well loved cards

Picking through the cards at yard sales. flea markets and dime boxes at the local card store will sometimes yield some really interesting cards. Not the typical type of card in that it's of a nice player or because the photo on the card is cool or funny looking. Like most of you I also run across those types of cards.

I'm mainly talking about the cards that no matter the subject matter have obviously shown some wear and tear and in my opinion lots of love.

I used to not think that way. I would see a card like the one pictured above and assume that the previous owner or owners hadn't really taken care of it.

I should have known better; when I was a kid I collected comics. I knew some people who would buy two copies of a comic; one for the bag and board to be protected and never enjoyed and the other copy to be read. I never did that. I kept most of them in the bag with a cardboard back to try and keep them new, but I knew that they wouldn't be worth as much to anybody as they were to me. I used to read those comics all the time. They're a little worse for wear these days, but I still have them to read. They didn't suffer much.

I'd like to think that these cards that I come across these days are from the same type of owner. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's a new positivity thing I'm doing these days. Trying to look on the brighter side of things and all that.

Maybe I'm wrong and the former owners of these cards were all Mets fans and were taking out their frustrations on the cards that were reminding them of a not so distant past in which the Mets got to the World Series and lost. Maybe the owner just hated the Mets.

I didn't really follow the 1973 World Series much though as it was played in October 1973. Since I was born in March of that year, I really didn't have much of an interest in the game.

So when I find these 1974 world series recap cards I always pick them up. It's a start of a new collection in which I try and get the championship highlight cards from the previous year.




These 1974 cards first caught my eye because of the patriotic colors and the action shots. I've run across more of these action shots from other sets that I hope to get around to writing about.


I'm not so sure how far I'll go with this type of collection, but I really, really want to eventually find the rest of these cards from 1974. I have 3 so far and all three have some sort of damage.


When I found the first one at the flea market I vowed to find all 10 of them and upgrade this particular card. Now I'm thinking that I'll just try to complete this "set" and if it turns out they are all in damaged condition or miss-cut all the better. I'm not going to be worried about condition to much these days.

Thanks for reading.

Another vintage Saturday post

Stopping by the LCS the other day for some stuff I came across some nice vintage cards. Let's take a look shall we.

My eye always seems to find the Mets first so let's do them first.




Team cards are cool. It would be a nice part of my collection to collect every Mets team card of their existence. I only have a couple of vintage team cards in my possession right now. Before this card trip all I had was a 1970 team card from Justin at the Hopeful Chase. (his blog used to be called Tampa Bay Wasteland)



I received a bunch of 75's from Duane a Democratic Roadkill a year or so ago. They're nice, but I'm going to try for some of the other vintage sets before I think about 1975. I hadn't come across this card before, so I thought I'd snatch it up while I had the chance.

Having these teams cards has me wondering if I should just devote a page or two to a chronological team card page or should I put it with the player's cards. Anybody out there ever have this same type of dilemma? Not much of a dilemma in the grand scheme of things, just a way for me to get a little more neurotic and nerdy with my hobby.

I'll let you know how that all works out for me. I'm sure you all are on the edge of your seats waiting for this info.


This manager card of Gil Hodges is pretty boring, but a nice start on the Mets team set from 1972.



I haven't seen these Sporting News cards before. I was pretty sure it was from 1969 because of the bright yellow circle with the position, team and player name.

The back is a puzzle piece.
I'm not sure what it is, but I think if you tweeted this today you might have to resign from Congress.


1968's are a set that I haven't spent much time on. Mainly because I haven't seen too many of them. I came across this Ed Kranepool card and was struck by how vibrant the colors are on this card. The blue Mets hat is pretty bright and really stands out from the yellowish brown border.
Just a typical posed batting cage pic from a time before action shots were common, but it's one of my nicer vintage cards.

Since I haven't seen many 68's in person, this card was a nice surprise.


This has been a pretty Mets-centric post. I do have some vintage with other teams represented, but I'll leave that for another post.

Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving

I have a lot of things to be thankful for this year. Actually most years I have a lot of stuff to be thankful for. In my personal life I try to be relatively positive no matter what.

In terms of my card collecting hobby I sometimes wish I had the resources to buy up a little bit or a lot of everything. Mostly I need to collect what I really like and worry too much about my hobbies.

One thing I have to be thankful for is all of the cool packages that I've received in the past year. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to writing about these package. I have and continue to enjoy the cards, but I haven't done a good job of getting those trade posts.

It's always cool to get a package in the mail when you expect them, but a nice surprise package in the mail is really awesome too. It really shows how thoughtful all of my trade partners are and how thoughtful the blogsphere can be.

A few months ago (I'm really, really late with some of these posts!) Joe from ...the Sandlot

Takahashi doesn't currently play for the Mets, he's in Anaheim these days, but I have always liked this card.

First of all it's chrome, it's a Met and even though I usually prefer action shots that show a player's face sometimes it's nice to see a shot from the back that shows off the name and number of the player. I have a lot of Asian friends and so I have an interest in players from that area.

I think this is one of only a few Dykstra cards that I own. This may have even been the first Dykstra card that I had in my collection. (I have a couple of more now.) '89 Topps has a nice design.

This cool shot of Jose Reyes is not one of his best cards, It's still a nice card though. It's another post I have for later.



Even though this is a Met, the Pagan card is already in the 2011 Topps Baseball binder. (not the official one, just a generic binder) I'm paring down my collection; if I'm collecting the set I'm not going to do a separate team set, just keeping a few players for their respective pages. If I'm not collecting the set then I'll just do the team set.



That's the case with the Ray Searage card. Currently it's in the Mets binder, but whenever I get around to seriously collecting the 1982(if I ever do) then it will be donated to that binder.

I find that when I either don't have the money or interest in buying new stuff reorganizing binders and boxes can be pretty fun in a way.

If you're still reading this: Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It was a pretty short post, but at least it will be a break from arguing with your family about sports, religion and politics.

Trade with Reds and More

I've been a procrastinating blogger these days. I want to blog. I need to blog but I just can't get up the energy to post up anything . I know the world is clamoring for another one of my lengthy trade posts so here goes.

I personally love reading other peoples' trade posts for the simple fact that I want to vicariously live through their card acquisitions. I'm hoping that people will want to live vicariously through my card acquisitions too and see what cool stuff came in the mail.

This selection of cards comes all the way from Bixby, Oklahoma which should easily be the closest blogger to me in proximity.

Cam of Reds and More was advertising a team set giveaway. Like any greedy blogger I jumped at the chance to pick up some Mets cards. I really didn't expect the amount of cards that would be in the box though. The scope of the years and different sets is staggering.

Before Cam I only had a small Mets team set binder. After seeing the box of cards he sent over I went out and got a bigger binder and a lot more pages. It's been easily a month and I still haven't gotten a chance to really go over the entire box and organize everything like I want.

The cards range from vintage to retro to shiny and everything in between. The vintage took me by surprise.

You can probably tell from the photos how many cards he sent over. Actually this is only a small portion of the cards in the box.


Vintage...


Shiny..



...and retro...


Let's start with the vintage.

I have only two '75 Mets cards. Seeing this assortment of vintage cards reminds me that I need to get to the card store and see what kind of cool old cards I can find. This Ted Martinez card was one of 9 cards that Cam sent over. I have this goal to complete as many team sets or complete sets and these cards gives me a good start on the Mets team set.

This is a great indication of the other '75 cards with the cool expression and even cooler facial hair!!

I have about 10 or so cards that I'd like to have from 1974 detailing the world series games between the A's and Mets. Seeing this team card makes me want to try for the whole set.


Let's work our way down to the retro.

I haven't had a chance to see any Cracker Jack cards in person, so this is my first exposure to them. Pretty nice. I think they're nicer looking in person than online. This would be a neat set to try and complete or at least search around for some singles.


