Regional Issue Sets = Crack For A Team Collector

Being a card collector means regularly shelling out your hard earned cash for a little 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 pulp and paper representation of your favorite player. Sometimes you carry the quest a little further and try to collect every card in a set. There is even a faction of the hobby that honours their favorite team by building a set that contains each card issued for each player on said team.

Usually this is enough to satisfy the collector.

Obsessive collectors try to find releases of their favorite players or teams that exist beyond the realm of the contemporary release. With a little bit of research and a constant ear to the ground you can find many regional and special releases of cards whose pursuit can keep you busy well into the fall and winter seasons.

In the early 1980's and throughout the 1990's the Toronto Blue Jays grew in popularity, not only across Canada but specifically in their home province of Ontario. The Blue Jays received their fair share of regional releases during this time. None of those releases were more popular than the ones issued in conjunction with the Ontario Fire Chiefs Association or the Public Fire Safety Council. Sadly these sets disappeared in the late 1990's.

Well, guess what?!?!?!

THEY"RE BAAAAAAACK!!!!!!


That's right!! Toronto Blue Jays Fire Safety sets are alive and well in 2011 and, with special thanks to my lovely wife, they are a part of my continuing collection. She sent a text to me today that she had stopped by the local Fire Prevention offices here in Brantford and picked it up for me. There are several hundred Firehouses across Ontario that are participating in the 'Swing into Summer Safety' education program who are making these sets available. I could not wait to get home and have a look at something that has been missing from my collection for over a decade.

The set size is as you would expect, individual cards for each player on the 25-man roster. What makes this set extra special is that all seven coaches have a card as well. Even the team mascot makes an appearance. This is a fun set meant to deliver just that, fun. The card design is simple and easy. All the colours match the team colours and the facsimile autograph on the front gives this set a classy enough look to display nicely paged in a binder.

The backs of the cards prominently feature a Fire Safety tip given a baseball themed twist at the top of the card. A head shot of the player photo from the front of the card along with the regular bio information and a single line of stats encompassing the entire career stats of each player is in the middle of the card back. Finally, a snippet of info regarding one of the career highlights of each player rounds out the card back.

Here is the back of the Ricky Romero card.


Enough writing on my part. Scroll down past this and enjoy the set in all its scanned glory. No gimmicks, no parallels, no bloat, just Blue Jays. EPIC FTW!!!


Thanks again to my awesome, lovely wife for getting it into my hands. It may not be a Topps Baseball Sticker Album and a handful of stickers, but in this case it is the best next thing!! I like the addition of the Dough Dude rookie card, makes me laugh.

As I was writing this post I thought it would not be complete without a specific embedded video.

Enjoy!!




Cheers,

My 2011 National Experience - A $1 Well Spent

One of the more enticing and exciting aspects of The National I was looking forward to was the fabled "Quarter Boxes" that I have long heard about but have never had the joy of experiencing first hand. I have seen the videos and heard the stories of numerous wonders discovered in these beasts. As a matter of fact, I even saw with my own two eyes one of the wonders of the 2011 National Quarter Box hunt that was claimed by Chris Harris over at Stale Gum.

Sadly, for this NSCC Rookie, there was simply far too much to see and do at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center that I never truly had the time to troll these deposits of wondrous discovery with the proper focus and respect they deserve. I did get to spend around 40 minutes on Sunday morning at the table of one dealer. I came away with out $20 worth of singles and inserts that will complete some sets and spark the quest for completion of others.

Out of the total money spent I have decided to show off what I feel to be the best $1.00 I spent on my maiden voyage into the abyss that is "The Quarter Box".

The first card goes toward my completion of my 1979 Topps Toronto Blue Jays Team set. Garth Iorg is hardly the feature of this card but it IS one of those great Topps-isms that place a player you need on a card with a player that "makes" the card. By no means is it unattainable on the regular market but when you can take home a Rookie Card of perhaps one of the most consistent players ever and one half of arguably the best infield combination ever for a quarter, you do it.


Being a Canadian this next card made absolute sense when I first saw it. When I saw it again I thought; "Why Not?". When I saw it for a third time I new it was meant to be. That is right, I brought home not one.....

.....NOT TWO.....

.....BUT THREE!!!!!

