Trade with Democratic Roadkill

Quite a few months ago I received another large package from Duane at  Democratic Roadkill.  This is probably the 2nd or 3rd time that we have traded.   He always sends me a huge collection of cards, most of them Allen and Ginter. This time was no different; as you can see from the above photo he obliterated my want lists for the 2011 A&G set.  Duane usually sends over some cool, random Mets cards from vintage to present, but I'm going to focus on the A&G stuff this time out.

If you didn't already know, Duane is quite the Ginteraholic.  More so than me. I thought I could out Ginter him, but nobody can out Ginter the master.  From what I can tell from his blog he is basically putting together master sets of all the Allen and Ginter offerings and doing a much better job than I.  He's been showing off his rip  card collections as of late. 


Most people are probably sick of 2012 and 2013 A&G, but this is 2011 A&G so maybe you guys will like the rediscovery.


Anyway, here we go:

Some nice base cards to start us off.  Non-sports base cards at that. One is known for jumping around like a crazy person and the other is known for being an Iron Chef.  They both look like they are into the extreme area of their professions: extreme running and jumping and extreme chefing.

Here's a video of  Tim "Livewire" Shieff for you to get an idea of what this guy does.  I watched it with the sound off, so it could have language that is NSFW.  The sound does matter unless you can hear his ankles shattering. At least I'm assuming they're shattering,  my ankles and knees hurt just from watching the video.

A few examples of the short prints that Duane sent over. Vermillion is the only person that I haven't heard of.

I didn't realize that Brett Anderson was an Okie.  Both his and Matt Holliday's dads were both OSU baseball coaches.  This is Bedlam week in Oklahoma; the rivalry game between OU and OSU so these cards fit my mindset this week.  With the way OU is playing on offense (badly!) and they way OSU is playing on defense (pretty good) this could be crappy end to the football season for us Okies, I might have to avoid the internet for a while and seek solace in my trading cards.

The Animals in Peril mini set is nice.  A little depressing I guess, but informational.  Who knows, maybe a baseball card collector can some how turn the tide and help out some of these animals. Maybe influence a young person to go into agriculture?

The sketch cards are always nice. I like them because I have an interest in art and drawing myself.  The Twins card is a little odd in that it is a drawing of a drawing.

The David Wright card commemorates his being the youngest Met to reach 1,000 career hits.  This game was played on 4.27.2010.  According to the internet this was a game with the Dodgers and the Mets actually won the game!  With a 79-83 record maybe that should have been the highlight instead.

The Texas flag on Cliff Lee's jersey looks odd in black and white. The hat logo also looks out of place in B&W.  I guess the artist wanted to bring more focus to the player's faces.  The rest of the drawing isn't completely desaturated; the red piping on the catcher's gear is present.  It just seems like those logos would really make the whole drawing stand out more.

The one thing I like about these Worlds Most Mysterious minis from 2011 is that they continue the design on the back. I don't know much about design terminology, so let me show you what I'm talking about.

The World's most Mysterious Figures have this name plate, right?

....and Topps continued the same style of nameplate on the back of the card and just elongated it to hold the text and they added some curly q's. I think the correct term is strikes or keys, but I usually call them curly q's.  But it's still the same basic shape.

I don't think they usually do that even for A&G.  Since I haven't bought a lot of 2012 or 2013 A&G maybe they do now.  I just found it interesting at the time.  Up to this point I'm pretty sure the inserts all had a different border on the fronts and backs.

Some people might call that laziness; I call it continuity.

One insert set that I really liked was the Step Right Up set.  From what I can remember reading on the blogs a lot of people really liked this set.  It's colorful and who doesn't like a circus?

The subject matter is cool, but the design of the card fronts is what really drew me in. The background/border is really cool.  The font on the bottom is nice. I'm no font nerd, but it actually reminds me of the Oklahoma font that I've seen online. I'm sure their are many variations of fonts and they all have different names, but that's what I've always heard it called.

 A blogging legend makes an appearance on the Portraits in Penultimate set: Mr. Mike Gellner.

I'm spacing out on what the name of his blog was.  I'm pretty sure it was named after his kid (the little dude in the photo).

Thanks for the cards, Duane.  If you all have a chance go over and check out the dude's want list/trade list and help a guy out!

Thanks for reading!

The best card I received last year

I’ve been meaning to write this post for, well about a year and a half now.  

