Things Done To Cards

The Team Card

2012-01-26T09:24:00.017-06:00

For my inaugural post as I try to help resurrect TDTC, I have for you an exposition of the "small stuff" team card. Above I posted an image of a classic team card, the 1961 Detroit Tigers Team Card. This card sort of embodies the KISS model to me-the whole team, right there. Lately, though, especially in the years that I've started collecting (2008, 2010-2012) there's been some messing with that formula by Topps and Upper Deck. Take a look.

Here's a classic card for you. The Diamondbacks, one of the newest franchises, congregating for the timeless team photo in the bleachers. Some of them are even smiling. Imagine that!

Very next year-WHAT?!? Upper Deck portraying Scott Rolen on more than one card in a year set is enough for me to with they were out of the baseball card business! (A quick glance at the back, however shows that the next best player on the team at the time was...uh...Alex Rios. Never mind.) Anyway, there's one example of the "team" card...a player fielding spring training grounders. Any Jose Bautista Blue Jays from you in the comments section might make this a tad less awkward.

Speaking of less awkward, here's another "team" card. Tim Lincecum and...someone else. Better...but still feels like a representative sort of effort. I don't know that I like that. Why not just do away with the team card and have two player cards from this angle? On to the next card:

Here's the 2011 Topps rendition of the Detroit Tigers team. Brennan Boesch and Miggy Cabrera. I still really don't like this. Is Topps implying that the Detroit Tigers play with two players every game? On another odd observation (maybe Topps really does have too many inserts this year) these guys probably have a Diamond Duo insert somewhere...

Here's a slightly more classic example. You know what, this feels about right. It's not posed, per se, though they are smiling for the camera, and they've obviously just wrapped up a game, so they're all in uniform and (presumably) smiling after a win.

So there you have it. Here's a final Topps Heritage classic version team card.

I had a couple of other 2011 Topps cards with more players in the shots, but the White Sox card really seemed best to me. Another card I didn't post was the 2010 Tigers "franchise history" card, which (I think) showed a statue inside the ballpark. Hm. Somewhere, there's a fine line between cards in a Baseball set, and promotional cards you get in a fan pack, I think.

1999 Workman Publishing Baseball Tarot

2011-06-01T19:23:00.001-05:00

As I am oft to do, I randomly searched Amazon for baseball-related material. I don't quite remember the combination of terms that led me here, but I found myself intrigued and perplexed by an offer for something called, "Baseball Tarot." I believe it cost me five bucks. Maybe not even that much. Brand new.

I will say the packaging is quite ingenious. The whole thing comes a thick fold-out arrangement with the book (with which to interpret the cards) on one side (it can be removed for easier reading) and the deck of 78 cards on the other. Since this was new, I had to remove the celophane from the package and from the cards.

I know very little to nothing about tarot, other than I know one shuffles the cards, deals them, then flips them over in a certain arrangement in order to decipher one's future - or something. I dunno. Anyway, this is the same thing, but relates the entire process to baseball. I found the tie-in quite clever and amusing.

The cards are divded into two "sections" or "categories" for lack of better words - "The Majors" and "The Minors." The majors contain cards depicting "The Rookie," "The Legend," "The Manager," etc. The Minors are further broken down into "suits:" The Suit of Balls, The Suit of Bats, etc. Each card has a baseball-related term (or terms) associated with it and those terms are then parlayed into life lessons: Error, Triple Play, Home Run, Shake Off...

As you can see, the cards are quite a bit bigger than a standard card (shown by the 1987 O-Pee-Chee Dennis Lamp above).

The book is very well thought out, I have to admit. I really expected some goofy baseball tie-in, and though there is certainly some of that in the book, much of it actually can be applied to baseball and life (in terms of the writing and organization. What you do with the actual readings is in your hands, as it were). For example, when laying out the cards, one can employ a "Ball, Strike, Out" or a "Who, What, I Dunno" or a myriad of other baseball-related scenarios. Each scenario is explained for the person wishing to partake in a reading.

How one interprets each card is also related to baseball: Are you ahead of the count or behind it when the card is drawn? Are you in the ballpark? What's the signal? and so forth...

Though I don't give a rip (pun intended, after all we are talking about a "pack" of cards here) about tarot readings and the like, I think the tie-in to America's pasttime was (is) very well executed in this little package. For the novelty alone, it was worth the five bucks I spent.

Follow My Career...

2011-03-27T22:40:00.004-05:00

I recently made a trip to my local card shop. The owners are nice enough to put up with my hours of searching for Bip Roberts, Don Mossi, Dick Pole, Pete LaCock, and Rowland Office cards. They also, on occasion, will set aside cards that they think I might appreciate.

They knocked it out of the park on my last visit. After searching through a box of '60s commons, in an attempt to fill out my Don Mossi collection, a stack of cards were set in front of me.

Quite possibly the most amazing stack of cards... EVER!

Thirty well-worn cards from 1958, and one from 1959 were in my hands. It was easy to see that the original owner genuinely cared for these players. Not the cards... but rather, the players on the cards. On each card, the owner carefully traced the progression of the player's career in ball-point pen. Most of the players on the cards are tracked through the 1961 season.

As you can see from the example above, this kid was pretty thorough. As you can see, Lou (The Nervous Greek) Skizas was picked up by the White Sox (in the 1958 Rule 5 draft), he then played for Bermingham (sic) and Charleston in '58. The tracking ends with Seattle (1959). At some point, he played a little third base.

Imagine how tough it was to follow all the transactions without the internet! I will forgive that the kid missed stops in Nashville, Macon, Indianapolis, Mexico City, and Denver. He did catch Havana, Cubans (couldn't find it on Baseball Reference), Sugar (Was it a lesser known nickname?), and I'm not quite sure what is written under "Sugar" (could it be an attempt at spelling "Rainiers"?)

Pretty impressive...

It gets better.

Joseph Paul Lonnett was signed by the Phillies in 1948. This card shows some of the places he hung his hat starting with the 1958 season. In the middle of the season, he was traded to the Milwaukee Braves. He didn't play for the Braves in '58, but did play for Wichita.

Then it gets CRAZY!

In May of 1959, he was traded by the Milwaukee Braves with Earl Hersh to the Detroit Tigers for Al Paschal (minors) and Charlie Lau. I'd have to do some more research to be sure why, but the players were all returned to original teams on THE SAME DAY! It seems Joe refused to report to his new team. (Did he kill the trade?)

That explains the ~~MILWAUKEE BRAVE~~ and ~~MILWAUKEE~~.

In June of '59 the Phillies bought him back from the Braves. In '59 he played for the Phillies, Louisville, and Buffalo.

1960 brought him back to Philadelphia and Buffalo, so that explains the ~~BUFFALO~~ (x2).

~~DALLAS FORT WORTH~~, the ~~SENATORS~~, ~~CHARLESTON~~, and Little Rock can not be verified by Baseball Reference... BUT I'm gonna say that this kid knew something they don't.

I have 29 more gems like this that I will share between here and my blog over the next few weeks.

The Well Loved Card Was Almost Mine

2011-03-27T20:31:00.000-05:00

I don't own a 1948 Leaf card. Not yet, at least. The only card I have before 1950 is a 1933 World Wide Gum card of Ralph Kress. I spotted this beauty on eBay and put in a token bid. I half expected to be outbid for this card, but I had a sliver of hope that the appalling condition of the card may scare other prospective buyers off. This is nothing more than a filler card. But that filler card is a vintage Luke Appling.

The card has multiple creases, frayed edges, writing in two different colored inks... it was amazing. As outstanding as this card is, I wasn't going to pay more than a few bucks for it. There love for a well worn card and there's reality. For as much character as this card has, it's not worth getting into a bidding war.

If you squint closely at the card, you can see that someone filled in the left side of the card with red ink. I have taken it upon myself to deduce that the seven "X"s that line the top represent his seven All-Star appearances. Although, I could be reading more into it than was ever there to begin with.

Ah, but what would a colorful card front be without a back? A previous owner of this card came to the conclusion that Lucius (Luke) Appling was "good". That may be a bit of an understatement.
I tried, but I refuse to pay anything more than my maximum bid. Another card will come up. It always does.

1980 Donruss Prototypes

2011-02-08T22:07:00.000-06:00

Topps monopoly over baseball cards was starting to crumble by the late seventies. Donruss and Fleer were both starting to make headway into the hobby, but they would still need a court decision to turn in their favor.

In anticipation to the late 1980 court ruling, Donruss made prototypes for cards, so they weren't caught off guard by a quick decision.

Donruss created three different prototypes. One of Reggie Jackson, one of George Brett and one of a blank card.

As you can see, this design is in line with the first official baseball sets from Donruss. There are bright primary colors and lots of precise lines. Donruss took so much care in this prototype, that the pictures look better than some of the pictures actually used in the 1981 set.

In fact, Donruss liked the picture of George Brett so much that they used it on two different cards in the 1981 set. Donruss used a cropped version of Reggie Jackson's prototype picture of one of his three cards in the 1981 set.

The most amazing aspect of the 1980 Donruss prototype is how similar it appears compared to the 1980 Topps set. Both feature flags wrapped around the top and bottom of the card and a large area for a picture.

Below is an uncut sheet of all three prototypes.

1912 T215 Pirate Cigarettes

2010-09-23T04:41:00.001-05:00

This is one of the rarest examples of a tobacco card. These cards were only issued to American and British military personnel in the South Pacific during 1912. The chances of these cards being stowed away for the trip back home are almost non-existent. Most that were stationed in the South Pacific at that time were merely looking for a smoke break and not a baseball card.

There are 97 cards in the set, but no one is known to have a complete set. The closest was a 96 card set that sold for nearly one million dollars, including the auction fees. The only card missing was Danny Murphy. This set is so rare that in many instances each card only has one known copy.

For those of you with American or British relatives that were stationed in the South Pacific in 1912, check out the items in their estate. If you find a cigarette pack that looks like this, you might have a slim chance of finding a rare card!
The cards are in a similar vein as the Red Cross backed cards, also considered a T215 set. The main difference being the large illustration of the Pirate cigarette pack on the back of the card. If you are fortunate enough to run across one of these cards, consider yourself extremely lucky.

2009 Topps Update Sketch Cards

2010-08-24T17:38:00.001-05:00

The idea of sketch cards are a wonderful idea. I'm always for art infiltrating the hobby. Good or bad, the final result is always up to the consumer. These cards have proven very popular with the collectors that have a background in fine arts. Those who don't appreciate the skill of an artist may have a harder time liking these.

The sketches are fine. I don't expect every drawing to look exactly like the player depicted. That's part of the fun of artwork. It allows you to peer into the mind of someone else and see the world through their eyes for a moment in time. No two people see the exact same things in any scenario. That's why a jury is made up of twelve people instead of just one person.

I bought this sketch card a while back. It was listed as Jason Frasor of the Toronto Blue Jays. It looked enough like Jason Frasor to have me believe it is him, so I put in a bid and ended up winning this 1 of 1 card for around $10.

I was a bit skeptical of Jason being portrayed on a sketch card. Middle relievers aren't usually the subject of special cards. It is Toronto, where people outside of Canada have a tough time knowing exactly who is on the Blue Jays team. Jason has been a part of the bullpen for several years. It made sense.

The back of the card doesn't list a name, which was worrisome. I went to Beckett.com to upload the image. I believe that there should be a picture of every card available to the public, so I try to contribute when I can.

There was a problem. I couldn't find a listing for Jason Frasor in this sketch set on Beckett's site. I'm used to not being able to find some cards when I search, only to find them later in a different search. I tried being less specific. Nothing. I tried just looking up Jason Frasor. This card was not among the list.

Finally, I looked up the checklist from the set. There were several Blue Jays listed. I could rule out all but one. Roy Halladay. Does this card look like Roy Halladay? I'm not so sure. Did an artist submit a sketch of Jason Frasor and Topps just decided that a Caucasian Toronto Blue Jays pitcher must be Roy Halladay?

The problem comes on the back of the card. There is absolutely nothing identifying the player as Roy Halladay or Jason Frasor or anyone else for that matter. I wouldn't expect the player's name to be on the front of a card like this. The sketch work is fine, but it's troubling that I would have to search to find out who this player is and still unsure after I see the answer.

Either way, I have a nice card on my hands. I'm just undecided as whether it will be a permanent part of my collection or not. Only time will tell.

babe ruth tobacco card

2010-07-26T21:18:00.004-05:00

my grandpa pulled out a box of very old baseball cards he gave it to me going through i found a babe ruth pinch hit tobacco card. the card shows him holding three bats and a pouch of chew with a bit of a fresh chew sample inside. he said he got it at a rummage sale for 75 cents as a kid he never paid attention to it. i read up on this in a old newspaper i guess these cards where ment for adutls but they never though to look inside to find the sample. i do know that this was a way to get product name out and good for bussiness. im sorry guys i do not know more about this card i really wish i did

1992 ProSport Peanuts Classics Series 2

2010-05-31T16:34:00.001-05:00

As part of a "non-sport" purchase, I received this pack of cards. At first, I thought it was a general Peanuts card set. The more I looked at the wrapper I thought this might be worth checking out as a baseball-related item. Randomly inserted in packs was a "Stan Musial Hologram Card." I opened the pack immediately.

Inside, there are 10 baseball-themed Peanuts cards. The front of each card sports either a gold or silver border and a comic frame from one of Schulz's strips. I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do to cards in and of itself. But, when I turned the card over:

I saw that ProSport had printed the entire strip on the back! Not only do you get the frame on the front, but the context of the frame within the whole strip as well! What a great idea!

Of course, I did not pull the Musial hologram, but reading through the 10 comic cards was a thrill anyway. Aside from Bazooka Joe, I hadn't seen cards with comics on them like this.

This is a cross-blog post. Related articles appear on the following blogs:

A Pack To Be Named Later
A Pack A Day
Things Done To Cards

1887-1888 Scrapps Die Cuts

2010-05-04T23:41:00.000-05:00

Issued directly after the 1887 season, this 18 card set features 9 players each from the American Association's St. Louis Browns (the modern day Cardinals) and the National League's Detroit Wolverines (a team that disbanded in 1888). These two teams met in the World Series in 1887.

The Wolverines beat the Browns 10 games to 5. The Wolverines won the series on October 21st, but since the games were already sold, the teams played the remaining four games.

St. Louis Browns
1 Doc Bushong
2 Bob Caruthers
3 Charles Comiskey
4 Dave Foutz
5 Bill Gleason
6 Arlie Latham
7 Tip O'Neill
8 Yank Robinson
9 Curt Welch

Detroit Wolverines
10 C. W. Bennett
11 Dan Brouthers
12 Fred Dunlap
13 Charlie Getzen sic (should be Getzien)
14 Ned Hanlon
15 Hardie Richardson
16 Jack Rowe
17 Sam Thompson
18 Deacon White

While there are Hall of Fame players in the set (Dan Brouthers, Sam Thompson and Ned Hanlon), the most valuable and most sought out is the Charles Comiskey. 19th century cards are usually riddled with errors and this set is no exception. Charlie Getzien's name is misspelled.

These die cut cards were popular in its day and were prime candidates to be glued into albums. It's extremely rare to run across examples of these cards today that haven't spent some time glued into an album.

What have we learned from these cards? Despite what revisionists would have you believe the World Series and die-cut cards are not inventions of the twentieth century. They've both been here all along.

1991 UD Comic Cards 2

2010-03-22T21:08:00.000-05:00

Let us delve into a pack of cards I received as part of a "Non-Sport" purchase.

Taz gives Reggie a high-five. Each card features a title ("Seventh Inning Stretch" here), the Looney Tunes and UD logos and some kind of picture. Sometimes, the pictures are of actual people. Other times, well, it's just looney.

Every card ties the Looney Tunes cast into a baseball-related scenario. The backs of the cards feature trivia questions with answers. What was the name of the LAST Bugs Bunny cartoon to be released in theaters? No, really, without Google. Go ahead. Okay, fine, it was in 1964 and it was "False Hare." Happy now?

I'm not sure if you put the cards in order they would tell a story. Judging by the dialogue, I would have to guess yes. Judging by the talking bubles, I'd have to say the writers are probably out of work these days. Well, most folks are out of work at UD these days.

This appears to be the title card. Reggie and Nolan are smiling all the way to the bank. Though, I'm not sure just how many of these packs were actually sold. You can see the "photoshop" technique employed with multiple layers, masking, and more.

Do you see that!? Dupes. In a single pack, I get dupes. Yeesh.

"So, Nolan, you're one of the greatest pitchers ever, right? Well, we'd like to take some pictures of you pretending to talk to Bugs Bunny. Yes, I said Bugs Bunny. Hello? Hello, Mr. Ryan?"

*This post appears in a three-way cross-posting between "APAD," "A Pack To Be Named Later," and "Things Done to Cards."

Cards Under Glass

2010-03-14T09:15:00.000-05:00

What you see above was a Christmas gift from my well-intentioned Mother-in-Law. Now, before we get started, let me say that she did *NOT* make this. She simply bought it at a local "Trade Days" expo they held before Christmas. With that out of the way, let's get cracking. The person who put this together snagged 16 Topps 1990 cards and put them in a picture frame. My mother-in-law bought it because it had an Indians player in the mix, which was very thoughtful of her. What was *not* thoughtful was the doof that attached the cards in place:

Yes, I took the frame apart to see how the cards were attached. With a little prying, the crime had become blatently obvious - it was.... soap... poisoning... Er, I mean, it was GLUE! Is that the biggest crime here? That is dependent upon your point of view. The fact that these are 1990 Topps and not 1968 is a good sign. The fact they aren't serially numbered, game-used items is also a nice touch. The fact that I don't know several of the players on the board is where I get mixed feelings. On one hand, it would be nice to have a display of well-known players of the time. On the other, if they were well-known, would we want them glued to the cardboard insert that came with the frame? That's a toughie. Feel free to chime in.

I thanked my mother-in-law profusely for the frame and assured her it was better she bought it for me to appreciate than to wind up in the trash bin where it was probably headed (though, I am sure I put that much more delicately). Besides, when you live next door to your mother-in-law and on your in-law's land, it's always better to choose your battles carefully. Baseball cards glued into a picture frame is not one of those times.

For those interested, the cards are: Walt Terrell (Yankees), Lance McCullers (Yankees), Ray Searage (Dodgers), Joe Price (Red Sox), Ron Darling (Mets), Charlie Hough (Rangers), Jim Deshaies (Astros), Pete Smith (Braves), Richard Dotson (White Sox), Jamie Moyer (Rangers), Brook Jacoby (Indians), John Cerutti (Blue Jays), Scott Garrelts (Giants), Gregg Jefferies (Mets), Stan Belinda (Pirates), and Randy Kramer (Pirates). Oh, and I taped Terrell back into place after the picture. I didn't have any glue handy.

2010 Topps Commemorative Patches

2010-01-31T17:50:00.000-06:00

Depending on what school of thought you subscribe to, these commemorative patches are the best thing since sliced bread, the worst thing since Hitler or so completely indifferent that you are barely aware of their existence.

Me? I'm pretty indifferent to them. I think the idea behind them is pretty cool. A specially manufactured patch commemorative a certain event, embedded into a baseball card with a small picture of someone from that specific event who did something cool. The idea is pretty solid.

The reality of these patches is that you will more than likely pay a premium on the secondary market for something that wasn't from the era of the specific event. That's not so hot.

For instance, this commemorative patch card sold for as much as the blaster that it was found in cost. What's so special about a patch recently made to commemorate an event? There are patches commemorating an event featuring the likes of Ryan Zimmerman and Mark Teixeira, but I'll bet that they won't pay for the price of the blaster.

Is it because Lou Gehrig's picture is on the card? Is it because the card features a Hall of Fame Yankees player? Is it because the subject on the card is from a vintage era? For some reason, I don't imagine Robin Roberts commemorative patch going for nearly as much unless a few die-hard Phillies fans get into a bidding war.

