The Allen Ginter Project: Card #6 - N8 Fish From American Waters

Part of my Allen & Ginter type set madness (see here for explanation) will be posting each card as it arrives until I either finish the set or give up due to frustration. I'll post the first five retroactively, but since this one came in today I'll do it first. I got this card from the same place I got my first one, As Time Goes By Collectibles. Winning bid was $9.25, so I picked this up for less than the price of two hobby packs of A&G. The card is one of the more attractive ones in the set. You can't really tell from the scan, but the scales are printed in metallic silver ink which really makes this sucker look like a real fish. The bulk of the reverse shows a checklist of all the different fish in the set.



One thing I'd like to do with this is not only get a type set, but to get cards that have some sort of meaning with me. Yeah I know, it's bad enough I'm doing something crazy difficult like this, but I have to make it complicated too. Some of my choices will be obvious. I live in Georgia, so I'd like a Georgia state flag for my N11 card. I'd like a Brown Thrasher card from the Song Birds set to honor my favorite hockey team. This obviously won't happen for all the cards. I'll be lucky to find any cards from some of the more obscure sets. Other sets don't have any favorites that pop out at me at first glance. The fish set was one of these, I'm not all that interested in fish unless they are on a plate. If there was a Rock Lobster card, the choice would have been easy. Herring could have worked, but then I would have tried to cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with it and that would really screw up the condition. I checked out the auction listings from As Time Goes By a couple of weeks ago and it finally hit me when I saw this card listed. What better fish for my collection than the one from Wheel of Fish?



Red Snapper... mmmmmmm very tasty! I made the right choice on this one and I will absolutely not trade it for what's under the box.

Card of the Week 10/22

Last year when the first Allen and Ginter set was coming out I was going through sort of a a transitional period. To put it bluntly, I was broke. I had already collected the T206, T205 and Cracker Jack sets and I was really looking forward to this new stuff. Then it went live and the price shot through the roof. I was effectively priced out after only getting a couple of hobby packs. I was pretty bummed as the same thing happened in 2001 with the '52 Heritage set. I really liked the cards, but it just wouldn't be anywhere near my price range for at least the next few months.

One day that fall I had a job interview down around Emory. It was a pretty weird interview in retrospect. The thing lasted over an hour and I'm not sure if they were actually hiring or if they were still in the process of figuring out what they actually needed. I got a long string of somewhat normal questions then all of a sudden I was asked how to recover data off a crashed hard drive in a somewhat desperate tone. Um, restore your data off your regularly scheduled backup onto a new drive? You do have regular backups right? Right?? (dead silence) Um, pay a lot of money to a drive salvage company to attempt to restore some of the data I guess... The rest of the interview went kind of like that, and it became obvious that they needed some serious help. It turned out they didn't call me for several months and I didn't call them back either. I'm not sure that they really had an opening anyway. I started a new position that same week though, so everything worked out in the end.

So what the hell does all this blathering about my job have to do with baseball cards? I had to get to my old job after the interview, but I had some time to kill. There was a Target on the way back to the interstate so I stopped in to pick up a drink and check out the card rack. I was feeling pretty good after the interview so decided to go nuts and get a handful of packs to go with my Diet Dew. Lo and behold, Allen and Ginter retail! For some reason I just assumed that A&G was hobby only like T206. I didn't have $160 to drop on a box, but I could swing 10-15 bucks for a few packs. I really liked this stuff and I was pleasantly surprised to find this among my pulls:

This wasn't my first Allen & Ginter card, but it was certainly my first WOW! A&G card. I'd gotten mini framed relics before from T206, T205 and that weird futuristic basketball set, but this was the first one I'd gotten decorated with palm fronds on the frame. Plus it was Dontrelle, which kicks ass. I hope when the cheap ass Marlins dump him the Braves are able to pick him up. He'd look good in our rotation and it would be fun to see a bunch of Gary Coleman lookalikes sitting next to Francoeur’s Franks in the bleachers screaming "WHATCHOO TALKIN BOUT WILLIS!". I stretched the budget as far as it would go and snagged a few blasters before the eBay speculators bought them all up and listed them for twice retail. I was woefully short of a set but I was able to pick up a big lot of commons for cheap from a case buster to fill out a chunk of the set.

Fast forward to this summer. I was a bit more settled, eagerly anticipating the '07 version of A&G and had my $85 bucks ready to grab a box right off the bat before the prices went nuts. You can see my insanity over the set by clicking through the archives. One thing I didn't expect though was the flags insert set. I really liked them though along with the Caesars and Serpents. I started trolling auctions for flags and eventually stumbled upon an original A&G flag from the 1880s. I have always liked the lithograph tobacco cards better than the old photograph ones like Old Judge. That is likely because I loved playing with my Dover reprint cards when I was a kid and Bert Sugar included Allen & Ginter cards in the book instead of Old Judge or Gypsy Queen. I always assumed that I would never ever be able to afford an original Allen & Ginter card though because they were so incredibly rare and expensive. The original King Kelly and Cap Anson cards I had reprints of sold for hundreds of dollars even back then and nowadays you're talking thousands of dollars. Imagine my surprise when I saw that original cards not featuring baseball payers were selling for less than a blaster box.


