It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

So here we are again...right in the middle of the Christmas shopping rush. The Christmas shopping rush means...extended hours at work. Extended hours at work means...very little time to blog. So for the next few weeks, posts will be quite sparse here at Swing And A Pop-Up.

So when I do post it's either going to be:

A.) An extremely short post.

B.) A post that I've been slowly working on for well over a week (like this one).

So here goes.

I received an unexpected sampling of Red Sox cards from Matt at Bob Walk The Plank. He is very difficult to trade with because everything you get from him is outstanding and most of what I have to send him back is anything but.

Fortunately (for me), that does not deter him and he continues to send me a fantastic selection of Red Sox.

Starting with the Dirt Dog himself, Trot Nixon. Numbered 28/100 this is from 2004 Donruss Throwback Threads, a set that I really like.

This Trot Nixon is from the 2004 Donruss Classics set. This is one of the parallels (the Timeless Tributes came in red and green...Merry Christmas!!), and it was numbered 27/100.

This is my first Blake Swihart card. He is one the number one prospect in the Red Sox system (according to soxprospects.com). There has been talk that either him or current catcher Christian Vasquez may be traded this winter. Since the Dodgers have claimed Ryan Lavarnway off of waivers (even though the Red Sox appeared to have given up on him catching and were grooming him as a first baseman), if Swihart is still here during Spring Training, I'm sure we'll be getting a good look at him.

2004 Leaf Derek Lowe Press Proof Silver numbered 25/50.

2014 Topps Update Joe Kelly auto. I was surprised to see an auto card from him (I hardly never pay attention when the card companies release their checklists, so consequently just about everything is a surprise to me).

The front of the card is cool, but demerits are handed out for the back of the card, which gives a synopsis of what he did in 2013 with the Cardinals (Boo! Who cares??!!).

Here's a picture of a Topps employee "mailing it in".

Thanks for the cool cards, Matt! A return package is on the way...just in time for Christmas!

I Broke A New Year's Resolution

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Because of the weather and family members being sick, we had to go with "Plan B" yesterday, which meant sleeping late and staying home. So our Thanksgiving dinner was in the evening as opposed to the afternoon. We don't participate in the Black Friday nonsense (save for me having to work this evening), so this will be a nice relaxing weekend for me.

Now back to the title of my post. In January of this year, I made the comment that I don't really make New Year's collecting goals/resolutions, so instead I made a list of things I was not going to do this year, and then cross them off when I didn't do them. I've already almost failed in one of my goals by completing a 2014 set in 2014 (Topps Series 1, but not Series 2, so technically this one is still good), but this week I accidentally broke one.

Y'all remember a bit ago when I was slowly becoming an unintentional Stephen Drew supercollector? (You can read about that frightening experience here.) Fortunately, my most recent experience with those repack boxes resulted in this hit...

...which I wrote about here.

I am notoriously slow in opening packs, so I am still opening them from that last repack box. One of the packs of 2013 Topps Archives netted me this scribble:

I have never pulled any of the autos/memorabilia cards out of Archives before, but this is why I broke my resolution:

Numbered 2/5. One of my resolutions was not to pull any autos numbered to 50 or less.

So I failed.

What a disappointment.



I'm kidding, of course.

Well, We've Finally Reached The End....

...of the cards I picked up at the last card show, that is. For those of you not familiar with the previous two posts, they are here and here.

He's had a few pages of these Denny's cards in binders ever since I found his table, so I finally broke down and took one off of his hands. These are from the final year (1997) of the Denny's baseball card sets. For 59 cents (plus the purchase of a meal and beverage), you could pick up one of these cards. It was a twenty-nine card set (one player from each of the twenty-eight teams plus a card of Jackie Robinson celebrating the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of baseball). There was also a card of Larry Doby that was issued only in the Cleveland area.

All the cards on this page are from the forty card 1990 Starline Coca-Cola set. Cello packs of five cards were given away with the purchase of a dinner and soft drink at Long John Silver restaurants. Most players had two or more cards in this set. (I picked up a couple of Wade Boggs cards from this set last month.)

The first six cards in this page are from the eighteen card 1992 Jimmy Dean set. It was produced by Michael Schechter Associates and were found in specially marked packages of Jimmy Dean Sausage.

The last three are from the 1992 Mother's Cookies Oakland A's twenty-eight card set.

By ordering a Denny's Grand Slam meal and a Coca-Cola Classic in 1993, you could have obtained one of these Andy Van Slyke hologram cards that you see above. The 1993 set consisted of twenty-eight cards (one player from each team).

Mootown Snackers. Now I have never heard of (or don't remember) that product at all. Made by Sargento, it was cheese snacks aimed at kids. There were twenty-four card sets produced in 1991 and 1992, the yellow cards are from 1992 and the red cards are from 1991.

Most of the cards in this page are missing the order form attached to the card.

You can see the checklist for the 1992 series above, plus what the packages looked like. I'm assuming it was string cheese, and the 1/3 less fat version was probably not as popular.

The Dave Justice card on the top left of the page is from the 1992 Mr. Turkey set. Cards were found on the back panels of Mr. Turkey products.

