Here's some more of my recent Burbank Sportcards order.
Trying to build up my li'l Andre the Giant PC. I was never that into pro wrestling but love the guy. 1987 O-Pee-Chee WWF #2 and 1990 Classic WWF #10.
And picked up a couple needs of AJ Lee, my cardboard concubine. That card of her making out with John Cena is pretty hot.
Speaking of lovely ladies who kick ass, here are a couple new Manon Rheaume cards for me.
Now we transition into Star Wars territory with a Kaydel Ko Connix card. I found myself being drawn to this off-kilter beauty in The Last Jedi, and figured I'd get her some representation in my collection. I looked at some autos on eBay, but they seemed a bit more than I wanted to pay, so settled on this 50¢ base card. I didn't realize until after I saw the movie, but she's played by Billie Lourd, the daughter of none other than Carrie Fisher.
And speaking of Star Wars..
The joy of a completed set! 2017 Topps Star Wars 40th Anniversary is in the books thanks to these last 8 cards I needed. Now that I've wrapped it up, I should take some time to enjoy the cards and read through the backs one of these days.
That's it for today. See you next time.
CORRECTION: In yesterday's post, a Kevin Mitchell card was incorrectly identified as being from '93 Bowman. The correct year was '92. Baseball Card Breakdown regrets the error.
It's Valentimes (sic) and amore is in the air. I used the impending holiday as motivation to make a reality of this little custom set I had kicking around. I wanted to do a Custom Nine (which is essentially a 9-card stand-alone insert set) of my favorite pretty ladies. And so that's what I did!
It's called, simply enough, Pretty Girls. I tried to not over-think the selection process, and so these are 9 beautiful women that sprung to mind when thinking of my personal "dream girl" and I'm happy with the choices. It's an incredible bunch of smart, talented people who also happen to be quite lovely.
The design is clearly a ripoff of homage to Allen & Ginter. I think these are the first Gintery customs I've ever tried my hand at. I decided to make them minis, since the A&G mini inserts are always more fun than the full-size ones, wouldn't you agree?
Enough of an intro.. take a look at each of the cards!
I'm a big Zooey Deschanel fan. I like her in the movies she does. I like her band She & Him. I like her show New Girl. I like what she's got going on.
The band Rilo Kiley was a big part of my life in the decade of the 00s. I saw them live many times, collected their live recordings, and was even an admin on the forum for their fansite that had upwards of a thousand users. Jenny Lewis, the main singer and songwriter, was just as awesome as could be and I was big into her for a long time. I still like her since she went solo, though am nowhere near as bonkers as I was back then.
AJ Lee, my cardboard concubine. I am not into WWE at all really. But somehow I've become a big fan of hers and love collecting her cards. She's super cute and has a great vibe. I also thought it was brave when she spoke out about the unfair wage gap between male and female wrestlers. Soon after that, she walked away from the scripted sport. Badass.
Christina Hendricks was, in a word, pa'DOW on Mad Men. She might be my #1 celebrity crush (The cards in this custom 9 are not in "rank" order or anything, FYI.. I designed them all first, then arranged them in a way that looked good in a theoretical 9-pocket page [see top photo]). This is not the first custom I've made for Christina, though the other one was definitely sillier. I've also got her certified autograph from a Firefly product, and it's easily my best girlie card. (Link to my big Christina Hendricks post from a couple years ago.)
Emma Watson knocks my socks off.. incredibly beautiful and well spoken whenever she opens her mouth. Big fan. Crazy thing is I've never even seen any of the Harry Potter films. I'm about halfway through the audio books. I'd like to finish all the books first before I watch the movies. Someday!
This one is a retro/throwback selection, but Lea Thompson in the mid 80s (circa Back to the Future part 1) is just my ideal of a pretty, sweet girl. Those dimples! Such a cutie! She's still doing well today, don't get me wrong, but as for my dream girl list, I'm specifically going back to the 1980s with this choice.
