Variations and other card show finds

 The current methods used by card companies to drive collector interest are wide and varied.  Refractors, serial numbers and parallels are the most common, but there is a real niche for the variation crowd.

Today's variations have their roots in the variations of the past, which originally, were mostly printing issues.  They seem to have happened when card companies switched factories or equipment mid-stream, or were due to other quality control issues.  One example is the 1962 Topps tint variations.

They are subtle-ish, but obvious when they are side by side like this.  Seems to me that this was just printing issues, but they are considered variations.

Today's variations have gotten a lot more involved (and purposeful), mostly by using completely different photos with the same card number. Or another common variation, the nickname variation, where instead of the players name on the card, you get their nickname. The current semi-standard for photo variations seems to be the regular base card, then a SP variation, and often a SSP (Super Short Print) variation too.  Lot's of times these photo variations are of the same player, but it is common to have a legends variation, where the base card is a current player and the SP is a retired legend.

All this makes me super happy I am not a set collector that cares about all the variations!!  

I have mixed feelings about variations.  A few I really like, and others make me wonder why the hobby has gone down the tubes.  And there isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to which variations I like and which I hate.

Anyway, enough with the preamble, I am actually posting about some pickups from a recent card show.  Of course variations feature prominently in the cards I will be showing.  Some I will be keeping, and others are up for trade if anyone is interested. And some are just available to claim for free. I apologize that I didn't scan them separately, but I will try to note anything that is available for trade.

Here are some cards!

These were all dimes or quarters, even the rookie year Ichiro.  That one surprised me.  Some good color/sparkle in here with the Arraez, Franco and Scherzer.  I absolutely love the Aaron with Mays, my two favorite players of all time.  Some really cool oddball-ish vintage with the Hubbs, Herzog and Cochrane.  The Herzog is from the 1975 Fleer Cloth Patches - Laughlin Pioneers of Baseball set.  My first time even hearing about that set.  The Cochrane is from  Shakey's, a Seattle area restaurant and is a 1976 issue. The Ruth/Gehrig is not a variation, but it looks like it could have been.  What the heck, the Ruth/Gehrig is up for grabs, along with some actual variations later in the post.

I also found some basketball cards, from sets I have a hard time finding in my price range.

Not superstars, but good cards, especially when I find them cheap.  Takes me back to my childhood.

And I finally found some of those Laughlin stickers from the early 70s that I keep seeing on other peoples blogs!  Happy to add a few of these.

OK, finally the first of the variations!  This one is from 2022 Topps Update.  Remember how I said I like some variations and hate others?

Well this one is a love for me!!  I'm keeping this one.

Here are a couple of other sweet cards I picked up for what I thought were pretty good deals.  Certainly not quarter box though!

However, once I got them home, I realized that the Cabrera is a dupe.  So it is on the trading block.  And the Henderson, while kind of awesome, I am just not sure about.  It may be semi-rare (I don't see ANY on COMC), and hopefully someone will want to start up a trade for it?

Here is another pic of it, as you can see it is more orange than the scan shows.  After a little research, I believe this called a Tiger Stripes Prizm.

And let's finish off with more variations!

Mantle - 2018 Optic Nickname Variation

Altuve - 2018 Optic Nickname Variation

Colon - 2021 Donruss Holo Orange Nickname Variation

Tatis - 2022 Donruss Nickname Variation

Tatis - 2020 Donruss Nickname Variation (Panini couldn't decide which nickname was best, I guess)

Judges - One of these is a photo variation, I couldn't be bothered to figure out which one...

All of these are up for grabs

Ruth - 2021 Topps Legends Variation

Gwynn - 2020 Topps Legends Variation

Clemens - 2022 Topps Update Legends Variation

All of these are up for grabs too

OK, now for clarity here are all the cards that are available, either for trade of to claim for free:

Up for free!  Just claim in the comments.  I'd rather you claimed several, but if you only want one, that's fine too

2010 Topps Ruth/Gehrig

Mantle - 2018 Optic Nickname Variation

Altuve - 2018 Optic Nickname Variation

Colon - 2021 Donruss Holo Orange Nickname Variation

Tatis - 2022 Donruss Nickname Variation

Tatis - 2020 Donruss Nickname Variation

Judges - 2018 Donruss version 1

Judges - 2018 Donruss version 2

Ruth - 2021 Topps Legends Variation

Gwynn - 2020 Topps Legends Variation

Clemens - 2022 Topps Update Legends Variation

Up for trade - comment or shoot me an email
2001 Bowman Miguel Cabrera

2022 Panini Prizm Rickey Henderson Tiger Stripes Prizm

Cards come to my home

 Time to show off and thank a bunch of you for cards that have arrived at my home in the last months that I have not been posting.  As you all know, getting cards in the mail is usually a highlight of a day or even week.  Well here were my highlights!  I apologize if I don't get all the details about these packages quite right, I am getting old.

