The Great Griffey Frankenset: Page 10

Welcome to Page 10 of the Great Griffey Frankenset!

If you're not familiar with the idea of a Frankenset, it is a customized set of cards properly sequenced by card number that all tie into a connecting theme. Some frankenset themes include whole teams, mini-collections, and even just generally great cards or photos. This is the first Frankenset I'm aware of that is made up of just one player: Ken Griffey, Jr., the man of a million cards. I took the liberty of including things like inserts, parallels, cameos, and oddballs for the sake of variety and because it's just more fun that way. Enjoy!

Here is page 10 of the Great Griffey Frankenset:

Completeness of page: 9/9

Completeness of the Frankenset so far: 100% (90/90)

Team distribution so far: Mariners: 65/90 (72%), Reds: 22/90 (24%), White Sox: 1/90 (1%), No team indicated: 2/90 (2%)

Approximate retail value of this page: $43.00 ($1814.25 running total)

Page 10 Notes: Seven of the nine cards on this page are from Upper Deck, and two of those were made after UD lost their license. That means for the first time we have not one, but two cards with no team specified. We also have our first minnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiii, so enjoy that.

Page 10:

82. 2015 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #82 Mini Canvas #/50

The first Mini of the Frankenset. Junior is looking fly in his pastel striped button-down, paired with a robin’s egg blue blazer. The flat-cut white slacks with matching tie complement the soft colors of the rest of the ensemble, and the entire look is capped off with a black fedora that says, “I’m breezy, but I also mean business.” The perfect look for the golf course, polo match, or a couples day at the marina.

83. 2005 Studio #83

Late Studio, while less portrait and more action-photo-made-to-look-like-a-portrait, was still an attractive set in 2005. The black-and-white Griffey superimposed over a red-tinted Cincinnati cityscape make it a personal favorite among Studio’s late issues.

84. 2001 Upper Deck Gold Glove #84

Here’s another flipped-up-shades-looking-right-into-the-sun moment. Junior had a lot of these. I suppose he had his reasons for not using those Oakleys or Gargoyles or whatever awesome exclusive eyewear he was sporting at the time, but I still think it darn silly. Cool nameplate on this one.

85. 1992 Upper Deck #85 (w/ Ken, Sr. and Craig Griffey)

The famous family portrait. Senior would go on to coach in Cincy and Craig didn’t take to baseball quite as easily as Junior, eventually requesting his own release from the Mariners system; but for a short, fleeting moment, all three Griffeys were Mariners. I consider this one of the greatest Griffey cards ever made.

86. 2001 SP Game Bat Edition #86

Just a well put-together card. Name a better nameplate.

87. 2002 Upper Deck Piece of History #87

Another well-done issue from Upper Deck, this one has the look of an insert or subset. I like the idea of the timeline along the bottom of the card (which they don’t seem to make any specific use of here) and the dark reds and blacks with the silver text. The highlight here is the photography. We get two smiling portraits of the Kid and a fantastic bat-less post-home-run action shot. A shoe-in for #87.

88. 1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Gold Signature #88

There is so much to love about this card: a brightly-colored cartoon featuring a Jay Buhner cameo as an EMT, a fun premise, and a shiny gold signature? It's almost too much.They gave Junior a real anime quality in the illustration, too.

89. 2014 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #89

The second recent Upper Deck issue featuring a very stylish Junior lookin’ all shive. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty certain I’ve seen Michael Jordan wearing this very same outfit somewhere?

90. 1996 Topps Chrome #90 Star Power

This remains one of my favorite chrome base cards ever made. There’s something about the stars and colorful background that translated to chrome so well. While chrome usually doesn’t add much to the look of a base card, here it changed the whole game. And that is definitely the same font they used on the security doors in the museum scene of Demolition Man, aka the "What seems to be your boggle?" scene. "He's going for a gun, Huxley. Trust me, he's going...............for a gun."

Here's the back of Page 10:

Thanks for reading, and look for Page 11 next Friday!

