Puttin Out An ABP On 3 Goudey Base Cards

Much like many of you answered the call when I put together Operation Fig Tree to complete my own Goudey base set, I need some more of you to answer this call. I'm doing my friend Brian a favor and asking if anyone out there has an extra Phil Hughes, Cristian Guzman, or Shairon Martis 2009 Goudey base card laying around out there.

Now, don't everyone rush at once to trade off your prized Guzman and Martis cards. I want an orderly line at the front door of the blog. And to be truthful I could stand to trade for 2 copies of each of these cards.

I've got a bunch of Topps U&H cards from this year listed within my trade area that someone may be interested in. Also up for grabs are any of the T206s I've either posted or will post in the coming days. Otherwise we can go the PTBNL route.

Your help and attention to this matter are greatly appreciated.

T206 Pack Break

I lied, I totally did something else today. This. A Pack Break. I think I've got approximately 10 posts that need to be written regarding trades or packs. I need to get crackin'.

Greeting me in all his Brewery goodness when I opened the pack



How I love you Hoff. I was wrong, and I admit it. You weren't old and washed up. Just old. And wow, you are a dude who keeps in terrific shape. Looking forward to another year of zeros in the 9th. And we'll need it with all the crooked numbers the starting staff is going to put up. Probably most of the bullpen too.



Little Nate McClouth action. And by the way, I'll totally trade any of my non-Brewer T206s for Brewers.

Next up is an Elvis Andrus bronze parallel.



Followed by, Joe Saunders.



And a Mickey Mantle checklist card.



One of my favorites, Rogers Hornsby.



And to close, an Old Mill mini of Garret Anderson.

If I Do Nothing Else Today . . . Trade With Democratic Roadkill

It's going to be posting my trade with Duane from Democratic Roadkill.

I sent Duane 9 A&G Code Cards from my failed attempt at the code this summer. Silly me, I thought I'd need the actual cards to pull it off, so I started pulling together some of the cards that were deemed important. Well my folly is Duane's gain. In addition to those code cards I sent over a pair of Goudey base cards to help him complete his set, a pair of A&G back 09 minis, and a pair of regular back A&G 09 minis. One of which was The Mick, who I still needed for my mini set, but I was happy to oblige Duane being that he pulled together some much needed Goudeys for me.

Here was the haul. To start, we've got 3 Goudey Heads Up cards that I needed for my set, plus 6 4-in-1s. I really do enjoy the Heads Up cards. I think the design is neat with the various stats or nicknames plastered all over the front of the card. I'm also digging the Yount and Fielder (and Schmidt and Howard) card. All Fielder needs to do is win an MVP this year and we can call that an MVP card.



There were 6 more 4-in-1s needed for my set:



And finally, for some reason, Duane had the Bill Hall Goudey Graph. Very recently I had a $1 bid rejected on eBay and I felt sad about that. I shall feel sad NO MORE. I've not got the Gallardo, Hall, and Gamel Goudey Graphs. Still yet unaccounted for are JJ Hardy and Prince Fielder. If you see either of these Goudey Graphs, please let me know.




Also, I'd be willing to take on, via trade, any Goudey Graphs you just don't want to hold onto. Even Wade LeBlanc ;)

I Knew Goodwin Champions Looked Familiar

I knew I'd seen this concept re-used somewhere before.

I didn't hit me until recently that the Ground Force and Hot Gun cards from the 1990 Score football set bare a striking resemblance to the Goodwin Champions cards.

Also, what are the chances I randomly pull 3 #11 QBs from the early 90s? And finally, what about Phil Simms 77.6 QB Rating (the stat they use on the back of this subset) makes him a "Hot Gun"?

Mat Gamel Goudey Graph

In my quest to add a pile of Goudey Graphs from this year's, I once again dipped my toes into eBay. What I walked away with is what you see here, Mr. Mat Gamel. I think he's got a nice signature and put it in a stellar spot on the card, unlike Gallardo who penned his name in blue against the dark blue Brewers jersey.

