Other people's customs

I don't buy customs all that often these days, but coincidentally I scored some recently from two different independent card makers and they both arrived on the same day. One is a set of cards-that-should-have-been '80s Career Cappers by Gio at When Topps Had Balls. The other group of cards are artistic interpretations of cards-that-actually-were (and some that-never-were) by Mark at IDrawBaseballCards.

I love both and figured I'd mix them together in a post.

Kicking off with a terrific pair of 1983 Topps homages.

I won't show all the backs, but I'll give you an idea with these two. In a perfect world I'd love to see full stats on these final tributes, but I know from experience that's a pain to get all lined up. The career highlights are nice, though, and look good in the original design colors. The art cards keep it simple, as you'd expect, but provide the important info.

Rookie mania!

Here are a couple active guys in Acuña and Mookie. The sketch one is a bonus thank-you from Mark. The rest I picked out from his shop from the $1 singles, and a promo code he shared took care of the shipping. Pretty good deal. They're on nice cardstock and everything.

1980 Topps mix.

A trio of 1981 Topps should-have-beens. Yeah, would have been cool of Topps to give a tribute card to Sadaharu Oh, why not?

Hall of Famers who wrapped up their careers in 1983 and could've/should've gotten base card sendoffs in 1984 Topps that might've looked something like this.

Dipping back into the 70s to pair up Pirates and Orioles with 1985 Topps.

1987 Topps representing.

Reggie Jackson and a couple other guys who last took the field during the 1987 season and therefore would have been nice to get a final card of in 1988 Topps.

Finally, we close out with these beauties in the 1989 Topps design, including a fun McGruff/McGriff combo.

So there you have a few neat custom cards I added to my collection the other day. Mad props to Gio and Mark for their fine work.
Thanks for stopping by.

Catching up with incoming cards and things

Time for a big post featuring stuff I've gotten over the past month or two from my homies on the cardsphere, including two guys I've gotten a ton of cards from in recent years, plus two other guys I hadn't traded with in several years.

First up is a bunch of stuff from the esteemed Mr. Zippy Zappy. Similar to what Night Owl was saying the other week, I'm fortunate to still be sent stuff from Kenny and it always brightens my day to see what he graciously jettisons my way.

Pretty sweet lot of LEGO Star Wars minifigs! Not pictured are a bunch of accessories (I didn't get around to clipping on the lightsabers and blasters.)

Here's some 2010-2011 stuff featuring a few early Strasburgs and a Chris Sale RC. My 2011 Topps parallel frankenset has 731 cards in it so far (out of a daunting 1284 goal), yet that Huston Street there at the end is now the first silk parallel in the mix. Silky sweet Street!

Solid player-lots of Hunter Pence and Nolan Arenado, plus some other various baseball of note. 

Lots of in-person or through-the-mail autographs from Zippy's impressive hoard (plus at least one pack-certified auto). Cool to get signatures of the Million Dollar Arm (2014) real guys.

Also a bunch of women's soccer making up the bulk of the non-baseball player autos.

Lots of Star Wars cards, including a couple partial rainbow runs.

More non-sport with a bunch of Stranger Things inserts direct from Topps, by the looks of the top-loaders. Looking forward to watching the final Stranger Things episodes soon and see how that story wraps up.

Cool little Star Wars set that's still sealed.

Wrapping up with a signed master photo and some 1/1 Topps Vault blank backs. There was also a big mousepad/ gaming mat included that I didn't get around to getting a picture of.

Big thanks, ZZ! A lot of cool stuff there.

Stop the presses.. just got another international envelope with a few more cards.

This time it's more signed baseball cards, highlighted by a gold refractor, plus a couple Tulowitzkis.

Thanks again, man. Keep 'em coming! :)

- - --o

From a bunch of stuff mailed across the sea to a bunch of stuff driven over across the neighborhood, next up are highlights from the lastest longboxes I've been fortunate to receive from my buddy Rod at Padrographs.

Getting top billing here are a signed Marie Osmond card, a new Gavin for my collection (in a funky 1989 Topps design remixed MiLB issue), and a Jake Cronenworth 2025 black parallel.

Some recent certified Padrographs, including some prospects and hometown hero Joe Musgrove.

Lots more overflow Padrographs I'm happy to work into my collection.

Big thanks as always, Rod!

- - --o

The Coffee Card Blogger over at Cards Over Coffee and I swapped a bunch of PWEs back when he was known as the Sport Card Collectors guy. But then I stopped going to the local card show and so my trade fodder for him dried up. But I had been sitting on a few NY Giants that I hadn't gotten around to sending him, so I finally did that earlier this summer, surprising him with a PWE for old time's sake.

It was a nice little hobby moment, though the vibe was soured a bit when his return to me fell victim to a ruthless assault.

Oof, the envelope had been aggressively folded longways, creasing all six cards included. Not sure if the mailpiece was just unlucky with a defective sorting machine or if the culprit was a disgruntled mail handler within the Postal Service being malicious in his disregard for the "Do Not Bend" plea as a way to get his own sick jollies.

So that was a bummer. Here's a closer look at the bent cards, with some creases not showing up much in the photo.

I hadn't had that happen before, but then a week or two later I received an eBay win PWE in rough shape that was one card in a top-loader. Even the top-loader was bent into 3 segments, which is pretty hard to do without putting in solid effort. So yeah, that's concerning. Hopefully it's not a trend that persists. The damaged card wasn't all that rare and the seller refunded me with no problem, so it could have been worse. Next time I might not be so lucky. :/

But back to this trade, when I informed him of the sad fate of his outgone mail, Coffee Guy was nice enough to find a few more Padres for me, and thankfully this batch arrived without incident.

Some fun parallels here, highlighted for me by the numbered Khalil Greene.

Who knows if/when we'll swap cards again, but it's been fun. Thanks, man!

-   -   - --o

Here's another blast from the twenty-teens. The last time I did a Time-Traveling Trade with Matt at Diamond Jesters was 2019, so I was overdue. This time I grabbed needs for three 70s Topps sets I'm still slowly working on.

I'm not confident I'll ever complete 1970 Topps, but I'll try to chip away needs here and there.. and who knows, maybe someday.

Completing Topps sets from 1976 and 1977 is a much more feasible goal. I also grabbed a bunch from these two sets in a recent Sportlots order. I'm still just over halfway with '76, but '77 is up to three-quarters done and I'm at the point where I might raid my PCs looking for needs there.

Thanks, Matt!

That'll do it for this post. Hopefully the bottleneck with my blogging is broken now and I'll post more frequently here as the summer subsides. I ended my months-long COMC boycott and begrudgingly overpaid them for a shipment request, so that should show up one of these weeks, and I'll have several posts lined up with stuff from that lot.

Have a great holiday weekend, everybody.

P.S. Update to my previous post...

Tony's looking good enough to call done after less than 3 sunny weeks. Nice! Anybody try to make their own sun-bleached mods?

1991 Fleer "white border" mod tutorial

Figured I'd put a post together about how I make de-yellowed 1991 Fleer mods. I meant to get to it earlier in the summer, but hey, there are still plenty of sunny days left.

First, get the 1991 Fleer card you'd like to modify, along with a common/dupe that you won't mind destroying. For this example, I'm looking to bleach the border of the Tony Gwynn card, while sacrificing Kelvin Torve's card (no offence to Mr. Torve, who got into 42 more MLB games than the rest of us).

So now you want to cut the picture out of the chump's card. This will be our mask to block the sun from the good card's photo. If you have access to a paper cutter, you should probably use that to help you keep the edges straight. Scissors work fine if you've got a steady hand. And of course you could just measure the dimensions out on a non-card piece of cardboard to avoid needing a common '91 Fleer to sacrifice, but that's more work to get just the right size.

I like to use a hard case such as a screw-down like this one, and you just place the cut-out photo on top of the good card's photo. I've found that a small piece of paper towel on top can help prevent the top photo from sliding around much. Try to get the mask as perfectly centered as you can and then screw it down with everything in place.

Then you just find a sunny spot to put it. Your best bet is a window that gets a lot of afternoon sun. You'll likely notice fading after a couple weeks, with the bold yellow mellowing out to a nice creamy tone after a month or two. The longer you leave it, the lighter the border will get, until eventually it's as white as it'll get. You'll probably want to rotate the card at some point to account for shadows, and you can speed up the process by moving it around to different sunny locations throughout the day-- chasing the sun, as it were-- instead of leaving it in the same place all the time. Some '91 Fleer cards are bolder than others, so that could factor in with the timeline, too.

Troubleshooting: If your mask wasn't a good fit, you might notice yellow slivers remaining on the good card, in which case try trimming the mask at those parts. On the other hand if the mask was cut too small, you may notice fading around the border of the photo of the good card. It's hard to get it perfect, but it's not like you're submitting these for grading, so remember to have fun with it.

But yeah, after a few weeks pass, you should have yourself a sharp-looking homemade parallel ready to spice up your collection. I stamp/sign the back, like with my other cardart. You may choose to make a similar notation, or perhaps make a little explanation note to store with the card.. you know, to prevent confusion down the line. Definitely don't be a douche trying to pass off your mod as an official variant, like to fool somebody into overvaluing your polished turd. For the record, I've sold a handful of these mods over the years at about 5 bucks a pop (which I think is pretty cheap considering how long they take to make). I'll admit I've been coy with my process in the past, hoping to keep these as somewhat of a "brand exclusive" as I've tried to make a go of it as a niche cardartist. But demand never really took off and at this point I'm off to other ideas, though I still consider making 1991 Fleer mods one of my favorite summertime activities these days, funny as it sounds. It's fun to "make a thing" and these aren't much work, just patience. Makes unbearably hot days a little easier to take because you at least know your '91 Fleer mod is soaking up the rays, making progress for you.

So there you go. I hope some of you readers are intrigued about do-it-yourself parallels and maybe give it a shot yourself. You could even get funky with it, like try fading a gradient or with stripes or something. Good luck and have fun!

Ryno refractors

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. Forgot to tell anyone I've been on strike from blogging to protest COMC jacking up their bulk shipping rate. 

No, I'm only (half) joking. Just kinda fell into a "summer break" from blogging to deal with other stuff. But rather than vent about my frustrating life, I wanted to pop in with a little tribute to the recently departed Ryne Sandberg and pull out my best cards of him. 

Here's a cool refractor-that-never-was from 2007 eTopps imagining that Ryne got a card in 1982 Topps (and if so, this would be a refractor reprint, I guess?). Still fun/weird to see him as anything but a Cub, though these days he has a fair amount of Phillies cards, especially considering his managerial stint.

I'll nerd-out and point out the mistake on the back of designating this as a card in the 1982 Traded set ("#133T"), as that wouldn't make sense because he was traded to the Cubs before the '82 season, and so he would have been shown with Chicago in that year's Traded set. Plus the back color would be red, not green. And no doubt if Ryne had been included in the flagship '82 set, it would've been on a Phillies 3-player Future Stars card anyways. But looking past all that, it's a sweet card. (I've completed the little run of "what-if-ractors" and have been meaning to post about it for a couple years now.)

Next up is a double dose of "1990 Topps refractors", with a shiny reprint of his actual '90 Topps card on the left along with a revamped look using a different photo on the right. I've got "master sets" going for all years of Topps Archives Reserve (still slowly working on the hits, and still need Ryne's 2001 Rookie Reprint Relic) and Topps All-Time Fan Favorites refractors (over 90% complete now; this is the only Sandberg). The oft-maligned 1990 Topps design looks pretty good with a rainbow shine to it, as we've been seeing this year with all the 35th Anniversary tributes from Topps. Sandberg had an excellent 1990 season with a career high 40 home runs, hence Topps paying refractored tribute in previous years.

Ok, here's my best Ryno: 2004 Topps Retired refractor auto. I've mentioned before that I really love these things.

Here's the back in case you want to take a quick look at his stats.

Ok, breaking theme here at the end as this isn't a refractor, but still a shiny card. It's a cardart remix of his 1993 Topps Black Gold insert I made last year that I think turned out pretty good. I've been intending to do more stuff like this once I get back into the card-cutting groove.

Wrapping up, it's tough to lose a great, especially such a solid dude like Ryne Sandberg. RIP

2001 Topps Chrome "Before There was Topps" refractors

Y'all know I like refractors. Well, one niche that especially interests me are guys' 1st Refractor, specifically talking about old-timers who played before such parallels were a thing. And in poking around, I found this 10-card "Before There was Topps" insert set from 2001 Chrome that features the first refractor produced of several inner-circle HOFers, and so I went about completing it. Took me a couple years, but I tracked them all down, paying about $10-20 per card. The base versions typically run a buck or two, but the refractors were tougher pulls-- 1:200 odds compared to 1:20 for base (per baseballcardpedia).

They didn't go too nuts in imagining what a Topps design from way back then would look like, going with a simplified 1959 Topps design with the photo circle in the middle. If this "what if" set came out today, chances are the pictures would be artificially colorized, but back in 2001, at least, Topps went old-school and kept the photos black and white.

With all these household names, you'd never guess what ended up being the final card I needed to track down. If you can believe it, it was Grover, who one might argue is the least-remembered of these 10 men today if you were forced to rank them. Hey, that gives me an idea, let's use TCDb to see which of these legends has the most cards out there as of May 2025.

#1 with 16,275 cards - Babe Ruth

Might as well do the list in descending order, since Babe Ruth having the most cards surely isn't a surprise. He's the original GOAT and still well-known today despite his heyday being a century ago.

I'd pick full stats over a little write-up any day, so I'm happy with these backs. Neat to see the Boston bookends to the Bambino's career.

#2 with 5,518 cards - Lou Gehrig

Quite a drop in card volume, with second-place Lou Gehrig having over 10,000 fewer cards out there than Ruth.

Great career ended by a tragic disease.

#3 Joe DiMaggio, Total Cards: 4,822

Yankee supremacy continues with Joe DiMaggio in third place.

I always thought it was a bummer that Joltin' Joe narrowly missed getting a playing-days Topps card.

#4 Ty Cobb, Total Cards: 4,729

Cobb just missed third place with less than one hundred fewer cards currently on the market than DiMaggio.

Ty Cobb still gets talked about a lot today, though it's often in conversations regarding Pete Rose. While he might not have the "Hit King" crown these days, check out that insane lifetime average.

#5 Honus Wagner, Total Cards: 3,189

Honus Wagner places fifth out of these fellas in terms of cards produced of their likeness.

Honus Wagner is best known in the hobby for his T206 SSP that's considered the all-time "best baseball card" to many. But yeah, he was a pretty good player, too! Not a lot of pop, but hey, that's pre-Ripken shortstops for you, right?

#6 Rogers Hornsby, Total Cards: 2,361

From Honus to Hornsby. Took me a while to notice the subtle lines of stars in the design.

More teams on the back than we've seen in the post so far. Hornsby was player/manager for most of the latter half of his career, which helps explain sticking around with limited action as his career wound down.

#7 Christy Mathewson, Total Cards: 1,423

The remaining players in this list are all pitchers. Christy Mathewson is arguably the greatest pitcher of all time, though his 1,423 different cards on the market are dwarfed by, say, Roger Clemens (19,958), but that's modern cards for you.

Imagine guys today pitching that many innings!

#8 Walter Johnson, Total Cards: 1,190

Walter Johnson is among the 3 graded cards in my completed set. I got the trio from COMC, though not all at once. I don't particularly want them graded, but I haven't been motivated to break them out either.

His total of 110 career shutouts is the record. One of those firmly unbreakable records.. at least until robot pitchers are legalized in 2063.

#9 Cy Young, Total Cards: 1,021

Cy Young is mentioned plenty today thanks largely to MLB's pitcher-of-the-year award being named after him. Barely a thousand different cards of him out there, though.

Tons of wins and losses. Cool seeing forgotten teams Spiders and Naps on the back.

Last at #10 Grover Alexander, Total Cards: 480

As I suspected, Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander does have the fewest cards out of the 10 players in this insert set. Less than 500 cards means he's not even halfway to the #9 spot.

30+ wins.. 3 years in a row.. Can you imagine?!

And that wraps it up. Nice group of shiny cards featuring all-time greats.

After completing this set, I decided I should go after the "What Could Have Been" refractors, also from 2001 Chrome, basically a similar 10-card set but with Negro League players. I don't have any of those yet, but I'm keeping an eye out.

Thanks for stopping by.