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Sunday, January 17, 2016

Brad's Blog: givin' it away

Brad was moving.  Hauling cards ain't easy.  To lighten the burden, Brad offered up cards to any and every one.  I wasn't familiar with his blog and not sure how I stumbled across this opportunity.  Who says no  to free anyway?  Three days after the post, a fat mailer was on the way to my place.  Brad sent nearly 100 cards, all Tigers.  Elated was I.  It was hard to choose a reasonable number to share. 

There were the shiny and tiny:


Topps Lineage is a favorite of mine. The 75 styled minis make this a favorite release from 2011.  Topps Chrome, Bowman Platinum and Upper Deck Spectrum add great color to this lot.

Vintage - UD style:
It's always a bit sad to see the manner in which Upper Deck chose to cut their own throat.  These cards did not help their cause.  I happen to like the black borders and design.  In fact, I've liked them since 1971 - or since I discovered 71 Topps, I should say.  Upper Deck released Vintage in 2002.


Courtesy of Google Images, 1971 Topps:

Really.  How did the once flourishing Upper Deck Company think this
would fly?  No one at Topps would be paying attention??



Here's a fun card which somehow escaped my knowledge:




 2003 Fleer Double Header: one half of Fernando Rodney unfolds to reveal a full-figured Barry Wesson. The card back lists stats for both boys.

A couple of hits:


 At 16, Aussie Rikki Johnston signed with the Tigers, receiving a $400,000 signing bonus.  This card is from 2000 Royal Rookies.  According to Beckett's catalog, he disappears from all card releases after 2003.  4,950 hand-signed cards.  Just what does that do to a pitcher's hand?

And finally these gems.  I'd like to have a complete set of the Conlon Collection, color version.  My first of these is a Cobb, my all-time favorite Tiger.  That's one beautiful card!


I appreciate these and more so, our introduction.  I needed a Phillies fanatic on my trader list.  I owe you Brad.  Thanks for your patience!

11 comments:

  1. I stand corrected. These are facts and any reasonable person would agree with you. ;)

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  2. Good stuff! Upper Deck thought that because they owned the rights to the Oh Pee Chee name that they could get away with paying tribute to past OPC designs.. that just happened to be nearly identical to the Topps designs thanks to the OPC/Topps arrangement back in the day. A court of law disagreed with UD's assertion, as you can imagine.

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    1. thanks for the background! I did some research but never came across this interesting fact. Yeppers, they were wrong-o!

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  3. Man, that color Conlon Cobb is a beauty.

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  4. Nice Cobb cards! https://youtu.be/aC-AqWYKixE

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    1. Great movie! Mean old guy that he was, Cobb is still my favorite HOFer.

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  5. Very nice, now send me your address!

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    1. Alright already ;) done. Looking forward to trading!

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  6. Hard to beat free baseball cards :-)

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    1. true enough! that's what makes trading so much fun. I personally love giving stuff away. Thanks for reading, Paul!

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