Dime Boxes - Nick put up a bunch of cards for people to claim as part of his 10 year celebration.  I grabbed a bunch of fun!

Some rookies highlight the top row (My first Seikya!).  ANY Willie Mays from the playing days is something I want, so this badly creased 72 is right at home here.  I've started really liking picking up decent looking Quisenbery's.  The rest are awesome too, but that's all I am saying.  Thanks Nick!!

Croc sent me a prize package for winning a contest on his site.  I don't remember what I did to win, but the prize was a big batch of pure random awesomeness.  The next 4 scans show a small part of what he sent.

There were a lot more of these old Action Packed.  I never really like them when I see one in a box, but when I had this big batch in hand, they appealed to me more.  Some really great old players that I grew up reading about.

Basketball and football fun was included too.  And that bottom row is O-Pee-Chee!  I love vintage OPC.

More OPC, and some always welcome 60s vintage!!  And something I always appreciate, a custom blogger card! I always, always keep these, they are great.  And croc's certainly has personality!

And we will finish off Croc's part of the post with some pure random.  Great, great stuff!  My favorites are the Ripken, Canseco and believe it or not, the Albert Belle!  Thanks Crocodile!

On to a mailing from Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown that is long overdue.  And featuring customs that many of you have already seen, the sun treated 91 Fleer!

Yep, I got Griffey, and I love it.  Here it is with the holiday themed overlay:

Gavin sent a very nice custom blogger card too that is definitely a keeper for me.  Thanks Gavin!

And not to be left out, Johnny has sent me several PWEs over the last couple of months.

Johnny is taking my blog name to heart.  As many of you know, he puts some thought into as many of his mailings as he can.  And while I am not much of a collector of the newer Diamond Kings, these were appreciated, and the 2004's are actually needs.  Thanks Johnny!

If I missed anyone, I apologize.  Now that I am back to posting, I hope to get these up more regularly.

Broken tools

It's tough when the tools you use every day break.  Here are a couple of my favorite 'broken tools' cards:

Bo brought this broken tool on himself.

Duane probably didn't break this bat like Bo did, as he has slightly fewer muscles.

But the tool I am talking about wasn't a baseball bat, it was my blogging tool.  All my regular readers may have noticed my absence lately.  Well it wasn't because I didn't want to blog, it was because my computer broke.  And broke bad!  And yes, I know you can blog from your phone, but I am really getting old, and it just wasn't worth it to me.

Obviously I have finally fixed the old adding machine though!!  In my younger years, I built computers all the time, for myself and others.  But once my son got into computers, I retired and he has been the computer tech for friends and family for the past 10 years or so.  Unfortunately, he recently took a job on the other coast, and for some reason, refused to fly back to fix mine for me.  I replaced the motherboard, CPU, RAM and Video Card.  Hard on my eyes and fingers.  I procrastinated a lot!

I've also been out of town a lot lately going to my daughters college track meets.  We are pretty proud of her for getting a full athletic scholarship at a D1 school.  Especially since she has the handicap of sharing half of my genes.  Pretty impressive!

All that procrastination and travel added up to me not posting in forever, and I've also not been reading/commenting on other blogs as much as I would like.  Hopefully all that gets back to normal now.  A few posts I hope to write in the near future include

1. Catching up on incoming cards from several of you
2. Card show! recap
3. The current blog around - alphabet challenge
4. Probably a few of my small giveaways
And hopefully more!

Too many youngsters

 You may have noticed that in the last month, I have only posted twice, and they were both posts trying to give away unwanted cards.  Yeah, this is one of those posts.  If you don't care about my reasons (which is fine!) and just want cards, skip the next paragraph to get to the claiming procedures.

