Card Show Booty! June 8th, 2013

You already read the title.  Let's jump right in:



Say it with me: YIKES.



Brian Hansen and Morten Anderson, both kickers for the Saints, got together and founded Kicks Records.  This 45, their label's premier release, is a rare and beautiful treasure.  I spun it the minute I got home. 

Have you ever seen Boogie Nights?  You know the scene where they're doing a bunch of coke and recording that song "You've got the touch....." and neither guy can really sing and the harmonies are off and the backing track is just as electro-cheesepop as can be?  Yeah, that.

We love Morten in New Orleans, but damn.

All these cards have one thing in common, and it is the subject of a huge upcoming blog post.  Stay tuned for that....

I bought these because they were dirt cheap and hilarious.....

This box of '89 Donruss was in amazing condition and only cost five bucks.  I was quick to snap it up in the hope of pulling a pristine Griffey rookie.  Sadly it didn't happen.  This is the second box of '89 Donruss I'm broken with no #33's to be had.  The cards I did pull were absolutely flawless with pristine edges and corners and perfect surfaces.  Still, it was fun tearing into all that wax.  Great smell.

This box from 1990 was another $5 find I couldn't pass up.  Plus it was something else to aid me in my pack-ripping addiction.

I was able to assemble the entire set of 200 cards with this one box with plenty of cards left over.  Here's a few to give you an idea of what they looked like:

The school mascot is Mike VI now.  One of our close friends was his vet for two years, so I've gotten to spend some close-up time with Mike in the indoor part of his enclosure.  We fed him horse meat.  It was neat.

This was a very exciting find for me as I am a big Albert Brooks fan.  If you haven't see Defending Your Life with him, Rip Torn and Meryl Streep, I highly recommend it.  The guy is hilarious.

So that's it.  I came home with zero Griffeys.  Not a one.  I tried with that '89 Donruss box, but to no avail.  Maybe next month....

1992 Bowman: 90's Fashion Time Capsule

In my collection:3

Griffey looks: well-insulated

Is this a good Griffey card? Yes.  A unique shot of Griffey at practice in one of the landmark sets of the 90's.  This is a set that falls right into my wheelhouse (baseball reference!).

The set: 1992 Bowman is an otherwise timeless set that somehow got trapped in the 90's.

This is the first year Bowman made all of their cards Tiffany-style: glossy and on higher-quality card stock.  Moreover, it was not overproduced as the previous modern Bowman sets had been.  That scarcity combined with a shift in focus to rookies and prospects made this an alluring set that continues to fetch good prices.

And how about that less is more design?  Bowman has always embraced that concept, but they really pull it off in '92.  The front is clean and simple: player name, Bowman B, nothing else.  The substitution of the brand name with just the B is modest and attractive, and the mildly sylized color bars on opposite corners frame the picture tastefully.  The backs are colorful and engaging with that big, weird team-by-team stat box looking more legible than ever.  Overall, this is just a well put-together baseball card.

The content of the sets is also given the simplicity treatment.  You may have seen some of the cards from this set stamped in gold foil.  Those are actually base cards and should not be confused with parallels.  There is no parallel of '92 Bowman, not even a Tiffany set.  There are also no inserts and no subsets (apart from a few of the cards sporting gold foil).  No gimmicks - just sweet-ass baseball cards, y'all.

'92 Bowman is also loaded with great rookies including Carlos Delgado, Mariano Rivera, and Manny Ramirez

Here's one of my personal favorite rookies from this set:

A dollar at the card show - well spent.

And here's one of the great rookie cards of the modern era:

Not mine - this one is still on my want list.



Luckily they got Mike in his uniform.  I say "luckily" because much to the delight of bloggers who poke fun at the more questionable wardrobe choices of aspiring young ballplayers, Bowman started photographing rookies in street clothes.  And not just any street clothes - 1992 street clothes.  Needless to say, the results are hilarious.

Yikes.  There are dozens upon dozens of cringe-worthy photos of the 90's making fashion victims of us all.  I get to complain because my Mom was still dressing me when this card was made, so it was all her fault I probably looked like a spaz.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Let's see that Griffey:

The Kid looks to be practicing catches in the outfield.  I'm thinking it must have been a little nippy out that day because he is well-insulated against the elements.  Good hustle, Junior. 

This is one of those rare sets that only has one Griffey to get; but for those of us who cannot get enough '92 Bowman, there is another.  In 2010 Bowman re-used this popular design for their Bowman Throwbacks insert:

Great card, amazing photograph.  I love how you can't see his eyes.  I'm thinking that if you could, the laserbeam of Griffey-focus would slice your skull in twain.  Best to let that stay between a man and his ball.

