Musical Interlude #3 - Two Different Worlds

My next selection on the personal jukebox is much closer to my present tastes.  Foreigner sits smack in the middle of the basic American rock-n'-roll genre.  They can be mellow, and they can be raucous.  They aren't quite metal, but I appreciate them just the same.  Agent Provocateur is a great overall album whose standout tracks, I Want To Know What Love Is, and That Was Yesterday, are right at the top of all-time great Foreigner songs. 

The choice for this post is the track Two Different Worlds, about a guy who has someone at home, but longs for the girl whose world is totally different.  Sort of the grass is always greener type of thing.  Torn between the established and the new.

It's like a collector who usually stays with mid to lower end products, but longs for that big hit of their favorite player.  "But jersey patches and autographs are way too expensive for my kind of budget, right?"

That's a logical assumption, but depending on where you shop, pricing for autographs, etc. can be wide ranging.  A lot of sellers seem to occupy two different worlds when setting their pricetags.  There are bargain sellers and there are those that only operate at full retail.

Once in a while when I'm perusing COMC or eBay etc., I'll do a search on different players and see what the cheapest and nicest autograph goes for.  Now I'm not trying for Mike Trout or Tom Brady, so there are limitations.  The player has to have a good many autographs across many different level products. My default guy is Kirk Cousins of the Redskins.  He's got 42 autographed cards up on COMC right now.

His most expensive ungraded ones (because grading adds an unnecessary 200%+ markup) are a couple numbered out of 75 and 50.  They are stickers and show him in his rookie uniform #12.  They're both right around 100 bucks.

On the other end of the scale, here's a 2015 with the right uni number, (also a sticker) for $25.  You could get below $20 if you pick one with him in his Michigan State greens.

What's the real difference between them?  Cousins signed each one basically the same way.  What is it that justifies the extra cost?  Aren't you just paying for the serial number stamp or a different color background?

Here's another example of what I mean.  Take a popular guy like Clayton Kershaw.  He's got 44 autos on COMC.  Skipping over the minor league and rookie combo ones, and finding the cheapest one from a big name company, you find this:

Granted, it's a logoless product, but isn't bad.  Kershaw is the type of star player that garners $60+.
On the other end, there are a couple from bigger products that are almost four times the cost:

Hockey is even crazier.  Hockey autos always seem to be the cheapest to me.  Here's the range of Alex Ovechkin autos.  His signature itself isn't much, but his caliber of play makes up for it.

What's the real difference here?

In some cases, the card is serial numbered much lower than others.  But the signature is the same. The rest is window dressing.  If you want an autograph of your guy, and don't hate the rest of the design, why pay so much more?  Bragging rights?  What you have is a legit signature of that guy either way.

As I researched this post further, I expected to find this to be more of a global phenomenon across most star players.  It really just applies to certain guys with certain conditions - lots of autographs out there in lots of different accessible products.  Some guys are gonna be expensive all the way around. And some guys just don't have a lot of high end stuff to get.  But careful shopping can lead you to find those bargains that you never thought possible.

You Will Be Assimilated!

Last week I got the latest edition of Sports Collectors Digest.  I get it in the physical newsprint form.  I generally like it.  They have some nice stories about vintage sets, less famous players, oddball inserts, food issues or other card products  made by other companies besides the usual ones, etc. etc.

I will say they do also carry a lot of content about high end auctions as well.  There are occasionally articles that are nothing more than promotions for a particular auction house's latest offerings.  And in other places, they list prices for sales of (mostlly vintage) items that boggle the mind.  People paying five and six figures for what I consider three digit cards at best.  I have no idea who these people are.

I don't let that deter me from subscribing and reading.  I know that there are collector's of all types and the magazine has to cater to all of them to some degree.  I'm not going to like everything they publish.  And the auction places are major advertisers, so the publishers have to earn their money.

But their article about the newly released 2017 Topps flagship set is utterly ridiculous.

