WE GOT A WEIRD ONE TODAY. AS STATED PREVIOUSLY, I AM TRYING TO WORK MY WAY UP THE TCDB MARK LEMKE RANKINGS. I DIDN'T FIND A WHOLE LOT ON COMC THIS GO AROUND BECAUSE THE COMMON CARDS I CAN USUALLY FIND AT THE LCS FOR CHEAP (AND SOMETIMES HANGING OUT IN AN OLD NEGLECTED BOX OF JUNK) AND THE ACTUALLY RARE ONES CAN BE PRICEY ON COMC. I FOUND A SNEAKY GOOD ONE THAT NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THOUGH! CHECK THIS ODDBALL OUT
1995 DONRUSS MARK LEMKE
1995 IS A GREAT YEAR FOR BASEBALL CARDS, DESPITE THE STRIKE CAUSING MANUFACTURERS TO CUT WAAAAY BACK ON SETS EARLY IN THE YEAR. THE TOPPS DESIGN MAY NOT HAVE A LOT OF FANS AND THE FLEER DESIGN(S) HAVE BECOME A MEME, BUT THERE ARE A TON OF GREAT LOOKING SETS FROM THAT YEAR. UPPER DECK AND COLLECTOR'S CHOICE HAVE CLEAN LOOKING SETS. STADIUM CLUB AND ULTRA ARE VERY ELEGANT. LEAF, UPPER DECK SP AND PINNACLE GO HARD WITH THE FOIL STAMPING. FLAIR AND SELECT ARE TWO OF THE BEST LOOKING HORIZONTAL SETS EVER MADE. BOWMAN'S BEST, LEAF LIMITED, SKYBOX E-MOTION AND ZENITH ARE AMAZING EARLY HIGH-END SETS. MY PICK FOR THE BEST SET IS DONRUSS
THE DESIGN IS FANTASTIC, A FULL BLEED CARD WITH A SECOND IMAGE INSERTED INSIDE A HOME PLATE FRAME. THE BACK HAS ANOTHER LARGE PHOTO WITH A LOGO BACKGROUND. THERE'S A PILE OF COOL INSERTS THAT MOSTLY AREN'T IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND. I LOVE THE WAY IT LOOKS ALTHOUGH I ADMIT THE LACK OF FULL CAREER STATS WILL ANNOY PEOPLE AND THE NAME AND TEAM ON FOIL STAMPING IS A LITTLE HARD TO READ. THE FOIL STAMPING IS IMPORTANT FOR THIS ONE ACTUALLY, LET'S LOOK AT THE BACK
SEE THAT LITTLE BANNER AT THE TOP? 1ST 2,000 PRINTED? THAT'S SUPPOSED TO ONLY BE ON PRESS PROOF CARDS. BUT PRESS PROOFS HAVE GOLD FOIL ON THE FRONT AND A GIGANTIC PRESS PROOF STAMPED ON THE TOP. SO ONE OF TWO THINGS HAPPENED HERE: DONRUSS FORGOT TO PUT THE FOIL STAMPING ON SOME PRESS PROOF CARDS OR THEY ACCIDENTALLY PRINTED UP A BUNCH OF EXTRA CARDS WITH THE WRONG BACK. THE PRESS PROOF CARDS AREN'T SERIAL NUMBERED* SO IT'S NOT REALLY POSSIBLE TO FIGURE OUT WHICH HAPPENED HERE. I SPOTTED THIS IMMEDIATELY WHILE SCROLLING THROUGH THE LEMKE LISTINGS BECAUSE I ACTUALLY PULLED A FEW OF THESE CARDS FROM PACKS BACK IN 1995. I'D SHOW THEM OFF, BUT MY BOX OF DONRUSS/LEAF INSERTS HAS DECIDED TO HIDE FROM ME AND WILL LIKELY SHOW UP A COUPLE DAYS AFTER THIS POSTS. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW RARE THESE THINGS ARE BUT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE SEEN THEM AND I'VE SEEN THEM FOR SALE HERE AND THERE BUT I CAN'T SEEM TO FIND ANY SOLID INFORMATION ON WHICH CARDS HAVE THIS VARIATION. THE IRONY IS THAT I BOUGHT A NEW LEMKE CARD TO UP MY COUNT IN TCDB, BUT THE VARIATION IS NOT ACTUALLY LISTED ON THE SITE. IT'S STILL A COOL LEMMER CARD SO NO RAGRETS
*ALTHOUGH SERIAL NUMBERS DON'T COMPLETELY PREVENT SHENANIGANS, IT'S A LITTLE EASIER TO CATCH THAN THE ALTERNATIVE
I've bought 20 packs of retail Obak. From three different Targets. For some reason I appear to be the only person in Georgia who likes Obak so there's always a mostly full box awaiting me. In those 20 packs I have pulled this:
Yes, five Heywards. Including all four possible variations.
Like I said, either I'm lucky or they're loaded. Loaded with Heyward minis at least. I have yet to pull a short print, variation, parallel or autograph from a retail pack. Of course I DON'T FREAKING CARE I GOTS HEYWARDZ!!!1
Stats on the Back sent me this card quite a while ago. I need to send something his way, but I'm having problems finding the stuff he needs. I wanted to show off this card because in 1982, the Fleer proofreaders were all hitting the weed rather heavily and there were errors galore. Yeah, I know, there were errors all over the 1981 set too, but that year they were on coke to get the set out as quickly as possible. Here's the card:
There are three different versions of this card: all with back variations.
1) The name is misspelled All Hrabosky on the back and poor All is shrunk to 5' 1"
2) The name is correct, but Al is still short
3) everything is correct!
The All version is very scarce, and the short version is harder to get than the correct version.
Which one is it???
You all can call me Al. There's still a chance for shorty Al...
