Reminder! My 800,000 Readers Contest Ends Tonight!

Enter to win a big stack of relics and autographs. Read THIS POST for the rules and answer the question in the comments for a chance to win.  

Finding A Toploader For My Andy Pafko Cigarette Advertisement

This past weekend at my local card show I stumbled upon a seller who was selling the largest toploader I had ever seen. Toploaders are, of course, usually slightly larger than the dimension of a standard baseball cards [4" x 3" to hold 3" x 2" cards] but this bad boy is 20" x 16.5" and comfortably holds my issue of The Sporting News from 1950 that features a full-page advertisement of my favorite player, Andy Pafko, endorsing Chesterfields Cigarettes. I was so happy to find this as I was struggling to find a good storage solution for this that didn't involve framing. 

Although I have looked at the ad many times I only just noticed that Andy is subtly flicking you off as he holds the Chesterfields box. This will certainly be my avatar for the foreseeable future!

I think Alec Baldwin and Glengarry Glenn Ross need to apologize to Chesterfield for stealing their A-B-C slogans! Although it did give us one of the best SNL Christmas skits that would have been perfect with a better performance.

800K Readers Contest - Win Some Autographs And Relics!

It's been quite some time since I had a proper contest on the blog and with the blog passing 800,000 visitors on Tuesday I figured let's find a new home for some of my relics and autographs that I don't want anymore. And it's not all crap, there are many cards of All-Stars and one relic is for a Hall of Famer. Plus the rest could make some nice trade bait or a mixed lot for eBay if you are so inclined.

In total the winner will receive 40 cards...the only non-autograph/jersey/bat relic in the group is the red bordered Peterson /199 which is a $5 card all day long [as they say on Pawn Stars]...that is if you can find a sucker to buy it.

To win this stack, leave a comment below with the total number of career home runs listed on the backs of all the cards. The person coming the closest to the correct number will win the stack. 

Here are a few points to help you in making your estimates:

• In adding up the totals I will use the career total number of home runs on each of the cards that include hitting stats. 
• Along with the Peterson card there is one basketball autograph and one non-sport relic so only 37 cards could possibly have home run stats listed. Furthermore, of those 37 cards, 13 are relics/autographs for pitchers. 
• Typically relic cards don't have stats on the back but a few do. Maybe take a random sampling of your relic cards to see how often this sort of thing happens. 

The contest will run through the rest of the week, ending on Sunday, July 26th at 11:59pm. The winner will be announced Monday, July 27th. 

#ShowYourHits From This Past Weekend's Card Show

This past weekend's card show found Dave the Cardboard Junkie and I playing the $10 Challenge [and recording a podcast] but those weren't the only cards I came away with...so let me #showyoumyhits.  These cards turned out to be a little Braves and Twins heavy with a Senator thrown in there for good measure. 

2012 Topps Five Star #FSA-DU Dan Uggla Autograph #007/150

I love the fonts used in the Prime Cuts series. I love a busy card.

2012 Playoff Prime Cuts #10 Frank Howard Jersey Relic #23/49

2012 Playoff Prime Cuts #20 Paul Molitor Bat Relic #73/99

I collect the commemorative patches but somehow I missed that they did hat logo patches as well.

2010 Topps #MHR-105 Warren Spahn Hat Logo #83/99

2015 Panini Gypsy Queen #GQR-JM Joe Mauer Jersey Relic

I once saw Josh Willingham hit a game winning homer in the bottom of the 9th when he played for the Twins so I'm pretty much have to a fan for life. Here's an article about the game.

2013 Panini Prizm Baseball #JW Josh Willingham Autograph  

These hits are pretty decent but my collection does have some duds and so in honor of my blog passing 800,000 visitors I'm going to be giving away a bunch of relics and autographs. The contest rules will be in my next post so check back often. Here's what's up for grabs...on the right are autographs and on the left bats/jersey relics.

