I will buy this card all day long

Last Friday I got in a nice groove of finishing sketch cards and putting together packages when the unthinkable happened. I RAN OUT OF BUBBLE MAILERS. Well, not completely out. I still have some larger sized ones and I've got tons of used mailers lying around cluttering up the joint, but new, fresh, virgin, unused 4"x8" mailers were all used up. All work and progress on catching up on my mailing queue obviously screeched to an immediate halt. I was able to hit the local card shop and pick up a fresh batch on Saturday. So now I have no excuse for not mailing out that stuff I promised you 6 months ago.

I was not able to scrounge for cards too much as I arrived at the shop right before it closed at 5:00pm. I did pick up a few cards out of the $.50 bin and one pack just so I could buy something other than mailers. I don't want the only decent card shop within 30 miles of me going out of business just because I only ever bought packing materials from there. This was one of the fifty cent cards.

Jason Heyward 2011 Allen & Ginter short print. For fifty cents! I already have this card as I pulled it out of my lone A&G Hobby box last year. It was the hit of the box, to be honest. I also may have bought one or two more of them out of dollar boxes along with the Glossy version off of COMC. But I had to get this one too. FIFTY CENTS! If there is one advantage to having my new-favorite-player-as-soon-as-Chipper-retires not meeting the ridiculously high expectations thrust upon him, it is that his cards are cheap as hell right now. He ain't but 22 years old folks... All you Braves 'fans' out there who are pissed off because Jason isn't Willie Mays yet just need to wait five or six years before he gets there. In a Yankee uniform most likely, but dammit, he'll be there.

I know what the set builders (the last remaining of a dwindling breed) out there are thinking... Dude! I need that to finish my set! Trade it to me! NO. MY HAYWOOD. HANDS OFF. Before you scold me for treating my fellow set-builders so shabbily, let me pass on some important information you may not have heard. Apparently short printed cards are no longer part of the base set so we collecting anachronisms don't need to chase them for our set-building needs. They're not part of the base set even though they are numbered along with the rest of the base set checklist because they are printed in lesser quantities than the actual base set and as we all know if a card is printed in lesser quantities it's an insert card and not a base card. Pay no attention to the insert cards from '90s Fleer sets that were printed in quantities that rival 1988 Donruss. At least this is what a certain Editor of the Hobby's most reliable and relied-upon source explained to me a couple of weekends ago. And by "no longer" I actually mean "never were" part of the base set because the definition never changed, it's just that us collectors had it wrong all this time. We had it wrong since the days of tobacco cards, but wrong we were. My October 2007 price guide says differently, but Winston hasn't gotten to that issue yet I guess. Short prints are not part of the base set and they have always not been part of the base set! To which I say....

THANK GOD. 

No more chasing after goddamn Heritage SPs. Allen & Ginter is now a hell of a lot easier to complete! Those weird skip numbered sets like Turkey Red and '06 A&G, well I don't even have to collect those abominations any more! and 2012 Archives? Well, that's a 241 card set. It's got Bryce Harper's rookie card in it and as we all know inserts cannot be rookie cards and if short prints are inserts and not base cards well then Bryce Harper's card CANNOT be an insert because it's a rookie card and if it's not a real rookie card then well that might hurt sales so it's a gorram rookie card because the industry needs this! Dammit, you selfish oaf, think of the hobby. It's not really short printed per se, just printed in slightly lesser quantities than base cards because it was added late in the print run and that's ok because Bryce Harper. I don't really care because I'm only collecting the 1-200 short set of Archives without SPs anyway.

I know what you're thinking now. "But if the definition of an insert card is that it is one that is printed in lesser quantities than the base set cards and the 2012 Bryce Harper Archives card was printed in lesser quantities due to being added late in the print run doesn't that mean the Harper card is really a short printed insert and not a legitimate rookie card per these new always been here base card rules?"

Dude.

That's a clown question, bro.

Hot Box Hits: Part 1 - Boxtoppers

Time to show off the shinies from the Obak box. First up is the cabinet cards. These are supposed to be one per box, but I got two somehow. I'm not sure if I'm just exceedingly lucky of if that is a hallmark of a hot box.