Yes! version two! Here's the whole back for the stats:
My goodness All played for a long time didn't he? I mean Al.
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.
The day after declaring his intention to collect every single Ken Griffey Jr. card from his second go-around with the Mariners (something I had planned to do with Ken when he was seemingly going to sign with the Braves), He ends up getting one of the scarcest Griffey releases in Thorzul's A Piece of History group break. What are the odds?
I do know the odds of getting this:
If you're keeping track, that's three lucky bastiges, Derek, Matt and me. I pulled this Babe Ruth Chase '61 Variation out of a retail pack last week. I was killing time on my lunch break and went to Wally world for a couple packs of Heritage and some popcorn shrimp when the Babe made his appearance. When I saw what I had pulled I nearly pyew- wait, no. I was very excited by my good fortune. I'm not inspiring Thorzul any more.
I consider this card to be a variation and not a gimmick. Basically because Topps put the odds on the pack. the stupid stealth color variation cards that no one would ever be able to pick out in a million years without having a doctorate in advanced cardology, those mickeyfickeys are gimmicks. I love variations, gimmicks not so much. This is a pretty sweet looking card even though the design is as boring as a box of rocks. The Babe tends to bring up everything around him to his level. The only complaint I have about the card is the fact that the stats on the back are near microscopic. That's pretty nitpicky though, I'll just have to get the Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass out when I look at the card and be happy about it. So what's the chance of pulling this beast?.
There are three of the Chase '61 variations that fall at 1:435 retail packs. I got extra lucky and got Ruth over Maris and the overdone Mantle versions. Sure this card is tough, but how tough is it compared to any of the other cards in the set? there's a lot of short prints out there, and there's only three of these suckers. Let's check out the approximate odds for pulling any single card from the set.
Base cards: You get about 7 in a pack and there are 425 of them. 425 divided by 7 gives you a ratio of about 1:60 packs to pull any single base card.
Short prints: these are one in every three packs. Since there are 75 of them, you're looking at 1:225 packs to snag that one short print you need to complete your set.
Dice back variations: I kinda want to collect this set, but I'm so far behind in trading that I don't dare go begging for them. Seriously, I suck right now. Sorry to anyone waiting on cards from me. There are 18 of those cards and at 1:72 packs you're looking at odds of 1:1296 to pull that Pujols for your collection.
Chase '61 variation: Three cards, 1:435 odds. are these the hardest to pull? Do the path. 3x435 = 1:1305 packs. So really, these are about as tough as the dice backs. Even so, pulling the Ruth out of retail makes me the king lucky bastige for the week.
Two more lucky bastiges tonight:
Tommy Hanson for getting taken off the hook for a loss by two-out homers from Troy Glaus and the J-Hey kid with two outs in the ninth.
Billy Wagner for getting the win courtesy an improbable walk-off homer by Mr Slump Nate McLouth.
Actually all Braves fans are lucky bastiges tonight!
Editor's note: You Know Who is in a BAD MOOD again. There isn't as much cursing this time though.
I'm not buying any 2010 Topps Blasters because I'm still effing pissed at them for jerking us over so blatantly last year with the variation blaster bait and switch. Not telling us about the variations at all in series one was bad enough. But then cutting it back to two packs per blaster once we figured out their scam and got hooked is unforgivable to me. Screw you Topps, and your pretty, pretty variation cards. I finally got a couple of samples in the mail last week so I can at least show off what I will never buy.
In every Topps blaster there are ten eight card packs plus a patch card. Two of those packs are filled with these variation cards instead of base cards. Basically, in order to gimmick up their blasters like they've gimmicked up the set, they've screwed their customers again by making the blasters completely useless for set collectors. Between the inserts and the variations you're looking at maybe 52-56 base cards per blaster for $20. You can get that many with two racks for $10. At this point I wish Topps would just put out a $20 pack with just inserts inside and cut out the base cards altogether. Cut to the chase and cut down the clutter. I'm ranting again, aren't I? Well, screw it, I'm gonna rant away. My broke ass was all ready to sneak out $20 from the unemployment check to buy a Series Two Wal-Mart Black blaster last year and Topps bent me over and had their way with me. This is why I'm practically giving away the base cards while I work on the Yo Momma set. Topps has taught me that base cards are meaningless. Thanks, Topps for making me even more cynical. I appreciate it.
Each soulless Mega Mart Box Store gets their own variation type. Both Megalithic Corporate Entities flipped a coin and Target got to pick the Retro variation, while Wal-Mart got the Black variation. You know what the mom & pop hobby stores got? SHAFTED. No special inserts and no new Upper Deck to sell to try to keep their small business afloat. At least we're all winners now.
Rob M. sent me the Target card in a trade and The Collective Troll provided a Wal-Mart sample before he got cardjacked. Here are those cards for your viewing pleasure.
Target Retro Variation:
Here's the Hudson I got from Rob. Don't worry Rob, I've got your packages ready and I will hopefully get to the post office tomorrow if no more disasters strike. These cards are on retro cardboard stock, sort of. the backs are of the gray cardboard variety, but the front is actually fairly glossy with foil stamping. They use the old school Topps logo though, with is nice. I'm not looking forward to the new, hideous logo in series 2.
Here's the back in all it's grayboard glory. This is a good lesson in why Topps didn't use full color and teensy tiny print on the backs of their cards from the '80s.It's still pretty fun though. Too bad it would take about 30 blasters with almost perfect collation to build one set.
Wal-Mart Black Variation
This was my favorite of the two designs last year. I'm not so sure this year though. Last year there was a hint of a background on the card, now Tommy is getting swallowed by the void. Maybe it's just this card. The player still pops out and the splash of color looks very nice indeed.
As far as I can tell the backs are exactly the same. That's cool, because the backs are fairly well done this year.
