Thursday, October 26, 2023

The Hidden Parallels of 1987 Topps

Back in the summer of 2022, I made a bunch of 1991 Fleer "white border" mods. This past summer I was back at harnessing UV rays on cardboard, but this time I turned my attention to the big dawg of the hobby that is 1987 Topps.

While '87 Topps was a bit trickier to work with than '91 Fleer, gotta say I saw some neat results. The tan woodgrain burns down to a mellower gray, with hues of red and blue often coming out. Variances in the design, original ink levels, and bleaching duration can all contribute to how a card ends up looking, resulting in many subtle differences, or revealing several "hidden parallels" (if you wanna get whimsical about it).


This photo gives you an idea of the range we're talking about, with a regular Bo for scale. The Nolan is about as blue as I've gotten any '87, while the Joyner is probably the most red. Drawing on junk is something I've been doing a lot lately as part of my 2023 cardart exploits, so you might assume I manually colored in the borders somehow with ink or paint or something, but nope-- it's a case of solar-powered addition by subtraction.


I had an extra McGriff "Topps rookie" from the Traded set to work with, and eventually ended up with a cool unofficial variation for my PC-- pairing "gold" (unaltered on the left) & "silver".. sort of. Turns out the regular flagship cards on dark stock are easier to work with than white paper stock versions-- I'm talking about Traded, OPC, and tiffany-- which seem to hold onto their color more.

I thought about coming up with cute parallel names... "Birchwood Edition", "Mahogany", "Smoked Wood", "Rosewood", etc... but think I'm ultimately just sticking with bleached border mods.


It's hard to keep the photo unaffected, as the right side of this pink Will Clark shows.


I had been on the fence on whether or not I should put my "cardartist stamp/signature" thing on the backs or leave them untouched. I'm now leaning towards stamping them going forward (as well as the 1991 Fleer mods, which up to now I haven't stamped), if for no other reason than to prevent confusion down the road, as another cardart guy was recently talking to me about. You guys know I'm just here for finding fun in the hobby, not trying to trick or confuse anyone!

Anyways, here are a few more...






I've started adding a few of these to my eBay store, still working on getting a cardart side hustle off the ground by the end of the year. Always happy to talk trades, too.

But one card I've been hoarding for myself so far...


I've ended up with a nice rainbow of the classic Bo Jackson Future Stars card. I usually stick to cheaper cards to deface-- I like to think of them as "quarterbox canvases"-- but am willing to pony up a bit more for this one. Here we have the base, tiffany, (he wasn't in OPC that year), and then some mods of varying hue. 


Not a dupe among them! LOL. The plan was to make some extras to sell/trade, but dang it, I just love 'em and so far they've been different enough that I've been compelled to hang onto them all. I'm tempted to eventually make one more to "complete a page."

In addition to 1987 Topps, I messed around with '86 over the summer a little as well...


Just playing with the big yellow PADRES up top on these. Might be hard to tell on the Flannery, but it's kinda speckled.


1988 Topps gets into the bleach-away-yellow action with this "white stripe" Don Mattingly. A simple yet satisfying (unofficial) variation of a classic baseball card.

Of course I'm still doing some border art here and there, too.

Always loved Ron Gant's '88 Topps Traded card so it's a fun one to work on.

And I've got more new ideas brewing. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Trip to Greece

My wife and I went to Greece last month. My original "live journaling" draft of this post was really just a bunch of complaining leading up to the trip-- hey, I'm a homebody who doesn't like to leave the house if I can help it-- but it turned out to be a very nice vacation so I'm going to delete the intro bitching and just share some pictures I took. A few incoming baseball cards are at the end, too.


We made it to Athens after a super long day of traveling-- basically a "double stuff'd" day for us flying into tomorrow. We stayed in a small, but nice enough room in the city. Lots of honking during the day, but walking distance to historic Greek sites like the above pic.


