Yesterday was "Handy" Andy Pafko's birthday and he would have been 94. When Pafko passed away in 2013 I wasn't writing on the blog too much and so I never really did a farewell post for my favorite ball player. Instead I'll start doing yearly birthday posts highlighting some of my recent pickups of random Pafko collectibles and cards.
Let's start with a 1-of-1 sketch card drawn by artist Qwasian.
He has a ton of original sketch cards available on eBay and I was able to get this one for a pretty great price. I have a lot of "favorite" Pafko cards and this one if certainly a new addition to that list.
There's nothing on the reverse side except a semi creepy mirror image of Pafko drawing bleeding through.
It was only recently that I noticed [probably it was my trading partner Mike D. that let me know] that in the 1994 Topps Archives set there were foil stamped and non-foil stamped versions of the cards. Here's the non-foil version.
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| 1994 Topps Archives 54 #79 [No Foil Stamp] |
I have about 15 non-foil versions and only recently picked up the stamped version...which is on the left below. It just goes to show no matter how much you think you know about checklists there's always some surprises waiting for you. I've included the original 1954 version on the right and you can see the blue is slightly different between the two version.
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| 1994 Topps Archives 54 #79 [Foil Stamped] |
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| 1954 Topps #79 |
Here's a signed version of one of the rarer Pafko cards, 1979 Diamond Great.
Wrigley Wax has a great post on the Cubs version of the set with some great background on its origins.
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| 1979 Diamond Greats #79 Andy Pafko [Autographed] |
Another odd pick up was this autographed card that I had never seen before. After getting the card in hand it turned out to be a fan creation...
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| Unnumbered Photo Card [Autographed] |
...and on the reverse side you can see it's just a printed photo that has been trimmed.
One of the odder Pafko pickups were these contest cards given to attendees of the August 25, 2004 game between the Cubs and Brewers. I believe these were for a contest to receive a Cubs jersey.
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| MBNA Scratchcard Ticket 8/25/2004 #13185 |
And the reverse side has some great stats including sacrifice hits and total bases.
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| MBNA Scratchcard Ticket 8/25/2004 #13185 Back |
In the eBay lot I also received three more scratched tickets numbered #05892, #06020, and #05336.
These signed envelopes seemed to be created in honor of the 1992 New York City Baseball Card Spectacular. Although it's mainly just a signed envelope with a canceled stamp on it, the Dodgers logo is actually a patch.
I ended up picking up two copies with different stamp designs.
Just like the 1994 Topps reprint foil stamping issues I didn't realize existed there was also a non-foil stamped version of the 2013 Topps Archives Pafko with a 1990 Topps design that was given to Cubs season ticket holders a few years ago.
I have several copies of the stamped version but this is my first non-stamped one.
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| 2013 Topps Archives #CUBS-55 Andy Pafko [Non-Stamped Version] |
This Pafko card comes from a card game
APBA Major League Baseball Master Game that was originally published in 1975.
I also made a little progress in collecting all 1,957 copies of the retrofractor from the 2002 Topps Super Teams set. This one was numbered #0658 out of /1957 and it brings my total versions to seven I believe.
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2002 Topps Super Teams #36 Andy Pafko
Retrofractor #0658/1957 |
Comments
There's also part of me that thinks that if I had just a little more artistic ability I could be selling sketch cards on eBay...