Not Another Music-Filled Trade Post

Of course I'm lying.

I received an excellent envelope in the mail today from north of the border -- Ontario, to be exact. Mike from Not Another Baseball Card Blog packaged up some Brewers to send my way in response to a package I sent to him. I made him wait quite a while to get the cards I sent his way, so I was very happy when the return envelope came my way. 

I know that I can be slow to send out packages to others at times, so I never take any offense when others take a while to send me cards. Heck, I am pretty sure that I have sent out packages of cards to folks on more than one occasion that I'm pretty sure weren't reciprocated. You know what? It doesn't really bother me.

All that said, these cards -- and Mike's blog -- have a distinctly Canadian feel, so it's Canadian music time. I'll start with a song that was stuck in my head literally all day until I listened to the whole song at about 2 PM this afternoon:

If I were more ambitious, I'd probably go to see The Strumbellas (a Juno-award winning Toronto band whose music has been called "folk popgrass") live this weekend for free for a St. Patrick's Day Party here in Atlanta this Saturday. Instead, I'm pretty sure that -- if it isn't raining -- I'll have a lot of yard work to do.

I'm praying for rain.

Anyway, here are some cards to go with that very catchy tune:

A literal fistful of O-Pee-Chee cards! Now, I wouldn't expect to receive anything less from a Canadian collector. Or rather, I'm pleased to see that junk wax Canadian-style is as ubiquitous in Canada as it is here in the United States.

Now, I just need to find some of those 1990 Fleer "Printed in Canada" cards. Are those things legitimately rare, or are they just rare because I'm in the Southern United States?

What's next on the Canada playlist?

I went through a period where I was really listened to a lot of Flogging Molly. By way of that, and back on Yahoo radio or something crazy like that which no longer exists, I heard of both the Dropkick Murphys and this band from Vancouver -- The Real McKenzies. Whenever I was in a super-contemplative mood, I'd listen to this song. When I wanted upbeat music, I'd listen to this:

I mean, what's better than punk music with bagpipes?

Absolutely nothing. Don't even try.

Cal Eldred recognized in his photo 22 years ago that he would be competing with -- and losing badly to -- such fantastic music. It's pretty clear, though, that Greg Vaughn is happy just to be associated with it.

Okay, time for some 90s Canadian music...

Sure, Our Lady Peace sounded like maple-syrup grunge to a lot of people, probably. But "Starseed" is a damn good song from a band that really is underrated in my opinion. At the same time, though, I did hear this song a ton in the mid-1990s, so perhaps they aren't underrated at all.



Dude! Mid-90s Finest? AWESOME! Maybe it's just that I wasn't around for these cards when they were new, but these just struck me as being really great cards today. It sort of like listening to some of those 1990s bands again "for the first time" today -- it can be very surprising how ... good some of the songs/cards are.

Now, for the early/mid 2000s....

Maybe it hasn't been long enough since this song was released. I haven't listened to this song in a long time. If I'm honest -- and unlike "Starseed" -- I could have done without hearing this song. For whatever reason, this song sounds like it is the musical personification of Johnny Knoxville and "Jackass"...and to be honest, I've never been a fan of that. Can't tell you a good reason why other than it just doesn't appeal to me.

Anyway, don't get me wrong -- I didn't turn off the radio when Sum 41 came on. But, I was okay when the song ended and Jimmy Eats World started playing.



Again, don't get me wrong about these cards either. They are cool, in that I need them for my team collection. And these guys even did reasonably well for the Brewers (well, other than Rigdon and his career FIP of 5.67 with Milwaukee). I just don't mind when the next card comes off the pile.

Finally, let's move back to more contemporary times.

While I've heard songs off Arcade Fire's first album Funeral, I really got into the band when they released Neon Bible with such great songs as "Keep the Car Running" and "No Cars Go." "Reflektor" is a song that I've liked since it was released a couple of years ago.

I will say, though, that one bad thing about having Spotify at my fingertips is that I don't often listen to full albums any more. I really should listen to this full album.

This song was hitting the alternative charts around the time I got back into collecting and into blogging a couple of years ago -- 2014 -- just like the coup de grâce of this envelope from Mike:

This is just fantastic. I tried for many months back in 2014 to pick up one of these at a decent -- not even reasonable...just decent price -- and failed. Since then, they seem to elude me regularly. So, for this card to have been included in this cross-border trade package is unbelievable.

Mike, you're awesome dude! Thank you SO much for these cards!  And I never even played Barenaked Ladies!

Couldn't resist!

