THE TWELVE DAYS OF CARDMAS: LAUNDRY EDITION - DAY 10

LAST ONE OF THESE THAT WAS PULLED BY ME OUT OF A PACK OF CARDS. AND IT'S A REALLY RIDICULOUS ONE TOO

I MISS PACIFIC CARDS. THEY WERE HANDS DOWN THE MOST CONSISTENTLY WEIRD TRADING CARD COMPANY AROUND. SURE THEY HAD ONE OR TWO MILDY NORMAL LOOKING PRODUCTS LIKE THE FLAGSHIP SET AND MAYBE PARAMOUNT BUT THEY ALWAYS SWUNG FOR THE FENCES WITH THE DESIGNS ON THEIR ODDBALL SETS. A LOT OF TIMES THEY STRUCK OUT, BUT 2000 VANGUARD WAS ONE OF THEIR BEST. BASE CARDS WERE THESE THICK PLASTIC THINGS WITH A SOLID BRIGHTLY COLORED BACKGROUND WITH A HOLOFOIL HALO AROUND THE PLAYER PHOTO. YOU HAVE TO SEE THEM IN HAND TO GET THE FULL EFFECT BUT THEY REALLY DO LOOK GREAT. 

I BOUGHT QUITE A FEW PACKS OF BASEBALL FOOTBALL AND HOCKEY THAT YEAR* AND ENJOYED THEM GREATLY. THIS WAS A PREMIUM PRODUCT SO PACKS ONLY HAD FOUR CARDS  IN THEM. IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I FOUND A PACK OF VANGUARD AT TARGET THAT WAS THE SIZE OF A BRICK. THICK PACK = MOAR CARDS SO OF COURSE I BOUGHT IT**. I OPENED IT UP AND THERE WASN'T MOARER CARDS, THERE WAS THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF CARDS AND A CRAZY THICK CARD OF FUTURE HALL OF FAMER CRIS CARTER WITH A LARGE CHUNK OF WHAT APPEARED TO BE PART OF A UNIFORM NUMBER. WITH BONUS SERIAL NUMBER #1/25 HAND WRITTEN WITH A SILVER PAINT PEN THAT WAS RUNNING OUT OF PAINT. IT WAS THE YEAR 2000 SO RELIC CARDS WERE STILL RARE BUT NOT UNHEARD OF AT THAT TIME SO I WAS COOL AND COLLECTED WHEN I SAW IT, RIGHT. NOPE. MY EYEBALLS BUGGED OUT AND I WENT HUBBA HUBBA AWOOOOOGA NYONG NYONG NYONG BBBBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBBLBLB

THEN I TURNED THE MOTHERFUCKER OVER AND IT'S GODDAMN RANDY MOSS WITH AN EVEN NICER PATCH SWATCH. TWO HALL OF FAMERS ON THE SAME CARD THAT'S AS THICK AS A PULP NOVEL AND HAS TWO GIGANTIC PORT HOLES STUFFED WITH JERSEY BITS. IT'S A HELLA NICE CARD AND IF DIDN'T LOVE BASEBALL WAAAY MORE THAN FOOTBALL MIGHT'VE BEATEN OUT ICHIRO FOR MY 'NICEST PATCH CARD' AWARD. 2000 WAS A BANNER YEAR FOR PACIFIC AND IT'S A DAMN SHAME EVERYTHING CAME CRASHING DOWN AFTER THEY LOST THEIR BASEBALL LICENSE THE NEXT YEAR. I HAVE TWO MORE RELIC CARDS FROM 2000 PACIFIC OF KURT WARNER AND GREG MADDUX AND THE ONLY REASON THEY DIDN'T MAKE THE CUT IS BECAUSE I FOUND ALL THE OTHER CARDS IN THE POST BEFORE I GOT TO THEM. STILL, THIS CARD REPRESENTS THAT PACIFIC QUALITY WELL

YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TICKLED I WAS THAT THE TWINS WERE WEARING PURPLE

*POSSIBLE FRANKENSET CANDIDATE?

