Cut Signature Customs!

Last December I went on a spree of buying cheap autographed index cards to make into auto sketch cards (see this post). But then my enthusiasm for the project waned for no reason in particular, and I found myself with about a dozen boring signed index cards just sitting around.

Then the other day I was rejuvenated to use some of the index cards to create something neat (what you're reading now is actually a sequel to another post that's still a draft). And so, that's what I did! I decided not to go the sketchcard route this time, and instead whip up designs in Photoshop to print out and make into cut-autograph customs.

I have a love/hate relationship with physical customs. It sure is fun to create a "card that never was" and hold it in your hand or slide it into an empty slot in a page. On the other hand, I believe customs (and evil twin: counterfeits) will destroy the hobby within the next decade or so. Every time you print out a card yourself, you're hurting the hobby as we know it. I've already given my Chicken Little spiel before, but yeah, when I think about it too much, it definitely makes me want to sell off the big-money cards in my collection while I still can get something for them. 3D printers will be spitting out authentic-looking Ty Cobb bat knobs before you know it! Don't waste your money on a 1/1 today that some kid will be able to create an infinite supply of perfect copies of in a few years. Topps is smart to be diving into the "digital cards" market and try to build something there, because real cards are facing serious danger.

Ok, this post has taken a turn for the dystopian-- let's get back to fun baseball cards! Whee!

The 3 cards I made that I'll be featuring in this post are guys who are well-known to baseball fans. The quirky catch is that they all quietly spent a forgotten year on the Padres. As a lifelong Friar fan, I got a kick out of creating autograph cards featuring them in their San Diego duds, as there's little chance a real card manufacturer ever would.

Bobby Doerr

Bobby Doerr began his professional career playing for the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League in 1934 and 1935. He was still with the team in 1936 when they moved to San Diego and changed their name to the Padres. Also on that inaugural SDP team was Ted Williams, with whom Doerr would be close friends for many years. The two were signed by the Red Sox in 1937. As with Williams, Doerr would spend his entire major league career with Boston. Dependable at the plate and in the field at second base, he was a 9-time All-Star. Doerr missed the 1945 season while serving in the Army during World War II. A spinal problem later cut his career short at 33 years old, but his legacy was impressive enough to warrant induction to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran's Committee in 1986. The Red Sox would go on to retire his number, 1. Playing during Boston's notorious dry spell, Doerr never won a World Championship, though he did bat .409 in his only postseason action, the 1946 World Series loss to St. Louis. He returned to the Fall Classic in 1967, this time as first base coach with the Red Sox, and is also credited with tutoring Carl Yastrzemski as unofficial batting instructor during his triple crown season. Doerr went on to live a very long life, beloved by baseball fans for his generous, approachable nature.

As for the card, this team photo was all I could find from Bobby's year in San Diego. Still, I think the card turned out pretty good! BTW, there's a nice documentary called The First Padres about the PCL Padres that I just watched last night, inspired by researching for this card.



Wally Moon

Wally Moon came up with the Cardinals and was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1954, easily beating out fellow rookies Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron. He batted .295 or better for his first 4 years in the league, but after a down year, was traded to the Dodgers before the 1959 season. After adjusting to the dimensions of Los Angeles Coliseum thanks to his friend Stan Musial, Wally became known for his "Moon shots" over the high left field screen. He won a Gold Glove in the outfield in 1960, was twice an All-Star, and a part of three World Series Champion teams (1959, 1963 & 1965). In 1969, he was a batting coach for the San Diego Padres during their first year in the NL. He's still popular among baseball fans today, with his impressive unibrow giving flavor to photos and baseball cards of the 50s and 60s.

As for the card, it's not my best design, I'll admit. I was a little disappointed with the only photo I could find from his year as a coach in San Diego since it's pretty small and low resolution. But I'm glad I didn't have to resort to photoshop trickery, and at least you can make out his trademark unibrow!