So I gradually accumulate cards of the young, and mostly unproven players out there in hopes that they will make it big someday.  Since I don't buy packs, these cards are usually just dime box fodder, nothing major or awesome.  This year, I have accumulated way too many, and they are starting to take up room I don't want them to.  So I went through the stack and pulled out some that I don't need.  These are either players I don't want to hold anymore, or more commonly, dupes.  So I am hoping you all can take some off my hands!!

Claiming procedures:

There are over 60 cards here up for grabs.  I would REALLY rather not send out 15 or 20 PWEs to get rid of these, so I am imploring you to be greedy if you can.  I plan to send out up to 9 cards in a PWE, and the closer you can get to 9 cards (or 18, or 27...) the better for my shipping costs.  That said, if you can only find 1 or 2 you want, I won't hold it against you.

Claim cards the common way we see on the blogs, by page number and card number on that page.  So if you wanted the Jo Adell 'Prismatic Prodigies' card, that would be Page 1 - card 4.  If you want to describe the card to make sure, that is fine, but I will be mailing out by page/card numbers.

First come, first served.  Nothing required in return.  Claiming will end on Christmas eve at 5 PST, after that, unclaimed cards will go into some dusty boxes here to be looked at 5 years from now.

Page 1 - #'s 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 claimed

Page 2 - #'s 1, 4, 9 claimed

Page 3 - #'s 5, 6 claimed

Page 4 - #'s 4, 7 claimed

Page 5 - #'s 1, 2, 4, 5 claimed

Page 6 - #'s 6, 7, 8 claimed

Page 7 - #'s 1, 5, 7, 9 claimed

Page 8 - #'s all claimed

Go help the Pads

 You may have seen this on other blogs, but if not, you should go help out at Padrographs!  He's got a nice birthday gift he is trying to put together and could use the help.  C'mon, it's Christmas time, help a brother out!  And he even has stuff to trade for your help.  Just don't claim the Abdul-Jabbar auto, that's mine!

And with that out of the way, I am continuing my mini-dump of some cards that I think others might want, but that just don't fit my collection.  Today, minis!

You can only claim 1 card each today in the comments.  I will PWE them out!  2 of these have some relatively low numbering on the back, but I'm not saying which!  Oh, and Jeremy didn't get any minor leaguers from yesterday's giveaway even though he was the first commenter.  Because I wasn't cool enough to have any Tigers or Rays.  So IF he wants the Cobb, it's his.  The others are all first come, first served.

Minor leaguers

 Quick little sneaky post...

I recently came into a small number of autos and low numbered cards of young minor leaguers I have never heard of.  I don't really want them, not my kind of collecting.  I doubt any of them are the next big thing, but if anyone wants some, comment and let me know.

Just know that these will be coming in a PWE, so you get what I pay for.  I have 15 total, about 2/3 are autos.  I'll send up to 9 to a person, so let me know how many you want.  First commenter gets up to 9, next commenter gets the rest unless there are more than 9 left, and so on.

Nothing in return, I just want to get them out to someone.

Reggie and Johnny

 The other day Johnny shared a bunch of wrappers on his blog (a ton!), and one of them was a wrapper for a Reggie bar, the 70's era Reggie Jackson inspired foodstuff.  I mentioned over there, that I had a Reggie wrapper too, and that I would show it on my blog.  But first...

Here are a couple of PWEs Johnny has sent me lately!!

Bunches of new Gallery and Chrome!  And that super shiny, numbered Ruiz looks nice.  My fave though, is the minor league card of the caveman, pre-beard!  A Johnny from Johnny!

Next batch...

Woah, Cardinal heavy!!  I love them all!!  Pooj and Big Mac are two of my all time favorites, and the Ozzies are excellent.  

In fact, that Pinnacle Ozzie in the upper left is my first copy of the base version of that card.  I already have the Sunburst and Artist's Proof versions of it.

Old timey rainbow!!

And since you have stuck around so long, here is the Reggie wrapper, flattened and mounted around some thin cardboard:

It is actually a different wrapper than the one Johnny showed.  I guess there were different versions or something.  Here are pics I found on the internet that shoe the differences between Johnny's and mine:

Johnny's - Redder and 1.4 oz.

Mine - Oranger and 1.5 oz.

