A couple of 1967 Koufax customs
AUPT
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By 1967 I was no longer buying or collecting baseball cards. I was 16 years old and my time and money were being misspent elsewhere.
Thus it's not surprising that I have done only a single 1967-style baseball card -- my Red Sox Rockers card -- in my custom creation career . . . until now.
Most of my work on custom cards in the past couple of months has been in football cards; this being football season, after all.
I decided to take a baseball break, however, when I found a really exciting photo of Sandy Koufax and Denny McLain comparing notes prior to their facing off in the 1966 All-Star Game. Just one look at the photo and I knew it could be turned into a really great multi-player feature card.
A good thing about such cards in the 1967 format is that there is plenty of room on the back to tell the story.
As I worked on this card it occurred to me that there was yet another custom card to be gleaned from the photo. I think you can guess what that was. Tune in tomorrow for the result.
As I mentioned earlier, my card collecting days had gone on hiatus by 1967. My little brother was just beginning to get into cards, so I could look at his new cards every year and get a feel for what was going on at Topps.
I showed you the custom multi-player feature card I created, "All-Star Starters," with Sandy Koufax and Denny McLain.
Working on that project, I determined that there was yet another card to be coaxed from that photo. Back in the 1960s, Topps seldom showed any sentimentality regarding a player's career. If the gum company had enough advance notice that a player was leaving the game, they simply omitted him from the next year's set.
Thus many players, even superstars of the game, did not have a "final" card, the stats on which would provide a career summary. Such was case with Sandy Koufax. He announced his retirement shortly after the end of the 1966 World Series in which the Dodgers were defeated by the Orioles. So Topps never put a Koufax card into its 1967 set, a decision that latter-day collectors have lamented.
Several other custom card makers have tackled a 1967-style Koufax card, so I never felt any great "need" to add one to the body of my work.
When that great photo of Koufax at the 1966 All-Star Game came my way, however, I began to tinker around with ideas on how it could be worked into a single-player Koufax card in the 1967 style.
You'll notice that I took the figure of Koufax out of its original context. After looking at other Dodgers cards from 1967, I decided that a spring training setting would have been appropriate.
For the background to the left of Koufax and the blue sky, I used the '67 card of Bruce Brubaker. To the right of Koufax, I adapted the background from a 1973 Don Sutton card. The autograph was picked out of the 1959 Topps Koufax card.
The cartoons on back were adapted from the '67 Brubaker and the 1973 Nolan Ryan.
Putting all those pieces together resulted in what I consider to be a pretty fair approximation of what Topps might have done if Koufax had been included in its set nearly a quarter-century ago.
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Comments
Great stuff as usual!!!!
<< <i>I'm a 67 topps guy.. those are awesome. >>
Same here ... '67 was the first set I put together back in the early/mid 80s ... going from show to show every weekend picking out a few cards here and there.
Bob ... I LOVE THAT CARD! The Koufax is AMAZING! I WANT IT! LOL
Man ... Sandy was some pitcher. I was born the year the Dodgers moved to LA so I don't remember too much about Koufax when he was pitching.
Imagine a pitcher retiring today with his last four year's win/loss record 97-27? I don't think so. He could not pass up the $30,000,000.00 annual salary.
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
You find the most brilliant, crisp photos I have ever seen for the era.
Bob, I was meaning to ask if your brother collects. I assume he does not or I would have seen him around. Busy keeping the peace I guess.
Thanks for showing off that great creation.
Shawn
Josh Wilker - Cardboard Gods
Koufax is one of those guys (Clemente was another one) who was just so good, so cool, so magnetic that they really stand out in almost any photographic image of them that you ever see.
Shawn, there were five boys in my family, born between 1946-59. The oldest never collected, the second oldest (1948) was modestly active as a kid collector. The third oldest (1949) was never a collector and the youngest collected pretty heavily circa 1967-72. None collected as adults. The hey day of my kid collecting was 1954-60; I resumed in 1980.
Your bullet on the Koufax seems a bit low between his name and position.
-Jason