My Ghostbusters 2 Sketch Card From @TwitchWasHere

This card looks like a standard Ghostbusters 2 card featuring the ghost of Tony Scoleri from the courtroom scene. The sentence the judges gives activates the Mood Slime and brings back the Scoleri Brothers...as if I need to remind you of the story line of Ghostbusters 2!

Turn that card over and you'll find a secret sketch card of Peter Venkman drawn by everyone's favorite late night tweeter Lonestarr/@TwitchWasHere. He was selling some sketch cards on eBay a little while ago and I took a liking to this one as the red bar around the ghost in the Ghostbusters logo makes Venkman look slightly like a circus clown with a bright red nose.

The Trading Card Preservation Society Takes The $10 Card Show Challenge

In the latest episode of the Trading Card Preservation Society, Dave the Cardboard Junkie and I both took part $10 Card Show Challenge in which we both tried to find the best possible cards for just $10. We talked about each card on the podcast but we thought it would be best to show them on the blog so you can really compare our cards. 

We'll begin with Dave's cards which were made up of four items. 

1. A couple Yaz 3D Kellogg's minis

2. A Wacky Packages unmarked checklist.

3. A Wilt Chamberlain 1971-72 Topps

4. A complete Superman III set...with Richard Pryor rookie cards!

How could I even try to compete with all that for $10?!? That's a good question. Here are my three cards.

1 A 1966 Topps Bob Uecker [with traded sentence on the back]

These last two were 50% off the list price so I' was still under the $10 limit. 

2. Fred Lynn bat relic. 

3. Bill Lee Fan Favorites autograph.

So who got the better deal? Leave a comment below with your winner!

Find the Trading Card Preservation Society on iTunes HERE. 

Tangential Pack Searching

The last time I went to the East Cobb County card show in North Atlanta I decided to dip my toe into the world of pack searching. One of the sellers had guaranteed hit packs that if you opened them there you could actually get some of your money back if it didn't have the hit.

I picked this 2015 Donruss Value Pack for $8. These are $5.00 by themselves and so you are essentially paying $3.00 for a lottery scratcher ticket in the form of  a relic card. So let's see what I got!

It's a bat relic from the Best Beard In Baseball [BBIB] Evan Gattis. He's having another solid year this time with the Astros who got him in a trade with the Braves in the off season.

2015 Panini Donruss Bat Kings #3 Evan Gattis Bat Relic

Keith Olbermann's Jim Kaat Card

It makes me sad that Keith Olbermann's ESPN show will be ending next week. Every once in a while he would shoehorn a baseball card segment into his broadcast and I would be happy to regularly share them here on the blog.

A few months ago he had Twins legend Jim Kaat on and in passing he mentioned that Olbermann took the photograph of Kaat that Donruss would use in the 1981 set. Here's the card:

1981 Donruss #536 Jim Kaat

I knew Olbermann had a few photographs included in the 1981 set but I've never been able to get a complete list of which cards they were. If you are reading this and happen to know the complete list please comment!

Here's the clip with Kaat:


Since Keith's done at ESPN again and burned his political TV bridges at MSNBC, I'm worried this might be the end of his career in terms of having a major network show in which he can do what he does best: be a pain in the ass to power and privilege. 

Visiting The Topps Pop Culture Exhibit At The Louisville Slugger Museum

Topps currently have an exhibition at the Louisville Slugger Museum "Pop Culture: Home Runs To Hollywood" which has displays of all things Topps. As the title suggests the featured cards are mainly pop culture releases with some baseball sprinkled in. The exhibit opened in March and runs through October 4th, 2015.

The old expression goes "you've got to dance with the one that brung ya" and so the first display has some memorable classic cards like a graded 1952 Jackie Robinson and a 1954 Hank Aaron...but really all I could think of was "GET PENNY SLEEVES ON THOSE F**KING CARDS!"

There was also a touching display to the late Sy Berger, the Stan Lee of baseball cards, who passed away last December. 

As a critic of all things sports cards and damn nearly everything made by Topps, it was nice to be able to finally understand how Topps cards are made!