Johnny Podres

Johnny Podres was a Dodgers great who helped the team win World Series championships in 1955, 1959, 1963 and 1965. The pinnacle of his career was Game 7 of the 1955 World Series, shutting out the Yankees to give Brooklyn their first (and only) title before the team moved to Los Angeles. Though often overshadowed by the likes of Sandy Koufax, he led the National League in ERA in 1957 and winning percentage in 1961. Near the end of his career, he spent a couple season with Detroit. After a year out of the game, Podres came out of retirement to pitch for the fittingly homonymic Padres during their inaugural season in the NL. While his 5-6 record in 1969 might not seem impressive at first, it was one of the highest winning percentages on a team that lost 110 games. After his playing days came to an end, Podres was a respected pitching coach for many years, helping shape the careers of such players as Frank Viola and Curt Schilling.

As for the card, it came out pretty well. Johnny's signature takes up a lot of space, and I had to chop off the "Authentic Cut Signature" bit to get it to fit. Never would I "pull a Topps" and make a cut auto that chops or obscures any part of the autograph! I also needed to hand-number the "1/1" part due to expanding the signature window. I know the numbering is silly, but I like it. Now, don't any of your counterfeiters out there copy these! LOL

So there you have it, my latest batch of customs. I'm pretty happy with them! What do you think, sirs?

Sentimental Sundays: a MiLB game, fictional autos, + more

Time for another Sentimental Sunday! Last month I posted about attending a minor league game and my mission to score an autograph from a certain player. That was actually my second-ever minor league game. Today I'll share what I remember about the first minor league game I ever attended.

I've got some family in the Louisville, Kentucky area, so I find myself over there every few years for family get-togethers. Once back in 2004, me and 3 or 4 cousins took in a Louisville Bats game. I've still got the stub, though I don't have a ton of memories from the game. I remember being impressed by the stadium (Louisville Slugger Field). For a minor league team (Reds' AAA affiliate), it seemed pretty snazzy. And I remember being excited to see John Vander Wal in the lineup. I liked him from back when he was a pinch-hitting extraordinaire for the Padres for a couple years in the late 90s (hit .400 in the '98 postseason). So it was nice to see a familiar name mixed in with a bunch of kids I had never heard of. At 38, he was easily the oldest dude on the team. It was his last year playing, but not his final stop; he did make it up to Cincinnati for some games to end the season. But after batting .118 that year, Vander Wal's career was done. According to Wikipedia, he's currently a scout for the Padres.

As an aside, there's a musician I like with a kinda similar name, John Vanderslice.

Anyways, I'm not sure if there's a website out there where I could find a boxscore for this particular game, but if so, please let me know in the comments. Other notable names that played for the Bats that year that may or may not have played in the game were Austin Kearns and Jason LaRue. I don't recall who won the game, but I know the Columbus Clippers bested them on the season, winning the division while Louisville got 2nd place. The Clippers (Yankees AAA) had some big names on the team that year, with Robinson Cano and Guy From Granite Shane Spencer among them.

So that's pretty much all I got. My uncle owned a plumbing business in Louisville, and looks like the tickets were a gift from a supplier, as they're season tickets from East End Plumbing Supply.

Moving onto other random stuff...

Here's a little photo booklet thing from Knott's Berry Farm. If you're not familiar, it's an amusement park in the LA area. Obviously can't hold a candle to Disneyland, but still a fun place. I went there a couple times in my youth. I've never been much for rollercoasters and wild rides like that thanks to being prone to motion sickness, but there's still enough other stuff going on there to occupy a kid for a day. Lots of "old-timey" themed attractions, if I remember right, and Snoopy was the mascot at the time.

But back to this photo booklet.. What could be inside?...

