A Venerable Old Card Part 59

I love chasing down oddball cards.  Over the years I have been really fortunate to find some really tough cards that were not only difficult to find, but were a little bit pricey.  My best oddball find of the past year has to be my Topps ProShooters Marbles which was a test issue Topps put out in 1997.  The marbles were sold somewhere in Canada and are a pretty tough find.  The last marble I needed for my collection, to complete my Cardinals team set, was Ray Lankford.  One of the 1990s Cardinals players whom I collect extensively.  

There are still a few hard oddball cards out there that I would love to add to my collection and I was lucky enough to land one of them a few weeks back.  I ended up with a Cardinals card out of the set, but I wasn't really going to be too choosy about the player out of the set.  I have just always liked the look of this set and just wanted a card that fit my collection.  I have a Nate Colbert card I picked up awhile ago....

Here's a look at the card out of the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments card of Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock....

I have been trying to find one of these cards for a few years now.  They are not too difficult to find.  If you went on Ebay right now you'd likely be able to find several copies of the different cards in the set.  Some of the better Hall of Famers can be really tough, but it's not like these cards pop up once in a blue moon.  The difficult part of the Greatest Moments set has much more to do with the fact that they are condition sensitive and clean copies of the cards can be expensive at times.

I was willing to buy any of the Cardinals cards from the set or players connected to the Durham Bulls like Joe Morgan and Rusty Staub.  After much looking I ended up with Lou Brock.  Couldn't be happier about the card that I landed.

The only thing that was a little bit weird about this card is the picture on the front.  It celebrates Brock's 6th straight season of 50 stolen bases, which is a great accomplishment, but the picture is clearly not from the 1970 season.  Red Sox and Cardinals?  1970?  I don't think that happened.

There was no interleague play at that point and I had my doubts that this game was a Spring Training game.  Although both the Cardinals and Red both train in Florida.  The two teams did meet in the World Series in 1967, while it would have been four years old at the time this card was made, I was not going to put it past a card company to use an older picture.  Especially when it is a test issue.  I would guess the threshold for accuracy and detail might diminish a little bit.  Maybe?

Here's the picture I found.....

Same picture right? Sure the picture is a few years old, but it's still a sweet looking card showing off the Cardinals Hall of Famer swiping a base.  Subject matter and card content matter match, I am a happy camper.