**BOOOO PACK SEARCHERS, HISSS BAH FOR SHAME. YEAH, YEAH,  WHATEVER. IF YOU CAN STRAIGHT UP LOOK AT A PACK AND SEE IT'S THREE TIMES FATTER THAN THE REST OF 'EM YOU'RE GONNA PICK THAT ONE. IT'S SIMPLE HUNTER GATHERER INSTINCT. THAT'S NOT EVEN PACK SEARCHING*** THAT'S PACK LOOKING

***ALSO, I AM ON RECORD AS BEING 100% SUPPORTIVE OF PACK SEARCHING IN RETAIL. TARGET AND WAL-MART CARD AISLES ARE A HELLSCAPE AT THE BEST OF TIMES I RESPECT THE HUSTLE FOR COLLECTORS JUST TRYING TO GET SOMETHING NICE. IF YOU'RE A FLIPPER THOUGH AND CLEAR OUT EVERY STORE WITHIN A 50 MILE RADIUS LIKE A SWARM OF LOCUSTS AND GET IN FIGHTS WITH THE OTHER LOCUSTS OVER POKEMON CARDS AND ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THERE BEING NO ALLEN & GINTER PACKS IN STORES SINCE 2019 THEN SEE THE FIRST SENTENCE IN ** AND I HOPE EVERYTHING YOU BUY IS ALREADY OPENED AND STUFFED WITH CRUMMY BOWMAN BASE CARDS**** WITH NOT EVEN A SINGLE BIP ROBERTS IN SIGHT*****

****AND NOT EVEN PLAIN OLD VETERAN BASE CARDS, CAREFULLY CHOSEN NON-FIRST BOWMAN CARD PROSPECTS CARDS EXCLUSIVELY OF PLAYERS WHO NEVER GOT PAST DOUBLE-A. THAT SPEW OUT BY THE THOUSANDS LIKE IT'S THE BLASTER VERSION OF A CLOWN CAR OR A VERY STRANGE TARDIS

*****WHAT AM I SAYING, EVERYONE DESERVES THE BLESSING OF BIP ROBERTS DURING THE JOYOUS HOLIDAY SEASON. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. OH WHY OH WHY DO I TALK POLITICS DURING THE HOLIDAYS, IT NEVER ENDS WELL. JUST SKIP ALL THESE FOOTNOTES

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CARDMAS: LAUNDRY EDITION - DAY 7

 STARTING TO REALIZE I HAVE HAD AN INORDINATE AMOUNT OF GOOD LUCK RIPPING PACKS WITH SOME OF THESE CARDS EVEN TAKING INTO ACCOUNT I USED TO RIP WAY TOO MANY PACKS. WE'RE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF CARDMAS NOW, WITH MAYBE THE BEST CARD OF THE BUNCH

2005 UPPER DECK ALL-STAR CLASSICS WAS KIND OF THE POINT WHERE SPECIAL THEME SETS STARTED GETTING SERIOUSLY PLAYED OUT. A RETAIL ONLY 100 CARD SET OF PLAYERS WHO WERE IN ALL STAR GAMES? I GUESS? WITH TOO MANY INSERTS AND OF COURSE THERE WAS A PARALLEL AND THERE WERE NO ROOKIES. THIS SET WAS NOT POPULAR AT ALL BUT I STILL BOUGHT A BUNCH OF THEM AND THAT WAS BEFORE A TON OF PACKS WENT INTO THE  $1.49 CLEARANCE BOX AND I BOUGHT A BUNCH MORE. THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE CARDS OR SO WERE ALL HALL OF FAMERS AND I'M AN IDIOT FOR LEGENDS SETS SO I HAD TO BUY SOME. I WAS HAPPY WHEN I SAW ONE OF THE PACKS HAD A RELIC CARD IN IT. I WAS EVEN HAPPIER TO SEE IT WAS ICHIRO. I ALMOST CRAPPED MYSELF WHEN I SAW THAT PATCH

I'VE GOT A FEW PATCH CARDS BUT MOST OF THEM ARE BIG CHUNKS OF A NUMBER OR LETTER. A COUPLE ARE JUST ALL ONE SOLID PATCH COLOR WITH NO STITCHES OR NOTHIN. THIS IS NOT THAT, THERE'S LIKE FIVE DIFFERENT COLOR THREAD ON THE THING AND YOU CAN ACTUALLY RECOGNIZE THE LOGO. THESE SORT OF CARDS ARE USUALLY OUT OF MY PRICE RANGE AND EVEN THEN THERE'S THAT RISK THAT A REALLY COOL LOOKING PATCH MIGHT BE SOMEONE'S ART PROJECT. PULLING SOMETHING LIKE THIS OF AN INNER CIRCLE HALL OF FAMER OUT OF A PACK IS PRETTY SPECIAL