Here's the seven step process they use.

Step #1. Idea
Step #2. Design
Step #3. Research Photo/Info
Step #4. Compose
Step #5. Proof
Step #6. Print, Cut, Ship
Step #7. Evaluate

I'm happy that maybe, in some small way, myself and other card bloggers have taken part in Step 7
of this process.

There was also an amusing poster highlighting error cards Topps issued. I noticed one of the cards highlighted was the infamous George Bush behind Derek Jeter card from 2007 Topps was included and as we all know that "error" card was intentional. Some might even call it a "gimmick card." But no, they are actually "manufactured error card" so Stale Gum you're on notice!

And also, I sure hope Topps is having a laugh by labeling the Derek Jeter card as being from 2003 instead of 2007. An error on the error card display? It's just to right on the nose.

And there was an obligatory Topps Bunt display as well. Man I wish they had instructions on how you are supposed to play that game like they described how Topps makes cards, 

But now let's get down to the pop culture stuff! I knew Topps had this exhibition going on before going to the museum but I didn't know specifically what was there. I had no idea how much much cool and interesting stuff they would have like for instance Indian Jones' bull whip!

And as I highlighted in my first museum post they had the original prop of Jobu from Major League that helped the Indians win the pennant. 

Topps made In Living Color cards in case you didn't know/forgot! Be sure to track down that Jim Carrey rookie card! 

Christopher Reeve's Superman costume was also on display and I was struck by how thin and fragile the fabric was. They also had a box of unopened packs of the 1980 Topps Superman 2 set. I say forget that set and go straight to Superman III to get your Richard Pryor rookie card!

But by far my favorite piece was this Adam West Batman costume that has never been on display before. I'll have to go back a watch some those great episodes and see if his cowl was really that purple or if it has faded over the years. 

My Louisville Slugger Error Bat

There was no way that I was getting out of the Louisville Slugger Museum without taking a bat with me. And you have an infinite amount of possibilities of that that bat will look like. You can get the mini bat [free if you take the tour], mini bats for just about any player, or a personalized full size bat engraved right in front of you. But what really caught my eye were the rejected/error bats. Something went wrong in their creation from tree to lumber to baseball bat and so they can be yours at a fraction of the price of a completed, perfect bat. 

Here's my bat which looks pretty standard minus the knobs on the top or bottom which haven't been cut off yet. 

I looked through that bat pile earlier for a bat that had a really powerful "Louisville Slugger" and "Powerized' brand on it and I think I did pretty well.

Flipping the bat around you will discover why it didn't meet Louisville Slugger's quality control. A big chunk of the bats barrel broke out during production and so it was into the discard pile with this one until I walked through the door.

In my next post I'll highlight the Topps exhibition they are staging at the museum through the end of October focusing on the pop culture sets Topps has made through the years.

The Louisville Slugger Museum

If you ever get the chance to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum don't miss it. Even if you are just driving through invest 20 minutes to the gift shop and the very front of the store [without even paying to get into the museum] because it will be well worth your time. 

And don't forget your Wallet Card kids! 

In the very front they have a gigantic display of all the players that have been featured on their bats since the company started. I went through the signatures and took some photos of some of my favorite players. 1942 saw my favorite player Andy Pafko featured on a Louisville Slugger and someday I hope to track down a Pafko bat for myself. 

Here are a few more of my favorites: Ken Hubbs from 1959.

Brothers Henry Aaron and Tommie Arron...seven years apart.

Here are a couple favorites of my podcasting partner, Dayf, The Cardboard Junkie,  Jason Heyward from 2013 and Cookie Rojas from 1959.

I was surprised that Jim Thome didn't have a personalized Louisville Slugger until 2001...and also that John Jaha ever had one!
I

And last but not least we have two personal favorites...one for his afro and one for his uni-brow!

 Topps currently has an exhibition at the Museum and I will highlight that in a future post...but here's a little taste of what they had on display. The original JoBu!