Rod Carew FTW

Probably can't tell from the amount of blog posts coming forth, but still alive here in the land of Junk Wax.

In fact, still receiving cards from the generous blogosphere.  T.J., the Junior Junkie, recently sent me this stack of cardboard goodness:

I was thinking wow, what did I do to deserve that??  Then I saw this:

Wait. What contest??  If you're like me, you read alot of blogs. And comment on a lot of blogs.  And forget about your comments.  Sure enough, I entered a contest on Junkie's blog.  When I guess random numbers in a situation like that, I usually try to go with some number that has meaning to me.  This time I went with Rod Carew's jersey number.  So thank you Rodney Cline.  Sad thing is, I somehow totally missed the results post.  I'll blame the new job/schedule.

I can't possibly do the package justice and post all the goodness in that stack, but I'll try to highlight a portion of it.

I'm still trying to complete 1979 Topps, and these cards are definite needs there.  Ironic that Welch arrived not too long after his early passing.  I just realized that's 2 Dodgers.  Oh well, I want them anyway!

T.J. was paying attention to my little attempt at a rainbow.  This Mike Trout brings me up to 8 of the parallels:

Trout is also on the first card of the base set, but the only variations I have of that card are the base and OD cards.  This is a much cheaper rainbow Trout.

The rest of the package were cards of my beloved Angels.

Both of those regular sized cards go in my Topps Angels binder.  I'd like to get all the Topps base cards 1961-present in there, and these are both needs for that binder.  I didn't appreciate the minis when they came out in the 80's, but I like the Angel versions now.

2006 Bartolo and 2007 Kelvim both go in the same binder.  2007 Bartolo was already in the Topps binder, but he goes into slot 516 in my Angels frankenset.  The frankenset hasn't gotten alot of love lately, but I'm still putting cards in there.

Upper Deck from my time away for the hobby.  I particularly like the Hudler card.  I pretended to be a second baseman when I played baseball.  And those first 5 feature my favorite Angel logo.  Gary DiSarcina there is wearing my least favorite of the Angel logo/color scheme/uniforms.  I may have to start a DiSarcina PC someday.  He's back with the Angels, this year as 3rd base coach.

Bowman and the prospects.  I had never heard of Josh Shaffer.  He never made it above A ball in the Angels' chain and was in the White Sox organization in 2002.  Alfredo Amezaga is still playing today.  He's with the Mexican League's Tigres de Quintana Roo.

These are (I think) the gold parallels of 2005 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects.  So why do some cards have 2004 stat lines on the back, while others have 2005 stat lines?  Anyway, these things are super thick, which is kinda cool.  But kinda odd too.

And these would be the Chromy versions of the same cards.  They're much brighter in person.

And a little oddballness to finish off the post.  The Polonia on the left is much harder to see in person than in the scan.  And it highlights a Grand Slam he hit.  Polonia and power??   I bought a couple packs of the Triple play at the Dollar Store, but I hadn't gotten Trumbo in any of them.  There's Dallas McPherson again.  He led the minors in homers a couple of times, but never really stuck at 3rd for the Halos.  Jeff DaVanon's dad played in the majors.  Their career were exactly 30 years apart.  1969-1977 for dad, 1999-2007 for son.

And that doesn't cover half of the package.  Thanks again T.J.

I think I'm one of the few people that can say I have Junior cards that the Junkie doesn't.  I'll have to remedy that here soon.

Set Building

It's been kinda dark here on the ol' Junk Wax blog.  Because, well... I'm a bad blogger.  So I'll do a quick post for now.

But I've gotten a few packages lately which have helped me with some set needs.

Robert over at $30 a week habit decided to help me out with 2014 and 2013 Topps base needs.  I got so excited to put the cards into the set that they went right in, so there's no scans.  Like I said, bad blogger.

There's the box anyway.  And it was full.  Everyone has seen the last two Topps offerings, so there probably wasn't any new ground to cover there. But suffice it to say, those cards get this set builder excited!  Thanx Robert.

