Catching up with the Classics: 1989 Pink/Blue

My previous post took a look at a Classic set from 1990, and now I'm going back another year, opening a box from 1989.

Comes in a full board game style box. I scored a good deal on this at just $19.99 shipped. Poor seller went with UPS and probably lost money on shipping, but I won't feel too bad for him because the schmuck also used new USPS Priority Mail padded envelopes to cut up for packing material, which I'm pretty sure constitutes a federal crime. But it arrived safe, so that's good. It was still sealed, though I removed the wrap before snapping the above photo.

Despite their "junky" reputation, I don't think I've already got any of these cards, so there should be plenty of keepers for my collection. Classic releases can be confusing, what with various "travel editions" and whatnot, but as for 1989, it's one 200-card set spread over 3 products. Looking it up now, COMC and Sportlots got it wrong (calling everything "travel edition"), but TCDB has it figured out:

Cards 1-100 were part of the Board Game, cards 101-150 were part of the Travel Game I, and cards 151-200 were part of the Travel Game II.

The 3 chunks of the checklist share a similar design but with different colors...

1-100 "flagship" (pink/blue)

101-150 "update 1" (orange/purple)

151-200 "update 2" (grey/purple)

Opening it up, here's what you get. This board doesn't look as nice as the Classic board from 1991 that I turned into a wall display, but I might end up doing something creative with this one, too. (Nothing in mind yet.)

If you feel like skimming through the rules, here ya go:

As the little note in the spine indicates, the real star of the show here are the baseball cards, wrapped in two packs of 50 cards each.

Cover boys look good this time, without noticeable wear to complain about.

A few random highlights.

Bo has effectively called dibs on that stretch-tastic Luis Salazar. Plenty of other commons up for trade, too, so let me know if you wanna swing a swap for any needs of yours.

Something seems off with that Ron Gant photo/uniform, yeah?

No Griffey within these 100 cards, but a couple HOF rookies in Biggio and Big Unit. (I think the only card from 1989 Classic I already had is the Junior rookie from the orange/purple update portion of the set, scored long ago in a childhood trade. One of these days I should do a post with the few "good Griffeys" that were a crown jewel of my collection back in the early 90s.)

The backs seem to have been inspired by the perennial Donruss backs of the era, but notably with a section for trivia questions. No cartoon on the back, but to provide you a laugh, Classic pulled a funny joke implying that kids would get that card's featured player to sign his name in a little box at the bottom of the card back. Heck, I'll bet it's even actually happened once or twice over the years!

No but seriously, I bet it'd be fun to play a round of the game with a friendly group of likeminded baseball nerds. Find out who really knows their baseball history. Questions regarding all-time/single-season records may be outdated for the most part, but I suppose folks could simply add the phrase "As of 1989" as needed if you'd actually try to play the game today.

Oh, and I love the 1988 stat line for Pete Rose, who took his final MLB hacks on August 17, 1986, and was not long for the dugout by this time.

Alright, that's about all I've got to say about this Classic set, and not sure if I'll be "catching up" with any more after this, but maybe someday. As far as older Classic baseball card sets, the original board game from 1987 (dark green borders) sells for around $100+ these days thanks in part to a cool Bo Jackson card featuring a bat-barrel pose whilst dressed up in his Auburn football duds. Then there was a yellow "travel" update that year, including a Barry Bonds rookie and "outlaw" cards such as the Andre Dawson getting plunked and Joe Niekro getting busted for doctoring the ball. Classic put out more cards in 1988: a couple "travel edition" updates to the main 1987 board game, utilizing that same design, but changing the border color to blue for one update set and red for the other. That explains why the box at the top of the post refers to itself as "New Second Edition".. it's the 5th release of Classic baseball cards, but just the 2nd release of the full-sized game. Then there's 1990 and 1991 that I've already blogged about. By the 90s, Classic (Classic/Best) was getting more into draft picks and minor league cards that didn't bother asking questions on the back, but they still also released versions of the baseball trivia game in '92 and '93.

Sometimes I randomly throw a cute Ruby pic on the end of my posts, and this is another such time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pete Rose Andy Warhol Custom Nine

Another addition to my Binder of Enchantment and Wonder (my "fun card" binder) is a page of customs I recently whipped up inspired by the Pete Rose artwork from Andy Warhol. I first started this project back in January, but just finally completed it, inspired by what would have been Warhol's 92nd birthday today.

