I've been trying to write up packs 13-16 from my A&G box for an hour and I'm not getting anywhere. Time to cleanse the palate. I was originally going to post this last Sunday, but my balky back canceled all plans for the weekend. A few days late but just as useless, feast your eyes on...
RANDOM CRAP I BOUGHT FROM THE FLEA MARKET LAST WEEKENDI've been getting stuff from this one seller at the flea market near me for at least five years now. He used to show up every week, but gas prices and lack of sales has caused him to cut it to once a month or so. He has an uncanny knack for showing up the week before a product I want to buy several boxes of hits the shelves. Which means I have lots of money saved up that I inevitably spend at his stall because I want him to come back next month. I always go overboard at the flea market. I got off easy this time though because there weren't as many autos and other big ticket items as there normally are. Instead I attacked the cheapo boxes pretty hard. Let's start off with the ten cent box.
THE TEN CENT BOX:
I snagged three main things from the dime box. A pile of Topps from the 70's, a handful of 2006 Bowman Heritage mini cards which I didn't scan because I sorted them into my set already, and a few high end 2007 cards like this Legendary Cuts Eddie Mathews card. I love this set, but I hate the price tag of ten bucks for four cards because
maaaaaybe there's a cut auto in the pack. A dime a piece is a much better price in my opinion. Eddie's worth full retail though.
I got a few bucks worth of cards from the 70's. Most are from '76 and '77, but there's a '72 Ken Brett and a couple of multi-player rookies that I thought I needed but probably don't in there too. The original plan was to simply buy him out of '77 Topps. He's had a small box of 1977 cards for a while and every time I go to the flea market, I forget to bring my list. I vowed to just buy the whole box this time and be done with it. Then I saw another pile of 1976 cards next to the '77s. I took half of each pile and now
next time he's there I'll buy him out.
I chose Brian Downing's card to represent the 1976 set because, well, the card is fantastic. First of all, he looks like
I.Q. from
The Bugaloos. Don't give me that look, if you grew up in the 70's you watched that
goofy show and drooled over
Joy just as much as I did. Or maybe you drooled over
Martha Raye if you were a strange little child, who knows. IN ANY CASE, Brian Downing looks like a Bugaloo in that hideous red pinstriped monstrosity of a uniform, just slap some wings on him and he'll fly away. There's a great shot of the epic Comiskey scoreboard. There's a couple of guys loitering in the background and they left their junk all over the field. And best of all, Brian's fake pose perfectly shows off his cup enhanced boner. He had the hots for Joy too, I bet.
While the Downing card had everything but the kitchen sink going for it, this 1977 Paul Reuschel is an example of pure simplicity. A tableau of the delicate intercourse between blue and white. With a little bit of blotchy pink and some huge ass glasses thrown in for good measure. Rick should be known as Paul Reuschel's brother for this card alone. It even has the "Gary Carter collects baseball cards" cartoon on the back.
THE NICKEL BOX:
There was also a 5 cent box, or 22 for a buck. I freely admit I went a little crazy on that one. Here's a dozen or so choice picks from that box.
There were a few 1980 Topps Burger King "Pitch, Hit and Run" cards in the box. I'm mildly fascinated by the Burger K9ing cards of the late '70s and early '80s as they were the first oddball cards I ever got. Plus the red and black backs look a lit better than the blue backs of the base set.
Another Eddie Mathews card, this time in an Astros uniform. It's sad but cool to see Eddie in a uniform other than the Braves. Did you know he won a second championship ring with the Tigers in 1968? Ya do now.
What in God's name is Greg Maddux's first Topps card doing in a nickel box?! I know it's '88 Topps and he's in the '87 Traded set, but come on.
I'm a sucker for cards of retired players, especially of Johnny Mize. Look at the size of that bat. Big John just ripped an Oak right out of the ground and started swinging away. The 2002 Fleer Greats set put the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set design to good use here.
I bought quite a few packs of Donruss Triple Play in 1993 to get these Gallery of Stars Diamond King rip-off cards. Now I picked up half the set for about a quarter. The only one I was missing was this David Nied card. Too bad there's a big crease right on the cap
Gotta love finding numbered parallels in the common box. This '05 Donruss Stat Line card is numbered to 289, his career batting average as of 2004.
Yep, I bought a Bowman's Best rookie card of Doug Mientkiewicz. I don't know why either.