These cards are based on the T4 Cabinet premiums from Obak. It took 50 coupons form Obak cigarettes to get one of these The original Obak T212s aren't all that common to begin with, so these are extremely scarce. The newfangled cabinets differ from the originals in that there was no logo or text on the fronts and the back was blank. These are some of the better looking retro style cards put out recently.

T4-28 Calvin Griffith - Minnesota

I'm assuming the kid on the card is Calvin Griffith, Owner of the Washington Senators when they moved to Minnesota to become the Twins. He was the nephew of long time player, owner and manager Clark Griffith, and Calvin did work as a bat boy for his uncle.

Even though the card is for the Minnesota Franchise, the back of the card shows the Senators' first park in Washington. I guess a picture of the old Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis did fit the theme of the set. The old timey pictures on these cabinets are fantastic.

T4-29 Charles Comiskey - Chicago

Good 'ol Chuck Comiskey, the real ringleader behind the Black Sox Scandal. Pay your players properly and they won't have to throw games to afford your laundry fees! A stadium is named after him and he's in the original Allen & Ginter N28 set so I'll give him a pass for now. I can't stay mad at a man with such a mighty fine hat, can I?

The two cabinets are a slightly different color on the front. I don't know if this is normal design of the set or if there is some sort of parallel going on. Neither are serial numbered or marked differently at all so I'll assume they are just part of the base set.

Man, check out the cigar ads on the wall at South Side park! I wonder if I got out a magnifying glass I could figure out who some of those players were.  I was originally thinking about flipping these cards for the Atlanta T4, but they look so damn good I might just try to chase the set.

Here's the checklist - these are one per box.

One nice thing about the checklist is that unlike some companies, TriStar actually notes which cards have variations. One star for a slogan variation on the back and two stars for an image variation. If I counted right, there are 13 slogan variations and 3 image variations. Here's the checklist of variations so you don't have to squint.

Slogan Variations:
4 Starlin Castro
6 Austin Jackson
17 Roger Clemens
19 Hank Greenberg
20 Dale Murphy
21 Cal Ripken Jr.
40 Johnny Bench
41 Jose Canseco
44 Jason Heyward
52 Jim Abbott
89 Luthor "Dummy" Taylor
108 Tinker to Evers To Chance
109 Sherry Magee

Image Variations:
19 Hank Greenberg
44 Jason Heyward
52 Jim Abbott

Minis have variations too, 8 slogan variations and 1 image variation.

Mini Slogan Variations:

3 Starlin Castro

4 Austin Jackson

9 Roger Clemens

10 Hank Greenberg

11 Dale Murphy

12 Cal Ripken Jr.

18 Jason Heyward

37 Sherry Magee

Mini Image Variation:

18 Jason Heyward

The T4 also has an image variation on the Washington cabinet.  If anyone is trying to build a master set including the variations, you'll be looking at 136 cards (27 short prints and variations) for the base set and 54 cards (9 variations) for the mini set. That's actually a very obtainable goal. If you want a complete master set with all the parallels, variations and autographs, well, that's insane. Someone will try it though.

Next up: Veteran autographs.

Early A&G Blasters are loaded

I've gone a tad goofy over A&G. As usual. I ripped my fourth blaster last night  thanks to an old gift card left over from Christmas I never used. I have had pretty good luck so far to say the least. Out of four blasters I've gotten three relics:

The Jersey i already showed off...

A bat from a Braves killer...

And this nifty card of a dog and its favorite toy.

I think there's game used tooth marks on the disc too which is nifty. Three relics in four boxes is pretty good. If I remember correctly this happened last year or the year before as well. I could just be a lucky bastige, but I'm getting a lot of decent stuff so far in retail.

One thing I'm not getting a lot of is base minis. You remember, this is the mini series that contains the mini Strasburg Holy Grail. Well, out of 32 retail packs, here are all the base non-SP mini's I've pulled:

That's right, two. Two in four blasters. This is a pretty small sample size, but if the odds hold a normal, ordinary, garden variety base mini card falls one per sixteen packs. That can't possibly be right, can it? I've been collecting A&G minis and there ain't no way that the base minis (1:16) are really more scarce than the SP minis (1:13), can they? I'm starting to get obsessed over these minis now. Someone who has broken several cases or who has superior math skills please tell me I'm just on a ridiculous hot streak and that Topps didn't short print the base mini cards. Please? Anyone?

