Catching up on trades - Motherscratching the surface

I had to post this simply because my final score on the quiz, 88.5, is also my favorite radio station. That's like, synchronicity or something. (which will also help on #82) A couple more hints: no misogyny, and know your Eagles.To attempt to tie an '80s music quiz in with a card blog, here's a pack I got from Motherscratcher, recent WINNAR of the Turk-Off.

MEGAMETAL

Robert plant was the only card I could post on this blog, the rest were just TOO METAL. I'll try to post 'em up on A Pack To Be Named Later, um, later. I also got a few other packs including these:

The Stadium Club will be opened on A Pack A Day. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Who can tell? I got a whole freakin' BOX for stuff from The Dude, so there will be future Motherscratcher trade catch-up posts. Including... THE UGLIEST JERSEY CARD IN THE WORLD. Well, maybe not the ugliest ever, but it's still not attractive. Thanks MS!

Catching up on trades - A fair swap

This here is an original Allen & Ginter card.

It's an N22 Racing Colors of the World card of William Hendrie. Well, not of William Hendrie himself, but of a girl wearing the racing silks of his stable. After posting about it, I stuck it in a binder with the rest of my Allen & Ginter cards and forgot about it. A little over a year later I got an e-mail asking about the card. The person who e-mailed me turned out to be William Hendrie's great great granddaughter. She wanted a copy of the card for her father, so I traded it to her. That's right, I traded a 120 year old card, just like that. What a heartwarming story! So what did I get in return, you ask?

PURE AWESOMENESS!

Nolan Ryan saves the day! Hooray! Check out that card. 1970 Topps (or is it?). Playoff game! Ryan in mid pitch. A chomp out of the bottom corner of the card. How perfect is that? So who was Ryan pitching against anyway?

Wh- Whaaaa?

Eliminatoires? That doesn't sound good...

Mets 7, Braves 4??? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Aaaaaah! The Mets beat the Braves! That's not good at all! The pain! The horror! The - Oh, cool! It's an O-Pee -Chee card! I don't think I have any 1970 O-Pee-Chees. And hey, it's the Ryan Express. I can overlook a Braves loss for an early Ryan card.

There were also a few hockey cards along with the Ryan including this beaut:

Jaques LaPerriere second team All-Star. This is the first card I have from this set and it's pretty cool looking. I think I did pretty well for myself, if I say so myself. Thanks for the cards great great granddaughter of William Hendrie!

Note: I misspelled Mets up above as Mats and didn't catch it because the spell checker passed it by. I changed it to Mets and the red line of mistake came up under the word because Mets is inherently wrong. That's my kind of spell checker!

Catching up on trades - Heartbreaking team set completers

I've actually gotten a couple of packages from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius that I still haven't posted. So, what am I waiting for?

Matt sent a complete set of 1983 Topps Fold Outs still wrapped in the packages. Now I've got more action than my man John Woo and I've got mad hits like

Rod Carew! I've got a handful of these cards torn out of the foldees, but I think I'm going to keep this set intact and Mint In Package. I know what you're going to say, "But Dayf! you have to open up the packs! Cards are meant to be freeeee!" No they're not. It's fun to free them, but if I have something already encased in plastic be that a wrapper or a grading case or shrink wrap that would be better off staying in the plastic, then I leave it in the plastic. My factory set of 1994 Collector's Choice is happy in the package. There's no need at all to bust my graded Tim Couch rookie card out of its case. And there is no reason to disturb the pristine wrappers on these card when I can pick up a complete set of opened cards dirt cheap. They're not very good looking cards anyway, but the unopened packages have a certain appeal to them.

Another thing in the magic box Matt sent was a group of Michael Jordan Upper Deck Retrospective postcards. I'd never seen nor heard of the set before now, it looks pretty good. Too bad I like Michael Jordan about as much as I like cholera. I've found a good home for one of the cards, but if there is a Jordan, Bulls or North Caroline collector out there that wants these just ask. I can trade you them for some Hawks or if you're not picky about condition I'll pop a stamp on one and just mail it to you for free.

There were some other neat goodies in the box, but I'm saving them for later. Matt sent an extra package of goodies that did amazing, wonderful things... Behold:

The Last Two Cards I Needed For My 1970 Topps Braves Team Set

The Last Card I Needed For My 1973 Topps Braves Team Set

The Last Two Cards I Needed For My 1978 Topps Braves Team Set

The Last Card I Needed For My 1979 Topps Braves Team Set

One package, four team sets completed!!! Holy Crap Matt! My binder runneth over. Matt is extraordinarily generous. I have a surprise about to head his way one of these days. I just need to divvy it up between Matt and Darkship, who has also sent some amazing stuff in the past. Thanks guys!

Hooray for WGN

If you have WGN, turn it on now.

The Royals and White Sox uniforms are AWESOME.

Catching up on trades - Albuqwirke Playoffs

I got a box of neat stuff from Cards in the Attic a looooong time ago. However, I left a few loose cards in the box by accident and rediscovered them a short time ago. Here are the 8 cards from the box battling it out in a playoff format.

#8 Dave May vs. #1 Sid Bream

Normally a '75 Topps card wouldn't be the low seed, but there were two in the box and I had to put one of 'em in the last seed. Don't be fooled, May is a worthy opponent. Just look at those sideburns! Bream is the #1 seed for a reason though. First of all, it's a Topps Fan Favorites card in a 1992 design. Add to that the fact that he is rounding the bases, something he was known for in '92. The clincher though is the Marlins player in the background. On a 1992 design card. Good eye, Topps, That attention to detail is why Fan Favorites rocks.

