Thursday, May 10, 2012
January Vintage Show Top 20 - #12 '59, Dude!
Here's the second-to-last card I need for my 1959 Topps Braves team set, a Sporting News All Star card of Del Crandall. The last card I need for the set is the Warren Spahn which I could have sworn I had already. I can almost see the thing in my hands. I don't know where or how I got it, but I really think I have that card already. However, the depression that would occur if I knew that I had a 1959 Topps Warren Spahn card in my collection but had absolutely no earthly idea where the hell it was would greatly outweigh any joy I had in completing the 1959 team set. So I'mma just say this is the second-to-last card I need and leave it at that. Maybe I should go ahead and buy that Spahn on COMC, the other one will be sure to turn up immediately.
Ok, so it's miscut. That stuff happens in vintage. Judging by the teeny little sliver of color on the bottom of the card it looks like Del's downstairs neighbor on the uncut sheet was also a National League All-Star card. That miscut could actually be 1% of a Hank Aaron All-Star card! There's actually a decent chance that it is at least a Braves card as Fred Haney, Wes Covington, Warren Spahn and Hank all had All-Star cards in '59. That's what you get when you go to the World Series two years in a row.
The best thing about the backs of the All-Star cards (other than the red and black ink that should have been used on the entire set instead of the Christmas colors they went with) are the cartoons. A cartoon covering almost the entire back of a card is something we should see a lot more of in my opinion. I tip my hat to whomever did the lettering on this card. That crazy Crandall font is a joy to behold.
Wait, there's three different versions of the '59 Spahn? Ouch, this team set is going to take longer than I thought to complete.
Here's the complete list of Top 20 posts. See if you can guess what cards are coming up!
#20 - Wantlist Fail Part 1
#19 - Dollar Box Gem
#18 - At Least He's a Hall of Famer Now
#17 - Thurman Inaction
#16 - Cocktail Hour
#15 - Kid Stuff
#14 - Clubbed Cub
#13 - Cheapest High Number I Could Find
#12 - '59, Dude!
#11 - Look at the Whistler
#10 - Heartbreaking Taunt
#9 - '54 Ford With a Beat Up Chassis
#8 - King of the Bums
#7 - Joy of a Completed Page
#6 - HOW THE HELL IS THIS NOT IN THE TOP FIVE?!?!
#5 - Oh, because this one is...
#4 - Awwww, come ON.
#3 - Admit It, You Knew This Was Coming
#2 - Wantlist Fail Part 2
#1 - Feat of Clay
Ok, so it's miscut. That stuff happens in vintage. Judging by the teeny little sliver of color on the bottom of the card it looks like Del's downstairs neighbor on the uncut sheet was also a National League All-Star card. That miscut could actually be 1% of a Hank Aaron All-Star card! There's actually a decent chance that it is at least a Braves card as Fred Haney, Wes Covington, Warren Spahn and Hank all had All-Star cards in '59. That's what you get when you go to the World Series two years in a row.
The best thing about the backs of the All-Star cards (other than the red and black ink that should have been used on the entire set instead of the Christmas colors they went with) are the cartoons. A cartoon covering almost the entire back of a card is something we should see a lot more of in my opinion. I tip my hat to whomever did the lettering on this card. That crazy Crandall font is a joy to behold.
Wait, there's three different versions of the '59 Spahn? Ouch, this team set is going to take longer than I thought to complete.
Here's the complete list of Top 20 posts. See if you can guess what cards are coming up!
#20 - Wantlist Fail Part 1
#19 - Dollar Box Gem
#18 - At Least He's a Hall of Famer Now
#17 - Thurman Inaction
#16 - Cocktail Hour
#15 - Kid Stuff
#14 - Clubbed Cub
#13 - Cheapest High Number I Could Find
#12 - '59, Dude!
#11 - Look at the Whistler
#10 - Heartbreaking Taunt
#9 - '54 Ford With a Beat Up Chassis
#8 - King of the Bums
#7 - Joy of a Completed Page
#6 - HOW THE HELL IS THIS NOT IN THE TOP FIVE?!?!
