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Friday, September 27, 2013

The "Supercollector" Conundrum


As a player collector, I have a general goal to collect as many cards as I can of players I like. But rarely do I get obsessive about it. I'm not sure if the term "supercollector" has a hard and fast definition, but I consider a supercollector someone who is obsessed with owning every card a certain player has. Every card. Oddballs, promos, everything. But I think you can also fall into becoming a supercollector passively (relatively speaking) by amassing a large number of different cards of one player. I'm not sure what the threshold is. 200 cards? 500? 1000? But there's a point where you step back and say, "Wow, I've got a ton of cards from this guy! I'm no longer merely a mild-mannered collector; From this day forth, I am a (yanks off glasses) SUPERCOLLECTOR!"


Then you're forced to pay over a hundred bucks for a promotional 1990 Donruss card of your guy. Why? Because it's a card of that player that you don't have. Your duty as a supercollector is to rescue all such cards and give them sanctuary within the confines of your collection.

A player collector wants to get all the cards of a certain player. A supercollector needs to.

Some supercollectors are superdupercollectors. They go after all existing cards of their guy, even if they already have it. Their insatiable quest for cardboard featuring a particular man's picture fills box after box, binder after binder, page after page of identical cards. These poor saps are stuck with 150+ copies of their guy's 1989 Topps card.

Another iteration of a superdupercollector is a guy who has every card of a player and then gets them all graded. Apparently PSA has lists you can find somewhere (link, anyone?). They have a big master list of all the cards of your guy that exist. Then they have a list of everybody who has all those cards who sent them in to be graded. Then they rank the superdupercollectors by whoever has the mint-est supercollection of that player. The superdupercollector with the most 10's is then crowned The Ultimate (Player Name) Collector and a big gala is held in his or her honor, I imagine. If the player in question is still living, he will attend the ceremony and personally lower the jewel-encrusted crown onto the head of the ultimate collector. It's the stuff of dreams.


I'm not aware of any non-graded supercollector registries. I'm toying with the idea of starting one myself if I can't find one.. Just like a page on the blog where if you have, say, over 500 different cards of one player (or for guys with less existing cards, you own [almost] every known card), you get your name and details on a list.
Player's Name, Collector's Name, Number of different cards, Number of total cards, Link to collector's blog or whatever. Maybe some sort of photographic evidence to keep people honest.
Wouldn't that be kinda neat? Even if it only reached a small percentage of collectors out there, it'd be interesting to see who has an insane amount of Cal Ripkens or Nolan Ryans or Wade Boggses or whoevers. And if your name was up there as "The Top Nolan Ryan Collector" or whatever, that'd feel pretty damn rewarding. Kind of like how video games had magazines back in the day where people would send in their high scores and whatnot. If something like this is out there-- or if it isn't but it sounds like a cool idea-- give me some feedback in the comments.

stock photo of junk Ryans
But back to the conundrum.

As you can imagine, it's quite a responsibility. You've got to keep a vigilant eye on eBay, COMC, and the like, just in case some oddball you need pops up, such as a cutout from a Canadian dairy farm or something obscure along those lines. It can get pretty expensive, as well. Even if most of the cards are under a buck, it adds up. Any self-respecting supercollector also ventures into non-card collectibles, such as magazines with the guy on the cover, stamps with his picture, "coins", collectible cups, figurines, bobbleheads, autographed bats and balls, 8x10's, etc etc etc.

I'm not a supercollector of anybody right now, though I've thought about it.

Step 1 of choosing a player to supercollect is simple: pick a guy you like a lot. Chances are he's your all-time favorite player. But if you're like me and don't really have that one guy who comes to mind as your favorite, it will take some more thought. Modern superstars are enticing, such as a guy like Ken Griffey, Jr. But just know that you've got millions of cards that will then be your duty to obtain. You could settle on a non-star, perhaps a scrappy utility guy who helped your team scrape out a few wins back when you were an impressionable young fan (someone along the lines of Archi Cianfrocco). This might be a less "sexy" route, but at least you've got a realistic goal of getting all their cards before you die, and without taking out a second mortgage. But then again, the chase is a big part of the fun. If you can just buy a lot on eBay of "Every (Joe Shmoe) card ever made" and then you're done, you've missed out on the full supercollector experience.

