The Trading Post #105: I Need New Hobbies (Part 1: Shiny)

I'm a fan of whisky. And a good (but not absolute) rule of thumb is that the longer it's aged, the better it is. That rule held true for a recent trade I did with Scott, who writes at I Need New Hobbies. I first reached out in late 2014, offering up some 1992 Fleer Ultra. We exchanged an email or two, but nothing came to fruition at the time. It wasn't until just a few months ago when he dug up our old email thread and got the gears moving again, something he did with other bloggers as well.

As I'm known to do lately, I split this well-aged trade up into two parts. There was a lot of good stuff in here, and it proves that patience is a virtue. In fact, I've never spent as much time negotiating a trade as I did with this one. Most of my transactions are pretty open-ended. What teams do you like, any sets you're working on, are you building any mini collections, stuff like that. But this time was a different sort of swap. Want lists were carefully reviewed. Images were sent for review and approval. And at the end of the day, we hammered out a deal, even though the 1992 Fleer Ultra I originally offered was long gone.

Put your shades on; it's about to get shiny. Unless you're a flatbed scanner.

1995 Topps Opening Day #2 Dante Bichette

Before Topps Opening Day became the standalone product it is today, it was once an insert set found in factory sets of 1995 Topps. It's as shiny as you'd expect for a mid-'90s insert card, and reminds me a bit of some Topps Stars sets from the same period. Lots of little five-pointed stars in the background, and a bit of texture.

I've told my story about the night I stayed up to listen to the end of the inaugural game at Coors Field, the one where Dante Bichette hit a no-doubter in the 14th inning to win it for the home team. I don't really need a card to remember that, but Topps made one anyway, documenting his 2-for-4 performance, including four very important RBIs.

That opening day occurred a bit later in April 1995, on the 26th to be exact, thanks to some lingering fallout from the strike. I do wonder what the folks running the city of Denver thought at the time about having to open their shiny new baseball stadium a month late, but fast forward to today and it's become a great neighborhood to spend time in. Google Maps can barely keep up with the development around the ballpark and nearby Union Station.

Perhaps that memorable 14th-inning home run had something to do with what Denver is today.

1999 E-X Century #43 Dante Bichette

Clear cards like this present a bit of a dilemma. They're practically their own toploaders, but if you like to keep them in a binder, the card behind it disrupts the theme quite a bit. Still, the parts of this Skybox acetate card that aren't clear are pretty shiny, and even the clear areas have some nice purple coloring in the shadowy areas when you hold it up to the light, or even better, to a white background, like a computer screen or an X-ray illuminator (for example). It's a lot like a Topps Tek card, only without the ridiculous fractured numbering. In other words, it's a set you could actually complete.

There's not much in the way of stats or tidbits on the card back, just his 1998 stats, career totals, and the usual birthdate, height, that sort of stuff. But there's enough to notice that Dante Bichette celebrated a birthday on Saturday, and he wasn't much older when this card was printed than I am now.

Time flies.

2000 Upper Deck Hitter's Club Inserts #HC9 Larry Walker

In fact, quite a bit has happened since my last post. The baseball world experienced a tragic rule of threes, the end-of-season awards have been handed out, and next year's spring training schedule (and hats!) was just announced.

2018's Hall of Fame ballot just hit the newswire, and Larry Walker is still on it. Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Trevor Hoffman, and Vladimir Guerrero are my guesses for this year, but you never know when Barry Bonds will get enough of the vote to make it in. Having steroid-using superstars like Bonds and Clemens clogging up the ballot all these years really makes it difficult on the newcomers, leaving more debatable cases like Hideki Matsui and Omar Vizquel with a tough hill to climb.

And if Walker doesn't make it in, I don't think Helton will, which leaves us looking at guys like Arenado and Blackmon for the first Rockie inductee, assuming they keep up their current pace for another decade or so.

You'd think that an MVP award, three batting titles (one of which is documented on this Upper Deck insert), and darn near a Triple Crown would be sufficient. But Coors Field is about as much a kiss of death as steroids, apparently.

