Swag from O No!!!, Another Orioles Blog

I desperately need to get caught up on trade posts, and will try and knock out a bunch of them in the next couple o weeks.  This unfortunately means that I will likely not dedicate the time and effort to them that they deserve.

Today we are looking at some cards I received way back in April from Ryan over at O No!!! Another Orioles Blog

2008 Topps Update #UH241 Chase Utley

2011 Topps Heritage #77 Chase Utley

Chase took ground balls during BP today for the Phillies.  We are past the quarter pole in the 2012 season and the Phils haven't seen either Utley nor Ryan Howard.  Hope we hear from the soon. 

The two cards above are just a pair of the many cards that Ryan sent over.  He knocked out several cards off my Phillies checkers,  and another pile of cards from the 2011 Heritage set.    

2003 Topps 572 Todd Pratt

1996 Topps 128 Curt Schilling

  Big Old Stack of 2011 Topps Heritage 

The 2011 Topps Heritage is a set that I am buiding by default, partially in the name of journalistic research delving into potential hot-boxes in last years set.  FYI I did not get a hot box.

For a look at my 2011 Topps Heritage Want List Click Here

My Phils Topps 1980s Collection Want List is Here. 

For access to all my want lists click here 

Swag from Nachos Grande

A few weeks back Nachos Grande was soliciting offers for a few cards he had in his trade stack one of those was the Robin Roberts Legends SP from 2011 Topps.  I had the perfect card to trade for RR, that was the Johnny Bench Legends card from basically the same set (Topps 1 v Topps 2 for Roberts).  

 

2011 Topps #460 Robin Roberts SP (Legends Variation)

 

I pulled the Bench card from a retail pack a few months back and the swap of hall of famers made logical sense.  

 

At first I thought this was an image from Roberts 1957 Topps Card 

 

2011 Topps #460 Robin Roberts SP (Legends Variation)
1957 Topps #15 Robin Roberts 

 

While the pose looks similar it appears as if the background is different and it is hard to tell if Roberts is possibly wearing a road uni on the vintage card.  

 

But then I came across the Robin Roberts 1952 Bowman card which may be based on the photo used on the 2011 Topps Legends card.  

 

1952 Bowman #4 Robin Roberts

2011 Topps #460 Robin Roberts SP (Legends Variation) 

 

Despite the differences in angle there are some similarities to the buildings beyond Roberts Throwing shoulder. 

 

In addition to the Legends SP Chris also sent a few other Phillies cards including a couple of Aces from this years Lineage set. 

 

2011 Topps Lineage #121 Roy Halladay

2011 Topps Lineage #102 Cole Hamels

 

Thanks to Chris - who has to be one of the most active traders among us many card bloggers.  I have finally gotten his package together and it will hopefully be in the mail someday on Wednesday. 

Somebody Sent Me Cards?? and Team Phungo on the Move

I try to honor everyone who sends me cards and I try and keep semi up to date on my trades.  Unfortunately, I have lost track of these things recently. 

Swag from various Trades, Donations and Breaks.

I am not sure exactly where these cards came from.  I am pretty sure some came from Night Owl, and some from 30 Year Old Cardboard - There are also likely cards from a Thorzul Group Break.  I also got a nice stack of Vintage cards not featured here from Dan over at The Other World.

Team Phungo on the Move

Part of the reason that I haven't been as organized with card trade posts or posts at all is that Team Phungo has been on the Move.  Not the Blog - we are still here.  But the Headquarters have moved.  We didn't move far, but I am happy to announce that Team Phungo is out of apartment living and has moved on to Full on House duty.  Stepping up to the house level has been fun, but it is also a lot of work. 

I am hoping that things will settle down at least a little bit at some point and I will get back to some card related activities.

If you sent me an email regarding trading or I haven't gotten back a reciprocal trade bear with me, I will try and get to everything - I know I owe Dan cards, but I can't remember what we were trading.

ok back to unpacking for Team Phungo.  The rest of you can go back to enjoying the All-Star Game.

Swag from Night Owl Cards

A nice surprise package from Night Owl Cards arrived at Team Phungo Headquarters a few weeks back.  NOC has traded with folks from across the nation and occasionally tracks the locations.  I figure I have recieved 5 or 6 trade packages from the Night Owl.  It amazes me that He finds time to blog.

There were several Highlights in the package - Today I am focusing on the Prospects and the Phillies hobbled second baseman Chase Utley.  

The Greg Golson card is from the 2008 Bowman Draft Set.  Each year in this set there is a subset dedicated to the players featured in the years Futures Game.  The 2008 game was played at the Old Yankee Stadium and Team Phungo was there.  This card will go into the Phungo Games Attended binder - which is one of my favorites. 

