Sunday, August 25, 2013

Mini-Collecting: Getting a Grip!

When I discussed the fruits of a recent trade with Nick at Dime Boxes, I mentioned that I had one more card to show. And I had a good reason to single it out, as it represents the honorary first card in my favorite mini-collection. This is appropriate since Nick is the king of such collections. I have no designs on usurping his throne, even if that were possible. But I just couldn't ignore the fun of this type of collecting. Let's play...

1960 Topps Fork & Knuckler: Roy Face/Hoyt Wilhelm #115


This is the card that cemented the deal. Even though you can't see the grips on the card, it's a card about grips, which certainly works for me.

I can't say things were the same for Nick, but I wouldn't be surprised if his collections just kinda found him, rather than the other way around. That's the way it's been for me. This one really started when I pulled a Steve Avery fastball grip card out of a pack of '92 Pinnacle a couple of weeks ago. Shortly thereafter, this card popped out of another pack:

1992 Pinnacle Tom Candiotti Grips LAD #610



Loving pitching as much as I do, I really dug this subset. And it had an effect on me

I started seeing grips...

1994 O-Pee-Chee Pete Harnisch HOU #73
1993 Bowman Blas Minor PIT #486


Then I started looking for grips...

1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Alejandro Pena PIT #458
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Trevor Hoffman SDP #494


Then I remembered that I've got a grip...!

1954 Topps Hoyt Wilhelm NYG #36


And we come back to Hoyt Wilhelm, and his knuckleball. I should mention that this was another of my cousin Craig's gifts from his collecting days as a kid, like the Roy Campanella card that I showed on the very first post at this site. So it's come full circle. (Which reminds me, I gotta find a good circle change grip!)

There are some gray areas when it comes to Getting a Grip, but I'll discuss them in a few days, after I've revealed the rest of my new mini-collections.
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2 comments:

  1. MarcusAugust 25, 2013 at 8:55 PM

    Awesome post. Hoffy is always a favorite, and Pena is a guy I like to see as well. Hadn't seen the backs of either of those. '92 Pinnacle is basically one of my all time favorite sets, and the grips/techs cards were sweet. Oh, and obviously that Face/Wilhelm card is the best of the bunch.

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  2. NickAugust 25, 2013 at 9:16 PM

    Great idea for a mini-collection! I collect ones of guys featuring the knuckleball, but I never thought to do that with grips in general. A couple of my mini-collections did indeed find me, notably cards of guys blowing bubbles. I seemed to pull those everywhere I went, so i figured I'd might as well make a collection out of 'em.

    Oh, and if you need a circle-change grip, you should try and find the Greg Maddux from that '92 Pinnacle "Grips" set. It's a nice one, I featured it in a post a couple months back.

    http://baseballdimebox.blogspot.com/2013/06/pwe-appreciation-week.html

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