DOG FOOD

MY TYPE CARD OBSESSION DOES NOT STOP WITH 90S INSERTS, I'VE BEEN PICKING UP UNIQUE VINTAGE CARDS FOR A LONG TIME NOW. WHILE I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO COLLECT THE COMPLETE SET OF 1933 TATTOO ORBIT OR 1941 GOUDEY CARDS I CAN AND HAVE PICKED UP A SINGLE CARD FROM THE SETS. OTHER DREAM CARDS LIKE 1933 DELONG OR T-204 RAMLY HAVE ELUDED ME BUT YOU NEVER KNOW, I COULD WIN THE LOTTERY ONE DAY. ANOTHER NEAT CARD I COVETED FOR A WHILE FELL INTO MY LAP ON MY LAST VISIT TO MY MAIN LCS* RECENTLY

ONE FUN THING I USED TO DO THAT IS GONE FOREVER IS HITTING THE CARD SHOP AFTER DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENTS AS A TREAT. NOW THAT THE DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENTS ARE DAMN NEAR MONTHLY INSTEAD OF YEARLY, THAT TRADITION HAS GONE BY THE WAYSIDE. AFTER A RECENT EXTREMELY ANNOYING APPOINTMENT I SAID FUKKIT AND HEADED TO THE MAIN LCS EVEN THOUGH I ONLY HAD EIGHT BUCKS IN MY POCKET. EIGHT BUCKS WON'T EVEN BUY LUNCH ANYMORE BUT I RETAIN THE ABILITY TO HAVE FUN BUYING CARDS WITH THAT MUCH MONEY. I HIT THE DIME BOXES (NOT GREAT), THE FIFTY CENT BOXES (GREAT SUCCESS) AND CHECKED THE RONALD AND TRAE BOXES AND FOUND SOME CHEAPOS I COULD AFFORD. THERE IS A VINTAGE ODDBALL CASE AT THE FRONT OF THE STORE AND I DECIDED TO CHECK IT OUT SINCE I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE YET AND GO BACK TO DREARY REALITY. IN THE CASE WERE SOME 1954 RED HEART CARDS I HADN'T SEEN IN THERE BEFORE. RED HEART WAS ONE OF THOSE MYTHICAL SETS I HEARD ABOUT WHEN I WAS A KID BUT NEVER EVER SAW ANY FOR SALE ANYWHERE. ONE OF THE MANY CRYPTIDS OF VINTAGE TRADING CARDS. THEY WERE PILED ON TOP OF EACH OTHER AND THE TOP CARD WAS PRICED AT EIGHT BUCKS WHICH WAS ALL MY MONIES BUT I TOOK A SHOT AND ASKED TO SEE THE PILE. THE ONLY BRAVE IN THE SET IS SPAHN, WHICH WOULD COST A HELL OF A LOT MORE THAN EIGHT BUCKS, BUT I WAS HOPING TO MAYBE SEE ONE  IN MY PRICE RANGE. AND THERE WAS! THIS DEE FONDY CARD LOOKED LIKE A DOG MIGHT'VE GOT A HOLD OF IT AND WAS PRICED AT A MUCH MORE AFFORDABLE THREE DOLLARS. I PUT BACK A RONALD AND A TRAE CARD AND GOT DEE INSTEAD

DEE FONDY, A FINE TEXAN, PLAYED FIRST BASE FOR THE CUBS FOR A FEW YEARS IN THE MID-1950S BEFORE GETTING TRADED TO THE PIRATES AND FINISHING UP HIS CAREER IN CINCINNATI.  1953 IS PROBABLY HIS BEST YEAR IN THE BIGS AS HE BOPPED 18 HOMERS AND AN .835 OPS. HE WAS INVOLVED IN A TRADE WITH CHUCK CONNERS AND ANOTHER FOR TED KLUSZEWSKI WHICH IS PRETTY COOL. RED HEART CARDS ARE KNOWN FOR THE UNIQUE BACKS WITH BATTING AND FIELDING STATS AND A GIGANTIC RED HEART DOG FOOD LOGO. THEY WERE ISSUED THROUGH A MAIL IN OFFER AND WERE SUPPOSEDLY AVAILABLE FROM THE COMPANY THROUGH THE EARLY SEVENTIES. THINK ABOUT THAT THE NEXT TIME TOPPS RELEASES A BOWMAN SET TWO YEARS AFTER THE FACT. IT'S A REALLY NICE CLEAN DESIGN AND UPPER DECK SORTA HALFWAY SWIPED IT IN 2004 WHILE BOWMAN HERITAGE DIRECTLY GANKED IT IN 2007. NOW THAT I FINALLY HAVE THE DOG FOOD CARD, WHAT ABOUT THE DOG? I'M GLAD YOU ASKED

