Keep or toss?

Beauty is on the eye of the beholder. We've all heard that, but how does that apply to baseball cards. I could provide various examples of cards that others despise aesthetically, but others enjoy. Some people think 1961 Topps is plain and boring, but I like the clean look. Many collectors poo-poo the early attempts  of Donruss because of the photo quality, but I think it gives it character. 1990 Donruss and 1991 Fleer battle it out repeatedly for the worst set design of all-time on various Twitter polls. I bought packs and boxes of box sets as a 9 and 10 year old and they will always have a special place in my heart.

Aside from the design, there are certain things that can diminish the look of a card. With social media, we've probably all seen videos of athletes signing their cards for Topps and tossing them all over the place, which can lead to damaged goods. Pack searchers have also been known to damage cards in the retail environment. There are various printing and packing issues create imperfections that can "ruin" a card. Today I want to talk about miscut cards. Not just off centered, but truly miscut. You don't see them all that often and I don't recall ever being a huge fan. In fact, I think I probably just tossed them most of the time.  But in one of the collections I bought last year I came across a few 1989 Topps cards that were severely miscut and I decided to keep them. 

Then I saw this 1964 Topps card at a card shop a few months ago and noticed the partial numbering on the  left hand side of the card. It must have been on the far edge of the printing sheet. Again, not something you see everyday, so I decided to pick it up.

What do you do with your miscut cards? Save or toss?

Is bbcards magic?

Sometimes my posts are for me more than anyone else. I use my blog as a journal, so that I can remember things. I also use it as a checklist to know what cards I have and what cards I need. Some of my recent post about Oddball cards were more for me than anything else, so I can keep track of what I need. But I got a pleasant surprise in that these posts have garnered some attention in the form of a few potential trades. 

Check out the contents of a package trade package I got from bbcardz. It was filled with various Post and Denny's cards I need for my sets.

Andy responded to a couple of my previous Oddball post and sent me some Post and Denny's cards I needed. Check out all those glorious 1993 Denny's packs. At first I was a little confused because as I started opening them were all cards I needed and they were in order. Andy was either really lucky or he's magic because all of the packs were completely sealed. Then I used a flashlight and was able to make out at least the team name on the cards and since there was only one card per team, I'm going to guess that's how how it was done. Regardless, thank you Andy. I had a ton of fun opening the packs. I'm down to needing just two cards for the 1993 set now!

Here is where I stand for the Denny's sets as far as needs.

1991 - 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25

1992 - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26

1993 - 3, 23

1994 - Complete

1995 - Complete

1996 - Complete

1997 - Complete

Here are my needs for the more recent Post cereal issues.

1990 - 11, 13, 17, 19, 20, 23

1991 - 1, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15, 24, 28, 30

1992 - complete

1993 - 14

1994 - complete

1995 - need the whole set

2001 - 2, 3, 5, 7. 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15 16

2001 500 Home Run Club - 3, 7

2002 - 3, 12, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30

2003 - need the whole set

If you can help me out, let me know, if not, that's okay because I know what I need and I can use this list to help me know which cards I need to pick up at various card shows or maybe comc.

Updating my Dwight Gooden Collection

On July 2nd I posted about adding to my Dwight Gooden collection and how I had just passed the 50 card mark and I how I thought it was crazy that is all that I had considering his rookie card was from 1985 and I've been a fan of his ever since I started collecting in 1988. Remember how I also said that my collection is in desperate need of organization. Well, I pulled out some boxes that I had sorted about 4-5 years ago and pulled out this stack of 149 Gooden cards. 

There are a lot of dups in the stack and I'm sure there will be even more dups when compared to the Gooden cards in my binder, but I'm still hoping I can add 50+ unique cards and it will put me over 100 different Gooden cards.

Okay. I went through them all and I'm now at 135 different Dwight Gooden cards. That's better. I'm working on getting organized, but it's a bit of a task.

Card Back Questions and Cartoons

Card backs don't always get the credit they deserve. I was taking a look at some 2013 Archives cards trying to decide what to do with them and I looked at the backs.

I ran across something interesting. Check out the question on the back of the Tyler Skaggs and Joe Nathan cards based on the 1972 Topps design.

