Odds and Ends

I don't really have time for a substantive post today, so instead I give you a random smattering of cards I scanned in while cleaning off my card room desk yesterday evening...

I was definitely late to the game on these Cognac Diamond Anniversary parallels, but I'm a big fan.  The variations featuring retired legends are my favorites.  Nolan Ryan was one I knew I wanted to track down.  In addition to this Mets card, there's another (#626B) that has him in California Angels garb.

I wanted the Yastrzemski perhaps more than any other, and I finally landed one a couple of months back.  Aside from the Nolan Ryan I'm missing, the one I'd like most now is a Carlton Fisk, which is a nice-looking horizontal card.  It's currently occupying one of the nine spots on my Most Wanted list.

Here's another fearsome shark from the 2008 Allen & Ginter World's Deadliest Sharks insert set.  I am fascinated by sharks and have been slowly gathering these since I pulled my first one in a pack a couple of years ago.  This Oceanic Whitetip puts me at three out of five now.  These inserts are harder than you'd think to come by, I've never seen what the stated odds were for pulling one but they were a tough pull for sure.  They book at $12 each in Beckett, $50 for the set.  Just the Tiger and Mako left and I can cross this set off my list at last.

These last three cards were supposed to comprise the end of my "What I Bought Instead of Allen & Ginter" posts from this past summer.  I'm way too lazy to type up a formal summary, I'm considering that project complete.

2005 Topps Pack Wars Pedro Martinez.  This is the foil parallel, numbered to /56.  I don't know that I'm a fan of the Pack Wars set, although in all fairness I haven't played the game.  I do know that a Pedro Martinez numbered to /56 copies is nothing to scoff at.  I believe this may have come from Lonestarr at Life and Baseball Cards, but I have to confess I'm not entirely sure.

From 2006 Fleer Ultra, here's a Nomar Garciaparra card from the Retro Lucky 13 subset.  I wasn't collecting in 2006 and I have no idea what the Retro Lucky 13 stands for, although it seems to have something to do with the first 13 picks of a draft.  To me, it's a new card of a player who is way under-represented in my Red Sox collection...

From 2007 Fleer Ultra, a Hideki Okajima rookie.  I always liked this guy when he was with Boston.  The Yankees signed him to a one-year deal this past off-season, however he failed his physical and ended up playing in Japan instead.

Roger Clemens 1988 Topps UK Mini.  I really hope Roger doesn't make a comeback in 2013 with Houston.  Don't do it Roger.

This Eiffel Tower card is the latest addition to my very small collection (now 3 cards) that I began after visiting last year.  It's a red parallel from the 2008 A Piece of History set, numbered to /149.

Pops sticker.  Pulled this from a pack of 1982 Topps baseball.  Still haven't stuck it anywhere.  Now for some hockey...

1991 Pinnacle Eric Lindros.  As a ten-year-old in 1992, I would have considered giving my left testicle for a copy of this card.  As it stands I'm pretty sure this came from a quarter bin sometime in the past couple of years.

Here's another Lindros card, not nearly as interesting as the first.  I don't know where this card came from, and I don't know why I decided to include it in this post.

Another new Wayne Gretzky, although this one is a measly common from the '95-96 Collector's Choice set.

Seriously Roger, don't do it.

I think I could see myself starting a John Olerud player collection at some point.  He's definitely an under-rated player in my humble opinion.  At the very least I should track down a few cards from his brief time with the Red Sox.

I came across a small stack of 1992 Topps Stadium Club, the highlights of which were Frank Thomas...

...a young Jeff Bagwell sporting some killer shades...

...and finally Robin Yount.

I also came across a pack of 1981 Topps baseball that I got in a repack box years ago.  Only three cards of note were pulled.  This Victory Leaders card featuring a hatless Steve Carlton...

...Gaylord Perry in pinstripes...

...and Bobby Bonds in dire need of a haircut.

Finally, we have a Hideo Nomo rookie card from the 1995 Emotion set.  As a kid in the early to mid-90s I was not immune to the Nomo craze.  This is the only rookie card I've got though.

I hope you enjoyed this totally random lot of cards...

Go O's!

1953 Topps Project - Dick Brodowski

Another month, another card towards my 1953 Topps baseball set. Today's subject is Dick Brodowski of the Boston Red Sox:

Is this one of the oldest night cards out there?  Night Owl?

