Hobby Happenings

Just some hobby happenings from Shoebox Legends World Headquarters over the past week or so here...

So, I had two copies of this Kylian Mbappe Black & Gold Wave Refractor from the 2018 Panini Prizm World Cup set.  It's not quite as desirable as the Silver Prizm that I flipped into a 1940 Joe DiMaggio, but it's a desirable card nonetheless.  I sold one copy in July to generate some funds for other cards since I was on a spending freeze, and just this past week finally made the decision to part with the other.  It got listed this morning, 3 day auction starting at $9.99 with no reserve.  We'll see where it ends up!

Because I've been on a run of these of late, here's another of those fantastic '72-73 O-Pee-Chee high number WHA cards.  Couple soft corners here, but this one is a beauty with really bold color.  Plus, I have precious few cards of the short-lived Philadelphia Blazers.

Here's my latest Helmar T206 card, and by latest I mean that I picked it up many, many months ago and am just getting around to featuring it now.

In the case of this card, I picked it up more for the subject than for the artwork, which is unusual as Helmar goes for me.  The thing is, Benny Kauff is fascinating to me in that he was the best hitter in the short-lived Federal League!  He led the league in batting average in both years of its existence, which makes this card just awesome.

I'd love to pick up Benny's 1915 Cracker Jack release someday, but that's a couple hundred dollars all day long, so for now I'll enjoy this beautiful card for $9.99 instead.

Here's a look at the back, very well done and different from my other two Helmar T206 backs.  These are just absolutely beautiful cards, I'm really overdue to pick up some more.

Well, that's it for now, just a quick trio of cards for you, one that's on the way out, two more that pass it on the way in.  The revolving door that is my collection these days.

Thanks as always for stopping by, and I'll be back this week with some great trade packages from my hobby friends, as well as a few pick-ups of my own!

Hobby Goings On

Taking it easy today on the posting front with just some random happenings from the past few days as far as my collection is concerned. 

First up, I processed a big lot of these Red & Blue Wave parallels from the 2018 Panini Prizm World Cup set and added them to my collection proper.  The highlight of the lot was the Ronaldo above.  I'm up to 123 of these parallels now after entering in the lot, close to 50% of an entire set.  I've got a slightly smaller lot of Green & Orange Wave parallels to enter next, then I can start evaluating where I'm at with my goal of forming an overall "parallel franken-set" of this 300-card release!

While we're on the topic of really cool parallels, here's one that recently arrived in the mailbox courtesy of eBay.  Upper Deck did "Electric Ice" parallels for a couple of their flagship hockey sets in the mid-'90s.  In the 1995-96 release they took the rarity to another level and also included these "Electric Ice Gold" parallels, which fell just one per box.

I gladly scooped up this Sean Burke for my Whalers collection at under $3 with free shipping.  A team set of these is a tall order based on rarity, but doable.

This was such an awesome set design-wise that I feel compelled to show the back as well.

Speaking of my Whalers collection, while continuing on my ongoing purge I finally tackled a 5-row monster box on the floor next to my desk that I believed to contain duplicates only.  Imagine my surprise when I came across a stack of Whalers cards that I'd seemingly never scanned and inventoried!

The stack was a few dozen cards thick, and as I started comparing them against my inventory on The Trading Card Database, I realized I needed just about every one of them.

When the dust settled I'd added no fewer than forty new Whalers cards to my official collection!  This was the largest single jump for me on that front in quite a while, and motivates me to really try at the goal I threw out at the beginning of the year to accumulate 2,000 Whalers cards by December 31st.

I'm still more than 200 shy of that even after adding these to my tally, but I have quite a bit of that 5-row monster box still to process in my purge.  I have a feeling there could be another stack or two like this one, if I'm lucky.

Obviously I'm not going to show all forty of the new Whalers cards in this post, but selected a few favorites like this '89-90 Scoring Leaders Ron Francis.

This one's pretty cool, from the 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee Stickers set.  First one of these in my formal collection!  Awesome brown pads on Peter Sidorkiewicz there.  I wish I had a second copy of this so I could peel it and stick it to the outside of the shoebox where I keep my Whalers collection.

One of the highlights of the find was definitely this 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee John Garrett.  This plugs a hole in my Whalers team set from the greatest flagship hockey set ever made.  I have the entire Topps set, and it looks like I'm missing only Mark Howe to knock the O-Pee-Chee version out now.  There's a card I'll need to seek out very soon.

I chose this '94-95 Leaf card just because Geoff Sanderson's facial expression is so serious.  Lighten up Geoff, it's a game.

