I've been waiting for this day for over two years

Ordinary 2009 Topps, you say? Au contraire, mon frère...

I almost passed them up thinking that they were 2009 Philadelphia football.

Looks like I'll be hitting every single Target in the Southeast this holiday weekend.

Joy of a Completed Page - 2009 Heritage

 I'm somewhat bummed that I have scads of '08 and '10 Heritage, but I'm not even close to completing the set with my favorite '60s design. This is one of the few completed pages I have, but we've got an All-Star Starting pitcher on there at least!

Catching up - Stale Gum

I've got no time to write this morning so I'mma make this quick. Chris Harris of Stale Gum fame works out a trade from our wantlists and his package got to me yesterday. His is still sitting on my desk but I swear it'll be in the mail tomorrow. This is the thing that was staring at me when I opened the package:

Oh jeez. What did I do to deserve this. Oh yeah, be a lazy bastard and not get to the post office on Tuesday when I had the time. That's what. Upper Deck's got their heart in the right place, but the floating head checklist really should have been of the Cubs.

Also included: A nice chunk of A&G including badass Hoffman.

The Cardfiff Giant pushes me over 50% complete for the Bamboozle set.

Lookit the mug on Alex Gordon. Alex had a few dozen of his brethren from the '09 Heritage set with him.

Hooray! now I can play a game of Topps Attax as the Braves! Who wants to play? Anyone? Bueller?...

This was on the back of the Mets Monstrosity I showed off up at the top:

My first Rip card! OhmahGAWD! Do I save it and send it off to PSA to be slabbed? Get Pat Neshek to sign it? Kill it with fire? Maybe I should just rip it, whaddya think folks?

Catching Up - Randomness from Matt P.

Matt P. (I know he has a blog, but I can't for the life of me think of what it is) sent me this package out of the blue yesterday. Included were cards from my wantlists and "some Braves, ex-Brewer fatties, and an old Topps Ad card that will surely help w/ your holiday shopping". This was sent without expectation of reciprocation, but some Brewer inserts, junk relics or any old crap that might be entertaining would be appreciated. Thorzul wiped me out of Brewer relics, but I did find some weird Brewers, an Old Milwaukee card and a Not-KISS card to send his way. Here are some highlights from the package:

1952 Topps Solly Hemus

I just posted those '50s wantlists so I could have them online for reference, I didn't expect to actually GET any of them. '52 is not my favorite set, but the nice close up shot of Solly and the Cardinals see-saw logo are joy inducing.

Press Pass really shiny holographic plastic KISS insert

I never got into KISS, but a friend of mine did. I think he dressed up in the cat face makeup one Halloween. This card is pretty cool for an insert from a trading card set about a band I don't particularly care for.

2009 Tim Lincecum

Look into that face and tell me that you were truly surprised that Lincy smoked the wacky tobbacky. Tim was part of a nice chunk of Heritage including a Flashback card of Luis Aparicio celebrating Bill Veeck's putting player names on the back of jerseys.

Topps Company Store

I. Want. A. Puffy. Logo. Topps. Sweatshirt. I'll even squeeze into an XL if I have to.

1992 Topps Kids Otis My Man Nixon

This set is awesome. It didn't sell then, and it wouldn't sell now, but the world is a better place because this set exists.

1993 Action Packed Lew Burdette

I really just need to go on eBay and find a complete set of this stuff. This is one of the top "Legends" type sets ever produced.

'94 Flair USA Basketball Dominique Wilkins

'Nique is Magnifique.

2007 Upper Deck Matt Stairs

Here's one of the aforementioned ex-Brewer fatties. The other two were Jorge Julio and Big "Howard Taft reincarnated" Wickman.

Nice stuff from Matt, hopefully I can get my act together and send out his package (flat bubble mailer so as to fit in a mail slot) out tomorrow. Thanks Matt!

Catching up - Package from Todd Q

The month-long posting of packages was scheduled to begin tomorrow, but I got two in the mail today so I'm getting an early start. First up, a box of Stuff from Todd.

