Card Show Booty!

I brought 60 bucks to the card show.  Then I spent 90.  Gotta feed the monkey....

I'm building quite the Don Mossi collection.

That Derrek Lee RC is a Super Refractor #/100.  Mr. Lee's career is long and distinguished, so for a quarter, this was a bargain.  That's a Javy Lopez rookie, and I recently pulled that Babe Ruth card in the form of a reprint, so getting the original for a dollar was a no-brainer.

I just can't pass up a Dave Justice pun nor that Will Clark mini for a quarter.  I learned from Curb Your Enthusiasm that Joe Pepitone is Larry David's favorite player.  Anna K belongs in my "Hot Chicks" collection....and my heart.

These are all cards I've spotted on other blogs that caught my eye.  I only had seven, so to fill that eighth spot, that's a drawing of a fish birthday party (it is up for trade, lucky reader).

Now, it's Griffey time!

 

Oh, man.  That was good, huh?  Here's my favorite scores of the day:

1995 Leaf Slideshow #8B.  I already have 8A, so this was a welcome find.  And that Pinnacle Zenith card is an "Injured All-Star" Tribute card.  It looks better IRL.

This vendor would not negotiate.  He wanted hi Beckett for everything.  After explaining to him what COMC and eBay are, I finally got him to sell me this one and a handful of other not-terribly-valuable Griffeys for still more than I wanted to pay.  Worth it, though.  Love this card.

And here's the piece de resistance.  One guy had dozens of Griffey memorabilia cards, and I went through every one.  This was the best.  A batting glove with a little wear on it.  How sweet is that?

I think I came home with as many cards for other bloggers as I did for me.  I'll have to start assembling another round of trade packages soon.

Good luck with your respective Mondays!

1990 Upper Deck #156 and #24

 

 

In my collection: 11 regular, 18 checklist

Griffey looks: amicable

Is this a good Griffey card?: Yes.  This is the Kid’s sophomore card in Upper Deck’s sophomore set.  Plus both pictures on the card are brimming with personality. 

The Set: One thing I never noticed until just a few weeks ago is that 1989 Upper Deck depicts home plate and the first-base line along the right edge.  The 1990 design includes the first-to-second base line along the top.  Upper Deck is putting together an infield, one year at a time.  More on this when we get to 1991…..

1990 UD always seemed a little plain to me.  It’s certainly the plainest Upper Deck set that included a white border.  Maybe a slightly fancier font for the player name would have dressed it up and made the set more memorable.

Moreover, to maintain the faithfulness to the baseline theme, the vertical design is used for every card, even those with horizontal photos.  Take a look at the Wade Boggs quadruple exposure from that year.  How awkward is that?   An awesome card ruined by a silly design decision.

All in all, I don't hate this set.  I cannot complain about Upper Deck’s photography and overall quality, but this design is a bit of a snoozer.  That's hard to admit as the simpler Upper Deck designs tend to be my favorites, but this one is a little too scant even for me.  Had I been a kid opening a pack in 1990 after Upper Deck’s whirlwind introductory year, I would have been disappointed.

  

 

Drew's $74,000 contract with the Rangers finally gave him the scratch to fix that snaggly molar.  Sure, he's all braced up, but check him out, all happy and proud.  You go, Drew Hall!

I bought that Drew Hall card on eBay for $1.00 and never received it.  By the time I realized this it was too late to do anything.  Still plan on picking one up one of these days....

Who doesn't like Bubblicious?  Or possibly Hubba Bubba.  I'd have to smell it to be sure.

Look.  Griffeys.

You crazy, girl.  You crazy.

How can you not pull for this guy?  He just looks so damn amicable.  Hey, Griff, let’s go grab some brewskis and talk about women.  I know, they crazy, right?

It’s 1990.  There’s no way to know for sure what he’s laughing about, but here’s a few educated guesses:

• Alvin Davis is trying to spell Jim Lefebvre’s name and failing spectacularly.
• They are playing Lasagna by “Weird Al” Yankovic over the stadium loudspeakers.
• Jay Buhner and Tino Martinez are quoting scenes from Ghost Dad.
• The M’s are mocking new guy Randy Johnson’s mullet.
• Omar Vizquel is making heat boobies with his Hypercolor t-shirt.
• Edgar Martinez just told Pete O’Brian to “Eat my shorts,” then proceeded to do the Bartman.
• Someone just asked him to invest in their fledgling Seattle coffee business called “Starbucks” and he thinks the name is funny.
• He’s thinking of a joke he saw last night on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Don’t look at me like you never made heat boobies.

