Picked Up A Grail Card For My Griffey Collection

 Hi! Wow, so 8 years since my last post, huh? Did I miss anything? I'm sure not much happened while I was away, I feel like it's been a pretty boring near-decade....

Anyhoo, I thought maybe it was time to fire up the ol' blog again. I have no idea if I'm still on the blog roll or not, so if you are reading this maybe you could do me a solid and just say hi in a comment? It would be nice to know if anyone is actually seeing this post! 😄

And now, on to the actual point of the post - I managed to get my hands on a Griffey card that I've been trying to get since before I even started this blog in the first place!! 

I've loved the 1998 Pinnacle Epix cards since they first came out. It has always been a dream of mine to get all the Griffeys, but I've been stuck trying to track down the Purple and Emerald Season cards that came out of 1998 Zenith for years. Scratch one off the list!

With the addition of that purple beauty, I've only got one more left to go.

Apparently one of the Emerald Season cards was actually sold on eBay recently.....for $350. I suppose that price is unsurprising, given that Pinnacle only made 30 of those cards to start with. Add to that the odd gimmick Zenith had that year with regular cards hidden inside of 5×7 cards, and there are almost certainly less than 30 out there in the wild. But, maybe someday....

It's good to be back. I hope to hear from some of you soon!

New Year, New Griffeys

Long time, no see!

It's been a long time since I've posted, but I definitely wanted to check in this week since I'm expecting big news for my boy Griffey! (For those who may not be aware, they announce the result of the baseball Hall of Fame voting on Wednesday).

I haven't been able to do much in the way of card collecting lately, but I did manage to pick up a few new Griffeys here and there:

This 2000 Topps Star Stars insert is one of those "how did I never get this card before?" acquisitions.  Holographic background?  Yes, please.

The rest I was able to pick up on the cheap in one of those eBay "Pick 10" lots.  For once I finally remembered to go looking for one of these insert lots while the set is still current, so I was able to score before the sellers all got picked over.  A nice haul for just a few bucks!

I must say, these Topps designs like the last one for Heart of the Order drive me absolutely nuts.  If you can't make the card still look good when it doesn't have a "relic" attached to it, then it is a poor design.  Unfortunately this has been a common theme among Topps inserts the past few years.

Happy New Year to all!

You've Been.....THUNDERSTRUCK~!

I miss 1990s-style inserts.  So much great stuff from back then.

Case in point, the newest addition to my Griffey collection:

(I used the COMC pic to save some time)

I fell in love with this card the moment I saw it on eBay.  It doesn't come through well in the picture, but the lightning bolt is sparkly foil, not just printed on the background.  Fleer Ultra had "Thunderclap" as an annual insert set for several years, so I will definitely go looking for the Griffeys from other years.

1997 Fleer Ultra Thunderclap Checklist:
1 Barry Bonds

2 Mo Vaughn

3 Mark McGwire

4 Jeff Bagwell

5 Juan Gonzalez

6 Alex Rodriguez

7 Chipper Jones

8 Ken Griffey, Jr.

9 Mike Piazza

10 Frank Thomas

On an only slightly related note - can we all agree that the opening of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" is one of the best guitar riffs of all time?

Gold Label Goodness

I added a small handful of new Griffeys in the past few weeks.  Today we focus on a GORGEOUS pair from 1998 Topps Gold Label.  This is one of those sets where in my opinion, if you have a player you collect in the base set, then picking up a copy is an absolute MUST. They are THAT nice.  The card stock is very sturdy and super glossy, the background is done in a "refractor" style, and the script lettering for the player names is beautiful.

Each player has 3 cards in the set.  "Class 1" cards have the name in gold foil and have a background shot of the player fielding, like so:

 "Class 2" cards have the name in a sparkly silver foil and show the player running:

And "Class 3" cards (the most rare) have the name in sparkly gold foil, with the background photo being a hitting or pitching shot.  I didn't add the "Class 3" Griffey yet, so no pic of that one.

