'Nuther Flash Freebie

   Read before you comment!  We are changing it up!

THE rules (hopefully permanent for the foreseeable future):

1. One of these 9 cards is up for grabs.  The first reader to leave a comment stating which of the cards they want will get the card of their choice.  If you try to claim more than one card, your comment will not be eligible for the win!

2. Anyone can pick, even if they have received a flash freebie before.  I will be keeping track of how many each winner picks, and at some point, you may become ineligible to pick for a while.  That is to keep the same person from grabbing too many.

3. When you claim it, send me your mailing address in an email.  My email address can be found in my profile on the sidebar.

The chosen card will go out 'as is', and in a simple PWE.  If condition is a concern, look closely before claiming.  And several of these have condition issues!

A few days after a card is picked, I will make another post with all of the remaining cards, along with a replacement for the picked card.  The idea is to always have 9 cards available for picking.  Also, if anyone ever wants to trade for any cards in the selection, feel free to reach out to me.

The Bench, Yount and Gossage all have significant condition issues.  The Palmer might have a little.  Please click the pics for larger views.

Don't really have PC guys, but looking for a few...

I don't really have PC guys, where I collect every card they have, except McGwire.  But I do want a few nice cards of pretty much everyone that I find interesting.  And it seems that I have overlooked one that should be in that mix. So...

Recently, I read an article about a player who I have never really had an attachment to or a lot of interest in.  But the article made a lot of good points, and it made me want to build up a bigger collection of him.  

The result is that I want to try to get a decent little Zack Greinke collection going.  In the past, I have pretty much just ignored Greinke cards.  In fact here are the only two I have:

2019 Bowman Platinum - Purple Refractor 

2002 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects

This wouldn't be like my McGwire collection where I want every card ever made, really just the more interesting ones.

Anyone have some nice Greinke's and want to help me out?  I'm sure there are some of you out there who were like me, and pretty much don't care about this guy!  I'm ready to trade for your unwanted Greinkes!  The cards I am interested in are RCs, eye appealing inserts, refractors and possibly a few others that are cool.  In general, the older the better, but anything nice from recent years would be nice too!

Let me know!

Serial Numbers or Not? Card Show Report.

 Short card show report!  I'm only showing a few of the cards I grabbed.  Mostly dime and quarter boxes, as usual.

First up, these top 2 cards were in a quarter box, and the Betts was a dime.  I want to talk about the combo cards.  After I got home, I tried to look them up on COMC since I had not seen this particular design before.  It looks like they are "2021 Topps On Demand Dynamic Duals".  Whatever that means.  Are these some sort of Topps website exclusive or something?  Anyone smarter than me?

COMC also has these listed as numbered /1200, though there is no number stamped anywhere.  I'm guessing that if they are a Topps website thing, they limited the run to 1200.  Who knows.  The COMC prices for these are outrageous too.  If they are actually worth a little, then I missed out, because there were probably 15 more of these in the quarter box.

The Betts is also 'numbered' on COMC, this time /2020.  No numbering or stamping to be found on my copy.  Is that normal?

The next batch were all dimes.

Very fun stuff.  I'm most excited about the sepia Brett, the Abbott (how did I not have that?), the Bench because I like the photo and the very cool Minnie Minoso.  It's a Coca Cola card that I hadn't run into before.  It's not quite standard size, as you might be able to tell from the scan.  A little wider than usual.  The Pujols seems to be some parallel too, so that's nice.

I ran into some nice Buster Poseys.  I really like those Fearless inserts.  Would love any of those anyone has, especially a prizm version.  the other two are artsy numbered cards.  /50 and /100.  Nice!

Several Griffeys.  These weren't quarters though!  Looking back on it, I think I overpaid on the Father/Son card, but the other two were good enough deals to make up for it.  I had not seen those glasses style die cut inserts before.

Three beastly pitchers!  Spahn on the Mets is pretty incongruous, but I will take it!  The Clemens is pretty and any 70s Nolan Ryan is welcome.

And last but not least, dime box packs!  Yes, these were dimes.  I love having these old, unopened packs laying around.  Someday I will need to open some vintage, and these will come in handy.  Not much valuable to get in any of those on the top row, but still fun!

And yes, I got those complete sets of Leaf Draft for a dime each.   They have Tatis, Acuna, Wander Franco, Jasson Dominguez and some other recognizable players. Again, lots of fun for a dime!

Thanks for reading!

Five from Griffey

 It's been quite a while since I did a "5 From" post. I know, they are cheesy, but they are easy too, and I needed a nice easy post to write.  Here are my previous "5 From" posts if anyone wants to look back:

Albert Pujols
Stan Musial
Rod Carew
Willie Mays
Pete Rose
Robin Yount
Juan Gonzalez
Scott Rolen
Greg Maddux
Pedro Martinez

Today's player was requested on a previous "5 From" post, Ken Griffey Jr!

