a couple cheap cards

I received this Tony Clark card in the mail yesterday, coincidentally the same day he shockingly resigned as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. My understanding is that he was being investigated for financial curiosities, and that investigation revealed naughty emails with his wife's sister, whom he had given a job with the MLBPA. These days, it seems powerful people just "ignore/lie/power-thru" after they get caught doing something they really shouldn't have (*cough* Epstein files *cough*), so good for Tony Clark for showing himself out, I guess.

I don't PC the guy, but rather I'm trying to complete the full set of Bowman refractor reprints from 1998. The insert set is 50 cards, featuring highlights from the original run of vintage Bowman, plus the Topps' revival from '89 through '96 (Bowman Chrome began in 1997, so these inserts are like a greatest hits of their pre-Chrome years.. "Refractors that never were (of base cards that were)" if you will, so to speak). Tony Clark is an odd choice to reprint with the hindsight that he was never a big star, though at that point he had just followed up a third-place ROY campaign in '96 with a solid 1997 that saw him garner some down-ballot MVP votes. He was an All-Star in 2001 and also had an impressive 2005 season, but he only accrued a dozen wins above replacement in his career, all said and done.

Anyways, I've still got a ways to go with this set, but will be bumped past the 50% threshold once my latest COMC order arrives later this spring. But yeah, I've still been hunting down refractor reprints from the late 90s and early 00s, actively building various runs that I'm excited to post about after completion.

I'm reluctant to say this is the final COMC order I'm waiting on, but I've definitely been trying to avoid buying from them since this batch. You'd figured after tripling their shipping rates that they would use that extra money to hire an additional order picker or two, but nope, they seem to be backed up again maybe even worse than they got during the pandemic, with shipping estimates pushed out for several months. The vibe I'm getting isn't "wow, COMC is doing lots of business" but rather "wow, COMC is struggling and folks are rushing to get their cards out before the site owners pull the plug and complete the transition to eBay-consignment account only". But I don't really know. Times are bad everywhere, it seems, as society is sapped of humanity and herded into an AI curated existence whether we like it or not. But back to bitching about online card shops, Sportlots keep updating their site to make it harder to use. That Canadian online card shop folded (I never got around to ordering from them, but they seemed to get positive marks from the bloggers who did). I've tried to get more active trading at TCDb but it's been an uphill slog and my successful transactions there seem to be few and far between. (I've recently finished sorting a monster box with my available Archives/Ginter/Heritage that I plan to enter in my "For Trade" list soon and hope that helps improve my trade-matching.)

Oh, and the USPS has been sucking lately, too. I had a Nolan Ryan reprint refractor show up in the tracking as delivered that I never got. :( And that Tony Clark card that arrived yesterday took 2 whole weeks to get to me from Florida.

And back to that. the eBay seller had a promotional discount offer to entice you to buy more than one card from him, so I took a quick browse of his inventory and found another card that caught my eye at a good price:

This is the 102nd Dick Allen card of mine to be logged at TCDb, and forgive the language but I'm still downright tickled pink to be his #1 ranked collector there, even now a ways into his HOF inclusion, causing him to default into being a guy that Hall of Fame collectors now collect. I figured a more focused supercollector would have knocked me off the top spot by now. But nope, second-place is currently a 3-way tie with 84.

Back to the card, this is a Blue Ice Prizm parallel of Dick Allen's 2025 Panini Prizm card. It's my first of the 33-card rainbow, though I also have a Red Pulsar Prizm and Ruby Wave Prizm pending in that eventual COMC shipment. I didn't remind myself of that fact until after snagging the Blue Ice one, so I got lucky not to double up. I like that the card shows Dick in his later Phillies stint, something you don't see on many of his cards, especially an action shot. On the downside, lawyers have instructed the cardmakers to remove logos and wordmarks from the photo due to the fact that another cardmaker paid a lot of money to have lawyers say that only they can make cards that have those special logos and words. Man, everything bad in this world always boils down to greed. Humans be greedy, put that on our headstone.

LOL, I'm sorry this quick post showing off a 2-card mailday turned into a lot of negative ranting! I just thought it was a crazy coincidence the random Tony Clark card showed up in my mailbox the very day his career took a sudden tumble. 