#5 - Oh, because this one is...
#4 - Awwww, come ON.
#3 - Admit It, You Knew This Was Coming
#2 - Wantlist Fail Part 2
#1 - Feat of Clay
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
25 year old mistakes
Editor's note: Night Owl is now an unofficial co-author of this blog since about half of the posts I make nowadays are directly or indirectly inspired by something he wrote. Tonight's cardboard anecdote is a verbatim comment from this Night Owl post. I formally apologize to Night Owl for sullying his good name by associating it with this mess of a blog.
Funny thing about the Joshua Tree...
In 1987 I got the Joshua Tree and an Elton John greatest hits cassette tape from an aunt for my birthday. I wanted nothing to do with either so I went to the mall to return them. As luck would have it, there was a card show going on that weekend. So I took the $25 I got from returning the tapes and shopped for cards.
One guy offered me one card I liked for $25 but I turned it down because I wanted to check out the rest of the show. I eventually got a bunch of stuff including some vintage grab bags. One of the grab bags was full of Dodgers and included a couple dozen Topps Venezuela cards from the '60s. Sounds like a good deal right? U2 and Elton for rare vintage Dodgers? Nope.
The card I passed on?
The 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson that still haunts my dreams.
Funny thing about the Joshua Tree...
 |
| Stole Night Owl's picture, too |
One guy offered me one card I liked for $25 but I turned it down because I wanted to check out the rest of the show. I eventually got a bunch of stuff including some vintage grab bags. One of the grab bags was full of Dodgers and included a couple dozen Topps Venezuela cards from the '60s. Sounds like a good deal right? U2 and Elton for rare vintage Dodgers? Nope.
The card I passed on?
The 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson that still haunts my dreams.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Things Found While Looking For Other Things
Nachos Grande recently wrote a post about card collector organizational types. I am definitely a Type 3. Other than my Braves, vintage, A&G and Heritage binders, I have no clue where anything else is located in my house. Or even if it is located in my house. I don't think I've seen my 1995 Topps set since the late '90s. If you follow my Twitter feed, you'll know I had a small freakout trying to find some stuff Sunday night. I offered some 2001 Pacific football cards to Thorzul a while back and finally found these for him:
Before I found those cards, I looked through 80% of the card boxes in this house trying to find my stupid 2001 football cards. It was Vick's rookie year, I know I bought at least some of the damn things. When you have 5 boxes of cards, looking through 80% of your boxes is a relaxing afternoon. When you're a full fledged pathological cardboard hoarder, it's a tad more stressful. I managed to find full boxes of neatly sorted and organized football cards from 1999, 2000 and 2002 but no 2001. The absolute cruelest trick my collection played on my is when I found the 2001 Pacific baseball cards. I eventually found a small box of football stuff hidden away with about 100 Pacific football cards in them and I was able to pick out the 9 above. I also found a few other neat things last night I thought I'd share.
Found in the same box as the '01 Pacific, here's a 2001 Fleer Tradition Rookie Retro thread card of Santana Moss. I desperately wanted the Vick in 2001, but I pulled Moss out of a pack instead. So it is Santana Moss, and the swatch is from the jersey he wore in the Rookie Photo shoot, but it's still a very nicely designed card. I wouldn't mind seeing a base set that looked like this. Oh wait, that's 1962 Topps Football, actually.
I have a special binder full of nothing but non-sports cards I like. Unless it's a vintage card I will only put one card per set in the binder so it doesn't fill up to quickly. I think this will end up being the representative from the '89 Topps Batman set. The man directed Pee-Wee's Big Adventure! Believe it or not, this was not the best non-sports card I found.
