What I Collect

I'll be honest ... I haven't spent money on baseball cards since Thanksgiving last year.

Since I put my old blog, Cardboard Clubhouse, on ice last fall due to family reasons (aka new baby), baseball cards were the last thing on my mind. I did, however, purchase quite a few cards during the annual COMC Black Friday sale last fall.

Over the past few months while my collection grew dust, I could count on one hand the number of times I thought about these cards I'd ordered. Now, since I'm getting re-acquainted with everything and getting this organized again, I thought I'd start with these since that's about where I left off last year.

Along with the super shiny Hank Aaron card above, I purchased a number of other baseball cards, along with miscellaneous cards for my other collections. Seeing as I'm trying to keep this blog (and my collection) limited to just baseball, that's all that I'm planning on covering.

My collecting interests are really varied. I don't really focus on one thing in general when it comes to baseball cards as I'd get pretty bored of that pretty quick. I'm not really a team collector either. I mean, if I had to pick one team to collect, it'd be the Reds. I had a lot of fun watching Nick Senzel play center field last year and that's why I nabbed this Donruss Rated Rookie card. I can't really say that the Donruss designs this year and last year are all that enticing but I felt this was worth picking up.

Another thing that I like collecting are "unfamiliar uniform" cards as I call them. These typically fall into one of two categories ... "short-term stops" or "zero year" (trademark to Dime Box Nick) but on this blog they'll be referred to as "unfamiliar uniforms" because that's what they are. Take Steve Carlton here for example. Most everyone will think of him as a Cardinal or a Phillie but I'll bet you didn't know he pitched for the White Sox as well. The South-Siders were one of three stops of a whirlwind tour Lefty had in 1986. 

I know I mentioned that the non-baseball content will be next to nothing. I intend on sticking to that but it's cards like this from Allen & Ginter that fall into that grey area. Technically, this is a baseball card as it came from a baseball product but obviously Tiger Mask is not a baseball player. Along with baseball, pro wrestling is another big interest of mine and to see the legendary Tiger Mask featured on a card is pretty cool. On this card, it says "1st Tiger Mask" and that would be Satoru Sayama who portrayed the character until 1983 when he left New Japan Pro Wresting. Since then, several other wrestlers have portrayed the character, the most notable being the legendary Mitsuharu Misawa.

This card certainly checks off several things I like to collect ... oddball? Yes. Defunct retail? Yes. Defunct team? Yes. Hall of Famer? Yes. There's just something about these types of cards which is just fun. Maybe in the future I'll do a blog post on cards from defunct retail chains. Not sure yet but it's an idea I'm kicking around. 

Here's another card that would qualify as an "unfamiliar uniform" card. When I first got into collecting as a kid, I always thought it was weird to see former Reds players in a different uniform. That's exactly what's happening here as Hal Morris is shown in a Royals uniform. Despite being the first baseman for the Reds from 1990-1997, Morris left as a free agent and signed with the Royals for the 1998 season. He would return to the Reds the next season (1999) and stayed with the team until midway through the 2000 season when he was purchased by Detroit. I'd always found that one year in Kansas City a curiosity and now I finally have a card to document it.

Another big thing I like to collect is vintage cards. Typically if I'm at a show or browsing online, if I can find cool vintage cards for a reasonable price, I'll jump on it. This 1961 Topps card shows the Reds outfield trio of Vada Pinson, Gus Bell (grandfather of current Reds manager David Bell), and Frank Robinson. That trio, along with fellow outfielder Wally Post (shown in the 1962 Topps card), would help the "Ragamuffin Reds" get to the World Series in 1961 where they lost to the Yankees in five games.

One of the last big things I enjoy are cheap relic cards. I'll be honest, I'm not a the kind of person who would buy packs of cards and get disappointed there was no relic or anything. If I get one, great! If not, fine too. Products like Topps Tribute, Museum Collection, and all that are way out of my price range and I'm fine with that. It's not like I'm exactly their target audience anyway. That being said, if I come across cheap relic cards from those sets or just cool looking ones in general, I tend to jump on them. Take this Bruce Sutter card for example, it's a dual-jersey card of him with both the Cubs and Cardinals and it was a steal at under five bucks. 

I'm in the process of updating my want list to be posted on the blog soon after I update my lists for Pilots cards and 1984 Topps along with several other random things. 

2019 Allen & Ginter Blaster Box

I'll come right out and say it, Allen and Ginter isn't exactly my favorite product of the year. However, after seeing the cards around the blogs, I thought it looked like a pretty good set this year. So, I bit. While at Walmart the other day, I grabbed one of the random boxes of Ginter as I figured a blaster would be enough to satisfy my interest.

