gripes for today April 16, 2008

My post for today was intended to be one on my choice of a new player whose cards I was going to start to collect. I was looking for a player who hadn’t been a prospect for very long, so there would be no hunting down all those prospect and minor league releases, but I was also looking for a player who wasn’t so good as to have hundreds and hundreds of insert card releases but wasn’t bad enough not to have any at all. I had settled on Peter Moylan–there surprisingly aren’t many cards of him at all, and from what I can tell none from 2007!–because I had thought he had a long career of successful setup ahead of him. Sadly, he suffered an elbow injury and was placed on the 15-day DL yesterday, and it looks like it could be serious. In any case, my collection of Moylan cards stands at 1 (the 2008 Upper Deck series 1) but that doesn’t mean I don’t want any more ;)

Speaking of Upper Deck, I finally heard back from them about the shorted blaster pack that I sent in wrappers and UPC codes over a month ago. I’ll scan the letter when I get home as it’s absolutely ridiculous in its assumptions. I wasn’t as ticked off about the missing insert card as much as the pack that was shorted cards in general. (And I just bought one of those Target $1.59 packs of 2005 Fleer and that was also short one card, so it must be an ongoing UD issue.)

They did send me free product, though: a pack of retail 2007 UD series 2 baseball. I guess it’s a good thing I’m still trying to finish that set.

apologies for not posting April 14, 2008

I haven’t been posting because I’ve had the flu and a sinus infection, and I haven’t bought cards in a month, and I’m still working on putting that trade package together (no, I haven’t forgotten about it, I’ve been too sick to go through cards.)

Once I get all that out of the way, I’m going to post about a new player collection I’m thinking about starting.

more February and March Postcrossing March 22, 2008

It’s been a good month for Postcrossing receives. I’ve found the card I misplaced. There are a few I have received this week that I need to scan in, including a great lenticular stamp on a card from Finland. I’m recovering from the flu, so I didn’t get around to the scanning yet.

BR-28012, sent by JOGL2 in Brazil and received 27 February 2008

FR-23174, sent by mimosa in France and received 10 March 2008

GR-1977, sent by Nezumi in Greece and received 15 March 2008

Postcrossing arrivals for February and March March 7, 2008

It’s been a while, but I really didn’t receive that many cards during February, just three. The other two cards in this post were received today. I can’t find what I’ve done with one of the cards, although I clearly remember receiving it!

Card 1, IT-12572 sent by joja70 from Italy and received 2 February 2008:

Card 2, AT-14584 sent by TinaMaus from Austria and received 12 February 2008:

Card 3, DE-138516 sent by Nalan from Germany and received 7 March 2008:

Card 4, DE-141663 sent by waws from Germany and received 7 March 2008:

missing cards update and innovative card storage March 1, 2008

I’ve contacted Upper Deck about the shorted blaster box and have the empty pack wrappers and the UPC code from the box on its way to UD quality assurance. Let’s see how long it takes to resolve this issue, eh.

I’ve noticed a few posts in cardland about storage of oddly-shaped baseball cards and other paper items. Coincidentally, here’s a post about nonstandard scrapbooking page protectors. There are links there to a few items, both regular scrapbook pages and actual photo/paper storage supplies, that may work for odd cards; just take a look at those. If you do need binders for them, 12×12 postbound scrapbooks are available pretty much everywhere these days.

my nontriumphant return to blogging February 24, 2008

As it turns out, the knee I “screwed up” in Boston was actually a dislocated kneecap. It’s not as severe as the dislocation I had in fall of 2006 where the entire kneecap went to the right and had to be manually adjusted, but it was bad enough that it was rubbing against the side of my knee when I walked. Yes, I was an idiot and walked two miles with a dislocated kneecap, not to mention the giant haul I had to make from the gate to the baggage claim here in Minneapolis. I don’t recommend flying in coach with a dislocated kneecap, either, unless you’re under 157cm. I am 157cm exactly. In any case, I really didn’t feel like recapping my trip to Boston or finally posting that UD box break because that would have involved more sitting at a computer and scanning things. My scanner is attached to the computer in my craft room. My craft room is in the basement. My knee should feel better by this weekend.

Speaking of UD and boxes, I bought a blaster at Wal-Mart this afternoon and one of the packs only had five cards in it, and that must have been the pack where the “one game-used card per box!” was supposed to be in. Do you think I’ll have better luck with calling Upper Deck to complain or emailing them about it? I still have the box and the wrappers from all the opened packs. (That’s another break I’ll post once the scanner is accessible.)

