Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards VIII

Everybody loves oddball cards right? OK, well not everyone but when it comes to Griffey the odder the better to me. First up is a DDK Reprint, not sure who or what DDK is but there are plenty of their reprints around. The card is based on the 1963 Topps Rookie Stars cards. I normally don’t like floating head cards but for some reason this one got my attention.

The second card is a magazine issue from a copy of 1990 Baseball Cards Magazine. The card is based on the 1969 Topps Baseball set.

To make this a trilogy of cards the third card is from the 1993 Bleachers Mega Star release. This card came from a time where “Brighter! Shinier! Holograms or Metal!” was the mantra of card companies and with the card #/5000 it was considered a super-de-doper short print (SDDSP?) in 1993.

An Appreciated Gift

I was quite surprised when I checked my mail and saw I had received a padded mailer from the lady who sold me the 1993 College Baseball Classic Griffey that got damaged in the mail. She hunted down another copy for me and sent it to me along with a couple of other Griffey oddball cards. When I sent her a message thanking her she said she felt bad that I wouldn’t accept a refund that she was able to find a copy that was available and she picked it up for me.

What If? Rollie Fingers Stache

I need to work on some more of my What If? cards, I am down to just one card waiting all lonely in my What If? folder after today's post. But, what if Rollie Fingers was willing to let go of his iconic handlebar mustache? Besides being painful to Rollie, one fan would have the most unique one-of-one player worn relic card.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards IV

One of my final Ken Griffey Jr. cards of 2016 was from a unique three card set that was connected to MTV’s 3^rd Annual Rock N’ Jock” Softball Challenge in 1992. The set was just three cards and I am not even certain how they were handed out, I would think they were given out at the event. The other two cards in the set are MC Hammer and Frank Thomas.

For those who may not remember, the MTV Rock N’ Jock challenges were an annual sporting events put on by MTV beginning in 1990 and teams with names like Bricklayers, Violators, Homeboys and Awayboys were made up of athletes, actors, comedians and musicians. Over the next 11 years MTV rotated the sports with basketball and softball both being played each year but they did toss in football twice, baseball twice and bowling once.

The card is on my Top 10 Want List and even though I picked it up in 2016 I am listing it as a 2017 pickup. I don't think I will be picking up many cards from my list this year so this may be my only chance to add to the 2017 added list. The card's spot on the Want List will be replaced a Jay Buhner card: 1997 Columbus Clippers 20th Anniversary Team Issue #5

Griffey Cards From The Cutting Room Floor

Some days are tougher than others and when I am down it is time to turn to something that puts a smile on my face, Griffey oddball cards.

These aren’t really oddball cards because they are from an official release, 1994 Stadium Club Baseball, but actually tester cards from the printing stage. These specific cards are “uncut” meaning that they were never meant for pack out as they currently are. Two of the cards are uncut with one being slightly larger than the standard card, so this one may have just been a miscut and was pulled out before the packing stage, but the other one has a star-like indentions along one edge. I am not sure where this comes from, possibly a marking for the edge of the print sheet.

 

The third card is definitely from one edge of the print sheet and still contains the CMYK marking along the side and is one of those cards that isn’t expensive or rare in anyway but just different enough to make it special to the collector.

 

The cards are in rough condition, the reflective surface is well scuffed, and the edges are chipped but these aren’t the type of cards that you get graded but more of that unusual card in your collection that you just had to find a home for even though they are ugly.

 

 

Kurt At The Bat

There is an interesting fact about Kurt Russell that many people do not know, he played professional baseball. In the early 1970s he played for the California Angels minor league teams in Bend (Rainbows), Walla Walla (Islanders) and El Paso (Sun Kings) and by 1973 was considered one of the Angels top prospects when he was batting .563 in El Paso before being hit by another player during a run-down and damaging his shoulder. Later when his father Bing purchased a minor league team in 1977 called the Portland Mavericks Kurt returned to play a couple of games while working in the team’s front office. There was a wonderful documentary made about Bing Russell and the Portland Mavericks last year called "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" that can be seen on Netflix.

Obviously he chose the path of acting to become a super star in his own rights but the sports bug never disappeared from his family. His father Bing spent decades in baseball in various positions as a player and in the front office, Kurt’s son Wyatt played semi-pro hockey for 6 seasons and his nephew Matt Franco played for the Cubs, Mets and Braves.

