Mail Call: Instant Gratification.

       When I was a kid, somewhere I heard the old adage that you never know until you ask and picked up the old positive affirmation that if you ask, all someone can say is 'no'.  This makes me one of the most annoying kinds of human beings: the kind that asks a lot of questions.  I think my point got lost in all that, I guess what I am saying is, I am not shy about asking for things, not that I am an insistent pest.  Sorry, my intros are rusty.  

I got a package in the mail from Night Owl HQ yesterday.  Because we are constantly shuffling things back and forth, I have no idea if this is in response to stuff I sent or if I now owe him stuff.  Either way, I have a pile for him.  This particular package was full of wonderful things:

You can't really see it in the scan, but trust me, the Harvey and Dickey cards are quite shiny.  The Wright card is a manu-patch card, but this one works nicely, good colors, very fancy intricate patch.  I used to hate these cards, but I have grown to not only accept them but enjoy the ones that look very good.  I still think they are confusing and ruin the value of actual game-used pieces, but I guess we have also learned those "actual game-used" pieces aren't worth the paper their disclaimers are printed on.  The bottom three cards are the ones I was sort of addressing my awful opening paragraph.  Night Owl recently posted about the new Topps Archives packs he picked up.  I requested he set those cards aside for me and we could work out compensation.  He told me that not only did he have a package ready to go out to me, he would put these inside.  The package got here in two days; in the world of blog transactions, that is the very definition of instant gratification.

In my last post, I snarkily addressed Topps' photo choices on vintage/retro cards.  The cards on this scan perfectly illustrate my point.  On the Gypsy Queen Gooden, that is a picture I am certain I have seen before but it is now in painting form, so I suppose that makes it better (as long as they don't use the same picture next year).  The Archives Gooden is not only a photo I have never seen before, it is a damn nice one - full of nuance and intensity (please do this more, Topps).  Conversely, the Seaver is a photo that has been used so many times, I could probably make an entire page of cards using it. The Ted Williams photo has also been used ad nauseum, but it is so iconic, you can almost forgive it here.  Almost.  Also, I can give the Williams card a slight pass because there are no doubt far fewer images of him in the Topps vault than of Seaver.  Plus, since he is dead, I am sure they have to okay the use of his pictures through his licensing company, which I am certain adds a layer of annoyance.  *steps down off his soapbox*

Night Owl not only sent that pile of Mets goodness, he has been perusing my want list:

Those 2010 Upper Deck now complete my page of these cards.  I hope I never have to mention this set again.  The next row has not one but two Rookie All-Stars I can scratch off the list, a pair of parallels at that.  The Opening Day Tavaras card has been especially elusive for me for such a recent card.  I wanted that one greatly because his Topps base card omitted the trophy, and that little cup is the whole point of the collection.  Night Owl's love of 1975 minis is well documented, so for him to give up a couple is surprising.  I have this vision of him in my head hoarding them by the thousands in a bunker under his house.  The Nomo will go on my 1997 Upper Deck page, one that has also been difficult to fill (odd, too, that N.O. would give up a Nomo card).  I never bought any of that set and for some reason I also never see them around.  Four down, five to go. 

Also from the want list:

Three Mets of varying importance, from nothing to everything.  I am praying that a stint in the minors will do Ike some good, considering I could hit .165 in the majors.  The 1964 design this year on the Heritage seems to really do the modern player justice.  They just look good to me, better than the last few years, at least.  And I do so prefer the old school trophy on these cards. 

Final batch from Night Owl:

The top three cards finish my Mets Topps set from 2013 Series 1.  I am slightly disappointed the Opening Day set has white borders, I was so hoping they would give it a green border to differentiate it from the flagship set.  I think the abstract ball field design cries out for green - and not the crazy shiny Emerald pattern they used as a parallel, but a nice muted kelly green.  As always, Night Owl wisely includes a little note in his package.  Each and every one of these cards is of use to me, in case you were wondering.  Thanks Greg!