Here is the player checklist.  Like I said, well worth tracking one down for your favorite players!

1 Kevin Brown

2 Greg Maddux

3 Albert Belle

4 Andres Galarraga

5 Craig Biggio

6 Matt Williams

7 Derek Jeter

8 Randy Johnson

9 Jay Bell

10 Jim Thome

11 Roberto Alomar

12 Tom Glavine

13 Reggie Sanders

14 Tony Gwynn

15 Mark McGwire

16 Jeromy Burnitz

17 Andruw Jones

18 Jay Buhner

19 Robin Ventura

20 Jeff Bagwell

21 Roger Clemens

22 Masato Yoshii RC

23 Travis Fryman

24 Rafael Palmeiro

25 Alex Rodriguez

26 Sandy Alomar, Jr.

27 Chipper Jones

28 Rusty Greer

29 Cal Ripken, Jr.

30 Tony Clark

31 Derek Bell

32 Fred McGriff

33 Paul O'Neill

34 Moises Alou

35 Henry Rodriguez

36 Steve Finley

37 Marquis Grissom

38 Jason Giambi

39 Javy Lopez

40 Damion Easley

41 Mariano Rivera

42 Mo Vaughn

43 Mike Mussina

44 Jason Kendall

45 Pedro Martinez

46 Frank Thomas

47 Jim Edmonds

48 Hideki Irabu

49 Eric Karros

50 Juan Gonzalez

51 Ellis Burks

52 Dean Palmer

53 Scott Rolen

54 Raul Mondesi

55 Quinton McCracken

56 John Olerud

57 Ken Caminiti

58 Brian Jordan

59 Wade Boggs

60 Mike Piazza

61 Darin Erstad

62 Curt Schilling

63 Dave Justice

64 Kenny Lofton

65 Barry Bonds

66 Ray Lankford

67 Brian Hunter

68 Chuck Knoblauch

69 Vinny Castilla

70 Vladimir Guerrero

71 Tim Salmon

72 Larry Walker

73 Paul Molitor

74 Barry Larkin

75 Edgar Martinez

76 Bernie Williams

77 Dante Bichette

78 Nomar Garciaparra

79 Ben Grieve

80 Ivan Rodriguez

81 Todd Helton

82 Ryan Klesko

83 Sammy Sosa

84 Travis Lee

85 Jose Cruz, Jr.

86 Mark Kotsay

87 Richard Hidalgo

88 Rondell White

89 Greg Vaughn

90 Gary Sheffield

91 Paul Konerko

92 Mark Grace

93 Kevin Millwood RC

94 Manny Ramirez

95 Tino Martinez

96 Brad Fullmer

97 Todd Walker

98 Carlos Delgado

99 Kerry Wood

100 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Trade With Lifetime Topps Project

I recently completed another trade with chuckneo over at the Lifetime Topps Project.  His blog is one of my favorites, and he has quite the ambitious project - collecting every Topps set since 1980.  My recent digging through my old cards led me to a handful he was looking for, so I was glad to do my part to bring him a tiny bit closer to his goal!

He was kind enough to send me a nice envelope of cards in return, including some Platinum Diamonds:

A few Topps inserts on my want list:

And best of all, a pair of Griffeys!:

That Golden Moments card is actually a mini - I didn't even know they made minis of those cards that year!  And I really like that Goudey style card from last year's Goodwin set.  Something about that painting-esque picture and the card design really clicks for me.

Thanks again for the trade chuckneo!

Definitely Not Junk From The Junior Junkie

I recently reached out to The Junior Junkie to initiate what I thought would be a simple Griffey swap.  I don't have many Griffey doubles, and his collection is just slightly larger than mine, but I still managed to find two Griffey dupes in my binder that he didn't have.