This kind of blew my mind, the fact that I could actually own a card that was 120 years old. I have a couple of Indian Head cents that old, but those are coins and are supposed to last that long. Little scraps of paper are not. I have never been a non-sport kind of guy. I just missed the heyday of the classic Topps Star Wars and Wacky Packages sets and there wasn't much to get into after that. Sure, I have a few original Garbage Pail Kids and an Empire Strikes Back set my stepdad got me at Dragon*Con once, but I've never collected them seriously. Because of that, I've never really known about the vast amount of non-sports tobacco and gum cards that are out there. I started looking into them and finally decided to go for it and try to pick one up online. I had bad luck at first and lost dozens of bids on cards but I finally persevered (and spent a little more than I wanted to) and picked up one. It was that strange card I posted last week that has confused everyone. Here's the back of it:

This is one of the World's Decorations set, which is classified as N30 in the American Card Catalog. The scan doesn't actually do it justice, the lithograph looks great and it's printed with metallic ink on the gold parts. Yes, even in 1887, cards relied on shiny stuff to attract us short attention span collectors. As good as it looks (and the back looks as good as the front in my opinion) it's not a real popular set and I figured why not try to get a flag since I'm already collecting the 2007 versions. So I bid on another one... and another one... and long story short (TOO LATE!!!) I just received my seventh original Allen and Ginter card in the mail today and I have three more on the way. I have somehow ended up a quarter of the way to building an original Allen and Ginter type set. Yes, I am completely, utterly insane. There's no use crying over spilled milk now, I've decided to go for it. Even though I have other sets I should be finishing, it's going to be more expensive than I expect and I'm positive I'll go mad trying to find that last general or fruit card I need to finish it, I'm going to try to get a type set of every card from N1 to N34. There are also big cards like the N43 inserts in the Topps version and other assorted issues from the company, but I'm just going to focus on the first 34 in Burdick's catalog.

One thing I've found doing research on this stuff is that there is not a hell of a lot of info to be found on these cards online. There's a pretty good forum, a couple of collector pages and that's about it. That's why I'm going to share the info I do find going forward on this blog and will do a sort of journal on my progress on my type set. That way the next poor schmuck who gets interested in moldy old cards of birds and horses and chicks with parasols can find a little reference material on teh internets. Don't worry, I'm not going to switch to an "All A&G, All the Time" format, I'll still go on endlessly about stuff from the 80's and crappy new sets. I'm contemplating doing a spin off blog for just the A&G info, but things have been too crazy lately to do that just yet. I hope you enjoy the weird old card posts as well as the baseball card stuff (and there's a lot of neat stuff coming soon). If you don't just hang in until the next good post and blame it all on Dontrelle Willis' Allen and Ginter relic card (or better yet, that strange interview), for starting the odd chain of events that led to this mess.

Review - 2007 Turkey Red

The fact that it took me over a month to finally write a review for '07 Turkey Red should immediately give you an idea of what I think about the set. This relic card of Daryle Ward kind of sums up my feelings toward the set. The design is well done, and it's a little refreshing after two years of the original gray borders. The computer enhanced photos are done reasonably well and look good. This card is a bat relic, which is nice to get. The question is, do we really need this card? Just like the rationale for a relic card from a journeyman pinch hitting specialist is somewhat dubious at best, I just don't see why we needed another series of Turkey Red.

Anyone who has paid attention to this blog for any period of time knows I am a slobbering irrational fanboy when it comes to retro style cards. I pretty much love 'em all, from Heritage to Archives to Vintage to all the sets ripping off designs from 80 to 120 years ago. I like the old reprint sets, Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball, Ted Williams company cards, and the black & white Conlon collection. Anything vintage looking, or including old timers (like the ol' perfesser up there) in the checklist is usually something I like. Hell, I even love 2006 Bowman Heritage which is probably the ugliest, most screwed up set of the century. I'm not saying I don't like these cards, it's just I don't see a purpose to them. There are also a lot of details I don't like that will probably prevent me from seriously attempting collect a set.

I'll start off with what I do like about the set before I get into the criticisms. The very first thing I noticed when I opened my first pack was how much better the card stock quality was. I thought they had given up on that weird reverse pebbled texture on the cards until I took a really close look at them. I don't know what they did, but this set does not have the strange plastic pock marked feel as the '06 variety. it's a big improvement and the cards look and feel much better now. The next ting I noticed was the Dick Perez paintings. Dick has caught a lot of flack this year from collectors who don't like his artwork and just don't like paintings on cards at all. I personally think they are brilliant, I love art cards. Perez is best known for his work on Diamond Kings, but these are less stylized than the Diamond Kings and his sketches for Allen & Ginter, and are more reminiscent of his work on the old Donruss Hall of Fame sets from the early 80's. Perez definitely studied the original T3s for inspiration, but adds his own personal style to them. Like the sketches for A&G (which are pretty dang impressive considering the canvas) there are great looking ones and a few clunkers. Yes, the Jeter card looks more like Jim Thome. The Dice-K rookie card looks awful, as Matsuzaka's face looks a bit like a constipated rodent. When you paint a few dozen portraits not all of them will be perfect. Overall they are exremely well done however. The colors are bright and bold and the detail is fantastic. I've posted three of my favorites up above. Big Papi's card looks great with all the details in the grandstands. Griffey Junior is apparently playing in a Roman Coluseum. Verlander's portrait is a little odd looking, but check out the detail in the advertisements! Chew Beeman's Pepsin gum!

The regular base cards look just as good as last year's set. Whatever algorythm the Topps code monkeys put the original photos through give them a good old timey feel although they can be a little dark. Topps also manipulated the backgrounds as they did with the football and basketball sets. Tim Hudson is apparently pitching at Elysian Fields. So the cards look great, so what's the beef? The first complaint I have is about the 'chrome' parallels. They are admittedly an improvement on the red/white/black/gold parallels from the earlier sets. That color scheme wouldn't have worked anyway, Topps would have had to swipe an idea from an old Gallery set and change the picture frames instead. Still, the Chrome just looks really awful to me on these cards. The regular chrome dull the vibrant colors on the Perez paintings and the refractors obscure them altogether. They don't look like chrome cards to me at all, there is no outline on any of the players and they end up looking like a generic foil card. Sure, most normal people love Chrome to death and numbered parallels are popular. I just don't like them.

I'm more interested in the base cards and I'd rather pull an SP than a Chrome. Problem is, when the set first came out I bought 8 packs at the local hobby shop. I had some ridiculous luck and pulled 4 Chrome and 2 refractors out of those 8 packs. Six Chrome in 8 packs! Great for chrome collectors, but I don't collect it. I've bought about a dozen more packs here and there and I've still not pulled a single SP card. I have pulled three variations, so I'm not completely striking out, but this is a pretty tough pill to swallow for a set collector. One in four packs. That ratio right there is the hit rate for short prints, and it's the reason why I won't be trying to complete this set. I can understand a 1:4 ratio for short prints. it does give a little challenge to the collector. I do not understand a 200 card set having one quarter of the cards short printed however. To complete a set you'd have to open about 8 or 9 boxes with great collation, or more likely a case. Meanwhile you'd have about 10 base sets to every 1 short print set. That's a whole lot of doubles folks.

