Return Of The Card Show (Part Two)

Here's the rest of the cards I got from the card show I went to last week. You can see the first half here.

I ended that post with some cards from the 1978 TCMA set. Like the 1979 set I showed earlier, there were only Red Sox cards and I snagged them all.

Included here are three cards each of pitchers Earl Wilson, Bill Monbouquette and Dennis Bennett.

Sticking with the three card theme are pitcher Dick Radatz, valuable utility infielder (according to the back) Eddie Bressoud and first baseman/outfielder Lee Thomas (pictured in a Los Angeles Angels uniform).

This page contains dupes of Malzone and Radatz, first baseman Tony Horton, another Dennis Bennett, pitcher Bill Spanswick, another card of Arnold Earley, two more Lee Thomas cards and another Bill Monbouquette.

The first row of this sheet contains dupes of Tillman, Horton and Spanswick. The second row has dupes of Monbouquette and Wilson and the first appearance of second baseman Chuck Schilling. Rouding out the bottom three cards are all dupes of Wilson, Bressoud and Tillman.

Now you see more dupes of Horton, Schilling, Bressoud, Spanswick and Monbouquette.

The rest of the cards are:

2009 Upper Deck SPX Matt Kemp (for whatever reason this was there and I was too lazy to swap it out for something else)

1990 Pacific Baseball Legends Diego Segui
1990 Pacific Baseball Legends Pete Runnels
1991 Kellogg's Corn Flakes Lou Brock

Here's some from the 1981 TCMA The1960's set. Again, it's all Red Sox.

Joe Foy (x3)
Felix Mantilla (x3)
Mike Andrews (x2)...with another Joe Foy card in the middle

I thought this next page of cards would be harder to figure out. However, it only took Google a couple of seconds to tell me that these cards are from the 1977 TCMA "The War Years Set". The cards I bought are all Red Sox.

This is the back of the cards. Note that the stats are only from 1941 - 1945.

1992 Fleer Citgo 7-11 The Performer Jeff Bagwell
1987 Hygrade Baseball All-Time Greats Duke Snider
1986 Topps Quaker Chewy Granola Bars Eddie Murray
1988 Topps Bazooka Vince Coleman
1988 Topps Bazooka Eric Davis
1992 Lykes Braves Clarence Jones (I couldn't find any info on this card...all the listings have him as card number 18...I have card number 28)
1992 Topps McDonalds Baseballs Best Rickey Henderson
1992 Topps McDonalds Baseballs Best George Brett
1992 Topps McDonalds Baseballs Best Rickey Henderson

1981 TCMA The 1960's Mike Andrews (x2)
1977 TCMA The War Years Hal Wagner (a Red Sox catcher who was traded for Birdie Tebbetts in 1947)
1981 TCMA Renata Galasso Hugh Duffy
1981 TCMA Renata Galasso Ed Barrow
1976 Hostess Don Gullett
1975 Hostess Fred Patek
1975 Hostess Dave Chalk
1975 Hostess Bud Harrelson

All this set me back only $19, so once again I was able to come away with a bunch of cool stuff for not very much money. As long as this dealer keeps setting up at this show, I'll be buying as much from him as I can and sharing any duplicates I get with anyone who's interested!

Return Of The Card Show

After a summer of no card shows in my area, I finally was able to attend one this past weekend. As usual, I went around first before making any purchases. I was looking for cheap boxes, cheap memorabilia cards and oddballs.

I was a little disappointed when I arrived because I didn't see the dealer with all the oddball cards in his normal space. There were a couple more dealers than usual, most offering things that I wasn't interested in. I struck out when it came to cheap boxes...there was quite a selection for 5 bucks a piece, but I had either already completed the set, or what I needed didn't warrant buying another box, even at $5. The one highlight of those was a box of 1991 Topps Stadium Club Series 2. If I hadn't got most of that set in the last monster box I bought, I would have been all over it.

This was my most expensive purchase of the day.