It's not that I disagreed with their opinion of the design, or the appeal or quantity of the inserts, or even the configuration of the different boxes and the resulting collation.

No, it wasn't any of that, because they NEVER MENTIONED ANY OF IT.

The only facet of the 2017s that was discussed was the rookie content.

Here's what the page looks like:

Intentionally small so I don't violate copyright

The first line would have made me spit out my drink, but I wasn't drinking anything at the time.

Uh.....NO..

Sorry, I know I'm in the minority here, but I'm sorry, I don't care that much about rookies.  Unless they are the last few cards I need for the set (which they usually are). 

The author didn't say "card collectors" though.  The words used were "baseball fans".  Don't even know where to go with that.

I wouldn't have minded nearly as much if the rookies discussion was only part of a more complete review like most of their New Releases normally are.  (They are, I checked).  The entire thing is juat which rookies are in the set.  As if there is no other reason to buy any of the product. 

This is like communist propaganda to me.  Or media hype.  

"Nobody collects anything but rookies these days.  There are no real collectors, just prospecting flippers!  Every other card is worthless!"

 We will dictate how you collect or ignore all other facets of the hobby!

Fall in line!  Succumb to the power of the Sick Mojo Hitzzzzz with the Rookie Logo!  

You will be assimilated.  Set building is irrelevant.  Team collecting is irrelevant.  Inserts are irrelevant.  Your collection will adapt to become rookies exclusively.  From this Time forward, you will collect like us. 

 

 

 Whoo..... I guess I got off on a bit of a rant there.   

Musical Interlude #2 - Pimp-tastic Players

Here's another song from the early 80's that was really popular at the time.  I won't say it was a favorite, necessarily, but in the interest of variety, it was cool.  Morris Day and the Time fell well outside my musical wheelhouse back then, but they were fun to watch.  Day was a badass pimp with the best of them.  And he hung out with Prince.  Which makes a nice segue from Musical Interlude #1, since His Purple Badness wrote a few songs for Miss Sheena Easton too.

Anyway, take it away Morris Day.  Dude is a slickster.  I would be too if I was trying to woo Apollonia....

There have been many lists and articles about who are the pimpingest (is that a word?) ball players through the years.  I found a few photos online of some of them.

Babe Ruth.  The original.

Dick Allen

Dave Parker....

 

... and the boys.

Al Hrabosky, the Mad Hungarian

Some of the guys I collect...

George Foster.  Gotta be the sideburns.

 Luis Tiant.  Coolness Maximus.

 Manny Sanguillen

Joe Torre as manager of the Braves.

Manny Mota

A lot of these guys are like pitbulls.  They'll give you that intimidating stare, but they're really nice guys.  It's really all about the look, retro sideburns, maybe a 'stache, and the dangerous expression on thier faces.  Smoking seems to add to the mystique too.

Brady is the Greatest because NFL Media Dept. says so!

FOX Sports memo to all broadcast staff:

   In order to assure compliance with NFL league policies and negotiated agreements between the NFL and FOX Sports, please be sure to emphasize these points while presenting the Super Bowl game:

     1. Worship, Glorify, Analyze, and tie all success by the New England Patriots back to Tom Brady.  The predominant message of all broadcasts is to be the marketing of the superiority and star power of Mr. Brady.  No more than thirty seconds should elapse between either mentions of his name, or his image on the screen.

     2. Briefly mention the Atlanta Falcons at some point to dispel favoritism.

     3. To provide some slight variety, also mention repeatedly the accomplishments of other Patriot players in the preceding playoff wins.

Joe Buck sure earned his paycheck on that one....

As far as the actual game, the sickening feeling I have after watching it didn't come from most of the normal causes.  Though the more I watch football, the more often I get this feeling.
This time, it wasn't that the Patriots seemed to have an unfair advantage.  The officials really did a great job "letting them play" and still keeping order on the field.  There were no game-changing penalties to swing the game in New England's favor, nor were there any ticky-tack calls on Atlanta defensive players for disturbing the aura of Tom Brady.

