2003 Fleer Tradition - Jeff Conine

2003 Fleer Tradition #297 Jeff Conine

For a look at more cards from 2003 Fleer Tradition check out the latest Phungo post at A Pack to be Name Later

STS Profile - Adam Lind

2007 UD SP #130 Adam Lind

Adam Lind has really raised his profile in the past year. The 26 year old DH/LF just earned his first Silver Slugger Award with a 35 Homer (5th AL), 114 RBI (3rd) season. He was in the AL top 5 in a number of other offensive categories as well (TBs, 2BH, Slugging, XBH)

For the Collector

I picked this card up late this past spring for $3, and it is basically in that same range today even after Lind's productive season. The 07 Sweet Beginnings Auto which is on card went for $4.35 earlier this month. The 04 SP Prospect Auto (sticker #d to 400) went for $52.

For more info definitely check out A Cardboard Problem which has a number of postings on Adam Lind cards and Autos.


Spot the Sig

We have a new player as Laurens of Card Buzz was the first to Identify this weeks auto and he gets a double for his effort. I would have to guess that Madding is familiar with Mr Lind as he picked up this auto in a quick four minutes.

Bonus

1955 Topps #53 Billy Taylor (b-side)

Play at the Plate had another big week picking up the bonus and scoring a run to move into a tie for first place atop the Spot the Sig! standings. The featured cartoon was from a 1955 Topps card of Billy Taylor. If I have some time this week, I will be looking a bit more at 2004 Topps Heritage which mimics the 55 set. If you were with us last week, this probably looks familiar to you as an 04 Heritage Pack break was involved in the Bonus Question. The 1955 Topps cartoons can be differentiated from the 2004 variety because the trademark line runs between the toon and the stat line on the Heritage edition.

I am continually surprised that anytime I run out a cartoon, there is somebody that actually has the card and can find it - no matter the era.


Spot the Sig! standings after five innings.

Paul's Random Stuff - Mets: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Autographed Cards - Royals: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Play at the Plate - Rangers: one run scored. Man on 1st.
Nachos Grande - Reds: Bases Loaded
Night Owl - Dodgers: Men on First and 2nd
The Wax Ripper - Yankees: Men on first and 2nd.
Card Buzz - Angels: Bobby Abreu Double down the line puts a runner on 2nd.
In Search of Pat the Bat - PHILLIES: Man on First
Thought and Sox - Boston Red Sox: Man on First
Beardy - Orioles: On Deck
Indians Baseball Cards Always - Indians: On Deck
Padrographs - Padres: On Deck
Cardboard Junkie - Braves: On Deck
Nr-MT - Yankees: On Deck


You are welcome to join the game at anytime. If you need more Spot the Sig! details click here.

Spot the Sig! 5th Inning

Hard to believe we are almost half way through this edition of Spot the Sig!

I think this one should be a little easier than last weeks chicken-scratch and it is good for a Double and All Runners Score.


Bonus:
If your having trouble with this weeks auto, well we have a Cartoon that will hopefully brighten up your day.


For those of you that have played Spot the Sig! before, you are likely aware that to get the cartoon bonus you will need to guess the card number upon which the above Daffy-Nition appears. This weeks bonus is good for a single and runners advance two bases. If the correct card number is not guessed the person who guesses closest to the card number gets the bonus. Only the first guess for a given card number will be considered for this bonus - in other words duplicate guesses cannot get the bonus.

Spot the Sig! standings going into the 5th inning.

Paul's Random Stuff - Mets: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Autographed Cards - Royals: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Night Owl - Dodgers: Men on First and 2nd
Nachos Grande - Reds: Bases Loaded
The Wax Ripper - Yankees: Men on first and 2nd.
Play at the Plate - Rangers: Man on 2nd.
In Search of Pat the Bat - PHILLIES: Man on First
Thought and Sox - Boston Red Sox: Man on First
Beardy - Orioles: On Deck
Indians Baseball Cards Always - Indians: On Deck
Padrographs - Padres: On Deck
Cardboard Junkie - Braves: On Deck


You are welcome to join the game at anytime. If you need more Spot the Sig! details click here.

Topps Cover Jinx Continues - 2009 Topps U+H first pack break

This past spring we reported on the PED epidemic spreading throughout the Topps Cover Players.

Well the trend sort of continues as Topps latest cover boy Tim Lincecum finds himself in a totally different type of drug trouble.