For a more positive coincidence, I'll mention that this past Monday I was out walking the dog making our way home and I saw what I first figured might be a crow with a big piece of bread in its beak (lots of crows around here), but as it flew closer, it became clear that, no, it was a bald eagle! Came in kinda low but it was quick and I didn't want to take my eyes off it to fiddle with my phone, so no photos. Don't see those very often in my neighborhood, and so to get a bald eagle flyover, on Presidents' Day no less, was a neat experience.

Oh, and another happy thing to mention.. I was supposed to have jury duty today, but thankfully I got an email yesterday saying nevermind I'm not needed. I wouldn't mind being on a jury, but what had me stressed is waking up early enough to get downtown by 8am. I'm a night owl like Night Owl and don't usually get to bed until around/after midnight. But instead of being sleep-deprived waiting to see if I get called in, I got to sleep in and then ramble out a blog post with my morning. So that's cool! :)

coVIdNTAGE

 Time to show off the vintage from my big COMCOVID shipment.

I miss finding pre-Topps beaters for cheap at the card show. This well-loved pair of 1950 Bowman cards each ran me a buck-something. Love the artwork on these!

Bob Scheffing and Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones. Sure, in a perfect world I'd love to have these in EX/NM or whatever, but I don't mind wear on really old cards. Adds to the character. These cards lived. Kids in the 50s shoved these pieces of cardboard into their pockets, played with them down by the schoolyard, and at least in the case of the Jones, apparently ran them through the wash.

These non-sport tobacco minis were each under a dollar.

1968 Brooke Bond History of the Motor Car #48 -1967 Ferrari P4, 4 Litres

1925 Wills Life in the Tree Tops #28 Young Kestrels

I wanna say I saw some of these History of the Motor Car cards on somebody's blog, and went out to find one for myself. This was a year ago, before I started doing my Vintage Frankenset, so that didn't play a factor, but serendipitously I had an opening at #48, so this Ferrari will be pulling into a parking spot there.

Sadly the same can't be said for the Young Kestrels or above 1950 Bowman cards, as their numbers are already filled, but I suppose you can never have enough old-ass cards, right? Pulled the trigger on the 1925 Kestrels back in September 2019 for 75¢ from COMC seller MashingDingers, who I recognize as a Twitter acquaintance of mine (who has expressed an interest in writing a guest post, so who knows, might be a Baseball Card Breakdown collaborator at some point), but I don't think I bought it because it was from him, but probably just trying to find the oldest/cheapest card available that caught my eye.

I wanted to pick up some more Pumpsie Green cards and did just that by grabbing his '61 and '62 Topps. I remember reading his SABR bio while waiting at the vet during the final days my previous pup Annie's life, so there's an additional emotional component towards getting a little PC going for him, the first black player for the Red Sox.

Here's an unassuming 1969 Topps card that I heard about and had to score myself a copy. The highlight of this Mel Queen card is the back..

Both pitching and batting stats! Seems like Topps is usually too lazy to make a special back like this for 2-way players, so the extra effort is appreciated.

Lastly for this post, I picked up a couple cards for vintage sets I'm building. Bob Purkey is a nice semi-high number I found a good deal on for my '64 Topps set that's just over ¾ of the way complete, but one of the cards in this shipment I was most excited about is this particular Gene Baker for my '57 Topps set that's also inching towards 80% complete.

According to TCDB, 1957 Topps #176 Gene Baker is the only card in the set with error and corrected variations listed. As for which variation this one is..? Welp, it's actually a "missing link" between the two! Check it out:

The variation involves a printing flaw with the player name on back. Apparently some of the pressings had a bit too much red ink or something, flooding the last letter of text in the player's first and last name. "EUGENE W. BAKER" became "EUGENF W. BAKEP". I found a curious copy on COMC where the troublesome letters in question are not at their full errored state, but also not quite their fully formed correct versions either. The last E in Eugene has a shorter bottom compared to the top, and the R in Baker has a noticeably thinner tail.

The corrected variation is common and typically sells for under 5 bucks in average condition. I paid $1.25 for mine last fall. In researching around for this post, all recent completed listings on eBay show the error selling for comfortably in triple digits... except for one that sold for "just" $57, but in my opinion it's a fake. Take a look:

Really looks like some dipshit used a red pen to obscure the R in an attempt to increase the value of his 1957 Topps common. You can tell the coloring seems just a little off right there. And notice how the last E in Eugene is conspicuously full. If it was an authentic error variation, both the R and that E should have been affected (Correct me if I'm wrong, but they sure seem to go hand-in-hand). Yep, pretty sure this particular "error" card was faked. Lame. I feel bad for whoever bought it.

