Monday 23 February 2009

1985 Topps Super Baseball


This is the third different pack of baseball cards from Dayf. The 1985 Topps Super size pack is big, real big.You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to these cards.
I'm really not sure whether to open them or not.
Update 23rd February 2009
I took dayf's advise and won't expect to die in the vacuum of deep space!
The cards were:

The behemoth Mario Soto

The Herculean Carl Ripken
The gargantuan Dwight Evans.

Not that scary after all and a nice Red Sox card to boot.

Thursday 19 February 2009

1988 Donruss baseball


If you check the wants' lists on blogs, as I do from time to time. Nobody needs any 1988 Donruss cards. Did they over print or are there no real 'big' cards in the set? Either way it appears that everyone has all the 1988 Donruss they want or need. Still a pack is a pack.
There are 660 cards in the base set.
The subsets include: 27 Diamond Kings (#1-27), 20 Rated Rookies(#28- 47), 26 Bonus MVP's and 26 short printed cards (#648-660).
There are 15 cards and 3 puzzle pieces in a pack.

The pack:
Puzzle piece 34, 35, 36
#19 Gary Gaetti DK Twins
#54 Mark Gubicza Royals
#102 George Brett Royals
#103 Mickey Tettleton A's
#150 Terrence Kennedy Orioles
#186 Baudilio Diaz Reds
#234 Jose Oquendo Cardinals
#235 William Doran Astros
#283 Devon White Angels
#366 Jim Presley Brewers
#367 Lloyd Moseby Blue Jays
#416 Brain Dayett Cubs
#452 Guy Hoffman Reds
#499 Tracy Woodson Dodgers
#585 Jeff Sellers Red Sox

Hey, hey a Red Sox.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

1986 Donruss Pop-up


The second helping of different packs from Dayf is this 1986 Donruss All-star pack. Two things make this one unusual. Firstly '..its wrapped in plastic..' and therefore you can see the cards your getting, secondly the cards are bigger than your average card, not to mention that one of the cards pops up!
There are 18 pop-up cards in the set.
There are 60 All-stars cards in the set.
Included in this pack is a pop-up card and 3 large Donruss All-Stars .

The pack:
#13 Pop-up Jim Rice Red Sox


#16 Jim Rice Red Sox


#25 Tim Wallach Expos

#38 Dick Williams Manager NL All-Stars

Two Red Sox. Things are looking up. How do you store these larger cards?

Monday 16 February 2009

2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Baseball

They forget the K.I.S.S motto~ Keep it Simple Stupid ~ with this set.
There are 55 cards in the Bowman base set.
There are 55 cards in the Bowman Chrome base set.
There are 110 cards in the Bowman Prospects base set.
There are 110 cards in the Bowman Chrome Prospects base set.
There are parallels for the Bowman: Red, Blue, Gold and a printing plate.
There are parallels for the Bowman Chrome: Red, Orange, Gold, Blue, Refractors, X-Fractors, Super fractors and printing plates.
I won't go into the variety of autographs...
This pack came from Rob at Texas Rangers Cards. There 7 cards in every pack of which 2 are Bowman Chrome.
The pack:
BDP1 Nick Adenhart Angels
BDP48 David Robinson Yankees
BDP17 Jaime Garcia Cardinals Chrome
BDPP16 Shane Dyer Bay Rays Chrome
BDPP63 Matt Cerda Cubs Gold
BDPP77 Cliff Pennington Athletics
BDPP101 Fernando Martinez Mets
No Red Sox!
The Resume, Skills and Up-close information on the back is very interesting. But if there is one thing I have learnt from these cards, about the up and coming players, is that they cannot sign their name for toffee. Most look like a scribble. It might be a minor complaint but they must know that there is a possibility of hitting the big time and their signatures will be sought after. A little effort and practice. I know a minor and very picky complaint.

Sunday 15 February 2009

1991 Donruss baseball


This is the first of three different packs I received from Dayf in a trade recently. This one is unusual because it contains only three cards. My limited experience tells me that it must have been included with something else like bread or cookies or cereal or cheese. There is no give away on the pack or cards to mark them as different, only that there is less cards.
The 1991 Donruss set has 770 cards in the base set.
The subsets included: Diamond Kings, Rated Rookies, Al and NL All Stars, MVP's.
Additional information in this post.
The pack:
Puzzle piece 40, 41, 42
#1 Dave Stieb Blue Jays

#101 R.J. Reynolds Pirates

#314 Kevin Brown Rangers
NO Red Sox. Any enlightening information would be well received.

Saturday 14 February 2009

1989 Topps Baseball

There are 792 cards in the 1989 Topps set.
The subsets include: Future Stars, Topps All-Star Rookies, Record Breakers, Turn Back The Clock, All-Stars, Team Leaders, First Draft Picks, Checklists and Manager cards.
There are 15 cards and 1 stick of bubble gum.