The Falcons just simply made mistakes, lost the momentum of the game and let the Patriots keep chipping away at the lead.  And then a pass was deflected in the air and three Falcon players could not prevent the NE receiver from catching the ball that should have just fallen to the ground.  At that point, I should have known the outcome would be what it was.

Most of what left me so disgusted was listening to Joe Buck, (and even the normally unbiased Troy Aikman to a lesser degree) go on and on and on, hammering away the whole game (or at least the second half that I saw) about how amazingly awesome Tom Brady is.  They never even tried to discuss anything else.  Atlanta is leading by 25 points, but all they can talk about is how this is so unexpected, so unusual from the Patriots, and they're just waiting for them to turn it all around at any moment, but it's not happening fast enough.  At one point, Buck praised Tom for using "his best fastball" on a pass to the running back in the flat that lost three yards - because it could have been a catastrophic turnover.  Lord knows any other non-demigod quarterback would have messed it up and lost the game.  Thank God Brady was there to SAVE THE DAY!  Ugh....

Of course, now that New England won again, the unrestrained Brady worship will saturate all the sports talk media for the rest of his career.  It was bad enough that half of all broadcasters were drinking the Kool-Aid on this guy, but now they'll be throwing it on the crowd in buckets and force-feeding it to the rest of us until he gives his Hall of Fame speech, which they will probably allow the year after he stops playing in a special exemption because he's just so exceptionally great.  They might even persuade Belichik to introduce him in his trademark deadpan style.  (Though I think the reason Bill talks like that is that he's bitter about Brady getting all the credit even though 60% of the team's success is really due to his system.)

I feel bad for Dan Quinn, Matt Ryan, and the Falcons.  I doubt the NFL front office does, though.  They're happy because the game result was the optimum marketing outcome for them.  The Hype Machine's poster boy came out on top again. 

Cast your vote for the Coolest Card Cave!

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Go Here to cast your ballot (hopefully for mine!)

Junk Wax Gem Mining - 1990 Upper Deck

There have been several recent blog posts about late 80's / early 90's era variations and those that strive for them.  I count myself as one of them.  I didn't actively collect between 1985 and 2003, so I missed the whole junk wax era, but I do enjoy seeking out those subtle variations in everything from Pro Set football and hockey, to 1980s Donruss and Fleer, through the early Upper Deck years, and beyond.  I've spent whole afternoons squinting for incomplete stat lines and misspellings and considered it time well spent.

The latest chapter in my quest comes from a trade I recently made for a set of 1990 Upper Deck.  Believe it or not, it's 2017, and there is a set collector that didn't have 1990 Upper Deck.  (Still don't have '89, but that's for later).

The major errors in that set come at #101 through 199.  The copyright line that appears on the back underneath the MLB and MLBPA logos is missing on all 99 cards.

These variations don't appear to be very rare, so they should be found in most every bulk box of 1990 UD you find.  This is the appeal of the variation hunt to me.  They're cheap and easy to find, but still interesting.

I don't have these posted on my want lists, but I printed out a list that also includes the other variations in this set, most of which occur in the high 500's and up.  Go here for a complete list.  There are a lot of UERs that don't count listed there too.  I would post my wants here, but I still have several that I need the "line present" version etc., so it's a bit cumbersome.  I'll wait until I've had the chance to dig through a few bulk boxes at shops or shows and then put up what's left.

Musical Interlude #1 - Go on and Strut girl!

Yet another common post theme these days is matching songs to cards or players.  The latest "fad" is to put up music that you were into as a teenager.

As I am always up for giving my take (and generating more post material), I present the first in a line of songs that I enjoyed when I was a high schooler.  The first album I ever bought myself was by this gushingly adorable Scottish lass with the electric eyes and sweet yet sassy demeanor.  This is Sheena Easton's most popular track in the US.  Circa 1984. 
(Note: the majority of my musical selections have a much more "metallic" flavor.  Stay tuned.)

