Saturday, April 12, 2014

2014 COMC pickups #6: King of Leons

After the craziness of yesterday, today you'll be seeing one of two remaining single-player posts, this one covering 15 new pickups of Leon Roberts:
Leon Roberts 1976 O-Pee-Chee and Topps
As usual, these second-year cards are impossible to tell apart without looking at the back.  Also, Mr. Burns things Leon should get rid of those sideburns!
Leon Roberts 1977 Topps
Here's Leon in uniform #2 thanks to the 1975 trade that sent him to Houston, along with his sideburns.  As with Detroit, he played only two years for the Astros.
Leon Roberts 1979 O-Pee-Chee
Dig those old-school Mariners logos, man!  Again, this version is nice enough to denote its O-Pee-Cheeness with the logo up-front.
Leon Roberts 1980 O-Pee-Chee and Topps
And then the following year that goes right out the window.  No biggie, though, and I've always kind of liked the 1980 design for some reason.  We get a different helmet logo in this photo, too.
Leon Roberts 1981 Fleer
1981 was the last year where Roberts would appear as a Mariner since he was traded to the Rangers at the end of 1980.  '81 Fleer remains a fairly solid debut as one of the two new sets that year.
Leon Roberts 1982 Donruss
The well-traveled Roberts was in Texas for about one and a half seasons, so he really doesn't have many Rangers cards.  '82 Donruss is another design I kind of liked more than some of the others from the decade.
Leon Roberts 1982 Fleer
Meanwhile, I think Fleer took a bit of a step back after their debut release.  For whatever reason the name/position/team area just doesn't do it for me compared to the previous issue.  I've always though the older Rangers jerseys were a bit goofy too!
Leon Roberts 1983 Topps and Topps Traded
Leon was with the Blue Jays from mid-'82 to early '83, allowing him to appear in his second traded set that year.  I think I've mentioned the answer before, but do any of you remember who Toronto received from KC in return for Roberts?  He's a reasonably notable player, just not so much as a Jay.
Leon Roberts 1984 Donruss
'84 Donruss was kind of a fun design as well.  Nice job by the photographer to get this shot of Roberts with a good grip on his bat.
Leon Roberts 1984 Fleer
Roberts only had one year (and not many games at that) left in his career when this photo was taken, but he still looks pretty happy in the powdered blue unis!
Leon Roberts 1984 Topps
The thing that bugs me about '84 Topps, which is solid otherwise, is the team name, inset photo, and name/position area eating up so much real estate.  In this case, the main photo's pretty nice, though.
Leon Roberts 1985 Topps Tiffany
I think you all know by now that I include Tiffany cards in my supercollecting chases, and fortunately Roberts only had two.  They're not necessarily terrible to track down, but some sellers still manage to hoard and mark them up.  This one wasn't bad at all, though.  Shiny!

As is often the case, COMC was extremely helpful in knocking off a large chunk of one of my PCs.  I went from just six to 21 cards of Roberts, putting me at 75% of his 28 total, with more in-hand and soon to be posted.  Check out his PC for a look at the other stuff I have of him, or just a tour of 1970s-80s uniforms!

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