Upper Deck carried these over from the ’89 set - their version of Diamond Kings, but they are also team checklists and pretty desirable as far as cards in that vein go.  No trippy backgrounds or disproportionate facial features – just a realistic portrait and an action shot.  Mr. Wells paints classy.

For more on Vernon Wells, Sr., the Upper Deck artist-in-residence, this is a great read.

We haven't done Topps Griffey card in a while.  I feel a Topps post coming soon.  Goodnight!

Where There's a Will, There's a Chuck: A Trade Post

I came home yesterday to a bubble mailer and a PWE which resulted in a great many "woo-hoos" around the Junior Junkie household.  Each contained cards of Louisiana natives Will Clark and Chuck Finley, both among my very few player collections.

First, Dustin over at Coot Veal and the Vealtones found time out of his busy new-daddy schedule (congrats, y'all!) to send me a sweet stack of down home loosiana goodness.



Triple exposure Chuck




Dustin sent lots of Chuck Finleys - this is just a few of my favorites.  That '88 Topps card single-handedly gave us the word "Chuckstachioed"



Also a few of the many Will Clarks he sent.  I make fun of Score caricatures, but these two aren't bad.  I think it's because we NOLA boys are so good-lookin'.



He also threw in some great silly names and goofy facial expressions.  This one took the goofiness cake.



Just a Jay Buhner card - just a regular old Jay Buhner card.  Nothing to see here.

This reminds me - I'm going to have to put together a post of Jay Buhner cards that have Griffey in them.  There are more than you might think....

And finally, a very personal card:

 

Panini's struggle to not show team logos has played right into my hands....and my heart.


Will is wearing the uniform of my high school baseball team, the Jesuit Blue Jays, our shared Alma Mater.  When I saw this card on Coot's blog I knew it had to be mine.  Super appreciative to him for trading this with me.  Cannot express how much I love it!


Next up, Marcus from All the Way to the Backstop single-stamped me some unexpected cardboard coolness:
 

I have to wonder if Chuck and Griffey ever faced each other (is there a way to look that up?).  Hopefully not on this day as Chuck looks hella-focused.

Holy crap, Google, are you kidding me?  I love the Internet!  From Chad over at The Hardball Times, here's this scary-appropriate chunk of information I didn't know existed when I typed the above caption:


#34. Ken Griffey Jr. vs. Chuck Finley (10.2 RC, 78 PAs, 1990-2002)   View match-up

Actual:    4.2 RC | 12-73 | .164/.218/.301 | 0.519 OPS | 18 K, 5 BB, 0 HBP
Expected: 14.3 RC | 20-67 | .298/.384/.565 | 0.949 OPS | 11 K 9 BB, 1 HBP

After an extremely slow start to this match-up, Ken Griffey Jr. went on a tear to nearly bring his actual RC in line with his expected in 1993. Ultimately, Finley got the better of Griffey, who closed out this match-up with a less-than-stellar 1-for-29.



Ken Griffey Jr. also struggled against Kevin Appier (6.9 RC) and Mike Mussina (6.6 RC).
Chuck Finley also dominated NONE.

Yikes.  Looks like Finley frickin' pwned the Kid.  They were division rivals, after all.  I don't understand most of the terminology or abbreviations used in the above segment, but I did understand "1-for-29."

And have I mentioned I love funny names?  How I have never seen Haverbush I'll never know, but he is going into my "porn names" binder tonight.

I'm not showing all the goofiness cards at once because I plan on doing another blog featuring only those cards that achieve optimal laughability.  Wheels are in motion....

Thanks a bunch, guys!  It's a pleasure to come home to new cardboard, especially on days when I get home in time to intercept the mail.

Trade with Dime Box Nick

I have a ton of cards to mail out on Saturday.  This is part of the reason why:

When my wife and I got home from Vegas, two things were waiting for us in the mail: a credit card offer from Citi and a package from Nick over at Dime Boxes. 

