Rails But No Sails

As part of a recent COMC shipment and due to a particularly good promotion one seller had, I picked up 8 cards from the 1955 Topps “Rails And Sails” set. This is a 200 card set where the first 130 cards of the set are devoted to trains (“Rails”) and the remaining 70 cards are devoted to seagoing vessels of various kinds (“Sails”). The two subsets have completely different designs but share numbering and came in the same packs.

Having grown up on Long Island, I had plenty of exposure to both trains (in the form of the Long Island Railroad, used by many to get in and out of NYC) and boats (there was water all around since it’s, y’know, an *island*).

However, despite having grown up near the Atlantic Ocean, I am very much not an aquatic person and the “Sails” part of this set is largely uninteresting to me. Had I been a youth in 1955, I’d be the kid either flipping all of his “Sails” on the playground, or trading them to other kids for boxcars and coal hoppers.

Trains, however, are a different story. I was big into model railroads when I was a kid… Well, to be completely honest, I was big into THE IDEA OF model railroads as a kid. I had (and still have) a set of trains and tracks that I would set up temporarily and take down, I often read Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman magazines, I had many ideas of what my model railroad would look like.

Thing is, I never actually started on making a permanent setup, despite my father’s offers to help me get started. I loved the idea of having a model train set, but I’ve never been a “work with my hands” guy so I wasn’t big into the idea of BUILDING a model train set. This is likely one of the many ways that my tendencies frustrated my father, whose entire career was spent in machine shops creating and fixing tools, dies, etc.

One of my earliest memories involving trains – although I’m not sure if I truly remember it or just think I do from hearing the story many times – came in nursery school, where my class was taken to the Smithtown train station and got on an eastbound Long Island Railroad train to St. James – the next stop, all of five minutes away. Aside from it being an exciting field trip for us, I’m sure there was an undertone of “Look, when you get older some of you will take the train to get to your job, you may as well get used to them.”

Although I never commuted on the LIRR, I did use it numerous times for fun trips into Manhattan. Generally speaking, nobody in the metro New York area drives into Manhattan, it’s too crazy and too expensive to park. You’d take the train in to Penn Station and then either walk or take the Subway to where you wanted to go. (It was always Penn Station and never Grand Central Station, I think that’s just where our particular branch of the LIRR ended)

In high school my one AP English teacher gave us lessons on how to fold a broadsheet newspaper (i.e. the New York Times rather than the tabloid format Daily News) in such a way that commuters could read it without needing much space. Again, “You might end up riding the trains all of your life”

I remember my astonishment when I was in my 30s and found out that one of my friends from college had never been on a train before… well, outside of theme park rides.

So to sum up the post so far… Yeah, I like trains.

And yeah, I couldn’t think of much to say about these cards themselves… other than I like them, and I haven’t decided on whether I would actually attempt to build this set — well, really the 130 card Rails SUBSET, the Sails can go suck eggs.

My Take On A Recent TCDB Non-Sports Ranking

The Trading Card Database’s Twitter account recently shared a countdown of the 60 Top non-sports sets of all time, as based on rankings by TCDB members.

It started out as a fun follow, and some of the choices at the lower rungs were pretty questionable, but I kept with it.

I started to get extremely concerned when set #11 was 1977 Topps Star Wars, a set I had pegged for the Top 3.

About the time spent following the rankings on Twitter, C-3PO says “I’m going to regret this!”.

I relaxed a little when 1955 Topps Rails And Sails came in at #5…

I’ve recently become enamored with this set, maybe the countdown won’t be so bad?

#4 was 1991 Impel Marvel Universe II, an overproduced set that frankly looks like… well, let’s just say it may not have been Marvel’s top notch artists working here.  To be fair, it could just be an artist I don’t like, there are a few of those (*cough* McFarlane *cough*)

#3 was 1992 SkyBox Marvel Masterpieces, which at least looks like an effort was put forth.

#2 is the first series of Garbage Pail Kids.  No surprises here.  GPKs came after I was in college and are not my sense of humor, but there’s no denying their popularity.

And then the Tweet came, and #1 was…

1990 Impel Marvel Universe????

Not Wacky Packages. Not The Beatles or Elvis. Not Mars Attacks.  Not even a different series of GPKs or Star Wars.