Customs cards for nine different works of art featuring Pete Rose in the 1985 Topps design (the current set on shelves at the time). As you can see, the dimension of the pieces runs a bit shorter than a standard card, but not too far off. I believe these images are all of real Warhol prints, though the upper left 4 comprise the best-known version.

The backs tell the story behind how the quirky artwork came to be, paraphrased/plagiarized from a couple different articles (such as Warhol's Pete Rose Portrait Turns 25).

So there's that! I think it makes for an interesting 9-pocket page of cards.

1990 Mad Magazine baseball cards

If you're a blogger (or blog reader) and also on Twitter, you're probably familiar with the phenomenon where a blogger will tweet out a picture of a new pickup when they first get it.. then a couple/few days later, they post a blog about it. At first I didn't really like that, but now I consider the first tweet like a "preview" for the following blog post that will go into more detail. Sort of like catching a trailer for an upcoming movie and thinking, "Ooh, I'm looking forward to seeing that one!"

Of course not every tweet turns into a post, but usually if it's something substantial enough, it'll make an appearance on that person's blog before too long.

Anyways, if you follow me on Twitter, you might have caught the "preview" for this one recently.

I think I first heard about this on Facebook a few weeks back (I've recently been trying to expand my collector worldview.. not just blogs and Twitter anymore, but now poking around at card groups on FB, and collecting message boards, and I even just joined Reddit the other day. Jury's still out on if this was a good idea or not.)

But yeah, the July 1990 (#296) issue of Mad Magazine touches on baseball cards. I never really got into Mad. It's not that I didn't like it, it just never really made its way into my life as a kid. I don't think me or any of my pals ever bought one of their magazines. I think I had a paperback book or two released under the Mad umbrella (Sergio something?), and vaguely recall liking the silly comics and whatnot in it. (Oh, and I watched the MadTV show for a while back in the day.) But this is my first Mad Magazine.

Here's the first page of the baseball cards article in the magazine.

It's mostly card mock-ups, apparently inspired by the 1977 Topps design. I suppose you could cut these out and affix the fronts with the backs if you wanted to try making these into "real cards". But nothing here really calls to me. (...ok, maybe the "Road Trip Bimbo" card-- could be a fun addition to my girlie card minicollection.)

And here's the last page of the article. But the real interest to card collectors has got to be the back cover...

I'm all about 1990 baseball cards this year (celebrating my 30 years as a collector), so when I saw these things in their obvious 1990 Topps design, I had to pick up a copy of the magazine on eBay. Actually, I ended up picking up two. So now I have one to keep intact (above), and another....

...to cut up. The Pete Rose goes straight to the PC. I like Arsenio, so I'll probably hang onto that one as well. And I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I like the Roseanne Barr card too. But the rest are available for trade, I suppose. Anybody collect Lawrence Rawl, Dan Quayle, David Duke, John Glenn, or Bryant Gumbel?

The artist for these was apparently Richard Williams, by the way.

Of course these "cards" aren't on cardstock, just magazine paper, so they're thin. And the inside back cover was one of those "fold-in" gags, so the backs of the cards don't correspond to anything related.

As seen in the uncut photo, these are officially referred to as "Mad's All-Star Flopps - All New 2nd Series". Which begs the question... which issue had the 1st series? Well, I just looked into that and picked up a copy of that one, too. Expect to see it pop up on the blog in a bit. As far as I can tell, there was not a 3rd series.

Thanks for stopping by.

1964 Topps Pete Rose

While most of my vintage setbuilding attention this year has gone to '57 Topps, my 1964 Topps build is still simmering on the back burner. I've got a lot of the heavy lifting done (Mantle, Mays), but plenty of A-listers left for me to check off. Maybe the most daunting was Pete Rose's first solo card. Dare I say it's the most iconic card from the '64 set, with young Petey flashing a bright smile, as he seems to be beaming with pride over his Topps All-Star Rookie trophy.

I got this with the $15 off eBay coupon code from last week. I had first searched for some big-name '57 needs in my crosshairs. But no good deals jumped out at me on that front. Then I turned my sights on '64. Any good deals on a Clemente? Nope. Howbout Pete Rose? Yep! This one was a solid price, made better by the $15 discount.

I wanted to get a graded copy of this card for my own peace of mind. It's my understanding that early Rose cards are right there with Mickey Mantle when it comes to most counterfeited cards of the era. I didn't necessarily need a terrific condition card, though I'm very happy with a PSA 4, which is a pretty solid grade for my collection, as I generally don't mess with the $$$ of high-grade vintage.