So with this set, Topps has made it completely impractical to open packs and make a set. So why open packs at all? There's some seriously bad timing for Topps here as well. A lot of people like mee who would normally drool over this set are suffering from Allen & Ginter and Goudey burnout. I have a couple of dozen cards to chase for the A&G set (everyone who e-mailed me, I'll get back to you this week, I swear) And I have less than 10 base cards to find for Goudey and then I can start chasing the short prints in earnest. Why should I deal with yet another set full of impossible short prints right now? Maybe in January when there's nothing else to do, but by then who cares. The insert sets are pretty lame as well. Every time I pull an A-Rod bullshit waste of space in a retro set, I get a migraine. The cabinet cards are nice, but I'm not buying hobby boxes of this stuff so I can't find them easily. Why not insert them as a bonus in blaster boxes? Upper Deck does it with their Beehive hockey set. Finally, is anyone else as completely sick of goddamn Presidents as I am? I'm sick of old Presidents, I'm sick of the current President and I'm completely sick of all the potential Presidents. Give us a set of Vice Presidents or Speakers of the House or Chief Justices or American Idol runners up, I don't care. Jut no more freaking presidents. And try to make the set not so butt-ugly. Who wants to see a fat Cleveland or constipated McKinley when they open a pack of cards. Time to retire this set, I hope now that the sale has gone through they can work on something better for next year.

Cool Things on Other Blogs

Since I'm having issues creating my own content, here's some links to some other cool baseball card related schtuff on teh internets.

Chris Harris scooped us all on the unveiling of Upper Deck's 2008 set. Check out his review here:
Stale Gum: 1st Impressions: 2008 Upper Deck Series One
Chris does a great job at summing up the 2008 edition and I agree with pretty much everything he said. These were my initial thoughts from checking out the sell sheet.

• Whoever decided it was a good idea to distribute your sell sheet via a powerpoint presentation is an evil, evil person.
• Still charging 5 bucks a pack is bad. Upping the cards per pack to 20 is better, but not quite good. They better not still be charging 3 bucks for 8 cards on the retail packs. Fat packs too. I want to see 35-40 cards a pack if they're still gonna charge 5 bucks. moar cardz plz. kthx.
• I don't understand the redemption cards either. Series 1 doesn't need every damn rookie card in it, people will buy the set anyway. It's February, what else is there to do? Save the rookies for series 2.
• This MLB licensing agreement has got to be tweaked. It's causing too many problems like this redemption crap and Bowman 'insert' sets. Let companies put rookies in the series 1 sets that haven't technically made their debut, but are virtually assured a roster spot like the Japanese imports and the Rule V picks.
  
• Base design looks better this year, but it still looks like they are using foil for the names. I would have never made the connection to the 1995 set, good catch, Chris.
• The fact we are at the point of retro game used card designs blows my mind. I'm ashamed to admit I kind of like it.
• I saw packs of O-Pee-Chee hockey in the store and even though I knew that UD has a monopoly on the hockey market, I never put 2 and 2 together and wondered if UD bought O-Pee-Chee. It's a pretty genius move actually, they did an end around on Topps to gank their vintage designs. Everyone knows that O-Pee-Chee design = Topps design with a different logo.
• Then they go and screw it up by slightly fudging the design like they did with the Vintage sets. That is NOT a 1969 O-Pee-Chee design. The circle design with the team and the position they are using looks really familiar though and I don't mean '69 Topps. I swear it's from an old oddball TCMA set or something like that.

For all your "Indians fan losing their mind over the Tribe in the playoffs" needs, check out Indians Baseball Cards. Always. It's also got lots of great oddball stuff that only a team collector could love such as Doug Jones' Flaming Balls.

If you're not reading The Brill Report, you should be. Lots of good stuff on there. I never even knew there was a Donruss Americana set coming out. Those guys are desperate for that license aren't they...

Squeezeplaycards.com has been doing a really cool thing this year with their $10 weekly wax challenge. Joey spends 10 bucks on packs every week and posts the pulls for our enjoyment. Kind of like A Pack A Day, only with focus and a healthy bit of self-discipline. It's a good example on how frustrating the hobby can be for anyone who can't afford to bust boxes and cases like the high rollers out there.

Ben's still chugging along with the Great Goudey Trade-Away. I love this idea as it serves to showcase a great looking set, show off some truly random cards and encourage something that has been lost in the hobby, trading!

I've been lurking in here a lot lately.

I've pimped this before, but I really like SportsLizard's news reader. They've also a neat price guide thingamajig, but I'm more interested in the cards than the prices.

Thorzul Will Rule is in the finals of the 1981 Topps Tournament. This is a true battle royale between Ellis Valentine's mutant batting helmet and the Mad Hungarian's angry, angry mustache. Go Vote!!!

Also on Thorzul's blog is the most awesomest thing you will ever see on the internet. I'm not even going to tell you what it is. You just have to click to see it for yourself. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

If you have a card blog that didn't get mentioned, or isn't in my sidebar, please post a comment and let me know about it. I'm planning clean up a bit and separate out all the blogs into their own category. I'd love to have a few more over there to steal from check out!

Slow Going

I'm having issues getting anything done this week, so in the meantime I'll leave you with this and let you guys figure out what it is and what it means.


I should get my act together soon. Enjoy...

Card of the Day

Nope, not card of the week, card of the day. I logged into blogger to start posting, and the news item on the blog screen was all about Blog Action Day. A bunch of blogs are posting today to promote environmental awareness. I have no problem with jumping along for the ride on special internet holidays so I decided to do my part. All I have to do is write a post relating to the environment and donate my advertising revenue to an environmental charity of my choice. I don't have advertisements on my blog, so I can promise all revenue to whoever wants it. Problem is, I write about a somewhat non-environmentally friendly hobby. I'm sure your vintage collection with all those Mantle rookies your mom threw in the landfill is biodegrading nicely, but early nineties Upper Deck (not to mention Collector's Edge) might be cluttering up the planet for millenia to come. The box blaster I just opened had way more cardboard in the box than in the actual cards. The best possible environmental advice I could give for card collectors is not to buy the blister packs that only have one pack in them.