Strong mullet game from Pat Verbeek on his '94-95 Ultra card.

Not a bad grouping there, felt great adding a chunk of Whalers in one fell swoop like that.

Here's another over-sized Helmar Polar Night card.  This one features Charlie Ganzel of the Detroit Wolverines.  I love the stockings, uniform, cap, floating ball, all of it.  Just a really cool and visually attractive card of a guy who'd almost certainly be missing from my collection otherwise.  That pretty much sums up the beauty of Helmar in my opinion; affordable cards of guys whose playing-era cards are astronomically priced, if they exist at all.

Well, that's a wrap for now.  Thanks as always for stopping by, and check back soon for the results of another hard-to-believe eBay flip!

Crazy Days and Polar Nights with Pretzels Getzien!

Last year, I went on a brief Helmar streak over the summer.  I really like their "art cards", which are inspired by old-time card designs and feature original artwork of many forgotten heroes of the dead-ball era.  At a $9.99 starting price for each auction my enthusiasm eventually waned, but I still look at their weekly eBay auctions every so often (they end every Tuesday night) and will sometimes grab one that speaks to me if I'm the lone bidder.

Anyway, the two I have to feature today were grabbed last year, and are from the Polar Night set.  These are over-sized, closer to a postcard in size than a modern trading card actually.  If you care to learn more about them here's a link to my post last summer where I discuss the inspiration behind the design, size of the cards, etc.

First up, we have Charles "Pretzels" Getzien (or Getzein, as it appears here).  Several things drew me to this card, including but not limited to:

• The awesome backdrop, featuring what looks like a factory of some sort?  A riverboat on the horizon, maybe?
• He's shown here with the Detroit Wolverines, which is just a fantastic team name
• He was the first German player in MLB history
• Dude pitched six complete games in the 1887 World Series (which the Wolverines won 10 games to 5)!

Apparently sources dispute whether he got the nickname "Pretzels" due to his German descent, or due to the fact that he possessed an ability to throw a "double curve" that mimicked the shape of the German snack!  To me it sounds like the former is more likely, but you never know given that his curveball was indeed the source of much study and speculation in the 1880s.  Either way, what a cool piece of baseball lore!

Here's a look at the back of Pretzels' card.  The Polar Nights all have this standard back, with the only difference being the card number of course.

The other Polar Night I have for you today is Larry Twitchell, pictured above.  I grabbed this one because he was a teammate of Pretzels Getzien on those Detroit Wolverines clubs of the late 1880s, including on the 1887 team that won the World Series!  I guess I'm off and running on a Wolverines team set here.

I believe Larry has a card in the Old Judge set from the 1800s, but I don't have that kind of hobby budget, and even if I did there would be a lot of other expensive cards on my want list ahead of that one.  That's why I enjoy these Helmar cards so much, they are an affordable way to obtain high quality cards with vintage look and feel, of largely forgotten stars that would be absent from my collection otherwise.

To each his own, but I love the work that Helmar Brewing does in creating these little works of art, and hope to continue supporting their business in the future.  At the same price point, give me one of these over a Topps NOW card any day!

Old-Time Baseball - Mike Goodfellow

I've picked up a few of the beautiful, handmade Polar Night cards from Helmar Brewing since discovering them a couple of months back, but just haven't found the time to post about them, which is a shame.  I'll try to start rectifying that here with my second card from the set, Mike Goodfellow of the Cleveland Blues!  

I won't repeat everything I said about the design of these custom art cards in my first post, suffice it to say they're over-sized beauties that contain original artwork.  I love the painting of a glove-less Mike Goodfellow preparing to make the catch here.  Not exactly proper 21st century form, but I'll take it.

Pretty sure this is my first Cleveland Blues card of any sort, so it's got that going for it as well!

Here's a look at the back, which is standard across all Polar Night cards from Helmar Brewing...

That's it for tonight.  This is the final auto-pilot post for the blog, as I've actually been down in DC with my wife for the past week enjoying a vacation.  I'll be back tomorrow with live content.  In the meantime, thanks as always for stopping by my little corner of the internet!

The Baltimore Terrapins

Back in August I landed my first Helmar Oasis card, and was incredibly impressed with the quality and attention to detail that went into the card's construction.  You can read more about this set in that last post, but the basic idea is that these are handmade cards, containing original artwork, constructed of seven different layers, and weighing in at a larger size and heavier weight than a standard modern-day baseball card.