This Reyes mini is cool. I have the base card and the mini goes nice with that one. I think I have two of the minis from this set now. I still enjoy seeing the dirt on his jersey in this card.

Lastly some shiny:

Prior to this I didn't have nearly enough shiny in my collection. That's a pretty common theme amongst bloggers though. Everybody could use more chrome. I have a random chrome card or two from this year, but now I'm pretty close to finishing off the 2009 chrome Mets.


A nice selection of Walmart black Mets to go with a couple of others already in the binder.


a bunch of really nice 2008 chrome cards to go with a huge stack of non-chrome base cards from '08. Here's an example of one each of my favorite pitcher Johan Santana.


These two shiny 2007 cards are the first chrome cards from 2007 that I've laid my eyes on.




Cool actions shots make these cards better in my opinion.


All bloggers probably are like me in that we find little things that appeal to us that makes us like a card more than normal. One big reason why I like this card is that it's a "Farmhand Signature" card, but the dude's name is Vineyard. Get it? Oh well. It's sort of a reach, but it amuses me and that's all that matters.

Unfortunately it looks he's retired from baseball. Still it will be a good addition to my unusual names collection.

Another prospect who has done well for the Mets is this guy:


A Just Minors card of David Wright has a slight Heritage feel. The minor league uniform complete with dorky batting gloves set against a minor league stadium background with billboards and pine trees seems more Heritage-y than Heritage. Maybe Topps could pick some old fashion backgrounds to shoot their subjects against.

I still haven't gotten to the Packers cards that he sent over that were much appreciated. Maybe I'll do a part two post to show off the rest of the cards.

I loved the cards Cam! Thanks very much. I'm working on another package to send your way.

inspiration from south florida

As most of you know, our favorite blogger Marck from the Collective Troll blog is a very verbose character. His posts are almost always long and insightful, but never boring. I can't say the same for my own posts, but that's my own cross to bear. When I got my part of the cheap box break in the mail the other day I couldn't believe the amount of cards in that little box. I should have known by the weight of the box that there would be a bunch of cards. It felt like a little brick. A little brick of awesomeness!

I don't think I have it in me to do a Troll-sized post so I'll hit the highlights.

First off the bizarre pack of Space shots Series 3. 8 cards per pack.
I think it's pretty funny that they have a series three of this set. Really? They couldn't fit the entire checklist into one or two series? They had to add in another series. I'm joking, I really do like the oddball stuff. These cards will go nicely in the binder with all the non-sports stuff.

Play at the Plate already beat me to the punch by posting up his pack. I still want to show off a couple of cards that I thought were interesting.

First off the Soyuz 19 from Apollo.
Pretty cool shot when you think about it. Sort of like the cell phone pics people take outside a plane, but obviously much cooler.

"I wish I would've pulled a Yuri G!. It's just the things that she does to me."
I didn't, but I pulled a Yuri V. Close enough. He has really cool hair so that makes up for it.

I'm not sure if Yuri Gagarin was in this issue or not. I always loved P.J. Harvey in the late '90's and this song was one of my favorites:


It's Yuri G from the album 4-track demos. If you couldn't tell earlier that was me rewriting the lyrics to fit the mood of this post.


Here is a card of the first female EVA Savitskaya.

Pretty nifty shot as well.

The bulk of the package was from the nineties and their is no better example of the nineties than this card of Bobby Bonilla.


Wow.
It looks like Kid 'n Play invited Skreech to a House Party, they all got drunk and came up with this card design.

I'm almost certain I have had some school binder with this same design in high school. The photo itself is pretty cool though.

The back is nice too. I like cartoon backs.


Here's a 1995 Stadium Club card of Jeff Kent labeled "Dug out Dirt". Weird.

But again, the back is nice. This time a bigger cartoon.



