"We Didn't Start The Fire" Binder - update 1

The post kicking off my "We Didn't Start The Fire" Binder last month got an outstanding response by my blog's modest standards. Very happy that the funky idea was so well received by many folks on the cardsphere! Chris from Nachos Grande was the first person to kindly shoot me a PWE with cards for the project. Fuji followed suit with some additions. I've now gotten around to whipping up a checklist spreadsheet and paging the cards I've got so far. So let's take a look.

Here's the song if you wanna follow along.

For the #1 spot, I made a custom "title card" based on what I think was the cover for a cassette single or something I found on the net.

I wanted to use a 1955 Bowman card for television, but since those are oversized, it wouldn't fit in the binder. Standard-sized cards only for this project. Maybe a Bowman Heritage card in that design.

Ouch, an empty page! Eisenhower should be low-hanging fruit since US President cards are so plentiful. I'm pretty sure I used to have one but dumped it on a trader a while ago.

The climate change card for the first chorus is courtesy of Nachos Grande.

1953 Topps Jackie Robinson reprint is in there for Brooklyn's got a winning team, though I'm sure I could upgrade that for something more on-the-nose at some point.

Other cards that are basically just placeholders at this point are Donald Duck for Disneyland and Peyton Manning for Peyton Place.

Aroldis Chapman in his Cuba uniform is obviously just in there until I can add a Fidel card.
As for Psycho, I looked for a Steve Lyons card, but didn't have one available, so I went with a Jim Piersall reprint. In the movie based on Piersall's life, Fear Strikes Out, he was played by Anthony Perkins, who of course was the lead in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

You'd think I'd have a Dylan Bundy card to be a temp for Dylan.
The Lawrence of Arabia movie poster card from Fuji is pretty cool.. doesn't show up in the photo, but it's textured and sparkly.

Milhouse Van Houten subbing for Richard (Milhouse) Nixon (back again) might be my biggest stretch in the binder so far, but I'm happy to squeeze in a Simpsons reference, at least for now.
I'd love a Ramones or Sex Pistols card for the punk rock slot.

Last page. Alan Wiggins was the first baseball player to die from AIDS. I looked for a Steve Howe card for crack, but came up empty and settled for the Straw. I liked Bo's suggestion of a SF-era Barry Bonds card for hypodermics on the shore, but I didn't have a good dupe for it and was reluctant to pluck a card out of the PC. I'd like to fill up the page with a couple more of those "melty" Bowman die-cuts. It'll still burn on, and on, and on...


Thanks a lot to Nachos Grande and Fuji for the assist getting this project airborne. I'll try to repay the favor next time I send you cards. I'm thinking maybe to encourage folks to help out, I'll run a contest where you get entries or points for every submission that sticks in the binder, then at the completion of the project (or rather, once I get to the point where I throw up my hands and create customs for the remaining cardless spots), I'll give a prize package of cards to the person with the top point total, and perhaps another prize randomed off between the non-winners who contributed. (I'm keeping track of my source of the cards on the checklist spreadsheet.)

So if you got any cards you think would make good additions, please send 'em over. Thanks!

Aaron Judge PC

This morning I was digging through a box of my cards labeled "Various stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere in my collection" looking to dig up some additions to my "We Didn't Start The Fire" binder. I must not have gone through the box since the 2017 baseball season kicked off, because I came across not 1, not 2, but three Aaron Judge cards I didn't realize I owned. Sweet! Since I didn't quite finish the post updating the Billy Joel project yet, I figured I'd post my Aaron Judge PC today instead.

The cards I rediscovered today make up most of my early cards of him. The "tall boy" was a lucky card show pickup for cheap last year.

Here's part 1 of my 2017 Aaron Judge cards. A lucky pull for me a few months ago, the fishfractor has got to be my best card of his; there's only one on COMC right now, and that one is priced at fiddy bucks! I realize his card values are very unlikely to sustain their 2017 heights, and I could have cashed in when the getting was good, but dang it, I'm a sucker for some good rookiemania, and can rarely bear to part with cards of a hot young player.

And part 2 of 2017, the horizontal cards. A couple pulls from my '17 Archives boxes, plus a Heritage dual rookie I snagged at the card show early in the season before he really took off. The "1990 Fleer" card with Cody Bellinger is a custom I whipped up a couple months ago; can't remember if I've posted it here yet or not.

