Happy Birthday Kid

 Happy 50^th to the man with the sweetest swing, Ken Griffey Jr.

Griffey Procession III

Girffey’s cards with low serial numbers are quite costly but I have found the perfect option, go with a modern Leaf card. Over the last few years Leaf has put out some pretty amazing cards but many times people by-pass them because they are unlicensed. I am not too caught up in unlicensed cards, as long as I like the card’s design and that is the case with this 2017 Leaf History of Baseball 1991 Acetate Throwback. 

There are 5 cards; a base and four parallels. The base is charcoal and unnumbered with the four parallels being Blue (#/35), Purple (#/25), Green (#/10) and Red (#/5). This one is the red and mine is #1/5. I also have the base, Purple and Green which I thought I had posted in one of my previous Griffey Cavalcades but I can not find now.  

Griffey Procession II

A one card Griffey post, a 1996 Bowman’s Best Preview Atomic Refractor that I picked up last August. I was never lucky enough to pull any type of Griffey refractor, let alone an Atomic refractor and normally I don’t check prices on the mid-90s refractors because they are usually outside of my price range but this was just a case of checking at the right time and I got a great deal.

Griffey Procession I

Another of Griffey’s 1989 Upper Deck error cards makes its way in to my collection. This time it is a blank front and triple print error with a twist. The back of the card is the Griffey #1 back and the Don Baylor #601 back, which is the most common double print back. The third misprint is the addition of Alan Trammell #290 front and the twist is a misfire of the Magenta Trammell front adding the pinkish color and this is the first time I’ve seen this much of a color bomb with a 1989 Upper Deck error.

Care Packages x3

Since the beginning of March my health problems have worsened which has left me in a terrible state. My arthritis pain is significantly worse, I will be returning to my pain specialist soon to begin treatment on my hip degeneration, multiple seizures and migraines have floored me and some days even walking is a struggle, so my body is very strained and I have been dealing with depression. You probably noticed my posts have been less frequent because it is difficult to focus but I am trying to keep myself engaged.

Over the past few weeks I have received three care packages, which have lifted my spirits. They came from Tom at The Angels In Order, Jon from A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts and Angus from Dawg Day Cards. Between the three there were probably 100 cards, this really put a smile on my face.

Unfortunately, I had the cards in three stacks on my computer desk and I moved a blanket off of the end of my bed, hitting the desk and sent most of the cards to the floor in a big jumble so I don’t remember who sent which card. So I am going to present some of the cards that helped lift me up, know that while I am not posting every card I want to thank all three of them for the care packages and each card is now happily in their place in my boxes and binders.

Tomorrow I will post up the rest of the Mariners cards

Starting with the Seahawks

1992 All World Greats of the Game (Straight off my wants list)

1994 Bowman Rick Mirer (One of my favorites)

1997 Totally Certified Red Chris Warren

2015 Panini Intros Richard Sherman (Still upset about the way things went down)

For my Griffey PC

1990 Donruss Best of the AL

1994 Church’s Show Stoppers

1999 Upper Deck Textbook Excellence

Well That's Just Odd

I came across the most unique issue the other day while scanning in cards to add to TCDB, my 2011 ITG Griffey memorabilia card would not scan properly. It is the strangest thing, but when the card scans one of the bottom corners comes out disproportionately no matter where on my scanner bed the card sat.

The card is a standard relic card, so it isn’t thicker or shaped any differently than other relic cards, and I have scanned at least one hundred cards over the last few days and this is the only one that has this result. I added the red stroke so you can see where the card edges should be located.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey XIV

Finding your favorite player’s cards from foreign sets is always a treat. There have been plenty of products that have been released internationally but the cards I am talking about are the cards that are released locally in a foreign country. Topps, Upper Deck and Panini have major releases that are sold overseas exclusively, so finding your favorite player in those sets is cool but when I can find what essentially is a broder card it seems like the card is even more special.

I picked up this card from a Venezuelan dealer and it is exactly what you would expect from a small unknown card company. Horrible picture, no card number or set name and in the case of this card, a smudge on the back near the top that someone tried to wipe it off.