If Richard Stanley Brodowski looks young to you in this painting, it's because he was really just a kid at the time this card was released.  This piece of cardboard is from a different era altogether.  There weren't any pitch counts, or innings counts for Dick here.  He wasn't groomed for years and years in a farm system.  Nope, Dick Brodowski made 20 appearances (12 of them starts) with the Red Sox in 1952 at the tender age of 19 years old, going 5-5 in the Red Sox rotation. 

Not a bad start to a career at all, especially for a player so young.  Even though he appeared to be a bright prospect, Brodowski walked away from baseball after that rookie season.  For two years.  Military service.  So, although he has a card in the 1953 Topps set, he never pitched an inning in 1953, or in 1954.

When Brodowski returned for the 1955 season, he wasn't the same pitcher he once was.  He appeared just 16 times with Boston in '55 (all in relief, no starts) before being dealt away.  He'd spend an unproductive couple of years with both Washington and Cleveland, with his final Major League appearance coming in 1959.

This isn't the first time I've wondered this during this series of posts, and it probably won't be the last, but I have to ask myself whether Brodowski may have been able to stick it out and enjoy a successful career had it not been for his two-year hiatus...

Set Progress:  49 of 274 (18%)

Funny How Things Work...

On Wednesday I read a great post by Sal at Puck Junk on the 2003-04 Topps Hockey Lost Rookies inserts.  I wasn't collecting cards at all in 2003 so I was totally unaware of this great insert set.  While all 11 cards are nice, I was particularly intrigued by the Ron Francis card, depicting him with the Whalers on the 1981-82 Topps design.  Ron obviously wasn't included on the checklist for the '81-82 set, and with Topps dropping out of the hockey card game for the '82-83 and '83-84 seasons, his first Topps card didn't arrive until the '84-85 set.  I knew I had to track this one down for my Hartford Whalers collection.  I took to eBay and found only a couple of copies out there.  I made a low-ball offer on one of them and went on with my day.

Later that same afternoon I had a couple of hours to kill and decided to make a visit to my favorite local hobby shop.  It had been months since I'd stopped by, and I was looking forward to spending some time leafing through the many quarter boxes.  To my shock and horror though, I found that the quarter boxes are no more!  I guess they just couldn't justify the amount of time it was taking them to sleeve and organize the cards vs. the profit they were seeing from it.  There are a ton of dollar boxes at least, and guess what card I located in one of the hockey boxes?

What are the odds of that?  The very same day I learned of this card's existence, there it was staring me in the face.  Of course I now had a dilemma, do I buy this one not knowing the fate of my low-ball eBay offer?  For a buck I took the risk, I couldn't stand the thought of passing on this copy, then seeing my eBay offer rejected.  So that's the story of how, just a few hours after learning of this card, I had my very own copy.  What a world we live in.

Since I've focused so much on baseball lately, here are four other cards I snagged from the dollar box for all of my hockey-card-collecting readers...

I've mentioned this a few times before, but any time I see these '09-10 Champs Yellow Parallels at a decent price I bite.  I really loved the design of this set, and these particular parallels are not too easy to come by at 1:20 packs.  I doubt I'll ever finish the 100-card yellow set, especially since most of the checklist is comprised of superstars, but I've got at least half a dozen of them now anyway.

I couldn't pass on this awesome 1976-77 Topps card celebrating the Montreal Canadiens' Stanley Cup season in '75-76.  I wish the photo were in color, but other than that this is just a great looking piece of cardboard.

This is actually the final card in the 1976-77 Topps set.  As you can see, Montreal faced very little adversity in the '75-76 playoffs, sweeping all three rounds.  I would have to guess that this one will be in the running when I get around to selecting card #264 for The Ultimate Hockey Card Set.

Back to something a little more modern, we have a Wayne Gretzky card from the 1994-95 Topps Premier set.  Normally I would not shell out $1 for this card, but in case you can't tell by the scan this is the Special Effects parallel.  These came one in every other hobby or retail pack, and it's easy to spot one as the area surrounding the player sparkles in almost any light.

This card actually has a book value in the $15-$20 range.  I know that doesn't mean much, but it's not often that I run across a Gretzky card so far under book.

