I'm excited to announce that I'll be going ahead with an idea I've been kicking around for a few months, adding a regular podcast to this blog. I've been listening to a few good non-card podcasts, and I've gotten a sense of what can make one great.
The format will be called "Card Wars." I will act as moderator/umpire/judge for the duration of the podcast, a "nine-inning" contest pitting two collectors and their cards against each other. For each inning of the contest, the competitors will need to select a card for battle according to criteria which I will establish before the event. For example, the first inning of a contest might be "1981 Donruss." Each competitor will then have to select a card from the set, which they will then tout against their opponent. Over the course of each clash, I will keep score and determine a winner. The criteria determining which cards beat other cards will be completely up to the whims of the judge, and each victor will be invited to return to defend his or her title on the following podcast.
Here's where you, dear readers, can participate. I'm fairly sure I have the first competitor locked up, but I'm appealing to the masses for a challenger. If this sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, leave a comment expressing such a desire. Consider this the essay portion of your application, but please limit it to 100 words or less. And make sure I have some way to get ahold of you, should you be selected.
Participants in the podcast must have a working Skype account (audio only), a card collection sizable enough to satisfy most reasonable requests, and the ability to send me scans (or photographs) of cards. I'm aiming for a weekend night to produce this, probably in the area of February 10-12 somewhere. I will contact the commenter of my choice, but don't get sad if you don't hear from me this first time... there will be plenty of opportunities to take part.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Cards in Cinema: 50/50 Edition
On Saturday night, the wife and I had what married couples refer to as a "date." Frozen pizza, a diaper change, and a trip to the Redbox were all on the agenda. Movie snobs such as myself like to turn their noses up at the old Box of Red, citing the fact that you can rarely secure a movie that's been out longer than a month, but I've actually gotten around to liking the concept. I won't go too far into the pluses and minuses, but it's hard to argue with spending a dollar on a night's entertainment.
A word to the wise: If there's a film you want to see, reserve it first on your computer or smartphone. After a couple of failed trips early on in the process, that's what we did in order to secure 50/50, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Seth Rogen cancer dramedy. Really good movie, if you're wondering, but appearing in this post for reasons other than quality. In the past, baseball cards have shown up in some of the least likely places. The Parks and Recreation episode from earlier this season turned into a fun mystery to solve, and Iron Fucking Eagle had a few cards show up as well. I also remember the obvious "need 'em, need 'em, got 'em" pack ripping scene form Big, and Kevin's destruction of Buzz's room in Home Alone turned up a few pieces of cardboard. 50/50, however, is about as unlikely a place as you'll ever find the hobby, yet there they were, in the cubicle of a Seattle Public Radio office.
Early on in the movie, we see the two leads carpooling to their public radio jobs. It's then that we see the cards immortalized on celluloid. (Well, probably not celluloid per se, but you know what I mean.) Initially, we can see a very obvious 1990 Fleer Seattle Mariners sticker. I thought he was younger, but JG-L is actually 30 years old, so his character might have come of collecting age right when that insanely overproduced set was released. There's also, presumably, another Mariners card next to it, but the focus is not deep enough to immediately ascertain its identity. More on that later.
A few shots later, we can see sitting atop some file cases and near some framed photographs is another 1990 Fleer sticker, this time inexplicably encased in some sort of clear lucite display stand. At the top of this guy's cancer bucket list there's got to be a submission to PSA somewhere. Two of the same card on one desk... there's gotta be a backstory on that one.
And now back to that other player card. To my eye, I immediately got the impression of 1991 Upper Deck. It's got a white border, and the photo has a cutout in the upper left corner that makes room for a logo. The green stripe that runs down the left side of '91 UD isn't readily apparent, but could have been swallowed up a bit in the lack of focus.
So, after convincing myself that this was the set, I went to eBay to see enter some names of Mariners that would have appeared on a 1991 UD card. After a few misses, I totally nailed it. That's a 1991 Upper Deck card of Omar Vizquel, #593 in the set.
Omar really wasn't much of a threat during his early years on the Mariners, but perhaps he was a fan favorite to this character. In any case, I'm pretty proud of my detective work. In the meantime, I'll remain on the lookout for Cards in Cinema, and I'll report back to you when one is found.