I wasn’t sure how to catalog it in my Excel spreadsheet, so I asked the dealer and he said all he knows is that it came out in 1999 or 2000 and that was it, so I have it listed as a 1999/00 Venezuelan unknown.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey XIII

One of my favorite companies over the years has been Pacific. Their early baseball products are rather plain and in the 90s they only had MLB’s Spanish license, so all of their baseball cards were bilingual, something they did carry over in to the early 2000s even after getting a full MLB license.

It was about 1998 when they started to play with die-cuts and other oddities for their sets and this is where this card comes in to the picture. One of the cool inserts in the various sets were the Net Fusions die-cuts, cards cut in to a shape based on the insert name and strings added to give it a net like look. This is the In The Cage insert from the 2000 Pacific Crown Collection but some of the other Net Fusions are Dugout View and Foul Pole.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey XII

Acetate cards are the greatest, I don’t even have a special reason, I just really like them so when I come across the chance to pick up a new Griffey acetate card I jump on it.

This is a 2000 Pacific Crown Royale proof, there are two different proofs with one being #/50, but this is the base proof. The cards are acetate versions of the base card, which is not acetate, and usually can be picked up for under $5 shipped. I just looked and there is an un-numbered (base) proof on COMC for $53 ouch…

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards XV

I already had a double printed back error 1989 Upper Deck Griffey #1, I love error cards, but this one adds in the error of a mostly blank front. The front has an impression of a back on it along the left border, but the rest of the card front is blank.

The Gift Of Giving, And Receiving, Griffey Cards

October was a “No purchase” month for me but that didn’t mean I didn’t get new cards. I was the recipient of the Great Giving Griffey box, a traveling box of roughly 500 Griffey cards that pass from Griffey collector to Griffey collector. You receive the box, pull out what you want/need for your collection, replace the cards in the box and pass it on to another collector of The Kid. I am very appreciative that Daniel from It’s Like Having My Own Card Shop thought of me when he was ready to send the box on, thank you.

I pulled aside around 50 cards and set the stack on my desk for later while I focused on building a website for a friend. I added around 60 cards to the box, plus some customs, and sent the box on, but I didn’t get around to going through my Griffey Want List and The Beast Jr. and updating until a couple of days ago. 

Most of the cards I pulled were base cards or base inserts, gray whales, that have been sitting on my wants list for a while, so it was nice to be able to knock a bunch of those off the list. A couple cards of note are the 1991 Stadium Club membership card. I had totally forgotten about this oddity, so I couldn’t pass on adding it to my collection.

I was excited to see some of Gavin’s custom cards too, I am very glad that he made several of them to put in the box. I have one of his glow-in-the-dark custom Griffey cards that he sent me a couple of years ago but these two are new to me.

TJ, from The Junior Junkie, started the Great Giving Griffey box in 2015 using dups from his collection and it really shows how close the community can be when it comes to giving. I am sure that all those who have received the box and all those who will be receiving it are so grateful that this project was begun and still traveling.

Griffey Is Immortalized On My Display Shelf

The newest edition to my Ken Griffey Jr. SGA collection is the replica of the bronze statue of Griffey that is located outside of SafeCo Field. The replica statues were given out at the April 14, 2017 game and are about 6 inches tall and are made out of resin so there is some weight to it.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards XIV

It was April 13, 1998, in a game against the Cleveland Indians in Seattle, Ken Griffey Jr. launched a long ball in to the right field seats to become the second youngest player to hit 300 homeruns.

Upper Deck released this 3x5 acetate card to celebrate the feat, which includes clips of the sweet swing that sent that ball (and another in the game) over the wall. The card is serial numbered #228/10,000, remember when 10k was a limited card?

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards XIII

In the early 90s Taco Time and the Mariners joined forces and Taco Time released several promotional cards and sets in conjunction with Alrak Enterprises. The Sonics also had a deal with Taco Time and there were Sonics promotional sets released too around the same time.

These two gold foil cards were from 1994 and are both post card size. The team card has a standard post card back while the Griffey diving card has two images of Griffey, one at bat and one close up, which is a pretty common image from those Alrak sets.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards XII

Awhile back someone, sorry I don’t remember which blog, posted about picking up some cards that had gum stains on them. When I was a kid in the early 1980s a gum stain on a card was a mark of death, it was destined for the spokes of your bike or to be drawn on and defaced, nobody wanted them. 