I wonder which Topps 09 Cover Player will be? a PED or Marijuana User?

One other thing, I think it was Chris over at Stale Gum that noted that Topps chose to airbrush out Manny's Dreads for the 08 Topps wrappers.

The design of the current Topps U&H cover seems to accent Tim Lincecum's "rebellious" locks. Is Topps stating that they are more comfortable with Lincecum's long hair then Ramriez's Dreads?

Regardless, I really was just using this as an excuse to bust open some Target U&HIGH packs in honor of Mr Lincecum.

First 2009 Topps Series 3 Pack

first up the numbers are STILL UNREADABLE!!!

#UH53 Clete Thomas
#UH176 Diory Hernandez
#UH200 Randy Johnson
#UH157 Josh Hamilton All-Star
#UH239 George Sherill

#UH320 Classic Combo Mark & Daniel Schlereth

How great is this card, I often listen to Mike and Mike during drive time, and it really interesting to hear the elder Schlereth discuss his sons career.

#UH113 Francisco Rodriquez All-star

#UH62 Russell Branyan Gold (#d1179/2009)

#PP23 Propoganda Poster Nick Markakis

#TTT65 Topps Town Raul Ibanez

#UH119 Bud Noris
#UH76 Scott Rolen

Nice first pack a Great Propoganda Poster. A Gold Card and A Raul Ibanez insert.

I picked up two other packs while I was at Target. I wasn't nearly as happy with those packs - I didn't pull any Phils and I actually pulled a duplicate of the Konerko/Dye 300 Homer card - 36 stinkin cards and I got my first dupe - bleck.

#PP21 Mark Texiera (b-side)
#LGU24 Legends of the Game Update Paul Molitor
#TTT57 Topps Town Joey Votto
#TTT54 Topps Town Adam Jones

The Molitor and the Tex are nice inserts and I also pulled a Nolan Reimold RC but still bummed about not getting any Phils base cards out of the three packs.

2009 10 31 Card Show Swag - Concord Mall, Wilmington DE

1975 Topps #185 Steve Carlton

I am going to be featuring a couple of posts this week on some of the cards I picked up at Concord Mall card show last weekend.

I was very pleased with the show - the 2.5 hours I allotted myself was clearly not enough time.

I spent the bulk of my time filling in some Phillies cards - both recent and 70s vintage as well as 50s vintage and 60/70s HOFs.

Today I will feature some of the 70s cards. At the top of this post is a 1975 Steve Carlton card which was in small batch of Phils cards that I picked up for 25 cents a pop.


1971 topps #439 Greg Luzinski/Scott Reid RC

There was a dealer there that had tons of off-condition vintage dating back to the 50s all at a buck a card. This Greg Luzinski Rookie Card was among the cards I pulled out his stash. We all know that Luzinski had a great career with the Phils and has lent his name to one of the Phils marquee concessions in their new ballpark. Scott Reid's baseball career was significantly different - He appeared in 38 career games for the Phils in 1969 and 1970.

In two separate purchases I picked up both Ollie Brown cards from the Topps 1975 set.


1975 Topps #596 Ollie Brown (mini and base)


Topps offered a miniature version of their 1975 set as well as the regular sized version. I really like the minis and tend to pick them up whenever I see one, definitely if it is a Phils player. The 1975 is a fairly iconic set and I wonder if I would like the minis as much if they were done for a less notable set like 1970 Topps. The Mini came from the same quarter bin as the 75 Carlton above. The base card came out of a dime box.

As I mentioned above the Luzinski dealer featured tons of vintage cards a at dollar a piece. Among the were these two early 70s gems.

1970 Topps #462 Hank Aaron All-Star

1971 Topps #160 Tom Seaver

To me any Hall of Famer from prior to 75 is worth a buck especially for top tier HOFs like Aaron and Seaver. If you are looking for big time stars of the era, the All-Star cards are always more affordable then the base. I like almost any newspaper themed cards so the 70s All-Stars are among my favorites.

Tom Terrific is a Met, but it isn't often your going to find a card of his from the early part of his career for only a buck.


A few weeks back Dayf posted a vintage Falcons insert card to mark one of the teams victories. I had remembered similar Hockey Cards from the 70s. As luck would have it I found this beauty in the dollar bin.

