1964 Topps Giant Cards (Part 4)

Wow! Aside from a bunch of 1965 Topps cards, I have bought so little product in the past few years that it's surprising that I could lose track of some of the items I did buy.

Today I found these 5 Topps Giant cards from 1964 in a box with other stuff. I don't remember where or when I bought them, but I do know it was since my last adventure. I already had 13 of these cards, and now I can add 5 more to the set. (Now all I need to get are some pages to put them in. I've seen the correct size at a store I frequent, but only in boxes of 100. No thanks!)


All three of these players were stars for their teams, but by 1967 would be on the downside of their careers.  Unfortunately for Phillies' fans, Dick Groat and Dick Ellsworth would do their regressing while with the Phils.  Leon Wagner was a slugging outfielder whose power vanished overnight in 1967.

The last two cards are for Ken Johnson and Jim Gentile. Both are wearing soon-to-be-retired uniform styles. In 1965 the Colt .45s became the Astros, and the Kansas City Athletics switched to green/gold/white uniforms about this time. After 1967 they moved to Oakland, so the caps would change again.

My 1964 Giant card scoreboard:
3 - Colt .45s
2 - Athletics, Dodgers, White Sox
1 - Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Cubs, Indians, Mets, Orioles, Phillies, Twins
0 - Giants, Pirates, Red Sox, Reds, Senators, Tigers, Yankees

I also found four 1964 baseball coins today, which will be a topic for a future post.
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1964 Topps Giant Cards (part 3)

As mentioned earlier, recently I went back to the same antique store, and gave Pete Ward and 3 of his pals a ride to my house.

"Callison was the hero of the 1964 all-star game." So, these cards were printed late in the season!

Left unpurchased was a Pete Ward duplicate, Luis Aparicio (have it), Al Kaline, and a few others which I've forgotten.  Kaline's on deck!

1964 Topps Giant Cards (part 2)

Last weekend, I returned to the scene of this purchase (which was also the scene of this purchase), and came away with these:

These six cards were the remaining stock for the same dealer where I bought my first 1964 giant cards earlier this year.

"Oh well, that was that" I thought. But as I made my way from the cashier to the front door, I passed a showcase that had another stack of these cards, with Pete Ward on top. So, I'll be back there in the near future to collect Pete and his friends.

1964 Topps Giant Cards

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Here are my first cards from the 1964 "Giant" set issued by Topps. These cards measure 5 1/4" by 3 1/8".

I bought these a few weeks ago, while visiting an antique store with Mrs. Jim from Downingtown. (This was the same store where I bought the Mickey Mantle Day button a few months back.)

The store had about a dozen of these cards, but I only bought three: the two Colt .45s cards, and Rocky Colavito - because I had never seen him in an Athletics' uniform. (It seems weird to see an Athletics' player NOT in green and gold. I have several of those old red-and-white Athletics in my 1963 card collection.)

Anyway, with my entrance into another insert/oddball set, I felt compelled to add a per-year count of the non-base cards in my Card Census section on the sidebars of my 1963-70 blogs.

The next time I go to that store, I'll probably get the rest - even Ron Hunt!
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