I would like to post a card of Al Gore since he's a fairly hot topic right now, but I don't think he's got a card. He was a little late to get in any of the Desert Storm sets and I doubt he made it in the the Enduring Freedom packs that were rushed out in early 2002. He just missed being in the myriad of President insert sets that have come out recently. Topps refuses to take my suggestion for a Vice President set to break up the monotony. I'm worried I may never get that dream Rufus King rookie card for my collection. I have no Gore card, but I do have a bunch of Lord of the Rings cards. Obviously the perfect substitution for Al Gore would be an Ent. Wise and woody, hoom haroom. I looked through my cards and I've got tons of orcs, a few hobbits and maybe an elf or two, but no ents. I did find this:

OK, so it's a little heavy handed. So is Tolkein's treatment of the whole Saruman/Sharkey storyline. It's not really all that difficult to be a little friendlier to the environment anyways. Turn off that light. Don't leave the water running. Keep the car running properly to get better gas mileage. Don't throw your trash all over the place. Reuse and recycle stuff every once in a while. Just don't over do it. If you find yourself trying to sink a whaling ship, you've gone too far. Eat some sustainable seafood instead.

Preachy day on Cardboard Junkie is over, I'll be back with more fun stuff tomorrow. This has at least bought me some time to work on some cool things I have in store for you guys.

Depressed

OK, so I wake up this morning and turn on the radio. The morning schmoes are discussing the Falcons - Giants Monday night matchup. Ecch. Watching that disaster is sure to be made worse by listening to ESPN idiots. Ron Jaworski comes on the air to discuss the game. Right about the time Ron says that while he knows the Atlanta fans are probably sick of it, but since it's a national game they'll probably be discussing Michael Vick all night, is the time I turn it off. I check the baseball scores. The Rockies are about to win the World Series. Yeah, I know they still have to win 5 more games, but I'm afraid it's gonna happen. I just can't get into Rockies Mania, to me it's just another expansion team I have no interest in. I'd rather see either of the AL teams win it all, at least they've been around for a while and have suffered to get where they are. I obviously haven't learned my lesson by this point and I turned on Mike & Mike. On cue, they start talking about the Mitchell investigation and how very soon a whole bunch of new names are going to be implicated in the whole steroid mess. Greenberg is particularly gleeful about the possibility of new muck to rake. Click. I don't want to hear any more of this cable news junk. I finally wise up and abandon the boob tube for the interwebs. I load up the iGoogle page, click on the sports tab and see this.

I just missed seeing Alec play at Georgia, but I'm pretty sure I saw him play for the Heat in a game against the Hawks. The early nineties was when I most interested in basketball cards, and I would set Kessler cards aside since he was an NBA player from my school. Jason Collier's death was a little more shocking, but this is really disturbing me for some reason. Alec is only a few years older than me and I feel really bad for his family. Real bad news like this puts the rest of that meaningless fake bad news in perspective. Godspeed Alec.

Three Cards for 10/13

Eddie
Jerryand Doc

Bookstore Find

I've been scrounging around lately for a book that has information on nineteenth and early twentieth century tobacco cards. (why the hell would you want that, dayf) Something like Burdick's American Card Catalog, but updated. (seriously, what in the world do you need that for?) I'd go for the original, but I can only find reprints at Fritsch for 30 bucks. The more recent catalogs seem to be just as expensive and just as out of print. I've hit a few used book stores around town looking for something I can use, (use for what?) but not really finding anything. Not surprising, there's not a big demand for such things. I did find one cool book at the Book Nook in Marietta. Have a look:


Now that you all think I'm crazy, let me explain. Why in the world did I buy a price guide from 1982? What possible use could there be for a 25 year old price guide?? Here's a couple reasons why I bought the book:

There's actually 16 pages of color galleries in the guide, but these two from the Lipset and Halper collections really caught my eye. The other galleries show type cards from most of the other sets in the book, including two full pages just for 1981 and 1982 sets. The pictures of the cards are all the size of postage stamps, but it's still a nice handy reference. There's also a few pages of pictures of wrappers, here's the likely designs for the 2007 Bowman Heritage and 2008 Topps Heritage wrappers:

I already have an old Sport Americana price guide from about 1988 or so. The big difference between that one and this one from 1982 is there are no color galleries in the more recent one. There are also a couple of special articles in the '82 book I've never seen before. One is a fascinating article by Lew Lipset detailing a find of uncut 1933 Goudey sheets (!!!!!) and using them to infer the series distribution of cards in the set. The second article is a feature on old-time collector John D. Wagner, a man Jefferson Burdick crowned "the champion card finder". Wagner not only had a T206 Honus Wagner in his collection, he actually had a double that he gave to Jefferson for his personal collection. (Jefferson insisted on giving John a $25 check for the card that Wagner reluctantly cashed after much pestering from Burdick) The foreward of the book also has some neat historical tidbits. It talks about the explosion of card sets and collecting in 1981. From one major issue plus a handful of oddball sets in 1980, the hobby saw 3 major sets plus at least 20 other smaller ones in 81. The author speculates that the trend would continue in 1982 and beyond, and boy did it ever. All those new sets are part of the reason there is no more room for large and numerous pictures of cards or special articles in my later price guide. The book is also a first-hand historical document of the atmosphere around those early days of the card boom. Check out this little guy:

There are tons of ads in the book from dealers wanting to buy, buy, buy. There are almost as many ads to buy as there are to sell and everyone wants to buy something or other. One guy wants APBA games, another wants bread labels. This was a damn good time to be buying too: common mint copies of T206s booked for $4.50 a pop. Common '33 Goudeys were $7.50 each, and '52 Topps commons ranged from $2.50 each in mint to $36 each for the high series. The Old Planter knows about the woes of selling your cards without a price guide though... just ask Cap:

I started collecting just a few months before this book came out, and it's amazing how much stuff in here I remember from when I was a kid. Krause was publishing something brand new called Baseball Cards Magazine. You could buy 100 plastic Sheets from Dick & Charlie's Sports in Springfield Mass, while Rotman Plastic Sheets was too busy buying everything in sight to bother to sell anything. If you wanted boxes instead of sheets, you can buy 25 for fifteen bucks from some guy named Kovacs in Ohio that are totally smooth. Or you could buy anything and everything from Den's Collector's Den, who had an ad on just about every other page. Not surprising since the owner was co-author of the book.