I haven't gone all that crazy buying too many Helmar art cards, mainly because the starting bids for all their weekly auctions are $9.99, so your bill can add up fast if you're not careful.  I have cherry-picked a few during the ensuing months though, and today seems like the perfect time to share the next one here.

I say that because I'm actually down in Baltimore, spending the weekend and catching the Patriots/Redskins game tomorrow over at Fedex Field in Landover.  The blog is on auto-pilot while I'm away, and it seems like a fitting time to showcase my very first Baltimore Terrapins card!

I'm telling you, the creativity and bright, bold colors are every bit as stunning in hand as they appear in this scan.  I absolutely have to pick up some more of these at some point.  There are a few different borders/themes within the set, and this one uses the same "Cycle Cigarettes" border as the first one I picked up, actually.

As for the subject, this is my first card of Mickey Doolin, and as I mentioned my first Baltimore Terrapins card overall.  They were a short-lived franchise that lasted just two seasons as part of the Federal League.  I love exploring all parts of the game's history, and have always been intrigued by the Federal League.  It was actually the primary reason I placed a bid on this one.

Here's a look at the back, the advertising obviously differs here to match the design used on the front border.  There are at least a handful of different themes, though I'm not sure of the exact count.

The coolest thing about these, as I mentioned last time I showed one off, is that they have a raised/frame effect going on due to the way the layers of the card are constructed and overlaid.
 

That's a wrap for today, a Baltimore card during a weekend in Baltimore.  Perfect.  Check back tomorrow for the latest in my ongoing series of football card-themed posts.  Until then!

Another Birthday Helmar Pack

Time to rip open the second of four packs of 2005 Helmar Brewing Baseball that I received as a birthday gift from my parents at the beginning of the month!

As we've seen before, each pack contains three cards, featuring original artwork.  Many of the subjects are forgotten or lesser-known players from long ago, so these are right up my alley.  Let's tear in...

This is my first card of James Robert McAleer, who managed the St. Louis Browns from 1902 to 1909, also appearing as a player in the 1902 and 1907 campaigns.  I've seen him referred to as "Jimmy", and by the nickname "Loafer", but can't find a reference to the name Hugh anywhere.

Either way, I love that every pack of this introduces not just new cards to my collection, but new subjects entirely.  The artwork on this one is beautiful, I love the old-school ball cap in particular.  My favorite card in today's pack.

Next up we have Negro League player James Cobbin, who spent time with both the New York Black Yankees and Indianapolis Clowns (as seen on this card) franchises.  My first card of his as well.  Helmar actually did a full Negro League set a while back, which looks awesome but isn't cheap.

Closing out the pack is Ross Youngs.  Ross was a career New York Giant, and was a key member of the team that won four consecutive NL pennants, and two World Series as well.  He's enshrined in Cooperstown, and deservedly so.

I love the pastel background colors on this card, including the beautiful orange sunset.  Those striped stirrups might be even better than that, though.  A really nice looking card all around, I'm sure you'll agree.

Three new cards for my collection, three new subjects for my collection.  Another successful pack of Helmar here, with two more still to come from my birthday present.  Thanks for stopping by!

Old-Time Baseball - Pat Deasley

As I continue to explore the wonderful custom cards created by Helmar Brewing, I'm more and more impressed by what I find.  So far I've covered the inaugural 2005 release, a T206 mini, and an "Oasis" framed card.  Tonight I've got my first card to show off from another present-day Helmar set, Polar Night!

This here is my very first card of Thomas H. "Pat" Deasley!  One of the things I find most entertaining about the Helmar releases is that they profile some old-time players that I have little to no chance of adding to my collection otherwise.  Deasley does have one or two playing era cards out there, but we're talking Old Judge cards from the 1880s; not exactly something you come across often if ever, and insanely expensive if you were to find one.  I don't exactly see Topps clamoring to release a Deasley card anytime soon, either.

Well, thanks to Helmar I can indeed count Pat Deasley among the names in my collection!  These Polar Night cards look absolutely stunning in hand.  Even the picture above, which I snapped with my iPhone, gives you a good idea of the bright, vibrant color that brings this set of deadball-era stars to life.

The inspiration for this release seems to be the 1887 Buchner Gold Coin cards, known in the hobby as the 'N284' release.  I don't own any of those, but here's a scan I found online for comparison.

Elements borrowed here would include the elongated card dimensions, the plain white border, and the nature-based backgrounds.  All of the artwork in this Polar Night release is original stuff done by Helmar's artists.  According to their website, they "kept the look of the early line drawings but improved them so that the players are recognizable".