MURRY CRISMIS HOME STRETCH WOOOOOO LET'S GO

Traveling box loot

White Sox Cards' post on what he picked up from the Traveling Card Box of Awesomeness reminded me that I haven't done my post on that yet. And I was the first one to get the box! I am a bad blogger. What is the Traveling Box? It's a little project Bad Wax put together. A group of collectors all donate some good cards that they don't need and/or want. All the cards get put in a box and shipped around the country to various collectors who take out cards they want and replace them with cards of equal value. There was a ton of great stuff in the box but I limited myself to 5 cards and I let my son pick out one for himself. Here's my loot:

This is actually my son's loot. I allowed him to choose one for himself and he went with the Orioles' hat logo card of Jim Palmer. He almost snagged Steve's Frank Thomas/Jeff Bagwell/Carlos Delgado triple relic but opted for the Manu-Patch instead. I was relieved because I wasn't entirely sure what I could replace that one with.

First pickup out of the box was a 1969 Joe Niekro card I needed for my 'set'. I'm not really working on the 1969 Topps set and I probably never will, but I attacked the vintage in this box with great ferocity. If I didn't have it before, I had it now.

Next up is a 1971 Topps card of Barry's pop. 1971 Topps I will most likely end up collecting in full force as soon as my 1972 set is complete through at least series 4. I'm actually pretty close to completing Series 1.

1960 Topps is another of my favorite sets so I had to pick up the Ashburn. Richie Ashburn on the Cubs is a tad odd. Also odd is that I picked up more Cubs cards out of the box than Braves cards. Yes, I even left Braves in the box. I tried to replace relic with relic, vintage with vintage, etc. but this one I couldn't find a good match so I snuck in a nice Cub card as a replacement.

Ah, now we're in serious card territory. All cards were ranked in tiers, $5-10, $10-15, $15-20 and so on. I don't remember the exact tier of this card but it was in the next to highest tier worth of cards in the box. I have an accidentally good collection of Al Kaline cards as my mother brought me back a 9-pocket page full of vintage Kalines from a business trip when I was a kid. I did not have the '59 already, so this was good luck.

Ok now the doozy:

Amidst the vintage a 2012 card appears! So. I love Yogi Berra. He's right up there with Kurt Vonnegut, Bill Hicks and Pinkie Pie as far as personal spiritual gurus go for me. I also like old coins, especially silver ones. I saw this and thought I MUST HAZ. So I did. I had to pony up a fairly serious card to get it but I think I left the box in better shape than I found it.

I also snagged this custom card of a 1976 Topps Dale Murphy card. There were three custom cards in there but they weren't on the main card list for the box. I left two sketch cards in the box in exchange for this one. One silly, one mostly not silly.

We were instructed not to give away what cards were added to the box so the suspense would be greater. I scanned all of 'em anyway and I'm going to cheat a bit by showing off a little teaser of the stuff I put in the box. I hope I'm not kicked out of the rotation! Two cards I put in the box were picked up in this haul so at least the peeps like my stuff.

'72 All Star Patch and call to creditors

Ain't it purdy? I was bummed that there are no Braves in Topps' legends package but I'll settle for a Braves All-Star game patch. Yaz is pretty cool too. Did you know he was 6th all time in total hits? He's got that card with the big sideburns too. Got this from Thorzul in exchange for a Sidney Moncrief card that I'm still trying to figure out where the heck I put it. Which leads me to another question:

Who do I owe stuff to?

I owe Thorzul the Moncrief, I owe Stats on the Back a single Met card, I owe Canuck some Braves and the last cards he needs for his '90 Donruss set, among others that I know about. What I'm saying, is that in the past two weeks all baseball card stuff has been purged from my head in a panic and I'm semi-clueless at the moment. So, if I owe you cards please let me know. I can probably figure out who I owe stuff to on my own (Adam E gets some Sox, The Writer's Jounrey gets some Reds, I have a few packages here and there from people that I need to send stuff to...) any little nudge to get me moving would be helpful. I'll probably steal Mario's Trade Queue as well and post it somewhere as well. If you just want to make something up and get free cards, you could probably get away with it. Not going to promise that they will be mailed anytime soon though.