Nostalgia aside, this is actually a pretty handy reference book for vintage cards. Most baseball card price guide books don't even bother with pre-1980 issues anymore. To get them, you have to buy one of the huge phone book sized guides, and it can be a pain slogging through those looking for older stuff. These old guides are also a good way to learn about older sets you like and find new stuff you've never seen before.

Part of the reason I'm writing this is because the Cobb County Library is having their annual Book Sale at Jim R. Miller Park this weekend. I have gotten tons of baseball books and stuff from the now-defunct Goodwill Book Sale at Northlake Mall (which was truly epic back in the day), and I'm hoping to find some goodies at this sale as well. If I find anything I'll post it in the following week, just not in such extreme detail. Until then, I'll leave you with this:


Man oh man. It sure would be nice to be back in 1982.

Awesome Mail Day

Serious card collectors depend on the mail. From hobby newsletters, trades with fellow collectors and mail order packages back in the olden days, to eBay auctions and redemption cards today, collectors have always been impatiently hovering by the mailbox like Ralphie waiting for his Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring to arrive. I'm no different, I'll peek out the window every five minutes until the mail truck arrives when I'm expecting something good. Today (well, yesterday now that I've finally finished this ridiculously long post) I received a trifecta of packages that covers the buying, trading and redemption card aspects of the hobby. I know, this blog is narcissistic enough what with all the endless galleries of beat up cards without subjecting the readers to detailed minutia of every single card I get. I won't make this a regular thing, but I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a post.

First up is an eBay auction I just kind of stumbled upon while searching for something else and wasn't really looking for, but bid on anyway because it was cool. Those are often the best finds, the ones where something neat pops up out of the blue. I was looking for a Mark Teixeira Goudey card and this auction for all three of his UD Elements cards came up in the search for some reason. Elements is basically a cross between Upper Deck's old UD3 set with three different technologies featured on the cards, and the Topps Finest mini box concept. Each box of Elements has three mini boxes, each featuring one type of card. One has shiny foil cards, another has plastic cards, and the third contains Light F/X cards. Each mini box has some kind of auto/relic hit in it because they couldn't charge and arm and a leg for it otherwise. I'm not interested at all in the set, but all three cards of Tex is worth the two and a half bucks I paid including shipping. Then again, prices for Elements boxes are dropping like a rock especially now that all the MLB prize redemption cards have expired. I might be able to pick up a complete set for $2.50 soon.

The cards came in one of those super thick toploaders with a nice shiny sticker on top. I always wonder who actually uses those toploaders. You could jam a whole pack in there if you mooshed it a little bit. They're too wide to secure anything other than a bat barrel or some other insanely thick relic card without having the card slide all over the place. If I had a relic card that was big enough to fit in there snugly, I'd probably opt for the screwdown instead. I'm pretty sure there aren't any base cards that are printed on 400 point card stock. Now that I've said this, I'm sure the Upper Deck Marketing department is feverishly working on the 2008 UD Big Ass Hunk 'O Cardboard set, where pack searchers look for the skinny pack to find all the game used cards.

Any of you guys remember when I pulled this redemption way back here? Well I finally redeemed it and it came today. No this isn't another horror story of a redemption card taking forever to process, I'm just real slack about sending the things in. It actually took around two months or so. I'm not sure if Jeff is a decent prospect or not, but the autograph is real nice. It's actually readable and I like how he merges the J in Jeff with the l in Clement. Now that's snazzy. The Clement auto books for 12 bucks in the Beckett with the Turkey Red Pujols painting on the cover. That set hasn't held up too well, it's not a good sign when the non-short printed Mickey Mantle card is the best card in the set. That's what Topps gets for putting out a tribute to an ugly set made uglier by production goofs and stupid design decisions. You coulda done a '53 Bowman set that would be worth more than $40 a box right now, you big dummies!.


The best is saved for last. I got my cards from the Ben Henry Mucho Grande Goudey Trade Off. Yep, now you all know who Dave from Acworth is. Not a bad trade at all, I got the 2007 NL MVP for Marichal and I'm just lucky to get anything for the crappy Buice card. I've been obsessively buying Goudey packs for weeks now and I only need about a dozen cards for the non-short printed set. Even so, Ben (or one of his magical card-elf minions) somehow managed to send me two cards I actually need for the set. How cool is that! Cantu features the only card in the set with the special Linda Blair green background, and the grandstands behind Matt Holliday appear to have been blowed up by irate Diamondback fans. Now I have to decide whether I put them in with the rest of the set, or I put them in with the insert cards as exclusive "Ben Henry touched" relic cards. I wonder if I can play CSI and pull a fingerprint off them. Then I could get all Mission Impossible, create a fake gel Ben fingerprint, frame him for a horrific crime and take over his blogging empire! Muahaha! Wait... I shouldn't really be typing all this out should I... Especially since his elves are apparently spying on my Goudey checklist.

I'm amazed I even got the cards at all, the first time I mailed off my cards and the SASE it came back postage due despite the fact I had the letter weighed at the post office before I sent it. The next time I mailed it, I used up some old useless 33 cent stamps thinking that would cover the extra postage, weighed it again and still came up 9 cents short. I sent it off again and realized after the fact that while the envelope going to Ben had the extra postage, the one coming back didn't. Guuuuh. I saw the post detailing my trade yesterday and resigned myself to the fact I could at least download the images of my cards while the post office dead-lettered the actual ones for being two cents short on postage. Plus Ben dropped a toxic snark bomb on Upper Deck which is always cool. But they showed up today with all my other goodies along with the promised bonus card:

Sweetness. 1982 Fleer Joey McLaughlin. But wait, there's more:


Aww yeah! Now that there is a classy logo. Plus it's on a sticker so when I send this off to PSA, they can't give me the dreaded MK qualifier because it's not actually written on the card. I'm going to go find my official Jerome Walton Fleer Soaring Stars magnet and put this beauty up on the refrigerator.