A low-end Marvel set from the early 1990s.

I immediately proclaimed it to be the
WORST.
COUNTDOWN.
EVER.

As it turned out, there was a reason behind the skewed rankings. The rankings came from the set ratings that TCDB users give to each set, but there’s also a minimum number of ratings involved… Mars Attacks, an infamous set that would inspire a Tim Burton movie, had a perfect 10.0 rating, BUT…

…At the time of the ranking, only 3 users had rated Mars Attacks, so it didn’t show up.

With my “outrage” lessened by understanding why the results were what they were, I thought it would be fun to run through some other sets I like which I think are worthy of of being in anybody’s list of top 60 non-sport sets.

…All while I think about going out to TCDB and ranking some of these sets so they don’t get neglected in any future countdowns.

1961 Topps Sports Cars
This set surprised me by ranking as high as #24, I’ve found that there aren’t a lot of people who are familiar with it.

1953-55 Topps World on Wheels
This set ranked #27 which seems reasonable, if a little low.

1991 Impel Star Trek 25th Anniversary
This set might be generously ranked at #36 but it is a pretty decent set.

1976 Topps “Autos of 1977”
This set didn’t get ranked, and it’s just as well… it’s not a great set, but I like it because it’s a 1970s set and it deals with cars.  I would’ve collected this set in the day had I been aware of it.

1966 Topps Batman (Black Bat)
It’s unforgiveable that not one series of 1960s Batman sets made the rankings.

1970s Topps Wacky Packages
This might have been diluted by the fact that TCDB regards each of many series as it’s own set… which is a fair assessment from a collectible angle but for rating purposes I think everyone regards them as one set and I wouldn’t know which Wacky Pack goes with which series.

1964 Topps The Beatles
Again, there were several Beatles sets, the distinctions got lost over time and I think that works against The Fab Four.

1993 River Group Beatles Collection
I think this is a good set, but if the vintage Beatles cards don’t make it, then this shouldn’t either


1994 Cornerstone Monty Python’s Flying Circus
I love that they captured this entire “Spanish Inquisition” sequence on card backs towards the end of the set.

1993 Cardz The Flintstones
This just barely makes it on my list.  There are cards for every main character and every episode, but it also focuses a little too much on series and specials that came after the original run.  Those later works generally focus on Pebbles and Bam Bam (yergh).

2015 Upper Deck Dinosaurs
I only have a couple of cards from this set, but it’s a beauty and really should be on a Top 60 list like TCDB had. These were also pretty expensive cards when released, which doesn’t help.

OK, that about covers it, and if you disagree with my picks, well you can…

What are your favorite non-sport sets? Let everybody know in the comments.

…And don’t forget to rate some sets the next time you’re on TCDB!

1961 Topps Sports Cars – The Latest Batch

This is another post in a series about my acquisitions from the 1961 Topps Sports Cars set.  This has been a very slow set build on my part… The problem with having a blog is that you can tell how long you’ve been collecting something, and I got my first card from this set just over eight years ago.

But it’s OK, I knew this was going to be a slow build.  I don’t think you could say these cards are rare, but you also don’t run across them a whole lot either especially when I’m trying to keep things within a budget.  With the four cards in this post I’m just over 75% done with this build.

So the main thing about this post is that I want to share the cards but I don’t know much about the featured cars so I’ll just share some information off of Wikipedia and hope it’s accurate.

The Lister Motor Company made these race cards using the engine from a Corvette, which is why it’s listed here as Lister-Chevy.

I love the last sentence of the card back:  “The aluminum body isn’t pretty but it’s very light”.

I don’t know if a 24-horsepower microcar truly fits into a set called “Sports Cars”, but here we are.  Without context it’s hard to tell just how tiny these things are… Going by the specs on Wikipedia they were about 4′ high, 4′ wide and 10′ long.  Just by comparison my six-year-old Mazda 3 is nine inches taller, a foot wider and nearly 5 feet longer.

Wikipedia says that the DKW-1000 was made by AutoUnion, which is a predecessor of Audi.

This set comes in greyback and whiteback versions;  this is the only whiteback I have so far, not that it matters much to me.  I make note in my database of which cards have which card stock, maybe someday I’ll make sure that every card is greyback.