While the 1887 originals are certainly beautiful in their own rite, you can see that claim about the elevated level of detail in the Helmar artwork is accurate.

In the case of the Deasley card, I was able to determine exactly what image the Helmar artist worked from.  It's pretty clearly the photograph from his 1887-1890 Old Judge card.  I obviously don't own a copy of that one either, but here's a photograph for reference courtesy of the Library of Congress.  Yep, that's the image alright, although understandably much more fuzzy and much less detailed being well beyond a century old at this point.

I didn't realize this connection when I purchased the card, and only discovered it while researching this post, but I have to say it's kind of cool to see an old black and white photograph like this be brought to life in full, vibrant color.

Like the Helmar Oasis card that I showed a few days back, these Polar Night cards really have the feel of a piece of baseball artwork (I suppose that's what they are, after all).

These Polar Night cards measure roughly 3" x 5", quite a bit larger than a standard size modern baseball card as you can see here.  Again, I find the large size to actually be a benefit.  The artwork is truly stunning, and I love the level of precision and detail in the drawing and painting that you can see when viewed at this scale.  Plus, at the advice of the gentleman I purchased this one from I found the perfect sheets for keeping these in a binder, which I'll show off in a future post once I fill one up.

The Polar Night series all have the same exact card back, with the only difference being the card number of course.  This is actually the first and only Helmar release I've come across personally so far that has the card numbers included on the back.  For the other releases that lack this though, their website has a comprehensive (and interactive!) checklist that makes tracking your cards a breeze.

So, there you have it! My first Helmar Polar Night card, and my first card period of the man who played catcher and roamed the outfield for a few franchises between 1881 and 1888!  Simply awesome.  I certainly hope to have more of these cards to share with you in the future here on the blog.

What do you think of the Helmar Polar Night release?  I'd love to hear your feedback, positive or negative, in the comments.  Thanks as always for stopping by!

The Most Creative Card I've Landed in a While

I'm not sure if it's the dog days of summer, or just my mood in general, but for whatever reason I continue to gravitate towards old-time baseball as far as my collecting goes.  In particular, I'm increasingly becoming a fan of the Helmar baseball art cards.

I've picked up a small sampling this summer courtesy of their weekly eBay auctions, and have been beyond impressed so far.  Earlier this week I showed off my first pick-up from their "T206" release, and today I've got one that I think tops even that.  Behold, the Helmar "Oasis" line!

Beautiful work, huh?  I've had this card for a couple of weeks now, and I'm still so impressed by the level of care and detail that went into creating it.  First of all, as I mentioned previously, every card that Helmar produces is comprised of 100% original artwork done by the small handful of artists on staff.  Their attention to detail in creating the artwork is impeccable.  They do an amazing job evoking the feel of the era that they're shooting for, and I love the creativeness that is shown in some of the themes.

According to Helmar's website, each one of these Oasis cards is actually composed of seven different layers of material, then scuffed and worn to give it an authentic feel.  The inspiration for the design was to create something that pays homage to the "Gaslight Style" commercial trade signs of the 1870s through the 1890s.

Within the set, there are a few different faux-brands that make up the borders and backs of the cards.  In this case Clyde Milan, star outfielder for the Washington Senators, is done on the "Cycle Cigarettes" design.  In addition to the intricate border...

...as with all Helmar cards being produced these days, you get some nice artwork on the back.

These cards measure (roughly) 2.65" x 4", as you can see here they are slightly larger than a standard-sized sports trading card.  Doesn't bother me in the least, and in fact where these are really small pieces of baseball art I actually prefer the enlarged size.  I've got some 4-pocket sheets on the way from Amazon that I think will hold these just perfectly.

The really cool thing about these, which you can't really tell from the prior photos, is that they've got some dimension to them due to that layered approach to creating the card.  Think Gypsy Queen or Diamond Kings "framed" parallels from modern sets; the painting of the player is actually recessed within the border of the card.  You can see it a little better in this photo, especially along the cigarette pack on the right border there.  This shot gives you a better feel for how thick and sturdy these are as well.

Like the other Helmar sets that are being produced these days, you'd be surprised what some of these cards can fetch at auction.  I really like grabbing the obscure guys as much as anything though.  After all, I've got dozens of Babe Ruth cards in my collection already, but this is my very first Clyde Milan!  I can honestly say that this might be the most satisfying $10 I've spent in our hobby so far this year.