Pictured, left to right: my Griffey collection, Junior Junkie's collection

What I didn't expect is that he would send me an entire STACK in return!!  Check out all this awesomeness:

Lots of great stuff here.  My favorites:

-That photo on the 1997 Topps base card is SWEET.  Classic Griffey pose, and love the bat dropping out of the frame.  I'll have to pick up another copy of that one for my "great photos" binder.
-Gotta love a matching set of base card and silver signature parallel for Collector's Choice
-The 1994 Fleer Ultra Award Winners insert is one I remember wishing I could nab back in the day, I loved that design, so very happy to finally add that one to the list
-The Upper Deck Fun Pack card actually has a heat-activated background - hold your thumb on it and you can see a cartoon of Griffey about to get the ol' pie in the face from a teammate!
-That very first Topps card in the upper left is from 2012 and is my favorite of the bunch in terms of design (not sure what the card number prefix "MBC" is just yet).  It's almost like a cross between a regular card and a Chrome refractor.  I loves me some shiny!
-Vintage-style minis.  'Nuff said.
-And finally, the one with Buhner may not technically be a Griffey, but in my book a shot of these slugging teammates definitely counts!

As a bonus, this trade pushes my Griffey collection past the 700 mark~!

Thanks for the great trade Junior Junkie!

Collector's Day at the Museum

A few weeks ago the Milwaukee Public Museum had their annual "Collector's Day," where regular people get to set up a table and show off whatever they may collect.  It's quite a mix of topics - there are old bicycles, autographs, troll dolls, banana stickers (who knew there were so many???), you name it.  My favorite was the guy who had a huge collection of playing cards of all shapes and sizes, from all kinds of different countries and time periods.  My wife has shown her collection of Civil Defense items a couple times now, and this year for the first time I signed up to show my card collection!

I almost immediately realized I had brought WAY more stuff than I could fit onto one table, so I decided to show off some of my more interesting "hit" cards, my Brewer collection, and some of my favorite and/or most visually grabbing Griffeys.  The 24 karat gold reprint of Griffey's 1989 Fleer rookie card was one of the more popular items with the visitors (thank you Google image search for saving me some time):

The kids seemed to get a kick out of the 1992 Upper Deck Comic Ball hologram that shows Wile E. Coyote trying to trip Griffey:

However, my rare reprint of the "Original Baseball Card" was definitely the highlight for my table. Almost everyone was interested in that one!:

Preparing for Collector's Day also had another huge positive side effect - it finally forced me to spend some time organizing my collection!  I now have 2 giant binders full of nothing but Milwaukee Brewer cards, a binder full of cards for my "Common Card, Uncommon Photography" series, and a couple binders full of miscellaneous star cards, old 1990s inserts, and other random cards I like.  All in all, a great experience!

Newest Addition to the Griffey Collection

I always appreciate quality photography, like on my newest Griffey card - a 1997 Topps Photo Gallery insert:

A perfect shot capturing the classic Griffey home run follow through!  The camera frame corners in gold foil are a nice touch as well.

Epix Success~!

I've written about the 1998 Pinnacle Epix cards a couple times before.  They rank very highly in my favorite sets of all time list.  For YEARS I've been trying to finish off my Griffey set.  Which is why when I recently did one of my regular "Griffey Epix" searches on eBay I almost fell out of my chair when I finally saw a Griffey Emerald Game card pop up. The Emerald Game is the last** card I needed to finish the set, and it was only $11 to boot - BUY BUY BUY BUY~!

A few days later I got one of those familiar brown envelopes in the mail.  I excitedly tore into it and saw.....

A card that was clearly NOT an Emerald.

I contacted the seller immediately and told him he sent the wrong card.  Evidently he LISTED the wrong card, as he didn't have an Emerald Game to send me.  He refunded my money right away and let me keep the card too, but still, I was crushed.  Who knew when another Emerald Game listing would show up?

As it turns out, the answer to that question was "the very next day."

