Diamond Giveaway Orders 2-4: By the Numbers

Wow, where does the time go?  Life distracted me I guess.  It wasn’t for bad things for once at least though, so no worries.  Just beautiful distraction… Anyway, my last three orders of Diamond Giveaway cards have arrived.  So,  here’s a quick breakdown by year.

1960: 3- 13 Wally Post (Keeper), 60 Gus Triandos (Keeper), 241 Albie Pearson (Keeper).  Condition: Acceptable.  All three are a bit off-center & have a lil edge wear/corner dingage.  Triandos is scratched up & might be my worst condition ’60 so far, but I know it could’ve been much, much worse.

1964: 1- 372 Howie Koplitz. Condition: Similar to the two better ’60s.  By far the worst problem is centering, so I can’t complain.

1965: 1- 270 Milt Pappas (Keeper).  Condtion: Decently loved.  Bit of creasing, well worn edges, maybe a lil weathered(?).  Worst condition so far, but again, I’m not grading too harshly.

1966: 5- 8 Floyd Robinson, 49 Woody Woodward, 192 Vic Power (Keeper), 283 Jim Perry, 393 George Brunet.  Condition: Woody is the best by far, reasonably well centered & only relatively minor corner dingage.  Floyd & Vic have maybe a similar level of issues, but in different ways, and the last two… well, they kinda suck.  Perry seems to be stained & has a crease running the length horizontally near the bottom.  Brunet is stained, pretty creased up, has well-worn corners, & is centered worse than everyone amongst the ’66s, save Vic Power.  Brunet is by far the worst condition card now.

1967: 8- 27 Bob Saverine, 71 Camilo Pascual, 107 Joel Horlen, 117 Darrell Brandon, 145 Larry Brown, 269 Don  Nottebart, 291 Jim Hannan, 416 Roger Repoz.  Condition: Mostly great!  Repoz is the only legitimately bad one.  Horlen & Nottebart are a little more worn than the rest, Hannan is stained, & Larry Brown is hilariously off-center.  The other three are very nice though, and overall these guys are worlds better than the ’66s.

1968: 2- 28 Ted Uhlaender, 336 John Purdin. Condition: Uhlaender is pretty rough, but Purdin would probably grade out decently.  Not much damage and near perfect centering.  Very nice if you need him for the set or something.

1969: 11- 14 Al McBean, 129 Bill McCool, 154 Jim Britton, 158 Joe Gibbon, 264 Bill Landis, 281 Ted Kubiak, 316 Hal Lanier, 322 Jose Vidal, 337 Marty Martinez, 374 Bob Tillman, 474 Tom Murphy.  Condition: McBean is by far the most damaged.  A few others or worn or weathered, but not much creasing going on.   Tillman & Marty Mart have centering issues, but minimal damage, the former have almost none at all.

1970: 1- 52 Bruce Dal Canton.  Condition: Absolutely beat to hell.  Gives the awesome ’53 Hank Sauer Heartbreaking Cards sent me out of nowhere recently a run for it’s money, without the charm of being from the early ’50s.

1971: 2- 48 Dave Baldwin, 505 Ollie Brown.  Condition:  Pretty nice for ’71s, especially Ollie.  Dave has scratches across his face, though to a much lesser extent than the Triandos & somewhat rough corners, but nice centering.  Ollie isn’t quite centered as well, but is easily my 2nd best conditioned ’71 (after a super off-center but virtually undamaged Hoyt Wilhelm).

1972: 3- 73 Steve Huntz, 240 Dick Allen (Keeper), 258 Randy Hundley (Keeper).  Condition: No complaints.  Huntz is easily the worst, & mostly just looks a little weathered and feels kinda… weird.  Filmy, I guess?  On both sides.  Allen & Hundley don’t have much wrong with them.

1973: 3- 88 Mickey Stanley, 310 Dick Allen (Keeper), 444 Ken Brett.  Condition: Mickey’s seen better days.  Very rough.  Allen looks a little weathered & is off-center, but doesn’t seem to be that beat up or anything.  Ken’s in pretty decent shape.

1974: 2- 22 Cy Acosta, 528 Bill Bonham.  Condition: Cy is a little rough, particularly the corners, but is well-centered.  Bonham is noice.

1975: 5- 283 Steve Foucault, 301 Dave Roberts, 305 Jim Colborn, 579 Skip Pitlock, 588 Rick Auerbach.  Condition: Foucault & Colborn are the roughest, Pitlock is a lil scruffy, the other two are fine.