This shiny 2000 Leaf Certified Mirror Red Junior Seau was mixed in a box full of oddball football inserts. Considering I wasted a good 20 minutes looking for a Seau card for my sadness post the other day, I was a little miffed to find the best Junior Seau card I could possibly have two days later. I could probably capitalize on tragedy and sell it, but while I am not opposed to liquidating my football collection I'd still want to keep this one. Because shiny. All you Check Out My Cards veterans out there need to give me a boot cam on dumping old '90s inserts online one of these days.
Ok, here's the badass non-sports card. I don't even need to say anything about this one. Just gaze in jealousy. The bestest thing I found was...
Three Mint In Package puffy refrigerator magnets of Cartoon Network shows inserted in boxes of Pop-Tarts in the early '00s. Cinnamon Pop-Tarts and a Diet Coke was my breakfast of choice back then and I really really like cartoons so I ate a lot of Pop-Tarts while this promotion was going. I think this is a complete set, but there may be a fourth cartoon I'm forgetting. I really wanted the Dexter magnet but ended up with about 5 Courage the Cowardly Dog magnets before finally landing the Dexter. Nowadays I am unabashedly proud of my Powerpuff Girls magnet and like that one best of all. Back off, boys!
The moral of the story: Don't promise cards unless you know where the heck they are.
Before I found those cards, I looked through 80% of the card boxes in this house trying to find my stupid 2001 football cards. It was Vick's rookie year, I know I bought at least some of the damn things. When you have 5 boxes of cards, looking through 80% of your boxes is a relaxing afternoon. When you're a full fledged pathological cardboard hoarder, it's a tad more stressful. I managed to find full boxes of neatly sorted and organized football cards from 1999, 2000 and 2002 but no 2001. The absolute cruelest trick my collection played on my is when I found the 2001 Pacific baseball cards. I eventually found a small box of football stuff hidden away with about 100 Pacific football cards in them and I was able to pick out the 9 above. I also found a few other neat things last night I thought I'd share.
Found in the same box as the '01 Pacific, here's a 2001 Fleer Tradition Rookie Retro thread card of Santana Moss. I desperately wanted the Vick in 2001, but I pulled Moss out of a pack instead. So it is Santana Moss, and the swatch is from the jersey he wore in the Rookie Photo shoot, but it's still a very nicely designed card. I wouldn't mind seeing a base set that looked like this. Oh wait, that's 1962 Topps Football, actually.
I have a special binder full of nothing but non-sports cards I like. Unless it's a vintage card I will only put one card per set in the binder so it doesn't fill up to quickly. I think this will end up being the representative from the '89 Topps Batman set. The man directed Pee-Wee's Big Adventure! Believe it or not, this was not the best non-sports card I found.
This shiny 2000 Leaf Certified Mirror Red Junior Seau was mixed in a box full of oddball football inserts. Considering I wasted a good 20 minutes looking for a Seau card for my sadness post the other day, I was a little miffed to find the best Junior Seau card I could possibly have two days later. I could probably capitalize on tragedy and sell it, but while I am not opposed to liquidating my football collection I'd still want to keep this one. Because shiny. All you Check Out My Cards veterans out there need to give me a boot cam on dumping old '90s inserts online one of these days.
Ok, here's the badass non-sports card. I don't even need to say anything about this one. Just gaze in jealousy. The bestest thing I found was...
Three Mint In Package puffy refrigerator magnets of Cartoon Network shows inserted in boxes of Pop-Tarts in the early '00s. Cinnamon Pop-Tarts and a Diet Coke was my breakfast of choice back then and I really really like cartoons so I ate a lot of Pop-Tarts while this promotion was going. I think this is a complete set, but there may be a fourth cartoon I'm forgetting. I really wanted the Dexter magnet but ended up with about 5 Courage the Cowardly Dog magnets before finally landing the Dexter. Nowadays I am unabashedly proud of my Powerpuff Girls magnet and like that one best of all. Back off, boys!
The moral of the story: Don't promise cards unless you know where the heck they are.
Calling all movie buffs
I screwed around too much tonight and ran out of time to do a proper post for the blog. It wasn't a complete waste though, I got a package together and scanned some stuff for a future post and drew some ponies. While doing my nightly sketching I recreated a famous scene from a film. Can anyone name the film this came from?
