Venerable Old Card Part 19

I have posted a Bob's Camera Richmond Brave card before in the past and found my second card from the long running team issue a few weeks ago.  For those catching up, the Richmond Braves for the better part of a decade had a weekly giveaway of one baseball card that was sponsored by Bob's Camera.  Since there was only one card given away each week, there are very few complete sets of these cards.

It seems that some of the cards have a higher demand and are harder to find.  I am not sure if they were short printed, or they just did not pass out the left over cards.  Such much unknown about some of these cards which is part of what makes them fun.

My latest Bob's Camera card is a big name, but not too difficult....

This is a 1988 Dave Justice Bob's Camera card.  He was in Richmond multiple years and has several of these cards, this was his first.  While some of the big name players in this set have a some pretty pricy cards, the star of the 1988 set is John Smoltz.   The David Justice card is one of the more inexpensive cards I have ever run into out of this set.  During the 1988 season Justice split the year between Double Greenville and Triple A Richmond and easily had the worst year of his professional career with a .203/.311/.357 line and just 8 home runs in almost 300 at bats.  Not sure that has anything to do with the card being cheap, but it might mean that there were more of his cards given away.  

A Venerable Old Card Part 4

A few weeks back I was doing a little bit of research on an article I was writing for my other gig when I ran into a cool old Tom Glavine card from his time with the Richmond Braves.  The card was a giveaway sponsored by local camera store Bob's Camera.  I have spent a lot more time on Minor League cards this year, so I decided I would try to track down a copy of one Bob's Camera card.  That was several months ago.

Not to say that I have not tried to find a copy of a card, I have, but they are really hard to find.  Add in the fact that the cards are a little bit pricey when you run into them.  Who wants to spend a ton of money on a card of a 4A player?  Sure, if it was Justin Ruggiano I would be all in, but he was never a Brave.  I am also not really into spending a few hundred dollars for a player like Glavine.  So, I went for the middle ground, here's my Bob's Camera card....

This is from the 1991 set, which is one of the easier sets of Bob's Camera cards to find.  The set doesn't have any hide names it, but they are still decent Major Leaguers.  The cards are also an odd shape.  When my trading partner first sent me a scan I thought the card was going to be the size of a Topps Giant card.  However, they are eight inches tall.  More of a large ticket stub.  

Anyway, I was happy to pick up a copy of Deion Sanders.  Not one of my favorite players, but he wasn't a career Minor Leaguer either.  I was also curious as to whether Deion actually played for the Richmond Braves, or he was sent down on injury rehab.  I have Minor League sets capitalize on Major League players rehabbing and include them in their team sets.  That was not the case here.  Deion spent almost a full month in the International League during the 1991 season and did not exactly set the world on fire with a .262/.312/.469 line.  

Definitely a great find and neat addition to the collection.