Schuerholz

John Schuerholz is stepping down as Braves' GM to become team president. Assistant GM Frank Wren is taking over the general manager position. This I did not expect. Well, I expected it to happen sooner or later, I just didn't think that meant now. I heard this on the way home on the radio, and it's starting to filter through the interwebs. News conference in about 20 minutes or so.

This is kind of a shock, but I can understand why he's doing it. I wouldn't want to have to deal with Scott Boras on a long term deal for Teixeira either. Thank goodness Bobby's still around, at least for the time being.

More Brooklyn Beaters

So Duke doesn't get lonely on the blog, here's a collection of some more Bums from a happier time.

1989 Bowman Jackie Robinson 1950 reprint and 1960 Fleer Branch Rickey

Jackie's reprint card is paired up with an old Branch Rickey card for obvious reasons. Branch is proudly posing for his card as commissioner of the Continental League.

I don't own an original Jackie Robinson card, but I came really close one time. My aunt gave me two cassette tapes for my 15th birthday: U2's Joshua Tree and an Elton John Greatest Hits compilation. I didn't really get into U2 until college and the Elton tape wasn't good Elton, it was "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" pop drivel Elton. I went to return them for the cash and lo and behold the mall was having a card show that day. Newly rich with about 26 bucks in my hands I started checking out all the tables full of cards. While I was looking, some dude came up to me out of nowhere and offered me the deal of a lifetime, a 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson card for 25 bucks. I was pretty stunned, '53 Topps was one of my favorite sets even back then and seeing a legend like Jackie was a bit overwhelming. I remember the card as being perfect, but you've seen my idea of Gem Mint. It was probably G/VG grade most likely. He basically said it's yours for 25 bucks, take it or leave it.

There were a lot of variables that went into my final decision. First of all, 15 year olds don't always have the best judgment. 25 dollars was a good price for that card even back then (my late 80's price guide shows it booking at exactly $25 in good condition), but that would mean spending most of my money in one shot. The seller wasn't a dealer with a table, he was just some guy. The whole thing seemed kind of shady to me. For all I knew he nabbed the card off someone's table and once I bought it mall security would haul me away as a thief. In the end I couldn't pull the trigger on the deal and I passed it up. There was too much other really cool looking stuff everywhere and I didn't want to blow my wad on one card. If I had just had an extra ten stashed in my pocket I might have gotten it. If I could have looked around just a bit or if he had come up to me about 20 minutes later I probably would have bought it. That card looked really nice to me. I ended with a pretty good haul from the show anyway including the only Topps Venezuelan cards I've ever even seen, let alone own. I still think about that Robinson card though.

1956 Topps Walter Alston and 1955 Topps Billy Herman

Two Hall of Famers here coaching the Bums. Walter is in the Hall for leading the Dodgers to seven pennants and four World Series titles. I'm not sure what Billy Herman is in the Hall of Fame for, but he's in and that's all that counts. These cards show the pitfalls of horizontal card designs. Everyone has to stoop over to fit on the card.

1953 Topps Roy Campanella

I don't have Jackie, but I got Campy. This is his best card as far as I'm concerned and you just have to see it to appreciate how good it looks. The Archives card just doesn't do it justice.

1952 Bowman Don Newcombe

I like Newk and I have a few of his cards. This one is easily the ugliest one I have and thus, my favorite. There are a lot of things to love about this card. The slouch, the stare, the arms that reach to his kneecaps. I could see the pose if Don was on the mound looking in for the sign from the catcher, but the empty bleachers sure doesn't make it look like he's in a game situation. I've seen plenty of cards where someone has written the year on the card, but I have no clue why someone felt it necessary to write it on his crotch.

1956 Topps Johnny Podres

Pitch a great game on just the right day, and you'll be remembered forever.

1954 Topps Joe Black

Joe had an incredible 1952 season where he won 15 and saved 15 games in relief for the Dodgers, then started 3 World Series games. Joe won the Rookie of the Year award, but then got his mechanics screwed up when manager Chuck Dressen told him to add some pitches to his repertoire. An enterprising young proofreader has updated Joe's card to reflect his 1955 trade to Cincinnati.

1955 Bowman Jim Gilliam

Another Negro League vet who won the Rookie of the Year award, Gilliam is one of the best players no one knows about. It's easy for a team to go to 7 World Series when guys like Jim are on the roster doing all the little things to help a team win.

1948 Leaf Gene Hermanski

I only have a couple '48 Leaf cards, I may as well show one of 'em off. This card looks a hell of a lot better in person.

1950 Bowman Carl Furillo

Why, yes. All of my Brooklyn Dodgers cards have a heavy crease, or scribbles all over it, or have been glued to a scrapbook at one point, or was chewed on by a dog, or went through the wash a couple of times, or all of the above, why do you ask? Furillo was actually a pretty good outfielder, but got overshadowed by all the other stars on those Dodger teams. Think Bobby Abreu on the Yankees. Kind of like that.

1954 Bowman Billy Cox

I'll leave off with that dude from the flea market's favorite player. One of these days I should really ask the guy his name. Comic Book Guy has a nice ring to it. Flea Market Baseball Card and Porn Guy, not so much.

Mission Accomplished - sort of

That Worm you gaze upon up there is a very special card. I got that sucker in yesterday's mail. It is the last short print card I need for my 2007 Allen and Ginter set. Notice I say last short print card. I still have a couple dozen commons to go, not to mention a few Perez sketch cards. Still it feels good knowing the hard part is out of the way. Or maybe not, the good card shop near me is sold out of A&G singles. I'm afraid to ask the bad card shop if they have any since they like charging quadruple for cards you actually need. Ebay 'pick em' lots seem to go for pretty crazy prices, I've been outbid on a few of them now. The guy at the flea market with the dirt cheap singles hasn't been there in weeks and might not be coming back anytime soon. Oh well, at least I have the SP's out of the way though, that's a good start.

