A Pop-up Home Run & Another eBay Win

I've got two shorter posts combined today. But, as we all know if we lived through the 1980s, it takes two to make a thing go right.

You sure you wanna hear this man? You sure?

Bert from Swing and a Popup sent me a single card PWE a couple of weeks ago with a note saying only, "This definitely belongs in your collection."

He was right. This card does:

That is a 2005 Donruss Zenith "Z-Jersey" card, complete with the sparkling rays background. This is an incredible card, and many thanks go out to Bert for being so kind to send it my way! 

As the title of this post says, this card is definitely a home run.

2005 is a year that would have driven me nuts as a collector -- it was the height of Donruss's over-the-top parallelization of its sets. According to Beckett, Donruss baseball sets had 2077 total "main" set cards and 12,567 parallels to go along with 3,469 insert cards and 5,544 parallels of inserts.

Of course, that seems like a lot. Then, I check out what Topps did in baseball in 2014: 6,773 main set cards and 52,387 parallels. Add in 11,535 inserts and 19,479 parallel inserts -- and remember, we are talking about individual cards here, not total press runs -- and you see why people complain about Topps and its money grabs.

Okay, I complain about Topps and its money grabs. Just so you know, of those cards, there were a total of 706 Miguel Cabreras, 684 Paul Goldschmidts, 624 Mike Trouts, 582 Freddie Freemans, and 544 Clayton Kershaws.  Those were your top 5 players in terms of number of individual cards in the Beckett database for 2014. 

Talk about overproduction era...Let's move on, before I start overanalyzing those numbers.

I dunno. That Crapital One card ad at the beginning of that video was kind of funny. Tim Fite was profiled in Billboard for his album called iBeenHACKED. It's kind of a neat concept album.

So, talking about being hacked and all that, how about an interesting reprint set that I picked up on eBay?

Larry Fritsch Cards out of Stevens Point, Wisconsin -- from whom I bought this -- claims that this set was originally "[i]ssued in 1970 as a statewide milk promotion in Wisconsin."

I disagree with this, because Bob Lemke and the "Big Book" disagree. As Mr. Lemke puts it: "While purporting to be a dairy issue, this is actually a collectors' set produced by Illinois hobbyist Bob Solon." Lemke's paragraph closes by saying, "Ironically, this set was later reissued in a marked reprint."

I have the reprint, obviously, as the back of the card above shows. I bought the reprint because I have yet to see an original set from 1970 for sale anywhere. The Lemke book from 2011 puts the estimated near-mint price on an original set at $25. I'd probably pay that tomorrow if I saw it.

But, it was never a statewide milk promotion in Wisconsin. Wouldn't that be sort of like a statewide ice promotion in Alaska? Or a statewide peach promotion in Georgia? Or a statewide "drive like an idiot" promotion in Massachusetts?

Some things don't need promotion. 

Fritsch did throw in a nice promo card for another of their sets. Does anyone collect the Kansas City Monarchs?

Or Jackie Robinson? The back carries an offer that if you return the card to Larry Fritsch Cards, the company will give you $2 off the complete 119-card set of Negro League Baseball Stars. That set normally runs $19.95 -- marked down now to $14.95 so buy now! -- so maybe the $2 pays part of the shipping cost?

It's tempting.

Memorabilia Monday: U.S. Cellular "Commemorating Greatness" & Braves Game, Anyone?

Let me start with the second item first:

I am in a group of guys who share four upper deck box seat season tickets for the Atlanta Braves; these tickets also have 755 Club Access.  The Braves changed their game time for this Sunday's game with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from a 1:30 game -- which I would have enjoyed -- to an 8 o'clock start for ESPN's cameras.  That time change puts the game at a time at which my wife and I really are not interested in going despite the fact that (a) it should be a good game and (b) the Braves are having Jay Howell, Vic Correll, Wes Helms, and John Smoltz signing autographs before the game.

I have the tickets as PDFs, so if you are in the Atlanta area and would like the tickets, please send me an e-mail -- DO NOT COMMENT...E-MAIL ME -- and I will send you the ticket PDFs.

