Oversized 1 - Mostly postcards

 All right, here is the first post specifically about the oversized pile o' junk I picked up for .25 per item.  Today, we are showing mostly postcards....

These first four postcards are all artwork by Michael J. Taylor for Legends Sports Memorabilia.

The Musial and Jackson are from 1991 and the Erving and Bench are from 1992.  Beautiful postcards that I enjoy.  I think the Reggie might be my fave, love the grin.

And here we have four more postcards from a 1978 series called "Great Baseball Players of the Past".

This postcard series was edited by Bert Sugar, he of the perpetual unlit cigar.  I wouldn't have known he got into baseball, as he was far better known as a boxing aficionado.

It's hard not to pick the Babe Ruth as my favorite of this four.

Then we have some from random sources.  The Mattingly is by TCMA, who we all know and love from their card sets in the 70s and 80s.  The Robinson was produced by Barry Cola who also did numerous card sets.  And the two Orioles look like they are a promotion to raise money for the University of Maryland Pediatric center.  

The Mattingly is my favorite here, he looks young.  That one is from 1985.

And we finish the postcards with three more from the "Great Baseball Players of the Past" series, and a bonus Kent Hrbek caricature. 

Top honors here go to the Rogers Hornsby, I always liked his weird back leg kick pictured here.

A couple of bonuses this post...These big ol basketball stars are from the 1976/77 set.  Not a set I see a lot of.

And finally, I really only grabbed these 2 matchboxes for the oversized holders they came in, but once I looked at them, they are pretty cool!  Looks like they are both from around the WW2 times.  I'm glad I parted with quarters for them!

More to come!

Show report - quarters and foreshadowing

 I made it to a card show last weekend after missing the previous show.  It was an ok show as these things go, definitely a little sparse.  But I did find one guy that had a large section of 'everything for a quarter'.  Probably 10-12 large boxes of cards, more football than anything, but I found some baseball.

The boxes of cards were pretty good, if not awesome.  Here are a few of my finds.

Black foil, red foil and sepia versions of HOFers were in my quarter wheelhouse.  And the Henderson RC was one I hadn't seen before so I scooped it up as well.  It turned out that it is a wrapper redemption, and actually sells in the $6-10 range.  Sweet!

But what I ended up staying at the table for were three large bins of oversized stuff, still 25 cents for each item.  Now we all know that there is a reason that people sometimes sell oversized stuff for cheap.  It's hard to store, right?  So many of us, including me, often stay away from it.  But this time, there wasn't much else to look at, and so I dug through.  And I ended up happy that I did.  I bought over 90 items from those bins!

I'm not going to show much here, but expect several posts with my hard to store finds.  Here's a quick taste!

An uncut, perforated panel with all of the 'Row' variations from 1997/98 Flair Showcase.  Yes, Row 3, Row 2, Row 1 and the hard to find Row 0!  I have no idea what I am going to do with this thing, but it is sure cool!

And then here are 3 uncut box bottoms, one from 87 Donruss and 2 from 86 Topps.

So silly, but I will have more in the coming days!

theMick.com

 Here is a recent card show pickup.  Not a super special card, but not bad either.  It is from 2011 Gypsy Queen.  It's not the front of the card that I want to talk about today though.  

It's the back.  Or more precisely, the text on the back:

I am both a numbers guy and a 'check your facts' guy, so pretty immediately, this sentence caught on my brain.  For two reasons...

Issue 1. Those first few distances listed, 734, 656, 650 etc.  Now the lengths of long home runs have always been tough to get real agreement on, but if you Google it, you don't see numbers in the 600s.  Some that pop up include Joey Meyer - 587, Josh Gibson - 580, Babe Ruth - 578, and yes, Mantle at 565.  But this says Mantle hit 6(!) longer than any of those!  I went to themick.com as it is cited on the card as the source of this claim, and yes, that Mantle centric site does indeed claim these numbers, along with the stories of each of them.  Some questionable math is cited to get that 734 number, and the others are only semi-supported.

Issue 2. Let's add up those numbers... 734 + 656 + 650 + 643 + 630 + 620 + 565 + 550 + 535 + 530 = 6113 feet.  That IS a long way, but it is NOT 2.83 miles.  1 mile is 5280 feet.  So these numbers add up to 1.16 miles, not 2.83.  

