Good Show, Robert.

       Last week, I came back from my mailbox with a mystery jiffy pack from Robert of $30 a Week Habit, one of my favorite blogs and most frequent trading partners.  I had sent him a small PWE in April, but nothing that could expect a girthy padded envelope.  Here is what awaited me inside:

Shiny Saints! Shiny Saints everywhere.  And just to break up the chromium and die cut madness, a Martin Brodeur of recent vintage that I did not have.  He went a perfect 8 for 8 in cards I did not have and he certainly satiated my need for shiny football cards for the time being.

Seems Robert went a little crazy at a card show and shared his madness with me.  Thanks Robert!

If you clicked on his link above, you will notice that he is currently on hiatus and the vague and sudden nature of that last post has me a little concerned.  I hope all is well in Habitland, Robert, and if it isn't that things get better soon.

Sho' Nuff.

       As you may have been able to tell from yesterday's teaser, I am on the road away from Starting Nine World HQ and currently at my brother's house in PA dog sitting.  It is a nice situation where I get a little QT with the dog and a staycation away from the world.  Another perk is I found out there was a card show Sunday at a fire house in Newark DE, not far from where I am staying.   It's always nice to get away and even better to see some new faces and sellers.  So I ventured out to (the safe) Newark yesterday with a fist full of dirty money and my usual penchant for dime box diving. In fact, just about all the cards you are about to see are dime box finds unless otherwise noted. 

I will start off with some current stars:

I picked up a good beginning of a Yoenis Cespedes page, and seeing as I had zero of his cards set aside for such a thing, six is a very good start indeed.  Keeping with the Cuban flavor, that is my first keeper Yasiel Puig as all the others I have pulled have gone out to greener, bluer pastures.  Jose Fernandez is also from Cuba, Giancarlo Stanton, alas, is not.

How about some faux-vintage Hall of Famers?

I go a little crazy when I find these kinds of players in dime boxes.  Plus, these are some great looking cards.  That Bench GQ Collisions card is just magnificent.  That Frank Robinson is not only a picture I have never seen before, but the kind of photo you don't often see on cards at all.  And somehow that Tony Gwynn wandered in on this group but seeing how he just passed, I will let it pass.

These are 2010 Topps Vintage Legends cards:

This is yet another one of those insert sets that shows how infuriating Topps can be.  They used some great old timey players on Topps designs they weren't originally shown on - a very good idea.  They also picked some photos they hadn't reused over and over again - also good.  But the usual 5% failure on their part shows in font choices and incorrect colors -  the kind of thing that would take but a minute to fix.  I am sure I am not the only one to rail about these inserts but since they are new to me, I am railing anyway.  Still, this will make for a great page.

Here are some more faux-vintage:

That Vlad Guerrero Post card did not scan well but trust me, the chrome parallel makes it look all shiny and so different but not from the originals.  Alas, those are just reprints of the Robbie traded and McCovey Washington error, but since I don't own either of these cards anymore, I will enjoy them all the same.  I like the simplicity of those UD Origins cards so I am gonna track down 6 more and make a page.  I have wanted that Vida Blue card since I saw it on another blog last year and now I have it, for a nice thin dime. 

Did I pick up any real vintage?  Why yes I did...

I nabbed that '67 Jim Wynn and '66 Hoyt Wilhelm for a buck a piece.  Seeing how the Wynn is a semi high and the Wilhelm is a high number, that is quite a deal.  The Fred Whitfield and Charlie Smith are welcome additions to my slowly dwindling All Star Rookie needs - also just a dollar each.  The other three cards are from reprint sets, but I am a rookie cup completist, so they had to come home with me.

I really like these 1993 Upper Deck Iooss Collection cards.  They are the height of minimalist design and the photos are incredible.  Not only am I gonna make a page, I might build the whole set. 

The other five surrounding those cards are some nifty retired star pick ups.  I always forget Carlos Delgado came up as a catcher until I see one of his rookie cards. 