Update: Ha! The same day I post this, the fantastic Brill Report has an article on how card manufacturers really don't give a shit about set collectors.

Card of the Week 10/08

This week's Card of the Week is one of the most beautiful specimens I own. A Pristine 1954 Topps Duke Snider.


I thought I'd post the card for your viewing pleasure while I work on the draft of the actual post.
Can any of you smart kids tell me why I chose a Brooklyn Dodger for my Card of the Week on this dark day in American History?

UPDATE: two days later... Sorry about that folks. You know those old Road Runner cartoons where Wile E. Coyote chases the speedy bird across a railroad track? Then he looks down one side of the track and sees nothing, then looks down the other side of the track, and sees it's all clear, then starts to go across the track and then *POW* he's flattened by a train? Replace train with work and Wile E. with me and that's your answer to why it's taken so long to finish this post.

Reader Rob got it right, although in a slightly roundabout fashion. On October 8th, 1957, Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley officially announced that the Dodgers were moving to Los Angeles. There are a library full of books devoted to the subject, so I'm not going to get into the controversy of whether greedy O'Malley bolted for more money or if the idiot politicians forced him out of town. Rob is absolutely right in one respect: The Dodgers move to the west coast was dependent on the Giants doing the same. The Giants actually had many of the same issues as the Dodgers, a crumbling stadium, lagging attendance, stubborn politicians and a giant pot of money waiting for them in California from a city desperate for a major league club. There's a legitimate gripe there as well, everyone bemoans the poor Brooklynites losing their team, but no one really cares about the die-hard Giants fans that watched their team run off. Maybe it's sympathy for the working class Brooklyn fans , maybe it's the Jackie Robinson mystique, maybe it's the whole Ebbets field trolly-dodging bums mythology, maybe it's the fact that most people think the Giants are still in New York (they beat the Jets just last week!). I personally think it's because the jilted Brooklyn fans got more book deals.

At any rate, New York went from the Center of the Baseball World to not even having a National League team in one fell swoop. It wasn't surprising that a team would move, every city that had two teams lost one of them to another town in the mid-50's except for Chicago (which is surprising, considering how lousy those Cubs teams were). Losing both at once was a big shock though, and generated a bit of resentment. Q: If you were locked in a room with Hitler, Stalin and Walter O'Malley, and had a gun but only two bullets, what do you do? A: Shoot O'Malley. Twice. Would it have really been that difficult to find another team to ship out to California? The woeful Senators ended up moving to Minnesota a few short years later anyway. On the flip side, America was changing in the 50's and it was really about time that the Major Leagues spread out from a handful of Eastern cities to the rest of the country. Whether you're a broken hearted Brooklyn fan or a happy San Francisco fan or were born decades later in between the two coasts and don't care either way, there is one evil that Walter O'Malley unleashed upon the world for which he can never be forgiven: Had the Dodgers not moved to Los Angeles, the New York Mets would never have existed.

Ok, enough with the history lesson and the backhanded swipe at my team's division rival, let's talk about this wonderful card. Before I got this one, the only original Duke Snider card I had was his 1964 Topps card. Anyone who has seen that card knows how sad it looks, featuring a shell shocked Snider playing for a horrific '63 Mets team. An eBay seller I frequented for vintage cards happened to also be a Brooklyn fan. For some reason there are a whole lot of old time collectors who are Brooklyn fans. It makes sense, Topps was based out of Brooklyn and there were a lot of cards floating around during the Dodgers' heyday in the 50's. There is a hard core collector who has a stand at the local flea market who is a big time Dodgers fan. When I go to check out his cards (he has a fantastic selection of vintage and autographed stuff) he likes to tell stories of his favorite player Billy Cox, of grabbing handfuls of 1954 NY Journal-American cards off of newstands when he was a kid (and putting Mantles in the bicycle spokes since he was a Yankee) and of big purchases of collections back in the day.

Apparently this eBay seller upgraded a few cards in his collection, because a group of Brooklyn auctions popped up all at once and this Duke was one of them. I snagged this one pretty cheaply and was happy to get it. Minor imperfections aside, it's a great looking card of a great player from a great set. Who would complain if they had a Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle in this condition? Heck I'd murder entire villages in cold blood for a '54 Aaron that looked even half as good as this one. Point is, it's an original Duke card and I didn't have to drop a hundred bucks on it. All those creases and scuffs and erase marks and tears just show that it has character. Who wants it in beautiful unblemished PSA 8? Well I do, but I'll settle for this slightly used version for now.

Sweeps Week

As exciting as the playoffs started out, every Division series could end with a sweep today if the Indians and Red Sox do their jobs. Meanwhile the Boss is shooting his fool mouth off again.

The DBacks and Rockies will face off in a western-themed NLCS and to commemorate this achievement they both get cards in my 2008 Allen & Ginter set. Arizona won their division, so they get to be a rare 'Deadly Snake' insert. Brandon Webb's sinker may be deadlier to the Rockies than any reptile.

Buck

One year.

Pitbullshit

Topps pulled all Michael Vick cards from their upcoming releases last month once Vick was indicted. So obviously, a handful of Vick Chrome cards have wandered out into the hobby. Topps is pleading innocent, but I find it very convenient that four times in two years insanely collectible cards that were not meant for release just happened to slip through quality control and make it out to the hobby. That either means the person in charge of making sure cards that aren't supposed to hit the market don't hit the market needs to be fired ASAP, or that Topps is bullshitting us.