After 3 days in Athens, we took a ferry over to the island of Naxos. This cat, the apparent reincarnation of Hitler, gave me an inauspicious greeting, violently regurgitating moments after this photo was taken. But overall, the feral kitties were cool and my wife tried to befriend them all. 


After I die of probably a heart attack in a few years, I totally expect her to promptly enter "crazy cat lady" territory. (Only reason we don't have a cat is I'm allergict [sic]).


Had really nice beach day in Naxos. Hell, I even popped off my shirt and ventured out a bit. (No sunburns for me for the trip, thankfully, though my wife did get a little too much sun one day.)


Gorgeous sunset viewing from the roof of our hotel in Naxos.


Naxos was my wife's favorite of our vacation's 3 or 4 legs. The only thing that ruined it for me was an annoying barking dog who lived across the way who did no favors to our already-wacked sleep schedule.


One day we took a bus tour up into the hills to check out some more sights. It was a hot one, nearly 90 degrees American. Got some awesome caramel ice cream in a small town, checked out an ancient olive oil pressing place, watched some pottery get made, hit another nice beach. Another highlight was seeing a couple donkeys hanging out. I mean, I know there are donkeys back in the states, but still..


Just a little off-center on the wallet card photo with this Naxos landmark known as Apollo Temple's entrance (Portara).


Of course I gotta do the traditional dipping-of-the-wallet-card in any body of water I encounter in my travels. Aegean Sea here.


After that we took another ferry over to Santorini, another Greek island.


Our place in Santorini had a personal hot tub in the back balcony. That was pretty swanky. Wallet card Tony didn't get dipped, but makes an appearance nonetheless.


Perhaps my favorite moment of the trip, I was just getting out after a soak, looking up at the skyline of illuminated church towers when all of a sudden everything flickered and went dark. Cool, surreal moment.


The power came back on after an hour or so. We had some downloaded Simpsons episodes on a iPad to help wait out the outage. Then later in the wee hours of the morning, my bad luck with neighbors disrupting peaceful sleep continued yet again, when the occupants of the room next door cranked up loud music for a while. groan.


My wife is more of the food photographer, occasionally snapping pics before we'd dig in, but the one food I photographed was this calzone I got for lunch one day. I'll keep fond memories in my heart for years to come of "the terrific calzoné I had back in the old country." Sure, that might be more of an Italian thing, but whatever. Had some nice baklava, too, and a little ouzo. Did I mention the winery tour in Santorini? That was a lot of fun. Chatted with some fellow American couples there via cruise. They had to rush back to the ship after the last stop, but lucky for us, our hotel was a 5 minute walk up the road so we were able to hang back and take our time.


Here's one last beach pic from when we were killing time on our last day in Santorini before a short flight back to Athens where we spent one last night in Greece in a weird airbnb type place (I was expecting a standard hotel room, but it was more like somebody's house who wasn't there) that only had one little trash can (in the bathroom)-- Oh yeah, one crazy thing about Greece is the plumbing isn't great so people don't flush their TP but rather throw it away. God bless the U.S.A!

Then the next morning we took a crazy taxi ride to the airport-- and btw, I'm really glad we didn't end up renting a car because the roads are often insane. Big old flight back to DC then a short layover and a big flight back to Portland. That must have literally been the longest day of my life, packing several hours onto the standard 24.

Now I've been home over a week and finally back to a decent sleep schedule. Honestly I'm fine not traveling again for the rest of my life other than the occasional trip to Hawaii (and we'll probably hit Canada at some point since I've got a passport now and it's not too far), but maybe my wife'll be able to talk me into another overseas vacation one of these years.

-  - --o

Now let's squeeze in some incoming cards.


I got a nice PWE from gcrl shortly before my trip that I wasn't able to mention yet. Here we've got some vintage set needs for me plus a pink mini Ryan Helsley RC which is of interest to me because...


it's a Christmas Card!