Out of the almost 500 cards I picked up (don't worry, I am not going to show all of them) I bought exactly one (1) Gary Carter card.  Bizarre.

I am pretty sure I don't have any of those Mike Piazza cards  - I also picked up one of his cousin, who has decided to go by the same name - this strategy didn't work for Edgard Clemente either.  The Frank Thomas No Name On Front card you see there is from the Cards Your Mother Threw Out insert set from a couple years back.  I wonder if anyone's mom actually threw one of those out considering at the time they were a big deal and worth about $2,000 even back then? 

Some more favorite players:

A six pack of Reggie Jacksons - Reggie seems to have gotten a lot of my love on this blog lately, huh?  I picked up two odd Jeff Bagwell cards, one with rainbow action and the other where he seems to be hitting the Space Shuttle.  I have never seen this card before but it may quickly become an oddball favorite.  I mean, look at it!  How wonderfully ridiculous.

Wait, did I not buy any Mets cards?  Of course I did...

That David Wright refractor on the top was bought for a dime.  I will grab almost any refractor for a dime, much less my current fave.  The Bowman Platinum Wright on the second row did cost me a dollar, but it was worth it - the scan does not do the shininess justice. 

More Mets:

I have developed some mad respect for Bartolo Colon.  He is older than me, he is fatter than me, and he is pitching in the major leagues.  You kids can live vicariously through Mike Trout or Jose Abreu, as for me?  I am kindred spirits with old Bartolo there. 

I found a vein of 1995 Flair cards, so I grabbed all the Mets, alas there are 8 and not 9:

I added the Iooss Hojo card to round out the scan, which kind of fits and also kind of doesn't.  The 1995 Flair set is a really nice one.  It sort of echoes 1955-56 Topps while at the same time looking both very modern and timeless.  I am sorry I missed this one 20 years ago.

More more Mets:

The top row is a nice trio of Mets failures.  The middle row has some actual vintage, once again, cards had for a dollar.  Any time you can get Choo Choo for a buck, you do it.  The bottom row are all cards I am 98% certain I already have but I couldn't pass them up for a dime a piece - one can get on a roll that way.

Saints?  Saints.

I like that Drew Brees cards with him shown on Purdue look almost indistinguishable from the ones with him on the Saints.

A few more football cards:

No matter how terrible the Mets are this year, it is still way too early to be thinking about fall and the start of football season.  I mean, summer just started.  Yes, I am trying to convince myself this is true.

I even nabbed a few hockey and basketball cards, but very few:

Wait, that is a baseball card - no it isn't.  That is Trevor Gretzky, Wayne's son.  I doubt he will amount to much as a player, but hey, he got a baseball card (his dad never did).  You see a few Knicks cards from the heyday of the early 90's.  All Knicks fans did back then was complain that they didn't win championships; if only they could see the future when making the playoffs would be a pipe dream. 

I didn't buy much Allen and Ginter last year, so when I found a bunch of the non baseball players, I pounced.  I mean, there is a Fish card...Fish! 

Aside from Abe Vigoda, there are some lovely ladies and Ben Franklin, who would greatly appreciate being included on such a scan. 

I am semi-obsessed with that Topps 75 set.  It highlights all the non-sports cards Topps has put out over the years and I might just have to invest in the base set.  Where else can one find Donkey Kong, Neil Armstrong, Martin Van Buren, and Mulder & Scully? 

Also here are some Heritage Flashback cards, including two of the Beatles and one of the Stones.  That seems like a proper ratio to me. 

I also built some ready made nine pocket pages:

2013 Topps WBC inserts.

2014 Panini Prizm.

I have been burned by this product the last couple years, so I just bought nine of them for a page to be done with it.  Same crappy look, same pseudo-chrome design, same no-logos. Get your shit together, Panini.

The aforementioned 1995 Flair:

Remember when early Alex Rodriguez cards were a big deal and not in dime boxes?