Yes, three copies of Tim Raines' 1981 Topps Rookie Card. If you have to ask then I will never be able to explain it to you.

My plan for 2012 in Baltimore is already taking shape and I plan to venture back to these Quarter Boxes for sure. This time, I will be better prepared and have much greater respect for these behemoths of the hobby.

Cheers,

How I Spent My Spring Card Expo - Mini Edition

It has been a little while since I last posted about my haul from the Toronto Spring Card Expo. Had a few things come up that were a bit more important than blogging. However, things are now better and I have a little more time available now for hobby talk. So, here we go.

I recently posted how a few eBay lots have brought me close to completion of the 2009 Topps T-206 Piedmont minis parallel set. Since returning to the hobby I have come to really appreciate and enjoy collecting the mini tobacco sized cards that have become quite prevalent in the hobby. What I managed to bring home with me helped complete some team sets and added to another set I am slowly picking away at.

Chicago Cubs from the 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions release lead the way with a total of five cards. Four were actually needed to complete the mini team set.

#224 - Ryan Dempster, #27 - Derrek Lee, #33 - Jeff Samardzija

#95 - Alfonso Soriano, #117 Carlos Zambrano

It turns out I already had the Zambrano, but, doubles are never bad, are they? I found three of the four Toronto Blue Jays minis that I needed to complete the mini team set. All I have left to chase down now is card #48 Joe Carter.

#243 - Vernon Wells, #219 B.J. Ryan, #242 - Alex Rios

While sifting through the pile of minis I set aside two cards that featured Horses. One figurative and the other literal.

Card #18 - Bo Jackson

Card #115 - Smarty Jones

Aside from the T-206 Piedmont mini cards one of the other mini card sets I am working on is the 2009-10 Upper Deck Champs Hockey mini extension set. Finding lots of these cards at a show is pretty hard and completing a set paying the individual prices being asked is just too much pain on the wallet. One dealer had a stack of 25 cards and wanted $5.00 for them so without my needs list handy I grabbed it and hoped for the best. Turns out I only needed 4 of the 25, but, it gives me a number of traders.

Card #270 - Mike Richards, #314 - Don Cherry

The great appeal of Champs is that, much like Allen & Ginter, card subjects are not just limited to athletes. 'Wonders of the World' and 'Natural History Collection' cards found a place in the binder too.

Card #407 - Aurora

Card #512 - Common Raven

The last mini card that joined the bunch was a lone 2007 Allen & Ginter Chicago Cub. Every team set starts somewhere and this 2007 set begins with Michael Barrett.

Card #159 - Michael Barrett

We are almost at the end of the series of posts dealing with my purchases from the Spring Expo. Doing these posts has helped me realize that my search was much more successful than it felt at the time. I managed to pick away at quite a few needs successfully.

The next post will deal with the handful of vintage cards that I purchased going towards one of the latest projects I have decided to tackle as well as a few cards for some projects that I am still tossing around in my head. I also found one of the cards I had been hoping to find for a PC, which also happens to be the first and perhaps cheapest vintage card for said PC.

Stay tuned for that post and thanks for reading this one. I appreciate you spending your time here.

Cheers,

How I Spent My Spring Card Expo - Autograph Edition

Outside of the sets themselves one of the things I enjoy the most about the hobby is the on-card, hard-signed autographs. Upper Deck says they have "watered down" the hobby, I would tend to disagreed. Then again, who am I to say? I am just a lowly collector.

So far, here is the story. We have covered the serial numbered and insert cards that I picked up last weekend at the Toronto Spring Card Expo. This time around I am going to show off the autograph cards that I bought. Once again, these came from the so-called "bargain boxes" that adorned a number of tables on the floor and all but 1 was $2 or under. A winning combination in my book.

The first three autographs I grabbed are from a set that I plan on pursuing to completion. The base set went heavily ignored by collectors but I still like the looks of the autographed versions.

2010 Topps National Chicle Autograph card#NCA-HR Henry Rodriguez, NCA-JF Juan Francisco

2010 Topps National Chicle Autograph card#NCA-BD Brent Dulgach National Chicle back Parallel #006/199

I had no idea I had picked out one of the parallels until I had looked through the cards once I was home. Of course, this now means that I will probably chase down the serial numbered versions of these cards.

