1961 Topps Baseball Stamps - Angels

1961 Topps Baseball Stamps came as a two-stamp insert to 1961 Topps wax packs. You could buy an album for a dime to put the stamps in. The whole set is 208 stamps, half the players on brown stamps, the other half on green stamps.

 ANGELS I HAVE: 1/7

ANGELS I NEED:
NNO Jerry Casale
NNO Bob Cerv
NNO Ned Garver
NNO Ken Hunt
NNO Ted Kluszewski
NNO Ed Sadowski

1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops - Angels

1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops was an 80-card set numbered from 401 to 480. That's weird because the set issued the previous year was numbered 1 to 72. Hmm. No reason is given in my SCBC as to why. Anyhow, they feature news worthy moments in players careers.

There were no news worthy Angels players as yet, since this was their first season, so Nu-Card elected to highlight Gene Autry and his new team.

 ANGELS I HAVE: 1/1 Complete Team Set

Probably one of very few Gene Autry baseball cards around as well.

The Ramones (and I) Gotta Wait On Glenn Hubbard

So the song goes:

I can't make it on time

I can't make it on time

I keep tryin' and tryin'

I can't make it on time

I can't hurry and you can't wait

It doesn't matter 'cause we're already late

I can't get off the telephone

It always rings when I'm alone

You gotta wait wait

Cause you don't need no one

Wait wait

Cause you know that I'm the one

You gotta wait

Hey, hey, hey

I've been waiting on Glen Hubbard for 4,941 days.

 On June 28th 2005, I mailed three cards to Glenn Hubbard c/o the Atlanta Braves.

I think he was a coach or in the front office at the time.

Then I waited.

 On January 3, 2019 I got them back 4,941 days, or about 13.5 years, later!

Pretty sure that's my longest wait ever.

Whats funny is that after mailing these I waited 2 years, and considering them lost, I mailed 3 more in April 2007 to his home address. When those cards came back signed after 1,718 days (a little over 4.5 years later) I for sure thought that the 2005 cards were looong gone.

Not so, and what an awesome surprise.

Big Daddy Vladdy Padded Package

Say that ten times fast!

Received a fat package in the mail from Kevin who ran the awesome and greatly missed, The Diamond King blog. Kevin had reached out as a reader offering up some Vladdy cards for my collection, and what he sent was off the charts!

1997 Donruss #355

Pretty sure it was no surprise back in the mid-nineties that Vladdy would be a HOFer one day.

Found some Angels in there as well.

1992 Topps Dairy Queen Team USA #9

I love Team USA Baseball sets, and this Abbott is from another odd set I was unaware of.

There's a Todd Greene in the set as well, so I'll need to find that one too!

1986 Utah Sports BYU Cougars Wally Joyner

I don't think I've seen these before. One card from a set of 14 Wally Joyner's issued by BYU.

I'll have to hunt down the set.

2005 Donruss Champions #140 Gold 44/75

We all go through cycles of priorities, when collecting and blogging have to take a backseat to family and life, and Keven found himself in one several years ago which led to him having to set the blog aside. Hopefully things will open up for him and we'll all soon be treated to reading The Diamond King again.

Thanks Kevin!

1961 Topps - Angels

My goal this year is to go through my Angels binders and document what I have/need for the different issues, starting with 1961.

1961 Topps Baseball was a set numbered through 589 cards, of which only 587 were printed due to there being no cards numbered 426, 587, and 588, but with two cards numbered 463. That makes the checklists I collect even more fun, sometimes there's three variations of a single checklist!

ANGELS I HAVE: 27/27 Complete team set

 

Its interesting that most of the players are pictured in other teams uniforms. That's because the Angels were an expansion team in 1961, made up of selections from all the other teams eligible players. So, I'm not sure how a handful of them got to be pictured in Angels uniforms. If from Spring Training, then why not more of them?

Angels And Patriots We Lost In 2018

My annual tribute to those former Angels and Patriots we lost in 2018.

Jack Hamilton

California Angels 1967-1968

Bruce Kison

California Angels 1980-1984

Jerry Moses

California Angels 1971

Julio Navarro

Los Angeles Angels 1962-1964

Marty Pattin

California Angels 1968

Laurin Pepper

Hawaii Islanders PCL 1963

Rob Picciolo

California Angels 1984

Joe Stanka

Los Angels Angels PCL 1953-1955

Moose Stubing

California Angels 1967, 1988

Bobby Trevino,

California Angels 1968

Luis Valbuena

LA Angels Anaheim 2017-2018

Alan Mitchell Edward George Patrick Henry "Dirty Al" Gallagher

California Angels 1973

Jim Crawford HB-FB

Boston Patriots 1960-1964

Don McComb DE

Boston Patriots 1960

Mike Montler C-G-T

Boston/New England Patriots 1969-1972

Bill Rademacher WR-DB

Boston Patriots 1969-1970

Andy Johnson RB

New England Patriots 1974-1982

Rod Rust DC-HC

New England Patriots 1983-1987, 1990

Stocking Stuffers And Such

Although I wasn't into baseball cards as much last year as in previous years, my family was still nice enough to include some packs with gifts and in my stocking.

Nice to see Ohtani on the wrapper.

Not sure yet if I'll chase all the different Ohtani wrappers like I do the Trout wrappers.

SP Photo Variation

Foil

The 1983 design is still one of my all-time favorites.

 I also received this:

1995 Classic Hallmark Keepsake HK1

I had one of these in the past, but never had the card.

Cool to have them both now.