If you bought twenty loaves of Wonder Bread in 1990, and looked inside one of the specially marked packages, you could have theoretically completed the 1990 Wonder Bread set. If you wanted this logo-less Kirby Puckett card plus the other nineteen, and didn't want to buy that much bread, you could have sent $3.00 plus five proofs of purchase for the set in an uncut sheet form.

The Javy Lopez is from a set that Bryan Foods put out in 2000. Billed as the "Flavor of the South", they sell hot dogs, smoked sausages, salami, corn dogs, etc., with a tradition deep rooted from the south. As far as information about the card, I came up empty. However, now I'm hungry.

The Brooks Robinson cards that you see are from an un-numbered set released in 1993 by Country Time Lemonade called "Country Time Legends". From the information I could find online there are seven cards plus a title card.

Next up we have David Justice from the 1994 Tombstone Super-Pro Series. It was a thirty card set that I am going to go out on a limb and say you could find them in specially marked boxes of Tombstone pizza.

Well we've made it to the last card. Dale Murphy is from the 1990 Post set, a thirty card set that when you bought a box of (here it is) specially marked boxes of Post cereal, a three card pack was included.

I picked up a few things that were not for me, but even in doing that I came in under my $20.00 budget. I did have one regret, though. As I was leaving I noticed he had cards on another table and my eyes focused on a 1978 Topps Eddie Murray. I have wanted this card since....probably 1978. I picked it up and gazed at it. It looked real nice, but I didn't ask how much he wanted for it. I didn't have any money for it anyways, and if he had only wanted fifteen or twenty bucks for it I would have been upset with myself for not noticing it sooner. So it was best that I not know.

Maybe he'll have it next time.

70's Scenario (Sort Of)

So after spending $5.50 at the first table (you can read about that post here), I walked on over to my favorite table, the one with all of the oddballs. I noticed an older gentleman looking at a binder and realized in horror that it was opened to a page of Hostess cards!

I panicked. He cannot have those! I searched my surroundings for some sort of weapon or possibly some Benchwarmer cards to distract him. Before I had to resort to such drastic measures, he moved on to another table. I'm pretty sure he knew those cards were not meant for him.

The first six are from the 1975 set, and the bottom three are from the 1976 set. The Denny Doyle card is obviously my favorite.

This page included four more from the 1976 set. The Don Sutton card was from 1978, and the other three Hostess cards were from the 1979 set.

The Mickey Mantle card on the bottom right is from the thirty-three card 1985 Circle K All Time Home Run Kings set. The checklist has thirty-four cards listed, but the Joe DiMaggio card (card number thirty-one) was never issued due to licensing problems.

I picked up a few cards from the 1992 Topps McDonald's Baseball's Best from him a couple of months ago. He had some full pages of them still, so I snagged four of them. It's a forty-four card set and with these additions I should be well on my way to completing it.

The first two cards from this page have me stumped. I have no idea what they are. They were probably cut out of a macaroni and cheese box or something like that. The backs are blank and they don't have any stats or even identification of the player (although it's pretty obvious who they are).

1992 Post Jose Canseco. This is from a thirty-card set that was available in cello packs found in specially marked boxes of Post cereal.

More Kellogg's cards to add to my collection! The Cedeno, Bell and Garvey are from the 1980 set and the Melton is from the 1972 set.

The Dave Parker card is from the fifteen card 1987 Ralston Purina set. A package of three cards plus a contest card could be found in certain varieties of Ralston Purina's breakfast cereal. You could also obtain the set (as an uncut sheet) through the mail. In addition to the version that I have (1987 Collectors' Edition), you can also find this card with "Honey Graham Chex" or "Cookie Crisp" printed at the top.

The Jim Rice card is from the thirty-three card (thirty-four if you count the offer card) 1986 Quaker Chewy Granola Bars card set.

The cards on these next two pages are from the 1981 Drake's Big Hitters Baseball set. Produced by Topps, this thirty-three card set features the top hitters from the previous year. You could find these cards inserted into specially marked boxes of Drake's products. The backs of the cards (except for the Drake's logo) have the same design as the Topps cards.

And look, it's a Joe Charboneau sighting!

This wasn't all...I've still got plenty more to brag about show in my next post!

(And pat yourself on the back if you got the obscure Hall & Oates reference in the title)

That 70's Show (Sort Of)

Hey kids, it's the middle of the month, so that means it's time for the monthly card show. I didn't spend all of my budget at one table this time, as I found a table with a dime box full of 70's Topps. There were a lot of dealers this time with 70's era Topps. Even my favorite oddball dealer had binders upon binders of these cards.

I had set my limit on thirty cards, so I picked out twenty from 1977 and ten from 1978.

I hadn't brought my lists, so I relied on my memory and we all know how that turns out. So I've probably got a few dupes here.

As I was leaving his table I noticed this.

I've been getting singles here and there but I've never seen a dealer with the full set.

Now it's mine.

It was 50% off, so I got it for $2.50.