What a weird card!!  I wonder if I could get a fact checking job with Topps.  Or maybe one of you awesome readers can fact check my fact checking?  Did I get it wrong?

High numbers mess

 

While visiting my brother in Boise a few weeks ago, he insisted that we buy some baseball cards.  We went down to a store called Scheels, which is kind of a crazy store.  So much stuff.  Outdoor and sporting gear mostly.  It's a huge place, with statues of both famous people and generic athletes all over the parking lot.  Impressive, kind of.  There wasn't actually a dedicated sports cards section, but in multiple spots around the store, there were displays with blasters of various stuff.  Unfortunately, not much in the way of baseball, but we found some 2024 Topps Heritage High Numbers.

Now first, it was a fun rip, especially since it was with my brother.  Brought back memories of waaay to far back to mention, ripping packs together.  But as you will see, High Numbers is a bit of a mess.  

First, the box guaranteed 3 Green parallels.  It took a bit to figure out which ones were the green parallels, but they ended up being the 3 on the top of this pic:

The others are single color parallels, I guess.  Part of the reason for our confusion was that the backs of the 'Green' parallels say 'White Border' in tiny, tiny text.  Even more confusing, the Chapman and Pfaadt above also say 'White Border' on the back.  Close up scan:

The trademark/copyright text at the bottom of the back of the cards is even smaller.  I couldn't even make it out clearly with a magnifying glass.  Like size -1 font!  These next few are SPs and #d chrome cards, plus a mini.

And lastly, a few rookies.  I seem to have been having good luck with rookies lately.

One more lame thing about 2024 High Numbers.  Baseballcardpedia.com says that since it was released extremely late, more than a month following the release of 2025 Topps Series One, that they regard Heritage High Number as a 2025 product for rookie card purposes, rather than a '2024' set.  I don't know if that will catch on, but according to them, the above cards aren't even RCs. 

Come on Topps!!

Serial lot winner

 The winner of the serial numbered cards is...

With a guess of 72,222...

Jeff B!!!!!

The actual correct total of the serial numbers was 71384....

Jeff also got a bonus knock off of 10%, for a total guess of 72,138

Jeff, I hope to get the box out tomorrow!!  I do have an address for you, but it has been a while, so if you get a chance, shoot me the current one.

Observations on the guesses...

Rod had the most cards from his 10 player guesses, with 9.  No, he didn't pick 9 players out of his 10 picks, but Manny Machado has 5 cards in the lot, which bumped his total.  Don't worry Rod, none of the Machado's are from his San Diego days.

The average guess was 93715, which is 22331 above the actual number.  People guessed high this time, after collectively guessing low last time.

Here are the numbers of cards from everyone's player picks:

Elliptical Man-2

Matt-0

Brett Alan-0

Jeremya1um-1

night owl-0

Johnnys Trading Spot-0

Rod (Padrographs)-9

Chris-0

Brad C-0

Jeff B - Wax Pack Wonders-2

Fuji -1

OhioTim-1

The Angels In Order-1

gcrl-1

Derek-7

Thanks to everyone who participated, this will happen again sometime in the future!

Nuther serial giveaway

 Its back for the third time!

Up for grabs today is a stack of exactly 100 serial numbered cards.  This stack probably wouldn't be interesting to team collectors or player collectors, as I am betting that most of the teams in MLB are in here somewhere.  But if you are an omnivore collector like me, or want a quick way to accumulate trade bait, or just like serial numbered cards, this may be for you!

The rules this time might be a little convoluted, but I don't want to do the same thing every time.  

To enter:

-Leave a comment here on this post.
-Guess the total sum of the serial numbers the card in the lot.  So if there were three cards in the lot, one #/100, one #/ 999 and one #/25, the sum would be 100+1999+25 = 2124.  Obviously, with 100 cards in the lot, the number you will be guessing will be much higher!  This time, there is no penalty for going over, just closest to the number.
-Optional - in your comment, you may list up to 10 players that you think that there might be a card of in the lot.  For each card in the lot of a player that you guess, you will get 5% of the difference between your guess and the actual total knocked off your guess.  Example:  Your guess is 500 off of the actual total, but there are 8 cards in the lot from players that you guessed. In this case, you would get 40% of the 500 that you were off, or 200.  So your final guess would be 300 off.

