Mariners' Prospecting

This past offseason the Mariners made some major changes and with a rather light minor league system it can be difficult prospecting but over 2018 I slowly added a couple of cards of young players to my COMC order. I have made a number of poor prospecting choices over the past 25 years, so I keep my pickups inexpensive.

Here are a couple prospects that I added to my collection:

Braden Bishop- 2015 Bowman Draft Chrome Asia Black Refractor

Evan White- 2017 Bowman’s Best “Best of 2017” Autograph Refractor

Kyle Lewis- 2017 Bowman Draft Chrome Sky Blue refractor

Dan Vogelbach- 2017 Topps Gold Label Framed Autograph

King Of The Monsters

During the 90s hologram cards were the inserts to get when busting a non-sports box. I remember sitting with my best friend one day after work, we had both purchased boxes of 1994 Marvel Universe and I pulled a Wolverine and War Machine hologram card, they may have been the first holograms I ever pulled and they are still in my collection.

So, when I can find a cool hologram of a subject that I like, it makes me happy. I was searching some King Kong cards and by pure luck came across a listing for a 1995 Toho Godzilla hologram for a couple of bucks. I wish they were more common because I would love to add more to my collection.

Monday Question Day- Boob Tube Cards?

We got over a foot of snow this past Thursday and Friday so there was plenty of time to catch up on the shows on my DVR, which leads to today's question.

Is there a television show that you watch and would like to see a trading card set built on?

The shows that come to mind are both animated shows, Futurama and Bob’s Burgers. There is a Bob’s Burgers Target exclusive 6-card set that was included in a DVD release and I did pick up that set, but I would like to see a full set with sketch cards and autographs.

Toro Pride- Dan Divjak

I added a new former Mountain View Toro to my collection, and this one is a friend. I not only went to school with Dan, but we played football together and he was the team's starting QB during our senior year. After we graduated he headed down to Tucson to not play football, but hockey for the University of Arizona. Hockey was always his first love, so this wasn’t surprise. 

I didn’t even know he had cards until I came across them on TCDB so it is neat to add his cards to my collection. 

Would You Buy This Card?

Last week this 2007 SP Sign of the Times Griffey/Dunn dual autograph sold for $36, which is a deal with a Griffey autograph. But if you look, both Griffey’s and Dunn’s autographs are faded.

Would you buy this card knowing that in a few years that the signatures will be illegible?

The Art Gallery- 2015 Upper Deck Dinosaurs Neanderthal

This month’s Art Gallery display is from Sharon Gauthier, a freelance artist from Quebec. She is a talented artist who can work in multiple styles. She is a cartoonist so she has a very cutsie style but she also has a pseudo-realistic style, like this card. Not photo realism but accurate.

This sketch card is from the 2015 Upper Deck Dinosaur release, and this is my second sketch card from the set. This one depicting a Neanderthal following a successful hunt carrying an animal leg. I have no attachments to the card, I just liked the subject and colors.

Griffey Printer Scrap

I picked up a Griffey card that was being sold as an error, but it really isn’t an error. The card is a test card that was a printer’s scrap. The card began life as a 1995 Stadium Club Super Skills #SS11 but ended up being used by Topps to practice die-cuts that would later be used in both 1996 Laser Baseball and 1996 Laser Football.

While I am not certain who the football player is, I believe it to be Troy Aikman because it looks like a star on the helmet. I also think the image on the back of the Griffey card is the "front" of the Aikman card.

Vintage Card Of The Month- 1916 John Players & Sons Wonders Of The World Potala Palace

This month’s Vintage Card of the Month is the Potala Palace, located in Tibet, and this is from the 1916 John Player & Sons Wonders of the World. The set includes wonderful destinations from around the world like the Acropolis and the Grand Canyon. 

A set like this would be an amazing journey for a child in 1916. Imagine knowing nothing about Victoria Falls in Africa and then seeing these colorful illustrations and a short write up on the back. This card is the Potala Palace, which was the home and sanctuary of the Dalai Lama until the Chinese invaded.

The card is your typical tobacco sized card and is in nice condition, only a small crease in one corner. The card was reprinted 10 years later by the Wills Tobacco company. I have that card too.

Clemens, Did I Make The Team?

In 2013 I got the idea to put together a set based on the Simpsons episode Homer at the Bat. The episode aired in February 1992, so I decided to use the 1992 Topps set. A nice clean design that was easy to work with. I finally finished the illustrations last year, but I do have further plans.

Why did it take me so long? Besides my procrastination, I drew every illustration by hand. I went through the episode on my computer and stopped the video at the exact point I wanted the shot to be so I could get a screen grab. I then used the player’s 1992 card as a template, so the base was already set. Then using the screen grab as the starting point, I drew the entire scene using Photoshop and my trusty Wacom tablet. Over 5 years I put in over 100 hours, some days I would work on a card for 6-8 hours alone. This was why I was so upset when I accidently deleted the files. 

I’ll use the Scioscia card to show you from start to finish. I did take some artistic liberties, but I tried to remain as true to the original.

Tubular

When I was growing up I loved surfing. Surprisingly there were some options in Arizona, there used to be a water park outside of Tucson (for the life of me I cannot remember the name and I am not sure if it is still around) that offered surfing times, so I got in practice. As I hit my teens, I would spend spring breaks and summers in southern California hitting places like Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach. 

Those days are long gone but it is still nice to reminisce and while surfing cards are not common anymore, Upper Deck makes sure to get some surfers in their annual Goodwin Champions set, finding an old gem is nice.

