Buyback Franken-set: Fisk Updates a Page!

It's been months now since I did a post with contributions to my Buyback Franken-set project.  Let's get back in the saddle today with a new trio of hopefuls, beginning with the great Carlton Fisk...

 1988 Topps #385 - Carlton Fisk

The '88 Topps set certainly arrived at the height of what's now known as the junk wax era, but it seems many collectors still have an appreciation for it.  Fisk's card is a great example of how the design really created some dimension, with his left leg positioned behind the name banner in the lower right, but his helmet and bat overlapping the White Sox team name along the top of the card.  Great stuff.

Even though he's in the wrong uniform here, I'd love a chance to welcome Carlton to the Buyback Franken-set binder.  There's some existing competition for slot 385 though, and even though he's not enshrined in Cooperstown like Fisk, he's no slouch either...

It's Curt Shilling, with the Phillies on his 1999 release.  Interesting that Fisk gets matched up against another player that I associate more with the Boston Red Sox than the team he's depicted with here.  This is actually a really nice buyback, I like the how the photograph and the way that it's cropped are a perfect fit for the design.

I think I just like the Fisk card a little bit more, though.  Fisk is in, Schilling is out.  This one was part of a completed page as well.

Here's the before, with Schilling in the lower left...

 ...and here's the page now, with Fisk having supplanted him.  Not a bad bottom third of the page, eh?

 1969 Topps #361 - Gary Holman

Next up, a visually stunning Gary Holman.  There's a lot to love about this one.  Forgotten franchise of the past?  Check.  The awesome, jumbo-sized Topps All-Star Rookie trophy logo?  Check.  Palm trees, even?  Check!  

At a relatively obscure card number like 361, I'd assume this one will make the cut easily.  It has some competition though...

This Mark Thurmond is a perfectly fine card.  He's wearing a cap, which is great.  Honestly though, pretty boring and does not hold a candle to that Heritage Holman buyback.

Easy call here, the challenger wins, Thurmond moves off to the rejected box.

This one was part of a completed page also.  There's Thurmond in the lead-off spot...

 ...and here's the page with Holman inserted.  I like how it's 1960s all the way down the left side there.  My favorite on this page might be the legendary "fly down" Claude Raymond, middle left.

1989 Topps #229 - Jimmy Key

Last but not least, a very blue 1989 Topps card.  Jimmy Key nearly won a Cy Young Award on more than one occasion, and was an All-Star five times in his career.  I actually love the composition of this card; the many hues of blue are just so fitting for a Blue Jays card like this one.  The problem is...

  ...this Frank Thomas Star Power buyback from 1996 Topps already calls slot 229 home.

Tough break for Jimmy there, that was an absolutely brutal match-up with the Big Hurt.  There are plenty of other slots where Key would've battled his way in without question, but it just so happens that this is how the chips fell in this case.

Not a bad trio today, Jimmy Key didn't stand a chance against that Frank Thomas card, but the other two fought their way in and bettered completed pages at least.  We're gonna cap it here, because posting too many cards in this new Blogger interface is a real bear.  You can expect to see more frequent, but smaller, Buyback Franken-set posts like this one going forward.

Until next time, thanks as always for stopping by!

Franken-set Progress: 672/792 (84%)
1990 Topps Buyback Set: 136/792 (17%)
"Rejected" Buybacks: 725
Total Buybacks in Collection: 1,527

Cheap Slabs - Strikeout Feats!

Time for the latest installment of Cheap Slabs, in which I show off a graded card that I acquired for less than $25.  Tonight, we have a really unique card featuring one of my all-time favorite players...

Maybe not the most aesthetically pleasing or creative design here, but what this card represents is kind of cool.  In the 1983 season, Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton and Gaylord Perry all surpassed the great Walter Johnson on the career strikeouts list.  This was no small feat, as Johnson finished his career with an amazing 3,508 strikeouts.  For these three (who are all enshrined in Cooperstown) to surpass a total that high, each in the same season, is just awesome, and I'm glad that Topps dedicated a Highlight card to commemorate it in the '84 set.

As much as I like Gaylord Perry and Steve Carlton, it was Nolan Ryan that drew me to this card earlier this year.  He, Will Clark, and Cal Ripken, Jr. were the first three players I ever collected as a kid, and so I still search out Nolan Ryan cards to this day.  I'm working on a graded run of his base flagship Topps cards from his '68 RC through his final '94 issue, but I still have a few holes left to plug.

