glowing cards bubble explosion imminent

We all know the sportscard market has gone nuts over the past year. A lot of old-school collectors are feeling squeezed out as demand and prices creep up on trading cards across the board.

But luckily for me, I appear to still be the only person on the entire planet who collects glow-in-the-dark cards, so at least that area of my collection has been flourishing just fine throughout everything. In fact, I've recently completed a couple of rare glowing sets that I considered white whales ("glowing whales"?) of mine for the past few years. And I was the lone bidder on both auctions! Hey, fine with me! I wouldn't be at all surprised if glow-in-the-dark cards skyrocket in popularity soon as the masses realize how frickin' amazing they are. But for now, I'll continue quietly working on my g.i.t.d. collection in the shadows. 

I had a search saved for these glowing Garfield cards-- a 3-card insert set-- for a couple years. I earlier picked up one off eBay and one off COMC (still waiting on my shipment with an estimated ship date of a month and a half ago), with just the "Sporting Garfield" card vexing me with the only copy I could find for sale being overpriced on COMC. But then an eBay seller listed an auction for 2 full sets (6 cards total) at a reasonable starting bid (less than the one card I needed on COMC), and like I said, I ended up being the lone bidder. Now I've got them all, multiple times. I basically collect "Tim Wallach style" when it comes to glow in the dark cards, so dupes are keepers too (--at least unless a compelling reason to trade them comes along-- You know, assuming Earth ever welcomes a second collector of glowing cards).

Lounging Garfield (upper right) was the first one I got, and was disappointed by the underwhelming glow performance-- I think the background dots are supposed to glow, but they are too small to really have a visual effect in the dark. So I didn't have high hopes for the other 2 cards, but I'm pleasantly surprised that they look a lot better, with help from backgrounds that glow a bit.

Boom! To glow-in-the-dark supercollectors like myself, these dinosaur cards from Farley's fruit snacks are the Cadillac of glowing cards (well, they are a bit longer than a standard card). These are the '52 Topps high numbers of the glowing card world, or maybe 2011 Update Mike Trout would be more apt, lol. I previously had 3 of the 4 cards in the set, only missing the Brontosaurus. Then a listing for the above lot popped up on eBay. Not only did I complete my set, but also got a second complete set, plus a couple extra Brontosauruses! And thanks to this lot, I discovered a variation with the Brontosaurus cards: 3 of the 4 here feature a yellow mark on tail (and a tiny cloud under the "y's" of the logo), yet the one on the right does not. Sure, just a printing flaw, but obviously not a random one-shot deal since I've got 3 of them. Kinda cool.

Love the skeletal glowing on these!

After landing this trio in separate wins, I officially deleted my saved search for 2018 Ginter glowing mini parallels. I want to like the things, but they don't glow very well and they're typically expensive (seeded just one per case). This Puig might end up being the final nail in my PC of his. He was fun for a while, but in recent years, well... still hasn't latched on with a team (since 2019), plus after some new "me too" allegations against him, and he's found himself off my wantlist. Adrian Beltre is still untouchable, though.. happy with that pickup. His former teammate Nomar Mazara is a semi-PC guy of mine-- setting his cards aside for the past few years-- but I think I'm cutting bait with him, as he just hasn't put it together to become more than a replacement-level player, and I'm not really attached enough to keep on collecting him. But this glowing mini is a keeper, of course.

The glowing looks something like this. Yawn. (oh wait, this photo is upside-down, but you get the idea.)

I mean, I'll still happily take them in trade, but I think I'm done buying these things.

Ok, this is now perhaps the top piece in my entire glow-in-the-dark card collection! Indie card guru RRParks will be mentioned a lot in upcoming posts. (One of his recent sets included a "fan subset" and I got my own card in it! Really should post about that one of these days.) Anyway, Richard Parks was doing a clear-out sale type of thing and I scored a complete set of the glow-in-the-dark cards from MST3K Series 2, plus an uncut sheet of them (above), and also a proof set of them without the glowing stuff on the cards. Super cool convergence of two of my favorite things: Mystery Science Theater 3000 and glow-in-the-dark cards.

I also got both a regular (cut) set and an uncut sheet of the glow-in-the-dark Three Stooges cards from a few years back. I had previously only been able to track down one of them. My favorite of these is Moetropolis.. (I'm fascinated by the old Metropolis silent film.)

I wasn't even previously aware of these other RRParks glow-in-the-dark cards that Richard was kind enough to dig up from his archives for my order.

