Remember Upper Deck Baseball?

Back in the day, before the Player's Associations, Lawyers, Agents, and all of the other slimy people who don't collect sports cards decided they should be in charge of sports cards, Upper Deck made baseball cards.

They started out amazing. But from that peak, they went into a decline until the license was pulled out from under them like a cheap area rug.

The late nineties was a shrine to gold and bronze foil. Upper Deck must have bought in bulk. They used it excessively. 

In my recent return to paying attention to want lists long ignored, I purchased around forty of these. Here are a few faves.

Probably my favourite all time pitcher.

John Smoltz. I really like the pose on this one. Not a common photo choice. Not too sure about shrinking it out of ratio in black and white right beside the colour version though.

Mad Dog. Greg Maddux. Trapped in green foil hell.

Andruw Freaking Jones. The best center fielder of my generation. The man won 73 consecutive Gold Gloves. 73!!! Go ahead. Look it up. I'll wait.

Crime Dog! For some reason out of the over forty UD cards I bought, only three were duplicates that I already had. All three were of Fred McGriff from different years.
Odd.

Javy Lopez! Again, more hideous brassy gold foil. Yuck. Love the action shot of him pulling off that mask and fielding that bunt? Getting ready for the throw home?

One of my favourite Bravos of all time. The Lemmer. This time with brassy gold foil woodgrain! Way to mix it up Upper Deck!

My list has dwindled, but is still in need..... Upper Deck Baseball Want List

Do you miss Upper Deck baseball cards? What was your favourite set from them?

Ginter madness!!!

Ah, Allen & Ginter. Every year it causes baseball card collectors to froth from the mouth. Or at least it used to. I've been away for awhile. Does it still have that effect?

Anyway. I recently have started to go back through my binders and update my want lists. Seriously, it's been years since I've done so. Neglect, malaise, and of course, laziness have all contributed. So I started with Ginter. I figured that would be a nice easy transition than Topps' base stes with their bajillion inserts, parallels and variations. And short print variations with coloured borders and different backs. With serial numbers.

Ugh.

I purchased a few new cards online to fill in some holes in my binder. Still a ways to go. I thought I'd share a few here.

2006 Mike Kelly. Looking at my lists all these years, I thought it was this Mike Kelly. Imagine my surprise.

 2017 - Mr. Aaron. An outstanding looking card.

 2012 - Mr. Aaron again. You may be asking why, if I'm only showing a few cards, would I show Hank Aaron twice? Because he's the Hammer. Silly question.

 2017 Bartolo Colon. Great googily moogily. Look at the gloriousness of that card! Who doesn't want to see that bust in Cooperstown? (Yeah, I know, busts are in Canton for the NFL. But Bartolo here gets special dispensation.)

 2014 Crimedog!!!! One of my all time underrated players. The man needs some respect.

 2007 Big Bad Bob Wickman.

When he was acquired by the Braves in the late summer of '06, Bobby Cox nearly pitched his arm off. (Wickman was 37 at the time) Bobby went to him and apologized and told Wickman he could have the day off. Wickman told Bobby, I'm 37 years old and don't have a lot of time left. I'll rest when I'm dead.
That's my kind of ball player.

Should any of you have any Ginter lying around that I might need, throw me a line. I probably won't have much to swap back... but you never know.

Allen & Ginter want lists

Who's in for Ginter this year???????????? July is coming fast!

Testing...Testing.... Is this thing on.........?

Well.... It's been awhile. Is this even still a thing? But while the zombie apocalypse rages on, I've found myself with a wee bit of time on my hands. I'm probably the only one though.

No?

So I've been doing a bit of organizing, a bit of cleaning... and I found a small stack of cards that I had acquired quite awhile ago, but had never found their way into their permanent homes. From that, I discovered that they hadn't been removed from my want lists either. Maybe I should actually update my want lists... 

 One of those cards is this handsome fella.

 I am slowly building my Braves team sets for all of the A&G years.... Unfortunately, I don't think I have anything after..... 2014? Ugh.
I suppose I have to start somewhere....

Oh! And look who I found in a pack just the other day...

They're still pumping out CHIPPAHS in 2020!!!!!!!
A beautiful thing.

Anyway, if anyone is still out there, I hope all is well with you and yours.... Wish me well on this journey.
Seriously.
If you don't, I'll get distracted and disappear down a different rabbit hole again.....

Let's hear it for 1991 Score baseball!

Who knew that a junk wax set would create so much interest? I guess maybe people are tiring of the $200-$400 per pack high end same old crappola.

or they're looking for a place to dump '91 Score.

Either way there's hope for humanity after all.

After a few emails, and some cards I found in the wrong box, here is my updated need list.

#'s 452, 457, 507, 559, 565, 577, 606, 629, 631, 636, 649, 686, 714, 719, 722, 738, 739, 841,

Quite an improvement. But, still a long way to go.

Yay team!

to celebrate, here's 1991's Miss Surfboard ... or something.

1991 Score baseball. Yes, that's what I said.

Haven't been blogging much lately. Too damn hot to do anything really. But since my hard drive died (I lost pretty much every scan I've ever done.) It took so long to fight that losing battle, only to then have our side by side refrigerator pack it in.
Have you been fridge shopping lately? "It's on sale sir! This week it's $900 off of the regular price. Only $1899.99, but you need to buy today as the sale is ending!"
And then.... my scanner stops. Oh it still eats electricity. And makes noise when I push the buttons. It just doesn't scan. Something I always thought a scanner should do.

Posts without pics are so blah.

Mind you, I can remember more than a few hundred times when I wanted to sit down and blog, only to think to myself, ugh. I really don't feel like scanning and cropping all those cards.