You could pick an all-time great, like Mickey Mantle or Jackie Robinson. Legends like that are easy to get behind, of course, since they were so cool. Owning a couple thousand Mantles will impress more people than owning a couple thousand Cianfroccos. But their vintage cards are expensive, and a buttload of post-career cards are out there (and keep coming out every year, each with a few parallels) to keep you busy until the end of your lifetime.

So if you really want to go easy on yourself, you'll pick a lesser-known player who played before the mid '80s. Once you get into 1986 or so, the number of cards produced skyrockets.

Here is a scientific graph to illustrate the point:


As you can see, starting around 1990, infinity cards were produced of every major league ballplayer per year.

Personally, if I decided to take on the responsibility of becoming a supercollector, I would start with the path of least resistance. Well, the guy has got to have at least a couple dozen cards out there. You can't just say you're a supercollector of some one-card-wonder who shared a multiplayer rookie card in 1969 Topps but never saw cardboard again. What's the point in that?

That said, I very much appreciate closure. That light at the end of the tunnel to keep you motivated, eventually followed by a wonderful sense of accomplishment. I think one of the reasons I never really got into comic books that much is because the stories just stretch out forever. I am end-goal focused. Set my sights on something then check it off the list. Wrapped up with a bow on top. On to the next thing.


So for that reason I could never supercollect anyone who played past the early 80s. And top-tier HOFers are out (really any HOFers other than the forgotten lowest tier guys), since the neverending post-career cards would torment me.

A possible candidate for me would be Dick Allen, whose cards I've featured in the past. An active professional player from 1960 (counting minor leagues) through 1977, he missed the "infinite number of cards" days. But still, he was one of the biggest stars in the game for a solid decade, so there's still a ton of oddballs from the 60s and 70s with his picture on them. While he's not exactly a big name today (he's not in the Hall), he still gets included in a modern retired/legend set from time to time.

My supercollecting player would need to be a notch below that. I think I've found him.
Drumroll, please.


Nate Colbert. Not exactly a household name, but he was the first Padres star, a hard-swinging cleanup hitter for those terrible early San Diego teams, 1969-1974. While the Padres are "my team", he was before my time. I learned of Nate Colbert when Padres broadcasters in the 90s would occasionally bring up all-time team power records. Hard to believe, but he still holds the record for most home runs by a Friar with 163 (and strikeouts with 773). He was always sort of a mythical figure to me in my younger days, only known by whispers of his legend. It wasn't really till the internet came around that I could look up his stats and see what his cards looked like.

His professional career stretched from 1964 through 1976, and much of that run was spent either in the minors or being unproductive in the majors. He suited up for 5 teams during those years, but only during his tenure in San Diego was he an everyday major leaguer (6 years). And his numbers tanked in his last year in the brown & yellow, so that works out to 5 years of being a star (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973). Arguably the best player on a bad team, he definitely saw his share of oddball cards in the early 70s. But since, again, he was only good for 5 years, he's got a finite number of cards out there. And he hasn't gotten a lot of post-career love from card companies. Topps, in particular, as far as I know, has never included Colbert in the checklist for any Archives/Retired/All-Time Fan Favorites type set. What the hell, Topps? He's the club's all-time home run hitter! Throw him in an oldies set once in a while! At least he's got a Panini Golden Age/Cooperstown card or two.

But the good news here from a supercollector standpoint is there are less new cards to worry about coming out every year.

(Oh, and he also coached in the minors in the early 90s, back when even minor league coaches got their own cards, so he's got some minor league cards, too.)

So yeah, I'm not saying I'm going to start supercollecting anybody right now, but if I do decide to in the foreseeable future, my guy is tentatively Nate Colbert. One of these days I'll do a post of the cards of his I've got so far.

What do you guys think? Have I summed up the life of a supercollector sufficiently? Please do set me straight if botched anything. Are you a supercollector of anybody, and if so, whom?

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

eBay Blues

What's the record for most times being the 2nd place bidder on eBay? I think I've got a shot at the record. Every time I put in a bid on something, the winning bid ends up a buck or less over my bid. If only I could have the foresight to bid a buck or two more. But then, the winning bid would be a buck or so more than that. If I get blown out of the water, I can live with that. But to constantly get cool stuff swiped out of my clutches for a few cents...

