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Until now, there has been no place where all of my custom cards could be found in checklist form. It is my intention to update this posting as new cards are created. Similar checklists for my baseball and football custom cards will also be posted.
Custom card availability. Unless noted, all of my custom cards are available to collectors for $12.50 each, postpaid for one or two cards; $9.95 each for three or more (mix/match). To order, email me at scbcguy@yahoo.com for directions on paying via check/money order, or to my PayPal account.
Civil War News
89 Grays Wiped Out
90 Victory Parade
91 Death at 1,000 Yard
(NOTE: My Civil War News cards are
note available for sale.)
Flags of the World
81 Islamic State
82 Iran
83 Scotland
84 Wales
85 England
86 Northern Ireland
87 Alaska
88 Hawaii
89 Vatican
Hit Stars
89 Johnny Cash
Rails & Sails
201 Chicago & Northwestern Diesel
202 Queen Anne's Revenge
203 U.S.S. Monitor
204 C.S.S. Virginia
205 Orange Blossom Special
206 City of New Orleans
207 City of Miami
208 Bamboo Grove Lounge Car
209 Hiawatha Skytop Lounge Car
210 R.M.S. Titanic (sailing right)
210 R.M.S. Titanic (sailing left)
210 R.M.S. Titanic (night)
211 Alton Railroad Abraham Lincoln
212 Gulf Coast Rebel (GMO RR)
213 U.S.S.Indianapolis
Spins and Needles
81 The Quarreymen
82 Marty Robbins
83 Roy Orbison
TV Westerns
72 Maverick -- James Garner
74 Maverick -- Gentleman Gambler
75 Maverick -- Well-Dressed Strangers
77 Rawhide -- Clint Eastwood
78 Rawhide -- Strategy Session
83 Rifleman -- Lucas' Rifle
86 Wyatt Earp -- Hugh O'Brian
87 Wyatt Earp -- A Legend is Born
88 Wyatt Earp -- Buntline Special
91 Wyatt Earp -- Taming Tombstone
92 Bat Masterson -- Gene Barry
93 Bat Masterson -- County Sheriff Bat
97 Cheyenne -- Clint Walker
98 Cheyenne -- Lonely Man, Cheyenne
World on Wheels
181 Buick Centurian (front view)
181 Buick Centurian (back view)
182 Dodge La Femme
183 Volkswagen Microbus
184 London Black Taxi
185 Schwinn Whizzer
186 Vincent Black Shadow
187 Minerva Town Car
188 Airstream Wanderer
189 Chrysler Town and Country
190 American Moto-Scoot
As a kid I collected the 1956 Topps Flags of the World set, and as an adult I built the set again (and still have it).
Still, when I began to notice the Vatican flag all over television during Pope Francis' visit to the U.S. in late September, I had to get out my card set to see whether the Vatican flag had been part of the original Topps set.
It wasn't. So I made one.
If you're a regular reader of the blog, you probably saw my two earlier Flags of the World custom cards: Isis (Aug. 25) and Iran (Sept. 18). Those were more political statements in the guise of bubblegum cards, than an updating in the spirit of the old Topps set.
My Vatican flag card is the latter.
It could have easily been part of the Topps Flags issue back in 1956. And, as is my usual practice with my custom cards, my Vatican card was done in a retro mode as if it HAD been issued in 1956. (As a custom card maker I try to avoid anachronism in my creations.)
In that regard, I tried to keep my card back as true to the original format as possible, with the "stats" on back reflecting the reality of 1956.
Those of my generation may find familiar the youngster giving the language lesson in the "How They Say" panel at bottom.
Did you recognize Speck the Altar Boy? Speck was a newspaper cartoon syndicated between 1953-79. The cartoon was originally created by Tut Le Blanc, 1953-54, then taken over by Margaret Ahern in 1955.
I suspect Speck the Altar Boy went into decline after the horrific crimes of mass murderer Richard Speck came to light in Chicago in 1966. If that didn't put a cloud over the cartoon, the surfacing of decades of clerical pedophilia and its cover-up, apocryphally linked to altar boys, made a cartoon about an altar boy uncomfortable subject matter.
(If you want to reminisce about Speck's glory days, here's a link to a 1960 compilation of the cartoons: Speck the Altar Boy ).
