General All Purpose Baseball Card Thread

[Benjamin Grimm]

Sometimes I have more success going to google, then entering cranepoolforum.net: "search term"

I do that too. This method also allows you to get results from the online archives.



Anyway, here's the 1972 Staub that I reconstructed using the photo that Mets Guy in Michigan uncovered as the one that was intended for the actual card that year:

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Sometimes I have more success going to google, then entering cranepoolforum.net: "search term" I do that too. This method also allows you to get results from the online archives. Anyway, here's the 1972 Staub that I reconstructed using the photo that Mets Guy in Michigan uncovered as the one that was intended for the actual card that year:

Loved that bit of detective work!

I picked up some of those Panini sticker cards today. Awful.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Sometimes I have more success going to google, then entering cranepoolforum.net: "search term" I do that too. This method also allows you to get results from the online archives. Anyway, here's the 1972 Staub that I reconstructed using the photo that Mets Guy in Michigan uncovered as the one that was intended for the actual card that year:

Grimm's card smacks of realism. I like that. Here's the thread, no thanks to the furshlugginer forum search engine.

[Edgy MD]

Bumped for merger.

[G-Fafif]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: so many fans/collectors happen to think that the best baseball card set is the one that they first collected.

Favorite card series:

The first ones I ever handled (1967); the first ones I ever bought (1970); and the first two I ever completed in more or less real time (1974, 1975). And maybe the first one from which a Willie Mays tumbled (1972).

But, I'm sure it's just coincidental.

[ashie62]

[Benjamin Grimm]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: so many fans/collectors happen to think that the best baseball card set is the one that they first collected.

Absolutely. For me it's 1971 and 1972. I remember when the 1970 cards were derisively dismissed as "last year's cards" and, therefore, worthless. The 1973 cards still have some magic for me, but from 1974 on the cards mean a lot less to me. I stuck with collecting through the 1980's, largely out of habit. I think that the last time I bought a baseball card was in 1990 or 1991.

[G-Fafif]

Every year I track down a few packs of cards for the hell of it. Most years I marvel at the quality and design. Then I forget what they look like, mostly, no offense to those cards. Your prime card years are your prime card years, however.

[seawolf17]

G-Fafif wrote: Every year I track down a few packs of cards for the hell of it. Most years I marvel at the quality and design. Then I forget what they look like, mostly, no offense to those cards. Your prime card years are your prime card years, however.

That was how I started to get back into it about eight or nine years ago, but then once I started going down that rabbit hole...

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Just tonight we opened a "double-pack" Lunchpail got for his birthday. Was reminded they now sequence cards by uni number -- just the latest troubling development in the longterm sports trend toward marketing stars above teams -- but shocked that in a pack including both Lucas Duda and Allen Craig, Duda's card is #21 and Craig's is #321.

[G-Fafif]

The 0's and 5's don't mean what they used to mean, reports Stuart Miller, writing for ye olde Times.