My First Chicle Short Print

I am of course making a wild assumption that the short prints in Chicle are the high numbered subsets.I haven't been paying much attention to the official card news channels lately but from various eBay auction claims and what I saw come out of 8 packs I think it's a safe bet. If you're interested, out of 8 packs I got 7 SPs, parallels or inserts and they were all card #5 in the pack. Here is card #5 out of my second pack:

NO. 280 Jimmie Foxx

Artist: Chris Henderson

Double X in a... Phillies uniform?? I was bewildered by this at first too until I checked his Baseball-Reference page and found out that Jimmie Foxx finished out his career with the Phillies in 1945. Of course he played 11 seasons and hit 302 home runs for the Philadelphia Athletics compared to 89 games and 7 dingers for the Philadelphia Phillies but who's counting. It's not like Topps put him in a Flyers sweater or something. My second pack was utterly fantastic (check out this run of players: Snider, Ruth, Munson, Foxx. Woof!) and it was tough picking out my favorite from the pack. Snider looked great and had a neat little detail I appreciated. The base Ruth card was very well done. The Thurman Munson is a card that Matt from Heartbreaking cards needs for his collection immediately. But the Foxx has the all around package. The painting of Jimmie is excellent as is the pose and the background colors really ties everything together perfectly. I'm sad that it's a short print because more people need to pull this card from a pack.

Quarter Box Bounty - Part 2 A&G SPs

I'm going to just go ahead and blow out the grand prize of the quarter box right now.

Allen & Ginter SPs

To a dedicated set builder these things are gold. I'm getting close to the set too, I need to take my want list back the next time I hit that place. There were at least 15 SPs in that box, I took 10. Any that I knew for a fact that I had I left for the next guy. These 10 all had that tiny sliver of doubt. Here's all ten and whether I actually needed it or not.

338 Jason Wong

Need it?

NO

I thought I might have this one already, but I figured worst case scenario I could try to get his autograph if it was a double. Jason takes TTM requests, right?

311 Gavin Floyd

Need it?

NO

I just saw this card with my own eyes in the binder and I still don't remember that I have it.

307 Hunter Pence

Need it?

YES

Good God, I love the look on Hunter's face on this card. This might be this set's Torii Hunter. I want to know what the heck he's looking at behind him.

325 Dioner Navarro

Need it?

YES

I love it when ex-Yankee prospects make good playing for other teams. You could put together a damn good collection of just ex-Yankee prospects who blossomed elsewhere. 

349 Aubrey Huff

Need it?

YES

I've completely lost track of where the heck Aubrey has been throughout his career. I think he's on the Giants now?

345 Carlos Delgado

Need it?

YES

Carlos might be done. That's weirding me out, man. I kind of took Glavine and Thomas retiring in stride, but they were rookies when I was in high school. I was pulling Delgados in college. I don't want everyone who was playing baseball while I was in college to be retired! Luckily I was in college for seven years...

301 Jonathan Sanchez

Need it?

YES

Dude threw a no hitter! On a team with Lincy and Cain and Unit and Zito this was the guy to thow the no-no. Ain't baseball cool?

347 Yovani Gallardo

Need it?

NO

This endeth the streak. Keep your eye on this dude, he might win 15 this year.

329 Carlos Gomez

Need it?

NO

I should have known better on this one. I completely forgot he was traded to the Brewers. Maybe I can ship Carlos and Yovani up to Thorzul when I Bip his ass for starting up memes and then trying to stop them again as if he had any control of such things once unleashed upon the interwebs.

Last one...

350 Jimmy Rollins

Need it?

NO

I knew I had the mini, but I wasn't sure about the regular sized version. No matter, this is one of the best looking cards in the set.

Well, I batted .500 and knocked out 10% of the '09 A&S SPs for less than a pack of the stuff. Not too shabby. More cheapos tomorrow.

Additions to the Topps206 SP Variation Gallery

Got one in a trade, the other in a blaster. No one's taken me up on my offer to link their blog if they let me swipe a SP image off one of their posts, so I may have to resort to ganking images off of eBay soon.

