Musically shaped cards

Music-themed die-cut cards! I don't try to collect them all, rather it's one of those type collections where I just try to get one representative from each set. 

There's the group pic of what I've currently got. Now let's do a chronological rundown.

1996 Leaf - Greatest Hits

Maybe there are obscure pre-war cards shaped like a flugelhorn or whatever, but best I can tell, Leaf (part of Donruss at the time) gave the world its first music-themed die-cut trading cards in May of 1996 with the release of their flagship set that included acetate inserts shaped to look like a piece of a compact disc. You'd expect an assortment of all-stars on the checklist, but nope, only Frank Thomas! There are a total of 8 "CD" cards featuring a different photo of the Big Hurt-- 4 available in hobby packs, 3 in retail, and 1 wrapper redemption-- and each is #/5000 on the back. 

(Tangent on cards that are also playable discs) 

Just the next year, Donruss took the concept further with 1997 Donruss VxP 1.0, a set that included 1-per-pack (6 different) rectangular CD-roms you could play on a computer disc drive. The discs featured a minute-long highlight reel of the player, a little trivia game, and if you got all 6 discs you could unlock a special screensaver thingy. I featured the Frank Thomas video in a 2017 post. As far as I can tell, the product was a flop for Donruss, and VxP never got a "2.0" release.

Upper Deck, however, ran with the concept of cards that doubled as playable discs. The first PowerDeck cards in 1997 were billed as "the revolutionary trading card for your audio CD player". UD only released 4 such special cards in that first wave and spread them out by sport: Griffey in baseball, Jordan in basketball, Aikman in football, and Rusty Wallace in racing. They aren't really shaped like CDs, though, rather they are card-shaped but with a hole in the middle that you have to punch out if you want to play the thing (featuring a brief audio interview). Later more common versions of PowerDeck cards were little CD-roms that you could play on a computer similar to the VxP card-discs. I think the final PowerDeck release was in 2000, which seems to be the last gasp of the "multimedia trading card" concept. (Upper Deck later messed around with thick cards that had a device embedded in them so you could watch a little video of the player on the card itself, but those were very limited [expensive to make] and didn't really catch on [batteries died quickly].)

All these actual discs aren't really in the scope of my music die-cuts collecting project, but I figured they were worth a mention.

 

1996 Leaf Studio - Hit Parade

August 1996, just a few months after the Frank Thomas "CD chunks", Leaf (again under Donruss at the time) was back with more musical die-cutting to unleash on the hobby. There are 10 of these Hit Parade inserts-- this time Frank is joined by 9 other players-- with the cards made to look like a vinyl record partially out of its sleeve, each #/5000 on the back. Fortunately I had a dupe in my Gwynn PC to dispatch to this group. The motif is partially continued on the back, with "Side Two" of the record shown; a nice touch. Apparently promo cards exist for all 10 of these, in case you really want to be a completist.

 

2001 Fleer Ultra - The Greatest Hits Of

Five years later, Fleer unapologetically made a very similar insert to the die-cuts from '96 Studio, but modernized the concept to a compact disc partially out of its case. There are 10 of these Greatest Hits Of inserts in 2001 Ultra, with each also having a #/10 Platinum Medallion parallel to chase. Fleer upped the theme by including song titles, but they didn't get too clever about it. "Takin' Care Of Business" is a BTO song everybody knows and fits fine for Ripken, but "Iron Man" would've been cooler. I don't think "Rip's Rhapsody" is referencing a real song but rather just a made-up track for Cal. (Is he a Queen fan? Gershwin, perhaps?)

2013 Panini The Beach Boys 50th Anniversary - Gold Albums

Panini's big Beach Boys set from 2013 includes die-cut Gold Albums (22 cards, seeded 1:24 packs), as well as similarly shaped On The Record inserts (30 cards, seeded 1:12). I had this one Surfin' USA dupe available-- I'm technically trying to build the set on TCDb, but I never find anyone to trade non-sport stuff there-- so it gets the call to represent the set. Both inserts also have two parallels, Artist's Proof and gold-foil-surfer-silhouette-in-the-corner, like pretty much every card in that product does.

