October Card Show - Cheap MOJO

While I wasn't able to find a whole lot of 1979 Topps at the show, it wasn't for a lack of trying. Any dealer with a significant amount of vintage stuff from the '70s lying about got pestered for '79s. One dealer had piles of cards from the '60s and '70s but I wasn't able to figure out where the '79s were. After asking one guy, who looked around for another guy, who actually found the owner of that table I was able to find out that the '79s were buried under the '78s. There was nothing I needed in that pile or in another box of '70s junk the dealer was able to find, but he did have a pile of fifty cent relic and auto cards. I tried to steer my son into getting an autograph card but he was still sulking over not being able to get an autograph in person from one of the signers since we arrived late. I had to pick up some cheap MOJO, because I am an addict and cannot resist the shiny. These cards were amazing 6 to 10 years ago!!

Kerry Wood relic from Origins. Because I secretly kinda like Origins and I know a bunch of Cub collectors.

200? Bowman's Best Clint Nageotte. This one I might keep just because it looks cool. Clint pitched a few games for the M's but I think he's out of baseball now. I like that the autograph looks like it was signed with a fat Marks-A-Lot permanent marker.

Yhency Brazoban is actually still pitching, no? I pulled a Pedroia auto from '04 Elite, this card was probably hiding two packs over. I know as many Dodger fans as Cub fans so this will likely be involved in a trade eventually.

No idea what set this is from (I think it's from a cross brand thing Topps did a few years back) and Ben Hendrickson  didn't do a whole lot for the Brewers, but Thorzul has pretty much wiped me out of Brewer hits with all the packages going back and forth between Atlanta and Milwaukee. Gotta restock on the Brew Crew.

All that for two bucks!

I shoulda just bought a pack of Update...

I've been waiting for this day for over two years

Ordinary 2009 Topps, you say? Au contraire, mon frère...

I almost passed them up thinking that they were 2009 Philadelphia football.

Looks like I'll be hitting every single Target in the Southeast this holiday weekend.

Quarter Box Bounty - Part 4 Goudey

Today kicked my butt and I'm ready to go to sleep, so I'm going to get through today's quarter box bounty as quick as possible so I can pass out. Yo Momma offers have been received and will be responded to once I wake up tomorrow and get some caffeine in me. Card budgets were tight in 2009 and Goudey more or less got left out tin the cold. I'll still pick up a few cards I like if I find 'em cheap though.

183 David Price RC

 

I'm pretty much convinced that Price will win 20 games sooner or later so if I see a rookie card cheap, I'ma buyin' it.

229 Mike Schmidt

SCHMIDTTY SHORT PRINT. The man is a powder blue ninja about to rip your heart right out of your chest and knock over the center field wall.

247 Nicklas Lidstrom

After the Kovy trade, the Thrashers were just about dead to me. Evander Kane is the only reason they will get one last chance. Make the playoffs and I'm still a fan. Miss the playoffs and I'm done with 'em forever. The Red Wings are on the short list of teams I will choose from to be "my team" if they blow another season.

149 Kurt Suzuki mini

Kurt is a pretty good young catcher. Not as good as McCann, but no Corky Miller either.

80 Roy Oswalt mini blue back

This is something I hope Upper Deck figures out this year. If you're going to have Donruss-like levels of parallels in your mini sets, AT LEAST MAKE THEM ONE PER PACK. Allen & Ginter figured this out in 2006, get with the times, Goudey.

161 Nate McLouth

WOO A BRAVE. Slightly before he became one, but still a Brave. I'm actually having a bit of a difficult time getting used to his new cards in a Braves uni.

25 Kevin Youkilis

I almost left Youk in the bargain box. Then I realized I was a damn fool and rescued him. Welcome to your new home, Youk! Meet your new cardboard friends! All 8 million of them! Ok, I don't have 8 million cards. It just seems that way sometimes.

Speaking of Buy Low....

9 cards @ 3 for $5 at the Flea market this past weekend. Ya think I did good?

2005 Diamond Kings Travis Hafner auto #94/100

All the rest I can see trading off at some point. This one might be a keeper.

2007 SP Legendary Cuts Mike Schmidt Legendary Materials #104/199

Someone please tell me what the hell a Schmidt jersey is doing in a $2 box. The PACKS this came out of were $10!

2007 Co-Signers Tom Mastny & Brian Slocum dual auto

I've seen a lot of bloggers despair at the crappy dual auto pulled in their box of Co-Signers. This one here would make anyone not an Indians fan despair. I thought it looked cool though so I got it anyway.

2007 UD Masterpieces Johan Santana Captured on Canvas

A great pitcher and NOT a Mets jersey! Woohoo!

2007 UD Masterpieces Justin Hampson Stroke of Genius

I'll buy any Masterpiece hits cheap. Even middle relievers.

2005 Bowman Reggie Brown Signs of the Future

Which of these things is not like the others? Reggie's a Bulldog alum so I picked him out even though he's having a lousy season in Philly.

2007 Fleer Ultra Boof Bonser UltraGraphs

I got this simply because his name is Boof. No other reason.

2007 Fleer Ultra Doug Slaten

You can get boxes of '07 Ultra Hobby dirt cheap nowadays. Kinda like '08 Stadium Club in about 6 months.

2006 Turkey Red Jeremy Hermida White Border bat card #53/99

I want to give this card to a certain blogger but I'm afraid the Marlins will trade him before the package arrives.

Damn, I love flea markets.

A brief respite from Allen & Ginter

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 WEEKEND

I'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.

JERSEY NUMBER MO-JONES!

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?

Cheap Chippers Make Me Cheery

I got this little pile of Chippers for about the price of a pack of Moments and Milestones. One of the cards is even numbered to 150!

Well, I was going to post the scans but Blogger is being obstinate at the moment. I'll have to describe them to you instead. See if you can guess what they are!


This would have been another useless Fleer premium product, if not for the fact that they inserted some horrifically short printed autographed rookie cards like Phillip Hughes, Hunter Pence and Dustin Pedroia. This Chipper card is a parallel of the base set and is red as blood.


This is last year's Chrome version of a product I've argued has become particularly useless since the new rookie rules came into effect. This refractor is nice though.


This card is the "Best" version of that last card, but it's from a few years ago. For some unknown reason they didn't number any of the cards, this one here is BB-CJ. This is a unique looking card, it's got sort of a refractor shiny look to it but Chipper and the border is outlined with this glittery stuff that is raised above the surface of the card.


Same brand as card #3, but last year's model. This base card has the serious refractor shinys going on but is much more simply designed than the other one. A picture of the player, his name on the left side and the logo, team name and position outlined in gold foil at the bottom. The card is ridiculously thick too, about three times as thick as a normal card and laminated in plastic to boot.


Another from the same brand, this one is a legitimate refractor. This is actually a preview card that was inserted into the base brand packs. Chipper is on a Veteran style card even though he was a Rookie of the Year candidate just the year before.


This is a noteworthy insert from a few years ago. It has the 50th anniversary logo on it and the background looks like someone went berserk with a typewriter. All work and no playoffs make Chipper a dull boy.


These last two are from a product that bombed big time last year. Who puts redemption cards in a set that expire about a month after the product goes live? You can get mini boxes cheap nowadays. I have the etched foil and holographic cards now I just need to find the acetate version.


Don't worry, I'll upload them all tonight, I just don't have time to deal with Blogger errors right now. Try to guess in the meantime. I'm still trying to guess what bX-cvu52 means.

Ok, Blogger will upload images again. Now you can look at these purty cards.