Great stuff.. thank you, my friend! I hope my return was sufficient. (I really need to build up my trade fodder).

-   - - --o

When I came home, I didn't have too much of a "mailhold mailday" bonanza to dive into, but I think I received a couple small eBay pickups and one box from Best Bubble Bob which was pretty neat.


Thanks to this lot of 1992 Leaf Black Gold, I've passed 75% complete with my parallel setbuild. I've never been much of a binder guy, but I might have to page up the set eventually. Damn near every card is a work of art in that black and gold frame.


Bob knows the Four G's to my heart/collection-- Gwynns, girls, glow-in-the-darks, and Gavins.


Even a miscut Pee-Wee card. I've ripped a lot of this 1988 set and can't recall seeing one so off center, making it a great addition to my "super OCD master set" of this product where any excuse to consider a card "unique" works.


Uncut magazine cards! Lots of good ones here. Tempted to cut this into separate cards.


Finally, a sealed San Diego Chicken board game from the early 80s. That'll kick my little PC of the legendary mascot up a notch!


If I had kids (or if there were cards in it), I'd be tempted to open it up and give it a go, but as it stands I'll plan to leave it in "collectable" condition.

pic from eBay

The star of the game are the little rubber chickens, which I had to find a picture of for curiosity's sake.

Thank you, Bob! I was already in your debt and now I'll really need to work up a respectable return soon.


That'll wrap up this long post. Thanks for reading!

Friday, September 15, 2023

Adam Jones PC highlights

Adam Jones is officially retiring today so I wanted to give him a quick blog spotlight. Exciting player, good person, plus he's a fellow San Diego kid, so he's easy for me to root for . At some point a few years ago I started snagging cheap/cool cards of his here and there, building a decent little PC. 


A couple low-numbered autos to kick things off.


Some relics. Bat chips and grey swatches, but hey, differing texture with each pair, at least.

No trifecta for me this time, btw, as I don't have any Adam Jones rookies. In fact, I think I only have Orioles cards of him, so I should probably try to score some additions documenting his career outside of Baltimore.


Fun photo on his 2018 card, shown here in four varieties.


A few more shiny highlights from the PC.


Someday I should try for a cycle/rainbow of those Pinnacle clear vision cards. 
Topps Chipz would have been a much better product if the parallels weren't so tough. 
The DK mini only makes the post because it's a Christmas Card.


I checked the Chip in the dark, and I don't think it's a glow-in-the-dark red parallel, sadly, just a regular red parallel (which are still pretty tough).


Finally, I'm pretty sure this was the very first custom overlay I ever made, spicing up a boring 2012 SP Signature Edition autograph I snagged for a couple bucks back in 2015. I've made a bunch of other overlays since, but this is still up there among my favorites.

That'll do it for this post. Wishing Adam all the best in his next chapter!

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Vottograph

Quick post to show off this Joey Votto auto I scored the other day.

I think it took over a year, but I eventually found a "Christmas (on)Card (auto)" in the price range I was looking for. Now my Joey Votto PC is in a place of "good enough" for my mind, which is always a happy feeling. With some rookies and relics already acquired, the all-important "trifecta" has been achieved.

A Trifecta Pyramid! lol

And it's his 40th birthday today! He celebrated in style with a home run fresh of the IL. Great dude and fun ballplayer.


Here's a partial rainbow of his 2015 Bowman's Best card, just to squeeze a little more refraction into the post.

Thanks for reading and have a great week. 

I'll throw in a couple cute Ruby pics from the other day, as I think Mr. Votto would want it that way.


Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Not letting my ARMS atrophy (Archives Reserve Master Set additions)

It's not a great time for fans of modern baseball. Oakland is getting their team snatched away. Wander has a wandering eye for little girls. Ohtani looks to be in for a second Tommy John surgery. Mike Trout still can't stay healthy anymore. Advertising on jerseys. Tinkering with the rules. And then looking at the current card manufacturer landscape, one giant company is taking control of everything, aiming to get more out of customers while giving them less, focusing in on high-rolling investors/breakers without thinking much about the majority of collectors.

