Nearly Finished with 2016: eBaying at the Moon

As I slowly catch up with the cards and packages I have gotten over the past several months, I'm starting to think that I'll never catch up. This is my final post of cards that I scanned in 2016, but I got a bunch more cards right at the end of 2016 from a card show, from Addiction as Therapy, and from Card Junk that I still haven't gotten around to showing.

So, maybe by the end of next weekend I'll have caught up to this year. Maybe.

Today, though, I have some cool stuff that I bought for myself for Christmas from eBay. It's actually the sum total of four different sales from three different sellers.

We start the show in Chilton.

Chilton is located in Calumet County, east of Lake Winnebago and west of Manitowoc County. If Calumet County or Chilton sounds familiar to you for some reason, perhaps it is because you watched the Netflix series "Making a Murderer." Steven Avery's trial took place at the Calumet County courthouse, and the prosecutor for Avery's case was former Calumet County district attorney Kenneth Kratz.

It's amazing how many different towns made these cards. Chilton is a little city of about 3,500 people, and yet the person who sold this set to me is located in Pennsylvania.

Next, we move west:

Prince Fielder and Ben Sheets are shown here on 2008 cards from the Trempealeau County Sheriff's D.A.R.E. Program. Trempealeau County is located just north of LaCrosse County on the Mississippi River. It's a huge county -- 742 square miles, or just 460 fewer square miles than the State of Rhode Island. I've never traveled in that part of Wisconsin. I'm interested in doing so since I've now found out that the county has three ghost towns. I have a weird fascination with places that have been abandoned.

This seller was located in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, so at least that one has an easy explanation for how the seller must have gotten this set.

The rest of these cards all came from the same seller -- another Wisconsinite -- located in Burlington, Wisconsin, and they came from two separate sales. 

The first consisted of forty-eight different team Brewers sets for which I paid a total of $43 with shipping. For that price, it was okay that a number of them were team sets that I had completed long ago thanks to the fact that it filled in some gaps and added some new ones.

Such as:

These two cards come from a four-card set helping to inaugurate the Brewers Walk of Fame at Miller Park. Norstan Communications sponsored the stadium giveaway in 2001, and this lot was the first time I'd really seen a set for sale. It's not that it is that rare -- I just haven't looked all that often for it despite Cynical Buddha telling me about the set in 2014.

Being the uber-completist that I am, I still want to get one more of each of these two cards so that I have a full set in my Brewers oddballs collection.

So this one was both unanticipated and disappointing. It was unanticipated because I did not realize that the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) had issued a card set in 2008 consisting of five cards, which included an odd selection of players: Mike Cameron, Jason Kendall, David Riske, Jeff Suppan, and Rickie Weeks. I'm not sure if any other teams other than the Brewers and the Padres had these sets issued by the DAV -- those two teams are the only ones listed on Trading Card Database.

You can probably see why this one was a bit disappointing, though: even though the pack was unopened, that Rickie Weeks is about as poorly centered as it gets without another card appearing. That's not a mis-scan -- that's how it was cut. So, I suppose I'm still looking for two of the Weeks card -- two that are centered better than this one.

I'm almost done with the 1981 Donruss team set now as well. I'm just missing one of the dozens of typographical errors that Donruss had and fixed in its first set in 1981 -- the Gorman Thomas variation saying that he had reached the 30-HR mark for the 3rd time in his career. For what it's worth, that is the correct version rather than the earlier version which said he'd reached the mark for the fourth time.

For the eagle-eyed, you'll note that the Buck Martinez card is another error that was fixed. The first print run from Donruss flipped the negative for the card, making Martinez a lefty hitter. Buck is more known as a Toronto Blue Jay thanks to his run of 6 seasons there from 1981 through 1986 as Ernie Whitt's first platoon mate, then as a radio and TV broadcaster and manager for the Jays. He left the Jays for a while to work with MASN on the Orioles broadcast team before returning to Toronto in 2010.