It makes me feel like this:


Yep, me sitting on the bench with my own tea.. if you know what I mean.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Refraction Action: Dave Parker 1991 Denny's Hologram

Today's featured card isn't a true refractor, but rather a hologram card from Denny's. I remember when these Grand Slam cards were really hot for a few weeks back then. They'd sell at the local card shop for like $10-15, which is a lot for a freebee oddball! (I also remember when 1990 Post Cereal cards inexplicably commanded like $15-20 a pop for a moment there.. LOL. Oh, early 90s card values..) Now you can get them for a hair above postage cost.


Here's Dave Parker during his brief tenure in Milwaukee near the end of his career (by the time this card hit stores restaurant tables, he was already gone, moved on to Anaheim). And yep, I did in fact get this card from Denny's. I talked my family into going specifically so I could get a card. I believe this is the only 1991 Denny's card I have, but I've also got a couple from 1992 (Bonds and Paul O'Neill) which are very similar.

I still need to experiment a bit trying to find the best way to take pictures of holograms. As far as movement here, the "fireworks" in the background dance around a bit, but that's about it.

Cobra had a terrific career and I hope the veteran's committee votes him into the Hall in his lifetime. Hit .290, 2712 hits, 339 homers, lots of leading the league in offensive categories in his prime, had a cannon in the outfield, and won a couple World Series rings.

Here is the card with backgrounds outside my front door.




Looks like something out of the "Enter Sandman" video.

And hey, here's some bonus movin' baseball card action:


Again, not really a refractor, but a Chrome card looks nice in the light, too. (--though, yeah, this gif didn't turn out very good, sorry.) This is a 2003 Topps Retired Signature Edition Dave Parker auto. While my main goal right now is completing the 2004 set, it's been quiet lately, with the cards left that I need not popping up for sale (at least at a reasonable price), so my signed cardboard addiction has occasionally turned to the 2003 set for a fix. I don't think I'm gonna complete that set (I read there are something like 130+ autos in that set, as opposed to 76 in the 2004 set). But yeah, if I see a player I like at a reasonable price, I may throw a bid at it. And that's how I picked up this Dave Parker recently. His big signature can't even be contained on the card.. love it.

This has been another edition of Refractin' Action. See ya next time!

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Victory Lap

Ok, this marks 7 days in a row with a post here at the Breakdown! I wanted to feel like I had a "daily blog" for a while, so fell into a goal of posting everyday for a week.

We did it!


Let's recap this whirlwind week:
Sunday: Contest winner announced! Just my luck, the winner of my first ever contest is in Canada. Even though I specifically stated "US addresses only, please" in the contest rules, he seems like a nice guy, so I'll endure the added hassle/cost the USPS inflicts upon international shipping, rather than be a jerk and disqualify him. But for reals, though; Next time, guys: US addresses only! At least you can be sure I don't "fix" my contests. LOL (Update: It wasn't so bad.. Baseball cards count as "documents", right? [Documenting players' stats, and all.] I hope so because that saved me some time and money at the post office.)
MondayRefractin' Action: Stan Musial '59 Chrome reprint. Gorgeous card and I think the gifs came out pretty nice.
Tuesday: This was a post talking about my most popular post (the consensus is it's due to bots, but I still like to believe my youth is really that interesting to the world). Funny enough, the post about that post is my 2nd most popular post. I wonder if I posted about it, the resulting post would be my 3rd most popular. Like holding up a mirror to another mirror.. it just keeps going forever, but smaller and smaller. The traffic for the post-about-a-post has settled down after about 100 views, so I'm thinking it might not be due to bots, but rather people are just interested in popular posts. Yes, I need to stop paying attention to my web traffic.
Wednesday: A little story about the most beat-up card I own, a Tony Gwynn oddball that lives in my car.
Thursday: A trade post. But not just any trade post, my 1st ever trade post! (..if you don't count this tiny one.)
Friday: Refractin' Action: Jim Edmonds '08 Chrome X-Fractor. I like this one, too.
Saturday: What you're reading here right this moment, celebrating a week of daily posts.

But don't get too used to it, because now I plan to return to my usual sporadic schedule of posting once or twice a week. Sorry, I can't keep up this hectic pace! Hats off to you guys who can crank out a post or two nearly everyday. It's tough enough to think up interesting ideas, much less find the time to do them.. typing, scanning, etc.

Just to prove that my well has run dangerously dry, here's some dumb randomness. While Baseball Card Breakdown has a name similar to that of Baseball Card Bust and the Baseball Card Blog, those are 2 of the funniest card blogs I know, and I can't compete with either when it comes to eliciting chuckles. But just humor me for a moment and allow me to post some middle school caliber tomfoolery.