So in review: Graaaar snarl grumble bluh.
If any one needs Topps base cards send me a link to your wantlist.
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.
I'm a new collector, just started a few months ago. I bought a pack of the U&H's at Fred Meyer and one of the upside down Jay Bruce Rookie Cards (UH100) was in the pack. How do you know what the value is on one of these?
tl;dr version for anyone wou doesn't wan the Econ 101 lesson: About 30 bucks give or take a Hamilton or two most likely. Read on if you want to know how I came up with this number.
The first place I go to check is here. Good 'ol eBay. The best place to find out the value of something is to see what other people are actually paying for it. Do a search for the card and see what the prices are on the cards. Even better is to check the completed auction listings to see what the final auction price were for the cards. Here's an example of completed listings for "Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie Card". You have to have an eBay account to see these listings but if you do, you'll see that a Junior rookie sold anywhere from $50 for an Upper Deck rookie to sixteen cents for a Fleer rookie. In this case we have a slight problem, because I couldn't find a single Jay Bruce inverted error card for sale.
So now what do we do? There were two other inverted short print variations in the set, of Kosuke Fukudome and Evan Longoria. I couldn't find a Fukudome, but I did find a Longoria with a buy it now price of $60. This is a good baseline for the value of a short print variation card but still isn't exactly the same. Bruce and Longoria aren't the same player and have different collecting bases. Ok, eBay can't help, so let's try some other card selling sites. A Google shopping search also came up empty. Sportlots also had no Bruce variation offered for sale. Finally Naxcom/Sportsbuy gives us a result. If you look under the #21 best selling item on that page, you'll see a sale price of $40 or best offer for the Bruce variation. Unfortunately, if you click on the auction, it is no longer listed. So there's a start, the Bruce that you have at one time was being offered for $40, and a similar variation of a different player is on sale for $60. So now what? Where do we go from here?
Check a price guide like Tuff Stuff or, ahem, Beckett.
(brief pause to let the howling subside)
Price guides are just that. A guide to the approximate value of a collectible. The actual value is what someone will actually pay you for the card. A friend of mine back in my college days one told me that my entire card collection was worthless because I'd never ever actually sell any of the cards. I was probably showing off the prices of them in my Beckett at the time. Ultimately, he was right, I've sold off very few cards and the ones I was bragging about in the early '90s sure as hell don't have the same number in the price guide they used to have. So remember it's a guide, not an absolute value. You can see real life examples of this in this post.
So, back to Bruce. I hit the Wally World magazine rack this morning and checked the value of your Bruce in the most recent Beckett Baseball, the one with Griffey on the cover. According to the guise the price ranges from LO $20, to HI $50 for the Bruce. Now, there's a lot of confusion about what LO and HI means. Some say HI is the price you would pay at a shop and LO is the price you would get if you sold the card to a shop. Others see it as the difference between a mint copy and a not-so-mint copy. Far too many see the HI price as an Edict from The Lord on the exact value of the card that must be upheld at all costs lest you fall into Sin. These ideas are all incorrect.
Basically what those numbers mean is that is the approximate price people were willing to pay for that card a month or two ago. I think at one time there was purportedly some sort of complicated formula where Beckett polled hobby shops and auctions and the like and put the prices into a computer and after some gyrating and billowing smoke, the final numbers would pop out. I don't know exactly how they do it today, but the fact of the matter is that Beckett is trusted by enough collectors to make whatever numbers end up printed on that page actually mean something in the hobby. If you were to try to sell or buy the card it is entirely reasonable that the price would fall into that $20-$50 range.
However, there are still a lot of economic factors to consider. The set has been out for 6 months so a lot of the people who desperately wanted that card have already gotten it and moved on to other pursuits. Jay Bruce is playing well right now, so collectors might be more interested in the card. The economy is a wreck so many people who could at one time blow a lot of dough on a card like thins might be putting that money towards trying to pay the mortgage. There are very few of the cards actually for sale, so if there are two collectors out there who desperately want the card a single auction listing might end up causing a bidding war. This is all just basic economics, supply and demand. Since that magazine was printed at least a month ago, economic conditions may have changed so you can't use that price as an absolute value, but it is a good starting point.
Say you want to sell the card on eBay. The guide can help you decide how to sell it. If you had no idea what it was worth, just that it was rare, and listed it at $1000, you'd likely get laughed off the internet and be out of a large listing fee when no one bought the card. Knowing the price guide range, you could list it at a $50 buy it now which is more reasonable. It could be snapped up immediately, get a lowball best offer bid or be ignored completely at that price. If you went the pure auction route and opened the bidding at 99 cents you'd have a shot at selling it for more than expected while risking that it will go for less than you wanted. The card could go for the 99 cent opening bid (it's doubtful it would go without any bids at all) or a sniper war could erupt and it could sell for $100 or more. It all depends on the luck of the draw and who is willing to bid on the card. If one guy bids $100 to open up the bids and he is the only one to bid on the card, then the card may be worth $100 to him, but it's selling for 99 cents because no one else valued it at all. That's why seeing the value as a flexible price range is so important. If 100 Bruce variations were auctioned in the space of a month and the average price of the sales was $30, there are still going to be outliers like the $100 bidding war and the 99 cent bargain. That doesn't mean that the card is worth $30, or $100, or 99 cents. It means that it's worth about thirty bucks give or take a few bucks up or down depending on who is buying at that particular moment.
So the value on that card is most likely somewhere in between 20 and 50 bucks but there's no guarantee you can sell it for that price. At any rate, it's a nice pull of a good player (even though the variation is quite stupid in my opinion) and you picked it up in a retail pack from Fred Meyer. Good luck with the collecting, I hope this answered your question.
