Turkey Red on Turkey Day

A couple days back I found a team bag full of cards that I had no recollection of ever seeing before...

https://twitter.com/ElCaminoBilly/status/1199550517480964096

I don't know how to embed a Twitter status, but you can see them all there. As I was working on scanning them yesterday, I realized, wait a minute, tomorrow is Thanksgiving...traditionally known as a day of turkey in the USA. And three of the cards are from the Topps Turkey Red set of 2006-07...man, this just writes itself!

I knew I had to wait and scan, and post, these Turkey Reds on Turkey Day! So, I did exactly that. I literally held off on scanning these a day just so I could do them on Thanksgiving...yeah, I'm weird. I'm also having chicken, not turkey, for dinner. And it won't even be fried!

The Turkey Red set was based on a 1911 set that was 126 cards, and split 2/3rds baseball and the rest boxing. The Turkey in Turkey Red is actually based on the country, not the bird, but close enough.

All three of these cards feature legendary players, with an actual image superimposed in front of a very unrealistic background. The cards also feature an interesting texture on the front and back. I like them, even with the phony background. The George Gervin card is actually the ABA's Virginia Squires, which is where he started his career. He played only a year and a half with them before being traded to the Spurs in a financial maneuver, where he would become a Hall of Famer, and this is my first card of him with the Squires! It's also only my fourth post-ABA card of the Squires, and one of them is a reprint of Dr. J's rookie card from the 50th anniversary celebration. The Bill Russell image is used on at least two other cards in my collection from modern Topps, and the Maravich image is the same one used on Topps' 1972-73 base card...more than likely actually taken by a Topps photographer.

As much as I love to get any new cards of Hall of Famers, the Gervin Squires card is clearly my favorite here, because it's the only one of him with that team.

Thanks Jon for sending them to me!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And remember, you have until midnight tonight to enter the contest from a few posts ago!