This entire set is available at dacardworld.com for $125.00.  For that you get all the great rookies including Piazza, Mariano Rivera, and Carlos Delgado as well as 2nd-year cards for Chipper and Pedro Martinez.  But what is more than that, you get tons of pictures of dudes sincerely sporting Esprit turtlenecks, stonewashed Guess jeans, and Jordache bermuda shorts.  Now that is priceless.

A Veritable Clusterbonk of Trade Fodder

I recently received trade packages from Marcus of All the Way to the Backstop, Matt of Red Cardboard, Zenus of The Prowling Cat, and Josh of Royals and Randoms.  Wanna see?

First up, Marcus from All the Way to the Backstop sent me a healthy Griffey stack, but who really came here to see Griffeys?  Probly nobody.  That's why we're gonna start things off with this.....thing:



Yikes.


It's the eyebrow curl and the off-putting smirk.  Was he going for sexy?  Did Austin Powers direct this photo shoot?  I love Jeff Bagwell and passively collect his cards, but dude.  This card is just.....dude.....

The addition of that Bagwell to the trade stack was both hilarious and topical.  Studio '13 is rebooting this very design - let's hope the same silliness ensues (come on, big white parrots!).

OK, enough fun.  Let's get down to Griffness:

That's one of the illustrious #855 cards from '08 Upper Deck.  It's not one of the short prints, but it is a good-looking card and features one of the last years of really great Upper Deck photography. 



A 1992 Topps Gold "Winner" and the first year of SP.  Great stuff!



I can't get enough '89 UD reprints.



Metal Universe and a Fleer throwback design.



Another early SP card and it's die-cut parallel, and an awesome SuperGriffey comic card. 
And as a child of the 90's, I still love David Justice and think he can do no wrong.



Phew!  That was a lot of Griffeys.



A bunch from "The Griffey Years" die-cut set.  Didn't these come from a restauarant or in a product of some kind?



And finally, some Chiz-uck.  This card features a great shot of the south Louisiana native stickin' it to some poor batter. 


Thanks a bunch, Marcus.  Marcus loves the Padres and Tony Gwynn.  Go read his blog - it's one of the good ones!  And when you're done, send him your autographed Tony Gwynn 1/1 patch cards.

Matt from Red Cardboard also sent me some excellent examples of Griffeytude.  This mention is coming super late as I had lost the scan I made of Matt's trade cards and had to e-mail him to get a reminder of what he sent me:



This has been a very SP-heavy trade day.  That Topps Highlights card showing the sweet post-swing moment of Junior's 600th dinger is a favorite of mine, and I'm very nearly finished assembling the massive Griffey Circuit Victory set.


Matt's a huge Reds fan and a swell fellow.  He informed me also that he has a much more substantial stack en route, so I'm preparing myself emotionally for that.  Go peep his blog!  It's fun and a little snarky, just how I like 'em.


Zenus, purveyor of The Prowling Cat, sent me a box containing some very unique Griffey items:



I love these old Starting Lineup figures.  This one is unique as it has a wall - Griffey is robbing somebody of a homerun.  I hope it's Barry Bonds.



Pocket schedules!  I never knew these were so awesome.  They kind of make more sense to collect than baseball cards if you think about it.  What an awesome surprise.


Zenus wants your pocket schedules!  You never know what you're going to see on his blog - he collect lots of different things: Nascar, Team business cards, Justin Smoak.  The guy is all over the place! 

I'll be sending him a stack of New Orleans Zephyrs pocket schedules I got from the dry cleaners near my house as well as whatever cards of players he collects I may have and pretty much anything Nascar-related I can find.  Thanks, Z!

Josh from Royals and Randoms posted recently about an amazing Craigslist find: uncut sheets of Mother's Cookies cards.  I saw them and immediately posted how much I wanted to own them, then proceeded to forget I did that.  Josh went out of his way to contact me and get my address to send me this amazing sheet:

What an amazing collector's item - and one that is not cheap to ship.  It measures a little bigger than 24x36, so I'll be getting a 27x40 movie poster frame and a nice mat for it sometime soon.  Pics to follow.... 

I'll be sending Josh a hairy man-stack of Royals and whatever else I can find that he collects.  Go check out Josh's blog, too.  It's where I learned that Juan Gonzalez played for the Royals at one point (still not buying it.....).  His blog is also a little snarky at times.  Thanks a ton, Josh! 

It's been an crazy couple of weeks for trades over at the Junior Junkie.  Just when I get back to square with all you fellow bloggers, you surprise me with more great stuff.  I'll be assembling packages and shipping them out this Saturday so we can all continue to be friends.

COMC and My LCS Win the Wallet Wars Over the Evil Repack Boxes

Last month was the first card show I skipped since I started paying attention to card shows again.  I thought my money better spent on COMC.  Here are the cards I picked up, all for around 30 bucks:





My first Ron Kittle autograph!  This was not the most expensive card I purchased, but it's very cool and has a neat signature.  Check out the stylized R and the oval that dots the i and crosses the t's all at once.

