I Had To Do It

So everybody now is familiar with Fairfield's attempt to make me a Stephen Drew supercollector. If not you can read about it here.

There was a third box at Target, and I had to see if it was still there. I had to know...would it include a Stephen Drew batting glove swatch, part of his cleat, a lock of his hair, I just had to know.

I drove down to Target about a hour ago and picked it up.

Again, the packs were not bad.

Seven packs of 2013 Topps Series II (I know a bit much, but I haven't finished this set yet).

One pack of 2009 Upper Deck Spectrum.

Five packs of 2013 Topps Archives. I've finished the set, so hopefully I can get some SP's (which I don't consider part of the set, of course).

One pack of 2012 Topps Series 1.

1 pack of 2013 Topps Opening Day.

Five packs of 2014 Topps Heritage.

The hit?

PHEW!

I have not been designated as a Stephen Drew relic dumping ground. That's reassuring.

The Red Sox Are Now Tied For First

Just sat down to open a pack of 2013 Topps Gypsy Queen from the most recent repack box I bought and pulled this insert:

Congratulations 2014 San Francisco Giants!

This Could Only Happen To Me

As a self-professed repack addict, whenever I see a repack offering for the first time, I always buy one. Lately Target has had boxes from the repack masters, Fairfield, which offer twenty packs plus one hit for twenty dollars.

Twenty packs plus a hit for twenty bucks. I'm in! What could possibly go wrong?

The packs are great, a little 2013 Topps Series 1 heavy but there were a few 2013 Topps Gypsy Queen, three packs from 2013 Topps Archives and even five packs from 2014 Topps Heritage.

However, I had a problem with the "hit". The side of the box says a hit can be an auto, memorabilia, game used or manufactured patch card. (I detest the fact that these manupatches are considered hits.)

Here was the hit from the box:

Being a Red Sox fan, this is as cruel as it gets. If we were playing football, Fairfield would have been flagged for taunting.

Undaunted though, I purchased a second repack box a few weeks later (the one you see in the first photo of this post). Again, the packs were worth the twenty bucks. Still too much 2013 Topps Series 1 (I'm beginning to accumulate as much of this as 1989 Topps), but plenty of gems as well. Two packs of 2013 Topps Chrome, three packs of 2013 Bowman Platinum, five packs of 2013 Gypsy Queen...another winner as far as packs are concerned.

The guaranteed hit?

It really is quite astounding, isn't it?

Getting My Monthly Oddball Fix (Part 3)

This is the third and final installment of the cards I picked up at the last card show I went to.

The Dave Winfield and Dave Justice cards are from the 1991 Jimmy Dean Signature Edition twenty-five card set. It was produced by Michael Schechter Associates, and in addition to the cards being available in packages of Jimmy Dean Sausage, you could receive uncut sheets through a mail-in offer.

The Andy Van Slyke and Kirby Puckett cards are from the thirty card 1993 Kraft Singles Superstars set. Individual cards were inserted into packages of Kraft Singles. They are not your typical baseball cards as these are "pop-up" cards.

I don't have any dupes of these cards yet, so I'm not going to pop one open right now (of the Kraft cards that is). I did quickly search in vain for an image of one of these opened up. Like the Jimmy Dean cards, you could get a complete set by a mail-in offer. Each league had fifteen cards, the American League cards were blue and the National League cards were green.

The Phil Niekro is from the 1992 Kellogg's Corn Flakes All Star set. It was a ten card set which used the Sportflics technology (the company was credited on the back of the cards).

A cardboard display was also available.

The Barry Foote is from one of my most favorite types of oddballs...the Hostess sets of the 1970's. This one is from the 1975 set, which consisted of one hundred and fifty cards and were found in panels of three on the bottom of boxes of Hostess products.

The last card in this panel is a 1993 Jimmy Dean Eddie Murray. Also produced by Michael Schechter Associates, this varied from the 1991 series as it was a twenty-eight card set, but only eighteen were available in packages of Jimmy Dean Sausage products. You could only obtain the other ten by...wait for it....the dreaded mail-order offer.

The Andy Van Slyke and Dave Hollins cards are from the 1993 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam set which you could only get (one card at a time) by buying a Grand Slam meal (or you could get the complete set if you knew the right people. As usual, I did not know the right people).

The Jim Abbott is from the previously mentioned 1993 Kraft Singles Superstars set.

The remaining six cards are from the 1992 Donruss McDonalds set. There were thirty-three cards; twenty-six base cards, six "gold" cards and one checklist. These are all six of the "gold" cards. They were only available for purchase at McDonalds in the Toronto area, and for thirty-nine cents plus the purchase of a breakfast sandwich or breakfast entree, you could get a pack of four cards.

