Stacking Plates

I've scored myself 3 printing plates in the past few months and I figured I'd round them up into a post.

Here's big Dave Winfield bursting out of the batter's box. I'm always keeping an eye on active Topps Retired auctions, mainly searching for 'dem sweet /25 refractor autos, but sometimes I stumble upon other cool stuff, such as a reasonably priced printing plate of one of my main PC guys.

A cyan plate of a Blue Jays card counts as a color match, don't it?

Well, howbout a magenta plate of a Cardinals card?

Khalil Greene played during years I wasn't collecting cards, but I specifically recall thinking to myself that he's a guy I'd be all over if I were collecting at the time. An interesting young kid on the Padres who came up big occasionally but ultimately never quite fulfilled his promise of being a good MLBer. After I got back into collecting a few years later, I started putting together a respectable PC of his cards, helping remind me of that era of Padres baseball, as well as my "lost years" out of the hobby.

2009 Topps is Khalil's sunset card. The Padres had just traded him away to St. Louis, though the change of scenery sadly didn't help his numbers. That was his last season in baseball despite an impressive spring training with his new club, to the point where he was batting clean-up on Opening Day behind Albert Pujols, but Khalil's problem seems to be that he put too much pressure on himself and couldn't turn the page, to the point of self-harm. Perhaps if he was coming up today, there would be more mental health assistance available and his career might've turned out differently.

Last guy for today is another Padres fan favorite..

After a long wait, I finally scored another Bip Roberts autographed plate! Yep, 2014 Topps Archives included Bip in their Fan Favorites Autographs checklist. Giddy with this development, I smashed buy-it-now on a base auto on the product release day and I've been building the rainbow ever since.

Back in June 2014, I traded with former blogger ARPSmith for the magenta plate that he pulled. A few months later in November 2014, I scored the yellow plate on eBay. Then a decade went by with no progress until the cyan plate popped up just last November. Now there's just the black plate left to try tracking down.

Turns out there also a 1/1 red parallel (non-plate) that I also need to complete the rainbow. And dang it, I haven't been keeping an eye out for that, so it's probably too late by this point. But whatever, I'm more interested in the printing plate quadfecta.

The following year, 2015, Topps put Bip into Stadium Club (with the sombrero, but no autos). Those are the only two instances to date of Topps showing the Bipper any post-career love. But I guess I shouldn't complain, because if they put out more Bip autos I'd probably have to buy them all. lol

Anybody know what Bip is up to these days, by the way? Last I heard he was a part of the extended broadcast team in Oakland, but that was a while ago, and now Oakland doesn't even have a team anymore.

Speaking of Bip, I skimmed a recent Pitchfork article about how "Bip" is a hip slang word on the rise. The writer failed to mention Mr. Roberts nor bipping as "surprising someone with several copies of the same trading card", as we on the cardsphere know it, but rather among several possibilities, could mean "conducting illicit transactions, driving around smoothly while conducting those illicit transactions, or just masterfully driving in general. [...] In its other, more benign definitions, getting “bipped up” means you’ve gotten a fresh haircut or hairstyle."

Safe bippin' out there, y'all!

Some cards I've been meaning to post

With this pair of notable former Dodgers, my 2004 Chrome Black setbuild is down to just 20 cards remaining.

My longterm dream of putting together a run of Topps playing days Mantles sorta faded away with the covid boom, so now I'm pivoting to a frankenset of vintage and refractor reprints filling in the gaps where I don't have the original. Hopefully I finish that someday and get a blog post out of it. After these shiny revisions from '96, my current needs are 1952, 1953, 1956, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1967.

Baby Dave Winfield. The '73 is a WTHB custom.

1970 Topps is probably the vintage design that benefits the most from refractorification.

Turns out Mr. Show is in my baseball card collection.

My ARMS is on the cusp of 75% complete, with 122 cards remaining.

A couple recent Topps Retired auto pickups.

I also got a Parker Posey autograph.

I know I just showed that Jim Abbott, but turns out it completed the 2-card Angels team set for me, meaning I've got an excuse to show off the Nolan Ryan I bought in Hawaii years ago.