Oooh, it's a photo of me with Miles Mayhem (fictional bad guy leader character from the MASK cartoon). Looks like my mom dated it 1/19/87 at the top (That was nice of her to have that foresight.. so now these decades later I don't have to guess when it was). It's also signed by Matt Tracker (fictional good guy leader character from MASK cartoon), though I seem to recall he wasn't there "in person" which was kind of a bummer. I was a big MASK fan, probably in the running for my second favorite toy line behind GI Joe, so it was pretty cool for me. I mean, I didn't believe it was the "real" Miles Mayhem or anything. but still it was a neat experience. I had the toy version of that car. I'm not a big car guy-- what is that, a '57 Chevy? Something like that. If I won the lottery, I'd totally get one of those with that exact paint job. That's just a dream, but maybe I'll at least buy the toy version on eBay one of these days. Long since gotten rid of the one I had.

Oh and I also really liked Ghostbusters. I had a bunch of their toys. I also thought the logo was cool (Who didn't, right?) and would sometimes cut it out of packaging and whatnot, as evidenced by these couple specimens here. You can see that the ghost's right hand was tricky to cut out. The other thing here is a Transformers lenticular puffy sticker. Here's a closer look..

I think I may have had a second-hand Rumble toy. (Either him or the nearly identical other guy.) He was a robot who transformed into the form of a cassette tape. The lenticular concept works well with Transformers since you can see both forms of the guy. I never owned either of the cassette-player Transformers as a kid, though as an adult, I did finally get them both through a trade for some bootlegs or something a few years ago, and I think they've even made appearances on the blog in Archives Adventures breaks.

I'm sure I'll start showing actual toys in these Sentimental Sundays posts soon, though so far I've been going through a bag of flat stuff, which is why it's been mostly ticket stubs, photos, and stickers up to this point.

That's it for today. Thanks for swinging by!

Adding 1964 Topps to the list

Yep, I'm making it official and stating on the blog that... I'm collecting 1964 Topps. It's been less than a month since I formerly announced I was working on completing 1965 Topps. But hey, it's my blog so I can announce that I intend to visit friggin' Saturn if I want to. It ain't legally binding or anything. '64 Topps will be more of a longterm, backburning goal for me, but figured I'd throw a wantlist together now for trading purposes. I pride myself on having a behemoth of a wantlist that hopefully facilitates trades from all walks of collectors.

After getting the checklist spreadsheet together and digging up what I could from the recesses of my collection, I find myself right at 10% complete as I begin this journey, owning 59 cards out of 589. As far as heavy lifting out of the way, I've already got a sharp Mantle, bought a few years back. Also got the Yogi, Gaylord, and Dick Allen RC. So that's a decent foothold, though still a long way to go.

It's a set that's never really wowed me, but I've always kinda liked it and in recent years it's just started appealing to me more. Perhaps it's my obsession with 2004 Topps Retired.. as '64 is definitely the direct ancestor of the 2004 design, with the big block team name at the top. After getting a decent little starter lot from trader Kevin G. a few months ago, it seemed like a no-brainer to go after finishing it eventually.

Here's my 1964 Topps wantlist. If you've got any available '64s and are interested in working out a trade for them, please get in touch!

I recently traded with Jud W. whom I met through Listia.. I believe it's the first pure trade I've done thanks to Listia. I gave him a couple Orioles hits (finally I've traded with an O's collector!), and in return he hooked me up with some vintage set needs.

Several great '64s here that helped me inch into double-digits complete. Quality names here in Woody Held (giggle), Jim "Mudcat" Grant, and Vic Power. Some star power with Bobby Richardson and Jim Piersall. And can't forget the sweet Rico Carty rookie!

While the 64s were nice, my main interest from Jud were a few '65s he had that I needed for my setbuild:

This lovely lot is highlighted by a couple esteemed Yanks, Elston Howard and Joe Pepitone. Rico Carty also makes another appearance, here with a terrific All-Star Rookie trophy. I'm now at 42.5% complete with 1965.

Thanks to Jud for the trade and thanks to you for reading!

Contest booty from Bob Walk the Plank

Matt over at Bob Walk the Plank is an A+ "quality over quantity" trader that everyone should be doing their best to arrange a trade with. We were just gearing up for another trade when I was lucky enough to be a winner in his 500th Post Contest back in July. Computer issues on his end extended the excited anticipation of waiting for the prize package, but it arrived the other day and was just perfect.

