Home > Lankville Action News: YES! > Collector’s Corner with Bobby Pinewood

Collector’s Corner with Bobby Pinewood

November 23, 2015 Leave a comment Go to comments
Dennis Clean-System

Bobby Pinewood

Today, we’re going to be looking at the 1984 Lankville Baseball League cards manufactured by Barlow Foods.

“The cards were given away as special promotions at participating Barlow Foods locations,” dealer Barri Trotz explained. “For example, let’s say you bought a big bag of carrots. Well, you’d put the carrots on the checkout counter conveyor belt. Of course, the belt would get kind of moist because bags of carrots tend to be moist. This moistness would continue to increase as the bag inched closer to the register. A creeping sort of moist horror would form, thereby….”

We interrupted Trotz and asked him to focus on the cards.

“The counter person was required to distribute a card to each customer,” Trotz continued. “There were 895 cards in the set, so you can imagine how difficult it would be to acquire all of them. Also, counter people tend to be dirty, careless hill women and so the cards would become creased and bent and generally defiled. It’s very hard, near-impossible to locate a mint set.”

Trotz showed us his prized possession– a mint set.

“Have a look at the Zach Sequence card, number 437 (pictured). You’ll remember that Lankville suffered a terrible wild burr infestation in 1983. A burr is clearly visible over the left field fence– one of the biggest I’ve ever seen photographed. The Sequence card is particularly valuable for this reason.”

“People think of baseball cards as detritus but they can be cultural artifacts as well,” Trotz averred.

Card number 682 (Outlands pitcher Otho Lud) remains the most elusive of the set.

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The Sequence and Lud cards from the 1984 set.

“He was a mediocre relief pitcher but also a cannibal,” Trotz noted. “The card was recalled but a few managed to leak out. A mint Lud will set you back about $675,000.”

“Most poor people are unable to complete their sets because of Lud and his cannibalism,” the collector noted.

The set features a simple design utilizing a pennant and no border on the obverse. The reverse features detailed statistics, a second, more relaxed photo of the player (they are often shown shirtless or in bed with their wives), and a short biography.

Trotz claims that only four known sets have achieved a “Professional Sports Card Titan” rating of 10.

“We’re usually seeing in the 3-4 range on most sets,” said Trotz, who is himself a Professional Sports Card Titan.

“No question, it’s a beautiful shimmering jewel in the collector’s cosmos.”

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