Photoshop fun

I haven't done a Photoshop post in a while, so I thought what the heck.

I was a little bored around Thanksgiving and Christmas and I did a few more fake custom cards.


I couldn't get much done Christmas because my laptop was messed up. It took me all weekend to figure out how to get it working again so these two customs were done quickly before my after turkey dinner nap kicked in.

I was flipping around through the channels the other night and came across Grease 2. I remember my cousin and I watching this constantly one summer. She loved it. I have to admit it wasn't my favorite, but I still have nostalgia for this movie. I liked the first one too.

Anyway, I hadn't put two and two together to realize who Louie's love interest on his show was. Turns out it's the same woman that played Delorus Rebchuck in Grease 2.

This is a Heritage Then and Now custom of Pamela Adlon.


I was half expecting her to turn out to be a drug addict. I'm glad she's not a drug addict and is still acting. You never can tell with child actors.

I also did one of Louie. I used a 1982 Topps football design. I still need to add "Comedian" and his name on the bottom of the card. "Comedian" will go under the silhouette of the stand up comic.



I used screen shots of the actors in character rather than posed shots. Actually this one of Louis is staged I think. I haven't seen the movie Lucky Louie yet, so I don't know. Maybe I'll do another custom later with the another publicity photo.

Also, you may or may not have noticed, but I finally got around to doing a blog header. I had a few ideas floating around these past few years, but I couldn't settle on one idea. My plan is to do a few different blog headers as I get bored with the current one. I don't really have to commit to just one image.

I really wanted something colorful, and there's nothing more colorful than 1965 Topps Baseball.



This is my first idea, but it seems a little too redundant with Sam yelling "No one's going to read this blog" and also having appear on the border so I went with something that is funnier. At least I hope it's funny.

I need to find an image to put inside the little banner for the team logo. I don't belong to any teams, so I don't know what to put inside the little circle. Maybe a camera? Maybe a laptop to signify blogging. I haven't a clue. If anybody has any ideas, don't hesitate to let me know.

I'm still not crazy about the fonts on the card, but I'm not much of a font guy. I wish I were though. It doesn't quite look right. I maybe adjust it later.

When I saw the Sam Mele card I knew it was a slam dunk (home run?). I just needed a hapless looking baseball player as foil. I almost used a custom of myself that I photoshoped a few years ago, but I went with a 1971 Skip Pitlock card that I received from the Million Card website.


If anybody can think of a better example of "hapless baseball player" let me know. I might change it if it looks cool.

Thanks for reading.

I can't believe it's been almost a year

In the few years of blogging (I’m not sure if posting once every couple of months could be considered blogging, but bear with me) I’ve never had a bad trade. The worst trade I’ve ever completed was still great because I got exactly what I expected in the trade. Nothing more, nothing less, but exactly what I was expecting which was great because it filled some holes in my player, team or set collection. Most of the time a trade fits all three criteria. Some, actually most trades will include a few extras. Random cards of a team or player that you didn’t expect and that’s nice too. It’s always nice to get extra cards, it’s also nice to get rid of some cards that you know the receiving party will also like.


Their have been a couple of times that I was guilty of the same thing. The person I traded with requested no extras because they didn’t want a bunch of dups of crap they already had. A few times I assumed they didn’t want my extra crap or I didn’t have any extras to send over and I felt a little guilty about that. I’m pretty sure most of my trade partners have intimated that they liked the cards I sent either by email or trade posts or both.

That leaves me to the second part of a trade and that would be the trade post. These days I haven’t done much posting which means I still haven’t gotten around to my trade posts.

Not doing a trade post is sort of like not cuddling after intercourse. * You’re contractually obligated to do one. You don't want to be seen as a brutish oaf, do you?? You also don't want to be labelled an insensitive and selfish person. Honestly you really should show appreciation for the cards and the time it took for people to go through their collections to send you some cards. Add in obnoxious postal workers and kiosks that go on the fritz and the sending part can be tedious.


And it’s not that I don’t want to do a trade post it just seems like the longer I go without doing one it’s just that much more of a insult to the trade partner. So the longer I wait means that the trade post has to be that much better to compensate for my laziness. It’s a vicious circle.

Which brings me to the present day. Even though I’ve spent three paragraphs setting it up, this technically isn’t a trade post. This is a contest winnings post. Not doing a winning contest post is even more egregious simply because the person you should be thanking has braved the postal workers ,kiosk lines, and/or the line at Target or the card store to pick up packing materials as well as pulling the cards. They’ve spent infinitely more time setting up the contest, picking the winners and then sending out the cards so the least you can do is acknowledge the package, right?

I mean, your part of the contest was pretty simple and easy by comparison. A comment, shout out and a random guess or question to answer and that's it.


Yikes! I’m a really bad person. It’s taken me months to get around to blogging about my contest winnings from Ted who runs the blog Crinkly Wrappers. We actually did complete a trade around the time of the contest, but I haven’t done a trade post on that yet either. (Sorry!!)



This is a post that is tough to do not just because of the shear volume of cards, but for the content of the package. The cards he sent over all three criteria, plus the added bonus of being mostly vintage examples of cards that I had never seen in person.