If a 1937 World Series era patch was featured in this card, I could see this selling for an astronomical price. Alas, the patch is most likely vintage 2009.

Maybe someday, I will understand the allure of manufactured patch cards. Sure, the one I have in my collection is pretty cool. It's a Carlton Fisk manufactured patch card featuring a silhouette of the "wave" from the 1975 World Series. Part of what makes the Fisk card so cool was the low price that accompanied the card. $5.00.

1967 Topps Poster #15, Hank Aaron

2009-12-30T08:33:00.001-06:00

Despite their choice of questionable photography in some sets, Topps could take a good picture when they needed to. 1964's set of "giants" gave a great first look at oversized, color prints on card stock (set gallery here) and they soon followed with a series of poster inserts featuring individual players (1967, 1968) and full teams (1969).

Hank Aaron had a comparative off year in 1966, the first in Atlanta after moving with the Braves from Milwaukee. Of course, he still led the league with 44 homers and 127 RBIs, but with "only" a .279 batting average. Gap power (and average) returned in 1967 and stayed high throughout his 30s (career stats here).

Card front (unfolded, 5" x 7")

The Hammer's bat handle proudly bears #44 and would never put up with the Billy Ripken treatment.

Card back (folded, 2.5" x 3.5")

Somewhere in the middle of the year, Topps added a poster to card packs as a promotional insert. Only proof versions come without folds, and are thus exceedingly rare. The set includes some great pictures of and legendary players (set gallery here), but individual "cards" don't cost much. As I write this, HOF singles are on eBay for Buy-It-Now prices under $5.

Cards as therapy

2009-10-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

We are a few, short days away from the postseason, my friends. And you know what that means to fans who have a team still playing, don't you?

Angst. Frustration. Hopelessness. Feelings of anger, powerlessness, despair.

For fans of one lucky team, the postseason ends in elation -- a world championship. But for the rest, disappointment is the ultimate destination.

I'm no psychologist, so I can't explain the motivation behind half the things I do, but when I am frustrated during my team's postseason run, I tend to avoid taking it out on my own team -- those are my guys out there, you know. Instead, I take it out on the opposing team.

Often times, that's an easy task. It's easy for me to find something to dislike in the Yankees or Giants or Mets or Diamondbacks. Other times, it's a little more difficult, like with the Dodgers' upcoming postseason opponent, the Cardinals. (But, trust me, I'll find something to dislike. Probably something related to Brendan Ryan's socks).

You may have noticed how I took out my frustration when the Dodgers played the Rockies in a season-ending series to determine who won the National League West. I'm not a fan of the Rockies for a variety of reasons, and I couldn't bear to see them win the NL West. I wish I could be a gracious loser, but I'm not. However, I didn't throw things (that much) or get too loud. Instead, I took it out on my cards.

After the Rockies' win on Friday night, cutting the Dodgers' lead to one game, I washed this 2009 Topps Brad Hawpe card with the rest of the dirty dishes. I don't have a dishwasher, because my kitchen is too small. So I washed the dishes by hand, using the card to help with the daily ritual. As you can, see, it wasn't exactly up to the task. Kind of fell apart on the job.

For Saturday's game, I sort of mowed over a Todd Helton card:

The Dodgers actually won Saturday's game, so there was no reason for me to do this. For an explanation, you can click on my blog. Oops, sorry, Todd.

But the whole purpose of this -- besides having a blog post -- was therapeutic. Slowly reviewing the Dodgers' loss in my mind while I washed silverware with a baseball card, actually helped calm me down a bit. And nothing got damaged, except for a dupe of a base card.

(I absolutely recommend using only doubles for postseason therapy. Don't do anything you might regret).

I don't anticipate doing this again this postseason, unless the Dodgers face the Rockies again, or possibly the Yankees. I have a whole stack of Mickey Mantle home run cards backed up for that purpose.

But I have to say, this is a lot better than punching a hole in the wall, or putting a pile of money down on a shrink to tell him that Manny can't hit a fastball anymore.

1960 Nu-Card Baseball Hi-Lites

2009-09-16T19:10:00.003-05:00

In 1960, Nu-Card, Inc. came up with a 72-card set of oversized cards featuring baseball highlights (Hi-Lites). The cards are 3-1/4" x 5-3/8" (postcard sized, maybe?). The fronts feature a newspaper-like layout with the card number in the upper left corner, a clipart catcher, the "Baseball Hi-Lites" text and an "EXTRA***" across the top. Under that, the place and date of the featured event, plus "Ptd. in U.S.A. (c) NCI, are listed like a newspaper date used to be:

The headlines are in red lettering with a sub-heading under it in black. There is a "representative" photo (more on THAT in a minute) that takes up the center of the card. At the bottom, in two column layout, the details of the hi-lite.

I have a Bob Feller, Rocky Colavito, the "Unassisted Triple Play" above, and an Early Wynn in my personal collection:

Now, you may notice something about the Wynn below:

The card features a write-up about Early Wynn crushing the Yankees in the 1954 season to keep them out of the pennant. The place on the paper reads "Cleveland." Early Wynn did play for the Indians in 1954. So, what's the problem? The picture is actually from Wynn's team AT THE TIME THE CARDS WERE MADE! You see, Wynn played for the White Sox in 1960, hence the "wrong" picture for the featured event!

Wait a minute! Doesn't that remind you of a recent set in which the photo on the card may or may not have had anything to do with the event on the card!? Wow, talk about going vintage!

On a more positive note, the back of each card features a trivia question. Unlike later sets that did this and made you hunt down the card with the answer, these cards actually give the answer and then refer you to the card that has more info! How nice of them.

Here is the list of cards in the set:
1 Babe Ruth Hits 3 Homers In A Series Game
2 Johnny Podres Pitching Wins Series
3 Bill Bevans Pitches No-Hitter Almost
4 Box Score Devised By Reporter
5 Johnny Vander Meer Pitches Two No Hitters
6 Indians Take Bums
7 Joe Di Maggio Comes Thru
8 Christy Mathewson Pitches Three WS Shutouts
9 Harvey Haddix Pitches 12 Perfect Innings
10 Bobby Thomson Homer Sinks Dodgers
11 Carl Hubbell Strikes Out 5 A. L. Stars
12 Pickoff Ends Series
13 Cards Take Series From Yanks
14 Dizzy And Daffy Dean Win Series
15 Mickey Owen Drops Third Strike
16 Babe Ruth Calls Shot
17 Fred Merkle Pulls Boner
18 Don Larsen Hurls Perfect W. S. Game
19 Mickey Cochrane Bean Ball Ends Career
20 Ernie Banks Belts 47 Homers Earns MVP
21 Stan Musial Hits 5 Homers in One Day
22 Mickey Mantle Hits Longest Homer
23 Roy Sievers Captures Home Run Title
24 Lou Gehrig2130 Consecutive Game Record Ends
25 Red Schoendienst Key Player Braves Pennant
26 Midget Pinch-Hits For St. Louis
27 Willie Mays Makes Greatest Catch
28 Yogi Berra Homer Puts Yanks In 1st
29 Roy Campanella NL MVP
30 Bob Turley Hurls Yankees To WS Champions
31 Dodgers Take Series From Sox in Six
32 Carl Furillo Hero as Dodgers Beat Chicagoin 3rd
33 Joe Adcock Gets 4 Homers And A Double
34 Bill Dickey Chosen All-Star Catcher
35 Lew Burdette Beats Yanks In Three World Series G
36 Umpires Clear White Sox Bench
37 Pee Wee Reese
38 Joe Di Maggio Hits In 56 Straight
39 Ted Williams Hits .406 For Season
40 Walter Johnson Pitches 56 Straight
41 Gil Hodges Hits 4 Home Runs In Nite Game
42 Hank Greenberg Returns to Tigers From Army
43 Ty Cobb Named Best Player Of All Time
44 Robin Roberts Wins 28 Games
45 Phil Rizzuto Two Runs Save 1st Place
46 Tigers Beat Out Senators For Pennant
47 Babe Ruth Hits 60th Home Run
48 Cy Young Honored
49 Harmon Killebrew Starts Spring Training
50 Mickey Mantle Hits Longest Homerat Stadium
51 Braves Take Pennant
52 Ted Williams Hero Of All-Star Game
53 Jackie Robinson Saves Dodgers For Play-off Serie
54 Fred Snodgrass Muffs Fly
55 Duke Snider Belts 2 Homers Ties Record
56 Giants Win 26 Straight
57 Ted Kluszewski Stars In 1st Series Win
58 Mel Ott Walks 5 Times In Single Game
59 Harvey Kuenn Takes A. L. Batting Title
60 Bob Feller Hurls 3rd No-Hitter of Career
61 Yankees Champs Again
62 Hank Aaron Bat Beats Yankees In Series
63 Warren Spahn Beats Yanks in W. S.
64 Ump's Wrong Call Helps Dodgers Beat Yanks
65 Al Kaline Hits 3 Homers Two In Same Inning
66 Bob Allison Named AL ROY
67 Willie McCovey Blasts Way Into Giant Lineup
68 Rocky Colavito Hits 4 Homers in One Game
69 Carl Erskine Sets Strike Out Recordin World Ser
70 Sal Maglie Pitches No-Hit Game
71 Early Wynn Victory Crushes Yanks
72 Nellie Fox AL MVP

1982 Topps Squirt Bottle Tags

2009-08-22T17:13:00.003-05:00

In 1982, Topps teamed up with Squirt to create a scratch off game where people could win $1000 in groceries, plus get a collectible trading card to boot! The game pieces had a circle that could be punched out in the top section, then those placed on the necks of Squirt bottles. Somehow, the one I ended up with is not punched!

The cards feature the trademark yellow and green of the Squirt bottle's colors. For those that have never heard of Squirt, it was kinda like Mt. Dew, but not. Do they even make Squirt anymore? I have no idea. The entire piece is about 9 inches long and about 2.5 inches wide. The card itself is standard width, but about a half-inch or so short of a standard-sized card. The stock is about half the thickness of a regular card. A quick search on eBay revealed that another variety of these features two players instead of a player and game card.

Here is a close up of the Gary Carter (#19 of 22) card:

And, I scanned the back of the card so you can see what it looks like as well:

As you can see, Topps may have come up with an original design for the front, but the back is all '82 Topps. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd bet it is the back of his '82 Topps card. Although, the "Jim Palmer" fact on the right at the top looks way too typewritten to have been on the real card. I could be wrong. I don't have an '82 Carter to compare this with.

As mentioned before, Carter is #19 of 22 cards. Here is the whole checklist:

1 Cecil Cooper - Milwaukee Brewers
2 Jerry Remy - Boston Red Sox
3 George Brett - Kansas City Royals
4 Alan Trammell - Detroit Tigers
5 Reggie Jackson - California Angels
6 Kirk Gibson - Detroit Tigers
7 Dave Winfield - New York Yankees
8 Carlton Fisk - Chicago White Sox
9 Ron Guidry - New York Yankees
10 Dennis Leonard - Kansas City Royals
11 Rollie Finger - Milwaukee Brewers
12 Pete Rose - Philadelphia Phillies
13 Phil Garner - Houston Astros
14 Mike Schmidt - Philadelphia Phillies
15 Dave Concepcion - Cincinnati Reds
16 George Hendrick - St. Louis Cardinals
17 Andre Dawson - Montreal Expos
18 George Foster - New York Mets
19 Gary Carter - Montreal Expos
20 Fernando Valenzuela - Los Angeles Dodgers
21 Tom Seaver - Cincinnati Reds
22 Bruce Sutter - St. Louis Cardinals

1991 Score World Series Trivia Cards

2009-08-15T14:02:00.006-05:00

It amazes me that no one (including myself) has posted about these little gems on here yet! So, I will take the lead (much like the first lemming over the cliff has to go some time):

Pictured above is one scanner bed full of these minis. The full set takes multiple scans.

There are 72 cards in the set. These were special cards that were included in the factory boxes. Collectors would also find one motion card per pack off the shelf. Each card measures 2" x 2.5" in size.

The front of the card is a 'motion' (like Sportflics) that would change from "World Series Trivia" or "World Series Q&A" to the year the card focuses on (in this case, 1932):

On the back, the collector finds either a tidbit of trivia (on the "Trivia" cards or a question to be answered (on the "Q&A" cards):

If you were to ask anyone that either collected these in the 90's or has since discovered them and held them in their collection for any length of time, the first thing that likely comes to mind is the fact that these little cards are stiff as boards and bend like nobody's business.

Over time, for whatever reason, the 'stuff' that binds everything together on these cards appears to shrink or tighten. The cards end up bowing in the middle and will not lay flat. In fact, to get the scans, I had to press down on the lid of my scanner. What a weird thing to happen, eh?

Games in a Pack

2009-08-02T17:37:00.006-05:00

Note: the bulk of this post is paraphrased from my post about the "Pirates" pack featured on "A Pack to be Named Later." I have added some thoughts and additional information for this blog. It's not exactly the same post! --David

Wiz Kids Games (an apparent subsidiary of Topps), provides many of the "game in a pack" fodder that one might encouter during a trip to one's favorite (or highly loathed, whichever) retailer.

These packs include everything needed for two people to play a game including punchout pieces which often require assembly by very nimble fingers, one or more dies, instructions, and other items that may or may not be needed for gameplay.

Some titles include: "Nascar Race Day," "Star Wars Pocket Model TCG," Pirates," and others. They also make the "Action Clix" games, but I have not bought any of those as of yet.

For the purposes of this post, as mentioned above, I will examining a pack of "Pirates" cards. I do have a "Nascar" pack that will appear at a later date on "A Pack to be Named Later" as well.

Each pack is a complete Pirates game (with two ships, a die, rules, etc). In order to really show these off, I scanned both sides of each playing card and then combined those into a "Side 1, Side 2" picture.

Each card is about the size of a regular/standard trading card, but is the thickness of a credit card. That's a good thing, because the assembly is a TINY feat, and anything thinner would tear like toilet paper.

First up, we have a "Firepot Specialist." The card comes with a punchout square 'special piece' and two punchout smoke-thingies:

Next, we have our first ship, Dark Fox, which bears something akin to an oldtime US Flag. Before you ask, YES, you have to punch out everything and assemble the ship. And, YES, after you punch out the pieces, they are TINY:

Here we have the booty: a series of coins (worth the amount printed on the back) plus a special coin to be used during gameplay (assuming you make it that far):

Next, is part two (because Blogger loads pictures in reverse order and I didn't realize this was #2 until writing this), of our second ship, Hangman's Joke. Why part TWO? Ah, you see, some ships are more complex and require two playing cards to complete. See? Aren't we having fun?

This is part one of the Hangman's Joke ship. The little brown wavy things are little flags that go on one of the masts. I assume they give you three because they know kids are going to lose these and come crying to their parents...

Assembling the ships not only requires you to punch them out of their cards, but to also be able to line up and insert tiny tabs into tiny slots (please reserve all crude comments for the tavern). Because these are pirate ships, they are also curved, making it that much more fun to assemble.

The little flags that hang off the back of each ship is very small, and will most likely be the first pieces lost after a few rounds of play.

Here is a special card, "Trogs." If you play this card, you get all the booty from a plundered ship. Very nice! I need to find some of these guys for a project I have around here...

And the last card in the pack is the island, because you can't have pirate treasure without an island to bury it on, right? Er, well, more accurately, to DIG IT UP from...

But, WAIT! There's more! In addition to the cards, each pack a set of "Quick Rules." These give you enough to play a scaled down game without concerning yourself with things like Trogs.

The Quick Rules provide a picture-based step-by-setp guide for assembling the ships and for playing a beginner's (or basic) game. It's pretty easy to follow.

Included in the pack is a mini-poster advertising the upcoming (back then) online PC game based on the cards (or vice versa, does it really matter?)...

We also have a copy of the Full Rules for the Complete Game. I was tempted to open this thing up and show it to you, but if you really want to know that badly, go buy a 99-cent pack at your local Target. This game can get seriously complicated. I'm not sure how many kids will stick around for a full game...

The full rules are much like reading a recipe in which you have an idea as to what you are making, but really, you've never heard the ingredients written out quite like this. A quick looksie, and this game is like "Axis and Allies" in a wax pack...

And here we have the die that comes with the game. I used the ubiquitous US Quarter for sizing reference. It is "Small... esS... emM... All... Small!"

There is also a foldout checklist, in case anyone in their state of insanity wanted to collect every piece of the game. What you see here is page 1 of 4, and it is the size of a baseball card.

And, in the name of integrity, or something, I punched out and assembled the game pieces. There was no good way to get a picture, so I set up a mock game with the instruction books serving as backdrop...

My sincerest condolances to any parent out there who had to endure putting these things together for their child. And if you bought these yourself, then you got what you deserved. In all honesty, though, the game DOES look kinda fun...

"But is it art"? (2007 UD Masterpieces)

2009-07-14T14:47:00.004-05:00

Upper Deck did a nice turn in 2007 with these pastoral, brushed-up cards. Available in slim packs of 4 (corrected from 6), UD Masterpieces captured memorable moments on roughened, canvas-like stock with gold foil framing. Loaded with parallels and other inserts as modern sets often are, I see its artful look as competing with Topps' 2006 resurrection of Allen & Ginter.

2007 UD Masterpieces (Ryan Howard and Chipper Jones):

2006 Topps Allen & Ginter (Ryan Howard auto & Chipper Jones):

My handful of cards came from a Wal-Mart repack, but I enjoyed the artistic style enough to consider buying more. (As a 99% vintage collector, not many current-day sets grab my attention.) People willing to pony up for a hobby box can score unusual cards like 5"x7" inserts, black borders, and other curiosities. Back in 2007, A Pack A Day blogged their box break live and included a number of nice scans; the affecting "Lou Gehrig Day" is my favorite.

2007 UD Masterpieces reverse:

OK, there's one obvious weakness, the repeated back photos. I assume the painting "treatment" came from a reusable series of Photoshop filters, so why not pick out a nice player profile shot and run them again? Adding more variety would nail it and could even be superior to A&G's "foggy nostalgia" look.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, I assumed incorrectly--the pictures used are real paintings and thus closer to "art" than one might suspect. What to do about the backs, then? They still seem unnecessarily repetitive. How about a painting of the home park for all members of a given team?

More UD Masterpiece links!

About.com's review of 2008 UD Masterpieces
All Masterpiece-related posts from "A Pack A Day" (includes hockey and football)
eBay search for "2007 UD Masterpieces"

2007-2008 UD Chronology Stitches In Time

2009-06-22T16:46:00.000-05:00

In the grand scheme of things, baseball is my favorite sport of the big four in the United States. Basketball is a distant second, followed closely by football in third. Hockey is in last place. Although, I'll admit, I've watched more hockey games this past season than any other time in my life. That probably has something to do with the Blackhawks finally televising home games.

When it comes to collecting, I just stick to baseball. I do look around for interesting cards in other sports. Mostly, this is for trading and my eBay store. This Ben Gordon card will probably end up in my store, but it will still be a small struggle to keep this out of my collection.

I'm a Bulls fan and Ben Gordon was the start of playoff basketball in Chicago, after a long drought. If I keep it, I will be going down a collecting path that I don't want to get into; basketball cards.

So let's look at this card. Stitches In Time - Veteran. Can you really be considered a veteran for the 07-08 season, if you were the Rookie of the Year in 2004-05? Apparently so. But wait... didn't Emeka Okafor win the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2004-05? But the card says that Ben Gordon was Rookie of the Year. I'm confused.

2004-05 NBA Sixth Man Award Winner is also listed among his achievements of the front of the card. That one is correct. Ben did make the 2004-05 NBA All-Rookie First Team, but that's not mentioned anywhere on the card. Maybe that's what Upper Deck meant to list on the front. That's a pretty big mistake though. I wonder what Emeka Okafor or Ben Gordon would have to say about this card if they ever saw the final product.

Despite that major error, the card is limited to 99. I guess that if you are going to commit an obvious error, it's best to limit the number of cards with that error. Not that it justifies the mistake or makes it any better.

Even the back of the card is a bit confusing.