As the back of the card says, the Dual-Ghia was essentially a Dodge chassis and engine fitted with an Italian body.

The card back mentions that Frank Sinatra owned one of these… Wikipedia says the same and also name-drops Dean Martin, Desi Arnaz and Richard Nixon.

These last two cards completed the 7th page of my binder (Cards #37 – 42).

Chu-Bops, I Bop and They Bop

Back between 1981 and 1983 there was a collectible called “Chu-Bops”, and what they were was little 3″ x 3″ album covers that came with a bubble gum “record” inside.  They were issued in series, and three of the series were devoted to Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

At the time I bought only a couple of Billy Joel albums and then a complete run of Beatles;  since they were sold individually in clear cellophane, there was no randomness about it, you just bought the “albums” you wanted. The only way you didn’t complete a set or get all of your wants is if the store was sold out of that Chu-Bop, or if you just missed that series entirely.

First up, I have a Chu-Bop for Billy Joel’s “Glass Houses” album, #4 in the set. The original album is from 1980. I’m originally from Long Island and there’s a state law on record that anyone from Long Island and of a certain age has to be a Billy Joel fan. The law is similar to the Bruce Springsteen statute in New Jersey.

Yes, I know this looks like I took a photo of the album cover, but this is much smaller.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of one of my Beatles Chu-Bops with a standard-sized Topps Beatles card from the 1960s

The back of the “Glass Houses” Chu-Bop has a little gatefold tab that was perforated so you could remove it. Here’s what you would see in an unopened package (I never removed the tab).

Here’s what the gatefold looks like unfolded…  The part on the left is the back of what you see above.  The part on the right is the back of the “miniature album cover” and featured the lyrics to one of the hit songs off of the album in question – in this case “You May Be Right”.

The gum from my Chu-Bops was chewed and spat out 40 years ago, otherwise I’d show that to you as well.

I also have Billy Joel’s “Songs In The Attic”, #52.

This is clearly from a later series, as it a little “Super Star” logo in the top left and a different offer.

Rather than lyrics, this one has a mini-biography of Billy Joel on the right.  The coupon on the left is for an out-of-print album called “In Harmony 2” which had famous people performing songs aimed at kids.

The Billy Joel song on “In Harmony 2” was called “Nobody Knows But Me” and is about an invisible friend.  To my knowledge the only place this song is currently available is in the “My Lives” box set that came out in 2005.

I thought I had a “team set” of Billy Joel, but when I was researching this I found out I’m missing one for his “52nd Street” album.  Oh, well.  Don’t know how much I care at this point.

The rest of my Chu-Bop collection is all Beatles albums.  I borrowed this image of the sales displays from a Heritage Auctions listing:

Since they were sold in the U.S. before the international standardization of Beatles albums (which happened when the CD’s were first released), many of these Chu-Bops feature album covers that have been out of print for over 30 years.  Here are a couple…

Hey Jude (1970)

Once again, the lyrics from one of the songs was featured on the back.

Something New (1964)

Yesterday And Today (1966)

Beatles ’65 (issued late 1964)

Beatles VI (1965)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Reel Music (1982)
This was a post-breakup compilation made up of songs from A Hard Day’s Night, Help, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be.

TCDB has a checklist of the set, but they don’t have any details on the Beatles so I’ll share a checklist here:
B-1 “Reel Music”
B-2 “The Beatles” (aka The White Album)
B-3  “Abbey Road”
B-4  “Hey Jude”
B-5  “Meet The Beatles”
B-6 “Something New”
B-7 “Beatles ’65”
B-8 “Beatles VI”
B-9 “Rubber Soul”
B-10 “Yesterday and Today”
B-11 “Revolver”
B-12 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
B-13 “1962-1966” (aka The Red Album)
B-14 “1967-1970” (aka The Blue Album)
B-15 “Let It Be”
B-16 “A Hard Day’s Night”

The Beatles albums which were released on Capitol Records in the US but weren’t made into Chu-Bops were “The Beatles Second Album”, “The Early Beatles”, “Help!”, “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Yellow Submarine”, plus the live “Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl” and the post-breakup compiliations “Rock ‘N Roll Music”, “Love Songs” and “Rarities”.