Here's a look at the back, which gives you a brief write-up on each player surpassing The Big Train, so that you can see what date it occurred on for each of these three hurlers.

While I'm mainly sticking to Nolan's primary Topps card for my complete career run project, I'll gladly stray and pick up other slabbed Ryan cards like this one if the price is right.  It certainly was with this card, purchased in July of this year for just $4.99!

That's all for this installment of Cheap Slabs, thanks as always for stopping by!

Three from COMC

Remember when you could buy cards on COMC.com, ask to have them shipped, and receive them in less than 6 months?  Yeah, times were great back then.  Let's take a look at three cards I picked up back when that was a thing...

I'm a sucker for floating heads on my cardboard, so when this 1962 Topps '61 NL ERA Leaders card popped up in one of my searches at a steal of a price, I was essentially powerless to refuse it.  Worth the paltry sum that I paid for Spahn's floating head alone!

Here's the back, in case you want to do a deep dive on some of the other names much further down the list.  Too bad Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax just missed getting their floating heads on the front of this one.  Then again, had they graced the front I probably would have had to shell out more for the card I suppose...

Next up is Jim Neilson, from the iconic 1971-72 Topps hockey set.  It's really inexcusable that it's taking me so damn long to put this set to bed, but it just never seems to be my top priority at any given time.  Perhaps I'm turned off by the fact that I'm still missing Ken Dryden and Bobby Orr, two of the bigger cards in the set.  With Neilson in hand though, and more accurately in binder, I'm now over 70% of the way there!

Here's the back, featuring a cartoon that I suppose might offend some folks today.

Last card in the trio, a beautiful Cognac Diamond Anniversary parallel of the Tom Seaver legends card from 2011 Topps.  This was maybe the best Topps set of the 2010s if you ask me, and these parallels are a big part of the reason why.  I must really like this one too, because I already had a copy prior to scanning this one.  A card so nice, I bought it twice!

That's all for now, back when I have more time.  Thanks as always for stopping by!

Sportlots 4-Pack

Just a quick post tonight, been a long week.  Here is a quartet of cards I snagged off of Sportlots a couple of weeks back for $1.86 combined, shipped to my door for under $3 total...

This Charlie Blackmon was the last card that I added to the order, simply because the seller charged the same price to ship four cards as they did three.  It was also the most expensive of the four at a dollar even.  I'm a total sucker for these Chrome Purple Refractors from Topps Heritage.  My scan doesn't really do this one justice, but it's a beautiful card.

Aside from that, an epic beard and one of the best hitters in the game.  Charlie posted a average better than .300 and an OPS better than .800 during this crazy season.  I'll be happy to see he and Nolan Arenado get back to it next spring (I hope!).

Next up, Kyle Tucker of the Houston Astros courtesy of 2016 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects (Chrome).  It may look like it here, but Kyle is not a pitcher.  He's an outfielder.  I know it's not very fashionable to like the Astros right now, but I like this kid.  He's still just 23 years old and is batting .400 with Houston this post-season after their series win against Oakland.  Paid a whole 18 cents for this one.

On the heels of my first Kyle Tucker card, my second, this one from 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League.  Love the minor league releases like this one and Pro Debut, and again this was available for a site-minimum 18 cents.  Happy to finally have a pair of Tucker cards in my collection, and these were actually the catalyst for this purchase overall.

In fact, since his cards are so cheap I kind of became an overnight Kyle Tucker collector in recent weeks, but that's a post for another day.

Finally, this 2014 Bowman Scout's Top 5 Mini Refractor of my favorite player, Xander Bogaerts.  I'm always on the lookout for new cards of Xander, and while this isn't an official "RC", it was released during his rookie year of 2014, and is a refractor.  Seemed like a steal at 50 cents.  I could have sworn I already had one, but it was the Mookie Betts from this same insert set.  Pleased to have Xander to pair with him years later.

Well, that's all for now, thanks for taking a peek at some of my Sportlots pickups!  Until next time...

Three New Autographs for My '89-90 Quest

1989-90 Topps/O-Pee-Chee hockey was the first set of sports cards that I ever collected as a kid.  I've told the story here before, but in the winter of '89 my brothers and I would wait anxiously for our dad to arrive home from work.  Once or twice a week, when he came in the door he'd have a small brown bag from the sports card store near his work with packs of '89-90 Topps or O-Pee-Chee hockey for us inside.

