You Know What They Say When You Assume...

Just before I disappeared from the blogosphere, I made a couple of purchases that might have - subconsciously - helped push me out of full-bore collecting and writing. You know that feeling? Where you mess up so frustratingly that you just have to step back and stay from whatever situation you're involved with for a period of time? Well, that's at least partially what happened with these card-related transactions. Now, there's a litany of other contributing factors that played a much larger role in my absence; but, these mess ups were non-zero de-motivators.


Now, you might be asking yourself, what monumental screw ups could this guy have made that were so heinous that he had to temporarily put one of his favorite hobbies on the backburner.  Well, I ignored one of life's most important guidelines - "if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is."  To make things even worse, I did it twice in a row, meaning I snookered myself and then, knowing what I'd done, willingly dove right back into a shallow pool.  What a dunce, right?

Anyway, on with the show.  Here's a couple of things that I bought that weren't at all what I was expecting.  First up:

What's this?  A stretched and pixelated picture of an old school pitcher that was clearly downloaded from the internet, blown up well-beyond the limits of the original file, and spat out on a ink-jet printer on some cheap photo paper?  

Bingo! You nailed it!

When I saw this image attached to a listing on Ebay, for some reason, I assumed that it was just a poorly scanned image of a vintage postcard.  You know, like one of those Brace and Burke photo postcards that I've often showcased on Wrigley Roster Jenga, several of which populate my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection because they are the best, most budget friendly source for cards ballplayers from the WWII era and earlier.  The seller wasn't being deceptive - I just made an assumption about what I saw based on absolutely zero evidence.  Well, you know what they say when you assume - you make an ASS out of U and Me.  Going back and looking at the listing, the vendor never made this claim, so I had no right or reason to make this leap and, yet, I jumped right in with both feet and no life preserver.  

Thankfully though, this transaction wasn't a total loss.  While I did think I that was getting a Brace/Burke postcard out of the deal, the photograph wasn't the main focus of the Ebay listing - I'd zeroed in on the wrong part of the advertised package.  In fact, in all honesty, the Kodak print was just used as a throw-in to spice up the package for the true center of attention:

Any purchase that comes with the autograph of a bonafide Major League Baseball player can't be a total wash, right?  Especially when the total purchase price is less than a measly five bucks, correct?  It's kinda hard to stay upset when looking at that silver lining.

At any rate, the photograph depicts and the autographed index card comes from former Cubs hurler, Ed Hanyzewski. Of course, with his sterling penmanship, you probably didn't need me to spell that out for you - worlds apart from today's certified autos of today.  Beyond practicing his cursive, Eddie pitched on the North Side of Chicago from 1942-46, taking the mound in 58 games (about half of which were starts) while posting an ERA 3.30 and a record of 11-12.  Overall, the highpoint of his career was definitely the 1943 campaign, when he appeared in 33 games (16 as a starter) and won eight of 15 decisions. This year, he contributed a 2.56 ERA in 130 frames to go along with three complete games.  That's one helluva swingman!

Unfortunately for Ed, he hurt his arm along the way in '43 and was never really the same afterwards.  Such a sad and common tale in the time before Tommy John.

Here's a clearer image of Ed, courtesy of SABR

Overall, getting an autograph from such a vintage player is always a victory, so I really shouldn't be too sad about this acquisition.  However, I am left with a minor quandary - should this count towards my CATRC binder?  After all, it's an index CARD, right?  Even though it's not a traditional baseball card, it would hardly be the first off-the-wall addition to said binder.  The only thing that gives me pause is the lack of an image to go along with his John Hancock.  Perhaps I should create my own cut-auto card to jazz it up, though that's a risky proposition with the signature of a guy who's been dead for thirty years now.

What do you think I should do about this dilemma?  How would you handle this sort of situation?  Please share your thoughts in the comment section below; I would love to hear what you have to say!  As of now, I have this index card included in the tome, displayed in a postcard page along with the bum photo print.  I mean, I lay down my hard earned money for that picture after all, I might as well put it to good use, for the time being.

So, that's the story on frustrating purchase number one of two.  The Hanyzewski index card is definitely the less annoying of the two; although, to be upfront, both transactions do involve an autograph.  "What a complainer," you must be thinking.  How could getting two autographs of Cubs players for your favorite collection be such an annoying thing?  Well, please allow me to make my case.