The top 3 cards are from a set I've featured occassionaly on my blog, the 1993 Hostess Baseballs set. It was a thirty-two card set and you would get a pack of three cards when you bought a package of Hostess Baseballs snack cakes. It was released in two series of sixteen cards each. As I've mentioned before, I ate a lot of those cakes during 1993.

The Eddie Murray and Steve Garvey are from the 1986 True Value Super Stars set which consisted of thirty cards. They were issued in three card packets, one card on the front, a True Value advertisement on the back, and two more cards inside. Opened up, it was a four card panel with from left to right, two cards, the advertisement, then the card you saw on the top of the package.

The Danny Tartabull is from the 1992 Post set, also thirty cards, Cello packs of three cards could be found in boxes of Post cereal...or you could get the whole set for $1.00 and five UPC symbols from the cereal boxes.

The two Wade Boggs cards 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.

Now we've finally made it to the end of what I purchased...a 2001 Post Pedro Martinez. Only issued from April to June of 2001, cards from this eighteen card set could be found in boxes of Post cereal.

Cost for all of the cards listed in the last three posts?

A whopping ten bucks.

I love oddballs.

I do want to thank the website keymancollectibles.com where I found a good chunk of the information I've presented in these last three posts.

Getting My Monthly Oddball Fix (Part 2)

Before I start my post about the second half of what I got last Sunday, I want to thank reader Mark Hoyle for pointing me in the right direction regarding the Grand Slam cards I featured last post.

They were made in 1978 by memorabilia dealer and later Donruss photographer Jack Wallin. He made these cards so they could be autographed by the players featured on them, so collectors would eventually have a complete 200 card signed set. This would prove to be practically impossible as two players in the set, Carl Reynolds and George McQuinn died in 1978. Reynolds died before the set was even released, so another card was issued in its' place featuring pitcher Sal Maglie. Only 500 of the Maglie cards were printed, meaning it is actually a 201 card set with two cards designated as card 53. There were only two thousand sets produced and no complete autographed sets apparently exist.

The closest I could find was a complete set with 199 of the cards signed (missing the Reynolds and McQuinn autos) auctioned off at loveofthegameauctions.com. (This is also where I got my information from.) According to the website, it sold for $2006 in November of 2013.

There also is a blog about the set at grandslam1978.blogspot.com. It is not complete as it stops at card 39 and has not had a post in about three years.

Well, let's move on to some more oddballs, shall we!

I bought a lot of discs as opposed to cards this time around. The bigger discs in the above page are from the 1994 King B Quality Meat Snack set.

You had to buy a can of their beef jerky to get this Fred McGriff disc. There were twenty-four discs in all.

I also picked up Jack McDowell, Albert Belle and Andy Van Slyke.

This Tony Pena disc is pretty cool. I like the "Sportflics" type front. As you can see from the pocket page that they are in, the discs are pretty small.

This is from the 1984 7-11 Slurpee Disc set. As you can see, it is disc eighteen of twenty-four. You are probably wondering what that "H" stands for. Could it have something to do with only being able to obtain this beautiful Tony Pena disc in a certain part of the United States?

How astute you are.

The discs were released in three regional sets (East, Central and West) consisting of twenty-four discs in each set.

The first six discs in each regional set were the same players.

1. Andre Dawson
2. Robin Yount
3. Dale Murphy
4. Mike Schmidt
5. George Brett
6. Eddie Murray

This particular Tony Pena is from the "East" set.

The rest of the page contains another Tony Pena, Bill Madlock and two of Rick Dempsey, all from the 1984 "East" set.

The first disc is this page is of Red Sox bust Pat Dodson. This was from the 1987 7-11 Slurpee set, which was even worse as there are five regional sets to collect. This was from the "East" version.

The rest of the discs on this page were from the 1984 set. The Wade Boggs, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Tony Pena and Mike Boddicker were from the "East" set, while the Ted Simmons, Bruce Sutter and Cecil Cooper were from the "Central" series.

These were all from the '84 sets.

Dale Murphy - (East)
Willie McGee - (Central)
Andre Dawson - (East)
Dale Murphy - (Central) - not a dupe but from a different regional set. If you notice the color is a bit different as well.
Lou Whitaker - (Central)
Lamarr Hoyt - (Central)
Mario Soto - (Central)
Dave Steib - (East)
Ron Kittle - (Central)

All of these were also from the 1984 set as well.

Steve Carlton - (East) x3
Keith Hernandez - (East)
Darryl Strawberry - (East)
John Denny - (East)
George Brett - (East)
Dan Quisenberry - (Central)
Tom Seaver - (East)

Now this page had discs from both the '84 and '87 sets.

