Sets I Want to See: The Expendables

Sylvester Stallone
Bruce Willis
Jet Li
Dolph Lundgren
Jason Statham
Arnold Freakin' Schwarzenegger
Mickey Rourke

As far as legitimate action heroes from the past 25 years go, these guys are the who's who of cheesy guy flicks where things blow up real good. There's also Stone Cold Steve Austin, Randy Couture and Eric Roberts. All that's missing is Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme. Well, the list above are attempting to make the cheesy action flick cool again with The Expendables. The trailer debuted online today and quite honestly, I was expecting more. Note to Sylvester Stallone: we want to see you kick people, not listen to you babble constantly.

That being said, I so want a card set just for the autograph possibilities. From that list, only a couple already have autographs. Schwarzenegger appeared in Batman and Robin Widescreen from SkyBox, Terminator 3 from Comic Images and on a pseudo-cut Conan the Barbarian card that used cut-up Batman and Robin cards. Fleer  convinced Stone Cold to sign in their Wrestlemania set back in 2001. Randy Couture's currently in Upper Deck Prominent Cuts and has also signed for Donruss Americana and Topps Allen and Ginter. Finally, there's Julia Roberts' brother Eric, who was in Upper Deck Spectrum and Donruss Americana.

Tonight I had a little fun and came up with some mock-ups for a possible set. Enjoy! The Expendables is in theatres this August and I'm guessing it'll be on DVD and Blu-ray a couple weeks later.

Cards That Really Don't Look Like Cards: 1997 Flair Showcase Diamond Cuts

Through the advent of new technologies that add extra shine, fancy die-cuts and other fan-dangled gimmicks, there's cards a plenty out there that don't at all resemble the baseball cards from yesteryear. Here's one.


1997 Flair Showcase Diamond Cuts

1997 Flair Showcase was a landmark release. It had a three levels of base sets. I guess you could call the uncommon and rare levels parallels, but I've never really seen it that way. It had tons of foil. And the foil actually looked good.

But what 1997 Flair Showcase will forever be remembered for is the introduction of the 1-of-1 with the Masterpiece parallels. They set a new standard for the hobby that hasn't looked back.

In all the years since 1997 when this set was first released, I'd never come across the Diamond Cuts inserts. They were clearly lost in the shuffle of all Flair Showcase's other gimmicks and beauty. These are some funky looking cards. Die-cut in the shape of facing diamonds, the card also features prominent holo-foil giving the top background a diamond look. The name plate and Flair Showcase logo both contain additional gold foil.  There's also a full-body player photo and a glistening baseball diamond on the card's bottom portion.

Card backs are fairy generic with a diamond photo in the background, a small photo and a generic-reading bio.

Diamond Cuts definitely don't resemble anything close to traditional baseball cards. Nonetheless, they work. For all the techno-gimmicks going on on this card, it's not overwhelming. Often, cards that take on too much look like Franken-cards that resemble something that belongs to be sewn onto the crest of a bowling shirt or like a nameplate that belongs on an office door. 

Diamond Cuts were inserted 1:20 packs. Most of the cards should be found for a couple of dollars with none going more than $5 or $6. Here's the checklist:

1. Jeff Bagwell

2. Albert Belle

3. Ken Caminiti

4. Juan Gonzalez

5. Ken Griffey Jr.

6. Tony Gwynn

7. Todd Hundley

8. Andruw Jones

9. Chipper Jones

10. Greg Maddux

12. Mark McGwire

13. Mike Piazza

14. Manny Ramirez

15. Cal Ripken Jr.

16. Alex Rodriguez

17. Frank Thomas

18. Mo Vaughn

19. Bernie Williams

20. Matt Williams

Inkworks' Leftovers Make for a Different Approach to Autographs

The fallout of the Inkworks closure continues. Prior to Inkworks' spring demise, they were primed for the release of Ghost Whisperer: Seasons One and Two, which revolved heavily around the first autograph cards of Jennifer Love Hewitt (10 years too late, in my book).