The bottom row are cards from the 2010 Bowman Set and include Trevor May and Tyson Gillies.  May is a 21 year old RHP had a pretty good year at Lo-A Lakewood in 2010 after a Rough start at Hi-A Clearwater.  Tyson Gillies came over in the outgoing Cliff Lee deal - he lost most of 2010 due to an injury - his development was hampered further when Gillies was involved in a drug related incident with the Florida Authorities.  Gillies was eventually acquitted of the offense, hopefully 2011 is a more productive season for the young man.

As you likely know by now Chase Utley has not set foot on the field during spring training and there are whispers that Chase may be out for a large part of the 2011 season.  This year is one that has a lot of promise for the Phils, I hope that Utley gets to take part.

Swag from the Daily Dimwit

A few months ago Samuel from The Daily Dimwit saw the January Pull n Junk post that featured a Jason Castro auto as the Team Phungo Pull of the Month.  DD is an Astros fan and we were able to work a trade that involved a couple of autos being swapped plus some additional cards.

I am saving the Autos as possible future Spot the Sig! fodder, but I would like to share a page full of the other cards that Mr Dimwit sent my way.

(click to enlarge)

As you may remember this is the This Day in History set from 2010 Allen & Ginter.  Above you see cards 1 through 9 minus #4 Lance Berkman.

I enjoy most of the common A&G inserts sets.  They are typically a small set (30-75 cards) and fairly common. Samuel was good enough to send almost the entire set my way and I am currently down to the final four cards.

I particularly enjoy this set as it has a history element connected to each players card.  As a nice bonus Chase Utley has the #1 card and is in the top left of the above page.

Thanks again DD and I am looking forward to Opening day when the Phils Host the the Astros!

Troll Swag

Interrupting the parade of 2010 Topps articles for this Trade Posting. Collective Troll and I had a relic swap and added some other cards to the mix.

Captain Bacon was good enough to send over a bunch of 2008 Heritage:


2008 Topps Heritage #380 Ryan Howard
2008 Topps Heritage #300 Chase Utley

Thanks to Collective Troll as well as several other contributors I have been able to knock down my 2008 Heritage Want List significantly since delving into this only 3 months ago. I am building the set through #425 and currently only need 29 more cards (93%).

There were also several Phillies star cards in the Troll package including many from different Heritage/Retro sets.

2007 Topps Wal Mart #WM11 Ryan Howard
2008 Topps Heritage t205 mini #HTCP10 Ryan Howard


2002 Topps Heritage #179 Pat Burrell
2003 Topps Heritage #11 Pat Burrell

Now that he is no longer a Phils player, it feels like all of the Burrell cards are Retro Cards in some way.

And finally the Relics.

2009 Topps All Star Event Worn Jersey Relic #AST-17 Shane Victorino (#d 9/50)
2001 UD Decade 1970s #B-GM Garry Maddox Bat Relic

I like the design of the Victorino Relic. I have no idea what the St Louis Skyline looks like but I think this is a decent idea for an all-star card - even if on the flip side it states the card is "Event Worn"

I have started a Garry Maddox player collection, which I have yet to cover on this blog, but will at some point. Finding Autos and Relics of players like Maddox who played pre-1990s and were very good but not Hall of Famers is a task. This is one of the few, possibly only Garry Maddox card that contains a relic.

Swag from Cards on Cards

2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospect #BDPP84 Pablo Sandoval
2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospect #BDPP69 Andrew McCutchen


Originally this trade started out with Some 08 Heritage heading to Cards on Cards for a couple of 2008 Bowman Draft Futures Game cards. I was able to knock 6 cards off of my want list from this set. Hard to believe the 08 Futures Game was only a year and a half ago and these two players are already making a significant impact. If anyone can help I am collecting the 2008 Bowman Draft Cards that feature players in the Futures Game. They are numbered BDPP66-BDPP110.

C on C and I then thought it would be prudent to expand the trade out to include some Phils and Cardinals. Kerry sent out a great package including these highlights:


2007 Topps Heritage Flashbacks #FB9 Richie Ashburn
2007 Topps All-Star #AS7 Chase Utley
2009 Topps #UH218 Cliff Lee (#d 1984/2009)

I am not sure what set the Utley All-Star card is from, I know I have seen lots o these but just don't remember the set - I am pretty sure it isn't Updates and Highlights.