This is an item, like with Ed, that I was under the falsely assumed presumption was an antique Brace or Rowe postcard that came with a proper autograph.  Unlike with Ed, this item came with the signature on the item itself, rather than on a separate index card.  All seems well here - a vintage postcard feature a non-mangled image and autograph of a rare, forgotten Cubs player that I still needed to fill an empty slot in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection.  This should be an absolutely perfect and celebrated acquisition, eh?

Sadly, all is not as it seems - there's a couple of black marks that go against this buy that are not readily obvious from the picture above nor from the original listing.  First of all, once again, rather than being an actual Brace or Rowe postcard, this is an image that someone printed on their own.  This time, it's not even on photo paper; rather, it's been printed on thin, though slightly matted, traditional paper.  While this is a negative, it's not a deal breaker on it's own.  While slightly disappointing, were these the only defects, I would still be perfectly happy in nestling this bit of ephemera into my CATRC binder.  After all, this is another case where I made an unjustified assumption about the item in question and it's still an autograph on a piece which properly features the actual player in question.

Or is it?

Here's the thing.  Roy "Pop" Joiner, besides being another athlete with excellent penmanship, had a couple of brief trials with the Cubbies in 1934 and 35, as well as a cameo with the Giants five years later.  As someone who played so long ago, you would be correct to assume that he also passed away some time ago - December of 1989 (the same year I was born).  If you're keeping score at home, we're now 31 years on.  The photograph in question is printed on some pristinely white paper that is in immaculately good condition... are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I feel like there should be at least some signs of aging on three-decade old, basic paper  Furthermore, there isn't a wrinkle or corner ding to be found on what is, once again, three-decade aged, regular ol' paper.  Maybe I'm overly skeptical and am looking for problems, but this seems rather suspicious to me.  What do you think about these red flags?  Once again, I'd really and truly appreciate it if you weighed-in in the comment section below.

On the plus side, the Ebay seller has overwhelming positive feedback and the few down votes they have are completely unrelated to forged autographs.  Plus, who would go to the trouble of faking the signature of such an obscure and uncollected athlete from a time before plastic had even been invented?  That would be like counterfeiting pennies.  Plus, I only spent six bucks on the piece, so even if it was a forgery, it's not like it really hurt my wallet all that much.  With that in mind, for now, I've also included this imperfect acquisition in my CATRC binder, as it very well could be the real McCoy.  However, if I come across a good deal on Joiner's 1940 Playball pasteboard, you darn well better believe that I'll be making a swap.

Have you seen this man?

Overall, I'm mostly just being a baby.  Maybe I got scammed, maybe I didn't.  Either way, in both cases, I made some stupid assumptions that I shouldn't have and, in neither case, did I spend much money.  I'd say these are premium examples of low risk, high reward purchases.  With that in mind, maybe they could pitch a few innings in the bullpen next year?  However, with all of the other malaise surrounding baseball at the time of these transactions, the annoyance caused was just another nail hammered into my hibernation coffin.

Now I ask you, have you ever made such presumptive purchases or am I alone in making such delusional deals?  Feel free to tell me what a dunce I am.

In the end, at least I was (maybe) able to check a couple of obscure names off of my want-list.  In 2021, my News Years resolution is going to be doing a better job of looking on the bright side - there's already far too much negativity in the world right now.

Wine, Women, and Song

This weekend, my wife and I celebrated our sixth year of being together; we don't ignore our dating anniversary despite having upgraded to marriage a year and a half ago.  We did so the only way we know how - with lots and lots and lots of wine.

Back in January, we joined a wine club through August Hill Winery in Utica, IL, in order to celebrate the other notable anniversary in our lives together.  Utica is a cute, little slice of small town America, located just down the road from Starved Rock State Park and it's "downtown" strip is chock full of places to get a drink.  Being behind several months in our club selections, we decided to make a day of it by picking up our bi-monthly bottles and then celebrating our big day with a few wine tastings, a couple of bonus glasses, AND buying even more bottles of adult grape juice.  By the end of the festivities, we were buzzed at 1:30 in the afternoon and had 10 new bottles of wine sitting in the backseat of our Kia.  Despite all signs to the contrary, I assure you that we are not alcoholics.

However, we did more than just imbibe to celebrate our half-dozen milestone.  Besides being full of wineries, wine-tasting rooms, and hole-in-the wall bars, Utica also has a charming secondhand shop called Clarks Run Antiques.  My wife and I always make sure to stop by this outpost when we blow through town, just as we did on our way to the altar and when we revisited the site to celebrate our one-year.  This trip would be no different.

