Chrome Is Where The Heart Is.

       People use the term "house-bound agoraphobe" so loosely these days.  One would think while one has been kind of cooped up in the house for a month (by choice) that one would have all sorts of time to blog about his hobby.  Yup, you would sure think that, wouldn't you?

Anyway, I have these packs to open this evening...

One would think I made a trek to Target to get these - but one would be wrong - I nabbed these off of Listia.  Didn't you even read the opening sentence to this post?

I have quite the love affair going with Chrome; it is one of the few brands I have a complete run of pages for.  Here you can see the page that has been devised from these packs:

Some great facial expressions going on here, though I am not sure that is what Chrome does best.  Also some very colorful uniforms, which pop off the chrome even better than you can see in the scan. 

So of course I keep nine cards for my page, what else is gonna stay?  Well, funny you should ask...

I pulled three of the Rookie Cup cards, which is always a plus.  I got one (1) base Mets card, Wilmer Flores, who more and more does not look like shortstop of the future.  The one X-Fractor I got was Raphael Montero, which makes this a more than successful pack ripping for Mets rookies.  Also there are some cards I have put aside for other bloggers, though I already found out the Dodgers are not needed, so those are up for grabs.  

You are supposed to get a refractor in every two packs, so let's see if I came out ahead:

With the x-fractor above, I came out way ahead.  In terms of players, meh.  Any and all of these five are up for trade if you want them. 

The bonus to these packs are the three orange refractors included.  This means I have nine, a perfect page maker, if I so choose:

The orange works better with some teams than other but I think it looks great with Mets players.  Plus, that photo of Curtis Granderson is 1000x better than the one they plastered on the base set.  And I must say, pulling Mike Trout and Jose Fernandez in the same pack was quite nifty.

And to pull the old Gilligan's Island Theme on you, here's the rest:

Derek Jeter and Stephen Strausburg might thrill some, but not me.  There are a dozen other players here that I have no use for.  If you do, feel free to drop me a line and we can work out a deal.  I am gonna go hide under the covers and wait for football to start for real tomorrow.

May The Fourth Be With You.

        I am a geek and a nerd, I make no apologies for either.  I long ago gave up the idea that I would ever sit with the cool kids at lunch and talk about cool kid things.  Chances are as a kid, if I was sitting with anyone at lunch, we would sit there and talk about Star Wars.  After lunch, we would probably go outside and play Star Wars (I always wanted to be Han, I usually ended up being Chewie).  When I got home, I would probably turn on the TV, pop in a tape, and watch Star Wars.  If there was anything in this world that I was as obsessed with as baseball, it would have to be well, you know...

These cards are from my original childhood collection.  I am pretty sure these original Star Wars cards were mine, but they may have been my brother's.  He tended to hand me down things like this - whether he wanted to or not.  And I never did collect any of the whole series so a while ago, I pared them down to these single nine-pocket pages. 

The red ones are series 2, somehow, we all missed series 3 so I have none of those orange beauties.  Either that or none of them survived.  The green page is from series 4 and it includes the "corrected" version of the "naughty" C-3PO card.  Some parents have way too much time on their hands to be looking for android dong.

I was born in 1975, so I was just a tad too young to remember going to see Star Wars when it debuted in 1977.  I have been told I did see it as a toddler, but I'll be damned if my little brain can squeeze out the memory of that.  I do, however, remember going to see The Empire Strikes Back when I was five. 
 
I am a huge movie geek in general and if I am feeling frisky with the right kind of audience, I will make the argument that not only is The Empire Strikes Back the best Star Wars movie but it is the best movie of all time.  Around certain geeks, this rant is met with joy and wonder.  Around other film nerds, this line of thinking can make people's heads explode.  I will spare you the details, besides, what are we going to talk about if we ever meet for a beer?

