Vintage Fridays: Jim Palmer, 1979 Topps #340

Happy Memorial Day weekend folks! As you read this, I am preparing to haul off to my family's cottage in scenic Northeastern Pennsylvania. I will have a college friend and his better half in tow, as well as their affectionate beagle Lucy. Yes, this means that you're getting bare-bones pre-scheduled posts all weekend, but I'm hoping that you'll be too busy sightseeing or catching up on sleep or barbecuing or some such, and that you won't have time to read lengthy Internet ramblings anyhow. For my part, I'll be cut free from my cable TV and Internet tethers, which is something I could stand to do more often. It'll be a bit of reading, writing, maybe a movie or two, some card or board games...the simpler joys in life.

One thing I won't be doing is buying cards. The hobby shop at the bottom of the mountain is a few years gone at this point, and it appeared to be hanging by a thread for several years before that. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, honestly. I still have my fond memories of my trips there throughout my adolescence, as I agonized over what to buy for an eternity while my mom and grandma shopped at the nearby Hallmark store and my father patiently bided his time by making small talk with the hobby shop's owners. They used to have a great variety of 1980s cards, and at that time they were almost exotic to me. I had never seen rack packs before, but at various times I bought those three-chambered cellophane packs of 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1988 Topps. I always opened them in the car, not nearly able to wait 30 minutes to get back to the cottage.

Back in the summer of 2003, I was a rising college senior, but I still looked forward to cottage vacations with my folks. I wasn't actively collecting any more, but I still stopped in the hobby shop on a whim. This time, I bought my first - and to date only - pack of vintage cards. It was a cellophane-wrapped 16-card pack of 1979 Topps. Although the original price printed on the pack was 30 cents, I paid the $15 they asked without much dithering. I was not disappointed, as this Jim Palmer card (with a blurry Doug DeCinces cameo!) was one of two Orioles I pulled; the other was Don Stanhouse, ol' Fullpack himself with a bare head and his white guy afro displayed in all its glory. I also got Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski with some thick sideburns, a card that Milhouse Van Houten would probably like to buy for a significant price.

Alas, no more vintage wax or junk wax at Mazz's Baseball Cards in Clarks Summit. But don't cry for me...I grabbed a discounted blaster box of 2009 O-Pee-Chee at Wallymart earlier this week and I'll be ripping through it while I'm up there. Meet you back here on Tuesday!