Thanks to my need for completeness, I'm still one card away from completing the Leaf 1986 team set -- and that card is actually the Cecil Cooper Diamond King you see above. This one went into my player collection, while the Jim Gantner card went into my team set.

Something I did not realize before I read Matthew Prigge's Brew Crew Confidential blog this week is the anomaly around the Brewers issuance of team number 17. In the 1970s and setting aside the Pilots year, the number 17 went from Pete Koegel (1970-1971) to Paul Ratliff (1972), Joe Azcue (1972), Bobby Mitchell (1973-1975), Bob Hansen (1976), Steve Bowling (1976) and Ken McMullen (1977) before Jim Gantner pulled it on for the 1978 season. 

Since Gantner retired after the 1992 season, however, no one else has worn the number. That's 25 years ago. Are the Brewers intending to retire the number? Is it just that no one wanted 17? Were there too many times that Winger played over the loudspeakers so that everyone was turned off by the number seventeen?

Inquiring minds want to know. I want to know.

The main reason I bought this big team set lot, though, was the fact that there were a number of police card sets included in the box. It did not yield as many new sets as I would have liked. But there were at least a couple.

These 1996 cards don't even say anything about the police on the front, but they are police cards. I really do not like this design, but that is true of a lot of sets from the mid-1990s. The graphic designers in Milwaukee were just as susceptible to crappy design sensibilities as anyone else was, I suppose. 

There's a danger involved when a police card giveaway is sponsored, in part, by a sports card store. That danger is that so many sets will be created because the store wants to keep some in stock to sell.

Waukesha is a Milwaukee suburb -- not all that much interesting to say about it, to be fair.

The other lot I bought from this same seller cost just $4, and it was about 20 to 25 Robin Yount Police cards. Sure, there were some duplicates in this and a few were the ubiquitous Milwaukee Police Department, but here's the results from that lot:

Adding seven new Younts to the collection for $4 is always a bonus. 

That wraps up the 2016 scans. Musically, 2016 was a bit of a desert, in my opinion. The biggest alternative music act was Twenty-One Pilots, a band I am very much on the fence about. On the one hand, their music isn't all that bad. On the other hand, their music is entirely like listening to a mixtape of alternative music from the past 20 years. There's a little 311, there's a little Sublime, there's a little Ben Folds Five, and there's a little Jimmy Eat World in it. Really nothing new.

But hey, let's close with a song.

It doesn't stress me out. Not at all.

More Cards from My Mom's House

It has become a holiday tradition for me to come back from Thanksgiving either with boxes getting shipped to me or with at least some baseball stuff in my luggage. 

In 2013, I made the fateful decision to pay to ship all 350 pounds of my old card collection from my mom's house in Wisconsin to my house in Georgia. It's been nonstop complaining about parallels and Topps ignoring the Brewers ever since.

In 2014, my mom unloaded a bunch of stuff on me, including an old Philadelphia Athletics pin (that I think I've sent off to someone else by now), the early 1990s Brewers team photos from fan appreciation nights, and an old Topps Magazine from Spring 1990 with a Robin Yount card still inside. 

Last year, my mom and brother came to Georgia with a car trunk full of stuff that they had found randomly within the boxes and bags that populate my old home. That stuff included a full set of police cards from the Village of Jackson, some Dover reprint books, a few yearbooks, and a Baseball Cards Magazine with the cards still in the magazine.

This year was no different. My wife stayed back in Georgia because my cat pal Gus pulled his hamstring pretty badly (no kidding...apparently I need to teach him how to stretch before he tries being athletic and jumping around the house) and the vet said to watch him. So, I went up to Milwaukee solo this time. And, as usual, I came back home to Georgia with an assortment of oddballs and cool things.

Let's start with police cards, because everything Brewers starts with police cards.



Every time I think I have gathered up all the police cards hanging out around my mom's house, more seem to emerge. It's worth noting that apparently the folks who decided how to design the police sets made the choice in 1992 to copy the 1991 Fleer color scheme. After all, what could possibly look better than a bright yellow baseball card?