Mat had a tough rookie campaign, but I still fully expect him to fill 75% of Prince's shoes once the Brewers deal Fielder for some pitching (a man can dream). Gamel may have looked okay at the hot corner but his destiny lies at first base.

I still lament losing out on the Fielder Goudey Graph earlier this fall since I've yet to see another resurface. If anyone out there has it, and wouldn't mind parting with it, please let me know. Same goes for the Bill Hall Goudey Graph and JJ Hardy Goudey Memorabilia card.

Looking For A Good Home For Some Leftovers

I have some leftover 2009 A&G cards that didn't make it into anyone's home this summer after trying to trade for the minis, and I'm putting them up for adoption.

I'm not asking for anything in return, but if you have a few cards to throw my way off my needs list that would be fantastic. And again, totally unnecessary.

There are 40 base cards:

10,21,31,42,43,44,52,65,70,77,87,88,89,94,97,110,113,120,134,158,165,172,180,186,190,223,226,228,227,234,241,243,245,249,251,258,262,270,277

The bigger baseball names are Youkilis, Utley, Cano, Crawford, Hill, Markakis, and Helton.

There are 7 National Pride cards:

NP35 Manny Ramirez, NP48 Jorge Cantu, NP49 Max Scherzer, NP59 Miguel Cabrera, NP60 Stephen Drew, NP61 Mark Teahen, NP71 Josh Hamilton

Nine code cards from my failed attempt this summer!

#69 Loney, #52 Hill, #77 Liriano, #215 Lowrie, #62 Uggla, #59 Reynolds, #70 Ankiel, #1 Bruce, #147 Crisp

And finally 2 SPs in Dominique Wilkins and Curtis Granderson.

1986 Topps Traded Jim Leyland

That must be what, at least a 10 gallon hat, if not 12? Whoa boy Jimmy!

So how did one get Topps Traded cards back in the day? Were they available in packs? I've got not clue where this one came from, but I found it while combing through yet another box of mid-80s cards rescued from the depths of my parents basement.

I'm also intrigued as to why Topps made the red backs nearly a fluorescent pink on the back of the Traded series.

Thrift Store Binder

Anyone else have this binder from back in the day?

I came home from a happy hour with some good friends to find my wife had purchased this binder for $0.70 at a thirft store.

The funny part is I'm pretty sure I owned this binder at some point in time, but I can't remember for sure, or where I'd have gotten it from.

I think I'm going to use it for my PCs starting with Jim Palmer. Afterall, he is featured on the cover of the binder.

Recently, I started posting on some of your blogs that thrift stores are great places to get cheap 3 ring binders, and this only backs up my claim. Although this one is much cooler than the ones I usually get!

1981 Amos Otis Fleer "Series Starter" (What the heck is a series starter)

This is likely to be just another post in a long line of "look what I found" posts, but I have a serious question for any of you early 80s collectors.

What the heck does "Series Starter" mean on this Amos Otis card? I found this card amongst many 1000s of cards I have tucked away in those 3,500ct cardboard boxes from my youth. Based on the condition of the 20 or so 1981 Fleer cards I have, I can assume I bought some random packs in my teen years of what I considered "cool old wax".

What I mean by this is the Otis card is in pristine condition, so I know immediately this card is suspect. Why, you might ask? Because this guy carried his early baseball card collection, dating back to no earlier than 1982 Topps, in a suitcase.

Yup, a suitcase. This giant 70s green monstrosity. I remember it had one elastic pocket in the top part of the suitcase. This is where I kept the "good cards" and the rest were left to toil in the base of the suitcase, destined to end up like this 1982 Carlton Fisk card.



To this day, regardless of actually scarcity, I view any cards from 1982 to 1986 as scarce. Anything prior to 1981 I consider myself lucky to have.

Back to the Fisk card. This was 1 of only 3 1982 Topps cards I found within the 3 large boxes I sorted through this weekend. I know I have a pile of really beat up 1982 Topps, and I'm looking forward to finding them all.

