A brief respite from Allen & Ginter

I've been trying to write up packs 13-16 from my A&G box for an hour and I'm not getting anywhere. Time to cleanse the palate. I was originally going to post this last Sunday, but my balky back canceled all plans for the weekend. A few days late but just as useless, feast your eyes on...

RANDOM CRAP I BOUGHT FROM THE FLEA MARKET LAST WEEKEND

I've been getting stuff from this one seller at the flea market near me for at least five years now. He used to show up every week, but gas prices and lack of sales has caused him to cut it to once a month or so. He has an uncanny knack for showing up the week before a product I want to buy several boxes of hits the shelves. Which means I have lots of money saved up that I inevitably spend at his stall because I want him to come back next month. I always go overboard at the flea market. I got off easy this time though because there weren't as many autos and other big ticket items as there normally are. Instead I attacked the cheapo boxes pretty hard. Let's start off with the ten cent box.

THE TEN CENT BOX:

I snagged three main things from the dime box. A pile of Topps from the 70's, a handful of 2006 Bowman Heritage mini cards which I didn't scan because I sorted them into my set already, and a few high end 2007 cards like this Legendary Cuts Eddie Mathews card. I love this set, but I hate the price tag of ten bucks for four cards because maaaaaybe there's a cut auto in the pack. A dime a piece is a much better price in my opinion. Eddie's worth full retail though.

I got a few bucks worth of cards from the 70's. Most are from '76 and '77, but there's a '72 Ken Brett and a couple of multi-player rookies that I thought I needed but probably don't in there too. The original plan was to simply buy him out of '77 Topps. He's had a small box of 1977 cards for a while and every time I go to the flea market, I forget to bring my list. I vowed to just buy the whole box this time and be done with it. Then I saw another pile of 1976 cards next to the '77s. I took half of each pile and now next time he's there I'll buy him out.

I chose Brian Downing's card to represent the 1976 set because, well, the card is fantastic. First of all, he looks like I.Q. from The Bugaloos. Don't give me that look, if you grew up in the 70's you watched that goofy show and drooled over Joy just as much as I did. Or maybe you drooled over Martha Raye if you were a strange little child, who knows. IN ANY CASE, Brian Downing looks like a Bugaloo in that hideous red pinstriped monstrosity of a uniform, just slap some wings on him and he'll fly away. There's a great shot of the epic Comiskey scoreboard. There's a couple of guys loitering in the background and they left their junk all over the field. And best of all, Brian's fake pose perfectly shows off his cup enhanced boner. He had the hots for Joy too, I bet.

While the Downing card had everything but the kitchen sink going for it, this 1977 Paul Reuschel is an example of pure simplicity. A tableau of the delicate intercourse between blue and white. With a little bit of blotchy pink and some huge ass glasses thrown in for good measure. Rick should be known as Paul Reuschel's brother for this card alone. It even has the "Gary Carter collects baseball cards" cartoon on the back.

THE NICKEL BOX:

There was also a 5 cent box, or 22 for a buck. I freely admit I went a little crazy on that one. Here's a dozen or so choice picks from that box.

There were a few 1980 Topps Burger King "Pitch, Hit and Run" cards in the box. I'm mildly fascinated by the Burger K9ing cards of the late '70s and early '80s as they were the first oddball cards I ever got. Plus the red and black backs look a lit better than the blue backs of the base set.

Another Eddie Mathews card, this time in an Astros uniform. It's sad but cool to see Eddie in a uniform other than the Braves. Did you know he won a second championship ring with the Tigers in 1968? Ya do now.

What in God's name is Greg Maddux's first Topps card doing in a nickel box?! I know it's '88 Topps and he's in the '87 Traded set, but come on.

I'm a sucker for cards of retired players, especially of Johnny Mize. Look at the size of that bat. Big John just ripped an Oak right out of the ground and started swinging away. The 2002 Fleer Greats set put the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set design to good use here.

