Old Perfection

When it comes to buying vintage I do more window shopping than anything. I'll put a bunch of stuff on my watch list, but when the time comes to act my trigger finger gets a little shy. I think a lot of this stems from me being able to add a lot of old Pirates through trades. Mark Hoyle has pretty much filled up a binder and Zippy just sent me a T206. It's good to have helpful blogging friends!

With that being said I can be convinced to pull the trigger when the opportunity presents itself. Last month I was watching some auctions from a seller I follow and he posted a ton of 1952 Bowman cards. He probably had 25 or so, and all were in immaculate shape. I made up my mind that I wanted a few for my collection and went for it.  After it was all said in done I won 5. I was kind of kicking myself a little as I should have been more aggressive. The cards were beautiful.

Take a look.

 Bill Howerton

 Murray Dickson

 George Mitkovich

Ted Wilks

Billy Meyer

In terms of significance Murray Dickson and Billy Meyer (manager) had long tenures with the Bucs. Meyer actually had his number retired by the Pirates more for being a respected baseball guy than the results on the field. Some of the local Pittsburgh media have written about Meyer on occasion saying that he didn't deserve the honor. 

Price wise the cards cost anywhere from $6 to $13 a piece. I though a reasonable price as all 5 have outstanding fronts. The most notable wear is found on two of the backs. 

Hopefully the seller finds a few more 52 Pirates so I can keep adding to the collection. 

Thanks for reading. 

1951

Once again congratulations to the winners of my contest.  Give me a week or two to do a little shopping and I'll have a really cool package for each of you.

I've often stated that the weakest part of my Pirates collection is vintage.  It is my goal one day to put some focus on the older Pirates, but will need to sell my Steelers collection first in order to afford some of the early issues of the bigger names.

Thanks to the blog I've already got a head start on starting my vintage collection.  Seeing all the great cards I've received over the course of this year has made me thirsty for more.  A couple weeks back I stumbled across a seller who was getting rid of a pretty significant vintage collection.  Here is what I got from him.

It was nice to add five 51 Bowmans that are actually in pretty good shape.  A few have some lines running through it, but no creases.  The Murtaugh was the gem of the bunch, but nothing cost more than $8,

Hope everyone is enjoying all the great football and baseball.  My Mountaineers played a crazy game against Maryland in which they hit a field goal as time expired to win.  The Buccos are getting crushed by the Cubs tonight.  I'll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow to root them on as they make a final push toward October baseball.

Thanks for reading!