Fancy Folks Have the National; Atlanta Folks Have the North Fulton Show

Yes, that's right. We Georgia collectors don't need no steenking National.  We have the North Atlanta Sports Collectibles Show. Indeed, for the first time ever, I ran into the dynamic duo behind the Trading Card Preservation Society Podcast -- Matt F. from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius and Dave the Cardboard Junkie.

I bought my usual week's worth of posts in cards there, and I also bought some oddball trade bait.  But I feel bad about one of them.

I feel bad because I grabbed this Broder out of a 15-for-$1 box.  Then, as I was listening to some old episodes of the TCPS Podcast, I heard Dave mention this card specifically as one he wants. If Dave had gotten to that 15 for $1 box before me, this card would be with him.  So, Dave, if you're reading and want this, shoot me an e-mail and let me know.

Here's the other few bits of random trade bait. Holler if you want something.

It's not much, I realize. I should have grabbed more than I did.

Sort of like this post isn't much, either. More later this week.

Headin' for a Heartbreak

A few weeks back, Matt F. from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius was the recipient of one of my attempts to reduce my staggering number of baseball cards that are not Milwaukee Brewers.  I sent him a bunch of those 1972 minis from the 2013 Topps effort which were essentially collecting dust in a box in a cabinet in my house.  

Matt was kind enough to send me some cards and other items recently in return for those. Even in the midst of war with Hazel Green -- and trust me when I say that JBF has sunk to monstrous levels in the war -- these cards from Matt are far too good to wait.

In the spirit of another theme post, how about we use Matt's "Heartbreaking Originals" for the theme here?  Matt hasn't added to them in a while, though they are excellent and with the perfect sense of dry/gallows humor that Midwesterners are known for.  

Let's start with #12: an Allen & Ginter original 2008 "World's Greatest Victories" featuring Skrillex at the 54th Grammy Awards.  Skrillex is Sonny Moore, a 27-year-old from Highland Park, California, who has said he is influenced greatly by the Warp label, whose artist stable includes Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.  

Here's a little Skrillex for you:

That is music that may not be familiar to a lot of you. To be fair, I don't listen to much Skrillex myself, but there is a lot worse out there.  

Speaking of the unfamiliar, this card was in the envelope from Matt:

This Sports Kings Gum card from Series E is a card from a set that I have never even heard of before. It does not appear that Sports Kings Gum got very far, seeing that their website has not been updated for quite some time.  It's too bad -- who wouldn't want to have a dual memorabilia card featuring Joe Sakic and Sasha Baron Cohen on the same card? Or Terry Sawchuk and Paula Creamer? Or, more saliently, Maurice "The Rocket" Richard and Paul Molitor?

The next Heartbreaking Original is a 1975 Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card of Brett Favre's Lil Brett (NSFW, perhaps) that he texted to Jenn Sterger, the former Florida State "cowgirl" who, of course, was discovered and became famous in the time-honored tradition that made a name for Katherine Webb -- Brent Musburger perving over her in the stands while a national TV audience watched.

How about a real Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card instead, of Davey May (Derrick May's dad):

While Brett Favre will always have a place in my football fandom for bringing my Green Bay Packers back to the Super Bowl and winning it, Lil Brett should have stayed under covers.

What's next?

How about the 2009 Topps Heritage of Thom Yorke from Radiohead?  This one may be my favorite Heartbreaking Original.  It's an iconic set design from 1960 that works perfectly for Yorke.

Yes, we need Radiohead here:

In the mid-1990s, I really liked 'Fake Plastic Trees" a lot. Speaking of plastic...

Two plastic-protected Topps Coins from 1971 -- one of former Brewers announcer (and later Indians announcer), the late Mike Hegan and one of former bonus baby Lew Krausse, who made his debut in 1961 with the Kansas City Athletics and, in his first appearance fresh out of high school at the age of 18, threw a 3-hit (and 5-walk) shutout of the Los Angeles Angels (then not of Anaheim) and went 2-for-3 at bat to boot.

One of the sardonic cards in the Originals is the 2009 Allen & Ginter Hoaxes card called "Book Value."  Believing in book value and then bidding on eBay is a dangerous game.  You will outbid almost everyone on every auction.  I mean, think of how dangerous believing book value would be with these two cards?

I made the decision to subscribe for a little while to the Beckett price guide online when I first got back into collecting.  I wanted it as a reality check of sorts, and because the first thing people always ask when they hear that you collect cards is, "oh, yeah, I have a couple of cards.  What's this one worth?"  

One of my first experiences with that was trying to help a neighbor who has a bunch of cards from the early 1960s in really great shape to determine how much his cards might be worth.  I looked at Beckett, and then for a sanity check I looked at eBay.  Beckett was always high by at least 10% and sometimes 25% or more.  As I looked further, it got worse for the so-called high-end cards like Triple Threads -- even the non-relic base cards -- and the serial numbered cards.  These Molitors would be amazingly overvalued -- or at least they were then.  

After all, it is one of the world's greatest hoaxes.

I'm left now with two cards that do not have decent analogs on the Heartbreaking Originals. So, let's play one more Radiohead song in honor of the second Thom Yorke card -- this time, a 2008 Allen & Ginter.

This is what you get when you mess with Jean Segura or Dave May.

Matt, I thank you very much for the great cards. I assume that the Heartbreaking Originals may make a comeback when you have the time and the inspiration to undertake a few more cards. I hope that you do that.

Thanks again.

You're Quite a Quiet Domino: Trade with Heartbreaking Cards

Let's start with the musical inspiration for the title of this trade post:

For everyone's sake, I did not post the full movie documentary about the making of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album from back in 2002 -- just the song. I appreciated, though, how the album cover for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is Marina City from State Street in Downtown Chicago. I've been in downtown Chicago a bunch in the past eight or nine years thanks to various work-related trips. Nearly every time I'm there, I'm near the Chicago River and I see these buildings.

As a fellow displaced Wisconsinite who is a more recent transplant to the Peach State, Matt F. at the humbly named Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius -- who, along with Dayf the Cardboard Junkie has started podcasting -- probably can appreciate the Midwestern references here. 

A few weeks ago, after promising to do so for a few months, my sorry, slow attempts at sending Matt some of those 1972 Mini inserts from the 2013 Topps set finally came to fruition. I still have a ton more to go through and send to Matt, but he was kind enough to send me some cards in return already.

Such as, for example, this autograph from Bowman Sterling of 2013 second round draft pick Tucker Neuhaus. Neuhaus was drafted out of Wharton High School in Tampa by the Brewers, and he has spent both of the past two seasons in Rookie Level baseball. He has struggled at the plate -- .232/.296/.328 -- in those seasons and frankly his glove is pretty questionable right now.  On the other hand, he is barely 19 years old. He has time to work out the kinks, and hopefully he will do that.

The other cards I received from Matt fit the title of this post. They are wonderful dominos from 1971:

While generally 1971 Topps cards get me pretty excited -- I love the white letters on the black, and the no-capital-letter look is pretty cool -- I have all of these Topps cards already in my Brewers 1970s binder.

Thing is, though, that these are O-Pee-Chee cards from 1971!

Hopefully y'all will click in on that scan of the backs of the cards to see the French and English in the middle of the much more legible yellow backs that O-Pee-Chee put on these cards -- as compared to that dark green that Topps used.  These cards are just excellent.

Matt, thank you very much for these cards. I need to head to that card show in Morrow some time soon -- hope to see you there!