Thursday, June 28, 2012

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - Nationals/Expos Taken

Teams are going fast but some I posted earlier are still available.   Look back for these:

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

There apparently isn't much love among my readers for the Nats. I've got a 2-year backlog of Nationals/Expos cards to trade. 183 cards!  Last chance!

1988 Donruss Bonus MVPs #18 Tim Raines

1995 Zenith #78 Moises Alou

2007 Topps Turkey Red #127 Ryan Zimmerman
Everybody loves Topps Turkey Red!

2009 Topps Update #201 Jordan Zimmermann


2011 Topps Heritage #296 Ian Desmond

2009 Topps 206 #211 Jordan Zimmermann

2011 Bowman Platinum #61 Jayson Werth

2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #184 Stephen Strasburg

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - Mets Taken

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

One of my favorite blogger trading partners used to always snag my excess Mets but she's not been seen on the web for awhile. Maybe she'll resurface. If not, I've got 64 Mets cards for the first comer.

2009 Upper Deck First Edition #354 Jose Reyes 

1986 Fleer #89 Roger McDowell

2008 UD Masterpieces #53 Carlos Beltran

2008 Upper Deck X Die Cut #62 David Wright

2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #118 Ike Davis

1990 Topps #790 Gary Carter

Monday, June 25, 2012

Jim Thome - All-Time Walk-Off Home Run Leader

As of last Saturday morning, Jim Thome was in a 6-way tie for the career lead in walk-off home runs. By early evening, he was the all-time career leader. I just missed seeing it. The Rays tied the game 6-6 in the top of the ninth and I left the game because my family was waiting for me to go to dinner. Thome came in as a pinch hitter to lead off the ninth and hit a homer. It was his first pinch-hit walk-off homer. It also gives him 610 for his career, tying him with Sammy Sosa for #7 on the all time list.

Jim Thome - 13
Jimmy Foxx - 12
Mickey Mantle - 12
Frank Robinson - 12
Babe Ruth - 12
Stan Musial - 12

Some elite company.

2012 Topps Heritage #296 Jim Thome

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen #53 Jimmy Foxx

1996 Topps #7 Mickey Mantle

2006 Topps Allen & Ginter #300 Frank Robinson

2010 Topps 206 #185 Babe Ruth

1999 Fleer Tradition Vintage ‘61 #6 Stan Musial

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Song of the Week - Clementine by Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Neil Young has a new album. It's composed of old folk songs and chestnuts given the Neil Young and Crazy Horse treatment.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - Marlins Taken

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

I've got 115 Mariners cards. Here's a sample.

2006 Topps Update #263 Dan Uggla

2011 Bowman #117 Josh Johnson

2010 Topps Update Attax Code Cards #49 Hanley Ramirez
I was making this post during the Phillies-Marlins game on June 1st. Literally, as I was adding this card to the post, Paplebon struck out Ramirez to end the 8th inning leaving the bases loaded.

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #61 Michael Beasley
OK, this guy really plays for the Miami Heat.

2001 Upper Deck Ovation #47 Preston Wilson

2009 UD A Piece of History #36 Hanley Ramirez

2012 Topps Opening Day #201 Jose Reyes

2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #276 Ricky Nolasco

Friday, June 22, 2012

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - Mariners Taken

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

I've got 115 Mariners cards. Here's a sample.

2011 Topps Heritage #35 AL ERA Leaders


2009 SP Authentic #51 Ichiro

1989 K-mart #5 Jay Buhner

1990 Leaf #404 Scott Bradley

2011 Topps 60 #145 Michael Pineda

2012 Topps Heritage #383 Jason Vargas

1991 Studio #114 Erik Hanson

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Card Show Finds - The 25 cent table Part 3

Back to the great cards I found for 25 cents at the Tristar Collectors Show in Houston on June 1. I've got at least three more posts to go to cover the 60 cards I bought. I'll interweave them with my Summer Clearance trade posts.

