Saturday, October 24, 2009

Yount: The Rookies






It's surprising that in 1975 there would actually be more than one rookie card for a player. Topps pretty much had the monopoly on baseball cards. Here is the Topps regualr issue #223, the O-Pee-Chee is the exact same front but I posted a scan of the back so you could see the difference the French and a little better card stock. Also the Team card for the Brewers features Yount in it as well as Hank Aaron.
Then there are the mini versions of the 1975 Topps Issue. I didn't post the pictures because they are the same as the regular size issues only smaller. Use your imagination.
The next rookie is the SSPC set that some actually put at a 1976 issue but is copyright 1975.
I like to count it as a rookie just because I can.
























And last but not least are the hostess issue cards. There are actually two. There's the one on the back of the King Don's box and the Twinkee issue.
You can see that the one I have had a twinkee on it. The card is larger and has the black bar on the back. I read somewhere that there are examples of these cards that were never inserted with product and are actually clean. But I've never seen one up for auction or other wise. Most look like the one I got. A little off the subject but there are also 1976, 1977 twinkee's cards too.
The only card I'm missing right now unless I find out about other mysterious rookies is the O Pee Chee team card. But i'm not worried about finding it.
Well here you go. Robin Younts 1975 Rookies.
Until Next time keep collecting.







































































































Friday, October 23, 2009

2002 UD Piece of History





I've been collecting Robin Yount cards for quite a while now. And with ebay it's easier than ever. But there comes a point when you hit a wall where you've got just about everything posted and you're not willing to spend a fortune on all the quad relic super limited autos ect ect. So it's nice when you find a card that's not too pricey that you haven't seen before.



I remember in 2002 when the UD Piece of History set came out because I was excited that it had 3 Yount cards. But I was wrong it had more. It was easy to aquire the base card #51 and the two inserts Tape Measure Heroes and The MVP Club I have still to get the Hitting for the Cycle insert. But a few days ago I got a nice surprise in the mail. I hadn't even realized when they came out and since, mainly since I had never seen one posted that all the insert sets had jersey and sometimes auto jersey variants too!!
So I whipped out the Standard Cataloge of Baseball Cards 2010 edition and low and behold they sure did.



So here you go the base card and two inserts with the Tape Measure Heroes Jersey card. After looking over the catalog. I see that there is no Hitting for the Cycle Bat card for Yount but there is a MVP Club jersey. Maybe one of these days I'll find one.

Until next time Yountophiles keep collecting.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

1991 Fleer Yount Variation Little Know and Not Worth Nuttin'














Howdy Brew Heads and Yountophiles,






Today I'm going to talk about, and very briefly, one of the few Yount variations out there. You may not even realize you have it. I didn't until I saw it selling on ebay. I said to myself, mmmm, I have a crap load of 1991 Fleer younts card #601. The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards 2010 edition doesn't even list this variation. You might vary well miss it if your not looking at the right spot.




The variation is the bat tip is cut off. In the other version you can see the end of the bat.






See that almost unnoticable.

And here's one last cool card from the collection.








Until next time keep collecting.




Sunday, October 18, 2009

The first "Kid" of baseball





Long before Ken Griffey Jr. showed up and was labeled the "the Kid" a scappy 18 year old broke into the majors with the Milwaukee Brewers and stayed there his entire career. Of course I'm talking about #19, the immortal Robin Yount. As the title of the blog implies this is a site about him. I've been a Yount collector since 1987 when I first started collecting cards at the age of 14. I was a little young to remember their trip to the World Series in 1982 but being from northern Wisconsin it's hard not to be at least a closet fan of the Brewers.

So when I started collecting cards way back in 1987 there wasn't all that much to choose from. Not like now, where there's almost too much to choose from. And back then you where pretty much set building too. Ah 1987, right around the time all the companies started super producing there product to make it super cheap and at the same time super boring.
Well I'm getting off topic. My point was there wasn't much to pick from. Topps was the cheap choice with the crappy backs, while donruss and fleer had better card stock. I still think that the 1987 topps set was the best though. That wood grain finish. Like all the cards were from your dad's den.


The best a player collector back then could hope for was maybe 3 or 4 cards of your favorite player year. Maybe a few inserts, special releases, if they made the all-star team the year before you got an extra card, maybe some food issues or what have you.






And the holy grail when I started collecting "Rockin Robin", as he was later nicknamed, was his 1975 Topps rookie. Now the card ungraded in nrmt shape is about $50 bucks, but back in 1987 it was over $200. Way out of my measly allowance range. I could drool all I wanted at the card in the glass case at the local card store.




Not to get off topic again, but to set up, my father was in the army until I was 18 so the card shop I frequented was call the Comic Book Store in El Paso, Texas, I'm not even sure if it's still around but the owner Brad was my Idol for a while and I really wanted to work in the store. I thought that would be the coolest thing ever. But alas then my dad got stationed overseas to Berlin, Germany. Here in Berlin at a card show on base  I was able to find my holy grail of cards. At this point I was working on base at Burger King and had saved quite a bit of money up. The card pictured is not the one I finally got. No the first yount rookie was what you might call a filler. It had one really soft corner and couple other not so soft but definately not razor sharp corners. I think I paid 50 bucks for it and at the time it was awesome.

Now a days there are tons of Yount cards out there. Being a HOF inductee is good for that. So now it's kinda fun to pick up new stuff. Now it's mostly off of Ebay and that takes some of the fun out of going to shows to try and find some obsura, but 22 years later I've got a nice little collection going on.
I plan on posting other trivial bits of knowledge as well as images from my collection. I would love to hear from any other Yount collectors out there. I know there are a bunch, because I keep getting out bid on ebay by a lot of you.


So one last picture to end the column. Last year Topps put out it Topps Sterling with a price tag of something like $250 to $300 buck for a box. which consisted of 3 sequentially numbered cards to 250 or less, an auto relic numbered to 10 or less, and a mystery card. I never bought a box. Way to pricey and you'll never get the initial investment back but the cards are absolutely gorgeous. Here is the first one I picked up a few months back.

Until next time keep collecting. I'm cynicalbuddha.