When Cellophane Was King

Aloha, everybody, 

Here are some more goodies from my big box o' prizes that I scored from the Big Fun Game. Let's rip some packs (and a box)!

This was the first Victory pack I ripped. I was surprised to find said Victory cards and Upper Deck Choice cards in the same pack. Was that a usual thing? 

I'll bet it wasn;t usual to pull a Dodger from each of the brands...

The rack pack gave up a few cool cards. I don't remember Omar Vizquel playing for the Mariners. 

It's a couple more Dodgers! 

These packs are great for old school unis. From Score...

Yowza! Mike Scioscia in a rare batting photo...

Finally, a mixed batch from the 1987 Fleer League Leaders set. Check out Goose with the Roy Krok sleeve patch, Brett and Schmidtty in baby blue, and keeping my Dodgers streak alive, Bob Welch in the photo Fleer didn't even bother to center correctly. 

More cool packs and cards and stuff to come from my big prize box soon. 

Aloha! 

Bet You Don't Have One of These...or One of These...or These

Aloha, everybody, 

Last week I ran the Lucky 13 Game. Thanks to those who participated, from the first try at joining the 13, and to those who played along to the end. 

I hit the post office today with the first load of packages and a box. Keep your eyes open out there for your prizes. There are just a couple remaining that need to be packaged up and sent out. 

As I mentioned when I started the game, I was influenced by a couple of games before mine. The first being run by the Big Daddy of Traders, JayBarkerFan, my friend and brother, Wes. 

As if to underline the fact he's the Big Daddy, Wes announced today the World Cup of Trading, coming soon to his blog, Willinghammer Rising. 

But I digress....I won a big box o' fun in Wes' Big Fun Game, and as promised, I'm here to show off some more of the loot from my prize. Have you got one of these...

I've got autographed balls from Tommy Lasorda, Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, and a couple of others, but this ball is going to take its place right alongside those storied names. JBF is just as much a legend in our community, and this was the favorite thing to come out of that box. 

That said, there was a whole lotta other stuff (here's the link to the first peek at that big box). Have a gander at this...

Inside was a couple of brand new vintage boxes of 1986 Topps Baseball Champion Superstars - with gum! 

The cards are slightly curved after sitting for 30 years in the boxes, but once freed, you can see they are pristine and glossy. Mint and surprisingly beautiful. 

Pete Rose is wearing the same face he probabbly made when the Hall of Fame turned down his petition to be on the ballot this year. How about The Kid flashing his Million Dollar Smile?

Check out Madlock as a Dodger, and Reggie as an Angel. 

Classic Scmidtty, Mattingly wearing the same blank look he had as the Dodgers manager, and the gum! Even that's in mint condition. This is a very cool box of cards. 

I have two boxes, so check out the checklist, and maybe someone out there wants to trade for the other box. 

I'll be showing off more goodies from this big box prize as the days go by. 

Aloha! 

Let's See Some Vintage From the Card Show

Aloha, everybody, 

I wanted to go to the card show today...but alas...things didn't work out. So let's do the next best thing and check out some cards that I got on my last trip there. 

Everybody knows, I love my Dodgers, but this here's the greatest catcher ever...

Here's a new addition for my World Series subsets. I have Games 4, 5, and 6 from this set...

Fleer is a bit of a junk product, but they put together some great combo cards...

Now let's get really vintage...

Maybe fear struck out, but my card searching on that day didn't. Every collection of baseball's legends has gotta have this guy...

You better have one of his cards too...

Did I find any Dodgers? You betcha. Slightly miscut, but I'll take it. A bargain for a quarter in the overpriced LA card market...

More heroes from the Windy City...(all of these are available for trade remember)...

How about some Curt Flood? The Hall of Fame won't let him in...but my collection sure will...

You probably already have about five of this one, right, Mark? 
I love those stadium archways in the background. 

We'll finish off with a cool LA Angels card from 1961 Topps. 

I LOVE vintage! Aloha! 

When There's No Topps Heritage In Stock, You Buy This...

Aloha, everybody,

Last week I saw 2016 Heritage popping up around the blogosphere, so I popped over to Target to get my share of the new cardboard. 

While my local store is usually right on time with stocking the latest product, there was no Heritage to be found, so I was left with a choice - buy more 2016 Topps, or take a chance on something like this...

They had me at 1:4 boxes contain a hit. That sure is better odds than I'm getting with the smoke set from Topps. Besides, the worst that would happen is I'll find one Dodger and I'll gain 99 more cards to replenish all of your trade stacks. With a repack we all win! It was settled. 

The card box also included one pack...

1992 Score. The back of the pack says the big pull from this one will be a Todd Van Poppel rookie insert. Somebody wondered the other day if anybody remembers when Van Poppel was big in the hobby. Here's a pack from those days. I went right into ripping this one. How did I do? 

The Van Poppel still eludes me. On to the rest of the repack, which might still contain a hit!

I got one World Series hero. Fleer took what could have been a simple, but decent enough card, and blew it with that Rocky and Bullwinkle curtain. I suppose it was also too much trouble to add Frank Viola's name.
 

I got some scrubs. Ol' Donny looks pretty much surprised that he actually hit the ball. 
 

I caught this very attractive purple shiny one. Is that Mount Fuji in the background? 

 I did catch a player that I collect - and on a DK that I didn't yet have! 

  More scrubs. 

And a past Cubbie...

Is that a portrait of Dunston on his sweatband? Did all of the Cubs have their portraits on their arms? 

I even pulled a Dodgers scrub...

Here's Landreaux in a familiar pose - checking how high his pop up is headed. 

Did I mention yet this repack was obviously meant to be shipped to the bay area? It was FULL of Giants.

 Lincecum is on the downside of his career now. It seems the Padres are taking a hard look at him. Part of me is hoping the Dodgers will lock him up cheaply - just to keep him out of the rotations of our division rivals, and he may have some gas left in the tank. 

I saw him pitch up at Toy Car Stadium in Frisco back in 2013. It was one of the best pitching performances I've seen in person. He struck out 18 Cubs that afternoon. The happy ending was the Giants offense couldn't score and the Giants still lost the game.

I got a nice minor leaguer card. 

And not one, but two of the same checklist...

How about this Braun card...
 

I could swear my grandmother had a portrait on her wall of Jesus with the exact, same eyes. 

I pulled another Ramon Martinez card (again, new for me)...

And you can never go wrong with Michael Jack Schmidt...
 

 These All-Star cards seem to always be found in these repacks, but thats ok, because it's Schmiddy. 

 Oh...did we beat the odds and pull a hit?  

You bet we did - but it's a hit with a grain of salt. 

It seems the kid has a lot of potential, but he's struggled in showing concrete results. The Blue Jays are moving him from a starting pitcher to the bullpen, so we'll see what happens with that. 

On the bright side for Cardona, he's young, so there's time for everything to work out.

The bright side for us is I pulled 2 new Ramon Martinez cards for me and 98 for all of you. 

Aloha! 

Grand Salami Of Trade Bait: Fistful of Philidelphia Phillies

Hey everybody,

Here come the fightin' Phillies...

Did somebody order up some grit?

Did somebody order up some glitter?

All-Star Rookie Cup

How about Kruky VS Gibby !

Did somebody order up some PEDs?

Did somebody order up some swag?

Anybody order vintage?

Thanks for stopping by!