The combination of being close to release and having moved to a sticker autograph policy meant that there were signatures in-house but no cards to put them on. Breygent picked up where Inkworks began and got the first Ghost Whisperer set out a couple of weeks ago. The result for all but a couple of autographs is this:

It's kind of hard to tell by the thumbnail but Inkworks' stickers were very clearly from the company, having the logo plastered over and over in the holographic background. So what you have is an instance where one company is making the cards and another is offering up their autographs. Sure Upper Deck has used Topps cards for cut signatures, Rittenhouse Archives did a similar thing to make a Franken-auto of Arnold and others have done similar things to make more cuts, but something tells me that you won't see an instance like this again anytime soon.

Breygent did up the ante by adding a couple more autographs to the Ghost Whisperer set. There's also slight variants released in boxes sold exclusively at the San Diego Comic Con. These cards are discernable by the Con's logo on the back.

A Few More Father's Day Delights

Here's a few more cards to celebrate Father's Day with.

 

 2006 Topps Co-Signers Baseball Dual Autograph Cecil and Prince Fielder

 

1991 Score Baseball "The Griffeys"

 
 

1985 Fleer Baseball "Super Star Special"

 

John F. Kennedy (Topps, 1964) #2

 

President Obama (Topps, 2009) #65

 

The Brady Bunch (Topps, 1969) #83

 

Family Guy: Season Two (Inkworks, 2005) #P1

  

  

And Then There Were Three

 

Tonight the final three competitors will go at it to see who's the season eight champ on American Idol. You've got Adam Lambert, the Broadway trained stylish guy who screams in every damn song he does, David Gokey, who with his glasses on looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man and Kris Allen, who I know nothing about and assume he's around still mainly because of the teenage girl vote.

As shown above, all three have autographs in Upper Deck's American Idol set. Here's a gallery of the autograph set. According to the prices that the three are selling for, there is a clear front runner. Allen's cards are currently selling on eBay in the $40 range. Gokey's been a little more scattered. While he's had one finish at $110, he also had one close for $18 right before it. The average cost right now is around $50-60. And then there's Lambert. Of the last ten sold, two sold in the $120 range while the last one went for a head-scratching $295. If that's the new benchmark, I don't expect it to go much higher if he does win next week.

As the show comes to a close, expect to see all but a couple of the autographs in the set to plummet in price as the signers disappear back into obscurity. But that doesn't mean that a couple won't reemerge. 

 

Such was the case with Jennifer Hudson. A couple of years ago I picked up a couple right before the Oscar nominations for less than $10. Two months later I had one end within 30 minutes of her winning Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls and managed to get $65 for it. Of course, the price has since dropped again to the $10-20 range but I'd consider it to be one of the better bargains in the non-sport realm as she continues to land strong Hollywood roles all the while singing still.

Expos-ed by Tribe Cards

Last week I received a box overflowing with Expos cards courtesy of Tribe Cards. These were a surprise and a testament to his continued gerosity. Stacked, the cards were more than a foot tall and gave an excellent representation of the entire Expos history.

Here's just a small taste of some highlights. Really, it's just a mouse-like nibble with all the great stuff inside the box:

1996 Ultra Gold Medallion 232. Mike Lansing

This is my favourite use of gold foil ever. A lot of Ultra cards over the years were wrecked by their overuse of the shiny, making it hard to read names and teams. However, the one-per-pack 1996 parallels went to the extreme in a good way rendering the entire background in gold. This really makes the photo standout. The embossed Ultra logo in the background is like a cherry on top.

 

2003 Fleer EX 41. Jose Vidro

The scan doesn't do this card justice. Made of vinyl, this is one of the toughest cards I've seen. The hard, sharp corners could poke out an eye for sure if projected across a room ninja-star style. The white that you see is actually the top of my scanner bed as the backgrounds are clear. My one gripe - the jersey number in the top corner makes the card resemble a playing card.

 

1971 Topps 536. Claude Raymond

A trifecta hit of card-y goodness: Expo, Canadian-born player, vintage.

 

1986 Topps Tattoos Hubie Brooks and Andre Dawson

Yeah! Tattoos! Topps gets some major retroactive street cred here for including Hubie. Back in 1986 Dawson was a no-brainer but Hubie was simply a better-than-average outfielder who'd muscled in 100 runs the year prior. Topps is still doing tattoos in lots of their non-sport sets, so why not bring them back to baseball. You say you want more kids collecting and there's no greater pledge of allegiance than a sharp temporary tattoo.

