Blogger Tech Chapter 1: ASCII Me How To Type That

Being a professional computer technician since the mid-90's, I know a lot of keyboard shortcuts and little Windows tricks that the average user may not be aware of.  I threw one out in a recent post about typing custom characters.  Figured I'd give a little lesson to those that didn't know about it already.

There are certain custom characters that you can generate with a keystroke.  They are called ASCII characters.  It is a finite set of letters, numbers, and symbols that are handy in a lot of computing and writing applications.

This is the chart of ASCII characters.  I modified it slightly to fill in a few codes in the first column that Blogger generates instead of the listed Beep codes, carriage return, and a couple other functions.  Save the picture and print it out on a full sheet of paper.  I always keep one of these near my keyboard.

So how do you make them work?  It's simple, but there is a certain technique to it.

Say I want to type about a Ronald Acuña card.  You'll find the accented "n" is number 164 on the chart.

Hold the ALT key, and then type out 1-6-4 but don't use the number keys above the letters, use the number pad over to the right side of most keyboards.  Your NumLock should be ON.  As soon as you are done with the three digits, let go of the ALT key.  Your symbol should appear!  Sometimes adding a leading zero will assure the proper character is output.  Most of the time I just use the three numbers.

Here is a quick video lesson that illustrates this well.

Some notable characters that I use all the time:
╔════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  ¢ - cent symbol  (ALT - 155)  25¢ each                                                               ║
║  ½ - half  (ALT - 171)  2½" x  3½" slices of crack                                              ║
║  ¼ - one quarter (ALT - 172)                                                                                 ║
║  ° - degree symbol (ALT - 248)  Turn the card 90°                                          ║
║  √ - check mark (ALT - 251)  Great for checklist cards on want lists            ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════╝


Évëñ   ┬╫○ûg╫   │┬$   Ä  ╘│M│┬êD   $é┬,  You can do a lot with these symbols.  They also work in most Office programs and other Windows applications.  Some of the characters might come out different in certain places.  You just have to experiment.

We're All Animals!

Was gettting my fix at my favorite local card booth inside an antique mall last week and saw some Allen & Ginter minis called Horse In The Race.  I had just seen them in somebody's blog posting a day or so before.  I looked it up on my phone and it turned out to be from Nachos Grande blog.  He only needed four more to kill the set, and they were there, so I snagged 'em up.

Chris sent me some A&G in return, some of which also depict our friends with tails and bad table manners.  Oh, and some ballplayers too.

My absolute favorite mini insert set from A&G (like, ever) is now complete!  (Though they coulda put a pitbull in there).  These two fuzzy people finish it out.  Still have three other mini insert sets to kill in 2019.  Is it me or does every other Instagram hottie have a Frenchie or a big shepherd dog?

Here's another 2019 insert, but full size.  One more down in the 100-card zodiac sign series.  This one of the only slightly less hairy Noah "Thor" Syndergaard.  I'm glad he's got the nickname, because it's a lot shorter to type in a wantlist than Syndergaard.

Moving back six years to a better manscaped Clayton Kershaw in 2013's 100-card insert Across The Years.  These are nice looking, but I couldn't remember what the theme was until I looked on the Database.  It's common birthdays among sports figures.  I would have said to put them in order by the calendar, but then the names would have been all mixed up (and God forbid they NUMBER these instead of using stupid initials!)

And finally, a cosmic flavored insert also from 2013.  Only related to the recent "Egg" A&G card by the shape, this is a minor planet that was only recently discovered in a remote region of the solar system.

Hanging 'Round My Trade Bait Pile

Figured I should add scans of the trade bait from the two hanger boxes I got last week.  I really only netted one card from both hangers - a 1960's Decade's Best '69 Mets team.  Oh well, $20 for the cause I guess.

We'll start things off with the two Chrome Turkey Reds.  Nice to get Acuña for trade bait.  (That's Alt+164 on your number pad to make the ñ)  I can never understand the logic in chromifying older style cards.  Metallize 90's designs, not the vintage stuff.  Though I guess a lot of those used foil and mirrorboard all the time anyway.

Some very popular names in these turkeys, I mean, Turkey Reds.  I think these work better as oversize cards like they were originally.  The names are too hard to read when the frames are shrunk to regulation size.  A lot of these look like the photographer took the player out to a golf course with all the trees and unmarked grass.  Those aren't baselines, they're cart paths!  At least Altuve has a stadium behind him.

Ooh, big name Yankee on useless reprint set du jour.  Moving on....

A couple more '85s for those inclined to quest for them.  I think Topps was rooting for the Astros in the post season last year.

I didn't notice the "RHYS" in the background until scanning these.  Otherwise, I actually like the look of this series.  These are #4, 5, 12, and 30.  Which lead me to say "There are frikkin' thirty of these things?!!"  Bryce Harper's original Highlights set in 2017 Update was only 20.  Looks like all the guys since then (which I've completely ignored) have had 30.  Geez, these guys only play for like a year, how do they get 30 highlights in that short time?  Hype machine in full throttle, I guess.