Todd threatened to send a few hundred '85 Topps cards but fortunately kept it under 30. The pile included a Doc Gooden card I have but can't find, a downgrade to my Tiffany version of the Cory Snyder USA card and my spiritual guru here:

There was also a big hunk 'o Allen & Ginter. I'm somewhat sad to be building the set in a sensible fashion instead of uying a ton of boxes and blasters, but economic times demand frugality. Now I have some money left over to buy a whole mess 'o Topps206. There were some base cards including Escobar here:

Also a Hoax, Bamboozle, Etc. that actually doesn't involve white collar crime! This card here may have won back the goodwill this set lost when I pulled that Enron card.
The rest of the box included a hefty stack of Heritage. This is another set where I would have liked to have ripped a couple of hobby boxes and a half dozen blasters but now that High Numbers is out, it's time to move on. This Bako card struck me as being a card that would not have been out of place in the original '60 set.

Also included was THE 1960 Highlight.

I love the two kids trying to shake the hand of Maz as he rounds third. Today, they would be tazed and thrown in a cell for the weekend for illegal expression of unauthorized joy. Yay progress!

2009 Heritage Wantlist

I haven't seen a single solitary pack of this stuff in a while. I should probably post my want list before High Numbers comes out. Funny thing, I got a whole bunch of cards I needed in a trade a while back, but they were all from numbers 1-200. As a result, the distribution of the cards I do have is very similar to most of my pre-1974 sets. You know, because the lower numbers of vintage sets are easier to find... Well, it's funny to ME



5
6
7
9
11
25
33
36
37
41
48
64
69
99
117
130
136
137
141
148
161
167
179
180
190
199
204
212
214
217
219
220
223
230
231
232
237
239
243
247
248
249
253
259
268
277
283
284
286
290
294
297
300
301
303
304
305
312
314
315
316
317
323
324
331
333
343
346
356
357
358
359
371
394
397
408
409
412
414
421
422


Short Prints Have:
427 - Ben Francisco
429 - Pedroia & Ichiro
431 - Jason Bartlett
440 - Elijah Dukes
445 - John Smoltz
450 - Justin Morneau
452 - Placido Polanco
455 - Orioles coaches
456 - Red Sox Coaches
459 - Reds coaches
464 - Braves coaches
469 - Mets coaches
485 - Alex Rodriguez AS
487 - Derek Jeter AS
492 - Kosuke Fukudome AS
493 - Ichiro AS
495 - Joe Mauer AS
500 - Billy Wagner AS

Insert Cards - Have:

Then & Now:
TN2 - Banks & Howard
TN3 - Minoso & Jones
TN7 - Podres & Lincecum
TN10 - Ford & Sabathia

New Age Performer:
NAP6 Tim Lincecum
NAP7 Stephen Drew
NAP9 Carlos Quentin
NAP10 Ryan Braun
NAP13 Geovany Soto
NAP15 Evan Longoria

Flashback:
BF2 Bill Mazeroski
BF5 Luis Aparicio
BF6 Frank Robinson
BF8 Ernie Banks
BF10 Bobby Richardson
NF4 Civil Rights Act
NF6 USS Seadragon
NF9 John F Kennedy

Mayo Cut Plug:
TME-AR Alex Rodriguez
TME-ARI Alex Rios
TME-IS Ichiro
MWE-AP Albert Pujols

Thanks to: Todd Querry, Matt P., Chris Harris, madding, Collective Troll

What do these guys have in common?

Ryan Church

Jeff Francouer

Give up?

NEITHER ONE IS GOIN' TO DA PLAYOFFS

('least we're in third place! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

Heritage from A Cardboard Problem

Ok, time to catch up on some packages I received long, long ago. I sent one of the gals* over at A Cardboard Problem (I get 'em mixed up, pretty sure it was Sooz) a mess of O-Pee-Chee and some A-Rod Rod to 500 cards that were cluttering up my collection. In return I got a pile 'o Heritage. Here's some of the highlights:

A good trade indeed...

Scary looking Youk

Griff before he was a fink

Crawford with da shades

And Smilin' Johan

It knocked out a good chunk of my wantlist which I lost so I can't post it until a go back through my set which I don't have time for right now so oh well. If you'd like to make a Deal with A Cardboard Problem, there's a bunch of relics on the block right now and the O-Pee-Chee sets need finishing. I need to see if I can find anything to swap for that McCann card...

* Is gals the accepted nomenclature for female card bloggers? Replace gals with dudettes if it's not.

Heavyweight Retro Championship of the World: Card 5

The whole "Every celebrity on the planet dying all at the same time" thing has got my mind messed up so I took most of the weekend off. Time to get back on track with card #5.