That's So Raven:



That's So Taguchi  --> 


[Yeah, I'm sure it's been done before, but I can't resist.]

Uranus card jokes




Some of you out there may have ripped Uranus.

Or maybe you're still working on your goal of coming face to face with Uranus.

Maybe one of your blogger friends posted about Uranus. You told him, "I really need Uranus! You can't just post pictures of Uranus and not give me a shot at it!"

Maybe you offered him a trade: "I'd be more than willing to give you a Dick Pole for Uranus."
He probably accepted your offer because he was anxious to get Uranus off his hands.

[Sorry for that low-brow exchange. That said, please post your own Uranus jokes in the comments!]

Now it's time for a QUIZ!


Hall


Not eligible yet (probably Nothing)


Nothing yet (but probably Hall one of these years)


Nothing


Hall


Nothing


Nothing


Hall


Hall


Nothing


Not eligible yet (soon Hall)


Nothing


Nothing


Hall


Nothing yet (probably Hall one of these years)


Hall


Hall


Not eligible yet (soon Hall)


Ok, I'm officially tapped. I hope you all enjoyed my baseball card blog. It's over now. Finished. Done. I'll never post again.

...

Nah, I don't mean it. I've still got a handful of rough ideas for posts kicking around. Mix in a few more Refractin' Action posts and this blog can thrive for another 2 or 3 months! Catch you later.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Refraction Action: Jim Edmonds '08 Chrome X-Fractor

This looks kinda cool.



Here it is without the distracting background(s).


It might appear like the image is pixilated, but that's just how the refractor is. It's got a weird "checkerboard" look to it.

This is a 2008 Topps Chrome "X-Fractors" card featuring Jim Edmonds photoshopped by Topps into something that could sorta pass as a Padres uniform. Although he put together an excellent career, his stint in San Diego was quite unspectacular, as he batted just .178 in 26 games. I threw this card in with a recent COMC order for 51 cents to add to my collection of "Oh yeah, I forgot that once-big-name player was a Padre for a moment near the twilight of his career" guys. (Players of his ilk include Cliff Floyd, Ron Gant, and the subject of the first Refeactin' Action: Mike Piazza.)

The above is my attempt to capture the refractor in action.

Here's a regular ol' scan of the card.


This concludes today's installment of Refractin' Action. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

My First Real Trade Post! yippee!

You may have noticed I end nearly every-other post here with solicitations for trades. Yet nobody ever wants to trade with me! I blame the fact that I'm not a strict team collector or a set collector and that limits my wantlist. Plus since I'm new on the baseball card blogosphere block, I still have lots of "networking" and trust-building to do, I guess. Still, though, you guys must have a few dups of Vlad, Giles, Piazza, and other guys I collect that you could painlessly part with. Throw them my way and I'll send you some cards from the team you like or whatever. I'm not expecting huge trade packages.. just a PWE here and there would be sweet. I should probably do more "trade bait" posts to entice you guys.

Great Beach Boys song from the 70s called "Trader" (sadly, it's not about baseball cards)

But one guy I seemed to get along well with out of the gate was Backstop Cards over at All The Way To The Backstop. He's a great guy and does a very nice job with his Padres-focused blog over there. When we started talking about a trade, I sent him a PWE with a small stash of cards and suggested he could send me back a handful of his Padre dups (yes, I'm not really a team collector, but occasionally break down for Padres commons), and not too long later he replied with a stuffed package of probably 150+ cards. I was blown away. So many awesome cards. I split up the haul into 2 roughly even piles: cards I liked and cards I really liked. I was going to post the latter cards in this post, but after a while it got ridiculous, so I stopped after hardly making a dent. I'll have to feature some of the other cards at some point in the future. But yeah, thanks, man!

Anyways, here are a few of the cards. A rite of passage for any baseball card blogger: his 1st trade post.


Who knew Barry Bonds had a younger brother who played in the Padres chain? Cool. From the looks of his numbers, Big Bro wasn't sharing his cream nor his clear.


Adam Eaton prospect card. He always seemed to have spurts of brilliance, but could never really put it all together for a quality season. He has since pulled a Rick Ankiel and reinvented himself as an outfielder. --What's that you say? That's a different guy with the same name? Oh. Bummer. Nevermind.