Ty Cobb SP

Gordon Beckham SP

Remember, T206 short prints have the last name of the player or 'rookie' on the back, SP minis are on different all-white card stock.

Variation gallery can be found here.

2009 Topps206 Short Print Varataion Checklist and Gallery

As a away to assist in identifying Short Print mini cards, here's a list of the Short Print variation cards in 2009 Topps206. As I obtain images of the cards I'll post them here for reference. The base size cards are easy to spot, check the back for one that looks like this:


The mini variations are stealth other than the white card stock and this will hopefully be a useful reference to any completist or player collector out there.

So far, if the image is on this post it means I have the card in hand. If any bloggers out there have any Short Print images they are willing to donate to the gallery, let me know and I'll post it along with a link to your blog.

Short print list lovingly stolen from Trader Crack.

Short Print Variations:

1 Ryan Howard
10 Andrew McCutchen
19 Mel Ott
23 Koji Uehara
28 Kenshin Kawakami
36 Jimmie Foxx
41 David Hernandez
44 Michael Bowden
49 Walter Johnson
57 Matt LaPorta
61 Derrek Holland
66 Ty Cobb
71 Dustin Pedroia
72 Rick Porcello
83 Rogers Hornsby
87 Ryan Perry
90 Alex Rodriguez
102 Hanley Ramirez
103 Andrew Bailey
107 Fernando Martinez
113 Tris Speaker
116 Chase Utley
120 Derek Jeter
129 Ichiro
130 Honus Wagner
137 Mark Teixeira
138 Elvis Andrus
142 Evan Longoria
143 Cy Young
154 Mickey Mantle
160 Thurman Munson
171 David Wright
174 Gordon Beckham
175 Manny Ramirez
177 Pee Wee Reese
181 David Price
207 Jackie Robinson
224 Roy Campanella
231 CC Sabathia
234 Grady Sizemore
237 Christy Mathewson
254 Johnny Mize
262 Tommy Hanson
268 Aaron Poreda
271 Lou Gehrig
274 Colby Rasmus
286 Tim Lincecum
287 Babe Ruth
299 Albert Pujols
300 George Sisler

Porcello and Perry courtesy Grand Cards.
Speaker, Pujols, Longoria and Andrus courtesy Project '62.

Topps206 Mini SPs

Here is a 2009 Topps206 mini card of David Wright.

Here also is a 2009 Topps mini card of David Wright.

One of them is a base mini, the other is a short printed mini card inserted 1:20 packs. The SP variations in the main set are distinguished by a different no-numbered back. Let's take a look at these mini backs, shall we?

Hrm. Same back. Both have numbers. The only discernible difference in the two is the card stock is slightly whiter than the other. If you look at it edge on, you'll see it's white all the way through instead of gray like the normal minis. Hell of a way to distinguish the short printed mini variations, Topps...

The SP variation turns out to the be the smiley portrait version. Unless you were eagle-eyed enough to catch the card stock difference or had the variations memorized, you're kind of out of luck with these things. So if you have a mini and you're not sure if it's an SP, take all your mini cards and look at them like this:

You might find a diamond in the rough.

Goodwin Threes - Short Prints?

I didn't know about the short prints in Goodwin Champions until I saw Stale Gum's DC box break and review. Well, I sort of knew about them on a base instinctual level since Upper Deck can't figure out how to properly do a retro set to save their license, But I didn't know the details.

HERE ARE THE DETAILS:

150 card base set. #1-150 (duh)

40 short prints #151-190 (ok, not too bad)

20 John Stockton short prints #191-210 (the fuuuuuu?)

42 Mini exclusive short prints #211-252 (Douglas Adams is apparently a subject)

EQUALS

252 card total master set.

At 5 cards a pack, 4 if you're poor and have to shoplift buy retail.

Oh, and Topps206, the retro set that originally defined retro sets returns soon.

Go at it, set collectors! I can't wait for the half-off Goodwin blasters next year.

Oh well, at least now that I know which ones they are, I can show off the short prints I have.

Kelly Shoppach SP

I haven't seen the actual checklist, but it looks like a lot of semistars made the short print and exclusive list. I can't wait to see a Jair Jurrjens Goodwin card in a case with a $4 price tag on it.