Now, Memorabilia Monday:

Back in about 2000, the Brewers teamed up with U.S. Cellular for a stadium giveaway of five cards that are slightly larger than a postcard of the five players whose numbers have been retired by the Brewers.  The five cards given out as a strip with perforations between the cards to allow the cards to be detached.  Across the top of the cards, the words "Commemorating Greatness" are spelled out.

The five players are Jackie Robinson (with a normal size baseball card next to Jackie to show how large these cards are):

Paul Molitor:

Rollie Fingers:

Hank Aaron:

And, of course, Robin Yount:

The backs of these cards give a biographical snapshot of each player, including their years with the Brewers (or, for Robinson, with the Brooklyn Dodgers), the date on which their number was retired, and, the date on which the player was elected to the Hall of Fame (other than for Molitor, who was not yet eligible).

Here's the back of Yount's card to give you a feel for it:

Despite the sea green/aquamarine background on the fronts of the cards screaming "a person of the 1990s designed this card!!!", these are really sharp looking cards.  They appealed to me so much that I ended up buying a second, unperforated set on eBay just to keep.

Thanks for reading this quick Memorabilia Monday post, and let me know if you are interested in the Braves tickets.

Thanks again.

My first trip to my Local Card Shop

I hopped in my car just after lunch today and drove over to the local card shop.  My local card shop, it turns out, is the brick-and-mortar place known as Freedom Cardboard.  Yup, the shop 6 miles from my house is the host of one of the most active sports card forums around.

I didn't know what to expect from the place because I have seen mixed reviews online for it.  To keep the doors open -- and I don't fault them for this -- FCS has much more store area for comic books and Magic: The Gathering than it does for baseball cards.  As an aside, I should have mentioned to the guys there that one of my college roommates is something of a legend in the M:TG world; he might have appreciated it, I suppose.

That said, the sports cards -- and, in particular, the baseball cards -- didn't get a lot of shelf space at FCS. No matter.  I still dropped more money than I should have there, and I will be returning. 

What did I buy? Well, I tried to satiate my burgeoning crush on the 2013 Topps Archives cards.  The card designs that bring back the 1980s (and 1972 too) are just too much nostalgia for me to resist.  I bought the two hobby pack boxes that FCS had there, and I came home and ripped them open.

I still like the base set a lot, and I was not disappointed at all with my purchase.  I hit all the expected numbers in terms of short prints, tall boys, 1983 All-Stars, etc.  So what were the cool hits I got?  Let's start with the refractor inserts, all numbered to 199:

So, that's the Wizard of Oz at 33/199, Adam Eaton (now of the White Sox) at 27/199, and the Chicken Man of the Hall of fame at 126/199.  Not bad gets.

I also got two of the stained-glass window cards, The Gallery of Heroes:

I like those.  I want more.

Then, there were the autographs.  As some of you might recall, the Archives hobby boxes promise two autographs per box.  I got two boxes, so I should have four autographs. Here's what I got:

Tom Brunansky was a very good power hitter for the Twins in the late 80s.  Bruno started with the Angels, then bounced from the Twins to the Cardinals to the Red Sox to the Brewers and back to the Red Sox.  He only appeared in 96 games for Milwaukee and hit just .187.  He was done in the bigs at age 33 and never returned after the 1994 strike.

Matt Williams, of course, played for the Giants, Indians, and Diamondbacks over the course of his career. He was on pace to break Roger Maris's record in 1994 before the strike intervened -- he had 43 homers in just 112 games.  He is now the manager of the Washington Nationals.

Then there is Darren Daulton.  Perhaps it is my background as a catcher as a kid that gives me a soft spot for guys like him and Gary Carter.  I always liked Daulton -- he was hard nosed, got beat up behind the plate, but kept hitting and hitting.  He was nearly never healthy -- he played over 100 games in just 4 seasons, and lead the league in 1992 in RBI.  I think I liked Daulton because I got him as my catcher in a Fantasy League for the 1992 season and he blew away all the projections out there with his crazy season.  

Okay, so that's three autographs.  I did get a fourth:

I graduated high school in 1990.  So, RATT was right in my wheelhouse in terms of music, timing, and all that.  They were a decent band.  They were never, ever Guns N Roses, though.  So, I threw this card at eBay as quickly as I could say, "Round and Round."

Let me know if you want to trade for the cards I've put up or if you are interested in any of the Archives cards.  Thanks for reading.