Checked off a long-time collecting goal this week by picking up my first vintage Stan Musial card.
1962 Topps #50
This is his penultimate Topps card from his playing days. Love it! Dare I say, this is a Happy Card! His last card, 1963, features kind of an uncomfortable grimace, as do most of his cards, to be honest. But this 1962 card features a nice big smile from The Man. (Topps liked the photo so much that looks like they used it again the next year as the smaller inlayed photo in his 1963 card.)
He would be a good player to have a recurring blog series about. You could do like "Stan Saturday" or "Musial Monday" or both. But here I am wasting this post on a Thursday.. oh well.
Let's go ahead and give it the ol' Happy Card™ treatment.
I can't remember which blog it was, but a few months ago, one of you guys out there was talking about how they commented on a "comment to enter to win" post on Panini's blog and they won a free box of cards. I wanted to get in on that action, so I subscribed to Panini's blog and tried to be sure to comment on "comment to enter to win" posts. Four or five attempts later, I was the proud winner of a box of 2014 Donruss Series 2!
Thanks, Panini!
These boxes run about $70 a pop, so this might be the biggest prize I've ever won.
Let's see. Once when I was a kid, I won a jar of candy by being the closest guess to how many pieces were in it. Then in the mid 90s I won some drumsticks for writing a limerick about OJ. A few years later, I won a prize pack from the band Mercury Rev with an autographed CD and stuff. And in the past year, I've won 3 or 4 contests from other card bloggers. I think that's about it as far as me winning contests goes. Could be worse. My girl has better luck. She won a nice TV a few years back, as well as several tickets to concerts and a couple beer festivals over the years. Yep, she's a keeper.
Anyways, it definitely brightened up my day to come home to that email from Panini letting me known I won and asking for my mailing address. I was a little worried I wouldn't be home to sign for the FedEx package, but luckily my lovely wife just so happened to take a day off work so she was around to sign on their second attempt. This is the second instance she's saved me by coincidentally taking off on a day Panini sent me a package with live signature required for delivery. I wish Panini would just use standard mail.
I gotta admit I haven't bought any Donruss product since 1992. (Well, I take that back, I did recently pick up a few packs of 2002 Donruss Originals... but I haven't bought any current Donruss product since 1992.) But I love to rip packs, and for free, yeah! Sign me up.
I'll spare you a pack-by-pack breakdown of the box and instead get to the good stuff. (I could bust out the toys for another epic break adventure, but I just did that with the Donruss Originals.) As I type this, I haven't opened the box yet (this post was written several daysin advance of receiving the box, with the exception of the photos and red text), but looks like the $ick mojo hit$ to hope for are autos of Kershaw and Jose Abreu. So.. fingers crossed for one of those! But again, this box was free so it's all good.
It seems the consensus on 2014 Donruss is that the base cards ain't anything special, though there are some inserts that look pretty good.
I love certified autos as much as the next guy, but I find myself more and more reluctant to pay good money for sticker autos. Unless it's an otherwise perfect card or I'm getting it in a trade (or as in this case, won it for free), I'll probably pass and wait patiently for an on-card autograph instead. I'm not familiar with Ehire Adrianza, but he's got a kinda cool signature. That diecut Yordano Ventura is the lowest #'d card from the box (21/49).
That Trout Dominator might be my favorite card of the box. Nice looking card. If I had more time, I'd make a gif of it shimmering all about.. maybe another day. And while the last pack of a box is often anticlimactic, the one had a pretty solid hit to end on a good note:
Bogie isn't exactly in contention for ROY these days, but he's still somewhat hot, right? An everyday-player in the bigs at only age 21.. that's pretty impressive. I've got a small handful of decent cards of his, now led by this shiny auto. Looking forward to seeing him improve next year.
So there you have it. Thanks again to Panini for hooking me up with a free box of cards!
I'm not going after completing the set or anything, so this is all pretty much trade bait. I'll most likely want to hang on to the Trout and Bogaerts, but otherwise if something caught your eye and you want to work out a little trade, just let me know. (Lots of base cards available too, obviously.) Thanks!
Brewer Buddy Tony L. dropped a couple 1990 Upper Deck Marquis Grissom #9's on me recently (plus a Bryce deckle for good measure).
So let's use this opportunity to see where I am in my goal of a binder full of nothing but 90 UD Grissoms.
After the therapeutic sensation of paging a stack of several cards from Sportlots, P-Town Tom, and Tony L., I arrived at a total of 25 full pages, plus 1 card on the spine.
That's 226 cards.
Just 774 cards left to go!
Thanks, Tony! And everybody else, if you've got any 90 UD Grissoms to spare, send 'em my way.
P.S. The always generous Matt from Bob Walk The Plank has a "comment to enter" contest going, so go comment to enter if you haven't yet!
It's been fun beefing up my Bip Roberts collection over the past few months.
Check out this 1993 Topps Finest refractor I picked up the other day..
This is my first one of these things. I've heard these are pretty much the first refractors known to man, and though not numbered, have a print run of just 241, which is very tiny by 1993 standards.