Wallet Card Wednesday: Disney World Magic Kingdom Edition

No explanation needed. Let's do this.

Big ol' Christmas tree at the park entrance.

Main Street USA. When I was seven I ate too much watermelon the night before and vomited all up in this piece. This time around I skipped the watermelon. Oh, and it wasn't raining. Those people in ponchos were just being ninnies.

Snow White and my twin nieces. All of the princess actresses are hot. All of them.

The Swiss Family Treehouse. I don't think any of the kids there knew what the heck this was or what it was from. We were the only people on it. Their loss. Swiss Family 4 life, son.

Aladdin's magic carpet ride. There are half a dozen rides exactly like this across the different parks. The only difference is that this one had a water-spitting camel.

Okay, baseball card bloggers: who did I take this picture for? You guessed it: Archimedes from The Sword in the Stone. Golly fluff!

The pin thing is getting out of hand. There were whole stores that were only pins - this was taken in one of them. There are THOUSANDS of different pins in there, and they are each priced between 8 and 14 buck a piece. And no Mariners? Hrmph.

Griffey in the stocks.

Mistakes were made.

It's exactly what you might think/remember. Plus it got stuck for several minutes. And the music doesn't stop when the ride gets stuck, so that's a struggle.

Classic - look how much fun that family is having. I'm jealous.

This ride needs work. Those cars don't steer like they used to.

The Dumbo ride. A staple.

Finally we get down to business with Space Mountain...

There was pretty much no line at any ride, even this one which is commonly regarded as among the best at any Disney park.

If you ever get to ride it, this is the scariest position. You can see a lot more than the people behind you. Trust me.



We got special tickets to stick around and ride a few rides after the park closed. If you ride the People Mover (which seems boring at first) you get a behind the scenes look at Space Mountain in action. When the park is closed, however, the behind the scenes look is of the ride shut down and all the lights turned on inside the mountain. The magic is gone :-(

While every store had some Star Wars stuff in it, this store in Tomorrowland sold ONLY Star Wars stuff. Jedi Jeff, you seein' this? I definitely spent most of my souvenir budget on the things you see in this store.

This thing was six feet tall and had an internally-projected face. Looked amazing.

They lit up the castle for Christmas. I'm not a big Disney guy, but it was actually really impressive in person.

And yes, I broke down and bought a stupid pin:

Smell the irony

Up next: Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. Thanks for reading!

Upper Deck A Piece of History 500 Club: Giving Collectors Wood Since 1999

In 1999 the knuckleheads at Upper Deck destroyed a cracked baseball bat swung by Babe Ruth himself. It was big news at the time. People were pissed – collectors, baseball fans, even people who had never bought a baseball card were like, “Dude, WTF?”

I’ve forgiven them – I’m a big fan of said knuckleheads. They gave a lot of people who would otherwise never get to own a Ruth bat the opportunity to own a piece of one for much cheaper, and possibly for just the price of a pack. That’s arguably better than the full bat (which was cracked anyway) collecting dust on a shelf somewhere in a private collection.

Not to mention the fact that we got one of the coolest, most original inserts of all time out of it.

There are a lot of ins and outs to this set as you can see on the Baseballcardpedia page, but I will try and hit all the important points, particularly the stuff about the Griffey.

Upper Deck A Piece of History 500 HR Club is a multi-brand, multi-year, ongoing (well, it was) relic insert with releases starting in 1999 all the way through 2010. The idea was that as players entered the 500 Home Run Club, they would be issued a card in this insert. Their card would then be seeded into packs of the next Upper Deck release. For example, Junior entered the 500 HR Club on June 20th, 2004. His card was released in Upper Deck Etchings later the same year.

Barry Bonds was not included as he was a Topps guy. Oh, no complaints about that? Very well, let’s move on…

Based on what figures were released about the Babe Ruth cards, it is widely believed that all cards in this insert were limited to 350 copies each and seeded at 1:15,000 packs or thereabouts. There is also an autographed (or cut signature) version of each player’s card numbered to his respective uniform number; however, Griffey’s is numbered to 25 for some reason. The autographed versions stopped after 2004.