And I also got these 3 as an uncut panel, too. I'm not really familiar with the subjects, but nonetheless thrilled to add more glow-in-the-dark cards to my collection. 

I got a couple 20-card frames like this from my wife back at Christmas '19 and if you've been wondering what I was ultimately going to do with them, well one of them has been used for my MST3K autos and the other one for a glow-in-the-dark card display. I think I've got a nice variety here.

Looks good in the dark, right?! These aren't set in stone-- heck, I swapped one out right before taking the photo-- but I'm liking this group. The frame is hanging on the wall in my glow-in-the-dark museum (a.k.a. basement bathroom).

For more of this kind of stuff, check out the main Glow-In-The-Dark Cards page, which I try to keep reasonably updated though I still need to add the new things from this post.

Thanks for reading and keep on glowin'!

Shining cards

Earlier in the week I snuck out a little challenge for readers to identify a certain baseball card visible in the film The Shining. Congrats to Fuji for deftly solving the mystery! We'll recap that in a minute, but first some cards... three shiny refractor autos from 2003 Topps Retired.

Juan Marichal! Very happy to score this recently. I love these things, and this one is particularly pleasing to look at.

It was less than a year ago that I landed the '05 Retired Marichal refractor auto, and he didn't get an auto in the '04 set, so that means it's a Retired wrap on the Dominican Dandy for me.

Same with Moose Skowron here-- I already owned his '05 Retired refractor, and he didn't get an auto in '04, so this sweet '03 refractor takes his name off my Retired needs.

Five-time World Series champ.

Last one for today is George Foster taking a big cut at the plate. This is also the last Retired card I needed of his-- I've already got his '04 refractor and he doesn't have an auto in the '05 set.

The base version of this card is one of the more-plentiful autos in the set, but the refractor pops up much less frequently. This one had been loitering on eBay for a while a little overpriced, but I finally pulled the trigger during the same celebratory shopping spree as the similar Tom Seaver I showed off a few posts back.

Dig this photo of a redder look at the shining George Foster.

Now about The Shining...

Ok, here's the hidden card.. can you spot it?

......

....

..

Fuji was the first to correctly identify the card in question as 1978 Kellogg's 3-D Super Stars #10 George Foster.

In his own words: 

Haven't watched The Shining in awhile. I put it on right before class and between periods (on HBO Max) and saw the Frosted Flakes box in the pantry. It was hard to see from my laptop, so I played in on my television and knew it was a Kellogg's card. From there... I went over to COMC and looked at anything similar and the 78K Foster was the only card that resembled the card on the cereal box. I had a lot of fun solving that mystery.

Good work, Fuji!

For his effort, he's getting a Warren Spahn auto as his selected prize from what other product than of course 2003 Topps Retired, LOL, tying the post together nicely.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody.

a couple ACTUAL blogger trades

It's starting to feel like if you want to trade cards online anymore, you'd better carve out a few months to enter your collection into TCDB, because that's where the action is. Not counting occasional friendly blind packages/PWEs from buddies, working out "this for that" trades with fellow bloggers has pretty much died, at least for me. I had been getting discouraged by failed attempts to swap cardboard in recent weeks. One fellow blogger I reached out to said he'd get back to me but never did. And another guy just ignored me completely.. which left me a bit RAZzled because I thought we were buds.

But then in my darkest hour, a couple blogger trades came together in quick succession that helped brighten my outlook on the matter.

This first one is a biggie! The Diamond King found himself with a scare variation of a card he intended to buy thanks to a ditzy seller, and I was able to put together a strong trade offer for him. In fact, it might have been too good, because he was reluctant to agree to the deal because he thought I was giving up too much. That's refreshing! But I was able to assure him that most of what I was offering were dupes for me so I wouldn't really miss them. He offered to throw in a few more cards on his end and a deal was struck.

Bellinger RC! And this isn't just his rookie card.. and not just any old SP variation.. but the SSP variation! The "Pointing; Gray Jersey" Super Short Print, to be specific. It's a tough card to find.

My fan loyalty lies with the San Diego Padres, but as a baseball fan, I can still appreciate an exciting player like Cody Bellinger, stumbling into a few nice cards of the guy.. and this makes for an awesome jewel in my little CB PC. I hope he bounces back for a terrific season (as long as the Dodgers finish behind San Diego).

This would have been plenty in itself, but a few great bonus cards were along for ride...

