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…

Diamond Gallery #2: The Diamond Die-Cuts

As mentioned last time, my first Diamond Giveaway order (of four full 25-card orders total) arrived last Friday.  It was the free one, and contained most of my Diamond Die-Cuts. So here they are now.  Enjoy.

Shin-Soo Choo..

They are nice & shiny all over.  The only thing that could make them better is if they were in the much prettier blue or purple Walmart or Toys B Fun versions. They are great as is, but red doesn’t do it for me.  Give me the darker, cooler colors any day.

Andrew McCutchen..

The  diamond in the background glows almost as much as it shines.  This is especially true of the black diamond.  But we’ll get to that in due time.

Big Papi..

I ended up with most of what I was after, but I never was able to land Ernie Banks, and I’m still a little tweaked by that.

Dave Winfield..

There were way too damn many Yankees in this set, but it’s hard to argue with most of them.  Only Swisher and Teixeira are really debatable, and the latter only because he’s sucked in 2012.  Still, I’d have taken out both of them and either Maris or Munson and a few of the lesser Braves and added Johnny Bench, Joey Votto, and Matt Kemp, amongst others.

CarGo..

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with CarGo and the others that aren’t players I specifically collect or are otherwise spoken for.  Ya better bring it if you want one though.

Longo..

I’d like one of the few of these I still want or need in return (Ernie Banks, Carlos Marmol, Tyler Colvin, Jackie Robinson, and Reggie Jackson, amongst others I potentially accept).  In lieu of that, make a specific offer of something pretty darn nice.  I sunk way too much time into this and I’m not just going to accept any ol’ thang for these bad mamma-jammas.

Chris Sale..

Alexei..

These are the two White Sox I picked up for my dad’s little collection of things I pull or pick up cheap.  I miiiiiiiight be able to let one go if you have the ammo to deal, but I’m not moving both.

Adrian Beltre..

2012 All-Star starter, future Hall of Famer?  After the unspectacular-yet-steady early years and lone monster contract season with the Dodgers and somewhat awful stretch with the Marinerds, he’s really turned it on since leaving the M’s and seems to be getting better with age.  The numbers are starting to look Hall of Fame quality for 3B.

Aramis..

Speaking of guys closing in on Hall of Fame numbers at the hot corner.  Aramis maybe isn’t aging quite as gracefully (or perhaps it’s just the Brewers relative irrelevance when not in the playoff hunt), but he’s still playing fairly decent up there in Milwaukee.  And if the Brew Crew completely fall out of playoff picture, look for Aramis to catch fire and look and make people take notice of his offensive prowess again.  It’s what he does, kinda.

Ichiro Suzuki..

To hell with that one name BS.  It doesn’t matter if how amazing someone is, this ain’t soccer!  And “Fred” ruined it for soccer anyway.

King Felix..

And now the pitching half of what was a two man team for most of the last few years, King Felix.

Vlad..

Why is this guy not in the majors right now?!  He had his worst season last and still hit .290!

David Wright..

One of two die-cuts likely bound for Long Fly Ball.  Don’t worry though Wright fans, because I have another on the way.  For the same reason I couldn’t get Ernie, I’m a little tweaked to still have the second David Wright.  I tried EVERYTHING to deal the second Wright for Ernie, but no matter how ridiculously lopsided in whoever the offers were going to’s favor, I got jack and diddly to show for it.

RickyRo Black Diamond #’ed 48/60

Check the black diamond’s dark, ominous glow.  This is what made this order free, and the other die-cut most likely bound for Long Fly Ball.

Starlin Castro..

Goin’ bigtime with the last two.  2011’s NL Hit (and error) King, Starlin Castro!

Ryno!

Finally, one of the only two die-cuts I actually hit myself (though I guess I only unlocked 34-ish cards total), Ryne Sandberg!  Although, come to think of it, I hit this and the Black Diamond Gaby Sanchez that eventually became RickyRo in just 30-some shots, so I actually did incredibly well, I guess.

That’s it for this one, sports fans.  The Diamond Giveaway (which I keep wanting to hash tag and not space…) is over, so please make your final selections and proceed to checkout.  Thank you for shopping your local Diamond Giveaway.

Until our next…

Ryno Get!

So I stopped by the Diamond Giveaway site like I do at least once almost every day, to clear out most trade offers & accept any I might like (there are two definite accepts today, for the record).  In recent days, I’ve also been checking to see if the final three Die-Cuts had dropped yet.  Ryne Sandberg is among the last three, so I decided to hold back any extra codes I might end up with until the last three dropped so I could take as many shots as landing him as possible.  I ended up saving back three of the four codes I picked up in that time, but it turns out I only needed one.  Behold!