The 2009 Topps T-206 framed mini-autographs are a set that I have liked from the beginning and are the first set of autographs that I decided to try and complete. I have a few sitting in my COMC account and admittedly picked this one up without being sure if I even needed it or not. The good news is it turns out I do need this one, the bad news is it was one of the cards in my COMC account. Nonetheless, it is still a fine looking card.

2009 Topps T-206 Framed Mini Autograph #FMA-13 Shairon Martis

The next autograph I picked up specifically for a fellow blogger who collects this particular player. I have no idea if he already owns it and I would be quite surprised if 'I Am Joe Collector' has not pulled from his crazy case breaking fiesta of 2007 Upper Deck 'Masterpieces' Baseball.

2007 Upper Deck 'Stroke of Genius' Autograph card #SG-BB Billy Butler

I had never seen one of the 2004 Topps 'Cracker Jack' autographs cards until I came across this one. They have a great look to them and it is a Toronto Blue Jay.

2004 Topps Cracker Jack 'Secret Surprise Signatures' card#CJA-DM Dustin McGowan

The last pair of autographs are from the same player but come from 2 distinct pints in his young career. Sadly though, one of the cards breaks my streak of on-card autographs from this group. The other card I picked up as I was leaving the show on Saturday, also it was the most expensive, $5.00. Hopefully, there is enough of the 2011 season left that when he returns from injury he can still make a significant impact for the Cubs.

2010 Topps Pro Debut Baseball Autograph card#PDA-AC Andrew Cashner

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Autograph card#GQA-Ac Andrew Cashner

Finding bargain on-card autographs would make any collector happy. Finding bargain on-card autographs from players and teams you collect is even better. Finding cards for other collectors that might add something to their collection is the best. All reason to be a happy collector.

Stick with the blog as the next post from my Spring Expo spoils will be the relic cards.

Cheers,

Mail Day (aka Cardboard Cuisine Buffet Style)

As the clock ticks down on the last few days we have left to complete our renovations on the house certain priorities have had to be shuffled. Unfortunately the blog here has been set aside in favor of learning how to install vinyl flooring. Envelopes have been piling up and the nagging urge to post their contents has been unbearable.

Gotta post!!

Mike over at BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet and I worked out a trade for some of the Cubs cards he pulled during a Box Break of 2008 Upper Deck Heroes. Naturally he was willing to trade and so off I shipped what I hoped would make Mike happy. You can see his post of what I sent here.

What Mike sent in return was extremely generous and made me extremely happy. The first card is the one that originally caught my eye from the break.

Carlos Zambrano Jersey #078/125

Along with the jersey were included the base cards of Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome.

Having sent some other relics that were gathering dust on my shelves what was sent in return were definitely much more appreciated. The first card is from the 2004 Upper Deck Reflections set featuring Corey Patterson as a member of the Chicago Cubs. A nice pin-stripey swatch.


Heading into the personal player collection is a jersey swatch from 2006 Upper Deck 'Game Materials' insert set of David Wright.


The last relic sent is from 2001 Fleer Finest and appears to be the Gold parallel version hand numbered out of 50. An awesome piece of bat from a Blue Jay who was quite popular during his run with the team. Shannon Stewart.


Mike also sent a handful of Cubs singles and a few of them might have me rethinking my blase stance on Topps Chrome. Two of the bunch I had to show off simply because they needed to be shown off. First, what would a Cubs card post be without "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks? I am not a fan of the idea of the '20th Anniversary' insert monstrosity from Upper Deck, BUT, I have to say it will make for some interesting team card and player card searching in the months ahead, for sure.


The last card I want to show simply because it is based on the design of my favorite Topps set. For me, the 1965 Topps Set is what a baseball card should look like and I am counting down the days until 2014 when Topps Heritage reaches that design. Until then I will be happy with Ron Santo's card from the 2005 Topps 'All-Time Fan Favorite' release.


Thanks to Mike from BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet for the heaping serving of cardboard and I will definitely be looking to knock off some more cards from his wantlists in order to trade with him again. I have many more bubble mailers to work through and will be hopefully doing so in the coming days. I am waiting on my first purchase from 'Check Out My Cards' which hopefully arrives before the weekend because there is a special card I need in there that will be accompanying me to FanExpo this weekend.