I remember this Fisk card from my childhood and it's in remarkable good condition for my collection in this era. My 82-86 cards routinely have rounded corners to the point of fraying, creases, or have otherwise been damaged somehow. This Fisk card, documenting his first season as a member of the pale hosers, sticks out in my memory. I'm not sure if it's the dopey look on his face, the bizarre green and purple colors, or the off-center cut, but I remember it well.

Here are the two other '82 Topps I found:

Atlanta Braves Future Stars. Two of the three didn't have bad careers either.



Bedrosian did come in 7th in the RoY balloting in 1982, was a one-time All-Star in 1987 saving 40 games for the Phillies, and compiled a 3.38 career ERA over 14 seasons.

Brett Butler racked up 2,375 hits and stole 558 bases in his 17 year career. He's probably most remembered for his years with the Giants and Dodgers during the late 80s and early 90s. He also made one All-Star team with the Dodgers in '91.

Larry Owen was already 27 when this card was produced and hadn't really shown much promise even in the minors up to this point, so I'm not sure why he was included. But if I had to guess, based on what happened to the Braves throughout the 80s, I'd say the cupboard was probably pretty bare. Larry toiled away in AAA for 7 more years getting a few cups of coffee with the Braves and Royals.



This last card is of the 1981 Yankees Pitching and Hitting leaders. I wonder what two stats they'd choose today to represent the best hitter and pitching from each team? They've picked AVG for Mumphrey and ERA for Tommy John during the strike shortened 1981 campaign.

I've scanned the back to show the team checklist for the 1981 American League champs.

More Jim Palmer: 1973

I took a break from posting some of my Jim Palmer collection to try to string it out a little bit.

What we've got here is the 1973 Topps card. This card depicts a nice high leg kick from Jim on the front, and shows his back-to-back-to-back 20 win seasons on the back.



Anyone ever see him pitch during these seasons, 1970-1972? Just curious.

Sweet Spot Pack Break

What a great weekend. Fantastic weather, got to stay outside, Packers beat Dallas, made some nice trades, and I picked up a single pack to break.

As I wrote earlier in the weekend, I was looking forward to getting some new packs to break open. What I didn't know is that most of the 09 baseball product has been pulled from shelves. I'm chalking that up to inexperience. While there were plenty of Goudey blasters on target shelves just a couple weeks ago, they're all gone now. Same with Heritage, Topps Series 2, etc. Gone, just gone. Some 08 Goudey blasters have shown up for $10 at Target but I'm not really interested.

To top it off, my friend Brian traded me the entire Propaganda subset from the Updates & Higlights series for the Lou Marson Goudey Graph I nabbed on eBay for him. So I'm now out of the U&H pack game as well. I was really only buying those to see if I could hit some of those cards.

This left me in an awkward place on Saturday when we walked into the local hobby shop. There wasn't a single pack of cards I wanted to open, except Sweet Spot and who the heck pays $20 for a pack of cards. So I left empty handed, only to decide on Sunday that I'd celebrate the end of the 2009 pack buying season with one pack of Sweet Spot.




For your $20, you're basically on a treasure hunt for a Sweet Spot auto, but Upper Deck is nice enough to throw out a 100 card base set for you to collect if you so desire. These are the 7 base cards I pulled. Very nice cards I might add. Soto, Dunn, Damon, Pence, K-Rod, Tulo, and Howard. I'm a big fan of Tulo and Howard since they are both cornerstones of my fantasy baseball team so I was happy to have gotten them.

I had never opened a pack of Sweet Spot, so I thought this big chunky thing in the center was possibly just some sort of divider. Imagine my surprise when I pulled this out of the pack last:



A Tom Glavine, Sweet Spot Auto. Apparently this particular print run was more exclusive. It is numbered 6/15, signed in blue ink and the stitching on the leather is blue red and blue. Honestly, I have no idea what this means, but since it is the first autographed card I've ever pulled from a pack I'd have loved it no matter who it was.

Needless to say, I'm very excited to have pulled a card of a future Hall of Famer with 305 wins. I was actually a big Brave supporter before my Brewers moved to the NL, probably because my dad grew up cheering for the Milwaukee Braves and was somewhat partial to the Atlanta version after they moved.

