Promo Cards - What to do?

Looking through the big 5000 count box I bought at the last card show, I found a bunch of Promo, Pre-Production and Sample cards.  Every one of these cards says Pre-production or sample or similar, if not on the front, then on the back.

Some even have 'serial numbering' like this

So what do I do with these??  I figure team or player collectors might want some of them.  Are there any promo card collectors out there?  Here's the thing, I hate sending 1 or 2 cards out to someone, I'd much rather send a 10-100 card trade package out.  Smaller usually isn't worth the time, especially with cards like these.

So if you are interested in the whole lot, let me know, but if you only want a few, I'd love to use that as the start of a larger trade.  Let me know!!!!!!

Baby Bags

I was looking through some cards and the repeated exposure to early Jeff Bagwell cards made me notice something.  Baby Bags had some Zoolander looks!  They might not be Blue Steel or Magnum quality, but the boy coulda been a male model!  Aint he cute???

Drought over!! and Bash the Beckett returns!

Don Mossi is my new good luck charm!!!  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, scroll to the next post or click here.

The beautiful little brown envelope in the mail today came courtesy of Captain Canuck of Waxaholic!  Great blog, nice girls from time to time, go check him out!

The Cap was the first trader in my Bash the Beckett experiment and he sent in four beautiful cards that are up for the next trade.  See them here!

Important Note!!!!  If you want to trade for the cards in the Beckett Bashing experiment, comment on the Beckett Bashing experiment post, not here!!  First one to claim them gets them!!

End the drought!!!

OK, I've been on the longest mail drought of my (short) blogging career.  Feels like a month, but has probably only been 2 weeks since I have received any cards in the mail.  So now I'm heading home from work and hopefully the curse is over!!!  Here's a few good luck charms to ensure my success.

and another one that might just be the kicker...

I'll let you know!

My favorite Outfielders. MINE, dagnabit you whippersnapper!

This is the fifth in this series of posts.  

1st basemen here, 2nd basemen here, Shortstops here, 3rd basemen here and Catchers here.

I have been wanting to do a series on my favorite players by position for a while now.  I decided on "top 10's by position" as my format.  I want it to be fun and interactive though.  So I decided on a few 'rules'.

1. I can bend the rules when I feel like it.

2. The players on the list have to have played when I payed attention to baseball.  So my arbitrary cutoff date is 1980.  All players on the list must have played in the 1980 season or later.

3. No ranking, just the top 10 in no real order.  So Duane Kiper might make the list, but you won't know if he is #1 or #9 on that list

4. SP will be a top 20 and OF will be a top 30

5. This is a card blog, so each player must have an accompanying picture of one of their baseball cards.  Usually it will be one I don't have, so you all can send them to me!!

6. I'll update each page with reader suggestions (even if I don't care for them) and keep a link to all other positions on future pages

sooooooooo...

My favorite Outfielders (top 30!?!?)

This one was tough!!!  I've left off Hall of Famers, regional heroes and my own dearly loved childhood guys!  I'm sure I missed a few of yours too!  Here we go!

Dale Murphy - Hey Cap'n, I got a Brave up top!!

Dave Parker

Rickey Henderson = Beast

Jose Cruz

Ichiro Suzuki - I wish I had this card.  Toppsopoly!

George Foster

Eric Davis - very much a childhood fave

Ken Griffey Jr.

Torii Hunter

Willie Wilson

Curtis Granderson

Bake McBride - Sideburns!  This guy was cool, but is now forgotten

Pete Rose - the first of the bad guys in this list, but not the last

Cesar Cedeno - beautiful card, forgotten star

Kirby Puckett

Reggie Jackson

Fred Lynn - if anyone has this card, send it my way!

Jay Buhner

Darryl Strawberry

 Barry Bonds - hate if you must, I love the skinny bonds days in Pitt

Jose Canseco - Juicer #2 in a row!  Nice card though.

Kevin McReynolds

Tony Gwynn

  Jim Rice

Oddibe McDowell - for the name if nothing else!

Andre Dawson

Mookie Wilson - Oooohhh, Mookie pissed!

Kirk Gibson

Bo Jackson

Andy Van Slyke

Reader picks: Put them in the comments or e-mail to me!
1. Dante Bichette
2. Andruw Jones
3. Vince Coleman
4. Willie McGee

Support Almighty Thorzul's Ambitious Idea

Thorzul of Thorzul Will Rule fame has come up with an idea that will crack the card collecting universe to its very core!

Hyperbole is good for business, my crackhead grandpa used to say.  Still, you should go check what Thorzul is calling CARDTEMBER and participate.  The more people who take some time and put some thought into this, the cooler it could be.  And Thorzul is doing the hard work, the organization.

My favorite Catchers. MINE, dagnabit you whippersnapper!

This is the fourth in this series of posts.  

1st basemen here, 2nd basemen here, Shortstops here, Catchers here.

I have been wanting to do a series on my favorite players by position for a while now.  I decided on "top 10's by position" as my format.  I want it to be fun and interactive though.  So I decided on a few 'rules'.

1. I can bend the rules when I feel like it.

2. The players on the list have to have played when I payed attention to baseball.  So my arbitrary cutoff date is 1980.  All players on the list must have played in the 1980 season or later.

3. No ranking, just the top 10 in no real order.  So Duane Kiper might make the list, but you won't know if he is #1 or #9 on that list

4. SP will be a top 20 and OF will be a top 30

5. This is a card blog, so each player must have an accompanying picture of one of their baseball cards.  Usually it will be one I don't have, so you all can send them to me!!