Nolan Ryan wasn't the only pitcher to be shown in a tux on their 1991 Stadium Club card. And unlike Nolan, Dave Stewart makes this look
good.
I made a point of grabbing every horrible late '90s insert card I could find out of the box. This '97 Score Blast Master card is by far the most horrible.
'70s Kellogs cards are wonderful things to behold. this '77 card of
should be Hall of Famer Bobby Grich has a beautiful creamsicle border stripe on it.
In keeping with the lenticular theme, here's a goofy looking card from Denny's. There's actually a hologram of Dave Justice on the back. You'd get a pack of one of these card with every Grand Slam meal. Assuming you could find a waitress willing to give you a pack.
Here's a 1997 rookie card of Bubba Trammell with soime strangeness you'll never be able to see in the scan. In '97 Topps tried using spot UV coating to frame the pictures of their cards as a gimmick. Needless to say it wasn't used again in 1998. the printer screwed up on this one and the UV frame is cutting through each player right in the middle. Completely worthless but bizarre enough to force me to get it.
Albert Belle works on his anger management in this 1994 Bowman preview card.
I'm pretty sure this 2004 Fleer Platinum dual rookie card of Rickie Weeks is a short print, but no one cares anymore.
Yeah, retro cards! This '97 Fleer insert of Eddie Murray swiped the Goudey design (sort of) way before that sort ofthing was cool.
Enough with the cruddy cards, it's time to show off the expensive ones. The ones in
toploaders. The ones from...
THE FIFTY CENT BOX:
BUT... if you bought 10 they were only 40 cents each! So after finding four '07 Topps Heritage cards I thought I needed of course I found 11 more so the discount kicked in.
I got a 2007 All Star Game Home Run Derby contest card of Justin Morneau to add to my '07 Topps collection. One lousy year too late. To add further insult to injury the only 2008 Derby predictor card I have is of the '07 winner, Vlad Guerrero.
I didn't really need an XFractor of a mediocre Dodger propsect who can't seem to get past
A-Ball, but dadgum it shore is purdy! Note how I think the Blast Master card above is hideous, yet this is a work of delicate beauty.
Tricky Dick! Everyone needs at least one Richard Milhous card in their collection.
Ok, now time for the expensive ones... Thankfully I only got two.
THE SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT OFF BOX:
I've managed to completely avoid all NFL football cards since my ex-favorite team completely screwed up their draft, but I still can't resist cards featuring my Bulldogs. This nice Ben Watson sig from Press Pass set me back less than four bucks.
THE FIFTY PERCENT OFF BOX:
This is mercifully the last card for the post and in my opinion the best. The UD Masterpieces rainbow of framed parallels is confusing and annoying. There's no doubt about that. I have no clue what color frame this is supposed to be, it's kind of a very dark grey with little gold glittery things in it. I didn't really give a crap what color frame it was, it was the cheapest Chipper in the half off case and I needs it my pressiousss. So I pay for the thing as and I drool all over the toploader due to it's extreme Chipper Mojoliciousness (Chip-Jo? Mojipper? Jones-Jo? wait, I got it... MO-JONES!) I finally notice the serial number.
So yeah, now I'm one of
those dorks. Showing off serial numbers of overwrought parallel cards. That's all I'm gonna collect now too. Chipper Jones cards serial numbered to 10. If there's no serial number, I'm writing it in with a Sharpie. Number 10 of 1, baby. 'Cause it's now a one of one since I just scribbled all over it, but it's got Chipper's jersey number on it too. Time to buy a fresh pack of Sharpies. See how much trouble I get into when I hit the flea market?
My Google-Fu is failing me today, probably because I'm too geeked about the game to care. I'll figure out who Claude from Waycross is later.
I got cold beer, Tabasco-flavored peanuts in the shell, burgers and dogs and I'm ready for to see a new Lindsey Scott moment as the Bulldogs win the SEC East today.
Ken Kavanaugh was retired from the NFL for five years by the time this card was released. Ken starred as a receiver back when teams just didn't pass all that often. Even so he was the Southeastern Conference MVP in 1939. Oh yeah, he also played Defensive End. That was hardcore football in those days. Ken was drafted by the Bears after his college days and played 8 seasons in Chicago. He missed the 42-44 seasons as he served as a bomber pilot in World War 2. He was a productive receiver for the Bears and amazingly still held four team records at the time of his death in 2007.
