Phun Cards 1959 Topps #178 Ruben Amaro

1959 Topps #178 Ruben Amaro

Ruben Amaro played 40 games for the 1958 Cardinals, but his first Topps card was issued with a Phillies Logo in the 1959 set.  This is despite the fact that Amaro would not play with the Phillies unitl June of 1960.  Amaro was a member of the Phillies for 6 years including the ill-fated 1964 season.  Amaro was good enough to stick hold down a majore league job for 11 seasons, but that is about it.  He did not really have any offensive standout years and finished his career with 8 home runs and a .234 batting average.  His 11 years were split among 4 clubs including the Angels and Yankees in addition the Phils and Cardinals.  Thanks to the Phillies 1964 collapse Amaro never got a chance to play in the post-season, but he did earn a Gold Glove for his play during that 1964 season.

  

Ruben Amaro is of course the father of Ruben Amaro Jr who is the current GM of the Philadelphia Phillies.  Ruben Amaro JR or RAJ in @TwitterSpeak also played a few unremarkable years with the Phillies.  While doing some Wiki-research I found out that the RAJ is actually a 3rd generation professional ballplayer.  His grandfather Santos Amaro played in the Cuban and Mexican Leagues.  According to Wikipedia Santos played 17 seasson in the Mexican League compiling 1,339 hits and a .314 batting average.  He was elected to the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.  

For the Collector

The 1959 Topps Card for Ruben Amaro is a Rookie Card, but basically a common. I picked up this card up for 30 cents.  A graded PSA 8 Amaro card sold for $243.26 recently.  The PSA 7 graded cards are significantly more affordable with 3 auctions ending at under $26. 

2011 - The Year in Card Blogging - Favorite Posts from the Past Year!

I was hoping to get a little more response for this and then I sort of back burnered it, but I am finally publishing the Favorite/Best Card Blog Posts of 2011.  

While I may not have gotten as many folks submitting columns as I would have liked, I was satisfied with the variety.  My goal was to come up with the blog equivalent of those "The Best American Sports Writing Year XXXX" compilations that are put out annually.  If you checked out these compilations the stories are all over the map - Big time Sports, High school sports, Unknown sports, celebrites etc, but at some level they are connected to Sports.  

Our goal is similar, but with the unifying theme being sports/trading card collecting. 

Can't Have Too Many Cards - has a great post on a very nice looking set of Hassan Tobacco cards from 1910  

http://canthavetoomanycards.blogspot.com/2011/11/1910-t30-arctic-series.html

Cardboard Icons wrote this really sweet column chronicling his daughters first game.  How could any father not choose this as their own post of the year.   

http://cardboardicons.com/2011/10/07/one-of-the-greatest-baseball-days-ever/

Cardboard Junkie - This is great, you get all the emotions of a pack break as only DayF can do them.  

http://cardjunk.blogspot.com/2011/08/platinum-rage.html

Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains, who keeps us updated on our favorite winter sport, hockey (as well as OPC cards). put together this interesting post discussing Goalie Size

http://1967ers.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/size-matters/ 

Finally I went with my Wille Mays post that I teased this feature last month.  

1959 Topps #563 Willie Mays

I like this one because I am talking about cards, and I think I may be bringing some interesting information to the new collector regarding a star and what a specific set has to offer. 

There you have it, it's only five posts but we cover a lot of territory - Beautiful 100 year old Non-sports Cards, Pack Breaks, Changes in the game, Vintage Hall of Famers and Personal Joys related to sports.  I could not have been happier with the selections.   

If anyone would like to add their own favorite posting to The Best of 2011, please let me know either in the comments or via email and I will add it to the list.  For additional information click here. 

Thanks

Team Phungo

Team Phungo Wants Your Best Post of 2011!!!

Could this card be related to the Phungo Best Post of 2011???



1959 Topps Willie Mays

Could the above Willie Mays card be related to the Phungo Best Post of 2011???

Team Phungo wants to know what YOUR Best or Favorite post of 2011 was.

I want to collect all of the favorite posts from 2011 into a digest and publish the together.

for more info click here

Swag from Bill and Ben

I Wanted to put together a quick post to acknowledge a couple of recent trades.

I am going to lead-off with some a massive contribution that Ben Henry of The Baseball Card Blog made to the Phungo 1959 Topps Set. Ben is going through some serious downsizing and focusing of his collection - I sent some vintage cards Ben's way including the the classic 1971 Topps #5 Thurman Munson card and he sent me back almost 40 cards for the aforementioned 1959 Set.


The 59s included a couple of Phillies, which are hard to find (at reasonable prices) locally and a rare High Number card of Lee Tate as well as 36 other cards that I needed.

This is likely the biggest contribution I have had to the Phungo 1959 Topps Project since I started back in late 2007. If you want to see my 1959 want list as it stands currently or are just so bored you want to check my progress click here. As it stands thanks to Ben I have moved into the final 100 cards of the set, and am well ahead of where I expected to be at this point in 2010 for the project.

Reader Bill

I also made a second trade of vintage cards and other with reader Bill F from Alexandria VA recently. I sent some Padres and a couple 1956 cards his way for a bunch of 1971 Phils and some newer "retro" Phils cards. Bill was also good enough to contribute to the 1959 cause with a Buyback of Claude Osteen.


Loved all these card. I hadn't botthered to pick up any cards from the new T206 or the Goodwin Champs sets. ok maybe I did get T206. Yeah that's right I did get a single pack I think, but it yielded no Phils.

The colors on the Dick Allen make for a pretty sharp looking card. This is a set I probably should of given more of a shot in 2009.

The Barry Lersch card is from the High Numbered Series of 1971 Topps - you can follow Phungo quest for the 1971 Topps Phillies Team Set here.

Swag from Project 62!!!

1961 Fleer #81 Dazzy Vance

Recently Project 62 ran a contest which involved guessing the results of various vintage cards which were sent in for grading. I have never sent a card in for grading, but have read enough blog entries to understand that the process is somewhat of a crapshoot.

I was fortunate enough to guess close enough to the grades on the cards to be declared the winner. I spoke with the Mr Project 62 and we decided to expand the contest bounty into a trade and the loot from that trade arrived at Phungo Headquarters Yesterday.

The Dazzy Vance card above was included in the package. I have only recently begun looking to add vintage fleer cads to my collection and the Vance card is my first card from the 61 set.

Project 62 was also good enough to send over seven 1959 cards including 3 of the scarcer High Numbers.

(click to enlarge)
1959 Topps #288 Dutch Dotterer
1959 Topps #542 Jim Perry RC
1959 Topps #546 Al Schroll

I have been building the 1959 topps Set since the fall of 2007 and it has been a fun process. The 59s that I collect via trades w/ other bloggers have been the best though. So far I have picked up cards from Project 62, Night Owl, and Beardy. There was also a non-blogging reader who contributed several cards and several months ago while perusing dime boxes at a card show, I struck up a conversation with a local collector who happened to also be building 1959 topps and we were able to help each other out considerably.

A couple of 58 Topps and 62 Topps helped to fill out my Phillies Vintage collection along with this fine blue Cole Hamels Refractor.

(click to enlarge)
1958 Topps #460 Chuck Essegian
2009 Topps Chrome Refractor #169 Cole Hamels (#d 106/199)
1962 Topps #434 Clay Dalrymple

Big time thanks to Chris over at Project 62 for running the contest and bearing with me through the trading process. I hope that the dozen or so 1962 Topps cards I sent his way will help him with Project 62.

Philly Card Show Report - Splurge the 1959s

1959 Topps #514 Bob Gibson

If you are building a vintage set you at some point have to decide how you are going to handle the star cards, special cards, short prints and Hall of Famers. Because of the laws of supply and demand, these cards are typically both harder to locate and more expen$ive.

For the most part my 59 set is made up of cards I would describe as in good condition. I avoid cards that are written on, torn cut up etc. Dinged Corners and surface wear don't bother me to much.

That brings us to 1959 Topps #514 Bob Gibson. This is THE rookie card of the 1959 Topps Set. It is also part of the somewhat scarcer high number series of 59 Topps. I already have all three Mantle cards from the Set and the Mays base card, so I was well aware that this was likely the next big fish from the set.

This card has some minor creasing, surface wear and soft edges. If I were a Cardinals fan and wanted a Gibson Rookie to be the center of my collection, I would probably have passed on this card.

