Pirate mail and show pickups from the past month

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To make a long story short, I pretty much quit the hobby cold turkey and have rarely been on here over the last month or two. Between trying to find a post-college job in less than favorable economic conditions, and the arduous wait to hear back about grad school applications, it seemed a good idea to step back from collecting for a while. Especially with another 40k in students loans potentially staring me in the face ::facepalm::

I finally found out this weekend that WVU was offering a very nice package that eliminates almost all of the stress I had been under. So of course the most reasonable thing to do was to head to the local card show to celebrate :lol: :lol: :lol: Now I just have to figure out how to adjust to life as a lifelong Pitt fan living in Morgantown...

Below are my pickups from this weekend, as well as some mail that has been piling up over the last few weeks and some long over-due thank you'd to some great members. But enough talk...time for some pictures!

Show pickups:
The Gorzelanny gives me the mini-rainbow, since I already had the base auto and the gold /50.The Christopher and Gross cards will be signed at the 60WS reunion at the Robert Morris show in May. The Bonds was one of the major modern Pirate cards I didn't have, and for $6 I figured it was a solid buy, even though I have little interest in graded cards. If anyone has access to the PSA pop reports, can you tell me how many 9's there are of the 86T?

Total spent: $25

Mail:
The Crusade Reds are the unnumbered promo versions, but at a little over $5 each, I am quite satisfied to have them in my collection instead of the numbered versions that usually go for around $30-35 each. I have to thank Greg Cleveland for a great package of Pirate parallels and the Blyleven auto, which has been elusive to me for some time. NECpilgrims sent the McCutchen and Tabata from a giveaway he did a while back, and both are nice examples of early autos from the players, and Pirates1411 sent a great package of vintage and inserts, my favorites of which are the two Clementes.

 

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One bump for the day crowd.

 

[Piratesfan1418]

I especially loved the Pie. That is an actual box score from his debut game. Pretty cool!

B

 

[pghbuccos]

Mark congrats on being accepted to WVU's grad school program. just make sure you don't wear any Pitt apparel in Morgantown. now on to the more important stuff the cards

lot's of great new additions to your amazing collection in this batch of mail. the Clement's and Stargell's are probably my favorites and that's great that Greg sent you the Blyleven and the others. Greg is a great guy and he sent me a much needed Bay last year. it's been a while since you have posted a card of a Pirate I didn't know (Chaz Lytle). oh yeah and I love the Beam Team auto. one of the coolest auto sets ever made.

 

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The Pie is a really unique card. I'm pretty surprised they were able to round up 100 box scores from that far back.

I'm not crazy about the Silver Beam Team. It is basically just a clear window, but all three together look great. I already have the base Paulino auto, so I may try and get the complete run of Paulino and Sanchez if I can.

 

[djrulz]

Have you ever seen the John Candelaria auto from Donruss Team Heroes? He signed some (or each one for all I know) "Candy Man".

 

[Piratesfan1418]

All the Candelaria's I have seen were signed Candyman and I used to own one. Too bad it was a sticker :?

 

[jjj7880]

Sweet stuff Mark!!!

 

[69MetsFan]

I wish there was a caption on the Roberto Clemente. You can just tell he didn't agree with the ump's call. "C'mon man, you know that was low!"

 

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As far as I can recall, all the Donruss stickers have Candyman or Candy. For what reason is beyond me. He has never been known as a fan friendly guy or a good signer, so who knows. Probably a cool item to add to my collection one of these days, but that will probably be down the line.

 

[DRav87]

The Pie is a really unique card. I'm pretty surprised they were able to round up 100 box scores from that far back.

These aren't real box scores from actual newspapers are they?

I have a couple copies of this card and I thought they just made the box score for the cards and didn't actually cut them from newspapers.

 

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[quote="subject to change":39a9i7zz]The Pie is a really unique card. I'm pretty surprised they were able to round up 100 box scores from that far back.

These aren't real box scores from actual newspapers are they?

I have a couple copies of this card and I thought they just made the box score for the cards and didn't actually cut them from newspapers.

[/quote:39a9i7zz]

Hmm...the wording on the back of the card is incredibly vague. "This card contains the box score from Pie Traynor's debut game."

While the coloration of the paper and the style font would match up with newspapers of the period, the feel of the paper seems off, and the ink appears to indicate it was printed with some kind of inkjet printer (though some of our printing experts could probably say that more definitively).

I do believe Fleer did use real box scores in previous products (I'm pretty sure 2002 Box Score had real box scores inserted), but it does appear that these may be reprints. I don't recall much about this set, and didn't see much online, so maybe some board members can give a little more info?

 

[DRav87]

Hmm...the wording on the back of the card is incredibly vague. "This card contains the box score from Pie Traynor's debut game."

While the coloration of the paper and the style font would match up with newspapers of the period, the feel of the paper seems off, and the ink appears to indicate it was printed with some kind of inkjet printer (though some of our printing experts could probably say that more definitively).

I do believe Fleer did use real box scores in previous products (I'm pretty sure 2002 Box Score had real box scores inserted), but it does appear that these may be reprints. I don't recall much about this set, and didn't see much online, so maybe some board members can give a little more info?

Yeah when I first saw the card I thought it was a real boxscore from a newspaper as well but then when I got the card in hand I wasn't sure. Like you said the back of the card doesn't really say either way and the paper seems too thin. Also I think the Haren is numbered to like 400 or 500 and they all have the same exact box score, so who knows.

 

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After some quick digging on ebay, I think it's safe to say these box scores are reprints. The Traynor is numbered /100, which though incredibly difficult, they could conceivably dug up 100 box scores from that game. The same could go for the more recent players I saw listed on ebay. However, there was a Nolan Ryan box score from his MLB debut /750, which almost certainly means the box scores are manufactured.