A Retired Refractor Post

I was saddened to hear of Bill Buckner's passing this morning at age 69. Reminded me that I don't think I've previously gotten around to showing off this 2004 Topps Retired refractor I picked up a little while back. Beautiful card! Was happy to have this one checked off my #1 collecting goal. As my previous post makes clear, 2004 Topps black refractors just enchant me and I gotta collect 'em all.

Tiny Stats Alert!! Bill played in 4 different decades, always an impressive feat (--even if he just barely accomplished this, bookending his career with 1 game in 1969 and 22 games in 1990).

Three months ago, I posted my 2003 Topps retired auto (base) Bill Buckner and scolded Topps for not properly red italicising his league leading numbers. Here, Topps has his batting title indicated, though they neglect to call attention to his seasons leading the NL in doubles (35 in '81 and 38 in '83), plus his 657 at-bats in 1982.

Of course he's most remembered for his floppy glove missing Mookie Wilson's ground ball in the '86 World Series. But he always carried himself very well and was a great guy by all accounts. Seems like the bad vibes directed towards him dissipated once Boston "broke the curse" and started winning a bunch of championships after their long drought. Buckner also got some redemption by poking fun of himself in a classic episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Rest in Peace, Bill Buckner.


And since I've got some time, here's another nice Retired refractor auto I haven't gotten a chance to post yet...

Pretty sweet Jim Palmer! A nice 2003 Topps Retired refractor pickup for me.

Palmer was one of the best pitchers of the day. Won 3 Cy Young awards, 3 World Series rings, and became a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

At the risk of hijacking what began as a Bill Buckner tribute post, I've got another cool Jim Palmer item I've been meaning to show on the blog for a long time now, so might as well work this in here too...

It's an original photo negative from the Topps Vault.
And now here's the processed image (with a watermark) from the eBay listing:

Jim made a comeback attempt in 1991, which is where this photo dates from, though he didn't get too far into spring training before hanging them up for good. But I always root for the old dudes to hang around (now hoping for Bartolo Colon and Fernando Rodney to extend their careers with new teams), and plus I like autograph-signing shots, so I thought this would be a cool photo negative to snag when Topps Vault had it discounted to $5.97. Cool shot of a sweaty post-practice Jim signing for a group of fans under threatening Florida skies.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading.

Calamine of mine and a lovey Lucroy

The musical month theme on Baseball Card Breakdown continues, as I create an excuse to feature some of the signed CDs and other music-related memorabilia I own.

Calamine is a little known band out of the New York/New England area who was active for a brief moment back around the turn of the millennium. Their claim to fame was doing the infectious theme song for the Cartoon Network show Sealab 2021. But by the time the show-- an early stalwart of the Adult Swim programing block-- took off, the band had basically already gone dormant and couldn't parlay the exposure into bigger things.



I liked the theme song enough to take a look into what else they had out there. Turns out they had an independently released CD EP. I checked it out and really liked it. All these years later, I don't really remember how exactly things all went down, but I eventually got to become internet acquaintances with Julie, the main person behind the band, and I helped them get a message board going on their website, calamine.com (The message board isn't up anymore, but the site still is).

I got this cool signed CD.

A couple bunny stickers thrown in, too.

Julie also hooked me up with a demo cdr from her prior band, Stephonic. I think all the tracks are available on the Calamine website, so they're not super rare in that regard, but still a pretty neat item that not many fans of hers are lucky enough to have.

Calamine (a new incarnation of the band, at least) eventually put out another CD, What We Forgot To Remember, which was solid, but decidedly quieter and lacked the catchy pop of the Sealab theme and "Trampoline" that brought most fans to them in the first place. I also got a signed copy of that CD (signed on the back cover), and a shirt, but it was kinda itchy so it ended up in a goodwill pile after a while.

But yeah, that's a cool somewhat obscure band I like and have some signed stuff from.