I am having excellent luck with the Topps patches so far

After pulling the really nice looking Tom Seaver patch on my first Topps blaster, this is what I got out of the second:

Yep, that's the Schmidt I was drooling over on the checklist. The best third baseman ever and a White Sox All-Star patch. Now I'm intrigued to find out what all these patches are. Thorzul just pulled a Braves patch on A Pack A Day. I'm going to try to put together a checklist of these things this week with the subject and the patch. If anyone has pulled one, I'd be interested to find out what you got. If you want to send me an image, I'll put together a gallery of the things.

Stuff From Shane

Shane over at Shoebox Legends sent me a package last week. Let's see what was in it.

2008 Upper Deck Heroes John Smoltz Patch #06/25

This was a nice surprise! The blue and the red kind of clash, but who cares. The swatch looks like it's from a number or maybe the tomahawk. The card is insanely thick too, if you look at the side, you can see 6 layers on cardboard pressed together to create this thing. I'm not crazy about the Heroes set, but I love the colored parallels, with or without the jersey. I just have to refrain from chasing after a rainbow now that I have this low numbered one. I don't have the time or the funds for that right now.

1 pack of 2005 Upper Deck All Star Classics

This is going to be ripped over at A Pack A Day this evening. You don't want to miss it.

1 pack of 1991-92 Pro Set Platinum Hockey

Pro Set really let their presses run like mad in the early '90s and as a result this stuff has always seemed cheap and overproduced to me. I opened the pack up though and was pleasantly surprised. There's some really good photos in here and all in all it's aged well. Here's a nice card of Pat Verbeek:


The NHL really needs the Whalers back. C'mon, Hurricanes? When's the last time a hurricane hit anywhere with ice? An unfortunate stick placement makes it look like he's doing something terrible to that poor goalie, but it's still a nice horizontal skating shot.



Here's three more grat pictures from the pack. Pierre Turgeon skating close to the ice, Bill Ranford decked out in the pads and the Chicago Blackhawks celebrating their Norris Division Championship. Good looking stuff and hockey fan Shane is going to get a nice package of Whalers (including Verbeek) in return. Thanks Shane!

Surprise Package from Todd

I got a package out of nowhere in the mail yesterday from Royals fan Todd. Three cards were in the bubble mailer:

2008 Allen & Ginter Flag of Peru

I haven't got a flag card in a while, I now have 39 out of 50 in the set. It's a really nice set, but I can never seem to win any off eBay and it's impossible to find them in card shops.

2008 Allen & Ginter Jeff Francoeur Autograph

This is very cool as I'm trying to get all the Braves jerseys and relic cards for 2008 A&G. The only one I'm missing now is Mark Teixeira. That guy's always being difficult. It's not technically a Braves card, but I'm also trying to hunt down Casey Kotchman.

2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Andruw Jones Bat/Cap/Patch relic #10/15

This here is just nuts. This looks a lot better in person than in the scan. I need to find my screwdriver and scan it without the case. As far as relic cards go, this one is designed pretty well. Decent picture of Andruw and the relics fit in well. Lots of variety too, I don't think I had a Braves cap relic card before now.

Good stuff from Todd totally out of the blue. I'm going to be digging for Royals cards this weekend now. I think I have a Royals patch card somewhere...Thanks Todd!

World Series Matchup - Phillies v. Rays

I'm going to swipe the Cardboard Wars idea from Wax Heaven for just one night in honor of the World Series teams. Which card would you rather have: The Phillies jersey card or the Rays patch card?

2004 Bazooka Mike Schmidt One-Liners jersey card

The all-time greatest #1 Philly ever other than the Phanatic, Mike Schmidt. This is a one liner's insert from 2004 Bazooka. I don't remember the odds on these but they weren't too easy to get. It's a plain white swatch, but if you look closely, there's some stitches still left in the fabric. If you have a good imagination, it kinda resembles a 1955 Topps card. I'm not sure what the best thing about the card is: the awesome quote or Mike's shaggy mane tmbling out from under his helmet.

2005 Donruss Prime Patches Tino Martinez #37/41

Tino Martinez a Ray?? Normally you would expect a Yankees or Mariners Jersey, but he had one year in Tampa (2004) and played well. Prime Patches was loaded with all Donruss' remaining baseball inventory if I remember correctly. This card has a bigger patch than photo. The patch appears to be a part of the name on the back, part of an E perhaps?