You have received a Ben Gordon Game-Used trading card. On the front of this card is a piece of memorabilia that has been certified to us as having been used in an NBA game. We hope you enjoy this piece of basketball history, as we continue to keep you as close as you can get!

According to the text on the back, this is a Ben Gordon Game-Used trading card. Also according to the text, this piece of memorabilia just been certified to having been used in an NBA game. Nowhere in that part of the text does it specify Ben Gordon as being the person using this Game-Used memorabilia. This could have been worn by Benny the Bull on the sidelines during the game. I have no idea.

I could take it on faith that this was used in a game by Ben Gordon, but the text on the front of the card says that Gordon was Rookie of the Year. Can I assume one thing, while having a glaring error smack me in the head on another part of the card? Sigh. It's all in the wording, I suppose.

Still, it looks like a nice card until you really start scrutinizing it.

Red Pen Alert!!

2009-06-20T18:08:00.000-05:00

I would love to peek inside of the mind of a child. It should be filled with fantastical ideas and wonderment. I'll bet that all the world's problems could be solved by looking at everything through a child's eyes. Only then, might I be able to appreciate the added artistry of this card to its full potential.

If an adult did this butchery, I would think that they were either, drunk, high, Forrest Gump or extremely bored and distracted. What did poor Al Weis ever do to the person responsible for this masterpiece?

As you can tell by the scan, someone really loves the red pen. The words "White Sox" are helped along by a red ink stripe that isn't quite level. The "Sox" logo on the hat is filled in with red ink. The Topps 1963 All-Star Rookie trophy has changed from a yellow to a somewhat carefully lined red ink.

Al's eyes are mostly reddened and he's sporting a wonderful loopy red five o'clock shadow. He almost looks like the caricature of an old timey robber. Completing this outfit are streaks of red on each sleeve. The right side of Al gets the broad strokes of red ink, while the left side seems to suffer from a smudgy transfer.

Tiny red dots make an appearance just below the H in White Sox, under the newly red banner. There appears to be red across the field behind Al, but that is not red ink, that is actually part of the picture. The dirt between the field and the stands just shows up in a reddish hue.

Lest red be the color of choice here, blue ink makes a subtle appearance. There is a mostly vertical straight line coming down onto Al's left shoulder. Curiously, the puzzling part of the blue ink comes just underneath Al's belt line. Can this be a clue into the mind of the inking artist?

It looks like "ISJ" written in blue ink over Al Weis' lap. What does it all mean? One can only speculate the meaning of this. Perhaps this was the artist's initials? Maybe it is a crudely written infinity sign. Could Al Weis be infinity? Since Al was on the White Sox and the 1969 Mets team, could this be a Cubs fan's revenge on Al?

We may never know the answers to this doctored card, but we can appreciate this as an interesting artifact from (hopefully) a child's mind.

Duo-Tang Topps Sports Shots Binders/Portfolios

2009-05-24T14:52:00.005-05:00

I know what you're probably thinking... "What a horribly off-center 1989 Topps Strawberry you have there, Tribecards!" Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. You see, what you have here is a scan of a Duo-Tang Binder/Portfolio (like they sell to kids at Wal-Mart at the beginning of school to keep papers in). And the photo above is the best fit I could get the thing to stay on my scanner. To see how this ginormous 'card' compares to a standard-sized card, take a look at the next scan:

If you look very closely, you will see a standard-seized baseball card in the upper left corner. See it way up there, looking like some kind of "Fan Favorites Mini" card? Yeah, these binders are BIG, though flat with pockets in them.

Duo-Tang and Topps teamed up before with a 1988 set as well, as seen above. The binders/Portfolios measure 9-1/2" by 11-3/4" and are cardboard.

The 1988 set featured 130 players total. Some of them include Joe Carter, Robin Yount, Nolan Ryan, Tony Gwynn, Carlton Fisk, etc.

In addition to Molitor and Strawberry, the 1989 set featured players such as Doc Gooden, Mark McGwire, Ozzie Smith, George Brett, etc. The set was greatly reduced from 130 players down to 39 that year.

If there is great interest, I can post the checklists for each year, but you can find singles and 'sets' on eBay. Most of the sets you find for sale are actually compilations that someone else has assembled. The originals were sold in 50-piece boxes for retail stores to sell for $1 each. I don't even remember how I ended up with the ones I have... They will eventually be given away during one of my free-for-alls.

1988 Leaf Awesome All-Star Stickers

2009-05-09T22:55:00.003-05:00

There's a recently-revealed blog called, "A Pack to be Named Later" upon which I am a contributing member. I bought four of these packs to post over there, and each pack will be displayed on a random date in the future. In the meantime, I thought it was an appropriate set for inclusion on this blog! After all, we're talking VERY weird cards and baseball. It's a match made in... Well, let's just get to the set, shall we?

The first thing we see when we open a pack is the gum:

I can honestly say I have no desire whatsoever to put this 21-year old gum anywhere near my mouth. The powder is still very fine and very messy. I'm sure I'll be cleaning my scanner for weeks to come.

There are 99 cards in the set, and in one of the packs I opened, I pulled the checklist - yay me! So, for those of you keeping score at home, here are the cards you'll need to complete your very own set of stickers:

The cards themselves feature various characters sporting relevant (or opposite of what one might think) names. Also, Leaf writers evidently had a hard time coming up with names to go with certain alliterations, as seen in the two cards here:

Larry Line Drive and Long Arm Larry... I guess they couldn't have very well used "Luke," now could they?

They also had no "Political Correctness" back in the late 80's, either:

You couldn't get away with a character named "Contra" nowadays, I don't think.

And in honor of Carl Crawford's recent accomplishment, I thought I would include his predecessor:

The backs of most of the cards include little write-ups about the player on the front. But, some cards have puzzle pieces on them:

Collect all the pieces and have yourself a big-ol' time completing the puzzle.

As I said, at least it's RELATED to baseball, right?

1953 Topps Traded!

2009-04-25T09:29:00.010-05:00

In 1981, only my third year of collecting, Topps did something astounding, groundbreaking, nay, unprecedented in the history of baseball. Not content with their "normal" 726 card set, these Brooklyn-based wizards audaciously published a full 132-count expansion of rookies, tradees, and previously overlooked vets. This 1981 Topps Traded set picked up at #727, proceeded in sensible alphabetical order, and closed out with new Mariner Richie Zisk! The 9 year-old me practically wet my pants at the thought of owning such a prize.

OK, it wasn't long before my collection delved back into the 1970s and I realized "traded" sets were old news. Unfortunately, the disco-era cards featured awful airbrushing and questionable player selection, so Topps probably shelved them in search of a better business plan. I do like 1972's "TRADED" cards (including HOFers Steve Carlton, Frank Robinson, and Joe Morgan), but their high-series placement sticks modern collectors with high-dollar prices. My weekly 25-cent allowance afforded a single weekly pack as it was.

The pictured card shows the work of a real pioneer, probably a youngling like myself with a favorite team, sharp scissors, and rubber cement. They cared enough about Willard Marshall, a decent WWII-era right fielder, to track his move north from Cincy to Chicago after 1953. An unlucky "extra" donated his team logo, cap sigil, and team name to this Machiavellian task.

Obscure Cincy logo with flyin' White Sock
Cover Reds team name with "CHICAGO WHITE SOX"
Revise cap with sans-serif "SOX"

There's a twist to the team name. In 1953, Topps printed National League team names with yellow-on-black text. The "update" black-on-red combo can only come from the 1954 Topps set. Based on the hat logo, it's almost certainly #39 Sherm Lollar. Sorry, Sherm!

My 1953 set includes a dozen of these "traded" versions. Maybe a bunch of kids did this back in the day, or maybe a few did it to all of their cards. In any event, they're nice to have in a low-grade collection and add a little pizzazz to what's already a beautiful set.

Kids, Leave The Rubber Bands Off The Cards

2009-04-24T02:28:00.000-05:00

It was so cool to take stacks of cards and rubber band them together. It was the thing to do for many a generation of card collecting kids. Well, we know better today. Keep the rubber bands off the cards!!

My friend was cleaning out his basement, when he came across a suitcase full of old cards. By old, I mean mostly from the overproduced period of the late eighties and early nineties. My friend thought he had riches upon riches. It almost broke my heart to tell him that they were nearly worthless.

"You don't know that"!

Unfortunately, I do. I know what I'm talking about here. I came to terms, a long time ago, that my heyday of collecting came when the cardboard is usually worth more when recycled.

"You don't know what people are willing to pay for something if they really want it bad enough"!

That is true, but I can stake my reputation that at least 99% of what I found in the suitcase was priceless. And by priceless, I mean that the value per card would be so low that no price could be affixed to the majority of the cards.

I knew I was in for an adventurous night when my friend strolled in with a hardshell powder blue suitcase from the seventies. It even had a mirror embedded into the inside top. It was hideous!

I opened the suitcase and gazed upon a cornucopia of beautiful garbage. To be fair, there were some decent cards in there. Anything before 1986, I considered nice. From 1986 until 1994 there was trash upon trash. There could have been a few nice cards, except for the fact that they were nicked, bent and scuffed beyond salvage.

There were even water damaged cards in the suitcase. Unidentified sticky substances and rubber banded nightmares permeated the case. It was a disaster. The Mark Grant card featured in the picture above, actually had the rubber band dried and stuck to the cardboard. The rubber band crumbled to the touch, but Mark Grant had two lines of dried rubber that weren't easily coming off.

Let this be a lesson, kids. Always take care of your cards!

Samples and Promos

2009-04-22T19:30:00.002-05:00

Some time ago, JackPlumstead asked for some help with cards that featured "Sample" and "Promo" across them. I put in my two cents, and for my efforts, he sent me some of the cards!! That is fantastic! Even better? I received them in the mail on my birthday - now, how cool is that!?

The first card is a Score '96 SAMPLE of Raul Mondesi (Dodgers). There were eight players in the SAMPLE set (plus a 'header card'), and each player was featured on a regular card (seen here) and also on a "Dugout Collection" version, making the set total 17 cards:

Next, we have Michael Young (Rangers) on a 2005 UD Reflections "UD PROMO" card. The first 100 cards in the Reflections regular set were included in this special PROMO set. PROMO cards were issued in various TuffStuff magazines:

The next two cards are from the 2004 UD Yankees Classics PROMO set. Unlike the card above, EVERY card in this set was made into a PROMO card. That begs the question: What makes it PROMO? I guess the fact that you could get these inside TuffStuff as well...

Here is Steve Balboni (Yankees):

And Jerry Coleman:

The last card I received comes from the 1999 Fleer Brilliants "Promotional Sample" set. "Set" is a bit of an overstatement, as the JD Drew (Cardinals) card was the ONLY card in the Brilliants promotional set. I have to say, this really is one 'brilliant' card - great foil, nice pic, the back is just as nice (no foil, but the uniform look of the text on back is "noice"!!

A big "Thank You" goes out to JackPlumstead from across the pond for these promo cards!

What happened to this card?

2009-04-21T13:44:00.007-05:00

Only after PunkRockPaint left a comment on one of my most recent posts over at Night Owl Cards did I realize that the post would have fit perfectly on Things Done To Cards.

But I'm not going to repeat everything that I wrote in the Night Owl Cards post. That would be unoriginal and, for me, repetitious and boring as hell.

For those of you who have read the NOC post already and are looking for something new here, I apologize. But I hear that PunkRockPaint is going to whip up something spectacular for TDTC at some point in the future.

For those of you who haven't read the NOC post, my first question is: what's wrong with you? Do you want to see a grown man cry?

But really, if you want to read about all of the things that I did to this 1976 Tom Seaver card during one year of my childhood, as well as some of the things I did not do, then click here.

Feel free to share what you did to one, single card when you were a kid. Either here or over at NOC.

Rabid Lobby Card

2009-04-13T22:58:00.002-05:00

I may be stretching the definition of cards here, but with all the celebrity deaths today, I think it's appropriate to widen the definition.

When movies are released into theaters, they typically are accompanied by posters and billboards and all sorts of advertising. The advertising that most of us don't see is the lobby card. They are typically 11 inches by 14 inches, but have known to be 8 inches by 10 inches.

I couldn't tell you the last time I actually saw a lobby card on display, but they still make them. One of the lobby cards that I'd like to show today is for the David Cronenberg film, Rabid, from 1977. Yes, it features the now late Marilyn Chambers in one of her few mainstream roles.

Anyone who has been to my house has been amazed at my wall of movies. I am a movie buff, but some things still elude me. I haven't seen Rabid since I was a teenager. I couldn't really recall what it was about, but I remember a motorcyclist and rabies. It's not a movie to show the kiddies. The lobby card made me instantly remember to motorcyclist. A quick search on IMDB confirms the part about a strain of rabies.

Most lobby cards feature a scene from the movie or a publicity shot from on the set. Usually they are black and white, but some have had color over the years. I always found the lobby cards very interesting. It was always something extra to take from a favorite movie. Especially, the ones that featured a candid shot of the actors still technically in character.

You can pick up lobby cards fairly cheap. I like the ones of oddball movies the most. They usually feature the candid photos or the deleted scenes. I'm going to have to track down Rabid, now that my hazy teenage memories of the film have resurfaced.

Fugitives from a 1959 paste gang

2009-04-13T21:01:00.008-05:00

Every November, the Greater Boston Sports Collectors Club hosts a big show in the Shriners Auditorium outside Wilmington, MA. Packed with dealers and goods, it's the best Boston show of the year and second only to the National on my personal calendar. You can find a lot of vintage cards, promotors arrange a bunch of signature guests, and plenty of real, live Shriners work security, fezzes at the ready.

There's only one downside to living near a good show: your wantlists shrinks year after year, constantly cutting the opportunity to make a good deal. Fortunately, they don't all go away. Just last year I snagged a battery of baseball luminaries from one seller. Two 1959 Topps, #380 Hank Aaron and #392 Whitey Herzog, cost a grand total of $8. One cannot easily turn aside such quality cardboard and I snapped them up.

Some good deals come with a "catch" in the transaction and this one proved no exception. See the Gorbachev-like mottling on Herzog's face? Like chained fugitives on the run, Hank and Whitey were actually a single unit, bonded back-to-back with 50 year-old gunk. Based on the card numbers, perhaps an avid collector affixed his whole set to paper in numerical order, putting #380 and 392 on opposite sides of the same page. There's no stopping dogged persistence.

Bonded cards like these two represent a real risk, since scrapbookers of the past secured their treasures with all sorts of nasty adhesives. I bought them with the intent of separation, but it's important to draw the line somewhere when dealing with glues-that-time-forgot. It might be water-soluble paste, rancid rubber cement, or just liquid evil. You hope it's the first one, since the worst only dissolve under the toxic influence of toluene, a substance best avoided. I've used acetone (nail polish remover) on stubborn cards in the past, but always don a mask around the fumes.

For Whitey and Hank, I started optimistically with water, and so should you. Grab a shallow bowl, fill it an inch or two deep, and drop in your victims. They'll float on top, so push them underwater like a younger sibling at the pool. Hold them down for a minute (the cards, not the sibling) to soak completely. A paperweight works great here. Ultimately, you want the sticky stuff to loosen or dissolve without force, so I left these two in the water overnight. Pass the time by contemplating your navel, eating some ice cream, or blog about spilling ice cream in your navel.

The card darkens during the soak and it is possible to stain or fade if you leave it in too long. Better to go one night at a time. If the glue's not loose after two nights, water's not the answer. You'll need to try something more aggressive (and risk card damage), switch to a chemical, or write off the project as a learning experience.

In my case, an overnight bath did the trick. With most of Hank and Whitey already floating free, I coaxed the pair carefully apart and transferred them to paper towels. A viscous, yellowy old paste covered both backs. Being already wet and crumbly, gentle picking with a fingernail cleaned off the schmutz. (It took about five minutes for each.) Work slowly if trying this at home; get the glue off, but leave the card back intact.

Worst case scenario: nasty glues can bond directly with the card, making removal practically impossible. In that event, practice swearing in a foreign language.

End result: legible backs! After cleaning, I sandwiched the cards in new paper towels, pressed them between heavy books, and did some more waiting. A couple of days of drying brought them in line with the rest of my collection.

Note: Holding the cards between solid objects keeps them from warping as the water evaporates. If you don't care about that, just put them on the counter in the open air. Some people hot iron their cards back to health, but must be careful not to burn or blanch them in the process.

Free free to post feedback or success stories in the comments. Note that this article assumes you're soaking cards for the sake of separating them. Some collectors consider this alteration, especially if you're trying to mask problems with an otherwise high-grade card. See this Network54 guide for more info and use your best judgment!

1982 Davco Publishing Hall of Fame Baseball Stars

2009-03-31T20:21:00.004-05:00

What you see above (the 'way' above) is a 1982 Davco Publishers Bob Feller card. It is one of the many oddball Tribe items I own. The card is printed on heavy stock, though not thick. It's one of my favorite oddballs because I haven't seen many like it. And, of course because it features the great "Rapid" Bob Feller!

The card itself is actually part of a 25-card Hall of Fame set. They have blank backs. Each has a painted scene of the player being depicted. The tag line reads: "(c)MCMLXXII Davco Publishing, Skokie, Ill."

Often referred to as the "Blue" set, it features these players:

1 Hank Aaron
2 Grover C. Alexander
3 Roy Campanella
4 Ty Cobb
5 Joe DiMaggio
6 Bob Feller
7 Jimmie Foxx
8 Frankie Frisch
9 Lou Gehrig
10 Bob Gibson
11 Hank Greenberg
12 Rogers Hornsby
13 Walter P. Johnson
14 Sandy Koufax

15 Mickey Mantle
16 Christy Mathewson
17 Willie Mays
18 Stan Musial
19 Jackie R. Robinson

20 Babe Ruth
21 Tris Speaker
22 Pie Traynor
23 Honus Wagner
24 Ted Williams
25 Cy Young

You can actually find complete sets online, if you're looking. Individual cards can also be had, though those are actually harder to find than complete sets. Go figure.

CyberAction Digital Trading Cards

2009-03-28T21:41:00.005-05:00

Around the year 2000 or so, I came across a CD in the discount bin. The CD read "Major League Baseball: The Year the Records Fell." I looked it over, and it turned out to be a disc with "digital baseball cards" on it. Well, that's all I needed. I paid the $5 and took it home. Now, in those days, CyberAction was still a viable company, doing things with digital trading cards that no one else was doing. Unfortunately, when the "dotcom" bubble burst, so did CyberAction, Inc. Ironically, the address I found using the WayBack Machine still exists, and the phone number is still registered to CyberAction. I wonder if it'd be worth a call to see if I could get the digital cards on the cheap.

The cards pictured in this post came on the CD. You can still find the CD if you search long enough online, and you can usually get it for about 2 bucks. The downside is that you don't have access to the cool cards that came later. I actually managed to download a bunch of their free cards, but I'm sure the files have long since gone to electron heaven.

The files themselves are in Macromedia Director format, which is some kind of file type that my computer loves to hate. There is a CyberAction Viewer that gets installed from the CD, but evidently it can't handle newer version of QuickTime. This means you can look at the front of the cards, but you cannot 'interact' with them.

The 'interaction' part came in the form of an animated 'flipping' of the card to read the back, and many cards came with a short 'highlight video.' Of course, you need to be able to run QuickTime to play the vids, and it shipped with quickTime 3, which is only like 7 or 8 versions behind or something. The most you can do is arrange them on the 'table' as I have done in these photos.

The CD comes with 54 cards plus a bonus card if you register your CD with the included code. Of course, you can't very well unlock it if the site doesn't exist anymore, can you? Or can you? I'm working on it to see if I can 'trick' the program into showing me the bonus Yankees card.

In addition to many 'regular' issue cards, the CD does include Collector's Edition cards of Rod Carew, Al Kaline, and I think Babe Ruth. I really wish I could see the backs of the cards, just for the stats and such. As it is now, though, looking back at these digital cards is kinda cool. I had forgotten about them.