Thankfully for our wallets, we decided to do the antiquing first because drunk-shopping rarely leads to good decisions.  The place is your standard fare for antique shops - a bunch of independent vendors that rent space within the building and hawk their unwanted, vintage wares.  Old train sets, stamp collections, records, books and magazines, and tchotchkes galore lined the shelves and display cabinets with nary a baseball card in sight.  I've found some good cardboard in this shop before; so, initially, I was a bit disappointed.

Then, something in my still-sober mind clicked - the postcards!

You see, Clarks Run has a huge bin that is stuffed to the gills with souvenir and photographic postcards.  Every time I venture inside, I take some time to flip through a few stacks of these collectible memos in the hopes that I might come across an oddball baseball card or two, maybe a TCMA oddball or something of the sort.

Back in January, during the same trip in which we signed up for the wine club at August Hill, I actually did come across a baseball-themed postcard in the Tupperware tub of missives.  Sadly, after a casual glance, I put it right back in the stack and went about my merry way because... I guess cheapskate me didn't feel like spending a buck.  Plus, on that particular trip, we did the wine tastings first and the shopping second, so.... like I said, bad decisions.  Ever since that day, I've regretted that frugal decision.

The odds were against me ever finding it again in the large and since-shuffled box, seven months further down the road; not to mention the fact that someone could have purchased the thing.  Nevertheless, I pulled up a chair and set about trying to locate the oddity from my fleeting memory.  In an amazing stroke of luck, it didn't even take me ten minutes of flipping to reclaim my lost treasure:

It's a little worse for ware, but this slip of paper looks pretty damn good for being over 100 years old.

I think you fellow card-collectors can see why his particular piece of ephemera has fascinated me from the moment that I laid eyes on it.  Is this an early bit of memorabilia featuring women's baseball?  Where or what is this mysterious "Elmwood" club?  What's the story on "Roth & Langley," printed in the bottom right corner?  Why is this young lady perched on a fence?  What the heck do those pencil markings actually say?  There are so many intriguing questions associated with this piece.

On that latter inquiry, we may never know for sure.  The send of this postcard had some rather sloppy handwriting:

From this chicken scratch, all that I can make out is that someone appears to have taken a trip somewhere and they "will go some where all day..." something, something, "...and baby."  Is there anyone out there on the blogosphere who can make heads or tails of the full message inscribed on the back of my antique market find?

While the meat of the writing might be mostly illegible, luckily, I can clearly make out the rubber stamp slapped over the top by the postal service - "Chicago June 29, 7:30PM 1910 ILL" - as well as the intended recipient's name and address (Mrs. R H Van Matre at 221 Douglas Ave. Freeport, IL).  Wow - this little bit of paper was sent by mail over 108 years ago!  While I can't find any records of the mysterious Mrs. Van Matre via a cursory Google search, I can pull up that address on Maps and see where this lady baseballer was headin':

Sadly, it looks as though the Van Matre residence has since been demolished in favor of public parking.  *Womp, womp*

I'm sure if I were to dive in head first into researching this project, combing local libraries and the public record with a fine toothed comb, I could dig up a little bit of information on the recipient and the plot of land on which they lived.  However, I am much more interested in the postcard itself and the fence-hopping, young woman in uniform showcased on it's front:

So, what's the story here?

In searching for the name Roth & Langley, which appears to be the name of the company which printed this exhibit over a century ago, I've discovered that they were the mastermind's behind several postcard issues during the early half of the 20th century.  Based in New York, it appears as though they printed up a full set of "risque" baseball postcards, circa 1910, which featured "pearl clutching" moments of women throwing themselves at baseball players or suiting up themselves and striking double entendre-ready poses.  Seemingly designated as PC798-10, I found several closed auction listings for lots of these "lewd" photographs via a site called KevinSavageCards.com:

These screen captures from the 2015 listings appear to show additional, similar cards that sure look to be from the same set - it looks as though we found my long sought after oddball's siblings.

So, while I was hoping that I had found photographic evidence of perhaps an early women's baseball league, a local girls' collegiate or high school nine, or even a rag tag group of lady barnstormers, what I have here appears to be part of the long tradition of sexualizing women (however tame it may be to our eyes today) and sports for the expressed purpose of hawking merch.  Merp.

