Video - cheap Wal Mart blister packs

Sorry about the lighting on this one, I thought I could successfully film at late afternoon but apparently not. I've added actual card scans to the video for the first time to make up for the poor quality. The packs turned out to be better than expected.



Best card in the bunch? This one here:


Not bad for a couple of discount junkers.

Quick & Easy Trade with Thorzul.

Back in this post, Thorzul offered up a couple of Goudey SP cards and I took him up on the offer. I think I sent him a Heritage insert and a Heritage Chrome card and someting else. Ask Thorzul if you're that interested. Here's what I received in return:


Aha! I have cool backgrounds too! In addition to the Robinson and Gibson SP's Thorzul threw in the Smoltz mini card and that SP McCann. Those are the best trades, quick and easy and no going through piles of doubles. Here's to many more such trades...

Optimism

Is a Braves fan choosing to spend his money on a Jake Peavy jersey card on his monthly trip to the flea market.

A Surprise from Mario

Continuing on with the mailbox bounty postings, here's some good stuff I received from Mario over at Wax Heaven. I'm not sure exactly what I sent his way to warrant this package, but there's been plenty of packages going back and forth between Georgia and Florida at any rate. My current Marlins pile is starting to get fat so there will have to be another one going south soon. Here's what came in a well protected package filled with lots of top loaders.

2001 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Chipper Jones Home Opener Souvenirs Base

Now this is a memorabilia card. Fluffy clouds, bunting, a future Hall of Famer and the card itself is thick as a brick. Seriously, the card is thicker than an entire pack of Bowman Chrome. The relic piece is from a base, which is kind of weird, but if you look at the back things get a little better.

There's not only a picture of the actual base, but they have listed the exact game where it was used. Not a good game unfortunately, as the Mets pounded the Braves in the home opener at Shea. It's still pretty unique and it's cool to see the exact game the relic was taken from. My Chipper collection just increased by one which is highly appreciated.

Some 2008 Bowman

There's a few Bowman cards in the package including a Quentin Davis prospect card that I don't think I had. Quentin just won a Southern League Championship with the Mississippi Braves, but he looks like he has a lot of work to do before he'll be called up to the bigs. Along with these two there's also a Bowman card of...

Greg Maddux!

Ah, Mario understands that for a few players it doesn't matter what uniform they are wearing, they are always a Brave. Maddux is definitely one of those players. He's practically a Brave here anyway. Just take the R in Padres, move it after the P, add an extra bump to the P to make it a B, then mangle the D until it looks like a V and you've got Braves. There's four Maddux cards in here, including three from Chrome.

Heritage Chrome!!

If I had unlimited money and time the Heritage Chrome set would be one I would chase down a card at a time. The Chrome cards really look good with the '59 design. I'm kind of worried about next year's set though, I love the 1960 design, but I remember seeing some Chrome Wrestling cards that also used the '60 design and they were not attractive. Might be the wrestling guys on 'em, or maybe they were just plain ugly. The jury's out on that one, we'll just have to wait and see. One card that looks absolutely awesome though is the...

Blue Refractor!!!

Daaaaaaaamn these cards look nice! Even the photo with a stone faced Greg about to get caught in a storm at spring training looks good when it's blue refractorized. I want to go out and buy a box of Chrome now just for the blues. But wait, there's...

Even More Chrome

Here's a good chunk of the Braves team set for Chrome. I know I didn't have the Blanco RC yet, I'll have to double check on the rest. There's a nice Xfractor of Francoeur too, just in time for a good September for Frenchy. April through August? BARF. Don't be surprised if Jeff is sporting a Royals jersey next year. KC GM Dayton Moore was part of the Braves organization that drafted Jeff and there's talk that they might be willing to give up a starter like Greinke or Bannister for a shot at Francoeur's potential. After this terrible year, it might be worth it for the Bravos if they can get a solid starter. Lord knows erratic hitting outfielders are much easier to come by than arms nowadays.

A few Goudeys for good measure

I've got the whole Braves team set from 08 Goudey, but now I can work on all those slightly different shaded backs for another team set. Plus where there's Goudeys, there's...

Mini Cards!!!!!

