Mailday Post: Night Owl Cards

You all may have noticed by now that I like to lead with music videos for my posts.  It's because I love music.  I've always liked music a lot, but in the years I was not collecting cards, music served as my collecting methadone -- hearing music new to me or just relistening again was like collecting in some respects.  I also replaced cards with trying different foods or wines too. 

All of those were just collections of a sort. I still like to partake in all of those pursuits from time to time, and now I've added cards back to the mix.  

In "honor" of the fact that this package came from the Night Owl based on me begging for an orange parallel 2014 Topps Series 2 card, I wanted to pick out an orange song.  I thought about using "Orange Crush" by R.E.M., but I've already used "So. Central Rain" by them.  I thought about using "Orange Blossom Special" by Johnny Cash, but, to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of that song.

Instead, let's get aggressive...very aggressive.  Seminal punk band Agent Orange came out of Orange County in 1979 and were known for mixing surf music with punk to give more of a speed metal sound.  Their music became associated with skateboarding and, in fact, their song "Bloodstains" appeared on a Tony Hawk video game.  Saying all that makes me sound cooler and more knowledgeable than I really am, since I cribbed all that from Wikipedia.

I don't know if Greg likes punk music or not, but here's the cards he sent to me nonetheless.

This is the orange card that started it all.  Rumor has it that the day this photo was taken was "get an autograph from Marco Estrada if you've hit a home run off him" day in Spring Training.  I don't know what Estrada's deal is this year, but he is giving up dingers at an alarming rate -- 2.3 per 9 innings through the games of July 2.  He's always been a bit tater-prone, but this is getting ridiculous.

This one sort of surprised me.  I was not expecting a Rick Dempsey autograph -- or, for that matter, a full-bleed photo card -- from the Night Owl.  I guess the fact that it is a day game may be a mitigating factor?  Still, it's an awesome card from one of the clown princes of baseball from my childhood.

A Bowman Aramis Ramirez and a Shaun Marcum Bowman Chrome? Yes, please.

The great thing about collecting certain sets is that you can get two or three of them in trades or as part of packages dropped in your mailbox, and it is still a good thing.  This Carlos Gomez went into my player collection; the one I got in the box I bought goes into my team set.  And still, I need another for my Archives set!

This package closes with a flying Ax Mullet in sparkling blue Opening Day parallel form.  I'm hopeful for his sake that he can get his control back and stop walking 6 guys for every 9 innings he pitches -- which is always the bugaboo for guys like Axford, it seems.

Thanks very much, Night Owl, for the great cards.  Of course, I now have to scour your want lists again to try to find some cards you might actually need -- but then again, that's half the fun of trading!

Mailday Post: Too Many Verlanders Giveaway

A couple of weeks ago over at Too Many Verlanders, Dennis ran a contest which was based around him giving away a bunch of cards.  In other words, he gave away cards and those giveaways led to entries in a contest to get more cards.  

Never one to miss an opportunity to fill a gap or two in my collection, I claimed two different items -- the Prince Fielder collection, in the hopes of getting a couple of cards of him on the Brewers that I didn't have, and the 1999 Topps Series Two set.  Since 1999 was right in the middle of my non-collecting years, those cards had escaped me entirely.

Those items got me a total of five entries into Dennis's contest.  I was lucky enough to top off claiming those previous items with finished third in the contest giveaway.  My selection: I took a blaster of 2008 Upper Deck Series 1 and 2 off Dennis's hands as well.  

Last week, the box with all those cards showed up -- it must have had a total of 500 or 600 cards in it.  Here are the highlights.  

As I mentioned, I knew I was getting Prince Fielders -- most of which now are listed up in my team trade bait section under "Tigers."  Three of those cards, however, were Brewers:

I really like this MLB Artifacts card (pardon the screwy scanning I did there).  Yeah, we've gotten tons of nostalgia-type cards in the past 15 years, but that one is a classy looking card.  

The 1999 Topps Series 2 had several Brewers, of course, and all of these were needed either for my player collections or the team set:

I don't know why I'm surprised when I get a Marquis Grissom card with Milwaukee, but I always seem to forget that he played with the Brewers.

After going through those items I claimed, I then cracked open the blaster box of Upper Deck.  I've opened quite a few packs of the Upper Deck First Edition set in repack boxes, so the card design was familiar to me.  The glossy finish and the silver foil on these cards was not.  I know I sound like a fan boy and I know that a significant portion of collectors don't like the full-bleed photos on cards, but, well, I love the full-bleed photos on cards.  It makes them feel cooler and more expensive, I guess.  Anyway, here are the cards I got from the blaster that I really liked:

I even got a Prince Fielder "Infield Power" insert.  And I think I'm collecting all Carlos Gomez and Jean Segura cards at this point.  Lucroy's too, of course -- I mean, who wouldn't collect the best player in the National League (oh God, please don't let there be an SI website curse)?

Finally, I believe Dennis was using some football cards as filler simply to keep the other cards from moving around.  While I'm not exactly a football collector, I didn't mind getting college football cards for my Georgia Bulldogs!