If there is demand for them, I will capture and post ALL the cards on the disc to my blog. Also, if I manage to get a hold of the other .dcr files, I will see what I can do about sharing those and the cyberaction viewer. Since the company is defunct, I don't know the legal ramifications I may run into (or skirt around).

In addition to baseball, they also did Star Trek, wrestling, and some specialty cards like Fructis...

The Baseball Card Coffee Table

2009-03-19T03:08:00.002-05:00

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from Matt at Collected Studio. He told me about a project that he had recently done involving baseball cards and furniture. That piqued my interest.

I went to his site and found this. A detailed post about the making of this baseball card coffee table. Included is a YouTube video of the making of this piece of art.

I was digging the Animals song on the video. It's one of my favorites and I've been bugging my friend to learn it, so we can record it. That's a bit off track, but so what.

Matt sells these custom tables out of his studio, according to the video. I think this is a great way to use unwanted cards as art. We all have piles of early nineties and late eighties cards that are just taking up space. Why not sacrifice those doubles in the name of art?

Matt has done this process with everything from a lazy susan to mirrors. There's even a snack tray lined with cards and a card storage box. It just goes to show that with a little creativity, you can turn a five cent card into a masterpiece.

Thanks for sharing this project, Matt!

2009 Topps Wal-Mart Black

2009-03-12T00:19:00.000-05:00

This year, Topps tried to go stealth on us. In April, Wal-Mart was supposed to sneak indistinguishable blasters into the mix with the regular 2009 Topps blasters. Well, Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart decided to mix them in a month early.

While the product reached the shelves unannounced, the immediate reaction was mixed upon the card collecting community. Some were elated. Some were confused. Some were mad. Some even tried to make a quick buck on eBay.

After the initial dust had settled, Topps in a rare openness, revealed the information about this variation. They included the UPC numbers that identified the blaster as having "black" cards. Topps also confirmed that a different variation was planned for Target stores and gave the UPC numbers for that variation.

I think Topps did the right thing when first confronted. Normally, the word would be deny, deny, deny. I, and many others, appreciated the honesty and frankness of Topps. This makes the madness of a variation project like this, fun and smile inducing.

As for the cards themselves... they look great, in person. They don't scan so well, but they scan well enough. Some people have nothing better to do than to put the cards up to their nose and sniff. There is a faint odor to the cards, but you really wouldn't notice it unless the card was millimeters from your face.

The cards look absolutely gorgeous. The background is darkened and the player is not. This creates a spotlight effect on the player. The result is spectacular on most cards. How would you like to be facing Greg Maddux highlighted, while everything else is blackened? His fastball about to come out of his hand looks fierce. Greg looks scary, as everything else is gone. I would not want to face him in this scenario. Truthfully, I wouldn't want to be in the batter's box against Maddux in pristine conditions. This would scare the life out of me, if I was a batter!

1977 Burger Chef Fun Trays

2009-02-17T19:24:00.005-06:00

In 1977, MSA teamed up with the fast food chain Burger Chef to create "Fun Trays" for kid's meals. For those way too young to know (or not in the geographic location to know), Burger Chef (at least in the recollection of my childhood) was the ugly stepchild to Mcdonald's and Burger King. The food was cheaper in every sense of the word. But, for a kid growing up outside of Pittsburgh, it was the place we would go for a 'treat' BECAUSE it was cheap.

The Burger Chef "Fun Meals" were the equivalent of "Happy Meals." They were fun, not necessarily happy.

In an effort to create some happiness for the kiddos, Burger Chef served their meals in trays that featured punchout discs with baseball players on them.

There were 24 trays in all, featuring the stars of the teams included on the tray. All tolled, there are 216 cards in the set (a list of players by team appears at the end of this post, supplied by www.teamsets4u.com).

The teams included Rangers, Astros, Cardinals, Red Sox, Orioles, Twins, Indians, Royals, White Sox, Brewers, Tigers, Giants, A's, Angels, Padres, Mets, Dodgers, Expos, Phillies, Yankees, Pirates, Cubs, Braves, and Reds.

You can find individual discs if you look, but I actually found the whole unpunched trays easier to locate.

LIST OF PLAYERS BY TEAM:

1977 Burger Chef Discs - Angels
Bobby Bonds
Dave Chalk
Bobby Grich
Paul Hartzell
Ron Jackson
Jerry Remy
Joe Rudi
Nolan Ryan
Frank Tanana
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - ASTROS
Enos Cabell
Cesar Cedeno
Jose Cruz
Joe Ferguson
Ken Forsch
Roger Metzger
J.R. Richard
Leon Roberts
Bob Watson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - A'S
Stan Bahnsen
Vida Blue
Phil Garner
Paul Lindblad
Mike Norris
Bill North
Manny Sanguillen
Mike Torrez
Claudell Washington
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - BRAVES
Jeff Burroughs
Darrel Chaney
Gary Matthews
Andy Messersmith
Willie Montanez
Phil Niekro
Tom Paciorek
Jerry Royster
Dick Ruthven
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - BREWERS
Jerry Augustine
Sal Bando
Von Joshua
Sixto Lezcano
Charlie Moore
Eduardo Rodriquez
Jim Slaton
Bill Travers
Robin Yount
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - CARDINALS
Lou Brock
John Denny
Pete Falcone
Keith Hernandez
Al Hrabosky
Bake McBride
Ken Reitz
Ted Simmons
Mike Tyson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - CUBS
Bill Bonham
Bill Buckner
Ray Burris
Jose Cardenal
Bill Madlock
Jerry Morales
Rich Reuschel
Manny Trillo
Joe Wallis
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - DODGERS
Ron Cey
Steve Garvey
Davey Lopes
Rick Monday
Doug Rau
Rick Rhoden
Reggie Smith
Don Sutton
Steve Yeager
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - EXPOS
Gary Carter
Dave Cash
Tim Foli
Barry Foote
Larry Parrish
Tony Perez
Steve Rogers
Del Unser
Ellis Valentine
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - GIANTS
Jim Barr
Willie Crawford
Larry Herndon
Randy Moffitt
John Montefusco
Bobby Murcer
Marty Perez
Chris Speier
Gary Thomasson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - INDIANS
Buddy Bell
Frank Duffy
Dennis Eckersley
Ray Fosse
Wayne Garland
Duane Kuiper
Dave LaRoche
Rick Manning
Rick Waits
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - METS
Bud Harrelson
Dave Kingman
Jerry Koosman
Ed Kranepool
Skip Lockwood
John Matlack
Felix Millan
Tom Seaver
John Stearns
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - ORIOLES
Mark Belanger
Paul Blair
Al Bumbry
Doug DeCinces
Ross Grimsley
Lee May
Jim Palmer
Brooks Robinson
Ken Singleton
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - PADRES
Rollie Fingers
George Hendrick
Enzo Hernandez
Mike Ivie
Randy Jones
Butch Metzger
Doug Rader
Gene Tenace
David Winfield
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - PHILLIES
Bob Boone
Larry Bowa
Steve Carlton
Jay Johnstone
Jim Kaat
Greg Luzinski
Garry Maddox
Tug McGraw
Mike Schmidt
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - PIRATES
John Candelaria
Duffy Dyer
Al Oliver
Dave Parker
Jerry Reuss
Bill Robinson
Willie Stargell
Rennie Stennett
Frank Taveras
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - RANGERS
Juan Beniquez
Bert Blyleven
Campy Campaneris
Tom Grieve
Mike Hargrove
Toby Harrah
Gaylord Perry
Lenny Randle
Jim Sundberg
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - RED SOX
Rick Burleson
Dwight Evans
Carlton Fisk
Fergie Jenkins
Bill Lee
Fred Lynn
Jim Rice
Luis Tiant
Carl Yastrzemski
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - REDS
Johnny Bench
Dave Concepcion
Dan Driessen
George Foster
Cesar Geronimo
Ken Griffey
Joe Morgan
Gary Nolan
Pete Rose
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - ROYALS
Doug Bird
George Brett
Dennis Leonard
John Mayberry
Hal McRae
Amos Otis
Fred Patek
Tom Poquette
Paul Splittorff
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - TIGERS
Mark Fidrych
Bill Freehan
John Hiller
Willie Horton
Ron LeFlore
Ben Oglivie
Aurelio Rodriquez
Rusty Staub
Jason Thompson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - TWINS
Lyman Bostock
Rod Carew
Mike Cubbage
Dan Ford
Dave Goltz
Larry Hisle
Tom Johnson
Bobby Randall
Butch Wynegar
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - WHITE SOX
Jack Brohamer
Bucky Dent
Ralph Garr
Lamar Johnson
Bart Johnson
Chet Lemon
Jorge Orta
Jim Spencer
Richie Zisk
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - YANKEES
Chris Chambliss
Don Gullett
Catfish Hunter
Reggie Jackson
Thurman Munson
Graig Nettles
Willie Randolph
Mickey Rivers
Roy White

Things NOT Done to Cards...

2009-02-12T21:43:00.004-06:00

As a baseball card collector, there is nothing quite like pulling a "hit" from a pack of cards. Jersey swatches, pieces of bats, autographs, or anything that brings me closer to the game is a welcome addition to my collection. Pulling one of these memorabilia cards is always a thrill for me. Heck, even when I buy a box of cards with guaranteed "hits", I still get excited when they show up.

If I had to estimate, I would say that I have opened over ten thousand packs of cards in my life. Granted, before 1990 there was not much in the way of "hits" you could pull from a pack. Nonetheless, in the last nearly twenty years I have had plenty of opportunity to pull autograph and jersey cards.

These are the backs of two of my favorite "hits":

2000 Fleer Greats of the Game - Willie Randolph

Take some time to read the back of the card...

Done? Okay check out this one:

2005 Bowman Heritage - Troy Glaus PG-TG

Did you read the back of this one? Hmmm... Not such great "hits" that a Tony Gwynn collector should call them his favorites. Well check out the fronts of these "hits"...

I posted them over on my PunkRockPaint Blog if you want to see.

Rescuing A 1971 Topps Billy Martin Card

2009-01-31T23:51:00.002-06:00

Hi. this is Matt F. Long time reader, first time blogger...I'll let my video speak for itself but if you are interested in the back story read this.

This was a lot of fun to try to do and I'm glad I was able to rescue the card without destroying it. Until next time.

Look! I'm Ozzie Smith! 1990 MLB Punch-out masks

2009-01-22T12:33:00.003-06:00

In 1990, a company called "Gallery Books" published a 16-mask set of baseball players. The set was broken up into four books, each with four punchout masks. The masks (Ozzie seen above) are made up of the player's face with team hat, a brim for the ballcap, and two earpieces. I do not own these, but wonder how on earth I managed to miss these wonderful oddball items. I noticed several pages (maybe all the pages for all I know) have instructions for assembling the masks. Really? I am pretty sure that if I had been 8 or 9 in 1990, I could have figured out how these things work. Then again, as a child I had the entire collection of Whitman 'Tiny Town' books, so maybe I'm just special that way....

The books include the Rookies: Chicago Cubs' Jerome Walton; NY Mets' Gregg Jefferies; Angels' Jim Abbott; Seattle Mariners' Ken Griffey Jr:

The Power Pitchers book includes: Texas Rangers' Nolan Ryan; LA Dodgers' Orel Hershiser; NY Mets' Doc Gooden; Boston Red Sox's Roger Clemens:

The Power Hitters book features: NY Yankees' Mattingly; NY Mets' Darryl Strawberry; SF Giants' Will Clark; Oakland A's Jose Canseco:

And, finally, the Golden Gloves book: Cardinals' Ozzie Smith, Cubs' Mark Grace, Cubs' Ryne Sandberg, Braves' Wally Joyner:

A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Equivalent

2009-01-15T01:20:00.003-06:00

Over the holidays, I received a huge stack of cards from dayf that were unfortunately damaged during transit. About the only card that wasn't damaged during the trip from Georgia to Illinois was this 1954 Topps card of Fred Marsh. It had the pleasure of already being damaged goods!

Seeing cards like this one make me want to invent a time machine, just to see what happens to these cards during the course of their lives. This 1954 Fred Marsh must have one great story to tell.

The corners are worn away. There are pinholes in the cardboard. Nicks, chips and creases abound! There are even two holes in Fred's neck! This card has seen a lot of history.

There is a card wide crease right under Fred's eyes that seem to prop up the crow feet around the eyes. There are scuff marks along the edges that suggest this card may have been part of some baseball card war. Perhaps even thrown into a pile of bicycle spoked tragedies.

It's dirty looking. Scruffy looking. A poor man's near Picasso. Despite it's flaws (or maybe because of them) it is now one of my favorite cards.

1996 Pinnacle

2009-01-09T19:49:00.001-06:00

Pinnacle was always in love with gold foil. The 1996 edition was no different. The Pinnacle logo is just gold colored, but the bottom of the card is a mass of gold foil.

At least the shape of the foil makes sense. The cards are called Pinnacle. Pinnacle means a high, pointed piece of rock. It has also come to mean, the top, the best, which is probably what Pinnacle Brands meant by their name. But going to the original meeting, a sharp, pointed slab of gold foil fits the name.

But take a close look at the foil. You may have to click on the card to see the larger image. There is some texture to the foil. Why, it looks like a spider web! And what's that stuck in the spider web? Oh my God, there's a baseball player stuck in the web! He's trying to bash his way out with his bat!

I've had these cards for years (will, since 1996) and I never noticed that poor batter there until I scanned this card. What was Pinnacle trying to tell us?

1995 Bettie Page In Black Lace Spectratone

2008-12-27T22:36:00.003-06:00

Somewhere around 1990, I remember seeing ads in the back of Baseball Card Magazine selling sets of non sport subjects. One subject that I always saw advertised in the back were card sets of Bettie Page.

I had absolutely no idea who Bettie Page was and didn't really care at that point. I was scoping out oddball baseball sets and dreaming that I had unlimited money, in which to purchase those sets.

As I got older, I found out who Bettie Page was. I thought it was interesting that this woman became an icon. As I learned about the history of Bettie Page, I started to admire her a bit more. I can't say that I was ever a huge fan, but I admired what people thought that she stood for.

When I discovered the news that Bettie passed away this month, two things entered my mind. The recent movie with Gretchen Mol as Bettie and that set of cards that I saw advertised when I was much younger. I couldn't find the set that I saw in the back of Baseball Cards Magazine, but I stumbled upon something better.

In 1995, two sets of 50 cards were produced called Bettie Page In Black Lace. Inside some packs were special "chase" cards. There were a set of five cards called Spectratone. You can find complete insert sets on eBay for under ten dollars. There is nothing particularly wrong with the images. I've seen worse on prime time television, but some may find these images objectionable.

If so, then skip to the next post.

I've seen many of these images in the regular eBay section, so I would take that as being fine for the general public.

I can still remember the original advertisement that got me very curious as to who was Bettie Page. It stated that her whereabouts were unknown and there was a huge fanbase trying to track her down. I wondered why so many people would make such a fuss over someone I had never heard of before.

Bettie was THE pin-up girl. Her poses have breached into the lexicon of America and is associated with Americana all over the world. Chances are, you've seen a photo of Bettie and had no idea who she was.
These cards just seem to be tinted versions of photographs of Bettie Page. Still, they are an interesting part of the trading card culture. It just goes to show that Bettie still had legions of fans in 1995. Truthfully, I think that she's more popular than ever.

Rest in peace, Bettie. Your legacy continues on.

The Checklist

2008-12-21T19:20:00.022-06:00

At some point during the period in which I stopped caring about baseball cards, Topps stopped caring about the checklist.

The best that I can figure -- keep in mind I barely dipped a toe into the hobby from 1994 to 2004 -- Topps stripped the checklist of any remaining dignity in 2000. That's the first time I noticed the no-numbered checklists.

For years, each checklist carried a number on the back of its card, just like every other card in the set. If you were collecting the set, you had to collect the checklist -- because it was a numbered part of the set -- no matter how boring the checklist was. And the checklist was issued in the same quantity as other cards in the set. You wouldn't find a checklist in every third pack, like you do today.

Perhaps that was the reason Topps finally stopped numbering checklists. Some collectors were probably relieved that they didn't have to chase a checklist to complete a set. But the move hasn't set well with me.

I kind of liked the checklists. I looked forward to seeing what kind of new design Topps would come up with as a backdrop for all those players' names. And since it was numbered, you were forced to appreciate the card at least a little. It wasn't a throw-away item like it is today.

What I'd like to see happen is what they previously did with checklist cards. They used to feature popular players of the day on the front. As recently as the 1990s -- 1993 to be exact -- Upper Deck featured checklists in which the list of names were printed over the top of a muted photo of players like Barry Bonds or Ken Griffey Jr. And there are several other '90s examples.

But an even better example is this:

This is from the 1969 Topps set, and it's probably the only card of Mickey Mantle that I own that actually has some value (all those cards that Topps has published of Mantle in the last 10 years are the very definition of the word "overproduced"). Putting a star at the top of the checklist made the card much more collectible, not to mention the fact that it is No. 412 in the set, and you couldn't have a complete set without No. 412.

It'd be nice if Topps returned to this format, and featured Ryan Howard, David Wright and Evan Longoria atop its numbered checklists. Then, finally, the checklist would reclaim some of its dignity.

Because as it stands now, we're using the checklist for all kinds of tasks for which it wasn't intended. I received a box of cards a week or so ago complete with nearly 70 Topps 2000 checklists, but not because I wanted all those checklists. They were used as packing material.

Useful, yes. But now what do I do with them?

1998 Upper Deck Craig Biggio

2008-12-20T10:56:00.003-06:00

This is one of the cards I recently received from Spiff over at the Texas Rangers Cards blog. It was one of a hefty box of Phillies and Astros he sent. I'll be refilling the box with Rangers cards for him.

I have other examples of cards like this but this one was at hand.

I love these cards where the back photo is a continuation of the play from the front of the card. Biggio was a great at second base. You can see the concentration as he throws the ball to first to complete the second half of a double play as Wally Joyner bears down on him.

I imagine for this type of card, the photographer has his camera on autowind and just holds the shutter button down until the play is over.

I know I have a two cards where the one card features the fielder and the other card features the runner with different shots of the same play. I think it's in the 1993 Upper Deck set. If I ever find them I'll post them.

1990 Donruss Bonus MVPs

2008-12-10T20:07:00.003-06:00

Bonus MVPs was an insert in late 1980s and early 1990 Donruss. The 1990 version featured
26 cards. They had the same basic design as the regular cards. Bright red with confetti scattered up and down the borders. The photos are all posed and the background is MVP repeated over and over.

There is nothing really special about these except for the existence of an error card involving John Smoltz. As you can see there are two versions of this card, one with a picture of Smoltz, the other with a picture of his teammate, Tom Glavine.

You have to wonder how such a thing happens. My guess is that in 1990, neither of these guys was real well known. Both were coming off their first full year of pitching. It's hard to imagine someone in the baseball card manufacturing business not being to recognize both of these guys on sight, but they weren't always as famous as they are today.

I'd had the correct version of this card for some time. I just
recently acquired the Glavine version in a pack of Donruss from a Fairfield repack box. Who says there isn't still some fun to be had from an 18 year-old-pack of cards?

When I logged the card into my database I didn't really look at it closely and didn't notice the error. It was when I was going to put it in my Smoltz binder that I thought, hey, wait a minute, that's not John Smoltz!

1996 Pinnacle Christie Brinkley Collection

2008-12-09T17:32:00.003-06:00

After a very long and very successful career, Greg Maddux has announced his retirement. There have been a few card postings (most notably this one by Cardboard Junkie) but I thought I'd post my favorite Maddux card. This card is my favorite for a few reasons:

1. It's Greg Maddux
2. It features Christie Brinkley in the back
3. It's the very first card I bought on eBay
4. Once I knew I could find a card like this my baseball card collecting was rejuvenated.

This 16-card insert set was available in 1996 Pinnacle Series 2 packs. It was inserted at the rate of 1 in 23 packs so it's not incredibly rare.