I had e-mailed Nick a few weeks ago, notifying him of the stack of cards I plan on sending him (which is still growing).  He told me it would take a while to ship me anything back, so I figured I had some time to root through the many many boxes I have for only the Nick-worthiest of cards.  Lo and behold he beat me to it. 

I think the 80's and early 90's may have had the funniest baseball card pictures.  There are some good ones from the 50's and 60s, and quite a few from the 70s, but everything that came out after those Iranian hostages were released is pure gold.

Case in point: Jim Palmer.  It's 3 years later and his hair is still extremely happy....

Nick loves '95 Fleer, and he catches Hell for it.  Well you know what?  I like it too - I'll admit it.  I think it's the predator-vision.  I can look at that all day like Geordi Laforge.

Whoa....save it for the rally there, Rolf.  There's a cameraman in jorts around here somewh.....oh, crap.

Some excellent silly names here.  Plus I've always wanted a non-Big Unit Randy Johnson!

We need to bring Pozo into the gangsta lexicon.  As in "Damn, you just got Pozo'd, son!" or "Check yaself before you Pozo yaself." or "I'ma bust a Pozo all up in yo Pozo fo sho-sho.  Pozo!"


Thrilling!

Ladies and gentlemen, New Orleans native and all-around awesome guy, Will "The Thrill" Clark!  Out of the six WC cards Nick sent me I only had one, so this was a great treat!  That shot of him with Bonds and Matt Williams is excellent, and those fleer cards have a great matte-glossy hybrid front that exudes class.

Chuck is also a great player and a great guy from down the bayou, Louisiana.  I'd like to see him in the Hall of Fame someday.

Big Unit rookie - it seems he always looked pissed off in his rookie days, probably because he was stuck in Montreal.  Those Ultra Stars cards are cool, and that Fun Stuff I'd never seen before.  That is how a caricature is supposed to look (are you paying attention, Score?).

And finally, Kenny Lofton, scourge of parachutes everywhere.  Kenny was a solid hitter who could run like a beast, much like Willy Mays Hays in the Charlie Sheen/Tom Berenger classic Major League.


Don't steal home without it.....

Kenny was not only a really fast runner, he was also an amazing bunter.  Those two combined for an exciting player with solid numbers.  He played for 11 different teams before retiring in 2007.

Thanks a bunch, DBN!  I'm shipping you (and lots of other people) a bunch of stuff on Saturday - hope you like it!

Surprises from the Card Shop

Holy crap, New Orleans has a card shop.

We used to have several, the most prolific of which was Frank's with several locations.  Those are all long-gone since Katrina.  I have never seen another until I Googled and discovered Markman on W. Esplanade in Metairie.

I needed some long boxes for my sets, so I decided to go.  There were no dime boxes, sadly, but I cleaned out every Griffey I needed or wanted dups of from his dollar bin and grabbed a couple cheap long boxes filled with mystery cards.

I got these from those boxes: 

I wasn't expecting any Griffeys at all, so this was a nice surprise.  I have, oh, 3,000 of this card, but another couldn't hurt.  And I always loved this "All-Star" banner depicting the night sky.  Man, '91 Topps rules.

OK.  I'll take it.  To quote my uncle, Griffey cards are like pizza and p****, even bad ones are still pretty good.  My uncle is filthy but hilarious.

A guy blowing a bubble - one of my sub-collections.  Score.  And a Ron Kittle!  This is turning out to be a decent enough junk wax box.

Hey, look.  There's a whole bunch of '89 Bowman sitting sideways in this box....

Qapla'!!!!!

My wife even got a little excited for me when I started pulling these out of the box (she knows I'm a Griffey weirdo).

So, yeah.  I want more of those boxes.  I also got a fistful of Will Clark, Steve Carlton, Carlton Fisk, Fergie Jenkins, Nolan Ryan, Rod Carew, Will Clark, Dave Winfield, Ripken, Mattingly, Ozzie (Smith not Canseco), Nolan Ryan, Rollie Fingers, Dale Murphy, and Clark (Will) plus a buttload of early-80's Fleer and Topps.  It was fun to look through and better than any repack box I've bought.

