Mascot Monday: Logo Key

Mascot Monday: Logo Unmasked

Over on my Curly W Cards blog I began a little project that started off by just something I thought would be kind of helpful to some folks who read that blog. It ballooned from that one-shot idea into an even larger project for myself that now spans both blogs. As many readers (The 2 or 3 regular readers) of my blogs may have noticed, or not, I like to make logos for my regular and semi-regular features. The last few times I've made them I decided to do a spread out collection collage of cards that meet the criteria for the feature they are for.

The current logo for this blog is made up of a few of the collages I have made and used for my blogs. I will not attempt to make a key for that one, maybe for the individual collages it is made up. For some of them I might not have some of the cards anymore.

Basically I just spread the cards out covering the entire area of my flatbed scanner and scan the mess. Sometimes I rearrange things or cover up holes if the first attempt wasn't to my satisfaction. Most of the time though it is just a one and done scan. I should have done the logo keys, or key logos when I first did the scanning but I didn't think of doing a post like this back then for any of them. It would have made identifying things much easier. Fortunately most of the time I can recognize what is what.

For these Mascots though it is a good thing I have kept most of my mascot cards lumped together and not sorted into sets yet.

On to the identifying the cards. The team in (parentheses) is the Major League team affiliate at the time of the card. Many of these teams have changed affiliates and several have changed names and moved to different cities completely since the card was printed. It seems that in 2014 there was a major shifting of teams.

Row 1:

1998 Multi-Ad Sports Rascal 28 Harrisburg Senators (Expos)

2007 Topps Opening Day Baseball 189 Homer Atlanta Braves

2007 Multi-Ad Sports 35 Woolie Hagerstown Suns (Nationals)

2007 Falconer Printing 06 Bubba Grape Jamestown Jammers (Pirates)

2010 Grandstand NNO Recycle Man Spokane Indians (Rangers)

2010 DAV (Disabled American Veterans) 299 Cosmo Las Vegas 51s (Mets)

2010 DAV (Disabled American Veterans) 473 Slider Rochester Honkers
(Northwoods League - A collegiate summer league)

Row 2:

2008 Choice Sports Cards NNO Cubby T. Bear Daytona Cubs (Cubs)

2011 Grandstand NNO Rascal Harrisburg Senators (Nationals)

2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball M-3 Ace Toronto Blue Jays

Space with unidentified piece of card showing. This little patch around the center in this logo I haven't figured out which card it comes from. The little green area between the Toronto Blue Jays Mascot Ace and The South Bend Silver Hawks Swoop. I thought I knew which one it was (Bubba Grape) but that card is already shown elsewhere in the photo. It looks like an image I seem to recall of a military Minuteman type character in green with purple another card of Louis the Lumberking maybe? I can somewhat remember what the image looks like he is running/jogging the bases or maybe the warning track. A chunk of my mascot cards I can't locate right now it has to be with them.

Not Dated (After 1998): TCU Swoop South Bend Silver Hawks (Diamondbacks)

2010 Grandstand NNO Keyote Frederick Keys (Orioles) - Autographed in black sharpie

2010 DAV (Disabled American Veterans) 174 Rocky Bluewinkle Wilmington Blue Rocks (Royals)

Row 3:

1999 Grandstand NNO Louie The Lumberking Clinton Lumberkings (Reds)

1984 Donruss Baseball 651 The Famous Chicken AKA: San Diego Chicken San Diego Padres

2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball  M-22 Screech Washington Nationals

2002 Mulit-Ad Sports 31 Homer Edmonton Trappers (Twins)

2010 Choice Sports Cards 14 Lou E. Loon Great Lakes Loons (Dodgers)

Very small space with a Topps Opening Day Logo, too small and generic to ever figure out which card it came from. Unless...Hmm the MLB logo is at the top of the Opening Day Logo. That helps narrow it down to a year, dang the picture is too blurry to make out the year looks like 2007 and 2010 are the only years I have that have the MLB logo above and not below the OD Logo...

I think I've narrowed it down to most likely being the 2007 Topps Opening Day Baseball The Bird (Orioles).

2009 DAV (Disabled American Veterans) 191 Lucky The Beaver Portland Beavers (Padres)

2009 DAV (Disabled American Veterans) 123 Uncle Slam Potomac Nationals (Nationals)

This was also a sneaky way to get myself to scan some mascot cards so I can reboot my Mascot Monday feature.