Bob at Best Bubble has been generous with me lately, first was a package with a couple Gavins and a couple girls..

..and a bunch of 1992 Leaf black gold. Some big name, too! And then more recently, a ton more of these showed up from him in a pair of flat-rate boxes.. and when the dust settled, I'm left with just 21 missing cards to finish the parallel set. Nice!

Also a new Gavin for my collection-- I believe the first basketballing Gavin I've got-- plus some PC guys and many duplicate "bubble" cards from Bob's collection, some of which I plan to do crafty cardart stuff to and then send back to Bob.

Plus a stack of Glow Stars and several more gals.

Big thanks, Bob! Much appreciated.

That'll do it for today. Thanks for reading. Sorry I haven't posted for about a month, but I should be back with more cards to show off soon. (Padrographs Rod dropped off a few hundred various cards this past weekend that I'm excited to check out.)

A couple quick bites of Kellogg's customs

End of an era! The home printer I've used for pretty much every custom card I've ever printed out recently died. I had been planning on getting a new printer later this year anyways, so I wasn't too upset by the situation. That old Canon served me well, but had been more and more streaky over the years.

Anyways, here are the final customs printed out on its last gasps.

Posting this now specifically because Hoyt Wilhelm was born 100 years ago today, and I wanted to do my little part to celebrate. Hoyt! Hoyt! Hoyt! The design is 1972 Kellogg's. There aren't a lot of Dodgers photos of Wilhelm available, so I colorized a b&w one in an attempt at freshness. It printed out a little weird-- trying to print a third copy of this was the printer's death blow--  so I'll likely try again once I've got the new printer up and running and hope for improved results. But still happy with this oddball-adjacent entry to my Hoyt PC.

A couple weeks before the Hoyt, I made this 1973 Kellogg's Dave Winfield. Like with the Hoyt, these are "cards that could have been", technically, both having played during those seasons. Not too far fetched that Kellogg's might've beat Topps to the punch by including Winfield in their '73 set, though his debut was June 19, 1973. But like if they came out with a little Kellogg's Update set later that year, this card would have been a great fit. LOL.

Both the card backs were more time-consuming than ideal-- Hoyt with all those stats, Dave with the big write-up-- but I have a hard time leaving my custom backs too "unfinished" or they bug me.

Thanks again to my old Canon printer for the years of service, the frustrating son of a bitch that it was. I'm staying away from Canon for a while, giving HP a shot now. Hopefully it works out well and I come up with plenty more customs to show off on the blog and share with my trader buddies for years to come.

COMC setwork

Time for more from my recent COMC package.

Joy of a completed set: Ripken closes the book on 1984 Donruss for me. (I just put together a simple base set; no variations.) I'll need to remember to take a moment to better enjoy the set one of these days, maybe even get a post out of revisiting it, but in the interest of time, for now I'm tipping my cap to the Iron Man and filing him away. Chagrined I wasn't able to coax any trades for it atop my Double Dozen wantlist, I went with the cheapest specimen available, hence being less than mint. Well hey, my 84D Mattingly has a little crease, so it's not like I'm sending in my set to PSA, I just appreciate knowing I've got the complete set. I've previously completed Donruss sets for 1985 and 1990, eventually hoping to finish a run from 1981 through '93 or so. But '84 and '85 are my favorites (and 90D due to sentimentality), so I'm glad I've got those in my collection now.

A while back, Padrographs Rod gave me a near-complete set of 1991 Brockum RockCards. I finally picked up the one missing base card, plus 3 variations to extra-complete the set. I won't go as far as to call it a "master set" because there's also stuff like hologram inserts and promo cards which I won't be hunting down (I do have the Axl Rose promo, though; he's not actually in the base set). But yeah, the rock set is a nice complement to my 1991 MusiCards set and the whole "music" section of my card collection I've been beefing up over the past three years or so.

I can't say I'm a huge Yes fan, though that album with "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was the first compact disc I ever bought (well, I also bought Pyromania at the same time). Listened to that album a ton, but besides that I only know like a couple other Yes songs.