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In researching this I found that several years ago San Jose Fuji had written his own blog post about Chu-Bops. If anyone else has written about these, let me know and I’ll update this post with links.

Odds And Ends

As part of a quest to add to this blog more than once a week, I’m going to write off the cuff about a few oddball cards I’m very happy to add to my collection.

First up is a Laughlin card of the 1973 World Series; this is the back to a 1980 Fleer Team Logo sticker.  Even though the Mets lost this series in 7, I had to have it… and I love how the little Mets guy has a Charlie Brown look about him.

A new addition to my largly passive and somewhat modest Cal Ripken collection. I’ve lost track of how many Cals I have, but it’s easily 200… plus this pop up insert from the 1989 Donruss All Stars set. It’s interesting how big of a die-cut they made for the bill of Cal’s cap.

This is a Mazda RX-4 from the Topps “Autos of 1977” set which was issued in 1976, I presume it was issued at the beginning of the car model year. Every now and then I toy with the idea of chasing this set, but until I commit I’m happy to pick up cards here and there.

My current car is also my second consecutive Mazda, which is what kinda sorta inspired me to get this card when I ran across it. Here’s the back:

I’ve not seen this said anywhere in particular, but this set strikes me as being made from photos and text obtained from the various car companies of the day… Well, except for them misspelling Volkswagen as “Volkswagon”, I’m sure they didn’t get that from VW.

Here’s a fun one I got from Dime Box Nick a little while ago…  Justin Turner’s 2010 Upper Deck rookie card showing his brief stint with the Orioles (and showing him with glasses and no beard).  He was originally a 7th round pick of the Reds, was sent to the O’s as part of a 2008 trade for catcher Ramón Hernández, was claimed on waivers by the Mets in 2010, signed as a free agent with the Dodgers in 2014… and the rest is history.

For those who aren’t familiar with 2010 Upper Deck, they had lost their MLB license but still had the players union license, so they made a half-assed attempt at an unlicensed card, but it was done by selecting photos where you can’t completely see the logos rather than photoshopping logos and colors out as Panini does. The 1st series is all that was issued before lawyers told them to cease and desist, kind of like 1963 Fleer in that respect.

This next card has some special significance for me, even if it doesn’t seem terribly exciting to a neutral observer…

Believe it or not, this card – obtained in the summer of 2022 – is my very first Topps NOW card. I recognize that it’s not your typical Topps NOW card that commemorates something that happens in a game, but it’s still my first NOW of any kind. I decided a while ago that I didn’t want to go crazy chasing these cards, and I would only pay Topps prices for an event-based Topps NOW card if I was actually in attendance for that game… and as I’ve been to only 1 or 2 Major League games over the past 5 years, that hasn’t happened. Surprisingly enough, “Orioles get their butts kicked” did not result in a Topps now card in 2019.

Oh, Charlie Culberson is a player I semi-collect in case you were wondering. This card was mainly a case of “it was there and the price was right”.

I’ll wrap up with a Japanese card that’s from a concept that I love.  The set is 2019 BBM “Time Travel 1979” and it’s a 21st century set that’s made as if the set that was issued in 1979… retro design (sort of a mash-up of 1973, 1974 and 1975 Topps to my eyes) and players who were active in 1979.  I’d like to think the photos were from the neighborhood of 1979, but I can’t say.  This card of Toru Sugiura was on COMC and affordable so I went ahead and grabbed it just because.

Sugiura played 22 years for the Yakult Swallows and in 1979 he was an All-Star for the first time.

Here’s the back… The stats are through the 1979 season even though Sugiura played until 1993.  Nice touch.

If Topps or some other company that Fanatics absorbs were to do a Major League “Time Travel” set from any year from the 1970s or 1980s, I would completely lose it… Well, I should qualify that and say that it has to be reasonably well done for me to lose it.  Certain retro sets have made me realize that it’s not enough to have stars of the day in a set, it also has to have non-crappy images for me to throw my time and money at it.

And as I’m writing this and thinking of 1979, it suddenly occurred to me:  Is Toru Sugiura in the 1979 TCMA Japanese Baseball set that I own?

The answer is, yes…. yes, he is!  Bonus oddball!