Puzzling Wacky Packages Ape For Grapes

If I post this on a Wednesday, which looks very likely*, I should call it Wacky Wednesday. The subject of course is the parody stickers that Topps originally produced in the early 1970s that they called Wacky Packages. The WPs are off-the wall sometimes very very off-the wall and often leaning toward gross-out parodies of actual products. Topps was not opposed to parodying themselves which they did with this rare semi-hard to find Sticker:

1974 Topps Wacky Packages: Series 11: Planet of the Grapes

(Front and Back)

(pardon the thread/hair on the back scan image)

Topps Produced a set of cards for the Television series of Planet of the Apes the wrapper image of which this WP Parodies.

 1974 (75?) Topps Planet of The Apes cards Wrapper

 

Even though the TV show cards have a copyright of 1967 on them they were produced around the time of the show 1974/75. Oddly enough the Apes cards have puzzle piece backs.

Getting back to the WP stickers the sticker backs were blank. The brown/tan back is most common. If I recall correctly sometimes there were white backs with a slightly thicker paper/card stock. I got that sticker by its lonesome from Ebay in February of this year for five bucks ($4.99 + $2.22 shipping). Due to its rarity it often goes for much more. Since getting it I've shown it off on a couple of the card trading forums but never got around to officially blogging it. That is one of my problems not blogging something I've posted on a card board (ugh Pun not totally intended). I don't really care if it is the other way around not everything I blog about I need to post on a trading card board, but if I've mentioned a card elsewhere I like to mention it here. Preferably before mentioning it elsewhere.

For each series of  Wacky Packages stickers they would choose one of the mock products to use as a 9 card puzzle with the series checklist on the flip-side. For Series 11 Planet of the Grapes was the chosen for the series puzzle.

1974 Topps Wacky Packages Series 11 Puzzle: Planet of The Grapes 
(9 card complete puzzle)

Some of the puzzles are hard to find while others are super easy. For some reason this one is one of the rarer and very often overinflated overpriced on Ebay starting at $50 or $60 but more often starting for $100 or more for the full puzzle, individual pieces usually start between $5 - $10 and very often beyond. Plus they charge outrageous amounts for shipping. Back in late April this year I manged to get this sweet NM practically perfectly aligned full puzzle for only $29.49 + $2.50 shipping ($31.99 Total). Notice that is aprox. only $3.50 per card and each piece is in excellent to near mint condition with NO marks on the backside checklist. Often you find lesser quality conditioned cards with checks and marks on the checklist going for many times that.

The puzzle backs are the checklists for the series. Each puzzle piece has the same checklist back:

1974 Topps Wacky Packages: Series 11: Checklist Unmarked

 [I saw a checklist online of the UK checklist and the backs are green, not orange and it actually shows the Planet of the Grapes sticker in the image. The fronts with the pieces should be very similar if not the exact same. I'd like to get that puzzle sometime but not for the overinflated price of an arm and a leg.]

When I was a kid I had a ton of Wacky Packages, unfortunately many of them were lost to time. Some of them were attached to notebooks and scrap books through the ages. Some just plain lost. I do recall one time a classmate (while I was in 3rd grade) had purchased a full box of whatever series was the current one. The box yielded 2 or 3 full sets of the stickers he sold me one of his sets for five bucks, ten maybe twenty I don't recall. I forget if the puzzle was included or not. Unfortunately by the end of that day I have very few of the stickers left because the rest of the class had learned I had them and regrettably one by one I sold most of them for a quarter or 50 cents or maybe some I might have just given away. I was an easy to persuade kid. At the time it was the only full Wacky Packages Set I had although for a very brief period of time.

I often would get several packs and of course get duplicates of the puzzle piece which was one per pack (I forget how many stickers came in the pack). Of course being a kid I would also mark up the checklists often in ink, ball point pen or magic marker with the cards I had. Also with the cards I needed, sometimes I would just mark up all the check boxes on a checklist. I don't know why other than I was just a kid that didn't realize that later in life I would prefer to have them unmarked.

*OK so I barely made the posting on Wednesday thing.

Texas Bikini Team 1995 Edition

This is my second attempt at this post the first one the automatic html was acting weird and I deleted a formatting line resulting in text getting printed over anything that followed it in the post so that the image that followed the text had text overtop of the image. UGH. I hate that you can't go back and reinsert something you just deleted while working within the post creating section. Anyway enough of my technology impairments. You just wanna see necked women, well not quite necked this is a PG Rated Blog.