1977+ O-Pee-Chee Glossy #3 Bobby Clarke

Both OPC and Topps issued this insert set which came 1 per pack in each manufactures 1977+ set. The insert apparently also comes with square corners, I have only seen the rounded corners as pictured here.

That concludes the 70s era portion of the Concord Mall Card Show. Hopefully later in the week I will get a chance to post some of the 1950s topps cards that were available.

STS Profile - Billy Butler: Swag from Saints Case Break

2007 UD Ultimate Collection Rookie Signature #108 Billy Butler (#d 146/299)

As I feared, this weeks auto turned out to be a tough one. For the first time in STS! history we had to go to a HINT to get for the Autograph to be Identified.

This auto came from a group break run by Dan over at Saints of the Cheap Seats. Prior to this break the only breaks I entered were budget breaks that were run by Thorzul and others. The bounty from the break came in this week and included a Carl Yastrzemski jersey card and a Ryan Freel base card.

2007 UD Ultimate Collection #13 Ryan Freel
2007 UD Ultimate Collection Star Materials #SM-CY Carl Yastrzemski

I am pretty happy with the cards I received in the break. Billy Butler is a good young player for the Royals, who would be more widely known if he played in a higher proifle city. He has seen increased playing time each of his 3 major league seasons and finished 2009 with 21 homers and a .301 BA. His OPS+ for 2009 was 124.

I knew this would be a tough auto for several reasons

1) It is a particularly bad auto perhaps in the HoF of bad autos - and once we started running down the K names that was definitely trouble.

2) Butler is a young player that is really not well known - and he runs below the top tier of prospects.

3) The card gives a slightly misleading hint - Butler is a first baseman as a major leaguer. He played a variety of positions on his way through the Royals system, including outfield.
4) He plays for the Kansas City Royals who many of us don't think about.

I initially thought that Butler had written the ""B"'s in his name off of the sticker, but that is not the case. The sticker is clearly large enough on both the top and bottom to contain the full letter. Butler simply doesn't always close the top and bottom of his B's. I checked a handful of his other autos and this seems to be as bad as it gets for him - His signatures vary greatly in readability, although you can see a pattern where the clear UD sticker autos that are significantly worse.

Bonus

If you went right down the middle you were good. There were 3 base cards of active players and a Then and Now insert of Herb Score and Kerry Wood (who was active in 09). Our Mathematician over at Nachos Grande correctly calculated that 4 cards would emerge from the pack, as did Wax Ripper - each will receive a single as their bonus.

Later this week I plan on posting the contents of 4 other packs of the 04 Heritage as part of a Faux Blaster report.


Spot the Sig! standings after four innings.

We have a rookie in the game, Brian from Play at the Plate lines a double for figuring out this tough auto after the hint. We are almost half way through the game and it remains anybody's game.

Paul's Random Stuff - Mets: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Autographed Cards - Royals: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Night Owl - Dodgers: Men on First and 2nd
Nachos Grande - Reds: Bases Loaded
The Wax Ripper - Yankees: Men on first and 2nd.
Play at the Plate - Rangers: Elvis Andrus hits a Double into the game to put a man in scoring position for our newest STS entry.
In Search of Pat the Bat - PHILLIES: Man on First
Thought and Sox - Boston Red Sox: Man on First
Beardy - Orioles: On Deck
Indians Baseball Cards Always - Indians: On Deck
Padrographs - Padres: On Deck
Cardboard Junkie - Braves: On Deck

Thanks all for participating in this particularly challenging installment of Spot the Sig!

A new Spot the Sig! autograph will be presented for the contest on Sunday Night, All are welcome to join the game at anytime. If you need more Spot the Sig! details click here.

Spot the Sig! - 4th Inning HINT

Two orders of business for Spot the Sig! today.

1) I have opened the pack of 2004 Heritage and have documented it over at A Pack to be Named Later.

2) I knew this one would be tough - but I never would have thought that it would be the first Auto to go UNSOLVED. Here is part 1 of a two part hint - I have expanded the window of the auto to see a little more of the card.



And I will also mention a second clue:

The player who signed this is a current member of one of the teams represented by a Spot the Sig! participant.

But since I had to provide a couple of hints, the value of this Auto drops to a double.

Good Luck I will give you till 6pm tomorrow and then we will have to call it quits on the Auto.

A new Spot the Sig! autograph will be presented for the contest on each Sunday Night, All are welcome to join the game at anytime. If you need more Spot the Sig! details click here.