I know I collected these Empire cards back in the day yet somehow, all the Return of The Jedi cards I had are long gone.   Perhaps they were traded for some Garbage Pail Kids at lunch or maybe they were stolen by one of my more nefarious 3rd grade friends.  As a grown up I have never replenished them and I am not sure why considering my most vivid memories of both movie and trading card involve the third installment.  I remember the guy who owned the convenience store at the end of the block telling all the kids that he would be the first to have "Revenge of the Jed-ee" cards.  Yes, he pronounced it with a long "e" at the end.  Lord, we all hated that dude, square old adult that he was. 

On this page of vintage odds and ends, you can see the old Wonder Bread cards from 1978.  I think my grandparents gave those to my brother because we were too poor to even afford Wonder Bread, it was store brand all the way in our house.  Those cards are delightfully mangled, I am not sure if it was from being in loaves of bread or from the overzealous love of an 8 year old.

Believe me, old age has not stopped me from buying Star Wars cards.

I bought these Star Wars Illustrated cards at Target last year and I made a page of them.  There is some pretty nifty artwork going on here.  I especially like the one in the middle since I often use the line "I find your lack of faith disturbing..."

Like most people of a certain age with any sort of taste, I am not a big fan of the prequels.  Oh yes, I waited outside for tickets to Episode 1 for 10 hours (not 10 weeks like some, I am not that big a geek...besides, I had a job then).  But after watching that piece of shit twice, I came to realize that no one could ever trust George Lucas again.  The one thing that came out of that time that was pretty good was one of the few things that Lucas didn't produce, the animated Clone Wars series.

If only such thought and attention had gone into the first two prequels that went into this show, they wouldn't be thought of as the steaming piles of childhood rape that they are now.  If you have never seen them, I recommend them highly.

Topps has put out a few different Star Wars Heritage sets over the years, these are from 2004:

Here you see the only Return of The Jedi cards I have.  Jeez, I am gonna have to make a page of those just so I will shut up about it, huh?

Oh, and look, they did some cards for the prequels too.  I have exactly three of them.  This should tell you everything you need to know. 

The bottom six here are the shiny inserts from this set.  I am always a sucker for shiny. 

Topps also did a Chrome set back in 1999.  I am almost certain I should have the whole set of this somewhere since I bought a bunch of this stuff.  For some reason, I also have this page. 

That Vader card is from the Topps Star Wars 30 set from 2007.  I bought a bunch of that stuff too and I have no idea what happened to it.  This page is a big mystery to me.

This page is a hodge-podge of different cards from all kinds of sets.  The one with Leia running away from the At-At is amusing to me since she never even saw them outside.  Yes, this kind of minutiae is important.

There are a few random prequel cards too. I should get more of these only if Natalie Portman is involved.  Maybe Ewen McGregor as well, his rendition of Obi-Wan deserved better scripts than he got.

Speaking of the lovely Ms Portman, there she is again.  The second prequel was worth it if only for that outfit.

These cards are actually stickers and they come from Germany.  I picked them up from a Listia auction and I have never seen them before or since.  That last card is a homemade card I cut out from the box of the original Star Wars Lego video game.  Man, if they had Star Wars Legos when I was 8 years old, my childhood would have been exponentially better.

This page was made from the Star Wars Galactic Files set from last year.

This set delved into the expanded universe as well as the six films.  I have never gotten too too deep into the comics, though I did read the Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy and the Heir to the Empire series of books.  I was very upset when I found out that the sequels will not take much from these stories.  I have my fingers crossed that these movies will be better than the prequels.  Let's face it, they have no where to go but up. 

As usual with these big all-encompassing anthology posts of mine, I start rambling as the pages tick by and never really get to a point.  I guess there isn't much of one other than I love Star Wars and trading cards, so if you put them together, I will eat that shit up.  Even if the cards are oddly sized like these:

These six cover the original three films, though the one with Han and Jabba comes from the Special Edition version.  If the prequels are underwhelming than the Special Editions are blasphemy.  Han Shot First.