I've got a handful of other ideas for Flags of the World custom cards that Topps missed in 1956. The Topps set had 88 cards at a time when the United Nations had 80 members. Perhaps in the coming months I'll work up at least a handful more.
My recent creation and blog posting about an Isis flag card in the style of the 1956 Topps Flags of the World set generated a lot of comment . . . as it was intended to do. I really hoped, however, that more readers would understand that the card was political commentary in the same way that bubblegum cards sometimes were in the 1930s-1950s.
I've now undertaken to update the Iran flag card that originally appeared in the Topps Flags issue.
Those who didn't understand my Isis card probably won't "get" my Iran card, either. Tough.
This card expresses my outrage at the Obama administration's deal that will allow Iran to achieve offensive nuclear capability sooner, rather than later, while continuing to fund terrorism worldwide. The lame duck president has attempted to justify his Nobel peace prize at the peril of our greatest ally in the Mideast, if not of the USA itself.
As a kid I was a big fan of the Flags set, and as an adult I painstakingly pieced together the set in nice EX-MT or better condition. Along with my TV Westerns, World on Wheels and Space sets, my Flags cards are likely to remain part of my core collection for as long as I'm above ground.
Early in my days of creating custom cards, I had concluded that adding new cards in the Flags format was beyond my abilities. But as my experience in card-making has progressed, I'm happy to find that I can do a creditable job of recreating the feel of the issue.
There may be a few more Flags customs in the future.
If this blog unexpectedly goes dark, you can assume I'm locked up in a secret CIA prison somewhere, being waterboarded for the sake of my "art."
I fear the google-searching I did to gather data for the back of my latest non-sports custom card may have piqued the interest of Homeland Security.
Other than a potential Isis recruit, who else would be trying to find out how many air miles separate New York and Al-Raqqah and photos of Isis fighters?
Just me, I guess, trying to make my "update" to the 1956 Topps Flags of the World set as accurate as possible.
The Flags set was a childhood favorite. Besides the bold colors of the banners, the background art had a lot of appeal to a kid. There were Commie soldiers, Vikings, an octopus, a Canadian Mountie, an erupting volcano and sports action such as soccer, bobsledding and skiing. What's not to like?
The 80 cards in the 1956 set (one of the last from Topps in the 2-5/8" x 3-3/4" format) covered much of the world, but there were some countries omitted, from Kenya and Uganda in darkest Africa to Bermuda and the Bahamas in our part of the world.
I looked at the feasibility of creating some Flags customs a year or so ago, but was discouraged because my lack of true artistic ability would have required me to work with background art that appeared on existing cards and because my Photoshop skills are not advanced enough to convert a flat picture of a flag to a flapping banner as shown on the cards.
A recent image search for the Isis flag unexpectedly turned up a suitably waving version of the terrorists' dreaded ensign. (There are some funny vulgar parodies of the flag to be found, as well.)
It then occurred to me that Topps' FOTW card for Syria was perfectly suited for conversion to an Isis card. The Topps card already featured a sword-waving Arab and a Mideastern backdrop.
I merely had to swap out the flags and convert the figure's burnoose to the preferred Isis basic black, adding a face cloth. I did take the liberty of keeping a bit of bling on the lungi and the colored sash. Covering them over would have given the figure a pretty flat look.
Providing the translations on the back of the card was much more of a challenge than I anticipated. There are no -- at least I couldn't find them -- web sites that offer a simple phonetic translation from English to Arabic. My solution was to use a site that gave an aural translation of English words. I had to use my imagination to come up with written versions of the spoken form, and even though I listened to them half a dozen times or more, I'm sure my interpretations horribly butcher the actual words.
On a more technical note, I could not find a font that very closely replicated that used by Topps for the word balloons on the backs in 1956. I cam close enough that I don't think many will notice.
On that topic, fortunately for me I was able to cut and paste the front font to make "ISIS" out of "SYRIA". Finding a close match to the country-name font would have entailed a long search.
Some of the stats on backs had to be my interpretation of estimates by international news sources for the amount of territory under Isis control and the population. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the "official" monetary unit of Isis and its nominal conversion rate were easily available.
For reasons already spelled out, I'm pretty sure this will be my one and only FOTW custom card. You never know, though, the right piece of art may drop into my lap someday.