I bought quite a few packs of Donruss Triple Play in 1993 to get these Gallery of Stars Diamond King rip-off cards. Now I picked up half the set for about a quarter. The only one I was missing was this David Nied card. Too bad there's a big crease right on the cap

Gotta love finding numbered parallels in the common box. This '05 Donruss Stat Line card is numbered to 289, his career batting average as of 2004.

Yep, I bought a Bowman's Best rookie card of Doug Mientkiewicz. I don't know why either.


Nolan Ryan wasn't the only pitcher to be shown in a tux on their 1991 Stadium Club card. And unlike Nolan, Dave Stewart makes this look good.


I made a point of grabbing every horrible late '90s insert card I could find out of the box. This '97 Score Blast Master card is by far the most horrible.

'70s Kellogs cards are wonderful things to behold. this '77 card of should be Hall of Famer Bobby Grich has a beautiful creamsicle border stripe on it.

In keeping with the lenticular theme, here's a goofy looking card from Denny's. There's actually a hologram of Dave Justice on the back. You'd get a pack of one of these card with every Grand Slam meal. Assuming you could find a waitress willing to give you a pack.

Here's a 1997 rookie card of Bubba Trammell with soime strangeness you'll never be able to see in the scan. In '97 Topps tried using spot UV coating to frame the pictures of their cards as a gimmick. Needless to say it wasn't used again in 1998. the printer screwed up on this one and the UV frame is cutting through each player right in the middle. Completely worthless but bizarre enough to force me to get it.

Albert Belle works on his anger management in this 1994 Bowman preview card.

I'm pretty sure this 2004 Fleer Platinum dual rookie card of Rickie Weeks is a short print, but no one cares anymore.

Yeah, retro cards! This '97 Fleer insert of Eddie Murray swiped the Goudey design (sort of) way before that sort ofthing was cool.

Enough with the cruddy cards, it's time to show off the expensive ones. The ones in toploaders. The ones from...

THE FIFTY CENT BOX:

BUT... if you bought 10 they were only 40 cents each! So after finding four '07 Topps Heritage cards I thought I needed of course I found 11 more so the discount kicked in.

I got a 2007 All Star Game Home Run Derby contest card of Justin Morneau to add to my '07 Topps collection. One lousy year too late. To add further insult to injury the only 2008 Derby predictor card I have is of the '07 winner, Vlad Guerrero.

I didn't really need an XFractor of a mediocre Dodger propsect who can't seem to get past A-Ball, but dadgum it shore is purdy! Note how I think the Blast Master card above is hideous, yet this is a work of delicate beauty.

Tricky Dick! Everyone needs at least one Richard Milhous card in their collection.

Ok, now time for the expensive ones... Thankfully I only got two.

THE SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT OFF BOX:

I've managed to completely avoid all NFL football cards since my ex-favorite team completely screwed up their draft, but I still can't resist cards featuring my Bulldogs. This nice Ben Watson sig from Press Pass set me back less than four bucks.

THE FIFTY PERCENT OFF BOX:

This is mercifully the last card for the post and in my opinion the best. The UD Masterpieces rainbow of framed parallels is confusing and annoying. There's no doubt about that. I have no clue what color frame this is supposed to be, it's kind of a very dark grey with little gold glittery things in it. I didn't really give a crap what color frame it was, it was the cheapest Chipper in the half off case and I needs it my pressiousss. So I pay for the thing as and I drool all over the toploader due to it's extreme Chipper Mojoliciousness (Chip-Jo? Mojipper? Jones-Jo? wait, I got it... MO-JONES!) I finally notice the serial number.

JERSEY NUMBER MO-JONES!

So yeah, now I'm one of those dorks. Showing off serial numbers of overwrought parallel cards. That's all I'm gonna collect now too. Chipper Jones cards serial numbered to 10. If there's no serial number, I'm writing it in with a Sharpie. Number 10 of 1, baby. 'Cause it's now a one of one since I just scribbled all over it, but it's got Chipper's jersey number on it too. Time to buy a fresh pack of Sharpies. See how much trouble I get into when I hit the flea market?