Nats From 2015 Group Box Break Plus Bonus Strive Cards

This is an ancient post that has been sitting in my draft queue for several years. I was holding off on it because I wanted to post scans of the cards. Well in recent months I have been trying to declutter my apartment and trying to get my card collection in a better more organized state. That means that most of sections of cards from mail days have been moved around and are in some kind of pre-sort mode (or actually added to their respective places in the collection) and are not available to be scanned at publishing time. Plus I really need to declutter my draft queue. So there will be no card scans of this post. 

If this post were on my regular card blog it would be part of my upcoming Maildazed From The Pazt series. 

Monday 14 September 2015
I got a package of cards from 5TooSweet’s (Abel) TCC Baseball Group Box Break. [NOTE: Sadly Able passed away a few years back, I forget the cause may have been cancer] Anyway I bought my standard homie team Nationals and bought a bonus discount team Twins. It was mostly just my Nationals I might have asked not to send Twins base and they didn't get any hits. I’ll only mention a team if it is not a Nat card.

2015 Topps Baseball Chrome:
8 Denard Span
23 Stephen Strasburg
59 Kevin Kiermaier Rays (random)
81 Bryce Harper
98 Max Scherzer - minor refractor
99 Doug Fister
FUTURE STARS FSC-07 Michael Taylor

2015 Topps Stadium Club Baseball:
42 Jordan Zimmermann
137 Rondell White Expos
142 Anthony Rendon
202 Stephen Strasburg
222 Tanner Roark
251 Jayson Werth
296 Max Scherzer
CONTACT SHEET CS-22 Bryce Harper
LUMINOUS TRIUMVIRATE Die-Cut T-6A Bryce Harper

2015 Topps Allen & Ginter:
28 Jayson Werth
101 Stephen Strasburg
106 Yunel Escobar
235 Michael Taylor RC
266 Drew Storen
303 Denard Span
MINI: A World Beneath Our Feet Bug-8 Death’s Head Hawkmoth
STARTING POINTS: SP-97 Bryce Harper

BONUS CARDS:
Cards for my struggling goal “Strive For ‘65”* set build: 7 Cards
1965 Topps Baseball:
26 Bobby Knoop Angels
32 Herman Franks MGR Giants
48 Claude Raymond Houston Colt 45’s
53 Dick McAuliffe Tigers
72 Tony Gonzalez Phillies
96 Sonny Siebert Indians
97 Pedro Gonzalez Yankees

* I haven't mentioned these 1965 cards on my regular blog yet. Eventually I guess they will be when I have completed the album page they are stored in. I'm behind in doing that as well. I have an upcoming post on my regular card blog about being unorganized.

Nationals mentioned in this post:
Yunel Escobar
Doug Fister
Bryce Harper
Anthony Rendon
Tanner Roark
Max Scherzer
Denard Span
Stephen Strasburg
Drew Storen
Michael Taylor
Jayson Werth
Jordan Zimmermann

Senators Singles: Signature Edition: 1965 Topps Roy Sievers

Signature Edition: 1965 Topps Roy Sievers

I have already mentioned this card on my regular blog for one of my "Strive For '65 Saturday" set build posts. Thus this is sort of a repeat post sort of. It is same post different blog. You can see the back of the card on that previous post.

1965 Topps Baseball: 574 Roy Sievers Signed on card in blue Sharpie.

I got the card from Ebay for $7.16 Free Shipping.

Frankly Friday: Frank Kreutzer 1965

Frank Kreutzer 1965 Topps

 

This edition of Frankly Friday frankly is a bit freaky. It is not a usual Hondo or FR post, it focuses on one of the overlooked Washington Franks Frank Kreutzer.

Frank Kreutzer originally signed as an amateur free agent in 1961 by the Boston Red Sox, but in November of that year had to bleach his socks as he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox. He debuted for the Chi-Sox on 20 September 1962. In 1964 he was traded to the Senators. All his vital stats can be found on his Baseball Reference page. I'm just here to show off Curly W Cards.

 1965 Topps Baseball 371 Frank Kreutzer Senators

(Front and Back)

Washington Franks listed in this post:
Frank Howard
Frank Kreutzer
Frank Robinson

Strive For '65: Senators Team Set

I'm not sure which card blogger coined the phrase "Joy of a Complete Set" I seem to think it was Doug The Night Owl. I could be wrong I often am. Anyway I have reached some joy. I am there with the 1965 Topps Baseball Senators Team set. So I am celebrating the "Joy of a Complete TEAM Set" (almost 50 years later).

OK so here is the Complete 1965 Topps Baseball Senators Team Set:

021 Don Blasingame
038 Jim King
056 Ron Kline
086 Les "Buster" Narum
099 Gil Hodges MGR
129 Bernnie Daniels
148 Willie Kirkland
152 Phil Ortega
181 Senators Rookies: Don Loun, Joe McCabe RC

211 Steve Ridzik
224 Bob Chance
233 Don Zimmer
252 Pete Richert
267 Senators Team Card
284 Nick Willhite
304 Dave Stenhouse
319 Ken McMullen
336 Woodie Held

371 Frank Kreutzer
394 Jim Hannan
417 Ed Brinkman
445 Don Lock
466 Senators Rookies: Pete Craig,  Dick Nen RC
496 Joe Cunningham
523 Mike Brumley SP
574 Roy Sievers

As you can see I scanned them the hard way (the way I usually do), individually not in the plastic sheets. I didn't put them in the sheet pages yet when I scanned them, because I put them in with the rest of the set.