To give you a little geography for these: all three of the police departments represented here are located within 15 miles or so of my mom's house. Menomonee Falls is about halfway between my mom's house and downtown Milwaukee. It is where Kohl's Department Stores is headquartered, and there is a pretty big Harley-Davidson plant there (which is located in a factory that Johnson Controls used to own). Finally, it is also where actress Jessica Szohr grew up (who has appeared in a bunch of things I've never watched, like Gossip GIrl).

Germantown is basically right next to Menomonee Falls. Menomonee Falls is in Waukesha County in the very northeast corner of the county; Germantown is in Washington County directly adjacent to it. Both of these villages are located along Interstate 41 traveling northwest from downtown Milwaukee.

Kewaskum is further north. It is at the very northern border of Washington County just south of Fond du Lac County. We used to play against them in baseball in high school, and the obligatory "scum town" references were made regularly. 

Isn't geography fun?

Okay, one more Brewer item, and then I have three non-Brewer items which could be yours if the Price is Right (i.e., if you make me an offer in trade).

I bought another copy of this pin earlier this year. Well, rather, it got thrown into another purchase by the seller for maybe $5 more. I knew I had seen one of them before in my possession as a kid, but when I couldn't find it in my stuff, I assumed it was lost. Nope, it was just misplaced. 

By the way, that is a weird legalistic construct -- the difference between lost and misplaced. Seriously, I recall a class in law school where we covered that difference for a half an hour. I am pretty sure that we spent that much time on it not because people did not understand the difference, but rather because the law professor was emphasizing the need for precision in language. 

I am still bitter about that fact, because it is 30 minutes of my life I will never, ever get back.

Now, onto the non-Brewer stuff. Like a Topps oddball:

This is a Topps card from 2001 that was stuck in a package to the back of a Post Cereal box of some kind. These cards are relatively still available for about $1 through COMC and eBay. This one, as you can see, is still in the package in which it came complete with the cardboard torn off the back of the cereal box it was affixed to.

If you're interested in it, let me know.

Next, another Topps oddball:

It's a little rusty, but it is a 1964 Topps Coin of former Dodgers, Phillies, Tigers, Red Sox, and Indians outfielder/third baseman/first baseman Don Demeter. Demeter was a member of the 1967 Impossible Dream Boston Red Sox for 20 games and two months before being traded along with Tony Horton to the Indians in exchange for Gary "Ding Dong" Bell. 

Demeter also was a member of the World Series winning 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers, playing in all six games -- the first two as a late-inning defensive replacement for Gil Hodges in centerfield, the next three as the starter in center, and then appearing in the sixth and final game by coming in as a pinch runner in the fourth inning for right fielder Norm Larker.

Demeter grew up in Oklahoma City and moved back there after his retirement. He was always a religious man, and for many years he has served as a pastor there. He is still the pastor at Grace Community Baptist Church, and he has a few videos of his playing days on his pastor's biography page for the church.

So that item is pretty cool. The last one is very beat up -- which sucks -- but it's also very cool:

This is a 1956 Topps pin of Chicago Cubs great Ernie Banks. I wish it were in better condition, of course, but it's tough to keep things in pristine condition when the things are strewn haphazardly in boxes, drawers, on floors, in shelving units, and in plastic ziploc bags. Still, if you're a Cubs fan looking for a starter version of this pin (after all, ones in better shape are priced above $100 on eBay), this one will come much less expensively than those other ones.

Now, if I can just find where my packrat grandparents stashed the Goudey cards from the 1930s, which I've never known to exist there...aw, who am I kidding? Those were probably stuffed into the walls to use as insulation there.

After all, packrats keep stuff because they might need it someday or it might be worth something someday. It just depends on whether the need to use it comes before someone tells you it might have value.

Boy Bands, Part II?

Sort of.

Weird Al's parody of the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" is far too accurate, even down to the reference of sniping the auction with 2 seconds left on the auction. Yeah, we've all done it to some extent or another, I think. 

