BIRTHDAY BOOLSHEET BLASTER: PART 7 - TIGERS

BACK TO THE JUNK BOX AFTER LIFE GOT DERAILED A SMIDGE. THE TIGERS PILE IS PRETTY BIG AT 92 CARDS TOTAL

THE TRADED SET GIVES US SOME PRETTY GOOD TIGERS. BILL MADLOCK IS A VERY UNDERRATED PLAYER AND WAS THE LAST CARD I NEEDED FOR MY 1992 KELLOGG'S SET. EMPHASIS ON WAS - MY COMC SHIPMENT IS SCHEDULED TO ARRIVE ON JANUARY 3RD. HENNEMAN AND ROBINSON ARE DECENT PITCHERS AND THAT MATT NOKES CARD HAS TO BE WORTH A BUNCH NOW, RIGHT? BECKETT'S HOT LIST WOULDN'T LIE TO ME

1987 TOPPS TRADED COUNT: 11/132

THE TIGERS ALSO ADD A BIG CHUNK TO MY SECOND 2002 SET, PROBABLY BECAUSE THERE WEREN'T MANY STARS TO PICK OUT. HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE JOSE LIMA, ASTROS RADIO GUY STEVE SPARKS AND MANAGER PHIL GARNER 

2002 TOPPS COUNT: 63/718

THERE WERE A COUPLE SURPRISES IN THERE TOO. FIRST HERE'S A SHINY GOLD DAMION EASLEY

CHECK OUT THE PLACEMENT ON THAT SERIAL NUMBER. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE DESIGNERS KNEW TO SAVE A BUNCH OF DEAD SPACE ON EACH CARD FOR SERIAL NUMBERING, RELICS AND AUTOGRAPHS

THE OTHER BIG SURPRISE IS THIS FACTORY SET EXCLUSIVE DRAFT PICK CARD OF SCOTT MOORE. THIS ADDS TO MY SUSPICION THAT THE PREVIOUS OWNER OF THIS BOX BOUGHT A FACTORY SET TO STRIP FOR PARTS. WE'LL HAVE TO BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR THE OTHER FOUR DRAFT CARDS FROM THIS SET AS NONE OF THE PLAYERS PANNED OUT ENOUGH TO BE CHERRY PICKED OUT OF THE BOX

CECIL FIELDER JUST CHILLIN WHILE THE SAN DIEGO CHICKEN WORSHIPS AT HIS FEET. FIND ME A BETTER CARD PRINTED THIS YEAR, I DARE YOU

I WAS NOT A FAN OF TOPPS KIDS WHEN IT CAME OUT BUT I'VE COME AROUND ON IT. IT'S NICELY GOOFY

YEAAAAAH SHINIES! LOVE FINDING THE PACIFIC PRISM CARDS

TONY CLARK ON THE MLB SHOWDOWN COMMON CARD BEFORE HE STARTED WITH ALL THE UNION BUSINESS

MOAR PACIFIC! THE 2001 FLAGSHIP DESIGN IS PRETTY OK BUT I BOUGHT WAY MORE OF THE NFL VERSION BACK IN THE DAY CHASING MICHAEL VICK CARDS

SOME MORE JUNKBOX GOLD WITH A 1985 DONRUSS CARD OF DARRELL EVANS.  A GUY WITH 400 HOMERS AND 1600 WALKS WOULD BE WAY MORE RESPECTED IN TODAY'S GAME. DARRELL ALSO BOOKENDED HIS CAREER IN ATLANTA

CROWN CARD OF DEAN PALMER. GOTTA SHOW OFF ALL THE PACIFIC

70S CARD IN THE JUNK BOX! I LOVE 1978 TOPPS BUT BECAUSE I LOVED IT SO MUCH I COMPLETED THE SET A FEW YEARS AGO AND NOW WHEN I SEE ONE I AUTOMATICALLY THINK 'GOT IT' AND MOVE ON LOOKING FOR 77S AND 75S. I AM TRYING TO BREAK OUT OF THIS HABIT AND APPRECIATE THE NICE CARDS FROM SETS I HAVE LIKE THIS ONE WITH A VERY HAPPY AURELIO RODRIGUEZ

SKYBOX MOLTEN METAL IS A WEIRD ONE BECAUSE IT WAS A HIGHER-END PRODUCT BUT LOOKED NOTHING LIKE THE COOL METAL UNIVERSE CARDS SO IT WAS A BIT OF A LETDOWN. UNLESS YOU PULLED ONE OF THE ACTUAL METAL CARDS OUT OF A PACK, WHICH WERE REALLY COOL. THESE CARDS ARE PRETTY COMMON IN DISCARDED BOXES OF TRASH SINCE THEY WERE HEAVILY RIPPED FOR THE INSERTS

