Zapped!

       I am a little behind on posting (what else is new) but I would be remiss if I didn't point out the awesome altruism of the quickly-becoming-immortal Zippy Zappy of Cervin' Up Cards.  I went to my mailbox recently to find a mystery package.  I was not expecting a 9x12 manilla envelope, but oddly. there one was.  What was inside?  Free stuff, my favorite kind of stuff. 

There were some premo Mets cards featuring Matt Harvey and current minor league sensation Brandon Nimmo. 

Also, some awesome 8x10s from the New York Times that never reached my collection and consciousness.   Look at these things:

While we had already completed an awesome trade, these were sent unsolicited...

If you look on the note he left with the cards, he referred to this as being Zippy Zapped...

This is the best way to get Zapped since Scott Baio and Willie Aames (and if you are old enough to get that reference, I apologize).  Thanks Kenny!  When I get my hands on some Yankees prospects and oddballs, I will be sure to return the electricity.

Post Post.

Rejected titles for this, um, post:

       Past Posting.

       Post Haste.

       Post Tense.

       Post Modern.

       The Post With The Most.

       If You Come To a Post In The Road, Take It.

Okay, that last one is a little bonkers, but still.  Anyway, one of the most viewed entries in this blog was my dissertation on miscut cards, which itself was an off-shoot of a posting by Night Owl about the dangers and misadventures of cutting vintage cards off of boxes.  My love of oddball food issues has been pretty well documented on this blog.  What is just inexcusable on my part is that until this week, I did not own complete pages of the classic 1960's Post cards; all I had was a single example of each year hiding in the back of my retired players binder.  I am not sure what came over me, but I decided to remedy that woeful situation and bought lots of each year from the same seller (saves shipping after all).  These are the pages that came from that eBay buying spree.

1961:

The Jim Coates was the original card I had, the other eight are what I selected from a very eclectic lot.  Names like Marvelous Marv and Vinger Bend come to mind when looking at these, not to mention that Moon Shots, while impressive, are the second thing one thinks of when looking at Wally Moon - especially when looking at him.  Coming off cereal boxes, the backs of these cards are boring. but someone tried to make this one at least a little cooler. If I was a kid with a blank back, those ruboff tattoos or stickers would definitely have found their way to the vast landscape of empty cardboard. 

1962:

Post adds a little more color and a logo to the fronts of these but keeps the basic design the same.  In fact, given that they were using only one side of the card, this is really the most efficient design you could ask for.  You get a sturdy photo, a line of yearly and career stats, and a nice write up about the player.  You would be hard pressed to come up with a better one.  The Felipe Alou was the original card I had, the others chosen to fill out the page were either great names (Bubba! Blasengame!) or due to their sparsity in my collection.  I really should have more Don Zimmer and Bob Allison cards.

1963:

The design sticks to the basics of the last two, with a tip of the cap towards the 1961.  I have no idea if all these cards were owned and trimmed by the same kid or not but I must say, he did not get better with age.  Maybe he had the bad habit of eating his cereal while trying to cut the cards off the box.  The original card here was the Drysdale, which was altruistically donated by the aforementioned Night Owl after he posted about his Post cards. I must say, Post did like to get players posed with a bat on their shoulder.  I actually had to pick and choose to keep the whole page from being nothing but players with lumber on their deltoids.  1963 was a pretty good year to be a kid and a baseball card collector as you had the Post cards, the seminal Topps set, and the first Fleer set with modern players.  

Sadly, for some reason, Post stopped putting baseball cards on their cereal boxes and wouldn't make another set for 27 years.  We would have to eat Frosted Flakes and Twinkies in the 1970's and Drakes Cakes in the 1980's to fill the void.  I might have to start picking up some of those to make complete pages of them next.   If I am gonna be an oddball food issue collector, I better be willing to go all the way.

Coupons.

       I was at Target today shopping for birthday cards, Easter ephemera, and deodorant when the siren song of the card section drew me in.  This is what I picked up...

Why?  Coupons!  I had totally forgot I had these little coupon books that came in the 2014 Topps blasters I opened at the beginning of February. But there they were in my little coupon pouch.  There was one for $5 off a Heritage blaster and $1 off three pack of Opening day.  There was also one for $1 off two packs of Gypsy Queen, but GQ is new product so of course my Target didn't have any...*eye roll*  I am a sucker for a bargain so I got these almost in spite of myself.

I got these packs of Opening day for basically 66 cents a piece, a price I haven't paid for a pack of cards at a store since I was a kid no doubt; let's take a look at what was in there.

They put an insert in each pack of Opening Day now.  I really like those blue parallels (I see a page build in my future).  They are not quite as glittery as last year but they are a little more shiny.  The 3D stars are nifty and very busy.  I know these cards are aimed at the kiddies and my inner 7 year old approves.  Adult Max thinks the grey is too washed out, though.