As you can see, the wonderful '55 back has the requisite exclamation point in the writeup and one of the weirdest cartoons ever. Anthropomorphic pigs in football gear (but no pants) prancing about in suggestive poses. I think the cartoon right there ensures a Bulldog victory, don't you?
Hey, that's a Colt, not a Vol. Don't worry, he played for Tennessee. Bert Rechichar was drafted by the Browns in 1952 and moved on to the Colts the next year. While the position on the card says halfback, Bert was more of a two way player. Make that a three way player actually, as he logged time on offense, defense and special teams. His best position was at defensive back, where he picked off 31 passes in his career.
See, I told you he played for Tennessee. You just have to check the back. While D-back was his primary position, he also did a lot of kicking for the Colts. He had a leg, too. In his first field goal attempt in 1953 he kicked one 56 yards so set the distance record in the NFL. This record stood until Tom Dempsey kicked a 63 yarder in 1970. His leg was strong but not too accurate. He kicked a 91% clip on extra points but was only 31 for 88 on field goal attempts. He made up for it with his play of defense though as he was a three time pro bowler.
Here's Bert's 1956 Topps card, look familiar? Bowman shoulda sued even though they had been bought by Topps already. Topps did make one signifigant change to the card and they stuffed the frot of Bert's pants with about three rolls of toilet paper. Topps wanted everyone to know they had the manliest cards around.
Here's the back of the '56 card, a pretty tight design if you ask me. Bio, stats, cartoon and a nice big number with a football around it. Backs like this is why Topps keeps mining their old sets for designs. The Topps card still says halback as the position, but you'll notice they put his kicking stats on the back. Bert never distinguished himself on offense as far as his stats were concerned. He caught 7 passes for three touchdowns, but his only rushing attempt went for a loss of one. The text talks about his "amazing kicking accuracy (35%??) and the fact that he was in the Cleveland Indians farm system for a while. If things had gone a little differently, David of Tribe Cards might be after Bert's cards instead. The cartoon featuring "Hoppy" Dave Middleton gave me a good chuckle.
Who played football where? That's right - AUBURN. Suck on it, Tide.
Bright Pink Pants!!!
This is a 1952 Bowman football card. This is the large sized version and is the size of Bowman's '53-'55 sets. There is also a mini version of the set in the size of their '52 baseball cards. I think these are the first large sized cards from Bowman. The change in size was probably a reaction to Topps' huge '52 baseball set.
Claude was one of many Georgia All-Americans from the olden days. The d-back from Waycross served in the Marines and was later drafted by the Steelers. He played for two years in the league and I guess he went on to use that marketing degree as I can't find any recent information on him. No time to look now, it's almost kickoff! Maybe Claude will be there in spirit to pick off a couple passes from Beecher or Smelley (the guy's actual name*) or whoever will be quarterbacking the Cocks today.
And that's pretty freaking awesome.
Charley was a deadly accurate passer and a fine runner. He beat Tennessee too, so he's all right with me. The awesomely cheesy passing pose is overshadowed by the manic background action shot. It looks like they are playing kill the man with the ball, not organized college football. What the heck is #55 doing in the middle of all those defenders? I'm also curious to know where Topps swiped the photo, as you can see an arrow pointing to the man obscured by the football. Even better than that though is the 'piling on' cartoon. Between the orgy going on all around and the ref copping a feel on the flattened player's butt, the penalty for this smutty display of hedonism should be a lot more than 15 yards. At least they are all wearing protection.
Man, I need this right now. There's too many horrible stressful annoying things going on right now. Three hours a week listening to the Dawgs on the radio is just what the doctor ordered. Man, I hope Larry is calling the game today. Damn, I need Larry to be calling the game today. The perfect combination of homerism and pessimism with a dash of Lady Luck added for flavor.
I snagged three main things from the dime box. A pile of Topps from the 70's, a handful of 2006 Bowman Heritage mini cards which I didn't scan because I sorted them into my set already, and a few high end 2007 cards like this Legendary Cuts Eddie Mathews card. I love this set, but I hate the price tag of ten bucks for four cards because maaaaaybe there's a cut auto in the pack. A dime a piece is a much better price in my opinion. Eddie's worth full retail though.
I got a few bucks worth of cards from the 70's. Most are from '76 and '77, but there's a '72 Ken Brett and a couple of multi-player rookies that I thought I needed but probably don't in there too. The original plan was to simply buy him out of '77 Topps. He's had a small box of 1977 cards for a while and every time I go to the flea market, I forget to bring my list. I vowed to just buy the whole box this time and be done with it. Then I saw another pile of 1976 cards next to the '77s. I took half of each pile and now next time he's there I'll buy him out.
