Five cool cards from American Heritage

These are refugees from pack rips I was going to do but never did. These are definitely worth posting.

Carl Sagan

I'll have to wait until I get the base set completely finished off, but like Duke Ellington from the first series, this is likely my favorite base card from the set. I have a tape full of Cosmos episodes from a Science Channel marathon that I need to rewatch one of these days.

Babe Ruth

The Carl Sagan of baseball. It just occurred to me that Topps must not have wanted to pony up some extra licencing money because all the sports figures I've pulled are logoless. It works very well in the context of this set. Upper Deck should be watching closely.

Fred Rogers

I'll admit right now, that I was more of a Sesame Street youth myself, those king and queen puppets kinda freaked me out. Mr. Rogers is still a pretty fantastic guy and a great American.

George Mason

Speaking of great Americans, this guy refused to sign the Constitution because it didn't have a Bill of Rights. Nothing more needs to be said.

Medgar Evers

I just think it's cool that Medgar Evers has his own trading card. Maybe it will prompt a couple of collectors to learn a little more about him.

2009 American Heritage Heroes Wantlist

I have bought my last pack of this stuff. Probably. Please help me finish it before I buy more. Once I complete the set I have an interesting theory I want to test out. The only insert set I'm chasing at this time is the Space one, so all the other inserts are up for grabs. If you need an insert and have no Space cards I'll swap insert for insert as well.

If you are interested in a trade, please post a comment here and send me an e-mail with HERITAGE TRADE in the header. I will get back to you as soon as I have time, most likely on the weekend.

9 Bud Day

11 Thomas Jefferson
14 Claiborne Pell
18 Abraham Lincoln

21 Elizabeth Cady Stanton
24 Frank Robinson
26 Jackie Robinson
28 Emma Willard
29 Mother Jones
30 Samuel Gompers

36 Alexander Shaler
37 John Finn
38 Fire Fighter (?)

42 Wyatt Earp
49 David Lim
50 Justin Garner


57 American Red Cross
58 VFW
59 ASPCA
60 ACLU

61 Jonas Salk
62 Charles Drew
66 Robert Jarvik
67 Charles Mayo
68 Elizabeth Blackwell

73 Clara Barton

83 James Monroe
87 Silas Deane
88 Woodrow Wilson
90 Dean Acheson

92 Upton Sinclair

103 Lexington and Concord
105 Nathan Hale
108 Underground railroad
111 Seneca Falls
116 Dolittle Raid
118 Guadalcanal
120 Battle of the Bulge
124 March to Montgomery
125 Flight 93

Short prints and Inserts:

These are all ones I have. Other than the Space Program set, I'm only interested in having a type card from each at this time and I'll gladly swap these to someone who is actually trying to complete the set. So trade me your Spaceys!

Short Prints: (looking to keep one Lincoln and one Obama)
132 Abraham Lincoln
144 Barack Obama

Chrome: (looking to keep one of each subset)

C51 Civil Rights Movement #1710/1776
C79 Erin Brockovich #1537/1776
C98 Rachel Carson #1393/1776

Medal of Honor:
MOH1 Eugene Carr
MOH4 Orion Howe
MOH16 Mary Walker
MOH21 Isaiah Hayes
MOH23 Bernard Irwin
MOH30 Hiram Bearss
MOH34 Smedley Butler
MOH41 James Madison

MOH42 Floyd Bennett

Medal of Freedom:

MOF14 Charlton Heston
MOF24 Fred Rogers

Heroes of Sport:

HS1 Jackie Robinson
HS2 Babe Ruth
HS12 Roy Campanella
HS13 Dan Marino

HS22 Reggie Jackson

Heroes of Spaceflight:

HSF-5

HSF-7
HSF15 Gemini XI
HSF20 Apollo 9
HSF22 Apollo 11
HSF-25 Apollo 14

A Hero's Journey:

HJ8 Abe Lincoln
HJ13 Abe Lincoln

Relics:

none

Autographs:

AHARJ Robert Jarvik

Doubles - please take these off mah hands

4 Norman Shwartzkopf (a little dinged up)

8Col. Gordon Roberts

12 James Madison

17 Charles Weltner
25 Lucy Stone
31 Ben Franklin

34 Edward Croker

43 Serpico

47 J Edgar Hoover

53 Audubon Society

54 Navajo Code

72 Norman Borlaug
75 Helen Keller

76 Florence Kelly

77 Herbert Hoover

79 Erin Brockovich

81 Herry Truman
82 George Marshall

86 Dwight Eisenhower

89 John Quincy Adams

97 William Garrison
98 Rachael Carson

102 Paul Revere

104 Bunker Hill (2)

106 George Washington

114 Wright Bros.

115 Belleau Wood

119 D-Day (2)

121 Iwo Jima
122 Jackie Robinson

(Full checklist, if anyone's interested)

Legend:
Italics= trade pending
Strike=received in trade
Blue=held for pending trade

Yellow=gone in trade

Normal=available for trade

Large Bold Blinking Italic Red=Dayf's been drinking again

Heritage Heroes Jumbo Pack #2

American Heritage Heroes: The Anti-bluh.

