Ice Fun - 2010-11 Upper Deck Artifacts Hockey Twofer.

Once again from a sale from a member of TCC I got a nice deal on some terrific cards. This time some 2010-11 Upper Deck Artifacts Hockey cards. The first one from my fave team The Washington Capitals - Star Alexander Ovechkin card #178 serial numbered 686/999. Sort of a jersey number card since it has an 8 in it.

2010-11 Artifacts Star - 178 Alex Ovechkin #/999

Next we have a card from Nick Johnson.

D'OH! Not That NICK JOHNSON!

 

This Nick Johnson Rookie for the Pittsburgh Penguins. This card is Pittsburgh Penguins - Rookie Nick Johnson card #104 serial numbered 456/999. Nice how it is a sequential number counting  up to something.

2010-11 Artifacts Rookie - 104 Nick Johnson #/999

I like the design of these cards. I might have to bit the bullet and start getting the base set of this.

Vintage 60s Merlin Olsen Card

A fairly recently acquired card I got from one of my favorite players of one of my favorite teams when I was a kid. Merlin Olsen who played on the Los Angeles Rams from 1962 - 1976. His Rookie card is a 1964 Philadelphia card I don't have that one yet, but I did get this 1966 Philadelphia card recently. It has a little corner creasing action down in the lower left corner (the scan shows it a little). Just a few days before this one arrived I was waltzing through my cards and noticed I already had one. I thought it looked familiar.

1966 Philadelphia Football Merlin Olsen #102

Besides the fact that he was one of my favorite players on one of my fave teams growing up I like this card for a few other reasons; His fierce look posed as it may very well be, and the way the design of the card looks like a Sports Illustrated cover.

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

A Fishstripe Auto From A Current Nat

From a fellow member of TCC (tradingcardcentral.com) I bought a 2003 Bowman's Best Certified Issue Auto BB-JW Josh Willingham Marlins.

 

Josh played for the Florida Marlins from 2004 - 2008 he was drafted in the 17th round of the 2000 amateur draft. He made his MLB debut in July 2004 for the Marlins vs. The Pittsburgh Pirates.

Josh was traded to the Washington Nationals (with pitcher Scott Olsen for Emilio Bonifacio) in November 2008 and is now one of the Nats big powerhouse hitters.

 

White Whale of Iron Man

From Ebay I got a great deal on a White Whale card I have been looking to get.

1982 Topps Baseball #21 - Baltimore Orioles Future Stars Bob Bonner - Cal Ripken - Jeff Schneider for $12.24 delivered ($10.25 + $1.99 standard shipping) 

 

This card is often considered to be Cal's Official RC, as well as the usually more expensive 1982 Topps Traded #98T (which I don't have yet) both cards usually go for at least $20 on Ebay.

Graded 1982 Topps Traded #98T Courtesy of Checkoutmycards.com

With this card the Good/Great News is the condition is just a tad less than Excellent condition (a little flaking can be seen in the lower left corner on the front).

The Bad News is it was delivered in PWE with a forever stamp (shipping only cost them $0.44 and they charged me $1.99). OK they said "Standard Shipping" but you can send a bubble envelope and it costs about $2.00 more or less. For most sellers a bubble mailer is "Standard" especially for cards of $10 value or more (sometimes $5.00). Plus there was no Penny Sleeve or toploader UGH it was in an UltraPro "Cardsaver" (Like the pic below).

I transferred it to a penny sleeve and toploader. I dinged the seller a little on the shipping star and in the Feedback section I said "expected a little better than a PWE for the shipping", but I gave them positive feedback. If the card had been damaged from the poor shipping then I would have contacted them to try to work something out and maybe give a neutral if I was satisfied with the outcome, negative if they were uncooperative. I wonder what feedback they will give me if any?

On a side note I live in an apartment and my tiny mailbox is the one that has the lock for the postal carrier to load the boxes in my building so sometimes my mail gets extra folded because of the little extra metal bars at the top of my box. I had some packages the other day that had been bent a little good thing the contents had been protected well by their senders in those otherwise I'd have been quite annoyed at the postal service.

Some Favorite Hi-End Cut Sigs

One of the relatively recent trends in the trading card world has been "cut signatures". I'm not sure which company started this madness or how long it has really been going on but basically what the card companies do is take an autograph of a sports (or entertainment) personality, cut it from it's original source be it a check, letter, autograph book or in some stupid cases an older trading card; and they encase it into, or paste it on a card. Many of these cards are also of very limited numbers. Some are 1/1 while others are serial numbered to something else sometimes the uniform number if a sports player.

When I first saw these types of things I hated them, and I still hate the idea of taking an older card cutting it and putting the signature on another card seems sort of stupid and redundant. Plus those signatures on a previous photo look really bad. I don't have any examples of cut sigs from a card in my collection to show so I'll have to borrow some examples from the internet.

