2010 Card Show Finds Part 1 Old Phillies Cards

I knew that the 2010 Tristar Sports Card and Memorabilia Show was coming soon to Houston but I almost missed it. This is the second year that I have attended this show. It seemed to me that there were fewer dealers and customers at the show this year. I'll be featuring a number of posts over the next few weeks with stuff I got at the show. First up, some old Phillies cards.

1952 Bowman #200 Ken SilvestriHere's a Phillie I never heard of but it's a reasonably priced 1952 Bowman. I didn't own any of these. Silvestri played 3 years with the Phillies getting into about 10 games. On the back of this card it says that he has an important job with the Phillies as the bull-pen catcher. Wow! These 1952 Bowman cards are pretty nice. This one is a bit beat up, you can see crease running right over Ken's upper lip. This is also the oldest Phillie card that I own.

1952 Bowman Ray Coleman #201
Not a Phillie but another '52 Bowman. There are a lot of these available on eBay in the $2.50 to $4.50 range. I might get some more.

1955 Topps #62 Thorton Kipper
Another Phillie I don't really know except that I have the 1994 Topps 1954 Archives set card of Kipper. Topps used the same head shot of Kipper from the 1954 card on the 1955 card. This is my first 1955 Phillie card (and only the second one I own).

1960 Topps #486 Bobby Del Greco
I think there were a lot of guys who played for the Phillies in the 1950s and 1960s that I don't know. Here's another one. But it's the 4th 1960 Topps Phillies card I own.

1958 Topps #251 Warren Hacker
Hacker was 0-1 in 9 plate appearances for the Phillies in 1958. The 3rd 1958 Phillies card I own.

1967 Topps #309 Johnny Callison and Richie Allen
Besides the '52 Bowman, probably my favorite of this bunch. I love the caption "Hurlers Beware". Between them Callison and Allen hit 72 home runs and had 221 rbis in 1966. Hurlers beware indeed. The other thing I like about this card is Allen's pose. I don't think I have another baseball card where the player has his hand in his pocket.

1958 Topps #207 Solly Hemus
I found all of these cards at one dealer who had a big plastic tub of old cards. I and another guy were pawing through them looking for treasure. I found a 1954 Solly Hemus card with the Cardinals. I had remembered reading something about him in a baseball card book I read last year but couldn't remember what. I said to the other guy, "Hey, look, it's Solly Hemus". Turns out he was looking for that exact card. Then I found the '58 card. The other guy told me that Solly (short for Solomon) lived in Houston and was a rich man today. Hemus played several years for the Cardinals before being traded to the Phillies in 1956. After the 1958 season, he was traded back to the Cardinals. He was their player manager in 1959 and full time manager until sometime during the 1961 season. He was a coach and minor league manager for several years before retiring from baseball in 1966. According to Wikipedia, he moved to Houston and got into the oil business. In this photo, Hemus is 35 years old, but he looks more like 55. According to Wikipedia he was a hard-nosed character but, to me, he looks like your friendly old Uncle Solly.