Ryan over at "O" No!! Another Orioles Blog sent me a bunch of cards too.  There were some more of my 2014 needs in there, some Angels cards in there (which deserve another post) and these:

3 more cards towards my 1979 Topps set.  I'm down to 70 cards needed to complete the set.  And ordinarily a 1990 Topps card might not seem noteworthy.  But this one is.  Set Completion!!  Yup, Mr. Bloody Sock up there was the last card I needed.   Thanx Ryan.

It'll wait....

So I look around the room and I see cards that need to be organized and filed.. just generally need to be put away.  I've got piles from repacks that should go into trade packages or PWEs.  I've got a couple stacks of Angels from John that I really deserve a post.  I've got Angels that I've pulled for my frankenset that didn't make the cut and need to go back from whence they came.  You get the idea.

So what did I decide to do?  Like any good collector...I went off in search of more cards.  Duh.  I went down to the blue parallel store.  I needed other things anyway (the rallying cry of the adult card collector!).  But alas, they had no 2014 Heritage on the shelves.  Booooo. 

I works Sundays, but I'm taking the day off.  So with no kids around I'll be organizing on Sunday.  I think.  No, I will.  Maybe.

But on my trip I did send out a couple of packages.  There's one full of Red birds and ducks.  One full of blue birds.  And one full of miscuts.  Hopefully there'll be some happy recipients.

I can't end the post without a card though, right?  I'll end with Mr. toothpick himself:

I recently traded some 2014 base cards with Old Foul Cardboard, and included in the package I got back was UL up there (no periods Topps) and a note saying he'd love some warmer weather.  I don't know about him, but I appreciate knocking one more card off my 1979 want list.

Wear your helmets kids

It's been an eventful week in the land of Junk Wax.  On Monday, my older daughter fell off her bike, and was knocked unconscious for 10-15 seconds.  I rushed from work to the hospital.  At the hospital we heard numerous people tell her "..and don't forget to wear your helmet".  Which made me think of the card above.  (Hopefully that isn't too morbid a tie-in.  She suffered a concussion and a black eye.  But she's doing just fine)

I have already professed my love for 1982 Fleer.  And so have writers with far more talent than me.  But specifically I was always fascinated with that Landestoy card.

And the Mejias card.

And Concepcion too.  There was always something vivid about the Reds' helmets in the set. 

I'm not really sure if it's the Reds' helmets themselves, or if it's just that the rest of the set is out of focus, and these cards are in pretty sharp register.  But whatever it was, I could just look at them forever.  (What do you want?  I was 9).

Speaking of Reds....

I'm working on the 1979 Topps set, and something really stuck out at me.

Where's the distinctive Reds' "C"?  The first thing that hit me was Topps football cards prior to 1982:

Topps didn't have the NFL license, so all the helmets were airbrushed up through the 1981 set.  In 1982 they got the license and put out my favorite football set, which is a coincidence.... but I digress.

Those Reds' helmets without the logo were almost jarring to me when I first saw them.  I'm assuming those are spring training photos, and for whatever reason they just hadn't added the logo in?

Card Numbering

Am I the only one who wonders just how Topps decides which cards to put at each number?  Sure the x00 was always the elite stars, x50 was the next tier of stars, and the xx0 numbers were the lesser stars.  But how do they decide who gets 331?

One thing I kind of noticed going through Topps cards for my frankenset was that cards from consecutive years ended up near each other or at the same number alot.  So even though I don't know how Topps decides, I do know that sometimes they don't like to change anything.  Take 1978 and 1979:

They decided

to put Angels

in the same spots

in the set

in 1979

swapped those. oops

as they had

in 1978

they liked it som uch they did it a 3rd year.

over

and over

and over

and over.

They like 48 so much, they kept it going through 1981

And those are just the number that line up exactly.  There are other examples of numbers just off: 214/212, 400/402, 429/424, 454/453, 478/477, 529/530, 579/580, 600/601, and 655/654 (1978 first in all pairs).  I know I can't be the first one to see this.