I've been out of the card loop for a couple of weeks and '09 Heritage goes all crazy on me. Forget the Mayo inserts that I'm still coming to terms with, what is up with seven super short print variations? Seven?? Seriously???
Eh. You know what? No rant today. If Topps wants to make it completely impossible for anyone to build a master set of Heritage other than maybe all those guys who got the million dollar bailout bonuses, then more power to 'em. I like the base cards just fine, thanks. At any rate, here's the 2009 variation list with commentary in lieu of images. I first heard about these things from Ballcard Mania and swiped the list from The Heritage King, so many hat tips to those gentleman as well as anyone else out there posted this a week ago when it was actual news.
#58 Conor Jackson with Rays logo
Ok, I can make a justification for every one of these cards' existence on the planet except for this one. The dude was born in Texas, Went to college in California and was drafted by and plays for Arizona. What the heck does he have to do with Tampa? This card makes no sense at all.
#70 Thom Glavine
Yeah, I know, Lew/Lou. I wasn't happy about Jon Smoltz last year and I'm not happy now. Lew tricked a Topps photographer 50 years ago and Braves fans have to pay for it now. To the person at Topps who thought up these lousy super short prints and ruined variations for this collector forever, go perform a highly improbable biological function upon yourself.
#102 Adrian Gonzalez with Rangers logo
Adrian actually made his big league debut for the Rangers in 2004, so I'm cool with this. Gonzalez fans can find an affordable Heritage variation in the 2003 Heritage set. He's in a Marlins uniform on one of the 'night' variation cards.
#346 Fred Lewis with Randy Winn photos #407 Randy Winn with Fred Lewis photos
They're both on the same team, Lewis is basically a younger version of Wynn and Topps has had plenty of photo switcheroos in their history. So, fine, whatever. If they (or any of these for that matter) were inserted like normal SP's just like every other variation card in every Heritage set from 2002-2007 I'd be getting really exited over them.
#445 John Smoltz with Red Sox uniform
(This summary canceled due to bitterness)
#488 Hanley Ramirez AS pictured in Red Sox uniform
Hanley had a cup of coffee with Boston before getting flipped to the Marlins in a package for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell. Makes more sense than Conor Jackson of the Rays.
Apparently all of the Supadupa shorties are found with the light backs, even the two in the short printed 'high' series. Cards 426-500 are short printed right? I haven't missed the boat on that too have I? No matter, because I have completed both the short printed cards and the super short printed cards for my collection. No, I don't have any of them in hand per se, but I did gank the images of every last one of them off of eBay. Most of them are pretty good quality too, less than half have that annoying little eBay image bug on the bottom corner. What can I say, collectors collect no matter the circumstances.
Ok, since this is old news here's a bonus pack of Heritage for you all. This is one of the last five packs in the store that I bought 3 weeks ago at the hobby shop because they didn't have a whole box to sell me. Still got two left to post!
31 Raul Ibanez
Good player, I'm not sure why Philly signed him over Burrell though. I like that they airbrushed the old-skool Phillie Whiz Kids uniform onto Raul. I've noticed that many of these cards have the same random splotchy marks on them that the 2006 Bowman Heritage set had. Anyone else seen that?
Here's the back of Raul's card. The 'He's MOIDER!" toon gave me a big chuckle, so I decided to scan it as well.
251 Manny Ramirez
Thank goodness that A-Rod is busy being a complete moron this offseason and is distracting the news media from Manny drama. I like Manny. Manny is a heluva player. But I don't need to hear about how Manny's a mental case every waking moment.
15 Dustin Pedroia
Funniest commercial in years. I've seen this thing over 9000 times and I still laugh every time.
88 Russell Martin
Awesome catcher. Not as good as Mac.
NAP6 Tim Lincecum
The Lincecum 2K9 commercial is pretty good too, but it loses points for busting on Dance Hall Days and the mental image of the Big Unit staring at Timmy's Wang Chung. Sorry Bailey, I can't trade this to you until I get a double, which might be a while.
440 Elijah Dukes SP
Elijah Dukes has made his way onto my top 10 awesome baseball names list. I just like saying it. Eliiiijah DUkes. I hope he manages to find some PT in that Nationals outfield.
Here's the 'dark' SP back for comparison. I'm not sure if I posted one of these yet. I like the orange better than the mustard yellow on the base cards, but the light backs are much easier to read. I still need to go through my original '60 cards and find which cartoons Topps borrowed from the original set.
376 James Shields
Now, would it look stupid if there was a Padres logo on this card? Well would it? That's how stupid the Conor Jackson card looks, Topps. Just lettin' ya know, guys. James is the all time Tampa leader in World Series victories.
102 A r a G n a e
The pink, black and white cards are kind of tough to read. I like' em anyway. Has anyone done a statistical ananysis of the color combinations on these cards? Nate Silver needs to get working on that. This card sadly has the boring Padres logo on it instead of the wild and wacky Rangers logo. Can you imagine a Padres fan pulling that card? It would likely scare them to death. Adrian is half their offense!
An SP, insert and a few stars makes for a pretty dang good pack. Better than that Jumbo pack I got. I'm not happy about that. But that will have to wait for another time...
I picked up a couple of blasters this week, one Goudey, one A&G. Both were weird in their own special way. One frightening, one just odd. I'll add two more data points onto the Dinged Corners Front Loaded Blaster Theory and post some quick recaps with oddities here.
2008 Allen & Ginter blaster:
Base cards - 36/300 Short Prints 4/50 State cards - 4/50 Minis - 6 Mini A&G - 4 (including Schmidt SP) World Leaders - 1 (The Gambia)
Nothing too special about this box. I got ten cards I needed for the set, I needed all four state cards pulled (yaaay) and I already had all four short prints (boooo). The weirdness came in with the mini cards. Three packs had two minis each in them. Nothing overly special about the mini cards, I just got three bonus minis and beat the odds on pulling A&G backed cards. Since I was gypped out of a mini card in my last box it's just evening things out a bit. I also learned that Gambia it known as THE Gambia, as opposed to a bootleg knockoff Gambia. Accept no substitutes...
