March Mystery Post

This post will be a mystery at first since I'm not sure what I'm going to post about. This month of March was lets just say a Family Thing Month. I prefer not to discuss it on my blogs. I try to keep mu family stuff away from here since this blog is primarily for Trading Cards. Even my regular blog Kirk's Knook I try to keep away from discussing some of my personal and family stuff.

While looking through my card hoard searching for something to blog about last night (30 Mar 2022) I came across some stuff I forgot I had. Among the forgotten goodies was this Wax Box Panel of 4 cards from 1991 Topps Baseball.

Wax Box Panel number 3 of 4 if they were numbered that way. The individual cards are lettered as the numbers. This panel has cards numbered lettered I, J, K, L Yes the top left corner is crunched. I think it has always been that way. I think I got this from some sort of trade, or perhaps a large card lot or oddball card lot purchase. It could also have come from my friend's Son's collection I had acquired a few years back.

1991 Topps Baseball Wax Box Card Panel:

I Willie McGee St. Louis Cardinals

J Dale Murphy Philadelphia Phillies

K Eddie Murray Los Angeles Dodgers

L Dave Parker Milwaukee Brewers

I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep this or not, but it does have a Fave Baltimore Oriole (in a different uniform). In fact 3 of the 4 players featured on this panel are in the uniforms of teams I am not used to seeing them in. Dale Murphy I am used to seeing as an Atlanta Brave, Eddie Murray the aforementioned Oriole, and Dave Parker a Pittsburgh Pirate. The completest in me sort of wants to find the other 3 panels, but oddly I don't normally collect box panels anymore.

GOING GOing Gone!

The following post is a presentation of the Nachos Grande: 2013 Blogger Bracket Challenge Launch. Please do not panic but keep your arms and legs in the blog tram at all times.

GOING Going and Gone!

GOING:

Going, going, GONE! That is what happens when you play this card as it is intended for your 2011 Topps Attax game campaign. You hit a Home Run. If you're lucky and your HR is a GRAND SLAM! All the Mascot cards will do a celebration dance for you (OK maybe not all Bernie Brewer rarely does anything but drink and slide). If you played your cards right, at the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, you win the game and the satisfaction of seeing your opponent's face go from a big wide grin to a droopy gloomy sour puss pout.

GOING:

Featured on this card is Carlos Lee when he was playing for the Astros. When this image of Carlos was first captured he was only thinking of knocking the ball out of the park, or pretending to if it was a staged photo op. Little did Mr. Lee know that he would have only one more year wearing Astros Orange and that the Astros would only have one more year at the bottom of the National League, OK he might have know of the impending League move for his then current team.

GONE:

So Carlos bid farewell to that baseball in 2011, then in 2012 farewell to Astros' Orange in exchange for Marlin's Neon Orange. The Astros bid farewell to the National League in 2012 and Hello to the American League in 2013. Out of the league's cellar and into the other league's... well cellar.  Oh and Carlos has since bid baseball farewell and said hello retirement. 

2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball Set

On Saturday 07 April (yeah I keep on focusing on the stuff I got from this post. So what? Its my blog and it was a huge mailday, and I am way behind on tons of stuff.) I got a sportlots order of the 2012 Topps Opening Day set of 220 cards. I got the set for 25¢ + 17.00 shipping (only cost the seller $5.10 to ship). So not a bad price even though the shipping is THE price of the set. Then about a week and a half later, from Ebay I got the Mascots subset of 25 cards on Wednesday 18 April for $22.99 + $3.50 shipping. I'm going to blog about the cute Mascots soon as well as the 2010 Mascots subset I got the following day. I love Mascot cards. I need the 2011 Mascots set.

OK now for some select cards from this set.

I suppose I should mention that the last card in the set card Number 220 Carlos Lee Astros has no number on it. I think this is an UER (Uncorrected ERror). I noticed other people in the blog universe have been questioning this and it seems every Lee card on Ebay is unnumbered. So NO it should not be sold or bought for tons more than the rest of the individual cards from this set.

 2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 220 Carlos Lee Astros

(Front and Back) - NNO UER

2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 33 Nick Markakis Orioles
(Front and Back)

2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 95 Victor Martinez Tigers
(Front and Back) - Chose this card for the cool play at the plate picture

 2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 51 Prince Fielder Brewers
(Front and Back) - Now with Tigers but you'd never know it with this set

 2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 59 Alcides Escobar Royals
(Front and Back) - Cool sliding picture "Look Ma No Hands!"

 2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 201 Jose Reyes Marlins
(Front and Back) - New Miami Uniform (Airburshed)

 2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 132 Kurt Suzuki Athletics
(Front and Back) - Cool catcher in his gear action photo

The seller included some "Diamond Giveaway" Code cards. even if I wanted to use the codes they expired 31 Jan 2012. I got numbers: TDG 3, 4, 15, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27 I think I will try to get this little novelty set.

 2011 Topps Baseball Diamond Giveaway Code Card TDG-23

(Front and Back)

Note: The code shown on the back of this card has long expired.

I will also try to get the rest of the 2010 Million Card Giveaway Code cards I don't have. Actually for those I'd like to get some duplicates of them because I have an idea for them. I don't care that all these code things are expired the cards themselves (like some of the Toppstown cards) are fun to collect.

Topps 2010 Million Card Giveaway Code Cards I still need the ones I mentioned needing in this post. As I said I'd like to get some dupes of them for a project.