1998 Metal Universe #217 Larry Walker HG

Walker had quite the arm, too. He hit from the left side of the plate, but his right arm was an absolute cannon. The ball didn't quite get up to re-entry speeds during his numerous outfield assists, as pictured on this Metal Universe subset card, but he was dangerous to run against. To quote the card, "baserunners know they are in trouble when they see Walker wind up and a colorful flame trail, otherwise known as the baseball, heads toward the base of their choice."

Fleer laid it on a little thick with the outer space theme of this set as a whole, but 1998 was an odd time in the hobby. And Men In Black had just dominated the previous summer's box office, so I can't really fault them for it. It's a lot like Fleer's Pro-Visions cards, with a bit of added shininess befitting a "metal" set. It's not literally metal like the rust-prone Leaf Steel, but at least it's lighter and won't oxidize, like the surface of Mars does.

2013 Topps Opening Day Blue #219 Troy Tulowitzki /2013

It took a while for the Rockies to actually wear purple jerseys in the field. That happened quite a while ago, but it was a familiar sight by the time 2013 rolled around. This was back when Topps was still putting actual serial numbers on Opening Day Blue parallels, a feature I quite miss. I haven't seen these for a while, but they were showing up left and right a couple years ago. Also note the date of April 1st, 2013, a more proper date to begin a baseball season than April 26th.

Us collectors were chasing things all over the place in 2013, and Troy Tulowitzki was busy chasing down Barry Bonds' all-time Home Run record, about 632 short at the time. He's tacked on about another hundred since then, but all the records featured in the "chase" theme seem safe. It would have been a lot more interesting if Topps picked milestones (see this reddit post) that were reachable for some of these players, rather than Cy Young's 511 Wins, a record that will outlast the pyramids.

2013 Topps Heritage Chrome #HC45 Troy Tulowitzki /999

Out of curiosity, do the scratch-off areas of these 2013 Heritage cards actually work like the 1964s did? I haven't tried, and I'm not about to take a coin to this serial-numbered chrome parallel, numbered to just under a thousand. Neither a nickel nor a dime will come anywhere near this card, and especially not a quarter.

Coin buffs out there are likely to know that 1964 marked the end of the line for silver quarters, changing to the copper-nickel alloy we know today. There's no way kids in 1964 could have known that the silver quarter in their pockets and the cards in wax packs would appreciate so much in value a half-century later. But that's a long time to hold an investment, and in that time, the cards got shinier, and the coins duller.

1998 SPx Finite #269 Darryl Kile /9000

Speaking of copper, how about some Upper Deck? They embossed the SPx cards in 1998 with a copper seal, and serial numbered the most common of three varieties to 9,000 copies. The seal is surprisingly detailed; you can even make out "1998" at the top when looking closely. Further inspection with a magnifying glass lets you spot "USWest Sports Complex" below Kile's gloved left hand, set against a deep blue sky, locating this photo to the Rockies' former spring training facilities in Tucson. USWest was one of the "Baby Bells" created after the breakup of AT&T that has since evolved into CenturyLink, taking a similar corporate path that led the Giants' home park to be renamed so many times.

2006 Bowman Chrome Refractors #53 Kazuo Matsui

The first infielder from the Japanese leagues to play in the Majors, Kazuo Matsui, more frequently known as "Kaz", was a former pitcher in his native Japan. Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) has been back in the news, with star Shohei Otani looking to make the transition to MLB. The trail has been blazed by now, thanks to numerous players like Hideo Nomo, Hideki Matsui (also on this year's Hall of Fame ballot), Ichiro Suzuki, and many others.

Kaz was a Rockie during their World Series run in 2007, shortly after this ghostly-looking refractor was printed. Bowman always gives us a decent scouting report, and tells us that Matsui (no relation to potential Hall-of-Famer Hideki) used to play for the Seibu Lions. Curiously, just a few days ago, Kazuo re-signed with the Lions as a player/coach, proving his longevity along with fellow countryman Ichiro.