The card was created by Dave Stewart, a disabled Vietnam vet, in the late 1970s. He created a number of unique card sets between the 70s and 90s, each card he made is limited to 500 (though not numbered) and Stewart gave these cards to people who made donations to his cause to help support disabled vets.

The card is 2 x 3.5, the same height as a standard card but not as wide. It is printed on glossy card stock and the back lists information from Kurt's final season with El Paso in 1973. The photo used is from a common promotional 8x10 photo released by El Paso while Russell was still playing for the team..

 

Torture Set

A couple of weeks ago one of the sports card blogs that I read had a story about the Center for Constitutional Rights creating a card set called The Torture Team. The card set was created for the purpose to bring attention to the people that the center feels need to be investigated for torturing detainees. You can read up on the set more at the Center for Constitutional Rights website. I requested a 10-card pack to get a better look at the set and the pack arrived today.

Depending on your personal political views you may find the set appropriate or just spiteful. Political beliefs aside, personally I don’t see this set achieving the goals that the designers were hoping for originally. I cannot remember a previous situation where a political or civil rights belief was promoted in such a manor.

Whats Next?

We have seen insects, fossils and hair strands imbedded on to cards in various releases, what are next… human bones? It just seems that this may be the way that card companies are going to draw collectors in on the next big thing. If you cannot get collectors to buy cards with jerseys and sticker autographs let us move down the shock value scale.

The Japanese seem to be leading the pack in this category. Over the years sets like Racing Queen, Japan Model and Juicy Honey have pushed the envelope and you wonder if Topps, UD and Donruss/Panini are considering similar avenues. Not long ago Mario at Wax Heaven wrote about the Juicy Honey set, which beginning with the 11th series included some interesting, and perverse, hits such as lingerie swatches, nipple stamp cards and pubic hair DNA cards. I don’t see American companies releasing sets of this extreme nature due to a small portion of the American population feeling the need to censor the rest of the country but I do think that some companies are considering the next level.

We have seen Kiss cards throughout various wrestling releases, so this is nothing really new, we have also seen various clothing relics in almost every set based on a movie or television show. The thing is that many collectors tire of the dime sized bland white jersey swatch and bit-player autographs that have become commonplace in every release. Something has to be done to keep collectors buying your product. Many people have even pointed out that unless the hobby changes collectors may end up moving away from collecting because the sets have become cookie cutter sets. The inserts are even worse, often time the insert is the same cookie cutter base card with a jersey or sticker auto forced in to the design ruining anything aesthetically pleasing that remained.

Fossil Cards

Last month I touched on the blurring of lines between sports cards and non-sports cards. I bring this up because I was reading a story on the Upper Deck Blog regarding a special 1/1 redemption card from the 2008-2009 Champs Hockey set.

In the 2008-09 Champs set Upper Deck included redemption cards for a very rare insert, actual fossils and other artifacts. These shadowbox cards, which are suppose to be up to 10 times the thickness of a regular card, contain various fossils including femur bones and teeth. The top dog from the set is a 1/1 Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth, the entire tooth, and as pointed out in the story the redemption card for this treasure is still out there in a pack somewhere on a shelf. With other fossil cards showing up on eBay ranging from about $90 and up you have to wonder how much this bad boy might fetch.

This is a cool insert, I would love to pull any of these fossils but I don’t see the connection between dinosaur fossils and hockey. What brought UD to create an insert like this for the Champs set?

Nintendo Game Pack

A bit back I wrote about having found a pack of Disney Rocketeer cards in one of my drawers, well I also came across a pack of Nintendo Game Pack cards. These cards were released by Topps in 1989 and were based on Nintendo games of the time. The pack includes 3 Scratch Off Cards and 2 Stickers. The scratch-off cards were a game where you scratched off the little circles to try and win, basically a lottery ticket with a better chance of winning. The stickers, well what can I say… they are stickers.

The cards are pretty poor in coloring, probably cheap ink used during the printing phase not to mention that they are 20 years old now. The stickers had a better quality of ink used so they look a tad better but still could have used better quality ink.

Mario and Link heading in to trouble

Piston Honda
Wait for the jabs then pound him in the face

Mario wondering why his name looks like it is on a movie theater marquee

Little Mac taking it to Glass Joe

Well, it was a time when Topps would take on any license and turn it in to a card set.