Wow here is actually an example of a good cut sig from a card. If all of them were were like this Red Grange (probably from some sort of retro Hall of Fame card, or possibly a promo photo) I would have no problems.

 Photo from http://www.canadacardworldblog.com/2010/09/product-preview-2010-leaf-limited-football/

But alas most of the cut sigs from cards are terrible like this example from a Tucker Frederickson card from a 1969 Topps card #15.

 

Photo from http://sportscardinfo.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/cut-signatures-and-cardboard-irony/

I will do my best to avoid getting any of these terrible poorly cut ones like the Frederickson. I have been fortunate that so far I haven't gotten any bad ones but I have gotten some really good cut signature cards and all of them were from group box breaks. 

The following cards are part of my PC (Private Collection) and will most likely never be sold during my lifetime. The first two are 2007 Leaf Limited - Limited Cuts, The third one is a 2009 Limited - Limited Cuts. The Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch signature is from some sort of index card or autograph book, it might be from a black and white card or picture eek I don't know for sure. The Clark Shaughnessy autograph appears to be from a check as is obviously the Sammy Baugh auto. These are my three fave cut autos I've got. I think they are the only ones I've got right now, wait I might have a baseball signature lost in my collection that I haven't yet scanned.

 2007 Leaf Limited - Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch

2007 Leaf Limited - Clark Shaughnessy

2009 Limited - Sammy Baugh

Fun distraction Politicards

First produced in 1971 for the Upcoming 1972 Election year. This card 54 playing card deck was made by a card publishing company known only as "Politicards" (on the side of the box). Each card including the two jokers has a cartoon caricature of a political personality from that period of time. Plus a few from a few years before. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time this was done specifically for an election year. It seems to have been done every four years since. 

In 1972 my family had a deck of these cards that we played with and like all the other decks of cards we had eventually the cards got lost in our basement. I seem to recall a few years later seeing some similar cards with Jimmy Carter so I'm fairly sure the tradition has been kept up every four years using the current political figures of the time. It is a fun way to see who was in on the political scene in America at the time the cards were produced.

The first deck made in '71 had a simple design for the card backs. A gray background with the four card suits in a red, white and blue stars and stripes flag design. The box was simply a plain box with an outer sleeve that slides open to get access to the cards. The front of the box shows Richard "Tricky Dickey" Nixon as the King of Spades, the back of the box is the design for the back of the cards.

1972 Politicards box back (open)

Richard Nixon is the King of Spades

Eventually I will scan the individual cards and show them, but for now all I have scanned are the boxes from each of the years I have. 1972, 1996 (Red and Blue versions), 2000 Red Deck, 2004 Blue Deck, 2008 Red and Blue Decks. These cards show up on Ebay from time to time. Most of them are fairly reasonable price-wise. I've only seen one of the decks with Jimmy Carter from 1980? once and it was too expensive to even consider trying to get. In the meantime I'm going to try to fill in the gaps I need, even getting the red or blue versions I still need.

1996 Blue Deck Box Front and Back (open)

1996 Red Deck Box Front and Back (sealed)

 

2000 Red Deck Box Front and Back (open)

2004 Blue Deck Box Front and Back (open)

 2008 Blue Deck Box Front and Back (Sealed)

 2008 Red Deck Box Front and Back (Open)

1974 Fleer NFL Hall Of Fame

1974 Fleer Hall of Fame 

"The Immortal Roll" cards

 

In 1974 Fleer produced a Hall of Fame "The Immortal Roll" set of 50 NFL cards similar to the Baseball "Pioneers of Baseball" 28 card set. These cards were packaged I think 4 to a pack with a team logo sticker or cloth sticker. This set and the baseball one were my first "retro" cards of hard to find old-timers or Hall of Famers from any sport. At the time I was not really into reprints, still not, or retro cards, but these sets just reached out to me. I've liked them ever since. This set was so successful that in 1975 Fleer produced an 84 card set that is very similar and sometimes gets confused with this one. The main difference is the '75 set has brown borders instead of the white, and they are numbered. This '74 set is not numbered and often any numbers assigned are from their alphabetical ordered position. I think for the '75 set they just used the same photos, which adds to the confusion. The backs have a drawing of the Hall of Fame building in Canton, OH an a descriptive paragraph of the player featured.

 

Legendary Redskin Quarterback "Slingin' Sammy Baugh

No NFL Hall of Fame set could be complete without Legend Jim Thorpe

 Some Classic players from one of my fave teams The Los Angeles Rams

 I really dig the old leather helmets and the early metal ones.

 Check out the poses. 3 Point stand w/out helmet?

 Don't forget the "tough guy" and the "pretty boy". (OK I got a little carried away there.)

 

I only have the 17 different cards featured in this post a few of them I have duplicates. I plan on getting the rest of this set and the 1975 set.

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.