It remains to be seen where Otani will land. Naturally, the Yankees are a favorite, but if it ends up being the Cincinnati Reds, that will mean that every team in the MLB has fielded a Japanese player. The Reds are the lone holdout, something that's sure to be a trivia question someday.

1995 Stadium Club Crystal Ball #CB7 Jason Bates

Jason Bates held the second base position a decade or so before Matsui, performing well as he progressed up the Rockies farm system. That progression earned him a spot in yet another card from 1995 Stadium Club that I've never seen before.

Seriously, was there something wrong with the collation that year? I swear I collected 1995 Stadium Club, and I found heaps of Virtual Reality cards, but it seems like every time I look, there's something else from that set that's escaped my attention for two decades.

Despite the Crystal Ball theme, Topps did about as well as most insert sets of rookie stars, offering up a couple Hall of Famers like Derek Jeter and (soon) Chipper Jones, a few well-known names like Shawn Green, LaTroy Hawkins, and Phil Nevin, plus several others that didn't really amount to much. Prospects are notoriously hard to predict. No one selected first overall besides Ken Griffey, Jr. has made it to the Hall of Fame, but Chipper will likely become the second. A-Rod has a case, and younger players like Bryce Harper are certainly on track. But 2013's first selection, Mark Appel, was DFA'd by the Phillies earlier this week, so it's anyone's guess.

2011 Bowman Chrome Draft Refractors #56 D.J. LeMahieu

Two-time Gold Glover DJ LeMahieu currently holds down the second base position for the Rockies, even though he's pictured here as a Cub. Bowman refractors can always be counted on for a bit of shininess, and every once in a while, they depict a player who has actually made an impact in the Major Leagues. The Rockies were lucky to get him, a player who "plays the game the right way", according to Bowman.

That little green accent on 2011 Bowman prospect cards is a nice touch, especially when it's in the lower part of the card to blend in with the field a bit. Though he's shown in the field where he was recognized with an award this year, his scouting report also tells us that he "usually hits for high average". Little did Bowman know that DJ would one day win a batting title with the Rockies, and award that's become as synonymous with the Rockies as Rookie of the Year is with the Dodgers.

2008 SPx #31 Todd Helton

I've seen cards from this die-cut SPx set before, and while it's not serial-numbered like Kile's, it will fit well with a Matt Holliday card sent by another trader. It's still one of my favorite die-cut designs ever, and this was included in the batch of scans that Scott sent to me for approval that really caught my eye. UD's clever use of shadows really makes this card pop, almost making it look like a secret compartment should slide out from somewhere.

1996 SPx #25 Andres Galarraga

SPx hit the market in 1996 with this design. Their trademark hologram, found on the back of nearly every UD card printed since 1989, inspired them to develop a whole brand around it. They had played around with it in 1994's Holoviews insert set, and they decided to scale it up to occupy most of the card, along with a rounded die-cut design. The only demerit is a practically illegible nameplate on the back, which looks like a rectangle of silver foil unless you look at it just right. We've seen a lot of SPx in this post, but this is the one that got the brand started. And it makes me miss Upper Deck quite a bit.

This is the first card from the '96 SPx base set in my collection, besides the Larry Walker card that Scott also included. I do have Fred McGriff's gold parallel from this color-coded set, which is obviously a lot more red. Coincidentally, those three cards offer a pretty good look at the 1995 NLDS playoff series between the Rockies and the eventual champions, the Atlanta Braves. McGriff whacked two homers in that series, more than both Walker and Galarraga combined.

2000 Bowman's Best Franchise 2000 #F17 Larry Walker

They don't get much shinier than this. Scanners really just don't do it justice. It's a shiny, mesmerising, textured insert card from Bowman's Best, as black on the reverse as it is shiny on the front. The back mentions Walker's home/road splits, a common criticism of Coors Field, and perhaps why he's not been able to make it into the Hall of Fame. But the card is right for the time, "No one puts on a better show for the home folks".