Anyway, if you need any of these (and any from the previous post), hit me up.

Hoping Bigger Is Better

I took the same route jumping into 2020 Topps Series 1 as I did for 2019 Update.  Bought one Jumbo box from Charm City Cards.  It's so nice to have a dealer about an hour away - I ordered on Thursday afternoon (don't tell the boss) and it showed up Friday.

Won't show the base cards, since you can see them multiple places these days.  I'm confident that I'll get a complete series out of the box.  It's been proven true by the reports I've seen so far.  One trader said they were one card short, and then found a few laying on the floor including the missing culprit.

Let's dive in.  Do you wanna see the "hits" first?  Of course you do.

Ha! Fooled ya!  While this is counted as one of the hits in the box, it's a manufactured "Sleeve patch" which should NEVER be classified as a "relic".  Hey, decent looking card item, but doesn't count as a "hit".

Speaking of deG deMoney:

deGrom hot box!  Black parallel insert.  Looks a little better than the plain one Night Owl got, but it's so dark it looks like it would fit in with this year's Heritage.  Parallel inserts are almost as annoying as fake hits, in that all they are is an insert you didn't actually get if you're trying to build them all.

Now this is an actual "hit".  Of course, it's a Rockie Rookie (hey that's fun to say) that I've never heard of, so it's trade bait.  Nice looking card with the team color theme throughout though.

But all was not lost:

YESSS!!!  I'm all in on the Nationals World Series championship stuff.  I want all the parallels to all the World Series Highlight base cards.  Never figured I'd get lucky enough to pull a jersey of them too, so I'm really happy about this, white swatch and all.  Although when I looked closer, it says right on it "Item is not from the 2019 World Series".  *sigh*  Even Topps can't find the blue jerseys from the Postseason.

Anyway, on to the shiny.  Actually got two silver packs (which were blue wrappers) in the box basically unannounced.  Pulled some nice names.

Got this guy too.  Night Owl loves his Turkey Red insert, which is arguably the same photo with the crowd left in the blurred background.  Well, he and Clayton above are going to Night Owl so he can enjoy this one too.  All I can think of is "Get a haircut!"

As for the regular '85s, I did pretty well pulling names again.  Not that I'll be after these though.  I used to dismiss the 1985 design and pure junk wax, but it's a lot cleaner than most during that time.  It's kinda grown on me.  But not enough to pursue 250 of them.

I might add the Nationals team set from these to the WS cards.  So both of these are keepers.  Matty is for another collector I know who just gathers his cards.

The Decade's Best are the one large set I might go after this time.  At least all the "award winners", "batters", "teams" and things are all in the same series.

I'm aware the insert ratios have dropped through the floor in the last couple years, so I'm only sort of OK with pulling six of these from one jumbo box, but only managed two different decades' subjects.  Not a big problem, but would have been nice to see a mixture of the eras.  That Astros card may cause a bit of controversy these days.  Anyone see the interview with AJ Hinch on MLB?

These aren't bad either, and they're only 30 cards big.  Will keep Soto either way.  Already have a request for Devers, but I'll have to see how easy they are to trade for first.

Here is my slightly oversize (3¼" x 4½") box topper Turkey Red.  At first rip, I thought I got Aroldis Chapman, but it's Matt.  Can't say I'm too familiar.  Are you interested, Fuji?

Got one of the contest cards with Mr. Retail Highlight insert set Hoskins.  Cool looking card with the layers and the throwback uni.  I can pair this with the four HHL's I got in the hanger boxes earlier for anyone who's a fan.

Topps Choice.  Which apparently means Topps chooses to reprint current players on an old design for a FOURTH incarnation.  I've run this point into the ground, but again, isn't Heritage, Archives, and this year's '85 tribute set enough?  Nope, must have a generic reprint insert set every year too.

Not to be outdone in it's uselessness, here is card #1 of the Topps NOW review inserts.  They basically say, "Here's what you missed out on, and have no chance to ever get cheaply again."

Now, the parallels.  These are the gold foils that are exclusive to jumbo boxes.  I pulled a couple of these in the first few packs and thought they might be the new incarnation of the golds, just shiny now.  But nope, these are a new flavor.  They actually look pretty nice - better than they scan.  The gold looks like gold and the blue tint isn't really there.  More in a moment...

These are the regular foils.  Astros and Sawx, par for the course.  If it was against just about any other team, I'd have felt bad for Verlander losing another postseason.

The rest of the foils were all Giants.  I can see why they might make a lot of the playoff teams, but the Giants?  Guess it's just luck of the draw.  Are you still around ArpSmith?  I got the regular Davis horizontal in the previous pack. 