As for Charlie Hustle here, well, he had a long, distinguished career that saw him become baseball's all-time hit king with 4256. His many achievements also include ROY, MVP, WS MVP, and 3 WS Championships. He was unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility and lived happily ever after without even a hint of controversy surrounding him in the slightest ever.

Wow, 30 triples one year?!

Anywoo, you gotta admit it's a nice card. I doubt I'll ever pony up for his floating-heads '63 Topps rookie, so this '64 is likely destined to always be my best and earliest Pete Rose card. Nice to knock it off the list.

Booby Prize

A while back, I was the lucky winner of a contest over at Collecting Cutch during his month-long salute to boobies, raising awareness for the fight against breast cancer. And hey, it's Valentine's Day and romance is in the air, so seems like a good time to show off the prize and do my own little tribute to a few of my favorite busty ladies. [Because that's something a caring husband would do, right? Ogle other women on Valentine's Day? LOL. Sorry, honey.]

Very happy to have won this Pete Rose auto #'d /60 (hey Leaf, should have been out of 69, the sexiest number). Great card of the Hit King with a cheeky inscription and on-card signature. Nice addition to the PC.

Thrown in as bonus were several Brian Giles cards and a handful of 2017 Topps.

Thanks again for the contest, Brian! That was a fun month on your blog. Super cool for me to score the prize!

-  - ---♥

Now for my own little tribute lovely ladies with a trio of my best "girlie card" autos.

Melissa Rauch is a really funny actress, best known for her role on Big Bang Theory. I had a celebrity crush on her from way back during her time as a contributor to VH1's Best Week Ever. She's somewhat small, but big where it counts (her heart and talent, I mean, obviously!) Definitely a cutie.

I've never seen True Blood, but whilst watching her film, The Bronze, I went searching for any auto cards of hers on eBay and ended up landing this one. She's got a nice signature and it's on-card. I've been thinking about making a custom overlay for this using a photo I like better (not that this one is horrible), but I haven't gotten around to it.

♥

I've shown this Jaime Bergman auto off before, but here it is again. Loved her on Son of the Beach. No custom overlay needed for this one.. yowsa!

♥

Loooove Christina Hendricks!! Best known for her work on Mad Men. I recently saw a commercial for a new project she's in and will definitely have to check it out.

Again, this card isn't new to my blog, as I picked it up a few years back, but it's a jewel of my collection for sure, so let's check it out once more. Not an ideal photo of Christina, but not bad either. The big, on-card auto is nice. Not really a candidate for a custom overlay. I tried watching Firefly once but couldn't get into it. She was only on for a couple episodes. But yeah, she's a favorite of mine, probably my #1 celebrity crush.

That's it for today. Happy Valentine's Day! ♥

A few 1965 Topps caged beauties

I'm at the point where I'm gonna have to spend some decent money if I want to keep moving with my 1965 Topps setbuild. The cards I'm featuring today get me past the 90% complete mark, with most of what's left being big-name guys and high numbers. Since I have a soft goal of finishing the set by the end of the year, expect to see more 65s on the blog over these next 4+ months as I try to focus my card budget on picking off needs.

Four big pickups to show off today. Hobby purists be warned: they're all slabbed. I'm usually not big on graded cards, but if I'm going to shell out for vintage stars, I'll often pony up a little extra for graded copies just so I can be reasonably confident they're not counterfeit, plus it's nice to have added protection against damage. But I don't concern myself with the assigned grade as long as the card looks nice enough to my eye.

The great Bob Gibson. Gotta love this card. Between League Leader cards and World Series Highlights, he's in this set a few times.

And here's Gibson's teammate and fellow Hall of Famer, the speedy Lou Brock. It's his first Topps card as a Cardinal after coming over from the Cubs. This is a short print, from back in the days when those really came out of the printing process, not planned and artificially created.

I figured now would be a good time to go after some set-need Pete Rose cards, seeing as how he's been in the news for alleged nefarious activities (that don't have anything to do with gambling/money, for a change).

Not sure how much of an effect it's had on the value of his cards, but I think I got a good deal on this, just his 3rd Topps card. It's only graded a 2, but looks pretty damn good, unless you angle it in the light to reveal some minor creasing. (That's another reason for buying graded vintage: less chance of being surprised by flaws that might not show up in pictures.)

Last one for today, big Willie Mac! Such a nice looking card.

Got a few more (non-graded) '65 eBay wins on the way that I'll probably post about next week. Factoring those in, I'm down to 53 cards left.