This is a gorgeous Tony Gwynn auto that would be awesome in and of itself as a top PC hit, but what really makes it hit the bullseye for my collection is the numbering...

Yep, it's a Christmas Card!

Matt actually first told me about having this card over a year ago. He was nice enough to set it aside for me while I hoped to land a comparable Pirate hit to trade him for it. I haven't been lucky enough to score a Bucco in the league of the Gwynn in the subsequent months, but fortunately for me, Matt was kind enough to surprise me with this card for my prize. I'll admit I was secretly hoping he would! Thank you so much, Matt!

If that wasn't enough, a couple more cards were also included in the prize package:

A sharp-looking auto of San Diego up-and-comer Rymer Liriano and fabulous Brian Giles patch. Great stuff!

Winning this contest basically gave me a bye in this trade cycle, but I always keep an eye out for decent Pirates cards and have built up a respectable cache since our last trade, so I'll be hitting Matt back solidly our next trade to show my appreciation.

A highly successful and completely awesome trade

I gotta think Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary is a strong frontrunner for the award of Best New Blog of 2015. Brian burst onto the scene with a fun, fascinating blog and quickly built a reputation as a very generous trader to boot. It took me a while, but I finally got into the action and completed my first trade with him. I can't recall ever trading with a Twins collector before, so I was happy to majorly thin out the Twins section of my tradebox on him and also scrounge up some other stuff he might be able to use in his collection.

Brian hit me back with an awesome bunch of cards heavy on my favorite PCs. Let's check out some highlights!

Some glorious Goldschmidts! That hockey-style Archives insert was the specific card from a trade bait post that motivated me to reach out about a trade.

A couple more young stars of today, Mike Trout and Giancarlo Stanton. Nice selection here!

The Giles Bros. were represented with a flying Marcus rainbow and a #'d /500 Brian. I hadn't noticed it before, but that first Marcus card seems to have the wrong facsimile autograph... definitely doesn't look like his signature. [Gavin does some quick research.] Looks like it's an uncorrected error in 2007 flagship. The Chrome and Opening Day versions have the correct signature.

These Flair cards sure are snazzy looking

It's my understanding that Chris Sale's been having a great year.

Rod Beck in action!

Nice infusion for my McCovey PC!

And some more Padre greats of yesteryear. I always get a kick out of new-to-me pictures of Winfield rocking the brown and gold.

Great Marquis lot featuring an invaluable 1990 UD #9.

Caminiti cards!

Gotta love Bert Blyleven.

Gavin Floyd!

Here are a few Chrome Padres, highlighted by a purple refractor Cashner.

Let's close with a pair of Pops. It's funny how 1988 Donruss does nothing for me.. but Donruss Originals in that design always catch my eye. What a wonderful world it would have been if Willie Stargell was still patrolling the field for Pittsburgh in 1988.

There's still a fat stack of more neat cards I haven't shown, but let's call this post good here.

Thanks again for the trade, Brian! My Twins tradeables are pretty bare now, but I'll be keeping an eye out for cards for you so hopefully we can get another trade going before too long!

celebrating Force Friday with a SW trade package

I'm sure you guys are sick of Star Wars right now, but hey, it's "Force Friday" and earlier this week I received an awesome trade package of Star Wars cards from Billy Kingsley at Cardboard History, so let's check them out!

This trade, our first, was sparked a few months ago when Billy mentioned he had recently completed the vintage Star Wars sets, upgrading several cards along the way, and had a bunch of off-condition dupes to part with. I excitedly jumped at the offer!

Some "life stuff" put our trade on the backburner for a while, but a big box from Billy showed up the other day packed with goodies. Quite a pleasant surprise for me!

I was born the year the first Star Wars came out, so I wasn't exactly in on the ground floor. (My mom saw it in theaters while she was pregnant with me, if that counts for anything. There was a time in my childhood that I was convinced I had watched part of it out of her bellybutton. Which is ridiculous because even if my eyes were functioning and my mother could survive with an open bellybutton, and she was wearing an outfit exposing her midriff, I'd still only have a view of the back of the seat in front of her. I suppose if she sat in the front row it'd be possible.)

