Washington Wednesday: R.I.P. Wes "Mr. Bullet" Unseld

R.I.P. WES UNSELD 1946-2020

On Tuesday 02 June of this year 2020 while doing my daily routine of checking out the main page of TCDB (Trading Card Database) for the random card of the day, new forum posts, born on today and then finally In Memoriam I saw the image of a familiar RC. (I don't have the card but am familiar with it). That of perhaps the most iconic Washington Basketball Player of All-Time Wes Unseld. I was beyond shocked another of my childhood sports idols passed from this Earth. I think it was during the years between his playing career (1981) to his coaching career (1988) that I drifted away from being a basketball fan and would eventually stop caring about the sport until a few years ago. Plus I was more attached to football at the time, as the Washington Senators were long gone, and the Washington Capitals were not very good yet.

1969-70 Topps Basketball: 56 Wes Unseld Baltimore Bullets

Image from comc.com

OK so his rookie card was when the Bullets were still the Baltimore Bullets, but the man would play his entire career with the Bullets Franchise, work with the front office and then later return to the court as Head Coach. He then moved onto General Manager for the team on into the transition to the name change to Wizards and a few years after that.

Here are some (but not all) of my Unseld Cards as a tribute to one of my childhood Icons. For the most part I have already shown these cards on this blog sometime previously so I don't need to explain them.

The following items are a few gems in my collection:

Next is a "card" in my collection that is more of a mini poster than a real "card" it is from 1969-70 Topps and they call it a "ruler" it is only 10 inches by 2.5 inches so not a true ruler but hey it is only paper. I got it from Ebay I think some years back for I forget how much I might have mentioned where and when some posts back a few years back.

1969-70 Topps Basketball Ruler: 22 Wes Unseld Baltimore Bullets

Finally here is a photo of an item I have from my childhood, the photo is actually from an image search I did a few years back and from someone's Ebay auction for which they had I think the whole set was listed for of course way too much money. I forget if they sold or not. Anyway as I said this is something that I actually have but not my copy in the image (I haven't scanned or photographed mine). It is a mini poster that was available from McDonald's in 1976. The size is 12" x 16" One of those premium things during the basketball season that year. Each week they featured a new poster that had two caricatures of Washington Bullets players. There are a total of 4 mini posters. This is the one with Wes and K.C. Jones.

1976 McDonald's Washington Bullets mini poster: K.C. Jones and Wes Unseld

Misprint Double Sided Back-To-Back Footzball Y'all

I forget when I got this card probably sometime last year, but I'm pretty sure it was from a Fairfield Football Repacked box I think one of the ones that had 4 packs and 50 non-packed cards or 100 non-packed cards or a 10 pack box with 50 or 100 non-packed cards or just a 50 card box with no packs. I'm not sure which it came from it was that long ago. If I was sure I'd show a scan of the box it came from, I don't even think I have that particular box anymore. It would have been from Target.

This particular card is from 1990 Pro Set Football and is a misprint. It is a double backed card technically it is a wrong front card even though the "front" is a back. I am saving it because the true back (that is the back back) is of a Rams player. The front of the card or the misprinted "back" is a Jet. There is also some green (or blue/cyan) ink smearing/bleeding on the "front". Yes the "back" also has a bit of a printing problem with a vertical white line (or rather lack of ink line) on the left hand side.

1990 Pro Set Football: 166 Jerry Gray Los Angeles Rams

Misprint: Wrong Front 237 Pat Leahy New York Jets back image

When I first came across the card I saw the Jets player and thought it was going to go to my trade stack, but I turned it over saw it was a double backed card and that one of the "backs" was of my PC Rams.

Speaking of trade stacks there are times I have considered doing a trade stack like Chris over at Nachos Grande or a trade pile like Alex at Chavez Ravining. My biggest problem with it though is the low frequency of my blogging doesn't work with the required high frequency of a task such as that and my want list might not be practical for most collectors.