I assume that the frame Greg is holding onto must be sitting on something. Or he's very strong. That thing must weigh 50 pounds.

1993 Stadium Club Master Photo

2008-12-08T20:23:00.003-06:00

In order to get one of these you either had to buy a box of of 1993 Stadium Club or get a mail-in redemption card which were inserted 1 in 24 packs. The mail-in card got you 3 of the Master Photos.There were 30 of these in the set, of which I have 11. In Beckett, they don't carry much of a premium over the regular card. Beckett lists the Nolan Ryan card at $3 and the Master Photo at $5. These are big, 5" by 7". The 'Master Photo" card features the same photo as the player's regular card but the photo area is a bit bigger. The regular card is cropped at the on-photo gold foil border. Here's what the regular Ryan card looks like:

These are available on eBay. Someone is offering 25 copies of the Mark McGwire for $4 plus $6 for shipping. The McGwire books at $3 so its a pretty good deal. Someone else is offering two packs of these with Bonds, Strawberry, Clark, Canseco, Boggs and Tartabull for $99.99. I'm temped to ask him a question. "Are you kidding?"

1977 Topps Rookie Cards

2008-12-06T14:36:00.003-06:00

I think almost everyone as a kid had a friend who was what parents would call "a bad influence." I had one. He served as the devil on my shoulder, telling me I should do things that I kind of thought weren't right, but went ahead and did anyway.

Now, I was in sixth grade at the time, so we weren't breaking the law or anything. All we did was collect baseball cards, 1977 Topps baseball cards to be exact. And my "bad influence" thought it would be a great idea to collect all of the four-picture rookie cards that Topps issued back in the mid-to-late '70s and cut the cards up, so that we had four little mini-cards. What could be better? You take one card and end up with four cards! That's quadrupling your output!

I was hesitant at first, but after I saw the results, I thought they looked cool. And I couldn't wait to collect the rest of the rookie cards in the set and cut them to bits, too.

After the carnage was over, I had a tidy little stack of 64 super-mini cards, no more than a couple inches wide. I tied them together with a rubber band and took them everywhere I went.

I mean it, we cut up every single card. Dale Murphy rookie card? Cut up. Andre Dawson rookie card? Cut up. Jack Clark rookie card? Cut up. Tony Armas? Lee Mazzilli? Steve Kemp? Len Barker? Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut.

Through the magic that is the computer and simple cropping, you can see what these hand-crafted mini-cards looked like.

I kind of like the black line separating the photo from the type. A nice touch, don't you think?

Of course, I don't really mean that. For years, I couldn't believe that I could be that dumb, and I blamed my friend for leading me to the dark side once again.

I recovered only a few of those 1977 cards intact. I do have the Dawson rookie card again, although it's fairly beat up. I have the Dale Murphy card and the Scott McGregor rookie card. And if anyone cares, I also have the Len Barker-Randy Lerch-Greg Minton rookie card.

But there are so many of the cards that are gone for good, because I tossed out those mini-cards the year after making them, basically because I didn't care about them anymore.

One day I will try collecting the 1977 Topps set, and when I get, say, to card No. 490, which features Bill Almon and Mickey Klutts, it will be the first time I will have looked at that card in my hands since my fingers were wrapped around a pair of scissors, and I was cutting that cardboard to bits.

Wordmarks and Logos

2008-12-03T14:25:00.006-06:00

While catching up on my blog reading, I wandered across a post about the 1991 Topps Roger Clemens card on Cardboard Icons. In the comments, he wondered why they didn't use that photo in Stadium Club.

The photo is great (almost as cool as the Benito Santiago one.)

I decided to mess around in MS Paint a little at lunch and see how that shot might have looked on a Stadium Club card.

There is something missing... It took me a while to realize what it was that I liked so much about the original.

I loved the team wordmarks on the 1991 Topps. I had not been very fond of any Topps designs since the 1987 set. Then I realized, the use of an official logo hadn't been used since '87; and before that... the '80's? No. The 70's? No. Not since 1965 had Topps used a team logo on players base cards. Could that be right???

Starting with 1952 through '55, Topps used the team logos. After a brief break they used them again from '58 through '60. They didn't bring them back until 1965. And not again for 22 years.

It is strange. People seem to hold a special place in their hearts for their team's logo. Why would Topps avoid using official logos for such a long period?

1996 Select Certified

2008-11-30T11:09:00.003-06:00

Cards with a mirror finish! The scan doesn't do this card justice. The background behind Cal is as bright as a mirror. The card logo and player name are in gold foil. The cards came with a plastic film to protect the surface.

I purchased the entire 144 card set in 2004 on eBay for $12 (including S&H). The cards were originally sold in 6-card packs for $4.99. That's 83 cents a card in 1996. I got them for a tenth that.

The cards were produced by Pinnacle, which had obtained the Score brand by then. Select had been a Score product starting in 1993. Card companies like to put words like "Certified" in their card names to signify something special. Certified has two meanings: "officially recognize (someone or something) as possessing certain qualifications or meeting certain standards" and "officially declare insane". I'm guessing that Pinnacle had the first meaning in mind but the second meaning may more accurately describe the state of the baseball card business in the mid to late 1990s.

By the time I bought these cards the plastic film had been on there for 8 years. Due to the difference in materials (the card vs. the film) the cards were all bowed inward. This happens because the cardboard absorbs moisture while the plastic film does not. So the card expands a bit but the plastic film cannot expand. So the card bows. The film was real hard to get off as well but the cards appear to have not been damaged.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

2008-11-27T17:55:00.002-06:00

This card is a single card insert in 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights set. I got it in an 18-card pack I picked up on a whim.

As you can see the song was originally published in 1908, so this is the 100th anniversary of the song.

There is a long piece on Wikipedia about the song. What I thought was interesting is that the guy who wrote the words had never been to a baseball game before he wrote the song. In fact, he didn't go to his first game until 32 years after he wrote the song! The composer hadn't been to a game either.

The song was a big hit in 1908, with several recordings having been made.

The big surprise to me is that the song has verses. The familiar refrain, is just that, a refrain, or chorus. I don't believe that I've
ever heard the verses.

There are almost 150 versions available on iTunes. I sampled a bunch of them and none seem to have the verses. Most of the versions are pretty short, about 2 minutes long, not enough time for verses.

After rooting around on the Internet for awhile, I realized that I had heard the verses, on Ken Burn's Baseball sung by Carly Simon.

Here is a site I found that has Simon's version (pretty much the original 1908 lyrics) and another version based on the 1927 lyrics.

Enjoy.

To write or not to write

2008-11-25T22:24:00.003-06:00

Someone thought a card of Willie Davis was worth selling didn't they?

This is a Topps Super card, which came from a set of 3-by-5 cards issued by Topps in three-card packs in 1970. The backs look identical to the backs of the regular-issue 1970 cards, but these cards are much thicker. They're more like slabs than cards.

But the reason this card is featured here is because of the hand-written price tag on it. I'm not sure how this card was obtained originally. I received it from Stats on the Back. Mark might have the answer. Perhaps it was picked up at a rummage sale in which the seller thought nothing of scrawling the price right on the card.

We've all seen examples of writing on baseball cards. Names scribbled out. New names scribbled in. Commentary added. Mustaches and glasses drawn on faces. We've all been amused by it. But part of our amusement comes from the knowledge that "we know better than that now."

Today, the only writing that you see on a card is an autograph. Cards are considered too valuable to have a pen touch the card in any other manner. No commentary, no scribblings, no mustaches. It got me thinking that, unless it is an autograph, I haven't seen writing on any card from the last 15-20 years.

I thought about it so much that I got curious. Just what would a modern-day card look like with a little scribbling?

So I did this:

So THAT'S what it would look like. Man, did that feel good. And don't worry, I have six of these Orlando Hudson A&G cards.

This one in particular will cost you 20 cents.

1986 G.I. Joe Trading Cards

2008-11-24T17:09:00.000-06:00

Were you aware that Milton Bradley put out a G.I. Joe trading card set in 1986? I sure wasn't! If I would have seen these in 1986, I probably would have picked them up. I never saw them, so my money went towards Baseball Tattoos, All-Star pop-ups and G.I. Joe comic books.

I was a huge G.I. Joe fan in the mid eighties. I thought most of the storylines in the cartoon were imaginative and well thought out. It never seemed like they were trying to just sell a product. It seemed like the staff of the cartoon and the comic book really cared about the characters and enjoyed what they did.

This was a set of 192 cards and 12 stickers. I would have been up to the challenge of wasting my money on trying to complete the set, in 1986. Now... not so much. I still get a nostalgic twinge when I run across anything G.I. Joe related. I'll pop in the cartoon DVD sets that I own on a whim. Maybe once every three years, I'll dig out the old comic books and give them a read.

I can't help it. G.I. Joe was a huge part of my life back then. It's only natural to go back to the well when you need to feel like a kid again. If the stories would have sucked, I don't think I would ever want to relive those plotlines. I appreciated the fact that the writers never dumbed anything down for the kids. Not intentionally anyway.

To see pictures of the packaging and a more in depth look at the set, check this out.

The cards featured art from the action figures, the vehicles and stills from the cartoon. This would have been right up my alley in 1986. There were 8 cards and 1 sticker per pack. 96 packs came to each case.

Cards 1-30 featured the Joe team. Cards 31-65 featured Joe accessories. 66-95 featured action shots. Cards 97-113 featured Cobra members. 114-126 were Cobra accessories. 127-191 were more action shots. Cards 96 and 192 were the obligatory checklists.

The card checklist looks like there was some thought given to alignment. It seems pretty much in order. It would be interesting to see how all of these cards would look in an album. The art that I've seen uses the 1985 blister pack artwork from the action figures. I preferred the 1985 packaging with the more cartoony explosion, rather than the 1986 digital Morse code burnout that took over the background.

It appears that the corners are rounded on the cards. I really like that on some card releases. It seems to fit well with the subject matter and the artwork. Actually, I think I'm glad that I never saw these in 1986. Those cards would have been destroyed from overuse!

Chew on this

2008-11-23T13:28:00.006-06:00

When you decide to invite a puppy into your home, there are a few things that become apparent immediately.

First, a puppy is like a newborn baby in many ways. You have to teach him how to sleep, how to speak, how to go to the bathroom. Fun!

Secondly, you now have competition for your food. Remember those old days of putting food on the table, then going back to the kitchen to get a drink or something you forgot? Gone. The dog will catch on to any careless action when it comes to food.

Finally, and this is most important: YOU MUST KEEP EVERYTHING YOU VALUE IN LIFE UP HIGH.

After countless early lessons, I thought I had gotten that third point down cold five months into owning Dodger (yes, he's named after my favorite baseball team). But I got careless last week. According to Dodger, baseball cards ARE food, and he somehow snagged a pack each of Upper Deck Masterpieces and Baseball Heroes and made them into his personal doggie 1 of 1s.

Let's take a look at a dog's artistry. To him, at least, these are works of art. To others, they are a travesty. I know a few card bloggers out there who might want to look at the rest of this post with their hands over their eyes.

First we have the Masterpieces cards and Hanley Ramirez. This card, compared with the others, came away relatively untouched. But it's a shame this is a two-dimensional image, because there are teeth marks all up and down the top and bottom of the card. If you stack these nine dog-chewed cards next to a pile of nine cards untouched by canine saliva, the chewed cards are more than twice as high as the others.

Avert your eyes David of Tribe Cards! Dodger went right for Hafner's spikes on this card. Dogs love their shoes. He punched a hole just to the right of the "R" in "Hafner."

Dodger's quite the fan of one of Patricia's favorite pitchers, Barry Zito. You can even see at the bottom right where my dog signed the card -- with his teeth. I had trouble lining these cards up on the scanner, because they had suddenly taken on the look and feel of a relief map.

I'm showing the Carew card again because it's the only one, believe it or not, that has a piece missing. I don't know where that missing piece is -- probably long digested by now.

On to the Heroes cards. It looks like Dodger chewed and slobbered on this one for quite awhile. Serves Figgins right for being an Angel.

I said in a comment on another blog that this was a black parallel card of Hughes. I don't know why I said that. It's obviously not. I made the comment the day of "the incident," so I must've still been in shock. The Hughes card is torn in two places up at the top.

Frenchy doesn't look too worse for wear. But there's actually creases all over the card. And none of these cards will lie flat.

A couple of big rips through Brandon Webb's card. By the way, I am SO glad there were no Dodgers in any of these packs. And that's the first time I've ever said that sentence.

Finally, Steve, I'm sorry. A tattered black parallel of Paul Konerko. But at least Dodger appeared to like the card -- a lot!

I suppose the good news is none of these cards were short-prints, at least not that I know of, and none, aside from the Konerko, were parallels.

All of my cards are in safe keeping away from Dodger. But as you can see, I have to be vigilant at all times. Because while you may see cardboard, my dog sees FOOD!

2005 Uno

2008-11-20T10:30:00.000-06:00

As is often the case, a post by someone else reminded me of something I had which would make a good post.

Here is a card from the 2005 Uno Baseball American League Set. There was another set featuring National League players.

The set came in a metal box and is a complete Uno game. I was disappointed to find that each color suit featured the same players, in other words, the 7 card has Ivan Rodriguez in each color. Here are the players featured:

0 - Johan Santana
1 - Mark Teixeira
2 - Houston Street
3 - Carl Crawford
4 - Miguel Tejada
5 - Runelvys Hernandez
6 - Travis Hafner
7 - Ivan Rodr1guez
8 - Ichiro
9 - Roy Halladay
Reverse - David Ortiz
Skip - Derek Jeter
Draw 2 - Vladimir Guerrero
Draw 4 - Mark Buehrle
Top 2 - Ozzie Guillen and Phil Garner

My guess is that the photo on the Top 2 card is from the 2005 World Series. The two men are embracing. Garner congratulating Guillen for the Series win?

Its a pretty nice item. I didn't realize when I bought it that there were separate National and American League sets. When I was back in the Toys R Us where I found this they were out of the National League set.

1984 Gremlins

2008-11-19T17:51:00.000-06:00

In the summer of 1984, there were three big movies that my classmates had to see over the summer to have a shot at any social life. Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, Ghostbusters and Gremlins. I got to see Temple Of Doom at Ford City Theaters with my dad. This was before the gang problems that plagued the site in the nineties.

Ghostbusters, I saw with my parents at the drive-in. Gremlins, I saw with my dad at the drive-in, in an orange Gremlin of all things. I was captivated by all three movies that summer. I'm sure if I think about it, I could name other movies I saw that summer, but those are the three that stick out.

I don't remember Ghostbusters cards. I vaguely recall Temple Of Doom cards. Gremlins cards were a different story. I probably picked up more packs of that in 1984 than actual sports cards. Where are they all now? They are lost to time. I can fondly remember the bright yellow colors and the comic book frenzied lines framing a movie still or publicity shot.

The set consisted of 82 cards. I was always a few cards short of completing the set. I would literally spend hours sifting through my Gremlins cards in 1984. A few years later they would be misplaced and never seen again. I still have my childhood memories from this set and that's good enough for now.

I could relive the movie without spending $3.00 on a ticket or having to wait until it popped up on cable a year or two later. That may have been why I lost interest in this set. When it finally came on cable, I no longer needed the set to watch the movie. Nor did I need my View Master discs to relive the action. These cards served their purpose and now they are a nice memory.

1990 U.S. Playing Cards

2008-11-19T02:31:00.001-06:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Major League players on actual playing cards. These were really popular in the early nineties. Then, after a few years, they seemed to disappear altogether.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing current Major League players on playing cards. For that matter, I'd also be interested in old school players in the same format. I suppose this is one of those ideas that was keen in the nineties, but ultimately has no place in today's society.

I can chalk it up as an oddity of the time, but I have a feeling that somewhere, somehow these cards will be resurrected in the near future. There doesn't seem to be as many oddball releases currently. Everything seems to be based on an insert today. No originality. Even the cards that Topps bestowed on Pepsi in 2007 looked just like the flagship release.

As you can see in the example, Griffey Jr. was popular enough to warrant the jack of spades. A face card for a rookie seems unbelievable. Yet, there he is. This release had all the names of the day. It even had Greg Olson and Gregg Olson! Then you get into Jeff Brantley, Neal Heaton and Brook Jacoby. They don't exactly spark any memories for me, but I'm sure they do if they played on your team.

What early nineties set would be complete without Bob Welch? Well, it wouldn't be complete without the 27 game winner. A feat he never came remotely close to again. In fact, he never got past 17 wins before that. After that magical season, he only managed to hit 12 wins... once.

I keep getting beat up playing cards in trades. I think they are a unique product of the early nineties. I know that it's not an original idea, but it seemed to culminate around this period. There always seemed to be a steady stream of MLB playing cards around 1991. As time moves on, this may be the only card that really retains some value from 1990. Everything else was too mass produced to be worth anything but sentimental value. These cards were meant to be played. Maybe that will be the saving grace in the future.

DIY 3-D Cards - Kickin it old school

2008-11-08T20:10:00.000-06:00

For no other reason than "I felt like it," I decided to put together some old school 3-d cards and post a mini 'how-to' on here. After all, what better place to talk about making your own 3-d cards than on TDTC!?

I will be discussing two variations on the theme - a two-card method and a three-card method. You, of course, could use more cards if really want to get into it. Just know that the more cards you want to incorporate, the more planning you need to do. Materials needed include: duplicates of the same card of the same year etc; scissors or a hobby knife (X-Acto); glue, tape, or other adhesive.

Our first subject is Jim Abbott. I chose him for two reasons: 1) I have about 8 of these same card, and 2) It would be an easy 2-carder.

So, let's look at the 1996 Pinnacle Jim Abbott:

We see a pitcher in motion with the crowd behind him. We also see the triangle shape at the bottom, and because of some nice camera work, some of the 'brighter' areas of the player. His leg, right arm, cap, and ear are all "in front" of the other parts of his body. Once you decide what parts you want to 'bring forward,' you can cut those out of the second card. Do NOT cut anything on the first (or 'base') card!! Here is what things looked like after I was done:

I originally planned to include the triangle, but after I got the other parts on, I decided it would take away from the player's 3-d look. I screwed up the cap a bit, as you will see in a minute, but I thought including the ear would add a little 'card humor' to the mix. Yeah, I'm a baseball card dork, so what?

I used scissors for this because I didn't really care about being 'exact' and was just doing this for demo purposes. I also planned to use a glue stick, but the only one I could find had dried up around the time this card was originally produced. I used Scotch tape and just folded it over, trimming as I needed.

Once you have the pieces ready with adhesive, carefully place the parts onto the 'base card' (the one you did NOT cut up) looking for key places to align the cut-outs. When you are done, you have a basic two-card 3-d item:

I know it may be hard to compare the two, since they are now reduced to flat, scanned images, so I combined the 'before' (left) and 'after' (right) for comparison:

You can see where the scissors left traces of edging in certain places (cap, lower half of arm piece, top half of leg piece). In a way, though, that adds to the "3D Effect" of the card.

If you have youngsters in the house, this is a great way to spend some time together. Just be sure to educate them as to which cards they CAN and CANNOT do this to! :-)

Next, I decided to do a 3-card project to show some of the depth you can get. For this project, I found three Mo Vaughn 1999 UD Ovation cards. This project is a little more complicated. As I looked over the card, I knew I wanted to leave the already-embossed stitching alone. So, that only leaves the circular 'fans' and Vaughn himself. There is the banner at the bottom, though, too.

Remember, the more cards, the more planning. So, here is what I wanted: Vaughn to be at the most-forward position, the crowd behind him, then the base card. The banner at the bottom could be either one or two 'stick-ons' deep. I opted for just one stick-on because I wanted Vaughn to be the thing that sticks out the most.

I set the base card aside. Card #2 became the basis for the crowd. Notice how the background is basically a circle. Perfect. I cutout the circle as best I could. Remember, Vaughn will be in front of any places you might cut off his head or other body parts, so you do not have to worry with that right now. I also decided to cut the bottom banner off this card.