Unbelievably, another listing popped up on eBay for a Griffey Emerald Game Epix.  This one wasn't buy it now, and I got in a bit of a bidding war so I had to pay $24 this time around, but this time when I opened the mail I saw this:

And it's MINT too!

FINALLY, I have the full set of nine~!**

Check one off my collection bucket list!


**The asterisks are because technically there is more to this set.  As I talked about in one of my old posts, there was supposed to be a fourth subset, Epix Season, that was to be included in 1998 Pinnacle Certified.  The company went bankrupt so the set was never released.  However, some of the Epix Season cards made it out onto the market somehow.  I've actually got the Griffey Epix Season Orange too!

I saw a Griffey Epix Season Emerald on eBay once years ago (for $100), so I know that at least one copy of that card exists.  I've never seen a Griffey Epix Season Purple though.

Catching Up On Some Old, Old Trades

Today I've got a couple of looooooooooooooong overdue thank yous for a couple of my fellow bloggers.

First up, a package from Jeff at Cardboard Catastrophes.  For reasons that even he didn't understand, he picked up this oddball Griffey at a card show:

I loves me a good oddball card, so when he offered it to me I was happy to give it a good home.

He also sent along a few 2011 Topps Heritage to check off my list:

Thanks Jeff!  I'm sure I'll find something good to send you back.

The second round of thanks goes to Kyle at Juuust A Bit Outside.  A while back I sent him a stack of 2011 Topps Stickers for his son's collection, and he ended up sending me back a nice stack of Brewers for my team collection:

Thanks Kyle!

Finally Something Good From the Golden Giveaway

Like most people around the blogosphere, I've been pretty underwhelmed by Topps' Golden Giveaway.  On top of the fact that the whole "virtual coin" thing is lame, my luck with codes has been ABYSMAL - I finally got my first card on my TWENTY-SEVENTH code, and I've only gotten 1 card out of a total of 30 codes.

The good news?  The card I got was a pretty good one, of a beloved player collected by many.



Why is that good news?  Because it allowed me to execute a trade within 5 minutes of unlocking the card.

Those of you familiar with the blog can probably guess where this is going.....






Meet the newest addition to my collection~!

I've Waited 20 Years For This Card

So.......long time, no see........

As I'm sure most of you are NOT aware, I'm getting married in about 7 weeks.  This is of course a good thing, but it has two unfortunate side effects - my card purchases have been scaled back pretty significantly this year due to other expenses, and I've been a bit too preoccupied with other things to find much time to blog!  Hopefully I can start to remedy the latter problem, if not the former....

I did recently manage to buy some packs of Topps Series 2, and I even scored a few hits (more on those in coming posts).  But there was only one card that truly got me excited, and I pulled it out of my very last pack:




Ever since I started my Griffey collection waaaay back in 1992, I have ALWAYS wished for one done in the style of my all-time favorite set design.  It may be a mini, it may have taken two decades, but it's finally mine!

It also warms my heart to know that I can once again open packs and hope to see a card of my favorite player.  That was a real drag last year!

Christmas in May

I added a couple of decidedly festive Griffeys to my collection recently:

Pacific put out these shiny ornament cards for a few years back around 2000.  There's still one other Griffey I have to snag, hopefully before Christmas!

Previous Trivia Question:

Who owns the bizarre claim to fame of being the only player ever traded for himself?

A:  In 1962, Harry Chiti was traded by the Cleveland Indians to the New York Mets for a player to be named later.  Two months later after playing just 15 games for the Mets, Chiti was traded back to the Indians as the player to be named later!

Today's Trivia Question:

What unusual feat did brothers Mike and Bob Garbark accomplish in 1944?

It Came From the Card Closet~! - Artwork Edition

I never took an art class in high school or college.  Just wasn't all that into it.  But for some unexplained reason, every once in a while I got the strange urge to draw something, just to see if I could do it.  My most ambitious effort was the time I tried to draw a photo of Griffey in mid-swing that was on the cover of Beckett Monthly.  It remains the first and only time that I ever attempted to draw textured clothes or a person's face.  I recently rediscovered this lost artwork while cleaning out my card closet.  In retrospect, I think it's not half bad!