MFTP: A Handful of Rams From 67 and 73

MailDazed From The Pazt:

A Handfull of Rams from 1967 & 1973

OK so for this post I was going to do a Strive For '65 post but the cards I wasn't sure if I had blogged about or not I had blogged about well over a year ago. I don't think I blogged about the cards that were with them, but those 2 or 3 cards are for some other post some other time ...maybe. Right now I want to show off some later vintage cards and some that are more Neo-Vintage cards. All of them are Los Angeles Rams cards. Oh big surprise there huh? I'm pressed for time to get this post in while it is still April so I won't go into details on the players or even the cards specifically. I'll just show 'em. I'm not very good at telling about player's careers anyway.

I received the cards on 31 December 2018 from a Sportlots auction. Apparently they were all part of one single five card lot that I got for 25¢ plus $3.50 shipping. There are 5 cards total, Two 1967 Philadelphia Gum Football Cards and Three 1973 Topps Football Cards.

1967 PHILADELPHIA GUM FOOTBALL

1967 Philadelphia Gum Football: 90 Dave Jones Los Angeles Rams

1967 Philadelphia Gum Football: 91 Tommy McDonald Los Angeles Rams

1973 TOPPS FOOTBALL

1973 Topps Football: 41 Les Josephson Los Angeles Rams

1973 Topps Football: 324 Gene Howard Los Angeles Rams

1973 Topps Football: 365 Dave Elmendorf Los Angeles Rams

Bye Bye Mail-day Tracking Bye Bye Bye

OK so this post story will probably be two-fold. The main subject will be mail days tracking. I guess I'll start with what I used to do up until a little over a year ago. I think I have described the process in detail before so I'll try not to get too deep into this time. Basically until around mid January of last year (2019) I used to keep pretty detailed records of what cards I got in the mail, from where how much I paid for them etc. Since last January I haven't updated any posts or files, but still stupidly have been keeping all the packages and envelopes separate in their piles and marking the outer envelope with the receiving date, but often not keeping track of prices especially the shipping costs. So I have a few boxes of padded envelopes and PWEs with assorted cards that I know exactly when I got them but may or may not have what I paid for them. Sometimes Sportlots sellers include all the details, but often if they do include a packing slip the shipping fees are not listed. Sometimes they don't include anything so there is not even the record of what I paid for the lot or the singles or what have me. At one time I thought about trying to catch up and have a word file with some stuff that came in early 2019 but it is far from complete I think there are 3 or 4 padded envelopes left from January 2019 and some of the other months I have some packages listed here and some PWEs there. So That stuff came to a screeching halt sometime around this January. Except I have still been marking the envelopes with date received.

I used to keep track of all that stuff in two places first on the community site Trading Card Central (TCC) that was my main "storage" area for my mail day posts. I would then cut & paste my TCC post onto Trading Card Zone (TCZ) which a few years back changed it's name to Sports Card University. Sometimes the TCZ version I would tweak some to cater to that forum's platform. Usually I would draft my posts as a MicroSoft Word file or just a plain Windows Notepad file. Sometimes I would save the original file sometimes not. Well now long story short TCC seems to have finally bought the farm and bit the bullet, and formerly TCZ merged with another site to become Sports Card Club. The TCC site seems to be totally dead now (since around early Mar) and Sports Card Club is currently blocked by my work network and I haven't bothered trying to connect when at home.

So yeah I no longer keep detailed records of what I have gotten, when, or from where, or for how much. I can look at my buying history on COMC and Sporlots and Ebay (to some extent) but I'm not going to bother any more. Trying to do my previous card inventory logging delays the organizing and cataloging of my collection too much. So those days of being super detailed (or anal retentive) are over. I still have some records and I have my Check Out My Cards records that I have been meaning to make some "MailDazed From The Pazt" posts with those. I'm stalled on finding the dang Football cards from my very first order that were mostly from the 2009 Donruss Classics football cards. Maybe sometime I'll get around to that and scanning all the cards from my various orders there.

Well that is all that I will talk about that for now lets look at some cards:

OK so I'll show two cards that it turns out I got from a Sportlots order that I received on 19 Jul 2019. Two 2019 Panini Score Football cards both parallels, both Rams. First one is card 296 Todd Gurley Red parallel and the other is card 299 Brandin Cooks Gold parallel. Neither is a serial numbered card. I only know that information from the little paper slip I put in the penny sleeve that one of the cards was in. Part of my old system that sort of ended last year, except I have still marked the envelopes with the date I received things. I could look in my Sportlots buying history to find out about the order but I'm not going to bother.