The next chose was cutting Vaughn out of card #3. I found the easiest way to do this was to discard anything that was "not Vaughn" and not worry about the 'cleanliness' of the remains. After all, it was the guy in the center I was after. Ideally, I would have taken time to cut out ALL of the background parts. You can See in the finished product, I did not remove the crown between his right arm and body. Honestly, I don't think anyone noticed.

Now for assembly. I attached the circle and the banner to the card. Then, I placed Vaughn on top of the circle, aligning things as best I could. The scan of this card shows the 3D effect much better than the 2-card method because it is literally more 3-dimensional.

Again, I put the cards side-by-side in a single scan so you could see them next to each other:

If so desired, slip the finished product into a penny sleeve for safe-keeping.

Why would you want to more than three cards? I was hoping to find an example, but couldn't in time to get this posted for tonight. But, several ideas come to mind... You could use one to make a 3d border (Say, for those 1990's Donruss we all have), then use other cards to create the 3d effect. I think you could also use cards to layer in the background crowds, etc. For example, let's say you have a card with the player in the foreground, a bit of field, the dugout, and two tiers of fans visible. Starting with the fans near the top of the card serving as the base card, you could build a card that gradually 'popped' out to the viewer. Depending how complicated the build, you could even preserve the border each time and end up with a diorama-type project all in a 2.5"x3.5" space. I'll keep searching for dupes and see what my daughter and I can come up with (my son was none too interested in this project, though I caught him pairing up his Pokemon cards into dupes....).

1993 Stadium Club First Day Issue

2008-11-04T14:17:00.000-06:00

This is an early example of baseball card companies trying to create scarcity in a product this is produced like a commodity. In 1993 through 1995, and again in 1998 to 2000, Topps put a foil label on the Stadium Club cards they made on the first day of issue. I have no doubt (not much anyway) that the cards so labeled were actually made on the first day but really, what difference would it make. I'm sure Topps got this idea from the postage stamp collecting world where first day covers are a big collecting item. In that world, a big deal is made of the first day issued stamps as usually they come on a post card or envelope which is canceled with a special stamp showing the date.

Topps idea in 1993 was to put the FDI stamp on 2,000 cards. Beckett lists these as being worth 8 to 20 times the base card. It also says to beware of transferred FDI logos. I know mine are genuine because I got them in a pack. They were seeded into packs a 1:24. Did they really only produce 2,000 sets on the first day?

In the 1998 to 2000 run, they upped the ante on these. In addition to the FDI logo, the cards were numbered, for example, to only 200 in 1997. Did they really only make 200 sets on the first day? Are these the first 200 sets made? Who knows? Who cares? In 2000, there were also Stadium Club Chrome cards, and FDI Chrome cards. I actually have a First Day Issue Stadium Chrome Refractor card, numbered to 25. Unfortunately, it's only Ryan Klesko, but Beckett says it's worth $20. The 2000 cards don't have a gold foil logo like the earlier cards. It has "First Day Issue" printed in gold foil. Probably harder to counterfeit.

A-Mays-ing Pull

2008-11-03T15:13:00.000-06:00

As I'm sure most people in the blogosphere know, I pulled a Willie Mays materials card numbered 02/10. This was a fantastic pull and I couldn't be happier with it. Which is why it's up on eBay right now.

I'm very happy with it, but it doesn't fit into my criteria of collecting and I can possibly put a small dent in my wedding fund. So, ultimately, I'm happy with the card for many reasons.

For me, this will probably be the best thing I ever pull. I don't normally buy high end boxes. Every time that I have purchased upper mid level boxes, I have been burned. Plus, I don't have the funds to essentially waste on product of that nature. Sure, it's fun, but I can get more bang for my buck busting other products.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of playing in the majors. I dreamed of hitting more home runs than Carlton Fisk in a season. I dreamed of passing Hall of Famers, one by one, on the home run list. I always thought that when I passed Willie Mays, I would consider that my greatest achievement. I thought that if I could catch Hank Aaron, that would be wonderful, but I would happily settle for second place.

This card instantly brought memories of those childhood daydreams. That is worth the price of admission, for me. I hadn't thought about those pipe dreams in a long time. Baseball and baseball cards should bring out memories like that. It's part of the reason why we collect into our adulthood. We strive to feel as secure as we did back then. When the biggest problem in our lives was trading a Dave Winfield card for a Cal Ripken Jr.

Cards like these bubble those feelings to the surface. This is one of the main reasons why I collect. The feeling I got when I saw this card out of the pack could not be accurately measured with any scientific device. There aren't many things that will make me feel like a kid again, but this pull is definitely one of them.

For those who came late to this site, and haven't checked out the archives, this site started out as a showcase for my pulls and for damaged cards that I ran across. It emerged into a site that featured every imaginable concept put to cardboard. Then it expanded even further with great writers joining the family here. I thank every one of those writers for contributing what they have. They have taken this site to places that I couldn't have imagined back in January.

If you would've told me twenty years ago that I would have a card with a Willie Mays uniform in my possession, even for a short while, I wouldn't have believed you. This card has brought out my childhood and brought out the responsible adult. The kid in me doesn't want to let this card go, but the adult in me is willing to sacrifice the card for the big picture. I'm just happy that the kid in me had a little fun before the adult took over in the decision making process.

Size DOES Matter

2008-11-02T14:18:00.003-06:00

Take a look at the photo above. What do you see? A couple of Indians cards, a Pirate, a White Sox player... What else do you see?

The Doc Edwards card on the left is a "standard" sized baseball card. Everything else is all over the place. We have big cards (like the 1980 Topps Jumbo Tekulve), we have "oversized" cards (like the 1989 Bowman Allanson). There are "oddball" cards with sizes that could be anything (1995 Classic Phone Card Frank Thomas), and we have "throwback" cards like the 2008 A&G Hafner and the 2007 Goudey Sizemore.

We have seen cards on this blog that look like bookmarks, posters, you name it.

What's the big deal, you ask? For a collector, size can be a very big deal. At some point in history, when cards had come to the 'standard' size (usually 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches) someone realized you could divide a page up into 9 pockets and fit 9 (or 18 if you went back-to-back) cards into a 3-ring binder! Brilliant!

But then, we had to stop and think about the T206's we have, or the other non-standard-shaped cards. What do we do with those? Well, eventually, companies like BCW came out with pages to accommodate most sizes out there - 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, coins, bookmarks, minis, micros, etc.

Different sized cards are not a new thing by any stretch. Before there was even a such thing as a 'standard' size, candy and tobacco companies made cards to fit in packs. And then, as the creative teams at various companies came up with new gimmicks, size got put on the back burner. There are 1975 minis and Pacific micros, Topps jumbo posters and Pinnacle 5x7 "card-in-a-card" types. Heck, Pacific even came out with a card in the shape of a BOX, for crying out loud (for reference, see 1988 Pacific Aurora).

All of these 'innoventions' are great for the hobby in general, but can drive some collectors to start collecting liquor bottle labels instead of cards.

And just think, I haven't even started talking about how the THICKNESS of a card affects collectibility.... With all this talk of size and thickness, it's a wonder this post isn't being marked as SPAM...

Are the card makers and the pocket-page manufacturers in cahoots with each other? That may require some further investigation.

Thorzul Will Rule Contest Card: The Birth of a Monster

2008-10-31T23:39:00.015-05:00

Happy Halloween! I am typing this by the haunting glow of a jack-o-lantern... I blame all typos on the less than suitable lighting conditions.

This evening's card is the "hit" from the pack I submitted for Thorzul Will Rule's First Annual Card Halloweenification Contest. That is not the actual name of the contest, but I figure if you win the thing you earn some re-naming rights.

I had a bit of an unfair advantage in the contest. I have been making cards since I was in tee ball. (If you can find it, the Rancho Penasquitos Hawks team set will cost you a pretty penny on Ebay.)

The rules of the contest were fairly simple: to "Halloweenify" a baseball card and submit it for judging. Entries could be sent via email, but it was made clear that cards "in hand" would have an advantage. I decided to use my collecting philosophy to win the contest. If one card is good, a bunch of cards is better. My concept was to manufacture a pack of cards, including the wrapper.

I thought it would be cool to create cards of horror movie villains. Using a card design contemporary to the release date of the film (i.e., Psycho 1960, The Shining 1980, etc.) I figured it would be a diverse and entertaining pack. After four cards I was happy with the progress. It was good. It wasn't great.

I needed something to push my pack into Coolsville. Whenever I open a pack and pull a game used jersey or bat card I still get a thrill. The idea for a game used "bat" card seemed cool. A chunk of flying mammal embedded into a baseball card turned out to be a little too gory. I decided that sticking with the movie theme would be a little less horrific. Little did I know...

The choice of what set of cards to use as a model was easy, thanks to my recent addiction to '08 Allen & Ginter. I really like the encased mini autos and game used cards. I have a few gamers that I wouldn't miss; and the "shell" would certainly add to the authenticity I was aiming to achieve. A little x-acto knife action and a steady hand, and Mr. Sexson was free. I found another copy on Check Out My Cards. So if I ended up missing his original, encased state I could always get another.

I decided to showcase Regan McNeil from The Exorcist. That movie scared the crap outta me the first time I saw it. (Full disclosure: I only saw it once. Well, I saw most of it. I closed my eyes and covered my ears for the scary parts.)

I used a Brian McCann card as a base for my design. With minimal MS Paint manipulation, the card began to take shape. Like I did with all of the cards, I printed my designs on sticker paper and affixed the fronts and backs to old Milwaukee Brewers cards.

I_had_to_cut_a hole in the substrate card large enough to accomodate the "game used" material. The material was a little more complicated than I expected. At first, I cut a swatch of soiled tube sock. I thought it mimicked the vomit stained nightgown quite well. Unfortunately, The sock was too thick. Fortunately, I found a pair of holey, old underwear that had been serving as a dust rag. Sorry, Thorzul.

The sticky reverse of the card back held the briefs in place while I stuck on the front.

Inserting the new card into Richie Sexson's old haunts proved much easier than the original operation.

This is what the "finished" product looked like, fresh outta the pack.

What few people know... There was supposed to more!!! I was going to make the card MUCH more dramatic! The "game used" card was going to come to life. By melting a couple of shades of green crayons, I was planning on having pea soup colored "vomit" spewing from the opening on the front of the card. It would have been AWESOME!!! I wasn't sure how the molten crayon would react with the plastic case, so I decided to leave it off.

In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have sent in the entry if it would have turned out as awesome as I had imagined. If nothing else, we gained another post on Things Done to Cards.

What IS that thing?

2008-10-30T18:48:00.006-05:00

I thought I would 'borrow' an idea from Dinged Corners and for today's TDTC post, play "What *IS* that thing!?"

Ready, here we go...

Looks familiar... I think I may seen that once before... Candy?

Let's keep looking....

What is that? A fruit roll-up next to a minefield?? Is that image even suitable for children!?

Hmm, perhaps if we pull back a little further...

Holy, cow! And I do mean COW! Is that... nah... that couldn't be....

Yes, a puzzle piece from the 2008 PressPass "Elvis by the Numbers" set. And, yes, for Halloween, I managed to pull a close-up shot of Elvis' gut hanging out of his sequin outfit...

Trick-or-treat.... ummm... no, thanks... I'm not hungry...

Honey Boy and Allen & Ginter

2008-10-29T11:37:00.005-05:00

Many sets published these days include a time-critical element. They could have redemption cards, for example, or series-specific subsets. The message is clear: you need to purchase more cards now. Seriously, get that extra box this minute or suffer from a poorer collecting experience. For example, Topps' 2008 Allen & Ginter issue included a puzzle contest in its World's Greatest Victories subset. Solve the puzzle (and someone did) to appear in next year's version. Awesome.

Unfortunately for your savings account, solving the A&G puzzle meant collecting two rare parts of the set, the Victories themselves and the (humorously fictional) Team Orange baseball players. Though the former showed up with some frequency, Topps stated that those T.O. cards came only 1 to every 6 boxes. You can see how the strategy would (ideally) move a ton of product! As successful as A&G's idea proved, and it helped that the set was generally excellent, Topps' contest is hardly an innovation. As observed in one of my business classes, is there anything about motivating people that wasn't already known in Moses' time?

Back in the 1920s, Canada's own Purity Ice Cream company challenged collectors to amass all 21 cards from their 1927 Honey Boy set and redeem it for a free “brick” (half-gallon?) of the sweet stuff. Knowing my own enthusiasm for both the cardboard and the cream, I'd probably end up with as many of them as mowing lawns would provide. When someone did redeem the set, the maker punched each one with a small hole, as seen on the #14, Babe Ruth. (Image credit to Cycleback.com.)

Given the contest's era and localized nature of the release, it's surprising that a full set made it to the 21st Century—but at least one did. The great collector (and wartime agent) Edward Wharton-Tigar's estate sold it as part of a larger lot in the late-1990s and the Honey Boys went as a unit for $5000 soon after. I recently acquired an unpunched #5, “Snake” Siddle, which brought them onto my personal radar. As noted on Cycleback's story of the set, most cards are major league stars, but the first 8 show Canadian players. Mr. Siddle later became an umpire in the Great White North and is only known to the interwebs as calling a 1930s barnstorming game pitched brilliantly by Satchel Paige. But did Snake score some free ice cream for his efforts? And did he eventually Escape from Manitoba?

1993 Topps

2008-10-24T16:14:00.005-05:00

There isn't really anything that unusual about 1993 Topps and I actually really like the design from that year but I wanted to feature this odd-ball card from the set.

In 1992, the Angels apparently drafted three Russian players.

Each of them played for the Angels rookie level teams in 1992 and 1993, and then I guess they were deported.

Rudy Razjigaev was a pitcher who appeared in 15 games, pitching 13 innings. That's not a lot of work for two years. He had an ERA near 6.

Yevgeny Puchkov was an middle infielder who appeared in 52 games with a .208 batting average.

Ilya Bogatyrev was a 3rd baseman who appeared in 44 games and hit a lusty .241.

I wonder what happened to these guys?

1992 Classic Draft Picks

2008-10-20T13:05:00.000-05:00

This is a really obscure card set. It is not listed in either the big Beckett or the big Sports Collector's Digest catalogs I have. It is, however, listed on Beckett.com. There is nothing special about the cards or the set (although Derek Jeter is featured in the set). I have 3 of the 150 cards in the set which I got in a repack somewhere along the way. I only posted this card because of who is on it. That's right, Bobby Bonds Jr., Barry's little brother. Junior played one year of ball at Canada Junior College in Redwood City CA before getting drafted by the Padres in the 18th round. Canada is spelled with a tilde over the N (you can just about see it in the photo). It is known for having a large program to teach English as a second language. There are actually some notable ball players from there, Moises Alou and Harold Reynolds.

On the back of the card it says "Bobby Bonds, Jr. is known for his agressivness in the outfield, on the basepaths, and at the plate. He follows in his father's footsteps as an outstanding defensive outfielder. Scouts have marvelled at this explosive quickness and raw talent for the game". This judgment was based on 27 games for Canada, where he had 64 AB, 4 HR, 20 RBI and 16 SB. But apparently this "raw talent for the game" didn't get him anywhere as he wasn't signed by the Padres.

Taking patches to a new (lower?) level

2008-10-20T11:33:00.004-05:00

At first, we had jersey swatches. We all went nuts for them (okay, maybe not everyone, but a lot of collectors). Then, we had bats, bases, gloves, dirt, seats, gum from the bottom of seats, toilet paper, oh wait...

Well, at some point, the fine folks at Upper Deck decided that patches actually USED or WORN by players was getting passe' (not to be confused with rounding up a posse, which we may all do after this post). So, instead of using the bits and pieces they already had, Upper Deck decided to have someone MAKE UP patches for them! Rather than call them "patches we paid someone to create," Upper Deck chose the softer, gentler vernacular: Manufactured Patch. Ah, doesn't that just roll off the tongue?

This is a 2004 UD Sweet Spot Classic Patch card of Larry Doby. Don't get me wrong... I think these are VERY cool cards. If you can't get a real memorabilia piece from Larry Doby's collection, you can always make up your own! The look and feel of this one is pure vintage stuff. Even the patch looks like it could have come from a 1948 cap (you know, a little insignia to commemorate the title sewn into one side or the back). Speaking of back, the back of the card makes it clear that this is no "run-of-the-mill" game-used item here, folks: "(This) souvenir logo patch... was specially created for the Upper Deck Company..."

This one is a 2008 Upper Deck Premier Stitchings Travis Hafner card. How many people do you know that have a patch made in their likeness featuring their nickname? Yeah, me too... By the time these gems were being kicked out, the backs of the cards state, "You have received a manufactured patch baseball card. On the front of this card is a manufactured patch. Enjoy your card!" Okay, what am I, an idiot? Am I so dense that you have to tell me TWICE in back-to-back sentences that the patch on this card was never worn by Pronk?

The Victor Martinez is also a 2008 UD Premier Stitchings, but his features Chief Wahoo instead of his own likeness and nickname. The back of his card says the same thing as Pronk's. Basically, it reads, "We paid someone to create this patch. No one wore it. We made it. Well, *WE* didn't make it, we had someone make it for us, but in case you don't understand that, we are going to tell you again - we had someone MAKE this patch for us. And you bought it. Sucker."

2003 Fleer Authentix Ticket Studs

2008-10-19T10:26:00.005-05:00

In the years leading up to their bankruptcy and eventual take over by Upper Deck, Fleer/Skybox was a fountainhead of new card brands. It seemed that every year, they would bring out several new sets, while dropping sets which had anly been around 2-3 years. Fleer Authentix was one of these. This set was issued from 2002 through 2005. The cards looked something like baseball game tickets, hence the name Authentix. Tix for Tickets, get it?

They looked like tickets in that they had sections, rows and seat number on them. I don't know about the earlier years but 2005 all have the same section, row and seat number on them. Pretty authentic, wouldn't you say? Also, some years the cards were sort of perforated so you could tear the end off if you wanted to play make-believe go to a baseball game.

This object to the left is from the 2003 set. It was supposedly inserted at a rate of 1 in 6 packs. It looks like I bought about 20 packs of this and this is the only Ticket Studs insert I got. The 'card' is more shaped like an actual ticket. I don't know what an actual ticket for Candlestick Park used to look like so I can't vouch for its authenticity. It is 7 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. It came folded over in the pack. I've got it in a binder sleeve opened up. I figure the longer it's folded in half, the more likely it will tear. Beckett says it's worth $6.00.

2004 Upper Deck First Pitch - Pitch, Hit, and Run

2008-10-16T11:02:00.003-05:00

I cannot believe it has been four years (this being written in 2008) since my son participated in the 2004 Pitch, Hit, and Run contest that was held in our town. He did well enough to make it to the regionals in Houston, but decided he didn't want to go. That turned out to be a shame because we were told he would have been the ONLY contestant in his age group. I find that hard to believe, but whatever.

At the contest, there were stacks of these sheets laying on a table. They were free for the taking. I wish I had been a lot more greedy than I was. I snagged two untorn sheets and left a LARGE stack behind.

The cards came in a set of six and are perforated, should one wish to separate them. The only thing that distinguishes these cards from regular 2004 UD First Pitch cards is the white home-plate logo with "Pepsi" above it. The home-plate logo is the Pitch, Hit, and Run. Though there are six cards, only five players made the cut: Garret Anderson, Torii Hunter (An Arkansan), Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, and Frank Thomas. The sixth card is one that features a child pitching, hitting, and running and the back has a place for the contestant to record his/her results from the contest.

I had actually forgotten all about these until my last post about the 'vette cards. These are in the same binder as those. It's finds like these that should serve as a reminder to all of us that we need to break open our binders every once in a while and take a trip down memory lane...

1991 Vette Set

2008-10-15T19:47:00.002-05:00

Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted a Corvette. My uncle had a '77 and it was brown with gold pinstripes. I know, so very 70's right? I was pretty sure that when my mid-life crisis hit, I'd end up with cool 'Vette to tool around in. I was wrong. I ended up with a HEMI truck and a 30-foot RV with a slide-out. Man, did I get hosed!