1965 Topps Needs (as of 8/10/17):
3 AL 1964 Home Run Leaders - Harmon Killebrew / Boog Powell / Mantle
55 Tony Conigliaro - Boston Red Sox
120 Frank Robinson - Cincinnati Reds
130 Al Kaline - Detroit Tigers
134 World Series Game 3 - Mantle's Clutch HR
206 Willie Horton - Detroit Tigers
220 Billy Williams - Chicago Cubs
236 Denny McLain - Detroit Tigers RC
260 Don Drysdale - Los Angeles Dodgers
282 Giants Rookies - Dick Estelle / Masanori Murakami RC
308 Mets Rookies - Cleon Jones / Tom Parsons RC
310 Johnny Callison - Philadelphia Phillies
321 Rusty Staub - Houston Astros
329 Hawk Taylor - New York Mets RC
340 Tony Oliva - Minnesota Twins
349 Larry Miller - New York Mets RC
352 Alex Johnson - Philadelphia Phillies RC
353 Jerry Lumpe - Detroit Tigers
360 Orlando Cepeda - San Francisco Giants
369 Phil Linz - New York Yankees
378 Chuck Estrada - Baltimore Orioles
381 Al Jackson - New York Mets
384 Johnny Klippstein - Minnesota Twins
385 Carl Yastrzemski - Boston Red Sox
386 Cubs Rookies - Paul Jaeckel / Fred Norman RC
405 John Roseboro - Los Angeles Dodgers
440 Tom Tresh - New York Yankees
445 Don Lock - Washington Senators
455 Norm Siebern - Baltimore Orioles
462 Lew Krausse - Kansas City Athletics
470 Yogi Berra - New York Mets
474 Cookie Rojas - Philadelphia Phillies
475 Clete Boyer - New York Yankees
477 Cardinals Rookies - Fritz Ackley / Steve Carlton RC
487 Woody Woodward - Milwaukee Braves
495 Joe Christopher - New York Mets
500 Eddie Mathews - Milwaukee Braves
513 New York Yankees Team
519 Bob Uecker - St. Louis Cardinals
521 Phillies Rookies - Dave Bennett / Morrie Steevens RC
532 Hector Lopez - New York Yankees
533 Mets Rookies - Napoleon / Ron Swoboda / Bethke / Tug McGraw RC SP
545 Jesus Alou - San Francisco Giants SP
550 Mel Stottlemyre - New York Yankees RC SP
554 Chico Ruiz - Cincinnati Reds SP
566 Yankees Rookies - Gil Blanco / Art Lopez / Moschitto RC
572 Baltimore Orioles Team SP
573 Red Sox Rookies - Lonborg / Moses / Mike Ryan / Schlesinger RC SP
579 Dick Smith - Los Angeles Dodgers SP
582 Bob Schmidt - New York Yankees SP
592 Frank Bork - Pittsburgh Pirates RC SP
593 Tigers Rookies - Jackie Moore / John Sullivan RC SP
597 Twins Rookies - Joe Nossek / Dick Reese / John Sevcik RC

If you've got any of these available to maybe work out a trade, please let me know and I'll do my best to make you a solid return offer for consideration.

Thanks for reading!

Running the table on my wantlist

Is there a cooler gesture in the world of card collecting than when somebody just systematically takes out your wantlist? Padrographs Rod popped by my house yesterday and surprised me with another big bag of cards, highlighted by a near complete representation of the "reasonable wants" section of my Desperate Double Dozen sidebar wantlist. Super excited to check off these cards I've been hankering for!

Reggie likely would have had a card in 1968 were it not for a dispute between the players union and Topps that prevented new/recent photos from being available, meaning he didn't show up on cardboard till a late-series 1969 rookie card. So I thought this 2005 Fan Favorites issue complete with era-accurate photo (note the old KC Athletics logo on the cap) was a neat card that never was.

Perhaps the happiest surprise for me in the Archives auto checklist this year was this Billy Bean. I had been wanting to get a autograph of MLB's Ambassador for Inclusion for a while now, with an eBay search saved for reasonably priced specimen, preferably on a Padres card. Since he didn't have any certified autos, I planned to take my chances on something uncertified. But Topps read my mind, and popped out this nice 1989-style card. Great addition for my Pride PC.

I love Mike Piazza Marlins cards. I once had aspirations of maybe going after them all. But I recently saw a link to an article about one collector with the same goal. Turns out there are 122 of them! So ok, maybe I'll just be content with owning a few.