Since I am allowing player guesses, no photo of the actual lot this time.  But here's a silly pic so that the post isn't all text.

He's not in the lot....

There are 13 Hall of Famers in this lot, but many of the cards are also of relative nobodies.  The COMC.com value of this lot would be somewhat high.... the actual resale value is much lower of course.

The highest serial number in the lot is #/9000 and the lowest is #/5.  I would not take the results from the last contest to be a perfect guide for your guesses, but do what makes you happy!

OK, that's all the hints, feel free to make your guess in the comments!  

Guessing will close on Thursday, April 24th at 5PM Pacific time!

Holiday for Judge swap

 So sometime late last year, I was picking through a dollar box at the local show.  And I found a Topps Chrome Aaron Judge.  Not usually a buy for a dollar, but as many of you know, you can take Topps Chrome cards of last year's MVPs in to local card shops for a $20 in store credit.  There were only a few days left until that offer expired, so I made a rare card shop trip.

The shop was a nightmare.  I doubt I will be back for a long time.  Over half of it was Pokemon, when it used to all be sports cards.  Tons of old smelly guys with annoyed looks on their faces pushing through crowded spaces.  Bummer.

But I found Topps Holiday Mega Boxes, which usually sell for $40+ for only $29.99.  And with my Judge to trade in, I got it for $10.  A fun rip, which for $10 seems like a holiday miracle for me.  Anyway, here is what I got in my box.

Variations and a 'hit'

Seems like the Judge Santa hat was a good trade for the Chrome Judge straight up.  But I got lots more!  Bichette had a brutal year last year, but I still believe in him.

Rookies.  Seems like I got most of the sought after ones.  Can't complain.  

And believe it or not, that's all the scans I took, back when this box actually got ripped.  So whatever other interesting cards were in there, you'll just have to use your imagination!

A few incoming

 I've been ungrateful.  Over the last while, a bunch of cards have made their way from various parts of the country.  Time to show some off!

First up, gcrl shot me some stuff for no reason, much appreciated!  Early Finest are sweet, and any McGwire that I don't already have is a rare treat!

Johnny sent me a prize win from his blog, this Carter RC.  I hadn't had a copy of that card since back in the 80s, very cool.  He also included the Doby from 2001 Archives Reserve, a set I have been slowly accumulating for years.  Not the last of those in this post!

Tom from The Angels in Order had a freebies post where I grabbed these.  Well loved vintage especially, is always welcome!

More Johnny.  Yep, you guessed it.  Another envelope chock full of Archives Reserve and Finest!!  Johnny doesn't play around.

Rod from my neck of the woods threw a big old package of Mariners my way.  This scan is by no means all of what he sent!!

More Johnny.  Johnny must have dug deep, because the Archives Reserve just kept coming!!

And more....

Well that's it for now.  I gotta thank all the amazing bloggers who keep the postal service busy.  Thanks guys!

Zoo time

Been a while since I posted.  That seems like a common phrase on this blog, and on many blogs in the card collecting community.  My main excuse this time that my computer died.  I ended up rebuilding it on my own, which took a long time due to my laziness, and needing to send back a part that was delivered to me broken.

But I do have a few posts mostly ready to go, so hopefully for the next 4-6 weeks, I should be posting somewhat regularly.

Since I don't have any other content for today, lets do a silly giveaway!

I've seen these Oregon Zoo x-ray cards from 2024 Allen & Ginter on a few blogs.  At a recent card show, I was able to grab some of them cheap.    Here is what I have:

Claim away in the comments!  Claim one card, claim multiple cards, no real rules.  PWE delivery...

Thanks!

Tom Silardi? A show recap.

 The recent card show produced some pretty fun stuff.  Here's a sampling:

1 Beltre refractor, #d /660.  This kind of card I would take all day long.

2 Teddy Ballgame numbered pinky card.  I'd prefer a playing days Ted, but this was surprisingly cheap.

3 Black and White Ohtani.  baseballcardpedia.com estimates 90 copies of the Black and White were made.  I got one!!

4 1998 Diamond Kings insert #d/10000.  I totally love these. I want more!