1984 Dale Murphy - (East)
1984 Andre Dawson - (East)
1987 Don Baylor - (East)
1984 John Denny - (East)
1984 Gary Matthews - (East)
1987 Jim Rice - (East) x2
1984 Eddie Murray - (East)

One thing I noticed while I was typing this up is that the '84 discs have two images and the '87 discs have three.

Now this card is a reprint of the 1933 Goudey Napoleon Lajoie card.

But as you can see, the back offers no identifying information as to where this card came from. The back reminded me of the 1987 Hygrade Baseball All-Stars set that I've featured on this blog before.
I was able to find the answer on a message board at www.oldbaseball.com.

"In the early 1980s, Hygrade Sports Card Co. of New York City put together a hobby kit to acquaint youngsters with collecting baseball cards. In the kit, there was a 30-page guide to the hobby, an annotated price guide, a 9-pocket plastic sheet, a semi-rigid top loader, a set of five cards of great baseball players (Cobb, Ruth, Cy Young, Jackie Robinson and Mantle), and five reprint cards. The cards were:

: T206 Honus Wagner
: T206 Eddie Plank
: T206 Sherwood Magie
: T207 Lewis (Boston)
: 1933 Goudey Napoleon Lajoie

: Each card had a written description on the back about why the card was so scarce or valuable. Along with the description was a then-current value. "

So there you have it. There actually were two cards in the pocket, so I have a dupe if anyone wants it.

These six discs were from a 20 disc set that were inserted in packages of Holsum Bread in 1989.

I've seen discs from this set on eBay ranging from $2.50 to $3.15. I like my prices better.

In addition to the Mark McGwire, there was Darryl Strawberry, Greg Jefferies, "Dave" Cone, Matt Nokes, Bobby Bonilla, Jose Canseco and Frank Viola.

I said I was going to split my card show loot into two posts, but I still have a few pages of assorted oddballs to go, so it looks like I'm going to be able to squeeze a third post out of this.

More food issues on the way....

Getting My Monthly Oddball Fix

Last Sunday brought the return of the local card show and I was there bright and early. I didn't have much time to spend there as my wife and I were going to spend the day together. That wasn't much of a problem however, as I was only here to get my monthly fix of oddballs.

I did go around the show really quick looking for any cheap wax boxes or for anything else that stood out. There is one dealer that sometimes brings a binder of 1979 Topps (which I still haven't finished). He hadn't brought it with him for quite some time, but I happened to see it with all of his other binders of 1970's cards. Unfortunately, I didn't have my list with me, so purchasing any was out of the question.

Satisfied that I had made a decent trip around the show (and had not purchased anything), I moved on to the dealer's table full of oddballs. I started going through the binders and immediately noticed that he had brought some new stuff this time.

First, my most expensive purchases of the day:

1982 Kellogg's Robin Yount...

...and George Brett.

A fantastic way to start off my oddball fix, and they only cost fifty cents a piece.

Compared to what everything else cost, I splurged on these two cards.

Everything else I bought was a dime a piece...or three for a quarter...like this Rod Carew from the same Kellogg's set.

These next five cards are from the 1992 Diet Pepsi card set. This is the Canadian version of the thirty card set.

Shown here are Will Clark, Jeff Reardon, Barry Larkin, Dennis Martinez and Tom Henke.

That was cool, but here's where it really picks up.

The Hal Wagner card is from the 1985 TCMA set of 1947 Play Ball reprints. Got all that?

Now the quick bit of research I did (and I could be wrong), shows that there was no 1947 Play Ball set, as the last one was in 1941. So I am assuming that this is what they would have possibly looked like?

This is what the back looks like. No stats, just a summary of the player's career. While the cards are as wide as a standard baseball card, they are a little shorter.

The Hal Wagner was the only card from the 1947 reprint set. The Skeeter Newsome, Eddie Lake and John Lazor were from the 1945 Play Ball reprint set, the Bob Johnson and Mike Ryba were from the 1944 reprint set, and the Tony Lupien was from the 1943 reprint set (all of these sets were released in 1983). The backs of the other three sets do not have a white background, instead they have a gray background that makes them look like they came off of a macaroni and cheese box.

The other two cards of the above nine are of Dave "Boo" Ferris, who pitched for the Red Sox in the 1940's. This came from a two hundred card set released in 1978 by a company that I am going to assume was called Grand Slam. I can't find any other information that says otherwise. These are cool cards, thinner and smaller than a standard baseball card.

Again, the backs have no stats, just a write-up of the player's career.

In addition to the above two cards, he had 3 nine-card pages full that I grabbed immediately.

This page is all Red Sox.

Babe Dahlgren - played for the Red Sox in 1935 and 1936. He was purchased by the Yankees in 1937 and was the player that replaced Lou Gehrig in the lineup on May 2nd, 1939 ending his consecutive game streak. 

Rick Ferrell - Played for the Red Sox from 1933 - 1937 and played in the inaugural All-Star Game in 1933. Elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1984.