Also in the mail was an odd thing for me, Yankees cards:

I realized I did not own a single Robinson Cano card and I have a feeling he is not going to be on the Yankees next year, so I won't have to automatically hate him, so when I saw a very cheap lot of 11 cards, I snagged it on eBay. That is a rare sight indeed, a current Yankee with his own 9-pocket page.

I was on a roll and scanned all the cards I got in the mail Tuesday, so here are the rest:

Those top three cards are a lot from Listia I picked up literally for nothing.  I got it just for the Reggie Bush, the other two will end up in a box to be forgotten.  I am slowly but surely becoming a user of that site.  The bottom two are the other 2 Cano cards, which I might actually list on Listia since I have no need for them (unless someone wants them).  The last card there in the middle is a mini refractor of Zack Wheeler.  The Mets have threatened to actually let him pitch in the majors next week, I'll believe it when I see it.  But I figure I should grab his cards now while I can.  I am not sure what the purpose of making that card mini is, though, but I do like the shiny.  Shiny > mini.

Ask and ye shall receive! I think that is what I was going for with the opening.  Sheesh, my brain is so sluggish and tired lately.

Miscut.

    With all the talk about scissors and cutting your own cards, what happens when the professionals go wrong?  I think when we open a pack of cards, we all have the expectation of perfection or, at the very least, competency.  I think we have all run into a miscut card at one point or another.  Lucky for you, I collect these kinds of cards (so you don't have to).  As I have said many many times before, I love oddball cards, and not just the kind put out by Mr. Turkey or Kahn's Franks.  I also really love the one-of-a-kind gems that can only be created by a great lapse in quality control.

Here are some recent examples:

Pity, that was the first card I saw of Junior in a White Sox uniform.  I'm not sure if that 2007 Kotchman is miscut or just misprint, but if you look, you'll notice how terribly askew the foil is applied on that card.  I bought a whole box of those 2005 Playoff Prestige cards, imagine my joy and horror that for six straight packs, I got a wonderfully miscut card amongst my normal cards.  I especially like the color chart on the side of the Furcal in the upper right.  Let's look at the backs too...

The test pattern is also on the back.  You can see much better how terribly miscut those Playoff cards are, if you just saw the fronts, if you didn't know any better, you might think that askew look was part of the set.

There's more...oh boy is there more...

Once again, Rafael Furcal is prominently featured.  It is quite disappointing, at least to most people, to get a miscut card in a high end product like Gold Label.  Not for me.  I am pretty sure that card was the highlight of that box for me.  Those Bowman Chrome cards on top came in the same pack; considering there were only three cards per pack, that is quite the quality control issue.  Somehow some misprint cards wandered into my miscut pages.  OK, lets look at those real quick.  Those 2005 Bowman gold parallels might, at quick glance, seem fine.  Then, on second glance, you see Bartolo Colon's signature coming out of Shannon Stewart's head - a little creepy.  Also on there is a Hideki Irabu rookie and a Nefti Perez sans foil on the front.  You would think there would be more missing foil cards with the proliferation its use in the last decade or so, but I haven't seen as many in my day as I would imagine I should.

We might as well look at the backs of all these...

You can plainly see that it is Preston Wilson that is the conjoined twin of that Rafael Furcal.  Outstanding.

Some miscuts are more extreme than others...

That Shea Hillenbrand is barely miscut.  It is almost just really really off-center.  But, I determined it to be just miscut enough to join the pages.  Luckily, a few much better examples are prevalent on this page.  Those Gooden and Ripken cards have been part of this collection since I pulled them back in the 80's and they are wonderful.  That Dave Cochrane is also a favorite.  The "No Ink Additives Allowed!!!" is pure gold.  The odd warning and extra exclamation points make it almost surreal.  I pulled that card from a 1993 Ultra pack.  Also shown are some 1993 Ultra misprinted foil cards. 

On the back...

...you can see even more warnings on that Cochrane card (I wonder how many more there were on those Ultra cards?) and you can also see that it is Dave Schmidt that is the partner of that Dwight Gooden card.  Or is it Dwight Gooden who is the partner of the Dave Schmidt card?