A word to the wise: If there's a film you want to see, reserve it first on your computer or smartphone. After a couple of failed trips early on in the process, that's what we did in order to secure 50/50, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Seth Rogen cancer dramedy. Really good movie, if you're wondering, but appearing in this post for reasons other than quality. In the past, baseball cards have shown up in some of the least likely places. The Parks and Recreation episode from earlier this season turned into a fun mystery to solve, and Iron Fucking Eagle had a few cards show up as well. I also remember the obvious "need 'em, need 'em, got 'em" pack ripping scene form Big, and Kevin's destruction of Buzz's room in Home Alone turned up a few pieces of cardboard. 50/50, however, is about as unlikely a place as you'll ever find the hobby, yet there they were, in the cubicle of a Seattle Public Radio office.
Early on in the movie, we see the two leads carpooling to their public radio jobs. It's then that we see the cards immortalized on celluloid. (Well, probably not celluloid per se, but you know what I mean.) Initially, we can see a very obvious 1990 Fleer Seattle Mariners sticker. I thought he was younger, but JG-L is actually 30 years old, so his character might have come of collecting age right when that insanely overproduced set was released. There's also, presumably, another Mariners card next to it, but the focus is not deep enough to immediately ascertain its identity. More on that later.
A few shots later, we can see sitting atop some file cases and near some framed photographs is another 1990 Fleer sticker, this time inexplicably encased in some sort of clear lucite display stand. At the top of this guy's cancer bucket list there's got to be a submission to PSA somewhere. Two of the same card on one desk... there's gotta be a backstory on that one.
And now back to that other player card. To my eye, I immediately got the impression of 1991 Upper Deck. It's got a white border, and the photo has a cutout in the upper left corner that makes room for a logo. The green stripe that runs down the left side of '91 UD isn't readily apparent, but could have been swallowed up a bit in the lack of focus.
So, after convincing myself that this was the set, I went to eBay to see enter some names of Mariners that would have appeared on a 1991 UD card. After a few misses, I totally nailed it. That's a 1991 Upper Deck card of Omar Vizquel, #593 in the set.
Omar really wasn't much of a threat during his early years on the Mariners, but perhaps he was a fan favorite to this character. In any case, I'm pretty proud of my detective work. In the meantime, I'll remain on the lookout for Cards in Cinema, and I'll report back to you when one is found.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Get on the Bus
Back in May, I wrote about my completed quest to finish off all of the insert sets within the 1994 Fleer Football set. At least, I thought I had completed it.
Fast forward to this past October, when I get an email from a reader who is trying to complete the same set with her young son. She stumbled across the blog looking for some of the cards they were still missing, and informed me that it looked like my Jerome Bettis Rookie of the Year set was a few cards short of completion. I never responded, but I did get an "Awwww, crap" feeling. I thought I was done. It was like that one time when I was a week or two from graduating from college and I got a letter that I had been taking the wrong coursework for my academic minor. That fiasco took a sweetly worded letter to the dean to avoid being a sixth-year senior. This time, I just shelved the idea of chasing the Jerome Bettis cards #13 through 15. They would have been easy enough to find, yet having already declared victory over this set, it just wouldn't have felt the same.
Fast forward a few more months. I'm cleaning up a few card-related items scattered across the house, and I find a couple of loose Ultra Pro sheets with cards in them. At the top of one of them, I see the motherlode. Jerome Bettis inserts #13, 14, and 15.
Hells to the yizzy, I had the complete set all along! I was wondering what was up, since I could have sworn there were only 12 cards in the set. Resourcefully, I went to the checklist, the 480th and final base card in the set. As you can see plainly in black and green: 12 CARD JEROME BETTIS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR" SERIES
Okay, my mind wasn't playing tricks on me after all. I'm accessing the farthest reaches of the memory banks here, but I have an inkling that the final three cards were available as a wrapper redemption. A story like this checks out, as my mom was one of those people who was forever getting free shit in the mail with proofs of purchase and cash register receipts and shit like that. I was the kind of kid who owned an M&M's painter's cap, some Kool-Aid suspenders, and a dinosaur game made out flimsy cardboard delivered to my house by the good people at Chef Boyardee. So it made sense that the 15-year-old me would have sent in an envelope full of wrappers to acquire the final three cards in the Bettis insert set. If anyone can direct me to some concrete proof that this was the way to get them, I'd appreciate it.
