My First Frankenset: The Top Cards - Honorable Mentions

I never had a clear plan for how to reveal my long-ago finished Frankenset. I've shown bits and pieces of it on the blog, and had some of the pages uploaded, but recently decided to finish it - in the sense of getting all the pages loaded to my Frankenset page. I suppose part of the reason it has taken me so long is that the set is 800 cards. So that's pretty big. But also, I've had other card projects that have pulled me away. 

Feel free to check out the link above to see all the cards in the set (89 pages!). I plan to reveal my top 10 favorite cards from my Frankenset. But first, I will show the honorable mentions, cards that just missed the cut for the top 10. 

1993 Upper Deck #124 - Andy Van Slyke

Choosing this image for a card of a prominent All-Star player of the early 90s is a bit puzzling. But I'm can't say I'm displeased that they chose it.

1994 Topps #180 - George Brett

You may be aware that Nolan Ryan's last season was 1993, and he had some fantastic cards toward the end of his career. But so did George Brett, whose final season was also 1993. This one is my favorite of Brett's late-career cards. 

1996 Score #126 - Benito Santiago

If I'm not mistaken, I think Schottzie is the most famous (infamous?) dog in baseball history. You don't see very many dogs on baseball cards, though there are some. Marge Schott was the Reds owner, and she often had Schottzie on the field. When he would do his business, she did not pick up after him. Obviously, this irked a lot of people. Also, incidentally, I believe this card features Schottzie 2. 

1970 Topps #252 - Lowell Palmer

Lowell Palmer had a 5-18 win/loss record over five MLB seasons. This legendary card ensures Mr. Palmer has not been forgotten, at least by the card collecting community.

1973 Topps #273 - Chris Speier

This card was voted the best of Dime Boxes second Frankenset. And for good reason. It's just a great card.

1992 Score #311 - Jeff Reed

I don't typically find joy in other people's pain but for some reason, this card makes me chuckle pretty much every time I see it.

1973 Topps #542 - Pat Corrales

Another legendary card from 1973 Topps. A painful collision with Fergie Jenkins. Written about many times, this card was a Cardboard Appreciation selection by Night Owl.

I plan to feature a countdown of cards 10 to 6 in my next post, then finish up with the top 5. Do you have any favorites among today's group? Thanks for stopping by.

Some Vintage from a Garage Sale

Before I dive into this post, a couple notes:

• First, I wanted to offer a word of thanks to Dime Boxes, Night Owl, Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary, and A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts for their recent card giveaways!
• Second, my post thumbnails continue to not show up on other blogrolls. I have done some searching to try to figure out how to fix this, but no luck. If anyone can solve this distressing development, there's a PWE of cards with your name on it. EDIT: it randomly worked this time!

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit a garage sale of a guy who owned a card shop in town that recently closed. I've definitely missed going to his shop since it closed in March, though I doubt I would have made as many trips there with the COVID situation. There are two other card shops here, but one has very limited hours and selection (I'm not even sure if it's open right now anyway) and I've never liked the other card shop even though it's been around since my childhood. So the recently closed shop was my main outlet to hunt for treasures, besides the occasional card show (which have also gone away since the pandemic).

So it was fun to get to flip through some cards again for a little while. I started with his vintage boxes, which I hadn't really looked at much before. I'm the type that likes to know at least a ballpark of what I might pay for something. The hang up for me has been that his vintage cards are all in boxes by set, but are not priced. But since I was card-starved, I decided to pay whatever he quoted once I brought everything to him to check out. Since I bought some other unpriced items, I'm not sure exactly what I paid for these, but it was probably in the 50 cent range. So not terrible.

Anyway, it was fun to pick up some vintage cards that I thought I'd show off here.

First up are some new "lesser knowns" for my Frankenset/mini-collection:

1969 Topps #128, Tommie Aaron
1969 Topps #287, Jose Tartabull
1970 Topps #401, John Harrell/Bernie Williams

Tommie Aaron is part of one of my favorite baseball trivia questions, because a lot of people don't even know about him: Which brothers combined for the most home runs in MLB history? Hank and Tommie Aaron (768). Hank had 755, and Tommie had 13. The DiMaggios (Joe, Vince, and Dom) are second with 573 combined home runs.

Jose Tartabull hung around to play part of nine seasons in MLB. He is Danny Tartabull's father.

I didn't even know about this Bernie Williams before I saw this card. He batted .192 in 102 games over four MLB seasons.

1970 Topps #317, Billy Conigliaro/Luis Alvarado
1970 Topps #53, John Kennedy

Billy Conigliaro actually played two seasons on the same Red Sox squad as his more famous brother, Tony.

John Kennedy's middle name is Edward (JFK's brother, long time Senator Ted Kennedy, had the given name Edward). This John Kennedy card is of course made more awesome because it's a Pilots card.

Next up are a group of cards that sometimes appear in lists of most-awkward or funniest baseball cards. It was fun to pick some of these up.

1969 Topps #38, Zoilo Versalles

The former MVP was not happy in this photo, but it wasn't because he hated playing for the Padres. They picked him up in the expansion draft, but traded him to Cleveland before the 1969 season began.

1970 Topps #252, Lowell Palmer

I wonder if those were prescription sunglasses. 

1966 Topps #74, Don Mossi

Let's just say this photo may have benefitted from some zooming out. 

Next up is one of two cards I have depicting a catcher writhing in pain. This one was clearly a result of the now obsolete home plate collision. 

1973 Topps #542, Pat Corrales

If you're curious about the other "catcher in pain" card, here it is:

1992 Score #311, Jeff Reed

Back to vintage. I've known for some time that I needed a vintage Dick Allen card, because everyone needs a vintage Dick Allen card. By 1974, dumb Topps had finally stopped calling him Richie or Rich. 

1974 Topps #70, Dick Allen

The final pickup I'll show here was Dime Boxes' recently crowned second Frankenset winner! I was really pumped to see this beauty among the other 73s. 

1973 Topps #273, Chris Speier

The card store guy hinted online on his still active Facebook page that he planned on doing another sale. I hope he does, because I barely got to look at the dime boxes this time!