That's my way, though, to bring up more eBay wins I've racked up. For some reason, I'm finding myself going down a Weird Al vortex this post.

But first, here's a bizarro eBay win!

I'm showing the back and not the front because it justified me spending $1.25 on the card. It's my first 1990 Fleer Canadian card, so it justified the cost. 

"Y-Yo Yo Yoda!"

Much like the use of Force can make people do things and think things that they may not otherwise do....

I find myself bidding almost indiscriminately at times on Milwaukee Brewers Police cards. This time around, I purchased two different sets from the Milwaukee Police Department that I did not have -- the 1998 and 1999 sets. The cooler thing is that, as I found out when the cards arrived, I had purchased them from an industry legend -- Bob Lemke.

Those are the 1998 cards, and, as you can see behind Jenkins & Nilsson, the cards celebrate the fact that Bud Selig ramrodded through the change from the American League to the National League to satisfy his own childhood fantasies.

The 1999 cards have backgrounds that celebrate the closing of Milwaukee County Stadium, which was supposed to happen in 1999 but had to be delayed.

So, speaking of strange/weird/odd, let's talk a bit about Steve Falteisek. Falteisek is almost exactly one month younger than I am. Falteisek was born in New York, but was a good enough baseball player to get a scholarship to attend the University of South Alabama. He was drafted by the Montreal Expos in the 10th round in 1992 and signed almost immediately. 

As is clear from his minor league record, he was never a strikeout pitcher -- and therein was his downfall. He made 10 appearances for the 1999 Brewers at the age of 27, allowing 18 hits, 3 HR, 3 BB, and 10 earned runs in 12 innings. The Brewers released him at the beginning of September in 1999, and from there he bounced in and out of major league organizations until 2003, when he called it a career. I think I found his Facebook page; it says he works for American Airlines, and it looks like he has a lovely wife and two adorable children.

There is so much right about this song. I swear that there are so many people in this world that should listen over, and over, and over, and over to that song...or hire the cunning linguist (ha!) that Weird Al mentions.

It's tough being a grammar fascist -- as I tend to be -- and then I reread my own posts and see stupid typos and errors. Ugh. How embarrassing.

It's not as embarrassing, though, as spelling Hall of Famer Warren Spahn's name as "Spaun" -- meaning that none of Spahn's fans doing a search for "Spahn" will not find your auction -- and then putting down that Spahn played for the Milwaukee Brewers...meaning none of the Milwaukee Braves collectors find your auction either. 

I'm thankful for people who don't spell check or realize their mistake, though, because I benefited. Neither of these printing plates from the 2014 Panini Cooperstown set cost me more than $12.

I cannot think of anything more appropriate for a blog about Milwaukee baseball cards than a polka song. And this one, well, it's just plain awesome!

So what awesome win do I have to go with that?

Everyone's favorite Brewer, Ryan Braun, had this Meaningful Material card in the 2016 Museum Collection Set. This nice three color patch part is serial numbered 4 of 35, and it cost me exactly $10 with shipping. That might be about $5 more than I should have paid for it, but I put my bid at exactly $6.01 to match the $3.99 shipping and, lo and behold, I have another Braun.

Finally, it's a song about everyone's favorite celebrity gossip website TMZ. I hate TMZ for its part in the A.J. Green Jerseygate suspension. TMZ reported that A.J. attended an agent's party at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami over Memorial Day in 2010. It was a complete fabrication. A.J. was never in Miami, but it led the NCAA to ask him about the trip. He said, basically, I wasn't there -- just look at my bank records. No one at UGA (*cough* Mark Richt) counseled A.J. about why this was a bad defense. What happens then? The NCAA finds a $1000 payment for a jersey that A.J. sold. 

F**k the NCAA. F**king hypocrites.

Anyway, I need something to get me in a far better mood, and that song just brings up bad memories. 

Let's try this parody:




Much better!

Just like this final eBay win. 