2008 Goudey Blaster:
Base cards - 54 Short print base - 1 (Cal Ripken Jr.) President SP - 1 (George Washington) '36 Goudey SP - 1 (Matt Holliday) Sport Royalty SP - (Derek Jeter black back, Tony Gwynn green back) Mini red - 2 (Tom Seaver, Albert Pujols) Mini blue - 1 (Clayton Kershaw) Yankee Stadium Tedium - 2 (Maas & Leyritz, blech)
Another fairly pedestian box with the exception of pulling both Sports Royalty cards in the same pack. That was a nice feeling, as I not only got an extra SP, but they were both real live baseball players to boot. When I looked at them though, I noticed something odd. The back of the Gwynn card was in green ink instead of black and the card stock was darker than the Jeter card. I thought "that's odd" moved on to the next pack and then noticed they were all like that.
Half of each pack in the box was printed on slightly darker card stock than the rest. And I mean very sightly, but just enough to be noticeable. The first 4 cards the pack were light, the rest with the exception of a couple of short prints were dark. This is how red and green back variations were inserted into last year's packs. I thought, oh hell naw, not another goofy parallel. However, I checked my other Goudeys and the only dark back cards I found were a couple of short prints, such as this '36 card of Prince:
I don't know if I managed to catch a box that was packed up right when UD changed the roll of cardboard on the printing press or what, but the thought of another stupid parallel makes me queasy. Topps actually did have a light/dark back variation in their '56 Heritage set but they were mimicing the original set and were nice enough to advertise the fact. The silver lining in all this is if there does happen to be a variation, it's hard enough to tell between the two so that you can just ignore it.
Ok, my existential freakout is over. May as well talk about these new abominations to the lord super short print variations a bit. The first I've heard of them was last night, so I don't know much of anything about the insert ratios really, other than they're tougher than normal. I haven't seen much online about them, Beckett has a "Variations Uncovered" article on their site but it's about racing cards. Are they one a case? 20 cases? Harder than that? Specifically given to a few choice dealers to run the demand up? Who knows. Caveat Emptor.
First of all let's look at the Santana variation. Not much to say really, one has him in his Twins uni, the other has a Mets logo and a photochopped Mets uni. Any idiot can do that. This card is not interesting so let's move on.
The Smoltz variation. First of all, I want to make it clear to everyone that no matter what the eBay listings say, this card is not an error. It is completely impossible to accidentally convince John Smoltz to take photo where he is posing as a lefty, misspell his name as Jon on the front and back and happen to give him the exact same card number as a card of Lew Burdette that also has his name misspelled and shows him posing with the wrong pitching arm. An accident like that is not possible. This is a variation. This was done on purpose. There were meetings held discussing the creation of this card, people were delegated certain tasks in order to make sure the card was created, and a conscious decision was make by a real live person to make it a scarce short print for the express purpose of trying to drum up interest in the product in the hopes of boosting sales. There was absolutely no mistake made when creating this card and it was most likely approved by many different people in Topps' chain of command, just like they signed off on the Alay Soler card, the Bush/Mantle/Jeter card, the Jacoby Ellsbury Card, the Poley Walnuts card, the Lefty Joba card, the Astros Joba card, the Giuliani Red Sox card and the Kazuo Uzuki card. Anyone trying to convince you that it is an error is trying to get your money. Anyone.
Ok now down to the card itself. It's actually a pretty clever card and a nice homage to the original set. Lew was a little bit of a crackpot and liked to play jokes on the Topps photographers by posing as a lefty and giving them the wrong name. Well, he fooled them a few times, and his 1958 card has "Lou" on the front and "Lew" on the back. This card is a little more subtle, but it's a good facsimile. Smoltzie doesn't have the classic windup pose, but he has the glove on the right hand. The name is spelled Jon on the front and back and it even has the same #440 as Lew's original card. Real good By Topps on getting the details right. There is a precedent for this kind of thing, in 2006, Topps created a reverse negative variation of the Andruw Jones card with the same #25 as the orignal Hank Aaron from the '57 set. It was a plain ol' short print though, which means people could actually pull them.
Smoltz is one of those high numbered non-short prints in the '08 edition. I was wondering why they didn't just make everything 426 and up an SP, so I guess this is why. They wanted to match up Smoltz and the Burdette card. Now I'm wondering what the relationship between the other non-SP high cards are. Here's the list of the other four and their 1959 counterparts:
Number 439: 1959 - Brooks Robinson, 2008 - Daniel Cabrera
An Orioles connection. Our friend Kevin (who I JUST realized was not in the blogroll, tell me about these things, people!) would have something to say about comparing Cabrera to the immortal Brooks though.
Number 460: 1959 - Bob Friend, 2008 - Tom Gorzelanny
A couple of Pirates pitchers. Friend had a career year in '58, but crashed to earth in '59 with an 8-19 record. Not sure how much Gorzelanny wants to be associated with that, but 8-19 could possibly lead the staff this year for the Buccos.
Number 476: 1959 - Cleveland Indians Team, 2008 - Cleveland Indians Team
Makes perfect sense. Now I'm wondering if all the team cards correspond to their '59 counterparts. That will have to wait for later.
Number 478: 1959 - Roberto Clemente, 2008 - Jason Bay
Wow, Topps. Don't put any pressure on the kid, Ok?
