It's a Festivus Miracle!!

When I first started blogging about cards in the summer of 2009 once of the first things that I did was put up a want list. Blogging would give me a chance to practice my writing and I wanted to share my new hobby with all the blogospere, but mainly I wanted to partake in the cool trades that I saw happening amongst all the bloggers.

In making the wantlist I put down that I was interested in any cards of old teams especially the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodgers a little more than the Giants mainly because of Jackie Robinson. I was a Jackie Robinson fan when I was a kid.

I never dreamt that I would ever own any authentic cards from when the Giants and Dodgers were in New York. I assumed that the cards would be too scarce, too expensive or both.

So I wrote that I would be happy with any cool reprints that anybody wanted to send. After about a year and a half of blogging I have received many cool cards. I even get a few old reprints in the mail from bloggers like the three that I've shown above.

It also never occurred to me that another way to get cool cards is from bloggers holding giveaway contests on their blogs.

Matthew Glidden owner of the number 5 Type collection blog was having a 400th post Festivus contest and I happened to be one of the 5 chosen as a winner.

He showcases some really cool cards mainly of the vintage variety and it's a good read.


He sent some vintage cards in addition to the reprints above.

A couple of 1954 Topps cards.
This one has been cut down to a more modern card size and has been heavily taped. I'm not sure why. It's kind of got a full-bleed look to it now.

These two Giants along with a ....
...St. Louis Brown: Gordon Goldsberry. Pretty cool expression of Gordon's face. He seems pretty surprised to be on a baseball card.

I can now say that I own four different cards from the 1954 set. Pretty awesome! The other card came from the Topps Million Card website.

This is my first 1955 card.

As you can see from the cartoon Ramon hails from Venezuela! you'll notice that there's not one, but 3 cartoons on the back.
Pretty cool.

This is my first and only 1957 card.


I can't quite explain why I have a fascination for these New York teams. Part of it has to do with the fact that they don't exist anymore. I'm not sure if I really want to go into to much introspection figuring it out either.

The big card in the package was this 1955 card of Brooklyn Dodger 2nd baseman Jim Gilliam.
Perhaps the portrait photo must have been taken on a cold spring day. I've noticed on some of these horizontal sets with the portraits the guys are wearing turtle neck looking undershirts.

This must be one of Matthew's doubles as it's a number 5 card.


Cool back. I love the cartoons on the backs of these cards. All these old cartoons remind me of Christmas with the red and green backs.

Thanks very much for the cards Matthew. You may not be reading this, but it was an awesome contest and a very generous offering of cards.