Turns out Kiss put out Gold Album die-cut insert cards quite similar to this in 2001, designed like a gold record poking up out of the sleeve, though I only found out about them while researching this post. I'm currently only seeing them for like $20 a pop... haven't bitten. A music-themed die-cut for a band isn't as quirky as sports guys shoehorned into a musical theme, but I'll still try to score one of those Kiss die-cuts if one pops up cheap.

2022-23 Upper Deck Parkhurst Champions - Jukebox Heroes 

I think Chris the Collector was the one to give me a heads-up about these jukebox shaped hockey cards from 2022-23 Parkhurst Champions. I eventually landed the Alex Ovechkin, one of the few familiar names to me on the 20-card checklist. There are also tougher gold parallels, and some autographed versions. Even the printing plates got packed out, though those aren't die-cut.

2026 Bowman - Power Chords

And finally, here's the latest entry: Topps gets in on the music-shaped fun with die-cut cards in 2026 Bowman. These Power Chords refractor inserts are cool looking but common enough to where even a big name like Aaron Judge didn't set me back much. But of course it's 2026 and this is Fanatics we're talking about, so there are several parallels and autographs out there if you have the urge to drop more cash on guitar-shaped cards.

That's a wrap. Do you know of any other music-themed die-cut trading cards that I haven't mentioned here? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody.

Completed page of Sign Here cards

Yep, I've accomplished my silly goal of acquiring nine "sign here" cards. 

Here's the latest page added to the binder that houses fun stuff such as my old wallet cards and the Vagabond Binder pages. A full page of cards each used as a guide to let the subject pictured know exactly where the card manufacturer wants their autograph. Tino Martinez is probably the most recognizable name of the bunch. The lone football card is the only one that also includes a real signature. The Gavin Lux that originally started this side quest was in a magnetic one-touch for years, but I think his hobby standing has fallen off enough to let it roam in less-rigid situations now. Still, he gets the honor of holding down the center pocket, flanked by a couple bikini girls.

The page-completing pickup was this Chris Baker 2002 Bowman Chrome X-fractor. Baker pitched professionally for the entirety of the aughts, including over 100 games in AAA, but never made the show, so this didn't set me back much. It's not serial-numbered, but TCDb says it's got a print run of 250. I assume the other 249 have his real signature. Like with the Lux, it would have made more sense for the Topps employee to sacrifice a base auto to use as the example, rather than ruining a "nicer" refractor parallel. But hey, I shouldn't complain; cool for me to land an especially shiny card to finish the project.. or the page, at least.

As I've mentioned in the past, I've been planning to wrap up this minicollection with the completion of a page. And hey, to my credit, I did delete my old saved search... for a few days.. but then set new, narrower search as I was drafting up this post. Guess I just can't completely turn my back on these dumb pseudo signatures that were never meant for circulation. So perhaps I'll throw in a low bid when another one pops up cheap, but don't plan to chase them as hard going forward, and instead be happy with this one crazy page I've put together.

The Collector's Anniversary Celebration Extravaganza haul

You've probably heard that Chris over at The Collector is celebrating his big Anniversary Celebration Extravaganza. He's intending to wind down accumulation of sports cards but keep the blog going, and I wish him luck there. His blog is a favorite to read and he's a good dude. He's generous, too, running a celebration giveaway for the handful of readers savvy enough to grab a slot.

Here's an overview of my prize package, complete with a pack of penny sleeves and friendly letter.

Kicking off the cards with a selection of Joe Musgrove, highlighted by a pink refractor from '24 and a diamante parallel '26 He's been slow getting back from injury, but I'm hoping he's back on the mound soon.

Another current favorite Padre of mine, Jackson Merrill, in the house with some nice stuff here.

Part of the giveaway's entry process was to pick a player with a low-numbered jersey number which Chris would correlate to something later, and Jeter's 2 was the first to pop in my head, and now I've got a Chrome Anniversary card commemorating that choice. 

The Trenton Brooks 2025 Update base card was nice to find in there. That's a card I'm "trying to rainbow" (guy from my high school pictured playing for my favorite team), but you guessed it, I focused on the parallels and hadn't secured the base card yet, holding out hope that one would fall in my lap eventually. Sure enough!