Finally, we have a 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee Retro Tomas Fleischmann.  This may seem like the least exciting of the cards in this post, but I was more excited to find this one than any of the other four.  I have been at this set for over 4 years now, and if anything these seem to be getting more and more difficult to locate.  Sportlots was picked down to the bare bones for this set long ago, and if you're lucky enough to find the card you're looking for on eBay you're going to pay more in shipping than you will for the card.  When you only need 31 more like I do, they become that much harder to track down.

With Tomas here in hand, I'm now down to an even 30 cards to finish off the 600-card set.  I think this is the best back design in the history of hockey cards, just never gets old...

On an unrelated note, I've borrowed an idea that many other bloggers have used and created a top 9 most wanted list which I'll keep over in the sidebar.  If you have anything off the list for trade I will make sure you are handsomely rewarded!

Oh yeah, and one last thing, of course my eBay offer on the Francis card was accepted.  If anyone wants to trade for my extra let me know!

Best Deal I've Ever Gotten on a Football Card

This past Sunday I checked out a card show at the Best Western in Woburn, Massachusetts.  I have to be honest and say that the atmosphere was somewhat depressing.  This is the fourth card show I've been to in the last 5 years, and each time I've found myself pacing around a sparsely populated hall with a bunch of strange, older, over-weight, odd smelling gentlemen flipping through dust-covered binders and asking myself "What am I doing here?".  Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking anyone's way of life at all, it's just that as an athletic, 30-year-old I feel out of place.  Sort of like I'm in a "one of these things does not belong" sketch from Sesame Street.  Am I the only one that's ever gotten this vibe at a show?  Am I a total jerk for feeling this way?  Maybe it's the OCD side of me...

Anyway, I got off topic there.  I must not feel too out of place, because I did decide to attend the show after all, nobody was twisting my arm about it.  Despite the off-putting vibe of the place, I scored some great cards that made it worth the drive.  The '83 Topps Sandberg RC I posted recently was a card I'd been seeking out for years and was happy to shell out $5 for.  Today's card may be an even better pick-up, despite the fact that I wasn't searching for it specifically (in fact I never even knew it existed):

Pretty cool, huh?  While I am a football fan, I'm not a football card collector.  I don't have anything against football cards, it's just that baseball and hockey give me more than enough to try to keep up with.  To put it in perspective, I have 9,990 baseball cards and 11,664 hockey cards in my inventoried, online collection at the moment.  For football cards, I've got 102.  When I saw this card though, I was instantly intrigued.  It's from the 2007 Topps TX Exclusive set, and contains an authentic ticket stub from Super Bowl XXXIX, as well as an autograph of the subject, Rosevelt Colvin.

I love the ticket stub concept on sports cards.  I've seen a few baseball and hockey sets where the design emulates a ticket, but I don't recall any that embed an actual ticket stub in the card.  The fact that this is a Super Bowl ticket makes it even cooler.  The fact that the Patriots won that Super Bowl, their third in four years, made this a card I couldn't resist.  I've checked out some Super Bowl tickets from this game and this definitely does appear to be a legit example.

Colvin, although hampered by injury at times, was an effective player for the Pats for a few years.  He was a member of two Patriots Super Bowl Champion teams, and started at defensive end in Super Bowl XXXIX.  Over his career he tallied more than 50 sacks, had 3 interceptions and 280 tackles, and forced 17 fumbles.  Not Hall-of-Fame numbers but a solid career nonetheless.  The autograph is a sticker rather than being on-card (or I guess on-ticket).

On the back, I'm assured by Topps that the ticket stub is authentic, and that the signing of all Topps autograph cards is witnessed by Topps representatives to guarantee authenticity.  I'm not sure how re-assuring that is.  It doesn't really matter though because guess where I found this card?  In a 3 for $5 bin.  Can you believe that?  Since I had to pick two other cards to go with it, I grabbed a couple of Red Sox relics...

A Victor Martinez Clubhouse Collection bat relic from 2011 Topps Heritage.  Another guy who's struggled with injury.  Detroit managed to qualify for the playoffs without him this year, but imagine how much better their lineup would look with his bat supporting Cabrera and Fielder.  I'm not huge on relic cards, but this one is well done.