I had many different ideas that I wanted to write about, but for some reason I couldn’t get motivated to actually DO it.   It’s funny, when I was I regularly blogging it was pretty easy for me to come up with ideas and get them on (virtual) paper.   I could keep the momentum going and always had ideas to flesh out on the old blog.  Not that many of those ideas were gold, but at least it was something and I could knock out a post somewhat quickly.  In the past year or so I really have gotten out of the habit of blogging and it's been really hard to get back into writing. I still read the blogs though, I just can't get around to writing about cards.  

One of the distractions that we all have to go through are the same personal things going on in anyone's life. Of course my life isn't any different, so I've also go my personal issues to get through as well.  Good things mostly. Not the bad things people usually mean when they bring up “personal issues”; but real life did take precedent on blogging. 

In this particular case I had many ideas on how I wanted to thank Dayf for his sketch card that he sent me.  I was pretty sure that no matter what I came up with, it wouldn't adequately reflect how much I like the cards that he sent over. The sketch of Sam Bradford above is the best of the package.  The other cards in the package were nice, but weren't expected.

 

 The Dream,  Matisse

One of my early ideas for this post was to compare me and Dayf’s trade as a modern day Matisse and Picasso arrangement. 

 

I went to the Kimball Museum many years ago to see the exhibit and bought this cool book.  Skimming through the book for photos to scan for this post also contributed to my procrastination.

I don’t quite remember all the details of their friendship. Basically I think they were influenced by one another and at some point they became friends and started a correspondence by mail.  In their correspondence they started to work on a few themes; mentioning to the other via letters what they were working on.  I might be misremembering what went on; it might be a good time to actually re-read the book rather than just look at the pretty pictures.  Many books have been written on the similarities between each artists work even though they belonged to two different schools of art. Picasso being more famous for his Cubist works and Mattisse being part of the Fauvist movement.

Woman with Yellow Hair, Picasso

Probably seems a little arrogant to compare either one of us to two of the masters of the art world, but it's the first thing that came to mind when he sent out his missive to the blogging community to trade pony sketches for Dayf originals.  

Trading sketch cards is a really cool idea and I've only been able to trade with our fellow bloggers a few times so far. It's something I'd like to do more often.

Sketch cards themselves would be the easiest to transport via PWE to one another with blogs and email being way more accessible than the old fashion postal system.  The problem isn’t with technology, it’s with the humans to stop being lazy and being overcome with the ease of looking at stuff online all day and just get to creating and of course writing about it later on the blog.

Anyway, that’s a long winded way of saying sorry to Dayf that it took me this long to thank him for the cool sketch card and also the cards he sent.   It's actually a painted card rather than just a sketch. Makes me feel a little cheap that I only sent him a sketch done with pencil and markers. 

This is the card that he used as inspiration for the art card.

Pretty good likeness.  I don't do helmets very well myself so I know how hard it is to draw them well. The face is really well done too, I like his representation better than the original photograph. 

Since it could be a long while until I blog again I’ll go ahead and show the other cards that Dayf sent over.

This is my first (hopefully not last) Crown Royale card. Pretty nice die cut card of Dorsey Levens. One of my favs on Madden 05 I believe.

I'm not exactly sure why or where Dayf got these uncut University of Oklahoma "cards". I'm glad he procured them and sent them over. They seem to be commemorating the 6 (at that time) national championships that OU has won in football.  

 

Pretty cool. They come from the Love's stores. I didn't realize they had those in Georgia, but I guess they do.  

Mark Clayton and Mark Bradley were really good standouts at receiver, which is saying something because in the Bob Stoops era we have been pretty deep at the wideout position. It's always nice to get cards of players in their college uniforms.

Thanks again for the cards and Happy Thanksgiving everbody!

Consolation cards from My Cardboard Mistress

Recently I got a consolation prize in the mail. Funny thing is, I didn't lose a contest. At least not personally. Spankee was nice enough to send some OKC Thunder cards to me as a consolation for the Thunder losing in the NBA finals. I sent him some random set list wants that he was looking for and a trade was born.


Times like this I wish I had more to send a guy in return sometimes. I'm hoping that trade karma is working in my favor. In this case it definitely seems to be working out for me as he sent me a lot of cards that I didn't have. I don't buy a lot of basketball. Mostly it's baseball and football and the roundballers get over looked.



First off I need to mention the calling card shown at the top of the post. The Burdick mini card. It will go nicely in the other calling card and sketch card binder pages that I'm amassing. It's a little too big for a mini page, so it will go in the 9 card page.


First off Spankee had a nice idea for the NBA playoffs; he did a pack break before every play off game. He scored every pack and the Thunder did quite well. I have only bought a few basketball packs, but I rarely pull any Thunder cards.