It actually takes a while to notice that the front is actually monochrome. The whole rest of the thing looks like a hundred little prisms, so you don't realize that Walker's image itself doesn't contain any color. That's how shiny it is. And if you ask how much shinier it could be? The answer is none. None more shiny.

Thanks Scott, and I'm glad this trade finally worked out!

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Mets

The other night, my girlfriend and I stopped into The Brass Armadillo, an antique mall in West Denver. While you might think that's not the most likely sentence to begin a baseball card hobby post, you'd be surprised.

The place is absolutely overwhelming, packed to the gills with old furniture, signs, cookware, books, salt and pepper shakers, coke bottles, you name it.

1999 Stadium Club #256 Bobby Jones

And of course baseball cards. It wasn't exactly like going to a card show, as I had to do a bit of digging to even find some, and even then, more digging was required to find good values. I found a page of 9 cards from the 1993 Rockies Team Stadium Club set which had one of my Eight Men Out needs, but I passed on that at almost $6. I even saw a box of 9-card pages priced at $9.95 each, but when the top page exclusively contained 1991 Donruss, I moved right along. Vendors simply rent space and leave their wares, precluding the opportunity of negotiating (or even giving them a simple heads-up that this isn't 1993 anymore).

Still, I found a few values, including a couple vendors that had team bags (appropriately filled with a single team) for under a buck. There were some singles, too, including a 1962 League Leader card for a mere $4. But I'll get to those later. I'm planning on delaying gratification and opening these team bags one at a time, starting with the Mets, as you can see by that Stadium Club beauty of Bobby Jones above.

There were lots of overproduction cards around, but I think I found some gems in these team bags. Not much recent stuff, but everything from this Mets bag was 1994 or later, so it's a fairly rare glimpse at late-'90s product.

2002 Upper Deck MVP #239 Roger Cedeno

And even early 2000s. This 2002 example from Upper Deck MVP is one of my favorite black-bordered sets around, and the thin copper lines work very well with the Mets' colors. I didn't realize Cedeno was such a journeyman; the back of this card documents his appearance on four teams in four years, not counting his return to the Mets for 2002. Unfortunately, he missed the last Mets' World Series appearance in 2000, spending that year on the Astros.

1998 Pacific Online #488A Mike Piazza Hitting

Mike Piazza, of course, didn't. He was involved in that infamous altercation with Roger Clemens and a broken bat during 2000's Subway Series. What Clemens was thinking there, I'll never know.

This was one of a few Pacific Online cards, the always-enjoyable Geocities Set, as I like to call it. Note the intact baseball bat and absence of Roger Clemens.

1998 Stadium Club #164 Chris Hoiles

Somehow, an Orioles card or two snuck into this bag. It's 1998 Stadium Club, so no objection there, but I am curious how this happened. I'll never turn down a card with that embossed baseball stitching (just like that Dante Bichette card from a previous post), but Chris Hoiles only played for Baltimore. I am guessing that whoever packaged these had the teams arranged alphabetically, and after the Mets cards ran out, picked a couple off the Orioles stack to fill the bag. Prior to the Expos moving to D.C. to become the Nationals, the Orioles come right after the Mets in alphabetical order. I should know, as there is lots of alphabetizing in my card organization habits.

Based on the other team bags I purchased, I might see a few rogue Rangers, Braves, Indians, White Sox, A's, and Giants. Watch this space.

1998 Metal Universe #148 Bobby Jones

Bobby Jones was never a Mets superstar, but here he is on his second card of this post. This card is from 1998, a year after his best season and only All-Star selection. We'll see how the Mets do when the NLDS gets to Queens. The home team has not fared well at all in the playoffs so far.

I've posted about this set before, although the Rockies cards are quite a bit less urban than this New York card showing the Twin Towers, the Statue of Liberty, and Lower Manhattan (trust me, that's what's on the card). I love New York, but my home state is called Colorful Colorado for a reason.