So, I may not have the best Griffey collection.  Many of his top cards are just too darn expensive for me!  But I do have a lot of them I wanted to show.  So I decided to expand this out, and add 5 honorable mentions before the top 5!

The honorable mentions...

1995 Pinnacle - not a valuable card by any measure, but still one of his more iconic shots.  Backwards hat, childlike expression and a huge bubble.  The Kid indeed!

1998 Metal Universe - I really like the old Metal Universe cards, along with half the collecting world lately.  Bad on my scanner though, looks much nicer in hand.

2001 Fleer Genuine - High Interest - Die cuts always get some love from me. And this one is a very unusual shape.

1996 Metal Universe - Mother Lode - I'm not sure why this didn't make my top 5, but here it is in the honorable mentions.  Oh well.  Beautiful card, semi-transparent in parts.  Another weird one from Metal Universe!

2001 Fleer Genuine - @LG. - And the last of the honorable mentions, another die cut!  Nice looking card, if a little strange. But what do you expect from me?

Now on to the actual top five!

#5

2000 Finest - Features Refractor.  Arod is on the back.  I like the orange.

#4

1999 Bowman's Best - Franchise Best - Mach II #d /1000.  Die cut, numbered and a fairly classy design.  Nice card.

#3

2002 Bowman's Best - Blue - I'm not exactly who got fired over this strange blue tracing (they did the same in Red this year).  It's just weird.  But it's distinctive and so I like it anyway.  But there is probably a reason this look hasn't caught on like refractor technology.

#2

1999 Topps - All-Topps Mystery Finest - Refractor - Speaking of refractor technology, this one looks nice in hand.

#1

1989 Upper Deck RC - Um, duh, the UD RC is number 1!  I'm pretty happy to have a copy of this card.  1 out of the 50 million that were made.  For being so 'un-rare', I sure can't seem to get my hands on any more of them.

And if you've read this far, I assume you are at least a little bit of a Griffey fan.  So here is one card of Griffey that I am looking to trade away.  It's the "Plus" version of his 2000 Skybox Dominion - Eye on October insert, and is somewhat rare.  Not insanely rare of course, but I can't find a recent sale on Ebay and it's listed for $114 on COMC.

Anyone want to trade me for it?  I'm up for any reasonable offer!  Let's do it!

Goofy 50 and 60 year old stuff

 Here are a couple of recent pickups that are older than I am.  Not exactly cards, but these fit into my collecting wheelhouse anyway. 

First up is this "Today's 1971 New York Mets" booklet.  Seems like a good buy at the cover price of 39 cents!  I paid a little more than that, but not much.  I'll show all the pages...

The front cover.  Looks nice, with the semi-classic artwork.

A nice writeup and the first player pics page!  Nolan Ryan!!  Tom Seaver!!  Jim McAndrew!!

On the left, we see the backs of the players from the previous page.  And the stats for each of them on the right!

A filler page about the National League makes an appearance before the rest of the player pics.  Jerry Koosman may be the biggest name here.

In the middle of the booklet, we have this offer to send in for more of these team albums.  Looks like a pretty good deal!

More backs and stats...

A full color page explaining the offer we saw earlier... Along with some "All Time Mets Stars"!!  Definitely guys that die hard Mets fans would know, but these guys are nothing compared to some of the guys that were currently on this Mets team. I doubt any of these 8 would make the current all time Mets.  Funny how time can change perspective on who is an "All Timer".

And finally, the back cover, complete with schedule.  Quite a fun little book, and a welcome addition to my collection!

Next item!  We will stay in the National League for this, but switch coasts.  It's all about the Dodgers!

This packet of pics came as a throw in when I purchased the Mets album.  I don't really know anything about these, but they are awesome!

I wish I could get these for 50 cents today!

Here are all 20, though you can't really see much.

Some of my favorites, Koufax, Wills and Roseboro.

And a few more, Hodges, Snider and Drysdale!

Thanks for reading!

Flash Freebie again

  Read before you comment!

Todays rules:

1. First 2 commenters (today only!) to leave a comment stating which card they want will get the card of their choice.  That means 2 cards will go unclaimed today.  If you try to claim more than one card, your comment will not be eligible for the win!

2. Anyone can pick, even if they have received a flash freebie before.

3. When you claim it, send me your mailing address in an email.  My email address can be found in my profile on the sidebar.

The chosen card will go out 'as is', and in a simple PWE.  If condition is a concern, look closely before claiming.

The eighth flash freebie:

1973 Topps Joe Morgan

1977 Topps Robin Yount (pretty miscut vertically)

2019 Topps Big League Adam Frazier (I think it is a Rainbow Foil version, numbered /100)

2013 Panini Select Nick Franklin RC/Auto #d /750

The unpicked cards will go into a pot that I may do something with down the road.