So I recently had two hobby events happening on the same day, and I wanted to attend both.
The main event was a postcard show which happens just once a year but is an hour’s drive away.
The other event was a local hotel card show which is not the greatest show but it’s about as close to my house as a show’s gonna be, so it’s in my own best interest to support it… plus I was looking forward to filling some older needs and diving into quarter boxes full of recent cards.
I finally hit a on an idea… The local show started and ended earlier, so I’d go there first, check it out and then potentially hit it again on my way home from the postcard show.
Well, the dealers I hoped would be at the local show were not. The handful of dime and quarter boxes were somehow for every sport other than baseball. There were a ton of slabbed cards, Pokemon cards and… well… slabbed Pokemon cards.
[sigh]
One dealer had vintage display cases which were mostly HOFers I don’t collect, but I noticed a stack of Red Man Tobacco cards from the 50s in one corner of one case. I love these cards and while I’m not chasing these sets, I can’t resist picking up relatively cheap ones. I asked to see the cards the dealer had and ended up buying the following four cards.
1954 Red Man Mickey Vernon – In 1953 Vernon lead the league in doubles (43) and average (.337) and finished 3rd in AL MVP voting
1955 Red Man Chico Carrasquel – Chico was coming off of the third of four All-Star nods
1952 Red Man Whitey Lockman – the “important double in the ninth inning of the final play-off-game” referenced on his card came immediately before Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Around The World”.
1954 Red Man Johnny Antonelli – in 1954 Antonelli would go 21-7 with a league-leading 2.30 ERA… He might’ve been a candidate for the Cy Young Award but that bit of hardware didn’t exist yet.
So I bought these cards and left, knowing that there wasn’t a need to try to get back in the afternoon before the show ended. I went to the postcard show… which I’ll tell you about soon
The Shlabotnik Report 
Love grabbing cheap RedMans too. I *think* I have both of these Giants but they’re very likely from other years.
The year is always the tricky part with these… I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I’m not sure which year I have and which I don’t, but I can see it coming
Looked it up in my records and I somehow have one from each year 1952-1955 (but Mueller not Lockman).
I know that I’m not, and have never been, the target audience for Pokemon, but even so, I still have trouble, even after all of these years, wrapping my head around how popular that franchise is with so many people. It just boggles my mind.