DEAN MAKES ANOTHER APPEARANCE ON A FINEST CARD. I REALLY LIKED THIS DESIGN AND BOUGHT A LOT OF IT AND AM STILL NOT ANYWHERE CLOSE TO EVEN BEGINNING TO ATTEMPT TO COLLECT THIS SET. GETTING MY FINEST IN ORDER NEEDS TO BE A 2024 COLLECTING GOAL

YOU MAY BE HAPPY TO KNOW THAT I HAVE DECIDED TO NOT THROW ALL THE JUNK IN THE TRASH AND HAVE INSTEAD PUT THEM AWAY BACK IN THE BOX SO THEY DON'T CAUSE ANY NEW CATASTROPHES. SADLY ONCE AGAIN I NEED NONE OF THESE CARDS. HOWEVER I FOUND A FEW MORE SECOND CHANCE GOODIES TO SHOW OFF

A 1990 UPPER DECK CARD OF ALAN TRAMMELL MADE THE JUNK PILE BECAUSE AS MUCH AS MY BRAIN BLIPS BY 1978 TOPPS NOW IT DOESN'T EVEN PERCIEVE 1990 UD ANYMORE, A TONY CLARK ULTRA CARD TO REPLACE MY CURRENT WATERLOGGED ONE, JIM WALEWANDER, FOREVER THE DEAD MILKMEN GUY THANKS TO THE BACK OF A SCORE CARD AND THE LATE GREAT WILLIE HERNANDEZ. YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND GEMS IF YOU JUST KEEP DIGGING 

Sketch Card #14 - 1954 Jumbo

While I feel bad about being two weeks behind on my self-imposed Card Show post schedule, I am more than two months behind in posting my sketch cards. So tonight I'll procrastinate on one by catching up on another. I could have posted one of two cards tonight, because I've been trying to post these things in chronological order but I forgot to note the date I did one of them. I went with this one just because. Here's a jumbo sized pastel sketch of a 1954 Topps Al Kaline rookie card.

This one went to Sewing Machine Guy as part of a blockbuster trade we pulled off. And this one was big. Bigger than Renteria for Jurrjens even. Bigger than the card itself, which is 8 inches by 6 inches, a tad larger than the real '54 Kaline. This is to date the biggest thing I've created to send off to another collector although I'm in the middle of a project that will beat it. So how did this sucker get so big? Like this:

Most of the time when I'm doing a sketch card for someone I'll to a practice sketch first to figure out what the heck I'm doing before I try to do it for reals. So I pulled out the sketch book, started drawing and really liked what I did on the first go. It wasn't exactly perfect. Al is leaning to his right a tad and the Tiger logo (somehow I've managed to draw that thing twice so far) is a little derped. But it looked pretty darn good and was big enough for me to do a little experimenting with my soft pastels. So, even though I had already pulled out my ruler and made a page full of '50s Topps sized blanks to draw the final product upon, I ripped out the page instead and started scratching away with the pastels.

Did I mention pastels are messy as hell? Colored dust EVERYWHERE. My blue jeans became purple from all the red dust from that background. I wasn't finished though, there's more work to be done.

Even though it was now practically a painting, I still wanted to create a sketch card, so the whole shebang got glued to the card stock I was going to use for the standard sized card. While letting it dry it got slightly smudged sooooo:

I touched up the details a bit, spritzed it with some fixer and pulled out the X-Acto knife and did a little trimming. Once completely dry, I put it in an oversized top loader. This way it would be protected and hopefully thwart some of the curling that was going on. Soon after I tackled this, I started messing with acrylics, so I haven't done a whole lot more with pastels, although I have one project in mind.

All righty then. There's the sketch portion of the blockbuster trade. What about the cards? SMG requested some Tigers from the '50s in his original offer so I pulled these out of my binders and sent them his way.

In order: 1950 Bowman Aaron Robinson, 1951  Bowman  Bob Cain, 1952  Bowman  Bob Swift, 1955 Bowman Bill Tuttle, 1956 Topps Duke Maas, 1955 Bowman Dick Stanfel, 1954 Bowman Fred Hatfield, 1954 Topps Ray Boone.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

1955 Topps Bob Miller, 1958 Topps Tigers Team, 1952 Topps Marlin Stewart and 1957 Topps Billy Hoeft. I scanned all the backs of the cards to record the card numbers so I could add them back to my want lists.

You read that right, I pulled these out of my sets to send to SMG for the stuff he had to offer. Oh yeah, I also sent along cash in the deal. Good Grief! Did I get Edgar Renteria for all this? Rest assured, I got Jurrjens. So what did I end up with in exchange for all this stuff? You'll find out later this weekend...