Let's also shoehorn a card into the post, since this is a baseball card blog, after all. Speaking of trampolines, one guy who has been up and down over the past few years is Jonathan Lucroy. After several quality seasons with the Brewers, he was shipped off to the Rangers and spent a couple unremarkable half-seasons in Texas before being dealt to Colorado for a PTBNL at the trade deadline this year. He's bounced back pretty well in his return to the National League and has helped the Rockies get to tonight's upcoming NL Wild Card game.

This is one of the most beautiful cards in 2017 Topps Stadium Club, with the purple clouds in the fading dusk behind Jonathan as he heads out to his post behind the plate in Arlington. When I saw that the gimmicky 1/1 blank back of this card was still available during a recent Topps Vault closeout, I yoinked it into my cart along with some other items that I'll feature soon.

I don't collect Lucroy or the Rangers, so perhaps I'll end up passing this card onto another collector at some point, but I just thought it was a terrific looking card, and couldn't pass up snagging a 1/1 of it for a heavily discounted price. It's an awesome document of a baseball moment.

Contest lineup + Topps making good on a mixup

I'm gonna go ahead and close the entry period on my latest contest rather than drag it out too much. Thanks to all who entered! Lots of new, unfamiliar names, I'm assuming finding their way here via Twitter retweets. As far as guesses for the next Guy From Granite to make the majors, Travis Taijeron was the clear favorite, though John Omahen saw good support late, and Andrew Brown got some underdog picks.

Here are the entrants in chronological order of their comment:

Daniel Dubay (Omahen)
arpsmith (Taijeron)
Dayton (Taijeron)
The Lost Collector (Taijeron)
Mark Hoyle (Taijeron)
Jason Christopherson (Taijeron)
Joe (Taijeron)
Michael Dixon (Taijeron)
Admin (Taijeron)
Bo (Taijeron)
Justin S (Taijeron)
RAZ (Brown)
Steve-O (Omahen)
Jupiterhill (Brown)
P-town Tom (Omahen)
Matthew Scott (Omahen)
Tony L. (Taijeron)
Stephen Furlong (Omahen)
Rod Padrographs (Brown)
Jafronius (Taijeron)

Just a heads up to those who might be unfamiliar with my contests, what I typically do is randomize the entrants to "assign numbers" to them, then use the outcome of a sporting event to determine who lucks into the winning number. I find it adds extra randomness and excitement.

Ok, let's do it. Again, the below list is not selecting a winner here, it's only assigning numbers.

The winning number will be the combined number of hits for both teams in tonight's WS Game 6 Cubs @ Indians.
Anything over 20 will loop back around. For example, if the teams combine for 21 hits, Rod would be the winner.
To refresh your memory, the prize package up for grabs here can be found near the bottom of the contest post.

Best of luck to everybody!

UPDATE: 19 total hits. Bo is the winner! Congrats, Bo!


Switching gears and adding some more substance to today's post...
I was a little cranky with Topps the other day in part thanks to a Topps Vault order mix up. First I won a Nate Colbert slide (which I'll feature in an upcoming Nate Colbert Report), then I waited a couple days before paying to see if I could land anything else with my order to combine shipping.

I specifically had my eye on the 2016 Topps Heritage High Number 1/1 blank back for Gavin Floyd. I originally watched it end with no bids ($9.95 opening bid) in its initial auction. Then, as is Topps Vault's MO, it was relisted at $11.95 Buy It Now. After a week or two of no takers, there was a sale taking it down to $5.97. That's when I pounced, and grabbed a couple other discounted 1/1s while I was at it.

Then when the package arrived, everything was good with the other 3 items, but instead of the Gavin blank back, there was a Dillon Gee instead. I checked the completed items and saw that the Gee had recently been bought, too.

I sent a message through eBay about the mixup. They at Topps Vault were nice about it, and luckily for me they still had the Gavin on hand, and were able to send it out to me. I was able to return the Gee with eBay's pre-paid postage, no cost to me. And soon thereafter, blank Gavin arrived.

While these online-exclusive blank backs are pretty gimmicky, I was happy to add another 1/1 to my Gavin Floyd PC at a decent price.

That's it for this time. Thanks for reading.