I'm not too educated on the metal band Exodus, and apparently neither is Brockum, as they mixed up a couple members in their back photos. I still don't really know which guy is which, but I just know how to tell the variations apart because cards #127, 141, and 198 each have "black shirt in back photo" and "white shirt in back photo" variations.

I may never finish my ambitious project of a black refractor parallel set of 2004 Chrome, but I still like plucking cards here and there when I can find them for a decent price. This quartet of commons includes a couple guys I remember rooting for when they were with San Diego.

And check out this pair of legendary hurlers. Full disclosure, the Clemens was a recent eBay pickup, not COMC, but I've been meaning to feature it on the blog and makes sense to toss it in here. I've hit 60% complete with my goal now, with 194 cards remaining (including some toughies like Yadi [RC], Ichiro, and Pujols). It's one of those "welp, if I live long enough, perhaps I'll be able to complete this before I die" projects. But hey, I love the look of these cards and working on the set gives me a reason to keep looking at them.

To a lesser extent, I really like looking at 2015 Bowman Chrome refractors, and sometimes I'll check who's available down in the "sort by lowest price first" inventory and try to add some color to my order. Sorry for the blurry photo.. the green one is Will Middlebrooks.

Yawn, dumb ol' 1989 Bowman, right?  

Wrong! 1989 Bowman Tiffany!

You'll have to take my word for it that these babies are glossy. Love adding tiffany cards of guys I collect. Again, sorting by cheapest and seeing what catches my eye.

Looking at these after standard 1989 Bowman backs has gotta feel like you've had successful cataract surgery. I wish this could have been the default paper stock for Topps back then, though I'm sure the speckled, dark crap they used was cheaper, especially considering the huge print runs of the time. This tiffany factory set was limited to 6000 copies.

Also in my search for non-junk junk, I picked up a few 1988 Topps tiffanies.

Small black text on a dark orange background still isn't the easiest to read, but it's an improvement over that year's flagship. (Worst Topps flagship backs ever?) Ok, Hendu is from the Traded set, so the difference in quality isn't as dramatic.

A curious search for Winfield's restaurant didn't turn up much, but apparently it was called the U.S.A. Border Cafe, located at Broadway and 100th Street, serving Southwestern fare from 6 PM to midnight daily.

That'll do it for today. I think that covers everything in this COMC shipment besides a pair of (non-vintage) Mantles that completed a project for a future post. Thanks for stopping by.

Once again dipping into the Archives Reserve

Splurged on a few more cards for my Topps Archives Reserve master setbuild over the past few weeks.

Love this Harmon Killebrew!

2002 Archives threw a wrinkle into the backs by including the stats from the year the original card came out (e.g., stats from the 1969 season on the back of a reprint of his '69 Topps card.. kinda hurts your brain to think about, but I suppose it's kinda cool. It's not like Topps to give themselves more work to do on reprints. The stats here get blocked somewhat by the authenticity hologram that Topps was using at the time.

From one Twins legend to another, here's the first Kirby Puckett relic added to my collection. Looks good with the pinstriped swatch. Magnifique!

We round out the trio of 2002 Archives Reserve hits with this lovely Big Dave Winfield bat card. As a Padres fan, I always appreciate seeing a young Winfield in the brown and gold. I kinda dig these relics that are essentially mini refractor reprints with some extra stuff included around it. 

Unlike those above relics, this little fella really is a mini card (though framed). It's regular Archives (not Reserve), but I'm squeezing it in as a bonus into this post for the heck of it.

2013 Archives was among the first new sets I got into after returning to the hobby as an adult. Ripped a fair amount of it hoping for something cool like one of these 1973-style minis, but to no avail. But now here a few years later I ponied up for this Will Middlebrooks. Not a big name today, but well, the big names are very expensive. The fact it's a Christmas Card helped me justify biting at the cost-of-a-blaster asking price. 

Middlebrooks had a sharp decline after his promising '12 debut, and his days as an active player are already behind him. He was able to taste the thrill of victory with the 2013 Red Sox, so he's got that going for him. I suppose the fact that he was a Padre (for 83 forgettable games in 2015) is a plus for me. And Will seems to have kept "on the scene" thanks to a good social media presence (@middlebrooks), plus the fact that he's married to a sports reporter who's also good at social media (@JennyDell_).

