good golly mr. molly

this is a story that begins with junk wax but ends with a case hit. actually, i will go ahead and show the case hit in question first. it's a 2002 donruss originals paul molitor what if? 78 card

this is a key card - one of two molitor cards - i need(ed) for my insert set build, and i had forgotten that i was its owner since 2002. how i came to be reminded of that fact is what began with junk wax.

my sister in law has a good friend who i knew had a card collection. she is a yankee fan and i understood that she had some decent yankee cards from the 1960's. a few years ago, i was asked about the collection and how best to sell it. i suggested she contact one of the local card shops that i would take my cards to if i were looking to sell. fast forward a few years and i was contacted again about the collection. this time, i was asked if i wanted it.

it turns out that the collection i was being asked about was the junk wax part - not the vintage yankees part. i am guessing that she sold those but wasn't offered anything for these other cards. my sister in law sent me photos of 1989 donruss and fleer in sheets and i really wasn't too interested. she persisted, however, and i said i would take the cards. 

well, there weren't any bill ripken cards in the 1989 fleer that she had, but i did find a few cards that i needed from the rest of the junk - this 1990 fleer sticker insert

and these 1991 fleer sticker inserts

were all welcome variants that i would not have chased otherwise.

there were a few random cards from 1997 pacific crown collection mixed in, and this eddie perez card

fits within my lurker collection thanks to the appearance of rauuuuuuuul mondesi.

some other sets that were represented were classic junk wax era - 1989 score, 1989 topps, 1990 donruss, etc. there were also two boxes that touted complete sets, one of them being 1996 topps. upon closer inspection, the set was missing one card - glenn dishman of all people - but that was easy enough to remedy

his is card number 410 and there were two 418s so i am guessing that poor eyesight/small card numbers led to the omission of the padre lefty.

the other set was 1999 topps series 1. it was missing one card as well - the mark mcgwire #220. that's the card that has 70 different versions, one for each home run he hit in 1998. i thought that i might have one of these cards with my mothballed player collections, so i headed to the basement to check.

some may recall that i've mentioned having had a large number of player collections at one time. after the 2002 season, i curtailed most of them and put the cards in monster boxes. mcgwire was one of the players, but when i looked through the cards of his i had, the 1999 card was not among them. for fun, i kept digging in the row of the box that big mac was in and pulled some of my molitor cards. there, lo and behold, was the what if? card.

it makes sense to me that i had picked up that card back then, even though i don't recall doing so. molitor was my favorite non-dodger for several years, and one of my favorite players period. i just wish i had picked up his other card from the set back then. who knows how long i would have gone without moving the molitor card to my set build if it hadn't been for junk wax?!

i did pick up a version of the mcgwire card to complete the set. it's home run number 38

hit off of hall of famer billy wagner. i already had the 1999 topps set completed (both series) but couldn't let this one sit one card shy.

in other what if? news, i've made a bit more progress on the 1978 set, adding dave winfield's card

earlier this year. i also picked up a what if? 1984 rated rookie card of eric davis

how fantastic (and highly sought after) would this have been back then? i ultimately decided to purchase the card because pete rose is there in the background, making it another great addition to my lurker collection!

i suppose the lesson here is to not turn your back on junk wax.

box bottoms, blank backs, belcher, bulldog

it's not quite "bears, beets, battlestar galactica", but there is a common thread here in this post that made me think of that scene from the office.

tonight is the night that the dodgers retire fernando valenzuela's number, and i realized that i had failed to add this card

to my post the other night. it was the card that was going to tie the post together, as the title of the post (if you've got a sombrero, throw it to the sky) was a quote from vin scully and his call of fernando's no-hitter - the no-hitter that is the subject of the card! the card comes from 1991 fleer (obviously) and it is a box bottom card. unfortunately, the back of the card is blank:

that reminded me of another card that i picked up sometime in the last few months - yes, it's another 1978 topps steve garvey card

except this one has a blank back!

now, i don't know if this is a printing error or if it was cut from a sheet or what the story is, but it is a nice "parallel" oddball of my favorite card of all time.

back to box bottoms, here is a 2003 topps kazuhisa ishii box bottom card

with a standard card back

the card is identical to his regular base card, which is pretty lame.

i also picked up the one 1990 fleer box bottom card i was missing from my dodger collection

that would be tim belcher, who shares panel space with the giants' logo, tony gwynn, and kevin mitchell. i didn't scan the backs, but these have the standard card back text and stats. at least the photo on the front is different from his base card.

the other dodger who has a 1990 fleer box bottom card is orel hershiser, and while i already had that card, his 1989 fleer box bottom (white back) card still sits atop my "nefarious 9" most wanted cards list. to be honest, i am not sure that it exists, but it would be weird if it didn't.  and, while i am writing about hershiser, i want to share this image that i screenshotted while watching the reds pummel the dodgers on july 30

hershiser was inducted in to the dodgers' legends of dodger baseball the night before, and they had his monument up behind the left field pavilion. i was happy to see them show it on the broadcast so that i could see what card they used. obviously, that is the bulldog's 1987 topps card - not a more recent topps insert or archives release (here's a link to my post that included the other legends of dodger baseball monuments and cards).

i am hoping to see whether fernando gets a new monument with his number retirement - i'll be watching!