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the base cards. The one thing I like about this year as opposed to previous years is that there's actually a background. It doesn't feel like the player is just floating in space. And the backgrounds are pretty colorful and unique. That's a win for me.

Toukki Toussaint looks like he's standing in front of the warehouse at Camden Yards. I like the background of the Jose Altuve card as well, looks like he's mingling with some old school players as well.

Four short prints per blaster box and I got these. Not a bad batch.

Some old school players. I really like the fact that Reggie Jackson is shown with the Angels, which is a team he's not really known for. He played for the Angels from 1982-1986, was an All-Star for three of those five seasons and finished 6th in MVP voting in the 1982 season.

More old school, this time with some Expos (Vlad and Gary Carter), then Bob Feller and one of my favorite cards in the whole blaster, a card of the original 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. I can see why they were included in the set because of the whole 150th Anniversary of MLB thing and all.

Each pack had a mini. I'll be completely honest and say that mini's aren't my thing. These will probably be going to Night Owl at some point for his A&G mini frankenset.

On to the inserts now. Each pack had some sort of insert. I really like these "Ginter Greats" inserts. 

Another cool insert, Baseball Star Signs featuring the zodiac signs of top players. I've never really delved much into astrology or sign of the zodiac but I really dig the designs of these cards. For the record, my zodiac sign is Sagittarius.

Of course, with Ginter, there are non-baseball subjects. I got two of the "Mares and Stallions" inserts. These are pretty neat.

Other inserts in the blaster. One of the "Incredible Equipment" of the Pied Piper's Pipe (kind of made me think of Roddy Piper) and one piece of the history of flight series. I would really like to put together the whole "history of flight" series.

And then there's this ... a framed mini-relic of Vladimir Guerrero. I'll be honest, I'm really thrilled to have found this!

For grabbing a random blaster from the display in Walmart and going into this just for some fun, this is probably the best blaster I could've gotten for the money. It was light on the non-baseball content but still had some, some fun inserts, and a Vlad relic. I may splurge on some more A&G this year just because I really enjoyed this. For now, this will definitely suffice on my A&G curiosity.

Cards and Snow

It snowed this weekend .... a lot.

According to the local National Weather Service office, my town received 8 inches officially. I felt every bit of that 8 inches as well when I went out this morning and shoveled and salted the driveway for three hours.

But I know you didn't come here to read about my adventures in the snow. No, you came here to read about cards. 

I received cards a few weeks ago from Marc at Remember the Astrodome. Marc is from Texas, someplace where it's warm and they don't have to battle with snow and salt. Let's see what Marc sent.

First off, Marc hit on a bunch of my player collections. There were about 18 new Jeff Bagwell cards included, which helped increase my Bagwell collection substantially. The nice thing is too is that they're from all rages of Bagwell's career.

There were also some Craig Biggio cards.

Some new Nolan Ryan cards as well.

And finally some Eddie Taubensee cards. These are two brand new cards to me. I also

Moving on, from the player collections, Marc included a great number of other cards, including this Cesar Cedeno card from 1981 Fleer. This may seem like just a random card but it's a nice card of a former Red.

There was also a good pile of Reds cards, including these cool cards from the 80s. I really like 1981 Topps and feel like it's a forgotten set. 

90s cards! These are right in my wheelhouse as I love collecting Reds from the 90s. They had some fun teams and lots of great players on those teams like Hal Morris, Reggie Sanders, and Benito Santiago.

I remember this card from my initial foray into collecting when I was a kid. At the time, I'd never heard of Eppa Rixey but I came to realize he was a star for the Reds in the 1920s. In 13 seasons with the Reds, he appeared in 440 games with a 179-148 record and a 3.33 ERA. Before the Reds, he spent 8 seasons with the Phillies and was just as dominant. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1963 by the Veterans Committee.

Closing out the package from Marc, here's some more recent Reds cards, including Johnny Cueto and Billy Hamilton, two Reds who are no longer Reds. Hamilton was non-tendered by the team this winter and signed with Kansas City as a free agent.

Lastly, here's some 2018 Allen and Ginter Reds cards. I spent exactly zero dollars on A&G packs and such last year and I intend on continuing that trend this year. Castillo and Mahle will be battling for a spot in the back end of the rotation this season that looks to already be vastly improved from last year.

There were also some cards that Marc sent that I didn't include here, like some additional Bagwell cards and some Ken Griffey Jr. cards mainly because when I took the pictures, they didn't turn out all that well. I appreciate Marc sending these over. I'm building up some Astros to send back in return, once spring hits and all the snow melts.