I actually have a decent amount of 2009 Pannini, but I only pulled one. The cards themselves are okay. The D.J. White is the nicest one. It's like he's inflating himself to get to the basket. The two Clippers are relegated to standing by and watching.



Sefolosha and Collison are both nice bench players. I've been aware of Collison since his days at University of Kansas.



Desmond Mason has been retired a couple of seasons now and was a member of the Oklahoma State basketball team.

I didn't realize he was as old as he is. He was the first player in Supersonics history to win the slam dunk contest in 2000.



It's so funny that I'm actively collecting a former Texas Longhorn. As long as they he isn't in a burnt orange uniform I'm okay with it. Come to think of it I also like (and would like to collect) Cat Osterman. She's pretty cool. For some reason I like Earl Campbell. I don't know why exactly. I think it's because a few years ago I read that he was in ill health and that bothers me when older athletes show their age. If you search for Earl Campbell on Youtube I'm certain you'll find a video of him in the Cotton Bowl with 11 different OU players draped all over him as he runs over, around and through our entire team. Yikes! I don't want to see that again, but you can look for it, I'll wait. I'll have nightmares if I watch that video again.



I don't mind the Seattle Sonics logo though. I really like the gold and green color scheme. Very Green Bay Packersesque.

I kind of wish that we could have kept that color scheme with the move to OKC, but I understand the logic of creating a new color scheme with the new logo and name.


Thanks very much for the cards and thanks for reading.

1960 Cardboard reflections from Cardboard Collections

Colbey Hopper over at Cardboard Collections put up a nice 4th of July trade bait post. He was offering up a nice selection of vintage. Since I was free that afternoon, I was checking over the blogs and jumped at the chance to grab some vintage.


The 1960 set is one of my favorites. 1965, 1959, 1972 and 1960 are all sets I'd like to complete one of these days. If I see these cards at a card store or a flea market I'll try to grab a couple here and there to collect before actually concentrating on amassing as many as I can.

I wasn't drawn to these because of the players. I haven't heard of any of these dudes, I just wanted some 1960 vintage.

Having a Kansas City A's card is kind of cool though.


1960 would be the 5th season for the Kansas City Athletics. They previously resided in Philadelphia. At the end of the 1960 season they would have a 313-456 record with no winning seasons.

They decided to trade away most of their players. Many of those players would play for the Yankees, and would give the A's the nickname of being the Yankees farm team. Roger Maris was one of these trades.

The owners wanted to rid the team of the Philadelphia players so that the team would have a new identity. Technically they were right as they adopted a new identity of cellar dwellers.

According to sportsencyclopedia 1960 is the year that one of the owners Charlie Finley resorted to many different tricks to try and drum up some interest in the team. He constructed a zoo in the outfield, a robotic rabbit to bring out balls to the umpire and also he would dress up the grounds crew in space suits. Nothing worked much for the 1960 team as they went 58-96.


When I first looked at the card I immediately recognized the green and gold on the card design. I assumed it was a color scheme based on the team colors. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the hat was in blue and red. Apparently they changed colors in 1963 with an eye to TV. Finley thought that TV viewers deserved to see more than the traditional red, blue and black.

With all that inspection, I never got to the odd name that drew me to looking at the card in the first place. Oh well, maybe that will be for another post one day.


Speaking of names, let's look at Don Cardwell.

Nice name for a card blog post. He would own the distinction of being the first player to throw a no-hitter in his first game after being traded. That would be around the time this card was pulled from a pack. The only problem is that he had been traded to the Cubs by that point after spending 4 seasons with the Phillies.

He was also a part of the 1969 Mets World Series team.


Hal Brown's best season statically was in 1960. He owned a 12-5 record with an ERA of 3.06.

He looks a little bothered by being photographed for this particular card. From what I can tell online he looks to still be alive and kicking. Good for him. Actually all of the players featured on this post except for Don Cardwell are still alive.

George Altman was the first major player to hit two home runs in the same game off of Sandy Koufax. August 4th, 1961. That would also be the date of our current president's birthday unless you believe in all of the conspiracy theories.

He kept Don Cardwell's no-hitter alive against the St. Louis Cardinals on May 15th, 1960 with a ninth inning catch. How's that for a conspiracy? Somehow it all ties together. The losing pitcher in that game was Hollis, Oklahoma's own Lindy McDaniel. Three seasons later he would be pitching for the Cubs. I would do more on his tenure with the Cubs, but I'm going to wait until I get one of his Cubs cards of my own.