(Oh, and sorry if you this post's title made you think that you were going to get a few pictures of Charles S. Dutton.)
Fast forward to this past October, when I get an email from a reader who is trying to complete the same set with her young son. She stumbled across the blog looking for some of the cards they were still missing, and informed me that it looked like my Jerome Bettis Rookie of the Year set was a few cards short of completion. I never responded, but I did get an "Awwww, crap" feeling. I thought I was done. It was like that one time when I was a week or two from graduating from college and I got a letter that I had been taking the wrong coursework for my academic minor. That fiasco took a sweetly worded letter to the dean to avoid being a sixth-year senior. This time, I just shelved the idea of chasing the Jerome Bettis cards #13 through 15. They would have been easy enough to find, yet having already declared victory over this set, it just wouldn't have felt the same.
Fast forward a few more months. I'm cleaning up a few card-related items scattered across the house, and I find a couple of loose Ultra Pro sheets with cards in them. At the top of one of them, I see the motherlode. Jerome Bettis inserts #13, 14, and 15.
Hells to the yizzy, I had the complete set all along! I was wondering what was up, since I could have sworn there were only 12 cards in the set. Resourcefully, I went to the checklist, the 480th and final base card in the set. As you can see plainly in black and green: 12 CARD JEROME BETTIS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR" SERIES
Okay, my mind wasn't playing tricks on me after all. I'm accessing the farthest reaches of the memory banks here, but I have an inkling that the final three cards were available as a wrapper redemption. A story like this checks out, as my mom was one of those people who was forever getting free shit in the mail with proofs of purchase and cash register receipts and shit like that. I was the kind of kid who owned an M&M's painter's cap, some Kool-Aid suspenders, and a dinosaur game made out flimsy cardboard delivered to my house by the good people at Chef Boyardee. So it made sense that the 15-year-old me would have sent in an envelope full of wrappers to acquire the final three cards in the Bettis insert set. If anyone can direct me to some concrete proof that this was the way to get them, I'd appreciate it.
(Oh, and sorry if you this post's title made you think that you were going to get a few pictures of Charles S. Dutton.)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Found One!
I've located one of the cards from this wanted poster.
A post will follow once it's in hand.
A post will follow once it's in hand.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Why Didn't You Think of That???
Just fiddling around this evening, and came up with this.
T-shirts will be available for purchase soon. (Minus the watermark, of course.)
No, really, they will be. I'll try to get to it this weekend. Until the dream becomes reality, let me know if you've already pondered buying one, and what you consider a reasonable price to be. I'd like these to be high quality garments, not a plain Hanes base crew-neck shirt.
T-shirts will be available for purchase soon. (Minus the watermark, of course.)
No, really, they will be. I'll try to get to it this weekend. Until the dream becomes reality, let me know if you've already pondered buying one, and what you consider a reasonable price to be. I'd like these to be high quality garments, not a plain Hanes base crew-neck shirt.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Vintage Lot Reminder
Just letting you know there's only a couple hours left until the end of my vintage zoolBay lot. Don Mossi still needs a good home.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
zoolBay #10: Vintage Lot
Get your hands on this lot of vintage cards, including that rascal, Don Mossi.
Here's the contents of the lot:
1959 #154 168 254 302 375 (includes the Zeke Bella with the effed up corners)
1963 #122
1978 #287
1979 #653 (Sourpuss Warren Brusstar)
1980 #29 29 64 228 336 337 454
Bidding shall begin at $6.00 including shipping. To bid name your price in the comments. Bidding shall increase in 25-cent increments. Bidding will end at noon central time this Saturday. Happy bidding!
Here's the contents of the lot:
1959 #154 168 254 302 375 (includes the Zeke Bella with the effed up corners)
1963 #122
1978 #287
1979 #653 (Sourpuss Warren Brusstar)
1980 #29 29 64 228 336 337 454
Bidding shall begin at $6.00 including shipping. To bid name your price in the comments. Bidding shall increase in 25-cent increments. Bidding will end at noon central time this Saturday. Happy bidding!
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