Very nice... Topps added a border and it looks like they aren't afraid to fill it up. There were too many cards with a tiny picture and a bunch of white space on them the past couple of years. Good move to shake it up a bit. So, it is authentic? Did they take this design from an original A&G set or create a new one in the old timey style? It turns out they did a little of both. The box with the player name is taken from the N16 Natives in Costume set:
The Allen & Ginter ad on the bottom is in a different font than the original however. The '09 ad portion is actually from this set:
N22 Racing Colors of the World. The same ad is also found on set N7 Fans of the Period, but without the two little doodads on either side of "Allen & Ginter". That's a nifty looking font on the Allen & Ginter part and it looks like Topps jazzed it up a tiny bit. Good looking stuff from Topps this year, and there's still 30 more Allen & Ginter designs that Topps can swipe from for future sets.
I meant to include this in last night's Heritage variations post, but I forgot. Mea culpa. The card you see above (Image lovingly swiped from Saints of the Cheap Seats) is NOT a short print. It is also NOT a variation and it is NOT rare at all and is NOT worth a car payment. Most likely it's some sort of shenanigans Topps thought would be cute but it's just a base card. How do I know? The Heritage King says so, and that's good enough for me. That guy knows what he's talking about, he's like the King of Cartoons, just with Heritage instead of short animated featurettes.
If that's not good enough for you here's some evidence. Here's an eBay search for 2009 heritage aramis 95. As of this posting, there were 9 results (including team sets!) and 12 results in buy-it-now eBay stores. There were about 1 or 2 copies of each of the super short prints on eBay when I checked last night. If that doesn't convince you that it's not rare, then go ahead buy this one for a buck.
The only 'corrected' version of this card is in the regular, refractor and black refractor chrome versions of the card. These have the full name on the bottom. I've also heard a rumor about an Andy Pettitte misspelling, but I don't have time to chase after any more phantoms right now. Trust the King.
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 am way too busy to dedicate the time on this post I should, but if you're bored this afternoon and are a fan of old timey baseball check out The Reach Official American League Baseball Guide of 1905 (h/t Baseball Musings). Tons of old photos including Chief Bender, Ban Johnson and his Horrible Haircut, team roster photos of all 16 Major League clubs and a bunch of minor league teams. There's also player stats, team summaries, league summaries, major events, rules of the game and best of all, over 80 pages of sports products sold by Reach. Ads are really the best part of old periodicals. You can look at it now on Google or download the pdf for later. If you're not into free old stuff, Amazon has kicked off their opening day baseball book sale. Got the e-mail today. Don't waste too much time on it if you've got a million other things to do though (like I just did).
UPDATE: Mad Guru just pinted out that the Library of Congress has 15 Spalding's Official Baseball Guides online ranging from 1889 to 1939. That's a good way to kill a couple of weeks!
Ok, so today is St. Patrick's Day and Robert Burns is Scottish. So am I, at least between 25 to 37.5% of me is. I'm a little hazy on the genealogy. But St. Patrick's Day is for GREEN things! So let's have some greenish relics for St. Patty's Day!
2002 Upper Deck Juan Gonzalez All Star Swatches
Ok, what the heck is Gonzo doing with a green jersey swatch? Well, it's a piece of a warm-up (event used) jersey from the 2001 All Star game in Seattle. It's a very dark green, but it really is green. Here's a kids uni on eBay so you can get a look at it. Surprisingly, it's hard to find a picture of one of the uniforms online, but you can watch some videos on MLB.com.
2005 Upper Deck Rookie Debut Frank Gore Saturday Swatches
Frank Gore sporting the green Miami threads on this card. I pulled a bunch of relics from this set including Brady and my first Michael Vick jersey out of a pack. I even opened a hot pack with four rookie jerseys inside, but Gore was the best college player I pulled from that year.
2002 Topps Heritage Eddie Shack Stadium Seat
Aha! snuck in a green stadium seat from Maple Leaf Gardens! This is some sort of green naugahyde material (oh the poor naugas) that was on a seat that supported many hoser hindquarters. There's even a staple mark on the relic for good measure. If Eddie was anywhere near this seat there might have been a tack or a whoopie cushion on it as well.
2001-02 Topps Xpectations Kedrick Brown First Shot Jersey
Now THIS is perfect for St. Patrick's Day! A green Celtic Jersey. So why was this not #1 on my list? Because the Hawks are going to beat the Celtics in the playoffs this year. We almost took 'em out last year and we're a better team now. The Hawks even had their own green jerseys at one point!
Oh, and don't ask me what Topps Xpectations was. I actually bought this stuff at some time in the past and I don't even know what the heck it is.
2004 Donruss Elite Ozzie Smith Passing the Torch Bat
Saved the best for last. The bat isn't green but hoo boy the card sure is. It's probably some parallel or other knowing Donruss. Hopefully there's a red parallel out there somewhere because the green and the Cardinals uniform don't exactly work well together. The card is nice and emeraldy though! Makes me want to get a six pack of green beer and a Father Ted DVD and call it a night. I might just do that... Happy St. Patrick's day everybody!