I lucked into one for a reasonable price earlier in the year, and here it is:

2004 Upper Deck A Piece of History 500 Club

Every card in the set looks more or less exactly like this. They were all done in sepia, giving them a timeless quality with no clashing team colors. Also, the bat relic itself is not only slightly larger than most relics of its kind, it is also cut into a unique shape with curved corners and framed. All the cards are horizontally-oriented with an action photo and a large portrait. The uniform number is featured prominently in the bottom-right corner.

Relic cards are a dime a dozen nowadays, but there are a few relic designs that stand out as the greatest ever made. This set is most definitely on the short list.

We don’t have exact figures on how many of these were made for each player, but as I said there are believed to be around 350. The prices these Griffeys command are extremely high given the fact that at heart this is just a simple bat relic card. The bat chip is not even from the bat Junior used to hit #500 (THAT would have been something). It’s really the uniqueness of the insert itself and its checklist of history’s greatest sluggers that gives this card its value. Plus you've got both player collectors and set builders chasing a very limited number of cards that just don’t seem to come up for sale very often. Expect to spend several hundred dollars to land it if you can find one.

As for the autographed version, I’ve seen these priced in the $4000-5000 range, not far off from the Red Crusade Griffey. And believe it or not, I’ve seen more of the autographed version go up for sale than the non-autographed one (the only specimen I’ve seen of the latter is the one you’re looking at).

The checklist is great, too. The only complaint some folks may have is that the cards don't necessarily show the players on their heritage team but the one they were with when they slapped #500. Frank Thomas' card has him as a Blue Jay. No offense to our neighbors from the North, but that still weirds me out.

Thanks for reading!

Bad News, Bloggers

Before we get to the bad news, let’s see home many of you are guilty of the same crime. Ready?

I get the vast majority of my blog reading and commenting done AT WORK.

There, I said it. If I’ve ever commented on your blog in the past several years, there’s a solid 90% chance that was done in my office on a work computer. That’s because I can multi-task. I can talk on the phone, service an account, and read about baseball cards all at the same time. I’ve become very good at squeezing a little Blogger into the down time between appointments, and it’s never been an issue before.

Until now.

Blogger is now blocked on my work computer. I doubt it’s just because of me. I work for a large, international company that has already blocked pretty much every semblance of social media and personal e-mail there is. If it’s blocked on mine, it’s blocked on everybody’s. It was just a matter of time. I get it, too. I was responsible with it but could see how some may not have been.

I can still read some of your posts provided they are shown on my own blog’s sidebar (the Blogger site is blocked but I can still visit specific blogs). I can also see other blogs through your own site’s sidebars. No pictures, though - just post titles.

BUT

Whatever engine exists in a computer that allows one to comment on a blog post is no longer there. This means that I can read, but I cannot comment. It’s frustrating. Going forward, any commenting you see from me will have been done at home or on my phone (which I don’t normally do as I’m usually busy with e-mails, Sim City Buildit, or Rovercraft).

Have you played Rovercraft? Oh my God...

In summation: I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll still be reading as much as possible, but comments from me are going to be fewer and further between. Sorry, y’all.

Best Binder Page Update: My First Change

I’ve been really excited to see everybody’s best binder pages over the past few weeks. I think they offer a fun slice of what each blogger’s collection is all about. There’s been a lot of surprising selections and a lot of not-so-surprising ones from everyone. The whole thing has been a blast.

When I posted my Best Binder Page last month I remarked that…well, here it is: “For example, if I ever got a hold of a Donruss Crusade Purple Griffey, I would most certainly update my page to show it. This thing's not written in stone.”

Well, guess what?

As fate would have it, I was able to land one of the whitest of white whale Griffeys just weeks after writing that sentence. I wasn’t expecting that to happen, but it did. It’s providence. Now an update is in order.