#1 Heritage Young Hill Stars

This is a pretty cool card, although I'm almost certain James Shields is pasted in. The original Young Hill Stars card from 1960 featured Jack Fisher, Milt Pappas and Jerry Walker.

4 points

#2 Heritage High Joakim Soria

Forget the fact that this guy has his own trading card set, The best part about this card is on the back:

Cha cha cha!

2 points

#3 Goudey Mark Teahen

Ordinarily the sheer blueness of this card would be good for a high score, but poor Mark got caught up in a bad matchup. Story of this career, really.

1 point

fifth round, yadda yadda, scores...

2009 Heritage 12 - 2009 Goudey 11 - 2008 Heritage High Series 11.

Heavyweight Retro Championship of the World - Card 4

I'm already a day behind on this. Upper Deck's double barrel rack pack give them an advanage on this one.

#1 Ron Santo Ryne Sandberg Derek Lee Aramis Ramirez 4-in-1 Red

Since the Goudey racks are split into two packs of 8 cards each, it's possible to pull an insert or short print out of either half. This Goudey rack has a Cubs 4-in-1 '35 Goudey insert in it. I actually like these cards better than the base set. Not entirely sure why there are four different color variations when there was only red and blue in the original set (oh, yeah, now I remember, more parallels means soaking set collectors for more money) but I don't mind mixing and matching so no big deal. Normally I loathe all things Cub on this blog, but I've got nothing against Santo or Sandberg.

4 points

#2 Heritage Chad Tracy

I greatly appreciate the beard/no beard photo variations on this card. I also like the pinky-orange peach color to the bottom color bar. I'm not fond of pink cards, but I like peach. Go figure. The real genius of this card is on the back:

Chad's charity is responsible for teaching Ed Norton how to read. Nobody gets this reference, do they. You're all thinking about Fight Club now. Sigh, no one studies the classics anymore.

2 points

#3 Heritage High Miguel Tejada

Miggy should have beat Tracy, but I can't see Tejada in any uniform other than A's green without feeling uneasy. Besides, it was just discovered that the copyright was falsified and that this card is from 2006 and not 2008. I feel obligated to give equal time to Tejada's cartoon, but I can't think of a joke that isn't rude.

You guys make up your own captions on this one. After the MJ stuff VOTC sent me yesterday I'm sure there will be some good ones.

1 point

A quarter way through the battle, there are the standings:

2009 Goudey 10 - 2008 Heritage High Series 9 - 2009 Heritage 8.

Heavyweight Retro Championship of the World - Card 3

I have to be diligent about this and post at least one round a day or else I'll be finishing this up around Halloween.

#1 Heritage High Series Dioner Navarro

Catcher's mask and helmet perched upon a regular cap while Dioner sport sthe cool shades and a bad ass look on his face. If this card had come out in 1959 it would have made many straight-laced Eisenhower Era collectors wet their britches.

5 points

#2 Goudey Garret Anderson

Ok, so Braves don't always automatically win. Even if Garret was in a Braves uni and was living up to the absurdly high expectations Braves fans had for an end-of-career stopgap corner outfielder he wouldn't have beat bad-ass Dioner.

3 points

#3 Heritage Brandon Lyon

This one's pretty meh all around. There's a building a I guess. And Brandon's got a goatee. And it's red and blue. Yawn.

1 point

At the end of three:

2008 Heritage High Series 8 - 2009 Heritage 6 - 2009 Goudey 6.

(Don't Forget! Contest!)

Heavyweight Retro Championship of the World: Card 2

Note: Don't forget the contest... You have about a day to get in on it.

Goudey makes a comeback in the second round, and at least two bloggers may make snide remarks on my choice. They won't be that far off the mark to be honest, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

#1 Goudey James Parr

I'm the judge so I get to be biased. Braves always win. Even if they're a Gwinnett Brave. Besides, the card is not disgusting like the Guillen and you can read the BEACH patch on Parr's uniform.

3 points

(tie)#2 Heritage Khalil Greene

Anyone else remember when he was on the wrapper of every Draft Pick set? Now he's on his second franchise, playing a new position and is suffering from an anxiety disorder. Prospecting is a fickle business. I don't understand why Khalil's color photo isn't a portrait. That's the point of '60 Topps, you get an extreme close up in color and a tiny action shot in black & white.

