Series 3 Packs On Sale Now - SOLD OUT

 Here is the third pack of physical cards from this blog.  As usual, I am selling these through this site for $10.99 per pack plus $4.50 shipping. Please use the link:

SOLD OUT

Due to several requests, I added a drop down menu for multiple orders (up to three).

I was hoping to have these done by the end of July, but I'm about a week late. This is a pretty random group of cards spanning from 1957 to 1983.  If you don't want all 13 cards, you can buy them individually on eBay. My seller's name there is ctnwblog_8.

So, what's in each pack?

12 Cards That Never Were plus a special insert.

This time the insert card is a 1969 Jim Bouton Deckle.

All cards are professionally printed.

Front and Back.

The backs are formatted in a style consistent with their year.

The front of the cards are high gloss UV coated.

The backs are not.

The backs a full color matte finish.

These are similar in look and feel to the Topps Archives cards.

The have all been previously featured on this blog.

I'm running out of things to say.

They're high quality 18 Pt. card stock.

By far the best deal is to buy a pack of all 13 cards from the link on this page.

Due to eBay's cost structure and wanting to mail a quality product complete with penny sleeve and a top loader, individual cards a more expensive. $3.99 including shipping on eBay.

Thanks for all the support over the years.  My next post will be another give-away.

1964 Alt-Topps

Continuing on with the Topps Mock-ups, This is one of the better looking designs that was rejected by Topps. 

In this version, Topps borrows somewhat from the 1962 Topps Football style and the photo was originally used on the 1963 Ken Hubbs card.  Because of this, I put this at a 1964 vintage.

Here is the 1963 Hubbs card.

And here is my cleaned up version.

I tried to create the base cards using the same color schemes Topps used to represent the teams in 1964. First the 1964 MVPs, Brooks Robinson,

And Ken Boyer. As you can see, the colors Topps used in 1964 really bore little if any resemblance to actual team colors.

Next the Cy Young award winner, Dean Chance. In 1964 there was just one Cy Young awarded so I decided to round out my base cards with a National League pitcher.

 I chose Ken Johnson for two reasons. The first is that he threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds in April of 1964 yet managed to lose that game 1-0. Pete Rose scored the only run. He reached second on an error by Johnson himself.  He then scored on another error by Hall of Famer, Nellie Fox. The second reason is I just like the Colt .45s logo.

1963 Fleer

The 1963 Fleer set was cut short at just 66 cards. Topps won a court battle allowing it to have a near monopoly on baseball cards until 1981. Fleer had to cease printing cards after just one series. 

The '63 Fleer set has had loads of Cards That Never Were posted by multiple sources on the interwebs. I made nine different cards myself, which I posted on this blog and on my other blog, Rating The Rookies.  

Here are my 1963 Fleer cards of Ernie Banks, Ken Hubbs, Fritz Ackley, Curt Flood, Joe Shipley, Al Moran, Lee Stange, Don Zimmer and even Kris Kringle. 

Fleer themselves have made versions of these cards, too. They included this Mickey Mantle MVP card as an insert in its 1998 Tradition set.

Then again for its 40th anniversary in 2003 it included several very nice looking cards. Like these of Luis Aparicio, Lou Brock and Duke Snider::

Although the 2003 set included several players from 1963 it was annoyingly flawed. First, they changed the design slightly by shrinking the player sketch and coloring it white. Second was the inevitable Fleer Tradition logo on the top. But the biggest flaws were the players either in the wrong era uniforms, like Red Schoendienst and Willie Stargell,

 Or simply in black and white like Eddie Mathews and Frank Malzone:

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Ok, all that was a long-winded prelude to tease my next few posts. I am not going to try to complete the 1963 set. That would be insane (although possibly fun).  

 We've seen plenty of base/player cards that never were based on the 1963 Fleer set. But if it had expanded beyond the first 66 base cards into an entire set, what would the other elements of a complete set look like?

1963 Fleer Ken Hubbs

Waste not, want not. Since I place an actual photo of Dick Ellsworth on his 1966 card, I needed to find a new home for the Ken Hubbs photo that Topps had mistakenly used. So here is a 1963 Fleer version of Ken Hubbs. Instead of the baseball player in the yellow diamond, I opted to mimic the 1963 Fleer Maury Wills NL MVP card.

1966 Topps Dick Ellsworth - Error Card Corrected

In 1966 Topps used a photo of Ken Hubbs on Dick Ellsworth's card. Here is the corrected version that never was.  Using Ken Hubbs' photo was particularly haunting because Hubbs had been killed in an airplane crash two years earlier.

Ellsworth had 22 wins for the 7th place Cubs in 1963. In 1964 he was selected to the All Star team. But in 1966 he led the league with 22 losses. At the end of the season he was traded to the Phillies.

Shout Out

The Virtual Card Collection

Here is a card I wish I made. I found this card on a site called The Virtual Card Collection. It has hundreds of scanned images of vintage baseball cards. It also has a small collection of "Cards That Never Were" 

In 1964 Topps created an "In Memoriam" card for Ken Hubbs  the 1962 Rookie of the Year who died in an accident while learning to fly.

In 1979 Munson, the 1970 Rookie of the Year, met a tragically similar fate. He was practicing landings on his Cessna Citation when he clipped a tree and crashed short of the runway.  Given the popularity and recent success of Munson and the New York Yankees, it would seem like a no-brainer for Topps to dedicate a card in its 1980 set to Munson. 

1975 Topps 1962 Rookies of the Year

In 1962 both Rookie of the Year players made their way onto a regular issue Topps card. Both players also had short careers, but for different reasons.

Tresh's 1962 season was spent as a replacement at shortstop for 1957 Rookie of the Year Tony Kubek who was on military leave. He batted a career high .286 which was 41 points higher than his career average. He also hit .321 in the 1962 World Series including a 3 run blast in game 5 that proved to be the winning shot. When Kubek returned Tresh moved to the outfield where he would earn a Gold Glove in 1965. When his batting average diminished the Yankees traded him to the Tigers in 1969 who then released him in 1970.

Ken Hubbs was another great fielder but poor hitter. He was the first player to earn a Gold Glove in his rookie year. He also led the league in strikeouts and grounding into double plays in 1962. In 1963 his batting average dropped from a somewhat respectable .260 to .235. Hubbs crashed his private aircraft in February 1964 in Utah. Topps release a "In Memoriam" card featuring Hubbs in 1964. 

Ken Hubbs would appear on one more card in 1966 when Topps inadvertently used his photo on a Dick Ellsworth card.