Until then,

Cheers,

Mail Day (aka Ginter Free Zone)

Thought I would take a break from the onslaught of Allen & Ginter posts and focus on the part of the hobby that has been opened up to me through Blogging. I'm talking about 'Through The Mail Trades'.

Every so often you see someone post a trade with or link to a brand new Blogger on the block. It is great to see more and more of them popping up. 'Two Strikes' is a blog run by Matt in Texas and I recently tried to help him out with his pursuit of Topps Series 1 singles. In return Matt furnished me with a pile of Bowman Cubs and Blue Jays that will be finding their respective places in their Team Binders soon enough.

We have some Base card goodness......


As always there is some Golden Parallel goodness as well.......

Along with those Matt sent 2 of the 'Topps 100' prospect cards. 1 featuring Kyle Drabek for the Jays and 1 with Andrew Cashner for the Cubs. He also saw fit to throw in a '1st Bowman Card' of Hak-Ju Lee and one of the two-sided cards featuring Carlos Zambrano and Andrew Cashner.

Mat also furnished me with a handful of cards that included another 2010 Topps Gold card which gets me one step closer to the complete Cubs team set, scattered Jays and Cubs from '07 and '08, as well as this little guy......

HA!!!

You honestly thought you were going to go an entire post in July without seeing some Ginter!!!

Poor, poor, trusting soul.

Thanks Matt for the cards and I hope yours arrived safe and sound.


The second envelope that arrived came from Ted in Connecticut. Ted is the brains behind 'Crinkly Wrappers' and was giving away some of his extra Topps 'Opening Day' cards. Never being one to turn down a shot at some free cards I swooped in and grabbed up his Cubs and Jays.

I like the 'Opening Day' cards simply because they are more affordable for younger/entry level collectors and they feature different photos than their flagship counterpart. The airbrushed photos were a nice touch and provided some much needed entertainment when they first hit the street and everyone deemed them ERROR CARDS!!!!!

Ted sent me 6 Cubs; Fukudome, Dempster, Lee, Lilly, Ramirez and Zambrano.


He also sent me a couple Jays in Travis Snider and Adam Lind.


Ted still has a couple cards I have to try and pry out of his hands but a million thanks go out to him for setting me up with my 'Opening Day' team set needs. Any time I can get closer to completion I am a happy collector.

I received one more envelope recently but I am hanging on to it so I can pair it up with a sweet purchase I made on eBay. They all go towards one of my player collections. I anticipate the eBay purchase to show up anytime now. Once it does you will be the first to see it.

Until then...............

Cheers,

Mail Day (aka Plain Ketchup)

So, having taken the time to look over the last few days it has been far too long since I dedicated some time to posting. I have been able to sporadically read some of the blogs I follow but when it comes to this one I am woefully ashamed. Other than two self-serving posts entering me into some great contests there has been nothing of significance from LFB2B.

Time to change that.

In the last three weeks there have been some generously over-stuffed envelopes that have come across my desk. Having taken some time off of work for relaxation purposes I am now forcing myself to send out some overdue gracious acknowledgements to some incredibly awesome fellow bloggers. One of the challenges I knew I had ahead of me when I decided to return to card collecting was filling in the gaps of the years I was away. Mostly gathering team sets and a few individual players did not seem like that big of a task at the start. However, once I saw just how much had been released in the ten years or so that I was away things seemed a bit more daunting. Thankfully there have been some kind souls who have come to my rescue and trading has become a once again enjoyable part of the hobby for me.

On with the Thank-yous.............

Handcollated

Scott and I had been sending a few hockey cards back and forth earlier on in the year and at some point things became confusing enough that neither of us were sure what was to be sent where. However, after some careful deduction and some diligent research things are balanced once again.

Waxaholic

Understanding the struggle of a fellow Canadian trying to collect baseball cards in a country that seems to predominantly worship hockey and then hibernate for five months has been my motivator for several trades with Brian. I think we need to develop some kind of Canuck Horsehide Appreciation Network or something. Hmmmmmm.........

Stats-on-the-Back

Along with another helpful pile of Jays and Cubs, Mark planted a little bug in the back of my mind that I am toying with. Thankfully Halladay did remain in T.O, Mark. Phew!!


