Real Vintage & Faux Vintage

I've got a couple of non-blogging trading friends who've of late been the guys most responsible for supplying me with my vintage baseball card needs. Ken in Missouri and Dave in California are both omnivorous baseball card accumulators themselves, while also being exceptionally generous with me and with (I'm sure) anyone else they're trading with as well.

This week each gentleman sent me some 1965 and 1967 Topps that had been on my want list, in addition to others that I thought I'd put on display here. Seriously, every time a 1960s card arrives in the mail, my eyes water a little. They're just so - you know - vintage. A large percentage of the men featured on them are no longer living. More simple times; a more simple game (for better or for worse); the Kansas City Athletics and Washington Senators existed; and - in the back half of the decade - the New York Yankees were actually bad!

Here's Mike McCormick's 1967 Topps card. Says he's about to start the season for the Senators - but au contraire! He came over to the San Francisco Giants that year, went 22-10 with a 2.85 ERA and won the NL Cy Young Award. How about that? Here are a few more of the vintage cards that Dave sent me:

Now - the "faux vintage" talked about in the headline are these gems, which I'm totally excited to add to the collection. They're from a 2003 Upper Deck series, designed to mimic 1965 Topps baseball:

Speaking of 1965 Topps baseball, Ken - who's sent me a good percentage of the '65 cards I actually own! - sent me these ringers, among other things:

Finally, Dave sent me something not at all in keeping with the tone and tenor of this post, but which I'm super psyched to have - an autographed Scott Garrelts '91 Score card...! Garrelts was a solid innings-eater (and sometime reliever) for the team, though 1991 ended up being the final year of his career. Thanks as always for trades, fellas - and hey, you all have a good summer weekend out there, ya hear?

Pablo Sandoval as a Red Sock

Recently I decided to get off my duff and really up my game when it came to my Pablo Sandoval player collection. I may never collect all 2,343 of the unique cards of this man, but I reckon that I'll do my best to at least grab everything I can that's grabable, within reason.

I started my first binder for a player, and organized all my Sandoval cards by year. That was fun, and it didn't take as long as I thought it would - less than an hour - but I did need a magnifying glass in order to differentiate between a 2013 and a 2014 and so on. So now my strategy is to work backward from 2021, and go by year to buy any and all cards of Sandoval's by year that I can find - and that aren't 1/1s and selling for $375/each on eBay. 

2021 was easy - there's one card, and it's one that I talked about in Monday's post. 2018-2019 was pretty easy too. Sandoval was a role player for the Giants, and one that some thought might be somewhat washed up. I then went big on 2015, 2016 and 2017 - the years Sandoval toiled for the Boston Red Sox, in a contract that is thought to be one of the worst in Sox history. He was basically injured all of 2016, and played poorly in 2015 and 2017, so much so he was mercifully released back to the Giants during 2017 - where he started thriving again, albeit in a lesser role.

As you might have gathered, dude is my favorite baseball player of the 21st century. If you've seen him play - especially as a Giants - you know why. Here are some cards that represent the lean years of the man's career, all recent acquisitions of mine.

What The CardBarrel Order Dragged In

Another week, another "impromptu" order from CardBarrel over here at Card Hemorrhage. Oh, there are new cards out from Bowman, Panini, Donruss et al? Next thing I know I've rung up $25+ in cards - in order to get the free shipping, of course - and then they arrive a week later and I'm like, oh yeah. I did order that.

This post is designed to document my most recent of CardBarrel excursions. To your left you'll find card #TN-2 from 2021 Topps Heritage. This is a set I am actually attempting to collect in full, and you know - except for those short-print higher numbers, I'm doing OK on it so far. I'd be delighted to take your doubles off your hands, as long as they're cards I don't already have, and send you something in return. 

And hey, how about these "Artist's Palette" inserts from 2021 Panini? I picked out the two guys I needed from this mini-set and I'm pretty happy w/ how they're looking:

The card from this order that I'm most excited about by far is a 2021 Pablo Sandoval. I wasn't sure if I'd ever see another new card of his again, and it's his first Atlanta Braves card - though if you look at the relic itself, it's almost certainly a San Francisco Giants uniform they've stuffed in there, right? Is that orange I'm seeing?

I'm a little confused about these two Bowman cards here. Are they inserts from the main Bowman 2021 set? I can't remember. I was just clickin' and buyin'. 

Finally, here are two familiar fellas, this time on their main 2021 Panini cards. That's what I've got. Until next time!

Check Out These 2021 Bowman Chromes

As promised in yesterday's post, I'm now sharing the handful of 2021 Bowman Chrome cards that I picked up. Unlike most of the Chromes in my collection, these scan beautifully. For once, they look as nice in these scans as they do in real life.