2010 Turkey Red retro stars:

These not only look great, I just noticed everyone has their socks looking properly done.  This is a great page for that alone.  High striped socks forever!

2004 UD Legends basketball:

I saw the World B. Free card of this in one of the dime boxes I scoured and I decided to get him some friends to make a page.  I am glad I did this if only to highlight Artis Gilmore's amazing facial hair and expression. 

2013-14 Score Hockey Gold:

I found some of these and decided I liked the look of the design and I picked up nine of them.  Turns out, this is the gold parallel and not just the base.  Works for me.

Speaking of Gold Parallels:

One dealer had a huge block of Topps Gold parallels from all sorts of years, so I grabbed a bunch.  I am talking about close to 100.  I will spare you the details, you know what these look like. 

I was kind of underwhelmed by the high end cards most of the dealers had.  Luckily, I was not interested in buying fancy shiny cards.  I did find this Drew Brees double jersey card...

...that Drew Storen kind of came with the Drew Brees.  The cards were $6 each or 2 for $10.  I can't resist a bargain and a 2 for 1 Drew special just seemed right.  And of course, I picked up some cards for other bloggers as well.  At a dime a piece, it is hard to go wrong with a little altruism.

I had a great time at the show talking to some new collectors and mocking a few Phillies fans.  An even better time was had this evening while I figured out the peculiarities of my brother's scanner...

...lucky for me, I had an adorable helper.

Dog Day Afternoon.

Hey! Where have you been all afternoon?

I was at a baseball card show, Stella.

What's in those bags?  Is it food?  I love food!

No, I told you, they're baseball cards...

Are they delicious?  Can I have some?

No, these are not food - they are people toys.

Toys?!? Can I chew on them?

Um, no.

Fine then, I'll be over here.

Wake me when there is some food.  I love food, it's my favorite.

Okay, I promise I will wake you up after I sort these into their proper piles.  Then we can have dinner and I'll save my post about these cards for tomorrow.

*sniff* *sniff* Are you sure I can't eat these?

Let me 'splain...no, there is too much, let me sum up...

       It has been a long couple of weeks here at Starting Nine HQ.  I have a long backlog of posts that have been piling up and issues to discuss.  Alas, work, the flu, winter, and depression have kept me from writing as much as I'd like.  I am still not 100% but I am off the DL and available to pinch hit.  I am gonna cover a couple topics that I will expand on in the next week or two.

First and foremost, hockey!

HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY!

Did I mention hockey?  I am very excited and still pretty stunned that the season is being played.  I will be sitting home this evening watching.  If the very small sample size of truncated 48-game seasons is any indicator, my New Jersey Devils will once again be raising Lord Stanley's cup.

***

I actually got out of bed early this morning and made my way the 25 miles north across the Tappan Zee bridge to White Plains for their baseball card show.  I got a ton of great cards:

The stuff on the left is some vintage and game used.  The stuff on the right is an epic score at a 6 for a dollar table.  I figured I'd grab 100 cards or so; I ended up with 486 or so.  I will be posting much more about this pile next week. Promise.

***

Sad news out of Baltimore as Earl Weaver passed away last night.  He was 82.

I have mad respect for Weaver.  He is one of my all time favorite managers and probably my favorite that didn't have anything to do with the Mets.  He was a genius and an asshole.  He knew what buttons to push and whose buttons to push (ask poor Jim Palmer).  He invented the Oriole way and I am shocked more baseball teams haven't focused on that kind of organizational style.  Go over to Orioles Card "O" the Day and I am sure Kevin will have a wonderful tribute up for him by the end of the day. 

***

These three topics do not cover the trade backlog I have nor the fantastic breakdown of something that Night Owl said in an off hand way a week or two ago that I have half written.  Those posts are coming soon as well.  Thanks for bearing with me...winter is very very long and hard.  When do pitchers and catchers report again?