1 point

(tie)#2 Heritage High Joe Crede

You know, in the '50s and early '60s pink was a very manly color often worn by men completely comfortable with their sexuality. Then the '80s happened and someone wrote a book about quiche and women started wearing huge shoulder pads and everyone got all uptight about everything and now pink is all messed up in the heads of the poor souls that had to grow up during that nightmarish decade. Poor Joe now has to suffer the brunt of Pink Bigotry. The blue tarp in the background don't help matters at all.

1 point

Two rounds in the books:

2009 Heritage 5 - 2008 Heritage High Series 3 - 2009 Goudey 3.

Heavyweight Retro Championship of the World: Card 1

Ok, let's get this party started. You guys voted that the next pack war be between jumbo packs of Retro products Heritage & Goudey. I threw a curveball at ya and added a jumbo of '08 Heritage High series. Let's see which retro product reigns supreme! (at least until Allen & Ginter comes out)

The Rules: I will be matching up each card as they come out of the pack. I'll rank them in order of who I think is the best and assign 0-5 points to each card. Whichever pack has the highest number of points will be teh winnah. If I am unable to determine the winner of a certain round I'll have you guys decide in the comments.

Let'e start 'er up... Card 1:

#1 09 Heritage Cole Hamels

The man won the NLCS and the World Series MVPs. Not a bad pitcher at all. I like th fact that Topps was able to stay with the '60 Topps mugshot motif and still get an interesting background with the stadium press boxes over his shoulder.

4 points

#2 08 Heritage High Ryan Ludwick

Quad-A player who finally broke through last year. Nice posed swing as he stares off into the distance gazing at his FUTURE. The spring training scoreboard and ads don't hurt neither.

2 points

#4 09 Goudey Carlos Guillen

This card is hideous. I totally understand Carlos isn't Brad Pitt or anything, but did Upper Deck really need to make him look like Quasimodo wearing pajamas? Ugh, this card disgusts me.

0 points

After one round:

2009 Heritage 4 - 2008 Heritage High Series 2 - 2009 Goudey 0.

Jackie vs. Mickey: Teh Winnar

Chris Carpenter won in a rout so as promised, I picked up a pack of series 2 with Robinson on the wrapper when I stopped by the card shop for some bubble mailers today. Here are the results:

453 Javier Valentin

Full catcher's gear throwin out a RUNNER! Awwww yeah.

520 Adrian Gonzalez

Does he have a nickname? 22 homers in two months you need a nickname. Gonzo perhaps? A-Gon? Skippy? Yeah, that sounds right. Skippy with the mighty cut.

583 Francisco Cordero

The joys of cropping. I think part of my obsession with this is that I'm becoming an old geezer very quickly and the eyes (which were never good to begin with) are starting to go.

607 Jarrod Washburn
636 Armando Galarraga
Not interesting enough for scans.

416 Josh Whitesell RC

The red jersey and border and orange dirt make this a nifty looking card. Is he playing on Mars or something? Did the bag get swiped by a Mars rover?

606 Nick Johnson black border #17/58

These black border cards are nifty. I like the sparkly on the border. I've got an autographed minor league ball of Nick in my collection for some reason. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

TTT48 Blech.
536 Khalil Greene
Boring

325 Jim Thome

Posed shot of a 500 home run hitter! Do this more often Topps!

595 Vernon Wells

Crash imminent!

Pretty good pack, it was the last Jackie in the box too. Lots of David Wright packs in the box for some unknown reason.

As for the next war, 17 of you wanted to see Jumbo packs of Topps and UD, 5 of you wanted to see a 1989 Topps 100 card pack fight with a First Edition basketball blaster, 7 preverts wanted me to make love not war and the winner with 25 votes was...

2009 Topps Heritage Jumbo

vs. 2009 Upper Deck Goudey Jumbo

But wait, there's more! A third party has jumped into the ring!!!

2008 Topps Baseball Updates and Highlights presents 2009 Topps Heritage High Number Series with Three Completely Superfluous Updates and Highlights Cards Per Jumbo Pack!!! AND GUUUUUM!!!!!111ONE

A three way battle for Retro Supremacy! I think the High Series pack may have snuck in a FOREIGN OBJECT! Stay tuned for this one folks! But don't hold your breath, I have 46 cards to scan for this thing. I'll start this puppy by Monday at the latest.