Card Company Changes Numbering System Collectors Counted On By STUART MILLER When Cee Angi was young, a neighborhood bully forced her to trade her 1992 Topps Dave Winfield card for a David Segui. The bully did not know much about baseball, but he knew that the number Topps had assigned to the back of Winfield�s card, 5, made it more valuable than Segui�s, which was 477. But this season, Topps tossed its idiosyncratic formula for assigning numbers to the players� baseball cards, and some traditionalists are dismayed. �It�s unnerving,� said Angi, now an SB Nation columnist. �It�s an unnecessary change.� �The problem with the lack of consistency isn�t just that it rocks the boat of nostalgia,� she wrote recently, �but it eliminates a common language that existed from year to year.� Joe Posnanski, a national columnist for NBCSports.com, said, �I don�t like it at all. � He added, �Baseball exists on a continuum more than other sports, and Topps is part of that.� As far back as the mid-1950s, a few years after Topps began producing baseball cards, upper-echelon players were distinguished by card numbers ending in two zeros, like 100, 200 or 300. The next best would be identified by numbers ending in a single zero, with 50, 150 or 450 held in more esteem than 160 or 440. The level below them had numbers that ended in 5; multiples of 25 were the best in this bunch. Starting around 1990, the best player would often be No. 1. Everyone else seemed to be assigned a number randomly, at least at first. For instance, in 1967, before Tom Seaver�s rookie year, he was No. 581. In 1969, after two straight 16-win seasons, Seaver was promoted to 480. That year, �00� honors went to Hank Aaron, Bob Gibson, Felipe Alou, Don Drysdale, Mickey Mantle (probably a farewell gesture because he had just retired) and Tony Oliva. But after winning 25 games, a Cy Young Award and a World Series with the Mets, Seaver was No. 300 in the 1970 set. Last year�s No. 1 was Ryan Braun, and the �00� cards were Jose Bautista, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez and Clayton Kershaw. This year, however, Kershaw is No. 22. That is not intended as an insult but as an honor in Topps�s new system. Kershaw�s uniform is No. 22, and players who wear the same number were bumped elsewhere. Stars of a slightly lower caliber like Andrew McCutchen and Jason Heyward received Nos. 122 and 222. Similarly, Derek Jeter is No. 2, while Denard Span is No. 102 and Zack Cozart is No. 202. Joey Votto�s card bears his jersey number, 19, as does Justin Verlander�s, 35. The new cards have more oddities, like the No. 322 assigned to Alex Gonzalez, who wore No. 11 last year, most of which he spent on the disabled list. Topps has maintained the tradition of never acknowledging that it uses a formula for assigning card numbers. One marketing executive would not discuss the topic, and another did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.The Topps numbering system was never exact, especially because the decisions were made not by general managers but by card makers. But the patterns were clear enough that fans could evaluate a player�s worth based on his card number. Some scholars found evidence of racism in Topps�s early decisions. Robert M. Regoli, Eric Primm and John D. Hewitt published an article in 2007 in The Social Science Journal that revealed that white players had received �preferential placement� until the mid-1960s, the civil rights movement took hold and black players started receiving their due. Posnanski recently undertook a study on Joe Blogs, his personal Web site, creating a points formula to determine to whom Topps had assigned the best numbers during their careers. His top 10 left no doubt that although this system was imperfect and inconsistent, it was in place for decades. Those 10 players were Reggie Jackson, Alex Rodriguez, Willie Mays, George Brett, Rod Carew, Aaron and Barry Bonds (tie), Mantle, Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose. Card collectors loved knowing there was order in their world. R. Lincoln Harris, who writes the Blue Batting Helmet blog, said, �The first thing I�d do when I was looking for good players was look for the double zero.� Angi said her father would separate her �00� cards � the Cal Ripkens and Don Mattinglys � to protect them. But not everyone seems to mind the changes. �I don�t get the concern,� said Josh Wilker, the author of �Cardboard Gods.� He added that his 18-month-old son dumped most of his cards on the floor and that he usually grabbed a few and read the backs. �I like the new ones. They�re fun.� Posnanski acknowledged that �the cards are much better than they used to be.� But he dismissed inserts like autographs as gimmicks and said that Topps had underestimated how much fans, as opposed to investment-oriented collectors, cared about tradition. The Topps strategy seems contradictory, Harris said, because it is tapping into fans� nostalgia by putting current players on 1972-style cards this year while altering the numbering system. Topps veered from tradition at various points in the past two decades but then returned . That gives Posnanski hope for the future. �Maybe next year, they�ll just bring the old way back,� he said.

[batmagadanleadoff]