2014 Bowman Prospects Mookie Betts. This set me back a whole dollar.

After making my initial rounds, I was able to locate the dealer that I was looking for. He was in a completely different row on a different side of the room. He had binders full of cards that were ten cents a piece or three for a quarter.

I just started taking pages out of the binders.

1994 Kraft Singles Bobby Bonilla
1996 Bazooka Jim Edmonds
1994 Kraft Singles Bobby Bonilla
1988 Topps Bazooka Wade Boggs
1991 Topps Bazooka Shining Stars Jose Offerman
1989 Topps Bazooka Shining Stars Wade Boggs
1989 Topps Bazooka Shining Stars Mark Grace
1989 Topps Bazooka Shining Stars Mark Grace
1989 Topps Bazooka Shining Stars Ricky Jordan

Five of the nine cards in this page were holograms from the 1992 Denny's set which actually scanned quite well. These are 3-D and quite cool looking.

1992 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam Hologram Howard Johnson
1991 Pepsi Mike Greenwell
1992 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam Hologram Brian McRae
1992 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam Hologram Kal Daniels
1992 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam Hologram Luis Polonia
1992 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam Hologram Cecil Fielder
1988 Topps Bazooka Vince Coleman
1992 Diet Pepsi Barry Larkin (A Canadian Issue!)
1988 Topps Bazooka Tony Fernandez

1992 Donruss McDonalds Blue Jays Gold Roberto Alomar (x3) - released only in the greater Toronto area.
1991 Jumbo California Sunflower Seeds Andre Dawson
1987 Hygrade Baseball's All-Time Greats Duke Snider
1991 Jumbo California Sunflower Seeds Andre Dawson
1992 Fleer Citgo 7-11 The Performer Frank Thomas (x3)

1988 Topps Bazooka George Bell
1988 Topps Bazooka Benny Santiago
1988 Topps Bazooka Todd Worrell
1988 Topps Bazooka Tony Fernandez
1988 Topps Bazooka Juan Samuel
1986 Topps Quaker Chewy Granola Bars Gary Carter
1988 Topps Bazooka George Bell
1993 Hostess Baseballs Tom Glavine
1988 Topps Bazooka Eric Davis

1984 Topps Cereal Gary Carter
1994 Tombstone Pizza Jim Abbott
1988 Topps Bazooka Juan Samuel
1988 Topps Bazooka Tim Raines
1988 Topps Bazooka Benny Santiago
1988 Topps Bazooka Willie McGee
1988 Topps Bazooka Wade Boggs (x3)

1995 Denny's Hologram Moises Alou
1995 Denny's Hologram Juan Gonzalez
1995 Denny's Hologram Juan Gonzalez
1995 Denny's Hologram Rafael Palmeiro
1995 Denny's Hologram Jeff Montgomery
1995 Denny's Hologram Rafael Palmeiro
1995 Denny's Hologram Kirby Puckett
1995 Denny's Hologram Bret Saberhagen
1995 Denny's Hologram Kirby Puckett

1992 Topps McDonalds Baseballs Best Jose Canseco (x3)
1992 Topps McDonalds Baseballs Best Will Clark (x3)
1992 Topps McDonalds Baseballs Best Dale Murphy (x3)

You've probably noticed that I've picked up quite a few dupes so far. I haven't been anywhere near as active on the trading front as I was last year, so I'm sure I can add to some bloggers PC's with some of these.

However, this is what I was really interested in. Again, I just started pulling out pages with no regard to the players themselves.

From what I could find out about these cards, they are from the 1979 TCMA Baseball History Series. This group of cards focuses on players from the 1950's. I believe you could only order this set through the mail. There were several pages of these and I grabbed all I could find. These are only cards of Red Sox players, so I have a fair amount of dupes of these.

The above sheet contains cards of pitchers Mickey McDermott, Frank Sullivan and Ray Scarborough.

More of Frank Sullivan, but also pitchers Mel Parnell and Billy Klaus.

