McCutchen McCustoms

There's a high-swagger Andrew McCutchen photo variation short-print in the recently released 2020 Topps Series 2 that's been creating a buzz in the hobby.

I thought I'd spend some of my Sunday having fun creating a few customs from that same moment.

1980 Topps seemed like an obvious choice, being a special year for Phillies phans.

How about an '81 Fleer card.

Funky! All these background photos are the skyline of Philadelphia, by the way.

The grand finale is this 1972 Topps gif. That's what I'm talkin' about! Makes you wanna strut around listening to some James Brown or something.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Clutch from Cutch

I've been slacking on sending out return trade packages lately, but I'm hoping to set aside some time this long weekend to knock a few names off my "People I Owe Cards To" list. And a new name to add to that list is Brian over at Collecting Cutch after he surprised me with a team bag of cards the other day.

Dig the customized top-loaders! One definition of the word clutch is "a hatch of eggs"-- hence this post title.. but instead of some eggs, it's some cards. Maybe it's a stretch, but hey, the "save the turtles" reference brings it all together. Kinda. Turtles lay eggs, after all. And I like turtles.

I'm always down to accept any McCutchen dupes I might be able to fit into my PC, but the real star of the package was this pair. The doodling probably gives away their secrets, but if you need help driving the point home...

The serial numbers are circled on the back. Both 12/25! Sweet!

Here are the cards unobscured. The Dan Uggla is a red refractor, and not only is it a Christmas Card, but also a need for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset!

And the other card is none other than Brian Giles, a guy who went to my high school.

So these cards are both "double bullseye" hits for my collection-- not just any random 12/25 cards (which I would have still been very much into), but ALSO respectively a setbuild need and a top guy I collect. Awesome!

A closer look at the holly jolly serial-numbering.
Christmas is already just 7 months away, can you believe it?

Thanks so much, Brian! I'll do my best to round up some cards for you soon to return the favor.

Have a pleasant holiday weekend, everyone.

The Zappening

I've gotten plenty of nice cards from Zippy Zappy over the years, but this latest package, sent from Japan no less, might top them all. Let's check out some highlights.

Sweet! Big rookie cards I needed for my McCutchen and Altuve PCs, respectively.

Early cards of a pair of today's best third basemen, Arenado and Castellanos.

More big-name minor league cards.

And notable Bowman RCs up the wazoo.

More Bowman highlights.

Additions for the Arod and Jeter PCs.

One random basketball card, and a nice one at that, with this sparkly, diecut Kyrie Irving.

At first glance, this would seem to be regular ol' 2002 Topps Pudge, but no...

2002 Topps Kanebo Gum Japanese card! HOFer import! Very cool.
And this begins the Japanese-cards portion of the post.

Ohtani! Wowee!

More special Nippon Professional Baseball cards featuring Sadaharu Oh (home run king), Kazuhisa Makita (he's on the Padres now), Tetsuto Yamada (sparkly), and Wladimir Balentien (didn't do much in the majors, but has since had a fine career in Tokyo).

Here are a couple fun ones, including a lenticular card from 1996 and what seems to be a vintage (Calbee?) card on the right, though I couldn't say what's the story with them.

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Somewhat "NSFW" picture warning. Proceed with caution.
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Oh man! These might have been the most exciting cards of the package for me. I'm an admitted horndog female form enthusiast with a decent "girlie card" collection. I've got cards autographed by lovely ladies, and I've got cards with naked women on them, but I believe these are the first cards in my collection of autographed naked ladies. I try to keep my blog more-or-less "family friendly" so I've covered up the naughty bits. (The back photos are even better!) These are all numbered /200. Cool signatures.. especially the little drawing. Love these!

I think this is called an Icon box or something, right? Features a couple mini boxes of cards. Mariya Nagao here keeps clothed, though scantily clad.

Gonna end this post here rather than stretch it out too long, but man, still plenty of other good stuff in the package.. a bunch more rookie cards, minor league Topps cards, numbered parallels, etc.

Thanks so much, Zippy! This was a zippy zapping to remember. I'll round up a return for you soon.

Mailday Before Christmas

Good stuff under the tree to recap from Collecting Cutch, Fuji, and Too Many Verlanders.

I was thrilled to win this awesome Harold Baines card from Brian the other day. He had a contest post of predicting where Andrew McCutchen would end up. I pulled Philadelphia out of my ass, and wow, a few hours later, it was announced that he did in fact sign with the Phillies!

I've always liked Harold Baines and was pleasantly shocked at the news of his HOF election. This is a great card to ring in the occasion in my card collection. Panini Flawless cards are always classy. No logos, but there's enough going on to where you don't really notice, between the two impressive patch bits and his crazy autograph. Harold doesn't have the most visually appealing signature, but still much better than a lazy squiggle. The low serial number is a nice feature, too.