If you're still undecided, here's the back of the Schmidt featuring Bazooka Joe:

And the back of the Donruss card:


Vote for your favorite in the comments and let me know who's going to win the series so I can get my bets in. My pick:

Philly takes game 1 and 2 in Tampa
Tampa regroups and steals two in Philadelphia
Tampa wins game 6 to tie it up.
Philly winds the deciding game by one run.
Shane Victorino hits an inside the park homer, goes .400 for the series and wins MVP

Phillies in 7.

Card Of the Week 6/16/08

2007 Upper Deck Premier was one of those high super premium megariffic elitist packs. They cost $300 a pop and were considered prime whale bait. Each seven card pack had one manufactured patch card, one memorabilia with three or four swatches, one patch card with two or three swatches, an autograph numbered to 99 or less, an autograph or printing plate, one rookie Card numbered to 199 or less and one foil numbered base card. I could have just linked to Joey's review but I really wanted to type all that out. The basic concept behind these packs is to a) provide more 'value' in a pack b) provide the experience of pulling all the 'hits' without all those messy base cards c) sucker high rollers into dropping several grand at a pop on baseball cards. Here's an example of one of the Triple Patch cards:

Ooooooooh... Preeeeeeetttty.....

That's a nice lookin' card right? Classy looking design with die cut foil showing off three different little patch bits. They even used three patch squares instead of one big piece of patch and made sure to misalign them in the cut outs so you could see the different pieces. Now that's a nice card. Numbered 63/97 too. Very appropriate since Andruw is hitting .062 with 97 strikeouts this year. This is a very rare card, right? Well, as rare as any of the other cards in the set since they're all inserted one a pack. There are just as many patch cards out there from this set as base cards. Makes ya wonder why they even had base cards if they were just one per pack. They're still base cards so no one's gonna pay that much for them unless someone lost their mind and tried to build a set. I can see some schmuck bidding up a Mark DeRosa card to a couple grand on eBay since it's the last one he needs for the set. My guess is that UD put in a base set at the last minute because $50 a card for a 6 card pack was just too much for even the high rollers to swallow, but $42.85 per card for a seven card pack was okey doakey. Added value, people, it's all about added value. Actually a box/pack is down to $210 each so it's $30 a card now. Patches are one of the better cards in the pack though, much better than a boring ol' base card or one of those fake manufactured patches. Patches are probably #3 on the hit hierarchy behind printing plates and really good autographs so they should be more expensive, right? How much did I pay for this beaut, anyway?


See for yourself, folks. Lord, I love a buyer's market. This week's Card of the Week: a sweet Andruw Jones triple patch card that depreciated faster than a 2006 Kia Rio driving off the lot.

Card Of the Week 5/05/08

Bob was my favorite player when I was a kid (favorite hitter actually, Knucksie was my fave pitcher) but I'm not going to get all into my cherished memories quite yet. Today I'm going to tell the tale of how I acquired this particular beauty. A few weeks ago I stated there was a specific card I was desperately looking for, and I can finally say I got the thing. It wasn't exactly a White Whale, just a 2007 Goudey Jeff Francoeur jersey card. I wanted this card ever since I first saw it last year, but I was lazy and didn't just get it right away when Goudey first hit the streets. Big mistake. The suckers were everywhere for about a month and then suddenly dried up. I was focusing on my now stalled Allen & Ginter Type set (I just can't find those last four cards) and figured they would be around forever. They might be a short print or something because the card actually books in Beckett, which is odd because he's normally a minor star or whatever. (incidentally the Jason Giambi card inexplicably books for $20, what's up with that??) I just wanted it because I really liked Goudey and the card has a red alternate jersey swatch which I thought was extremely cool. I later found out that just about every UD relic of Jeff from '07 has that same red swatch, but dammit, I wanted the Goudey. Problem is I wouldn't see one for weeks at a time, then when one did pop up, I got outbid on the sucker. Ok, so I was being a cheapskate with my bidding, but habits die hard even when pursuing a dream card.

