McGwired

Yep, I'm following up a Jose Canseco post with a Mark McGwire post. I kinda collect the Bash Bros, but honestly it's mostly thanks to them appearing on The Simpsons: Jose in the classic "Homer at the Bat" softball ringer episode, and Mark showing up near the end of a later episode socking dingers and hiding sensitive documents under his hat.

I recently decided to get around to finally adding a McGwire auto to my collection, and here it is.

Looks pretty good! I probably should have taken it out of the penny sleeve before taking the photo, but with my luck, I would have instantly dropped it on the floor and done some bashing of my own to a corner. Taking it out of the top-loader was risky enough!

I had some patience waiting till a good one popped up that I'd be happy with. Definitely wanted it to feature an on-card signature. While I wouldn't have necessarily been against a bulked-up Cardinals era photo, I think I prefer him in an A's uniform. Pretty sure this is the first Diamond Icons card in my collection.. just another high-end Topps product line that means nothing to me, but whatever. It'll do fine. Not my first choice at a McGwire auto, but still very respectable.

And longtime readers know I'm crazy for cards numbered 12/25.. so if I'm gonna pony up for an auto of a guy whose cards aren't cheap, might as well try for a Christmas Card even if that means I might pay a little more than one with a higher print-run.

Bonus holiday unsubstantiated fact: Mark stole just twelve bases over the span of his 16-year career. The consensus is that he could have stolen many more, but he held back because he wanted his final total to stand at 12 to pair with his jersey number of 25. Yep, that's right, it was all in the name of representing 12/25! Now that's some serious commitment to yuletide cheer! Happy Holidays, Mr. McGwire!

Have a great weekend, everybody! Stay safe and careful.

ignorable filler post: 1991 Cardboard Dreams #7 Bo Jackson

Dang it, guys.. I did it again! I accidentally went out of order with this set. I jumped to #8 Michael Jordan in the previous installment, skipping over #7 Bo Jackson. Wasn't on purpose, but I guess I was swept up in The Last Dance hype, lol. I suppose card number doesn't really matter much unless you're working on the set, or maybe a frankenset, or maybe you're one of the very few collectors who collect certain numbers, like the No. 5 Collector guy and how Tom at Angels In Order likes cards that are #444. But for most of us, card number is rarely something we worry much about. But I still feel like a bad set-blogger for the taboo faux pas of going out of order. I have not yet made such a mistake on my 1991 MusiCards blog, thankfully.

Not the best likeness of Bo, but overall a neat two-sport card. Funny how I was just talking in my latest post (editor's note: the first part of this post was drafted a while back; I've posted a few times since) about the White Sox rehauling their uniforms several times over the years until finally finding a fit with colors most equated in sports to the NFL Raiders. This card shows both for ya. I never thought about it, but it sure is funny that 1991, the year they switched to those uniforms, was the year they signed Bo after he had recently retired from football. Having a former Raiders hero on the squad really must've helped embolden and validate their gutsy uniform decision. I don't know about you guys, but at my middle school around '91-92, the new black White Sox stuff was considered the coolest. Probably also because popular rappers wore it sometimes. I never had a Sox hat (which still fills me with a gentle wave of regret to this day), though I did have a black White Sox shirt back then which I wore when I needed to impress the ladies. Worked every time. Nah, I'm just kidding. But I thought I looked cool, at least. I think I've even posted an awkward-age photo of me wearing it in an older post but I don't think I'll dig it out this time.

Some nightmare fuel on the back with a demonic clown playing guitar. Yikes! But seriously, I wonder if Bo kept up practicing guitar? Talented guy like that could do damn near anything he set his mind to, so I bet he could learn to really shred if he worked at it.

Anyways, now time for the randomness.

Isn't this a cool painting? Looks like a fun night at the Sugar Shack.

Speaking of sugar, I'm a dessert guy. I've got a sweet tooth and the curiosity to hunt for new dessert ideas to blow my mind. One I found that I will highly recommend is eating chocolate pudding not with a spoon but with nutty buddies. Oh man, that's heaven!

