My Free-Autographs.com Experience

I recently heard of a webpage offering free autographs which logically peaked my interest. Who doesn't love free autographs. The webpage, free-autographs.com, askes for a $2 shipping and handling paypal payment and in a few days you will receive an autograph in the mail.

The site is run by Alex of the Alex's Autographs blog which has a lot of helpful information on through-the-mail autograph requests and an interesting list of his autograph request failures through the years...including a lot of failed requests for former Cubs prospect Earl Cunningham.

So I could spend $2 on a pack of 2017 Topps Series 1 or take a roll of the dice on a free autograph. So I sent my payment in and received an envelope in the mail about a week later. Given there was just a $2 shipping fee, I was fully expecting a plain white envelope and what I received was a step up from the basic envelope. My autograph also came in a toploader taped shut. So what did I get?

My card was a 2001 Royal Rookies Bryant Nelson autograph #970/6995. Nelson was originally drafted by the Houston Astros in 1993 and bounced around in the minors to several teams including the Arizona Diamondbacks as it says on the back of his Royal Rookies card. Nelson eventually did make the majors in 2002 with the Boston Red Sox for 28 games.

So, it was no Hall of Fame autograph but the website delivered exactly what it promised. If you aren't very excited by new wax and want to build your autograph collection I would say give the website a try. I think I will pull the autograph slot machine lever again myself and see what I get. 

Highlights From The Garbage Pail

I'm still buying Garbage Pail Kids, alternating between the 2017 Adam-geddon set and the 2016 Prime Slime set and here are two notable cards I recently pulled.

First I pulled my first recent Garbage Pail Kids card that actually uses my name, Matt Ress. I am working on collecting all of the "Matt" referenced cards through the various sets and it is always fun to pull one from a pack today.

The other card is a Twin Peaks inspired Twin Finn with an amazingly detailed painting with the opening credits image in the background with cherry pie and coffee spread everywhere. We have a Kyle MacLachlan-inspired Agent Cooper holding some pie and Killer Bob looking very menacing behind him. Season 3 of Twin Peaks arrives in just a few months and the first episode will actually be feature length and I'm eager to see how David Lynch will handle the final events between Bob and Copper during the Season 2 finale and who that translates that into an ongoing Season 3.

1982 Columbus Police Columbus Cllippers Steve Balboni Minor League Card

One of the tables at the central Illinois regional card show places all of his card face up on the long tables all in toploaders. Most of the cards were 90's inserts and some nice rookies from the 80's that essentially hold no value today. The cards were lined up in nice straight precise rows except one card that jumped out as being in a 50's vintage size toploader that threw the alignment off. 

When I finally got around to taking a look at the card, I was surprised to find a 1982 Columbus Clippers card of Steve Balboni. The price says $15 but don't worry, the cards one the table were 15 cards for $10.00 so it set me back 67 cents. 

The Columbus Clippers are the AAA team for the New York Yankees and many early 80's Clippers sets are famous for having some of the earliest pre-rookie cards of Don Mattingly. Balboni's early card is the only other players of note in the 25-card set. 

The set itself was issued by the Columbus, Ohio Police Department and Balboni's card explains how to score an assist and to always keep an eye out on your neighbor's place when they are away. Balboni would be traded to the Royals in 1983 and with the Royals he would hit 119 home runs from 1984-1987.

Episode #14 Of The Trading Card Preservation Society Is Up

Today on the podcast, Dave the Cardboard Junkie and I talk about our thoughts on 2017 Topps Series 1 after opening the product, the Stranger Things 2 promo during the Super Bowl, 2017 Garbage Pail Kids, Mystery Science Theater 3000 Funko figures, and 2017 Topps Archives details. 

Colligere Omnia!

Episode #14 Download

2017 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Adam-Geddon: My 10 Favorite Cards

I had to do a little research for an upcoming episode of the Trading Card Preservation Society podcast and so I bought this half-sized blaster of the new 2017 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Adam-Geddon. This new set featuring new art of some classic GPK characters is all negative all the time. Cards are divided into such categories as pollution, monsters, dumb deaths, alien invasion, the plagues, nuclear, apocalypse, and natural disaster. It might not be the Garbage Pail Kids set we asked but it is certainly the set we deserve. Here are my 10 favorite cards from the set including a few which will be in the running for my favorite card of 2017.

The detail on the May N. Calendar card is something you don't see on too many GPK cards and, well, what can I say about Four Horse Manny. Perhaps the 2017 Card of the Year and a new GPK classic.

Adam Geddon and Dictate Tor are two cards that feel way to close to home in 2017 in America. 

 

Villainous Virgil would certainly make an interesting Funko character and if my parents had found me with this card back in the 80's there would be a chance I would still be grounded.

There are sometimes that I seriously wonder if the minds that create the Garbage Pail Kids cards actually work for the same company that make the Topps trading cards. I can always count on such originality with new GPK sets but the baseball cards just feel so tired and dated at times.

Any card that is a shout-out to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove gets an A+ in my book. The green bordered cards can be found one per pack and each of my packs had eight cards.

As a product of the 1980's and nuclear paranoia, atomic blasts have always been a favorite topic of the Garbage Pail Kids sets and here are Sunny Glasses and Sheltered Sheldon to continue that tradition.