So a couple of weeks ago another one popped up on eBay. I watched the auction intently and hoped to snipe it out from under someone. The seller was one of these big dealers on the Bay and had a couple hundred relics and patches up at the same time. While I was waiting for the Frenchy card auction to end, I perused the other auctions. There was a bunch of Brave relics up for bid as well. A bunch were from SP legendary cuts so there were a few vintage Bravos like Knucksie, Murphy, Gary Matthews and this Bob Horner patch. Apparently this guy had a following because there were quite a few bids on most stuff. I focused my efforts on three cards, a Knucksie patch card, the Frenchy and this Horner. The Knucksie patch got bid up pretty quick and the real goal of this adventure was the Goudey so I dropped it. I probably could have snapped up a couple of other relics for a buck a piece if I wasn't picky but I chose quality over quantity for once. For obvious reasons, I became more enamored with the Horner card than the Frenchy. The patch swatch on the card is a proper one with at least two colors on the thing. I hate when companies pawn off a solid color swatch as a patch, I wanna see stitches dammit! My favorite player and a decent looking patch card? No brainer, that. I kept an eye on it, made a decent bid and won the thing for well under what I was willing to pay. The smell of victory in my nostrils, I attacked the Frenchy card. Less than a minute to go... the bid under what I was willing to pay... thirty seconds left.... I place a bid that was actually more than I was originally prepared to go since I got Bob so cheap and......

SNIPED.

Three seconds to go.

EPIC FAIL.

I can't believe it either, Bob! I was kinda pissed at this point. The Frenchy was one of the last auctions in the group and I let a few other Braves pass by to try to get Jeff. If I didn't get the sweet Horner card I would have been really despondent. I licked my wounds and did another search for "goudey francoeur" expecting to find a few base cards but nothing else. I was wrong though, there was another auction out there for a Frenchy jersey. It even had a Buy It Now price that was under the bid I just made. Perfect, eh? Nah. The seller had a rating under 200 and the photo he used was swiped from the auction I had just lost. That's a couple of big red flags waving in the breeze there. I decided to watch the sucker and cross my fingers that no one would buy it. I was right, and I got it for the minimum bid. Good thing too, because the card showed up with a crease around the jersey cut out. You can see it on the scan, I'm not sure if it was like that before or after shipping since the card came in a plain white envelope. I wasn't too upset about it since I finally got that damn card but I would have been a bit more peeved had I paid full price for it. Plus my hunt for that elusive card got me a cool Bob Horner card in a roundabout way.

This Horner card is already one of my favorites if for no other reason than that beautiful WTF?? look on his face in that photo. It's like they took the picture at the exact moment the Braves' GM told him that they were letting Phil Niekro walk at the end of the year because they just traded Brett Butler, Brook Jacoby and Rick Behenna for Len Barker but it's ok that they gave up Butler, because Gerald Perry is the next Hank Aaron. Championship in 1984, baby! I also like the curly hair flopping out from under the hat. I have the same kind of unruly hair and it also likes to escape in a similar fashion from my hats. That's probably why I liked Bob so much, we played the same position, I had the same number in little league and we kind of look similar. The resemblance is stronger in his Cardinal days when he had those big clunky glasses, but I look more like him than say, Golden Boy Murphy. Bob wasn't a heartthrob, Bob didn't win MVPs, he just went out on that field and knocked the living crap out of the ball and I loved it. So thanks to that pain in the rump Frenchy card I now have a new best Bob Horner card and this week's Card of the Week.

More Topps Goofs

Let's see... Series 1 Jeter & friends. Series 2 Betancourt/Guillen. What could possibly go wrong with Updates & Highlights?

Ruthlessly stolen from the Beckett boards: Spot the patch card!

Is this a patch card?

Or is this?

Before you decide, look closely...


This isn't an isolated instance, it appears to be set-wide. It's not even the first time they've done this, 2006 Bowman Heritage had the bat/jersey jersey/bat mix ups in their relic cards. This is a bit more troublesome though, as the Becketteers note, there are a lot of unscrupulous eBay Sellers who will cut up a patch. stick it in a regular jersey card and sell them for big bucks. Do that with these cards (although I don't know how you could get one in that die cut) and there's a little added authenticity to dupe the gullible. Caveat emptor, I suppose.

It's still a pretty dumb mistake for what is supposed to be a flagship product. I'm starting to think Eisner slipped a few bucks to someone in quality control to cause all these brain-dead mistakes before the sale so Mikey can ride in and look like he's cleaning up the joint.