Another good one: sandwich of butterscotch pudding between a couple snickerdoodles, with fresh strawberries on the side. Very nice!

What the hell is this? I think it's a Twinkie dipped in the last of the butterscotch pudding with some strawberries thrown in for good measure. Yeah, this was fine. But let's be honest, these 3 desserts I've shown here are in descending order and this was the least best.

Shadow box tribute to my amazing pup Annie Lou who left us last year. Features a dual auto and some game-used memorabilia (collar and her favorite toy). Turned out pretty well.

The wild bunnies who've been enjoying free reign of our backyard in the months since Annie's passing have been a godsend to us, providing the cuteness needed to help keep our hearts from turning to dust given the events of 2020. But the backyard has a new ruler on the horizon, with Dog #3 less than a week away from joining our household. Pretty excited about it. Stay tuned.

Ladybugs are cool too. Snapped this nice close-up a week or so back.

This baby ladybug was found inside on the wall of my wife's home office, but I successfully rehomed it to the overgrown garden. Seemed to be pretty happy to have leaves to crawl around on instead of a boring wall.

No luck on the TTM request I sent to Mark McGwire a couple springs ago, but here's a version of it with a facsimile auto. Maybe someday!

Here's a McGwire mashup ("bash up") I made in photoshop (this is not a real photo). 1987 Topps meets 1991 Fleer Pro Visions for a Project 2020-style "art card".

I thought this was a fun one! Would love to see Topps and Panini (or Upper Deck) come together to offer a special card or set of cards along these lines with proceeds going to charity... covid, BLM, or something. But that's just me pie-in-the-skying over here on my computer relaxing at the end of a stressful Q2 at work.

And here's a dumb gif I made of Bert Blyleven's 1975 Topps card. LOL

Can't remember if I shared this here yet or not, but here's another dumb thing I made for Twitter recently.. brings us back to Bo, tying up the post nicely. It's a 3-way mashup of cards: 1971 Topps Nolan Ryan, 1986 Topps Traded Bo Jackson, and 1990 Classic "Nolan Knows Bo".. all in one crazy image.

That's it for this ignorable shitpost. See ya next time!

card show conclusion

Here is the rest of my haul from this month's Portland card show.

This Eddie Murray was 50 cents, though the majority of the cards in this post were from the same quarterboxes as the vintage I've shown in my past few posts.

Some early Arenado cards. Pretty sure I already have them, but seemed like a sweet deal.

Freddie Freeman is one of the few big stars of today I don't collect, but I couldn't pass up RCs and a numbered high-end parallel for a quarter each.

Some not-really vintage cards trying to look old.

A couple 60s cards I could have grouped together with my vintage pickups, but since they're stamped buybacks, I don't really consider them true vintage anymore. Grabbed those as trade fodder. The Perez is from '83 Topps Traded.

Oh, and one seller had a bunch of Mother's Cookies team sets circa 84-92, and I was excited thinking he might have the 1989 Giants set so I could finally get the lone card of Goose Gossage as a Giant that I've been after for a while, but sadly that was one of the few sets he didn't seem to have.

A little bit of 90s.

Turns out these Upper Deck PowerDeck cdrom cards play fine in standard CD drives, assuming there's a little recessed part for them to go in.

Here's the video from the McGwire cdrom.. As expected: it's just clips of a few homers over a generic rock soundtrack. (Blogger compresses the video when you upload it; the actual video on the "card" is slightly better quality.)

I haven't taken the plunge of going after all of these 3000 Club inserts, but won't pass them up cheap. Brock and Molitor here.

Shiny.

Parallels. Tim Anderson has been in the news a lot lately.

Young dudes.

Bryant.

I'm a snob when it comes to the Gold Label reboot of the past few years.. just looking for "Class 2" and "Class 3" cards. (Update: I had a dream last night that the rare cards were actually Class 7 and Class 8.. and I was like, "Oh man, I need to update my latest post! Class 2 and 3 aren't anything special." I guess in a way that's true, as it's really only the colored/numbered parallels that are desirable.) The foilboard makes me sad. I miss the original version on Chrome refractor stock.