My brothers and I each had three ring binders with some nine pocket sheets, and we'd spend hours sitting at the kitchen table opening our packs, admiring and learning about the teams and players, sorting and trading.  Some really great childhood memories that were the catalyst for a hobby I enjoy to this day!

I still have my original binder of hockey cards from that winter, and long ago added complete '89-90 Topps and O-Pee-Chee sets to my collection.  A couple of years back I decided I wanted to find a new way to enjoy that very first set all over again, and I started picking up some autographed versions of the cards.  It's not my top collecting priority or anything and I don't think I'll ever accumulate an entire autographed set or anything, but it's a lot of fun hunting down new ones from time to time.

Tonight I have the next three cards in that quest, which arrived in the mailbox just today from a very reputable eBay seller.  Let's check 'em out...

First up is defenseman David Shaw of the New York Rangers.  This card illustrates one of the issues with this particular project, and that is that the photographs tend to be somewhat dark in nature which makes the autographs hard to make out in some cases.  Other than going with a really small autograph and tucking it along the left border, or between his legs in the photograph, the options were fairly limited for David to sign this one.

Shaw had a lengthy career patrolling the blue line for a few different franchises, most notably the Quebec Nordiques, New York Rangers, and Boston Bruins.  He also won a Memorial Cup with the Kitchener Rangers in 1982 (shout-out to Douglas of Sportscards from the Dollar Store!).

Next up, Mark Osborne (incorrectly spelled Osbourne on the card front) of the Leafs.  Mark scored over 500 points in over 900 career games as a winger in the NHL.  The autograph is nice and legible here thanks to the use of a thick, black marker.

Here's the back, with Osborne's name spelled correctly.  This was actually an uncorrected error by the folks at O-Pee-Chee, so there is no version of the card with a correct spelling on the front (or an incorrect spelling on the back, for that matter).

The final subject in tonight's trio is Mario Marois of the Quebec Nordiques.  We used to snicker about him as kids just because his first and last names are so similar.  Mario had been around a while by the time this set was issued, having begun his NHL career back in 1978.  This card actually reflects his second multi-year stint with the Nordiques, a club he captained for a few years in the 1980s.

Love the autograph on this one, Marois is certainly my favorite signature of the three in tonight's post with those beautiful, loopy 'M's.

I love that all three of these guys included their uniform number in their signatures.  I'm pretty convinced they're authentic autographs given A) the credibility and track record of the eBay seller I purchased them from, B) from the limited research I was able to do they appear to be in line with other autographs from these athletes, and C) they cost me $1.99 each, so there's not much incentive for forging these guys!

I'm actually up to 20 different on-card autographs from this set now, if you count my Topps and O-Pee-Chee cards combined.  If you're interested, you can see the entire collection here; it's starting to look quite nice if I do say so myself.

Best of all, these three autographs were actually part of a lot of six that I purchased overall, so I'll have another trio posted soon in this quest.  Until then, thanks as always for stopping by!

Turning Back the Clock with Some Tallboy Whalers

The great package of cards that I received from Mark (aka avsbruins65 on TCDB) earlier this summer included a really unique injection of Whalers cards, in the form of these 1993-94 Fleer PowerPlay tallboys!

I remember distinctly when this set came out when I was just a kid collector.  My brothers and I busted quite a few packs of the stuff, but storage was always an issue, as it tends to be with non-standard sized cards like these.  Overall, a clean design that focused on being able to provide collectors with an over-sized photograph.

The backs were well done, and Fleer took advantage of the extra space to cram a good deal of information onto these without making it feel claustrophobic at all.

Even though Hartford had moved onto it's less popular blue sweaters, these are still aesthetically pleasing cards.

Mark actually sent along an entire Series 1 Whalers team set, which is just fantastic.  Prior to receiving these the only base card I had from this set in my entire collection was a Wayne Gretzky.  Great to add all the first series Whalers in one fell swoop here.

The goaltender cards in the set look particularly attractive given that the entire player can fit in scope without much real need for cropping of the photograph.

Michael Nylander, rocking the "I broke my jaw" helmet add-on.  For those who weren't aware, Michael is the father of present-day Maple Leafs star William Nylander.

I won't provide commentary for all of these, but will let you enjoy all the scans anyway...