The 1991 Vette Set featured 100 cards with pictures of 'vettes, vette logos, and had a Mario Andretti subset built into it. I say that because the 'subset' was still part of the sequential numbering of the cards. The photos of the logos showed the progression and development of the different logos used over the years by GM for their flagship sportscar. The 'vettes themselves range from the original '53 to some 'futuristic' versions that bear remarkable resemblance to models that came after '91.

Each card back features a write-up about the picture on the front, whether it's the Callaway Speedster, the 'vette-powered jet boat, or the historical relevance of the Andretti photos.

As a 'vette nut, these were a great find on eBay one summer. I was poking around eBay probably just about 8 years ago or so, and found these while searching for Corvette-related auctions (you know, dreaming of buying a 'vette off theBay). It was an unopened box of them! There are parallels, I believe, but I did not get any in my box. Now, you wanna talk SCARCE! :-)

These days, you can grab the set for about $7.00 or buy unopened boxes for a couple dollars more...

I prefer to keep them in their pocket pages, safe from the drool.... Velocity Yellow... Yeah, buddy!

1991 Petro-Canada Allstar Fanfest Standups

2008-10-12T18:40:00.001-05:00

During a recent mailing, I received a 1991 Petro-Canada Allstar Fanfest Stand-up card. The cards were handed out at the All-Star game in Tornoto.

There are 26 players in the set with the sole Indians player being Sandy Alomar, Jr. The back of the card sports a "Career Highlights" section regarding the featured player. There is also a trivia question followed by a trivia answer to a question from another card.

Since I already own one of these cards and it is neatly tucked away in a binder, I thought it would be fun to actually put this one together! There are a couple of score marks on the card to help guide you in assembly. If you opt to put it together, take your time. Additionally, there are some pieces that get punched out in order to create 'space.' The inside of the card shows player stats for the last five years. The finished product is classic cheesiness:

Don't you just love the fans in the background?

The twenty-six players in the set are:

Cal Ripken, Jr; Greg Olson; Roger Clemens; Ryne Sandberg; Dave Winfield; Eric Davis; Carlton Fisk; Mike Scott; Sandy Alomar, Jr; Tim Wallach; Cecil Fielder; Dwight Gooden; George Brett; Dale Murphy; Paul Molitor; Barry Bonds; Kirby Puckett; Ozzie Smith; Don Mattingly; Will Clark; Rickey Henderson; Orel Hershiser; Ken Griffey Jr; Tony Gwynn; Nolan Ryan; and Kelly Gruber.

1996 Pacific Carlos Baerga Celebrities Softball

2008-10-11T23:16:00.004-05:00

Here's something you don't see every day, a baseball player's knees. Frank looks like he forgot to put his pants on when he came up to bat.

There are 8 cards in this set: Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas, Roberto Alomar, Carlos Baerga (of course), Edgar Martinez, Bernie Williams, and Kenny Lofton. All of them played in this celebrity softball game in Puerto Rico put on by Baerga in 1995. The cards were given away at the 1996 game.

I got these in an interesting repack put together by Fairfield. The cards came in a nice cardboard box with a hinged lid. "Contains At Least 5 Packs". "Special Bonus Mystery Box Inside". "Contains 200 Cards Plus Rookies & Stars". At Least One Memorabilia Card in Every Box". All this for $19.99 plus tax.

The Baerga cards were inside the "Special Bonus Mystery Box" along with a 2005 Fleer Patchworks Jersey card of Michael Young (Upper Deck swears the jersey piece came from a jersey actually worn by Young in an official Major League game). Plus a hunk of Styrofoam.

The main box also has the usual collection of mid-1980s to mid-1990s cards, plus one football card. Bob Gain of the University of Kentucky's. I never heard of him but Gain sounds like a good name for a running back but he was a lineman who played in the 1950s for the Browns.

Not as much "to" as "with..." House of Cards

2008-10-10T12:04:00.007-05:00

BadWax is having a "House of Cards" contest, in which readers are invited to submit an entry depicting the use of no more than 100 baseball cards to build a house... The post says to use cards from the 80's and 90's, but I used cards that ranged from the 70's to today... That may disqualify me from winning the prize, but it didn't stop me from having some fun... So, today, I present, "Things Done With Cards:"

My "Official Entry" photo of the finished house (above). It is right at the high-end limit of cards (100). It's a three story creation which uses an almost-but-not-quite geometric shape. Each floor is actually the same height, but the "facade" around the first floor gives the impression that the second story is half-height (ahh, like the old MFM hard drives I used to work with....).

This picture (above) shows the completion of the first level with the raised outer 'ring' that would later help serve as support for the second story. I tried to take the photo so that you can see some of the construction techniques (if you can call it that) I used.

The photo above shows a side view of the finished 'house of cards.' Here, you can see each level and how the outer 'ring' adds unique flavor to the design element. LOL, like I even know what I'm saying... :-)

A 1957 Art Project

2008-10-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

Interesting things keep popping up in my e-mail lately. The latest one was a chance to review a website for facial tics caused by Tourette's Syndrome. I could either take my payment through a PayPal payment or a free sample of the product. I kindly replied that this was a website for sports cards and this was not the proper venue to do that. I never in a million years, would think that someone would mistake this site as a site to review medical scams, but whatever.

A slightly older e-mail popped up with a link to an eBay auction with this card. The auction is now over and I have no clue as whether anyone actually bid on this unique card. I'm too lazy to look it up. The auction listed the card as "likely a kid's art project" and urged people to purchase it based on that fact.

It was refreshing to see someone actually try to sell something "as is" and not try to pass this off as an error or an employee prank.

Someone took a 1957 Topps card of Ralph Terry and attached a cut out head of Mickey Mantle to it. To add insult to injury, they scratched out Ralph Terry's name and position and wrote (in pen) Mickey Mantle and his outfield position. Truly this is the work of some visionary. The only thing missing is the replacement of the number on the back.

I'm sure the world is littered with examples such as this. You know what? That's great to see. It gives us a peak into the mind of a mystery person circa 1957. Plus, it gives us something fun and interesting to look at today. Long live Mickey Mantle, the big headed pitcher!

2000 Pacific Ornaments

2008-10-06T20:43:00.003-05:00

Is that a Mike Piazza hanging from your tree, or are you just happy to see me?

You have to admit, when it comes to die-cut cards, Pacific was pretty much the king of the hill. I have never seen so many odd shapes and configurations as Pacific developed over the years. These 2000 Ornaments are no exception!

There are only 20 cards in the set and each was cut out to resemble an ornament. Some were bells, stars, balls, whatever. They've got a cool holographic design in them that makes them do all kinds of 'shiny' things when the lights of your tree shine upon them and the ceiling fan move the air, creating a breeze... Well, I *DO* live in Arkansas, after all.

The players in the set include: Mo Vaughn, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Cal Ripken Jr, Nomar Garciaparra, Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas, Manny Ramirez, Larry Walker, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, Scott Rolen, JD Drew, Mark McGwire, Tony Gwynn, Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez, and Ivan Rodriguez.

It's one thing to see yourself on a baseball card, but I wonder what the players think when they see themselves on one of these things... "An ornament!? Really? And my agent signed off on this? Can I have one?"

1998 Pinnacle Dare to Tear - Really, I dare ya!

2008-10-02T06:40:00.003-05:00

Over on "A Pack A Day," I posted an article that talks a little bit about these gems. I first heard about these cards on "Cardboard Junkie" and knew I had to create an article, as it were, for TDTC! I mean, come on - cards inside cards!? What crazy fool would buy a baseball card only to rip it open and see what was inside!? Evidently, a lot of us!

Each pack has three 5x7 cards. The cards feature player pictures, a Zenith logo, the player's name in foil (gold/silver), and the team name. On the back is a different player pose, the card number, player's position, a short 'greatest stats' paragraph and some bio info. There is also an instruction sheet on how to best rip the card without ripping the little guy inside.

So what happens when you rip one?

Well, I tore off Ken Caminiti's head to find that inside Ken was Juan Gonzalez "Raising the Bar" insert. It's shiny!

Since my ultimate goal is to see which Tribers I can pull from these cards, I have a whole box that I'll be tearing into... Well, unless I save a few for trade fodder....

Is it Authentic?

2008-09-26T19:28:00.006-05:00

This post was inspired by a recent post over on Dinged Corners. The debate going on over there is about the statements about authenticity that the card manufacturers put on the back of their relic cards. I have bought a number of relic cards over the past few years because, frankly, they are dirt cheap on eBay. The earliest relic cards I own are from 2000. Most cards in the 2000-2005 time frame that I have have statements similar to this 2000 Absolute Memorabilia Rookie Premier Materials. "The enclosed piece of pant was cut from Authentic Pants personally worn by Josh Beckett in an Official Minor League Baseball Game. The Authentic Game-Worn pants were obtained and are guaranteed by the Playoff Corporation". That's pretty straightforward. Josh Beckett wore these pants in an official game and we determined that this was so.

But even then there were some cards which had vaguer statements, like this 2001 Bowman's Best Franchise Favorite Relic.
Congratulations! You just received an authentic game-worn Franchise Favorites uniform card of Craig Biggio from 2001 Bowman's Best Baseball." Did this piece of fabric come from something actually worn by Craig Biggio? That's certainly the impression. They clearly say it came from a uniform worn during a game, but was it an Official MLB game?

This 2003 Fleer Box Score World Piece Game Jersey card has more odd language.
"The piece of memorabilia contained in this card is from a jersey worn in an official MLB game played by Francisco Rodriguez pitcher for the Anaheim Angels". Ok, the jersey was worn in an official MLB game and Rodriguez played in the game. Did he wear the jersey? I'll concede that a player probably wore the jersey, rather than a fan or a member of the grounds crew, since it didn't say "worn at an official MLB game".

The wording started to change dramatically in 2006. Only about half of the 15 relic cards I have from 2006, specifically say that the player pictured actually wore the jersey. I have over 40 relic cards from 2005, and 32 of them say the relic came from a uniform specifically worn by the player pictured. Then we have this 2006 Bazooka Rewind Relics card.
"The relic contained on this card is not from any specific event, game or season." You might be lead to think that the relic was from a Future's Game, but the disclosure on the back makes it sound like probably not.

The wording reaches new hights of weasel wording on this 2006 Flair Showcase Stitches card.
"You have received a Richie Sexson Game-Used baseball card. On the front of this card is a piece of memorabilia that has been certified to us as having been used in an official Major League Baseball game". Did Richie Sexson wear this jersey or whatever the piece is from? What is the difference between used and worn? I could imagine that this was from a rag used by the clubhouse guy to wipe down the dugout benches before the game. And Fleer completely disavows claiming authenticity of this piece. Hey, we were told it's authentic.

I have 17 relic cards from 2007 and 13 from 2008, of these, only 1 from each year makes any claim that the relic came from a uniform actually worn by the player on the card. Pretty much the language looks like that on this 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum Retrospectrum Swatches card.
"You have received a Mike Piazza Game-Used baseball card. On the front of this card is a piece of memorabilia that has been certified to us as having been used in an official Major League Baseball game". Which is the same language on the 2007 Fleer card. The 9 Upper Deck relic cards I have all have the same language. My Chris Capuano Topps Retail Relic, is the only card to make a specific claim, which says "The piece of authentic uniform embedded in this card was worn by Chris Capuano during an official MLB game".

1993 Ted Williams Pogs

2008-09-25T18:36:00.002-05:00

In 1993, the Ted Williams Card Company produced a set of rather unique items. Anyone remember "pogs?" Pogs were the thing to have and collect in the early 90's, a throwback to the milk caps kids played with the 50's or 60's or whenever it was that "Wii" meant either something was tiny or one had to use the facilities. In any case, the were little round discs.

What the TWC did was to print the circles on cards, then have the cards die-cut and perforated so that one could punch out the pogs. You can't see it in the scan, but there was a thumb-like indentation on each pog. I have no idea how to play the game, other than you stack a bunch up and try to knock down the stack with your pog. Like a cardboard version of a cross between marbles and Jenga, I guess.

There were twenty-six pogs in all. Some featured vintage team logos and other featured players such as Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig, and of course Ted Williams. These were laid out two to a card and could be found as inserts in the 1993 Ted Williams baseball card packs.

The checklist can be found on page 1725-6 of the 2007 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards (16th ed). The first photo above is from my personal collection, but the others were found on theBay as a complete set. They make interesting conversation pieces, and your kids can Google and Wikipedia "POGS" to see what kids did before X-Box, World of Warcraft, or Yu-gi-oh...

1993 Diamond Marks (When a card is a bookmark)

2008-09-24T06:20:00.002-05:00

Like many of the oddball items in my collection, I have no idea how I came about these little gems. I'm sure they were bought online, but just how I even found them is a mystery for another time.

These are 1993 Diamond Marks baseball cards, er, bookmarks. They are long and skinny (much like I was 20 or so years ago). The feature the player's name at the top, a nice, big photo, then the team logo at the bottom. There is also a DM logo in the upper left corner of the player's picture.

The back features a "book border" with a couple more player pics, a team logo as its own bookmark, and little blurb about the player on the right-hand 'page.' There are also various other company IDs: The Colla Collection, (c)BCP, and "designed by Terry Smith Creations." Since Colla put out all kinds of oddball/non-mainstream cards, I'm sure it is safe to assume the pictures came from their photographers.

The cards, er, bookmarks, themselves were sold in sealed foil packs, just like cards. I have a feeling that by marketing them as bookmarks instead of cards, there were some kind of legal loopholes they were able to fit through. That's complete speculation, of course, but what fun is it to simply accept them as bookmarks!? :-) There was a test set done with 10 players and there are inserts of about 10 players... Ironic - bookmark set with inserts, considering you INSERT the bookmark... Is that irony? That whole Alanis song confused me as to what was or was not irony... (Which, by the way, you can look up on youTube and a teacher actually does show which things were or were not ironic in the video, though I digress...)

Believe it or not, a search on your local auction site may yield plenty of "1993 Diamond Mark" results, including unopened boxes for... $2.99!? Complete test sets for $.99!? Seriously? Wow...

Combo Number 5 (1995 Phil Rizzuto Chromium)

2008-09-20T01:04:00.003-05:00

In a recent trade to a chap in the UK, I received several packs of 1995 Phil Rizzuto Chromium cards. Now, before you think I've lost my mind by posting this here about a week after posting about these over at A-Pack-A-Day, I urge you to keep reading.

You see, the thing about these Chromium cards is that you get something of a two-fer on these. Not only do you get the cards, but what's ON the cards can be construed as fodder for TDTC (Things Done To Cards)! Allow me to elaborate and demonstrate:

Here are two normal-looking cards. They are "chromium" and colorized. Some people think there's too much 'foil' on cards today, but long before Topps Chrome (well, maybe not LONG before), there were these gems. All Chrome, All the time. The cards feel a lot like Topps Chrome, in fact. They have that same slick 'covering' to them. Pictured above are Forbes Field (Pittsburgh) and Briggs Stadium (Detroit).

The next card has a blue back. The other cards have a 'vintage' back, kinda like sepia maybe. This card is also devoid of the 'coating,' which gives it a whole different feel, almost like a map relief. The card depicts "Bunting," in case you couldn't tell what was happening here. Though, you can see the batter clearly missed the bunt big time. ooops.

Here is an example of a two-fer. We have the card itself, chrome except for the black background. But ON the card is a picture of a baseball plate. According to the back, these are "ABC" plates because children in the 1860's learned their alphabet from these, as the letters were printed around the outside edge of the plate. Oh, the things done to baseball cards....

Here's another two-fer: A baseball card that features baseball on a cover of "Sport" magazine (I feel the need to reference "Con Air" here and specifically to the "Define Irony" scene). The back talks about the magazine publisher and the 'zine itself.

Here, we have Yank Robinson. He is a die cut used in a children's game. Basically, kids would hurl balls or bean bags at these stand-ups and try to knock them down. What that has to do with baseball, I have no idea...

Okay, this one was included because, well, she's a cutie. Funny thing about 'cuteness' or 'beauty' is that it really is timeless. This is a picture of an unknown woman in the 40's who played in the pro women's league for the Ft. Wayne, Indiana, "Daisies."

This weird freak of all things baseball card is an advertisement for CLOTHING of all things. The guy gets beaned in the eye with the ball, but his clothes are tough and can withstand the punishment. Yes, that was what the clothier was trying to get across. Frankly, I think it was the launchpad for the "Child's Play" Chucky movies...

And, finally, I leave you with another type of die-cut on a card. These were developed by/for the Spadling sporting folks - yes, as in the Spalding gloves, balls, etc. According to the back of the card, there were also football, golf, tennis, and cycling die cuts. Cycling? Man, how big was THAT thing!?

The other cards in the packs include vintage ads for BVDs (yes, the brand BVD), cigars, Currier and Ives, tobacco cards, and all kinds of other weird (some of them VERY weird) oddities that used baseball as the foundation. I suppose I'll try to find any Cleveland-related items in the set... Then again, it could be too far into the realm of oddball, even for me....

1997 Circa Fast Track

2008-09-16T00:39:00.006-05:00

For my first post on Things Done to Cards, I want to share a card that has kept my interest for over a decade. I pulled this furry little guy from a pack of Circa back in '97. I am pretty sure I got a Scott Rolen card in EVERY pack I opened in the late '90s. I guess I was lucky to have pulled this card. This particular insert was seeded one in every 24 packs.

For those of you who have never seen (or have managed to forget) the Circa line by Fleer, consider yourselves lucky. I am fairly certain that the set caused me permanent retinal damage. It was the dawn of the late '90s. The rules of good design just didn't apply. Circa '97 had some of the gaudiest base cards you can imagine. It is as if the worst inserts from Ultra and Skybox met and had thin card stock babies. (I tried to scan one, but my scanner threw up.)

The Fast Track insert set is a nice departure from the train wreck of the base set. It is a nice looking card, and they certainly did a cool Thing to it. The green, flocked surface was designed to look like AstroTurf. Raised slightly above the surface, the "grass" feels like velvet.

Unlike my other "valuable" inserts and Tony Gwynn cards, this card never went into a plastic sleeve, top loader, or Lucite screw down. This card was made to be touched. Even if Scott became the next Mike Schmidt (as the back of the card suggests,) the money this card might bring on ebay could never buy the joy received by sliding one's fingers across the furry surface.

I was able to find all ten of the cards from this insert set on ebay. But, as much as I would love buy them and knit them all together into a pair of mittens, I can't justify the expense. My lone 1997 Circa Fast Track- Scott Rolen card will have to keep me warm when it dips into the 60s this winter. (Aside from having the privilege of seeing Tony Gwynn's entire career, living in San Diego does have its advantages.)

Until I win the lotto and can afford the $1.00 that these inserts are fetching on ebay, It is my sole purpose in life to recreate this amazing texture on all of my cards. I just wish I could figure out how those design-challenged geniuses at Fleer managed to make these cards so darn cuddly...
... .- -.-- / .... .. / .. -. / - .... . ... . / -.-. --- -- -- . -. - ... / -... . ..-. --- .-. . / .- -. -.-- --- -. . / .--. --- ... - ... / --- -. / .- / -... .-. .. . ..-. / .. -. - .-. --- -.. ..- -.-. - .. --- -. / --- -. / .--. ..- -. -.- .-. --- -.-. -.- .--. .- .. -. - / .- -. -.. / -.-- --- ..- / -.-. .- -. / .... .- ...- . / .- -. -.-- / .... .. - / ..-. .-. --- -- / -- -.-- / -... --- -..- / --- ..-. / .- .-.. .-.. . -. / .- -. -.. / --. .. -. - . .-.

Red Sox record-setting sellout streak commemorative ticket

2008-09-15T14:48:00.003-05:00

A week ago, the Red Sox set the record for consecutive sellouts, and they whipped up a very nice commemorative ticket that they mailed to all the season ticket holders (of which I am one.)