I apologize for the Klingon.  My posts just keep getting nerdier....

Coming next week - Massive 80's Glasses on Guys Named Tom: Hume vs. Henke - Who Wore Them Best?

My First Trade!

I received a package today from Marcus over at Backstop Cards who is apparently far more organized and quick to ship than I am.

He put together quite a bunch of cards for yours truly, and I had to laugh out loud when I saw a lot of what he sent.

Here's just a small sampling as it is getting late and my wife and I are leaving for Vegas tomorrow (3rd wedding anniversary/her birthday).  Gotta finish packing and rest.

First, the meat and potatoes:

Six Griffeys, three of which I needed for the binders!  Beautiful.... That Career Day insert is amazing.

Zephyr Field is less than 5 minutes from my house (it is also next door to Saints Headquarters/training camp).  We go all the time - I'm certain I've seen Lance play.

It is amazing seeing the good ol' Zephyr logo on a refracting SP card.  And surreal.  Brings the hobby home which is something I enjoy a lot.  New Orleans is most decidedly not a baseball town.   Come down for Mardi Gras some time and I'll show you what kind of town we are....

And that guy playing basketball is Kenny Lofton.  I was like "whaaaaaa?"  Awesome.

Some great action shots.  Is that Ozzie getting tagged in the face?  Watch it, Kim.  Batiste (ba-teest) is a pretty common name down South.  I know a Kim Batiste.  She is an attractive blonde who works at a doctor's office.  Much cuter that this guy.

You may have noticed I love goofy pictures and funny names.  Marcus obliged me in fine style.  Checkit:

You've got a great BTS (blatant tongue shot), an excellent example of HLLH (Henke looking like Henke), Kinney with visible chawbutt,  Pete looking a little haggard, Troy and his Clutterbuckian stare, and Bo reminding me a lot of Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

And of course, like the average 3rd grader, I have a silly-name fetish.

Ray Liotta - this cracked me up.  We have a movie night with friends on Tuesdays, and this week we watched Cop Land.  That card would have been a hit.

The soccer player's name is Fred.  I thought "Hm, let me flip this baby over and see his full name."  Nope.  Just Fred.  Yikes.

And God forgive me, I giggled very hard at Mr. Stanky.

The bottom left card has a gentleman named Willie Mo Pena.  In my brain, I can't help singing that "Mary Moon" song by Deadeye Dick but with this guy's name instead.  This card designates his position as IF-OF, so I assume Stadium Club forgot to ask somebody and was just guessing there.

Anyhoo, thanks for the awesome cards, Marcus!  In the interest of not keeping you waiting, I may just fill up a Priority Mail box with the Padres I have now and shoot it to you.  If you don't mind waiting just a teensy bit longer, though, you will have a hairy man-stack of Padre cardboard to wile away the hours sorting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 1989 Upper Deck #1 Rookie

In my collection: 7

Griffey looks: awesome

Is this a good Griffey card?: Yes.  This is arguably the greatest Griffey card.  1st set in Upper Deck history, 1st card from that set, and a collector favorite.  The cornerstone of any serious Griffey collection, or any modern baseball card collection.

The set: Everybody fawns over this set like it's the second coming, and that sentiment is not undeserved.  Ahead of it's time and a game-changer in the sports card world as a whole, this is the first set offered by the new Upper Deck Company, LLC.  They did to baseball cards what Apple did to the Walkman.  The cards are printed on high-quality paper stock with excellent full-color photography on the front and back.  Take a look:

The pitching photography was a big standout in this set for me.  Here are some examples of that:

Here are a few big names you can find in this set:

They also threw in these cards featuring cool paintings of big stars for the team checklists.  Not like Donruss Diamond Kings, I mean reasonably good paintings of guys that were really stars.  Here's a few:

What kind of baseball card blog would this be if I didn't poke a little fun?  Here's some mildly amusing pictures you can giggle at if you're so inclined:

Valenzuela, you are a character....

The packs were foil.  Like real foil - not shiny mylar.  They could draw blood fairly easily (I have spilled some in my hunt for the Griffey - worth it).  No wax packs which meant no soft glue on the back of the bottom card (looking at you, '89 Donruss).  The foil made the packs tamper-evident, and the hologram stamped on every card prevented counterfeiting.  Some serious security for a pre-9/11 world. 