Even More Joy.

       Complete pages are what my collection is all about.  Starting Nine is not just a name, it's a philosophy.  These eight pages have all been finished recently and then added to their respective books.  Each one has its own story of who, what, where, and why and I will fill in the blanks if circumstances call for it.

I didn't buy much 2010 Topps.  I believe I bought a series one jumbo out of habit and it was not long after when I realized the bloom was off the rose for me constantly purchasing new product strictly "out of habit."  This is not to say 2010 Topps was a bad set, quite to the contrary, I rather liked it.  I especially liked the Franchise History cards they gave each team.  It was a good way to add a little wrinkle to the base set.  I recently gathered the doubles from that aforementioned jumbo box and wouldn't you know it, I had nine of the Franchise History cards in there.  That calls for a page:

Sometimes I go out of my way to find nine very specific cards for a page.  This is a good example of the exact opposite, making a page out of only nine cards.  I mixed up the horizontal and vertical and got a nice mix of old and new teams, not to mention a nice mix of different pictures. 

I think I have made a good point of emphasizing my love of dime boxes.  I am the guy who, when he finds a nice one, will pull up a chair and pour over the whole thing while at a show.  I take care not to block others with equal love of the dime box, but I have been known to make an afternoon of especially good full boxes.  I found one such box at the White Plains show over the winter.  I plucked 442 cards from that one.  That particular haul has been poured over and divided a few times, but there were some leftovers that I never got around to sorting until this week.  The following five pages come from those cards.

I love Topps Finest, but in my typical contradictory fashion, I have never really bought any of it.  I can't really tell if it is a price thing or a fatigue thing (Finest usually comes out later in the year).  Finest, more often than not, lives up to its name, at least visually.  They are usually very good looking cards.  I found a vein of the 2010 base cards in this box and made a pile of them.

I then, while still sitting at the dime box, went though them, found a nice mix of players and poses, and plotted out my page.  I do this a lot and while it usually illicits a funny look, it hardly ever gets questioned aloud.  Eventually, I will make a page of all the Finest offerings, for now, I have a lot of mid 90's stuff and only a smattering of recent offerings. Quick aside: I once bought a box of 1993 Finest for a (relatively) cheap price just to find a refractor - and, of course, hope it was a good rare one.  Oh, and I got a refractor...the player I pulled: Lee Smith.  Oh well.

Dime boxes are usually the dumping spot for a lot of unwanted base cards plus unnumbered and unautographed inserts.  While this is a sad end for some nice cards, it also lets me build pages I otherwise never would have even considered for less than a buck.  Much like Finest, SP Authentic is a venerable brand that I have long admired but rarely purchased.  This is a page of abandoned 2008 SP Authentic inserts, a handsome little set called Authentic Achievements.

I kind of like these little orphan inserts.  The scan doesn't show it, but the writing is all in a shiny rainbow foil, and the set itself is like 50 cards, which is large but not unwieldy.  Anyway, there were only about 12 of these and this was the best I could do with what I had.  While not the most aesthetically pleasing group of pictures, I think it fits with the whole nature of this set and the reasons for me finding it.

Ahhhh, the 2008 UD Documentary set.  This set has been run through the ringer so many times, I am not going to dig up the corpse and do it again.  Needless to say, it is one of the perfect examples of a great idea poorly executed.  So poor, in fact, that this set may have been the nail in Upper Deck's coffin in the eyes of many collectors.  I avoided this set like the plague.  I heard so many bad things, I never bought a single pack and never even asked any one about it.  In this dime box seemed to be about 1000 of these cards. 

Enough time has passed since the initial release of this horrorshow, so I took a chance.  I made a pile and, once again, carefully selected a nice assortment of photos and players for the page.  I purposely ignored any write ups on the front or back, knowing that I would be infuriated by what I read.  Overall, I think this is a very good looking page, as long as I never read a word and just look at the pretty pictures.