Winner: Sid Bream

#5 John Cena vs. #4 Bazooka Joe

Cena looks more like a cartoon on his card than Bazooka Joe does, oddly enough. You'd think Bazooka would win this one hands down, wouldn't you? He's a Brave, it's a mini card, I'm not that big of a wrestling fan... no brainer, right? Well it would be had Bazooka Joe not whored himself out like Fred Lynn and played for every team in the league. Cena's crouchboxing wins the day.

Winner: John Cena

#7 Ron Gant vs. #2 Tom House

This is a pretty close matchup. Both photos are canned poses. Empty stands behind Gant, random players milling abotu behind House. Both spring training shots if I'm not mistaken. This was a very tough decision, but in the end I had to go with the guy who caught Hank Aaron's #715 ball in the bullpen.

Winner: Tom House

#6 Pat Rockett vs. #3 Adrian Devine

This matchup was absolutely fierce. The two cards are matched up so evenly. Goofy names - check. Empty stands - check. Exaggerated poses where they look like they might fall down in a stiff breeze - check. 70s hair flying out of their caps - check. It all comes down to this: Pat's 'stache vs. Adrians glasses. Now, that's a fine copstash on Rockett there. Very '70s indeed. But Devine's glasses are freakin' HUGE. They cover up half his face! Gotta go with Devine on this one.

Winner: Adrian Devine

SEMIFINALS

#3 Adrian Devine vs. #2 Tom House

We go to the backs of the cards for the Semis. Devine's highlights include an awful lot of High School and American Legion accomplishments for a major league pitcher. The signature is also perplexing. His auto says "Paul Devine" while it's Adrian on every single card I've ever seen of him. The real killer is the cartoons. Paul is peacefully taking photos on the mound, House is throwing a baseball AT A DUDE'S FACE.

Winner: Tom House

#1 Sid Bream vs. #5 John Cena

The #1 seed is definitely not on their A-game today. 1992 Topps just doesn't have a great back. This archives version doesn't even have the panoramic view of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on the bottom. Cena's card has a soldier and a star and logos and a flag all over it. Big upset in the semis!

Winner: John Cena

FINALS

#2 Tom House vs. #5 John Cena

'75 Topps is nice and all, but how can that awesome photo of Cena possibly lose? Just look at it!

LOOK AT IT!

I have no idea what the heck John is doing on that card, or where the card came from, or why John is a Devil Ray, but it's FREAKIN' AWESOME.

Albuqwirke Inaugural Tournament Champion: John Cena Disabled American Veterans Promo Card

Team Sets For You

I'm not sure if I've ever shown off this site before, but it's a really useful one:

Team Sets 4 U

This site is exactly what is says on the tin. Team sets. For you. The guy who put together the site broke down a bunch of sets into teams and is willing to sell the team sets to you. Unless bought something off an auction site once I haven't actually purchased any cards from him so I couldn't give you any first hand experience on that. (Note - two commenters have had positive experiences buying cards from them, so check it out. Once I get some cash I'll have to pick out a few sets myself. That Ramly Reprint set looks mightly tempting) The list of what he has for sale is pretty spectacular though. Parallel sets? Insert sets? Strat-o-matic sets? Whew, I could spend a lot of money on that stuff. The thing I really wanted to show off is this:

Team Set Checklists

This is a really valuable resource for anyone collecting team sets. Just look at some of the sets he has team set breakdowns for:

1895 Mayo Cut Plug
1909 Ramly T204
1933 Tattoo Orbit
1948 Topps Magic Photos
1958 Hires Root Beer
1966 Topps Venezuelan
1976 SSPC
1986 Sportflics
1994 Extra Bases
1998 SPX Finite
2004 Topps Total

All kinds of team sets can be found in there and it looks like the lists were put together by hand. Great job on a great resource, check it out of you're looking to start collecting a team of your own.

Is anyone planning on going to the Marlins vs. Mets game Sunday afternoon?

If you will be at Shea Taxpayer Field tomorrow Sunday to take in the Mets game please shoot me an e-mail tonight. I have a question for you.

Thanks.

2009 Topps Heritage Braves Team Set

If a card is on this page, that means I have it in my binder. If it's not on here, that means I'll gladly take it off your hands if you happen to have one lying around. These cards are too purdy not to share.

3 Casey Kotchman

13 Garret Anderson

37 Jeff Francoeur

70 Tom Glavine

100 Jair Jurrjens

107 Jo-Jo Reyes

129 James Parr

158 Gregor Blanco

170 Brian McCann

189 Mike Gonzalez

205 Yunel Escobar

215 Bobby Cox

246 Brandon Jones

335 Kelly Johnson

350 Javier Vazquez

374 Tim Hudson

381 Braves Team

417 Martin Prado

420 Chipper Jones

445 John Smoltz SP

464 Braves Coaches SP

475 Derek Lowe SP

486 Chipper Jones All Star SP

Inserts:

TME-CJ Chipper Jones Mayo Cut Plug

TN3 Minnie Minoso & Chipper Jones Then and Now

C56 Chipper Jones Chrome Refractor