A couple early Javier Baez cards plus a shiny Lux. Nice.

A pair of Ginter hits! Love 'em.

And a couple '64 Topps needs for my slow-going setbuild (begun Sep 2015, currently 75.7% complete).  Very appreciated! Ken Boyer was NL MVP that year and helped the Cardinals slay the Yankees that October. As for the rookie stars, Mike Shannon had a decent 9-year career with St. Louis, while Harry Fanok didn't have much success in the majors, but his nickname was "The Flame Thrower" and he has a very long SABR bio he co-wrote that I have no doubt is worth the read if one were to have the time.

That wraps up this big trade. I'll leave it to Kevin show off his side of the deal if he wants, but I think it was a strong offering including a vintage graded all-time great, early cards of some current hot names, and a hard-to-find insert featuring his top PC guy. I rarely sell cards, so I often wind up with solid cards haunting my tradeables until the right deal comes along. So this was a win-win for me. Cleared out some big dupes and landed an impressive return.

Thanks again for the trade, Kevin!

-   -   - - --o

The other mailing to feature today is a PWE from hiflew over at the revived Cards from the Quarry blog. He's been offering up a bunch of good stuff in trade bait posts recently and I found 6 cards of PC guys of mine that caught my eye. According to my email archives, we had a prior trade way back in Feb 2014, so this second trade was way overdue! Honestly, I don't recall trading with a Rockies collector since then, so it wasn't too hard to find a few cards from his wantlist to offer him in exchange.

These are all serial-numbered, ranging from /35 (Tony Perez) to /1998 (Sterling Hitchcock). I think the horizontal refractors might be my favorite of the lot, though I also have a thing for 2015 Bowman parallels such as that blue Gyorko.

Good stuff. Thanks again, man! Hopefully there's not such a long gap between our next trade.

Seeking sketch card artists!

I haven't been a big sketch card collector up to this point. I have a few in my collection, but I think they were all either pulled from a pack by myself, or sent to me by trader buddies, or drawn myself. I can't recall ever just buying a sketchcard for myself.

But last year I joined the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Trading Cards group on Facebook, and there is a focus on sketch cards there, with members of the group frequently showing off their 1/1 MST3K sketches. There are also a good number of working sketch card artists in the group, so it's not uncommon to see commissions being offered and sought out.

That got me thinking... What would it take for me to pony up and commission a sketchcard for my collection?

Welp, I've come up with a list of ideas that would get me excited to see in sketch card form. Consider this post a solicitation of sketchcards based on any of the below ideas. If you are an artist and would be interested working something out, please drop me a line with your price, an idea of what you've got in mind for my sketch, and perhaps some examples of your past work. I can be as hands-on as you want.. either let you do your thing and more-or-less surprise me (based on suggestions in this post), or if you prefer I can provide source images and work with you on a specific idea for you to draw.

I'm looking for 2.5" x 3.5" (standard baseball card dimensions), preferably on a solid hunk of cardboard, like the thick blank/dummy cards that are often put into packs to trick pack-searchers. I realize the smaller dimensions might be a limitation to artists who want a big canvas on which to create, but for purposes of this request, I'm looking for a standard size card. That said, I'm very open to creative "interactive" type stuff happening on the card.. windows you can open.. 3D effects.. whatever, as long as I can store it with my other cards. Oh, and I'm fine with either vertical or horizontal cards.

I've got a stockpile of dummy cards should the urge to sketch arise. I should mention I don't really care if the sketch is on an officially branded sketch card template or an aforementioned blank card. I understand that sketch cards on "artist proof"-type blanks typically cost more for commissions-- For example, a baseball player sketch on an official Topps-branded sketch blank is seen as more desirable than a blank dummy card. But for me, I really don't care about that. I'd rather pay less for a "blank" card than pay a premium for an "official" blank to be used.

Ok, so here are some of my ideas...

 Glow-in-the-dark. Do you have any glow-in-the-dark paint/ink? If so, I'd love to have it liberally applied to my sketchcard. Man, I love glowing stuff in all its forms, artwork most definitely included. It's not a requirement to get me excited about a sketch, but it sure helps!

"Mashup" sketches. I'm not really interested in standard drawing of the subject (see below for subject ideas). For example, Crow from MST3K.. I don't have much interest in commissioning a boring drawing of Crow that's essentially similar to many others already out there. I want there to be something cool/funny/interesting going on.