The value of beat-up baseball cards
By Doug Williams | ESPN.com

As he sits in a noisy coffee shop in San Diego, Anthony Tarantino is shuffling through a stack of baseball cards and selecting a few for show-and-tell. One is a 1962 Topps of Duke Snider wearing the interlocking �LA� of the Dodgers on his blue cap -- but with a blue-ink speech bubble drawn from his mouth and the words �I am a Met� (which he was in 1963). On a 1954 Topps, Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto has a blue-pen mustache scribbled onto his lip and a scratch that�s eliminated most of the �zzuto� in Rizzuto. Tarantino also has a 1940 Goose Goslin with half his head missing, a 1952 Eddie Stanky with his eyes and mouth erased (replaced by cartoonish features) and a 1957 card of journeyman outfielder Lou Skizas that�s ripped into three pieces and still has remnants of the tape that held it together. �And here�s my favorite,� he says, holding out a 1968 Mickey Mantle. The Mick is in his left-handed stance and peering through hand-drawn glasses while sporting a full blue-ink beard and smoking a pipe. �All he�s missing is a smoking jacket,� says Tarantino, laughing. Give him your tired, your poor and your huddled masses of torn, folded, defaced, water-damaged, burned and faded baseball cards, because Tarantino -- a lifelong baseball fan and collector -- has found treasure in everyone else�s trash cards. He�s one of a minority in the hobby who is interested in collecting poor-condition cards that have limited or diminished cash value but are rich in character. Since 2008, he has been posting stories about his finds on his blog, Poor Old Baseball Cards. �When condition doesn�t matter,� reads the message on the front page of the site. �This blog is dedicated to all those baseball cards that have been put through the wringer. It�s not always about that perfect Gem-Mint 10 � Is it?� Cards with 'character' Tarantino isn�t alone in his quest for the worst cards, sometimes called �beaters.� There are other blogs that celebrate the trashed. One, called Things Done to Cards, celebrates �all the different things that can be done to cards, good and bad.� Lyman Hardeman of Austin, Texas, the editor of Old Cardboard magazine, has a few in his collection but doesn�t specialize in them and has met just a few collectors who do. �They make interesting cards,� he says. �There�s not a lot of collectors that collect those, but most collectors have a few in their stack somewhere.� Mark Macrae, a well-known collector and dealer in Castro Valley, Calif., says he�s met many who seek out poor cards, mostly for the nostalgic value. �They have character,� he says. �It�s not exactly what you�d call investment character, but it�s something you can have fun with.� Specialty collections like Tarantino�s, he says, are done for passion rather than investment, similar to the barber he knew in Arizona who collected cards of players with facial hair. Like everyone else, Tarantino, a page designer at the San Diego Union-Tribune, started out collecting new cards and has many thousands. As he got older, he became intrigued by vintage cards because of their history -- but couldn�t afford to spend wads of cash on high-grade items. Now, among his approximately 1,000 prized poor cards, he has ancient ones of Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Johnny Evers and Dan Brouthers that not only didn�t cost several paychecks but have quirks -- like the pinhole right above Cobb�s head that shows it was once someone�s prize on a wall. The Evers, once owned by a man in Mississippi, has water damage from Hurricane Katrina. His 1952 Topps rookie card of Willie Mays has two creases across the face; a 1920 card of Ruth as a Yankees pitcher is missing three corners. To Tarantino, the cards not only tell stories of the players but also of the owners. �Why would somebody draw a mustache on Phil Rizzuto?� he asks. Now every card he seeks must be in poor condition. �I have this quest in my head to get the worst baseball card in the world,� he says. �I�m just looking for the card I can never find.� So far, that label goes to his 1909 T206 card of Red Sox infielder Heinie Wagner, acquired on eBay for 1 cent. It�s brittle, torn, faded and creased. He loves it. �It�s absolutely horrendous,� Tarantino says.

http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom/post/_/id/21560/the-value-of-beat-up-baseball-cards

[seawolf17]

Topps' 2013 Archives set hits in the next two weeks. Using the 1972, 1982, 1985, and 1990 designs, plus a bunch of old-style inserts. Big news for my collection: Kevin McReynolds is in the set! Thrilled.

Lots of Mets on the autograph list:
FFA-GJ Gregg Jefferies, New York Mets
FFA-HJ Howard Johnson, New York Mets
FFA-JO Jesse Orosco, New York Mets
FFA-KM Kevin McReynolds, New York Mets
FFA-KMI Keith Miller, New York Mets
FFA-MW Mookie Wilson, New York Mets
FFA-RD Ron Darling, New York Mets
FFA-SF Sid Fernandez, New York Mets

Other (likely) Metly content: (looks like there aren't any Mets in the 1985 design)
1972: 2 Gary Carter, 34 Dwight Gooden
1982: 78 Johan Santana, 82 Tom Seaver, 97 David Wright
1990: 174 Ike Davis
All-Time Fan Favorites: 208 Keith Miller, 217 Mookie Wilson, 222 Howard Johnson, 231 Kevin McReynolds, 235 Gregg Jefferies, 236 Jesse Orosco, 237 Sid Fernandez

[seawolf17]

No McReynolds in my packs today, but got these.

