Featured Diamond Kings set of the month - June

Welcome to yet another series inspired by my blog goals for this year!  Every month, I will feature a Diamond Kings set in depth.  Gotta stay true to my roots!

June is only a bit late.  I'm getting better!

Back into the distant past!  Where dinosaurs ruled, dirt was still a recent invention and Jamie Moyer hadn't even made the major leagues yet!!  It's the 1984 Diamond Kings set!

If you were around back then, you may have noticed that Donruss cards were harder to come by than Topps or Fleer that year.  In fact, I didn't see a single Donruss pack in any of my 'go to' spots for cards the whole year.  Only later did singles from 84 Donruss start making their way into my backwater town.  It is that very phenomena that makes the 84 Donruss Don Mattingly RC the most valuable card of the year.

And of course, there were Diamond Kings.  Donruss went in a radically different direction, design wise, for their 84 set, and the DK's were no exception.  The 82 and 83 DKings were almost exactly the same design, so close that they're hard to tell apart.  The 84's are their own animal.  The border design is frillier and the hard, linear backgrounds are replaced by softer, mellower, almost blurred backgrounds.  A very nice addition to the standard headshot is a tiny 'in-action' thumbnail of each player.  That's cool.

1 Robin Yount - classic
2 Dave Concepcion - kinda boring looking, but a good pick
3 Dwayne Murphy - No good A's?
4 John Castino - Who??
5 Leon Durham- Awesome!! The glasses are impressive.
6 Rusty Staub - anything with Staub on it is cool...
7 Jack Clark - he looks pissed and sunburned
8 Dave Dravecky - pre-snapped arm, well designed card
9 Al Oliver - This one makes me happy.  The smile, the Expos uni, the frighteningly bright yellow background...

10 Dave Righetti - Rags!
11 Hal McRae - underrated
12 Ray Knight -
13 Bruce Sutter - Hair!  Lotsa hair.
14 Bob Horner - Speaking of hair!  Big bad Bob.
15 Lance Parrish - I like this one.  This is exactly how I remember Parrish
16 Matt Young - Umm... Mariners was a tough call this year I guess.
17 Fred Lynn - Freddie!!  Love it.
18 Ron Kittle - Kittle was gonna be big in 84.  Didn't happen, obviously.  Nice glasses though.

19 Jim Clancy - Clancy looks like he was mixed with a rodent of some kind.
20 Bill Madlock - Mad Dawg!  Very nice looking card.
21 Larry Parrish - Eh
22 Eddie Murray - As Tony the Tiger would say, Grrrrrrrreat! Eddie's the man!
23 Mike Schmidt - Classic looking card of a classic 3b.  For once the DK borders don't clash with the art colors.
24 Pedro Guerrero - Man, this takes me back.  Pedro!
25 Andre Thornton - He's mostly forgotten.  But he could hit!
26 Wade Boggs - Chicken and Beer.  That's Boggs for you.
NNO Checklist

Oh, and to add to the 'character' of this set, there are errors!  The artist credit "Perez-Steele Galleries", found on the backs of the cards, was misspelled "Perez-Steel Galleries" on cards from packs. The only corrected versions came in factory sets.  Weird!

Previous months:
January
February
March 
April 
May

The King is a Pimp!

Time to pimp my Kingly guts out!!

You have already seen these, if you have any card-blog-viewing-skills at all, but if not, check it out!

DrewsCards - Drew has made a milestone of 1000 posts and is celebrating with a contest.  He's giving away 4 large groups of Obak cards.  It's easy and fun, thanks Drew.

Eutaw Street Cardboard - Cool contest that can involve helping him raise money for the National!!  I took most of the refractors for my project, but there are still tons of cards you might like.  Give it a shot!

</pimp>

June Refractor Report

If you read this blog at all the last 6 months, you know I'm collecting refractors this year.  Any refractors!!  I'm only 10 days late this month, so I'm getting better!!  Again, this month was my worst month so far, but the numbers did go up, so that's better than nothing!

Here is the monthly progress report for June!

As of June 30th, I have the following:
485 - Baseball Refractors
24 - Football Refractors
52 - Basketball Refractors

561 total Refractors!  That's a whopping 5 added over the last month.  Ouch!

OK, here is where I get to ask a couple of questions that impact this quest.  First, are these considered refractors?????

The Robinson has a rainbow-y, refractory look to it.  The Koufax, not as much, but both are shiny.  It seems like I have seen these referred to as refractors, but I'm really not sure.  Next question...

I have several 2011 Topps Chrome cards that have been sent to me as refractors.  They look refractory, but do not have any 'refractor' label on the back.  Here is an example:

Are these refractors?  I think they are (hope actually, since I have several and I'd hate to take my numbers down even further than they already are) , but I'm not sure.  Any knowledgeable folks out there??  Are there any other sets with unlabeled refractors?  I seem to remember that the refractors from the 1st year or 2 they were produced were unlabeled, but are there any others?  Help me out!!

Anyway.

More math...

I have 56.1% of my goal of 1000 Refractors.
I have been accumulating refractors at a pace of  3.08/day (down from 3.71/day for the 1st 5 months of the year).
I am on pace for 1122 refractors.

OK, so another terrible month, but I'm still on pace for a HUUUUGE year, so no biggie.

And as always, let me know if you have refractors to trade!