Before I start the pack, I wonder whether anyone actually sent away for the t-shirt advertised? It sounds like a beauty,
"High quality Puffy-lettered. A snip at only $9.95 plus $1.25 postage and handling ($11.20 total)plus 3 special offer cards...Offer good in U.S.A only."
Anyone?
The pack:
#154 Don Carman Phillies
#194 Greg Harris Padres
#282 Chris Carpenter Cardinals
#291 Mets leaders
#340 Kirk Gibson Dodgers
#375 Terry Pendleton Cardinals
#394 Orel Hershiser All Star Dodgers
#414 Jim Fregosi White Sox
#445 Matt Nokes Tigers
#494 Shane Rawley Phillies
#554 Nick Esasky Reds
#575 Juan Samuel Phillies
#592 John Cangelosi Pirates
#767 Mike Capel Cubs
#790 Sid Fernandez Mets
I'm not doing too well lately. No Red Sox. My Dodgers magnet appeared again.

Thursday 12 February 2009

2007 Topps Turkey Red


There are 200 cards in the base set, which includes 150 subjects and 15 variations.
There are inserts: 61 Dick Perez paintings, 43 American Presidents and 25 A-Rod Road to 500
There are parallels: Chrome (#to 99), Chrome Refractors (#to 999), Black Chrome (#to 1999)
There are Cabinet cards, A-Rod signed Road to 500, relics, autographs and something called a Refractor Chromographs. Golly sounds impressive.
There are 8 cards per pack. This pack came from Rob at Texas Rangers Cards.

The pack:
#16 Stand up Double checklist
#27 Roy Halladay Blue Jays
#34 Mickey Mantle Yankees
#37 Edgar Renteria Braves
#91 Delmon Young Bay Rays
##99 Dustin Moseley Angels
#122 Roy Oswalt Astros
#159 Johan Santana Twins
No Red sox, but I still like this set of cards.

Monday 9 February 2009

1991 Donruss Series 2 Baseball

There are 384 cards in the Series 2 base set (#387 to #770)
There are inserts: 27 MVP (#387-#412), 8 NL All-stars (#433-#441) and 19 Rated Rookies (#413-#432).
There are sub-sets: 22 Bonus cards, 14 Grand Slammers and 10 Elite (#to 10,000).
There are 15 cards and 3 puzzle pieces per pack.
The pack:
puzzle piece 52,53,54
#389 Fred McGriff Blue Jays MVP
#414 Tim McIntosh Brewers Rated Rookie
#433 Ryne Sandberg Cubs All-Star
#445 Kirk Gibson Dodgers
#451 Cecil Fielder Tigers
#456 Tony Pena Red Sox
#457Tim Raines Expos
#462 Rick Sutcliffe Cubs
#463 Danny Tartabull Royals
#468 Dave Winfield Angels
#471 Barry Larkin Reds
#472 Ron Darling Mets
#477 Frank Thomas White Sox
#483 Mike Scott Astros
#489 Sandy Alomar Indians
1 Red Sox card from an interesting set. Series 1 was blue, Series 2 was green.
It was in the 1991 Donruss set that for the first time serial numbers cards were included in a standard set. Each of the Elite cards were numbered to 10, 000, a Nolan Ryan Dick Perez drawing to 7,500 and a Ryne Sandberg auto to 5,000. I wonder if they knew then what this would lead to.

Tuesday 3 February 2009

2007 Topps Series One


There are 330 cards in the base set.
There are inserts: 25 Own The Game, 20 Hobby Masters, 25 Road to 500, 110 Josh Gibson HR History, 20 Distinguished Service, Generation Now, Various Mickey Mantle inserts, the usual relics and autos
There are parallels:Platinum-1 of 1, Gold, First Edition.
Home Team Advantage Only. The home team advantage stores only came up frequently. There were Specials, Copper parallels, Exclusives and Printing Plates. One for the 'special collectors' I presume?
There are 12 cards per pack.

The pack:
#OTG12 David Ortiz Red Sox
#62 Dan Wheeler Astros
#97 Dave Bush Brewers
#120 Jason Giambi Yankees
#179 Joe Nathan Twins
#184 Gil Meche Royals
#187 Matt Cain Giants
#201 Chuck James Braves
#207 Mark Mulder Cardinals
#218 Clay Hensley Padres
#208 Curt Schilling Red Sox
#290 Matt Holliday Rockies
Checklist 1/3


Hey, not bad. Two Red Sox., one of them being a Big Papi insert !

Sunday 1 February 2009

1986 Topps

There are 792 cards in the base set. The subsets include Pete Rose Tribute, Record Breakers, Turn Back The Clock, All-Stars, Team Leaders, Checklists, and Manager cards.
There are 15 cards and a stick of gum.

The pack:

#20 Lou Whitaker Tigers
#102 Joe Orsulak Pirates
#128 John Watson Royals
#181 Al Nipper Red Sox
#268 Mike Scott Astros
#328 Pete O'Brien Rangers
#376 Bill Dawley Astros
#429 Greg Booker Padres
#556 John Denny Phillies
#652 Tom Browning Reds
#657 Juan Agosto White Sox
#669 Ron Cey Cubs
#703 Tim Wallach Expos
#775 Willie Upshaw Blue Jays
#774 Tery Leach Mets

A Red Sox! Al relaxing on a sun lounger.