When I was first composing this post I had just technically "completed" the team set, but needed to upgrade one of the cards. The first copy of card 21 Don Blasingame I got is in a very low grade (condition I should say since they are all ungraded raw, UGH modern collecting terminology minutia) due to some paper debris on the back from when the card was glued onto a piece of paper in a notebook or binder of some kind.

The Front isn't too hot either there is some scuffing on his hat in the top right corner. Looks like he is growing moss on his hat.

Here is what Don's backside looks like.

As you saw with the above team set pics I got an upgrade to the Blasingame card.

1965 Topps Baseball 21 Don Blasingame Senators

(Front and back)

Ah Much better. This one came courtesy of my LCS for $2. It isn't perfect but it is much better and acceptable, where that other one was just not. I got it (the upgrade) along with a bunch of other stuff I will eventually blog here about hopefully soon. I won't blog about the supplies I got that would be just plain boring and supplies are not Curly W stuff.

I still need to finish the full 1965 Topps Baseball set. As of this writing I have 157 of 598 (599) cards for the full flagship set. I have a separate binder for my SF'65 (or S4'65) set build. That is an improvement over having them all over the place in a couple of boxes and loose card piles laying wherever. I have left space in the pages for the missing cards to file into place when I get them. Many times for many sets I don't do that until the set is well over 50-75% done, since sometimes it takes years and years for me to even get back to actively building ancient sets. At least I only do one card per pocket, haven't done the two per pocket since the late '80s.

Sadly there are no "Joy of a complete page" milestones yet. The closest is a page that has 7 cards in it. Two more to go Woo Who! (#s 37 & 41). Sadly there are also 4 completely empty sheets/pages, and many many pages with just one maybe two cards in them. I don't think I am any closer to finishing any of the other teams just yet. Those will not be mentioned on this blog though, you got to go to my other blog for that if I notice those milestones.

So far all the set additions have been through purchases no RACs yet.. Still waiting on some cards I had bought from a guy on one of the card forums. I had to send him a money order he doesn't Paypal. I think I overpaid only four common cards (Damn Yankees) for $25 delivered.

Strive for '65

On my regular blog I posted a special goal I call "Strive for '65" to complete my 1965 Topps set build by next April the 50th Anniversary of the set and also my 50th birthday (yeah I don't like to talk about my birthday much)

Hopefully before then I can finish up the Senators Team set from that year. If I don't I'll be pretty sad.

Lets see here is what I need for the Senators set, just 15 11 9 1 to go of the 26 Senators from that year:

Technically I have all of them but my Don Blasingame #21 has paper glued to the back. At one point it was glued into a binder or notebook of some kind. I need an upgraded copy with a readable back.

021 Don Blasingame (just got it but need desperate upgrade)
099 Gil Hodges MGR
148 Willie Kirkland
152 Phil Ortega
211 Steve Ridzik
224 Bob Chance
252 Pete Richert
284 Nick Willhite
304 Dave Stenhouse
319 Ken McMullen
336 Woodie Held
371 Frank Kreutzer
466 Senators Rookies: Pete Craig,  Dick Nen RC
496 Joe Cunningham
523 Mike Brumley SP

Updated: 11 Mar 2014

Programs! G't 'Ur Programs Here!

On Sunday 04 March of this year 2012, I went to my good old Local Card Shop (LCS) "House of Cards" in Downtown Silver Spring, MD. I don't get there as often as I should. I won't mention the Non-Curly W stuff I got, but the "Piece de Resistance" was a Washington Senators Scorecard Program from 1965 for $15.00 in fantastic condition for a 47 year old program. The white paper is only slightly yellowed (shows mostly on the back along the middle edge, good old 1960s glossy magazine pages..

 Cover of 1965 Washington Senators Scorecard Program

1965 Senators Game Program Scorecard Visitors and Home pages pasted together
(scanner too small to do both pages together)

The center scorecard bit has the starting line-up/batting order filled out for both teams (the Senators lead-off batter isn't listed though weird). The visitors for this one the Cleveland Indians there are no scoring marks, but there are some small little swirly Q's on the ad to the right either to get the pen to write or to relieve some boredom.

 1965 Senators Program Scorecard Visitors Page

1965 Senators Program Scorecard Senators Home Page

Judging from the lineups (the starting pitchers in particular) it looks to be from 16 May 1965. (Thanks to the 1965 schedule posted at Baseball Almanac.com)

1965 Senators Program Scorecard Team Line-Ups

It was the first game of a doubleheader and an 8-7 "Curly W" for the record books, the second game that day was a 3-7 loss (a "Curly L"?).

I won't scan all the pages, unless I feel the need to show off all the ads or the rest of the players bios. Here is a typical page with the bio of 1964 off-season acquisition player Frank Howard who would become a key player to the Washington Senators ball club. There is also an advertisement for Ballantine Beer.

1965 Senators Program page with Frank Howard bio

and Ballintine Beer ad 

Program cost on game-day in 1965 = 15¢

Local Card Shop purchase 47 years later = $15.00

Value to Senators Memorabilia Collector born that year = Priceless

I may look for more Senators game programs in decent shape, preferably with the scorecard still in the program whether it has been filled in or not. If filled in I would probably want to see the overall condition first.