And I won this pink parallel in Brian's wonderful Save The Boobies event back in October. Victory was mine in this instance thanks to my lucky pick back in September that J.D. Martinez would hit the first double of the 2018 World Series. Sure enough that prophecy was fulfilled a month later in Game 1! For my nostradamus-like abilities, I scored this Giancarlo Stanton / Aaron Judge "award show" checklist from Series Two #'d 42/50. I collect both these guys, though I'll likely throw this in the Judge PC since I already have well over 100 Giancarlo cards and I'm still getting there with Judge.

Always down for bonus Cutch cards thrown in for the ride.

But the real surprise punch of the package was this Adrian Beltre bat relic #'d 60/99. Heck of an addition to the ol' Beltre PC.

Thanks for the contests and the bonuses, Brian! Very generous of you.

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Next up is Fuji. I figured we were square, but somehow I was still on his "hit list", and hey, I'm not going to object to receiving cards in the mail.

The 2015 Chrome George Springer is a refractor.. nice! And Fuji was just a little late on getting me that '82 Jack Morris I needed for my set, beaten to the punch by Turrdog, but still appreciated.

The meat of the package was this pair of Mad Dog Madlock relic cards.

Awesome stuff! Thank you, Fuji!

-  -  - - - --o

Lastly, Dennis from Too Many Verlanders graciously included me in his blast of holiday mailings.

Kicking off with a neat pair of blue Gavins.

Some Pads from the Past I collect, Gwynn Jr, Nevin, and a golden Giles.

Wow, now this is a Christmas package. These ornament cards from Pacific are a blast.

But the "Christmas Cards" that really get my attention are 12/25 cards. I'm always happy to land a card of any player with that yuletide numbering.. but a guy I collect? That's a bullseye for my collection! HOFer Greg Maddux and Guy From Granite Marcus Giles, both top tier dudes I collect.

Big thanks, Dennis! I'll hit you back with a return soon.


Merry Christmas, Brian, Fuji, and Dennis! Your generosity brightened my holidays.

And Happy Holidays, all. Thanks for swinging by.

2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Baseball box break

Freakin' 2018 Topps Archives hobby boxes have been delayed again, now not coming out until late October (10/24/2018)! Crazy it's taking them so long, seeing as retail packs and blasters were released back in the middle of August (8/15/2018). Geez.. What's the hold up? Frustrating for me since I pre-ordered a couple hobby boxes back in the spring. Getting impatient.

So I've had to tinker with the planned schedule for my stockpile of unopened cards that I ration out each month. My Archives boxes will have to become my November break now. So for September, I dug out what I had originally planned to save for November: 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Baseball hobby box. Nothing too exciting, but let's check it out.

A pair of highlights from the inserts. Andrew McCutchen doesn't have many Upper Deck cards, seeing as he was coming up just as UD was being sued out of the baseball card market.. so it's kinda neat to get this one to mix in my PC with all the Topps and Panini cards.

Some of the base card highlights, including an early Kershaw.

The box (which I paid a blaster-and-a-half for during a Black Friday sale last year) promises 4 hits, but the downside is most of them are no-name Team USA kids. And seeing as the product came out nearly a decade ago, if you haven't heard of them by now, you never will. These 3 cards are available for trade.
Luke Scott had a respectable 9-year MLB stint swatting 135 career dingers, mostly for the Astros and Orioles.
Asher Wojciechowski made the show in 2015 and also pitched in 25 games for the Reds back in 2017. He's still active but spent 2018 in AAA.
Matt Newman played in the Blue Jays chain, but topped out at AA a few years back.

Every pack included a thick "dummy" blank card for some reason (I guess to dissuade pack-searchers, but it wouldn't be hard for them to figure out and work around, as the dummy card is thicker than all the hits, at least in my box). So that was kind of annoying, but at least I can repurpose them for making sketch cards.

But let's wrap up with my 4th hit, which was a solid one..

Hey, Manny Machado! There's a guy who panned out. Cool to add a pre-rookie relic card to my PC of his, even though it's not a very interesting card.. with just a boring little plain white swatch. But it kept me from feeling like the box was a dud, at least.

Thanks for reading.

a trade supplement

Matt at Red Cardboard generously surprised me with a bonus package of cards in the wake of our recent swap.

Leading off with a vintage oddball of Tony Perez.

And more HOFers.

Sweet-ass lot of Reggie Sanders!, most of which are 90s parallels. Nice bump to the PC.

Plenty of active guys were included, too, such as Kris Bryant. The 2015 RC is actually a Berger's Best reprint (--unlike the '75 George Brett reprint above, I need to point this out.)

Nice Nolan Arenado lot.

Coming up Cutch.

Lindor to my door.

More and more Manny Machado.

Altuve por mi aqui.

Springer and a Bregman.

Mookie had a huge game today.

Closing out with a Kershaw reprint and a Bryce. Expect to see plenty of Gavin LaValley on my blog in the near future, as he was included in 2018 Bowman and I've been going after some of the parallels lately.

Thanks again, Matt! Dropped a little something in the mail for you the other day.