It's kinda bittersweet seeing James Wood blossom into a star, seeing how San Diego traded him away in the big Juan Soto deal that ultimately didn't help the team win much. But I'll hoard all his cards I can get my grubby mitts on.

Since Fuji also had a slot in the giveaway, I had offered to renounce my claim to the Padres so as to simplify Chris' sorting process (and snag the Braves, who were "hot" in the Chrome Anniversary boxes Chris busted), but he was on top of things and didn't seem to have trouble finding enough Padres for both of us. But my "secondary team" the Braves had a few decent cards included as well.  

Here we've got some guys I collect who played for the White Sox and/or are named Gavin. I've got a Christmas Card of that Hoyt, so it's nice to get the base too. And glad to see Topps use that quirky "wearing shorts" photo of Goose on a card. I used that same pic on a custom a decade ago.

Lots of other good stuff from Chris filling up the box; pile pic here for brevity.

Some unopened packs! I might keep the '86 as-is for my Dick Williams PC, as long as Chris didn't have his heart set on me tearing into that cellophane. This post is long enough, so I'll hang on to the Brockum Rock Cards and the National Hockey Card Day packs for a rainy day rip.

But I definitely tore into the Mystery Pack. Let's reveal the mystery..

Autographs of Colton Cowser and Domingo Acevedo get top billing, plus a couple more solid Padres.

Non-baseball highlights for me include shiny Prizms of greats from yesteryear.

Modern players, too, with lots of guys named Jayden and Jalen and a few other dudes I'm somewhat familiar with despite not paying much attention to those sports these days.

I'm always a sucker for refractors.

And the rest! Oldest card in the lot is an oddball from 1980 of Babe Ruth dancing in the batter's box.

Well, that was a lot of fun to go through. Big thanks, Chris! Thrilled I was able to get in on the celebration. Congrats on 10 years of the blog and 40 years of collecting!

Quick incoming catch-up

Time to acknowledge a few more non-purchased additions to my collection.

 
I did a Time Traveling Trade PWE with Matt over at Diamond Jesters netting me a few setbuilding needs from the 70s plus an OPC Blyleven for the PC. Thanks, Matt!

-   -  --o

 
Surprise PWE of ladies from Johnny's Trading Spot. Gotta admit I didn't notice the theme when I originally thumbed through them, but displaying them together makes it clear these were originally for John's "Stars and Stripes" minicollection. USA! USA! 

Thanks, John! Always appreciated.

-   -  - -o

Since it's a light post, I'll throw in a little TCDb trade I did with a user deadhead11. Finally got around to entering my Rod Beck PC into the site. Didn't quite make the Top 10 in the rankings, but there's plenty of low-hanging fruit I need, such as this trio of commons, so it shouldn't be too hard to at least claw my way into the top 5. Gonna be tough to catch the top dog, though, that old sumbitch RollingThunder88 who currently has about twice as many Rod Beck cards as me. Ah well.

Thanks for swingin' by and have a great weekend, everybody.

Barter trade with a former Topps employee

I recently swapped a pair of CDs for a box of various cards. I love those rare times when I can swing a barter trade, as they just seem more special or whatever than a purchase or straight cards-for-cards deal.

The story of this one is a guy on a FB group for an old band I like was looking to buy some bootleg live CDs he owned back in the day. His popup profile thing said he worked as a designer at Topps, which got my attention so I reached out about the possibility of a cards-for-CDs swap. Turns out he was no longer at Topps, and that they were "crazy stingy" during most of his tenure, but he had a small box of hits from pack rips a decade ago before things got too bad at the company. He shared blurry overview photos of the cards, and nothing jumped out at me in particular (sadly no Ohtani or Judge autos to choose from), but there were a few nice cards and a good variety of stuff I could have fun sorting through, with plenty of stuff that would slide nicely into my collection. Since he wasn't too attached to the cards and I wasn't too attached to the couple of rare CDs I had from his wantlist, we were able to work out a deal where I got the whole lot of cards.