I'm sure some people will rush out and buy all the Chrome packs on the shelves looking for a jackpot. Auctions will continue to sell for outrageous amounts. and Topps will make a lot of money, again. As for me, I'm pretty much done with this year's football cards. Watching my favorite team completely implode sort of put a damper on my interest for football cards, and this nonsense certainly doesn't make me want to go out and buy any more. I know a hobby shop with old boxes of Fleer and Pro Set cards for 8 bucks a pop if I really need a football fix. You know what I do if I'm Michael Eisner for a day? This:

Any of you kids out there know what this is? Here's the scoop. Basically the US Postal Service goofed and printed some commemorative stamps of Dag Hammarskjold with an inverted yellow background. Some dude in New Jersey found a sheet of them and the USPS screwed him out of a fortune by printing 40 million more of the error. That's what Topps needs to do if they're serious about shunning Michael Vick. Print up truckloads of this card (refractors too, since they got out) and insert it into every pack released for a year. Football, Baseball, Basketball, Star Wars, Wacky Packages, all of them. Insert a hand written note from Arthur Shorin apologizing for the foul up if you're afraid of offending people. Make a big-ass donation to the Humane society for good measure. Make this card a dirt common instead of "the next Honus Wagner" as the douchebag investor who is buying up all the ones that hit eBay is calling it.

It's not just the obvious that's bugging me about this. The whole incident and how it was handled very badly irks me. If the cards are already printed, just put them in the set. there's no way none will get out if you pull them so don't bother. Just don't print any new ones for the upcoming sets. No sane collector would mind if Vick cards stayed in the Chrome set because it was too late to make sure all of them would be pulled. Also, after pulling card #111 they didn't provide a replacement. Topps did the same crap with the Alex Gordon card, and having a random hole in a set for no reason is just lazy. Put someone else's card in to complete the set. If you don't have time to insert them into packs, offer it as a free redemption. Give them to hobby shops so people can pick them up. Topps already ships out boxes of those retro rookie card giveaways, send out a box of Vick Chrome with them. Send them out in the mail to anyone who wants it. It worked for Napoleon LaJoie, it will work here. But no, pulling this crap generates publicity and sales, so fuck the collector. Sorry Topps, I love your cards, but you went to the well one too many times.

Upper Deck is a better predictor than me

Forget 2003, Josh looks unbeatable right now. No one will mistake the 2007 Angels for the 1927 Yankees, but Josh just demolished that lineup. 19 straight outs after giving up a single to Chone Figgins to start the game. If Papi, Manny and the rest of the crew keep hitting, the Red Sox will be tough to beat with Beckett going twice a series.

It's in the Cards

I'm pretty worthless when it comes to making predictions. My Royals vs. Giants Wold Series pick just didn't pan out. I really thought Gil Meche would lead Kansas City to the promised land. To aid me in my playoff prognostication, I've grabbed an old box of baseball cards to use as an impromptu Tarot deck. Let us see what the Future holds......

Division Series: Phillies vs. Rockies

The Colorado Rockies step up to the plate with a sweet retro-styled card of Todd Helton from 2002 Upper Deck Vintage. The Rocks haven't been to the postseason since 1995 and they want to make it count. The Phillies are loaded for bear however and counter with a 1984 Topps All-Star card of Steve Carlton. A fiercely fought matchup, but Lefty wins the day in the end.

Phillies in 5 games

Division Series: Red Sox vs. Angels


The '85 Topps set is a good one, and Don is sporting a nifty mustache. Psycho represents Boston on his 1986 card. Steve is apparently auditioning for Reggie Jackson's role in The Naked Gun. I must kill.... Frank Drebin... Don Aase never dropped his pants and showed his Aase in Tiger Stadium, so The Sox win this round.

Red Sox in 4 games

Division Series: Cubs vs. Diamondbacks


The Snakes take a page out of the Rockies' playbook and go with the 1954-themed heritage set. The cartoon on the back states that Steve got his degree in physiology in chiropractic school but decided to play baseball because chiropractic medicine is fake. Ok, it doesn't say that last part. It's actually just as real as Tarot cards. The Cubs go to the classic 1981 Topps set (Keep on voting, folks!) but it doesn't matter because the Cubs suck. They suck Aase. They are the suckiest suckers to ever suck. I could have pulled a gem mint Ernie Banks rookie out of that box and they'd still lose the series three games to one. They suck that bad. You should've let the goat watch the game suckers.

Diamondbacks in 3 games

Division Series: Indians vs. Yankees

Wow, Indians show up with an '82 Tom Veryzer. Yawn. Boring card in a boring set. Yankees steps up to the plate with Lou Piniella from their Championship year of 1977. This isn't even a contest, Tom Veryzer versus Sweet Lou in that great '77 set with Yankee stadium in the background... wait a minute, Lou's manager of the Cubs. The Cubs suck.

Indians in 5 games

National League Championship Series: Phillies vs. Diamondbacks

The Diamondbacks have run out of retro and show up with some shiny refractory looking thing. I guess that happens when your franchise isn't even 10 years old. They didn't even bother to get a different player, it's Steve Finley again. And what the hell is Showcase? I thought it was Flair Showcase? Why drop the Flair and keep the Showcase? Blech. No way this shiny piece of crap is beating Tim's dad on that 1981 card.

Phillies in 6 games

American League Championship Series: Red Sox vs. Indians

We have a battle of the gaudy borders here, Red Sox comes with 1990 Topps, the Indians bring a card from 1975. Barrett's a great choice for the Sox, he would have been the 1986 World Series MVP had Schiraldi, Stanley and Buckner not conspired against him. But Rico Carty's on old-time Brave and you know what that means on this blog. Did Marty ever win a batting title? I don't think so. It's pretty much a push at this point, but Rico's border is orange, yellow and brown, perfect fall colors for October and the Fall Classic.

Indians in 7 games

World Series: Phillies vs. Indians

Battle of the horizontal formats. The Phillies remind everyone that they have actually won one of these things in our lifetime as Larry Bowa slides into second in a cloud of dust. The Indians save their best for last and showcase the immortal Oscar Gamble on a 1973 card with a larger cloud of dust, a wider shot and bigger hair. That poor second baseman never knew what hit him. To add insult to injury Oscar is wearing a Phillies uniform in the picture. There's even the same 371 foot marker from left center at the Vet in the background of both cards. You shouldn't have traded Oscar, Phillies... Indians win by a fro.

Indians win in 6 games

What? This is very scientific. Besides my picks can't be any more worse than the ones from these guys.