3 Cards Including A Dupe In A Bat Envelope

I'm not sure what is more exciting about this particular PWE I received the cards or the stamp that was used. OK the cards are what really excited me and the stamp was just an added bonus.

On a typical day last month (January 2016) I got two PWEs in the mail. One PWE had a card I bought from Ebay that I will talk about some other post and the other had 3 cards I got from Sportlots. All 3 cards were from an auction with a .25¢ opening bid plus .99¢ shipping (combined somewhat).

1968 Topps Football: 2 cards both cards a bit offcenter borderline miscut.
106 Ed Meador Rams coin rub cartoon on back totally blank must have been a dud.

(Front and Back)

107 Fred Cox Vikings back cartoon is regular printed one.

(Front and Back)

1963 Topps Baseball:
69 Bud Zipfel Senators. When I bid on this one unfortunately I didn't realize I already had it. Fortunately this one is in better condition than the one I had. So it is an upgrade.

( Front and Back)

Oh a cool thing about the PWE is the stamp was a Batman Forever stamp.

In the long run I'm not sure if I will actually keep the stamp.

A 2x3 Six Pack PWE

It pays to sign up for things. Jeff at 2x3 Heroes has a mailing list you can sign up for via a special form link he calls Club PWE. If you don't mind getting base cards of your homie team in a PWE it is worth signing up for. It seems to be totally random depending on Jeff's whim and whatever he has available at the time of that whim. (I should try some sort of form thing sometime if I can figure out how to do it) Anyway it is amazing how six cards can be loaded into a PWE.

Here is the six pack I got:

2007 Bowman Heritage Baseball: 106 Felipe Lopez Nationals
2004 Upper Deck Play Ball Baseball: 101 Luis Matos Orioles
2000 Bowman Baseball: 310 Ryan Minor Orioles
2009 Topps Attax Baseball: No Number Lastings Milledge Nationals (#133 in alphabetical lists)
2011 Topps Heritage Baseball: 186 Rick Ankiel Nationals
1995 Pinnacle Baseball:  188 Brady Anderson Orioles

Thanks for the cards Jeff!

Some of these I might show individually sometime. The Nationals I'll show on my CurlyW Cards blog sometime, maybe separate, maybe as a group.

A Kirk Of A Different Color

In recent years I really haven't been too big on Chrome cards and even less thrilled about the Refractors which are Chrome cards on steroids. Back in the 1980s or late 1970s when the companies were experimenting with Chrome and Hologram cards I thought they were pretty cool, that was until they started overdoing them like everything else in the "Junk Wax Years". I do have a thing for parallel cards and variants. These days it seems the card companies are cranking out more parallels that are only slightly parallel rather than true variants, and very little base. Sometimes it is hard to tell what exactly is different. OH the background is light tan instead of light gray, Ah his name is in silver leaf instead of gold leaf, took me 10 minutes to figure that one out.

Well I saw a parallel chrome refractor on auction at sportlots.com that was a beaut. Fortunately it is even more of a beaut in real-life.

Here are the details: As I said, and as you can see by the logo at the top of this post, I got it from sportlots.com via their 1...2...3...Auctions. I got it for the opening .25¢ bid + $1.95 shipping. The shipping charges were about right for how it was sent. Not like those slime balls who charge $3.00+ for shipping and then send in a PWE with only a stupid "card saver" to supposedly protect the card. This one was in a medium sized, medium cardboard stock envelope/packet about the size of a medium wedding invitation or birthday card. The card appropriately in a penny sleeve in toploader. The order/packing slip was wrapped around the card. The card is 2012 Bowman Baseball Chrome 24 Kirk Nieuwenhuis RC Mets Purple Parallel #045/199. As I said sweet very sweet looking. Here take a gander at it.

2012 Bowman Chrome 24 Kirk Nieuwenhuis RC Mets Purple Parallel #045/199

(Front and Back)

I guess I probably should get the flagship Bowman base and the base Chrome of this card, maybe go for a master rainbow of it. I am warming up a little to chrome and refractors, even a little to the Game Used cards. I still hate the game used and artifact cards concept of cutting up memorabilia into tiny little inch squares, but am starting to appreciate them a little more than I once did.

'68 Killebrew All-Star

Not really a "filler" post, but rather a "spread them out" post due to an onslaught of auction wins from sportlots.com. This one came all on it's lonesome on 03 February 2012. The only bummer (which fortunately didn't matter much in this case) was it came in a PWE (Plain White Envelope) in just a cardsaver. I've ranted many times about these things and how they are not good for shipping cards in. They are OK for storing cards in or for displaying cards in but they suck for shipping. A few days later I received some cards (ironically some other 1968 cards) that were also in a PWE but they were first wrapped in plastic wrap and the plastic wrap taped to a piece of cardboard and then sandwiched between that piece of card board and another piece of cardboard. The two pieces of cardboard were taped together and then put in the PWE. That is a little bit safer. Anyway the card I got is this:

 1968 Topps Baseball - 361 Harmon Killebrew AS - Twins

1968 Topps Baseball - 361 Harmon Killebrew AS - Twins (puzzle back)

I'm not sure but I think this is the first 1968 Topps All-Star card I've had. I may have had a few as a kid but I don't recall and since my pre-teen/teen years when I really got back into the hobby seriously I don't recall having one, at one point I didn't like their look. As a kid I loved the puzzle backed cards, unfortunately I rarely had a full puzzle to enjoy, but putting the pieces I had together to see which ones I needed was fun. All the '68 All-Star cards had a puzzle piece on the back from one of two puzzles. This blog here 1968 Topps Baseball explains and shows the completed puzzles. Oddly enough at one time I was "anti-puzzle" probably because of the frustration of not having a complete puzzle to enjoy.

ON a different somewhat related to this card note: I am toying with the idea of making a Senators/Nationals specific card blog in the near future. Harmon "Killer" Killebrew was one of the Washington Senators who transitioned into an original Minnesota Twin when the team moved in '61. Most fans seem to remember him as a Twin rather than a Senator. I need to remind myself to link this post to that new blog whenever I get around to making it.

Previous Posts:
Pretty Good '68 Dodgers Poker Hand
1968 Topps Baseball
2010 Topps Baseball Million Card Giveaway