Kicking off with these big three. There were a few baseball autos in the lot, but funny enough the best of them is a mascot. Clark's 2016 Opening Day auto is especially neato considering that was the year the Cubs finally broke the curse. The Abe Vigoda ginter relic is pretty great too, for those of us old enough to remember him (or at least his funny later appearances on Conan). But the Sting relic/auto #'d 26/50 might be the top card of the lot. I'm not even a big wrestling guy, but I know he's a good name to pull there.

Highlights from the several relics, including a couple pinstripes. The former Topps guy I traded with is a Mets fan, so that might explain why they have more representation in the lot than other teams. (Yankees and Dodgers were both conspicuously absent.)

I'll show the rest of the baseball stuff at the end, but now strap in for some Star Warin'.

A pair of sketch cards with cool original artwork of fan favorites from the classic trilogy: the rancor and Boba Fett. Love these.

 
Figured I should show the backs in case anyone is interested in the artists, though I'm not going to take a stab at deciphering the names. I thought it was funny to see a stickergraph on the back of a sketch card, but I suppose since it's a Chrome product, they wanted to throw a plasticy border on it so it could count as a Chrome card (because of course Chrome surface wouldn't work for most types of sketching.) Pretty sure it's my first embedded sketch like that.

Some parallel/insert SW stuff. The Luke Skywalker is /50 on the back.
 

A couple manurelics, including a numbered Han Solo, plus a pair of "authentic film cel relic" cards that you can hold up to the light...

..to peep a still from space. Neat!

This trio of Star Wars autos aren't big names but still cool to add. Ralph Brown had a minor role in The Phantom Menace (with Alien³ and Wayne's World 2 among his other credits), with Phil Eason also working on Episode I. Turns out Yaddle is a female of the same green species as Yoda and Baby Yoda. Eason (d. 2021) also did puppetry work on Little Shop of Horrors (1986) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005). Rajia Baroudi was a voice on a couple episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. (Yours if you want it, Zippy!) She's done lots of other voice acting over the years and appeared on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers back in the day. That card is a parallel numbered /10 on the back, so that's cool. Oh, and Lady Yoda is /25.

 

Walking Dead hits don't do much for me, never having watched the show, but still cool to beef up my non-sport collection or possibly use as trade bait (Specifically, I would love to get that creepy zombie sketch card out of my house! lol). Katelyn Nacon and Corey Brill (#'d 10/10) are the autos. The dual relic (#'d 10/50) confused me because those people look familiar but it's the characters' names, not giving the actors' real names anywhere on the card. But I looked them up and the guy is Steven Yeun (most familiar to me from season one of Beef) and the lady is Lauren Cohan (who I've seen pop up in various TV shows over the years). Sonequa Martin-Green is less familiar to me, but she played a main character on the show Star Trek: Discovery and was on a couple episodes of New Girl.
 

Some more solid pro wrestling cards.

UFC. I don't know any of these guys, but I looked up the Frank Mir 10/10 red parallel, and there's one on COMC for $50, for whatever that's worth (Less than $50, one would assume). Like with the Walking Dead cards, I'd be down to trade these burly dudes for cards that better suited my interests, and may eventually put them on my TCDB for-tradelist.

Michelle Waterson here will probably stick in my collection, however, because she's kinda cute and has a cool looking signature.
 

We're getting close to the end now, with this group of misc. cards, including a Candace Parker commemorative flag patch (numbered to 19/99), a layered Emmitt Smith card (075/194), and a James Taylor "First Pitch" orange refractor. My face lit up when I noticed the serial number...

Christmas Card! I've seen fire and I've seen rain, but I never thought I'd see a James Taylor card among my 12/25's. There were 2 or 3 other /25 cards in the lot.. and I've always got my fingers crossed for lucky #12 in the run, but rarely score them organically like this.

And the rest! A few PC guys in here. The Luke Weaver RC auto might be ok if it wasn't from that ugly-ass Topps Gallery set. Brandon Finnegan is the one non-blue ink auto (17/25). A couple Yadi's. Abe Vigoda base card to go along with the relic from before. Clive Walford is the Raiders auto at the bottom. 