One idea that really perked me up is having my favorite characters (again, see below for subjects) inserted into my favorite album covers. For example, instead of the Fab Four, have Crow, Tom Servo, Joel, and Gypsy crossing Abbey Road. Stuff like that! Below are some examples of favorite albums of mine that I think would be fun with such treatment.

Tom Servo as the focal point of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea's cover would be likely to cause me to pass out from joy overload!

(Pardon the NSFW papier-mâché.)

...Just a few possibilities, but feel free to run any other ideas by me or ask me for a bigger list and I'm sure I can come up with lots more. Alternative rock, indie rock, classic rock.. Plenty of stuff I'm into and I could likely find common ground with any prospective artist.

I also love the idea of my favorite characters put into baseball cards. Like put Crow in a 1965 Topps design or maybe Tom Servo could be in the 1989 Upper Deck design calling to mind the iconic Ken Griffey Jr rookie card. Stuff like that.


SUGGESTED SUBJECT IDEAS

* MST3K - As mentioned, I'm a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan. Crow and Tom Servo are probably the 2 subjects I'm most interested in getting on a sketch card. And to a lesser extent, Joel, Mike, Gypsy, The Mads, and really any character from the show's long run (though the Comedy Central era will always be my favorite).

* Pee-Wee Herman. I love Pee-Wee and would be very interested in sketches of him and/or his Playhouse friends. Again, not looking for just a boring sketch of Pee-Wee standing there smiling.. I want to see him doing cool stuff, like again, thrust into my favorite album covers or something else unexpected.

* The Simpsons. Yep, big Simpsons fan. Would love to get a sketch of any of those characters. Again, stuff like put into album covers.. or another cool idea would be mashing up these subject ideas. For example, you could put Homer between Crow and Tom Servo riffing a bad movie! You could have Pee-Wee doing his Tequila dance at Moe's Tavern. Stuff like that!

* Other stuff I'm into and would likely dig characters/scenes in a sketch card:
- Classic Nintendo games (Mario, Metroid, Zelda, etc.. and especially less-popular personal favorites of mine Maniac Mansion and Bionic Commando)
- Star Wars (Baby Yoda?)
- The Goonies
- The Mighty Boosh
- Flight of the Conchords
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force
- G.I. Joe
- Ghostbusters / Real Ghostbusters
- He-Man
- South Park
- Rick & Morty
- AVGN
- Mr. T
- Steven Universe
- Ducktales

Here's a sketch I made for myself a while back that conveys the basic spirit of what I'm looking for (but hopefully executed with better artistic skill than I've got). It's Egon from The Real Ghostbusters bustin' an 8-bit Boo ghost from the Super Mario Brothers universe. And it has glitter on it and glows in the dark!


* My favorite baseball players would be neat as drawn by artists skilled at human likenesses. Again, I'm not looking for a standard sketch of the guy, but rather something creative, such as Tony Gwynn fighting Bowser or crazy crap like that! See also Pro-Vision Fleer cards. I'd be most interested in relatively obscure (non "superstar") players I collect such as Nate Colbert, Dick Allen, Bill Madlock, Bip Roberts, Hoyt Wilhelm, Mike Reinbach, Dave Henderson, Rod Beck, Julio Franco, Ken Caminiti, and Fred McGriff. For better known options, I could also be down with Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Vin Scully, Satchel Paige, Reggie Jackson, and Rickey Henderson. Active favorites include Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr, or Mike Trout. I'd especially love to see guys in "unfamiliar, yet really happened" uniforms.. I'm talking like Clemente as a Dodgers farmhand.. Dick Allen on the Oakland A's at the end of his career.. Reggie Jackson as a Baltimore Oriole.. Bill Madlock as a rookie on the Rangers.. niche stuff like that.


So there you go! A pretty open-ended prompt for artists to run with and create something I'll love and will be happy to pay for.

Which begs the question, does the artist get paid before making the card or after it's done? I haven't really commissioned anything like this before, so I don't know exactly how it works. But we should be able to hammer it out. I should clarify that I'm looking for professional sketch artists who have had cards packed out in real products from the likes of Topps, RRParks, Rittenhouse, Cryptozoic, etc. If you're an amateur artist, I might still be interested, but I'd probably rather trade you for it than buy. Like, any of my trading partners are welcomed to try to surprise me with a sketch they made based off any suggestions in this post.. that'd be awesome!

So again, please get in touch if you'd be interested whipping up a sketchcard along these lines for me. Thanks!