Also:

Q) How dumb do you have to be to have a small pile of cards featuring first responders at the Towers and forget to post them on 9/11?

A) As dumb as me apparently...

I'll correct that error eventually.

NOW for the second jumbo pack of this historical goodness. Once again, best cards in the pack ranked 1-5 with odd pop culture references where applicable.

Heroes of Space: Apollo 9

Yay! My first space card! And I scanned it upside down by accident! Ya know what... THERE'S NO UP IN SPACE. So this is perfectly all right. Here's a nice space themed song from They Might Be Giants' best album: Space Suit.

Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan

These two were back to back in the pack and I thought that was interesting even if you don't. So... would you rather be a humanitarian or a political hero? I don't want either, I WANT A MONKEY.

Charlton Heston Medal of Freedom

Can someone explain to me why I've gotten no less than three requests for my Joshua Chamberlain Medal of Honor card*? Did he do something really special or are you all confusing him with Wilt. Oh yeah, Charlton. Here's me about 15 minutes after getting that pet monkey I wished for.

Molly Pitcher

Is that Yankee Doodle Dandy checkin' out Molly's pitcher? I believe he is! Get yer head in the game! There's Redcoats out there! Here's some Molly Hatchet that's good to listen to while downing a pitcher of beer.

Iwo Jima

I was somewhat surprised to see that Topps didn't use the iconic image of the flag being raised for this card. I guess that one probably costs some $$$ to reprint. This card did inspire me to work on one of my crazy epic insane post ideas, but that will have to wait for another time...

*that card is already in a packaged labeled "Dinged Corners". Sorry, everyone else.

The Heroes Obsession Begins

Remember how I was with Allen & Ginter last month? Well, that's what you're going to get with American Heritage Heroes Edition until I complete the set. Luckily it's a small set. I have my want list typed up already, but I have a couple of new jumbo packs to mix in before I post it. Here's one of 'em, the others will be on the way soon. I'm not doing the whole "list every damn card out of the pack" thing right now and I may just quit cold turkey on that. I will show you the top 5 cards in the pack though. In this pack 5=7. If two plus two always makes five, then five can just as easily be seven. Oh, yeah, lots of references this post from obscure to mainstream.

Jimmy Stewart

This might be the Duke Ellington of this set. I haven't looked over a checklist yet, but it will be DAMN hard to top this card. Sheer awesomeness as evident by who he beat for #1 card in this pack. TR is up there with Yogi on my list of all time faves, but Stewart in uniform takes it. Here's my favorite scene from Harvey featuring some Jimmy wisdom.

Teddy Roosevelt

This is the card I drooled over when I first saw it online, but inexplicably it got beat. Topps has used this photo a little too much, I think. Now, if I can get a Chrome version of this card then I'll have a TR Finest Finest card. Now that would be slick. Here's a cartoon featuring Mr. Roosevelt from one of my favorite cartoonists. This toon is PG-13 rated but be careful if you wander around the archives. My favorite cartoon from that artist is absolutely filthy.

Erin Brockovich Chrome

My first Chrome, and it's a pretty cool one. I'm astounded by how much better the real life Erin looks than Julia Roberts does in that movie or otherwise. Ok, not that astounded.

Roy Campanella Heroes of Sport

Campy! This... was a kick ass pack. Here's Roy on What's My Line.

Ralph Ellison

Awesome writer who was just featured on an NPR story about writers who got their start in the WPA during the depression that was on the air this weekend on 90.1. If you even get some free time and want something good to read, check out Invisible Man. Very well written and eye-opening.

First American Spaceflight

My first space card from this set! I want the entire Space Heroes set so somebody out there trade 'em all to me. Plus, it's an excuse to link some Pixies.

Women's Suffrage Movement

Wooooo! Women who vote are SEX-AY. The fact she can play a mean horn is a bonus. I ain't posting anything about politics right now if I can help it so here's some female musicians who are awesome and probably voted at one time or another.