I need to learn to write things down.  I know how unorganized I am and yet I do very little to remedy the fact.  If I consistently wrote things down, both important and trivial, I could save myself a lot of headaches.  Every once in a while, though, I randomly remember something at the right moment and those little moments of synchronicity make good things happen.  While going through this box, I found a little run of 1993 Stadium Club stars.  Big stars.  This made me recall that while looking at my Topps books recently, I noticed that the only SC year I was missing was 1993.  Instead of rummaging through all my boxes to see if I had any, I now had all I needed to make a page.  Well, almost...

...I got eight cards from this dime box.  Look at the names here and I will let you decide which is the one that does not belong.  That card was found amongst my endless team piles and placed on this page to complete it. 

The nice thing about collecting your way is you get to make the rules.  Every once in a while, I get to make an executive decision about a page and that word is law.  We're still in that same dime box and I found a bunch of 1994 Fleer inserts.  These inserts were as understated as the base set.  But, much like that set, they work.  And while they all seemed to be the same, it turns out, they were different.  I found 6 Team Leaders and 5 Prospects.  Not enough to make a page of each, but, since they looked so strikingly similar, I decided to make a page that combined the two sets:

Both sets have gray borders, super imposed players, gold titles, and big colorful logos in the background.  If you just glanced at this page quickly, chances are you wouldn't even realize they were different sets.  The differences and similarities contrast very nice, I think.  It makes for a nice change up in my Fleer book, if you are even paying attention. 

The last two pages here have been a long time in completion, at least in my definition of completion.  This first one has been sitting in my retro book since the set came out in 2002.

Well, eight of those cards have been in that page for 10 years, that middle one was only recently procured from COMC. These cards are specifically a subset called the All-Time Series Team and it is from the 2002 Fleer Fall Classic set (a most handsome faux vintage set as has ever been produced IMHO). I have no idea why it took me a decade to complete this page.  The middle card was forever a random insert from this set featuring Yogi Berra and Thurman Munson.  I am not sure if I didn't like the three outfielders breaking up the nice symmetry of the two players on the other cards or if I just never pulled one of the two outfielders cards from this subset. Recently, I decided I didn't like how this page looked - unfinished - so I went online and fixed that. 

Last but not least is a similar dilemma I found a distinctly different solution to.  I have, since they started the set in 2001, bought some of the Topps Heritage set when it came out.  Heritage has a nice regimented sameness to it.  The inserts always have the same theme yet a unified look to the design of the year in question.  Since I am a sucker for faux vintage in general and nostalgia specifically, the Then and Now inserts have always been a favorite of mine out of Heritage.  But what to do?  Having page after page of the same kind of insert set would be dull.  Plus, there is always 10 cards in the T&N set, which ruins my love of 9 card pages.  Who do I leave out?  Do I leave out the same card for every year?  Not to mention the cost of accumulating all these inserts would be prohibitive to the overall result.  What to do, what to do?  Well, make a page with one from each year, of course. 

I had between one and eight of just about each year of the Then and Now inserts.  I didn't have any from this year, nor did I have any from 2001, 2002 or 2004.  So, to complete the page with a run of years, I went back to COMC and grabbed the 2004/1955 Herb Score/Kerry Wood card you see there.  Perhaps in seven years, if Topps is still marching the Heritage set out every year, I will make another page, including the missing 2001 & 2002.  Please check back in 2019 to see if I do.

***

Robert of $30 a Week Habit has claimed the 2012 Topps Stickers from last post.  The system works.

Say Hey.

       Not to get all Hackenbush on you, but I am gonna do a birthday post, because Willie Mays turns 81 today.   The Say Hey Kid is into his eighties.  Wow.  Willie Mays is one of those players I am just a little to young to have seen and therefore, have no proper perspective for him.  He is only described in hushed tones and with grand praise and from everything I have gathered, deservedly so.  The numbers alone speak for themselves.  He is always measured as one of the five best players of all time and it is pretty hard to build a case against that.  The images of him are immense and heroic.  Willie Mays will always be a myth to me, a larger than life figure.  Forever catching the ball over his shoulder; forever hitting the ball into the San Francisco night.