While I am disappointed that my research indicates that my find is much less exciting to this feminist mind, it is still a captivating piece of Americana.  Not to mention, it was a minor miracle that I was able to re-discover this specific slip of paper in a massive shopkeeper's bin after several months of shoppers likely flipped through later than I originally did.   Plus, no matter what the context of the image, I was still able to add another super vintage baseball card to my collection for the low, low price of a single dollar bill.  It's not everyday one gets the opportunity to do that!  Thus, I still confidently consider this antiquing find a massive success.

After my wife I checked out, in order to celebrate my purchase, I made sure to down plenty of spirits at the winery and the tasting room down the street.  Of course, we were already looking for any excuse to do that!

Anniversaries, antiquing, wine, more wine, and extremely old baseball cards.... God, I love Utica!

International Man of Mystery

Those who have been reading Wrigley Roster Jenga for a while might be aware of the fact that I work in IT for a local school district.  Though I am not a teacher, I still get a lot of the same treatment and benefits; thus, currently, I'm about halfway into my two-week holiday break.  When I was a kid, there was no more exciting time of year (well, except for summer break) - two weeks of no school and countless festivities.  As an adult, having this bonus time off has it's advantages, even though it's no longer filled with visits to Toys R Us, sledding down Belly Button Hill, and building snowmen with fellow children on the block.  Thus far, I've plowed through my honey-do list, done some side jobs for friends, and the apartment has never been cleaner. 

However, being married to a lovely wife who is not lucky enough to be off with me and being without a large house to take care of or children to worry about, I've discovered that the days can get quite long when eight hours aren't being sopped up by work.  First world problems, am I right?

As such, I've been reviewing parts of my card collection that I've long neglected, including my miscellaneous over-sized, oddball items.  Among the signed photo printouts, Fatheads, newspaper posters, and other items of that ilk, I re-discovered a postcard that I brought home from just the second card show that I ever attended:

That right there is the team photo for one of the greatest baseball teams of all-time, the 1906 Cubs.  Beginning a string of three straight pennants, that Frank Chance-led club set the longstanding record for wins in a season.  Their mind-boggling 116 triumphs was later equaled by the 2001 Seattle Mariners, but has yet to be bested, 111 years later.  However, as dominant as the Cubbies were in the regular season, they were bounced by their crosstown rivals, "the Hitless Wonders" White Sox, in that year's World Series.  The Sox earned that moniker for having the AL's worst cumulative team batting average (.230).  That's baseball for ya.

Anyway, I remember that this item caught my eye as I was preparing to leave the show and I still had a few singles burning a hole in my pocket.  The top-loader that it was displayed in kept me from noticing that it was printed on paper no thicker than your average printer stock and obscured the very obvious "facsimile" notation on the bottom left.  Sadly, I did not notice these traits until I got home.

It's not like I thought I was getting a century-plus year old postcard for four bucks; however, I was hoping for a higher quality modern piece or at least a better quality reprint.  I felt duped and almost immediately stashed it away in a box, to be forgotten, because I was a tad bitter.

However, there was a very specific reason that I purchased this replica in the first place... a reason beyond the fact that it featured one of the best squads ever fielded by my favorite franchise.   Rather, the reason centered around a very specific member of that record-setting team. With a bunch of free time on my hands, it wasn't long before I was hooked back on the mysterious case of an almost transient member of that legendary group.

Behold, Tom Walsh - international man of mystery.

According to the various baseball databases, we know that he was a right-hander who stood 5'11" and weighed 170 lbs.  We also know that he was born on February 28th, 1885 in Davenport, IA, died on March 16th, 1963 in Naples, FL, and was buried back in his hometown.

As far as his performance on the diamond, we know that, at 21, Mr. Walsh appeared in two games for the 1906 Chicago Cubs - August 15th and September 26th.  The youngster caught three innings (making one putout) and notched one plate appearance (striking out) between the two contests - that is the complete summary of his Major League career.  In fact, that is the final word on his entire professional baseball career, altogether.  Tom Walsh never appeared in another pro baseball game, Major or minor or independent, prior to his cameo with the Cubs or for the rest of his life afterwards.  Not a single one.  How bizarre is that?

Information on this incredibly obscure ballplayer is scarce and, if not for this photograph, he might have just been written off as a "ghost player" scoring error.  As a matter of fact, after spending a few hours researching the matter (because this is how I chose to spend my downtime), this team photo is the only time that Walsh appears to have been captured on film - heck, even his Baseball Reference photo is just a cropped version of this same snapshot.  What is his story?  The mystery has long captured my imagination.