Wax Heaven

Mario ran a contest giving away some autographed cards from 'UD Spectrum of Stars' and had the costs of shipping graciously underwritten by 1st and Goal. I received a pile of autograph cards from some awesome 'C' and 'D' list stars. Kitsch Rules!!!

JDs Wild Cardz

Capitalizing on an other's ill fortune I built my 2009 Topps Target Retro Cubs and Jays collection by 4 cards and also scored an auto of one half of the A&G Code Crackers for 2009. Once I get another ad card I will be bothering the other mastermind.

All totaled I have received over 125 cards towards filling in the missing years of my collection. I thank each and every generous one of you and pledge that from this point on, I will make a point of properly showcasing the treasures that make their way to me. And, never again will I falter in expressing the utmost of gratitude to my fellow traders.

Cheers,

Hey, UD Legendary Cuts....where's the love??!!?? Mr.X knows.

The weekend finally arrived, although it was not that bad having the work week split into two 2-day segments, it was still welcomed. As usual I stopped by my "home base" card shop to see what I could find. It turns out there was a customer earlier in the week who had purchased and cracked a box of 2009 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts , kept only the inserts and left the singles behind. This kind of collecting I fail to understand. However, with the opportunity it presented me I will not question it that deeply. There is no way I would purchase packs of this stuff, let alone a box. However, to Mr.X. prospector/collector I say thanks because I got these from you. (in a roundabout way)

Firstly after going through the Upper Deck website and finding the checklist I was actually a bit intrigued by this set. It appears to me to be the "Coles Notes" of the A&G set, sorry for the Canadian reference there but I think the American version of that statement would be "Cliffs Notes", I do believe.

Hey, here's a tangent, have there ever been A&G Cards dedicated to either Cliff Hillegass or Jack and Carl Cole? I think Topps needs to get on this right away, or at least some of the more talented card designers/bloggers I have seen. Beardy and PunkRockPaint , I'm looking at you two!

After going through the checklist I was a bit mystified at the general lack of Toronto Blue Jays cards in this set. I understand that with such a small card count that only the higher calibre players can be included in the set. However, do you mean to tell me that this was the only Toronto Blue Jay that made the cut?

Where is Vernon Wells? Where is B.J. Ryan? Even Alex Rios arguably deserves a card. I'm not saying the Blue Jays are house-hold names but really, they are not the Indians either!!
There is one other Blue Jay in the set but a short-printed ex-Jay does not truly count here. Joe Carter is card #144 and if anyone has Joe and wants to send him home to Canada, please feel free.

By contrast there are 8 Chicago Cubs in this set and Mr.X. was gracious enough to leave 5 of them for me. Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Rich Harden (for some reason he is listed as an Oakland A in the checklist) and Derrek Lee.


Mr.X. was also fortunate enough to pull the only card in the set that goes straight into my sub-set collection of players bunting, Curtis Granderson.


I also grabbed three other cards from Mr.X's discards to send out to some other bloggers as kind of a "just because" thing. I have been incredibly impressed with the continued generosity I have seen among everyone that it is kind of infectious and it makes me want to do the same. I figure they may even already have these cards due to said generosity, but, it is still a great opportunity to just introduce myself and just say "Hi".

All in all, I like the look of these cards and as I was scanning them I saw just how great they look in binder pages. I am thinking of returning to the card shop and maybe grabbing the rest of Mr.X's stuff as a starter set and collecting the base set. There were a few of the non-baseball short-printed cards that caught my eye that I will have to put on a wish list. At the end of this entry I will post a needed list and add one to my Want Lists on the side bar of my blog as well.

What are your thoughts on the SP Legendary Cuts set? It is too bad that designs like this cannot bet utilized in a more mainstream set. A great deal of what I collect is based on how a card looks as well as the player list. The thickness of these cards and the design along with the chase hits are what make these a premium card but thanks to Mr.X. I can afford to have these in my collection now.



2009 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts - Needs

#5 - David Wright
#29 - Jeff Samardzija
#46 - Ryan Dempster
#59 - Geovany Soto


2009 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts - ShortPrint (#/500) Needs

#115 - Ferguson Jenkins
#134 - Billy Williams
#144 - Joe Carter
#159 - Edgar Allen Poe
#175 - Charles Dickens
#188 - Billy The Kid
#198 - Jesse James


Cheers,