So basically a lot of thought went into this set and Topss has done a reasonably good job with it. That's why the gimmickization of the Jon/Lou card disappoints me so badly. The set doesn't NEED a gimmick, it just needs a little extra thought and care put into it. The same number of cards as in the '59 set. Short prints corresponding to the original high series, with the black backs. No unnecessary black back parallels. That kind of stuff. Sets like these don't need a high priced chase card. It may push a few boxes in the short term, but when people start buying them specifically to get the one chase card what happens when they don't get it? What happens to the kid who buys a bunch of Topps looking for a reverse negative Joba and he doesn't get it? What happens to the kid who just wants a Poley Walnuts card and they never get it? How many get frustrated and don't come back? Not just kids either, I've seen many long time collectors get fed up and quit because it's just not worth it anymore.
I'm not against chase cards by any means. There's lots of good insert sets out there, Autos and relics are always welcome, press plates and one of ones are neat quests and the crazy stuff like cut autos and certified champion dog hair and what not is fun to watch from afar. I'm just sick of the artificially scarce base card gimmicks that are not necessary and have grown tiresome. The Alex Gordon may or may not have been legit, but all the rest of the special cards, photoshops, "pulled from production" cards and just plain unannounced curve balls like this are really getting tedious. Save the chase card crap for the high roller boxes and leave our building sets alone.
Complete list on Beckett, along with the 110 black back cards. Too tired tonight to do my normal copypasta for future reference, maybe sometime this weekend.
Ok, found a little more info on the interwebs for Heritage, here's the scoop.
Black Back parallels are 1 per pack, the last one in the pack.
SP's and inserts are usually the second to the last in the pack.
There is supposed to be a hit in every box, but there have been several complaints of that not actually happening.
This guy here pulled an all-nighter for a case break to try to cobble together an SP list. Using his data I came up with a "not quite right but possible for most of them" SP list that I'll post below. This is not even remotely the actual confirmed SP list but I want it to refer to when I bust my box. I'll post a real list once one becomes available.
There's a dude in Amsterdam who is a big '59 Topps fan who ordered a case. He's going to put the case break on YouTube, but in the meantime he has a video preview of the original 1959 cards.
I'm off to pick up my box now, today is going to be real busy so I probably won't have my first long drawn out box break post for you till late this evening. I'm crossing my fingers for a buy back chiptopper...
Ok, here's the not quite right but close enough SP list. There are 85 cards in the list and only 75 SPs so some of them are going to be wrong. Use only as a guide and not as an actual SP list.
40 Tim Hudson 129 Luke Hochevar 155 Johnny Damon 175 Jeff Weaver 176 Preston Wilson 196 Jose Valverde 210 J.J. Putz 211 Mike Sweeney 231 Kevin Gregg 285 Chad Billingsley 315 Jacque Jones 322 Richie Sexson 360 Maggio Ordonez 381 Casey Blake 409 Jon Lester 426 Kyle Lohse 427 Doug Davis 428 Pitt Hill Aces 429 Miguel Batista 430 Chien-Ming Wang 431 Jeff Salazar 432 Yadier Molina 433 Adam Wainwright 434 Scott Kazmir 435 Adam Dunn 436 Ryan Freel 437 Jhonny Peralta 438 Kazuo Matsui 441 Emil Brown 442 Gary Sheffield 443 Jake Peavy 444 Scott Rolen 445 Kason Gabbard 446 Aaron Hill 447 Felipe Lopez 448 Dan Uggla 449 Willy Taveras 450 Chipper Jones 451 Josh Anderson 452 Melvin's Outfield Trio 453 Braden Looper 454 Brandon Inge 455 Brian Giles 456 Corey Patterson 457 Los Angeles Dodgers 458 Sean Casey 459 Pedro Feliz 461 Chone Figgins 462 Kyle Kendrick 463 Tony Pena 464 Marcus Giles 465 Augie Ojeda 466 Micah Owings 467 Ryan Theriot 468 Shawn Green 469 Frank Thomas 470 Lenny Dinardo 471 Jose Bautista 472 Manny Corpas 473 Kevin Millwood 474 Kevin Youkilis 475 Jose Contreras 477 Julio Lugo 479 Tony LaRussa - All Star 480 Jim Leyland - All Star 481 Derrek Lee - All Star 482 Justin Morneau - All Star 483 Orlando Hudson - All Star 484 Brian Roberts - All Star 485 Miguel Cabrera - All Star 486 Mike Lowell - All Star 487 J.J. Hardy - All Star 488 Carlos Guillen - All Star 489 Ken Griffey Jr. - All Star 490 Vladimir Guerrero - All Star 491 Alfonso Soriano - All Star 492 Ichiro - All Star 493 Matt Holiday - All Star 494 Magglio Ordonez - All Star 495 Brian McCann - All Star 496 Victor Martinez - All Star 497 Brad Penny - All Star 498 Josh Beckett - All Star 499 Cole Hamels - All Star 500 Justin Verlander - All Star
Ok, I did some digging around last night and I think I've figured out what the deal is with the "Black" variation cards in 2008 Heritage.
The good news: I found a scan of the back and they look like the original '59 high series cards. They have black and red ink on the back instead of green and red. The ones I saw were also on lighter stock, again just like the '59s. Good job getting the details right on this one.
The bad news: They are not high series SP cards. The card numbering is all over the map and I've seen a couple of examples where there is a green and black back for a card. This is definitely a stealth variation just like the 2005 heritage white/gray hobby only cards. From what I've seen among the rumors and innuendo (still no hard facts anywhere on this stuff, even the message boards are devoid of hard information) there are 110 cards with the variation and they are seeded 1 per hobby pack. Yeah, I know. Who needs another lousy parallel in a product that is supposed to be designed for set builders?? My guess is that this is a hobby only thing, so if you absolutely can't stomach it, then wait for the retail blasters and go to town.