These are the regular "golds".  Again with the Giants.  Yelich isn't a bad pull.  Could package this one, the Choice '91, and the shiny '85.  But look at these closer.  The "gold" is really a tan color.  The scan is actually accurate and unaltered.  Somebody got some chocolate in the peanut butter.

So that's all that came out.  You'll hear about it if I don't get a whole base set, but I probably will.  And there's a good stack of dupes, especially since the whole base contents of two hangers will be added to them.  Happy trading and let me know what you need here.

Dispersing The Hoard #2 - Common Ingredients

Before I start breaking down each box, each year, and each set contained within, I thought I'd present the big name players that keep showing up in quantity across the board, and the level of star power, insert and rookie content, and occasional serial numbered stuff that appears in the average batch.

Now not every single group from every product is going to have the same number of cards in general, nor are all of them going to be composed of just stars, inserts, and rookies.  I have integrated my existing dupes into the first few years (2000 - 2004) of this "collection", so there are some pockets of commons mixed in.  But the typical philosophy of the new stuff is to grab the stars, inserts and at least hot rookies from the boxes or packs that were opened.

So for those that are star player collectors during the 2000s, you'll want to see if your guy is here (and he probably is in at least some of this stuff) and send me your want list.  I would say that the majority of the star cards are regular base cards usually in multiples, plus some inserts here and there, so please limit your lists to that.  Ask Gavin from BBCard Breakdown - I sent him about 100 Pedro Martinez cards (and still have a decent number left available).

Team collectors who are missing a lot of the stars and rookies from various sets will be interested too.  Link me your list site and I can fill 'em out for you.

And later, in successive posts, I'll be breaking down each year into which products are available, and then showing what kind of selection there is in most of the significant stacks.  I'll give approximate counts, but I'm trying to avoid exactly counting six entire monster boxes and listing every name of every card in a whole row or more at one time. I'm just trying to generate trades, not become an unpaid data entry clerk.

So here are the major names I keep seeing in all this stuff:

Ken Griffey, Jr.
Greg Maddux - probably the most common pitcher.  Glavine & Smoltz tag along often too.
Randy Johnson

Roger Clemens - he probably has the most total cards of all the big stars except maybe Vlad.
Chipper Jones
Vladimir Guerrero - there are a lot of rookie Vladdy's in his initial year.

Frank Thomas
Manny Ramirez
Pedro Martinez - depleted compared to the rest, but still a bunch in there.

Rickey Henderson in his last couple years of journeyman status.  I think he switches from active player to join the ranks of the all-time greats somewhere around 2004 or so.

One guy that was done before the 2003 season, but can be found in the earlier years - Tony Gwynn.

Jason Giambi
Barry Zito

And I'm sure I will want to append this list later, with guys like Craig Biggio, Lance Berkman, Alfonso Soriano, Edgar Martinez, Jim Thome, Mike Mussina, Larry Walker, Tim Raines, and Mike Piazza.  So ask me about them too.

So now let's look at a couple batches of particular sets.

This is 2002 Fleer Focus.  It's a small stack, but you can see it breaks down into base stars, rookies, and inserts.  There are dupes of each kind.  Can't help you with commons, but here's a nice selection of the good stuff.

And here is a bigger batch of 2000 Skybox.  Again, nothing but stars, rookie prospects, inserts, and in this case, a few parallels too.

Looking closer, there are the same names in the base - mostly Hall Of Famers.  And a couple red parallels.

Tons of prospects.  Some nice names in there too.  Lugo, Wells, Gagne, and duplicates as well.

 Star inserts, some more plentiful than others.  A few dupes to spread around.

Here you can see a couple parallel prospects and an insert, plus a parallel insert that I missed in Gavin's batch.  (Sorry dude).

And finally, these are from 2002 Best Of Donruss Fan Club, which I've determined is a complete parallel set to a separate product.  I'll do a complete tour of this batch later, but I just wanted to show the rookie and star card serial numbered inserts.  This is one of the largest lots of s/n cards in the batch.  If there was a more complete starter of the base set (or someone has one to trade me) I'd build these myself, just because they are there. But they probably make better trade bait since this would still most likely prove to be a "list camper" for a long time.

I hope this has once again whetted your appetite for trade bait.  Stay tuned for the breakdowns of the first half row of the first box - cards from 2000.

Hail To The Chiefs!

As you know, I'm partial to the "other" red indian team, but I'm glad the Chiefs won the Super Bowl.  And not just because I win the pick'em league that I took over running this season.

Glad for Andy Reid finally winning one, and not for those green guys in the NFC East.

Glad for Mahomes, Kelce, and Tyrann Mathieu, who was supposed to be a trouble maker when he was first drafted, but has become a quality player and kept himself straight ever since.

Glad the halftime show had artists I actually know.  Though I had no clue who those rapper dudes were.  But I wasn't looking at them much anyhow.

And I thought it was cool that the Chiefs final score was the number of my favorite Kansas City player.