5 Playing days Mantle!!!!!!!  It's hammered, with some damage on back.  But still!

6 1997 Pacific Die-cut of the Big Hurt.  Definitely love these.

7 Weird card.  It's a 'Topps Spotlight', Grayscale Filter parallel, numbered /49.  I always loved the original of this card, so it is very welcome!

8 Numbered Nolan.  It's ok, bit falls short of the rest of the cards in this scan.

9 I've wanted this Bregman Photo Variation SP since I first saw it on one of your blogs.  Now it is mine!

I got this for $4.  I bet most folks don't even really know who Woo is, but he's pretty good, and this is numbered /25.

I don't know where I got this card.  When I got home and went through the cards from the show, this was in the stack.  I don't even remember it from the show.  Anyway, it isn't my cup of tea, and as you can see, the auto is a bit fuzzy.  So I am offering it up in a PWE to the first claimer in the comments.

Pretty great show!

Bad Mail

I haven't been having the best luck with the mail lately.  Incoming mail has been wonky for a few reasons.  First, my address has changed, and a few friends have sent me cards to the old address.  Unfortunately, they never made it to me.  I don't feel good about that, sorry to anyone who has gone to the trouble of sending me stuff that didn't make it.

But then, I got a couple of my giveaway mailings sent back to me.  One was to Elliptical Man, using the same address I had always used.  It came back as undeliverable.  Oh well, I am reaching out to Brendan to verify that address.

But the one that confuses me was a PWE I sent to The Angels in Order over a month ago.  That one showed up in my mailbox yesterday looking like this:

The stamp is perfectly good, and I have never had an issue with insufficient postage on even larger PWEs in the past.  But evidently this can happen sometimes.  Annoying!

So Tom, I didn't forget about you.  I will resend tomorrow, and hopefully the cards make it this time!

And since I don't want a post without a card in it, here is a quick Ichiro from my collection:

Hall Bound indeed!

Skenes and a puppy

 Another pick 'em for my loyal readers.  If you want one, claim in the comments!  One per commenter, PWE delivery....

Row 1 card 1 - taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 2 card 1 - taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 3 card 1 - taken

Last show of the year

 Happy New Year!  I'm a bit late, but that's not unusual for me.

The last card show of the year brought me mostly new stuff, meaning almost all stuff from the last couple of years.  Shiny stuff and die cut stuff, both of which I love, but not much outside the 2020s.  Here's a sampling...

2024 Topps Pristine Bo Bichette #/75.  This Pristine design isn't great.

2017 Chrome Freddie Freeman refractor.  I love refractors of stars that are a little older.

2023 Pristine 'Gold Pristine Pulsar Refractor' Lou Gehrig #/50.  Both this card and the Pristine Judge appear to me to have been liberated from those 'uncirculated' slabs.  Fine by me!

2024 Finest Blue Checkerboard refractor Vlad Jr.
2023 Pristine 'Pristine Pulsar Refractor' Aaron Judge.  Nice card.

1999 Topps Power Brokers Mike Piazza.  The oldest of the bunch, love old die-cuts.

2024 Topps Cosmic Chrome Launched into Orbit Julio Rodriguez.  Shiny!

2024 Pristine 'Oh Snap' Juan Soto.  Weird card.  I guess I love newer die-cuts too!

2024 Pristine 'Squeaky Clean' Bobby Witt Jr.  Another kind of strange concept.  Go Pristine!

I also lucked into a huge Puka Nacua thing.  I guess it is a box topper or something.  The graded Kemp was a gift from a buddy at the show, and shows just how huge the Nacua is.

Perhaps the most interesting card I picked up was this 'case hit' from 2018 Donruss.  I guess they are pretty rare.

I'm not a huge Bellinger fan, so I guess I'd be up for trading this if anyone is interested.

I'm not a blogger

 That's a strange title for a post on a blog, I guess.  I'm blogging right now!  It's more accurate to say that I'm not a good blogger.  That much should be obvious to anyone who reads here, since I rarely post, and when I do, it's not of huge interest to most.

But the old blog is still good for one thing, and that is giving cards away.  

In years long past, I liked doing something bigger around the holidays to celebrate.  Lots of cards going out to lots of friends.  Postage rates and my shrinking finances seem to have put an end to that.  But I still like the idea of getting cards out to as many folks as I can, so I am going the PWE route this year.

