Trading Card Art Project

Remember this from 2010?

Yes in 2010 Topps had a major giveaway of cards. Collectors that were lucky enough could get some very good and very old vintage cards or they could get some sucker of a card from the Junk Years. Personally I had gotten a handful of cards (7) from that giveaway. They issued these code cards in all the packs of baseball product that year.

I still need a few of these to complete my set:
TMC: 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20

To unlock whatever card you won you had to go to Topps website enter the code on the card and find out what card you unlocked. You could trade cards with other collectors. You needed a credit card to have the cards shipped to you in the long run.

But I'm not here to talk about all that. I have mentioned these insert code cards in the past: Topps 2010 Million Card Giveaway Code Cards, 2010 Topps Baseball Million Card Giveaway, Million Card Giveaway Bust. The title of this post says "Art Project". Huh?

Look at a few of these cards:

Do you see it?
The Pattern?
The Design?
The card design for this first huge giveaway (via their website) Topps focuses on a single card that is part of a larger display. The first time I saw these cards I thought the concept was cool. Once I had more than just one of these cards, and I had a card that matched the border of another card the idea for this art project developed. I'm not sure how big I'm going to make the thing but I figure I need SEVERAL of each of the cards. For some of them I already have 2 or 3 extras that I can use.

The project is to make a huge collage using all these cards, following the cards that border each card. I will of course have to GASP! cut up these cards. That is why I need multiples of these. I still need a single copy of each for my PC but many of the extras will be used for this.

Once I see the full pattern with ALL the different cards I can decide on how big to make the thing. In just doing some rough matching up of some of the cards I do have they weren't exact with their design, some of the cards seem to be duplicated. That could be just an illusion since it is an "infinite" design. I'm not sure if anybody else has tried to do this with these. Maybe, maybe not. I haven't seen anything online that mentions this project or one like it.

So I still need a bunch more duplicates of these cards. Donations to the project would be appreciated. I would prefer not to have to buy all of them. I have bought a few dupes for the project but on a matter of the spirit of the hobby I don't want to HAVE to buy all the cards for this. I'm sure there are some collectors out there that have a ton of these who were planning on dumping them anyway or not sure how to get rid of all the ones they have.

I'm not sure when I would even get around to building for the project. I need the building blocks or bricks for it first.

Topps has done a few similar giveaways with similar designs, except they only show one card. I won't be doing an art project for these other sets but I do need many of the cards to complete the sets.

2011 Diamond Giveaway cards.

I need a bunch of those:
TDG 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30

2012 Golden Giveaway Cards.

 

Image from The Trading Card Database

Image from Google search from Ebay Auction

I need all of these:
GGC 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Mascot Monday: Mr. Met

MR. MET

Charles M. Shultz cartoonist of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang had his blockheads and MLB has it's Ball Heads. Although New York's Mr. Met might not be the very first Ball Head in the league he seems to be the most popular Ball Headed baseball mascot (and recently voted favorite mascot of all sports) He is often in contention with The Phillie Phanatic as the most popular mascot of the entire league. Making his "physical" debut in 1964, Mr. Met was actually introduced in cartoon form in 1963 on game program covers, the team's uniform, and scorecards. Other "Ball Head" mascots that Mr. Met looks suspiciously similar to are; The Cincinnati Reds original Mr. Redlegs, the more recent Mr. Red, the current incarnation of The Braves mascot Homer The Brave as well as countless Minor League mascots.*

Mr. Met had a hiatus from around the mid 1970s before the boom of Mascots to 1994 when he was revived.

The card I picked for this installment of Mascot Monday is from Upper Deck manufactured in 2006 as part of a three card mini set aimed at Kids. The three mascots chosen to represent for this set are Mr. Met, The Phillie Phanatic and Wally the Green Monster (Red Sox). I will post about this set sometime later. Apparently it was for some kind of giveaway or Contest. Each card has a contest/prize code on the back to be enter on the special contest website. UGH really hate all this Website code stuff.