The regular catchers for the '06 Cubs - courtesy of Galasso's reprints of the 1911 Turkey Red cabinets

Initially, my theory was that the mid-westerner was a local sandlot or semi-pro player who the Cubs called upon in a pinch.  The theoretical move would have been needed after an injury to one of their two primary catchers, Johnny Kling and Pat Moran... not unlike an Eric Semborski-esque, emergency goalie situation in the NHL.  After all, those three were the only men to don the tools of ignorance for the West Siders that season; thus, any affliction suffered by the regular duo would have left the club in a pickle.  Furthermore, in the rough and tumble, early days of our sport, before farm systems or air travel, this sort of move wasn't all that uncommon - you have to fill that slot somehow.  However, I cannot find the contemporary box scores in order to confirm the absence of either one of the two catchers.  Furthermore, the fact that his two appearances with the clubs are so far spaced out adds another interesting wrinkle to the case.

Another possibility is that Walsh was a sort of hanger-on with the club who was called upon to suit up and rest the starters, similar to the appearances of batting practice pitcher, Hank Grampp, twenty-one years later.  Well on their way to the pennant, the Cubs won each of Tom's appearances by scores of 10-7 and 12-7 respectively and were significantly ahead in the standings in both instances, so it's not as if Chance needed to ride his regulars as part of a tight pennant race.

Or, it could be some other combination of the roles and situations that I've posited above.  I'm truly puzzled as to how we know all about his vitals and stats but know nothing about his background or circumstances, especially in a sport as obsessed with record-keeping and history as baseball.  The bottom line is that I can't find anything concrete about Tom Walsh anywhere on the internet and I'm completely baffled by this fact.

via GIPHY

Tom Walsh's biography

Funny enough, though facts were few and far between, I was able to find someone else as obsessed with Walsh as I currently am.  Of course, this blogging New York Mets fan finds himself wondering whether or not he might be a reincarnated version of the mystery Cub.  It's all done very tongue-in-cheek, but his self-examination uncovers a few bizarre coincidences.  The post is worth a read if you have a few minutes to kill... and, let's be real, if you're reading my ramblings, you have a few minutes to kill.

Switching back to baseball cards for a moment, remember that my ultimate goal in collecting is to obtain at least one card of every single man to ever don a Chicago Cubs uniform.  In the long run, this is a fool's errand - when a franchise's history dates back to the Reconstruction Era, there's going to be some people who slip through the proverbial cracks.  But, with that in mind, isn't it amazing that a man we know so precious little about actually rears his head on a baseball card?  Or does he?

In the end, I'm now left asking myself  (as I did when I originally purchased this facsimile postcard in the winter of 2015), "does this count as a baseball card and should it be considered for inclusion in my CATRC?"

Postcards and reprints are no strangers to my CATRC pages.... far from it.

On the first point, I've long made it known that I consider postcards which feature baseball players to be baseball cards - hell, I even have greeting cards with ball-players on them in my binders.  The bottom line is that any kind of card with a baseball theme is a baseball card, in my eyes; I'm a very inclusive fellow.  Although, I must admit, the fact that it such a cheap, facsimile/reprint on what barely constitutes card stock and hails from origins unknown continues to give me pause.  But, again, it's not like I don't have other reprints residing with my CATRC.

On the latter point, should a team photo be admitted for representation of a singular player?  I don't know - it kind of feels like cheating.  That said, there are several multi-player cards serving the purpose for individual athletes in my pages, some with as many as four or five different people sharing the spotlight; so, is Walsh's situation really all that different?  Plus, this photo even goes to the trouble of individually listing out the members of the team in question.  Finally, as I brought up earlier in this post, this photograph appears to be the only time Tom "Big Foot" Walsh was caught on celluloid.  So, it's not like I have a ton of options here and I want complete as much of my ultimate goal as is humanly possible.  Allowing for this inclusion would bring me that much closer.  Still, this would be the first team photo card to make the ranks.

I suppose there is one further option, besides tracking down a better quality reprint or original printing of the same postcard.  One that would allow me to focus on Walsh and Walsh alone:

There's a Walsh Strat card in this lot image swiped from Ebay, just casually peeking out between a pair of HOF'ers.

Strat-O-Matic has long been the industry standard for table-top baseball simulation.  Admittedly, I do not know how to play the sim, but I do know that it runs through cards... over-sized cards without pictures and that feature specially determined, game-play statistics on the front.  They aren't exactly attractive or particularly collectible outside of their value to the game; but, surprisingly, Tom Walsh makes an uber rare appearance in the team set for the 1906 Cubs.