This was a very classy move, I think, even though I'm not a Red Sox fan. If you click on the images (showing the front and the back) you can see some of the nice touches, including the fine print on the border of the front denoting all the special accomplishments of the team during the streak period.

The ticket measures 8" long and it's printed on thick glossy stock. All in all, a very nice freebie!

1930's Diamond Match Covers

2008-09-15T11:08:00.002-05:00

While I was surfing eBay, looking for more oddball items to add to my ever-growing collection, I came across this little gem:

This is a 1935-ish Diamond Match Company match cover. There were many of these produced from about 1935-1937. While doing research for this post (which did not net many historical results for my purposes), I came across a site that has a few photos and plenty of stock: Baseball-cards.com. I also came across a site dedicated to the hobby of collecting match covers: MatchCovers.com.

These are very cool vintage items. I paid about 10 bucks for the one above, but you can find others cheaper if you look around.

The cover itself features a picture of the player on the cover, then bio and statistical info on the back (along with the striking strip). The matches had been carefully removed prior to my getting the item. I'm looking forward to adding more Indians to my collection of these (well, does ONE make up a collection??).

1934 Goudey #6, Dizzy Dean

2008-09-12T09:53:00.007-05:00

This classic Hall-of-Famer made it off of eBay and into my collection last week. The famously-named Dizzy Dean served as the strikeout ace of a St. Louis staff for their depression era team, the "Gashouse Gang." Most of their players came from blue collar backgrounds and sensibilities. Prior to the widespread use of oil, "gas houses" refined coal for fuel and people who worked in them smelled predictably bad. According to contemporaries, the Cardinals often played in unwashed uniforms to give their opponents a similarly imposing snootful on the field.

So what's been done to the card? A lot that I can see, probably starting with being folded in half and used as a bookmark. One thing that didn't happen to the card is hurricane Gustav. Its previous owner had to evacuate Louisiana prior to the storm's recent landfall and let me know the mail would take a few extra days. It arrived safely yesterday with no complaints from me. The 1934 card might not be the "key" that his 1933 rookie is, but fills a big hole in the set nonetheless. (The crosshatch oddity around Dean's pants isn't on the card, just the scan. I left it in place to simulate a week of sweaty funk, gas house style.)

The 1934 Goudey set updated its look somewhat from 1933 by adding a baseball diamond to the background and a banner endorsement from Lou Gehrig (in blue) or Chuck Klein (in red) along the bottom edge. It's not clear why they went with two players instead of one, though I've read a contract snafu played a role. Another eccentricity is the lack of Babe Ruth, who played for the Yankees in both 1933 and 1934, but doesn't appear in this set after chalking up four different cards the previous year.

Dizzy's card back retells the origin of his nickname, one that naturally flowed into his second career as a hickish, language-challenged sportscaster. He received flak for chopping words and fumbling meanings, but also turned out gems at a regular pace.

"Sure I eat what I advertise. Sure I eat Wheaties for breakfast. A good bowl of Wheaties with bourbon can't be beat."

See the "official site" of Ol' Diz for more potent quotables.

1998 Pinnacle Inside

2008-09-10T15:53:00.003-05:00

In 1997 and 1998 Pinnacle produced cards which they sold in a collectible steel can. You actually had to use a can opener to get the cards out.

There were ten cards in the can (they were packaged in clear cellophane) and the can cost $2.99.

There were 24 different players featured on the cans. Checking on eBay I see, you can buy any number of the cans for a buck. I've got 8 of these (one from '97, the rest from '98). Although they are 10 years old, they've held up well, by which I mean they are not rusting.

On the back of the can are Product Facts giving "% Daily Value"

Collectability 100%, Top Players 100%, Inside Info 100%, Cool Inserts 100%

The rest of the product facts give the odds on inserts: Stand Up Guys (1:1). This was a two piece thing with slits cut up the center of the pieces. If you slide the two pieces together it would stand up! On each interior face a different player could be seen across the two pieces. I hated these.

Club Edition (1:7). This was a gold Dufex finish version of the base set.

Behind the Numbers (1:23). I don't have any of these.

Inside Gold Can (1:47). I don't have any of these either. It says this is a can. Was the inside of the can gold plated?

Diamond Edition (1:67). None of these either.

On the side it says "The Only Baseball Card in a Can"!

The cards were ok. They were glossy with silver foil on the logo and player name. There weren't many subsets, just a rookie subset and checklists cards with a player featured on the front.

Ultimately, I didn't really like the cards which is why I don't have many of them. I think I've seen the cellophane packages recently in repacks.

And as a collectable, the cans are a pain in the neck. They are about 4 1/2 inches tall and a little wider than a card. I've got mine in a box in the closet.

I already had the Ripken can scanned (that was an adventure). I pulled out the Scott Rolen can to look at details. I'll probably leave it on my display shelf with other Phillies stuff.

Pinnacle Mint - Some Assembly Required

2008-09-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

Come on, let's all sing along: "There's a hole in my Manny, dear Liza, dear Liza. There's a hole in my Manny, dear Liza, a hole!" No? Before your time, perhaps...

In 1997-98, Pinnacle Brands gave the collecting world something to really sink their teeth into.. They released a couple of sets called "Mint Collection." Here's the premise: Sell packs of cards with holes in them and include coins in the pack. Collectors would have to match the cards to the coins. To keep life simple, they only produced a set of 30 in 1997. BUT, boys and girls, there's a catch! See, they kicked out a ton of Brass coins, and then held back on the Silver and Gold coins. This means that each card could have three coins for it, and it was up to the collector to decide which of the coins they REALLY wanted...

There were also variations of the cards that already had "coins" in them, which were really just foil inlays. These came in Bronze, Silver, and Gold. But, really, we wanted the actual COINS!

Here's a Junior card with coin, available on eBay for about a buck.

This Clemens is also on eBay, but this is the 1998 version. The 98's had more 'parallels' (imagine that, parallel versions of an oddball-type set), still held the checklist to 30 players, and yes, you had to collect the coins for the die-cut versions. These coins came in all kinds of variety from Nickel Proof to Gold Proof and also varieties of plating. Leave it to Pinnacle Brands to make things... Well... Guaranteed Scarce! Too bad they folded shortly after this....

Playin' Round Ball - MSA Discs (1976-77)

2008-09-04T21:23:00.001-05:00

There are few cards that I am aware of that were so widely licensed as the 1976-77 MSA discs. They are often referred to by the "issuing" company rather than MSA itself, which makes collecting them even harder than the usual card issues of the time.

On the front, most MSA cards look very similar. They are round - about the size of most coasters. They feature a black-and-white photo of the featured player, but the team logos are airbrushed out due to licensing issues with the MLB. The discs feature 'stitches' to make them look like baseballs. The left side of the ball features bio info and the right has the birthplace and copyright info. Under the picture, we see the player's name, position, and team. We also see the MLB emblem for the player's association (which explains the airbrushing). The tops of the card on front is where life starts to get interesting...

As you see in the pictures below, some companies simply used stars, while others actually printed the name of the 'issuing' company (such as Crane potato chips).

The backs of these cards takes collecting to a whole new level of obsession and insanity. Crane features their logo and company name while others have their own logos and info on the backs. Of course, some don't have anything back there at all (hence, they are referred to as "blank backs"). As you see above, I have three Frank Robinson variations, and this by no means encompasses every possible MSA Robinson disc. In fact, this probably doesn't even scratch the surface.

I am very partial to the Isaly's card because we actually had an Isaly's near where I grew up as a kid in Western PA. For the record, they had the BEST chipped ham in the world. If you have never had chipped ham (also called chipped-chop or chipped-chopped ham), you are seriously missing out on a delicacy! Put it on your list of things to eat should your travels ever take you to Pittsburgh or close by outlying areas.

If you plan on adding some of these to your collection, be sure to search for them by their issuing company (Crane, Isaly or Isaly's, Caesars, etc) and also search for MSA Disc. They are generally a bargain, and are often sold in lots. Happy Hunting!

1983 Perma-Graphics Gold and Regular

2008-09-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

I came across these two little gems while doing a general search for "Indians Oddball" on eBay some time ago. I had never heard of these before then (I've had them for a couple years now), so I was pretty excited to snag them up.

In 1983, Perma-Graphics came up with a regular issue and a "gold card" issue. The cards are modeled after credit cards. I have several other 'credit card' types that I'll post in the future. But for now, let's break these down.

The regular issue cards feature a cream-colored border that surrounds a gradient-filled inner border. There's a baseball perched at the top of the inner border, just to let you know that this is a baseball collectible. I have no idea if they dabbled in other sports, but if they did, we can assume they used appropriate icons (volleyball, badminton, curling, etc). The photo of the player takes up a decent amount of the card face, and is probably the size of a mini sticker like Topps used to make around the same time these came out. Hmm... In fact, on the back, there is a (c)TCG... Coincidence? I'm not thinkin' so. Beneath the photo, the card reads "SUPER STAR" with "1983" between the two words. Then, we have the player's name and team, position, and league. The card may be thickness of a credit card and it feels to be about the same size.

The back of the card features a black stripe with the player's name, uniform number, position and team. Below that in a cream-colored box is player bio info with height, weight etc, including how the player ended up on the team he is on currently. Under that are career stats in a single-line table, followed by a section of Career Highlights. Then, there is a white strip where one would presumably sign their name (like on a credit card).

In fine print at the bottom are these words, "The bearer of this card is a certified loyal fan and is entitled to all ensuing rights and privileges." I wonder what the expiration date is on these?? And just what are the "ensuing rights and privileges" of a "certified loyal fan?" Do we get free tickets? Free hot dogs? How about oddball team items?? Ah, well, the world may never know...

The "gold" version of the card is exactly the same as the regular issue, but the whole card has been tinted or layered with a gold/sepia finish. The card, as you can see, is also much, much darker. This is not a bonus, however, as it makes things hard to read.

I am going to have to research this whole "certified loyal fan" thing... The ambiguity of the rewards is just too much to bear!

Scratch-offs - My Inaugural Post

2008-09-02T22:50:00.000-05:00

I don't know how I missed the "call for contributors," but in all the times I visit here, I never looked over there to see it I guess. I have to admit that I was pretty excited when I got the message that my request had been granted! If you don't know me from my own Indians-related card blog, then you are blissfully unaware of my penchant (obsession, maybe?) for oddball cards and gimmicks. What better way to share that than right here on TDTC!?

Of course, the question ran through my head: What should I write about first? I could go with Doug Jones and the infamous 'flaming ball' card that has become something of a running joke with those that have become accustomed to my postings. But, I decided that needed a break.

And then it hit me... Since I am knee-deep in a scratch-off tournament on my site, why not carry that over here? And, so, my first TDTC post became "The Scratch-off."

I have two types in my personal collection that I could locate readily, though there may be others I didn't see while flipping through pages and pages of two 3-inch binders jammed with lovely oddball cards. The first one I want to talk about is the same set that I am using for the tournament: 1993 Leaf Triple Play Action Baseball.

Each card is actually a larger card that has been perforated and folded in half. It's a lot like one of those fold-up greeting cards you or your kid (or spouse) might print on your inkjet. The 'cover' features two teams who will face off in scratch-off action. Luckily for me, Carlos Baerga is featured on Number 18. There are 30 cards in the set, and you can readily pick up complete (or near-complete) sets online for the cheap. The 'back' of the card features the card number and various logos. The cards themselves have a silver finish to them and feature a white border.

On the inside of the card, we find the RULES (3-inning game, each player gets 3 outs, players take turns scratching spaces, etc...) and the 32-spot playing field on the left side. The right inside features a mock-up scoreboard with the team names and a place for would-be players to record outs and runs. Scratch-off spaces uncover plays such as strikeouts, fly outs, groundouts, walks, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, and a few others I think. Alas, there are no 'hit by pitch' spots. These are clean games. The baseball diamond on the right side is where one would place coins to represent the runners. Trust me on this, if you play, use coins to keep track! And, really, you ought to go ahead and actually write in the runs, too. It won't take long before things get confusing... Or they did for me while trying to maintain six games at the same time. On the other hand, it sure has been fun!

Next up, I have several 1981 Topps Scratch-off game cards and here is one example:

Topps opted not to fold the cards, though each card is perforated, should a collector want to separate them. They remind me a lot of the basketball cards Topps was doing back in the day where you got three on one 'card' and then you'd tear them apart to collect the ones you needed. I digress.

The front of each 'section' features the player's photo next to 24 black scratch-off dots. As you can see, these have not been anywhere near a coin. I am torn about that, as I also have a liking for cards in the 'Tipton' condition. The backs of the sections feature different items depending on several factors. The middle card is ALWAYS the scorecard (from what I have seen). The "top" section (when viewed vertically) has the rules. This game is different in that players are to separate the cards into sections in order to build their 9-man batting order. There were/are 108 cards (that is 'sections') in the set. The first player scratches one spot, records the results, then scratches the next batter, etc until the team gets three outs. Then, the other player repeats the process for his/her own cards. I suppose you could play a couple games with each card before running out of space. Unlike the Triple Play cards, though, these games go the full nine innings. I cannot imagine trying to do one of THOSE kinds of tourneys online!

The 'bottom' card features various Topps products for sale. Here, we see the ever-popular "Sports Card Locker." That should be an entry on here by itself, though not a card, still quite the gimmick back in the day. And, yes, I had several as a kid. A quick search on eBay turns up a couple for sale... Man, the nostalgia is kickin in. Must... resist... urge... to... buy... locker....

2003 Topps Shoebox

2008-09-02T21:46:00.004-05:00

2003 Topps Shoebox was similar to the Topps All-Time Fan Favorites but took the idea to a complete concept.

The cards were sold as a complete set and came in a box which was shaped like a shoebox. There were 12 8-card packs, 3 packs for each decade from the 1950s through the 1980s. Each pack came with a generous piece of gum in a plastic wrapper.

Inside the box were 4 bays, with the decades separated into separate bays. Sitting on top of the bays was a plastic holder with four original cards, one from each decade, inside. The cards are surrounded by a black frame such that you can see the front and back of the card. The frame is held together by screws. The holder is as long and wide as the box. There was the possibility of getting a rare card in this holder but the best card I got was a 1987 Tom Seaver card that I already had.

The frame is wrapped in tissue paper, so when you open the box, it's like you've opened an actual shoebox with brand new shoes in it.

The selection of cards is excellent. If you owned the originals of these cards it would be the a great baseball card collection.

Most of the cards are either reproductions of rookie cards or, at least, cards from early in a player's career. The reproductions are very good and except for the gold shield on the front and a little strip on the back which gives copyright info, they look like the original cards.

That being said, there are some quirks. Many player's rookie cards have them appearing with one or more other players.

Use the Mike Schmidt card as an example. Schmidt appears with Ron Cey and John Hilton on his rookie card. What Topps did for the Schmidt Shoebox card, is to take just the picture of Schmidt and make it into the whole card. This is the one thing about the set I don't like.

There are a number of cards from the 1960s and 1970s where they did this. In some cases, the small picture of the player doesn't enlarge well (especially if the original photo wasn't very good) and the Shoebox card looks a bit blurry.

Right now, a lot of these cards are being offered on eBay for about a dollar. I paid about $40 for the set when it was new. There are several complete sets, with unopened packs, selling in the $40-$50 range. These are pictured as opened boxes on the auction pages so I expect you won't find a great old card in the holder.

My set is missing a card (I don't remember which one) but I got a double. I'll have to look through these auctions to see if I can get my missing card. I've kept the whole set together, including the wrappers, the gum (still in their wrappers), the card holder, the cards and the tissue paper in the original box.

Topps All-Time Fan Favorites

2008-09-02T16:13:00.003-05:00

I wish that I had been actively collecting a few years ago. I have discovered these sets that were put out by Topps between 2003 and 2005. While most bloggers who were active in 2005 or earlier know about these releases, the bloggers who just got back into the hobby are discovering all the releases that they missed.

The idea is a simple one. Sure, the sets have a few missteps. I'm not entirely sure there's a huge Daryl Boston fan base in Chicago, but who knows, there could be some underground Daryl Boston movement that I'm not aware of in my hometown. For the most part, the selections were inspired. It gave the right mix of retired players, regional stars and superstars. The card designs usually centered around each player's best season.

The George Bell card featured his 1988 Topps card. This was the release that celebrated his best year as a player. Ironically, this card looks better than the original card.

Sets like these, give the player collector more cards to collect of retired players. They give the team collector a few more cards to collect. They give the set collector something interesting to collect.

Since the cards are designed from different years, the set looks like a kid collected his favorite cards and stored them together in random order. It's this aspect that gives this set a leg up on the other cards.

I hope Topps will revisit this concept sometime in the future. I'm sure there are many other subjects that are begging for this type of treatment on cardboard.

This would be the perfect set for many collectors to start with. It gives a great overview of Topps trading card history. The set features many players who wouldn't be worthy of a set like UD Masterpieces. Players like George Bell. Which 1988 Topps card would you rather have of George Bell? The Spring Training batting pose or the actual game batting shot?

Greg Brady 1966 Topps Mock Up

2008-09-01T15:54:00.000-05:00

Before Greg Brady became a fictional doctor and even before he became the fictional Johnny Bravo, he wanted to become the next fictional Don Drysdale. Shouts of "Bonus Baby" could be heard as he drifted off into daydream land.

Fortunately, for the land of television doctors, Greg injured his arm and really got rocked when his head was in the clouds. So, to commemorate lost dreams, I created this card of Greg Brady. I know that the series was on slightly after this card style was made. And I know that he idolized Don Drysdale of the Dodgers. I used the team colors of his baseball team as a template and that screamed Athletics.

I also figured that the 1966 Topps issue would be around the time he was actively collecting baseball cards, so it would be a design that he could fantasize himself being on.

So there you have it. A Greg Brady baseball card. Will the wonders of fake cards ever cease? I sure hope not.

2008 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Memorabilia

2008-09-01T13:26:00.004-05:00

I'm a sucker for Mike Schmidt cards. Michael Jack Schmidt apparently remains popular in the hobby as there are a lot of his cards produced every year. I usually try to buy a good sampling of them. Actually I try to buy all that I can afford but am limited by what actually shows up on eBay.

Here are two cards I bought in July. Do they look different to you? First off, you must notice that the back ground of the lettering on the bottom of the card is colored differently. The first card is a tan color, the other, some version of red

The really sharp-eyed will notice that the top card is serial numbered to 99, while the other card is serial numbered to 35. There are 3 other versions of this card, numbered to 25, 15 and 10. I guess each is colored differently although I expect I'll never see one of them. None of them are currently available on eBay.

I like the cards. I had 9 Schmidt jersey cards before I bought these and none of them feature the powder blue away uniform the Phillies used to wear

1987 Kraft Home Plate Dinners

2008-08-29T16:59:00.003-05:00

In 1987, Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese was pretty much a family staple. My kids were always finicky eaters and this was one thing they (aged 2 and 3 at the time) would eat. Today, it's one of the few things my daughter can cook and she probably eats at least a box a week.

The first picture is from eBay. Somebody is selling 7 complete boxes for about $10 (plus $14 in shipping!). I didn't remember that the boxes had two cards on them.

I've still have the Wally Joyner card pictured on the bottom box in the photo.
Notice that his hat is airbrushed to remove the logo. This is a common practice on cards like this. Kraft had a contract with the MLB players union, but not with major league baseball. So they could use the picture of the player but not the team logo.

The card is a bit smaller than a regular card and is blank on the backside. At the time, Joyner was a player I collected. About two years ago I was looking through the binders of cards I had and dropped some players. Joyner, I'm afraid, has been relegated back to the commons boxes to make room for some more deserving player.

There is another auction featuring just the double set of cards cut from the boxes. The other player on the box with Joyner is Johnny Ray but apparently, the matchups are random. In the other auction, Ray is paired with Harold Baines.

The eBay seller recommends that whoever buys the boxes doesn't eat the contents. Sounds like it would be worse than eating the gum from an unopened pack of 1987 Topps.