Again, I only really picked up my guys this time. There are two cards from an insert set called "Rookie of the Year Favorites", and the two cards I got are dudes who aren't even in the majors yet this year, as of June. I do not think Joey Bart in particular will be winning NL Rookie of the Year, but Jo Adell? Who knows what he'll do in the AL if they ever actually call the man up.

You'll also see two inserts from "Bowman Scouts Top 100 prospects", along with a few regular Chrome cards, which, as I mentioned, look pretty phenomenal. Oh, and check out my SF Giants 2021 Bowman "Talent Pipeline" Chrome card (#TP-SFG), which highlights three ringers currently in the minors who may be raking and blazing at a major league ballpark near you one of these days.

The New 2021 Bowmans

I was able to cherry-pick the cards I wanted out of the newly-released 2021 Bowmans the other day, and thought I might share a few of them with you here today. I was able to get the guys in my personal collections, both in regular and Chrome versions, along with a few others I thought I might wanna have around. Today we'll look at the regulars, and I'll scan some Chromes so we can look at them together at some time in the near future.

Let us start with the hallowed Wander Franco, he of the Tampa Bay Rays organization and the purported #1 prospect in all of baseball. I believe this player has caused an awful lot of money to change hands amongst card collectors and speculators that past several years. He has yet to play a minute of baseball in the big leagues. Knowing the Rays organization, he's bound to be fantastic. 

Note that all of the 2021 Bowman prospect cards are in their own set, numbered BP-xx, and say "prospect" along the top and the bottom. The regular Bowman series is numbered numerically, and each card says either "Rookie" or "Veteran" along the top and bottom. Weird to see Shohei Otani labeled as a veteran, as I feel we're really just getting to know him, but I suppose it's technically correct. 

I was able to get my PC guys, some Giants prospects, and a few others just for fun. Here's what they look like.

An LCS Repack - Miles Better Than a Walgreens Repack

So last post we talked about a 'lil visit I had to Lefty's Sports Cards last week. I'd kind of ignored their custom repacks the other times I'd been there, having not looked at what they were selling them for, and assuming they'd probably be all the 80s and 90s junk wax stuff I can't stand.

Well pardon me! Here's what they did. Yes, their 25-card custom repacks are stacked with '87 Donruss and '90 Topps and '92 Upper Deck and whatnot. Between 15-20 cards in each of the THIRTY-THREE PACKS that I bought were like this. Jay, you're saying - "Jay, why did you buy 33 packs of cards?". Because it was $15 for 30 packs! And because the packs were wrapped in clear plastic, you could easily see 2 cards - the "front" and the "back" card - in each.

My feeling was, if those 2 cards are worth 50 cents to me, and/or can easily be traded to folks who might like 'em, then let's go for it. Sure - of those 825 new cards I got, 700 of them are now in a special "give it to the Goodwill" box. But among the other 125 there were some corkers that I'd like to share with you now.

Well, there's 1992 Mother's Cookies Dennis Eckersley, for one. There's no shortage of Mother's Cookies cards hanging around the SF Bay Area card shops, and this was one of several Oakland A's fellas I got in these packs.

I'm always up for new cards in those late 80s/early 90s "Baseball Legends" sets that Pacific put out. I'm trying to collect the 1990 set they did, but they're all great - as is this Johnny Bench card-on-card from K-Mart's 44-card set from 1982.

Hey, speaking of cards on cards, here are three from those late 80s Topps "Turn Back The Clock" sets that were part of their flagship. 

Two players I happen to be a big fan of - Tim Salmon and Paul Goldschmidt, the latter of whom I think I may slowly becoming a collector of. This is a 2016 "Topps Update Team Franklin" card, #TF-5.

Three legends. Of course I dig the Lance Berkman the most - it's a 1999 "Team Best" minor league card from when he played for the New Orleans Zephyrs. 

I am NOT familiar with the 1992 Ziploc series of cards, but once I saw this Rollie Fingers card, I knew I needed to be. The other two are just cool quote-unquote vintage cards that I knew I needed....the 1977 Bert Blyleven was certainly a card I had when I was a kid.

Not much to say about these 3 rows here, except that they're keepers.

A 1988 Sportflics card! You kind of get the two 3-D Don Mattingly photos blurred together in my scan here. The Ichiro card is kind of a trip because it definitely has a Willie-Mays-in-1973 vibe to it. All-time Top 10 favorite player of mine.

Finally, these guys. That's 825 cards, about 35 absolute keepers, 90 or so excellent cards to trade, and another 700 or so to give to a good cause or to a young child who'll be excited about junk wax, all for $16.50. What's not to like?