6. I'll update each page with reader suggestions (even if I don't care for them) and keep a link to all other positions on future pages

sooooooooo...

My favorite Catchers

Joe Mauer

Johnny Bench

 Ivan Rodriguez

Gary Carter

Mike Piazza

Benito Santiago

 Carlton Fisk

 Jorge Posada

 Lance Parrish

 Brad Ausmus

Reader picks:

Put them in the comments or e-mail to me!
1. Tony Pena
2. Brian McCann - Strong feelings for this guy, I may have to give him some of my attention!

Defunct Team Rock Stars

Here's another Ebay pickup from the Rock Stars insert set.  How would these guys look in Thunder uni's?  Anyway, I loved Kemp before he became a serial sperm donor and got too fat to dunk.  The Glove has become underrated if anything over the years and is probably on the All-Trash-Talking team for the 90's.

Great set, I love the Rock Stars!  I am officially collecting these, so if you got em, let me know and we can work out a trade!  I currently have #'s 5(refractor),8,9,16(Refractor),18,19 and 20.  I will gladly accept either Refractor or non-refractor versions, as I am going to consider them one and the same for the purposes of completing the set.

Thanks for reading!

Selling my soul for some of Napkin's loot!

Hey hey!  As much as I don't want you to sign up (greeeeeeed!), here is a link to a great little contest from The Adventures of Napkin Doon!  You will need to follow him, but that's like winning a prize even if you don't win a prize in his contest.  His blog is that good!

Get over there!!!

Hierarchy of Relic Cards

I've been hearing a common refrain through parts of the blogosphere lately.

Relic cards have had their run!  It's over!  Relics are the new base cards!  They're worthless!

Yeah, yeah.

For the collector who has bucks to blow, I see the point.  They used to be rare, chase-able, awesome.  Now they are in every product, thousands of them, most of 'junk' players.  The special factor has definitely worn off.

For collectors like me, who don't really buy packs or boxes and don't have the money to if we wanted to, the story is a bit different.  Sure, I still don't have any need for 10 different, poorly designed, plain white jersey cards of Stephen Drew.  But I would have a place in the collection for one nicely designed and colorful relic card of him!

And to get relic cards of older, all-time greats holds my imagination quite well, thank you!

Wow, I got off my planned topic quite quickly!  Here's what I really want to talk about.  There are a ton of different types of relic cards out there, especially if you consider all the sports.  Patch cards, jersey, bat, pants, warm-up jackets, ball, base, helmet, manupatch, shoe, ticket, floor, stadium wall, seat, jockstrap etc...

What is the order you like your relic cards in?  My list goes kind of like this (excluding auto's):

1. Patch
2. Bat
3. Multi-colored jersey
4. Unusual miscellaneous - shoe with stitching, ball with stitching etc.
5. Plain jersey
6. Non-playing piece - wall, floor, base, ticket
7. Manupatch
8. Other

For me, the way the card is designed and its look and feel are more important than the list above.  For example, if I like the way a plain jersey card looks better than a bat card of the same guy, I'll gladly go for the jersey card.  I just tend to like bat cards better in general.

This is one reason that I don't think the relic card is dead.  There are enough different kinds and variety in design that I think they can still make collectors happy for now.

How does everyone else feel?  All opinions welcome, I know how diverse we can all be!

My favorite 3rd Basemen. MINE, dagnabit you whippersnapper!

This is the fourth in this series of posts.  

1st basemen here, 2nd basemen here, Shortstops here.

I have been wanting to do a series on my favorite players by position for a while now.  I decided on "top 10's by position" as my format.  I want it to be fun and interactive though.  So I decided on a few 'rules'.

1. I can bend the rules when I feel like it.

2. The players on the list have to have played when I payed attention to baseball.  So my arbitrary cutoff date is 1980.  All players on the list must have played in the 1980 season or later.

3. No ranking, just the top 10 in no real order.  So Duane Kiper might make the list, but you won't know if he is #1 or #9 on that list

4. SP will be a top 20 and OF will be a top 30

5. This is a card blog, so each player must have an accompanying picture of one of their baseball cards.  Usually it will be one I don't have, so you all can send them to me!!

6. I'll update each page with reader suggestions (even if I don't care for them) and keep a link to all other positions on future pages

sooooooooo...

My favorite 3rd basemen

 George Brett - Beast

Mike Schmidt - Bigger Beast (+teaser for later in the countdown...)

Wade Boggs - I think of him every time I eat chicken.

David Wright - Hope he can get healthy.  I like the good character guys.

Bill Madlock - Oops!  Reggie Sanders RC???

Michael Young - He's a stretch for a 3B post, but I really like the guy.

Doug DeCinces - I couldn't find a relic card of him.  If anyone has one, I'd love to trade.

Ron Cey - for his nickname alone

Scott Rolen - I want this card!!  Rolen is another good guy.

Chipper Jones - sweet looking card.

Reader picks:

Put them in the comments or e-mail to me!
1. Pablo Sandoval
2. Graig Nettles
3. Leo Gomez
4. B.J. Surhoff
5. Robin Ventura
6. Terry Pendleton
7. Floyd 'Honey Bear' Rayford
--Whew!  Thanks for a bundle Commishbob!

8. Chris Sabo
9. Vinny Castilla
--Sheesh!  There really are a lot of great third sackers aren't there?