 

This song is all about going against the stereotype and being a strong woman.   Not just being eye candy.  (Though Sheena sure has that going too).  

While most of the time when you think about women on trading cards, the first thing that comes to mind is Benchwarmers.  Now, I could do a post on that too, I have my favorites and a few sets.  But maybe another time.  But in 1993 and '94, Ted Williams card company put out two sets that included some legit females who were members of the AAGPBL (All-American Girls Pro Baseball League) that ran from 1943 to 1954.  Here are a couple examples.

 

 

Seems ol' Pepper was a tough cookie - she knocked the guy out!  And the back of Sophie's card says they had to change the rules of the league because she was stealing too many bases.    She stole 201 bases in 203 tries and only 113 games!  Take THAT, Rickey Henderson!

The other group of strong women has been portrayed in the last couple years by Topps in their First Pitch Series.  Mixed in with other celebrities, several notable females are featured.

 Agnes McKee, still cranking at 105.  Only to be
outdone the next year by Evelyn Jones at 108.

 

 Gabby Giffords, the congresswoman who rebounded from an assassin's bullet.

 

 13-year-old Mo'Ne Davis fired a strike from back at the pitcher's rubber.

And Rebekah Gregory, who after losing a leg to the Boston Marathon bombing, finished the race the next year.

All these girls can bring it just like the boys, or better!  Strut proudly, gals!

Another Epic Mailday

Have been out sick a few days, so I couldn't keep up my posting pace.  But this past weekend I hopefully will build up a multi-post buffer.  We'll see...

Anyway, my main trading guy (BseballCommish75 on SCF) had been telling me he was getting some stuff from a guy named Lee on that forum.  Lee had also offered a bulk box of extra stuff that he was trying to get rid of to gain space.  Commish didn't need it, but recommended that he send it to me.

Here's what I got this past Thursday:

BOOM!

When I come home each evening, I always glance at my front step in the hopes that there will be a huge box of cards waiting for me.  This time it really happened!  (Sort of, I was home and I actually met the UPS guy at the door).

I opened it up and saw this:

Those markings were accurate!  Starter sets of 1992 Upper Deck, 1993 Classic Best minors, 1993 Topps, 1994 Collector's Choice, 1994 Upper Deck, 1996 Coll. Choice, 1997 Upper Deck, 1998 CC and 1999 Topps.  Was glad it wasn't a whole box of 1991 Score or '89 Topps, anyway....

These were all 800 count boxes, some full, some not, but they were all exactly what they said.  Most of the starters were Series 2, with a few exceptions.

I had some of the sets already.  1992 UD, 1993 Topps, 1994 CC.  So those are available for trade.

A few years ago I completed the 1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond parallel set, but didn't do the regular until now.  The Classic Best minor league set is nice, so I'll keep that.  There are about 120 dupes available.  I just traded for a complete 1992 UD set, so the chunk of #401-700+ is up for grabs too.  The 1999 Topps is really just a chunk from #364 to the end, so I will probably make a set with that, but after I took one of each from there, the remaining stack was still taller.  

So to summarize, here's what you can make me offers for:

1992 UD - #401+
1993 Classic Best minors - (about 120 dupes 1-300)
1993 Topps - (mostly Series 2 - multiple starters)
1994 Coll. Choice - (mostly Series 1 - multiple starters)
1994 Upper Deck - (about 140 dupes, mostly Series 2)
1996 Coll. Choice - (about 275 dupes, mostly Series 2)
1997 Upper Deck - (about 400 dupes, mostly Series 2)
1998 Coll. Choice - (about 375 dupes, mostly Series 1)  Update - actually Ser 1!
1999 Topps - (about 200 dupes, from #364 on)

if you'd like to make a trade, check my wants here to see all I'm looking for with these and everything else.  Email me at QAPLAGCA at yahoo dot com.

