Time To Reveal The Project I've Been Working On

So all of those cards I have mentioned in previous posts that were going to a "project" I was working on were cards I have been saving up to give my dad for Christmas. When he was a kid, he had a collection of baseball cards including guys like Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron. His mom, my Mawmaw, has a house slap full of things. And by "things" I mean "crap". The only things she will actually throw away seem to be things of value. Pair of snowboarding boots? Gone. $200 water purifier? Gone. Grocery list from 1972? On the coffee table. So you know where the baseball cards went. We give her crap for it all the time.

Now I don't have the budget for the Mantle's or Aaron's, but I did gather a nice collection of some cards from his favorite players when he was a kid. I don't know how a ten year old boy from North Carolina picked players from the Reds and Dodgers as his favorite, but he did. So I put together a few cards of Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Ron Cey, Steve Yeager, and Steve Garvey for him. I also threw in a few of his more recent favorite from a few years ago, Marcus Giles. The older cards aren't in the best condition, but I knew my dad wouldn't care one bit. You can see a few below.

This is a TTM that Mr. Cey was kind enough to return to me in record time: 6 days!

Out of them all, my dad's absolute favorite player was Johnny Bench. So I worked really hard to get the best cards I could find for him.

1968 Topps Johnny Bench Rookie

1970 Topps Johnny Bench All-Star

1969 Topps Johnny Bench 

It cost me $60 and a lot of anxiety to mail this card off to have him sign it. I chose this card for two reasons 1) I acquired it before the rookie. 2) I cannot get over the colors on this card. It's just such a gorgeous card that I knew it would look great with his signature across it.

A couple of Bench jersey swatches to finish up. A bonus is that McCann is my dad's favorite Brave.

He seemed to love the cards. My dad doesn't get excited over much so you never can tell if he likes anything. But he did say it was his favorite present, even more so than the new amp we got him, and he took them to show my uncle on Christmas day. All in all, I'd say this was a pretty successful project!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas, or any other holiday you choose to celebrate!