It's sort of a subtle homage to Kevin Maas' 1990 Fleer rookie (shared with George Canale), a favorite card of mine as a kid back then.

It'll be interesting to see how Judge does in his sophomore campaign. Will he go the way of Maas and fizzle out after an impressive rookie year? Or will he keep on cranking mammoth dingers and lead the Yankees to another championship dynasty? We'll just have to wait and see.

I'd be happy to land any Judge cards I don't have in trade.
Hey, I made it through the post with no judge/law/courtroom jokes!
Thanks for reading.

Late additions! I forgot about this pair I picked up at the November card show:

Friday Feeling

I was fortunate to be included in Fuji's recent mail-blast. In fact, this post had the working title of "Fujenerous" but I just thought that was so bad that I couldn't publish it, and I had to wait until I got another trade package in and combine them under another title (not that "Friday Feeling" is any better, but what are ya gonna do). Thankfully, Reds Cardboard came through with a great box of cards I called dibs on from his cleaning house tradeathon. Some good stuff that caught my eye had already been claimed by the time I got to the post, but there were still many cards I was happy to score.

The Cecchini was my first look at 2017 Topps Fire; it's a parallel #'d /99 on the back. Bellinger RC is a sweet card. Didi back before he went by Didi. Wil Myers 42 "patch" thing. Jeter cd-rom; I didn't have a chance to rip the video contents of this, but nudge me if you want me to at some point.

Terrific selection of Billy Hamilton cards.

Robert Stephenson is a young pitcher I kinda-sorta collect for no reason. Matt hooked me up with a nice lot of what must have been dupes, all of them wonderfully shiny.

And my Tony Perez PC got a nice bump.

Six-pack of Bryce.

One of my newest PCs and already looking good with help from these 3.

Part of me would love to "retire" from vintage setbuilding once I eventually wrap up the 2 or 3 sets I've currently got in the works... though another part of me doubts it'll be easy to kick the hunting-down-old-cardboard habit, and I've penciled in 1959 Topps as one I'll probably chase at some point down the line. So I'm happy to pick up cards for it here and there when I can.

The ol' birth-year set is another one I'll probably bust out before too long.

I also asked for any 2011 Topps parallels he was looking to part with. There were a couple needs here as I trudge closer to halfway with this big franketset project.

Matt filled up the box with a bunch of extra Reds, hitting some PCs along the way. I can use these, as the Boone Brothers are originally from my old stomping grounds of East County San Diego.

But the bulk of surprise additions were all these Reggie Sanders cards. He's a guy who I rarely seem to get cards of in trades for whatever reason, despite his heyday being in the go-go early 90s. So these are very appreciated in spite of their nominal book value.

Thanks a lot, Matt! Dropped some return Reds in the mail for you today.

- - - ---o

Ok, now it's Fuji time!

Here are a couple shiny "irregular" cards of top PC guys of mine. The Rod Beck is #'d /160, and looks great though it's got a weird black splotch at the top that I had to look up to make sure it wasn't supposed to be there. The Lindor is a very nice card, though it does have a nasty gash on the left side that thankfully didn't show up in the photo. Both still very appreciated!

Nearly a complete Topps run of Nate Colbert! While I've got these cards already, I'll bet there's at least a couple upgrades for me in here.

And a whole bunch of Kirby Puckett (and a Stargell)! Love 'em!


Thanks a lot, Fuji! Very kind of you.
Oh! And he also then sent a separate PWE of cards for my We Didn't Start The Fire binder which I'll show in a post soon updating that project.

That'll do it. Have a great weekend, everyone.

2 or 3 slabbed Mets

Here are a couple recent eBay pickups.

Always on the lookout for Topps Retired refractors, I scored this great-looking one from 2005 of Mets legend Ed Kranepool for the price of a blaster. I prefer my Topps Retired autos to still be in their "uncirculated" cases, but in recent years I've soften my stance against them being graded. (A couple years ago, I would have quickly broken this out of the slab, but now I'll probably just let it be.)

Ed's stats won't blow you away, but you gotta be impressed with such a long career, and all of it as a Met.

Next up..

And here's an addition to my slow-going 2004 Topps Chrome black refractor parallel setbuild. Believe it or not, Lastings Milledge is one of the better names in the autograph portion of that checklist, his MLB career lastings 433 games over the span of 6 years. Then he played in Japan for a while, and this past season he was back in the states playing for an independent team.