At least the cartoons are different.

There are only 50 cards featuring the 1972 Topps design in the 2013 Archives set and they repeated the question on two cards. Was that a thing in the original 1972 Topps set?

It didn't happen just once either. Here are two other cards with the same questions. 

Again, same question, but different cartoon.

I only had 9 cards out of the 50 with the 1972 design, so I suppose it's possible that every question is repeated. If it was done in the original set, then I get it, but if not, then it's strange. 

If you have insight into the original 1972 set, let me know. I would also be interested to know if every question was repeated in the 2013 Archives set.

The name is Bonds. Barry Bonds.

I'm up to 269 unique Barry Bonds cards in my collection on route to 762. I know I have a few more headed my way. The 269 includes these 4 that I found hiding in piles recently.

The 1989 Upper Deck was in my donut collection because of the photo on the back. I had set aside the Ultra card because the unique photo commemorating his 500th home run. Every once in a while you will see a player swinging a sledgehammer, as is the case with the 1996 Score card. The Naturals card was with a small stack of cards from that set Thant I had picked up at a card show at some point and I just haven't finished sorting them yet.

I know I have more coming in from The Diamond King, so that may get me up to 300. Even so, that means I will still need 450+ cards. I don't currently have a list, which makes it difficult to complete trades, but if you have any large Bonds lots and want to unload them, let me know and hopefully I can let you know which cards I need and we can make a trade.

I like big gloves and I cannot lie...

I know I have featured this card on my blog before, but now it has some friends.

The first card featuring a big glove is one I think most of us are familiar with and that is the 1986 Fleer Mickey Hatcher card.

The next card that I am aware of to feature a big glove another Mickey Hatcher card, but this time is is 1991 Upper Deck. From what I could find, Hatcher took ownership of the glove after it turned up at Spring training back in 1986 and he carried it with him often and enjoyed posing with it, so I'm surprised there aren't more cards featuring it, but although it is the same brand, Mizuno, it does not appear that the glove on the 1991 Upper Deck card is the same glove that appeared on the 1986 Fleer card.

As far as I can tell, another big glove did not show up on another baseball card for 5 years when pitcher Juan Guzman was captured with a big glove, presumably during a spring training stretching session.

2004 would bring us two different big glove cards. The glove on this 2004 Upper Deck Joe Randa card is big, but not as big as the gloves featured on the Hatcher and Guzman cards.

This 2004 Topps Jason Michaels card though, may feature the same glove that Guzman had, although the colors are slightly off, but they very similar.

Okay, blog-o-sphere, what other big gloves on cardboard am I missing?

HOF RC: 1951 Bowman Nellie Fox

I love being able to pick up some well loved vintage Hall of Fame rookie cards at reasonable prices. When I saw this Nellie Fox rookie card at my LCS I couldn't help but grab it. 

It's seen better days, but that is what put it in my price range, so I can't complain. Check out the zipper on his jersey. That is fantastic!

Fox played just 10 games for the A's in 1947 and 1948 and about a half a season in 1949 before finding a becoming the regular second baseman for the Chicago White Sox in 1950. He would spend 14 years with the White Sox and was an all-star for 12 of those seasons. In 10,351 plate appearances he only struck out 216 times. That is just incredible. Four players have struck out more than that in a single season.

Card Show Recap: Part 3

My final purchases at the card show came from a dealer with a bunch of dime boxes. Most of the cards were just base cards from recent sets (2017 - 2019). My ideal dime box is just completely random stuff, so other than looking at the Allen & Ginter stuff I didn't spend a ton of time looking through all of them. I did find some Rediscover Topps cards in addition to the Allen & Ginter and a few other random cards.

I always try to get a few cards from each set to fill a binder page and while I probably already have 2017 Allen & Ginter cards for that binder, I couldn't remember, so I took a chance and spent $1.20 on a dozen cards. I picked up a Zac Gallen rookie card. This guy is having a great season, even though he isn't getting much run support from the D-Backs. The Raul Mondesi is numbered on the back to 3250.

I don't typically seek out the Rediscover Topps cards, but I was really happy to find the two Piazza cards. 