There was a healthy sampling of cool Steve Finley cards included in the trade package. I choose this one to show since I don't think I ever had a RC of his, so it's neat to have now. He'll always have a place in my heart for being the difference-maker on those late 90s Padres teams with lots of key hits and defensive gems.


Ron Gant is one of those guys I've always liked a lot though his numbers weren't exactly worthy of doe-eyed wonderment. Maybe because he had a real nice 1990 season, and that happened to be the year I first got crazy for the game, so guys who had career years in 1990 often get misremembered by me as better players than they actually were. I only recently remembered that he spent a couple years as a Friar near the end of his playing days.


Many baseball fans think Garvey looks weird to them in a Padres uniform, but I feel that way about him in a Dodger uniform. When I was a kid, him and Gwynn were the superstars of the team. I still like him a lot as a player, though the stories about his numerous extramarital affairs and subsequent babies snag my admiration a bit. Plus it's a bummer his numbers wound up just shy of HOF-caliber. But yeah, I collect him and needed this card, so it's a score.


Good old Brian Giles. One of these days I'm gonna type up a post about how he worked at my high school before making it to the bigs. These are more "cards I missed out on" from during the time when I was still a big Padres fan, but not an active card collector. Happy to get these cards, as they're "new to me" and help me reminisce about the days I'd watch nearly every game on Channel 4.


Hey look, non-Padres related cards! Well, a case could be made for Ozzie, but Tony Perez and Ryne Sandberg never suited up for San Diego. I think these might be my first ever Allen & Ginter cards, believe it or not. I know it's not an opinion shared by many-- if any!-- fellow collectors, but this product line just doesn't interest me in the slightest. (Not to look a gift horse in the mouth here; I do like these particular guys! Great cards!) The "sketch" look of the fronts, and the spelled-out stats on the back ("one thousand three hundred fifty-two runners batted inward, tally-ho, governor") just turn me off. I like turning over a card and soaking up the stats, not feeling like I'm reading a wedding invitation. I get the nostalgia angle, but A&G just doesn't work for me.


A bunch of McGriffs! Some of these I already had, but still! Gotta love the Crime Dog.


Finally, here's a nice looking Jake Peavy card. Makes me miss the days San Diego put a competitive team on the field. Jake's still out there pitching for somebody (Red Sox, right?), compiling a fine career. Good for him.

Ok, that's all the cards I have the energy to take pictures of and write about for now, but trust me I could go on and on. Refractors, autographs, lots of neat cards. Again, big thanks to Backstop Cards for making my first online baseball card trade such a good one. Next time we trade I'll have to try to balance the scales a bit.

And again, if anybody else is down for a trade, please check out my wantlist and get in touch. Thanks!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Worst-Condition Card I Own


I once heard about how Bob Costas carries an old Mickey Mantle baseball card in his wallet, and has had the same card with him since he was a kid. That always sounded like a cool story to me. Sure, the monetary value of a beat up card like that wouldn't be much compared to one that's been safely sealed away for decades, but it sure would feel like you got your money's worth out of it!


The closest thing I have to that is the above 1992 Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn insert. My friend Doug and I found it on the sidewalk or something about 20 years ago. While it was in much better condition then than it is now, it was by no means mint. Plus it was kind of a cheesy card too, with Tony posing with a little girl. (Yes, from a more mature perspective, it's a sweet, caring card about helping abused children, but from a teenage boy's perspective, it's more like, "WTF? It's a baseball card with Gwynn holding a little kid!? LOL") Instead of adding it into one of our collections, the card got thrown into my car. And it stayed there for a long time, eventually becoming somewhat of a good luck charm, I guess. For a while, it hung out on the dash, which is how it got so bleached out, thanks to years in the Southern California sun. Eventually it graduated (retired?) to the glove compartment. And all these years later, I still like keeping it in the glove box of my current car. It's special to me, and nice to have along for a trip. Tony and his kind heart help guide me through life's bumpy roads and along the righteous path. Or something like that. It's a neat card, anyways.

Hmm.. Looking into this card more, it turns out this card isn't actually in the '92 Fleer Ultra set, but is rather an oddball that must've been available through some special giveaway or something. I know Tony has a big "commemorative salute" insert set in '92 Fleer Ultra, so I assumed this was one of those. But nope, it's a "1992 Casa de Amparo Fleer Tony Gwynn #1". I couldn't find another copy for sale anywhere or even a picture on Google, so now I'm thinking this card might actually be somewhat scarce and have some theoretical monetary value to it! Oh well, a little late for me to slip it into a top-loader at this point. If any of you Gwynn supercollectors out there have more info on this card, let me know.