 2019 Panini: Score Football: 299 Gold Brandin Cooks Los Angeles Rams

 2019 Panini: Score Football: 296 Red Todd Gurley II Los Angeles Rams

I really like the design of the 2019 Score Football. Especially the helmet in the corner. I wish the backs had more complete stats and didn't repeat the front photo. I'd rather have all stats like in the 1960s and 70s Topps monopoly days. I probably have the normal base versions of these cards from my Sports Card Forum (SCF) team trades but I'm not sure. I should also get the Red Cooks and the Gold Gurley to have those rainbows. Oh well a collectors life is never done, or his collection never complete or dead or something.

Losing Interest A Little Bit

Lately I have been losing interest in collecting a little. As the end of February was approaching I was even losing a little interest in blogging a bit. Of course some of this was my renewed efforts to get back into selling on Ebay. This month I have concentrated on my Ebay. As a result of making an effort to list new items and actually get them up on Ebay I went from having 6 stale listings and a last sale about 3 or 4 months ago for a 3 inch button that sold for $1.50 with Free Shipping to 30 listings. Over the last few weeks I have sold 5 items from 4 listings. I sold 2 books, and 16 packs of Football Cards (11 packs of 2016 Leaf Draft Football and 5 packs of 2018 Leaf Draft Football) I didn't know those things were so popular. Personally I don't like the Draft cards since they are undrafted players in college uniforms. Eventually some of those guys go on to have professional careers but many don't.

To reflect my Ebay sales I have tried to update my trading posts on this blog. I think they are current now. Anyway it is almost midnight on 29 February and I need to get this posted to make the deadline. For the full details (or at least what I could recall) check out my post over at my regular Blog "Kirk's Knook": Back To The Swing of Ebay Selling

COTW: 1961 Topps Moe Thacker

1961 Topps Moe Thacker

Let The Sunshine, Let The Sunshine in...

Don't let The Sun go down on me.

This month's quick and dirty Card of The Whenever is a card I have had for a long time and an upgrade that I have also had for sometime just not as long. I don't remember when or where I got the first poor one, nor am I even sure of where I got the upgrade. Probably from Sportlots maybe from Ebay. I forget and obviously also forget for how much.

Anyway my original one  which the more I think about it I might have gotten from a repack box of some kind or not. So the card in question 1961 Topps Baseball 12 Moe Thacker Chicago Cubs:

No the colors from my scanner were not off and no your monitor colors are not off. This card is extremely sun faded on the front. There is the slightest bit of red in the Cubs "C" on the cap and where his name should be there is the very slightest indication that some printing was once there. So the fading rules out it being an ink test variant. There is also a roundish shaped bump or crease at the top as if a quarter might have spent some time putting pressure on the card. Hmm that reminds me of the gumball/card vending machine(s) they used to have many years ago at my LCS (House of Cards). They used to put common vintage cards in those machines and that is where I would often get some of my first late 1950s and early 1960s vintage cards. For a quarter (I think they also had a 50 cent machine) you would get a gumball and a card. Usually they were vintage baseball cards, but I think on occasion the cards in the machine were also non-sport cards or football. But I digress, majorly.

Here is the back of the sun faded copy of this card: Yes it is off centered/miscut toward the top edge.

I forget how long I had the faded copy before I got around to getting the upgrade:

and its back:

Finally a side by side image of the fronts just for the fun of it.

I probably should have reversed them putting the faded copy on the left and the replacement upgrade on the right. Oh well guess I was speed photo editing again.

COTW: 1976 Topps Fred Dryer

It is the end of the year and yep I had the entire month of December to think about and plan for some of the recent goodies I've gotten but procrastination, dilly dallying and being sort of nonchalant about the whole blogging thing has once again gotten in the way of posting.