And since I traded away a decent SP card I had been holding on to, I have a small stack of stuff to distribute.  There is a lot of duplication (3 copies of 2 different cards), but I hope they are good enough to attract some commenters, especially for the free price!

Each commenter can pick ONE card from the scan below and I will send them out in nine joyous PWEs across the blogosphere.  Here are the nine cards up for grabs.

Row 1 - Card 1 taken, card 2 taken, card 3 available
Row 2 - Card 1 taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 2 - Card 1 taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken

Yes, that is 6 Ohtani RCs, I told you there was a bunch of duplicates.  They are not his most desirable RCs, but still.  The scan makes it look like the Vlad RC has a scratch, but the card looks fine in hand.  The Solo is from 1977 Topps.

Please check the comments to make sure what you choose is still available, I don't have extras to send and don't want anyone to comment in time, but get left out.  Since we are close to Christmas, and the postal system is overburdened this time of year, I can't guarantee they make it by then.  But hopefully before New Years!

Thanks!!  If you claim a card, please email me your address even if we have swapped cards before.  I am trying to keep my addresses updated, since mine has changed.

Serial Stack 2 - the Winner!

**First things first... I recently had a generous fellow blogger contact me to ask if I had received a PWE he had sent me.  Unfortunately, I did not, the cards were sent to my old address and were not forwarded.  So if you want to send me anything, please reach out for the new address. 

On to why you are here.

The winner of the serial numbered cards is...

With a guess of 68000 flat...

Ginko-5!!!!!

The actual correct total of the serial numbers was 69046....

I was personally pleased that the winning guess came from a second guess that Ginko received for pimping the contest.  Thanks!!

I will be filling out the box that I am sending the cards in with a few extra cards to make it fit tightly. Nothing too special, don't get excited.  The box that I will be using to ship the cards was originally sent to me by none other than Night Owl some years back when he was sending extra Dodgers cards out to people.  It would have been slightly poetic if Night Owl had won, so I could return the box....but alas, he didn't guess.

Observations on the guesses...

Gregory was the closest to go over with a guess of 72395

Johnny had 2 guesses from pimping.  One was the highest guess (131003) and the other was the 3rd lowest (38964)

The average guess was 57298, about 12000 below the actual number.  Which is about what I would expect when I add the "without going over" rule.  People gotta guess low to be safe.

The lowest guess, by John Sharp was 11111.  Since I noted in the original post that the highest serial number in the cards was /9000, if John was correct, that would have made the other 99 cards in the lot average a serial number /21.  That would have been some prize!!

I discovered a new blog from the comments, Tanner Bibee's Lumber Co.  He is just starting, but I love finding new blogs!

The first guess, by The Angels in Order, was 44,444, which he called 'weird'.  What was really weird is Matt from Cards over Coffee commenting not once, but twice, on the last day of the contest, guessed the exact same number, 44,444!

Thanks to everyone who participated, and Ginko, if you don't mind shooting me your current address, it has been a while since I sent anything your way and would hate to send it to the wrong place!

Show time again

 **Reminder that if you haven't got a guess in yet, go here to try and score some serial numbered cards....

Here's a quick little recap from my last card show.  Let's start with my traditional 9 card scan and comments....

Row 1 - Old Timers.  Always glad to grab early 70s cards when they are cheap enough.  And that's my first Frank Howard relic, I like it!

Row 2 - the regular season offensive MVPs in shiny form, along with an unnecessarily crazied up Winfield.  At least it's serial numbered.

Row 3 - Cool mini die-cut of Ryan.  For some reason I hadn't seen these before, even though it is from back in 2021.  The Canseco is as unnecessarily crazied up as the Winfield, but I like them both anyway.  And the Betts looks quite nice in hand.

Next up, 2 very different Art Shell cards.  Time does a number on us all.

The one on the left is Shell's RC, even though it was his 4th year in the league.

The back of the card is pretty strange.  Shell was a Tackle (duh), but his RC has Punt Return stats.  And he didn't even return a punt in the year the card was made.

Goofy, Topps!