You've Got Mail #48: Cards from Dime Box Nick

When I started getting into the card blogging scene, one of the first blogs I discovered was the Dime Boxes blog run by everyone's friend Nick. I've chatted with Nick on Twitter, we've left comments on each others blogs but we've never traded. Until now that is. Nick reached out to me via email saying he had some cards he'd been setting aside for me and needed my address. What arrived a few days later what nothing that I had expected. I thought maybe it was a stack or two of cards that Nick had referred to, instead I got a large bubble mailer nearly bursting at the seams with team bags stuffed full of all kinds of craziness. Settle back, we'll be here for a while.

Instead of starting with the Reds, I'll start off with some Indians cards, like these ultra cool Upper Deck Sweet Spot cards of three certifiable Tribe legends. These are the first Sweet Spot cards I've added to my collection and I must say, they fit the bill quite nicely as this is one of those brands that I really don't come across an awful lot in bargain bins. 

A few oddballs. Every time I see Ralph Kiner in an Indians uniform, I think "wow, that's odd". Oddballs of old school players are always welcomed as they're easy and fun ways to collect older players whose cards my normally be out of my price range.

There was lots of variety as is typical from a package from Nick. Everything from current cards to vintage. I think my favorite of this batch has to be the Kenny Lofton card.

More variety, this time of more recent stuff. I really like the Shin-Soo Choo chrome card ... actually I like all of these!

Some 2016 samples, including my first taste of Allen & Ginter. I like the A&G design, still doesn't mean I'm going buy any packs of it though. I'll grab A&G singles here and there as I feel.

I'll close out the Indians and transition to the Reds with these minis! There were many minis to be had (see what I did there?). I really need to go over to the card shop and see if they have any pages for the tobacco sized cards as I've just got a bunch of them living in penny sleeves for now. If anyone has any good ideas on how to store these in the interim until I get some binder pages, feel free to let me know.

Moving on now to some Reds cards. I'll try to refrain from being repetitive but some repetition will more than likely be inevitable. Some new Jose Rijo cards to add to my ever growing collection. I'd really like to get a few of the cards that are out there from his 2001-02 comeback.

Anyone remember these? I barely do. It's evident that these were issued right when going "online" used to be a unique thing. Now everyone has a computer in their pocket or attached to their hip. I tried to have some fun and pull up the player pages on the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive, however it didn't work. Anyway, I remember three of the four here playing for the Reds, but not Gabe White. He must've been a one and done type player.

See, I told you that some repetition would be inevitable. Here's two more from Allen & Ginter this year. Cotham did an OK job for the Reds but wasn't anything too special. Peraza however, proved that he could play everyday and in multiple positions. Maybe by the time you read this, someone was traded to make room for him.

Some lovely older Reds cards. There's Topps, Fleer, and OPC all represented. A little mini collection I'm working on here and there is post Big Red Machine cards of the "Great Eight" (so, basically anything 1977 or later) so that Concepcion card fits into that collection perfectly but it'll be living in my third Reds binder for now.

More Reds randomness spanning from a Ted Kluzsewski 1952 reprint to a 2015 Topps Heritage of Michael Lorenzen. The Griffey card though is fantastic. It takes me back to his younger days in Seattle making crazy at the wall catches.

Another good batch of cards, including some more Sweet Spot. Seaver's run as a Red is largely forgotten by most people aside from the fact he threw a no-hitter in a Reds uniform. 

More cards from series 2 including one I didn't officially have on my most wanted list, that being the Adam Duvall card. Nick must have read my mind.

I've got a book in my collection filled with nothing but Colon photographs and portraits. Some of the photos used in the book are on these cards as well. Being the amateur historian I am, the thing I really love about the Colon photos provide a glimpse into what baseball was like in the early 20th century. Sure, there are stars of the time like Goose Goslin shown, but there are also lots of lesser known players like Sarge Connally and Sammy West. There was a good batch of these from both the Reds and the Indians, but also cards of the Washington Senators, which will fit into the defunct teams collection for now.

Here's some more cards of defunct teams, mostly the Senators but there's also a stray Kansas City A's card in there. My favorites of this batch are definitely the vintage cards as they will fit well in my vintage card binder. 

I'll wrap up this massive trade package with some always great Expos cards. I'm trying to limit my Expos collection now to mostly cards from before 1987 but when I get cards of Pedro Martinez and Brad Wilkerson, I definitely won't turn them down. The Floyd Youmans Sportflics card is pretty sweet too.

Thanks for the fantastic package Nick. I'm working on some cards to send you in return but my trade fodder is running somewhat low at the moment.