Yeah! I love the Yesco mini and I really love A&G mini cards. Tex? Not so much. Black borders? Oh yass. Two more for the binder right there.

Thanks for the swag, Mario! You might see some Marlins coming your way before too long.

Random Goudey Post

Somewhere out there, a cherry tree died so this card could be made.


And in an entirely different place, some fool spent three bills with that man's face on them in order to get a pack full of 7 doubles and a short print of someone who is older than baseball.

On a completely unrelated note, why oh why does this man not play first base??? His coach should be charged with malpractice for putting him at shortstop. Oh well, I Don't Give A Darn.

Magic Johnson

LA LAKERS

Fast Break Makers

Kings of the Court

Shake and Bake

All Takers

Back to Back

is a Bad Ass Fact

A Claim That Remains

IN

TACT

Yet Another Goudey Blaster

I went a little nuts on cards yesterday. A couple of blasters and a few packs mean I've got stuff to share this week. I know I've already posted a couple of these things but why not have another data point for anyone out these still on the fence on whether to buy this stuff or not. Besides, every last Allen & Ginter Blaster was cleared out of the stores on my side of town over two weeks ago. It's like a bunch of card collecting locusts swept through or something. Here's the box, with a focus on the cards I didn't have already.

13 cards I needed for the base set: 3, 20, 46, 55, 98, 104, 124, 125, 130, 150 ,159, 182, 185

I was most excited to pull Larry Doby. The Buzz Aldrin of MLB integration was a great player just like Jackie Robinson was, but never got the accolades. Every card set with a Larry Doby card in it is a good card set.

Captain Hook, Ralph Kiner and the biggest free agent flop in several decades. It's almost as if Andruw sold his soul to the devil like in the movie Damn Yankees and he turned into an old man all of a sudden.

Base Short Print: Michael Jack Schmidt

This card here made the box worth it. Powder blue jersey with a maroon helmet on a yellow background. Gorgeous.

President Short Print: Teddy Roosevelt

The president cards in this set suck, but TR is my favorite president so I can't complain.

1936 Goudey Short Print: Jake Peavy

He's not winning the Cy Young this year, but he has a Home Run result for the game on the back of his card. Chicks dig the longball.

Sport Royalty Short Prints: Josh Beckett, Tony Gwynn

Beckett's arm hasn't fallen off, which is a good sign. I've had very good luck pulling baseball related Sport Royalty cards, which is fine and dandy with me. The bummer here is that while cards 301-330 are more short printed than the rest (I've pulled as many of them as I have autographs) I've managed to get two Tony Gwynns and no one else. But, hey, it's Tony Gwynn.

Mini cards: Jonathan Papelbon red, Pedro Martinez blue

The minis are frustrating the crap out of me. They are landing at only three per blaster and if you get a Berk Ross inset then you only get two. Why the hell aren't these one per pack??

Yankee Stadium Insanity: Joe Gordon, Tommy Heinrich

I've got a big pile of these damn things and these are the very first ones from the '40s that I've received. I was beginning to think Upper Deck put them all in the high-falootin' expensive packs that I never buy. Joe Gordon is a candiate on this year's Veteran's Committee Hall of Fame ballot too, which is very cool.

Berk Ross Hit Parade of Champions insert: LaDainian Tomlinson

Parade of Champions?? LaDainian ain't won shit. And no, an ESPY award does not count as a Champion. I'm ashamed to put this card in the same page as my Reggie Jackson, Bobby Orr and Michael Jordan Berk Ross cards.

Doubles: 41

I love the set, and I got my money's worth with the short prints in this box, but dang do these doubles pile up. I'm about to mail off a bunch of them and I still have a crapload of doubles. Also: in this box was my fourth Kosuke Fukudome rookie card. So far I've pulled NINE of the damn things from Upper Deck products and not a single one out of Topps, gimmick or no gimmick. Ridiculous.

Mutant Blasters

I picked up a couple of blasters this week, one Goudey, one A&G. Both were weird in their own special way. One frightening, one just odd. I'll add two more data points onto the Dinged Corners Front Loaded Blaster Theory and post some quick recaps with oddities here.

