Getting Artsy Fartsy With The ’62 Set

Collecting vintage cardboard is a little different from collecting modern.  I can’t rely on breaking a couple of boxes to get the bulk of the set.  I can’t rely on casebreakers on thEbay to get the shortprints.  There are variations galore and even a strange green tint parallel type thing going on with the ’62 set, but no certified autographs, game used cards, or printing plates.  Untill now.

A couple of weeks ago I was trolling the Beckett boards, I know, I’m a hypocrite.  One member pointed out an eBay auction for some “fake” printing plates.  I checked it out and was excited to see they were all from 1962.  I emailed the seller and asked him if he could tell me more about the plates and not posting his auctions and calling him a fraud.  It turns out, in the early ’80s Topps had an auction and he and three buddies won a large lot of what he called junk at the time.  He said the box was full of old printing plates, blank back proof cards, and a host of other stuff from the printing process.  They divided it all up and tried selling it through out the years.  He could barely give the stuff away at first, but as the advent of game used and printing plates came along he has finally had a chance to get rid of the stuff.  Here is what I bought, it is a 1962 printing plate of Jack Curtis.

It’s pretty cool but it’s kind of boring.  He also sent along the card of Curtis.

I also had a copy of the Curtis card, so I decided to make an art project out of the deal.  I went to the store and picked up an exacto knife and some tin snips and cut away.

I then layered the three cards and came up with this.

There you have it.  A true 1/1 1962 Jack Curtis printing plate card.  It’s not fully completed yet.  I still haven’t actually stuck them together.  I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what to use for this.  I was just going to use super glue, but I have a horrible track record with glueing myself to what ever it is I glue.  I also don’t know what color this plate is.  The rookie trophy is completely black.  What ever color would make yellow black on the plate is the color, but I don’t know what that would be.  Any guesses here would be helpful too.  I was also thinking about cutting the trophy out and glueing that to the plate to give it a little “pop”.  I’ve been paying too much attention to HGTV.  I’ll make that decision after I see how the glueing process goes.  I think I might try to search eBay for some cheap game used cards of players in the ’62 set and make some authentic bootleg game used cards for the set.  We’ll just have to see how artsy fartsy I feel.