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!

Show acquisition - Help me out!

 I need the expertise of some experienced collectors!  Help me out!

I grabbed this Dan Marino insert out of a dime box at a recent card show.  Didn't look too close, just saw a shiny Marino and threw a dime at it.  This pic is from my scanner:

1999 Upper Deck Black Diamond - Diamond Skills #S3

I got it home and was going through my various finds, and I noticed the imprinted markings on the middle of the card.  They are hard to see, right?  So I thought maybe it's a parallel, and went off to comc.com to look it up and see if I could figure it out.  No help at comc, all the copies on there had no imprinting.  

Now my eyes are getting pretty bad, so I broke out the old magnifying glass to see if I could figure out what the imprint says.

Here is another shot with a camera:

And a closeup:

And for those of you who still can't make it out (I can't!), here is some black text added in overlay:

And to show that is look s at least kind of professional, here is the back.  Whatever made the impression made a nice reverse image in the back of the card as well.

At this point, I am leaning toward this being some kind of promo or maybe a "do it yourself" prank.  The reasons I think that are:

1. I can't find any information on this anywhere.  Comc.com, TCDB.com, Google etc.

2. It was in a dime box

But it also kind of looks legit.  The imprinting, while hard to see, doesn't look like something that could easily be done at the quality level it has to an existing card.  Seems like something you would need good equipment do to.

So what do you think?  Anyone seen these before?

From Johnny and gcrl

Well, from the lack of posting recently, its obvious I have been busy.  The main thing was a 10 day (!!) work trip.  Longest I have ever had.  I have been trying to read some blogs and comment, but there has been no time for posting.  However, being away that long allowed some mail to pile up!

First up, I have been the happy recipient of several PWE packages from Johnny over the last few weeks, each with an excellent variety. 

PWE1

4 cards of HOFers, a RC of an underappreciated young stud and more!  The Brett especially is a nice looking card.

PWE2

Nice stuff.  I wouldn't have expected a vintagey Carlton in these deliveries!  And the Betts is a card I need for an upcoming project (*tease), so nice bonus there!
 

PWE3

Lots of stuff could probably be said about these cards (like Scherzer's exertion face), but I can't think of anything but my first Lindor RC!!  Thanks a ton, Johnny!

Also, gcrl decided I needed a sweet little pick me up out of nowhere!  I always say I would love older refractors, but rarely get them.  These three were very welcome!  In fact the Billingsley was a need for my 2011 Topps Chrome Refractors set build that will never finish.

Thanks a bunch gcrl!!

And hopefully I will get back to some actual posts soon!

Just three cards

 I decided not to bore you with a ton of cards from the card show.  Here are my favorite three.  All three from 50 cent boxes.

This is an unnecessary Prizm type that I had missed.  But for 50 cents of this HOFer "Black and White Checker Prizm" came home with me!!  It's less blue in person.  My scanner really isn't great.

Speaking of scanner issues, this Verlander isn't so pink as the scan. It's a deeper red.  But it's beautiful!  I really like the effect and would be interested in others (Prizms only!) from this set. The set is 2013 Panini Select En Fuego Prizms

And now for the find of the show, and just in time, since the man just hit #700!!

Yep, that's right, a Pujols rookie year card for fiddy cents!!  And what's up with me not reading any "Congrats to Albert" posts on the blogs out there?!?!  Just kidding, write whatever you wanna write.  But I do love the Cardinals 1B/DH!  I hope to do a tribute post at some point and show off the cards I have of him.

Shh, don't say free... three more stamps

 Happy September!   

I have three stamps to use today.  That means giveaway time!  The first three commenters to claim cards will be rewarded by me using one of my stamps on them.  Just pick up to 4 of the cards below and I will ship them out to you.  If I don't have your address (or you think I might not have it) then shoot it to my email.  The email can be found in my profile on the sidebar.

Today's cards aren't much, but what do you expect for free??

Available cards (first three commenters!):

The Kemp is numbered /1960