Coot Veal?! What!

Quarantine has seen a bunch of dormant bloggers come back.

One of them is not Coot Veal and the Vealtones run by DHoff...so far! Never say never. But he still resurfaced...via eBay!

I unknowingly bought a card from him, a Tino Martinez 1989 Bowman Tiffany. This card puts me at four Tino's to go to hit 1,000. DHoff hit me with an eBay messaging saying he assumed that this was The Lost Collector, and he was absolutely right. What a fun coincidence!

The Tino arrived perfectly, and I certainly trust that it;'s a Tiffany. DHoff wouldn't steer me wrong. The Card is certainly brighter than most 1989 Bowman, a good sign. The gloss level is much higher too. Yep, a Tiffany!

I believe there were only 6,000 of these made, so I'm glad to finally have one.

He also threw in a Jason Giambi, numbered to 999.

DHoff, nice to see you. Thanks for the sale!

A tainted memory. A tainted relic.

On August 4, 2007, I was sitting in Yankee Stadium when Alex Rodriguez hit is 500^th HR. It was a hot day, but I was lucky enough to have a seat in the shade on the lower level 3^rd base side. I paid $10 for a scalped ticket which was surely in the upper deck, but I was alone that day, and snuck down to find an open seat.

I actually did that a lot. I went to games alone all the time. When I first moved to NY, I had very few responsibilities. My work schedule wasn’t bad at all. I had no girlfriend, no kid, no dog to look after. In 2007, I want to about 40 Yankee games that year, most just on a limb when I was bored after work or on a weekend. I’d take the 4-train up to the Stadium, scalp a cheap ticket (I usually paid $5 or $10), and enjoyed the game. Ahhh, simple times. It was much easier to scalp tickets back then, and I had an effective system. Many times, I paid nothing for the ticket and found someone getting rid of an extra. People get pretty desperate when the game is starting and they have a spare ticket.

Anyhow, sensing this was the day, I made my way into the old Stadium, found an unoccupied seat, and sat back as ARod blasted a 3-run shot to left. It was probably the coolest moment I had in-person at a game up to the point. The crowd went nuts as Alex became the youngest player to hit 500.

I saved my ticket stub and an NY Post from the game. It means very little to me now, but it was still cool to attend. Since then, this memory has been eclipsed by a bunch of others that I’ve witnessed in person at Yankee Stadium (2009 WS Game 6 clinching win, 2008 ALCS Game 6 clinching win, the Ibanez 2-HR game vs the Orioles in the ALDS, Johnny Damon’s 6 for 6 game, Opening Day at the new Stadium…the list goes on), but I still feel a little connection to this game.

A while back, DHoff over at Coot Veal and the Vealtones put this ARod relic up for trade. It’s (supposedly) a piece of the wall from his 500^th HR game. I have no clue how true that is, but I like non-traditional relics, and this certainly fits the bill. I expected the blue to be softer, but it's actually not soft at all. It must be just the top layer of the wall padding. The scan is bad, but there are some cool markings and indentations on it.

He also threw in a team bag of other Yanks, and here are a few personal favorites. Thanks for the trade, Dhoff!

 

 

A bit of Veal for me

I’m a bit behind on showing a few card packages I’ve got in the past month or so. One of them was from Dustin over at Coot Veal’s. I feel like Dustin always has some sweet vintage for trade. I came across a 1954 Bowman Ned Garver for his Tigers collection, and he swapped me for a 1956 Topps Hank Bauer. 

He also included some other great cards:

A Tino PANTS relic.

A very cool Slade Heathcott card with Johnny Damon on the back.

A Dellin Betances RC I didn’t have.

A sparkly Pineda for my PC.

An Archives Rizzuto.

A cool oddball Winfield.

A high def Topps HD Tino. This was a cool set, and for some reason only Napkin Doon has caught on.

And more vintage!

Thanks, Coot!