I'm guessing this is a minor league issue of some sort from the Jacksonville Suns. It's also from the '90's(notice the big 1 9 9 2 letters across the top of the card), but the old photo from the '60's saves it from looking too 90's ish.

This is one of my favorites from this package. This one and the next card are two that still remain in a special place on my desk so that I can display them easily. Eventually they will probably find a place in a binder, but for now I have them out so I can look at them occasionally.


I found a bunch of these Pacific cards online a few months ago. They're thin, but I like the design a lot. It's got an old fashioned look to the layout on the fronts and backs. The older photos of players in their heyday is really nice too.


These Heritage High Numbers are great as I don't have any of these cards. The 1960 is one of the nicest and makes any player look good. I don't even mind the pink, black and white on the Reddon card. It somehow fits.



Lastly, but not least a Heritage Chrome of Gary Sheffield. Shiny is always good. It looks really nice with the other Heritage chrome cards that I have.

I think the only 2007 cards that I own have all come from Marck. He must have opened a lot of 2007 Topps. I haven't pulled a single 2007 card from a pack that I want to keep. Good thing he has a bunch of duplicates to send over.


These two cards look really nice and I didn't have either one. Actually about 90 % of the cards I didn't have yet.

Thanks for hosting the cool break Marck. I know I got a really good deal on the break. I just didn't have the energy to show off all the cards. It was a very generous offer to host the break.

Thanks for reading!

Trade with Drew of Drew's Cards

In the blogging world there are at least two truths about posting: Almost all cards look better than the scans and almost everybody is behind in their trade posts. I have several packages needing to be reported on so in fairness I'll start with the one received first and work my way up.

Here is a trade that was completed at least a week ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. Drew of Drew's cards has already posted his half of the trade so that shows how much of a procrastinator that I am.

For me the sad truth about trade posts is that I have a hard time putting into words the excitement that I get when I receive a trade package in the mail. I know that a few of the cards are going to be included in the package, but it's the extra cards that bloggers always throw in that are a pleasant surprise. I'm a little vague when telling people what I collect. I don't want to be too much of a bother and honestly I really just like getting cards. So much the better if those cards happen to be off Packers, Mets, Dodgers and to a lesser degree Yankees.

So lets start off with the non-sports cards.


Shen Kou is a scientist who wrote Dream Pool Essays, which first described the compass. WGWS7 is of course a much needed card for the Worlds Greatest Wordsmiths mini set. This set has influenced me to get out and buy some of these books mentioned on the back of these cards. I'm more into older literature anyway so it isn't too much of a jump to search out older stuff. I guess I should be frank and mention that these books probably won't get bought/read until winter time. I hate the cold and I need good reading material in the dismal cold winter months. Hopefully by then I will have finished this set.


With this card I have both Holliday minis cards. I don't care so much about the different backs. I've got a nice start to a Matt Holliday collection and this will go nicely with the other 2010 minis.



Aaron Kampman chrome. Who doesn't love chrome? I do. It's great. Nice to get a card of a lineman in action. He's actually with the Jaguars now, but the card is still cool.

This is a great shot of Donald Driver against division foes Detroit Lions. Foe isn't much of a description. The Lions almost always seem to be last in the NFC North.

A.J. Hawk returning an interception against the Chiefs in 2007. I did a little sleuthing and the Pack only played in Kansas City one time in A.J.'s career and he had an interception in that game that he returned for ten yards. Or at least I think so based on a quick scan of his stats in 5 seasons. The game was played on Nov. 4th and the Packers won 33-22.



I haven't seen much of the Packers this preseason and I have yet to watch Ryan Grant play. He's one of my favorite RBs to watch.

I don't have any of these UD Spectrum cards. They're nice and shiny and look good juxtaposed together.


Finally the always photogenic Jose Reyes.

... and yes, even though I shouldn't have to say it, the cards look way better in person than they do in the scans. This was only a small sampling of the cards that Drew sent over.

The cards were much appreciated. Thanks for the cards Drew!

Thanks for reading!