And a bunch of O-Pee-Chee Cards that are all new to me:


1987 O-Pee-Chee #255 Juan Samuel
1978 O-Pee-Chee #93 Garry Maddox

And a good mix of new and old cards from various products


The Carlton Card in the middle is an old school mini.

Thanks to ConC for the trade - and enjoy the Heritage Cards!

Swag from Project 62!!!

1961 Fleer #81 Dazzy Vance

Recently Project 62 ran a contest which involved guessing the results of various vintage cards which were sent in for grading. I have never sent a card in for grading, but have read enough blog entries to understand that the process is somewhat of a crapshoot.

I was fortunate enough to guess close enough to the grades on the cards to be declared the winner. I spoke with the Mr Project 62 and we decided to expand the contest bounty into a trade and the loot from that trade arrived at Phungo Headquarters Yesterday.

The Dazzy Vance card above was included in the package. I have only recently begun looking to add vintage fleer cads to my collection and the Vance card is my first card from the 61 set.

Project 62 was also good enough to send over seven 1959 cards including 3 of the scarcer High Numbers.

(click to enlarge)
1959 Topps #288 Dutch Dotterer
1959 Topps #542 Jim Perry RC
1959 Topps #546 Al Schroll

I have been building the 1959 topps Set since the fall of 2007 and it has been a fun process. The 59s that I collect via trades w/ other bloggers have been the best though. So far I have picked up cards from Project 62, Night Owl, and Beardy. There was also a non-blogging reader who contributed several cards and several months ago while perusing dime boxes at a card show, I struck up a conversation with a local collector who happened to also be building 1959 topps and we were able to help each other out considerably.

A couple of 58 Topps and 62 Topps helped to fill out my Phillies Vintage collection along with this fine blue Cole Hamels Refractor.

(click to enlarge)
1958 Topps #460 Chuck Essegian
2009 Topps Chrome Refractor #169 Cole Hamels (#d 106/199)
1962 Topps #434 Clay Dalrymple

Big time thanks to Chris over at Project 62 for running the contest and bearing with me through the trading process. I hope that the dozen or so 1962 Topps cards I sent his way will help him with Project 62.

Swag from All Tribe Baseball

At the 09 Trade Deadline the Phils and Indians worked a deal in which the Phillies sent Cleveland several prospects in exchange for Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco. Similarly Baseball Dad of All Tribe Baseball and I swapped a bunch of Indians and Phils baseball cards.

BD was good enough to inspect my want lists and find about a half dozen cards which I needed. I forget - I may have only found 2 or three that he needed. Then we padded the trade with some miscellaneous Phils and Indians. I hope I was able come up with some card that fit into the All Tribe Baseball Collection, because BD came up with a great variety of Phils for me.

This Cole Hamels Card is among the Phils Cards I received. There was a real nice variety of cards which were perfect for beefing up the Phungo Phils collection. I have really enjoyed the Baseball Heroes Cards I have gotten in trades, because it is a set I ignored when it came out last year. The cards have a good look and since I am not building the set, the parallels add variety and don't bother me.

2008 UD Baseball Heroes #136 Cole Hamels

My Pet Peeve on cards like this is always the lack of attention to detail. The card celebrates Hamels Major League debut, an 8-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds. This is all great except the game was played in Cincinnati and this photo is of Hamels pitching at home in Citizen's Bank Ballpark.

Here are some of the cards BD sent over to fill out my want lists.


2008 Bowman Draft Pick and Prospects #BDPP104 Kevin Pucetas (1st Bowman Chrome Variation)
2008 Topps #529 Masahide Kobayashi
2008 UD Masterpieces #20 Ty Cobb


I am collecting the 08 Bowmand Draft Picks 66-110 as part of my Phungo Games Project. Kevin Pucetas is in the Giants organization. He skipped a level in 09 with mixed results, but that is a hitters league.

The Kobayashi card is one of the last three I needed to finish 08 Topps Series 2. We're down the final two cards:

533 Kyle McClellan
586 Coco Crisp

And the Ty Cobb is one of four Masterpieces cards that were sent - With these four cards team Phungo is at the 3/4 pole for the 07 Masterpieces set.

The Indians are coming off a tough season, but the Tribe faithful are very strong in the Card collecting business. I hope Baseball Dad is as happy with the Indian cards that I sent over his way as the ones I received today.

Beardy's Blog and Building 1959 Topps

When I returned to baseball cards I made the decision to attempt building a Vintage Topps Set. The set I picked was the 1959 Topps Set. At the time it was the upcoming Topps Heritage Set, I like the looks of them - It was the last set to contain Richie Ashburn as a Phillie, and it was from the '50s which has a bit more cache then saying "I am collecting the 1960 set".