The same dealer had other cards as well. His vintage was 70% off. I found this beautiful 1969 Topps Ray Fosse rookie card with a $4 price tag. He gave it to me for a buck. The card is in fantastic condition, with jus a couple of soft corners. 

Ray Fosse had a nice career, but I think most people know the he was never the same after her sustained an injury during the final play of the 1970 All-Star game in a collision at the plate with Pete Rose. Fosse had the ball in time for make the tag, but Rose crashed into him and knocked the ball loose in order to score the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning in front of the local crowd in Cincinnati. Although he played the rest of the 1970 season, it was later revealed that he had sustained a fracture and separated shoulder during the collision. Even so, Fosse would win Gold Gloves in both 1970 and 1971 and be an all-star both years. He was later traded to the Oakland A's and won the World Series with them in 1973 and 1974. Fosse would sustain several other injuries during his career all of which make you wonder what could have been if he had remained injury free.

Who are some other players who had their careers derailed by injury who could have been great?

Card Show Recap: Part 2

The card show I attended this past Saturday was well attended. Masks were required and everyone had to sign a Covid waiver when they entered. 

One of the dealers had 5 four row boxes of baseball in top loaders starting at 1909 and going up to 2001. I started looking in the last row of the last box without knowing at the time that it was anything other than baseball. The row I looked through started with 1984. It was filled with rookie cards of Mattingly, Gooden, McGwire, Puckett, Clemens, and the like. There were multiples of almost every card. There were probably 10 McGwire and 15 Puckett rookie cards. The last few cards in the row really caught my eye.

I grabbed the Upper Deck rookie cards of Albert Pujols and Ichiro. I mentioned in a recent post that I didn't do much collecting in 2001, so this is actually my first Pujols rookie card and I think I only have a couple of other Ichiro rookie cards (a damaged Topps Update that I got for a dime and an Upper Deck Vintage). 

I also grabbed the 1986 Eric Plunk / Jose Canseco rookie card. I've actually never owned this card before, but with a $3 price tag I added I it to my small stack.

The same dealer had a box of $1 and 2/$1 cards. I grabbed the top 3 from the 2/$1 box and the bottom 2 were from the $1 box. The Wood is numbered to 50 and will be headed to a fellow blogger, if he doesn't already have it. The Longoria is the gold foil version.

The Reggie is numbered to 1500 and find a spot in my Reggie collection. I tend to be drawn to inserts that I'm not familiar with. Such was the case with the Ripken.

Tomorrow I'll finish up my card show recap with a small stack of dime box cards and a rookie card from the 1960's in fantastic condition.

Card Show Recap: Part 1

I went to a card show this past Saturday and picked up this 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan card. I knew it was in rough shape, but it turned out to be in rougher shape than I first thought, but that's okay because I'm not all that concerned with condition when it comes to his pre-1980 cards.

I have his rookie card, but need 1969 - 1974 and 1976 -1978. I'm going to do a Topps Nolan Ryan card post to keep track of my pursuit. 

I got this from the first dealer I stopped at. I spotted it and asked for a price. $5. I looked through a few other rows of cards and found the cards below for a dime each. I offered him $5 total and he agreed. I was hoping the Willis and Morneau were rookie cards, but I was a year off. I have a soft spot for Kubel because of his time with the Diamondbacks. I remember Khalil Greene being a big deal for a few months when he first came up to the big leagues.

I did manage to get a few rookie cards from the next dealer. Tune in tomorrow to see who.

Oddball Food Issue: 1982 Crack Jack

Crack Jack has a long history with baseball cards, but it's sparse. They produced cards in 1914 and 1915, then they produced a two panel set of 16 cards featuring some baseball greats in connection with the Old Timers Game at RFK stadium in 1982. It would be almost a decade before they featured baseball cards again in 1991 and 1992. No cards since. I think it's about time for more Cracker Jack baseball cards.

These 1982 Cracker Jack panels were part of a collection I bought last year.

I was only 1 in 1982, but by 1991 I was buying lots of Cracker Jack after Little League games in 1991 and 1992. I never really considered collecting those sets though, so at this point I pretty much will be starting from scratch on those sets. Some day I would love to own an original 1914 or 1915 Cracker Jack card. Anybody out there reading this have a 1914 or 1915 Cracker Jack card in your collection?