Anyways, I don't intend to drop $100+ on the error card-- no offence to Gene Baker who was an All-Star in '55 with the Cubs and got a ring as a bench guy on the 1960 Pirates-- but I'm glad to score what might be an even scarcer variation. What do you guys think, should mine be added to TCDB as a 3rd variation for the card, or would that just piss people off and I should continue to appreciate it as a printing-flaw oddity, not a true variation?

Thanks for swinging by and going down this Baker street with me.

untitled post for November 18, 2019

I was watching the classic North By Northwest last weekend and browsed over to the film's Wikipedia page while I was at it. Turns out John Berardino, who has a small role as a cop, had been a baseball player. I looked up his cards and ended up pulling the trigger on this well-loved 1951 Bowman card. Apparently he went on to play Dr. Steven Hardy on General Hospital for over 30 years. Wow!

Beradino is the only person to have won a World Series (1948) and get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1993).

Being a card collector means never getting rid of a box before first asking yourself, "Could I store cards in this?" pic.twitter.com/7g93oOB6dX

— Baseball Card Breakdown (@breakdowncards) November 14, 2019

I "salvaged" this box from work. With a length of 30", it might be a bit too long, but I'll probably find a way to make it work for cards.

Here's a Tom Seaver gif I made a few months back that I recently realized I hadn't posted to the blog yet. It was his 75th birthday yesterday.

Here's a gif I made for a Jimi Hendrix post over at my other blog, the 1991 MusiCards Blog. We're still working through the classic rock of the Legends subset. Gonna be at least a couple more months till we break into the 90s pop stuff.



Finally, I'll leave you with a little Calvin and Hobbes gif I whipped up today. The classic comic strip debuted on this date back in 1985.

Card Show Quarterboxing from the 50s

Vintage-heavy card show haul for me today. The biggest purchase was $37 worth of cards from Bill's quarterboxes, most of which was vintage. Turns out it was Bill's first Portland show of the year thanks to a car accident knocking him out of commision for a while.

The oldest cards I picked up were 1952 Bowman. For 25¢, I'll happily snag any early Bowman regardless of condition, assuming a kid didn't draw a mustache on it (drawn-on mustaches are where I draw the line). Beautiful cards.

 Roy Hartsfield was a crackerjack fielder, so I hear.

Joe Hatten was a rubber-armed pitcher.

Frank Hiller is probably the roughest condition card I picked up today.

Allie Clark was mostly a backup player. Won back-to-back championships with the Yankees (1947) and Indians (1948).

Mel Queen led the NL in Strikeouts per 9 IP in 1951.

Also picked up a page's worth of 1959 Topps. Some solid names here. Not great condition (Minnie has a bad back), but for the price, works for me. I'm still trying to talk myself out of trying to complete this set someday.

That's all for today. I'll probably do separate posts recapping the 60s, 70s, and "other" cards from my April card show haul. Thanks for poppin' by.

Another 2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Hobby Box

I got suckered into another 2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Hobby Box for the price of a blaster last Black Friday, same as back in 2017. Let's see if I got anything good this time.

Welp, this Alfonso Soriano xfractor was probably the highlight. Shiny.

Some guys I collect.

A couple prospects who actually managed to have decent MLB careers.

And finally, some other semi-notable cards. Yunesky Sanchez (/500 refractor) never made the majors, but is still active in Mexico. Aubrey Huff (/150 blue refractor) cranked 242 dingdongs over his 13-year MLB career. Danny Rams (my one promised auto) topped out at AA. These are available for trade, as is the Soriano.

So yeah, this box wasn't good. Oh well.

Mega Bowman Boxing Day

I hadn't messed with any '18 Bowman besides a bad experience in a player break (the one that netted me nothing but base cards of Gavin LaValley out of 12 freakin' cases). Saw a lot of Twitter hype about the "mega boxes" that recently popped up on Target shelves. Lots of guys cleaning out their store's/town's inventory in one fell swoop, and other guys getting upset at this dick move. I had planned to sit this one out, but then yesterday I got a text from Kerry giving me a heads-up that the downtown Target by where we both work had some. It was a nice day, and my wife was down to join me for a walk, so we headed over to check it out.