I didn't scan the backs of these and maybe I should have, because little gems like these are hiding:

On the right is a price tag from a t-shirt (I believe it was a black on black rendition of Darth Vader with the caption "Sith Happens").  I couldn't bear to throw something that cool away so it somehow made its way into my card collection.  On the left is a coupon for the breakfast cereal C-3PO's.  I found this amazing thing in a coupon drawer while I cleaned out my grandfather's house.  You will notice it is dated 1984.  He died in 2010.  The man was not quite a hoarder but let's just say he never threw anything of value away.  This is obviously a genetic trait in my bloodline

Blaster of Puppets.

       Today I had to go to K-Mart today to pick up a few staples I knew they would have cheap.  I also saw that Night Owl had posted about new Topps Chrome being out, so I knew that these two pieces of information would come together to make me drop my disposable income on a blaster.  As I have posted before, I have a disturbing predilection to Chrome, mostly because of the shiny.  OOOooooo....shiny...

Since I have a page of Chrome going back to its 1996 inception, first things first, let's look at the page I created from that blaster:

A very nice mix of team colors and players with a couple of my obligatory catching poses.  I would have liked a Pirate or an Athletic to break it up a little more, but oh well, the purple of that Tulo will have to do.  This page nicely keeps my run going.

Now let's get to the shiny.  SHINY!!!!

The blaster came with a bonus 4 card pack of purple refractors (which is why I chose the blaster over the rack packs - extra colorful shiny!).  I got three stars and a rookie I have never heard of before.  The blue Trumbo there is numbered to /199.  I was hoping to get a Met since those look so nice in blue, or a Dodger to trade to the aforementioned Night Owl.  The regular refractors of Cabrera and Pill are in the 'meh' column.  The Ackley is an X-fractor and those always look better in person, but trust me, it is plenty shiny.  The cream of the crop here is the Mike Trout.  I have decided to keep all Mike Trout cards I pull and I am going to try and trade and or buy all I can.  The kid is the goods.  The other 8 cards here are all available for trade if you want them.

Just for the sake of completeness, here are the rest of the cards in the blaster.  They are also available for trade if you see something you want/need:

The two hiding there are Stephen Strasburg and Hunter Pence.  Man, I got a lot of players traded during the season in this blaster.

Here is the blaster box, which will be cut up for some homemade card(s).  Of course, I couldn't just buy one thing, not when I had some time to kill.  As you can see, I also bought some of the new Triple Play.

I remember Donruss Triple Play from my youth.  It came around in the early 90's while I was in my mid to late teens, so I think I was a little out of the demographic they were going for...I still am, but I am glad they brought the name and notion back; there should be more cards specifically for kids.

Panini, of course, cannot use Major League team names or logos, but they worked around that in a pretty nifty way, with stylized cartoons of the players instead of photos.  I kinda like this idea.

This is the page I made from the four packs I bought.  The Posey and the Longoria are especially nice.  But what is the point of a cartoon of a head shot?  I mean, OK, for someone as known and cartoonish as Big Puma Lance Berkman or The Freak Tim Lincecum, sure, it works.  But I couldn't pick Carlos Santana out of a line up (unless it was the guitarist) nor Brett Wallace for that matter, so those seem a very poor choice. On top of that, the only reason I know what Justin Verlander looks like is because of that video game commercial he was in with Kate Upton that they played at the beginning of the season ad nauseum. And to be honest, I wasn't looking that closely at him during it.  

Since the Triple Play brand is for kids, they put "kid" things in the packs, like giant puzzle pieces:

Since I like the caricatures, I would like the puzzles too, though I doubt I will never put one together.  I think they could have made the puzzle pieces a little more interesting on the front (or is that the back) other than a repeat of the original card picture over and over again.  (and what is that Bruce Bochte card doing there?  Well, he was laying on the floor of the K-Mart, no doubt a refugee from a busted open repack.  So I picked up Bruce and put him in my pocket.  I have a collection of mangled found cards, and while he is not really mangled, he will find a good home with those misfit cards.  Technically, I guess this is stealing, so I guess Bruce is not only a refugee but a fugitive too!)

Since I couldn't make a full puzzle, I made an odd little collage that sort of looks like a baseball player:

I also realized I could never flip it around to scan it, so I had to take a picture of it sitting on my scanner.  How meta. 