Yes!

With the first code card (which will be forever encased in a top loader), he appeared.  And my jaw went slack in a way usually only reserved for impossibly beautiful women, impossibly beautiful art, impossibly bad puns, and impossibly delicious and gigantic sandwiches.

The other two codes didn’t score much (’85 common & ’90 Carlton Fisk), but anything else would’ve just been gravy anyway.  When I first looked only two Rynos had been unlocked, & five after I finished unlocking cards and digging, so I got him early.  Aaaand with my big late need already out of the way, I can concentrate the 228 (roughly 200 available for trade) cards in my portfolio on reclaiming Ichiro and Beltre and landing Ernie Banks and the other two Cubbies I need (Marmol and Colvin).  Hopefully there will be enough to score a few guys from my third tier list too (revised as follows: Andrew McCutchen, Mike Stanton, Reggie Jackson, Jackie Robinson, Carlos Santana, Miguel Montero, Dan Haren, Jered Weaver, Carlos Quentin, Clayton Kershaw, Jose Reyes… I’m not too picky, lol).

And yes, 228 is not a typo.  Someone offered 150 cards for my Ichiro, with a majority of it being solidly tradable based on other trades I’ve made.  So… I took it.  Thus also my reason for needing Ichiro again.

These are the Diamond Die-Cuts I have now, all keepers minus the extra King Felix, and I have specific plans for it.

Ryno

Starlin

Shin-Soo Choo

King Felix (x2, using the second to try to land Ernie or Ichiro)

Vlad

Big Papi

Winfield

Aramis

Marlon Byrd

Buehrle

Romero (Black Diamond)

Guess that’s all for this one, folks.  As ever, thanks for stopping by!

Until our next…

Diamond Giveaway Update

Since I haven’t mentioned in awhile and it’s all I’ve got handy, here is where I currently stand in the Diamond Giveaway.  I’ve managed to score several Diamond Die-Cuts via random vintage trading, and have finally landed a few keepers.  Behold, for I now have a screen grabber!

Vlad, via Carlos Santana..

Shin-Soo Choo, via Ricky Romero..

Big Papi, via David Price..

King Felix, via Roger Maris..

Aramis, via '66 Bolin, '75 Bumbry, '78 Pentz, Dierker, & McClure, '82 Cey, and '85 Ozzie Smith..

Not bad.  And if you’re wondering how I have 46 cards, I let go of the second Carlos Santana for 14 vintage cards because I was about out of trade bait.  A few of those netted me a Brian McCann Die-Cut which shortly thereafter landed me 31(!) more cards from 1973-1985, including several stars (one keeper- ’76 Dick Allen) and a Cub.

See?

I peaked at 52 cards, but seven of them landed Aramis over the weekend.  So despite all the randomness, there is a method to my madness, and these are the rest of the Diamond Die-Cuts I’m after:

Ernie Banks

Starlin Castro

Tyler Colvin

Dave Winfield

Ichiro Suzuki

Adrian Beltre

I also have a secondary list of players I’d like to pick up any of (for various reasons) if possible.  These would be my main priority from the secondary list:

Mark Buehrle (for my dad)

Carlos Santana (3rd time’s a charm, right?)

Hanley Ramirez (still flirting with the idea of collecting him on occasion)

Andrew McCutchen (ditto)

I’m not sure I have anything anyone wants, but if you’ve got any of the above on the site (or any others really, whatevs, I’m not too picky or in a hurry or anything) and want to swing a deal for my random, mostly ’70s nonsense, and if you can find me… maybe you can hire– Wait, ha.  I’m game.

So that was a pretty boring post, but at least I had some pictures this time right?  Right??  Anyway, next time, a “Look for Vintage” Fairfield pack that didn’t suck.

‘Til the crossroads…

I Have No Idea What This Post Will Be About…

… Until I start writing it.  I’m barely mentally coherent and can’t quite think of anything specific to say (I for one blame this ridiculous heat and dis brokeass recliner hurting my back for my total lack of posting energy), but I feel the need to say SOMETHING.  So, here goes whatever.

Nothing has happened as yet with my Black Diamond Die-Cut on the topps Diamond Giveaway site.  Haven’t even gotten many offers on it.  I’ve picked up three regulars via trading though.