That's all I've got in the tank for these four cards.



Oh wait, one more thing; something I noticed about the cards themselves is that the higher number cards have darker backs than the lower numbered cards. I only have a couple of more of these 1960 cards and they seem to follow the same theme. I don't know the checklist for the different series for these cards, but I'm guessing that's what's going on here.

I noticed another thing while looking at the backs; these are all guys from North Carolina. Interesting, as Colby is from N.C. Hmm, I'm glad he gave up these guys as I'm really happy to get them for my collection.

Thanks for the cards and thanks for reading.

Trade with High 5 man

Justin and I completed a trade a few months ago, and in my usual fashion I'm still trying to get my trade posts out. He runs a nice blog Justin's World that covers a few different sports like softball, baseball and he's interested in getting a bunch of sport and non-sport autos. Interesting read.

He sent over some cool 2011 Topps baseball cards for me. These cards have cool subjects, but also somewhat interesting backgrounds.


This DeRosa card appears to have been taken at a Mets game. Hard to tell, but I think the players in the dugout are wearing Mets blue hats with the orange logo.


No batter in this photo, but it does have the pitcher, catcher and ball in the shot. Nice expression on Narveson's face.

I think that even in years that I'm not actively collecting the set I should just find as many team cards as I can. I'm still collecting this set and I like what they are doing with the team cards.


A pre-Angels Pujols card. I can't tell if this was taken at a Cubs or Mets game.


This card was brought to you by Caesars Palace! Another cool expression.


I've always wanted to interview or ask a guy like Neil Walker how nice it must be to play for your hometown team. It doesn't happen here much as we only have AAA baseball (OKC Redhawks) and of course the OKC Thunder, but the Thunder is pretty new to us. I don't think a local guy has played for either team. I guess the closest is when a local guy signs with one of the local college teams.

Anyway, thanks for the cards Justin and thanks for reading.

Player collection Conundrum- Trade with Fuji son

A few months back Fuji put out a call for cards of old A's, Giants and some other random cards for his student's and for his own personal collection.



I'm always looking to weed out some of my duplicates.(aren't we all?) so I offered to send him some stuff. I inquired about some Adrian Peterson cards that he had. I wasn't so interested in the parallels he had listed on his trade bait page, I was just looking to round out my A.D. collection.

He sent over a bunch of cards for my collection. After the trade I had to rearrange my binder pages to accommodate the new cards. My player collections are always evolving because I don't know exactly how to display them. Without a complete checklist at my disposal I usually just wing it.

I started by putting the cards by year and then by manufacturer.

I then started to arrange the pages by retro, shiny or base cards. I'm still not exactly sure what I want to do.

I also like to have the cards of A.D. in his OU uniform separate from the ones in a Vikings jersey for some reason. If he ever plays for another team I'm sure I'll have to separate those out too.

It's actually a pretty cool problem to have. I'm always looking for former OU players, but especially Adrian. I never did a proper post on Adrian, but I mentioned a little of why I collect him here. The linked post switches gears a bunch, but at the bottom is a mention of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.

I need to do a proper post about that season one day.

Getting back to collecting; I really actually do like collating and arranging my collection. It's a fun way to go over the nice cards in your collection. No need to leave them in a binder or top loader gathering dust somewhere.

A.D. needs to breathe! You can't let a thoroughbred stay couped up in a boring binder.

It's so nice that all of these cards that Fuji sent over have Adrian in a running action shot rather than a forced posed photo. I'm sure there is a card out there of him posing and yes, I want it. So far most of the cards that I have are of him in an action shot.




With all these new cards, I'm trying to decide where to put the three UD cards. I actually have the regular base card which looks a lot like this First Edition version.


Pretty much the same card, but I still want it for the collection.


Which is basically the same as the Masterpieces card.

Since these are all Upper Deck cards the first two cards should go together in the UD binder page, right? But since they visually look like the third card I thought they would look cool together.

Hmmm. Decisions. Decisions. I'm thinking I should separate them out and forget about the fact they're all UD offerings and the novelty of the similarity of the photos.

Retro it is. When I fill out a page I'll keep you posted. Right now I'm only at half a page. I know you're all on the edge of your seat waiting for the eventual update to my Adrian Peterson collection.



This is another horizontal action shot card of AD and Dick Butkis. There's not many cards of Adrian in a horizontal format. The two above with the regular issue UD card is all I have in the horizontal card department. Maybe someday I'll do a page of just horizontal cards.

Thanks for the cards, Fuji. I'm looking forward to getting these all organized in my Oklahoma binder.