Cut-Signature Customs n' such

I love making custom cards. And I really love when I can take a boring autograph and spice it up into a custom card. This post will take a look at some custom cut-signature cards I whipped up recently. (Actually, this post has been sitting in my drafts for a couple months.)

Here's what I started with. My bud JBF Wes approached me with a couple Bob Walk IP autos and Josh Willingham stickergraphs asking if I could make them into something cooler. I was up to the challenge. (The Bob Walk cards were obviously cannon fodder for his ongoing cardboard war with Matthew Scott, so I had to sit on publishing this post for a while not to ruin the surprise. But he received them the other day, so I've got the greenlight.)

But first let's start with the Dick Enberg I made for myself. The legendary broadcaster passed away on December 21, 2017. At the risk of coming off as a vulture, as soon as I found out, I headed to eBay to see if I could find any inexpensive autographs. Honestly I had been meaning to do this back when he was still alive, but never got around to it. I remember earlier checking if he had any autos available out there, but turns out he doesn't have any pack-certified auto cards (none that I could find, anyways). I think his only real card is in 1989 Pro Set. So the custom card route it is!

I found this auction simply titled "DICK ENBERG autograph" with the description reading "obtained by me at DFW airport 1984. $10k guarranteed authentic!" $13.95 with free shipping... worked for me and I pulled the trigger. Looked a little large for my custom-card-making aspirations, but workable. The seller was named Steve, so I assume that's who the signature is made out to, though it's not very legible. I have no reason to believe this isn't authentic. Dick was known to be generous with his autograph. A forger would be very unlikely to include personalization. It's on old-school printer paper and the signature crosses a page perforation. If it was counterfeit, they would have done a better job. So it's 100% legit as far as I'm concerned.



Very happy with how this turned out! Borrowed an existing Topps Five Star design rather than whip up something from scratch. I had to extend the window bigger that I would have liked, but I eventually was able to get it lined up to where it looked good and didn't cut off too much (It's such an annoyance when a card company obscures or otherwise edits out part of a signature in cuts like this). I was fine with losing the "Steve–" part. The top of the "M" and bottom of the "Y" just barely fit in together snugly. The only unfortunate loss was the top of the exclamation point, but I can live with that.

I didn't do much for the back on this one, just a little bio paragraph.

Really proud of these Willinghammers! Wes seems pretty stoked with them, too. They're in the style of 1996 Leaf Signature Extended and 1998 Donruss Signature Series, respectively. Josh doesn't seem to do TTM, or otherwise I would have just tried to get the customs hard-signed. This was my first time ever peeling off a sticker auto and placing it on a custom. Usually I just do custom overlays, leaving the original card untouched. But with Wes' blessing, I went for it. It wasn't perfect, as the stickiness mostly stuck to the original card, though it was enough to work with, and was fine with a tiny bit of glue added to one side. Some tamper-proof design may have also been activated on the stickers as they were peeled off, though I don't think it hurts the look of the customs much.

I even made backs that are semi-faithful to the original designs. I was too lazy to type up original blurbs, though, and both of these were copied and pasted straight from the internet.

I absentmindedly dated all these cards "2017" on the bottom. It was actually mid-January 2018 (over MLK weekend, to be specific) when I made them. D'oh!

Pete Coscarart is an old-timer up my collecting alley thanks to his SDSU and Padres ties. I think the card I turned a signed index card into came out pretty well. The index card was even PSA/DNA certified with a sticker on the back, so I peeled it off and affixed it to the back of the card.

And now to the Bob Walks. These use the same Five Star templates as seen earlier in this post. I was glad I was able to fit in most of Bob from his '90 Donruss card on this one.

The autograph on the '93 Topps card was a bit too large to get all of Bob in the cut, unfortunately, but still turned out cool enough.

I affixed the COA business cards to the back of each. Because why not.

So there you go, some neat custom autos for me, Wes, and Matt created out of less interesting sources.
Thanks for reading.

Cards from the Mount Rushmore of card bloggers

We're continuing our recap of the trade packages that've showed up at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ over the past week or so. Today's post features trades with a couple of the biggest names in the world of card blogging. Trading with anyone is great, but I think it's extra special when it's with a collector/writer you admire, not to be too cheesy about it.

I don't think I traded with Night Owl at all last year until getting a surprise holiday mailing out to him in mid December, which he got me back for in January. And while I normally wouldn't bug him with cards again so frequently, as I know his time is in demand, when I got a custom TTM return from Ron Cey a few weeks ago and with a couple extras to spare, I had to send one along to the cardsphere's foremost Penguin collector. Greg recently hit me back with a nice assortment of cards..

My Matt Kemp collection has gone from a few cards loitering in my tradebox when he was a Dodger, to a legit PC since going to the Padres before last season. Especially after he became the first Padre to ever hit for the cycle, he won a permanent place in my heart and I escalated snatching up his cards, with big thanks to Dodgers collectors like Night Owl and Stealing Home unloading their dupes on me. Among the highlights of this mighty lot are the 3D Opening Day insert and 2014 Heritage action variation SP, with Greg thoughtfully including a note to make sure I knew it wasn't just any ol' base card.

Here are a couple pesky items to store, but still nice additions to each PC. The oversized Nolan Ryan is one of those Baseball Talk cards with like a vinyl record-type-area engraved on the other side that you need the special player for. I don't have one, but YouTube to the rescue...

Ha, you wouldn't know by looking at it, but this card would also fit into a Don Drysdale PC!

1964 Topps set needs! I hadn't had cause to update my needslist for this setbuild since November, so it's very appreciated. I now have 160 cards from this set.

And some cards for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset! Still need to put together a spreadsheet for this one of these days. I'm still mad (not really mad) at Night Owl for giving away a liquorfractor Mike Trout rookie in a contest last year instead of giving me a shot at it. That'll easily be the priciest card I need for this goal of mine. Anyone have a 2011 Topps Update Trout parallel they'd be willing to listen to offers for? Let me know!

A couple active guys I collect. Nice diecut Kershaw UD RC!

Greg spiced up the package with a few non-baseball cards. (Ok, the Nolan is technically a baseball card, but it's kind of a football card.) Love the Kareem! The Faulk National Trading Card Day card is nice too.

A couple BAMFs of their era here in Dave Parker and Bill Madlock. Nice!

We close the package from Night Owl with a couple cards with stories behind them. I had plucked out the Yaz from my PC even though it was the only copy I had. I saw it was atop the Nebulous Nine (the last card he needed for his 1981 Donruss setbuild), and I wasn't that attached to my diamond-cut copy and figured I'd wind up with another one before too long. But Greg had secured another one a day or two before mine showed up, so he kindly returned mine to me.
As for the glorious SSPC sunhat card, there was a Night Owl post a month or two ago about cards featuring funny hats or something along those lines, and I made a drunken comment about how if it was socially acceptable, I'd wear a big floppy hat all the time. He must've remembered and was nice enough to hook me up with the wonderful card at the heart of the comment.

Great stuff.. Thanks, Greg!

-    -    -  -  - ---o

Dimebox Nick was another recipient of a holidaytime mailing from me last December. If it wasn't bad enough that Nick is taking an extended hiatus from blogging at the moment, what makes matters worse is that he didn't post about that PWE I sent him yet! LOL. Come on, Nick.. come out of retirement to show off whatever it was I sent you. :) I think there was an SP in there and probably a couple customs.

Anyways, while he hasn't blogged about the cards from me, he did send back a nice return card package recently.

A nice lot of 80s oddballs!

More dudes I like.

Padres I like! The Old Judge Greene may have been in better shape when it arrived, but we're cat-sitting this week and he likes to knock cards onto the floor. That Pete Coscarart minor league Bowman reprint is very nice.. though a little frustrating for me because I bought the set last year for a few bucks in order to obtain it. I should have had patience and let Nick take care of me.

Nick and I share plenty of collecting interests, with Hoyt Wilhelm and Rod Beck being a couple PC guys we have in common. Always happy to swap our dupes.

Some nice Giancarlo cards.

Matt Kemp and a 2011 Topps parallel make encore appearances in this post, plus a cool Big Unit overhead shot.

Talk about a staggering legacy, changing not only music, but the entire world. Also pictured: a Beatles card.

We close with a couple music cards from opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm a big Beatles fan, so I'm very happy to score my first vintage card of the Fab Four. The tape stains serve as proof of the card being well-loved during the days of Beatlemania. The card features George Harrison's facsimile signature, though all 4 blokes are pictured. I've got a few rare Beatles records, and even an 8-track of Yellow Submarine (and thousands of mp3s), but no trading cards in my collection previously. (UPDATE: RIP George Martin. He was the best.)

This isn't the first Vanilla Ice card I've seen in a trade recap from Nick, so he must've found a few in a dimebox to use as silly Bieber-esq calling cards. Or perhaps he bust a box looking for Ramones cards. I'm pretty sure I pulled this card from a pack back in the day. I'll admit my best friend Doug and I played his To The Extreme cassette after school many times back in middle school during Vanilla's brief moment in the sun. (To further the connection to the Beatles, Doug has a John Lennon tattoo now.) To this day, I'm never disappointed when "Ice Ice Baby" comes on, though now I prefer the original song it stole from, Queen & Bowie's "Under Pressure". Vanilla Ice has been entertaining me again recently, but now it's from watching his home improvement shows on Netflix, The Vanilla Ice Project and Vanilla Ice Goes Amish. I don't typically watch those types of shows, but they're good for when I want something on in the background that I can go in and out of paying attention to whilst doing other things.

But anyways, big thanks for the incredible bunch of cards, Nick!

With Greg and Nick, anything less than the best is a felony.

Loading up on local guys

This post is to show off some recent additions to my PCs of guys who went to the same schools I did. Most of these were included in my most recent COMC order, and a few were in eBay bulk purchases for free combined shipping.

Regular readers of this blog are familiar with my Guys From Granite minicollection, made up of guys who went to the same highschool as me and went on to become professional athletes. I admit it's a bit weird that I'm so gung-ho about this avenue of my collection, yet am pretty indifferent to collecting guys from the university I went to, SDSU. I also feel nothing for the Oregon Ducks, making me stick out among most other sports fans in my current home state. I just don't really care about college sports very much. Still, though, I like to show some school spirit from time to time and add cards of former Aztecs and other notable hometown guys.

I think this is my first Tony Gwynn Aztec card. I doubt it'll be the last-- I'll definitely try hunting down a few more different ones. Upper Deck has been putting out a few such cards in recent years, including some featuring Tony from his days starring on the basketball team, including autos. (That set came out right after he died, so they went fast and expensive.)

Pete Coscarart was the first San Diego State University alum to play major league baseball. He also played minor league ball in my current home of Portland, Oregon for a few years. Then after a decent MLB career with Brooklyn and Pittsburgh, he rounded out his playing days on the PCL Padres (1946-1949). I've now got 4 of his (according to Beckett) 15 cards in existence.

My Aztec Alumni minicollection isn't really a thing. Just attending SDSU isn't enough to make me want to collect a guy. Notable names there are Mark Grace, Harold Reynolds, Al Newman, Aaron Harang, Dave Smith, Addison Reed, Travis Lee, Tony Clark, Bud Black. Yeah, they don't do anything for me. Maybe someday. An exception to this is Stephen Strasburg who I've kinda started a passive PC for earlier this year. There's also Graig Nettles, who I sort of collect but mainly because of his time on the Padres. Gwynn family members Tony Jr and Chris Gwynn are also former Aztecs; maybe I'll collect them at some point.

Now let's turn to Guys From Granite...

My ol' classmate Marcus Giles; The guy who allows me to brag I've shared a locker room with an all-star. I don't typically go out of my way for Giles cards anymore (pretty sure he's already in my Hundred Card Club), but these 2 autos were like $3 combined via COMC, so I couldn't pass them up.

Another notable GHHS Eagle, Shane Spencer. Here we've got an early minor league card from '94, plus a numbered gold parallel from 2003 Topps.

And here are Bowman cards of a couple Guys From Granite who weren't able to crack the big leagues. The Scott Shoemaker gold refractor is #'d /50. Casey Craig is represented with a blue refractor (I think #'d /150) and a gold (brown) parallel.

Travis Taijeron is the active Guy From Granite I only found out about recently. This 2012 Topps Pro Debut was the last mainstream base card I needed of his (ok, his only other card is 2012 Heritage Minors). He had a very nice 2015 season for the Mets' AAA team, batting .274 with 25 home runs. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to get a September call-up, but hopefully he's able to progress next year and gets a chance to prove himself on the big league level.

Now here's a tricky one: Mike Jacobs is neither a Guy From Granite nor an Aztec Alum. But he's a Guy From Grossmont. I spent more years than I care to admit at Grossmont College before transferring to San Diego State. Not only did Jacobs attend the same community college as me, but during the same timeframe. I shared an anecdote a while back about how I think I may have even had a class with him. So I was happy to add my first couple of certified autos of his (each ran me a buck-something). I probably won't work too hard expanding my Guys From Grossmont collection, but who knows. Other notable names from the junior college include Quintin Berry, Mike Hartley, Sean O'Sullivan, Jesse Orosco Jr (cool, I didn't realize he had a son playing professionally), and Carlos Torres. There's also overlap with several Guys From Granite.

But back to Mike Jacobs, he had some solid seasons with the Marlins a few years back, with a career home run total of an even 100, but hasn't seen major league action since 2012. He's been playing in Mexico with decent success, spending 2015 in Oaxaca (pronounced wa-hah-kah) batting .276 with 14 home runs in 111 games.

OK, that wraps up this post updating recent pick-ups of local guys. Thanks for reading!

Finding another vintage guy to collect

I've said it before, as a Padres fan, I'm limited in chasing really old cards that I can shoehorn into my "collecting focus" or whatever (not that I'm much of a stickler about that). Ted Williams, Jerry Coleman, Dick Williams are my go-to oldies with tangential ties to San Diego baseball. I didn't realize until he passed away, but Minnie Miñoso was a PCL Padre like Ted Williams. He should eventually be inducted into the HOF and therefore become a part of my "Pads in the Hall" minicollection (incredibly unfortunate that Hall voters didn't get in him while he was alive to appreciate it.) so I need to put him on my wantlist. Update: and Flip Rosen, too!

But this post is about Pete Coscarart.

His claim to fame (at least in my eyes)? Pete was the first alumnus from my alma mater, San Diego State University, to play major league baseball. I'm not really a college sports guy, but as my Guys From Granite series shows, I do like showing some love to ballplayers who walked down the very same halls as me in my younger days. I don't blanketly collect SDSU alumni, but have a few dudes I like (such as Marshall Faulk, Stephen Strasburg, Graig Nettles, [Tony Gwynn doesn't really count because I'd collect him anyway]).

And thanks to giving me an excuse to bring a vintage Play Ball card or two into my collection, Pete Coscarart is now a guy I collect. He gets bonus posts for also being a long-time PCL Padre (1946-1949) later in his career, plus he played a lot in my current home of Portland, OR in his early days. He split his time in the majors between the Brooklyn Dodgers (1938-1941) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1942-1946) as a middle infielder. He got a tiny bit of MVP consideration in 1939, and was an All-Star in 1940. It was said he was run out of the majors in part thanks to his outspoken support for forming a players' union. He later became a scout, signing the aforementioned Graig Nettles for the Twins. In 1996, Coscarart was inducted into the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame.

This beat-up 1940 Play Ball card ran me just a couple bucks plus shipping. Looks like a former owner of this card was a fan of Fudgesicles.

Here's a somewhat complete checklist of his cards:

o 1939 Play Ball #141
o 1940 Dodgers Team Issue #4
x 1940 Play Ball #63
o 1941 Dodgers Team Issue #5
o 1947 Padres Team Issue #5
o 1949 Bowman PCL #21
o 1972 TCMA The 1930s #384
o 1978 Dodgers 1941 TCMA #12
x 1979 Diamond Greats #365
o 1983 TCMA Playball 1945 #33
x 1987 CCC 1949 Bowman PCL reprint #21
x 1989 Dodgers Smokey Greats #46
o 1990 Dodgers Target #141
o 1998 Fiesta Casino poker chip #650
o 2012 Leaf History of Baseball Cut Signatures #762 (/42)

(Red x indicates I've gotten the card since originally publishing this post.)

I don't own any vintage PCL Padres cards, so it looks like I've got a couple to keep an eye out for now. But 1949 Bowman PCL cards sell for around $200 a pop, so I've settled for a reprint for now:

(I actually went ahead and bought a near-complete reprint set of '49 Bowman PCL since I was able to get a Best Offer accepted for just a little more than a Padres team set would have cost me. The rest are available for trades.)

So yeah, in the very slim chance you've got a Pete Coscarart card sitting in your tradebox, please get in touch and let me trade you for it. (Maybe you Dodgers or Pirates collectors have a dupe or two available?) While it's not a huge priority, I'd love to whittle down those cards into my collection over time.