Fucking Panini. I'm done with you. And it's not the ugly pajama cards. It's the fucking UPS signature required at delivery bullshit. Sorry, not everyone you send cards to is a fucking douchebag card dealer who sits around in their undies at home all day seeing how much they can milk a #'d Johnny Football auto for on eBay; no, some of us are real collectors, regular dudes with jobs. Are you trying to get me fired?! Do you want me to call in sick so I can be home when the fucking UPS guy comes around so I can sign for your fucking counterfeit MLB shit? So sick of it.
I keep an eye for your shit blog, trying my best to ignore the shit produce you shling on there. Once or twice a month there's a baseball card product mentioned. And hey, sure, why not enter for a free box of 2014 Donruss Series 2. It'd save me the 50 cents it'd cost to buy the 2 or 3 cards I'd pull for my PC, and leave a couple dozen trade bait (filler protection used as padding keeping safe cards that are actually desirable that anyone would actually want in trade, not your pajama cards).
I was pretty stoked when they told me I won. But in hindsight I'd tell them to shove the box [up their butt]. A couple weeks later (today, a Friday), I get a UPS slip telling me I'm a sucker and that Panini demands that somebody be home to sign for the privilage of receiving pajamini cards. "Well, lucky you," you're saying, "They'll try again tomorrow, Saturday, when normal, hard-working folk are home and can sign for stupid shit." But no, you'd be wrong. UPS will try again on fucking Monday. Looks like I'll have to quit my job so I can pull some photoshopped prison uniformed CC Sabbathia "Dominator Kings of Power" insert among a box of 1 cent garbage.
This isn't the first time. A few months ago I stupidly bought a redemption card for a Greg Maddux auto for too much money. When it finally got redeemed, Pajamini did their usual "YOU MUST BE HOME" bullshit. Not even, sign a slip saying it's ok to leave it, or go on the UPS website and say it's ok to leave it. Nope. They want to see the fucking look on your goddamn face when you reach out to take their box of garbage. They get some sick sexual arousal from it. They pay the UPS guy extra to take a photo of your perplexed, newly-unemployed face so that can jack around their junk in a seeding orgy of debauchery over your image, enlarged on their iPads.
At least through some miracle, my ho happened to be kickin it at the crib drinking gin & juice for the 2nd attempt with the Maddux. But not this time. This time she be cruising for ass.
When I got home, my normally-chill dog was fucking hoarse from barking her poor little misguided ass off. The damn UPS guy musta tormented her good. "Hey bitch, got sumethin for yo papa! Come n' get it, punkass biych." And she was like, "Fuck you! Jus leave that shit! Drop it like a MLB license."
But nope. Somebody-- a human-- needs to be home to sign for the package. Such bullshit. So they'll try again Monday.. make my fucking dog hoarse again.. then maybe give it one last futile try on Tuesday.. possibly costing my precious dog her life.. till finally giving up and giving me a tight window to pick it up in person at the UPS warehouse way out by the fucking airport.
Well joke's on you, asshole, I'm catching a flight on Friday. If I'm lucky I'll be able to pick up the package on the way to the airport. Cram the box in my carryon and have something to trip during my trip. There better be a goddamn Kershaw auto in that fucking box. Sure, even the autos are ugly stickers worth hardly anything, but at least a Kershaw auto would almost cover the gas for making me go a little out of my way and the time I'll have to stand in line and show my ID to get the fucking box. But I'm sure the auto, if there is one, will be some noname defensive replacement; a couple squiggles on a sticker, affixed to a card of a guy in his pajamas. #collect
Gotta wrap this up.
If/when Panini stops with the UPS signature required for delivery bullshit, let me know. But otherwise, I'll be sticking with SportsFlicks for all my cards from now on. Maybe an occasionally Jimmy Dean.
Like, if I lived in a real bad neighborhood, sure, it might be nice to be like, "Hey Panini, motherfukas be crazy roun'eah. Best be lockin' dat shit down." But no, packages get left on my porch all the time with no incident. Don't force me into the ghetto delivery option. Just be cool and drop it at my door like how that's supposed to go down.
Anyways, thanks for the free cards (assuming I'm ever able to get them).
Here are a couple sexy autograph cards I've picked up recently.
Good ol' Spencer Scott! You couple of loyal readers out there may remember Spencer here as a Breakdown girlie card favorite, first appearing on the epic 12 Days of Christmas Cards countdown last December. I stumbled upon her back then just because she had a 12/25 card that was on eBay when I happened to be looking. This one seems to be a more-recent card/photo. Hmm.. her lips look different than I remember. Honestly, I'm not a fan of artificially inflated lips. Give me the slim lips of somebody like Emma Watson over Angelina Jolie anyday of the week. Regardless, I'm still sort of a serendipitous Spencer Scott supercollector.. in that I've got 3 or 4 autographed cards from her. This particular one was a drunk "only 99 cents opening bid? sure! [burp]" instance. I was actually searching for Shane Spencer autos at the time.