Justin Upton 2013 Triple Threads proof card

Quick post to show off a recent acquisition.

Of all the big-name Padres pickups this offseason, one guy I didn't really have any decent cards of was Justin Upton. I rectified that with this "1-of-1ish" blank back proof card from the Topps Vault. This was really just a throw-in to take advantage of combined shipping (Stay tuned for my other recent pickups from the Vault).

From the description:

2013 Topps Triple Threads Baseball Proof Card! Justin Upton. Direct from Topps' legendary vault comes this original blank back proof card. Proof measures the standard (2 1/2" X 3 1/2") in size and is in excellent condition. This blank back proof card is without the foil stamping shown on the finished card. Collectors, this is a one-time opportunity to obtain a rather unique production item for your Topps baseball card collection!

Kinda cool. I'm hoping Justin thrives in San Diego in his contract year and puts up some big numbers.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

A couple more "1/1"s from the Topps Vault

A couple weeks ago I picked up a neat Dick Allen "8 x 10" type item from Topps that was used in the original production of the back of his 1971 Topps card. I talked about it more in a hotly-controversial, emotion-stirring post, LOL. I think I lost Night Owl as a subscriber that day.

I've since been keeping an eye out for more cool "one-of-a-kind" items that Topps is cleaning out of their old file cabinets. Everything seems to start with an opening bid of $9.95. And if an item ends with no bids, it'll usually get reposted as a Buy-It-Now at that price.

I found a couple such things from top-tier "guys I collect" player collections of mine and jumped on them both to save a little on shipping.

First, here's another Dick Allen item. I might not be a full-blown supercollector of Mr. Allen, but now I've got a couple truly unique items, at least.

1982 Topps Kmart 20th Anniversary Baseball Mask Negative.

Per the auction's page, this is:

"an original 4-color mask film negative. Color separation mask film negatives were used in the set's printing and proofing process. This auction features the YELLOW tone example. Four different colors: red, blue, black and yellow are used in this process. Although this production item is B&W in color, it rendered the YELLOW tones in the finished card. This rather unique collectible measures the standard 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" and overall, is in excellent condition."

While I've never been a huge fan of those original Kmart cards or the original 1972 Topps Rich Allen card (the lazy lie that it is), somehow this "black bordered" negative just looks super bad-ass. The black & white makes it look more like a contemporary White Sox card, instead of all the red that the team inexplicably used heavily in their color scheme for a brief while. Honestly, Dick Allen's 1972 Topps card has never looked better! This negative has managed to somehow redeem the card. So yeah, I'm very happy to give this "card" a home in my collection.

The next item I've got to show off is an addition to my Bill Madlock PC.

1982 Topps Baseball Card Color Negative.

This a photo Topps owned but never got around to using on a baseball card. The auction's page explains it's from...

a random selection of vintage color negatives hand-picked from the legendary Topps photo archives. All of these classic images were shot by official Topps photographers but, for reasons unknown, failed to make the cut, and thus, never appeared on a vintage Topps trading card. The original color transparency offered here measures approx. 2 1/2" X 3" and is in excellent condition.

Here's what the picture looks like when it's been processed (via Topps):

That's a swell posed shot of Mad Dog, cracking a little smile with his lumber during his Championship-winning tenure in Pittsburgh. I like it. And while it might not technically be a 1/1 baseball card, it essentially fits the bill for me. (Bill Madlock, that is.) A bit of a weird streak down the left side, but I don't mind. Perhaps that's why it didn't sell during its initial auction (and maybe why it was never used on a baseball card?). If I ever turn this into an unlicensed custom card of my own, I'll have to either fix that in photoshop or crop around it. Or perhaps work it into the design somehow? As for now, this item will be lovingly tucked away with my other Madlock cards.

Thanks, Topps! Good stuff.

I'm kicking myself for not bidding high enough on a similar unused Nate Colbert negative (what kind of super collector am I?!! For shame. I renounce my supercollecting ways, with my head hung low) and a Rod Beck contract (the closest thing to a certified auto he has! DAMNNNNNN) But yeah, thanks.