This Matt Archbold hologram from the 1992 Beach Sports set was a nice find. It kind of re-invigorated me and I picked up a couple of surfers autographs and relics in my recent COMC order that puts me on the road of a mini-PC. I am not sure how I want to organize it yet and I haven’t made a wants list, but I have plenty of time for that.

Monday Question Day- Was It Made?

Today is question day:

Do you ever wonder if a company issued a redemption but never made the card?

I’ve wondered if this was a possibility with how often redemptions go unfulfilled. There is a Ryan Bader card, 2012 Topps UFC Finest Fight Sponsor Auto, that has left me almost certain that the card has never been made. The card is a manufactured relic with a Tapout logo that the fighters were to sign. It is a 10-card checklist, but I have only seen 4 different fighters show up over the past 6 years. I’ve seen the redemption cards, but not the live signed cards.

Ryan Bader has been a regular signer for Topps and has signed stickers, on-card and on mat autographs. He left for Bellator in 2017 so Topps removed him from the 2017 Topps UFC Knockout release, but he even signed and returned those cards and Topps packed them out as an unannounced addition. I find it hard to believe Ryan Bader never signed the Fight Sponsor cards. And if there was an issue, Topps has never been shy about tossing a sticker autograph on a manufactured relic before no matter how crappy it looks. I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think the entire Fight Sponsor checklist was made.

Well Damn It! Part 2... The Good News

I have been frustrated since last Saturday when I lost my files in an operator error mistake. I hadn’t thought of using data recovery software, for some reason I didn’t think it worked on an external drive. But, after I saw that Vrooomed suggested that I give it a try, it worked. I was able to recover about 90% of my files last night, including the most important 2 Excel sheets, 2 Word Docs and nearly all .psd files. The digital art files were the ones I was most upset about. Some of the files were dated, not the more recent files I lost, but getting them back helps.

I have been working on The Simpsons Homer at the Bat cards since 2013 and it devastated me loosing them. I’ve been keeping them secret because I’ve had a plan for them, but I think it is time to post them. I’ll put them up some time next week after I go through them and ensure they are what I completed.

Thank you to all for your support and thank you to Vrooomed for your suggestion.

Well Damn It!

Last Saturday I did the unthinkable and deleted my entire blog folder. Everything related to my blog, and collection, was gone in one click. I was copying over my files to my external hard drive to archive them and I thought I had just made a shortcut on my external hard drive, so I deleted the icon, turns out I had moved the entire file over. It was no longer on my PC and when I deleted it off the hard drive it was deleted permanently.

I went on a frantic search to see if I could find any portion of the files on my PC, no luck. I loaded up a restore from last week and the files weren’t there, restore points do not save Excel, Word or .psd files. 

My entire Griffey PC Excel sheet, over 1600 cards carefully listed, gone. My Mini-PC Excel sheet with my Ryan Bader, Jay Buhner, Allen Iverson, Steve Largent, Edgar Martinez and Gary Payton collections, gone. My Wants List Word doc with nearly 2000 cards, gone. All my custom cards, gone. Blog image files, gone. I had dozens of custom cards that I had planned to send as TTM including my entire The Simpsons Homer at the Bat set I spent well over 100 hours meticulously hand illustrating 11 cards in Photoshop just poof. In all honesty, The Simpsons and a Terry Crews Autograpics design hurt the most.  

At that minute I considered quitting blogging and collecting. The last few days I have been going through my Griffey cards and TCDB to re-build The Beast Jr. When that is done, my Mini-PC collection will be re-built and then on to my Wants List. 

I am so overwhelmed.

The Merc With Bats And Hats And Other Things Of That Nature

The rest of the 2019 Upper Deck Deadpool Sport Ball insert set has been posted. I was hoping that one of the 1989 Upper Deck baseball cards would have been Griffey’s RC but I am very happy with Upper Deck’s selection. I may have to even hunt down each card.

SB1 1989 Upper Deck Nolan Ryan #145

SB2 1989 Upper Deck Dale Murphy Reverse Negative #357

SB3 1992-93 Upper Deck Shaq #1

SB4 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken #616

SB5 1987 Fleer Barry Bonds #604

SB6 1990-91 Upper Deck Jaromir Jagr #356

SB7 1991-92 Upper Deck Pavel Bure #54

SB8 1989 Upper Deck Mark McGwire #300

SB9 1994 Collector’s Choice Jose Canseco #560

SB10 1986 Fleer Mickey Hatcher #396

SB11 1988 Fleer Tim Flannery #582

SB12 1984 Fleer Jay Johnstone #495

All That Is Left IX

The Sports Cards Super Bowl prediction was wrong, now 6-3 overall over the past 9 years. Now it is time to share All That Is Left IX.

The Prizm box included a pink Premier Jerseys Jaleel Scott relic and 250 Panini Rewards points. There were no Seahawks and the best card was probably a Joshua Jackson pink parallel.

The Absolute box was a bit better. Still no Seahawks, but some nice inserts with Brett Favre and Odell Beckham Jr. 

Three Blue Sparkle parallels

Rookie Force Kalen Ballage relic 

Signature Standouts DeMarcus Walker auto

The Playoff was another decent box. I pulled 4 Seahawks, 2 base (Wagner & Marshall), a Wilson Playoff Heroes and Chancellor Hidden Gems.

The inserts were pretty cool. In addition to the Playoff Heroes and Hidden Gems I pulled a Thunder & Lightning and the Stafford Air Command.

Rookie Stallions Dante Pettis relic

Red Zone parallel Jordan Lasley autograph.