2008 Allen & Ginter blaster:

Base cards - 36/300
Short Prints 4/50
State cards - 4/50
Minis - 6
Mini A&G - 4 (including Schmidt SP)
World Leaders - 1 (The Gambia)

Nothing too special about this box. I got ten cards I needed for the set, I needed all four state cards pulled (yaaay) and I already had all four short prints (boooo). The weirdness came in with the mini cards. Three packs had two minis each in them. Nothing overly special about the mini cards, I just got three bonus minis and beat the odds on pulling A&G backed cards. Since I was gypped out of a mini card in my last box it's just evening things out a bit. I also learned that Gambia it known as THE Gambia, as opposed to a bootleg knockoff Gambia. Accept no substitutes...

2008 Goudey Blaster:

Base cards - 54
Short print base - 1 (Cal Ripken Jr.)
President SP - 1 (George Washington)
'36 Goudey SP - 1 (Matt Holliday)
Sport Royalty SP - (Derek Jeter black back, Tony Gwynn green back)
Mini red - 2 (Tom Seaver, Albert Pujols)
Mini blue - 1 (Clayton Kershaw)
Yankee Stadium Tedium - 2 (Maas & Leyritz, blech)

Another fairly pedestian box with the exception of pulling both Sports Royalty cards in the same pack. That was a nice feeling, as I not only got an extra SP, but they were both real live baseball players to boot. When I looked at them though, I noticed something odd. The back of the Gwynn card was in green ink instead of black and the card stock was darker than the Jeter card. I thought "that's odd" moved on to the next pack and then noticed they were all like that.

Half of each pack in the box was printed on slightly darker card stock than the rest. And I mean very sightly, but just enough to be noticeable. The first 4 cards the pack were light, the rest with the exception of a couple of short prints were dark. This is how red and green back variations were inserted into last year's packs. I thought, oh hell naw, not another goofy parallel. However, I checked my other Goudeys and the only dark back cards I found were a couple of short prints, such as this '36 card of Prince:

I don't know if I managed to catch a box that was packed up right when UD changed the roll of cardboard on the printing press or what, but the thought of another stupid parallel makes me queasy. Topps actually did have a light/dark back variation in their '56 Heritage set but they were mimicing the original set and were nice enough to advertise the fact. The silver lining in all this is if there does happen to be a variation, it's hard enough to tell between the two so that you can just ignore it.

2008 Goudey Blaster rip and review

It's time for a brief respite from Olympics stuff to rip some packs. This set isn't perfect, but it's pretty dang good. I'll detail my praise and pans for the set in the individual pack rips. This blaster pretty much had a little of everything in it.

Pack 1:
31 Pee-Wee Reese
161 Aaron Rowand
33 Alfonso Soriano
163 Juan Marichal
34 Derrek Lee
126 Mariano Rivera
74 Andrew Miller
232 Thomas Jefferson SP

There are too many short prints in this set and pulling a card of a President just seems like a complete waste. Even pulling a really good president like Jefferson is frustrating. The guy's face is on currency, I don't need him eating up a card that could have been an athlete. I wasn't crazy about the 60 card Sport Royalty subset at first, but now that I have a couple in my hands they're actually pretty neat. The fact that Chipper Jones was deemed worthy to be in the set makes it a little more special in my mind. Presidents? Meh. There have been President cards all over the place for years. It's time to give them a rest and I wish one of my 4 short prints per box would have been of a baseball player and not a statesmen.

Pack 2:
111 Delmon Young
59 Grady Sizemore
7 Mark Tei$eira
298 Jack Nicklaus Sport Royalty mini blue back
22 David Ortiz
152 Tom Gorzelanny
100 Chin-Lung Hu RC
48 Joe Morgan

The Sport Royalty cards are sweet, but the original sized mini versions are doubly so. They just have that little difference to them that makes me feel like I'm holding an original card from the '30s. Jack Nicklaus is a damn good card too, the man won eleven minus five (that's six) Green Jackets. Another cool thing about this card is the little "Golden Bear" logo on the back mixed in amongst the legalese. The color variations on the back are a little unnecessary, but not as annoying as the fact that the minis are not one per pack. I have a near set of the T205 minis and I never paid much attention to the back advertising variations. A mini's a mini. I just wish they were a little easier to get.