1997 Donruss #350 John Olerud

I lost track of the hobby when this was printed. Turns out I have exactly one other base card from 1997 Donruss (not counting a whole bunch of cards from that subset-heavy set). But I know that era well enough to recognize 1996 Leaf when I see it.

1996 Leaf  #164 Kurt Abbott

Never a good idea to knock off your own product.

1994 Leaf #31 Bobby Bonilla

1994 Leaf was the most common set in this team bag, when Leaf was firing on all cylinders. The 1993 card backs featured a cityscape (or naturey landscape photo, in the Rockies' case) of the team's home city (much like 1998 Metal Universe above), but 1994 Leaf changed this just a little, including a shot from the team's home stadium.

1994 Leaf #31 Bobby Bonilla (Reverse)

For the Mets, of course that means the Home Run Apple. I'd love to see an updated version of this set, and I can see the train in Houston, the slide in Milwaukee, the Rooftop in Denver, and the Whatever-it-is-Fountain in Miami being great subjects for such a set. Or even a Topps insert set called "Ballpark Oddities".

1995 Fleer #384 Ryan Thompson

Now that I think about it, I wonder if the same designers that worked on 1995 Fleer came up with the Marlins' home run fountain. The Marlins, an NL East team, carried the same design in 1995 Fleer (which had different card fronts for each of the six divisions), although the card backs look positively tame in comparison.

1995 Fleer #384 Ryan Thompson (Reverse)

So that's what baseball cards look like when you go antiquing, provided you avoid the $10-a-page 1991 Donruss. Next up will be the already-eliminated Pirates, and I don't know if I'll get to the Astros before they conclude their playoff appearance. There's lots of baseball left before it all wraps up for the year, so enjoy it while you can!

The Trading Post #23: Cards From the Quarry (Part 1: Not Topps)

Given that I'm rather fond of the Colorado Rockies, it's only proper that I should be trading with the most well-known Rockies blogger out there, hiflew from Cards From the Quarry. I've mentioned some of his work before, such as his Quarry Unlimited custom sets, but after I commented on his want list post saying I had a few needs, he offered to send back a bunch of his Rockies extras to "a good home".

A small flat-rate box showed up not long ago, packed full of those Rockies extras. As you might expect from a collector focused on the same team I like, there were a ton of great cards in there. So many, in fact, that I had to break this up into two posts. This first part will cover the best of the non-Topps cards, starting with the late Darryl Kile, who pitched for the Rockies for two years.

1998 Ultra #303 Darryl Kile

There's plenty of green on that card, including most of the outfield behind Kile fielding a comebacker, as well as the raised foil lettering. The design is pretty typical of a Fleer Ultra set, especially with that script font.

Pacific was always trying to be one of the big boys in the card collecting world, often one of the first to put forth some minor innovations, such as listing which set a card was part of near the card number. Upper Deck didn't adopt that until many years later.

Topps is well-known these days for short-printed photo variations, and there has been lots of buzz about this year's SPs with the recent release of 2015 Topps. However, Pacific was printing photo variations long before Topps became known for it.

1999 Pacific #141 Dante Bichette

1999 Pacific #141a Dante Bichette (Headshot)

Like Topps, these Pacific "headshot" cards (on right) don't really differentiate themselves from the base cards (on left) unless you already know what to look for. It's hard to know that you're holding something unusual without having the run-of-the-mill version right alongside it. And even then, you don't know which is the rare one. However, Pacific did it a bit differently than Topps' does, in that there are different player photos on the back of each card.

I don't have an issue with having different varieties on the market; in fact, David Freese's Rally Squirrel card is one of my favorites in recent years. I just wish there was less of a super-secret-handshake feel to them. Just print it as card 141b or something.

Any trade package with mid-'90s cards is bound to have lots of shiny, and 1997 Pinnacle Certified certainly fits that bill.

1997 Pinnacle Certified #86 Eric Young

This set might hold the record for pure reflectivity. You could probably shave or tie a tie by using those mirrored triangles in each lower corner. Not only that, but this set comes with a peel-off coating that is way easier to remove than Topps Finest. The card backs in this set are a bit like overproduction-era Bowman cards because they break down the previous season's stats by opponent, rather than just a whole year's performance on one line.