Let us go back a few years, decades to the mid 1970s  and a defensive end football player for the LA Rams who would go on to have a pretty decent acting career. Fred Dryer and one of his playing days cards. I have a couple of others somewhere but this seems to be the only one I have scanned and that was some time ago before I would photoscape card's orientation and proper cropping.

This could have been one of my BBNB (Blogged But Not Blogged) cards. I forgot about that series for this card's post. (I was looking for a quick and dirty post subject and found the images in my pictures folder) I did a quick check of My Collection posts at TCC but didn't find a post about it. I guess it is better in many ways that I didn't. Most of my posts from over there in that thread have obnoxious "image not available" images from Photobucket, because I haven't updated my account over there and am over the super low minimum memory limit they recently (as in last few months) started enforcing.  To be a little honest if it weren't for some of the email reminders and account warnings I wouldn't even think about Photobucket any more. but I do have some remnant photo images over there to do something with.

1976 Topps Football: 252 Fred Dryer Los Angeles Rams

Return of the Bullpen Cart

OK this is ancient news since it happened back in 2018. For some baseball fans it isn't anything special to write about, but to some old-timers like myself it reaches back to our childhoods. I'm talking about the bullpen carts, modified golf carts designed to look like a motorized batting helmet. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s the MLB had bullpen carts to escort relief pitchers onto the field. Actually now-days they drive around the warning track. They probably did that back then as well, my recollection of them are more vivid because of the plastic toys of the time. More so the NFL helmet carts which were the carts they drive onto the field to take severely injured players off the field. The football carts of course had that full football helmet design. Back in the day the baseball carts were more shaped like a baseball cap and the carts for both sports looked a bit bulky.

So for the 2018 baseball season the bullpen cart returned. The design uses a batting helmet for the main body and the support bars are shaped like bats. The Arizona Diamondbacks were the team to debut the new wave of bullpen carts. If memory serves it was the Washington Nationals then closer Sean Doolittle who was the first pitcher to use it. Maybe he was the first visiting pitcher.

Long story short Topps made a Topps Now card to celebrate the event (there is even an Allen & Ginter card that I plan on getting) I eventually got it. I waited way too long to get it at the original under ten dollars prices. I even went through a period of it not being available on Ebay for a few months. When it finally did come back the prices were super high, higher than I like to pay. Anyway I eventually paid $15 for a copy. I almost had to go up to $20 or more. Also of interest with this card is the seller sent the Topps Now packet "case" the cards come in when you get them directly from Topps and not from some dealer who has already opened the pack to scan the card for their listings.

So here is the card:
Front:

Back:

and the packet/envelope front:

Say Hey Hey Willie

I got a great deal on an excellent card in a Sportlots auction. Not sure if it is a true White Whale or not. It is a vintage card of a Super Star of the game. I am a little surprised I didn't have to fight tooth and nail for it. It is that classic 1959 Topps Baseball design, based on the 1958 Topps Football. When I first started looking back to vintage cards before my time I discovered the Baseball version first I think. Well whichever I found first I like the overall design. I don't remember how old I was when I first saw the design but I think I was kind of young and it may have taken me a year or two to realize that they are in fact the same design. OK so the football is oval and the baseball is a circle so what?

Of course it isn't in the greatest of shapes but it is good 'nuff for my collection. So the financial damages were $15.50 plus $3.95 shipping. Not bad. The low starting bid of $15 was what drew me to the auction. I think I put $25 as my max bid, maybe just $20 due to lower condition. For some cards I don't mind well rounded super soft corners.

1959 Topps Baseball: 50 Willie Mays Giants

Blogiversary: 10 Years And Still Stumbling

Hey this post was published at a weird time of the day. The reason is it is my 10th Blogiversary for this here Trading Card Blog.

