Bad die cut days

I've said it many times : Ebay is my LCS. It's sad, I agree, but that's the way it is. And factoring in shipping charges is as if I had to travel 150 miles to get to that LCS and pay for gas. Only to find dollar card boxes and nothing cheaper, and no deal to be made no matter how much I spend. Yeah, that's a crappy LCS, but at least, it's one I have access to.

So here I was browsing, and I started bidding frantically. I tend to get frantic because the other day, I won a .50 ct auction. I had my eyes on another card that I did not win, and was just bidding on that other one to soften the shipping costs. And it softly bit me in the ass. A 50 cent card I'll end up paying $5 for. Ah well. It comes with the (French) territory.

So here's what I got from that seller. Nothing exceeded $1.5 and total shipping cost was $9, which is very reasonable. There were 3 other cards I'm not showing because they're going out to ******

Don't ask...I think I just wanted to see what exactly that card looked like in person, if it was as 90s crazy as it seemed. And guess what : it is. A bad die-cut day.

If you'd found that card in a dollar bin, you'd never have picked it up. Yet, I did. Always nice to add a Halladay to the collection. But yeah, it's absolutely not worth .99cts

Do not check your browser, yes, you are still on my blog, and yes, this is a Prizm card. The worst cards ever made in the history of bad card designs. And yet, I bought a Prizm auto. A sticker at that. And I'm glad I did. Even though it doesn't look like Dickey (do people make fun in the US of people named Dickey ?) will have a killer season.

This is my second auto of a player who never made it to the majors in a Blue Jays uniform. Not bad. It's a great looking on-card auto nevertheless. If an LCS had a Blue Jays box filled with overpriced cards, I'd be all over it. I'm stupid like that.

Great player, great patch, very nice set. Woohoo !

I do not know why I bet on that card. Really. I probably just liked the looks of it, and I still do. But it suits in no way my collection. Good thing I don't really care about that, I just like nice cards.

Speaking of which, here's another one I picked up just because of its good looks. That's an awesome patch of a player that was never able to really show his full potential because of injuries. Ah well. That card was probably pretty hot in 2004. Assuming that SOME people collected cards back then.

Finally, and I haven't shown any basketball in a long time, a sticker auto of a favorite of mine from way back when.

So there you go. Nothing fancy, just nice cards. I'm glad I made the trip.

Jay Barker in Blue Jays clothing

While we were all busy watching West Virginia's bombing by Alabamian troops wearing game worn jerseys and bats and carrying tons (literally) of cards, Wes figured he'd go for a sneak attack overseas (it's pretty easy to sneak-attack us) and send me an envelope filled with Blue Jays goodness.

Here's a sample of it, while I have some nurses take a look at my wounds.

In the beginning there was darkness...And then came Heat activated fun cards. It's horribly designed (they were just starting to use Photoshop back then, obviously), but it's a lot of fun indeed.

A baseball card magazine card (what happened to all those publications ? Do any of them exist outside of Beckett ?) and....O-Pee-Chee !

The funny thing about that Classic card is that at the back, there's a small space designed for the autograph. A card is made to be signed on the front, dangit ! I only have the Blue Jays players from those US playing cards sets. Makes solitary games really short.

This is an SP. A Wall-mart blue bordered SP. I've quit trying to keep up with parallels.

I won't deliberately chase them (because there're simply way, way too many of them), but I'm always glad to find them in trade packages ! Target red, Wall-mart blue...I wonder who decides which retailer gets which color.

More parallels ! But at least I can keep up with those. That Stottlemyre is weirdly framed.

Technically, that Shawn Green is a Dodgers card. But I'd rather have a non BLue Jays card of a player in a Blue Jays uniform, than a Blue Jays card with just the logo and another uniform. I find it ironic that Wes would send me a "Pacific" card...

More goodness, including Masterpieces, which is rapidly growing as one of my favorite post 2000 sets ever. And I only have something like 5 cards from that set.

Lots of shiny stuff going on here ! I like those Topps HD, though I'm not really sure I understand what they were trying to do. Packs were apparently $4, for 4 cards. Ouch. The Donruss Throwback is numbered 02/100

SN /424 ? Ok, why not.

More very shiny parallels, this time including very low numbers. Remember when Finest refractors went for quadruple digits because of the rumored 242 copies of each ? Does it mean that Wells and Arencibia should go for 5 times more ?

 Wes probably thought Lawrie would spread controversy among enemies. But no such thing here, we all fight in peace ! (I like the sound of that)

Mr Jaybarkerfan passed this card along, after rubbing my face in it on his blog a few weeks ago. It's such a weird card with that plastic helmet embedded in there ! The on-card auto comes almost as an afterthought. I LOVE it !

It was a ton of fun following your battle with Matt at a (safe) distance, and I was very happy to try and (modestly) hit you with a few bombs of my own. And even though I'm not a big fan of the military and am a pacifist at heart, all those war metaphors were pretty fun too. Now let's watch the trees blossom and each bring some marshmallows to the campfire.

Even though it's hardly ever a fair battle with Wes, it's always fun trying to match his madness. I haven't surrendered yet (now, let's not make jokes about French surrendering, shall we ?)