The shininess doesn't end there; although this Castilla isn't reflective enough to put on your side-view mirrors.

1995 Flair #128 Vinny Castilla

Fleer's ultra-premium Flair brand made some of the thickest cards around in the mid-1990s. The brand got pretty weird toward the end of that decade by jumping on the insane "fractured set" bandwagon, but prior to that, you could always count on sharp photography, thick card stock, usually some cursive, and something that wouldn't look entirely out of place on the end of a gold chain.

The post-strike hobby was a weird place. Like many collectors that return after a long hiatus, I'm still finding cards and sets from that era that I had no idea about.

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado #152 Larry Walker GR

Ever heard of Pinnacle Aficionado? I sure hadn't. And the above isn't even a standard base card; it's from the Global Reach subset. That black background of latitude/longitude lines and the map of Canada is made of a strange, raised black surface that is rough to the touch.

Donruss Studio was still alive and kicking in 2004, and one of their insert sets that year is pretty similar to the 1995 base set. You know, the one that was supposed to look like a credit card.

2004 Studio Stars #48 Todd Helton

Though they don't have raised lettering or a facsimile of a magnetic stripe, Studio Stars aren't cardboard at all. This insert set is made of a flimsy plastic like an insurance or library card. Donruss also made a fairly serious goof by sticking a Diamondbacks logo right on top of that checkered background of Rockies logos.

I've blogged about the 2008 Baseball Heroes set before, but I don't think I've yet shown one of the black parallels, one of the many colors you'll find this set in.

2008 Upper Deck Heroes Black #57 Troy Tulowitzki

Though he was instrumental in bringing the Rockies to the World Series in 2007, Tulo finished as the runner up for the 2007 NL Rookie of the Year award, as this card notes. He finished a very close second to Ryan Braun. Of the two, I'll point out that since then, only one has been to a World Series, and only one has been suspended for much of a season for violating MLB's drug policy.

Perhaps Tulo's second-place finish isn't as big a snub as Ken Griffey, Jr. finishing third in 1989, but I think that voters made the wrong call by picking Braun.

But that's water under the bridge, so let's move on to something a little more fun.

1999 Fleer Tradition #311 Jamey Wright

Not only is this a fantastic shot of the right-center stands at Coors Field, but it's always amusing to see a pitcher storing his glove on his head. I usually tucked it under my arm or on the end of my bat when I needed impromptu glove storage, but then again, I never got my call-up. Maybe Jamey Wright knows something I don't.

One thing I do know for sure is that the Rockies play in a beautiful state, one I am proud to call home.

There are a few cards that show off the glory of the Rockies (the mountains, not the team), like the card backs of 1993 Leaf...

1993 Leaf #244 Freddie Benavides (Reverse)

...and this multi-player card from the legendary 1993 Upper Deck set.

1993 Upper Deck #478 Dante Bichette / David Nied / Andres Galarraga

But those are just plain photographs. What if it were 1998 and we wanted to make it shiny and difficult to scan?

Then you'd have 1998 Metal Universe.

1998 Metal Universe #151 Mike Lansing

Mike Lansing joined the Rockies prior to the 1998 season, so he's still shown as an Expo. But Fleer's Skybox division found a lovely autumn shot of the mountains, complete with a twisted-up log partially submerged in a high-altitude lake. There are lots of places like that in Colorado, so it could be anywhere.

But I know where this one is.

1998 Metal Universe #39 Vinny Castilla

Though the scans don't do either of these cards justice, those are the Maroon Bells, a pair of 14,000-ft. mountains just outside Aspen. They're some of Colorado's most iconic peaks, and judging by how much snow is still up there, that photograph was probably taken in late spring; likely early June.

This weekend has brought unseasonably warm weather to the Denver area, and it won't be long until the Maroon Bells look like that once again.

Baseball will be well underway by then.