More of Klaus, Parnell and McDermott, plus first baseman Norm Zauchin and southpaw Bill Wight.

This page starts with another Norm Zauchin and Bill Wight, and finishes with outfielder Jimmy Piersall, first baseman Walt Dropo and pitcher Ellis Kinder.

Reliever Mike Fornieles starts off this page and is followed by catcher Sammy White, then dupes of Ellis Kinder, Bill Wight and Mel Parnell.

Here you see dupes of Ellis Kinder, Mike Fornieles, Bill Wight and Walt Dropo.

Finishing up the 1979 TCMA cards are more of Norm Zauchin and Jimmy Piersall.

The bottom three cards are:

1990 Swell Baseball Greats Bobby Doerr
1990 Swell Baseball Greats Rick Ferrell
1990 Swell Baseball Greats Ken Brett

There was also some of the 1978 TCMA set which featured players from the 1960's. In this page there are three cards each of third baseman Frank Malzone, catcher Bob Tillman and pitcher Arnold Earley.

I'll finish this up on my next post which has more of these 1978 TCMA cards plus a bunch of other cool oddballs!

Monster Box Mania - You've Been Halved!

I'm a couple behind in regards to posting on these, and they have been much better than the last travesty I sorted through.

For those of you that aren't familiar with these posts, my LCS has stacks of these 1500 count boxes full of cards for $9.99. Not only are they fun to go through, but quite often they have lots of cards from sets I have not completed.

Case in point.

Five hundred forty-two cards from 1991 Topps Stadium Club. This was released in two series, with each series being a three hundred card set. Series One was released to hobby dealers only and had a MSRP of $1.25.

Good luck trying to buy it at that price. I think I paid more than three times that price per pack. Suffice to say, I didn't buy very much. When this set first came out, prices were way above what I could afford.

Check out this price list from the March 1992 issue of Baseball Cards magazine:

Look at those prices!! Could a Kevin Maas base card really set you back eight bucks?

Not today.

So you can imagine that I was quite delighted to almost get the entire six hundred card set. I haven't compared it with what I already have, but at worst I'm only fifty-eight cards from finishing both series.

In case you were wondering about the cards "worth" over ten bucks back then, the David Justice, Juan Gonzalez and Jeff Bagwell cards were included in the monster box.

The Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., and Phil Plantier was not.

And this isn't Alex Cole.

This is.

Sixty-one from 1999 Donruss.

Eighty-three from 1998 Topps Finest. Do you peel these off? I don't.

Eighty-seven from 2001 Donruss.

Any box that has cards from the late 90's or the first couple years of this century is guaranteed to pique my interest. It is quite a trip to read the backs of cards from these years in regards to the home run and RBI totals. I bet the batboys could have hit 20 home runs back then.

Plus not only was I collecting cards back then, I really wasn't following baseball that much either. So I also get to see players in uniforms that I don't remember them ever wearing...like the Eric Davis card pictured above.

I'll be posting the second half of this box shortly. I'm still going through it, but it has a bit more variety than the first half.

The Golden Age

I was at Target a bit ago and picked up a couple of packs of Panini's "Golden Age" cards. I like releases like this, although I thought they were going to be like the Donruss "Americana" cards which I like very much. Instead, they more resemble the Upper Deck "Goodwin Champions" sets, which is fine too. As you can tell, I was unfamiliar with this set, even though it has been released for the past few years.

It is a 150 card set, which features notable people from sports and entertainment through the 1980's. I'll show one pack in this post and demonstrate that my knowledge of the "Golden Age" is not as strong as it should be.

Phil Cavarretta. I did not know who this was, but he was the last living player to have played against Babe Ruth in a major league game. He died in 2010. 

Fay Wray. The female lead in the original King Kong movie. I did know who she was.

George Gervin mini. The "Iceman". One of the greatest shooting guards in NBA history.