1976: 8- 12 Richie Zisk, 15 George Scott (Keeper), 227 Oscar Zamora, 351 Randy Hundley (Keeper), 359 Rick Reuschel, 391 Jerry Hairston, 455 Dick Allen (Keeper), 545 Sparky Lyle.  Condition: Nothing too bad.  Just some dinged corners mostly.  Sparky has this slight… tear(?), on the lower left edge, but it isn’t something I’m going to lose it over.

1978: 3- 93 Bobby Cox MGR, Henry Cruz, 380 Ted Simmons. Condition: Cruz is a little beat up, but again, nothing too severe here.  Most of my other ’78s are in worse condition than the Simmons & Cox at least.

1979: 3- 145 Rick Rhoden, 216 Wilbur Wood, 720 Expos Prospects (Jerry Fry/Jerry Pirtle/Scott Sanderson.  Condition: Looks like just the slightest of corner dingage here.  I have game-used that have come out of the pack looking worse.

1980: 1- 117 Dock Ellis (Keeper).  Condition: We’re in the ’80s now.  Expecting better than… multiple poke spots(… The hell?), and weird scuffy/stainy lines.

1981: 1- 310 Vida Blue.  Condition: Scratchiness by the hat in bottom left, lil edge wear on bottom, & a dinged corner.  Pfft.

1982: 1- 721 Greg Luzinski In Action.  Condition: Not quite perfect.  Meh, close enough.

1983: 1- 177 Harold Baines (Was going to be a keeper, might just be trash).  Condition: Crap.  Creases, scuffiness, corner wear, a lil warpiness?  WTF?!  I’m actually kind of genuinely pissed off by this card.  It’s seriously one of the more beat up cards in the entire lot.  You couldn’t get ahold of an ’83 semistar less beat up than this?!  C’mon, man!

1984: 3- 171 Frank Robinson MGR (Keeper), 276 Angels Batting/Pitching Leaders Rod Carew/Geoff Zahn (Keeper), 390 Tim Raines All-Star (Keeper).  Condition: Best shape of any of the ’80s cards so far, though none are quite minty fresh.

1986: 2- 254 Ozzie Guillen RC (Keeper), 760 Andre Dawson (Keeper).  Condition.  Ozzie is in line with the ’84s and thus good enough, but Hawk is somewhere between Luzinski & Vida Blue…

2011 Diamond Die-Cuts: 4- DDC-16 Justin Upton (Keeper), DDC-60 David Wright, DDC-94 Marlon Bryd, DDC-119 Kurt Suzuki.  Condition: Nothing wrong here I guess.

N/A: 1- 1975 Dock Ellis.  The only card I didn’t get.  We’ll see how it looks whenever it gets here.

Overall Grade:  The condition of the ’60s & ’70s mostly met or exceeded expectations, and only the 1970 the Bruce Dal Canton was probably unacceptably awful.  But I was expecting a lot better of the ’80s stuff.  I give the overall condition a B-.  That Harold Baines hurt bad.

I think I got all my keepers labeled.  Most of the rest is up for trade.  Sorry about the lack of pictures.  I’ll try to get them all scanned and posted before the week is out (no guarantees of course).  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy trails to you…

Million Card Giveaway Haul

Forgot about this until I saw them amongst some undownloaded scannage still sitting in my inbox.  Here’s what I ended up with:

1983 Cubs Team Leaders Leon Durham/Fergie Jenkins, 1984 Ge(J)orge Bell, 1985 Ryne Sandberg, 1972 Roger Freed, 1960 Al Schroll, 1976 Davy Lopes

Pretty nice haul considering how little I had to work with.  No complaints about condition either.  Only the ’60 and ’72 had any damage, but except for a certain 1965 card from a recent-ish trade and some pack fresh ’83s, I don’t know that I’ve ever even seen anything from before the junk wax era that was minty fresh.  Hell, a lot of current cards don’t even seem to come out of the pack minty fresh.  So yeah, these are fine, even centered nicely.  Davy Lopes is only has the slightest corner ding, otherwise he’s in perfect condition.