We have a few more minor modern misprints and miscuts on this page.  My favorite is the early Upper Deck cards with extra and misplaced holograms.  Perhaps someone was trying to counterfeit those Paul Gibson and Torey Lovullo cards? Oh the humanity...

But wait?  What else is on this page?  Could it be miscut 1975 minis?  Indeed it is.  I have seen many of these over the years, I guess quality control was not high on the list of priorities for a test issue, and I kept a few for my collection.  The Al Oliver is cut almost so you can see how the set would have looked had the team name been on the bottom rather than the top. 

The backs...

...show more of the same.  That Higginson card is a separate card from the Sandberg card.  The Sandberg back is normal and the Higginson front is normal, so I display them back to back.  Same with the misprinted and miscut Zane Smith up there, it is a matching pair with the Dunston on the front.

Let's dive into some vintage miscuts...

...the 1975 Topps are probably my favorite for miscuts.  All the colors make for some very interesting pieces of modern card art.  Here you have a fine mishmash of horizontal and vertical; some extreme and some subtle. 

The backs of these...

...aren't quite as interesting as the fronts, to say the least.

Here are some more old school Topps miscuts:

That 1979 Garvey is a double print.  I wonder if the card next to it is also Garvey...alas, it is not quite over far enough to see.  I love the little stars on the borders of the miscut Grimsley Traded card there.  You see these on full sheets and I guess they were part of either the guide for the cutting machine or perhaps part of the printing process.  Alas, I don't know enough about the industry to know for sure.  I wonder why they never put rows of stars on the actual cards, they look kinda boss...

Backs...

...meh. Moving on.

You want 1973's?  We got 1973's.  I am not sure where I got so many miscut 1973 Topps cards, but I have a ton of them.  I have seen a ton of them.  I know 1973 was the first year they did a majority of the set in one series, I wonder if one has anything to do with the other?

Quick aside:  I once convinced a bunch of kids that Johnny Jeter was Derek Jeter's dad.  This was 1997 or 1998, before the internet was ubiquitous and could diffuse such a ruse.  I imagine there was a rush on his cards at local card shops for a week or so before the truth was revealed.  I don't know if I like messing with kids or Yankees fans more.

Backs...

...the backs show that the dotted lines are the edges of the sheet.  I prefer the stars.

1972 was not much better that 1973.  I have seen all form of miscut and misprinted 1972 cards. 

Hmmmm...wait, I think it is dotted lines on the bottom, stars on the sides.  Perhaps that is how the printer knew which end of the sheet was up?  I just noticed that for the first time...it all makes sense now. I am both supremely observant and an idiot.  A Cincinnati Reds fan once offered me $20 for that Bench miscut.  How do you price something that is unique, especially...

...since the back reveals it is attached to the boyhood photo of Bud Harrelson.  No way that card is ever leaving my collection.

Wow, and now some 1970 and 1971 Topps.  The early 70's were pretty terrible for quality control.

Nothing extreme in these cards, just some generally off center cards, all about the same amount.  I guess you can deduce that every once in a while, the sheets missed the cutter by about half an inch.

Wow, those 1970 cards sure look 100x brighter next to those 1971 backs.

Here is another favorite.  That 1968 Bernie Allen might be the worst diamond cut card I have ever seen.  Right behind it is that 1968 Steve Blass.  That Ken Berry is miscut and woefully out of register.  I have seen a bunch of 1968 Topps cards that are out of register (blurry to the layman).  I wonder if that was because of the burlap design. 

I have two of those 1967 Jack Baldschun cards, they are identically off center.  If anyone wants one, drop me a line, I will gladly send it to anyone who is as obsessed with miscut cards as I am...

Those diamond cut 68's are making me seasick.

I told you I have a lot of 1973 miscuts, here are some more.  Wait, that 1965 checklist looks fine...

...until you see the back...