Cadillac Ranch. I'd heard of it, but never really paid attention to it. Or maybe I've heard of it because of the Bruce Springsteen song.

I don't follow horse racing unless I'm betting on it. (Does that make me a bad person?)

Addie Joss. I was not familiar with him either. He died in April 1911 of tuberculous meningitis while a member of the Cleveland Naps. On July 24th of that year the Naps played an "all-star" game versus players from the other seven American League teams as a fundraiser for his family. The back of the card considers this as baseball's first All-Star game as opposed to the first one organized by Major League Baseball in 1933.

I like this set and I would consider buying a blaster of it. Of course, a discounted blaster would significantly raise the odds of this happening.

It is alarming that this is a baseball card blog and I knew nothing about the two baseball players in this pack.

Three In A Row!

I titled this post "Three In A Row", because this is the third day in a row that I have posted. Exciting times, indeed. Of course it's not from lack of interest or material, but as I've mentioned before, lack of time. This post, however has a more melancholy tone than the previous two.

For example:

I had to retire my truck. It's actually been sitting in this parking spot since the beginning of the year, but I just now finally had an auto salvage company pick it up. I bought this beast used in 2001 (it's a 1998), and even though I had it for over a decade, I would never buy another Dodge Ram again. Way too expensive to maintain. I probably had half a dozen times where a repair bill was over a grand. 

So now my wife and I are down to one vehicle and so far it has worked out well. The only problem is that if you live in the Northeast, you really need a four-wheel drive and the rollerskate shaped Chevy Aveo we do have clearly does not fit that bill. Fortunately I do not live very far from work, and I used the rollerskate for half of last winter and everything was OK. 

Secondly, as mentioned in my previous post, I've been buying repack boxes all summer, and I've been able to pull some pretty cool stuff from them. You can see the packs in the front and back of the box, so I've been buying the ones that feature packs from 2013. The latest one I bought had something like eighteen packs in it, plus a "guaranteed hit". For twenty bucks, this was coming home with me.

The packs (which believe it or not, I haven't opened yet), are mostly from 2013 (sweet!), but I'm sad to say that the supply of 2008 Upper Deck has not dried up yet (there were 2 big packs in it). 

Stuck in the middle of all of the packs was the "hit".

Eeeeewwwww! This is considered a hit? Oh dear.

Well, my string of good luck had to end at some point.

As you can probably tell, I am not a fan of manupatches. I don't buy Topps blasters for that very reason. I don't like these and don't want them in my collection.

So who wants to trade for this?

The Best Pack Of Allen & Ginter Ever?

...well, at least for me.

Due to a lack of card shows in my area this summer, I've been buying those repack boxes you see at Wal-Mart and Target. You usually get anywhere from fifteen to eighteen packs for $19.99. Lately, they have been full of packs from 2013, which is fine with me. I also seem to be doing far better (at least when it comes to hits) than if I bought a blaster for the same price. Case in point. This repack box had 2013 Topps Series 2, 2013 Topps Update, 2013 Topps Archives, as well as some 2013 Topps Opening Day. I was most interested in the three packs of 2013 Allen & Ginter that were included as well.

Two of the packs were your standard collection of "meh", but one pack really stood out.

We're already off to a good start.

If you are looking for a Puig rookie, buy a repack box. I'm finding them in droves.

We could have stopped here and I would have been happy.

Now I'm really happy.

Sadly, my Henry Rollins music collection is a bit sparse (I only have the first Black Flag CD and his 1994 release "Weight"). I think this is the first music related auto I've pulled out of a pack, although I did pull an Ozzy Osbourne auto redemption card (expired, of course) some years back.

I thought this card was so cool, I showed my wife. She has no idea who Henry Rollins is (she is a country girl), but I didn't care.

What, a regular run-of the-mill, garden-variety Carlos Ruiz mini? I'm so disappointed.

Now the obligatory insert.

I think you'll agree that this was not bad at all, especially coming out of a repack box.

So what was your best pack of Allen & Ginter like?