I didn’t have much luck with the MCG, either pulling them from packs, or turning them into vintage once on the site.  In fact, I’ve already pulled more Diamond Giveaway chances than I pulled MCGs all of last year, and with better vintage success (close to 50%).  Freed and Schroll were the only two pre-1975 cards from the MCG I scored myself without have to trade for.  Schroll was was great to get myself as a Cubs fan, but he was the only pre-1970 card I hit at all.  I’ve already somewhat duplicated the vintage Cubs feat this year, hitting a 1970 Don Young, that I will most likely be keeping, and hit have hit two pre-1970 cards (both ’69s, one I traded for a ’67) so far.

I really enjoy the idea of these “giveaways”.  They definitely haven’t perfected it, but it’s a fun way to score some random vintage cards (and other goodies), and really, who can argue with random vintage (and other goodies)?

The backs..

Freed and Lopes are available for trade.  Seeya.

Vintagevintagevintagevintage, its… VINTAGE.

Flea Market Finds #12: Ninth Binder page + Mojo

Ugh, mojo is such a dumb word (unless we’re talking super intelligent monkey supervillains or card blogging hands), but I digress.  While the weather is hitting record highs, so to are my blog hits.  And I’m closing in on posting every day for a week straight for maybe the first time ever in the history of this blog.  Things seem to finally coming together in my little corner of the blog netherverse.

Anyway, we’re heading down the final stretch of the flea market posts.  Only a couple more posts after this!  Then I’ll have even more to post, since the flea market comes up again this Saturday.  I’ll try to do this month’s flea market finds up much quicker though.

There are also new sketch card posts in the offing.  I colored seven more last night, and hope to finish the last two Justice Leaguers and three Star Trek captains later tonight.  I also have at least three much-belated trade posts to post, and one fresh one at the moment, with more coming in the not-too-distant future.  So things aren’t going to be slowing for probably the rest of this month anyway.

I will be sending out a few trades this month too, some old (sorry it’s taken so long, guys), some new (I’m trying to be quicker about it).

That all tediously said, let’s get to the action!  Mojo Jojo Hand first!

Three-color patch-jo! Hey wait...

This was the other $1.50 card he gave me for $1 (it was apparently priced $6 at some point).  It’s pretty cool looking, but it’s odd.  The card isn’t #’ed, and the patch itself is making me say “hmm…”, because the colors seem to be reversed.  I can’t figure out where the patch could possibly have come from.  There doesn’t appear to be anywhere on the jersey where a thin strip of white patch meets red jersey with gold on the inside like that.  I is confused and mayby have the eyesight of your average NBA ref, but it was only $1, so whatevs (any information most welcome though).

I also have a regular non-patch version of this, probably pulled from an eBay “hot pack” or retail repack box at some point.  Anyway, if you want either, have at thee!

Now for the fun part of this entirely too long blog post, the next binder page!!

Beckett inserts x2, 1983 topps Traded Don Baylor, 2010 topps Joe Saunders Gold parallel /2010, 1977 topps Graig Nettles, 1983 topps Yaz, Frank Viola rookie!, 1977 topps Willie Randolph (Rookie Cup FTW!) 1983 topps Tom Seaver

Why Purchased: Hall of Famers and stars of their day on the most perfectly designed ever made, 1983 topps, and nearly vintage Yankee greats.

Keepers: Sadly, probably nada.

Notes: Why are topps Traded cards of the era ALWAYS in infinitely better shape than regular cards?

You know how you end up with the name Graig?  When one parent wants to name the kid Greg, and the other wants to name him Craig, and they decide to compromise.  Which is proof that compromise is not always a good thing.

At least they didn’t name him Jermajesty or Caleb or something awful like that.

I didn’t know the Viola was a rookie until I was fooling around looking up late-’70s/mid-’80s rookies by year on Check Out My Cards.

I enjoy Rookie Cups and Rated Rookies entirely too much.

Mind-Blowing Statistic: Yaz had three 40-home run seasons, and no others over 30 (or 28 to be exact).

I was struggling to come up with something, but that’s a pretty good interesting stat right?  All cards except Willie Randolph are available (he’ll be going out in a way overdue trade).  Thanks for stopping by!

I feel like chicken tonight!

Flea Market Finds #7: Singles to Mingle

So, I finally got the singles I picked up at the flea market edited down into bite-sized chunks recently, and after the power going out at some point while I slept the other day, when I started things back up, my keyboard was working again.  So, I’m back in business.

First though, a quick note.  I spent all day (seriously, from around 8am till after 5pm) pouring over a few wantlists, digging through my endless stacks of cards, and firing off emails.  And heads up to Nomo’s Sushi Platter and Fuji, you’re next on the list, though I don’t need to dig as hard for stuff for you guys.