Wells & Santana Mini exclusive SP

See? More guys that only a team collector could love. Or someone with a mini card fetish. Like me.

Jacoby Ellsbury mini exclusive Gypsy Queen

Why the hell did Upper Deck screw up their Ad Back parallels with a black border? They need to hire a collector as a consultant to tell them not to do these things. Unless I decide in a fit of madness to collect the entire mini set (it could happen) this one might be going across the pond eventually.

2009 Topps Magic Short Prints

My poor XP box is very sick. It's very possible it caught another virus in its weakened condition but I'm not sure about that yet. It might just be old. It's been running pretty hard for over three years now and has accumulated a lot of junk on it. I'm doing some diagnostics and depending on what I find it might be time for a backup and wipe. As fun as that may be, I'd rather not do it right now with all the other stuff I need to get done. Thankfully my dual-boot Ubuntu / CentOS box is happy and thriving. I like Ubuntu a lot better so far but I need to start messing around the guts of CentOS and figuring out what makes it tick one of these days.

Oh yeah, cards. Sorry, I geeked out a little there. So um, basically what all this has to do with cards is that my scanner is currently installed on the XP box. I'm typing this post on the Ubuntu box. I've also got the XP box quarantined off the network until I make sure it's not contagious. What I'm trying to say is posts with scans are going to be a pain in the keister for me right now, and after messing about the Cisco lab configuring routers this afternoon and nursing a geriatric XP box back to health in the evening I'm not really in the mood to sneakernet all the images from one box to the other. I'm about done with computers for tonight I think. Why not just install the scanner onto the Ubuntu box, you well may ask. Well, the Linux box is sort of a test system for the time being that will very likely get wiped a few times in the coming months and I simply don't want to make any drastic changes to my setup quite yet. Besides, the scanner is also my printer and it is shared on the network to the other computers in my house. Moving it would create a whole mess of problems. VISTA problems. I ain't dealing with Vista problems this weekend. Hell naw.

So instead of the $5 contest answer (you people are lousy guessers by the way) I'm posting the Magic Short Print list. I know Beckett did it already, but it's formatted stupidly and the SP's are at the bottom of a huge list of autographs. It's like the base cards JUST DON'T MATTER ya know? So here it is again for my own amusement.

2 Brodie Croyle
6 DeMeco Ryans
18 Kenny Irons
21 Ben Obomanu
26 Robert Meachem
27 Isaiah Stanback
34 John Beck
35 Justin Forsett
36 Lavelle Hawkins
44 Tye Hill
46 Chris Simms
47 Chris Brown
52 Dave Thomas
55 Derrick Harvey
58 Fred Taylor
60 Lorenzo Booker
63 Sebastian Janikowski
66 Ernie Sims
75 Sean Jones
79 Leonard Pope
82 P.J. Daniels
86 Kevin Kolb
98 Yamon Figurs
105 Terry Bradshaw
111 Kolby Smith
125 Ahmad Bradshaw
130 Shawne Merriman
131 DeAngelo Williams
136 Greg Olsen
138 Antrel Rolle
154 Marlin Jackson
165 Deuce McAllister
172 Brad Smith
174 Brandon Jackson
176 Alvin Pearman
178 Matt Schaub
180 Ronald Curry
185 DaJuan Morgan
193 Julius Jones
195 Maurice Stovall
199 Vernon Gholston
206 Marc Bulger
207 Mark Bradley
208 Owen Schmitt
211 Allen Patrick
222 Reggie Williams
224 Derrick Williams
233 Kyle Orton
236 Brian Leonard
239 Lee Evans

Imagine in your mind the Terry Bradshaw and Ben Obomanu SP card images that would be decorating this post if they weren't currently trapped on my sick PC's hard drive. And make better guesses on my contest! You've got hints, people!

I've been waiting for this...

2009 Topps Magic Short Print List.

I don't care that you don't care, I care. Don't care that I care? See if I care.

Actually, I don't care much for 50 short prints in a 250 card set. Don't care for skip number short prints either.