The NCAA would have you believe that the number 8 here is just generic and has nothing to do with A.J. Green.  Nothing whatsoever.

Dennis, thanks for the cards, the giveaway, and even for the Georgia Bulldogs cards.  I'm starting to contemplate whether I should try to collect college football cards of the Dawgs at this point!

Back to the Archives

Here I sit, minutes after watching the U.S. have every opportunity to beat Belgium in the World Cup -- only to squander nearly every opportunity and, in the process, wasting the best game I have ever seen a goalkeeper have in Tim Howard's sixteen save performance.  For some reason, it seems just right to mention that I gave in to the siren's song that is Topps Archives.   

After wasting so much bandwidth, brain power, and energy complaining about the dadgum set, I ended up buying a hobby box anyway.  

So, appropriate to my depression both at the soccer game -- which, to be fair, I really didn't think we would do as well as we did -- and at buying Archives, here's a slow depressing song called "Slate" from about 23 years ago by seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo (out of which the bands Son Volt and Wilco emerged):

That version is Jay Farrar -- who broke away from Jeff Tweedy to form Son Volt -- in 2008.  It's a dodgy live version filmed in a bar, but isn't that the best way to see a show?  I think it is.

Anyway.

Archives.  Yup, I went there.  

I'll spare you a pack-by-pack breakdown of the box, mainly because I've already sorted them out and couldn't reconstruct that information with the help of the casts of all the CSI shows on CBS at this point.  So, instead, let me show you my inserts and high numbers.  

First, the high numbers.  When I posted my whiny diatribe a few weeks ago, one of the high numbered short prints I got in that pack was Manny Ramirez.  In my bad attitude toward the set, I decided to send that off to Mark Hoyle for his Red Sox collection.  When I decided to buy a box of the Archives, a thought went through my head that I should have waited until my disappointment subsided before sending cards away.  

I shouldn't have worried.  I recall this well -- in literally the first pack I opened was a Cubs Triple-A outfielder:

And, if you can see it on the bottom left corner, please forgive one of my cats (a boy named Molly...) for shedding on it.  

Molly is looking at you and wondering what YOUR problem is.

Without as much build up, then, here are the other five short prints I got.  

I haven't sorted all of the cards out completely and carefully, so it's possible that one or two got by me, but that's what I got for the high numbers.  Not bad, certainly.

Then, there were the gold and silver parallels that were inserted into the packs.  I got four gold (which are numbered to 199) and 2 silver (numbered to 99).  Here are the Gold:

SN115/199

SN170/199

SN56/199

SN103/199

Now, for the Silver ones:

SN55/99

SN89/99

Since these are parallels and are not Brewers, I sure would love to get Brewers parallels back in return for them.  Anyone help me there?  All you Yankee, Red Sox, Pirates (okay, Matt), Mariners (?), Giants, and Dodgers fans must have some Brewers parallels from this product, right???

I did like that Topps used the glossy All-Star insert design from the 1980s as an insert card this time around, though it would have been nice if these were glossy too.  But, I suppose they wanted to avoid confusion between the originals and these.  I received 6 of these All-Star inserts:

These are all available as trade bait as well, since I don't collect any of these guys.  

Same goes for these deckle edge inserts:

I also pulled one of those "Firebrand" wood cards.  Is there a Jose Canseco collector who would like this one?

Only three more inserts to go.  The first are the "Major League" inserts.  Now, I liked the movie back in 1989.  I really did.  In fact, I see people I knew from high school in the movie because all the baseball scenes were filmed in Milwaukee County Stadium in the summer before.  Yes, Cleveland was so bad in the 1980s that Milwaukee had to stand in for it.  

Let that sink in a bit.

Here's Roger Dorn and Rickie Vaughn to make you feel better about it:

I have much less bile and antipathy toward these cards in recent days than when I first saw them.  I really don't care if I have them or not, and I'd prefer to trade them to someone who really wants them and likes them.  They aren't for me, and I just have to stop being so obnoxious as to think only those items that I like should make sets.  

When I own a card company, then I get to make that call.  And that will happen when I win the lottery....which I don't play because I view it as a tax on people who do not understand probability.

Back to the inserts.  I have only the 1971 Hockey insert and the two autographs left.  Here's the hockey insert, numbered 71H-ED, a card number to make Viagra proud:

That's up for grabs too if I have anyone who reads this blog who wants to trade me something for it.

Finally, I have autographs.  First, I got one that made me realize that I don't hate all Yankees players -- just the ones that Topps and ESPN have shoved down our throats non-stop. Because I kind of like Mel Stottlemyre:

Finally, I thought I had just another run-of-the mill autograph.  When I was looking at the backs of the cards, though, I realized that this one is some sort of silver parallel.  Too bad it's just Rob Dibble, bro:

The Dibble is serial numbered 8 of 25.  Is there a bro collector in the house?

Lots of pictures today.

If you want good stories, though, read the 1982 Topps Blog today, where I talk about the Anastacio Somoza regime in Nicaragua in the 1970s and close by e-mailing a missionary.