Topps gets a +1 for getting the historical detail right, but loses it again by making a parallel. I'm not going to specifically collect the black back set (you're looking at a minimum of 5 boxes to complete it) but I won't put them in the shredder either. I'll treat them like regular cards and if my set has a couple black backs, so be it. This kind of thing infuriates a few of you out there, so I thought I'd better warn you since this stuff hits the stores today.
On a happier note, while rooting around for Heritage tidbits like a pig rooting through slop, I found this little beauty. Spahnie cut auto. Man, I'd like that card. I already have Spahn's sig on a ball, but that's still nice. He's not in the pre-sell checklist either so there might be more surprises from Topps in this thing. They should have held back a couple of candidate autos to sneak in.
Last week I gave you a steath Braves representative for Card of the Week, this week I'm giving you a double barrel of Bravos right in the face. We'll start off with THE Brave. Face of the Franchise, so to speak. Mr. Larry Wayne Jones.
It's actually pretty surprising it took this long for Chipper to become the card of the week. I could switch the format of this blog to "All Chipper, All The Time" and still be able to post at my current rate for 3-4 years. I got a lot of Chipper cards. Nothing fancy enough to compete with the Supercollectors out there, but what I lack in patches, 1 of 1s and autos, I make up for in sheer volume. This here is my newest Chipper card, do you know what it is? If you said yet another one of those Topps retro cards, then you are correct, sir. This week's Card of the Week is actually last week's card of the week, for Topps' Trading Card History giveaway at Hobby shops. For those of you who have a hobby shop close by that's actually a good hobby shop and doesn't charge their customers for HTA promos or sell them all on eBay, this is the card you could get for free with a purchase of a Topps pack last week. If you didn't get one, just ask the good hobby shop owner about it and maybe they'll be nice and let you have it anyway. If not, there's always the ones on eBay.
So now we know what it is, but what is it? Well it's Chipper on a very simply designed card with a very dark background. Flip the card over and we see Trading Card History TCH31 T-207 and a write up on Chipper's career. OK, so if Topps can be trusted, we can assume that this is copying the T-207 design. So what's that? A tobacco card like T-205 or T-206? That is correct! This is a set put out in 1912 that is the same size as the T-205 and T-206 sets but is generally a little scarcer that the other two. The set is known as the Brown Backs due to the distinctive background. The backs of the cards are very simple, they have the player name up top, a bio of the player taking up two thirds of the card in the middle and an advertisement for a tobacco brand at the bottom. An ad for Recruit Little Cigars is the most common, but five other brands are known. The set is not as popular as the T-206 and T-205 sets due to a weak player selection and a somewhat drab look to the cards, but it's still considered one of the "big three" Tobacco sets of the era. It's also a gold mine for Team collectors as there are a lot of obscure players with few or no other cards from the period. Here's what an original T-207 card looks like:
This here is Irving Lewis, who supposedly played for the Boston Braves (or the Rustlers, as they were known in 1911). Collectors familiar with the set just did a double take. Irving's card is one of three insanely rare cards out of the set, the other two being Ward Miller of the Cubs and Louis Lowdermilk of the Cardinals. The scarcity might be a reflection of their careers. Miller didn't play in 1911, but came back in 1912 to play a few years including a very good stint in the Federal League. Lou Loudermilk pitched only 20 games in the majors and poor Irving may have never made it at all. I can't find even the slightest information about his career anywhere online on in any of my books. The only matches for "Irving Lewis" in an online search bring up an author, a philosopher and some guy named Scooter. The cards may have been pulled early in the run or simply not replaced after a printing plate broke since they were such fringe players. Loudermilk is easily the scarcest and by far the most valuable card from the set, but Irving trumps him by having a variation as seen in this article from the Spring '84 edition of the Baseball-Hobby card report:
Irving's card (already hard to find) can be found with a Braves logo on the sleeve and without. Since the team was known as the Rustlers in 1911 before changing their name back to the Braves in 1912, the logo variation was probably printed later to reflect the change. Why the change was made on a player that was extremely short printed and never played a game in the majors, I couldn't say. Before you ask how the heck I managed to get one of the rarest baseball cards in existence, the truth is I got it out of an early 80's Baseball Card Collector kit. Possibly the same kit where I got the magazine I scanned that article from. Here's the back of the card:
Simple and to the point. A classic example of early 80's reprint sets. Cards like this is where I first learned about and became fascinated by the early tobacco and bubblegum baseball cards. How could you not be fascinated by this boring little card where the original is somehow worth 700 dollars? (Nowadays you're looking at more like three to four thousand) Plus since Irving never quite made it to the Show, his T-207 cards and subsequent reprints are the only cards of him at all. I'm glad Topps chose Chipper in a T-207 design to kick off their card giveaway program because it allows me to highlight and correct the most glaring problem with their otherwise excellent Trading card History set. Here's a scan of the back:
There's a whole lot on there about Chipper, but nothing at all about what the heck a T-207 could be. The "Brown Background" label isn't even mentioned. It's really not so much a Trading Card History set, but a Trading Card Design set, which is a shame. There's a lot of interesting information out there on these old sets, more than enough to fit on the back of a card. I'm collecting this set this year and I've decided to show off my collection by posting each of them throughout the season and helping Topps out by filling in on the History part. Topps couldn't link to an awesome T-207 gallery of the original set on the back of their card, but they could point out that one of the best cards in the set is one of White Sox third baseman Buck Weaver of Eight Men Out fame. These old style cards are much more fun to pull when you actually know about the design used on the card.
If I would have realized today's date was exponential, I would have found a clever math-related card to post, but I think you'll enjoy this one all the same. All of you out there should be familiar with BillRipken.com. If you aren't, then you need to click on that link NOW. You will learn many things, grasshopper. Once you're up to speed you can fully appreciate this post.
