Recently Unearthed in the Christmas Haul

I'm not going to be around much this week to post anything or comment thanks to a work trip to San Francisco I have coming up this week. So, I thought I'd post a couple of highlights I found recently from that massive pile of binders I got for Christmas.

Yes, more.

First, I found three Brewers I needed for my team sets or my player collections:

The Ted Higuera was the surprise of the bunch, because I didn't think I needed any Studio. Funny thing though: if you look at the checklist for 1991 Studio Brewers, you don't see the name Ted Higuera. That's because this is a Studio Preview inserted into the 1991 Donruss set. Hell, I didn't even know I needed this.



It's just a Sneak Preview, after all. I don't speak German so I haven't the foggiest idea what ASD are rapping about there. But it's got a good beat and you can dance to it, so I'd give it a 78, Mr. Clark.

Okay, a few other cards I found were a bit more exciting. The first trio of cards popped up in a binder with "stars & Superstars" and, for a change, the title was accurate:

Considering that the guy who collected these cards originally was from Columbus, Georgia, and that he collected these cards in the early 1990s and after comparing these to certified exemplars, I'd guess these are the genuine article. I just wish that the previous owner had take more care not to smoke or leave the cards some place where the white cards can partially yellow.  Oh well -- it was free to me, after all.

And the closer to free, the better -- at least according to my fellow Wisconsinites, The BoDeans.

Then, finally, I found something interesting. It was a binder full of those "Front Row" draft pick sets from 1991 and 1992. Staring smugly out at me from the pages of the binder with his maroon high school uniform was this guy...twice:



The certification with each set said that each was one of "only" 5000 printed. 

These two cards have me wondering if I should undertake my first ever foray into a card grading shipment. It would be purely for purposes of resale -- I really don't care about Derek Jeter, after all. Recent versions graded 9 sold for north of $150, while ungraded versions sold for around $75.  

What do you guys think: should I give in to the money monster and re-sell them? Should I grade them first if I do that?

Or should I just hold on to them until Jeter is elected to the Hall of Fame in 2019/2020, thereby hitting a cycle of higher interest in him?

Let me know your thoughts below.

Trade Bait from the Card Show

As I mentioned Wednesday, I went to a card show a couple of weeks ago two days after Christmas. I hit the jackpot as far as Paul Molitor cards were concerned.  With the smaller show, though, I had a bit more money that I'd budgeted available for me to spend. 

So, before I left the vendor who had those Molitor and Yount binders, I checked out what else he had. In the middle of his table, he had a bunch of random small sets for the low price of just $2 each. There were a ton of minor league team sets -- none of which really caught my eye. The seller and I had a good laugh about how even minor league sets were overproduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s while I flipped through those.

I stopped, though, when I started finding some cards that interested me.  For instance, I knew for a fact that I needed both of the cards below for my player collections:



While the Cooper might show up somewhere in a dime or quarter box -- and maybe I could have waited out life for that to happen fortuitously with the Carter -- I very well might have agreed to pay $2 for these two cards together.  Instead, I got the complete 33 card set for $2. So, if you're looking for that elusive Bill Buckner card, or the George Foster, or the Tony Armas...or, more likely, George Brett, Rod Carew, Johnny Bench, Steve Garvey, Carlton Fisk, Pete Rose, or Mike Schmidt -- well, let me know you want it.  The link above is to the Trading Card Database set listing, so take a look.

Another of the $2 sets was a set that really had nothing for me. It is a ten-card set from Corn Flakes/Kellogg's and Sportflics in 1992. Of course, I am drawn to food issues and oddballs like a moth is drawn to a bright light, so I picked it up.



Bill Madlock is listed on the Dodgers, even though he spent only parts of 3 seasons with them (the end of 1985, all of 1986, and the beginning of 1987) and was never an all-star with the team (he was an all-star once with the Cubs in 1974 and twice with the Pirates in 1981 and 1983). Once again, if you're looking for any of the cards in that set, let me know.

The next bunch of cards up for grabs is hardly a rare set, but it's one I've never had in my hands. 

Here's the checklist for that set from the back of the King's card:

Disappointingly, I received two Bucky Dents and zero Jim Spencers. But the rest were there, including the great photo variation of Hall of Famer Rich Gossage:

Goose looks far less intimidating there -- without the massive fu-manchu mustache and with a smile instead of a snarl on his face. 

Still, if you're interested in some or all of that set, let me know.

The last two $2 sets were insert sets from the late 1990s.

The first one is the "Sandlot Heroes" insert set from the 1999 Pacific Invincible set. The set I got includes both variations for each player, so I have both of the Chippers, the Madduxes, the Ripkens, the Big Hurts, the Jeters, and the Piazzas, to name a few. If you need something from this insert set, let me know.

The second one is visually far more jarring than the first...

At first, I thought this might be Derek Jeter's first appearance here on Off Hiatus, but then I realized that I've posted his cards a few times before through repacks, other trade bait posts and in the 2014 Gint-A-Cuffs.  Still, I have never laid my paws on any of the 1999 Pacific Invincible Seismic Force insert set before this show, and now I have the entire set available for trade -- even if it does look like the same players are in each of these two insert sets.

And Finally

A video highlighting the 15 stupidest lottery winners (by one person's account) is probably appropriate for me as well. 

You see, during most of 2015, I didn't buy any unopened packs. This was a conscious decision for me. I'm not much of a set collector right now -- maybe I will be in the future, but I am not currently as chasing all the Milwaukee Brewers cards and oddballs I don't have is more than enough for me to chase. So, I find my money can be better spent loading up on COMC and Just Commons orders (I made my first order just before Christmas...spent $80 and got over 400 cards in the package...) rather than buying and ripping packs.