I might have to do this again sometime.  I think I'll try Warren Spahn doing his big leg kick. :)

Three New Griffeys

I took advantage of the lull in new card sets to add a fe neat Griffeys to the collection off of eBay.  First up, a pair of 1999 Topps Tek cards:

These are definitely unique looking cards, as they are basically plastic.  It's kind of hard to see against a white background, but the background design of both these cards is different.  That's because every 1999 Tek card had 60 (!!) variations - 2 different player photos, each with 30 different backgrounds.  I already had one other version in my collection, so I've got a ton of work to do if I want them all.  Additionally, each pattern variation has a gold variation that is numbered to just 10 copies.  Yikes.....

But that's not all!  I also picked up a very cool card from 1994 Stadium Club:

I remmeber wanting this card so bad back when the set came out.  The background has an etched foil look to it, very colorful and eye-catching.  Sadly, this card was printed back in the days when it was impossible to imagine Griffey going his whole career without a championship ring....

Finally! - A Finished Masterpiece

In my last post I teased that I had reached a major colecting milestone.  Well, a couple months back I finally tracked down the last 2 short prints (Cal Ripken and Mike Schmidt) I needed to complete the full 120 card set of 2008 UD Masterpieces Baseball:

I was proud to have finally finished it off, both because I really love the set and because this was the set that got me back into collecting.  I bought a few packs on a whim one day, I liked them so much that I decided to buy a whole box, and then before I knew it I was online blogging and talking to all of you!

However, that isn't the milestone.  The big news is my acquisition of this card:

Why is Mr. Longoria such a big deal?  Here's why:

Evan was the final piece.  For the first time in my collecting life, I have actually completed an entire parallel set!  Of all the different colors of frames UD used as parallels for this set I think the black ones look the best - the dark color really makes the gold foil jump off the cards. 

Hopefully one day I can fulfill my dream of having a "rainbow" set of all the Griffey parallels from this set (he has TWO base cards, mind you).  There are no less than TEN parallel sets with different color frames - Black (unnumbered), Red (unnumbered), Navy Blue (#ed to 125), Brown (100), Green (75), Blue (50), Silver (25), Gold (10), Light Blue (5) and Red (1).  Thus far I have the Black, Navy Blue, Brown and Green parallels for Griffey's short print card (#99 in the set), and I have the Black, Red and Brown parallels for the other Griffey (#52 in the set).  I'm still kicking myself for not grabbing the Gold parallel of #99 off of eBay when I had the chance.  The guy listed it for $100 or best offer, and even though I was pretty broke at the time I offered $60.  He countered with $80 and I ultimately had to pass.  Stupid "responsibilities"....

A Non-Topps Gold Rush

Jo got me a cool gift for Christmas that I never got around to posting - a set of 23 karat gold cards!  They were a specially produced set of 4 made during the middle of the 1998 season called "Chasing 61 HRs". As you might have guessed, the set featured the three players after Maris' record at that time - McGwire, Sosa, and my boy Griffey!

The signature and name stamped on the front of the card are done in a sparkly foil.  There were 9861 sets made ('98, chasing 61), and each comes with a certificate of authenticity.

That wasn't the only card Griffey showed up on:

WE SEE YOU LOOKING AT US.

I actually have 2 other gold Griffeys in my collection already, I'll have to post them another time.

Previous  Trivia Question:

Who holds the record for most instances of homering from both sides of the plate in the same game with 12?

 

Answer: The Yankees' Mark Texiera is the owner of that record.

 

Today's Trivia Question:

 

On September 14, 1987, the Toronto Blue Jays set a record for most home runs in a game by one team.  How many did they hit?