One of the best parts of that site is their gallery of 'adult' cards. The trading cards with various naughty things on them. Now obviously when you see these cards as a collector, your first reaction is ZOMG I WANT THOSE GIMME GIMME GIMME. That was basically my reaction, although I already have a good chunk of them. The Frank Thomas birds, Rusty Kuntz, Dick Pole, those I've had for a while. Some are more difficult to find such as the Leon Washington auto and the one-of-one FU patch. And where the heck can you find a Dread Zeppelin card nowadays, wiener or no wiener? One of the cards that I knew I had, but was too lazy to find, was the Paul Gibson "Alan Trammell adjusting his junk" card.
It's by no means a rare card, and I can still buy '89 Score packs at the local dealer three for a buck, but I still wanted it. I'm mildly fascinated by strange variation cards and one as funny as this was too good not to have. I already have a truckload of old Score lying around and I thought I probably had one, but couldn't motivate myself to actually go look for it. This weekend I was scrounging through a monster box labeled "Weirdness" (which is a very apt name for the box) looking for some cards to include in my Pack A Day giveaway prizes. I didn't find anything to give the winners but I did find this card.
Grab that crotch Alan! Here's the back even though no one cares about that side of the card.
Great specs on Gibson. Dude spent eleven years in the minors just so his rookie card would be infamous for an All-Star grabbing his package. Kinda sad really, here he is an eight year veteran of the league and this is how I celebrate his achievements. Laughing at something he didn't even do. You got to take fame where you can get it, I suppose. Paul's son was a 4th round pick of the Nationals in 2006, and he's pitched pretty well in A-ball so far. Good enough to get his own cards, which thankfully have no funny business happening on them. Paul should be proud.
Beckett has the list of '07 Topps short prints and variations up on the site. Short prints appear to be one in two packs, variations are one in six.
2 Roger Clemens YT 4 Ronny Paulino 5 Derek Jeter 8 David Eckstein YN 11 Rob Mackowiak YT 13 Wilfredo Ledezma 13 Wilfredo Ledezma YT 14 Bobby Abreu 20 Robinson Cano YT 22 Jason Kendall 23 Mark Kotsay 23 Mark Kotsay YN 24 Yadier Molina YN 30 Ichiro YN 31 Beltran Perez 32 Brad Hawpe 33 Jim Thome YT 35 Woody Williams YT 40 Francisco Cordero 41 Anthony Reyes 46 Joel Zumaya YN 49 Willy Taveras 50 Mark Buehrle 50 Mark Buehrle YT 52 Jason Bay YT 53 Jose Valentin YN 57 Kelvim Escobar YN 58 Nick Swisher 58 Nick Swisher YT 59 Kevin Millwood 60 Preston Wilson YN 61 Mariano Rivera YN 65 Chris Narveson YN 67 Melvin Mora 68 Jason Jennings 70 Magglio Ordonez YN 76 Cole Hamels 76 Cole Hamels YT 77 Rafael Furcal 77 Rafael Furcal YT 78 Ryan Theriot YN 79 Corey Patterson YT 81 Stephen Drew YT 85 Omar Vizquel 85 Omar Vizquel YT 86 Fred Lewis 87 Shawn Chacon YN 92 David Wright YN 94 Xavier Nady 95 Bill Hall 97 Jeff Suppan YN 98 Ryan Zimmerman YN 100 Jose Contreras YT 101 Miguel Cairo YN 103 Carl Crawford 104 Mike Lamb 108 Hanley Ramirez YT 112 Marcus Thames 113 Brian Burres 121 Jay Payton 122 Jacque Jones 130 Manny Ramirez 131 Howie Kendrick 139 Ryan Braun 140 Johnny Damon 149 Jose Vidro 150 Alex Rodriguez 158 Cleveland Indians 159 Chris Ray 167 Brian Stokes 168 Albert Pujols 176 David Weathers 177 Jermaine Dye 185 Aaron Hill 186 Scot Shields 194 Derek Lowe 195 Russell Branyan 203 Kendry Morales 204 Rafael Soriano 212 Ty Wigginton 213 Brandon Inge 221 Josh Fields 222 Pat Neshek 230 Chase Utley 231 John Nelson 239 Doug Davis 240 Jason Giambi 248 Adam Wainwright 249 Matt Thornton 257 Aaron Cook 258 Cliff Lee 266 Andy Pettitte 267 A.J. Pierzynski 275 Jorge Posada 276 Jeff Conine 284 Doug Mientkiewicz 285 Ken Griffey Jr. 293 Ryan Garko 294 Miguel Batista 302 Angel Sanchez 303 Freddy Sanchez 311 Aaron Harang 312 Boston Red Sox 320 Kenny Lofton 321 Vladmir Guerrero/Ivan Rodriguez 329 Craig Monroe 330 Paul Lo Duca 338 Todd Walker 339 Jarrod Washburn 347 Boone Logan 348 Jimmy Rollins 356 Bernie Castro 357 Eric Stults 365 Fernando Rodney 366 Chris Duncan 374 Jose Mesa 375 Michael Young 383 Eduardo Perez 384 Scott Moore 392 Shane Youman 393 Melky Cabrera 401 Jose Reyes 402 Juan Encarnacion 410 Francisco Rodriguez 411 Ian Kinsler 419 Scott Kazmir 420 Norris Hopper 428 Cincinnati Reds 429 Ramon Hernandez 437 Vernon Wells 438 Vladimir Guerrero 446 Franklin Gutierrez 447 Mark Redman 455 Chien-Ming Wang 456 Shawn Riggans 464 Jose Garcia 465 Pedro Martinez 473 Lastings Milledge 474 Brian Sanches 482 Edgar Renteria 483 Derek Jeter 491 Ivan Rodriguez 492 Brad Penny
YN = Yellow Name Variation YT = Yellow Team Name Variation