And that's a wrap!

The Captain and 2 Fleer

Swing and a miss coming up with a clever name for this post, going with a stretch of a Captain & Tennille reference. I also thought about going with an arms pun (like "Call to ARMS" or "ARMS wrestling") since it's mostly about my Archives Reserve Master Set.

To refresh you on that project, I have a long-term goal of collecting a copy of every Archives Reserve card ever made. This is feasible because there are no printing plates, parallels, or serial numbered cards (unless you want to count buyback autos from recent Archives Signature products, which I am not going after, only the original 2001-2002 run.)

While there are enough autos and relics left to keep me working on this goal well into my golden years, I'm closing in on finishing all the non-hits. I've got complete base sets for all 3 Archives Reserve sets: 2001 baseball, 2002 baseball, and 2001 football. What I'm working on now are the 2001 Archives Reserve Rookie Reprints, which are inserts that were only available in the "Limited Edition" factory set of 2001 Topps, making them tough to find.

Derek Jeter here was a big one to check off. It rarely pops up at a decent price, so I was all over it when it recently showed up on eBay at a low opening bid. I don't care about the fact it's graded, though I have no plans at this time to break it out.

(BTW, sorry to flood your Blogger timeline with Jeets.. coincidentally Sport Card Collectors and Dime Boxes both posted with him leading off their blog today.)

I think this is my best Jeter card now, and will probably remain on top unless I manage to score an auto someday.

In my recent COMC order, I snagged a couple less exciting names I needed, Preston Wilson and Pokey Reese.

I'm down to 6 needs remaining for these 2001 Archives Reserve Rookie Reprints:
8 Jim Edmonds 1993
9 Bernie Williams 1990
10 Sammy Sosa 1990
11 Rickey Henderson 1980
13 Randy Johnson 1989
14 Juan Gonzalez 1990

Some big names there, with the Rickey likely to set me back the most.

Now for the aforementioned 2 Fleers...

I've nearly finished 1987 Fleer Update. While I would have liked to complete it only through trades, I caved and grabbed the two big cards I was missing during the COMC sale event a while back, figuring they'd be hard to come by via trade.

I've said it before, but it must have sucked for Fleer to have missed including Mark McGwire in their base set in '87 when he was so hot. But the Bo Jackson and Will Clark were pretty huge back in the day, so they probably carried the set fine. As for Greg Maddux, only Donruss had the foresight to include him in their '87 flagship set, though his rookie year wasn't very good, so that probably didn't effect pack sales much.

My 1987 Fleer Update needs are down to 5 remaining cards:
15 Ellis Burks
17 Steve Carlton
31 Cecil Fielder
80 Greg Minton
129 Matt Williams

Anybody got any of those and want to swing a trade? Let me know.

a box of 2014 Panini Classics

I've posted about busting the two hobby boxes of 2016 Topps Archives I pre-ordered a few months ago (see the best pull of my life and the Fantastical Machine trilogy), but I also grabbed something else to help bump me past the free shipping threshold at Dave & Adam's: a box of 2014 Panini Classics Baseball. It's a pretty nice mid-level release that seems to be a one-and-done product, as there was no 2015 version and no word yet of a 2016 release on the horizon either. I've seen 2014 Classics on blogs and gotten 2 or 3 cards from eBay or traders, but hadn't ripped any of it myself. I even put it on my Christmas list last year, but Santa passed on it, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I'm glad I did, as it turned out to be a pretty solid box for me.

This would have been a nice box for a Red Sox fan. Not a bad David Ortiz jersey/bat dual relic /99. He's having a great farewell season, despite being in a lot of pain.
And while this is the Cecchini brother I don't actively collect, I don't mind adding a /299 auto of Gavin's big brother Garin. He was sold to the Brewers after last season, and has spent all of 2016 in AAA so far.

My other 2 hits were definitely solid, as well.. a couple auto/relic cards each #'d /299.
Nick Castellanos is a fine young third baseman who seems to get better every year.
Jameson Taillon made his MLB debut earlier this month and looks to be an important arm in the Pirates rotation going forward. My biggest complaint about 2014 Panini Classics (well, besides no logos) is that all the autos seem to be stickers.. all the autos I got, at least.

