Sorry but if you're going to throw out a random new parallel out of the blue and then name it Congnac, you better be prepared for internet goofballs to label it a Liquorfractor.
In related news, the Goddamn Fucking Holiday Season is right up my butt and I need a drink. BAD.
While a little flawed, this is still one of the best tobacco-style mini sets around. While I'm not close to finishing it, I'm not far either and these cards seem to pop up in 'under a buck' boxes with great frequency.
KC-13 Ty Cobb
KC-63 Juan Marichal
KC-72 Ernie Banks
KC-75 Bob Feller
KC-82 Mike Schmidt
KC-86 Whitey Ford
KC-93 Wade Boggs
KC-95 Lou Gehrig
KC-100 Babe Ruth
KC-135 Carl Crawford
Here's the checklist if you happen to need it...
135/150 90.0%
Thanks to: Carlson, mystery dude, Stale Gum, Jedi Jeff
While trying to get my shizz organized and wantlisted I couldn't find this online in one easy to digest list so I ganked it from BaseballCardPedia and I'm putting it here. Let the C&D's begin.
KC-1 Ubaldo Jimenez
KC-2 Derek Jeter
KC-3 Carlos Santana
KC-4 Johan Santana
KC-5 Carlos Gonzalez
KC-6 Clay Buchholz
KC-7 Mickey Mantle
KC-8 Ryan Braun
KC-9 Chase Utley
KC-10 Ichiro
KC-11 Starlin Castro
KC-12 Torii Hunter
KC-13 Ty Cobb
KC-14 Clayton Kershaw
KC-15 David Price
KC-16 Aroldis Chapman
KC-17 Chris Carpenter
KC-18 Andrew McCutchen
KC-19 Brandon Morrow
KC-20 Roy Halladay
KC-21 Shin-Soo Choo
KC-22 Victor Martinez
KC-23 Mat Latos
KC-24 Josh Johnson
KC-25 Vladimir Guererro
KC-26 Justin Morneau
KC-27 Nick Markakis
KC-28 Mike Stanton
KC-29 Jered Weaver
KC-30 David Wright
KC-31 Nelson Cruz
KC-32 Alex Rios
KC-33 Martin Prado
KC-34 Joey Votto
KC-35 Jon Lester
KC-36 Hanley Ramirez
KC-37 Stephen Strasburg
KC-38 Roy Oswalt
KC-39 CC Sabathia
KC-40 Albert Pujols
KC-41 Pablo Sandoval
KC-42 Mariano Rivera
KC-43 Pee Wee Reese
KC-44 Hunter Pence
KC-45 David Ortiz
KC-46 Mel Ott
KC-47 Brett Anderson
KC-48 Justin Upton
KC-49 Jose Bautista
KC-50 Miguel Cabrera
KC-51 Hank Aaron
KC-52 Sandy Koufax
KC-53 Carlton Fisk
KC-54 Nolan Ryan
KC-55 Stan Musial
KC-56 Steve Carlton
KC-57 Tom Seaver
KC-58 Mel Ott
KC-59 Tony Gwynn
KC-60 Johnny Bench
KC-61 Greg Maddux
KC-62 Luis Aparicio
KC-63 Juan Marichal
KC-64 Jackie Robinson
KC-65 Bob Gibson
KC-66 Yogi Berra
KC-67 Pee-Wee Reese
KC-68 Reggie Jackson
KC-69 Robin Roberts
KC-70 Roy Campanella
KC-71 Brooks Robinson
KC-72 Ernie Banks
KC-73 Phil Rizzuto
KC-74 Eddie Murray
KC-75 Bob Feller
KC-76 Lou Brock
KC-77 Frank Robinson
KC-78 Eddie Mathews
KC-79 Barry Larkin
KC-80 Roger Maris
KC-81 Craig Biggio
KC-82 Mike Schmidt
KC-83 Don Mattingly
KC-84 Ryne Sandberg
KC-85 Willie McCovey
KC-86 Whitey Ford
KC-87 Andre Dawson
KC-88 Jim Palmer
KC-89 Duke Snider
KC-90 Hank Greenberg
KC-91 Dale Murphy
KC-92 Frank Thomas
KC-93 Wade Boggs
KC-94 Carl Yastrzemski
KC-95 Lou Gehrig
KC-96 Cal Ripken
KC-97 Paul Molitor
KC-98 Gary Carter
KC-99 Ty Cobb
KC-100 Babe Ruth
KC-101 Babe Ruth
KC-102 Willie McCovey
KC-103 Zach Britton
KC-104 Jimmie Foxx
KC-105 Honus Wagner
KC-106 Gary Carter
KC-107 Dan Uggla
KC-108 Lance Berkman
KC-109 Trevor Cahill
KC-110 Hank Aaron
KC-111 Tris Speaker
KC-112 Cole Hamels
KC-113 Alex Rodriguez
KC-114 Felix Hernandez
KC-115 Ty Cobb
KC-116 Johnny Mize
KC-117 Curtis Granderson
KC-118 Cliff Lee
KC-119 Matt Holliday
KC-120 Frank Robinson
KC-121 Luis Aparicio
KC-122 Christy Mathewson
KC-123 Bert Blyleven
KC-124 Frank Thomas
KC-125 Nolan Ryan
KC-126 Danny Duffy
KC-127 Justin Verlander
KC-128 Carlton Fisk
KC-129 George Sisler
KC-130 Adrian Gonzalez
KC-131 Adam Dunn
KC-132 Tom Seaver
KC-133 Ozzie Smith
KC-134 Miguel Cabrera
KC-135 Carl Crawford
KC-136 Paul Molitor
KC-137 Joe Morgan
KC-138 Rogers Hornsby
KC-139 James Shields
KC-140 Michael Pineda
KC-141 Andre Dawson
KC-142 Ryan Howard
KC-143 Kyle Drabek
KC-144 Reggie Jackson
KC-145 Eric Hosmer
KC-146 Vladimir Guerrero
KC-147 Mark Teixeira
KC-148 Jose Reyes
KC-149 Cy Young
KC-150 Joe DiMaggio
Posting all the ones I have from best to worst. I've got a few coming in from a group break so don't think this is a stealth wantlist or something because it isn't.