Upper Deck declared themselves "The Collector's Choice," and all the other companies followed suit by beefing up their products, thereby bringing the industry into a new golden age.  Just look through the commons in this set - this is a set with personality.  These cards have moxy.  Maybe not the Jack Clark pictured above, but the Valenzuela?!  Come on......

On to the Griffey:

Man, the Kid looks awesome.  Check out those pearly whites, the understated jewelry, the bat on the shoulder like it's little league picture day, the flawless lighting, the blue sky in background, our first peek at the famous Junior-stache.  The guy is bright-eyed and conscientious, optimistic about the future, and dammit, he loves America.  This is a baseball card photo.  Take that, Saddam!

That is not a Seattle Mariners uniform.  That is his San Bernardino Spirit uniform, adding to the rookie-ness of this photograph.  Also, Griffey was coming off a back injury.  It wasn't even clear whether he would actually get to play in '89, but Upper Deck threw the dice and the guy ended up being Ken Griffey freakin' Jr.  Upper Deck appreciates the importance of this card.  At least, they did in 1993:

So, there's a lot of lore regarding how to get your hands on a 1989 Upper Deck #1 Ken Griffey Jr, rookie card.  Let's talk about it.

I am proud to say that I pulled mine from a pack at a card shop back when I was too young to know that $10 per pack was ridiculous.  The card was only averaging around $75, but it might as well have been a thousand.  I bought a pack and got nothing.  I was about to leave, but stopped, and Willy Wonka-style, I asked the man for one more.  I proceeded to spaz out when I pulled it, and the card shop guy had obviously been watching my haul because he nearly had a seizure.  He was nice enough, though, and put it in a top-loader for me.  I shelled out 9 bucks for one of those inch-and-a-half thick, complete overkill, 4-screw plastic cases, and there it has been ever since.  This was an immensely proud day for me.

Now about that lore - there was a time when people were accepting money for information the nature of which guaranteed you the Griffey pull from any newly-opened box of 1989 Upper Deck.  I imagine it was something along the lines of "top-right quarter, 4th pack down always has it."  That's probably not it, but that's how I always imagined it.  If you know anything about that system, I'd love to hear about it.  With this in mind, I always thought back to the guy at the card shop.  Did he know the system, and had he already used it on that particular box?  Is that why he was so surprised I landed one?  Is there a system for pulling, say, the Ron Kittle?  I'll probably never know for sure....

If the system is real, people are buying unopened boxes, fishing out the Griffeys, then selling the loose packs on ebay to recoup the cost of the box.  Result: free Griffey, possible BGS 10.  If so, market value: about $1250.00.  If a 9.5, you can get around $130.00.  Lower than that, expect anywhere between 20 and 30 bucks.  I got a BGS 7.5 for $16 once just because I could.

Now, less than 800 have been graded a 10 by Beckett Grading Services.  And a 10 is very hard to come by from a pack.  Why?  To Wikipedia!

"The card was situated in the top left hand corner of the uncut sheets and was more liable to be cut poorly or have its corners dinged."

It is easier to find this card graded a 10 by PSA.  Why?  Again, Wikipedia:

"Company policy was that if a customer found a damaged card in its package, the company would replace it.  Many Griffey cards were returned and the result was that Upper Deck printed many uncut sheets (sheets consisting of 100 cards) of just the Griffey card.  According to Professional Sports Authenticator, the Ken Griffey, Jr. would become the most graded card of all time with the company."

Uncut sheets of just Griffeys.  Can you imagine?

This Griffey in a PSA 10 will run you between $250 and $300.  Since BGS hasn't been doing this as long as PSA and the card replacement option is no longer available, the only newly-found '89 UD #1's BGS is grading are those pulled from packs.  Since a 10 is so rare from a pack, a BGS 10 is pricy.  You may be better off finding a very nice PSA 10-graded specimen, cracking open the case and sending it to Beckett.

None of this grading stuff used to matter to me.  But you know what?

I fell for it.  Why?  Check out the blog title.

All hail the card of cards.....!