Also in the box was this funky five-slot display box with what appears to be the eclectic mix of junk wax and newer cards still inside.  Not sure what you would use this for, but it might work for collecting insert sets before you sheet up a master set or small sets that aren't big enough for their own box by themselves.  If anyone must have it, let me know.  It says it holds 800, but that sounds ambitious....

Thanks again to Lee for needing to clear space!

2016 Passion Sidelines Connections Odell Beckham, Jr.

The latest addition to my custom memorabilia cards is the 2016 Passion Beckham/Net Sidelines Connections dual relic.  Card contains game worn jersey patch swatch and snippet of kicking net twine.

 I started with the 2016 Prestige Connections Eli/Odell, at least the team logo, bottom bar, and Prestige logo.

Combined that with net relic from a hockey card, the nameplate from a "Sidelines" card of OBJ, and a patch swatch from another year.

Had to modify the Prestige logo of course, and add a heart from a Google search.  Creating the "o" was the tough part, though the "a" and "n" were scratch-made too.

 

The "Sidelines" is also pieced together from the "Connections" letters, and then placed over them in the upper flipped copy.  Manufactured "D" and "L" as well.

Future subjects may include Chad Johnson (cheerleader proposal) and Joe Namath (with Suzy Kolber).  

Many stats he led, and records he owns. Talkin' 'bout Puddin' Head Jones

This one's for Jon at A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts.

A couple years back I had been looking through websites and card dealers and such and kept seeing different cards from the 1950's.  I had none in my collection, but I had seen some at different shows, especially the National.  I wanted to add some as type specimens, but felt like just getting random cards of anyone wouldn't be very satisfying, so I thought having samples of the same player would show much better.

The next question was, of course, who to choose?  My knowledge of the sport at that time is minimal, so I would just choose someone interesting, but still affordable.  Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Yogi Berra are great, but would cost a fortune to collect in any volume.  A clever nickname was a good starting point.  Quick research led me to Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones of the 1950 "Whiz Kids" Philadelphia Phillies.  A comparison of his card images with those of fellow Phillie and second nominee Granville Wilbur "Granny" Hamner gave Mr. Jones the victory.

Ol' Puddin' Head got his nickname from the popular song in the 1930's.  Except in name, Mr. Willie doesn't really resemble the subject of the lyrics (which don't start until about 45 seconds in) except that he did well in his career too.  I don't see anywhere that Willie started at such a low point like "Wooden head" did....

So anyway, I've been picking up Willie's cards for a good while now, and have most of the basics and a few oddballs at this point.  Kinda went about it a little different than most, in that initially, instead of a typed text list, I printed out a page of images of his cards and wrote the sets and numbers next to the pictures so I could match them at a glance.  I remember either at Chantilly or one National I was shopping at Uncle Dick's tables, and he and his grandson were fascinated by my printout.

I also don't store his cards in a binder with all the rest of my player collections.  Being that half the cards are not the standard 2½" by 3½"size, it is not possible to put them in order in nine (or six, or even eight) pocket sheets.  So I just keep them in top loaders and card savers in a stack in my baseball cabinet.

Won't keep you waiting any longer.  On to the cards!  I left the penny sleeves on, so there are streaks and lines that aren't on the actual cards.

1949 Bowman RC, 1950 Bowman, my first oddball 1951 Berk Ross (still attached to Bobby Brown), 1951 Topps Blue Back, 1951 Bowman, and probably my favorite, 1952 Bowman.  Nice dense signature, and he includes the nickname.

Starts with both 1952 Topps, the red and black backs, then the SP 1953 Bowman color, '53 Topps, '54 Bowman, '54, '55, and '56 Topps.  Got some good deals on these.  The '52's were $17 and $25 respectively, and '52's in general are a hot item.

The most well known and widely traded and owned of the bunch, 1957 through 1961 Topps.  '59 and '60 are my second copies, as I have the others in their respective sets ('59 is finished).  Willie looks happier in these compared to the older ones besides his first few.