UPDATED: Added some stuff from Matt at Heartbreaking Cards.
First Braves card of Bourn and it's a really sweet action shot.
This probably should be #1. I'm a sucker for scoreboards. Big Mac with the D!
Kind of a tie but I like Johnny better than Craig so he gets top billing.
Delgado looks like he's a gamer. If Lowe eats his rotation spot next year I'll be pissed.
Me likey the Boston Braves uni.
Cory Gearrin should have been used more than he was last year. Especially when Fredi was busy abusing Kimbrel and Venters. Now that Moylan's arm is ruined too we'll probably see more of Cory.
If Jair is not in a Royals uniform in April I'll be shocked.
Reprints are out, but Topps 60 remains. I guess I can deal with pulling a Freddie. This one was from a hobby pack.
Diamond Duos are back too. No Reprints. Meh. The thing about pairing Freddie up with Hosmer is that as a member of the Atlanta Braves, Freddie has about a 63.7% chance of playing for the Royals during his career. This was pulled from a Rack Pack at Target that I really shouldn't have bought in the first place.
The best thing about this card is that Topps is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for their Topps 60 set that they are forced to count Top 60 in the Braves Minor League Organization as an achievement. There's an interesting list of names on the back though, and I think three of them are already Royals.
One more of these and then I promise I'll do something productive with my life. Check out Big Mac in the tools of ignorance:
Whodat behind Mac? Izzat Chippah? No really, someone tell me who that is behind McCann. It kinda looks like Chipper but it out of focus and I scanned it in jpg format so it's even more blurry and my eyes suck anyway so I got no clue. Aw heck with it. LOOKIT MAC IN THE CATCHER'S GEAR!!!
Here's Dan Uggla's card from the Braves team set. Not gonna lie, it's a boring photo and an obvious airbrush photochop. I can tell by the pixels. That and the odd-looking logo on the joisey. Gotta respect the two cans of Copenhagen Uggs is packing in that right cheek. I wonder when the first picture of Dan actually wearing an Atlanta jersey will show up on a card. It makes me nostalgic for the cheesy press conference photos where the player is wearing his new team's jersey over top of an Armani suit.
Here's Jason Heyward from the 2011 Topps team set. I found mine at Target, they should also be readily available at Wally World or online if you are fortunate enough not to live in Atlanta.Whoops, did I just misplace an un? No matter.
I'm thinking this shot has to be posed. Jason just looks too lackadaisical out there. Maybe it's a shot taken during warm-ups. I like seeing a real Rookie cup on the card. I was disappointed that Tommy Hanson didn't even get a fake tin cup on last year's card.
The Fox Sports South ad on the scoreboard in the background causes me some heartburn. Late last year, we cut out everything but the basic channels from our cable package. This was not a problem in November because I rarely watch anything on TV anyway. If it wasn't on Netflix or online, I didn't really need it. Now, thanks to our local TBS station being utterly fucked all to hell by several massive corporations who don't give a shit about the Braves or Braves fans, I find myself in the awkward situation of living in Atlanta and not being able to watch the Braves on TV except for a small handful that are being shown on Peachtree TV, AKA the zombie corpse of TBS. If I moved to a different state I could give MLB.TV my money and watch it online, but the Braves games are blacked out in Atlanta. If I want to watch my Bravos on TV in Atlanta, I either have to go over to a friend or family member's house to mooch their cable or shell out more money to Comcast just so I can watch one thing. Ugh.