There's a nice big cartoon on the back, however I wish they had based it around the card subject rather than this generic cartoon about pulling a relic.  Oh well...

Continuing my trend of players who have battled injury, my final selection was this 2009 Allen & Ginter Rocco Baldelli relic.  Rocco had a ton of promise when he first broke into the Major Leagues with Tampa Bay, but a strange muscular disorder derailed his career.  After missing the entire 2005 season due to injury, he never topped 100 games played over his final 5 seasons.  Ultimately, he was out of the game by age 29.  The main reason I wanted the card is that Baldelli hails from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, which is in my neck of the woods.  Not many Rhode Island natives have made it to the top level of any professional sport, so for a cheap price it was at least an interesting relic to add to my collection.

Pretty decent results from a 3 for $5 box if you ask me.  I would have paid $5 for the Colvin card alone, and with the two Red Sox relics sweetening the pot this was a no-brainer.  Definitely the best deal I've ever gotten on a football card...

Adrian Gonzalez, We Hardly Knew Ye - The Ultimate 2012 Topps Chrome Collection

With all of the colored parallels available in Topps Chrome baseball, I figured it would be a great place to gain some ground with my Adrian Gonzalez Red Sox collection.  Besides, I'm a sucker for shiny cards.  So with some saved eBay searches and PayPal funds behind me, I set out to build the best 2012 Topps Chrome Adrian Gonzalez set out there (I know, shouldn't be too hard).  The last of my packages have finally arrived, here's what I've got so far...

Standard Refractor.  One card I haven't picked up yet is the base card from this set, so this refractor is the most common card I have at this point.  I was focused more on getting the harder to find cards first I guess, if anyone has an extra base to trade let me know!  I won this card for $.28 with free shipping.  How anyone can make a profit on that is beyond me.

Purple Refractor.  This is the second of these I've picked up, as Clay Buchholz was part of a lot from a few days ago.  I'm not overly enthusiastic about these, if I had to pick one parallel to do away with purple would be it.

Orange Refractor.  Very appropriate for this time of year.  Maybe I should have led off the post with this one.  While this is my first 2012 Orange Refractor, I do have a handful from other years and have always liked them.  As far as color choices go, it doesn't make a whole lot more sense than purple does, so I can't really explain why I like one and not the other.

X-Fractor.  That's a wrap for the four most common, non-serial-numbered refractors.  I've grabbed most of the serial-numbered ones as well...

Blue Refractor.  These are numbered to 199 copies.  A darker shade of blue would have looked better for the Red Sox, but these might be the best refractors to chase if you're a Royals, Rangers, Dodgers or Mets fan.

Black Refractor, numbered to 100 copies.  This card makes me wish the 2012 Topps flagship set had been done with black borders rather than white.

Sepia Refractor.  These are serial-numbered to 75.  They are my favorite overall refractors, independent of team colors.  Really nice looking cards, I could see myself picking up some more of these.  I'm generally a sepia fan, in case you couldn't tell by my blog header.

Gold Refractor.  Getting into the rarer parallels here, with these numbered to 50 copies.  I don't particularly like the look of these, so I'm glad I was able to land this one for less than $5.

Finally, there's the Red Refractor.  This is the best looking parallel for the Red Sox cards as far as I'm concerned, but unfortunately it's also one of the toughest and most expensive as each card is limited to 25 copies.  This card was a good example of timing being key for a player collection.  When Chrome first came out there were a few of these on eBay, and I won mine for a touch over $7.  Just a few weeks have passed since, but good luck finding one now...

I also picked up this Dynamic Die-Cut Insert, which I'm fairly sure is the only insert Gonzalez shows up on in this set.  Came from the same seller as the Gold Refractor, and he offered free shipping as well.  That was definitely a help in keeping the overall cost of this down.

Pretty decent run there, nearly every Gonzalez parallel and insert from the set is covered.  Aside from the base card, the one card I'm missing that I know of is the Atomic Refractor parallel, numbered to /10.  I made a play for one on eBay a couple of weeks back but once it went above $25 I was out of the running.  Of the remaining nine copies that exist out there, one is currently listed on eBay, but with a Buy-it-Now price of $35.  Guess I'll have to wait this one out.

Despite that one missing card, I still think I have the best representation of Gonzalez from this set of anyone out there, for two reasons...