In a Q and A session hosted by noted game authority, Glen Guzzo, a curious user mentioned the inclusion of the two-game wonder in his newly purchased set, wondering how often such a minor player might make it into the Strat ranks.  Here's what Guzzo had to say about it:

Very, very few players with fewer than 10 at-bats have earned cards. But in Strat-O-Matic’s early days of 20-player teams, occasionally a team would get only 19 cards because there was no one else with enough at-bats or innings pitched worth carding. The 1905 New York Giants, from the same set as your 1906 Cubs, had only 17 players, although 13-at-bat Offa Neal was not carded. In the computer game, however, Strat-O-Matic has been giving ratings to every player with at least 1 at-bat or 1 inning pitched.

So, I suppose tracking down a Walsh Strat stat card is another option for filling his slot - I mean, I do have APBA (another baseball simulation based around stat cards) in my CATRC.  On the flip-side, I *definitely* prefer a photographic card when available and, technically, one is available and a (reprint) copy is already in my possession.

 As of yet, no other option has presented itself for Clyde Beck or Footsie Blair - so, game cards it is.

As of this evening, I think I've finally made my decision, after two years of kicking the can down the road.  That being acknowledged, I'm still curious to hear your opinions.  How do you think I should handle this dilemma?  What would you do in my size 11.5 shoes?  Please illuminate me in the comments section below.

Furthermore, if you have any further information about the international man of mystery better known as Tom Walsh, please feel free to let me know - I'd love to fill in the massive gaps in my knowledge.  I suppose if I REALLY wanted to, I could hop a train downtown and dig through the Chicago Public Library's newspaper archives.  I'm awfully curious, but I'm not THAT curious... at least, not yet.

All of this internal struggle, all of this intensive research, all of this second guessing of my collecting methods... all of this because I had a few days of free time and a Christmas break.  Maybe I need another hobby just to get away from my main hobby?

I told you all I was mildly insane!

Trading Cards in Disguise

All Hallows' Eve, a night during which the world dons masks, face paint, and costumes for a night of candy, mischief, debauchery, and ghoulish fun, all in the name of Samhain.  It's a night filled with costume parties, trick or treating, pumpkin carving, pranks, haunted houses, and scary movie marathons.  All in all, Halloween has always been my favorite holiday - Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, and my birthday are all well and good; however, only one holiday taps into my creative side and allows me to craft and show off my own costumes.  Ever since I can remember, the art of creating a proper Halloween disguise has been my favorite holiday tradition, thus making October 31st my most favored annual celebration.  Well... unless MLB Opening Day counts as a holiday... but, I digress.

Over the years, I've put together some top-notch costumes - Speed Racer, the Green Power Ranger, and the Headless Horseman rank among my proudest.  Along with my wife, our craft has even won awards at local costume contests - Ash Ketchum and Pikachu, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and, my personal favorite, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.  After all, these years, I still get a thrill out of spending a night in disguise.

However, I am certainly not alone in my love for Halloween dress-up; after all, those pop-up costume shops indicate that it is a million dollar industry.  But, it's not just people that like to get in on the act of costuming.  Trading cards, that's right, trading cards can often be found in disguise... and all year-round at that!

They come disguised as...

 ...stickers...

...decals....

...magnets...

 ...phone cards...

...stamps....

 ...tattoos...

...coupons...

...advertisements...

...game pieces...

...posters...

...postcards...

...greeting cards....

...Valentine cards....

...digital photographs....

 

...traditional photographs...

...mini books...

...and even business cards, credit cards, coins, rub downs, ticket stubs, tags, schedules, blankets, and paper fans.  Trading cards are like paper/plastic versions of Lon Chaney, "The Man of a Thousand Faces."

But, despite their clever disguises, these collectibles can't confuse use obsessive collectors - they're trading cards, at heart.  There ain't no "tricking" us on these "treats!"  We obsessive folks will collect them in whatever form they chose to hide out in.

Or maybe I'm the only one that "out of my gourd..." 

At any rate, Happy Halloween to everyone reading this overextended,  metaphorical excuse for a blog post.  I hope your night's festivities are "bewitching!"  In the meantime, if you happen to run into a Han Solo and Chewbacca combination in your neighborhood this evening, you might just be running into this fanatical trading card collector and his lovely wife.  Keep your eyes peeled!

.......

**EDIT** - Due to popular demand, here's a selection of costumes for which I have easily accessible pictures (by that, I mean they were on Facebook):