One other thing about this card. This is the top card in the package so it came out with two dinged corners and a scratch on the front. On any other card it would suck but on J-Hey's that's called CHARACTER, baby.
So, Mr. Eisner. Pleasure to meet you. Chris has informed me that I am now in charge of Topps Product Development. In fact, I'm the entire staff. Budget overruns, I suppose. Shipping costs on Transmogrifier redemptions were a little higher than you expected. Cuts had to be made. I understand, it's just business. So now you need a little expert consulting on Series Two.
Let's take a look at Series One first. Nice design. Simple. Elegant. Good photography too - I like that. Backs are nice. You can actually read the card number. Now about the inserts, there's a lot of them. It seems that everybody hates at least one of them. On the other hand, everybody loves at least one of them. Something for everyone, very good. You need to make changes next year you know. One more card history set and you'll be printing a 1987 Bip Roberts reprint before too long. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We'll worry about revamping the inserts next year. Right now they're good. Let's talk variations. You've gone a little overboard this year. Legends cards are nice. New uniforms should be saved for Series 2. I don't even know what you were thinking on the twinks. You know what? Just keep all that stuff in, no one cares about it anyway. I bet there's a couple hundred twink cards out there in dime boxes because no one notices something like that. Let some kid get a cheap thrill out of a dime box. In fact, We're going to do Series Two just like Series One. Same inserts, same gimmicks, same everything. Why the hell not. People are used to it by now, why upset them needlessly. What I want to discuss today is the base set.
Lemme talk about the base set. The base set is why we are all here. You are not your inserts. You are not how many hits you have in a box. You are not the jerseys you cut up. You are not the contents of your autograph lineup. You are the base set. Topps has always been about the base set.
The second rule of the base set is, you DONOTFUCK with the base set.
Just remember that and you're golden. Now I'll just take my telephone, computer, fax machine, 52 weekly paychecks and 48 airline flight coupons and you get working on Series Two. Trust me, everything's gonna be fine.
Screw Eisner. His candy-ass wouldn't last a second Wednesday night.
I'm about to do something really stupid. Not land war in Asia stupid, but certainly not sensible.
Have you heard about 2011 Topps? Perhaps not... there isn't a whole lot of buzz about the product. Hardly anyone at all is discussing it. Well, Topps added yet another parallel set to this year's release. You can see it in the background of the blog. It's foily and shiny and looks like Tinkerbell picked a fight with a unicorn right in the middle of a mirror factory with rickety shelves and a concrete floor.
What I'm sayin' is I like the set.
I'm gonna collect it.
All of it.
If I am daft enough to seriously try to complete the 1953 Topps set I sure as hell ain't going to be intimidated by a non-numbered parallel set of a flagship product.
While I realize that this set will be fairly popular it's also going to be somewhat common, so if there is anyone out there that doesn't want theirs, shoot me an e-mail (you can find mine in my profile) with PLATINUM DIAMOND as the subject. Just tell me what you're looking for, I'll trade 10 base for one shiny, and trust me, I've got commons from almost any base set you can think of. I'll trade inserts and mid level vintage one for one too. Like a team? I'll send you stuff from your team. Find me a large enough pile of shinys I need, and I'll even send you a relic or autograph. Maybe even some serious vintage from the '50s or '60s. I might even just pay cash for them if you catch me with a full wallet. Make sure PLATINUM DIAMOND is the subject of the e-mail because my gmail is a disaster of Egyptian proportions and I'll need that for searching purposes.
These are the cards I have:
21 Michael Cuddyer
36 Ted Lilly
37 Vincente Padilla
115 Jason Varitek
127 Chris Volstad
146 Roy Halladay
174 Roy Oswalt
176 Daniel Hudson
259 Kyle Davies
268 Jake McGee x2
280 Andrew Bailey
311 James Shields
These cards are pending:
Daily Dimwit:
2 - Jake Westbrook
20 - Hanley Ramirez
163 - Carlos Pena
172 - Lyle Overbay
260 - Freddy Sanchez
305 - James Loney
312 - Gaby Sanchez
327 - Cristian Guzman
Paul's Random Stuff:
5 Joey Votto
89 Placido Polanco
226 Jose Guillen
Bound for Beantown:
89
136
197
If you collect a certain player/team and I have one of the shiny cards from that player/team I'll even trade it to you for some cards I need. Like Dodgers, Red Sox, Cardinals, Rays? Give me your Pirates, Mariners, Nationals or Blue Jays. I don't care, I just want to fill pockets in Ultra-Pro sheets. I'm in this hunt for the long haul.
Also: no freebies. if you send me a shiny, I have to send you something. If you recently became a minimalist, I'll send you mini cards. If you took a vow of poverty and can't accept anything, then assign me a post to write or a feat of strength or something. I'm earning this set.
Thanks for reading through all this, and away we go...