Trading for mustaches

Richard has a bunch of Blue Jays cards he's trying to unload, as he's focusing (well, trying to) his collection on Joe Carter cards. And since many are sent my way, whenever I get a double, I never forget to add it to my Richard stack and once in a while I'll send him some his way. To thank me for my surprise package (I love surprise packages), he looked at my want list and fille the wholes in many of my non-Topps 80's needs.

Plus that card :

There's something weird about that card. Burnett had one nice season out of two for the Blue Jays, so he's a player I like, but there, it shows him in a Marlins uniform beside a Yankees logo. Even though he played for the Blue Jays in 2007 and 2008 before joining the Yankees in 2009 (date of that card). THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. Or maybe they didn't want people to think this was a Blue Jays only card. I dunno. I'm pretty sure there are as many Blue Jays collectors as Marlins collectors, if not slightly more (does anyone know a Marlins collector ? Do Marlins collectors have a special handshake ? So many unanswered questions...)

The Barry BOnnel card is either a cool photo, or a very badly cropped one. I have yet to decide.

The day of the mustache...a nice trio of smiling mustaches on top, and some...Well...action shots (especially Bomback) at the bottom. Tough to find action shots during practice.

More mustaches ! You'll notice the headshots were taken the same day at the same stadium (I should know which one it is, I'm a little ashamed I don't.)

More 80's Donruss, more facial hair, more empty seats.

Richard also included a bunch of 2011 Topps needs, and those couple of Griffeys. I already have a few of that Donruss RC, but the Classic was new to me, so yay !

Thanks a lot Richard, even though you're starting to have a bunch now, I'll keep the Carter pipeline open !

Classic Baseball by Walter Iooss Jr.

This has (almost) nothing to do with baseball cards.
If not that because I love the Iooss 93 Upper Deck insert set so much, I decided to go see what was out there in terms of books with Iooss Jr's photographs. I already knew about the Rare Air one (around Jordan), but that's about it.

A few clicks later, I purchased that book. And it's a beauty. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

And many more, of course !

Hang them highly subjectively and lowly arbitrarily

I was once again, and for the fourth time in a month, the lucky recipient of a great package from Brian. As usual, there was a little bit of everything : Blue Jays, Gold glovers, random packs of cards and, this time, a healthy chunk of Kirby Puckett cards. Because, even though Brian is a fervent Kirby collector, he had some duplicates sent his way that he could forward to me (and I know that TJ won't mind !). Is there some kind of code for that, by the way ? Is it ok to send away some cards that have been sent your way in the first place ? It's probably a little silly, but I see cards that are sent to me as gifts. Is it ok to regift, in the blogosphere ? I have no problems doing it with duplicates, but otherwise, I don't know...I probably ask myself way too many questions.

For example, Julie sent me two Mascot cards that I like a lot. But the other day, I saw on The junior Junkie's blog that those mascots actually took part in his Wallet card madness. So naturally, I want to forward them to him. Maybe I should write a Shakespearean play about all this.

This, as we're used by now with Heritage, is a shot print. Just because they decided to.

It's strange because I already have a Tier one Adam Lind auto from 2012. Also numbered out of 399. Except it's not the same photo. I don't really see the point, but I'm still happy to add that one, as I really love how they look.

Another auto and a nice swatch card from one of my favorite Blue jays, so yay.

I had to look it up, but the Hoffman on the right is from the Bringing back bowman 89 insert set. My question is simple : why ? That's one shiny card though !

An Olerud boxed set I was missing, and that Jimmy Key is from the Opening Day set. I had no idea those existed. Every day, I learn a tiny bit more...

Adding that Gold glovers PC may have been my best idea ever. I love adding all those non-Blue jays cards of great players. Plus, since I never really collected them, I hardly have any, so don't hesitate to send me everything you got, even junk-wise ! (not that there's any junk there, of course)

The main portion were those Kirby Pucketts. I didn't have any of these. I should really try to complete the Black Gold sets.

More 90s greatness.

That card is so perfect, I won't even try to describe it.

You know what ? Topps Bigs is actually starting to grow on me (no pun intended). At first, I thought the second one was from a throwback issue from the 2000s. But nope, it's 1990 Score. I should've known, as I have the Bo Jackson from that subset.

Also included in the package, along with a few 8 pocket pages for my oversized horizontal cards (thanks a lot for providing those !), were a couple of 1995 UD Minor league packs. The classic 95 design along with the solid UD photography of the time. What's not to love ? Plus, though I don't follow the minors, at least with hindsight I can tell who finally made it or not.

A Durham hot pack ! Beautiful stadium shot, and a solid player.

A couple of players who made it in the big leagues. Granted, one had "slightly" better offensive numbers than the other...

When I saw the packs, the first thing that popped to my mind was the Jordan card. I saw it on Brian's blog and thought it looked perfect. The second card I really wanted was this one. I mean, look at that name. Turns out he's really called Wonderful Terrific Monds III. Talk about a lineage !

Thanks again for the cards, Brian, I really need to find a way to get Twins cards to France much quicker, so I can send them back to you and even things up !