Vintage winnings from Papa Coot Veal

New dad Dustin over at Coot Veal and the Vealtones held a contest recently to celebrate the birth of his baby girl, Evy Jo. He had some seriously awesome vintage prizes to give away. Luckily, my name was drawn, and had to make a very difficult selection between a bunch of great vintage Yankee cards.

After flip-flopping my decision more than once, I settled on a 1952 Bowman Hank Bauer. I didn’t have a 1952 Bowman, and had seen this card a lot. I was soooo tempted by the ’51 Bowman Billy Johnson because of the sweet pose, but happily stuck with my Bauer decision, and I have no regrets.

It seems like early Bowman was all over the place in terms of card size. Small, large, square, skinny, etc. The ’52 is smaller than a current card, but bigger than a GQ mini, I’d say. That’s not a scientific analysis though 

DHoff also sent me a stack of Tinos and other Yanks. I always appreciate when bloggers go out of their way to dig up Tinos for me. It’s very thoughtful and does not go unnoticed, even if some end up being dupes. There were several I didn’t have, including the 1996 Flair gold that I featured in my Tino Tuesday series recently.

The Yankee cards were great too. Below are my two favorite, for no other reason except they are awesome. 

Dhoff, thanks again!

Tino Tuesday #57: 1996 Flair Gold #132

I thought I had been pretty good about picking up Tino Martinez Flair cards, but bloggers keep sending me ones I don’t have. This 1996 Flair Gold parallel comes to me from DHoff over at Coot Veal and the Vealtones. I recently won a contest over there (more to come on that), and Dustin sent me a batch of Tinos in addition to some other stuff.

Growing up, Flair was always a big deal for me. I wasn’t allowed to even really look at it. I remember the card section at CVS (always had a ton of packs), and Flair was off to the side by itself. It came in little boxes, and the price was astronomical compared to the other stuff. I’ll stick to Topps and Score, thank you.

Over the years, I got my hands on several Tino Flair cards. But new ones keep popping up. In later years, that had all those variations, but this one was from 1996. No idea why I didn’t have it.

It’s as thick as a normal Flair card, so that’s a plus. I remember the first Flair card I ever got was a football card. They came one per pack in Fleer’s football set. It was of Willie Roaf of the Saints. I showed my dad the card, and I remember him holding it up and saying “wow, what a nice card that is.” He probably hadn’t held a baseball card since the ‘50s or ‘60s, so this probably was quite a change from what he remembered.

I like the gold background as well. Flair’s design always was very simple, yet sophisticated. It always felt classy, and this card is no exception.

Cards from Dhoff

Recently, DHoff of Coot Veal and the Vealtones picked up a few cards and showed them off on his blog. I needed the 2003 Topps Chien-Ming Wang Rookie for my Topps Yankees project, as 2003 is the only year I’m missing a signature from. Wang is usually a good signer in spring training, but I’m not sure how he’ll be in September. Anyhow, DHoff sent me the card and a bunch of other Yanks to go along with it. (note: I've already sent the Wang card to Nats, so no image)

First and foremost, he included a Tino I didn’t have – 2002 Topps Total. Although it’s a card of Tino during his lost years, it’s another one to check off the list.

And here is the assortment of Yankee cards. Two jam-packed team bags! I’ll post some of the personal highlights below, but I love and appreciate all the cards.

A few older cards, including a 1981 Topps Reggie Jackson that I didn't have. The Willie Randolph rookie cup card is especially awesome.

Next up, a 1998 Starting Lineup Talking Baseball Don Mattingly. I’m not quite sure what set this is from, as I don’t believe it was the card that came with Starting Lineup figures.

A couple of 2009 Topps 206 Yankees. This set is still pretty new to me, as I wasn’t collecting at this time. I didn’t have any of these four cards.

Finally, a 2008 Heritage Dick Perez Joba Chamberlain card. This is easily my new favorite Joba card. I’m a huge Perez admirer, as the amount of paintings he chruns out that are spot-on is staggering.

DHoff, thanks again. I’ll be sure to send some cards your way shortly!