did. Some may not agree so maybe I should say best design of the 70's may be more fitting.

This is the 1975 Topps Carl Yastrzemski card and I mostly like the two different colors and one thing that I miss is seeing the players during spring training with the palm trees. The 1975 Topps cards also had the Mini cards. These were distributed in Michigan and California. These cards were produced to cut back on production costs. The mini cards measure 2 1/4 X 3 1/8. These were inserted into Wax, Cello and the popular rack packs. 

This card is the 1978 Topps card of Bob Montgomery. These designs I liked the lettering and of course I always liked a border on a card. A border made grading the card easier and that is why it is important to have the border. I was taught to say a certain % on the sides top and bottom and without it you could only get duplicate cards to compare and see if the cards were cut differently. If they were cut differently you could see more of the photo on the opposite side and that makes more work. That is why Topps was my favorite card company and still is. The rookies from this set were Eddie Murray, Paul Molitor/Alan Trammel, Jack Morris and Andre Dawson with the Montreal Expos. The Montgomery auto I have always liked the way he signs his first name. Bob has always been a great signer for the autograph collectors and a great back up catcher during the 70's.

Jumping back to hockey this card is the 2012-13 AHL card of Hampus Lindholm and I remember when I sent this card to him. He had got hurt in a game and was out for almost the entire season and when it came back signed I was very glad because before I sent it I asked myself maybe now it would be a good time to send with him being hurt and unable to play and sure enough that is my answer as to getting it back signed. He was with the Norfolk Admirals the 2012-13 season.

These two cards are both from the 2021 Topps Allen & Ginter and the card on the left is Jeff Carlson and on the right Steve Carlson. These cards are based on the movie Slapshot and they played the famous Hanson brothers. I do have the third players autograph from the Hanson brothers which is Dave Hanson. All of these players played pro hockey. Steve played for the Los Angeles Kings and many other Minor league teams. Jeff played one season in the WHA for the Minnesota Fighting Saints. Dave Hanson played for 2 NHL teams the Detroit Red Wings and the Minnesota North Stars and several seasons in the WHA. All 3 players were easy autographs to get and on Dave Hansons cartd he wrote Old Time Hockey which was from a line in the movie slapshot.

This card is from the 1998-99 Upper Deck MVP card of Grant Marshall and I can still remember when I opened the envelope and was surprised at the inscription he wrote on the card. I never usually ask a player for an inscription except one time but I will discuss that in another post. What I mostly remember about that year was the rule a players skate being in the goalie crease and if caught the goal would be taken back and this caused a lot of bad language. During the '99 Stanley Cup Finals Brett Hull scored the game winning goal in the third overtime but goal was allowed good because there was a foot in the crease at the time the goal was scored. The Stars defeated the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 and hoist Lord Stanley's Cup. Grant has a very nice autograph and was another great signer and that is what make autograph collecting so enjoyable that and when the player writes back a letter or a brief note.

Speaking of players writing back a letter or note this player Wilma Briggs from the AAGPBL has sent me several letters and some are 4-5 pages long along with signing her card from the 1995 Fritsch card. I have at least 3 letters sent back to me and I plan on keeping these in a special place in my collection. I actually was very upset when I saw that she had passed away. She was such a sweet person and I have watched videos of her and her career totals are very impressive. She played a total of 691 games, scored 375 runs, 633 hits, 64 doubles, 24 triples, 43 homeruns and 301 RBI's. She led the league in 1954 with 25 Homers. This card is very special to me because of the kind of person she was and it would have been great talking with her about the game.

These 2 cards I just got back in the mail on Monday of this week and I remember sending these out almost 2 years ago. This is why I keep saying never give up on getting an auto back. These 2 cards are of Brianne Jenner and the cards are from the 2021-22 Tim Hortons. The card on the left is the base card and the card on the right is Canvas Moments card. Brianne plays for the Ottawa Charge of the PWHL.

In my post dated Feb. 11 I mentioned having a new feature and that new feature will be called What do you think. I will post a question related to the hobby and hope readers reply with their thoughts on the question. So check out that page and see the question. Questions will be based on hobby news and happenings. Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog, if you enjoy my blog please follow.

That is all for now.