So I guess it's just the excuse of the week.

So if I can't scan anything interesting, then let's update those want lists. Something else that gets pushed back on the old priority list. Odd to put a list on a list.... but I do it.

Today, we have 1991 Score baseball. To most people, absolute junk. Garbage. Landfill. (oh, I meant recycled materials to be re-purposed into new, useful products)

But I actually like the set. It looks great in pages. Really. No, I haven't been drinking.

If you have any, hit me up. I'd be most grateful.

#'s 293, 452, 457, 501, 504, 507, 512, 517, 520, 523, 526, 528, 529, 551, 552, 559, 565, 568, 569, 577, 589, 598, 600, 602, 606, 609, 611, 615, 617, 620, 626, 629, 630, 631, 634, 636, 646, 647, 649, 651, 654, 655, 659, 660, 661, 662, 664, 666, 668, 670, 672, 674, 675, 676, 678, 679, 681, 682, 686, 690, 694, 697, 698, 699, 701, 702, 703, 706, 710, 711, 713, 714, 715, 717, 719, 720, 721, 722, 723, 725, 727, 729, 730, 731, 733, 735, 737, 738, 739, 742, 743, 747, 749, 750, 751, 753, 755, 757, 761, 763, 767, 769, 770, 771, 773, 774, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 786, 789, 793, 794, 798, 799, 801, 802, 803, 805, 806, 807, 813, 814, 817, 818, 819, 820, 822, 825, 826, 827, 833, 834, 837, 840, 841, 842, 843, 845, 846, 852, 853, 854, 855, 856, 857, 858, 860, 862, 863, 864, 866, 867, 868, 870, 872, 873, 874, 875, 876, 877, 878, 881, 886, 887, 888, 889, 890,

I think the set is 893 cards... if there's more after #893, then I need 'em too.

My easiest trade ever.

I don't do a lot of trading with other bloggers much anymore. It takes a lot of time, which I always seem to have none of. I prefer the old way. I get a stack of cards of a certain team, then fire them off to someone as a surprise. It's fun, and does not take any time at all.

However, most of the kids trade nowadays, so time to get with it.

I was perusing my blogroll the other day when I found a post from Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life fame.

Bo had issued a plea, NAY!, a cry for help. He was missing one card for his 1991 Fleer set. Ryne Sandberg. Well looking through my box, I found 8 or so and decided I could spare one. I put out an email to Bo saying I would send him one.

He told me to look through his tradelist for something I wanted. This made me a wee uncomfortable as asking for something in return for '91 Fleer is bad mojo. I said I would send him the Sandberg gratis, however if he really wanted to send me something, there was a card I liked.

Of course Bo sent it.

1983 Topps #411. One card closer to my Braves team set. Awesome.

Thanks Bo!!!

help a blogger out....

I need your help. Well, I'm begging actually. The baseball season starts today! (not counting the ESPN love fest sunday night... and no, that doesn't count) I need to finish off a couple of sets, with your help please.
And we're doing this, Ginter style.... first up,

2006 A&G
Card #53 John Smoltz SP
Card #305 ???
Card #303 Jennie Finch
Now I know it may be impossible to pry Ms. Finch from most of your sweaty little grasps. I probably have a better shot at getting your favourite pair of jeans, your eye teeth, or your sister... but there are girl bloggers out there, and maybe one of them will help me.

2007 A&G

Card #72, 228, 272, 310, 311, 322, 336 those in red acquired, THANKS!

I have no idea who any of those are...


2009 A&G - complete!

Card #347 Yvoni Gallardo SP - Acquired! - THANKS MADDING!!!!
I thought I had Gallardo in a swap, but it never panned out, so he's back on the most wanted list.

so if anyone of you can help with my Ginter Quest, I would very much appreciate it. LMK and we can work something out.

Ginter mail and updates

Many thanks to Drew, Nachos Grande, and Jim from Sixty Feet Six Inches, (great blogs, all three of 'em.. ) my Ginter list is slowly waning. Thanks for the trades guys! I'd post what they sent, but even the Hermit Penguins of Southern Antarctica have seen them a hundred times already.

So if you can, please check my remaining wantlists HERE, and I'll post my traders below.

Hit me up for any trades... I'm not the fastest trader in the West, but it'll get done.

My Ginter doubles....

#'s 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, 18, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 34, 42, 48, 52, 56, 57, 59, 62, 65, 68, 70, 71, 72, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 83, 83, 84, 85, 86, 94, 96, 98,

100, 103, 105, 107, 108, 110, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 120, 121, 126, 130, 133, 134, 138, 139, 142, 144, 150, 151, 153, 158, 161, 165, 176, 177, 179, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 192, 195, 196,

200, 205, 206, 210, 223, 227, 234, 235, 237, 243, 243, 247, 248, 251. 259, 262, 264, 270, 277, 278, 288, 291, 293, 298,

315,

National Pride #'s 3, 16, 17

Sketch #'s AGHS7, AGSH8

Wantlist, well, a start anyway

I've got some trades in the works, so for now I need to throw this on so it can be kept track of. It's certainly not gospel, and definitely a work in progress...

1976 Topps Baseball

#589, 592, 597, 631

1987 Topps Baseball

#99

1990 Donruss Baseball

#14, 109, 135, 147, 151, 155, 201, 325, 421, 424, 462, 496,

511, 515, 533, 535, 541, 558, 569, 581, 584

2008 Allen & Ginter

#105, 170, 175, 221, 226, 262,

301, 304, 312, 313, 320, 325, 346, 347, 348, 349

State Flag Inserts

#2, 9, 27, 30, 39,


*** numbers in RED are in a potential trade.