The Runaways
Delta 5
Ruth Underwood
Au Revior Simone
Siouxsie Sioux
Kim Deal oops, I mean Kim Deal
Ella Fitzgerald
Laurie Anderson
The Go-Go's
Missy Elliott
ISIS
The Slits
Cibo Matto

And many more but it's getting late...

2009 American Heritage Heroes Edition Checklist Breakdown

PSA FOR FELLOW CHEAPSKATES: Amazon MP3 is giving away a free MP3 this weekend. Click here, get yer code then get yer song. You have till midnight tonight. I chose this and I don't care if it's obvious.

Ok, scanner's up and running again. Here's a peek at the American Heroes checklist:

Cards 1-10: Military Heroes - 1960 Topps design. Cards 11-20: Political Heroes - 1952 Topps design. Cards 21-30: Activists - 1953 Topps design. Cards 31-40: Bravest (Firemen) - 1986 Topps design. Cards 41-50: Finest (Police) - 1988 Topps design. Cards 51-60: Heroic Groups - 1967 Topps design. Cards 61-70: Medical Heroes - 1987 Topps design. Cards 71-80: Humanitatians - 1966 Topps design. Cards 81-90: Diplomatic Heroes- 1989 Topps design. Cards 91-100: Authors and Journalists - 1962 Topps design. Cards 101-125: Events - 1961 Topps design (again). Cards 126-150: Lincoln/Obama SP 1:4 packs- 1956 Topps design.

Insert sets I've pulled so far:

Medal of Honor odds not on the pack, I'm guessing 1:2 packs
Heroes of Sport 1:4 packs
American Heroes 1:126 packs

I'm teasing the auto so I can do a proper write up on it. You smart people can try to guess who it is. Fun fact: according to the odds on the pack it is slightly easier to pull an autograph than it is to pull a Chrome Refractor parallel. Short prints are more Obamas pairing up with the Abe man on a 1956 Topps design that was already used in AH1. The image was lovingly swiped from this pack rip right here which included a Carl Sagan card that caused me to have a cardgasm. Ablaster of this is in my future.

Anyone who plans to collect this set (I know Matt F. is), please let me know so we can share doubles and save some case on building this set. I still have a pile of doubles from series 1 so hit me up if you need some. Ok, off to the game, say a prayer to placate the Rain Gods for me.

Lightning Strikes Twice

American Heritage Series Two or Heroes Edition or whatever the heck it's called is just as cool as the first series. I found blasters and jumbo packs at the local wally world while picking up some groceries today. Since blasters are 8 packs (64 cards) for $20 and the jumbos are the same price per card at 16 cards for 5 bucks, I went cheap and picked up a couple of jumbos. I would very much like to show off some images from the set, but unfortunately the PC with the scanner attached is in a state of disrepair. I will have it fixed tomorrow morning, but here's the set breakdown in the meantime:

Cards 1-10: Military Heroes - 1960 Topps design.
Cards 11-20: Political Heroes - 1952 Topps design.
Cards 21-30: Activists - 1953 Topps design.
Cards 31-40: Bravest (Firemen) - 1986 Topps design.
Cards 41-50: Finest (Police) - 1988 Topps design.
Cards 51-60: Heroic Groups - 1967 Topps design.
Cards 61-70: Medical Heroes - 1987 Topps design.
Cards 71-80: Humanitatians - 1966 Topps design.
Cards 81-90: Diplomatic Heroes- 1989 Topps design.
Cards 91-100: Authors and Journalists - 1962 Topps design.
Cards 101-125: Events - 1961 Topps design (again).
Cards 126-150: Something to do with Obama, I guess SP - 19?? Topps design.

I was somewhat disappointed to see some designs were repeated from the first series. 1953 and 1962 designs are back and the event cards stay with the (boring but utilitarian) 1961 Topps design. The horribly overused 1952 Topps design is back as well, but that was used as an insert set last time. Also odd is that the 70's are completely shut out, but the last half of the '80s are all in. Did we really need '62 and '87 designs in the same set? Why repeat designs at all? Why doesn't Topps consult me on these things?

I also got cards from three different insert sets in the packs:
Medal of Honor ?? (odds not on the pack)
Heroes of Sport 1:4 packs
American Heroes 1:126 packs

Other insert sets I didn't get:
SP Base 1:4 packs
Chrome parallel 1:7 packs
Refractor 1:129 packs (!)
Heroes of Spaceflight 1:3 packs (dammit!)
Presidential Medal of Freedom winners 1:2 packs
A Hero's Journey 1:4 packs
Assorted relics and autos and cut autos and parallels

I'm going to the Gwinnett Braves game tomorrow, but I'll have some scans up by tomorrow evening at the latest.