Now Topps makes it a variant of the base card in their Heritage releases, like we need more parallels, but in collectors who collected when the gum stain was a bad thing now sees it in a different light. It now transports us back to flipping cards against the wall in elementary school and leaves us wondering how many 1980 Rickey Henderson and 1981 Joe Montana rookie cards were tossed in the trash over a stain.

I caved, I had to find a Griffey gum stain for my collection, which is kind of difficult because by the time his cards began showing up gum in packs was quickly becoming a thing of the past but I did find a 1989 Bowman rookie card with that mark. I have picked up a couple of Griffey damaged and error cards over the years, things like this make each card unique.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards XI

I think one of the more unique cards to collect are test proof cards, cards that were printed out prior to the printing of the cards to be packed out to ensure everything is aligned and proper coloring. Most of the cards were destroyed, they were often incomplete so there was no reason to keep them around, but they are actually pretty easy to find.

Given they aren’t like a packed out card so some collectors may not like having them in their collection but I do. I find that having a collection that includes cards with blank backs, missing foil or text or are just cut to an odd size makes me feel like I have something different to offer with my collection.

A couple of recent pickups are from the 1999 Stadium Club Never Compromise insert set. The first card has a blank back and is missing the foil (top) while the second card is significantly oversized, blank back, no foil and with some of the printer’s codes along the bottom (Below).

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards X

Before companies took variations to the extreme you had to have a keen eye to catch the differences and in 1991 Donruss did some slight differences with the borders for the factory sets. Packed out cards had one border and factory sets had a different border, the cards were the same otherwise.

You wouldn’t think that a card that costs a quarter could cause so much frustration to a buyer. The biggest problem is that most sellers don’t notice the difference and don’t list the card as a factory set/border variation card or even worse are the sellers that just grab an image and toss it up assuming all the cards are the same.

Injections In My Spine Or A Manufactured Relic, I Got Both For You Today

This morning I started another series of spinal cortisone injections and I am in a lot of pain so today is a one-card post. Each series is three rounds of injections over a five-week period, so I got one round today and will go back in two weeks and then the final round will be two weeks after that. Each round is 3-5 individual injections, today was three injections. This is my 6^th series in a little over 3 years with a spinal surgery in the summer of 2015 so this has become a part of my life that while temporarily painful gives me some relief from the spinal degeneration pain for a couple of weeks afterwards.

The card of the day

I am not a fan of most manufactured relics and I keep away from them usually but when it comes to Griffey I will often open my mind when building a collection. I picked this up in July and it is pretty cool, the card is extremely heavy because the medallion is metal and I like that so I decided to add manufactured relics to my Griffey Want List.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards IX

Normally I don’t consider buying custom cards that I can make but this one is an exception. The card is the cover of the PS4 The Show 17 game but it is a refractor so I thought it was cool. While I could make a card sized cover of the game I have never made a refractor custom card, I haven’t even tried yet, so that is how I ended up with this one in my collection. Eventually I would like to pick up one of the code cards too, I don’t play the game so if I ever come across a used code card I would be happy.

The Beast Jr. Has Been Updated

When I ended up restoring my computer at the end of July I had made the mistake of not saving certain files on my external hard drive before starting the restore and I lost a number of files with most of them being connected to my blog as well as some art projects.

Over the past two weeks I have sat down and went through my PC collections to get everything back up to date. My Bader and Buhner collections were completed quickly being only 127 and 135 unique cards, respectively. I still need to update my Largent collection but I decided to turn to the Beast Jr first and focus on my Griffey cards because I am not hunting down any Largent cards right now so that list can wait.

It ended up taking me almost a week to go through my Griffey collection to update my Beast Jr. spreadsheet and my want list but I finally got it all completed. I have posted my Griffey want’s list, which has grown by 24 cards since I last updated my want’s list here on the blog last January.

A quick update on my health; I have met three of my five new doctors so I have been very busy over the last few months. I meet my pain specialist tomorrow, meeting new doctors always causes a bit of anxiety for me because I had a bad experience with a doctor when my health first began to decline and now I never know what to expect. Over the next couple of weeks, I have to get an MRI and EEG test along with another blood test. Not long ago I had an x-ray to see how my spinal degeneration is progressing and luckily it has only gotten slightly worse. As odd as it is, even though my spine is slowly breaking down I have grown almost a ¼ of an inch in the last year.

And for those here to see cards, here is my newest Griffey which I pulled from a pack of 2017 Stadium Club recently.