Yep, there they are. Don't believe the sign; they ring up at $14.99. I was gonna grab a couple, then went nuts and grabbed a third. While I was tempted to flip one or two on eBay (where they've been selling for around $40 each), I went ahead and busted all 3 of them over the course of the evening.

The first box got things off to a good start with a Tyler Mahle auto /99. Not a big name, but that pretty much covers the "value" of the box right there, as looks like these go for around $20 on eBay. Was happy to pull Ronald Acuna from a mega pack too.

The boxes had plenty of hot, young talent, as you'd expect from Bowman.

Plenty of PC hits for me among the paper base (there are apparently no parallels in the mega boxes besides those that might be in the 2 mega packs; the regular Bowman packs that are included are only base paper and a base Chrome card or two in each pack), including my first card of Cutch as a Giant. Not much dupes between the boxes other than one "deja vu" pack, but at least it netted me another Rhys Hoskins RC.

Found a couple Dodger prospects Zippy asked me to keep an eye out for.

Pulled a couple /250 purple parallels, including a Padre prospect, so that's cool. Looks like Michel Baez is San Diego's #5 prospect at the moment (source). Despite his inclusion in the "ROY Favorites" insert set, Rhys is ineligible for 2018 ROY as he exceeded rookie limits during 2017 season, but I'm happy to land another card of his regardless.

Just when it looked like I would be shutout in the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes...

...I pulled this guy in my final pack. Just an unnumbered, non-auto insert, but I'll take it. It's my first (real) Ohtani card. Though I haven't gone nuts over him like many baseball fans/collectors, still nice to get some representation in my collection. Pulling a shiny RC is a good way to go.

[begin humorous content]

But no.. guess what else I pulled?!

Ka-Boom!! Ohtani auto! You might remember I pulled the base version of this auto last month, but this megabox parallel is much more grandiose, as you can clearly see. I've done it again!

[/humorous content]

Anyways, I went back today around 11am with the intention of grabbing another box or two, but nope, they had been cleared out. Glad I grabbed some when I had the chance. While I didn't hit anything huge, still fun to get in on the mega mania and score some decent cards for my collection.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.

The LaValley of the Shadow of Death (clean version)

[Ok, my first draft of this post was angry and obscenity-laden. Let's take a deep breath and try it again with a better mindset.]

So Gavin LaValley got a card in 2018 Bowman. It's first first mainstream card since 2014 when he was in Bowman Draft and Panini Prizm Draft, both cards I rainbowed pretty hard, eventually getting down to a handful of scare parallels remaining. So I figured I might see about going hard after his 2018 Bowman card, too.

A while back, Mr. LaValley shared photos on social media of him signing 2018 Bowman autographs, but they didn't end up in this product. I guess that means they're going to be included in 2018 Bowman Chrome..? Either that or they ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor, I suppose.

But still he's got a base card ("paper") and a Chrome card in 2018 Regular Bowman. I figured I'd get a good foothold in a rainbow and I ended up winning an auction for a player break of 12 cases (8 JUMBO BOXES + 4 HOBBY BOXES). I was pretty sure that would land me some good stuff. The only question I had was if I'd walk away with only 1 printing plate or maybe I'd get lucky with 4 or 5 printing plates.

Well, queue the sad trombone. Not even one stinking base refractor! Just a fat stack of each base card and NOTHING ELSE. Wow. By far the worst player break I've been involved in. Never have I gotten such a brutal shaft, and this was easily the largest break I'd ever gotten into, so it just doesn't make much sense from a mathematical standpoint. I was crestfallen when I went through the package. I almost quit collecting right then and there. Twelve freaking cases -- not boxes, CASES! -- and not even one lousy parallel? That's ridiculous. The cardboard gods really kneed me in the crotch there. I mean, it only cost me a bit over a blaster, so it wasn't a huge financial hit, but still devastated me emotionally.

To the breakers credit, he threw in a bonus pack of 2018 Series One and a pouch of penny sleeves. That was a nice gesture, I guess. (There wasn't anything good in the pack.)