But thankfully this hobby has been around a long time and you can spend every second of your time and money on old cards and still not scratch the surface.

With that intro rant out of the way, I'm still trying to get every single Archives Reserve card that Topps put out back in the early days of the millennium. I guess I'm just a sucker for refractor reprints of vintage cards. With zero parallels or numbered cards released, an Archives Reserve Master Set is not out of the realm of possibility. All I have left now are hits. I still have several big name autographs on my wantlist, and whether I truly ever get close to finishing this ARMS race might depend on how dramatically the sports card bubble bursts in the next few years.

But even if the "inner circle" guys are too pricey for me to target at the moment, I've been going after the lower-hanging fruit, hunting for "less than a blaster" autos I still need. 

Ready to check out some shiny hits in classic Topps designs?



Gaylord Perry is the only card in this post that cost more than the old school definition of "price of a blaster" (but works under the current definition), so I'll give him top billing. I remember when I first returned to the hobby as an adult, I decided Perry would be a top PC guy of mine (former Padres great in the HOF; played a long time, lots of cards out there; and pretty much a "household name" yet not much collector competition, relatively speaking). He hasn't exactly remained a primary focus for me since, but I've got a solid PC and he reminds me of those early days getting back into collecting.


Happy to cross this 2002 auto off my Archives Reserve needs. The rest of the cards in this post are rookie reprints from 2001, but for '02 they picked the "best year" for each player as the card design to use, choosing '72 Topps for Perry. And they do the odd but thoughtful practice of adding 1972 stats on the back so you can get an idea why that year was big for him.



Don Larsen is another notable figure in baseball history whose autographed cards won't set you back too much. He's got a rookie card in '54 Bowman, but his first Topps card was '55.


So weird to flip over a Don Larsen card and not read about his perfect game in the World Series. But you get a depiction of Satan, I guess?



Mickey Lolich put together a fine career highlighted by 3 complete game victories in the 1968 World Series and 25 wins in '71.


I prefer 1964 Topps reprints that show you the cartoon rather than the blank space. Obviously Topps doesn't actually re-print old sheets from the dusty archives but rather their graphic designers put together recreations, and sometimes it's kinda dumb when they tell you to rub a nickel on your card.



Dick Groat was NL MVP in 1960, winning the batting title for the eventual champs. Picked up another ring with the Cardinals in '64.


Groat was one of those guys who never played in the minors. There were some nice tributes to him after he passed away last April.



Sneaking in a football card, Terry Metcalf is probably the cheapest of the Archives Reserve football autos. Finally pulled the trigger on one, but somewhere the devil must have yelled "JINX!" at me as I finalized the transaction...


Unfortunately this card got folded longwise while in the mail, creasing it up something fierce. And it was in a freakin' top loader, so the USPS either ignored the "non-machinable" label and it had a dustup with the sorting machines, or maybe just some asshole mail handler "going postal" on a random envelope to blow off steam or something. At least it was only a few bucks so I won't bother making a fuss, but wouldn't mind upgrading someday. But when you consider I've got some huge NFL names to pick up still (like Montana and Namath, just to name a couple joes), I probably won't ever finish the football portion of this collecting goal unless I really stick with it for the long haul. So yeah, no rush, lol.



I haven't been hitting the relics very hard yet, but scored this Johnny Mize bat chip card for a good price.


Funny that you get hair and eye color on the back of '52 Topps. Mize was in '51 Topps, but they usually ignore that set when it comes to putting out rookie ("first Topps card") reprints. 



A couple more autographs to show off quickly. Nice looking Frank Howard here.


Fun comic.



Tommy John wraps up the post. Multiplayer rookies always look weird when reimagined as solo cards, but what are you gonna do?