2009 Goudey Short Print Checklist

I couldn't find this online anywhere so it's getting posted here. There are 100 short prints in three different subsets. Cards 201-220 are short printed base cards, 221-260 are Sports Royalty cards and 261-300 are the 1938 Heads Up subset. The 1935 4-in-1 cards are not short prints but an insert set. I haven't figured out all the various permutations of the mini cards and I doubt I ever will.

2009 Goudey Short Prints


201 Brooks Robinson
202 Carlton Fisk
203 Gaylord Perry
204 Jack Morris
205 Rollie Fingers
206 Ron Santo
207 Sparky Lyle
208 Nolan Ryan
209 Whitey Ford
210 Phil Niekro
211 Ryne Sandberg
212 Jim Palmer
213 Joe DiMaggio
214 Johnny Bench
215 Ted Williams
216 Robin Yount
217 Ozzie Smith
218 Reggie Jackson
219 Yogi Berra
220 Mike Schmidt

221 Cal Ripken Sports Royalty
222 Ozzie Smith Sports Royalty
223 Tony Gwynn Sports Royalty
224 Don Mattingly Sports Royalty
225 Steve Carlton Sports Royalty
226 Reggie Jackson Sports Royalty
227 Carl Yastrzemski Sports Royalty
228 Johnny Bench Sports Royalty
229 Mike Schmidt Sports Royalty
230 Nolan Ryan Sports Royalty
231 Ernie Banks Sports Royalty
232 Stan Musial Sports Royalty
233 Ryne Sandberg Sports Royalty
234 Bob Gibson Sports Royalty
235 Dennis Eckersley Sports Royalty
236 Felix Hernandez Sports Royalty
237 Jim Rice Sports Royalty
238 Chien Ming Wang Sports Royalty
239 Jonathan Papelbon Sports Royalty
240 Evan Longoria Sports Royalty
241 Cole Hamels Sports Royalty
242 Ken Griffey Jr. Sports Royalty
243 Tiger Woods Sports Royalty
244 BJ Upton Sports Royalty
245 Randy Johnson Sports Royalty
246 Guy LaFleur Sports Royalty
247 Nicklas Lidstrom Sports Royalty
248 Mike Bossy Sports Royalty
249 Bobby Orr Sports Royalty
250 Patrik Roy Sports Royalty
251 Adrian Peterson Sports Royalty
252 Juan Marichal Sports Royalty
253 Chipper Jones Sports Royalty
254 Rollie Fingers Sports Royalty
255 Al Kaline Sports Royalty
256 Paul Pierce Sports Royalty
257 Jerry West Sports Royalty
258 Larry Bird Sports Royalty
259 John Havlicek Sports Royalty
260 Michael Jordan Sports Royalty


261 Cal Ripken Heads Up
262 Reggie Jackson Heads Up
263 Nolan Ryan Heads Up
264 Yogi Berra Heads Up
265 Ernie Banks Heads Up
266 Dave Winfield Heads Up
267 Ozzie Smith Heads Up
268 Stan Musial Heads Up
269 Ichiro Suzuki Heads Up
270 Albert Pujols Heads Up
271 Alex Rodriguez Heads Up
272 Jose Reyes Heads Up
273 David Wright Heads Up
274 Johan Santana Heads Up
275 Josh Hamilton Heads Up
276 David Ortiz Heads Up
277 Josh Beckett Heads Up
278 Manny Ramierez Heads Up
279 Ryan Howard Heads Up
280 Chase Utley Heads Up
281 Jimmy Rollins Heads Up
282 Hanley Ramirez Heads Up
283 CC Sabathia Heads Up
284 Ryan Braun Heads Up
285 Evan Longoria Heads Up
286 Grady Sizemore Heads Up
287 Dustin Pedroia Heads Up
288 Mark Teixeira Heads Up
289 Ken Griffey Jr Heads Up
290 Lance Berkman Heads Up
291 Alfonso Soriano Heads Up
292 Derrek Lee Heads Up
293 Brandon Webb Heads Up
294 Derek Jeter Heads Up
295 Diasuke Matsuzaka Heads Up
296 Vladimir Guerrero Heads Up
297 Jim Thome Heads Up
298 Carlos Zambrano Heads Up
299 Justin Morneau Heads Up
300 Tim Lincecum Heads Up

Card images courtesy: Saints of the Cheap Seats, Card Junkie, Stats on the Back