Now then, the loot!  All but the last card were $1 apiece (two were priced at $1.50, but he gave ’em to me for a buck).

Lou Whitaker Rookie!

Let’s check the stats! (via Baseball-Reference)

Garth Iorg: 1978; 1980-1987- 20/238/.258/.292/.347/.639 OPS+ 72  Just your average below average 2B.

Dave Oliver: 1977- 0/3/.318/.444/.409/.854 OPS+ 140  Only 29 career plate appearances, but that was a good start!  Sad he never got much of a chance, especially with how long and mediocre Iorg’s career was.  He never even struck out in short time in the bigs (4 walks).

Sam Perlozzo: 1977; 1979- 0/0/.269/.345/.423/.768 OPS+ 110  Only 30 career plate appearances, but also a pretty promising glimpse of what maybe could have been.  He hit two triples in his short career, and later went on to manage terrible Orioles teams for parts of three seasons earlier this decade.

Lou Whitaker: 1977-1995- 244/1084/.276/.363/.426/.789 OPS+ 116 Career WAR 69.7  Other stats of note: 420 double, more walks than strikeouts (1197-1099).  Awards: 1978 Rookie of the Year, 5x All-Star, 3x Gold Glove, 3x Silver Slugger

Okay, how the hell is Lou Whitaker not in the Hall of Fame?!  Those are STILL elite offensive numbers for 2nd baseman!  He was still playing well and producing even at the very end of his career.  Bah, total BS.  I’m angry now, next card!

Merrick Mint Ichiro Suzuki Laser Line Gold Card

It’s really hard to see.  I dunno how such an insanely shiny card can scan this badly, but trust me, it looks awesome.

'68 Strikeout Leaders

This was one of the $1.50 ones, obviously perhaps.  It’s in surprisingly not bad shape.  653 combined wins, 7824 career combined strikeouts, and 755 total in ’68 (268 Gibson, 260 Fergie, 227 Singer).  ’68 was also Gibson’s impossible 1.12 ERA season, in which he even more impossibly lost 9 games (22 wins)!

1980-81 Bird RC!

Now, each of the three pieces of the legendary Bird RC/Dr. J/Magic RC appears on at least one other trio with a different combination, which are valuable in their own right.  Still though, I hope this came from one of the other combinations, not that it will stop me from trying to track down the legendary trio in this form.  I’ll put ’em up on a list of specific, hard to track down, cards when I get around to it.

The Back

Here’s the back.  That cartoon doesn’t look like Larry at all.

Finally, since I guess I actually only got just over half of the nine singles edited into bite-sized chunks, here is the big one I picked up!

Ryne Sandberg Rookie!

I’ve wanted to get this card for a very, very long time.  And there it was, for $6.  The most perfect card, from the most perfectly designed set ever made.  I’m so happy to have rookies of two of the biggest Chicago sports icons of all time.  Ryno looks good next to Walter Payton. 🙂

The guy actually had all three of the big rookies from 1983 for a similar price, and I’ll be picking up at least Gwynn next time, if it’s still there.

I guess that’s all for this one.  Needless to say, only Sweet Lou is even remotely up for trade.  Now, I’ll just let y’all bask in the glow of a rookie Ryno & go get some more work done, updating this & that.  Seeya later.

Until our next…

A Trade Post You Say?

Yep, and I think I’ve about got a return package ready for this one finally.  It comes to me from Baseball Card Stuff, and it is awesome as can be, so let’s get right into it and check out the majority of what was sent!

That 20-10 topps card isn't part of the trade, for some reason I combined them with scans of this trade (twice as you will see). Poor planning on my part.

Why does Opening Day get so much crap for being the same as the base set when almost every year, the little tweaks actually make it BETTER looking than the original??  The blue foil is better (or at least more interesting) than the regular silver on the ’06s, and the white border completely and utterly destroys the black-bordered design of the ’07 set.  I’m not normally all about the white borders (if you’re going plain white borders, just make it full-bleed, cuz that’s much less boring), but it actually makes the ’07 design look nice.

Also, Derrick May!  And a nice Upper Deck design, which brings me to my next rant.  To the people that dislike Upper Deck’s general lack of base set design, I strongly disagree with you (and they change it up enough to tell the difference from year-to-year, so come off that BS).  An analogy: I watch my wrestling for THE WRESTLING, not the silly skits & promos and crap.  The extracurricular crap only works to raise the interest in a match when it’s good, and quite frankly, it usually isn’t.  This is the same reason I generally prefer Upper Deck’s flagship base sets over topps’, they tend to be free of the frequently not very good design clutter of topps and let the great photography do the talking.