[metsmarathon]

i really like that '82 design.

[Benjamin Grimm]

These 1972 cards they're doing are not in the spirit of the original. They should only include posed shots. Anything not posed for a photographer should be on an IN ACTION card.

[Edgy MD]

Those weak colors in the design on the 82 cards, though. Bleh. Give me the eye-popping colors that look like it come off of an MLB uniform. Not some faded blue and pale pink from an old beer coaster.

Wright deserves better.

[Edgy MD]

Thems are colors that punch me in the nose. No minor league hockey nonsense.

[seawolf17]

Right, but those were the actual 82 Topps Mets colors.



Just won a box of this on the Beckett Media live YouTube feed, by the way. Box included a Ron Darling autographed card. BAZINGA

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, but, how bleh. It's a faded PBR coaster. The kind that looks back up at you and tells you, "You've been looking at me too long, and it's time you did something with your life."

[seawolf17]

An analysis of Topps' work on the Mets:

http://nightowlcards.blogspot.com/2012/05/team-colors-mets.html

You can add "orange" for 2013, making it a tie with blue.

[Benjamin Grimm]

1971: orange and light blue 1972: red, orange and yellow 1974: orange and blue 1976: light blue and gold 1977: light blue and orange 1978: yellow and light blue 1979: brown and yellow

He missed 1973: dark pink and black

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

the 73s were the same for all teams though: The color that year was the position background.

[Benjamin Grimm]

No, the player name and team name differed by team.

The Mets had the player name in pink and the team name in black. Other teams had different colors.



The Dodgers were pink and blue. The Cubs were red and blue. The Yankees were indigo and black.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Whoa, I never knew that. When we flipped cards that year the dominant color was the positional background.

[Benjamin Grimm]

We played it the same way in my neighborhood too. The circles around the position were more obvious, but there were specific colors assigned to each team.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Who am I?

Ah, spring training, when a young man�s fancy turns to thoughts of a great season to come. The team has provided you with new dress whites, a fresh stiff-brimmed cap, sharp blue spats� the works. Maybe you�ll hold on to your grungy nondenominational batting glove, which saw you through the previous season in good stead� And hey, here comes the Topps photographer. He wants to take your picture for an upcoming set. Suggests a few standard poses, among them this follow-through swing. He doesn�t worry much about shooting too wide� the production department can crop out the milling onlookers/players in the background when the time comes. But alas, sometimes the promise of spring is nothing more than a promise, and circumstances conspire in such a way that this photo is not used on a Topps card. In fact, as fate will have it, you�ll never appear on a real Topps card in your Mets uniform. And all that remains now are color negatives like this one from that long-ago March afternoon. Leaving a random blogger years later to pose a contest question: Who are you, long-maned Met from days gone by?

First person to leave the correct answer in the comments section below by Wednesday, March 6 wins a 1972 Topps Ed Kranepool card, graded PSA 7.

[Edgy MD]

My first guess is my cousin Jeffy from Babylon.

[seawolf17]

[batmagadanleadoff]

Check out the big brain on Brian! It is indeed Jack Heidemann. Heidemann came to the Mets from the Cardinals in December of 1974 along with the Mike Vail, in exchange for Teddy Martinez. Vail had an outstanding season in �75, setting what was then an MLB rookie record with a 23-game hitting streak, and finishing with a .302 average. Heidemann served as a utility player on the �75 team, hitting .214 in limited use. Heidemann appeared on a 1975 Topps card as a member of the Cardinals, but Topps decided not to include him in the 1976 set. (This picture was taken during spring training of 1976.) He then appeared on his final Topps card in the 1977 set, where he was pictured as a member of the Brewers. Heidemann appeared on 5 different Topps cards over the course of his career (1971-1973, 1975, and 1977), but was never pictured as a Met�

http://mets360.com/?p=15103