Get it right and maybe I'll sketch something for ya.
Get it right and maybe I'll sketch something for ya.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
January Vintage Show Top 20 - #13 Cheapest High Number I Could Find
Yeah, I know it's May. I have no idea when the next card show will be in Atlanta so I need to stretch this out as long as possible. As much as I want to hop in the car and drive to the next White Plains show, gas is expensive. So here's a card.
For the next 28 card shows I attend I vow to buy at least one 1953 Topps card I need. I'm not going to lie, a few of those cards might be from the World On Wheels set but I'll do my best to finish up the baseball set. Well, I'll do my best to finish up the commons and a few of the stars. Jackie? Heh. Mantle? HeheheHah. Mays short print? HeeeeheheHEEhahah. Sam Calderone? NAILED IT.
This was the most expensive card I bought at the show, running $14.50. Sam played for the Giants for a season in 1950 before serving in the military in 1951 and 1952. He was back with the Giants in '53 and scored a rookie card in the '53 high set. Sammy played with Milwaukee in 1954 after being involved in a trade for Johnny Antonelli. His '54 Topps card was the first one I ever got for the 1954 scarce 51-75 series. The guy has two Topps cards ever and both are short printed. Thanks to the Archives sets, Calderone cards are plentiful now. This wasn't the only '53 card I scammed at the show, you'll get to see the other one before the Mayans doom us all, I promise.
Here's the complete list of Top 20 posts. See if you can guess what cards are coming up!
#20 - Wantlist Fail Part 1
#19 - Dollar Box Gem
#18 - At Least He's a Hall of Famer Now
#17 - Thurman Inaction
#16 - Cocktail Hour
#15 - Kid Stuff
#14 - Clubbed Cub
#13 - Cheapest High Number I Could Find
#12 - '59, Dude!
#11 - Look at the Whistler
#10 - Heartbreaking Taunt
#9 - '54 Ford With a Beat Up Chassis
#8 - King of the Bums
#7 - Joy of a Completed Page
#6 - HOW THE HELL IS THIS NOT IN THE TOP FIVE?!?!
#5 - Oh, because this one is...
#4 - Awwww, come ON.
#3 - Admit It, You Knew This Was Coming
#2 - Wantlist Fail Part 2
#1 - Feat of Clay
This was the most expensive card I bought at the show, running $14.50. Sam played for the Giants for a season in 1950 before serving in the military in 1951 and 1952. He was back with the Giants in '53 and scored a rookie card in the '53 high set. Sammy played with Milwaukee in 1954 after being involved in a trade for Johnny Antonelli. His '54 Topps card was the first one I ever got for the 1954 scarce 51-75 series. The guy has two Topps cards ever and both are short printed. Thanks to the Archives sets, Calderone cards are plentiful now. This wasn't the only '53 card I scammed at the show, you'll get to see the other one before the Mayans doom us all, I promise.
Here's the complete list of Top 20 posts. See if you can guess what cards are coming up!
#20 - Wantlist Fail Part 1
#19 - Dollar Box Gem
#18 - At Least He's a Hall of Famer Now
#17 - Thurman Inaction
#16 - Cocktail Hour
#15 - Kid Stuff
#14 - Clubbed Cub
#13 - Cheapest High Number I Could Find
#12 - '59, Dude!
#11 - Look at the Whistler
#10 - Heartbreaking Taunt
#9 - '54 Ford With a Beat Up Chassis
#8 - King of the Bums
#7 - Joy of a Completed Page
#6 - HOW THE HELL IS THIS NOT IN THE TOP FIVE?!?!
#5 - Oh, because this one is...
#4 - Awwww, come ON.
#3 - Admit It, You Knew This Was Coming
#2 - Wantlist Fail Part 2
#1 - Feat of Clay
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
In play, run(s)
4) Which Braves hitter is going to get to the Phillies Pitching in this series?