Back to the card, yeah, it's right up my alley. I'd probably say 1973 Topps is my all-time favorite design, and I think the mini interpretation is cute. I also really like the frame design.. I'm pretty sure that's paying tribute to a vintage card thing, though I couldn't tell you which off the top of my head.

Nice that they made a full back for it, too. 

So yeah, fun pickup for my 12/25 collection.

Oh, and the seller of the Kirby relic threw in a couple random Nolan Ryan cards. Cool.. pretty sure I needed them for the PC.

Thanks for reading. This is my first post written with Blogger's annoying new site design, so hopefully it looks ok. Took a few more clicks than the old site, so that's a bummer. But hey, as long as it keeps working and is free..!

Home Displays

With many of us cooped up at home waiting for the coronavirus stuff to shake out, there's been some trends on social media with collectors sharing favorite parts of their collection.

I figured I'd do a post of the baseball/cards displays I've got up around the house.

Under our stockpile of wrapping paper and empty gift boxes, I've got some displays down in the basement in the little room with my drum set (I'm not much of a drummer, but I like to pound away for a few minutes from time to time). This Ken Caminiti display helps remind me of the glorious years 1996 and 1998 when the Padres were actually good. Also reminds me to not do hard drugs. Or steroids, unless prescribed by a licensed doctor.

The signed ball and wood plaque I got together for $5 at a card show a couple years back. Swapped out the Astros base card that came with it for the Donruss autograph. The jumbo Zenith dufex makes for a nice backdrop.

A couple of you readers might remember back when I did a post or two about making card stands out of LEGO? Well, I've got only one in use at the moment, and it's with this Julio Franco auto from '96 Leaf Signatures.

Might not look like much, but I love this Dave Winfield display. The signed postcard came from my close childhood buddy Chris who had been in little league with Dave's son a couple years earlier and got the autograph in-person. The '74 Topps rookie might be the 1st card I bought as an adult after leaving the hobby years earlier.

This one is in a part of the basement without good lighting, so it's a blurry photo. But that's a signed Steve Garvey flat along with a selection of Topps/OPC cards. This one came to me from the generous Padrographs Rod. He said he got the signature in person, and that Garvey said it was an unused shot for a bank ad or something along those lines. I have a lingering intention to perhaps swap out some of the cards someday, giving it more of a personal touch for me, but I've yet to bother getting around to it.

Another blurry one. This is the "1988 WS Game 1" display I've got. Bought it on eBay with the Kirk Gibson signed whatever-you-call-it ("Gateway cachet") on the top. The cards were originally 2004 Topps Retired autos, but I've since swapped them out with different cards of the same players. Posted about it back in the early days of this blog.

Another blurry basement one. We've got green LED Christmas lights up down there, which explains the green tint on this wooden plaque containing a signed Reggie Jackson 8x10. Got this for Christmas one year as a kid circa 1991.

Here's where I took a break to ride my bike to the post office to drop a couple things in the mail. My first time being out in the world since Thursday. Nice to get some fresh air, I suppose. First time I've ridden my bike in probably 3 or 4 years.

For the curious, here's my drum set. Above that...

Mystery Science Theater 3000 autograph display I put together recently. I need to do a real post on this at some point.

I recently started putting together a Glow-In-The-Dark Stuff shelf. Still plenty of stuff to add, but here are a few things. I envision this being chock-full of glowing stuff. Everything pictured here glows, at least in one little part of it. We will likely be moving soon, so the shelf may never achieve its promised greatness. Hopefully the next place has a similar shelf I can use for this idea.

Here it is glowing.

Here's a selection of wall in my card room with some cool stuff on display. My wife did the dog drawing to celebrate once when Annie got a bath.

Another corner of the room features my Goonies display, a Dick Allen white whale, and my framed Carrie Fisher TTM return.

Little Rod Beck frame.

This isn't baseball/card related, but here's a framed Decemberists gig poster I grabbed from the Casbah after their show there 4/6/04.

Guess that's about it as far as stuff on display in my house that anyone might care to see.

Thanks for reading and I hope you're all doing ok during this developing crisis!