I consider this one of the most interesting cards ever made.  Embarassingly enough, I still wonder how they did it....  Was he holding a blue or green card and they added it later, or is it some early version of Photoshop?  Madding, I'm sure you know, but don't ruin it for me!  I'm enjoying my ignorance.

I've wanted an un-mustachioed Rollie for a long time, and that Hank Aaron is just a beautifully put-together card (1994 Topps had some gems).  Then you've got Steve Lake with his pet cockatoo, Ruffles.  Cockatoos tend to live a long time, up to 70 years, so I wonder if that guy is still alive today.  Plus I don't always collect basketball cards, but when I do, they have rainbows over the Golden Gate Bridge.  Yowza.

That Desert Shield Kittle card is the most expensive card I bought in this whole post.  I am still on the hunt for the Griffeys, but at least I've got that Kittle on lockdown.  The Bowman Kittle card is a Tiffany, and that Staley Bowman card is one of the more disturbing pieces of vintage I've ever seen.

AHHHHHHHH!!!

The rest is a bunch of silly names, pictures, etc.  You know the type.

Hee hee.

I also had to stop into my LCS for 5000-count box I'm using for a secret baseball card-related project that has taken up nearly all my blogging time.  While I was there I snagged a few neat cards just for me.

That Chipper rookie is one of the few I don't already have.  The big Unit '89 UD offcially completes that set for me - very exciting.  The '90 Leaf Frank Thomas RC is one of the great ones of my time, so for a buck I just couldn't pass it up.  The Yaz just kind of spoke to me, as did ol' Gern.  I've been trying to pick up that Yogi on ebay and COMC for cheap, but none doing.  It's one of the most iconic manager cards ever made.  And finally, yes, that is an Aaron Brooks autographed card.  He's kind of a joke in NOLA, so I guess I kind of bought it as a goof.

I feel better when my money goes to cards I already know I love and want to keep as opposed to packs and packs of cards that, while some are cool, just cost too much to gamble on.  That's why I'll keep going back to COMC.  You other bloggers make sure to keep posting new cards for me to drool over, especially if they have names like Stubby Clapp and Urban Shocker.

Did you notice that none of the above cards are Griffeys?  What is happening to me?  Am I becoming a collector again?

Assenmacher and Serpico: a Trade Post

I received a pair of trade packages in the mail this past week from a couple of baseball card blogging all-stars.  Take a gander:

This first one came from Jim over at gcrl.   He's crazy about the Dodgers and double-play cards (of which I have another stack saved up), and he seems to know what I like.



I've always been a Maddux fan ever since my lttle league team was the Braves.  That Cy Young Winner card on the top right has always been a favorite, as has the '89 Topps.



The Thrill - that Bowman card on th right is a new one on me.



A pitcher at the plate!  I normally send these to Dime Box Nick, but this one stays...





My favorite Upper Deck set and a numbered SPx - yes. 



That is some kind of hat/hockey hybrid Franken-mullet. 
This will fit nicely in my Bad Hair Day collection.  Great name, too.


Have I mentioned I also collect Griffeys?



This is the one-per-box 5" x 7" checklist.  That hologram is huge!




I've never see a Black & Gold redemption card before.  It's got a tiny little Griffey on it.  Part of me wants to cut it out, and if this were 20 years ago I probably would....



I have pulled these out of repack boxes before, and they look amazing.  I've never seen the Griffey before.  This was a very exciting find!

Thanks, Jim!  I've got a healthy stack of double-play cards I'm mailing to you Saturday.


If you read Nachos Grande you may have seen his series of Topps Heritage American Heroes.  It's a very cool set I'd like to pick up someday.  You may also know that Chris puts up growing trade stacks you can claim if you have cards to trade him.  Well, I'm sitting on a trove of Barry Larkins, and he posted this guy:

It was my buddy Jason's birthday Tuesday.  He and I pride ourselves on the wacky presents we get for each other (for Christmas I got him an autographed photo of Michael Dukakis).  Jason is positively obsessed with Serpico.  The man, the story, the Pacino movie - all that.  When Mr. Grande posted this card, I pounced.  I also nabbed a few others from the same stack including a Roger Clemens and a Vince Coleman among others, but the star of the show was Detective Frank Serpico. 

I was then inspired to hop on eBay and pick up this relic for pretty cheap:

It's gonna be fun to give these to Jason!  I appreciate the help, Chris.

Oh, Chris has stickers, too.  How cool is that?

Thanks again, Chris!  We should do a proper trade involving lots of cards.  I have stacks of Reds an no intention of hanging on to them.  I need to do a better job of shedding cardboard weight.  I think I'll work on a mass trade strategy today.

Happy hump day, everybody!