Things Rescued From Auction

For some reason, don't ask me why, I have been trolling the Bay quite frequently lately looking for different items to fill in some gaps in my collection.  One of those gaps has been some missing cards from my Penguins and Steelers tribute card-o-rama.

Those of you that have been around for any length of time may remember this post about my wife's contribution to my madness way back in when.  She brought these home to my utter amazement and even permitted me to hang them up.  If you recall, I had decided to use one frame to feature all the Pittsburgh Steelers that have been elected to the Hall of Fame (or at least as many that would fit).  The other frame would be for the Trib Total Media All Time Penguins team which features 15 players and 5 Honorable Mentions. 

Since I decided to put them up, I have been trying to find the perfect cards of each player to put in.  The holders are snap-tite's that anchor themselves by sliding in and out of pre-mounted strips.  I'm sure many of you have seen these before.  The problem lies in the fact that the holders are vertical.  If you want them to look nice and uniform, the card images have to also be vertical.  My other dilemma has been that I didn't want to duplicate any set designs.  So if I have a 1974 Topps Franco Harris, I need to have some other year for Joe Greene. 

Les Binkley and Randy Carlyle have been my two Penguins that I have yet to fill in since I can't seem to find any Binkley's and the only two Carlyle cards I have currently are already being used (one in a set and the other year/brand is already represented in the frame).  Despite the two holes, the frame filled up quickly as most of card collection is hockey and I have been actively accumulating stuff since the mid-80s.

As for the Steeler frame, that has been a bit harder to fill.  First, I limited my Steelers to only those that spent the bulk of their careers with the team, were integral in building the team, or spent the most productive of their careers in Pittsburgh.  This helped to eliminate Cal Hubbard, Marion Motley, Bill Hewitt, and Len Dawson.  It took out Greasy Neale too since he was a coach for only one year.  I also didn't include Dick Lebeau because although a pivotal coach in Steelers history, he was elected for his playing days with Detroit.  He will almost certainly go in as a coach down the road.

So I was down to 20 players/coaches/owners that had to be filled in.  The players with modern cards (ie. 1960s to today) were easy.  The bump in my road came with The Chairman Of the Board Art Rooney, Dan Rooney, Bert Bell, Bill Dudley, Ernie Stautner, Walt Kiesling, Bobby Layne and John Henry Johnson.  I also didn't have a vertical card of Chuck Noll but do have a temporary one in its place. 

This was supposed to be an Ebay post though.  Here are a few I picked up to fill in some holes in the Steeler "Hall Of Frame".

 1985 Football Immortals Bill Dudley #37

 1988 Swell Hall Of Fame John Henry Johnson #140

 1991 Enor Hall Of Fame Bert Bell

1991 Enor Hall Of Fame Art Rooney

I know these are odd ball cards from "off the grid" sets but sometimes you have to dig deep.  I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg to get this filled up.  Plus, since it will be on display, I didn't want any of the better cards being exposed to too much light or conditions that would cause fading.  I still want it to look cool though.  I know there is a different Art Rooney card out there with almost the identical photo but I haven't seen any Bert Bell's.  So for now, I will temporarily suspend my rule of 1 card per set in order to accommodate both the Enor cards. 

Oh, and just to round out my purchase for some almost free shipping, I picked up these too.

 

1976 Wonder Bread Franco Harris #3

T206 Honus Wagner

The Harris was to help complete the Wonder Bread set that I am sort of on-again off-again working on.  The Wagner is because I have always wanted a copy of this card.  I'd take the real thing too if I had a quarter of a million to waste.  If I am going to call myself a Pittsburgh collector, there has to be at least one of these in my Pirates collection.  Now there is.