Because all I have to remember Willie Mays, the baseball player, is a list of numbers and a bunch of picture cards, he is forever young.  My opinion of him was forged through folklore and stories. I really love Willie Mays the baseball player.  However...

...I also once met Willie Mays, the retired autograph seller.  Now, I cannot imagine having a line of people I have never met all line up to get my signature on a photograph or a baseball.  I also cannot imagine the stresses, the boredom, or even the burden of that.  I have met a lot of sports stars this way and most of them have been friendly or at least cordial about the whole thing.  Alas, like a lot of people I have spoken to, my experience with Willie Mays was not a good one.  He did not look up.  He would not shake my hand.  He barely acknowledged my existence.

I have also seen Willie Mays interviewed and he loves to talk about baseball.  He seems like an intelligent and friendly man.  If he hates doing memorabilia shows so much, I think he could find a better way to spend his time, plus, no doubt a man of his fame could find other ways to make money.  Much like most people would rather remember Willie Mays young and running first to third, losing his hat in a blur rather than the broken down player he was with the Mets, I would much rather remember Willie Mays, the baseball player and not Willie Mays, the retired autograph seller.

Lucky for me, I have never let my 30 seconds in the presence of Willie Mays taint any memory I have of him.  Really, that's because I have no memory of him.  He is still the myth.  He is still larger than life.  He is still forever young.  Say Hey!

***

Check out 30-Year Old Cardbaord - not only does he have one of the best blogs in the business, he is giving stuff away.  That's right, free stuff!   What are you waiting for?

Monthiversary.

       I just noticed I have been at this for a month and I am very surprised...I have no attention span whatsoe...oooo look, cows! - sorry - Anyway, I have never been known for following through on things, so the fact that I have posted (almost) every day and found a small yet loyal audience is pretty amazing to me.  I don't know how long it will last, but hey, like a starry-eyed teenager, I think I have earned the right to celebrate my one month anniversary.  I am still getting my bloglegs under me and I appreciate all the support, encouragement, suggestions, etc.  And if anyone really hates the blog, thank you for keeping that to yourself. 

You may have noticed I tend to write very long, rambling posts, so I am going to try and see if I can reel myself in once in a while.  I have gone on at length about trimming my collection, consolidating all the fluff, etc.  I think I should start to accentuate the positive a little more.  I am going to start more frequently showing you some of my favorite cards, how I got them, and why they aren't going anywhere.  I creatively call this feature "Favorites."

Some people complain about jersey cards, but I think when they are done right, they are spectacular, and this one does it very right:

It is a 2004 Playoff Honors Quad Jersey card, featuring Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, Johnny Bench, and Mike Piazza (it is also numbered /100, but I couldn't care less about that; I am not a fan of artificial scarcity).  As a failed catcher myself, I have always loved catchers, this badboy has four great ones, including two of my absolute very favorites.  This card has four Hall of Famers on it (three current, one future).  This card has four nice, differently colored jersey pieces, a fantastic aesthetic choice.  Face some hard truth, friends, this card is fucking cool.  My only problem with it is whether to put it with my Mike Piazza collection or my Gary Carter collection - the answer is that it goes into my Piazza collection strictly because he's shown on the Mets and Carter is shown on the Expos...the Mets trump all.  I bought this card on eBay five years ago after seeing it way overpriced at a show (marked $80- talked down to $60- I said no thanks).  My patience was rewarded when I got it for less than half of the price the dude at the show wanted for it ($28 including shipping).  I found this card again recently while sorting my long-neglected Piazza cards.  I thought it deserved some props.  I have about a dozen Piazza memorabilia cards that have someone else on it with him, this one is by far my favorite.