And with that, I will bid you all a good night (which it is at the moment, even while I schedule this post to publish in the morning).

1959 “Disc Stars”, Monty Python, Eurovision And A Professional Logician

A recent shipment from COMC included a bunch of cards from the UK, including the 3 vintage non-sports cards featured in this post.

I’ll talk about the cards first, and then explain why I got them near the end of the post. The cards I got are from the 1959 Kane Products “Disc Stars” set.  The 50-card set has names that are still well known today:  Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte and others.  Don’t get your hopes up, I didn’t get any of those cards.

The first card I got was of Alma Cogan who was a very popular British singer of the 1950s and early 1960s. Sadly she died in 1966, succumbing to cancer at just 34 years old.


Interestingly enough, there was a Kane Products “Film Stars” set in 1958 which also included Alma Cogan, even though she didn’t really appear in motion pictures (although plenty of television).

These cards are pretty nice, and a bit oversized.  To give you an idea of the size of these cards, here’s a comparison to a 1953 Bowman card I got in the same COMC shipment. The Disc Stars card is the same height as the Bowman but a little bit wider.

According to the set overview on TCDB, the set was also issued in a smaller 2 3/8″ x 2 1/4″ size.

The other two cards I got are for Teddy Johnson and Pearl Carr, a married couple who were known as “Mr. and Mrs. Music”. Like Alma Cogan they were popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, but weren’t as popular after groups like The Beatles came along. Their big hit was a song called “Sing, Little Birdie” which came in 2nd place in the 1959 Eurovision Song Contest (more on that in a moment).

So that’s what I got.  If you’re a die-hard fan of Monty Python, you can probably figure out why I got these cards, but I’ll go ahead and explain.

I’ll start with Teddy & Pearl… There was a Monty Python sketch called either “World Forum” or “Communist Quiz” where communists Karl Marx, Mao Tse-tung, Che Guevara and Lenin are on a panel show, seemingly to discuss political matters, but it turns into a game show where they’re quizzed on British Football (Soccer) and pop culture.  One of the questions asked – at least in versions performed for the British public – was this:  “Teddy Johnson and Pearl Carr won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1959…  What was the name of their song?”  As I mentioned before, the song was “Sing, Little Birdie” and they didn’t actually win, they finished 2nd.

For what it’s worth, when this sketch was performed for American audiences, such as in the “Live at the Hollywood Bowl” movie and on the “Live At City Center” album, the question was changed to one about Jerry Lee Lewis.  In both cases, Chairman Mao got the question right.

Here’s the Communist Quiz sketch from the “Live At Drury Lane” album.  If you have a short attention span, the question about Teddy & Pearl comes at 1:25.

And here is the song… The song is representative of popular music at the time, and they do sing very well together, but 21st century audiences might think it pretty cheesy.

As for Alma Cogan, she was referenced on the album “The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python And The Holy Grail”.  In a non-movie track called “Logician”, John Cleese’s character says that Sir Bedevere’s conclusion that “All wood burns therefore all that burns is wood” is “pure bullshit”, and as an example of how universal affirmatives can only be partially converted, the logician states that “All of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan”.

In the sketch, Alma Cogan is mentioned at 0:25 and again at the end (starting at 2:35)

And here’s a clip of Alma from what appears to be French TV in 1963.  She certainly knew how to look into the TV camera and reach her viewers.

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

Somewhere along the line, I got the foolish idea that these blog posts have to be *about* something… that there has to be analysis or research or a theme or whatever going on. On the other hand, I can’t even remember the last time I just did a “Hey, look what I got!” post! Maybe if I just relax and write stuff, I can get back to writing more than once a week.

I’ll start off with a couple of Living Set cards I got from COMC… These cards are very old news for most of you, but I still haven’t bought a single card direct from Topps.  I wait for the aftermarket (COMC), and then I wait for the price to go down, and then I wait until my next shipment…. and that’s how it gets to be several years.

To tip you off on how old these cards are… here’s one of Manny Machado with the Orioles!  (Trust me, I wouldn’t give the time of day to a Machado card post-O’s)

…and you can tell it’s been a while because this is card #37 and they’re currently up to #510.