Here's the only person in the set I've had sex with (so far). Sorry, I couldn't resist that crude joke, but yes, I'm including my lovely wife Beth in my list of favorite pretty girls. I even gave her the #1 slot, though this post hasn't been in order. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I love the heck out of her. I gave her this card for Valentine's Day, and I think she appreciated the gesture. Granted, it would have been more romantic without the other 8 cards!
Taylor Swift is super hot, can't deny. I'm not really a huge fan of her music, though I'll admit her latest record has a bunch of catchy songs, a couple of which you might catch me singing along to if they came on after I had a few drinks. This was actually the final slot I decided on, with Ms. Swift just barely edging out the competition for inclusion in the set. I'm sure it means a lot to her.
Another sentimental pick from the mid 80s. I've mentioned my love of The Goonies before (see my auto display project), and every time I watch it, I fall head over heels for Kerri Green's character Andy all over again. This is probably my least favorite of the 9 cards in this set, as there weren't a lot of good pictures of Kerri out there to choose from. I had to use a screen grab from the movie. Not perfect, but her cuteness still shines through. Although she's not really active as an actor anymore, she still looks great when she pops up.
And that brings us to the end of the set. Up there's what the backs look like.
Honorable mentions need to go to Cyndi Lauper (another mid 80s favorite.. circa "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Goonies R Good Enough"), Kate Upton (I expect her exclusion may be controversial), Katrina Bowden, Tina Fey, Janelle Monáe, Sarah Silverman, Carrie Fisher.. Really, the women I find incredibly attractive could fill a 792 card set. But 9 is a good number to stop at.
These minis look and feel great in-hand, and are all available for trade, per usual with my customs, so drop me a line if you're interested. While I made the set with only myself in mind, I'd be happy to spread copies around. I will offer to swap out my wife's card for a special custom designed for you with whoever you ask for (You could send me a pic of your significant other to use, or request a celebrity of your choice). Of if you want my wife's card, that's fine too (creep!).. Maybe I could even get her to autograph it for you.
I've been meaning to get around to covering the great trade package Lonestarr aka Twitch aka CC sent me last month. It arrived on Christmas Eve (and was teased a little on my Christmas Day post), so it's past-due for me to show it off; I try to keep my trade posts within a week of receiving them.
Let's kick it off with a couple signed cards. On the left is an original calling card sketch card. Pretty neat! And quite a surprise, on the right is of course a friggin' Pete Rose autograph! Sure the guy is a bit of an ass, but you gotta respect his prowess on the diamond. He was like a mythical figure to me as a kid, so I'm happy to keep collecting his cards. And autos are always great additions.
Minis!
Lonestarr included a fat stack of various Padres, and here are some highlights. That's Josh Banks top-middle-- the name doesn't ring a bell, but it's a 1st Day Issue parallel, so that's kinda cool.
Some more dudes I collect. I already have the complete Stadium Lights glow-in-the-dark insert set, but I'm happy to get an extra Adrian for the player collection.
Gypsy Queen represented. Gotta love framed cards like the two white ones up there.
Two posts in a row featuring wrestling cards?! That must be a first for Baseball Card Breakdown. AJ Lee is my cardboard concubine. Love adding her cards to my little PC.
Giancarlo!
Dodgers sneaking into my collection by way of Kemp and Puig.
The guy everybody loves to hate.
Closing it out with a sweet deckled Finest Warriors Ken Caminiti and a Joe Namath.
Thanks again for the trade, Twitch! Really nice bunch of cards. I finally put your return package in the mail this afternoon, and not to oversell it, but it may be the greatest trade package since apes first conceived of the concept of trading back in the late paleozoic era. No, that's probably overselling it. But I still think you'll like it, so keep an eye out for that.
Check out his blog here, if you're so inclined. Lots of cool girlie cards and sketch cards. He's been mentioning on Twitter that he's got lots of trade bait itching to be mailed out, so feel free to ask him about a trade and he'll hook you up. His team is the Cubs.
