6 in 30 - '90s Random Crap Binder

The World Series has made me a nervous wreck. That and all the caffeine I drank today. To wind down and relax I'm doing another 6 in 30 post and maybe drinking large amounts of intoxicating beverages. I actually pulled the cards for this post a while back, but am just now getting around to posting them. That's why you may recall that one of the cards was traded away a while back.

These 6 were pulled from the binder of random 90's insert cards I put together a loooong time ago. Back when '90s inserts meant something. There were baseball, football, basketball and even a page of racing cards in there, but the ones that caught my eye were all baseball (sort of). I'm not sure if this is the proper methodology for this excercise, but the way I've been doing my 6 in 30 posts have been to flip through the binder really quickly and then pick out the top 6 cards that caught my eye. Only aseball caught my eye this time so hat's what ya get. Here's my 6:

1996 Leaf Limited Rookie Derek Jeter

I know, I'm complaining about the Yankees and then posting a Derek Jeter card. However, this card is amazing. AMAZING! Mid-90s high end, baby. This here might be my favorite insert set of all time. Leaf Limited base was mind blowing enough in 1996, but the logo with shiny holo-rays beaming out of it is just sick. Not a bad player on this one either...

199something Collector's Choice Jose Canseco Crash the Game Gold

I forgot the year on this one and have already mailed it off to Mario. 1996 or 7 I think. This was a contest UD had back in the day. Pull a card, and if the player hit a home run during the series listed you get a prize. The reward for the gold cards was a clear card of the player made out of acetate with a frame around the picture. Again, crazy stuff for the mid-90s.

1992 Upper Deck Willie Mays Baseball Heroes

Willie freakin' Mays with the signature moment of his career right here. Of course every time I see this play I hear Lou Brown in my head:

Nice catch Hayes, Don't ever f**king do it again.

1996 SPX Cecil Fielder

If you think Leaf Limited was cool in 1996, holy crap these were WAY cooler. Die cut two hologram insanity. I refused to buy any of the one card packs but I picked up cheap singles whenever I found them. Wax Heaven just opened a box of these suckas and I'm jealous. Why oh why can't anyone put out a card like this anymore...

1996 Leaf Steel Johnny Damon Gold parallel

Wild and wacky stuff came out in '96 didn't it? The gimmick in this set was that one card per pack was made of steel. I always wanted to buy a box and put it in my carry-on bag as I went through the airport. When the metal detector went beep, I would then be forced to open the entire box in the security line and I could share my Mojo hitz with the dude waving around the metal detector wand. Nowadays that'll get you tazed and sent on a wone way trip to Gitmo. Here's Johnny Damon's gold parallel Steel card. I scanned the back, because the front won't scan worth a crap. It's a shame too, because I peeled off the stupid 'protective' coating on the front.

1992 Upper Deck Deion Sanders SP

Prime Time! Falcons and Braves! How could I not pick this card?

The Best Upper Deck Pack I've Ever Opened

Every time I get mad at Upper Deck they send a spy out to make sure I end up with a loaded pack. Here's my first look at 2009 Upper Deck and boy, is it a doozy.

50 Julio Lugo

The cards have a gold stripe on the bottom that looks really good. I don't remember that on the preview images but it looks all classy and junk.

15 Adam Dunn

Here's the back, nice design. Everything in its own little compartment. The picture on the back is a cropped version of othe photo on the front, but it looks good.

78 Nick Swisher


22 Chipper Jones

Ok, all together now: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

179 Torii Hunter

144 Andrew Miller

This card has a slight roller mark on it Mario, so you decide if you want it or not.

123 Jeff Francis

Another slight roller mark. You have to really eyeball it in the light to see it though.

461 Carlos Zambrano Season Highlights

This card celebrates his no hitter.

471 Team Checklist David Wright

Here's the checklist for you Mets fans.

HP-5 I WANT TO BELIEVE

Not a Mets fan. There is intelligent life out there!

20th Anniversary - 8 Touchdown Jesus

See why this pack is freaking awesome?

Mystery Discount card featuring Ken Griffey Jr.

This is the super thick decoy card. I'm not sure if the UD discount cards are all Griffey Jr, or if there are different pictures, but these are MUCH cooler than last year. Golf Claps for Upper Deck for making these interesting.

AL Aaron Laffey Autograph

Pitcher for the Indians.

452 Team Leaders Atlanta Braves

Let's say it agin... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

466 Derek Jeter

This is the first card I've seen with a different picture on the front and back. Upper Deck has lots of Jeter photos apparently.

244 Carlos Delgado

277 Joe Mauer

Stars a Plenty. Check out that photo.

261 Derek Jeter

Sooz is jealous now...

310 Tom Gorzelanny

327 Randy Winn

361 James Shields

Note the transition from Devil Rays to Rays on the back.

Two Chippers, two Jeters, an Alien,Touchdown Jesus and an auto. Tough to top that. Thanks Upper Deck spies!