I got five Living Set cards, and my favorite of the batch is this former Met, Amed Rosario.  I know this is SOP for modern-day Topps, but it always bugs me a little when they put a round logo into a circle like this and still leave all that white space.  Fill the damn circle!

How about some actual vintage? I was extremely pleased to find this 1972 Topps Nolan Ryan card within my budget.  For quite a while, I was approaching 1972 Topps as “Let’s see how far I can get while staying within my budget”.  This card is further than I’d thought I would get.

Nolan’s got a big ol’ crease across his face, but I honestly don’t care. Much of my 1972 set build is well-loved.  Creases and dog-eared corners are acceptable.  I will also allow paper loss or pen marks, but only on the backs… but if push comes to shove, pen marks on the front would be OK as long as it’s not glasses and a mustache drawn on Steve Carlton.

I have to say, though… I’m growing to resent Nolan Ryan a bit. I got past this particular Nolan Ryan hurdle, but his first three cards are major obstacles in my quest to complete a run of Mets cards of the 1960s.

Like with 1972 Topps, I’ve been thinking I should get back to my 1970s Hostess sets.  I was recently reminded of how fast Enos Cabell and the 1978 Astros were…  I’ve been messing around with my Statis Pro board game, and Cabell, César Cedeño and José Cruz were all fast dudes.

Speaking of tabletop baseball games, I picked up this 2002 MLB Showdown card of Al Leiter. Even though I don’t play the game, there’s just something about these I find fun. I also like the fairly deep checklists (which obviously doesn’t apply to 2-time All-Stars like Leiter)

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Advisory: The last five cards featured in this post might be wasted if you’re not of a certain age and possibly also a certain level of nerdiness.

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FIVE

FOUR

THREE

TWO

ONE

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

Back in the day, when I was a wee nerd, one of my favorite shows (along with Speed Racer and Gigantor) was Thunderbirds… Being a small child in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I think it was pretty typical to get excited about space ships and robots and gadgets.  I know others my age or a little older who were big into westerns, but I couldn’t care less about those.  I don’t care about the past, give me tomorrow!

As for the cards… These are all Mirror Foil inserts from the 2015 Unstoppable “Thunderbirds 50 Years” set. A couple of years ago I bought the card of Thunderbird 3 on a whim during a COMC Black Friday promotion, and it wasn’t until I got the card shipped to me that I realized how much it made me smile… So I went back out to COMC and bought the other four cards you see here.  There are also cards of the five characters associated with each Thunderbird, but I didn’t buy them. Even as a kid I would’ve told you that the stars of the show weren’t the Tracy brothers, it was the hardware.

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1961 Topps Sports Cards: The 2021 Batch, Part 1

It’s been a couple of years since I featured any cards from the 1961 Topps Sports Cars set that I’m slowly – verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly – chasing.  I got my first one in 2014 and it wasn’t long before I decided to go for the 66-card set.  The thing is that I’m trying to complete it on a budget, and this is not the kind of set that everybody carries… In fact, a few years ago I managed to stump the owner of a LCS that specializes in non-sport, but wasn’t at all familiar with these.

Plus, pretty much every one of my card-collecting goals is on hold while I do some organizing, prioritizing and navel-gazing.

Anyway, I don’t have a lot to say about these new card that I just got shipped from COMC, so I’ll just feature them and include the text from the back of the cards, as I would imagine that the images would be hard to read on a phone or some such.

ALVIS

The Alvis is made by one of England’s smallest car companies. Its hand-made body was designed in Switzerland. There are a few Alvis cars in the United States because they are very expensive and most people do not appreciate their special quality and quiet, dignified performance. The dashboard is hardwood!

HP – 125
Top Speed – 100 MPH
Price $6800

BORGWARD RS

The German Borgward company has spent very little time on its racing sports cars, compared with its competitors, but it has succeeded in developing one of the fastest cars of its size in Europe. These cars have done particularly well in hill-climbing races. None have been sold to the public.

HP – 150
Top Speed – 155
Price – Not for sale

SKODA

The Skoda works makes steel, guns, tanks and a few cars in Czechoslovakia. The new 1100 roadster is very well-engineered and carefully made, but is not yet fully developed. It is possible that this car will be a successful racer in the future. The engine is very powerful for its small size.