Jason Heyward is a beast and Freddie Freeman is on fire right now. The guy you should be absolutely terrified of though is Chipper Jones. It's his last season, he knows it and he's on a mission. Hurt his knee, hits a homer on his first game of the season. Hurt his knee again, hit another homer when he came back. 40th birthday? Homer. Last game in Dodger stadium? Game winning RBI. If the Braves are somehow able to make it to the World Series, he's going to end up walking away with the MVP, I'm sure of it.
Am I 4 for 4 now, Phungo?
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
COMC J-Hey Lineage swag
 |
| I make a Monty Python reference and IT'S A PONY. I need help |
The three time wasters I enjoy the most right now is Atlanta Braves baseball, drawing ponies and hating on Topps Lineage. GAWD that set was awful. However, I friggin love all the inserts. Hey, when did I ever make any sense? The COMC haul was full of Heyward cards and a few were inserts from my least favorite set. Here we have one of the 1964 Topps Giant box toppers of Heyward.
I have no idea how I'm gonna store this thing with the rest of my Heywards but damn it looks good. It's a pretty darn good facsimile of one of the originals from '64. Plus it uses the word precocious in reference to a baseball player the size of a linebacker, which amuses me.
Last but not least is the Heyward version of a 1964 Topps Stand-Up insert. These are one of my favorite oddballs from the '60s and I almost wish I had gotten two so I could stand one of 'em up. The photo choice reminds me of a blogger discussion from a few years back "do butts belong on baseball cards?" I'm sure the naysayers would not approve of this card at all. I'm personally ok with them if presented in the proper context of gameplay, but I do think that this right here is gratuitous. The dirty uniform fetishists might disagree. Man this post got weird fast. Damn you Lineage!!!
Monday, April 30, 2012
Joy of a Twice-Completed Team Set
Back in January when I was preparing for the vintage show I did a reality check on my Braves team set needs. My ever-increasingly out of date online wantlists showed I had completed the 1970 Topps Braves team set. But...... when I checked the binder it was missing card 413, Sonny Jackson. Now, I could see that card in my head. Sonny with the glasses doing the fake bunt pose. Wasn't in the binder, though. No clue where it was. I assumed that I had just misplaced the card and looked through some stuff. Didn't find it. Looked through some more stuff, still didn't find it. Eventually - knowing full well I had that damn card somewhere - I ended up buying it for something like 30 cents on COMC. Found my other copy literally the same day the COMC package arrived. Oh well, I've got one for my 1970 Topps set now. Here's the whole shebang, even though I may have posted it already a few years ago.
Oh wait, I already had a Sonny Jackson card in my 1970 Topps set.
Derp.
Oh wait, I already had a Sonny Jackson card in my 1970 Topps set.
Derp.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Happy Birthday Phillie Phanatic!
I have no idea which Phillie Phan I was going to send this to... if you're on my list of people I should have sent stuff to 2 months ago and want this, speak up!
I can haz Bryce Harper rookie card?
Topps was nice enough to announce on their Twitter feed that Bryce Harper will be in Series Two Topps. As a regular or short print, who knows. All I know is I don't need that jazz because I already have a 1/1 Harper sketch card.
DIY cardboard FTW
DIY cardboard FTW
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Some COMC swag
Swag means something different nowadays from what it meant when I was a kid but oh well.
Every 8 months or so I get drunk and spend a Jackson over on Check Out My Cards. This happened once again a couple of weeks ago. Someone on Twitter mentioned there were cheap Rickey Henderson rookies on COMC, I checked it out, started wandering about the site, found a card I had to have or ELSE and ended up picking out a handful of cardboard to have shipped to my house. A combination of busyness and confusion and procrastination has left me with a death of ideas for posting (well, other than the dozens of posts stuck in my draft folder) so let's go ahead and show them off. To go with Rainbow Dash, here's a...