So, now I have three of the four printing plates for Jonathan Lucroy's 2016 Topps card. I bought the yellow and the black plates back in February when the Flagship first came out. All I need to find now is the cyan plate.

Three out of four printing plates is a pretty cool thing to have. But, four out of four would be even better. Hopefully, I'll find it on eBay...soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Some eBay Pickups And the First (only?) Topps Now Brewer

Writer's block -- and feeling blase generally -- can be detrimental to blogging. I have had two parts writer's block, 2 parts of blase, and 2 parts not having anything really new to write about lately. I have found myself watching TV more in the past few days -- a decent amount of baseball, but also some old episodes of Mythbusters and some reruns of American Pickers have dominated, but sometimes even Rehab Addict (yes, because Nicole Curtis is an attractive woman but out of interest in the renovations as well) or a random soccer game.

But baseball cards have been lacking a bit here. I've been trying to save up a bit with a goal of taking a good chunk of change to one of the North Carolina shows run by Inside Pitch some time in July or August. That means that I've barely paid any attention to any of the new cards coming out from Topps -- and, to be fair, why would I pay attention with how few Brewers feature in any of Topps non-flagship sets?

I've been pretty outspoken on Twitter about the Topps Now concept and card selection process. I enjoy the concept generally -- I think the idea of capturing the previous day's events on a card is a fun idea. It's a damn shame, though, that Topps's execution of this concept is as flawed as about everything else Topps does. 

I mean, it is still inexplicable to me that Topps could overlook a team turning a triple play so that David Ortiz could appear on yet another card. 

But, as much as I loathe Topps and how it essentially refuses to note Milwaukee's existence in the past four or five years (hey, I get it...y'all are still mad about Ryan Braun. Get over it. You've lionized F**king Bartolo Colon -- who tested positive for steroids too!), I'm still a Brewers collector and an obsessive at that. So, when Aaron Hill hit three homers in a game including a grand slam that helped to win the game in the 10th inning on May 7 in Cincinnati, I had to get the card. 

I mean, I did it angrily, though. Aaron Hill hopefully will be traded away soon for a lottery ticket to a contender. He's not the future, nor does he have any particular tie to the franchise generally. He's just a guy we had to take in a salary dump.

Hopefully, the Brewers won't have any more Topps Now cards. Seriously. I'm happy to get one, but like many of Topps's releases, I'm glad that Topps is draining the pockets of Yankees and Red Sox and Dodgers and Cubs fans. 

Other than this Topps Now card, I have picked up a few things on eBay. For just about $20, I bought a lot of six complete or nearly complete police card sets from the 1980s and early 1990s. As I mentioned, I'm obsessive, so I still harbor this dream of collecting every single set. Here's what I added this time:

Four of the lots were from the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department. As in many places, Milwaukee has both a police force -- which is the entity that gave away the cards for the Stadium Giveaways -- and a Sheriff's Department. The only downside to the 1991 lot is that it did not include a Robin Yount.

The other two sets came from West Bend -- a city about 15 minutes from where I grew up -- and West Allis -- the city that abuts where Miller Park is located and where the State Fair Park is located.  I'm always looking for new departments to add to my collection, so keep your eyes peeled for me!

Finally, I added a couple of Jonathan Lucroy cards/items. I've been on a bit of a Luc spree lately. I'm not sure if it is in hope of him not getting traded or if his cards just give me someone to chase at a more reasonable price than the Ryan Braun items go for these days. I got two pretty cool items:

This is a 2014 SI for Kids card. I didn't realize that SI for Kids was still a thing, and I certainly didn't realize that they still do cards. Or maybe it was still a thing in 2014. 

 

And, finally, I've continued to be able to find Jonathan Lucroy printing plates for a reasonably inexpensive price. Again, I think it's because it's Lucroy and not Braun or Yount or Molitor, but this one stayed under $15, if I recall correctly.  

All in all, not a bad week of mail coming in thanks to my purchasing stuff online. Of course, that runs counter to my attempt to save money, but...oh well.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you want to trade!