The Shining Baseball Card C0ntest

Last week month-- sorry, I've been sitting on this draft for a while-- the weather got real bad for a few days. Thankfully it didn't get bad-bad like some parts of the country, but it was tense for a while there, the worst of it being on President's Day when the power went out for a few hours in the morning and the internet was out all day (luckily it was a work holiday for my wife and I). With heavy snow falling, we just had to wait it out. And without streaming entertainment, it was old school physical media to the rescue.

Since starting up my big List of Baseball Cards in Movies and TV list a while back, I'm always on high alert to spot trading cards or anything Hobby-related in any entertainment I may find myself viewing. It's always a thrill when I discover something, especially in a favorite movie of mine that I had never previously noticed... like last month when I discovered a bunch of late 80s cards in a scene in Back to the Future Part II. And my latest discovery is in The Shining.

The film was perfect entertainment for an evening snowed in and (sorta) cut off from the world.

I'm generally not much into movies falling under the "horror" genre, but The Shining is one of the few fright flicks that I love. Got it on Blu-ray a couple Christmases ago in a Kubrick bundle with 2001: A Space Odyssey (another fav) and A Clockwork Orange (fine too).

But anywho, yeah, it was a thrill to spot a baseball card hidden in The Shining. I'm curious if anybody else can identify it, and thought it'd be fun to make a little contest out of it.

Yep, I've confidently identified a specific baseball card that is visible in The Shining. Be the first to name it in the comments of this post and win a cardboard prize. (The main reason for the delay posting this is I couldn't decide on a specific prize, so I think I'll just tailor the prize to the winner based on team preference or perhaps put together prize lot options to choose from.)

I'm looking for YEAR / BRAND / PLAYER NAME

Gotta give me all 3 identifying factors. As for the ground rules, let's say you can make one guess per day. Maybe I'll help out with hints in future posts if needed, but we'll see if it comes to that. Due to postage concerns, winner must have a US address to be sent the prize.

Ok, here are three official prize options. Spahn, John, or pray for random. For "option 3" the winner will pick a favorite MLB team and I'll do my best to deliver a good package of cards for ya.

If you don't own the movie but still want to give it an investigative watch, here's a JustWatch link pointing you to places to stream and/or purchase it. (not a sponsored ad or anything, just trying to help.)

Yaz makes his mark in the film, too.. but not in card form.

One hint I can give you right off the bat is that the mystery card happens to be a card listed as a need within my wantlist(s).. and it's been there for a while, not like I just added it since finding out it has a tiny cameo in one of my favorite movies. But hey, it is a good ploy to get people looking at my wantlists.. and well, if while you're there you notice a couple cards I need that you might like to send my way in a friendly little swap, so be it! hah

Thanks for reading and good luck.

What baseball card is featured on screen in The Shining?

Rod keeping me current

A couple weekends ago, I was fortunate enough to get another box of cards from Padrographs Rod on his way home from the monthly card show. From the sounds of it, the show has a drastically different look and feel these days, and not for the better. That's a bummer. Maybe by this time next year it'll be back to its old self?

Anyways, let's rundown some highlights from the box.

Finally got an in-hand look at 2021 Topps. I have no interest in spending money on the stuff, but appreciate the sampling. Cool to score some of my main active PC guys and a few of the hot RCs going into the season.

And some late-calendar 2020 releases that I haven't seen much of.

Padres fan favorites. [Ha, yes, Fernando Tatís, Sr never played for San Diego but he's still become a fan favorite thanks to his genes and fathering.]

Off the beaten path here.

Rod told me he got a few of these 2007 Upper Deck Holiday Inn packs at the show, and was kind enough to throw in a couple unopened for me. Sounds like a good time for a pack rip fix!

Each pack contained a Padres HOF pitcher for me and a goofy Ripken.. awesome!

Thanks again, Rod! Loved going through all the cards and found a bunch of keepers.

Tom Seaver 2003 Retired refractor auto

Here's a big card I recently pulled the trigger on to celebrate my little raise & bonus last month.

Tom Seaver 2003 Topps Retired refractor!

Quality shot of The Franchise smiling with a bat on his shoulder at spring camp in front of some trees and a chain-link fence.

I had a base version of this auto a few years back, but ended up selling it (with the hopes of eventually scoring a refractor to fill the void).

And it's the Christmas Card! So to me this is the equivalent of a superfractor. lol

Always love picking up a new refractor for my Topps Retired collection, especially a legend like Tom Seaver.