Rainbow Medlen.Twilight Diamond Sparkle, Transmogrifier Set parallel and Liquorfractor. Instant Meds Rainbow Starter Set. Of course now I need to track down the Gold border, Black border, Blue Sparkle and any other weird parallels that are out there but I'm off to a good start at least!
Every 8 months or so I get drunk and spend a Jackson over on Check Out My Cards. This happened once again a couple of weeks ago. Someone on Twitter mentioned there were cheap Rickey Henderson rookies on COMC, I checked it out, started wandering about the site, found a card I had to have or ELSE and ended up picking out a handful of cardboard to have shipped to my house. A combination of busyness and confusion and procrastination has left me with a death of ideas for posting (well, other than the dozens of posts stuck in my draft folder) so let's go ahead and show them off. To go with Rainbow Dash, here's a...
Rainbow Medlen.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Kids are lousy with scissors
It has nothing to do with caffeine. They just suck at it.
Full disclosure: I may have cut a few of these myself. Guess which ones and I'll send you the Beckham!
Full disclosure: I may have cut a few of these myself. Guess which ones and I'll send you the Beckham!
Happy 29th Birthday Chipper Jones!
We were born in the same year. You'll be 29 years old and like it.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Old School Heritage and New School Ponies - Part 12
The My Little Pony Royal Princess Wedding is happening RIGHT NOW, and I'm embarrassing myself trying to coach little league baseball whole I have a splitting headache from waking up a 4 in the morning with heartburn and not getting any sleep and after the game I get to go to Costco oh joy. So I don't get to see the wedding live online, I have to wait for YouTube. Wanna piss me off for posting ponies? Watch the episode and post spoilers to Twitter and my blog. No that isn't just a sneaky way of getting you to watch ponies, really I swear.
In the meantime until I'm able to watch the show I'm going to assume the wedding went off like this. I want Pinkie Pie's shirt SO BAD.
Here's the last of the '63s, Hall of Famer Billy Williams. This guy is so underrated it's stupid. I swear, if I had a pony for every time someone said Billy Williams isn't a Hall of Famer, I'd have... well... even more ponies than I already have. AND THAT'S A LOTTA PONIES. Just check out this Gem Mint specimen. Scuffs and scrapes all over the card, but not enough to scrape off the 49 year old wax. Perfectly rounded corners. Creases everywhere. And last but not least, SIX - count em - SIX staples were used to mount this thing to some object that was instantly beautified by its presence. Can you imagine the work it took to get this card looking like this? It doesn't just happen by itself, this kind of wear takes effort. Go ahead, take one of those newfangled Heritage cards you've been opening up by the handful and make it look as good as this, I dare ya.
UPDATE: My family abandoned me to ponies so I got to watch the episode when it aired. Holy crap was that good. At 44 minutes, it was slightly rushed in points but they squoze as much epicness in as they could. Celestia knows how the hell they're going to top that in season 3.
In the meantime until I'm able to watch the show I'm going to assume the wedding went off like this. I want Pinkie Pie's shirt SO BAD.
Here's the last of the '63s, Hall of Famer Billy Williams. This guy is so underrated it's stupid. I swear, if I had a pony for every time someone said Billy Williams isn't a Hall of Famer, I'd have... well... even more ponies than I already have. AND THAT'S A LOTTA PONIES. Just check out this Gem Mint specimen. Scuffs and scrapes all over the card, but not enough to scrape off the 49 year old wax. Perfectly rounded corners. Creases everywhere. And last but not least, SIX - count em - SIX staples were used to mount this thing to some object that was instantly beautified by its presence. Can you imagine the work it took to get this card looking like this? It doesn't just happen by itself, this kind of wear takes effort. Go ahead, take one of those newfangled Heritage cards you've been opening up by the handful and make it look as good as this, I dare ya.
UPDATE: My family abandoned me to ponies so I got to watch the episode when it aired. Holy crap was that good. At 44 minutes, it was slightly rushed in points but they squoze as much epicness in as they could. Celestia knows how the hell they're going to top that in season 3.
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