Organization Needed and Oddball: Dennys

I want to organize my collection. I really do. My problem is that I buy cards faster than I can organize them. It's a product of my quantity over quality mentality that I tend to have when it comes to collecting. I also tend to want to collect almost everything, so that is a problem as well.

I have been posting some oddball cards recently and I'm in the process of making some trades to try to complete some of those oddball sets, which is great, but this morning I came across a few oddball cards in a stack of cards I have that need to be organized. One of the cards is this 1990 Post Wade Boggs card. I need it for the set. it's also one of the cards I was offered as part of a trade from bbcardz. I've got to get better organized.

Here are the other oddball cards that I came across this morning. They are from the 1993 Dennys set. Yep, I'm collecting all the Denny's sets as well.

Here is where I stand for the Denny's sets as far as needs.

11991 - 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26

1992 - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26

1993 - 3, 23

1994 - Complete

1995 - Complete

1996 - Complete

1997 - Complete

I've got lots of duplicates from the 1997 set and a few others. It would probably be easier to just pick up the sets off eBay, but I'm not in any hurry, so I'll pick them up in dime boxes as I come across them or if you have any I need and you want to trade, just let me know. 

Okay, now it's off to a card show to pick up more randomness that I won't be able to get organized fast enough.

Oddball Food Issue: 1992 Jimmy Dean

The early 1990's were a time when baseball cards were issued with anything and everything. Literally everything. In fact, one could make the case that the 1994 baseball strike happened because of baseball cards. The MLBPA collected so much money from the trading cards deals in the late 80's and early 90's that there was no fear of the loss of income from a work stoppage. Ironically, the 1994 work stoppage led to many companies stopping to use baseball cards to promote their products.

For example, in 1991, 1992, and 1993, but there would be no Jimmy Dean cards in 1994, 1995 or 1996. They issued a small set in 1997 before backing out for good.

Here is the 1992 Jimmy Dean set. Just 18 cards in this set, which is nice in that is fits nicely on two pages. Only 5 of the 18 are in the Hall of Fame, so a fairly low percentage, but all very familiar names.

Back to Oddball Food Issues: Post Cereal

I took a short break from Oddball, but let's get back to it by taking a look at the 1992 Post set. This set was  part of a collection that I bought last year.

Lots of star power, by 1992 standards, but only 13 out of the 30 are Hall of Famers.

The lack of logos take away from the front, but I think they did a great job with the backs. Color photos, career stats, and a signature all add to the greatness of the back.

Post produced three baseball card sets back in the early 1960's (1961- 63) and then returned nearly 30 years later in 1990. They continued making annual sets through 1995 and then again 2001 - 2002.

I only have a few cards from the 60's but I've got a good chunk of the more recent cards. Here is what I need. If you can help me out, please let me know.

1990 - 13, 23

1991 - 1, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15, 24, 28, 30

1992 - complete

1993 - complete

1994 - complete

1995 - need the whole set

2001 - 2, 3, 5, 7. 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15 16

2001 500 Home Run Club - 3, 7

2002 - 3, 12, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30

2003 - need the whole set

1 for 100 and another make me an offer

Last Saturday I posted 100+ non baseball cards up for trade hoping to secure either a 1973 Topps Goose Gossage rookie card or a 1976 Topps Dennis Eckersley rookie card, but was open to a best offer.

Yesterday, just one week later, this showed up in my mailbox courtesy of Max from Starting Nine.

I mentioned this card in a recent post about Hall of Fame rookie cards. This card is readily available, but I had yet to pull the trigger. I'm always looking to add rookie cards of Hall of Famers, so thank you Max!

This worked so well that I thought I would give it a try again. Here is another 100+ card lot up for trade. About half are non baseball cards from baseball card sets, mostly Allen & Ginter. The others are non sports cards and a few 2000 Fleer Greats of the Game cards. I'll throw in some additional cards of your favorite baseball team to sweeten the trade.

I'm open to trade for the best offer I get, but if someone were to offer up a 1976 Topps Dennis Eckersley rookie card or a 1990 Leaf Frank Thomas rookie card, I would automatically accept the trade.