Breakfast In America - KELLOGG'S 3-D Baseball Cards

One of my fondest memories of breakfast time as a kid was getting FREE stuff inside the cereal box. These items ranged from plastic scuba divers to rubber band aircraft carriers (remember those ?).

 

Mornings of swilling milk and sweet oats were intertwined with "reading" the front, back and sides of the specially marked cereal box.

 

But being a sports fan was extacy, staring at these boxes, and wondering who's card was buried deep inside the crunchy sweetness. When the treasure was finally extracted from the bottom of the sea of cereal, I would have a second bowl of breakfast and gaze at the 3 dimentional awesomeness of the baseball card. 

 

The bluest of sky and the whisps of clouds - distanced in the backdrop of a brightly covered athlete. These were almost like a magic window to a magical baseball diamond outside.

 

This week up sprung for two 1974 Kellogg's cards from the evil of the bay (ebay). Not that I am an advocate of PSA or their mystical registry sets (another evil), but I have found it convenient to track my collection on their web site. I have a good number of Kellogg's cards - including the complete elusive 1971 set. However, none of them are graded.

A few years ago I traded for about a half dozen PSA 9 Kellogg's cards from the 1974 set. This only included 1 Hall of Famer - Orlando Cepeda.

 

Picking up the Reggie was great because I was a fanatic Jackson and A's collectors in my hey day. Billy  Williams was once with the Oakland A's, but he is best remembered as a Chicago Cub. Cubs fans are a sad lot - examplfied by the disgraced behavior and treatment of a fellow fan who only reached out to catch a baseball*.

 

Although I am in no hurry to finish anything these days, I would like to trade for more of these 3-D cards. I have a wealth and variety of cards to swap, so if you have any of these, please contact me - tell me what you collect.

 

DO YOU LIKE THE 3-D KELLOGG'S CARDS OF THE 1970'S ?

 

* I refrain from putting THAT fan through any more pain by mentioning his name. If you want, you can look it up. (Cubs fans)

CHEAP THRILLS ... Baseball Rub-Downs

In this age of card collecting, where a pack of 2 cards can cost up to $70, its a wonder that kids can afford to stay in the hobby. Hell, its a wonder that adults can afford to stay in the hobby. 

Forget investments. Harken back to the 1980's when there were only 3 card makers for baseball. Digging through some of my boxes, I came across these packets which cost 39 cents.

The 1984 Topps Baseball photo RUB-DOWNS were a novelty in that these would have been inserts a decade before. Now, with the card collecting craze in full swing, they were a product unto themselves.

Each packet came with a card for specific instruction for those who did not know how to apply these rub-down sheets.

Each sheet featured either 4 or 5 players depending on if they were action shots or head shots.

There were also rub-offs of baseball equipment - bats, gloves and balls.

Each player had a yellow or red name plate with the team in bold capitol letters underneath.  The economy was pretty healthy as they show a quarter on the wrapper to use for rubbing the sheets.

In the above pack I got 4 Hall of Famers out of the 8 featured players. Not a bad ratio. Not bad for 39 cents and a cheap thrill ...

AUTOGRAPH HAUL: PART 2

Here is what treasure hunting is all about. As I said in part 1, my eye caught the handy work of renown baseball artist DICK PEREZ. These 4 x 6 Perez-Steele cards were produced as beautiful, full color portraits in 15 series between 1983 and 2001. The following cards were limited edition of 10,000 all numbered on the back of the cards.

I'll let the pictures do most of the show:

What I was able to pick out of the box was:

Two Boston Red Sox HOF : BOBBY DOERR and RICK FERRELL

Two Chicago Cub HOF : ERNIE BANKS and  BILLY WILLIAMS

Two St. Louis Cardinals HOF : STAN MUSIAL and ENOS SLAUGHTER

Two HOF pitchers : ROBIN ROBERTS and WARREN SPAHN

Two HOF American Leaguers : GEORGE KELL and LOU BOUDREAU

Two fleet HOFers : RAY DANDRIDGE and LOU BROCK

Two HOF L.A. Dodgers: SANDY KOUFAX and DON DRYSDALE

A Minnesota "killer: HARMON KILLEBREW

And two of the greatest : HANK AARON and WILLIE MAYS

The signatures are all nice a readable, in blue sharpie ink. 

As you can see, I ended up with 2 Ernie Bank cards, so if anyone wishes to trade or purchase, please shoot me mail.

When I looked these up in Robert Edwards Auction, I found out that 104 Hall of Famers were possible to have signed from the 15 series' produced. Having these 17 autographed is a great start.