One Topps card from 1952 to 2011. Pretty crazy. Much nicer and better thought out than the Diamond Giveaway stuff that Topps does. In all fairness Topps couldn’t do something quite like this. No offense to Crinkly Wrappers, but if Topps did a similar giveaway they would be expected to have more than a few winners. Think of the outrage if out of all the collectors Topps only awarded 1 set of cards from 1952 to 2011. Their giveaway site is still pretty nice, just not quite a giveaway. More like a lottery. Ted’s giveaway was a true giveaway and I’m definitely pleased to receive the cards. This has got to be one of the most generous packages I’ve ever gotten in the mail.

I mean, when you are holding a 1952 card in your hand and it’s in pretty decent shape that’s saying something. I never thought I would own a 1952 card, much less one in great shape. Honestly I never thought I would hold in my hand any cards from the 50’s or 60’s when I started collecting so this is all mind blowing.

Out of all the cards he sent a few of them were personally more intriguing to me than the others simply because they fit specific holes in my collection.



This 1967 card of Jerry Adair is nice because he’s an Oklahoma guy and this will go into my Oklahoma guy binder. I’m trying to get one card of everybody who is from oklahoma in one binder. The card itself didn’t really grab me. A close up portrait of a ballplayer from the 60’s didn’t immediately grab my attention; it was the name Adair. Adair is a county in Oklahoma so I checked out the back to see who he was. It would be nice if he was from Adair county, but alas Sand Springs is in Osage and Tulsa counties. It would be cool if he was the king of Adair county before becoming a ballplayer.



Another card that immediately went into the binder was this 1973 card. When I decide to collect a set putting what few cards I have into the binder is one of the first things I do. It’s better for me that way than doing the box thing and then putting the cards in binders later. I like to look at them so even if I only have like 10-20 cards they’ll sit in a binder alone into I can fill it out more. This card was needed.


This 2011 Clay Bucholz card was also a set need. It's also a Score Board in the Background candidate.


2008 is a set that I’ve made fun of a few times, but it’s starting to grow on me. The Topps tab thing is still a little irritating, but it’s a nice, colorful set.


just as colorful is the 1960 Topps. A few similarities with the colored names. 1960 Topps and...



....1965 Topps are two sets that I’ll try to tackle at some point. Not to be a pessimist, but they’ll be a little hard to complete too. The journey will be nice though. Unlike the 1973 set these are in the “good box” until I can get a little more to put in the binders. So far I only have a couple of '65's and only the single 1960 card you see above.


1971 would be a nice set to collect. With this Clyde Wright card I now have 3 1971 cards. The journey to collect 1971 has started. We all have to start somewhere right? It only takes a couple of cards to get me into a set and I’m afraid the more I look at these cards in hand I’ll try to collect every year of Topps.

This is only the second 1972 card that I have in hand. I can see why people go crazy for these cards. IT’s such an odd border. You could safely say that nothing like it exists. (1982 Fleer borrowed the lower name plate.) I may put off doing those other sets I mentioned to focus on 1972.


You see what happens when you have an abundance of riches? You become greedy and want more riches. I really would like to own every single card from 1952 to 2008. Crap! I need to reign myself in a little.


In addition to a couple of set needs I also was lucky to get a couple of Mets cards like this 1964 Amado Samuel card.


I have to admit that I’m not familiar with all the players on these cards. A few stand out to me like this 1979 Tony Perez card. I know this guy. I was six when this card was issued.

Jerry Johnson is another name I recognize. Pretty cool action shot. Not a lot of these from the selection Ted sent over. A little faster shutter speed would help with the blurry pitching hand. It looks like a daytime shot so that should allow for a faster shutter speed. Oh well. It’s still a nice shot.

One name I thought I recognized was Jon Matlock. Actually it's Matlack. All this time I referred to him as Matlock. Maybe I was influenced by my grandparents always watching reruns of Andy Griffith's TV detective. Anyway, it's nice to have a card of his as a Met. I only have some childhood cards of him as a Ranger. Pretty cool photo of Jon with a mischievous grin.

Brohamer is a cool name, but I bet every frat boy in his class probably referred to him as "Bro Hammer", rather than "Bro Haymer". "How's it hangin' BroHammer!"



Some photos selections by the editors and/ or photographers on these cards are a little more odd like in this 1977 card of Ralph Garr.


Kind of lame.


This 1959 card is pretty awesome though. Nice clear photo. I like that it’s taken near the dugout rather than in some gully or a fake pose in front of an empty stadium. We could imagine this card being taken while he was waiting to go to the on deck circle. You could imagine him during a game. Most probably it was taken before a game during spring practice. It just doesn’t scream preseason like most cards do.

A plethora a blue backgrounds in the early sixties and late seventies.





Not to mention pretty cool flat tops too.

A nice batting helmet shot in 1963.

And there you have it, basically an example of every Topps card from 1952 to 1979. I didn’t want to bore people with the 80’s and 90’s cards as they’re a little more common and recognizable to us.

I don’t think my crappy, long winded post really did the cards justice. It was mostly a self-deprecating blog about my procrastination.

Thanks for the cards. I really did enjoy them. Hopefully one day I can repay the blogosphere with a cool giveaway of my own.

* Until our collecting community is infiltrated with hot, female collectors I'm not trading cuddling or sex for cards. Maybe a nice compliment or some sweet talking, but that's it. I'm easy, not slutty.

Thanks for reading.