Speaking of HOFers making short-term stops with the Fish, I saw this Tim Raines card on the Dimeboxes blog a while ago and had to add it to my wantlist. I think it's Rock's only true "sunset" card out there. Unfortunately, Donruss didn't squeeze in complete career stats (instead beginning at 1987), but still a heck of a card.

Rod gets partial credit for this one, as I actually need the regular ("paper") 2016 Bowman card of David Denson, not the Chrome version. But good effort!

Another partial credit card here, as I'm specifically looking for Kris Bryant's RC from 2015 Topps Series 2 (#616), but this All-Star card from Update is also a need, so no harm there. With the #616 card fetching double-digit prices these days, I may have to move it from the "reasonable wants" to the "wishful thinking" section of the Desperate Double Dozen.

Here's another card I was made aware of thanks to Nick's blog. I was specifically after it due to the Dan Walters cameo. The somewhat obscure backup catcher has a place in my heart because I got his autograph in-person as a kid once.

Here's a key card I was missing from my modest Josh Donaldson PC. Great looking card.

Finally, here's Pete Rose's 1979 Burger King card. It's notable in that his regular '79 Topps card features him as a Red. Pete had signed with the Phillies as a free agent in December 1978. So this oddball serves as a Traded/Update card and is his very first non-Reds card on the market. Pretty neat.

So yeah, HUGE thanks to Rod for the targeted attack on my wantlist! Now I've gotta think up some new cards to replenish the list with, which is a good problem to have.

Rod also graciously included a bunch more cards for me to go through, but I'll save those for another post. Thanks for reading!

Battle of the Boxes ('16 High Numbers vs '13 Hometown Heroes)

Time to wrap up the trio of posts breaking down my card show haul from last weekend. Along with the singles I dug out from bins, I also picked up a couple unopened boxes to rip: a 2016 Topps Heritage High Numbers blaster, and a box of 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes. Each ran me $15 from the same dealer.

Let's start with the latest & greatest: Heritage High Numbers. As far as base cards, there were two I was hoping to pull: Gavin Floyd's first card as a Blue Jay, and Padres fringe fan-favorite Jabari Blash.

Welp, I got the Blash. Still need the Floyd. Also got a Pujols/Trout and Neshek, but that's it for guys I collect. Pretty weak, but then again I suppose High Numbers isn't really about packing in starpower.

Other notable pulls, a /999 Chrome parallel of Jameson Taillon and a couple SPs.

Inserts. I'll probably hang onto the Seager, but the other 2 are available to the first of my bountiful Cubs and Sox trader-buddies who call dibs.

And the rest..

I don't think I pulled any gimmicky parallels.. such as fake errors, photo variations, gum stains, red back, or flipped stock (glossy back). Anyways, these are pretty much all available for trade, so let me know if you need any of them.

Next up is the 2013 Hometown Heroes box. The product seemed to be a hit on the cardsphere, with even collectors who normally don't dig logo-less Panini admitting it's a pretty fun set. It's chockful of fan favorites, both big names and lesser-remembered guys from yesteryear, plus some current players to make it feel a little more relevant. It's got a retro design, reminiscent of 1965 Topps, plus a decent price point, too. But for whatever reason, it was a one-and-done product. I haven't previously ripped any of it myself, but have gotten a few cards in trades here and there.

Well, as far as quantity, the $15 box on the left definitely comes out on top. Both sets are on similar, vintage-style stock.

In contrast to the meager PC additions High Numbers had for me, Hometown Heroes delivers with dozens of cards of guys I collect. As you see at the bottom, some guys even have a couple different cards. I only got one SP, though, #300 Andre Dawson.

Some foil stamp parallels, with four states and one zip code. I'm hanging onto the Gibson and Ryan, but the other 3 are available for trade.

Some insert keepers for me.

And some inserts that are available for trade. I believe the gold and black borders are somewhat scarcer parallels, though I didn't pull any serial numbered cards.

If anybody's working on this set, I've got plenty of base cards available. I'm almost tempted to collect 'em all, but don't think I'll go through with it. I will say though that in hindsight, I would have forgone the Heritage box and just bought a couple Hometown Heroes boxes instead. I might go for another box if the dealer still has them for $15 next show.

I even pulled a hit! While a Tony Fernandez auto isn't exactly a big-money card, I have fond memories of him from his time in San Diego when I was a kid, so I was happy with this pull.

So yeah, a couple decent boxes at a good price, with Hometown Heroes coming out victorious as far as most fun to rip.
Thanks for checking them out with me.