I recently reached the half way point and have just received contributions from two different bloggers. About a week ago I posted about a card sent in a package from Night Owl Cards. And this week I was very happy to find another nice group of cards from the Orioles centered Beardy's Baseball Blog.

Up until now almost all of the cards I have built the set with have been via eBay and Card Shows. I like the cards I get via trades twice as much though. I am sure not to many folks have extra 1959s around but if you do I am definitely willing to trade for them. I have lots of duplicates from the sets, and if anybody is interested in those I will also entertain trade offers.

I noticed about a month ago in a post that Beardy had picked up an eBay lot of 1959 Orioles. The batch contained some duplicates. We made a trade where I sent him one of the O's High-Numbered All-Stars, Gus Triandos, along with a few Markakii (hope I got that right) and he sent back a bunch of his '59 dupes which also included a few Red Sox cards.



1959 Topps #219 George Zuvenick
1959 Topps #500 Vic Wertz

I love the Zuvenick card and a couple of other O's cards in this set because they have the classic Orioles uni with "Baltimore" written across the front. This season the O's have gone backto wearing these uniforms when on the road.

I am chronicling my quest to build the 1959 topps set on my Trade List Page in this posting. As of today (2009 06 14) I have 344 of the 572 cards or about 60% of the set. If anybody has any 1959s that I could use please let me know and we can make a deal. I also have a list of my 1959 doubles but that list needs to be updated as several of these have been sent out over the last couple of months. I have several other lists of sets that I have started or am in the process of building throughout the SetQuest page if you see anything that you have to offer let me know and perhaps we can work a deal.

Thanks to Beardy's Baseball Blog for helping out with building the 1959 Topps Set, it is much appreciated - oh and Beardy, The Phils are hosting the O's next weekend, I think there is a good chance of seeing a Phungo 5 questionairre in your email soon.

Phun Stuff - Taste Like Dirt

One of my card collecting goals is to get involved in more trading this year and recently Team Phungo and Taste Like Dirt put together a trade.

Jim from TLD Features the Oakland A's and the occasional Rock n Roll post. TLD also features some great game Photos and has been a source of some helpful info regarding my own photography.

I sent some A's out to TLD and in return I got a bunch of 2008 Topps Series 2 that I needed for the set. One of the highlights is Freddy Sanchez:

2008 Topps #462 Freddy Sanchez

Why is this card a highlight? I just love the fact that you can see the birthday list in the background. This is likely from a game played May 17th (Sugar Ray's Birthday), although of what year, I don't know. It appears to be a home Day game, but I couldn't track one of those down for the Bucos over the last couple of years. But how cool would it be to be Marty Gallagher and have your name immortalized on a baseball card!

I am down to the last 19 cards that I need for the 08 series 2 set, any help would be appreciated. My Want list is here.

I am going to be more active in trading this year, and have some somewhat updated Want Lists here. The dupes lists aren't as up to date, but can give you an idea of some stuff I have that is looking for a good home. I will likely be liquidating my 07 Topps and 07 and 08 UD at some point if anyone needs those to complete their sets.

Trade with White Sox Cards

2008 UD Baseball Heroes #183 Steve Carlton and Johan Santana
1986 Topps Mini #55 Mike Schmidt
1978 Topps#574 Bob Lemon 2008 UD Masterpieces
#70 Jimmy Rollins

As you probably know Steve at White Sox Cards has been very active on the trade market lately. And Team Phungo is very happy to have worked out a deal with WSC involving some White Sox some Phils and a bunch of stuff on my need list.

Basically I had a couple ’59 White Sox looking for a good home and Steve checked on my want list and we expanded the deal from there. Steve sent out a team bag full of Phils which included lots of stuff I needed.

And another bag full of cards to help out with my set building.

The cards above are among the highlights. I didn't pick up any Baseball Heroes cards this year and was very happy to get the Carlton/Santana card. The Schmidt is the first 86 Mini added to the Phungo collection. I also let Steve know that I enjoy vintage cards if he had any, The Bob Lemon card was among the vintage he sent. I like the '78 manager cards - probably had this one when I was a kid - glad to have this one back in my collection.

The set builder bag had cards I needed from 08 Topps Series 2, 07 Bowman Heritage, and 07 Masterpieces. I was very happy to knock a bunch of those sets off of my lists.

Thanks a bunch for the cards and keep up the trading – it’s like getting a blaster in the mail – only I want all the cards and it’s a heckuva lot cheaper.

And I think it all went much better than this trade....