Wax Heaven O Face

Mario at Wax Heaven has a contest going asking people to send in a scan of their card with the best "O" face. Mario has MaggliO and Steve from White Sox Cards has his Own submission with Boone LOgan. The entries are piling up, so I figured I had to make a game plan if I wanted to win. I first decided to suck up to the judge by finding some CansecO cards. Here's the three stages of CansecO's O face.

Stage 1: "O"akland A's, Two at the same time

O

O

O

Stage Two: Texas Rangers, All dressed up and no place to g"O"

Boing

Stage Three: Chicago White Sox, Clinging on by his fingernails with ED and n"O" Viagra

O nO

Then I thought why try to sway the judge when I can try to sway his wife. Here's a Jeter "O" for the Infamous Tatiana:

"O" baby...

That all got screwed up though when I found this jewel while looking for more Cansecos to bribe Mario with:

Michael J "O" rdan

"O" my l"O"rd, I'm g"O"ing to be sick

Even the back has an "O" face, two actually.

Now that's a lotta Os. Kevin would be proud of all the Os. I don't even know if basketball cards count, but that's the nastiest, ugliest O face card I've ever seen. Go ahead and submit one better if you dare, but I doubt anyone can beat His Airness.

Upper Deck's Redemption Redemption

I frequent the Topps and Upper Deck message boards looking for neat card tidbits from people who have the money to open cases upon cases of cards. While we gripe about stupid designs and contrived error cards and lament the death of cardboard stock, the biggest complaint on those boards is easily about redemption cards. They take too long, they don't get the card they want, they do get the card they wanted but it's scratched... lots of complaining about redemption cards. Upper Deck is sick of redemption cards as well and last April they changed their policy toward them to try to get them shipped out faster. We're still waiting on them to return odds of inserts to wrappers so who knows.

I've never had a problem with redemptions. I've gotten maybe 10-20 redemption cards in my collecting career and I've been happy with them most of the time. The only two problems I've had were with an Eddie Belfour Topps stick card and an Upper Deck Legends Mel Blount autograph redemption. I bought the Eddie redemption card on eBay around 2001 or so with the idea that it was for a Belfour stick, not a card with a little bit of a stick on it. That was totally my fault and I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time. I sent it in, waited a while and got back the note that "we could not process your request for this card bla bla bla." Instead of Eddie, I got a hockey auto, a jersey card and a pack of Stadium Club Hockey. Not bad. The Mel Blount was another bonehead move on my part. You can't redeem it if you misplace the thing and don't find it again until 2 years after the expiration date. So in the time I mailed in my first Topps BlackGold set redemption card to now, I've only had 2 bad experiences with redemptions and both were caused by stupidity on my part.

Then again, I'm not the type of collector that would have problems with redemptions. If I pull a high-dollar card I think "wow what a cool card, what a lucky person I am" not "ok, there's another one I need for that set, let's finish opening these cases then I can hit eBay for the rest". For player collectors, high-end insert set collectors and dealers trying to flip the card for a profit, a slow redemption or no redemption for the card they are seeking can be maddening. The ball is certainly in the manufacturer's court on this problem. A little extra time and effort in planning out the autogamer inserts would go a long way to eliminating redemptions. Print out the autograph cards first to get them signed, and have a backup supply of autographed stickers to use. A sticker auto is better than a redemption card for all parties involved. Don't promise a game used card if you don't have the thing in stock. There have been too many half-assed rush jobs lately, especially in my favorite brand. If redemption card must exist, a reorg of the process like UD is attempting is a good start to fixing the problems.

Here's the reason why I'm posting about this instead of doing my 2008 Topps review. Less than 12 hours after being in Wal-Mart at 7:30am looking for pads I was back in Wal-Mart again to resolve the ZOMG we're out of milk crisis of '07. I was sick of Wal-Mart at this point and I decided to go to the other one near me (yes, I have two SuperWal-Marts within about 4 miles of my house) to buy a box of something dammit. Still no Topps U&H, and nothing else that really caught my eye. I was getting some cards no matter what so I grabbed a couple packs of Topps Basketball (got about 8 cards for my set) A couple packs of Goudey (Manny Ramirez SP) and a Pack of Artifacts. I opened up the artifacts and saw that familiar green and silver card:


Woot! a reedemption card. Let's flip this puppy over and see who I got.


Jeter Autograph! All right! That was worth spending half my weekend in a discount store. The card books at $75-$125 in the October Beckett and there's an auction for the Jeter redemption card online for $90 right now. I briefly considered selling the thing but decided against it. A Jeter in hand is worth a bird in the bush or some such thing. I scratched the sucker and after spending a few minutes racking my brain for my forgotten Upper Deck password I sent in the redemption code at about 2am Sunday morning. The card is in stock, so let's see how long it takes to get here. Here's a real life test of UD's new policy. I'll post a scan of the card when (if?) it arrives. The clock is ticking, Upper Deck...