All in all, like I said, it was a great weekend. I'll feature some of the trades I pulled off this weekend as well, including the Propaganda set later this week.

Fat Pack Busted: Topps 2009 U&H

Today will be a glorious day for several reasons:

1. Getting back into the swing of things on the distance running
2. I've started to organize my FOR TRADE spreadsheet
3. I'm headed to a shop to pick up some packs to break. Any suggestions, I haven't done anything new in a while and would appreciate the advice
4. I'm finally going to get some packages out to people that I've promised cards to


To celebrate, I've got some more 2009 Topps U&H to display and offer up in trade for anything on my Topps Series 2 need list.

First up, I've got one card I'm not going to trade. Mr. October LotG. Very fitting after posting his rookie card a week or so ago.



Then there's this beauty. I don't really like the Yankees, but his card is fantastic. I feel like U&H does a better job getting different shots of players. Seriously, hate the Yankees all you want, this card is just silly!



I also reeled in 9 All-Star game cards. I'm in agreement with most everyone out there when I say they did a great job on this subset with the logo placement, etc.



I hauled in one gold parallel of Mark Lowe from the Mariners, and sadly I've never heard of him.



I was very excited to get my hands on the Chris Coughlan rookie card. Chris is a nice player for the Marlins, makes good contact and can hit to all fields. Did I ever mention how much I dislike the Rookie Card logo? Anyone else with me on this? I don't like that it's on the cards nor the actual artwork for it.



A couple more Classic Combos for the collection . . . Mark Schlereth (Broncos) and his brother Daniel who pitches for the D'Backs to go along with LaRussa and Leyland.






Kris Medlen had some hype this year for the Braves.



And last but not least, a really cool action shot of Ronny Cedeno. Well done Topps!

Yo! (C) (tm) (R) Plus the namesake

There are many things to love about Yovanni Gallardo, affectionately known as Yo among us fans of the Crew. At some point in the not so distant past, I started referring to him as "Yo!" and proceeded to say he should copyright/trademark that. Hence the post title.

Well, I picked this Goudey Graph up off eBay a couple weeks back and I'm just getting around to posting it. I picked this up for $8 as a Buy It Now. At the same time my $1 offer for Bill Hall and JJ Hardy Goudey Graphs were both turned down. Considering the value of those two cards is probably about $0.10 each based on the number of collectors of this set in general and those players in particular, I can only scoff that my offers weren't accepted. Sure, it was probably only $1 in profit, but I can't imagine the people holding these cards really want to keep them. Pride got in the way of a buck. Never make that mistake!

Well, I'm excited to extend my 2009 Goudey Graph collection to three now: Gallardo, Marson, and Byrd.

Now, I made reference to the namesake in the title as well. I ask you football card collectors, what the heck do I have here? And let's not focus why it's in a screw-down because I HAVE NO CLUE!

Looks like a 1995 Topps Fan Favorite (FF8), but I'm not certain why I believed it was so valuable back in the day. Any insight would be appreciated.

Topps Series 2 Need List

I bought one pack of Topps Series 2 recently and only nabbed this Alex Cintron #393 from my list. The others were all dups. Without further ado, here's what I still need and would love to trade for.

331,334,343,344,346,347,348,351,355,358,359,366,371,374,380,382,383,384,388,390
392,393,394,396,404,405,406,413,417,418,420,423,424,425,428,430,431,435,437
438,440,441,444,447,448,450,457,458,462,463,469,471,472,475,477,481,482,483,484
488,489,491,492,494,495,498,500,501,504,505,508,510,511,512,515,516,518,521,524
525,526,529,534,535,537,539,541,547,549,551,553,554,556,559,564,565,567,569,571
572,575,577,578,581,582,583,584,586,587,594,596,602,605,606,608,610,612,616,617
618,619,620,621,622,624,626,628,635,638,640,641,642,647,648,649,654,655,656,659

As I said, I've got some 2009 A&G cards to move, and anything you saw in my U&H pack breaks can go as well. Stay tuned for a few more U&H breaks.

1972 Jim Palmer

I won't lie. This is my favorite Palmer card and it's not as miscut as the auto crop feature on my scanner would lead you to believe.