Pack 3:
189 Vernon Wells
137 Catfish Hunter
85 J.R. Towles RC
87 Luke Hochevar RC
178 Carlos Pena
140 Ryan Howard
36 Kosuke Fukudome RC
267 Prince Fielder '36 Goudey

A note on the Fukudome rookie card: So far, Kosuke has exactly one actual rookie card in a Topps product and it's a severely short printed card. The rookie I pulled out of this pack is my sixth one out of various Upper Deck packs. If you're a Cubs fan, why on earth would you rip a pack of Topps right now? Right now I am seriously debating on whether I should bite the bullet and go all out on building the '36 subset in all mini cards. I know my '36 Goudeys and the standard size cards don't look right. Hell, I'm kind of puzzled that UD didn't have the foresight to insert premium sized '36 Goudey cards as box toppers. The originals were printed on photo paper, it wouldn't have been too much trouble to throw a sheet of paper on the top of every box and it would have been a fun reason to buy a hobby box. Hell, they could have thrown one of the cards on the copier, set it to 200% and just let it run. Whammo! Instant box toppers! Right now there is zero incentive to buy Hobby packs as they are identical to these retail packs except for the 1:18 shot you have at an autograph. You're paying a 40 dollar premium on a hobby box for one autograph. Set builders: buy retail. Seriously.

Pack 4:
165 Ichiro
113 Glen Perkins
61 Victor Martinez
67 Jeff Francis red back mini
166 Felix Hernandez
114 Justin Morneau
62 Brad Hawpe
YSL3131 Whitey Ford

I knew it would happen eventually. 2008 Goudey is the official moment when the Yankee Stadium Legacy cards became completely tedious. First off, pulling a glossy, foil stamped card out of a pack of old-school cardboard cards is jarring. It's the exact same feeling as pulling an A-Rod Bullshit Waste of Space card out of a pack of Allen & Ginter or Heritage last year. It's also the last card in the pack, which is where the short prints live, so when you pull a Yankee card there it's as if a short print was taken away from you. Thankfully there was a mini card in this pack to soften the blow, but that's not the case in every pack. To add insult to injury, I already have a Whitey Ford insert with this very photo on it, card 3132 to be exact.

Pack 5:
181 James Shields
129 Derek Jeter
77 Hanley Ramirez
25 Dustin Pedroia
12 Kelly Johnson
142 Chase Utley
86 Brian Bannister
164 Noah Lowry

Of course the flip side of the Yankee Stadium Legacy hate is the fact that ripping a pack with no inserts whatsoever feels even worse. I feel a little hypocritical complaining about pulling only base cards when I am an advocate for building sets and collecting cards for cards sake. The thing is, Goudey's main rival is Allen & Ginter. They have short prints in their set at the same odds as in Goudey. However, there are eighty less of them. So if you don't get a SP, it doesn't hurt hat bad. Plus, even if you don't pull an SP, there's going to be a mini card in the pack. So ripping a pack of A&G will net you something, even if you have the entire set filed away in a binder. This pack is great right now, as I need all 8 cards for my set. In a couple of months when I have the complete base set and a bunch of SP's this pack is a complete waste of three bucks. Packs like this are why a few months from now I'll still be buying all the A&G I can find on the shelves while I let the Goudey collect dust because I don't want to get 8 more doubles. On the other hand, who wouldn't want multiple copies of Hanley Ramirez activating his Wonder Twin Powers?

Pack 6:
81 Roy Oswalt
29 Jonathan Papelbon
107 Ben Sheets
514 Aaron Harang
168 Jose Vidro
116 Jose Reyes
64 Garrett Atkins
279 Cynthia Cooper Sport Royalty SP

Ah, much better. A real SP of a two time MVP. No WNBA logos on the back though. Don't they do licensing? I guess they'll take any publicity they can get.

Pack 7:
155 Chris Young
103 Warren Spahn
57 CC. Cabathia
119 Tom Seaver red back mini
112 Johan Santana
60 Fausto Carmona
8 John Smoltz
218 Gaylord Perry

Best pack in the box by orders of magnitude. See A Pack A Day for more details on this one.

