Archives swap

What, you expected Ginter? Aaaaaaaah screw Ginter. I don't have the scratch for a hobby box and my blaster was a complete waste of time. I just picked up the Braves team set and a bunch of inserts anyway.

Instead, I've got a bunch of Archives cards received from Tom In Peoria. I don't know why I call him Tom In Peoria every time I mention him, I just do. If he moves to Bloomington I'm kinda screwed. But anyway, we're both working on the Archives set so I sent him some stuff, and he sent me some stuff. Included in the package was a bunch of base cards I needed but as we all know base cards are meaningless. Topps has worked very hard attempting to train us to believe this and I think we should all acknowledge their efforts. Instead I shall show off the sick mojo hitz I received.

Here's a 2012 Topps Archives short print of Terry Pendleton and an original 1992 Terry Pendleton card. QUICK! Which is the original card???

THREE

TWO

ONE

ZERO!!!!!

Gooooood night... a ding ding ding ding ding. Did ya guess? I didn't until I looked at the back and have at least 20 of these '92 Pendletons lying around. This either means that Topps did a crack job of mimicking the original designs or my memory is starting to go.

Here's a '58 Combo Card of Mike Schmidt and Roy Halladay. I traded a '58 Combo of Ryne Sandberg and Starlin Castro for this one. Why would I want a Phailies card in my collection? Because I'm a fan of Mike Schmidt and there are no Braves to be found in Archives insert sets. Well, no. Actually there is a Deckle Edge Orlando Cepeda card. That's it. I guess no one out there wanted a Hank Aaron/Chipper Jones combo. OH WAIT EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE WANTS THAT. Thanks, Topps.

Here's a cloth card of Reggie Jackson. If there's one insert set I kinda want to collect it's this one. These look (and feel) really sharp. Reggie got in a bit of hot water last week over some comments about certain Hall of Very Good players and A-Roid. I think the Steinbrenner kids even revoked his executive washroom privileges so now Reggie has to piss in the troughs at Yankee stadium like the rest of the peasants. So Reggie said some mean things and now everyone is mad at him. Here's the thing I don't understand:

REGGIE'S AN ASSHOLE.

HE'S ALWAYS BEEN AN ASSHOLE.

THAT'S WHY WE LOVE HIM.

Seriously, the guy's been a jerk his entire life. He hit three home runs in a World Series game for the New York Yankees. He's earned the right to be a complete jerk! Baseball needs villains and he's on the level of The Joker as far as top-tier villains go. Cesar Romero + Jack Nicholson + Heath Ledger = Reggie Jackson levels of coolness. So he said something rude, THAT WHAT HE DO. It's like getting pissed off at Gilbert Gottfried for making an offensive joke. That's his special niche in the universe, what's he supposed to do? I still love ya, Reggie. You stay Reggie. The world needs more Reggie.

Ok, here's the jewel of the lot:

Big Frank Howard autograph. I love random autographs of vintage stars and this is a nice addition to the collection. Frank is one of those awesome underrated '60s stars that no one seems to talk about anymore. Frank was good for mashing monster home runs back in the day. He won the Rookie of the Year award with the Dodgers but had some of his best years with the Senators. I actually have a 1970 Topps Frank Howard pinup up on my wall right now. I picked it up in a card show last year for a buck, but I accidentally tore it. So I decided, what the heck? and pinned the thing right up through the wall like nature intended. Nice to have a sig of Hondo in my collection now. Thanks Tom!

I will buy this card all day long

Last Friday I got in a nice groove of finishing sketch cards and putting together packages when the unthinkable happened. I RAN OUT OF BUBBLE MAILERS. Well, not completely out. I still have some larger sized ones and I've got tons of used mailers lying around cluttering up the joint, but new, fresh, virgin, unused 4"x8" mailers were all used up. All work and progress on catching up on my mailing queue obviously screeched to an immediate halt. I was able to hit the local card shop and pick up a fresh batch on Saturday. So now I have no excuse for not mailing out that stuff I promised you 6 months ago.