I'll probably break down at some point and try for the entire 1972 set, of which I have only this card.

1972 Topps is just so darn eye-catching, isn't it?

I'll flaunt the flip side for all ya'll too. Enjoy!

I'll also take a moment to point out that I don't have any of Palmer's 1960s cards, and as you can see, I'm also missing 1971. If you've got one of these, let's talk!

1970 Jim Palmer

I cannot explain how excited I am to have some of my original player collections back in my hands and house once again.

As a kid in the late 80s and early 90s I took up three player collections. I wish I could tell you how I selected Jim Palmer, but I simply cannot. I wasn't an Orioles fan, and Palmer was retired by the time I was going to games at County Stadium as a teenager. It's doubtful I ever saw him pitch. Man, now I wish I would have. Just bummed myself out.

This 1970 Jim Palmer was the oldest Palmer card I ever got my hands on. It's a mundane shot of the young hurler, but this kicks off my Palmer collection debut!

I'm not the only the only one out there stealing ideas for posts I guess, since 30-Year Old Cardboard posted a 1982 Jim Palmer card that was recently obtained.

If you're reading, I'd like to help you out with this:

"We want dirty uniforms. We want action photos. We want sweaty guys playing the sport we love."



In Action! 1982 Jim Palmer. If you don't have it in your collection already, I've got a spare (aparently).

Reggie Jackson RC

I finally rescued some of my childhood player collections from my parent's basement.

I'll likely spend some time this week documenting what I brought back. This includes my Jim Palmer collection which isn't nearly as big as I thought it was, but still contains some nice cards I picked up back at card shows in the mid 90s.

What I decided to post today was a card I'd forgotten about. A Reggie Jackson rookie card from the 1969 Topps set. This card is clearly far from perfect condition, but I remember being very excited to find a chance to own it. As you can see, part of the picture side of the card is missing. Luckily it stops just before Reggie's name and doesn't affect any of the picture itself. I have no clue what a card in this condition would be valued at, but I'm very excited to know that I have it.

When I first started collecting cards in 1987, that was Jackson's last Topps card and even then it was cool to pull Mr. October out of your wax.

Now I'm off to finish watching the shootout between the Bucs and Packers *gasp*

Momma Said Knock You Out!

This is just going to be a very bare bones pack break because I'm planning to actually get up another need/want/trade list for Topps Series 2.

So here it is, another Topps Updates & Highlights. For the record, I'm not planning to collect this entire series, so if you see something you like please let me know.

Headline was the first thing that jumped into my head after scanning those four.



I kind of dig some of these U&H cards, like this one with Jeter and Girardi. I had an idea the other day that someone should do a set of cards documenting each game in the season. Yeah, probably crazy, but it would be interesting to see a snapshot from every game, something unique to document the season.



Some Turkey Red for those of you who dig on that!



Some All-Star love! HOFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!



HEY ROOK!



Are Topps Town cards? Should they be? I don't think so. Do people collect these?

Updates and Highlights Pack Break

THIS CARD IS SO COOL. I'd just found out these cards existed the other day while making my way through some posts over at Dinged Corners.

It's really the reason why I purchased a pack of Updates & Highlights this weekend. Normally I have little luck at pulling anything cool from a pack at Target, but I had my wife choose this time. Well done, very well done. If only I could have hit the Mauer card, I'd have been even more excited. But I'll settle for Halladay.

Now, onto the rest of the pack. I'm pretty underwhelmed with this series/subset outside of the All-Star cards and these Victory Propaganda inserts. Take for instance the first card that greeted me . . .



Kris Benson standing in a field just hoping and praying not to hurt himself in the photo shoot. I feel like the majority of my pack was filled with '09 rejects like Benson, Eric Hinske, Koyie Hill, Ryan Garko, and washed up Gary Sheffield. I also ran across John Garland, Alejandro De Aza, and last but not least this card:



I'd have called this one "Respect Lost", or something along those lines.

Oh, and here's a shot of the two All-Star cards I pulled. Enjoy!