So yeah, this was a pretty sweet lot that I got for not much effort on my part. Not like I've listened to those CDs in years (and have them ripped to a hard drive for when I do want to hear them), but I can appreciate the guy's quest and glad I could help him out.. especially since it resulted in a nice boost to my card collection. Also neat to do a trade with somebody who worked at Topps.

Oh, and the same day I got this package, I also received my haul from The Collector's anniversary celebration extravaganza, so that's another fun "rip" on deck. I'll try to post about that stuff on his blog's special day (8/21), per his request.

Topps Retired Triad: The Return

Ok, I haven't done one of these in a while. To recap, my favorite high-end product line is Topps Retired Signature Edition, which ran for 3 years, 2003-2005, with the refractor autographs being a top collecting focus of mine. The "Topps Retired Triad" blog series is an excuse for me to show off a trio of recent adds. Good group today-- all PC guys for me, too.

Big Bo Jackson to kick things off. The photo might be familiar to readers because I featured the black parallel (non-auto, non-refractor) leading off the previous Triad post last fall. If it were up to me, the 2005 Retired refractors would be black bordered (like '04), but the white looks fine too. And hey, in a perfect world, this would be in its original "uncirculated" case, but I'll leave it slabbed for now. Hell, I haven't bothered to take it out of the eBay "authenticity guarantee" bag yet.

I wasn't as lucky with efforts to secure a Ryne Sandberg from the set that recently sold for a lot.

I also still need to track down Bo's '03 Retired refractor auto someday.

But one '03 Retired I have tracked down is Tony Perez...

Nice looking card. This makes an even 100 different '03 Retired autos for me, counting both refractors and base autos. That's out of a total of 119 autographs in the set. So completing that in my lifetime might be possible, but probably not an all-refractor set. The guy I know doing that (Dan) is down to only Tommy Lasorda to finish his '03 refractor set, last I touched base with him.

Tony Perez has some extra juice in my collection thanks to his "Pads in the Hall" connection, playing for San Diego back when they were the Reds' top minor league team.

Ron Gant was one of my favorite dudes back during my initial collecting run as a kid in the early 90s when I'd watch lots of Braves games on TBS. I haven't gone after his cards as hard since returning to the hobby, but still have a soft spot for him, and had been waiting years for the chance to land his refractor auto from '05 Retired.

Here's another photo with a little warmer refraction. Like with '03 Retired, I'm down to needing just 19 more autos to complete the set (as a mix of base and refractors), currently with 96 of 115 signers available in 2005 Retired.

Stats are a bit blurry in photo, but he ended up with 321 taters and 1008 ribbies. It was cool for me when Ron had a solid season for my Padres in 2002 near the end of his career.

That'll do it. Until next time!

P-town Tom - Where Are They Now?

Here's an idea I've been kicking around for a while: A blog series checking in with some of my favorite former/dormant cardbloggers. To me, the glory days of cardblogging were the mid 2010s (I hear the aughts were a lot of fun too, but I hadn't returned to collecting yet then). Lots of trading, learning about cool cards, and making new online pals through the hobby.

Keeping a blog active is a commitment, of course, and it's sad but usually not too shocking when somebody decides to give it up. Sometimes they say goodbye, other times the "next post" just never comes. Used to be you could probably keep in touch with them via other social media, but with Twitter getting all musky and Bluesky failing to recreate the better times, those lingering connections are harder to maintain.

So yeah, figured I'd reach out to some friendly names of the past to see if they'd like to be featured in a "Where Are They Now?" post. It's daunting for me because there are probably a hundred such people I'd love to hear from, and I didn't want to just send out a mass email to everyone at once. So for a first batch, I started by narrowing down to the Chicago-centric folks (e.g., Cubs fans, plus Jedi Jeff representing the south side). Looks like I may need to take another pass at drafting the message, as I only got a single response. But the good news is it was a terrific a response.