Clyde was a light-hitting speedster of a center fielder, who actually supplanted the great Ty Cobb as the American League stolen bases leader in both 1912 and 1913.  Milan received AL MVP votes for four consecutive seasons beginning in 1911.  Really pleased to have him included as a player in my baseball card collection at last.

I applaud Charles Mandel and the other folks at Helmar for putting such effort into creating beautiful custom cards like these.  I will absolutely be searching out some more of these Oasis cards for my collection in the future.

Have a great Saturday, and thanks as always for stopping by!

Casey Stengel, Rough on Rats!

In a recent post where I ripped a pack of 2005 Helmar baseball cards, I mentioned that the company is still producing cards all these years later.  Nowadays they release sets over long periods of time, printing just a few dozen cards each week and selling them via weekly eBay auctions.  They will never print more than six copies of any given card in a calendar year, and retire their sets after a while as well.  So, while not serial-numbered, these are somewhat scarce, and I was surprised to learn just how popular some of them are.

I've been lucky enough to win a few auctions so far, and have my first one to share with you tonight.  From the "Helmar T206" release, my new favorite Casey Stengel card!

I could say this about nearly every card I've seen so far in their catalog, but what a beautiful piece of baseball art!  I've got a few different cards of baseball lifer Stengel, but most of them focus on his time as a manager later in life.  I have to say I like Casey in Dodger Blue more than in Yankee pinstripes!

Each card in this release, as in all of Helmar's releases, is based off of an original painting by one of Helmar's commissioned artists.  I'm really impressed by the job the artists did of recapturing the feel of the original T206 set.  This modern creation looks right at home next to my authentic T206 cards.  From the painting itself, to the colors, to the wear on the card, it's just perfect.  Here's a blurb from Helmar's website about their T206 set:

The Helmar T206 series is one of our boldest and most important projects. Each card is the same size as the original American Tobacco 1909-1911 T206 cards, though the Helmar T206s are thicker and sturdier. Each Helmar T206 is made from an original, exclusive painting. Cuban stars, Babe Ruth with the Red Sox, Negro Leaguers, and Ty Cobb shaking hands with Honus Wagner are some of the most popular Helmar T206s.

We also spend a huge amount of time creating evocative, humorous, interesting backs. In creating these cards, we have a deep appreciation for the unknown artists who brought the original T206s to life. Will Helmar T206s ever get to 514-520 cards, the (controversial) number of 1909-1911 T206s? We hope so.

As mentioned in the summary, the care that Helmar takes in creating unique card backs is very apparent.  Look at this gem!

Honestly, I'm not sure I can offer any commentary to improve on that.  I love the sense of humor, and again the artwork and style is absolutely on point for the era they're paying tribute to with this release.  Tell me you wouldn't pay a premium of the original T206s had a "Rough on Rats" back!

As I mentioned in the lead-in to the post, these cards are actually quite popular with at least a small cross-section of collectors.  Big name stars can go for more money than I'm willing to spend on a custom card, nice as they may be.  I sort of figured that might be the case with this one, given that Stengel is enshrined in Cooperstown, but in the end I reeled this card in for less than $15.

Some of you might think that's crazy.  A lot of money to spend on an "imaginary" card.  What if they end up printing a million of these over time?  Can't you buy a real T206 for that much money?  I guess you wouldn't be wrong, but is supporting Helmar any crazier or less significant than picking up whatever Topps has out on the shelves these days?  Besides, while I can buy a T206 for that price, I couldn't buy a Casey Stengel T206 until now.

The owner of Helmar is super responsive, and seems to realize the benefit to producing enough of these cards to meet collector demand without flooding the market.  For example, this is the 17th copy of the Stengel T206 created so far, each slightly unique in its wear.  In my research I ran across a couple of posts on the Net54 forums where his creations were getting trashed pretty badly.  Mostly for things like not printing a copyright date or other telling mark on the back, which could in theory lead to a novice collector mistaking one of these for an authentic T206.

I was impressed by his willingness to converse with his critics in those threads, and remain polite and informative.  From my vantage point, the folks complaining kind of came across as little bit elitist, but what do I know.  Helmar seems from outside appearances like a great operation to me.  I have no problem at all supporting a smaller dog in the trading card game like this, especially one that has single-handedly been responsible for creating hundreds of awesome, unique old-time baseball paintings, and in turn pieces of baseball art, like this one.

All I know is, regardless of who manufactured it, this is easily now my single favorite card of the great Casey Stengel!  Collecting is supposed to be fun, and to me that's exactly what this card is.

What's your opinion on a card like this?  A nice addition to a collection, or cardboard blasphemy?