Skipping ahead a little, these are the modern Topps Archive reprints of the early issues in regulation size.  Scanned front and backs, and included my other favorite Mr. Jones for scale.  These are the easy ones from the dime and quarter boxes. 

And finally, a couple cool oversize issues.  1958 Hires Root Beer with the advertisement tab, and a 1952 Red Man without the bottom tab.  Since these didn't break the bank, and there aren't 900 other cards to finish him off, I'll probably get the respective tabless/tabbed versions of these two as well.

So there you are.  It's a modest collection so far, but I hope you enjoyed the look at these cards from a somewhat earlier era.

Federation Starship COMC-1701

I named this blog after the Borg race from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  It also kinda fit the card hobby.  My initial vision was that I would write everything as if you were hearing it from the Borg themselves.  But I quickly threw that out the window to allow myself to express my views and relate my collecting experiences much more easily.  (And without my Geek meter running in the red all the time.)

As part of my recent COMC order, I picked up these chase cards from the 1993 Skybox Master Series Star Trek set.  These are the Spectra cards, or at least four out of five.  The missing one is #3 Navigating the Asteroid field and is from a different artist than these four.  That one was too expensive for me to pull the trigger.  The ones I did get were much cheaper than when they first came out (and I didn't pull any).

The Spectra "effect" is really quite remarkable.  I'm not sure if Skybox or anybody else made sports cards with this technology.  With all the different effects at that time like Dufex, etc. I'm surprised I don't know about more products that use Spectra.

Here's how they look when tilted to the light.  See how different areas glow?

Here's a closeup of one of the cards taken at different angles.  This is the same card!  

I'd really like to be able to show them as an animated pair over top of each other, but I don't think my template will allow it.  

Here's a rough example of the effect.  The photography isn't great.  My unsteady hand and the penny sleeves combine for a bit of fuzzyness.  The middle image is actually a scan....

These are just too cool.  #ResistanceIsFutile.

Rickey says Rickey is just getting started

Started a trade recently with Adam of Arpsmith's Sportscard Obsession when I saw him post about breaking boxes of 2013 Hometown Heroes.  He ended up with some parallels of a couple of my player collection guys, so I inquired...

I got all three of these parallels, plus a bonus:

A really nice Topps Chrome "Blue Wave" Alfred Morris auto.

My Redskins team collection is substantial, but takes a back seat to set building and player collections most of the time.  Even though I've got a nice catalog of pretty much everything there is for the team, (which I bought many years ago) it's still tough to sit down and flip back and forth in that list to check every card if there's more than a handful in front of me.  And with the sheer number of parallels, gamers and autographs out there in the last few years, I just pick them up as they come along, but don't expend a lot of cash and energy pursuing them.  So this was a nice bonus.

So what to send in return?

I figured Adam would need a bunch of HHeroes inserts at least, and I may get lucky and he'd be missing a few last base cards.  Or barring that, I could hit some of his extensive SF Giants needs.

This proved very tough initially, as his HH needs are most plentiful for the tougher parallels of his player collection guys.  So I ended up with one whole card for those.  Then I scoured through the Giants a little, but was kinda frustrated then too.  So I moved on to the player collections.  I went through and found a few Rickey Hendersons that sounded reasonably "gettable" and checked them on COMC.  I've been ordering cards like I just won the lottery lately, so I added several of my player guys' more obscure issues to fill out a cart and placed the order. 'Cause you can't just order a few at a time, right?...

Then Adam posts later about updating his wants for several modern sets.  I saw a few that I knew were in my tradeables box and started looking them up.  I found a few on one set, then another, then a few more, and pretty soon I had a decent stack going.  So what started as a desperation buy with no other return fire bloomed into a pretty decent trade.

The Rickeys (and the rest of my COMC order) showed up today, so I'll be packing and sending it all out...probably early next week, since it's going to be snow, sleet and ice tomorrow and then the holiday as well.

Rickey says "Here comes Rickey!"