On Monday 02 April 2012 I got several packages from various sources one was an Ebay auction for a small set of 9 cards. I got the set for $12.69 + 86¢ I went into a little detail about the auction with a brief description of the set (actually it was briefer than the bikinis that are shown) in my Maildays 01-07 April post. Now onto the set:

Texas Bikini Team 1995 Edition

Intro Set by Image 2000

This little Nine card set was released in 1995 by Image 2000 is titled as an "Intro Set", I'm not sure but I think this is the only set that was made of this potential series. As you can see the set contains 1 title card and 8 cards with bikini models on them.

The card set is designed to be placed in a 9 pocket binder sleeve page in numerical order, because as you see all the backs have puzzle pieces that make up a nine card image (The model shown is Hope from card number 3).

Card Puzzle Backs:

Top Row: 3, 2, 1 Middle Row: 6, 5, 4 Bottom Row: 9, 8, 7

The backs of the cards don't quite align up if you place them flush against each other, they are cut to allow a tiny border space for placing and displaying in a binder as I said above. If they were framed and mounted with perfect alignment the image would look like you are viewing Ms. Hope through a window. My scan of the backs isn't perfect but its close maybe I should have tried scanning it in a binder page.

Now onto the individual cards. The cards are numbered with an "I-" preceding the card number (except for card number 5 the title card and middle puzzle piece card) the "I" being for "Intro" or maybe "Inaugural" but more likely "Intro". The numbers are in the white corner of a red, white and blue Texas shaped logo with the model's name in white at the bottom of the logo. All these Midwest Ladies are modeling the same red, white and blue bikini honoring the Texas State Flag. There are 8 models and 5 are wearing a single gun holster accessory, 2 of them are holding the gun, 1 is holding a coil of rope, 3 are wearing white cowboy hats, 3 have a cape/jacket/blanket wrapped draped on them and 1 is shown wearing white cowboy boots I'm guessing all of them are actually wearing the boots but you can't see most of them below their knees.

I-1

Niki

I-2

Crystal

I-3

Hope

I-4

Staci

Unnumbered (I-5)

Title Card/Center Puzzle Piece Card

I-6

Isabella

I-7

Joyce

I-8

Malise

I-9

Kim

'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

Bonus Packs!

When I bought some cards recently (See post "Some Vintage Baseball") I received some bonus cards and some BONUS WAX PACKS. Now these packs are from the early 1990s the JUNK WAX years so they might not have much of anything of any real value. Two of them I'll probably sell, trade, or maybe open to see what is in them, the other I'll probably keep as is. Anyway here they are:

 1990 Upper Deck Foil Pack

The 1990 Upper Deck Set contains 800 cards and the only key cards are the Sammy Sosa RC and a Nolan Ryan Card #734 6th No-Hitter. There are two variations of this card one with a banner that says 300th Win on bottom right corner and one without the banner. The variation 734A without the banner is rarer and apparently worth more than the 724B banner version. Fun fun fun.

 1990 Donruss Wax Pack

The 1990 Donruss Set contains 716 cards. As with the tradition started in 1982 cards 1-26 are the Diamond Kings subset, with card 27 being the DK checklist. Then cards 28-47 are Rated Rookies cards. Again the Sammy Sosa Rookie card in this set is a Key card as well as an error RC card of Juan Gonzalez. Oh an the Puzzle is of.. Carl Yastrzemski.

Next up is the 1989 Topps Set it contains 792 cards. Key cards are RCs of Craig Biggio, John Smoltz and Randy Johnson (I think I've got that one somewhere, or did). The kicker on this pack, and the reason I just might keep this pack and keep it sealed is it is majorly miscut.

1989 Topps Wax Pack - Miscut

So campers and Knooknicks what should I do with these packs? If the process wasn't soo expensive I'd consider sending the Topps pack to get graded as some sort of packaging error. There are at least 2 reasons I won't the first as I said it is expensive (and you should send several items to be graded not just a single solitary pack). The second I don't like having things entombed in plastic. They grade and entomb comics as well as cards, I can understand the cards but comics? Comics are supposed to be read also, not just looked at. I like the "feel" of things in a collection, even if you put them in plastic sleeves or binder pages you still have a sense of their feel. Slab them up inside the plastic and they lose some of their character.