I had to let my ’75 Bill Madlock go earlier today when someone offered a Yovani Gallardo for it.  Just couldn’t refuse that.  I also scored a Ricky Romero a few days ago from haphazardly offering up my ’67 Dick Schofield, ’74 Walt Williams, and ’91 Luis Rivera for just about any Diamond Die-Cut I had even marginal interest in and/or could easily trade once I have it in-hand if I can’t get one of my needs on the site.  I sent out a mess of only slightly more focused trade offers for each when the sun was going down.

Before that, doing the same incoherent-but-effective trade offering with a ’73 Johnny Briggs and ’69 Chuck Cottier landed me a Billy Butler which over the course of a single day became a Carlos Santana which finally turned into my first definite keeper in Vlad Guerrero.  Very nice.  I’d like to land another Santana for myself at some point, but I’m not counting on it.

(EDIT: Just checked.  I’ve landed another Carlos Santana.  Got it for Gallardo.  Lulz.)

Aside from that, I’ve picked up four packs of this year’s A&G.  The first two (from Walmart) were weak.  No inserts, plain ol’ regular back minis (one was a Cub, but I’ve never been a fan of Dempster), and a shortprint of stinkin’ Cardinal.  Only saving grace was Cheryl Burke hawtness.

The second two (from Target) were outstanding, however.  A code version of an SP, a Jason Heyward mini SP, a Most Mysterious Man in the Iron Mask, and an Ascent of Man, which I can confirm are as awesome as advertised.  Plus more cool random people base cards in Kristi Yamaguchi and  Stan freakin’ Lee!  I’ll be keeping Kristi, Stan, and maybe the Ascent of Man (for now at least), but the others are available.  I’m interested in Minds that Made the Future, Highlight Sketches, and Portraits in Penultimacy in return.

I also picked up a few things the on COMC the other day, much of it trade bait.  Flying Spaghetti Monster only knows when I’ll have money to get any of it out though, especially if the government turds out.  Seriously, fuck the GOP.  Right in the ear.  Because God forbid the rich and big businesses start paying their fair share of taxes, amirite?

Anyway, if you like BJ Upton, Jose Reyes (2B?), Victor Martinez, Garrett Atkins, or… Joseph Addai (eh, why not?), or the teams they play/played for, you might be in luck.  Also Carlos Lee and Andy Pettitte.

Also slowly gathering specific things for specific people.  Got at least one thing I owe Ray now.  I’ll set about getting ahold of the rest pending government bullshittery.

Finally, for the love of Tommy Oliver, my email is on my blogger profile which is linked on my sidebar!  Ahem… Sorry, but it’s there.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a thing (via my first trade with Cards on Cards that I never posted because I don’t know what became of most of the scans :():

The original Shawon-O-Meter?

Seriously though, I have no idea what this is and have been too lazy and/or unfocused to look it up as of yet.  It’s kinda cool though.

Guess that’s all for this post.  Needs more pictures, but it turned out better than the post I had originally planned.  Baseball cards are much more enjoyable than b*tching about government incompetence, DC Comics incompetence, and… “Unicorns”.  It would’ve been… weird.

It’s too hot for pants…

Black Diamond Get!

It took more than 20 tries, but it finally happened, on my fourth and final Diamond Giveaway Code from today (and most likely for the foreseeable future).  I hit paydirt!  Feast your eyes…

It's Gaby Time!

Not bad eh?  Not just a Diamond Die-Cut, note the darkness of the diamond.  Yes, daddy got a BLACK Diamond!  I may possibly be the last card blogger actually playing the Diamond Giveaway game to unlock, or at least successfully trade, for a Diamond Die-Cut, but I guess some things are worth the wait.  Now, I’m not here to gloat.  I’m just wondering what I should do with it.  I have a couple trade offers for regular versions (Carlos Gonzalez + 1954 Arnie Portocarrero RC and Evan Longoria + 1962 Bob Lillis), but I dunno ’bout that.  Any suggestions on what I should do with this gem (heh)?

Amusingly, I didn’t even realize this was a Black Diamond for awhile (I suppose the two trade offers above coming within 5 minutes of the card being unlocked should’ve told me something was up).  I hadn’t ever really noticed the difference between the regular and Black Diamond version.  I’d seen them before, but the difference apparently never clicked with my brain.  So it took a random forum post and a stop at Check Out My Cards before it hit me and even then I still had to see the regular version to be sure.  I guess it didn’t seem that dark before I compared it with the regular.

Anyway, I suppose I should get some screen grab technology or something for the new computer when I get a chance, so I can start posting trade offers as they were meant to be seen.  Any suggestions on what free screen grabber I should pick up?

Guess that’s about all for tonight.  Gotta rest up for a busy (well, what qualifies as such for me) and stupidly annoying week.

Until our next…

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.