...I like how some kid used it anyway.  I have seen a lot of 1962 Topps really off center, but not quite miscut.  That Wes Covington barely qualified, but the Mike Higgins shows that the wood border didn't go to the edges of the sheet.  I guess you gotta save on ink somehow.

Yup, I have some vintage Topps football miscuts too...

...tough being a Chiefs fan, huh?  That diamond cut Jim Marshall is oddly fitting, given his infamous claim to fame. 

Backs:

Here are some more modern football misprints and miscuts.  That quarter of a Giant was one of the cards as listed when I opened a pack of Pro Set back in the day.  I found that quite amusing and it has been amongst my error and miscut cards ever since. 

I have two of those Barry Sanders cards, once again, identical in off centered-ness, if anyone wants one.  As you can see, those two 1992 Topps cards aren't miscut...

They have blank backs.  And you may wonder why I have a completely blank card on this page.  Who cares about blank cards?  They use them as spacers all the time.  Well, that blank card came out of the same pack of 1992 Topps football cards as those blank back cards.  It is a completely blank card, not a spacer.  In my world, there is a difference.  I am not sure how that first series Star Wars miscut got in my collection (probably from my childhood), though I do have a bunch of diamond cut series four Star Wars cards.

OK, since I am just rambling here and showing everything in the damn binder, here are some more misprints:

Some more blank backs (the Franco, LaCock, Mills, and Curtis).  A few miscut backs only from 1975 and 1987.  The Rusty Kuntz does not have a 1979 Carew back, it is just a doubled up card.  The 1990 Leaf checklist with the inverted Sid Fernandez back is pretty cool, and if I had needed that checklist back in the day, it would have been pretty damn frustrating.

The backs...

...show the blank backs and a diamond cut Pudge that got thrown in there for some reason.  I should probably put that closer to the front where it belongs.

Since I have no finish, I'll try and bring it all the way back to the beginning with a few more cut cards I found but did not cut myself...

...those last three cards have all been trimmed to some extent or another.  The 1956 Smokey Burgess had its entire border excised so it would fit in a 9 pocket page I assume...where as the 1962 Gene Woodling was cut smaller for some odd reason I cannot quite figure out.  That last card is a 1955 Topps Double Header.  Well, it had its head cut off, so it is a single header, and really, since it has no head at all, I guess it is a no header.

The Starting Nine.

     It would figure that I would start a blog and my main computer would immediately crap out on me.  Am I gonna let that rather nasty foreboding sign stop me?  Not on your tintype, sister! Ok, enough yakity yak, what am I driving at?  Well, I have worked hard to get the bulk of my collection down to nine card pages.  As a hopeless completest, I used to have to HAVE TO have all the cards.  Now, I try to narrow it down to the essence of a player.  I once had over 300 Dennis Eckersley cards, now he is represented in my Hall of Fame book by these nine:


These aren't the only nine Eck cards I own, but I think these nine represent him well.

As most of you do, I have/had far far too much from the junk era:

Being a Mets fan, I have a soft spot for the Doctor.  I have a whole binder full of identical nine card pages.  I call it "All work and no play..."
(and just for gits and shiggles, here's another just for Night Owl - minis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)



I have each annual Topps set represented by a nine card page:

I once meticulously built an entire master set of 1969 Topps and sold it years ago to pay the rent.  So sad to even think about...let's move on...

from 2006-09 I bought some of EVERYTHING.  I had that kind of disposible income.  Now, my disposable income being disposed of, I buy a pack or two and make a page:

Sometimes I just collect odd cards here and there and slowly put them together:


Other times, I dive into the dime boxes at shows and put together a page:

I am a dime box connoisseur.

Speaking of food, one of my minor obsessions is food issues:



I also can integrate other things into the pages, like my rare forays into TTM autographs.  Pat Neshek is a classic signer through the mail with an epic signature:


And lastly, like most of you, I love the shiny. OOooooooo....shiny...


This page includes an example of one of the cornerstones of my collection, which I will cover later this week.  You won't guess unless you know exactly what the hell I am talking about, I just like to be a little cryptic and keep my audience riveted.