So out of my twenty dollar budget, I've already spent $5.50. Time to head to the oddball table before I run out of money!

More to come!

1987 Minnesota Twins World Series Set

After a few months of inactivity, I've been spending some time here and there on Listia. It really hasn't changed a whole lot, there still are way too may listors thinking they're going to get 499 credits for a junk wax common, but occasionally I see something of interest.

Although I'm far from a Twins fan, this was just too out of the ordinary to pass up.

There is not a lot of information about these cards available. I found singles on COMC, but no information about the set.

Here is the back of the card. Along with some personal information, there is stats from the Championship Series and the World Series, and then a combination of the two.

After a bit of searching I was able to find a set on Amazon. It lists it as "Rare 1987 Fleer Minnesota Twins World Series Set". I don't see the Fleer name anywhere on these cards, unless the "F" in "BRF" at the bottom of the card stands for Fleer.

According to this listing, there were 5,000 of these sets produced but they were pulled because of licensing issues (no permission to use the World Series logo). Although it was sealed when I received it, cards are to be looked at, so I immediately took the shrink wrapping off (and it was quite a bitch to do so).

The cards are also a little bigger than your standard baseball card.

Here are all thirty-three cards:

1. Steve Lombardozzi
2. Roy Smalley
3. Tony Olivia
4. Greg Gagne
5. Gary Gaetti
6. Gene Larkin
7. Tom Kelly
8. Kent Hrbek
9. Tim Laudner

10. Frank Viola
11. Les Straker
12. Don Baylor
13. George Frazier
14. Keith Atherton
15. Tom Brunansky
17. Al Newman
18. Mark Davidson

19. Bert Blyleven
20. Dan Schatzeder
21. Dan Gladden
22. Sal Butera
23. Kirby Puckett
24. Joe Niekro
25. Juan Berenguer
26. Jeff Reardon
27. Dick Such

28. Rick Stelmaszek
29. Rick Renick
30. Wayne Terwilliger
31. 1987 Team Photo
32. Twins Championship Logo
33 Twins Logo/Checklist

It's a pretty cool set, and if the description of it I found on Amazon is accurate, something I'm probably not going to see very often. It was listed for forty bucks plus shipping and handling, so for "costing" only seven hundred and twenty-two credits it appears I scored quite a deal.

When You Just Have To Buy Something

Several weeks ago, I stopped off at Target to see what they had for cards. Since this was the day before Topps Update was released, the shelves were pretty bare. But I was able to find something to keep me going until then.

The front two cards were okay. Not great, but they would do.

The back two cards were acceptable as well. Once I was sure that there were no packs of 1989 Fleer in it, I paid for it and brought it home.

Now I present some of the highlights.

We're already off with a bang with just the second card. I have plenty of Conlon Collection cards, but this is the first one that I've seen colorized. What gives?

Aaaah yes, a "prototype". While doing some research trying to figure out what this is, I found a really cool blog called the Conlon Baseball Card Collector. It doesn't have a lot of entries, but it is full of information.

According to that blog, there were two versions of the color version of this card. One is marked "All Star Fanfest" although I don't know where, as I could not find an image of it anywhere on the web. I have the other version, which according to this blog was handed out at the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention. There were six cards that were part of this "prototype" set. Five of them were issued at the convention.

In addition to the Ty Cobb card, there was:

Card 331 - Christy Mathewson
Card 400 - Joe Jackson
Card 450 - Hughie Jennings
Card 500 - Ty Cobb
Card 520 - Goose Goslin

All of these cards were the black and white.

Now this is where some of the info is sketchy. The information on the Conlon blog was taken from a variety of sources, most notably Sports Collectors Digest. As you can see, I've listed six cards (including the Ty Cobb), not five. There was also a Babe Ruth card (in color), with a print run of 225, 000 that was distributed there as well. The Ty Cobb card that I have has a listed print run of 60,000.

Irregardless of what information is correct and what isn't, this is a cool card to have.

This is from the second series of the 1989 Pacific Baseball Legends set. I don't think I have very many of the 1989 set, most of what I have are from 1988 and 1990.

1994 Upper Deck Minor League Star Potential Brien Taylor. Probably the biggest failed prospect of the early 90's.

I do collect minor league cards as well. I have a small stack from this set, the 1994 Classic Gold set. This was a two hundred card set which included Eric Chavez, Torii Hunter and Derek Jeter as the biggest stars.

I professed my love for the '78 set numerous times on this blog...

...and this will be an upgrade in my set.

Somewhere there is an empty warehouse that was previously filled with boxes upon boxes of this set. I must have five of these fuckers by now.

I liked the Topps Lineage set (even though there were no stats on it).

Same thing with 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes, although I didn't care too much for all of the parallels.

I only scanned this because of the horrid airbrushing job.

One of the last cards in the package was this 1979 Topps Minnesota Twins team card.

Looks like whoever had this card before was short only the prospect card.

Who were the Twins prospects in 1979?

Sam Perlozzo, Rick Sofield and Kevin Stanfield of course!

Although this contained mostly junk wax (as expected), it still was an enjoyable way to wind down an evening.