Ok, it's that time again. The Fifth Blog Bat Around is ready to roll. If you aren't familiar with the Bat Arounds, here are links to the first four: Inaugural Event
Ok, look over those and read every single post because this material will be on your final exam. Once you're done with that, you can check out the topic for this go around:
What is the best experience you have had acquiring cards or memorabilia?
I've left this one purposely vague so you all can riff on it. I'm basically looking for those times and places where you've really enjoyed picking up some cards/a card/an autograph/memorabilia/whatever else you collect. You can focus on your most favoritest memory or write about a whole bunch of different times. Doesn't matter when or where or how, it could be any of these examples:
That junky hobby shop with the old dude who called you 'Skippy' and would give you a Coke to drink while poring over his common boxes
That time online where the dude from Taipei tried to snipe you but you totally sniped him back with 1.8 seconds to go
That TTM letter to your boyhood hero that came back 17 years later
That time you chased down your favorite player in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen and he traded you his jersey for a Peanut Buster Parfait
That time at the flea market where that dude was selling vintage stuff he cleaned out of his barn dirt cheap
That birthday gift from auntie Helga where she threw in uncle Shlomo's card collection along with the bushel of socks that she normally gave you
That amazing deal on a case you got at AmazingDealsOnCases.com that was even more amazing than normal
That one time where you slipped a pack into the jacket pocket of a pack searcher at Target and hung around so you could watch the security alarm go off
Or any other time where a prized collectible fell into your lap. This is more about the whole acquisition experience rather than just an individual part in the collection. Write as much as you want, post it on your blog and paste the link in this post. (or you could e-mail me instead if you're a brave soul) The more memories the better, feel free to rattle off a 20-pager like I normally do. And now the fine print:
Here are the rules established by Gellman, which Dave modified slightly, and then were subsequently cut and pasted by me:
This is an open forum, and anyone can participate at any time. I will not discriminate, nor will I leave you out if we don’t agree. Heck, even the bloggers at Beckett can participate if they want to!
Please make your post at least semi-relevant to the topic. You can be as creative as you want, but keep the general topic in mind. You don’t need to answer all of the questions in the topic, but your post should address what kinds of products you’d like to see the card companies produce.
Keep your post PG or PG-13, I won’t censor it, but this is necessary since we’ll have a vast audience, which might include kids.
Give us something to read, so don’t just write two sentences and call it a day. Make this a normal post, as you would want your readers to see it as a normal part of your blog. Given the great entries that we’ve seen in the past, I don’t think this will be a problem.
Please give your post a title, and mark it so it’s easy to find when you give me the link. If you want your full name included and not just your blog title, put it in there somewhere.
Please comment on this post or email me the link to your post so that I’ll know about it.
Ok, that's about it, write 'em up and make sure I get a link. Deadline is:
Midnight Tuesday, March 24th
I'll post 'em all on Wednesday. First one to give me a link gets on the top of the post, the rest will be listed in the order received. Above all, have fun kiddos!
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.
Here's a little diversion for a Friday via Baseball Musings. Build your own teeny Wrigley Field by printing out this three page PDF, cutting it up and gluing it back together. The result will look something like this:
If Wrigley's not your bag, PaperToys.com has more models including a T-Rex, the Sydney Opera House and Jimi Hendrix's guitar. We're all baseball fans here though. Glue the printout to some of those extra 1985 Topps or 1988 Donruss Cubs doubles lying around to make a sturdier model. Cubs fans can make little paper dolls of the 1983 squad complete with cursing Lee Elia and replay that series with the Dodgers! Cubbie haters can jump up and down on it or maybe do this:
Eat that Wrigley, Billy! Gobble those bleacher bums right up. It's fun for everyone (but be careful about letting Billy eat those old doubles, Upper Deck gives goats indigestion).
Gotta post something, I suppose... If I stay gone too long you'll think I immersed myself into Achewood's massive archives and ended up lost in that world forever. Nah, I do need to post some cards though. How about Brian McCann's two base set cards this year? He did hit a homer against Canada yesterday you know. I won't mention his celebrating the victory with a Met pitcher. T'was a breif moment of victorious exuberance, nothing more.
Anyway, so which is better, Brian the catcher:
or Brian the hitter?
(I'm leaning towards Brian the catcher myself)
Cards courtesy AdamE, who will be getting some Red Sox eventually.
Very nice... Topps added a border and it looks like they aren't afraid to fill it up. There were too many cards with a tiny picture and a bunch of white space on them the past couple of years. Good move to shake it up a bit. So, it is authentic? Did they take this design from an original A&G set or create a new one in the old timey style? It turns out they did a little of both. The box with the player name is taken from the N16 Natives in Costume set:
The Allen & Ginter ad on the bottom is in a different font than the original however. The '09 ad portion is actually from this set:
N22 Racing Colors of the World. The same ad is also found on set N7 Fans of the Period, but without the two little doodads on either side of "Allen & Ginter". That's a nifty looking font on the Allen & Ginter part and it looks like Topps jazzed it up a tiny bit. Good looking stuff from Topps this year, and there's still 30 more Allen & Ginter designs that Topps can swipe from for future sets.