The administrative part of the post (other than delaying the posting of more card minutiae) is that I’ve added a fair amount of sites to the blogroll. If it’s on my roll, I’ve been reading it through RSS and Google Reader since I found out about the site but have been too lazy to add it to the blogroll until now. Welcome, you all, and thanks for the nice comments from some of you.

Trading activities may be assumed soon as well. That’s also related to the lack of scanner. I’m also out of penny sleeves, toploaders, and the small envelopes I use to send books. This is also causing delays in my BookMooch sendouts. (The books I read on the plane weren’t good enough to keep in my permanent collection; the great thing about BookMooch is that it allows me to give them to people who really want to read them and that I can get something else neat from someone else with a book credit. The only drawback is shipping, and I’m out of envelopes again.)

My trip to Boston as expressed in paper: I was there for Boskone, which unlike every other sf or anime convention I’ve attended did not have any artists or dealers selling postcards. Of course, my congoing activities up until now have all been in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I was sorely disappointed. For one thing, sf fans like cats, and Postcrossers love requesting postcards of cats. I have a severe lack of cat postcards to send out as I sent all of the batch I bought at last year’s local cons out already. I didn’t buy any generic tourist postcards (seen at both the hotel giftshop and the CVS on Newbury Street where I bought instant icepacks.) I did get postcards at the Museum of Fine Arts, mostly the ones featuring the special exhibition of early 20th century British printmaking (no photos allowed, so I bought the postcards) and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (no photos allowed, period, so I’m using the postcards for my scrapbook.) I also picked up two packs of postcards at the big souvenir place outside Fenway Park. I bought one ten-pack of assorted Fenway views and one ten-pack of assorted players. They also had a ten-pack of Daisuke Matsuzaka postcards only, but I’m not that into Dice-K (shhh, if not for Schilling being broken he’d only be the 3rd starter) but apparently lots and lots of other people are if the souvenir stock is any indication. I didn’t get to any of the historical-type sites at all, unless you count Fenway Park. That’s two ballpark tours off my list this year; I did a Metrodome tour during Twins Fest. I’m going to Coors Field for a game in August during Denvention 3 but I’m unsure if I’m going to do the tour; after all, I am going to see a game ;)

I do have to mention the MFA’s sumo exhibit which had some great sumo postcards that you can see on that virtual tour. Part of that exhibit that isn’t in the virtual tour included some interesting trading cards and memorabilia. During the postwar period, there were playing cards issued that doubled as sumo trading cards. There were also some straightforward sumo trading cards from the 1990s on display with the familiar pictures and stats on the back sort of trading card layout. In the 1970s and 1980s, mass reproductions of wrestler handprints on paper were a popular form of sumo memorabilia. There were a few of those on display as well; those guys also have really big hands.

2008 Topps Series 1 jumbo pack opening February 17, 2008

Yes, I’m still in Boston. I was supposed to go out tonight but I screwed up my knee on Newbury Street. After 3 T transfers, I’m here opening the pack I got at Newbury Comics before the stupid injury. Tomorrow, I return home and to that UD box.

The pull of 46 cards:
22 Ron Washington
84 Brian Fuentes
279 Damion Easley
14 Lenny DiNardo
173 Jamie Moyer
294 Brian McCann
186 Lastings Milledge
255 Brandon Phillips
155 Carlos Zambrano
272 Anthony Reyes
127 Steve Pearce
197 Melky Cabrera
48 Zach Duke
MMS50 Mickey Mantle Story
324 Jake Peavy Cy Young Award
284 Lance Broadway RC
179 Chris Young Postseason Highlights
190 Russell Martin
10 Miguel Cabrera
304 Jose Vidro
178 Dustin Pedroia Rookie of the year
275 C.C. Sabathia Cy Young Award
76 Ivan Rodriguez
231 Casey Blake
7 Mickey Mantle
322 Kazmir, Santana & Bedard AL strikeout leaders
AR12 Dan Johnson 50th anniversary All-Star Rookie
MHR510 Mickey Mantle Home Run History
YR40 Year in Review Omar Vizquel
OTG16 Own the Game Carlos Pena
TCH15 Trading Card History Hideki Okajima
256 Alex Rodriguez MVP gold
28 Kyle Kendrick gold
90 Vladimir Guerrero
313 Kameron Loe
147 Marlon Anderson
189 Esteban German
200 Manny Ramirez
241 Ervin Santana
316 Scott Hatteberg
204 Rafael Furcal
283 Jorge Sosa
226 Kurt Suzuki
267 Chris Burke
55 Chris Young
81 Ray Durham

Craptacular Wax February 12, 2008

I went to Target to pick up some last things for my trip and picked up a few of the old $1.59 packs just for the heck of it. I know they have nothing special left in them, but there’s always the chance of picking up a base card of one of my Shlabotniks. After all, wasn’t Curt Schilling in every set this century?