 2006 Upper Deck Collect The Mascots - MLB-3 Mr. Met Mets

(Front and Back)

Related links:
Mystery of Mr. Met Solved. Sort of?
The Story of Mr. Met

* I recently made some Ebay purchases for a boat load of Minor League Mascot cards so I will have plenty of fodder for future Mascot Monday posts.

To see previous Mascot Monday posts click Here.

 

Million Card Givaway Bust

Well back earlier in the year around March or so when the 2010 Topps Baseball cards were selling hot and everyone was busting open plastic and foil trying for those precious Million Card Giveaway Code Cards. I went nuts like everyone else and when I pulled a Code Card went to the Topps Giveaway site and entered my code to see what cards I won. I have an earlier entry or two on that. I pulled a total of 7 code cards and unlocked seven cards. An earlier post of mine mentions the cards I unlocked (from 1962, 1967, 1968, 1973(2), 1975(2)). Well to my disappointment when I went to try to claim them for delivery and pay the postage I couldn't figure out how to do it without using a damn credit card. Turns out YOU CAN'T you MUST HAVE A CREDIT CARD TO PAY FOR THE POSTAGE of your cards. This was not made clear anywhere I could find.

I tried a few times to contact Topps about my problem but the link to contact them never seemed to work so I ended up emailing their support email. On 30 October, 2010 I decided to try contacting them again this time via the support email.

My message said:

"A few months back I unlocked some baseball cards in your Million Card Giveaway. Several times I have tried to request to have my cards delivered, but I have a very BIG PROBLEM. It seems the only way to pay for the shipping costs is BY CREDIT CARD. I do not have any credit cards due to being in a credit repair/debt elimination program.

Is there another form of payment I can send? Like via Paypal or by personal check or Money Order through the mail?
Please let me know how to solve this pro-Credit Card problem."

Two days later their reply:

"unfortunately since this is an online promotion the only way you can pay is by credit card online. we apologize for the inconvenience.

topps cs team"

That really sucks. OK I can understand the age restriction of 18 or older that they have to do business yadda yadda, but I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem of not having a damn credit card available to use for $6.00 bucks postage.

So there you have it I am screwed on that score and will not be receiving my unlocked cards, they will waste away in their vault, or a few years from now pulled for some other giveaway or something. Thanks for nothing TOPPS.

Good thing I never attempted to do anything about the Football Giveaway or get any 2010 Football cards this year yet.

Earlier Topps Million Card Giveaway posts:
Topps 2010 Million Card Giveaway Code Cards
2010 Topps Baseball Million Card Givaway

Topps 2010 Million Card Giveaway Code Cards

I guess I'll use this as my check list for my "Million Card Giveaway Code Cards". For those who have bought any 2010 Topps Baseball products they will have noticed that randomly inserted into the packs are these special Code cards. You visit Topps Million Card Giveaway website, enter your special code from the back of the card. You have to type it in exactly, once I typed in an "S" instead of the "$" sign and I got an error telling me either I had typed an invalid code or the code had already been used. So I guess there is no random entering of codes to see if they work. Each card on the front has a picture of a vintage player's card and on the back is the special code you use to "unlock" your giveaway card. After the codes are entered in I suppose most people will toss the cards, sell or give them away. Personally I am collecting them as a nice oddball subset. The backs of the cards are numbered with "TMC" 1 through 10. So here is what they look like.

TMC - 1
1952 Roy Campanella
Don't have yet.

TMC - 2
1978 Gary Carter
Dont' have yet.

TMC - 3
1963 Bob Gibson
Don't have yet.

TMC - 4
2001 Ichiro
Don't have yet.

TMC - 5
1969 Mickey Mantle
Don't have yet.

TMC - 6
1957 Mickey Mantle
TMC - 7
1963 Roger Maris

TMC - 8
1974 Thurman Munson

Back of TMC - 8
(code blurred on purpose)

TMC - 9
1985 Mike Schmidt

TMC - 10
1970 Carl Yastrzemski

UPDATE: It is now fall (October almost November). I haven't gotten my cards because I don't have a credit card. I tried sending a message via the website, but it never goes through I always get an error while trying to send message asking about other forms of payments. This really sucks if I can't get the cards that I have unlocked because I don't have a valid credit card to pay for the frickin' postage.