For these special occasions I like to go back to my original posts check the time they were posted and post the anniversary announcement or reboot post at the exact same time of day as the original post instead of my usual High O'Clock Noon posting time. You can see my very first post for this blog here. OH boy there are/were a couple of links to dead websites there, well Zistle technically isn't dead yet but might as well be. My personal website "klandersen.com" though has long been gone. Mostly due to letting the domain name registration for it drop. Long story kind of short: Some years back I let the website domain name registration run out because 1) the company I had originally registered with had been bought by some other company and at the time I couldn't recall which company held the current registration. 2) They refused to recognize my membership info or take my money. A few months to a year or two later some Chinese company bought the domain and it was some weird poetry site written in Chinese for a few years. Eventually they let the domain registration go, but I never got around to renewing it after them since it is a pain do keep track of that and when I am dead and gone it will run out again but that time never renewed and all my info would be completely lost. I toyed with the idea of renewing it, but maintaining a personal website is a lot of work that I don't have time for anymore. Blogging takes up plenty of time I don't have already and I have 3 blogs to maintain.

I did make an edit on the opening post to un-link my website and to make an Edit/Update notice explaining the reason for removing the link. I'm sure I have a ton of other posts that need some similar cleaning up. Some I may get to some day and update others I might never get around to updating.

Just because I like this one.

Oh here are some cards that were released in 2009 to help me celebrate and to make this a post about cards and not my sob story about an abandoned personal website. With one or two exceptions most of these cards I have had since 2009 either from a group box break or an online purchase. I chose these randomly since the only thing I really had planned was the fact I was going to show some cards from 2009.

I don't Think Freud would agree with that.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter's - 158 Sigmund Freud Psychiatrist

Maybe he'd remind us not to forget the Alamo:

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter's - 108 Alamo Mission Compound

He would also think that women throwing the discus around was some plan to humiliate men.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter's - 213 Stephanie Brown Trafton Discus Throwing Champion

OK so I didn't plan on making those 2009 Allen & Ginter's cards some kind of tall tale but it worked out that way. Sticking with the retro set idea one of the sets from 2009 I enjoyed was Upper Deck's Goodwin Champions. One of the sets from that year that I have in recent months sort of completed. I have the few remaining cards I need for my set bought at COMC and in my "to be shipped" queue. Ages ago I showed the Alex Ovechkin card (a few times think).

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions - 34 Alex Ovechkin Hockey Washington Capitals

(Ouch one of my older poorly cropped images not corrected by photoscape Sorry)

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions - 101 Cal Ripken Jr Orioles

Next Topps did a similar sort of retro set in the style of the old T206 cards:

2009 Topps T-206 - 21 Ivan Rodriguez Astros

2009 Topps T-206 - 217 Garrett Atkins Rockies

Notice that picture/image of Atkins Topps also used for Allen & Ginter's (at least on this Rip card) Notice though his eyes are different it looks like he is squinting on the 206 card and sort of stunned on the A&G.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter's - RC43 Garrett Atkins Rockies Rip Card #29/50

I didn't scan the back but Yes I am keeping it unripped. I hate the rip card concept. They need to find a way that the "wrapper" card can be kept in decent condition after being "ripped".

Next We have yet another sort of retro card, this time Heritage which is more a direct updating a 49 year old design with the modern players. Some years Topps did this very well other years they blew it. 2009 I think was a good year:

2009 Topps Heritage - 372 Brian Schneider Mets

Meanwhile O-Pee-Chee does a mean retro card. I love 2009 OPC. I have the Nationals team set, and need to work on the full set, and also the parallel black bordered sets:

2009 O-Pee-Chee - 518 Washington Nationals team card/Checklist

In 2009 Topps had a little fun online. I've mentioned these before. I'm too lazy right now to provide the link to my previous post. ACK I'm not even sure what tags I used for those. Oh Well.

2009 Topps Million Card Giveaway Code Card - TMC-5 Mickey Mantle Yankees

Of course I had to include some mascots right?

Previously Shown:

 2009 Disabled American Veterans DAV - 191 Lucky The Beaver Portland Beavers

Previously Shown:

2009 Disabled American Veterans DAV - 123 Uncle Slam Patomac Nationals

2009 Multi-Ad Sports - 29 Sherman Shorebird Mascot Delmarva Shorebirds

OK this last card is a PC player for several reasons first played for one of my fave teams The Rams, secondly he was a super Quarterback and he is also a Similar namesake niche player;

2009 Upper Deck Football: 1 Kurt Warner Cardinals