Note: The Jayson Werth Nationals card shown at the top of this post I have already talked about at my Curly W Cards blog in this post.

2007 Goudey Baseball 8 pack

A while Back  (WOW back on 20 May) I had gotten some packs of cards from Target that I mentioned in this post Target Fairfield Value Pack Box This package consisted of 4 packs of baseball cards, 100 random baseball cards and a bonus of an additional pack of cards. I already mentioned the cards I got, but I decided I would show some of them. The few from the packs anyway, the 100 card deck I might only show a few choice ones. I haven't decided on that yet. I like getting these boxes/packages from time to time but I had forgotten that they "super" glue (it's not really the super-glue brand but the glue is really tough) the packs on the box supporting cardboard, making it nearly impossible to pull the packs off totally intact for those collectors who like to keep the pack wrappers.

2007 UD Goudey Baseball

(8 card pack)

2007 Goudey Baseball pack break contents

2007 Goudey: I really like these retro vintage cards. Mostly since I'm a huge fan of vintage stuff. I have always liked the Goudey cards, but I don't think I have any original Goudey vintage, partly because when I was a kid they were too expensive at the time. As an adult they are not too expensive for me, well some of the common ones maybe. When these retro cards first hit the market I saw them but didn't get any because the hobby boxes were too expensive and at the time (and I think even the packs seemed a bit expensive at the time) I didn't want to get into the pack busting of these since I knew I'd have to get a bunch everytime I wanted to bust packs. These cards follow the original design and format idea the cards are smaller than the standard modern size of 2.5" by 3.5".

The card backs have either red or green printing. I think they printed an equal amount of each back, not 100% sure on that though sometimes card manufacturers like to make a short print of one of the styles just to tick off collectors who want to go for a complete set.

2007 Goudey - Sample Green Back

2007 Goudey - Sample Red Back

2007 Goudey - Sample Heads Up Green Back

61 Jimmy Rollins Phillies redback

75 Mark Mulder Cards redback

77 Mark Teixeira Rangers greenback

84 Prince Fielder Brewers greenback

121 Brad Penny Dodgers redback

152 Adam LaRoche Pirates greenback

176 Magglio Ordeonez Tigers greenback

255 Mike Schmidt Phillies HeadsUp greenback

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings Nick Johnson Framed

In a recent purchase from the Bay I got a Red Framed 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings 139 Nick Johnson Expos/Nationals. 2005 was the first year the relocated Montreal Expos played as The Washington Nationals in DC. Many cards from this time like this one will picture the player in their Expos uniform, but the card will say they play for the Nationals. This is the Red Framed version. The card has a glued-on maroon colored frame border and the Diamond Kings logo at the bottom is in a shiny metallic Red lettering. I think these framed versions are less common than the standard version. I have one of those I just haven't scanned it yet, when I do I'll probably do a side-by-side comparison, or just repost this scan with the standard one. They missed out by not serial numbering these, I would have liked if they had done that with this set.

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings

139 Nick Johnson  Expos Red Framed

Now the Ebay seller that I got this card from also included some "Bonus" cards (six total). Here are the six cards that were sent as a Bonus all six are for trade:

1990 Upper Deck 684  Jack Armstrong Reds
1990 Fleer 151 Andy Benes Padres
1990 Fleer 429 Jeff Reed Reds
 1992 Topps Stadium Club 684 Phil Stephenson Padres
1998 Topps Chrome (Yuck) 77 Greg Vaughn Padres
1998 Topps Chrome 212 Gerald Williams Brewers

The 1992 Topps Stadium Club Phil Stephenson card has no stats charts because and I quote "Insufficient Major League data available for an accurate analysis of batting strengths and weaknesses". Wait two years playing and NO STATS? This card is his 1992 card, they are just showing his rookie card on the back. And the Stadium Club series was Topps High-End Products in the 1990s.

At one point I liked the 1990 Fleer Baseball set, but got sick of it back in the day because I had so much of it and didn't have a complete set. Now it just reminds me of many of the reasons that era of card collecting is tarnished.

I really don't mind bonus cards, but these made no sense except for the fact that they were at least Baseball cards. None of them were even from Donruss, 2005 edition or Diamond Kings. None of them were Nationals (or Expos), Nick Johnson, or even one of the teams he played on. They are 1990s junk.I would think if you are going to send bonus cards try to match them up to what the person bought. I mentioned earlier a vintage '50s card of a Chicago Bears player I bought and the seller sent a couple of bonus more modern Bears. Although they were  prime 1990s junk cards one of which I already had. The point is they were at least of the same dang team of the original card I bought. End of RANT.

OK getting back to the Diamond Kings sets. I recall when Donruss began the Diamond Kings as a subset of the main 1982 set. That year they were the first 26 cards in the set. The following year 1983 they they had more DKs cards. They were a similar design and it is a little confusing because the 1983 cards are copyrighted 1982. I don't any of those scanned right now, but I do have some other 2005 and even a couple of 2004 DKs scanned to show right now:

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings

139 Nick Johnson Expos Silver #d-14/50

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings

250 Ryan Church Expos Red Framed

 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings

250 Ryan Church Expos

2004 Donruss Diamond Kings

85 Ryan Church Indians

2004 Donruss Diamond Kings

85 Ryan Church Indians Bronze Framed