Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day!

Here's a first day cover I picked up this year.  It's a cool little piece of history.

The American War Mothers organization was formed in 1917.  Here's a bit of their history.

When the envelope arrived I was surprised to see that there was something still sealed inside after 84 years.  I carefully cut one edge.

This is what I found:

Here's the stamp.

Most of you will have recognized the image as a copy of "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1", popularly known as "Whistler's Mother".  

Blog Skate Around -- My All Autograph Hockey Team

The most recent Blog Bat Around was for sharing our favorite baseball autographs.  Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun with it.  My hockey autograph collection is much smaller but if anything I like it even more.  I'm not following any rules here.  I do have all positions covered.  The players in great part represent the NHL I grew up with, the names I heard on the radio listening with my Dad.

Centers

Right Wingers

Left Wingers

Defensemen

Goalies

My Only Buyback

I love to collect.  If you're reading this you probably do too.  I'm also fascinated by the astounding variety of  things people collect.  Even in our own community I'm intrigued by the different ways we build our collections.  I'm guessing a simple idea from Topps has gone beyond what they would have envisioned.  I'm speaking of "buybacks".  Beyond adding to player and team collections some of you are building entire single year sets, and some the aptly named, "frankensets".

All that being said, I don't really fall into any of those groups.  I've owned just two buybacks.  The first, pulled from a pack, now resides in slot 530 in Shoebox Legends' Frankenset.

This is the second.  I bought it in on ebay in 2012 for about 5 bucks.  I honestly don't recall my thinking at the time.  I have no interest in collecting all of the Ron Santo buyback versions.  I guess I wanted this one because of it's unusual nature.  Most of you are familiar with it.  Poor Don Landrum got gypped out of having his image on a card in 1963 and All-Star Ron Santo got a bonus card.  (Don does appear on a Post cereal card.)  I've never read (or have forgotten) the story behind this card.  I'm also not aware of a similar mix-up aside from the 1969 Topps #653 Aurelio Rodriguez/batboy card.  In that case no player ended up with his photo on two cards.   

 Here's Ron's official card.

What are your thoughts on buyback cards?  If you collect them, how do they fit into your collection?

Thanks for stopping by.