But I got into it, like most other young boys at the time, and had several Kenner action figures. The Millennium Falcon toy was among my prized possessions for years.

Since I didn't really get into card collecting till 1990, I never actually owned any of these vintage Star Wars cards.

Though I've seen plenty of them over the years. Great to finally have some for myself.

I don't think I'll commit myself to try to finish any SW set at this time, and rather just be happy with the nice sampler Billy sent my way.

Here's 3 cards from the Empire set.

And here are a bunch from the Jedi set. That's probably my favorite film. I was in the age sweet spot where I could appreciate both the bad-ass stuff and the Ewoks. Plus I like the closure of it all. (Though now that closure is threatened by the new Disney movies.)

Billy included some modern Star Wars cards as well.

This Yoda card is especially cool. (Or should I say: Especially cool this Yoda card is.)

He also gave me a nice lot of Guy From Granite Jimmie Johnson.

Haha, nice try, Billy! Grant Hill may have a similar name to Granite Hills, my high school, but he does not count as a Guy From Granite.

Thanks for the trade, man! I've got a box of cards in return just about ready to be sealed and sent. I'll admit it's weird trading with someone who doesn't really collect baseball or even football cards, but I'm dropping enough NBA, racing, and non-sport cards on you that I'm confident a smattering of them will stick in your collection.

If They Were Full-Bleed: ribbons in the wind

Ready for more fun photoshops of classic card designs reimagined without borders? Let's do it! This is the sequel to this post. Today's edition focuses on Topps designs from the past that prominently feature banners.

1974

1974 Topps without borders. That's actually kinda nice.

Here's the real version of Bill Melton's 1974 Topps card. Seems pretty cramped by comparison, though yes, this is a particularly tightly cropped card.


1980

1980 Topps is pretty similar to 1974. As with its counterpart, the ribbons just fly kinda aimlessly through the air without the border to be pinned behind.

Maybe I could have kept the thin colored border on these, but really the whole point of this exercise is to see these designs without borders of any kind, so they had to go.

(Always love seeing Bert Blyleven on the WS Championship Pirates team of 1979.)


1989

This is probably the best-looking of these full-bleed mock-ups, due in large part to the banner still having an anchor thanks to the team name. 1989 Topps would rank among my least-favorite Topps sets, but I'd say this is a big improvement over the real Bruce Benedict.

This rounds out the banner trilogy. A case could be made that 1965 Topps should be in this group, but that's a tri-cornered pennant, which while in the flag family, is quite different than these ribbons. So that'll just have to wait until another time.



So what are your thoughts? Would you have preferred any of these theoretical cards to the originals? To me, only 1989 is really a significant upgrade. 1974 and 1980 might have worked better if the thin colored borders remained or the ribbons continued all the way to the sides or something. Maybe ending in a little curly-cue (see 1997 Stadium Club). Perhaps a "Hot Wheels logo" type design with the ribbon attached to circles that could include name, position, or whatever. While it seems silly, I could also imagine tiny airplanes pulling the banners. Do planes with banner ads still fly over stadiums these days? If so, that might fit the theme of a baseball card.

What if Topps came out with "Stadium Club Fantasy Heritage" or some kind of "Future Past" product like that -- a set reimagining updated versions of classic designs? Seems like a good excuse to once again go back to their well of history from the 50s and 60s. If they do something like that, I hope they offer me a job to help work on it!
Hey, let's try another plea for a baseball card job...

Attn: Topps (or other sportscard manufacturer), please contact me re: employment opportunities! My current job is ending by the end of the year. I'll work cheap and passionately! I've been called one of the most creative and innovative voices in the hobby today. Just the shot in the arm your company needs to thrive in this competitive marketplace. I'm not willing to relocate at this time, but come on, it's almost 2016! Everything can be done online these days. Looking forward to hearing from you!