On another track, I have accumulated some Paul Skenes cards:

I have 5 of the regular Bowman, and 4 of the Chrome.  I wouldn't mind trading some of these away, if there is interest.  For example, I would happily send 3 of the Bowman out for a single Skenes Topps RC.  I'd also be willing to trade them for other stuff, just make me an offer!

That's it for today, thanks for reading.

Serial stack contest - part 2

I had a lot of fun with my previous mini-contest to give away a stack of serial numbered cards.  So much so that I have been accumulating another stack for another go, and today is the day!

So up for grabs today is a stack of exactly 100 serial numbered cards.  This stack probably wouldn't be interesting to team collectors or player collectors.  I am betting that most of the teams in MLB are in here somewhere.  But if you are an omnivore collector like me, or want a quick way to accumulate trade bait, or just like serial numbered cards, this may be for you!

If you want the cards, what you need to do is guess the total sum of the serial numbers, without going over, Price is Right style. (That is a change from last time...)  So for example, if there were three cards in the lot, one #/100, one #/ 1999 and one #/125, the sum would be 100+1999+25 = 2124.  Obviously, with 100 cards, the number you will be guessing will be much higher!

Here is a pic to help you with your guessing...

There are 18 Hall of Famers in this lot, but many of the cards are also of relative nobodies.  The COMC.com value of this lot would be very high.... the real resale value is much lower of course.

The highest serial number in the lot is #/9000 and the lowest is #/8.  I would not take the results from the last contest to be a perfect guide for your guesses, but do what makes you happy!

OK, that's all the hints, feel free to make your guess in the comments!  And I am going to go old school, so if you pimp the contest on your blog, you can have an extra guess, just put the link to the post in the comments with your second guess.

Guessing will close on Thursday, November 7th at 5PM Pacific time!

Quick congrats to the Dodgers

 I won't go crazy writing about the series, since I am not one of the several very good Dodgers oriented bloggers out there that will do a great job of it, but I did want to congratulate the former Brooklyn squad on its 8th championship.

I was happy to see a couple of Dodgers I really like play pivotal roles in the win, Walker Buehler and the MVP, Freddie Freeman.

Buehler has had a tough run with LA, with health issues all over the place.  I thought highly of him early in his career, but he just hasn't been able to stay on the field.  Maybe this is a turning point?  Even if it is, I think it might be doubtful that he stays a Dodger next year.  We'll see.

Conversely, I didn't think much of Freeman when he was young.  I don't really know why, but he didn't click for me.  But over the years, I've definitely grown to root for him.  I like doubles guys, and Freeman is the current active leader.

Here are a card of each of them that I picked up recently.  The Buehler is /99 and the Freeman /199.  Not exactly "Dodger Blue", but I definitely like them both.

Randomness catch up

 This post consists of a few scans that were in my drafts from card shows over the last few months.  I had some trouble posting for a while, but seem to be getting back in the swing of things, so let's take a look!

I've been picking up Stadium Club singles lately whenever I see them in the cheap boxes.  Pictures of all time greats or just funky photos are what I grab.

I believe these were all dimes or quarters.  Not sure why they decided to make the Carter card black and white, but I like it that way.

This one, I probably overpaid for, $1 I think, but I quite like the pic.  The X-Fractorness doesn't obscure it quite as much in hand.

No theme here, total randomness:

The beat up Aaron was only a couple of bucks, a steal.  The Betts is an Image Variation.  Before this card, I was not aware that there were Image Variations in the Chrome Anniversary sets.

Football???  For a buck, this card, numbered out of 75, was an interesting pickup.  I have more nice Justin Herbert cards than I need.

Basketball???   The Starting Lineup cards are cool, and the oddball Blazers autos were a nice cheap find too.  Vandeweghe and Bates were quite popular around here back in the day.

Back to Baseball.

From worthless (Showalter, but I like the image) to expensive (the Alonso is a tough pull and goes for a few bucks) to the vintage-ish (the bottom row is actually from 1983, The Starliner Stickers set, whatever that is).

Last one!

Another hodgepodge with no theme here.  Numbered Refractors of Kershaw are nice.  The Johnson card is one of those super thick hunks of cardboard.  Moments and Milestones is a ridiculous set, but and Ichiro numbered /10 is welcome here.  And the Acuna is my first "Super Rare Red Foil" card.  Super rare might be pushing it, but it's cool.