My honeybunny, AJ Lee! I've been wanting her 2014 Topps and/or Chrome card for a while now, so I was very happy to find it among the cards from Tim. But truth be told, I don't think it's really all that flattering of a photo. It makes me think of this:
Bip! Always love getting cards of Mr. Roberts.
A few nice McCovey cards.
Khalil Greene! That rookie auto refractor may very well now be the nicest card in my modest Khalil Khallection. Great looking khard!
A couple sweet 2013 parallels of dark horse, Jedd Gyorko! He got sent down to AAA for a spell, but is back now and was the hero yesterday, pretty much single-handedly beating the Cardinals. Let's hope he keeps that shit up!
I know we're celebrating America today, but let's tip our cap to our neighbors up North.
Tim snuck some other sports on me too, with a 4-pack of Marshall Faulk (my fellow SDSU alum), Ricky Williams (another San Diego-raised guy) from his stint as a minor league baseball player, and Michael Jordan (no San Diego ties that I'm aware of.. but let's not hold it against him.)
2004 Topps Chrome black refractors are amongst my all-time favorite looking cards! Here's one more down to finishing the set (I've still got a long way to go). Plus a sweet Gavin Floyd rookie.
I also love these 2011 Topps diamond parallels or whatever they are. So sparkly!
And liquorfractors are also on my shortlist of all-time favorite parallels. Someday I'll seriously work on a frankenset of sparkly 2011 Topps parallels. Tim definitely helped me out on that quest.
Go Padres!
Some greats!
Finally, a really nice Marcus Giles relic.
Thanks so much, Tim! You really nailed it with this trade! Hopefully the cards I sent you in return can hold a candle.
Leading with the eye candy, here's a new AJ Lee card for my collection. I heard she retired from the WWE recently. This was after she had been outspoken about equal pay for female wrestlers. Nice to see she's more than just a pretty face. Wishing her all the best his her post-wrestling life. (Being out of the spotlight, hopefully her card prices will eventually cool off to where I can pick up an auto reasonably. They used to eBay for around $30 just a year or so ago when I started collecting her, now it's more like $70, and we're just talking base stickergraphs.)
One seller had several auctions going for various 73's last week. I bid on many, and ended up with these 4. A little chagrinned that it turns out I already had them all-- could have sworn I checked my needs before adding each to my watchlist-- but these seem to be condition upgrades for me at least, so it's fine.
A couple swanky Goldschmidt inserts. Think I used Get-It-Now for each of these, sacrificing patience for some extra credits.
I got this one just as I was wrapping up my Piazza collection, so it's a little late to the party, but kind of a cool card. I didn't bother to make a gif, but it's a lenticular card with the explosions in the background moving around.
I opened the post with a sexy card, so now let's close it with more sexiness: an auto of the legendary silly-named great John Wockenfuss. Ain't it a beauty?
Ready for more card show pickups? Here we go! Below are some more "3 for a buck" cards I got a weekend ago.
Let's kick it off with some vintage.
The fabulous Cookie Rojas rookie card leads this star-studded scan.
A few Micks and other old-school ballplayers.
Some dudes I collect. This is like the third time I've bought that 91 Stadium Club Frank Thomas.. just hard for me to pass that card up so cheap.
We close with some guys I don't necessarily collect, but was compelled to add to my stack for whatever reason. I suppose these are trade bait if anybody really needs any of them.
There you have it; not my most exciting post (what, no gifs?!) but I had already showed off the shiny cards from the 3-for-$1 bins haul, and these are just the non-shiny ones leftover.
Tell you what, here are some bonus pictures of baseball cards to give you your click's worth from this post!
Looks like the Padres have completed their majestic transition into contenders, if not division favorites, thanks to signing James Shields to be the cherry on top of an already robust offseason. I just dug through my Royals and Rays tradables to pluck out any of his cards I had.
It's looking like an exciting year to be a Padres fan. Thanks, AJ Preller!
Speaking of people named AJ I'd like to give a big kiss to, here's an AJ Lee card I picked up on Listia recently:
