2024 Christmas Baseball Card Additions from Santa (and His Helpers)

We interrupt the daily 2024 Chachi card postings to bring a brief report on the annual Christmas baseball card additions to The Phillies Room.  It was another solid year in our household in the gift-giving department.

On Christmas morning, Santa delivered the previously seen 2024 Topps factory set and the Diamond Stars Jimmie Foxx card.  Also added to the mix was a 2024 Topps Holiday Mega Box, which was a lot of fun to open, and the very first card in the Diamond Stars set, Lefty Grove.  Truth be told, Grove was delivered to our house on December 1st, but I decided it was a big enough card that it should be under the tree with the Foxx card.  I had somewhat surprisingly won the Grove card in an eBay auction I had no intention of actually winning.  With the addition of Foxx and Grove, I'm down to needing just six more Diamond Stars cards for my version of a master set.  Progress on that set will likely slow until Christmas 2025.

We traditionally spend the day after Christmas at my Mom's house with my sister's family.  As is now tradition, there was a box of individually wrapped baseball cards waiting to be opened and cherished.  My Mom is going somewhat in order through my 1955 Bowman want list, since I'm not yet officially collecting the set.  She veered off the path of adding cards in order, opting to also track down the Whitey Ford and Roy Campanella cards, two names she recognized from my list and players she thought should enter my set build sooner rather than later.

I hope Santa (or his helpers) brought you plenty of new baseball cards this year too.  Happy New Year!

The Philly Show Report - 12 Years Gone in a Flash

Last Sunday, Doug and I made the hour-plus drive to Oaks, Pennsylvania for the latest installment of The Philly Show, now a major sports card and memorabilia event with eBay as its corporate sponsor.  Doug's first winter track meet of the 2024-25 season precluded us from going on Saturday and obtaining a So Taguchi autograph, but the word was Sunday's crowds were much smaller and more manageable.  Our oldest son is in his senior year of High School, so it shouldn't have caught me off guard when he commented on the way into the show, "This could be my last one of these for a while."

His first baseball card show was somehow already 12 years ago.  It's been a blur since then.

His interests have changed over the years of course, and in the past his disposable income would have gone to low-numbered autographed or relic cards of recent, fringe Phillies players.  And while he did find a few moderately priced cards of Bailey Falter, Weston Wilson and Hans Crouse that gave him a smile, he ultimately opted to hang on to his money for gas, food, dates and other stuff a typical 18-year-old would spend his money on.  Still, I was glad to have him with me and I enjoyed what could have definitely been our last baseball card show together for a little bit.

The Oaks show floor is massive, and it's expanded since our last visit, last December.  We were there for a little over two hours and I saw maybe 40% or so of the show's offerings.  But I had some goals in mind, and having attained those goals, and run out of money, I was fine with the abbreviated visit.

• 1969 Topps Commons:  I pulled up a folding chair one more time at Uncle Dick's Cards, picking up where I had left off a year ago, and pulling commons I needed between card #500 and the final card in the set, #664.  I crossed 98 more cards off my list, and bundled in the Rollie Fingers rookie card for good measure and at a good price, given the stack of commons I had already committed to buy.

• 1969 Topps Stars:  Along with the Fingers card, I found a dealer with good prices on the Ted Williams and Brooks Robinson All-Star cards.

• 1955 Bowman Wrapper:  My sole non-focused purchase was a fairly beat-up 1955 Bowman wrapper.  Once I finish up my 1956 Topps blog, likely at some point in 2025, I'll officially begin collecting the 1955 Bowman set.  This wrapper will look great in the front of that set's binder.

• 1935 Diamond Stars Jimmie Foxx:  My monster purchase was the Foxx card from the Diamond Stars set I'm collecting, and slowly getting close to completing.  Doug gets credit for finding the slabbed Foxx card in his journeys.  The card was priced at almost twice what I ended up paying for it, and it won't officially enter my collection until Santa presents it on Christmas morning as my major gift for the year.

• 1969 and 1959 Topps Semistars:  Nearing the end of our stay, I added 14 semistars to our 1969 Topps set and six commons to our not-yet-collecting 1959 Topps set.

• 2024 Topps Factory Set / 2024 Topps Heritage Hobby Box:  And finally, before we made our way to the exit, I purchased an obligatory 2024 Topps factory set for Santa to also deliver on Christmas morning and we decided it would be fun to open a box of 2024 Topps Heritage once we were home.  (And I can confirm, it was fun.)

So that's a wrap on the first and only baseball card show we attended in 2024.  I'm excited for the 2025 baseball card shows, but I'm honestly more excited for whatever comes next for Doug in the coming year.

 

Game 135 - 1934-36 Diamond Stars #57 "Cy" Blanton

Marlins 3, Phillies 2
Game 135 - Saturday Night, September 4th in Miami
Record - 69-66, 2nd Place, 2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  The Phillies held a slim 2-0 lead until Archie Bradley imploded in the eighth inning, and the Marlins shocked the Phillies (and their fans) with a 3-2 win.

What It Means:  These games are so not fun to watch.  Not fun at all.  As Matt Gelb Tweeted earlier today, the Marlins are 19-11 (.633) at home against the Phillies since 2018, and they're 95-130 (.422) at home against every other team.

What Happened:  Andrew McCutchen homered and Ranger Suarez delivered a surprise RBI-double in the fourth inning to give the Phillies their 2-0 lead.  Suarez inexplicably exited after five dominant innings along with only 71 pitches thrown and yielded to the bullpen.  Hector Neris and Connor Brogdon did their jobs, but Bradley allowed a lead-off double, an RBI-single by Miguel Rojas and a two-run home run from Lewis Brinson.  The Phillies offense went quietly in the top of the ninth and the game went into the loss column.

Featured Card:  I've got nothing for this game.  I've been thoroughly enjoying collecting cards from the 1934-36 Diamond Stars set and writing about each of the cards and the players featured on my other other other blog celebrating the cards found in the 1934-36 Diamond Stars set.  I'll plug that blog here with a card of former Phillies pitcher Cy Blanton who was the team's opening day starting pitcher in 1941.

2021 Virtual Phillies Wall / 2021 Season Summary Index / 2021 Chachi Set Checklist

1934 and 1935 Diamond Matchbooks

At the recent Valley Forge baseball card show, I added nine different matchbooks to my collection, not exactly knowing what I was adding.  The matchbooks seemed extremely reasonably priced, and I hadn't seen anything like this before, so I was intrigued.  I went through the dealer's box labeled "1930s Matchbooks" and pulled out every Phillie I could find.  (As an aside, it was during my search that I finally met fellow collector Steve F. and his son Sam.)


It turns out the matchbooks I bought come from two different sets - a 200-matchbook set called the 1934 Diamond Matchbook - Silver Border set and a smaller 24-matchbook set called the 1935 Diamond Matchbook - Black Border set.  I found this listing in the Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, and I thought I'd list the description of the set verbatim here:

During much of the Great Depression, the hobby of matchbook collecting swept the country.  Generally selling at two for a penny, the matchbooks began to feature photos and artwork to attract buyers.  In the late 1930s, several series of sports subjects were issued by Diamond Match Co. of New York City.  The first issue was a set of 200 baseball players known to collectors as "silver border" for the color of the photo frame on the approximately 1 1/2" x 4 1/8" (open) matchbooks. 

Player portrait or posed photos are printed in sepia on front, and can be found bordered in either red, green, blue or orange (although it is unclear whether all players can actually be found in the red version), theoretically creating an 800-piece color variation set.  The player's name and team are printed on the "saddle" and there is a career summary on back, along with a design of glove, ball and bats.  Matchbooks are commonly collected with the matches removed and the striker at the back-bottom intact.  Pieces without the striker are valued at 50 percent of these listed prices.

Given that last part, my matchbooks would be valued less than those with the striker intact, but I'm still happy to have them in my collection.  It looks as if there are 11 Phillies matchbooks in the set, so I'm missing four of them for a complete team set.

From the 1935 Diamond Matchbooks set, I added the two shown here and I need two more to complete the team set.  Chuck Klein is shown wearing a Cubs uniform, and the online databases I checked list this as a Cubs card.  However, I'm classifying it as a Phillies card given that's the team listed.