Monday, January 30, 2012

1963 Topps Baseball Project - #'s 177, 181, and 187


One of the hazards of buying lots on ebay is that your going to get cards like this.  Now this card has 4 great corners, just terribly miscentered.

#177 John Melvin "Bubba" Phillips



I'm always leary of guys named Bubba. Don't know why just one of those things.  Bubba played some minor league ball, did some military time, and was finally called up to the Tigers in 1955.  He was traded to the White Sox the next year and then moved to the Indians for the 1960 season.  In 1963 he was back in Detroit and would finish his career here in 1964.  Bubba didn't really have all that stellar of a career, but did hit two grand slams in 1961 and back to back homers in 1962.  Bubba pasted away in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1993 at the age of 65.


#181 Sammy Esposito


I couldn't find too much info on Sammy on my 30 second search of the internet. You can see from the back of his card he didn't get a whole lot of playing time.  In his 10 years in the majors he played just 560 games, had 8 career home runs and 78 RBI's.  Sammy played most of his career with the White Sox, but was trade in the 63 season to Kansas City Athletic's.  1963 was Sammy's last year.  After baseball he was the North Carolina State University head baseball coach for 20 years.  And as far as I can tell he's till around at 80.


#187 Willie Kirkland


Seems like this is a post of 3 so so players.  I guess they all can't be Mickey Mantle.  I couldn't find much on Willie either, but Willie played for the Giants, Indians, Orioles and finshed his career with the Senator's.  In his 9 year career Willie amassed 148 home runs and 509 RBI's.  After Major League baseball Willie played in Hawaii in 1967 and then went over to Japan and played for the Hanshin Tigers for 6 seasons.  And Willie is still around somewhere at the age of 77.

3 comments:

  1. hello,

    please educate me on buying lots. you bought this on ebay - do you do this often? where else do you get (what you consider) good deals on lots?

    thanks!

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  2. Hey Kev, Thanks for the comment. I checked out your blog too. Very nice. I'm going to assume you know what eBay is and how to set up an account. It's pretty easy. I've bought cards off of justcommons.com and Checkoutmycards.com both of which are pretty good. Justcommons is great for cheap singles for filling in holes in sets, COMC is good for picking up inserts and some higer end stuff. I've never used Sportslots.com but I know other bloggers have and from what I've read it's worth a shot too. I do most of my buying on ebay, simply for the fact that it's the biggest marketplace for sportscards. In my pursuit of the 1963 set I try to get small lots for cheap. For me I now that lower numbered commons in the set in Near Mint range go for about 4 to 5 bucks a piece, stars and semi-stars obviously for much more, higher numbered cards in the set start getting scarcer around #284 and the high numbered cards #523 and up are really scarce so even the commons demand a premium price. Knowing this I look for lots of 3 or more in EX-EX+ condition, as that's the goal I've set for my set with descent centering. So 3 cards below 283 in NM condition would be 12 bucks so if I can pick those cards up for 3 bucks total plus what ever shipping is, I figure in shipping to my total cards per card that's not bad. Of course cheaper is better and I've had luck picking up larger lots of EX cards for under a buck a piece which is also really good. I've also found high numbered pick lots for commons for about 4 bucks each and taken advantage of those. Did this help at all? For me as a cheap collector I'm always looking for the good deals, and if I get outbid or miss an auction it's no big deal. I haven't set a time line to try and finish the set. And I've been enjoying each card as I get it and in posting them here with some player history really getting to enjoy the set building process.

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  3. I thinkKirkland's RBI's in '54 might be on the high side.

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