I have the Cyan Printing Plate.  This is my third Gonzalez printing plate, and like the first two this one set me back all of $20.  Seems like an Andrew Jackson is the standard rate for these things, at least in the early going here.

That's not all though...

I also ended up with the Magenta Printing Plate.  This was my best printing plate deal yet, at just $14.50 and a couple bucks for shipping.

That does it for my 2012 Topps Chrome Adrian Gonzalez collection.  Printing plates aside, the refractor rainbow cost me a grant total of $21.71 plus $12.40 in shipping/handling costs, for a total of $34.11.  The two printing plates came to a combined total of $34.50, plus another $5.50 in shipping/handling.  Grand total for this project as it stands was $74.11.  I'm really happy with how this turned out, especially since a single hobby box of Chrome would have set me back more than this did.  I'm really enjoying this player collection so far.

Adrian Gonzalez Red Sox Cards - Count
Total Cards - 31
#'d /2011 - 1
#'d /999 - 1
#'d/199 - 1
#'d/100 - 1
#'d/75 - 1
#'d /60 - 1
#'d/50 - 1
#'d/25 - 1
1/1 - 4
Relics - 0
Silk - 0
Autographs - 0
Printing Plates - 4

The Ultimate Baseball Card Set - Card #83

Just over a year ago now I decided I was going to do a series of posts where I'd create the ultimate baseball and hockey franken-sets from my collection. In the 12 months that have passed since I've selected exactly 3 baseball cards. I know this is a lifelong project, but that pace is just not going to cut it. Luckily, I picked up a card at another show yesterday that's perfect for my set.  Before we get to that though, here's a quick refresher on the cards I've selected so far.

For card #5 I chose Thurman Munson's 1971 Topps card.  This one is an absolute classic and possibly my favorite baseball card of the entire decade.  I don't see this card ever being superseded in the set.

For a variety of reasons I chose Cal Ripken Jr's 1982 Topps rookie card as card #21.  Like the Munson, it's one of those cherished classics that is recognizable to almost any collector.  More importantly for me though, it was the first big rookie card I ever landed, and I still have my original childhood copy to this day.

Finally, for card #232 I selected this Minnie Minoso Record Breaker card.  This is definitely the one card I've selected so far that I could see being replaced someday, but I just found the feat of hitting a single in a Major League game at age 53 so impressive.  #232 is a bit of an odd number also, so maybe Minoso has a chance of sticking around for a while after all...

Anyway, for today's post I'm selecting card #83 for the set.  Some of you may know where this is going, as I can't think of any other #83s that are more well-known than the one I picked up yesterday...

As I've generally done with these posts, we'll look at some of the runners-up first.  Will Clark makes an appearance at #83 in my collection, as Mr. Intense.  I do have a soft spot for these Emotion cards, but not enough to select this one for my set.

Here's a brand new #83, a very recent addition to my Nolan Ryan collection from this past Saturday's card show.  One of my favorite players, and very shiny, but doesn't make the cut.

Ozzie Smith is another of my childhood favorites, and I do like both of the Upper Deck Masterpieces sets, however this isn't one of the most impressive cards from the 2008 set.  Apologies to the Wizard but he's not getting in yet.

I've also got a couple of vintage Red Sox cards that I briefly considered.  There's this Earl Wilson hand-cut Post card from 1963...

...and this '55 Topps Tom Brewer.  Both nice cards, but neither can top this obvious choice:

1983 Topps - #83 - Ryne Sandberg RC

This Sandberg rookie is one of those cards that for whatever reason took me way too long to finally purchase.  It may seem silly to say this about a card from 1983 Topps, but I've been searching this one out for years.  I think my own frugal nature was my biggest obstacle the entire time, as I often saw them priced at $10 or more in the condition (mint) that I was looking for, and just didn't want to shell out that much for one.  Even at Sunday's show I passed on two copies of this card that the dealers were unwilling to go lower than $10 on.  My patience paid off at last though, as I found this one in a miscellaneous box of 80s cards in top loaders for just $5.  I would have to say that this was the card I was happiest to come home from Sunday's show with.

So, can you think of a card #83 that can rival this one, or do you think I made the right choice?

The Ultimate Baseball Card Set, which now stands at 4 cards and counting, can be seen here.