To each their own I guess, and it’s not like I’m a set collector anyway, but topps, ehh… I can take ’em or leave ’em.  They may have the history, the tradition, but I think tradition is overrated, especially when it comes to baseball.  I may catch heat for that, but I’m not saying it all willy-nilly.  There are reasons for it.

Rant mode off.

For now.

Maybe.

No rants here, just some good ol' quality Mark Grace action. This is the other one I foolishly combined with 20-10 topps scans that I'll probably never use, though I managed to put a keeper up in the same row as the trade cards this time.

I guess the lack of mid-’90s baseball card collecting (I was all about the basketball back then when I was first starting out) is why I have so few Mark Grace cards in my collection, so these are all greatly appreciated.  The ghostly Graceface on the Pinnacle card is foilboard I think.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have sudden urge to go grab a bottle of RC.  Dunno why… 😛

Now we're gettin' to the nitty gritty. Griffey, Dawson, Bell, that Fukudome I have about a half dozen of now...

Yeah, I have a lot of that UDX Fukudome.  If anyone has a spare Heritage or Goudey Kosuke Rookie, I’d gladly send a UDX (or two!) for it.

I’m planning to pare down my Griffey collection, but the Profiles and Record Breakers will be staying.

I think I might have to make a player collection for George Bell, since I’ve been keeping the few pre and post-Cubbies I have of him too.  He’s just cool.

Speaking of cool, Andre Dawson, ladies & gentlemen.  I think that Hawk is my first very first Leaf card of that year.  I don’t even recognize the design, though I’m sure I’ve seen it before.

And wow, I never realized this, but ’84 topps is like the unholy offspring of ’83 and ’86 topps, lol.

This scan is so full of win!

A Kosuke parallel #ed /99 flanked by two different ’83 Fergie Jenkins’!! ~ Win x3

My first ever ’80s Sportflics! ~ Win

The total mindblowage that is Eck & Lee Smith being on the same team at the same time combined with the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen an ’85 Donruss card before! ~ Win x2

And as my dad noted when he saw the card, not only the is mustache above Buckner’s lip impressive, but the mustaches above his eyes are pretty amazing too! ~ Win for my dad’s sense of humor.

And that’s not even getting to the fact that I need both the Hawk & the Ryno. ~ Yet more win.

See?  Full of win.  Thank you very much, Jake.  Awesome cards.  I will get stuff sent as soon as I can.

Oh, I almost forgot.  Jake also sent this lil guy along:

Andre Dawson Coin! I was pretty geeked up to find this in the package. 🙂

Now then, though the interest has been better than I was really expecting, we’ve still got 9 or so more spots still to fill to make the Opening Day Group Break happen.  It will be a max of $25 for two random teams and the boxes busted will most likely look pretty similar to the rough draft from a couple posts ago.

Next time, Gadget…

Better Late than Never: Random Packs of Kindness!

Went back to about 150 posts to see if I posted these yet, and it looks like no, which is just sad.  There were some cool cards in my 8 packs from David, who is currently in India* meditating and doing yoga to help realign his blogging focus back to Indians baseball cards (though I hope there will be occasional updates on his writing adventures) and preparing for the big return.  Here be a (very) small sampling that you may ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at so I don’t have to say much.  Consider it a warmup for March 1st and refresher on his coolness.

*He’s probably not in India.  Not sure about the meditating or yoga either…

Kool Moe Dee!

Heathcliff is a keeper!

'83 topps! The most perfectly designed set ever! Oh yeah, I said it.

The best stuff (that I remembered to bring with me to scan those many moons ago).

Frank, Willie, Griffey & the Phillies dude, and Bell are keepers.

Backe is numbered /100.

And I forgot to scan the presumably TTM or IP auto of I think it was Pat Mahomes and a gold version of Griffey & Dykstra.

I still have almost all of these (the Marlins are with Wicked I think, but otherwise yeah, they’re probably around here somewheres), including the hits, and everything but the keepers can be had if anyone wants them.  Click on my blogger profile link on the sidebar and shoot me an email.

David and Jay Leno both redebut on March 1st.  What are the odds David’s first post gets more hits than Leno’s first show back in his old timeslot? 😛