It's ridiculous that this is graded "authentic".. as if someone is going to question its authenticity. LOL. No one would ever bother to counterfeit this card. The card even got a hologram sticker on the back (not 100% counterfeit-proof, I'm sure, but taking way more time/effort/money than a counterfeiter would ever put in on a Lastings Milledge card). But whatever, I'll probably keep it in the slab for now, just for protection.

A cool thing about this eBay win is that the seller surprised me with a note alerting me to a bonus card for no other reason than to be nice...

Yep, it's the base version of the same auto. Ha, cool! Of course, I wanted the black refractor for a set need, not because I collect Milledge, but hey, I'll happily add another hit to my Mets tradeables. Seems like my Mets-collecting trading partners have pretty much dried up over the past couple years, but it might come in handy someday. I've gotten random commons thrown in with eBay wins before, and maybe a decent card thrown in if the seller screwed up or something, but I think this is the best "just because" bonus card I've gotten via eBay. So that was nice of the seller.

See you next time.

trade bait from the card show

It feels a little irresponsible of me soliciting trades seeing as I've been dragging my feet getting cards into the hands of people I owe (such as Bo, GCA, Kerry, Shane Katz), plus building "CDs & Cards" boxes for N.O. and Chris the Collector, plus a big simmering trade in the works with Bubba and other outgoing-cards activities I need to spend time on.

So I might not be super quick getting trades turned around, but hey, here are some card show pickups that are up for grabs. Check out my wantlist and get in touch if you want. If you're a frequent trade buddy of mine, feel free to ask me to set any of this aside for you.

It bothers John Miller if I don't post any available Braves, so here're some, including a couple 2011 Topps parallels I didn't end up needing.

Cubs, including a Fergie in an attempt to lure Twitch into a trade.

Truth be told, the Chris Davis parallels were from the previous card show. I tried to line up the purple with the Yan Gomes card.

A bunch of Yankees, including a Willy Mo Pena autograph.. seems he nearly made a comeback with the Indians in 2017, but returned to Japan instead.

Dodgers. That Jackie Robinson was in yesterday's post of keepers, but I fight the urge to collect him, so hopefully someone takes it from me. I love Jackie, don't get me wrong, but you can't collect everybody, and if I went down that rabbithole I'd want to land some playing-days vintage, and that could get dangerous.
The 2000 Keebler bag was the complete set. Hated to do it, but I had to pull out Sheffield and Adrian Beltre for my PCs.
I know Night Owl already has more Shawn Green relics than he needs, but maybe someone else would want them.

Johnny Bench is another all-time great I fight the urge to collect. Sometimes in my weaker moments, I even consider putting my Madison Bumgarner cards together.

More memorabilia cards. The Johnny Damon has a dinged corner. I'm not really familiar with Luis Ayala, but thought the Expos manupatch was cool.

Blue Jays. Justin Jackson's mediocre pro career topped out at AA.. but still, it's hard to pass up cheap 1st Bowman Chrome ref autos.

Finally, a couple more autos. Brad Penny helped the Marlins win the World Series in 2003 and went on to have a couple All-Star seasons with the Dodgers. I don't know anything about Troy Stecher, but just took a flyer on a hockey guy in case somebody could use it.

So there's some trade bait. Nothing super enticing, but if anything caught your eye and you wanna work out a trade, just let me know. There may have been a few more pickups already set aside for folks (a few Pirates, maybe a couple Rynos, etc). This wraps up the November card show haul (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3).. thanks for following along!

- - - ---o

And before I end this post, allow me to pay my respects...

I was sad to hear about the passing of Bobby Doerr this week at 99. He really was the patron saint of through-the-mail autographs. Just a great guy who brightened the day of countless card collectors over the years. Though he lived a full life, just shy of a century, it's still a bummer he's no longer with us. First, I got that Distinguished Service insert signed. Then I whipped up a Padres custom cut-signature card using an index card I got cheap on eBay (I realize it's silly to pay for his autograph when he's so generous with it, but I suppose it's nice to have an earlier, smoother signature from him.) Then I got those couple customs signed, two of my all-time favorite TTM returns. I really love how they turned out. Thanks again, Bobby! Rest in peace.