I got a couple Timeless Tributes rainbow foil (or whatever) parallels #'d /149, both guys I kinda-sorta collect a little-- Billy Hamilton and Mark McGwire-- so that's cool I guess.

Here are a couple big names you're not likely to pull from a new pack of Topps cards. It's still odd to me that Topps has been shunning Bonds, while giving love in recent products to Canseco, McGwire, Clemens, and Palmeiro. Maybe Barry won't sign with them or something?

I was happy to come up with a fat stack of keepers for my collection, a few of which are shown here.
Looks like Panini got a little out of control photoshopping out stuff, and photoshopped out Mike Schmidt's mustache! LOL

While most of my interest was with the old-timers, there are plenty of cool active stars in there too.

So yeah, this was a fun box to bust.

Busting a box of Topps Gold Label

Nice to see my holiday mailings are starting to arrive and folks seem to be happy with the contents! I'll have more details on Cardsphere Heroes in tomorrow's post, but today here's a box review.

Gold Label is a fancy product Topps put out for a few years around the turn of the millennium. I've come across a few singles here and there in trades and dimeboxes, and they always catch my eye because every card is a beautiful refractor. Hell, even the wrapper is a refractor!

I took a curious look and was able to find a hobby box of 2000 Gold Label on eBay for the price of a couple blasters. While it has the look of a high-end product ("super premium," as the packaging states), there aren't any autos or even relics in there to chase (at least not in 2000), only a shot at redemption for autographed uncut sheets or something.. and since that promotion has long since expired, unopened product isn't too pricey these days.

I figured it'd be a fun break to net me a few PC additions and add some shiny to my tradeables. I used the box for my "cardless days" breaks (ripping 1 pack a day on a day when I otherwise didn't get any new cards), so it took me a while to get through the box. Let's check out some highlights!

Lots of starpower!

Seeing double? One thing I didn't realize until I was nearly finished with the box: There are 100 players on the base checklist, but each of them has 3 different variations. Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 are noted on the back, and are basically all the same but with different background photos on the front. In this year of the product, all three were produced in equal quantities, so it doesn't really mean anything if you pull a Class 3 card vs. Class 1.. it's not an SP or anything, just Topps being weird. You'd think they could just put 300 players in the set instead of 100 x 3.

So yeah, you OCD team collectors out there might need to collect your team in triplicate.

You can see the "CLASS 1" on the right. Call me slow, but I didn't realize the significance of that till I started working on this post.

There are also gold parallels with a diecut deckle edge that are #'d /100 and seeded 1:68, but I didn't pull any of those, unfortunately.

The toughest card I pulled is a Bullion insert, seeded 1:32. At 24 packs per box, I definitely beat the odds by pulling two of them from my box. The Larkin/Casey/Griffey might be the highlight of the box. McGwire and the boys are fine too.

The Treasury, Prospector's Dream, and End of the Rainbow are the other inserts. Since the names are hard to read, I'll list 'em off: Josh Hamilton, Mark Mulder, Derek Jeter (another nice pull), Sean Burroughs, and Choo Freeman. I also pulled an Eric Munson "End of the Rainbow" but it's been mailed off to somebody already.

Here's a photo of an End of the Rainbow card in a refractor rainbow. As it should be. (Too bad Sean's career melted like a wet witch. Sorry, that was supposed to be a Wizard of Oz reference. That would have made more sense if the inserts were called Over the Rainbow.)

Here are some more dudes I collect. Doesn't that look just like a bowl of Skittles?!

And here's an example of what the backs look like.

One more funny thing about this product to mention: It seems that the last card in every pack is cut a bit narrower than the rest. It's not quite "mini" levels smaller, but enough to be noticeable when you've got a few in-hand.

Here's a scan of the bottom of a stack. You can see there are 3 cards that are significantly narrower than the rest. Weird. Unannounced stealth parallels! haha

And that's that. Not a bad box. Thanks for checking it out with me.