There were other "kid" things like stickers and an insert set called focus:

OK, as a kid I loved stickers, so those are a winner, but the "Focus" inserts are kind of silly.  A close up of the intensity of a cartoon?  Someone did not think that one through.  That kind of nonsense barely works with actual photographs.  Overall, my inner 8 year old was very pleased with these cards, and at a buck a pop, my 37 year old wallet was pleased as well.

I almost got out with just the Chrome and the Triple Play, but then I looked down and saw the discount blasters.  One of them was a tin of 2005 Topps Football for $5.99.  I can't resist really cheap cards and in a tin to boot, so I grabbed it without thinking about it much

Oh, caveat emptor.  I forgot that the 2005 draft was not very distinguished, so the rookies I got were underwhelming to say the very least.  Even the stars I got were less than exciting.  I did get a Drew Brees All Pro card, but in 2004, Brees was still on the Chargers.  I may as well have set this six bucks on fire.  Damn you, lack of impulse control.  I don't think I will even make a page out of these.

Last but not least, I saw one of those dispenser display boxes of Mars Attacks.  OK, I am obviously going to be helpless to the allure of alien cartoons on cards.  Plus, I had been meaning to pick up a few pack of this to make a page:

They do not disappoint. Aliens, spaceships, flames, lasers, giant bugs, dogs in distress, tractor beams.  Needless to say, I am tickled to death with this page.  Plus, as a neat bonus, I pulled one of those 1/1 sketch cards out of these three packs (not shown); those are a 1:96 pull, so that was certainly unexpected.  Since Matt from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius is kind of obsessed with these things, I will surprise him and send it to him. 

Update and Trade.

       This post is not about Topps' 3rd series of recent vintage, this is simply about a trade and some blog updates...my witty titling skills know no bounds.  First off, let's cover my recent swap with someone who's becoming my new favorite trade target, Robert from $30 a week habit.  I have become semi-obsessed with his side blog, the serial number insanity set.  It might just be my natural love of all things equally brilliant and insane, but I now put it as priority one to comb my card piles and local dime boxes for numbered Topps cards for his massive undertaking.  This replaces my first bloggly love, The Great 1965 Topps Project, not because of lesser adoration, but because Kevin is almost done with that one.  Anyway, my rambling aside, last week I sent Robert some of his beloved Blue Jays and about half a dozen cards for his insane side project and he was kind enough to come up with some 2011 Topps Chrome needs for me:

On top of that, he sent a kick ass Martin Brodeur insert, some shiny liquorfractor redheaded Met action, and a pretty sweet David Wright striped jersey card.  Those last three were from the generosity of his heart, as they weren't part of our original deal, which makes him a damn fine humanitarian.  Thanks Robert!

So, that pile of 2011 Chrome has become this page in my Topps binder:

I really enjoy the aesthetics of this page.  Plus, that Elvis Andrus card has an epic photo.  He has some great fielding shots on his cards and he seems to have gotten the center square of my pages a lot the last few years.  I might have to start referring to him as Paul Lynde.  Also, I wonder if we will look at "Mike Stanton" cards the same way we look at "Joey Belle" cards in a decade or so? 

Since no one stepped up offering some, I had noticed recently that my local K-Mart had some 2010 Topps Chrome blasters on sale, so in a fit of nostalgia, I bought one so I could complete my run of Topps Chrome pages in my binders:

Night Owl was right, that year's Chrome cards have the worst curling ever.  I had this badboy squished under the weight of two binders for two weeks and it did very little to help.  You will have to take my word for it that it looks far better in person.  Ya gotta love all of the jumpy fielders on that page, though.

       So, with all that chrome business down, what else do I have to cover?  Well, I like to tie up loose ends and I have two flapping in the breeze a bit.  First, yesterday I offered a 1982 Topps K-Mart MVP box set to anyone who wanted it.  Well, dawgbones snapped it up within an hour and it will be in the mail for him shortly.  Looking at my pile of unsorted things, the "Who Wants It" bit will probably become a regular thing, so look out for more freebies soon.