Zarley Zalapski closes out the base Series 1 Whalers, but since I'm showing these great cards from Mark here's an insert that was already present in my Whalers collection:

I really like the minimal, blue border used for these "2nd Year Stars" inserts.  I wish all the cards in the set had a transparent lower section with the player and set name like this.

With this '93-94 Fleer PowerPlay Series 1 team set complete, I'm now up to 1,846 different Hartford Whalers cards in my ever-expanding team collection!  I still haven't covered all the new Whalers that Mark sent in his package though, so I'll be back soon with even more as I continue on towards 2,000 unique Whalers!

Thanks as always for stopping by!

The Itch to Rip - An Abbreviated Stadium Club Blaster

With the new Blogger "feature" of my images loading backwards, today's blaster break is going to be in abbreviated format.  As I rip through this 2019 Topps Stadium Club blaster, which I got online for the amazingly good price of $14 with free shipping, I'll just show my single favorite card from each pack...

Pack 1 yielded this smiling Duke Snider.  Love the retired players in Stadium Club each year (get ready for more throughout this post), and especially like Brooklyn Dodgers cards, so this was an easy choice from the first pack.  Helped that I needed it for my "I'm sort of casually collecting it" set build.

Pack 2 contained maybe my overall favorite card of the entire blaster.  I've long coveted a copy of this fantastic Christy Mathewson sporting some nice fall fashion, and now I finally have one!  Just an awesome, awesome card.

Surprise, it's another HOFer, this one of the horizontally-oriented variety.  Love the photograph on this one, with a pensive Vlad sitting in a deserted dugout.

Pack 4 provided me with another top-notch HOFer, this beautiful Clemente.  I swear I won't simply choose a guy with a plaque in Cooperstown for all eight packs, but I'm a big Clemente fan (who isn't) and this one was too good not to include.

Here's a modern guy!  Pack 5 supplied me with a legit Pete Alonso rookie card!  This guy still mashed a lot of homers in the shortened 2020 season, but his other offensive statistics fell significantly from his Rookie of the Year campaign.  I'm not judging anyone too harshly for their performance in this train wreck of a season in 2020, though.  Nice to have this rookie to commemorate his monster 2019 season.

Here's another completely awesome card, with the great Ozzie Smith performing his signature back flip in front of Cooperstown.  Ozzie has some serious height going here, almost looks like he must've used a trampoline, or is photo-shopped.  Smith was always one of my favorite '80s guys to collect when I was a kid, so I was pleased to pull this one.

Pack 7, and it's another legend of yesteryear, Jim Palmer in mid-delivery.  Quite a few empty seats in the upper right of the card there, but still how refreshing is it to see actual fans in the crowd?

For the final pack's top card I went with a modern guy, just because the photograph on this Dee Gordon card is absolutely amazing.  Dude looks like Spider-man in action here, and bonus points for the retro Mariners uniform.

A fun blaster there, and I'm now up to 118 cards (or 39%) accumulated in my kinda sorta set build.  I actually have a couple more blasters of this stuff on my rainy day pack shelf, so I'm sure I'll rip another and post it in the coming weeks or months here.  Maybe there's a Fernando Tatis Jr. rookie waiting to be pulled in one of them.

Until then, enjoy your Sunday and thanks as always for stopping by!

Shiny Cardboard - My Newest Bogaerts RC

Here's my latest Xander Bogaerts pick-up, a solid and long overdue addition to my one somewhat serious modern player collection...

This beauty is a Chrome Refractor parallel of Xander's 2014 Topps Heritage RC, on which he shares billing with Jonathan Schoop.  For some reason, Topps Heritage Refractors really pop to my eyes, even more so than the standard Topps Chrome Refractors.  I'm a huge fan of the Purple Refractors as well as these standard ones, which are serial-numbered (to /565 in this case). 

Lacking this card has felt like a somewhat significant hole in my Bogaerts collection for years now, and finally being able to nab one for just $12 and change earlier this year felt great.

 

This card is interesting too in that it's somewhat a "tale of two infielders".  While Bogaerts has remained with Boston and become one of the premier shortstops in all of baseball, Schoop has really bounced around.  After leaving Baltimore he's also had stints with Milwaukee, Minnesota, and the in this past season the Detroit Tigers.

That's a wrap for now, and I have to say my Bogaerts collection feels much more respectable with this card added to it.  Having recently crossed the 200-card threshold in that player collection, this card is a great way to begin the march to 300.

Thanks as always for stopping by, and enjoy your weekend everyone!