I covered the Heritage pretty comprehensibly already and I also decided not to build the set, even though I adore the design and Topps did a really good job on this year's set.  I will breakdown a selection of the cards I pulled:

I like that Topps used head shots similar to the ones from the original set.  One thing you won't see on those cards from 1965 are things like the mohawk on Didi up there or the bald head and psychotic grin of Cody Ross there.  I am a little puzzled why Adam Jones is so sad on his card - smile dude, you are an above average major league outfielder.  I bought this blaster wearing my Sox hat with a thick beard leftover from winter...dear lord, I am Mike Napoli's doppelganger!  Aaron Hill is pictured holding up his Aaron Hill model bat, that seems more like a 90's Pinnacle photo than a contemporary Topps shot.  Poor Hiroki and Albert were captured making as goofy a face as you can make without knowing someone is taking your picture.  And finally, those Houston Astros cards show that they followed the '65 oddity of having both "Houston" and "Astros" on the fronts of the cards.  Also, Max Stassi is very tastefully named.  If anyone needs any of these singles for their set, please let me know.

It was a pretty good box for inserts too:

I gushed over the idea of the 1st Draft set when I initially wrote about this set and then I found out there are only 5 cards in the whole thing.  I got that same Graig Nettles in my hobby box.  This seems like a missed opportunity.  The red Target parallel looks wonderful with a Red Sox subject, I must say.  I also pulled a game used jersey of Buster Posey and a mini of Hunter Pence, both of which are very high ratio pulls.  Those are destined for ebay unless there is a Giants fan out there who wants to trade.  Lastly, I am showing the backs of two different players.  The Roy Halladay there is now something of a final tribute as he retired before the season, so that is his entire major league record.  I also have Alex Rodiguez's card back there too.  Will those be his final major league statistics?  Will any team ever take a chance on him again if/when he comes back next year?  The whole A-Rod thing makes me very sad. 

***

Oh, and I have leftover coupons I am not planning on using.  I still have one each of the $5 off a Heritage blaster and the $1 off three packs of Opening day.  I also have the two $1 off two packs of Gyspy Queen which I now plan on not using at all.  They are all good until the beginning of June.  If anyone would like any or all of these, drop me a line and I will send them to you.  Hey, money is money.  Eight bucks is eight bucks.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Can I Please Have Your Attention?

I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. And I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen...
Cannonball!!!

Anyone who has searched Listia the last few weeks has seen this gem at the top as the key card of one of those tiered daily escalating mega-listings.  Every day for three weeks it was there just staring at me, taunting me with all its beauty.  Now I did not have nearly the credits necessary to win this, but I took a chance and sent a message to the winner right after the auction ended and asked what his intentions for the card were.  I was very polite yet direct, a method I have championed before.  After a little give and take, and a slight bit of drama, the winner of that big ass listing decided to sell it to me.  As you can see it arrived today and I am overjoyed.  Proving that being polite and direct works, the dude told me he let me have the card (and even better, at my price) because I was enthusiastic and honest with him; I wasn't going to flip it on eBay, I really wanted the card for my collection because these are two of my favorite players of all time.  And I am quite grateful for that.  Plus look at that thing, it is glorious.  After I take it out for dinner this evening, we will spend the night watching TV and snuggling, then I will tuck it in before bed.  I love it that much.

J.R.R.

Jack.

Roosevelt.

Robinson.

April 15, 1947.

Always remember.

Mail Call: Little Letters from Listia.

       I have covered this phenomenon before, but it seems my mailbox is always jam packed on Mondays, as though the post office does everything on Sundays.  Either that, or Monday is the regular delivery guy's day off and he leaves the bulk of the heavy lifting to the fill in.  I would be easily persuaded to believe either theory.

Today's odd twist is that all of the letters in the box today were short ones - #8 to use the vernacular as opposed to #10 (business size).  Well, all except that one large manilla envelope.  One envelope to rule them all!