P-town Tom launched his blog Waiting 'til Next Year in 2011 and kept up posting consistency for a decade or so. Just a solid dude who always seemed to have something interesting to say. Often left thoughtful, encouraging comments on other blogs, too. I think I speak for all of us around back then when I say he's sorely missed on the scene today. The current most recent post on his blog is recapping a Zapping from April 2025, so not ancient history. In fact, after receiving Tom's substantial response, I had to encourage him to turn it into a new post on his own blog, though he generously chose to stick to the plan of guesting here.

Without further ado, let's check in with P-town Tom!

I loved my time blogging and all the friendships I made along the way. When the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 I kind of lost my way for a bit. I had spent so many years cheering on my team to a championship... I didn't really know how to respond when they won it all. My consumption of all things MLB related took a serious step backwards, including card collecting and blogging. Not helping matters, I felt the Hobby was at a crossroads: Collectors vs. Investors. I'm a collector in the truest sense of the word and I felt I was being squeezed out. I miss ripping cheap product, without chase cards, to complete a set. Are there even set builders out there anymore? I digress. I still have all my cards... my Folder of Fun, my HOF collection (which I keep up to date), my Vogelbach collection & ect. I feel the urge to open packs I typically will watch single pack rips on Youtube. 

What have I been up to? I'm still teaching high school math, primarily Calculus and Geometry. I was the math department chair the last seven years, but have taken a step back this upcoming school year. In the fall I coach the 6th grade baseball team at one of the middle schools in the school district. Coaching that age of athlete is so much fun and so rewarding. In the spring I'm the high school assistant varsity baseball coach. We've had a combined record of 86-23 the last three seasons, which I'm pretty proud of. Coaching baseball takes up much of my time in the fall and spring, but I truly love the game and it's the best way for me to personally stay connected to the game. 

 

Team picture from the past spring when we clinched the conference championship (I'm on the far left)

 

I'll be celebrating 22 years of marriage to my amazing wife this summer and we still call P-town Home. We still have the same two cats, Hugo & Holiday, who have been around since I was last blogging fulltime. I became a Bradley University basketball season ticket holder with my sister. NIL and the transfer portal means we're learning a whole new roster next year. I also joined a bowling league and my team, a coed foursome, has won the league championship two of the last three years. I lead the league in average each of the last two years!

 

I still add cards here and there, but it's really slowed since Dan Vogelbach cards stopped being printed. Here's a few I've picked up this year: 

 

 
A) I've been following the Cubs' 6th round pick from the 2025 draft, who was given a record two million dollar signing bonus to pull him away from his college commitment. Josiah Hartshorn didn't make his professional debut until 2026, but the switch hitting outfielder has already been promoted to High-A. Great strike zone discipline, good power, okay defensively. He's currently being comped to Joey Votto. We'll see! 

 

 

B) I've been chasing Vogelmonster whales. Dan Vogelbach retired and is now an assistant hitting coach for the Brewers. Since there aren't dozens of parallels to chase anymore I have spent my limited resources filling in holes in my PC. I've only been able to find three new-to-me Vogelbach cards this year, but one of them is a 2013 Bowman Sterling Canary Diamond Refractor dual auto with Anthony Rizzo. I've been chasing that card for 13 years! It's numbered  3/3, so it's a big get. I bet the other two are with Rizzo collectors. 

 

 

 
C) Ohn Scoggins. I probably should have started with this from the top, but I've played over 180 rounds of disc golf each of the last two years. I love being out in nature, playing with friends, and trying best my previous rounds. I also volunteer each year as a spotter when the Pro Tour makes its way through through the Peoria area. I'm not a big thrower off the tee, but I'm a pretty accomplished putter... much like my favorite player. Ohn is one of the biggest stars on the female side of the tour, definitely the one with the most positive energy, and the one I model my game after. I've bought three cards of hers over the last six years, but only when they strike my eye. 

 

 

Hugo (tan) and Holiday (gray) reminding me that it's dinner time.

 

Big thanks to P-town Tom for taking the time to let us know what he's been up to. With all that going on, it's no surprise he doesn't have much time to carve out for drafting up blog posts these days. But if/when he finds himself with more downtime and drive to blog, us guys still here will be thrilled to read whatever he has to write.

That'll wrap up this inaugural Where Are They Now post. Who do you think we should try checking in with next?