MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas to all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Zoe (on the left) and I want to wish everyone a happy Thangsgiving Holiday.

Enjoy the time with your friends, families and pets!

1981 Donruss Variations

The 1981 Donruss Baseball Card Set was the first one ever issued by the company. The paper stock was thin and the set was filled with errors and variations.

The set has been around for 30 years and I'm still trying to get all the variations. There are about 30 in total and I need only 4 more. They are not expensive, running about 10 to 25 cents each its just that they don't seem to turn up that much since they don't seem to be popular among collectors.

Here are 3 I picked up recently.

If you notice, Steve's last name is spelled 2 different ways.

The same goes for this card, the last name is also spelled 2 different ways..

This one is a little more obvious. The card on the left is actually Ken Forsh.

More Volkswagens!!

Here are two more Volkswagens I have recently added to my collection.




This first one is a glass candy holder. my wife, with her keen eyes, spotted while we were shopping at a local antique store. It has a cork stopper to cover the opening. Don't know what I'll fill it with.




A short time later, I was searching for similar items on Ebay. I came across a Volkswagen "Butter Dish". I checked it out , put in a bid and won!



Just in time to dress up the Thanksgiving Day table!!

Crashmobile

When I was a little boy, my mom would buy me little toy plastic cars that would crash upon impact. They were called "Crashmoibile".

They were either light green with red roof and wheels or vice-versa. I would take them apart and switch them around to make all green or all red ones or other combinations. I must have gone through at least 2 dozen of these.

I've been looking for one on eBay for awhile with no success. They either had just parts or if complete, were too high priced to me.

Finally, I bid on one and won it. It was still in its original package with its 29 cent price!!

Here it is:


Ok, its really a Crashmobile Jr. the original Crashmobiles came out in the 1950's and were larger.

Now I'm looking for one in the reverse colors, not in its package so I can play with it!!

Mercury Cougars

I'm not a big fan of Ford cars. I had one back in 1984 and it was not my most favorite car to say the least. But, I do like the Mustang and the Cougar. Here are some of my Cougars.

This first picture is the first Matchbox Cougar, #62. In the middle is the King Size Matchbox #21 and the last one is the Superfast version of the first one. The smaller ones are a lime green color while the large one is gold. Also shown are their boxes.


Here is an assortment of Cougars from both Matchbox and Hot Wheels. Incidentally, Mattel Toys now owns both the Matchbox and hot wheels brands.


Finally, here is a picture of a newer Matchbox release, a Cougar in its own blister pack with its box.

Baseball Games

Here are some baseball games I've collected.

This one is called "Bat-M-Up Jr.: and was made by Northwestern Products Co. My guess is it is from the late 1950s or early 1960s. You shoot the metal ball and if it lands in the plastic holder, you get a hit or out.

This one is from Nathan's. Again you shoot the metal ball and it ping pongs down to settle in a holder and you score the number of that holder.


This one is rather new, from 2001. You shoot a marble and get the result when it lands in one of many indentations in the board. This was made by Schyiling.

Finally, here is a larger game.This one you actually bat the marble and again, your result is where it lands in the indentation. This is from the late 1960s.

1965 Topps Baseball Cards

The 1965 Topps Baseball Card Set is another of my favorite sets. 1965 is the earliest year I can remember collecting baseball cards. Above is a picture of a wrapper the cards were packaged in. This example is for a 5 cent pack of 5 cards and a piece of gum. The cards were also sold in penny packs of one card and gum.

The cards are very well pictured, not cluttered. My favorite part is the baseball pennant on each card. Here is a group of N. Y. Mets cards. The team cards featured the clubs position in the standing the previous year, a first.

Here is a card of the San Francisco Rookie Stars that features Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese born player in the Major Leagues.

Here is a card of N. Y. Yankees pitcher and broadcaster Jim Bouton. I was fortunate enough to meet him at a baseball card show and had this card autographed by him.

Little League Baseball

With the Little League World Series now being played, I found an old picture of my Little League Team form when i was a kid in Dunellen, NJ. Here is my team, Nagles.

We were actually Nagles Pirates. The team was named after Nagles Construction Company. Even though it's been over 40 years since that picture was taken, I still can identify all but 2 players.

The sad part is that the young man holding the back half of the sign, Jimmy Nagy, died in a car accident before he even graduated high school. His brother Bill is right behind him and their dad is behind Bill.

For those of you interested, I'm the first one on the left in the bottom row.

We got to keep our caps at the end of the year. I still have mine and it fits!!

MORE VARIATIONS!

Wow, where does time go. I have not posted for awhile.

Here are some more baseball card variations I've picked up recently.

Here are 2 variations of card #223 of Mike Ryan from the 1967 Topps set.

This is a tough one to see. Look at it closely, I'll give you the answer later on.

In The 1962 Topps set, #458 of Bob Buhl has 2 variations. Bob was traded from the Milwaukee Braves to the Chicago Cubs during the off season. The first card issued had his team correct but the picture had the "M" of the Milwaukee team clearly visible on his cap. The "M" was airbrushed out and the card re-released.

The same thing occurred on card #462 of Willie Tasby, who was traded from the Washington Senators to the Cleveland Indians.

Ok, the variation on the card of Mike Ryan is the first card, on the left, has no dot over the "i" in Mike in his signature.

Happy Easster!!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter!!

Matchbox Displays

I'd like to share two of my displays for some of my larger Matchbox cars.


This first one is black wood and holds 6 cars. It was designed to hold Fire Trucks. I guess the bight rd and/or white trucks showed up well against the black background. Right now, it has some of my road service trucks in it.


Here is what is called a "Bow-Tie" display which is the Chevrolet Symbol. Of coarse, I only have Chevys on it. There are 3 1957 Chevys, top, bottom and left, one corvette in the middle and a 1956 Chevy to the right.

New Baseball Cards!

Here are some of my recent additions to my baseball card collection.

The first is a 1984 Topps Super card of Cal Ripken. As you can see, it's much larger than its regular sized issue.



Here are 2 cards from the 1981 Donruss set. It features Bob Lacey (or is it Lacy)? I guess Donruss wasn't quite sure and covered both possibilities! The correct spelling of his last name is Lacey.

Finally, here is a pair of variations from the 1962 set. The top cards are of Willie Tasby and the bottom cards are Bob Buhl. You can see the team logo on their hats are airbrushed out on the first photo but are present on the second one. This is because they were traded and Topps did not want to show the logo of their former team.

FANTA!!

Matchbox has issued many cars for promotional purposes.

One of my favorites was a group of 8 cars issued with Fanta labels. Fanta is an orange soda,hence all the cars were orange.

Here is a group of 5 cars.

Here are my 3 favorites, the School Bus, The Double Decker Bus and The 1957 Chevy!