Wait-- hold on--

Nevermind, I just found one in a completed eBay auction. Went for $0.99 (1 bid) + $1.55 S&H. So I can breathe easy knowing I didn't help destroy a valuable card. But even if I did, oh well, like I said at the beginning of this post, at least I would have gotten my money's worth out of it.

Do you have any totally beat up cards that mean a lot due to their history with you? I'm sure you do! If you got a good story, you should share it in the comments.



I hope you like these artsy photos. There's no way I'm getting my scanner filthy with that thing!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Perplexingly Popular Post

My "every blogger has a story, here's mine" post from less than two weeks ago has well over 1700 views now.. Far and away my most popular post. That's a crazy number. (For comparison, my "who the hell is Cesar Geronimo" post from two weeks prior has just 19 hits as I write this.) And even though it's been up for a while, it's still getting lots of hits everyday.. like nearly 200 views a day.

Here's an "outtake" photo that I didn't end up using in the "my story" post: our 3rd Grade class picture. Now I kinda feel bad that I've been badmouthing Dustin to several hundred readers! He's really not a bad guy.
I spent a lot of time writing the thing, so I'm glad people are reading it, but still a little confusing how it's such a popular post. It only has 5 comments, which is also weird. And in all those hundreds of new readers, I've only picked up 1 or 2 new followers.. Should I be hurt by that paltry ratio? And the increased traffic hasn't continued with subsequent posts, unfortunately (My new Refractin' Action series hasn't gone over much at all; Screw it, I like it and I'm gonna keep on doing them anyways!) I try not to get too hung up on things like views and followers, but still, it's hard to ignore such a big variance in traffic.

Do any of you bloggers out there have similar stories of a certain post of yours that inexplicably gets waaaayy more traffic than the rest of your blog?

I'm not sure where all these hits are coming from, and the "traffic sources" info from Blogger doesn't reveal much. Hmm. It's probably a weird internet quirk, like bots or something, or maybe a hot keyword/term in there somewhere.. not really a bunch of people super interested in learning how a random guy got into collecting baseball cards, right? I mean, I also talked about my youth a bit in the post where I bragged about going to high school with NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson, and that post is my least-popular, with only 14 views as of this moment, despite being up for months. So yeah, it's weird trying to figure out the internet sometimes.
But anyways, thanks for reading!

Monday, September 16, 2013

Refraction Action: Stan Musial '59 Chrome reprint

This is a continuing series on Baseball Card Breakdown where I attempt to display the glory of a refractor or any kind of optically interesting card that a still picture can't quite capture.

Today's image features Stan Musial.


Pretty, ain't it? Again, this is a real composite image, not artificially created. The card is a 2001 Topps Chrome Through the Years Reprints #6 - reprint of 1959 Topps #150 Stan Musial.

I always get a kick out of that Topps logo. Ah yes, "50 Years of Topps Chrome". Kids back in 1951 must've been so happy when they scraped together enough pennies to buy a pack of Topps Chrome from the corner market.

Americans were smaller back then.
But anyways, Stan the Man is undoubtedly one of the greatest players of all-time. He passed away earlier this year at the ripe ol' age of 92.

I picked this card up on Listia a few months ago when I realized I didn't have any Stan Musial cards in my collection and that needed to be rectified. Sure, a vintage card would be better. But a reprint will do in a pinch. And the fact it's a swell-lookin' refractor is a neat bonus.

Here's what a scan of the card looks like with my scanner.


Not a bad card at all, but nowhere near as colorful as it is when it's rockin' n rollin' in the rainbowed light.

Here's the back. Let's marvel at these incredible stats..


These aren't even his full stats! Day-um, as the kids say! Since this card is a reprint of his '59 Topps card, we only see his career up through '58 here, but he kept at it through the '63 season. For full stats, you can head over to his page at baseball-reference.

Here's what the original 1959 card looks like (I don't own it, sadly).


It obviously looks pretty similar to the reprint, though it's got a facsimile autograph and no Topps logo. It seems that nearly all original copies are off-center, skewed to the right.

Finally, here's some "alternate" refractin' action..


This one is nice, too. A bit "deeper" and darker than that other one.

Cheers, Mr. Musial. You were awesome.