And anyways, I decided I'm not going to rainbow this card now. Too painful. Plus, turns out there are 5x7 Topps website-only parallels of it. Listen up: I vow right now here today to NEVER rainbow any card that has any 5x7 versions. I HATE oversized cards. Maybe an occasional big oddball can make it's way into my collection, but those 5x7 cash-grabs Topps puts out with various numbered parallels really irk me. I will never chase them.

2014 Panini Prizm Draft sure were ugly cards, but you gotta respect that there were no oversized versions. And no printing plates to chase! That makes for a very supercollector-friendly rainbow. I recently scored the /10 gold parallel of the non-auto.

That leaves me with only one last card for the MASTER RAINBOW. Just need the non-auto 1/1 "Infinite Black Prizm" (Panini's version of a superfractor). I've never seen it for sale, but I'll keep an eye out and hope to land it someday. I've got the auto version of it, as you can see in the upper right.

While I'm not happy with how '18 Bowman treated me, I'm still trying to score low-numbered LaValley parallels when I can find them reasonably priced on eBay.

Paper yellow plate.

Chrome Magenta plate.

Superfractor.

As for LaValley, last I checked he was hitting .214 in AA. Hmm.. well. I hope he starts raking and becomes the next Mike Trout, but regardless, it was quite the ride supercollecting him for a while there.

Thanks for reading.

a box of 2008 Bowman Chrome

I haven't heard that "Despacito" song yet. If you're also over 35, maybe you haven't heard it either. It's supposedly the big Song of Summer, 2017. I guess I'm "with it" enough to be aware of the song, but not with it enough to have heard it. And I'm kinda proud of that, so I'll resist heading over to YouTube and checking it out. And along those lines, I wasn't collecting from mid-1993 through 2012, so I missed out on the early days of Chrome.

Here's my "Black Friday monthly box break experience" for September. If I'm being honest with you, I actually ripped through these packs back on 8/30. Yes, I'm a sinner; jumping the gun a couple days. But the thing is I was having a bad day and needed a pick me up (still in a stretch of bads days, tbh), plus I had just ordered 3 other discounted boxes that were due to arrive, and I figured I could do some substitution. So if we're being technical about it, maybe this is just a random box break, and my "Black Friday monthly box break experience" for September is actually forthcoming in a future post.

But the bottom line is here's a hobby box of 2008 Bowman Chrome. For the retail price of a blaster, I thought it was a solid deal. But there aren't really any huge rookie cards to chase in this set or anything, hence the reasonable price. But I'm just hoping for a few cards to add to my collection and something decent to cards replenish my trade coffers a little. And hopefully something shiny.. since Chrome is at its best when it's refracting, after all.

Guys I collect! I don't think I've got any of these already. Base veterans plus a Jim Edmonds refractor in unfamiliar Cubbie blue.

Hey, I pulled a Beltre autograph! Unfortunately, it's Engel not Adrian. But hey, my promised auto could have been worse. At least Engel briefly cracked the majors, which is better than many on the autograph checklist can say. He's still playing down in Mexico. I like the "Uncle Sam" pose.
As for Jhoulys Chacin, he's been one of the Padres' better starters this season, so it was nice to land his 1st Bowman Chrome Card. I'm still not sure how to pronounce his name. I'll just call him "Julie's Chachi."

A few other semi-notable cards. I know I've seen these cards before, but until now, didn't realize they were all from the same set. Three different designs mashing into one set. Rookies (green), prospects (blue), and veterans (red). Whatever happened to Luke Hochevar? Put up a respectable 3.86 ERA in 2016, but no one signed him for 2017? Jed Lowrie is having a solid 2017 with the A's (I had no idea until I looked him up). Pedro Baez converted to pitcher, and according to the ERA+ statistic, he's been the Dodgers' 2nd best pitcher during their incredible run this year, below Jansen and above Kershaw. (Kershaw may have since passed him after a dominating comeback performance against my Padres last night.)

Some shiny refractors. Don't think the rookies (top row) ever amounted to much, but veterans Troy Glaus and Scott Rolen had fine careers.

Finally, here are the numbered cards I pulled. The Snyder is /500, while the 2 Xfractors are /250. No big names here unfortunately, but at least I have trade buddies for all 3 of these teams, so they're decent trade fodder. Feel free to call dibs on anything that catches your eye. Besides the guys I collect (1st photo of the post) and the Chacin, all these cards are available for trade. And plenty of base, not pictured, if anyone is working on team sets or anything. Just let me know.

Thanks for reading.