Pack 8:
5 Chris Young
187 Marlon Byrd
135 Dennis Eckersley
83 Hunter Pence
190 Roy Halladay
138 Daric Barton
34 Derrek Lee
YSL3156 Yogi Berra

Ok I just can't complain about pulling any Yogi card from any pack. If I spent a couple grand on an original unopened Piedmont cigarette pack from 1909, and I opened it up and pulled out a gem mint Topps206 Yogi Berra mini card, I'd consider that money well spent. Ok, so I spent thousands of dollars on a card that's worth maybe a buck, but on the bright side I would have had the most epic Bipping of all time. This pack also shows off the absolute best aspect of this set, the base set retired legends. I don't know about you, but pulling a Hall of Famer like Pee Wee Reese or Warren Spahn out of a 2008 set is like pulling an insert to me.

Ok, that's the break. Here are the totals:

Base cards - 54/200
Base SP - 1 (Gaylord Perry)
President SP - 1 (Thomas Jefferson)
'36 Goudey SP - 1 (Prince Fielder)
Sport Royalty SP - 1 (Cynthia Cooper)

Doubles - 1

parallels:
Mini Red - 2 ( Jeff Francis, Tom Seaver)
Mini Blue - 1 (Jack Nicklaus)
Mini Black - 0
Mini Green - 0
Mini Taupe - 0

inserts:
Berk Ross - 0
Yankee Stadium - 2 (Ford, Berra)

Here's the good news: One blaster got me just over one quarter of the 200 card base set. Here's the bad news: Let's say due to atrocious collation it take eight of the blasters to fill out my 200 cards non short card base set. Now let's say the 4 per box SP ratio holds and and you're lucky enough not to get any doubles of short prints (and it happens too, my first two blasters of '07 Goudey both had the A-Rod SP and both Ortiz Heads Up cards in them) that means you're looking at 32 short prints. Out of 130. Not even a quarter of the set. That's some rough odds for a poor set builder. Making things more difficult is that since there is not an SP or mini guaranteed in a pack, buying a retail pack is a total crapshoot. Blasters aren't much better, you're dropping twenty bucks on four short prints that you may or may not need and three or four mini cards. And mini cards, man, if you try building a set of mini cards through ripping wax you are just asking for pain.

That's the thing Upper Deck hasn't figured out about Goudey yet. After buying a certain amount of packs, there are seriously declining returns on your investment. This is why a year later, Allen & Ginter packs are rarely found in repack boxes while nearly full boxes of Goudey still litter Targets from coast to coast. I just found over 30 packs of Goudey in a $1.50 el Cheapo box at Target last week and I bought... one pack. Just to see if I could get lucky and nab a short print. I didn't. If I'd bought the whole lot of them, I probably would have gotten about 15 short prints, seven or eight that I actually needed, and I would have blown almost 50 bucks. I'm pretty sure I can get more than seven 2007 Goudey short prints on eBay for well under 50 bucks. Now, if I had found A&G packs in the cheapo bin, I would have bought the lot of them even though I had completed the set months ago. Why? Because I could pull mini flag cards, Emperors, Bazooka backs, maybe even a jersey card the cherry pickers missed. At the very least I would have a small pile of minis for my trouble and a big pile of doubles to trade or flip.

This is still a great looking set though and there's no shame in chucking the SP's out the window and building only the 200 card base set. In many ways it's better than last year's set. No red/green parallels to worry about, Hall of Famers in the base set, full sized cards for those who like that sort of thing. This is simply a terrible set for anyone trying to build it through wax. Dave over at Fielder's Choice is breaking a case, and with three boxes to go it looks like he'll need a miracle box in order to come close to a short print set. My advice to anyone who wants to rix wax and build a set of Goudey: Rip just enough to build your 200 card base set, then start hitting the trading boards and eBay for the SP's. And remember, there's no rule that says you have to collect all 130 SPs. If you want to just collect the 30 base SPs or the Sport Royalty cards (or heck, the Presidents if you like) than go ahead. You are the one collecting, you are in charge.

Some Goudey to Shake Things Up

This week has been dominated by Americana and Lost Awesomeness, so it's time for some new stuff. I've been jonesing for some Allen & Ginter or Goudey for over a week now. I've been to just about every Target and Wal-Mart between Kennesaw and Alpharetta and found nothing, nada, bupkis. I also don't have enough money for a hobby box right now, so the lack of retail goodness is doubly frustrating. I needed some bubble mailers though, so I hit the card shop and get a quick Goudey fix. Just enough packs to blow a twenty. It's not a blaster, but four packs will hold me off for another week or so.

Pack 1:

Boring cards:
Brian Roberts, Chien-Ming Wang, Jack Wilson, Randy Johnson, Hank Blalock.

(For the purpose of this exercise, "boring" cards are those I don't feel like scanning or talking about right now. If I label your favorite player "boring" don't take it as a personal affront. Take this as a personal affront instead: YOUR FAVORITE PLAYER SUCKS EGGS!)

Update - Except for Ian Kennedy. Booooooooring!

Interesting cards:
No. 19 Jim Palmer

I really really really like the fact that retired legends get cards in the base set this time. This fact alone ensures that I will build this set despite the insane amount of short prints and UD's stinginess with the mini cards. Palmer's a Hall of Famer, the background is appropriately orange and I thankfully cannot see Jim's jockey shorts.

No. 132 Don Larson

How to become immortal:
a) Kill all the other Highlanders
b) Become an Alchemist and discover the Philosopher's stone.
c) Don't die.
d) Become a baseball player and do something ridiculous during a World Series game.

256 David Ortiz 1936 Goudey

Oh yeah, I like this set. I prefer the mini cards though. I wonder how hard it would be to complete the mini '36 set? Probably harder then completing the original '36 set. UD got it right though, check out the back:

Foul / 11ɐq I still haven't seen a hit on one of these cards... It's a good game if you're really into strikeouts and walks.

Pack 2:

Boring cards:
Ian Kennedy, Josh Willingham, Khalil Greene, Alex Rios, Billy Butler.

Interesting cards:
No. 27 Clay Buchholz

The eyes...

THE EYES..........
Actually all the eyes in this set look a bit creepy. I wouldn't look at them too closely if I were you.

No., 10 Phil Niekro

YESS!!! I GOTS KNUCKSIE! Hey, this card seems familiar...

Shenanigans! Recycled photos! Upper Deck is lazy! This bit of coolness makes up for it though:

Yeah! '70s lowercase A logo! I'm looking forward to seeing what logo they use on the Spahn card now.

No. 296 Julie Foudy

Yay, short printed soccer player. Now I only need 58 more Sport Royalty cards for the set. By the way, if anyone pulls the Chipper Sport Royalty, name your price.

Pack 3:

Boring cards:
Aaron Rowand, Alfonso Soriano, Juan Marichal, Dmitri Young, Justin Verlander.

Interesting cards:
No. 4 Dan Haren mini

Why the hell aren't these one per pack? Seriously, Upper Deck. You get so close to putting out a great set and then you pull something mind numbingly stupid like this and screw it all up.

198. Chad Cordero

Chad Cordero looks like the Joker on this card. A little makeup, some green hair and maybe a machine gun and bam - instant Joker.

No.221 Reggie Jackson

I have had insanely good luck pulling Reggie cards from both this and last year's Goudey. The back is printed in black ink, but I'm not sure if that means anything. So far all the short prints I've pulled have black ink except the 1936 Ortiz card which has green ink. At least I think it's green. Upper deck has me paranoid about ink variations.

Pack 4:

Boring cards:
Vernon Wells, Catfish Hunter, Alex Rodriguez, Evan Longoria

ExtrEEEMEly boring card:
Mark Teixeira (yawn)

Interesting cards:
No. 18 Eddie Murray

I got an Orioles Bonanza in these four packs.

No. 191 Frank Thomas mini Blue

A mini card in every other pack frustates me. Making ink variations for the mini cards drives me to despair.

148 Adam LaRoche

I finally pulled a LaRoche card to send Brian. Good thing he's not a short print. This is the second straight year, Upper Deck has had Adam staring off into space on his Goudey card.