HP – 92
Weight – 1215 LBS
Price – Not for sale

Good Things Come In Wacky Packages

The original run of Topps Wacky Packages was from 1973 to 1976, which is pretty much my sweet spot as far as being a kid goes. Like many of my friends and school mates, I spent a lot of my allowance on Wacky Packs. Unfortunately for “21st Century Me”, what “1970s Me” did was to do what all kids do with stickers: I stuck them, mostly to my loose leaf binder (and I still have the cover).

My baseball cards were well taken care of when I was a kid, so Wacky Packages are my “If I had only…” regret from childhood.

When I was at a show in January, there was a dealer who had Wacky Packs, but unfortunately I didn’t find them until late in the show when I was nearly out of time and money.  I picked up four Wackies, one of which turned out to be a double (and already featured on this blog a few years ago).

“Commie” was one I had stuck to my binder.

“Sootball”, which is based on the 1974 Topps Football wrapper, was a new one to me.

“Ajerx” is a long-time favorite… The jerk on the label reminds me of someone I know, which just adds to my amusement.

When I got these stickers home I decided that it was time to at least start a checklist, even if I wasn’t necessarily going to make a project out of these.  In the process of getting the information from TradingCardDB, I was surprised by how many Wackies there were.  In those four years there were 16 series, each roughly 30 stickers, for a total (by my count) of 494 stickers.  Damn, that’s a lot. If I decided that I was going to chase them all, I would be 1.5% of the way towards my goal.  At this point, I’m thinking that I might just try to find all of the ones I had back then, and leave it at that.

 

Progress On The Wrong Goals: 1966 Topps Batman “Black Bat”

Unlike most other years, I’ve actually established goals for 2020… although I didn’t get much into specifics in this blog.  Naturally, the one show I went to in January had very little related to my goals for the year, but I made some progress on the goals which had been back-burnered.  Among those back-burnered goals is the 1966 Topps Batman “Black Bat” series.

I finished the “Batman vs. The Joker” subset back at the end of 2015 and I’d meant to attack another subset someday, but never quite got around to it.  Maybe this will kick the search back into gear.  I might start with the “vs. The Riddler” subset since I’ve got 3 of the 11 cards, or maybe I’ll just let the cards fall where they may.

Since I don’t have a lot to say about the individual cards, I figured I’d take advantage of my prodigious typing skills (I took a full semester typing course in high school, dontcha know) and transcribe the text from the back of each card.

#16 – The Penguin’s Trap – # 3 of 11 Batman vs. The Penguin Cards

The Batman sets out for the address found upon the crook, and arrives at an abandoned house near the edge of town.
Robin stays in the Batmobile, as Batman carefully explores inside. Suddenly a trap door opens in the floor and Batman falls ten feet to the floor of a pit.  A voice is heard from a hidden speaker: “Welcome, Batman!” It is the voice of The Penguin. “At last you have stepped into my trap!”

#28 – “Let’s Go” – #4 of 11 Batman vs. The Catwoman Cards

Batman rereads a letter that had arrived for him at police headquarters: “….Only you and Robin can help me. Please come tonight!”
“It sounds important, Batman,” says Robin. “Let’s Go!”
That night, the sleek Batmobile roars up to the designated spot. “Stay here while I check,” says Batman. But when he returns, Robin is gone.

#35 – Cat Woman Defeated – #11 of 11 Batman vs. The Catwoman Cards

“You’ll never escape with that formula, Cat Woman!” shouts Batman as he throws a gas pellet onto the floor, in front of the huge cat she had released.
As the furry beast sinks to the floor of the cavern, Batman leaps over it, in time to throw his Batline around the fleeing Cat Woman. “Looks like you’re right, Batman,” she says. “But don’t worry… There will always be others!”

#40 – Following The Clue – #5 of 11 Batman vs. The Riddler cards

“It’s come!” says Commisioner Gordon to Batman and Robin. “We’ve received the first of The Riddler’s new riddles. But it’s one even I knew as a child: ‘Why does a fireman wear red suspenders?’ The answer is ‘To hold up his pants’!”
“The Hispantsia penthouse!” exclaims Robin. “It’s almost too easy!”
Prepared for a trap, the two swing into the night, toward the Gotham Tower.