So enough postal jargon and minutiae, what goodies are inside these?  Let's take a look:

Two of those top three were straight impulse buys.  I like those 2008 Stadium Club base cards, even if the whole set and execution of that product was a disaster, and that Magglio called to me.  That Sidney Johnson is not only a nifty photo but a card #527 I did not have, so it is easy to see why I sniped that one up.  The top left card is a manu-patch silk card thingy from this year's Topps flagship of Matt Harvey's rookie card.  I wouldn't pay money for that thing, but I was happy to nab it for much less than the GIN credit price.  The Matt Moore is from this year's Heritage and since I am fond of the design, I thought maybe I would put together a page of these badboys.  The Heritage Chrome refractors always seem extra shiny to me for some reason.  Oooooo shiny....  The bottom row is a batch of Walmart parallels from this year that I got on Listia, yet another type of card I will never pay money for, at least not from the source that is.  I will put together a page from these.  I now have two of the three retail parallel pages covered with just Toys 'R' Us not represented.  I kinda like the odd symmetry that the colors are blue, red, and purple - it's a color wheel thing.  Okay, I am rambling now.  Last but not least is the little packet there.  While I am 99.99% certain my mother does not read my blog, inside that homemade little pouch is part of my mom's Mothers Day present, so I will err on the side of caution and not reveal what's in that until after the first Sunday of May.  And no, it is not a Saints football card; I have offered my mom those on countless occasions and she always says "that's nice, but what the hell am I supposed to do with this..." so I don't even try to give them to her anymore.  Moms?  Amirite?

Mail Call: Double Dutch.

       As of the beginning of March, I had never traded with continental Europe and now, just six weeks later, I have done so twice - both times have been with the appropriately named Dutch Card Guy.  When I posted my Topps Heritage box break, the big "hit" I got from that box was a CC Sabathia Mint card with a 1965 nickle embedded in it numbered to /15.  A neat card for certain, but not one exactly in my wheelhouse.  Enter DCG.  I knew he was a CC collector but I wasn't sure if he'd want the card so I put it on eBay.  I got a bid on it immediately, which wasn't too surprising, but low and behold, it was by the aforementioned DCG, which was.  He messaged me that he wanted the card and was willing to bid for it.  I told him, nonsense!  I am sure we can come up with a trade for it.  He told me he had this card he pulled last year:

A coin for coin swap?  Perfection!  I pulled the card's auction immediately and we hammered out some details and this wonderful trade was complete.  I don't know if I am ready to become a Mike Trout super collector but a card like this might get the ball rolling on such a thing.  If I can trade awesome hits for cards like this, it might be doable; his cards aint cheap, ya know...

The details included that wonderful 2005 Topps Steve Trachsel red x-fractor you see below.  Those red refractors really pop and I have found for some reason, the 2005 ones really work, not to mention that is a nifty picture of The Human Rain Delay.  I didn't have a Mets one of these and now I do. As good as the scan here shows it, believe me, it is ten times shinier than that, even.

He also threw in a couple awesome unexpected goodies, that 2014 Donruss Puig and that 2008 UD Masterpiece Ryne Sandberg, great cards both, ones I did not have and will definitely keep.  So thank you once again, Jeroen, for a unique trade. I also want to thank the Dutch Postal Service, which once again got a package across the Atlantic to me in less than 10 days. Sometimes the USPS can't get things across two states in less than 10 days.

***

Also in the mail today were these two cards, both interesting in and of themselves even if on the surface they appear rather bland.

I picked up that Roy Campanella on the right from Listia and is just a glorious card.  It is a TCMA card from 1979 and it emulates the classic 1953 Bowman Color set.   It does two things for me: it completes my Campanella player page and it also shows him on a card with a full photo standing - something I neither had seen before nor owned.  Given his tragic accident, I think this was a necessity for his page. 

I picked up the other card on the left from eBay and it doesn't certainly look extraordinary at all, does it?  I mean, it is a player so obscure I had to look up since I have never heard the name - turns out Mike Leclerc had himself a decent couple of years in the NHL before retiring at the tender age of 30.  I will chalk up his anonymity in my world to the fact that he played on the west coast and the Devils don't play the Western Conference much.  I kinda like it because it shows the old garish purple and teal-green colors of the old Anaheim Mighty Ducks plus that so-awful-it's-kinda-neat logo of theirs.  It is a jersey card too, so I get to touch the fuzzy.  But the key to this card is the serial number; anyone who has dug deep into my wantlists knows I have an affinity for the number 527 and lo and behold, yes, this card is serial numbered number 527.  But there is something very special about this particular card, look at the back and see if you can spot it:

Here, I'll make it very obvious for you, in case you are missing it...

Enhance!!!

^^^^^^^ look here dummy.                               

Yes, you are seeing that correctly.  That is a card serial numbered higher than its supposed edition.  I gotta say, there is a lot of reasons that Pacific went out of business and I wanna say quality control might be one of them.  I have never seen such a thing on a trading card?  Have you?  

Hammer.

"Henry Aaron

in the second inning

walked and scored.

He’s sittin’ on 714.

Here’s the pitch by Downing.

Swinging.

There’s a drive into left-center field!

That ball is gonna be…

Outta here!

It’s gone!

It’s 715!

There’s a new home run champion of all time

and it’s Henry Aaron!"

— Milo Hamilton, April 8, 1974