THIS CARD WAS PICKED UP AT THE NEWFANGLED LCS THAT I CAN VISIT ON MY DAYS OFF. ONCE AGAIN I HAD NO MONEY BUT A LITTLE MORE NO MONEY THAN LAST TIME. THIS TRIP GOT ME A FEW DOLLAR CARDS I POSTED ABOUT A WHILE BACK. ONCE AGAIN TO AVOID LEAVING THE COMFORTING PRESENCE OF A SHITLOAD OF BASEBALL CARDS I CHECKED OUT A VINTAGE ODDBALL NON-SPORTS CASE. THIS CASE IS WAY IN THE BACK AND SEEMS TO BE 90% WAR CARDS ALTHOUGH THERE IS ONE BOX OF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN CIGARETTE CARDS AND A BOX OF OLD AVALON HILL INDY CAR RACING GAME CARDS THAT I WISH I COULD AFFORD TO BUY ALL OF SO I CAN PLAY THE GAME. ONE BOX SEEMED TO BE FILLED WITH RANDOM STUFF SO I ASKED TO SEE IT. IT ENDED UP BEING MORE WAR CARDS WITH A FEW OTHER ODDITIES LIKE G-MEN AND CRIME CARDS. I DON'T LIKE WAR, I PREFER MY VINTAGE NON-SPORTS CARDS TO BE STUFF LIKE CELEBRITIES AND MONSTERS AND BIRDS AND ANIMALS. THEN IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THE MURDER A FLUFFY LITTLE YAP DOG APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE. THIS CARD IS FROM THE 1950 QUAKER OATS CHALLENGE OF THE YUKON DOG CARDS SET. THEY WERE INSERTED INTO CEREAL BOXES AND HAD ROUNDED CORNERS ALTHOUGH YOU COULD NEVER CONFIRM THAT FROM THIS EXAMPLE. THIS ONE REALLY MIGHT'VE BEEN EATEN BY A DOG BUT SEEING THIS BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FUZZBALL IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THE GUNS AND BOMBS DELIGHTED ME IMMENSELY. THEN I TURNED IT OVER 

HOLY CRAP IT'S AUTOGRAPHED. I'VE SEEN THIS KIND OF KISS CARD IN WRESTLING AND *AHEM* ALTERNATE ENTERTAINMENT SETS BUT I'VE NEVER SEEN A VINTAGE EXAMPLE. I DECIDED I MUST HAVE THIS CARD, BANK ACCOUNT BE DAMNED, AND THANKFULLY IT ONLY COST ME A BUCK. WHICH, HONESTLY IS PROBABLY AN OVERPAY FOR A CARD IN THIS CONDITION BUT WHO CARES. I REALLY WISH I COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND PEEP IN ON THE BACKSTORY OF THIS CARD. DID THIS LADY JUST REALLY LOVE HER DOG OR IS THERE SOMETHING MORE SALACIOUS GOING ON? AT ANY RATE NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NEXT FOUR MONTHS THIS IS IMMEDIATELY THE BEST CARD I WILL PICK UP ALL YEAR AND IS IS ONE OF THE TOP 100 CARDS IN MY COLLECTION. IF YOU NEED YOUR OWN DOGGO CARD THEY'RE NOT TOO TERRIBLY HARD TO FIND BUT GOOD LUCK FINDING ONE LIKE THIS

* SINCE I NOW HAVE THREE LCS'S** HERE IS A QUICK RECAP OF MY LOCAL CARD SHOP OPTIONS:

MAIN LCS: CHAMPION SPORTS CARDS - BEEN GOING HERE FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS, IT HAS GREAT PRICES AND A HUGE INVENTORY AND IS CLOSED ON MY DAYS OFF

HOLE IN THE WALL LCS: JT SPORTS COLLECTIBLES - SMALLER SHOP THAT'S BEEN OPEN A LONG TIME IN MULTIPLE DIFFERENT LOCATIONS THAT HAS A TON OF RANDOM COOL STUFF

NEWFANGLED LCS: DUCK'S DUGOUT - MASSIVE WAREHOUSE LOOKING SHOP FILLED WITH A TON OF EXPENSIVE SLABS AND UNOPENED WAX THAT IS VERY INTIMIDATING BUT HAS SOME HIDDEN GEMS IF YOU ARE BRAVE ENOUGH TO HUNT FOR THEM

** NOT TO MENTION A FLEA MARKET, MULTIPLE ANTIQUE MALLS AND A MONTHLY CARD SHOW. AN UTTERLY RIDICULOUS WEALTH OF OPTIONS, MADE MORE LUDICROUS SINCE I HAVE NO MONEY TO SUPPORT THEM

Musings on Allen & Ginter

My friend Josh never got bitten by the card collecting bug, but he has witnessed my insanity and understands. He is as cynical as I am, and is able to appreciate the ridiculousness of the industry. One long-running inside joke between us is goes something like this:

Me: "Baseball cards have gone crazy!"