1995 UC3 Clear Shots #10 Alex Gonzalez

UC3 was produced by Pinnacle in 1995 and featured cards with a plastic coating which made the image on the card move. Clear Shots was a 12-card insert found in 1:24 packs. When you move this card from side to side the image switches between a head shot and an action shot. The back of this card is blank.  The back had, for some reason, a protective film which left a residue on the card when I tried to remove it.

1995 UC3 Cyclone Squad #18 Tim Salmon
Another insert in 1995 UC3. This was a 20-card set inserted 1:4 packs. When you move the card, the wheels behind the player appear to spin like the spokes of a bicycle.

1996 Collector's Choice Crash The Game #10 Frank Thomas
I'd gotten tired of Collector's Choice by 1996 and didn't buy much of it, so I never saw one of these. They'd been running this sort of contest for a couple of years but this is the fanciest design for what is essentially a throw-away card. The holographic foil printing on the front is quite stunning. I guess I'd like to see the "Super Premium" version of this card. Frank hit his 22nd home run of the year on June 29th so I could have been a winner.

1996 SP Special FX #19 Fred McGriff
This was a 48-card insert in 1996 SP. It was probably not to hard to get one of these as they were inserted 1:5 packs. I usually didn't buy many packs of such high end sets. I actually had the Chipper Jones card from this set which I bought on eBay a few years ago. What do you think of these holograms? Personally I always thought these ones featuring a head shot of the player to be kind of creepy. As you move the card back and forth, the head seems to turn to keep facing you with cold dead eyes.


1996 Topps Laser Bright Spots #6 Jason Schmidt
Laser-cut, rather than die-cut cards, were popular for about 20 minutes in the mid-1990s. Topps had a whole set. I liked them but they were pricey. At $5 for a pack of 4 cards, I only bought one pack. This is the first insert from the set I've seen. Not only does this card feature the entire top section of the card laser cut, all of that part is covered in heavy silver foil.

1996 Zenith #137 Chipper Jones
The only cards from this set I owned were 3 Phillies cards I bought on eBay in 2009. I don't believe I ever saw packs of this for sale anywhere. This Chipper card is part of the base set, the "Honor Roll" subset. These were high gloss, heavy card stock cards with lots of gold foil on the front.


1997 Collector's Choice #330 Mark McGwire
I bought even less 1997 Collector's Choice than I did 1996 so I'm not too familiar with the set. This was a subset called "Griffey Hot List". That's what the red foil in the upper left corner says. That and the dufex printing set the front apart from the regular base set cards. The back looks like a regular card, complete with another appearance of Collector's Choice's mascot, Stumpy.

1997 Donruss Diamond Kings #4 Chuck Knoblauch
In 1997, Diamond Kings was still just a numbered insert set.

1997 Donruss Preferred Silver #191 Gary Sheffield
1997 Donruss Preferred was an early attempt by Donruss to make it difficult for collectors, be they set collectors, team collectors, or player collectors, to meet their collecting goals. First the cards were expensive, $5 for a 5-card packs. The packs were actually little tin boxes which themselves were collectable. The base set came in three flavors, bronze, silver and gold. There weren't parallel cards, but each card was either bronze, silver or gold with the bronze being more numerous and available and the gold being harder to find. Then there were various die-cut parallels. I bought a couple of tins and left it go at that.


1997 Flair Showcase Wave of the Future #8 Richie Sexson
1997 Flair was Fleer's attempt to frustrate collectors with multiple parallel levels but this was just an insert to the set.

1997 Score Stellar Season #17 Gary Sheffield
This 18-card insert set was available in 1:35 packs of 1997 Score. It featured holographic foil printing that looks better in person then in this scan. 1997 Score was another difficult set with 6 different parallel cards.

Since my, admittedly impossible, collecting goal is to collect at least one kind of card from each set I actually know something about this. In 1996, there were approximately 25,000 different kinds of cards available (counting base sets, parallels and inserts). In 1997 there were over 35,000, and the numbers just went up from there.