       Second, I ran a charity auction on eBay last week and posted about it hoping to drum up some support and maybe get that shirt in the hands of a Devils fan who will enjoy it (and fit into it).  Well, it sold for $16 to a gal in New Hampshire and that money will go to the Red Cross.  Thank you to any and all who looked and helped and if it inspired even one of you to donate either money or blood, then it was a success.

Chromium.

       I never did complete a set of Topps Chrome.  I recall it being like $20 a pack or something ridiculous at a show back when it first came out in 1996.  It was the first complete parallel set sold separately.  Topps had given us the beautiful high end sets of Stadium Club and Finest, but then basically said "hey, look, it's the same base set...only SHINY!!!"  It was simultaneously an ingenious and dick move.  Collectors, needless to say, just lost their minds for this stuff and have had a soft spot for it ever since.  Oh sure, I get excited every year when it comes out and buy a bunch of it, but the magic wears off quickly.  It's like Chrome is your mistress and no matter how shiny and tempting it is, you always go back to your wife.

I have every year from 1996 to 2009 represented in page form:

I put the 1996 page together well after the fact.  It is the only year when they put little pits in the pattern, like diamond plating or something.  It's kinda neat and goes with the theme, I wonder why they never did that again?

I have wanted do this page in horizontal cards, but have never gotten around to it.  I always liked the subtle differences in the longways cards in the '97 set.  The color-coding of the leagues, however, I never quite understood.

1998 was the first year I remember actually buying packs of Chrome, as the hoopla had died down some.  Something about the 1998's just scream "Shiny!" - some sets just work better than others with the concept...

...see, where as the '98s work so well, the 1999 set looks much better in its base gold. 

Remember the year 2000 when everything had to have the number 2000 on it?

2001 Chrome is one of the worst offenders of the bugaboo that is the Achilles' Heel of Chrome: curling.  This page had been tightly sandwiched in a binder for years and the cards still arc.  Also, if he has nine cards, I want to put together a page of Stubby Clapp.

2002 is the first year I recall buying Chrome in stores like CVS.  This page is a bit of a mess and I should replace some cards, like that Roger Clemens card.  Yuck, what the hell was I thinking there?

Blue!  I don't know if the green from 2001 works well, but the blue from 2003 is wonderful.  This is the high point of Chrome; IMHO, it is all downhill from here.

Topps kind of forgot the name of the set in 2004 and made the cards white.  Isn't the name of the set Chrome and the cards are supposed to be silver and shiny?  I can almost see it as a one-time choice for some variety and maybe to make the position icon pop (which it does, I always loved that feature of the '04s) but then they kept on doing it...typical.  I consider this when Chrome lost its way.

Proving my point, if they didn't have the logo on them, you could not tell these were Chrome by looking at the scan. 

More of the same in 2006.  Even my picture choices here bore me.  If I am bored, oh shit, what must you guys be? OK, I'll try and get more interesting.

OOOOoooo...Topps got back on track a little here as the black borders really pop on these '07s.  The autographs from this set were also awesome.  People complain about sticker autographs, but on "futuristic" sets like chrome, the shiny stickers work.  On vintage themed sets, however, I see the validity of the concern.  I have a bunch of the autos from this set, but not in nine page form; I still employ top loaders from time to time.

Ugh, back to the white.  The only saving grace of 2008 Chrome is that they started to mix up the pictures from the base set, something that should have occurred to them, like, ten years earlier.

The design was pretty sweet in '09, and the white almost works with it.  Almost. I bought a bunch of this year; it is probably the closest I came to completing a set.  Also, a few years before, a family friend married a dude named Jason Jaramillo (not the baseball player) so I always hold on to his cards.  

Then, in 2010, I stopped buying new product, so that is where our journey with Chrome ends.  Which is a shame, because I have a few cards from '10 and I see they ditched the white and went back to the chrome borders.  It only took Topps six years to figure that one out (not too bad, for them).  If anyone has some doubles, I would gladly take them off your hands.  I mean, if I have made it this far, I should keep going with them (which seems to be Topps attitude towards this set as well...).