Name: Sal Bando
Position: C
Team: Oakland A’s / Milwaukee Brewers
Age: 64 years old
Best Season: 1971 he went 0.271/24/94 and finished 2nd in AL MVP voting.
Set it’s from: 2007 Tri Star Signa Cuts
How obtained: eBay auction
Why this Card?: Sal is definitely an unheralded star. If you were asked to name some of the best catchers in the 70s would you even think of his name? No way. What if I were to tell you that you could have a catcher that in his prime years averaged 0.270/25/85 you would jump at the chance to have him on your team. I mean you’re talking about Posada like numbers. So why doesn’t anyone remember him? What if I were to tell you his top 4 in similarity scores are Todd Zeile, Ron Cey, Bobby Murcer, and Robin Ventura? Starting to get the picture? He was a complete player and a 4 time All Star. He is not a Hall of fame player by any stretch of the imagination, but a player that if he played today and was 27 any team would be bidding for his services. Also the card is so ugly, I had to get it to post on here. This is the Purple bordered cut cards (#’d to 20 or less). These cards are usually cuts of autographed cards. This cut however is one of the ugliest I have ever seen. Plus the ink on the signature is bubbled, and a bit smudged, how horribly bad is that? If you are thinking well, it’s not too bad, this is the pinnacle of the autographs on the lowest number parallel and it looks this bad. Plus, anyone have any idea as to what set that is from? I have no idea. The idea behind the set was cool, just the follow through is terrible.
But What About the Set?: 2007 Tri Star Signa Cuts boxes run about a 100 bucks. They contain 4 packs with one cut signature per pack. Not a bad deal, but you know these signatures are not going to be worth 25 bucks a pop. The set is just autographs, there is no base set, just a set of players. Overall I’d get a box of this if I could afford it, just to get terrificly bad cards like this one.
Beckett’s Value: $12.00
eBay Value: I got it for $2.00
i always thought of bando as a 3rd baseman. he was a solid player, for sure.
i adopted the a’s as my AL team for a while in 1981 and collected them back into the 70′s. rudi, tenace, reggie, campy, bando and catfish. quite a group.
I believe they ruined a 1994 UD All-Time Heroes card to make that monstrosity.
That card is from the 1994 Upper Deck All Time Legends set. Ugh, they really butchered that poor card.
I probably wouldn’t have named him as one of the best catchers of the 70′s since he was a third baseman, and not a catcher.
He’s a third bagger i think.
[...] Last, there are some cut-signature inserts. Jessie Gonder is included in this set, along with some some much more famous names like Connie Mack and Elston Howard. There are some other former Mets in the set, like Gene Woodling and Clem Labine, but Upper Deck lists them with other teams. It looks like these are going to all be redemption items, so it will be awhile before we see what they look like. Hopefully they’re nicer than some of Tri-Star’s efforts. [...]