Josh: (in his best Match Game style response) "How crazy are they?"

Me "Baseball cards are soooo crazy that..."

I would go on to account the latest gimmicky weirdness manufacturers were using to push product out the door. The first such exchange was probably about that wacky upstart Upper Deck charging a whole dollar for a pack of cards, and they didn't even have fancy moving pictures like SportFlics. Much of the things we deemed ridiculous at the time are now industry staples. Insert cards in every pack! They're putting serial numbers on the cards! There are whole sets of autographed cards! They took some dude's jersey, cut it up into little squares and glued the pieces onto cards! They're charging a hundred bucks! For a box? For a Pack!! MADNESS!!!

One thing we always agreed on, was that at some point a company was going to put out an official DNA card. The debate was only in what form the DNA would take. A stray nose hair or toenail clipping seemed too obvious to me. There are probably already jersey swatches with blood, sweat or Lord knows what on them, so a little schmear of some fluid didn't seem innovative enough. I always thought Dr. James Andrews could have made some extra cash selling used elbow tendons for use in cards. You could probably find some Julio Franco or Roger Clemens DNA in a mosquito encased in amber somewhere, it would make for a pretty card at least. My greatest idea was to have redemption card for some useable DNA, available for pickup at your local fertility clinic. What would be a better chase card than the chance to have your own little Bonds or Griffey Jr. running around? The only thing we knew is that the idea of hawking a human being's genetic code to sell baseball cards was so perverse that it really had to happen at some point. This is where 2007 Allen & Ginter comes in.

Topps has had plenty of strangeness in their recent sets. This is not really surprising to anyone who is familiar with their test sets of the 60's and 70's, Topps has done some odd things in an effort to move those cards off the shelves. Just in just the past five years or so, we've seen cards encapsulating little crumbled bits from the Berlin Wall (which invariably migrate out of the window and wedge themselves between the layers inside the card itself), cards with chopped up shreds of clothes worn by Elvis, a cut signature card from Che Guevara, cards with swatches of old Army uniforms from stars of the 50's, cards with coins and subway tokens stuck in them and 90+ year old vintage cards entombed inside little plastic holders the size of standard cards.

Allen & Ginter has had its fair share of gimmicks as well. Mini cards, press plates, Rip cards (not really anything new, but whatever), historical and non baseball subjects, along with the standard fare of parallels, autographs and relics. Even though the 2006 version evaporated off the shelves faster than a bottle of Dasani on Mercury, Topps decided to go all out with their 2007 version and add what we have all been waiting for: a DNA RELIC CARD.


George Washington goes from Father of our Country to the provider of the first deoxyribonucleic acid strand to be whored out on a baseball card. Part of me is disappointed they went with the nose hair, but at least my (lack of) Faith in Humanity is confirmed. I'm interested in how eBay is going to handle the eventual auction of this card considering their long time ban on body parts. This might be a golden opportunity for BidVille. Part of me has to wonder though, if Topps is resourceful enough to procure a 250 year old strand of hair from the most famous American to ever live, how come they are having problems managing to not get gobbled up by Upper Deck? You would think something like this would be enough to assure that 2007 A&G would not go unbought like so many boxes of '91 Donruss Series 1, but no... Topps decided to up the ante with an innovation that is sure to rock the foundations of the entire industry:

Dog Autographs.

THIS I DID NOT EXPECT.

Let us say hypothetically that you traveled back in time a decade or so and asked me what sort of innovations the baseball card industry would spawn by the year 2007. If the words "I believe a major card manufacturer will put a card featuring the paw print from the winner of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in their most eagerly anticipated product of the year" had left my lips, I would have immediately blown my head off with a shotgun for fear I had contracted Mad Cow disease from a cheap gas station burrito and it had taken my sanity. I actually want to be there when the first person to plunk down a C-note for a box of A&G pulls Diamond Jim's John Hancock just to note their expression. Of course when I think about it, it can't be any worse than tearing open a Mantle Rip card only to get a Derrek Lee extended mini card I suppose. At least it is technically an autograph card, plus it's also a great excuse to call my buddy Josh and say,

"Baseball cards have gone crazy!"