But, I wanted a special birthday gift -- something a bit out of my ordinary card sorting.  

So, I bought a hobby box of....

Bowman Draft. I mean, after all, the Brewers are rebuilding, so Bowman sets will be providing me with my hope for the future. The one guy I'm really rooting for is Demi Orimoloye, as I have mentioned before, in that I'd love for the Brewers to have the first African-born major leaguer in the Nigerian-born Orimoloye. I'm not going for an official PC for him until he gets to the majors, but I'm going to try to set myself up to make the PC in the meantime -- trying to get two cards for him from each set and the like.

Now, since it was a hobby box, I've got a ton of those cards available for trade as well. I didn't make much effort to differentiate between refractors and normal chrome cards unless they were colored differently.  Here are the inserts and my one autograph:

For inserts and that "Bowman Initiation" card -- which I think is a case hit -- it felt like every other card was an Andrew Benintendi card. I'd have happily traded the Benintendi Initiation for a Trent Clark Initiation card, but I am guessing that one of the Red Sox fans out there would love a little Woo Pig Sooey in their lives.

Of course, I see Walker Buehler's "Fantasy Impact" card, and think -- man, I wish that the Brewers had picked just ONE of the Vandy Boys so I could have had an excuse to have a minor leaguer PC. Oddly, one of my college roommates has the last name of Buehler and is a Vanderbilt grad as well. He even has his own Wikipedia page for his renown as an "all-time great" in Magic: The Gathering.  So, there's that.

Anyway, let me know if you have interest in any of the cards I've shown or mentioned here that aren't Brewers or Gary Carter. If we've traded before, well, then the cards are yours. If we have not traded before, that's cool too -- the cards are yours and I look forward to trading with you.

Be sure to e-mail me after staking a claim here as well to let me know your e-mail address and your mailing address.  Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend.

14-Years-Old is New to Me

Back when I first bought cards at the local Target in February -- my first unopened pack buy in about 25 years -- I picked up a blaster of Panini's version of Elite Extra Edition.  In that blaster, I got a relic of a 15-year-old's jersey that creeped me out, so I sent it to Brian at Play at the Plate for his son.  Thankfully, his son appreciates the relic.  With my luck, that kid will end up breaking Cy Young's win record.

Anyway, now that I kind of have an idea of what I'm doing and I'm not buying nearly everything on eBay, COMC, Sportlots, and Amazon that I see, I've started trying to snipe unopened boxes of cards for sets that I don't have or don't have much from.  I keep it cheap, though I'm avoiding junk wax.

So, this past week, I picked up an unopened box of the 2000 edition of Topps Opening Day.  These 14-year-old cards are new to me.  I have perhaps no more than 10 regular Topps cards from 2000, but I have never had any Opening Day.

I'm ashamed to admit that I kinda like them.

Maybe its Hank Aaron as a Milwaukee Brave that convinced me.

Or the "Magic Moments" inserts that are really a subset.  Then again, it might be pre-steroid A-Rod, who was an incredible ballplayer without the, ahem, extra assistance.

Don't mind my scanning job on El Capitan, but Derek Jeter almost looks, well, friendly here.  A guy who is happy to be in the big leagues.

Then, there are the flights of fancy.  The promise of the future.  For Josh Hamilton, looking back 14 years must be a difficult task through the years of fighting addiction, pain, and anger.  I wonder what his Year 2000 self would think if you told him what the next 14 years would hold.

My only disappointment in the 2000 Opening Day set is that this card -- Jeromy Burnitz -- is the lone Milwaukee Brewers representative in the entire set.  In fairness to Topps, they chose who to put into the set after the 1999 season in which Milwaukee finished 13 games under .500.  In criticism to Topps, both Jeff Cirillo and Geoff Jenkins had good enough years to merit inclusion in the set except for the fact that both guys played for Milwaukee rather than a big-city team.

I know a lot of us crack on Topps for too many parallels (my hand is raised on that one), too many inserts, too many autographs, or the inclusion of stupid white fabric swatches in cards.  Others wish every card had dirt on which Player X spit.  My favorite thing about this set is the fact that there is a checklist included as a card in the set which lists ALL the cards issues -- both subset inserts and autographs -- instead of playing games with crazy short prints.

Sometimes, simpler is better.  Topps has lost sight of that with nearly every single set it issues these days. Opening packs from 2000 made me notice that.

More "Tales from the Repack"

I feel like it is a good thing that I took time away from collecting.  The 1990s must have been a very confusing time to be a card collector, what with MLB and MLBPA handing out licenses to anyone with a computer graphics card installed on their computers.  But, all those licenses led to some very interesting cards being printed.

Now, I like the recent Topps efforts. I tend to like the simple looks that their last few base sets have had. Maybe that's the "new card" halo effect -- and it certainly helps that technology advances have made printing super high quality color cards much, much easier.  You can't go wrong with the vivid colors on cards these days.  It even makes a scrub like Cesar Izturis in the 2012 Topps Update set look good in Brewers colors - especially when the card comes from an unopened pack on a $4 repack.

I wish, though, that I had been around to start grabbing the Topps Heritage cards from the very beginning. My repack bounty included two Heritage cards:  the 2012 Alex Avila and the 2001 card from Mark Grace based off the simple, beautiful 1952 Topps card design:

Weird scan -- the card doesn't have amber or red waves on it.

A final strange highlight to me was the unopened pack of the 2012 Panini "Triple Play" comic cards.  I felt like their lawyers forgot to add the standard movie/novel disclaimer to the pack:

I'm not complaining, but in reality any resemblance of the card below to representing Derek Jeter is purely coincidental.  Companies could use this drawing to pitch their products and Jeter wouldn't be able to sue for the company using his image.  

But hey, Derek Jeter's name is on the card.  It must be worth money!