Here’s my new Best Binder Page:

I chose the 1998 E-X2001 Destination Cooperstown insert to be replaced by the Purple Crusade. It was a tough call. They came out the same year and had identical (evidently) print runs; but the Purple Crusade is just such an icon among collectors of 90’s inserts, and it’s the exact one I’ve wanted since I first learned about Crusade. There’s no way it isn’t going on this page. No way.

That’s it - short and sweet today. Thanks for reading!

The Great Griffey Frankenset: Page 9

Welcome to The Great Griffey Frankenset!

If you're not familiar with the idea of a Frankenset, it is a customized set of cards properly sequenced by card number that all tie into a connecting theme. Some Frankenset themes include whole teams, mini-collections, and even just generally great cards or photos. This is the first Frankenset I'm aware of that is made up of just one player: Ken Griffey, Jr., the man of a million cards. I took the liberty of including things like inserts, parallels, cameos, and oddballs for the sake of variety and because it's just more fun that way. Enjoy!

Here is page 7 of the Great Griffey Frankenset:

Completeness of page: 9/9

Completeness of the Frankenset so far: 100% (81/81)

Team distribution so far: Mariners: 62/81 (77%), Reds: 18/81 (22%), White Sox: 1/81 (1%)

Cards not listed in Beckett Magazine: 3/9 (30/81 total, 37%)

Approximate retail value of this page: $119.00 ($1771.25 running total)

Page 9 Notes: Zero inserts on this entire page. None. It's all base cards or their parallels. You're going to see a lot of pages like this going forward. At least the checklists haven't started yet. Those are coming...

Page 9 selections:

73. 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia #73

I'll admit I settled here. I don't really care for this set or design. Way to start us off a high note, right?

74. 2003 Topps Pristine #74

I wasn't collecting when this Pristine set came out, but I've lucked into a bunch of cards from this set in blind LCS boxes and fell in love instantly. It's like Finest nouveau. The rare Griffey bunt shot and the use of green for his base card are both unexpected and refreshing. Great card.

75. 2014 Topps Archives #75 Silver #/99

A bright, sunny photo of Junior the veteran looking very happy to be back in Seattle. Great photo selection from Topps on this one, though it's been a hot minute since his signature looked like that.

76. 2003 E-X #76 Essential Credentials Future (unnumbered, Fleer bankruptcy)

Not the prettiest card in the Frankenset, but that's just because this card was chosen for what it is: my first and only "backdoored" Griffey. It's not numbered where it should be, and if it was it would be numbered to only 27.

77. 1995 Emotion #77

Emotion is a fantastic set that was ahead of its time. It later morphed into the E-X brand, but it was never again quite like this first year. A set I am seriously considering building.

78. 1996 Circa #78

Some folks don't like the Circa brand for the same reason they don't like '95 Fleer, but I think Circa actually got it right. Where Fleer was more or less random and even abrasive at times when it came to color selection, Circa's stab at the collage background is orderly and team-appropriate. And the Predator vision has been replaced by a Reggie Jackson quote. Circa!

79. 1997 Topps Gallery #79

The oft-used wood frame border theme of Topps Gallery was never more prominent than it was in '97. Ultra-thick and embossed almost beyond fitting into a conventional top loader, the border owns this card. Still, it's Gallery. This set can do no wrong with me. They could print a photo of Junior picking his nose with his name crossed out in the nameplate and "Booger Eater" written in its place and I'd be all "Great card, Topps! Gallery is back!"

80. 2008 Topps Heritage Chrome #C80 #/1959

A cool chromium parallel of a perfectly-executed throwback design? This card was born to be in this Frankenset. One of my favorite Griffey Cincy cards - period.

81. 1995 Flair #81

Let's face it: Flair had better designs than the horizontally-oriented, diamond-dusted '95 set. The texturing makes it hard to see what a thing of beauty the nameplate is; but they hung in there with the dual-photo thing, and you've got to respect that.

Here is the back of Page 9:

Thanks for reading, and look for Page 10 next Friday!