But as a good card of a big name Hall of Fame player that I need to build a 50 year old vintage set - This card is perfectly fine.
For the Collector

This particular card went for $30. On ebay a card in similar condition just sold for $34.99 shipped. A noticeably better conditioned card went for $39.98 which appears to be a pretty good deal to me. Beyond that there are several auctions that finished in the $85-$100 range. A really crisp graded card top ended at $1384.00 on November 22nd.



1959 Topps #317 NL Hitting Kings Ashburn and Mays

I believer there are three cards featuring Willie Mays in the 1959 Topps set, this one also features Phillies Hall of Famer and fan favorite Richie Ashburn. This went for a reasonable $4.50. I also picked up the #20 Duke Snider card for $2.50, but it is in really poor condition, and looking back I probably should have bypassed that card.
Commons



1959 Topps #517 Joe Koppe
1959 Topps #440 "Lou" Burdette
1959 Topps #206 Carl Furillo
1959 Topps #359 Bill White

The Koppe card is really not a common, it is part of the High Numbered Series which start at #507. The "Lou" Burdette card is notable for the misspelling of his first name LEW short for Lewis. This card "inspired" the much derided 2007 Topps Heritage super-scarce parallel "Jon" Smoltz card. What is Carl Furillo doing in the bargain bin??. And finally Bill White, who was one of the first black players in the Majors and as the President of the National League (1989-94) was the first African-American to hold such an office for a Major Sports League.

The Joe Koppe card as well as 7 other hi numbers went for $1.75. The regular set commons of which I picked up about 30 went for 35 cents each.

If you would like to contribute to the Phungo 1959 Topps Set Building challenge please let me know, I have lots of common duplicates to trade. My 1959 Topps Want List is chronicled here.

Speaking of 1959 Topps and 2007 Topps Heritage

Yep this was Team Phungo's last splurge of the 2009 Collecting Year. I finally broke down and decided to build the Topps 1959 Homage set - 2007 Topps Heritage. The two boxes went for a reasonable 90.00 combined and I got the dealer to toss in some new hobby packs 09 Heritage High Numbers at a discount.

Beardy's Blog and Building 1959 Topps

When I returned to baseball cards I made the decision to attempt building a Vintage Topps Set. The set I picked was the 1959 Topps Set. At the time it was the upcoming Topps Heritage Set, I like the looks of them - It was the last set to contain Richie Ashburn as a Phillie, and it was from the '50s which has a bit more cache then saying "I am collecting the 1960 set".

I recently reached the half way point and have just received contributions from two different bloggers. About a week ago I posted about a card sent in a package from Night Owl Cards. And this week I was very happy to find another nice group of cards from the Orioles centered Beardy's Baseball Blog.

Up until now almost all of the cards I have built the set with have been via eBay and Card Shows. I like the cards I get via trades twice as much though. I am sure not to many folks have extra 1959s around but if you do I am definitely willing to trade for them. I have lots of duplicates from the sets, and if anybody is interested in those I will also entertain trade offers.

I noticed about a month ago in a post that Beardy had picked up an eBay lot of 1959 Orioles. The batch contained some duplicates. We made a trade where I sent him one of the O's High-Numbered All-Stars, Gus Triandos, along with a few Markakii (hope I got that right) and he sent back a bunch of his '59 dupes which also included a few Red Sox cards.



1959 Topps #219 George Zuvenick
1959 Topps #500 Vic Wertz

I love the Zuvenick card and a couple of other O's cards in this set because they have the classic Orioles uni with "Baltimore" written across the front. This season the O's have gone backto wearing these uniforms when on the road.

I am chronicling my quest to build the 1959 topps set on my Trade List Page in this posting. As of today (2009 06 14) I have 344 of the 572 cards or about 60% of the set. If anybody has any 1959s that I could use please let me know and we can make a deal. I also have a list of my 1959 doubles but that list needs to be updated as several of these have been sent out over the last couple of months. I have several other lists of sets that I have started or am in the process of building throughout the SetQuest page if you see anything that you have to offer let me know and perhaps we can work a deal.

Thanks to Beardy's Baseball Blog for helping out with building the 1959 Topps Set, it is much appreciated - oh and Beardy, The Phils are hosting the O's next weekend, I think there is a good chance of seeing a Phungo 5 questionairre in your email soon.