"Smoky" Joe Wood - Played for the Red Sox from 1908 - 1915. He pitched 344 innings in 1912 and was 34 - 5. The back of the card lists his 1911 record as 21 - 17, however baseball-reference.com lists it as 23 - 17. The back of his card also lists his lifetime record as 112 - 58, baseball-reference.com lists it as 117 - 57.

Joe Dobson - Played for the Red Sox from 1941 - 1943, 1946 - 1950 and 1954. Won game 5 of the 1946 World Series.

Dolf Camili - He did play in 63 games for the Red Sox in 1945, but most checklists (including www.teamsets4u.com) list him as a Brooklyn Dodger in this set. Led the National League in HR (34) and RBI (120) in 1941.

Jackie Jensen - Played for the Red Sox from 1954 - 1961. Retired primarily because of a fear of flying. (I'm with you on that one, Jackie. If I can't drive there, I can't get there.)

Rube Walberg - Played for the Red Sox from 1934 - 1937. Gave up seventeen home runs to Babe Ruth, the most of any pitcher.

...and three more cards of Rick Ferrell.

Billy Goodman - Played with the Red Sox from 1947 - 1957. Batted over .300 five times and led the American League in 1950 with a .354 batting average.

Tex Hughson - Played his entire career with the Red Sox (1941 - 1949). Was the losing pitcher of Game 4 of the 1946 World Series giving up six runs in two innings in a 12-3 defeat.

Pete Runnels - Played for the Red Sox from 1958 - 1962. He won two batting titles with the Red Sox and was the interm manager for the last sixteen games of 1966, finishing one-half game out of last place.

What team finished last?

THE YANKEES!

We all know what happened with the Red Sox in 1967.

Johnny Beazley - The back of this card says he pitched for the Red Sox and the Cardinals, but it was actually the Cardinals and Braves that he played for. His only tie to the Red Sox was that he pitched the bottom of the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 1946 World Series AGAINST the Red Sox.

I need five more to complete the Red Sox portion of this set.

52 Bobby Doerr
81 Johnny Pesky
98 Dom DiMaggio
176 Smead Jolley (not only is that a cool name, he once committed three errors on one play. That's awesome.)
200 Joe Cronin

There is a lot more that I picked up, but rather than making it one long post, I'll show you the rest in my next post. There will be some cool food issues contained therein.

And as usual, any dupes are up for trade. That's why I get 'em.

Monster Box Mania - You've Been Halved! (Part 2)

A few weeks ago, I posted the first half of a monster box of cards I bought. I ended that post "promising" to reveal the second half shortly, which gave the impression that the second post would follow within a couple of days. So much for that idea. Try almost a month later.

One hundred and fifty-two 2001 Fleer Triple Crown. A nice start to the second half.

2000 Just 2K Josh Beckett

Three hundred and sixteen from 2001 Upper Deck MVP. Another set that I've gotten a few here and there over the years.

One from 2007 Topps.

Another one from 2007 Topps (this time with a red back).

Twenty nine from 2007 Topps Update.

Two from 2007 Topps Update Red Backs. In addition to the Doug Mirabelli, there was also a Blue Jays card of Jason Frasor.

Six from 2007 Fleer Ultra.

Twenty-one from 2008 Topps Update. Over the years through purchasing these monster boxes I've accumulated so much of this, it is rivaling my 1989 Topps "collection".

Two from 2008 Topps Allen & Ginter. Both cards were Hunter Pence.

Two from 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter. Neither were Hunter Pence.

One from the 2008 Topps Trading Card History set.

Two from 2009 O-Pee-Chee.

Nine from 2009 Upper Deck.

One from 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars. 169/170. Missed it by one! To me, 170/170 is just as impressive as 1/170.

Four from 2010 Bowman.

One from 2010 Topps Update.

One from 2011 Bowman. I had forgotten about Lars Anderson. He was traded for knuckleball pitcher Steven Wright at the 2012 trade deadline.

One from 2011 Bowman Chrome.

One from 2011 Bowman Platinum.

Seven from 2011 Topps Update including the cool Dee Gordon card.

Three from 2012 Bowman.

Thirty-one from 2012 Topps.

One hundred and thirty-one (with some dupes) from 2012 Topps Update.

Twenty from 2012 Topps Chrome.

Seven from 2012 Topps Archives (all seven were SP's).

One from 2013 Bowman.

Two from 2013 Topps.

Three from 2013 Topps Heritage.

Eleven from 2013 Topps Archives.

It took longer to post about this box than it did to go through it. There was a lot of good stuff contained within, and the best part is that it didn't leave me with too many cards I already had. Any box that has a lot of late 90's cards or from the early part of this century fills quite a gap in my collection.