Thanks again!

My New Pet Rock

Over the years of collecting Montreal Expos, I've always enjoyed getting autographs. I've scaled back somewhat since the team moved to Washington and no longer actively go after autographs of guys I've already got. That being said I made an exception a few weeks back when I snagged this:

 

I know I've already got a couple of Tim Raines autographs but this one caught my attention. Sure it has a white swatch and it's numbered out of 30, but what I'm digging is the addition of his nickname "Rock." It's a simple thing that makes this card much more unique than a lot of the other generic signatures I've got.

Raines was a beast on the base paths 25 years ago. I'm convinced that if Rickey Henderson wasn't a bigger beast, we'd see Rock in Cooperstown eventually. But like his former teammate Andre Dawson, I don't think there's going to be an Expo in the Hall of Fame to join Gary Carter anytime soon.

Welcome Home, Fergie Jenkins

As of right now, Fergie Jenkins is the only Canadian player with a spot in Cooperstown. While a small argument could be made for Larry Walker to sit alongside him in a few years, I suspect it's going to be another couple of decades before another Canuck makes it, namely Justin Morneau. But he's still a young buck and lots can happen.

At any rate, below are a trio of Fergies sent to me by Matt from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius who is very busy today.

The first is a 1972 Topps "NL Pitching Leaders" card featuring Jenkins alonside Steve Carlton, Al Downing and Tom Seaver. Fergie has a great pose, albeit the picture is cropped very tightly. Although I did already have this card, the one Matt sent is an excellent upgrade from the one I previously had. The colours are much more vibrant compared to the old faded one and the corners look very nice too.

The second card is a 1974 Topps card in which Fergie looks like he just rolled out of bed. His eyes look very sleepy and his hair appears as though its had a hat on it for a while. That said, I do like the portrait set against a blue sky with the flag design Topps used that year.

The final card shows Jenkins as a grizzled veteran [I love that term] on the mound for Texas. He's clearly been in better shape but marching on to finish his career with 3,000 strikeouts.

 

Thanks, Matt, for the awesome additions to my Canadian-born player collection!

Random Pack Breaks - Old School Edition: 1974 Fleer Crazy Covers

It's Sunday morning. I'm hungry. The kitchen cupboards are too far away. I scour the desk to see what there is: cards, files, bottle of water, more cards piles and some random indie DVD I'll watch later this week. Score: gross baggie of random old non-sport packs that arrived earlier in the week - old non-sport packs with gum. Let's reach in and see who the winner is.

1974 Fleer Crazy Covers...

...with a 34-year-old stick of gum! Prepare to be amazed. Turn away if you're easily disgusted (or have a Sunday hangover.)

I don't know much about this set. A quick Google search turned up that the set comes from the mid-1970s and is Fleer's take on Wacky Packages. It's a sticker set. There's 30 in the set plus a puzzle.

Here's the back of the pack:

I peel the wax panels back carefully and reveal (second warning - look away now if you're going to puke on your keyboard):



Breakfast is served. Actually, there's no chance I'm eating that nasty stick of whatever it is. It's sort brownish pink with spots I can only assume are moldy bits. It's stuck on good to the sticker so it looks like I'll be making a sacrifice to the old school pack gods.

After much pulling and tearing the gum has been removed:

Oh, well. Let's take a closer look at these satirical stickers.

This is the destroyed sticker that's been wrecked by the gum. They're unnumbered. I'm guessing this is an ode to "Sport" and the Battle of the Sexes match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Although a little worse for wear, it'll be filed away in the vaults for reference materials.

Next!

Expire, a take on "Esquire". Looks more like a "New Yorker" cartoon that doesn't make sense.

Finally, it's an honest to goodness card. Of what? I'll let you decide.

It's obviously a puzzle piece. I'm guessing it's probably Fleer's take on Alfred E. Newman of "Mad" fame. On the back is the checklist:

And there you have it. One Old-School random pack. I may not have eaten anything this morning, but after seeing (and manhandling) that thing that used to be a stick of gum, my appetite is gone.