I was not able to scrounge for cards too much as I arrived at the shop right before it closed at 5:00pm. I did pick up a few cards out of the $.50 bin and one pack just so I could buy something other than mailers. I don't want the only decent card shop within 30 miles of me going out of business just because I only ever bought packing materials from there. This was one of the fifty cent cards.

Jason Heyward 2011 Allen & Ginter short print. For fifty cents! I already have this card as I pulled it out of my lone A&G Hobby box last year. It was the hit of the box, to be honest. I also may have bought one or two more of them out of dollar boxes along with the Glossy version off of COMC. But I had to get this one too. FIFTY CENTS! If there is one advantage to having my new-favorite-player-as-soon-as-Chipper-retires not meeting the ridiculously high expectations thrust upon him, it is that his cards are cheap as hell right now. He ain't but 22 years old folks... All you Braves 'fans' out there who are pissed off because Jason isn't Willie Mays yet just need to wait five or six years before he gets there. In a Yankee uniform most likely, but dammit, he'll be there.

I know what the set builders (the last remaining of a dwindling breed) out there are thinking... Dude! I need that to finish my set! Trade it to me! NO. MY HAYWOOD. HANDS OFF. Before you scold me for treating my fellow set-builders so shabbily, let me pass on some important information you may not have heard. Apparently short printed cards are no longer part of the base set so we collecting anachronisms don't need to chase them for our set-building needs. They're not part of the base set even though they are numbered along with the rest of the base set checklist because they are printed in lesser quantities than the actual base set and as we all know if a card is printed in lesser quantities it's an insert card and not a base card. Pay no attention to the insert cards from '90s Fleer sets that were printed in quantities that rival 1988 Donruss. At least this is what a certain Editor of the Hobby's most reliable and relied-upon source explained to me a couple of weekends ago. And by "no longer" I actually mean "never were" part of the base set because the definition never changed, it's just that us collectors had it wrong all this time. We had it wrong since the days of tobacco cards, but wrong we were. My October 2007 price guide says differently, but Winston hasn't gotten to that issue yet I guess. Short prints are not part of the base set and they have always not been part of the base set! To which I say....

THANK GOD. 

No more chasing after goddamn Heritage SPs. Allen & Ginter is now a hell of a lot easier to complete! Those weird skip numbered sets like Turkey Red and '06 A&G, well I don't even have to collect those abominations any more! and 2012 Archives? Well, that's a 241 card set. It's got Bryce Harper's rookie card in it and as we all know inserts cannot be rookie cards and if short prints are inserts and not base cards well then Bryce Harper's card CANNOT be an insert because it's a rookie card and if it's not a real rookie card then well that might hurt sales so it's a gorram rookie card because the industry needs this! Dammit, you selfish oaf, think of the hobby. It's not really short printed per se, just printed in slightly lesser quantities than base cards because it was added late in the print run and that's ok because Bryce Harper. I don't really care because I'm only collecting the 1-200 short set of Archives without SPs anyway.

I know what you're thinking now. "But if the definition of an insert card is that it is one that is printed in lesser quantities than the base set cards and the 2012 Bryce Harper Archives card was printed in lesser quantities due to being added late in the print run doesn't that mean the Harper card is really a short printed insert and not a legitimate rookie card per these new always been here base card rules?"

Dude.

That's a clown question, bro.

The only Braves insert in 2012 Archives

Not counting short prints, relics or autographs at least. Out of the seven insert sets in Archives: Reprints, Classic Combos, In Action, '67 Stickers, '68 3D, '69 Deckle Edge and '77 Cloth Stickers, this Deckle Edge card of Orlando Cepeda is the only Brave. I pulled this one out of a blaster today.

Now, there are three short printed Braves along with five relics and six autographs in the set, but only a fool would think they could pull those from wax. I've also got 71% of the base set.

Guess who's done ripping Archives?

(wantlist will be posted... eventually)

Just when I thought I was out

Topps pulled me back IN

Did I say I wasn't going to buy new wax all year? I meant five months.

goddamnit