Mailbox Joys: Cheap Vintage Cards

I found myself with a little extra in the PayPal account lately. Nothing spectacular, but enough to look around and try for some bargains. I found a seller that had a 1964 White Sox card with no bids and two minutes left. It was a card that I didn't have, so I jumped on it. I won that card for the unbelievable price of 84 cents. So, I checked out the seller's other auctions.

He had a few White Sox cards that I didn't have that were ending within a few hours of each other. I put my bids in and waited. Would you believe that I won the other four cards? You find that hard to believe? Well, not only that, but all five cards were had for under a dollar! They arrived in better condition than described in the listing.

1959 Topps #341 - Tom Qualters
1960 Topps #407 - Gary Peters
1961 Topps #79 - Joe Ginsberg
1961 Topps #509 - Camilo Carreon
1964 Topps #31 - Dave Nicholson

It seems that Tom Qualters is haunting my posts lately. That's the second time this month that he's appeared in a post, and on a card. Although to get Gary Peters 1960 card, I'll have to pick up J.C. Martin's card. The pictures were switched on those two cards and never corrected. I have a picture of Martin on Peters' card. Incidentally, the smaller photo is correct. Go figure.

I have been intrigued by the 1961 Topps set, ever since my dad found one hidden in our wall. I had childhood fantasies of finding Mickey Mantle cards hidden in the wall. It was a Cincinnati Reds player by the name of Danny Kravitz. The right hand corner was gone, but I thought it was the coolest card ever. That card is somewhere lying inside a box. The exact whereabouts are unknown. Every time that I get a new 1961 Topps card, I think of that card from the wall.

The 1964 Topps card is of Dave Nicholson. He looks like someone told him that his parents perished in a plane crash. Seriously, he looks like he's about to cry. The card itself has a cool little feature on the back. You are supposed to rub a nickel or a dime over the blank box to reveal who the A.L. batting champ was in 1963. Mine was not rubbed, but if you tilt the card just right, you can make out the answer. It was Carl Yastrzemski, for those of you who are too lazy to look it up. There also seems to be a happy little batter smacking the hell out of the ball. The things you find out when you get cards up close!

Coincidentally, I was also offered a beaten up 1959 Tom Qualters in a trade, mere hours after I opened it from Thursday's mail. Just my luck. That's OK. The important thing is that there is now one in this household. It gets me that much closer to completing the team set.