Not a chance.

The first craptastic pack was 2004 Fleer Platinum (which is so misnamed; is the sparkly set the Gold-Pressed Latinum set?)

checklist, cards 1-144 (Schilling is #29. No, I didn’t get one. No Craig Counsell on this CL, either)
95 Matt Stairs
73 Zach Day
some anti-packsearching cardstock (will use for papercrafting)
187 William Bergolla/Josh Hall
112 Eric Chavez
175 Jason Michaels Unsung Heroes
122 Jason Schmidt
173 Mariano Rivera Unsung Heroes

This set is old-school. Fugly old-school. Even worse, there’s nothing in here for the team collectors who read the blog and I didn’t end up with any of my Shlabotniks nor did I get any Brewers. I did get something to make an ATC out of, however, although my art sucks.

Second festival of crap was 2005 Fleer Showcase, which at least looks good–until you see the players I pulled.

22 David Eckstein (arrrgh, this should be one of my trap cards.)
78 Javy Lopez (the catcher, not Javier the Red Sox reliever whom the entirety of Red Sox Nation forgot existed)
50 Michael Young
more cardboard for me to make artist trading cards
26 Jody Gerut
45 Austin Kearns

Wow, that sucks.

Third not-so-crappy pack: 2006 Fleer Ultra

RBI17 Derrek Lee RBI Kings
150 Luis Gonzalez
201 Ken Griffey Jr. Retro Lucky 13
DP19 Pat Burrell Diamond Producers
96 Pedro Martinez
40 Mark Mulder (great, defective foil)
196 Jeff Harris
175 Alex Rodriguez (gold)

Hey, at least there are guys in this pack that I’ve heard of, and according to the Beckett I picked up today at least the Griffey and the Rodriguez aren’t commons, and the common inserts are listed. And wtf, is this pack almost all inserts?

4th pack, a return to total crap: 2004 Upper Deck Series 2.

358 Jeff Kent
424 Josh Fogg
405 Jose Contreras
284 Roberto Alomar
443 Freddy Garcia
cardboard APS device, with no blank side. Drat.
508 Scott Dohmann (severely printing-process damaged card–oops, ink!)
489 Roman Colon
522 Shawn Hill
SL-7 Edgar Renteria Super Sluggers (WHO ARE THEY FOOLING HERE?)

I admit I like Josh Fogg because he’s usually cheerful out there on the hill (or would be if he was employed; oops, Josh, should have taken that offer from the Rockies!) but that doesn’t really mean I’m excited about the card.

I’ll be back on the 20th with an exciting post (at least I hope it’s exciting.) I bought a hobby box of 2008 Upper Deck and it’s going to be opened when I get back from Boston. I also may have a paper-focused convention report. Apparently the hucksters’ room at Boskone is filled with dealers of those little rectangular paper things with pages with words on them. We’ll see. Also, I may ask David Weber if he based the Harrington Treecats on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They both had green uniforms and sucked.

Mailing cards? February 7, 2008

I’m finally nearing the point where I do want to start trading cards with people through the mail, but I have no idea where to start with packaging and mailing. Books, I know; cards, not so much. What should I pack them in, what should I mail them in?

(In any case, I don’t think I’ll be doing any mailing until I get back from Boston. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t posted–too busy here. Also, I won’t be taking a computer. This is also why I haven’t bought any 2008 card releases yet or even bothered to look for them. Aiaiai, this trip is expensive.)

TwinsFest January 26, 2008

No pictures (because I didn’t take any) and no scans because I’m sick sick sick and feeling too lazy to scan (how do I pick up con crud at a card show?) but I had fun, when I wasn’t waiting in line, climbing up lots and lots and lots of steps, and feeling like something was stabbing me in the nose. The clubhouse tour was interesting. The Twins clubhouse is v.v.v. tiny. The new stadium will have a bigger one. I hope the Twins get along well because that is more closeness to one’s coworkers than is really desired.

Haul:
1991 Fleer factory set, $8
1990 Upper Deck factory set, $8
“grab bag” with 21 odd cards and 1/3 of a 1991 Donruss rack pack, $1
1979, 1982 and 1983 Twins postcard sets, $25
autographs of Dennys Reyes, Craig Monroe and Nick Punto, $10

Don’t ask me why I ended up in that autograph line, other than creative uses for 2007 Upper Deck doubles. Can anyone explain the fangirl appeal of Nick Punto? That entire line was filled with squeeing young ladies. IMO, they should have been squeeing over Craig Monroe…oh well. XD