A fun thing I noticed about this card is it appears the seller inadvertently had an eyelash slip into the protective team bag (look above the "TT" in Scott). But I happen to know the seller was a dude, so this is not as sexy as if the seller happened to be a pretty lady. That got me thinking that girlie card manufacturers should come out with "relic" cards featuring eyelashes of pretty girls. I'm not saying I'd chase after them, but you know some guys would. Yeah, ok, maybe I'd throw in a low bid on one if it was a pretty lady who struck my fancy. They actually have lipstick cards out there where a lady will slap on some lipstick and then kiss a card. I don't own any such card, nor am I inspired to shell out for one, but never say never.
I don't own this card; just showing it as an example.
So the creepy question is: would you rather have a lipstick kiss card, or an eyelash relic card?
EDIT: RAZ pointed out in the comments that there are in fact Bench Warmer "relic" cards with hair. Wow.
I don't own this one either.
Ok, I promised you "a couple" sexy autos, so here's the second:
LOL, I got you! It's not really sexy at all! It's one of baseball's all-time bad-ass dorks, Kent Tekulve. I've recently come into an hearty appreciation of the gangly, bespectacled reliever, and was happy to pick up this auto for my We Are Fam-i-ly pseudocollection. I believe this is my first-ever "buy back" auto, which simply means the card company is lazy and doesn't bother to make a new card for the guy to sign, rather has him sign an old card, then they often handnumber it and/or slap a foil stamp or hologram sticker on it somewhere, and insert it into new product. Hey, it's an on-card certified auto, so I'm cool with it. This one came in a plastic case with "SECURE" stickers on the top and bottom for whatever reason.
I feel like it's a "best of times/worst of times" period in my life. I like my job a lot, but my time there will probably be coming to an end in the next month or two. I really hope I don't have to go back to a rush hour highway commute. I don't care what I'm doing or how much I'm making as long as my work is close enough for me to ride my bike to in around 15 minutes.
And I like my house a lot, but I hate my neighbors. I always seem to have cool neighbors on one side and awful neighbors on the other. My dream is to have a place out in the middle of nowhere without anybody else in earshot. Now that would be a golden age for me. But then I'm sure I'd miss some benefits of living in the city. But yeah, I really value peace and quiet at home. (Honestly, the current bad neighbors aren't really that bad compared to those of the past. I might just be a little overly sensitive at this point.)
So uncertainty at work, noisiness next door, and days when the postman has no cards for me get me down in the dumps from time to time, but for the most part I'm doing pretty great lately. Married life is treating me well. I got a cool dog, an awesome family, and cards in my mailbox with some regularity.
One thing I'm excited about starting this week is reduced hours at work. Working 10 to 4, no lunch. That's perfect. I get to sleep in, ease into my morning, play with the dog, catch up on the blogosphere, maybe a light workout. Still getting enough hours to pay the bills and have a bit left over for cards. As I mentioned, I'm not sure how long this golden age will last, but I'll enjoy it whilst I can.
I've recently also entered a golden age of live baseball broadcast viewing, one that I've not known since "cutting the cord" with cable several years ago. Big thanks to a certain anonymous someone for the generous gesture there. I hope to catch a bunch of good games here in the season's home stretch, even if my Padres aren't a factor. It's been fun watching Cory Spangenberg start off his career with a couple great games. And don't tell the other Padres fans I said this, but listening to Vin Scully call a Dodger game is always a treat.
It's funny that comic books have a "Golden Age", "Silver Age", etc, but you rarely hear about baseball cards having similar periods named after precious metals. You basically just have vintage (pre-1981 or so?) and junk (mid 80s to mid 90s?) and maybe modern (whatever you wanna consider that as).
With all due respect to old tobacco cards and early Bowman releases, seems the golden age of baseball cards really began with the 1952 Topps set. Topps followed that up with a bunch of great offerings that collectors still clamor for all these years later.
This rambling post is getting to a recent trade with The Underdog Card Collector. He had a big 92-card lot of 2001 Topps Archives up for trade to a loving home. I'd been meaning to work out an initial trade with the fellow Padre collector, so I jumped at the chance.
2001 Archives is a pretty sweet reprint set featuring faithful* reproductions of many notable players' first Topps cards, final Topps cards, and some other various cards too. Really nice-looking cards on sharp, thick stock. (*Multiplayer rookie cards are edited down to only the one guy, but otherwise the cards are pretty faithful to the originals.)
Let's take a look at a sampling of some highlights.
Kinda funny when reprints come out just a few years removed of the originals.
So there're just a few of the many great cards the Underdog Collector sent my way. This is a really nice set. I'm a little torn on whether to try to piece together the rest of the set (450 cards over 2 series), or break it up for my various player collections (there's a bunch of dudes I collect up in here, as we've seen) with the remainder as trade bait. If you've got cards from this set to offer in trade, feel free to let me know.
I'm also intrigued by 2001 Topps Archives Reserve. That's a smaller, similar set of reprints, but reimagined as shiny refractors. Those are really pretty. In fact, while typing this right now, I hopped on eBay and bought a lot of 48 cards from it at a decent price. Stay tuned for a wantlist in a few days once I get the lot sorted out.
In closing, gotta love the golden age of Topps. This post had nothing to do with Panini Golden Age. The Underdog Collector is a cool guy and you should trade with him. I like that Beck song. Trade me your available 2001 Archives/Reserve cards. Thanks for reading.