We the people /76

 The latest card show was all about the quarter boxes, I found some great stuff.  But I also found about 40 cards in dime boxes.  Here is the only one I will show, a beautifully purple Max Scherzer numbered to 299.

On to the the quarters!!  I grabbed at least 100 cards out of the quarter boxes, here are a few highlights I found.

Lovely cards, one and all, and definitely worth the quarters.

Here's where we finally get to the title of the post.  The top three cards here are "Stars N Stripes" and "We the People" parallels, each numbered out of 76.  These seem quite popular, and command a bit of a premium, so I was ecstatic to find them in a quarter box.

The bottom row isn't too bad either.  The Rice is #/50, the Cabrera is a beautiful prizm, and the Alcantara is #/60.

These basketball and football cards were also quarters.  

Very fun stuff, it's not every day you can get a second year LeBron for a quarter.  Also, not pictured, I found 7 more Shawn Kemp Fleer RCs.

And the card of the show for me, was this sweet Kent Tekulve auto!  It wasn't a quarter, but it was only a dollar. 

And here's the back!

Mail is the best

 Hard to argue with getting cards in the old mailbox.  Sure beats bills and junk mail!  And like many of you, one of the main sources of cards in the mail lately has been Johnny!  Here's a couple of great PWEs that came my way from him lately.

1995 PKK Ken Griffey Jr. set 1-10 (card #10 not scanned)

Yep, I got a complete set in a PWE!  Don't remember that ever happening before.  And of course, anything Griffey is always welcome here.  That card in the lower right, I can't decide if he looks happy or like he's about to attack and eat some small children.

The other batch also contained Griffeys, but had other baseball player dudes as well.

McGwires I actually need!!  That's getting harder to find these days.  The Maris is awesome, I love it.  And that Vladdy Jr RC is super appreciated!  It's like Johnny knows what I like...

Well, thanks for dropping in, and go check out Johnny's giveaways!

Pujols winner

 OK, 7 commenters for the Pujols cards, here is the initial list in order of the time the comment was left:

And here are the results after my traditional three randomizations:

Of course Night Owl would win!  I mean, hey, there ARE 3 Dodgers cards in there (that he already has, I am sure!).

Thanks to all who participated, and I will get those cards out to you Greg!

Pujols celebration

Mr. Albert Pujols has retired, leaving the field for the last time for a pinch runner after slamming a rocket down the third base line in his last at bat as the Cardinals were eliminated by the Phillies.  Pujols is one of my favorite ballplayers of all time.  His massive skill has something to do with it, as the first half of his career (and the last half of his final season) was as good as anyone has ever done it.  But he has also always been a good guy to my eye.  An excellent teammate, a hard worker and great off the field too (If you don't know about the Pujols Family Foundation and their work with Downs Syndrome, you should look into it).  If anyone has some bad memories about Pujols, don't tell me!  I know nobody is perfect, but I prefer to remember him as I do now. 

Here are my three favorite Pujols moments:

3. In the only live baseball game my son ever attended with me, Pujols doubled, singled and stole a base.  We were hoping for a home run ball, but the closest we got was a Matt Holliday blast about 15 seats away from us.

2. Like most people, I figured there was no chance for Albert to make it to 700 this year.  But as he got closer and closer, the excitement built.  #2 is the day he hit both #699 and #700 in the same day.

1. Oct 17 2005 - the train tracks homer - Down to their final out of the season in Game 5 of the NL Championship Series, down 4-2, against Brad Lidge, Pujols launched a monster home run to left field, landing on the train tracks at the top of the stadium to win the game.  It wasn't a walk off, which would of been better, because the Astros were the home team.  But it was epic anyway!

Honorable mention - The 2022 Home Run Derby.  If you didn't watch, go find it on YouTube.  I figured the old man had no chance.  But he kept getting chances and barely getting through.  It was a lot of fun to watch.

I keep most of the Pujols cards I come across.  In fact, he has the second highest card count of anyone in my collection after McGwire.  But I do have a few "non-keepers" of Albert that I am willing to send to a good home in celebration of his great career.

No, that's not a Topps RC in the upper right.  It's a Berger's Best reprint.  Sorry!

So if you want a chance at these Pujols cards, leave a comment with your personal favorite Pujols moment, and I will random them off to one of the commenters.  One winner, and the contest closes at 9PM Pacific time on Sunday October 16th.

Thanks!