While the Downing card had everything but the kitchen sink going for it, this 1977 Paul Reuschel is an example of pure simplicity. A tableau of the delicate intercourse between blue and white. With a little bit of blotchy pink and some huge ass glasses thrown in for good measure. Rick should be known as Paul Reuschel's brother for this card alone. It even has the "Gary Carter collects baseball cards" cartoon on the back.
There were a few 1980 Topps Burger King "Pitch, Hit and Run" cards in the box. I'm mildly fascinated by the Burger K9ing cards of the late '70s and early '80s as they were the first oddball cards I ever got. Plus the red and black backs look a lit better than the blue backs of the base set.
Another Eddie Mathews card, this time in an Astros uniform. It's sad but cool to see Eddie in a uniform other than the Braves. Did you know he won a second championship ring with the Tigers in 1968? Ya do now.
What in God's name is Greg Maddux's first Topps card doing in a nickel box?! I know it's '88 Topps and he's in the '87 Traded set, but come on.
I'm a sucker for cards of retired players, especially of Johnny Mize. Look at the size of that bat. Big John just ripped an Oak right out of the ground and started swinging away. The 2002 Fleer Greats set put the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set design to good use here.
I bought quite a few packs of Donruss Triple Play in 1993 to get these Gallery of Stars Diamond King rip-off cards. Now I picked up half the set for about a quarter. The only one I was missing was this David Nied card. Too bad there's a big crease right on the cap
Gotta love finding numbered parallels in the common box. This '05 Donruss Stat Line card is numbered to 289, his career batting average as of 2004.
Yep, I bought a Bowman's Best rookie card of Doug Mientkiewicz. I don't know why either.
I made a point of grabbing every horrible late '90s insert card I could find out of the box. This '97 Score Blast Master card is by far the most horrible.
'70s Kellogs cards are wonderful things to behold. this '77 card of should be Hall of Famer Bobby Grich has a beautiful creamsicle border stripe on it.
In keeping with the lenticular theme, here's a goofy looking card from Denny's. There's actually a hologram of Dave Justice on the back. You'd get a pack of one of these card with every Grand Slam meal. Assuming you could find a waitress willing to give you a pack.
Here's a 1997 rookie card of Bubba Trammell with soime strangeness you'll never be able to see in the scan. In '97 Topps tried using spot UV coating to frame the pictures of their cards as a gimmick. Needless to say it wasn't used again in 1998. the printer screwed up on this one and the UV frame is cutting through each player right in the middle. Completely worthless but bizarre enough to force me to get it.
Albert Belle works on his anger management in this 1994 Bowman preview card.
I'm pretty sure this 2004 Fleer Platinum dual rookie card of Rickie Weeks is a short print, but no one cares anymore.
Yeah, retro cards! This '97 Fleer insert of Eddie Murray swiped the Goudey design (sort of) way before that sort ofthing was cool.
I got a 2007 All Star Game Home Run Derby contest card of Justin Morneau to add to my '07 Topps collection. One lousy year too late. To add further insult to injury the only 2008 Derby predictor card I have is of the '07 winner, Vlad Guerrero.
I didn't really need an XFractor of a mediocre Dodger propsect who can't seem to get past A-Ball, but dadgum it shore is purdy! Note how I think the Blast Master card above is hideous, yet this is a work of delicate beauty.
Tricky Dick! Everyone needs at least one Richard Milhous card in their collection.
I've managed to completely avoid all NFL football cards since my ex-favorite team completely screwed up their draft, but I still can't resist cards featuring my Bulldogs. This nice Ben Watson sig from Press Pass set me back less than four bucks.
This is mercifully the last card for the post and in my opinion the best. The UD Masterpieces rainbow of framed parallels is confusing and annoying. There's no doubt about that. I have no clue what color frame this is supposed to be, it's kind of a very dark grey with little gold glittery things in it. I didn't really give a crap what color frame it was, it was the cheapest Chipper in the half off case and I needs it my pressiousss. So I pay for the thing as and I drool all over the toploader due to it's extreme Chipper Mojoliciousness (Chip-Jo? Mojipper? Jones-Jo? wait, I got it... MO-JONES!) I finally notice the serial number.