My COMC Card Show, Part I: Some Yount Oddballs

As a team collector and a player collector with a crazy number of player collections, sometimes I forget to focus. My trips to card shows have been great this year, and I have knocked a bunch of Milwaukee Braves cards off my want list as a result.  

But the results from card shows are hit-and-miss.  Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy the interaction with the guys behind the tables and some of my fellow collectors a great deal. On the other hand, it's not always a pleasant result for my back or legs the next day from leaning over card boxes at a table, standing stationary most of the day.  It sucks getting old.

So, this time around, rather than go to an actual card show, I decided to go to an online card show at COMC.  I took the money I would have spent at a show and bought store credit on COMC and bought a bunch of cards.  Of course, trying to be somewhat frugal about it, I tried to make a bunch of offers on cards rather than purchasing them all outright. Most of my offers were accepted, thankfully, thereby making my dollars go further.

Today, I'll share some Robin Yount Oddballs I picked up. I can't recall what I paid for each of these cards, but I do know that I did not pay anything more than $2.75 or $3 for any one card.  The great thing is that a lot of these are cards I'd never see at an Atlanta card show.

Why?

Well, for one thing, we don't get very many Canadian stickers here in the ATL. Both of these are O-Pee-Chee stickers (the back for the horizontal one is to the left of it). I hated paying what I did for stickers, but I have not been very successful in finding too many of these around.  

I also plumped for a few cool oddballs:

At the top is the 1983 Perma-Graphics All-Stars Yount, and next to it is one of those "O'Connell & Son Ink" cards that probably is from 1984. The O&SI card is one I have looked for fairly regularly, but here I was able to get it for a reasonable price.  

The other four Younts are all 1987 oddballs. That photo of Yount was used by Mike Schechter and Associates for nearly all of MSA's unlicensed sets that year. MSA used it almost as much as -- or maybe more than -- Topps recycled that Carlos Gomez photo from last year's Archives set.  These four are: (1) the General Mills Canadian Fold-out (which includes 7 other players), (2) the True Value Hardware collector series; (3) The Kraft Home Plate Heroes card from the back of a box of macaroni and cheese, and (4) the full panel Dorman's Cheese set.  

Like I said, MSA used it a ton.

One of my favorite cards in this group tonight is actually an oddball itself, though it looks normal.

This is a 1987 Fleer Box Bottom card. Call me crazy, but I sort of miss the days when the box in which the cards came had additional collectible cards on the bottom.

Maybe because I am an 80s kid, but I love all these late 80s oddballs.  Here's another 1987 oddity:

This is the 1987 Hostess Potato Chips sticker, still in its original potato-chip-greased wrapper. It's such a great card on two levels. First, it's a weird, small sticker. Second, only Canadians were treated to the concept of Hostess Potato Chips.  When I think Hostess, I think "Ho-Ho's" and "Twinkies" -- not Potato Chips.  See, this is why we need food issues to return.  Too bad the money is too high these days for companies to do anything other than sponsor a single, local team or maybe partner with MLB as a whole.

Okay, two more oddballs for tonight.  First, let's go with the 1989 Gardner's Bakery Milwaukee Brewers:

This was the only card for which the owner turned down my original offer.  But, I had to have it. The 1989 Gardner's set was produced by MSA.  It's unfortunate, too, because when Topps printed the set in 1983, 1984, and 1985, they created colorful, fully licensed cards with bright backgrounds and photos likely taken in spring training.  When MSA got the gig when Gardner's tried to resurrect the set in 1989, MSA apparently got only crappy portrait shots against a blank blue background. Then, MSA accentuated that crappiness by creating a border that only the designer of 2010-2014 Topps would call interesting.  

But, I had to have it, I say again.

Finally, the last card to show off is another Canadian special.  

Post Cereals did card sets both in Canada and in the United States. Both sets had black borders. But there is where the similarities end. Because, in Canada, Post made this a pop-up card. I'd show it to you in that form, but there's no way I'm pulling this sucker apart.

Maybe if someone else sends me another one, I would. But for the one and only for the player collection? No thanks.

So, those are the Yount oddballs. I loaded up on a lot of Robin's cards from COMC, but most of them are cards (or, really, parallels of cards) that everyone's seen a lot. Stuff like Fleer Glossy, Topps Tiffany, Score Glossy, and even Starting Lineup Cards.  There is one card, though, that is now a main-line brand for Topps that stood out:

Topps's first attempt at the Finest brand. Obviously, the photo quality is a little lower than we get on our chrome-type cards these days, but this design is still pretty cool even though it is a bit loud.  

Stay tuned for Part II, when I show you cards other than Robin Yount -- including a strange basketball card.