Bo Knows Frankensets

As I've alluded to in recent posts, I am very close to completing my Frankenset. Being in the final stages, I've identified my final steps toward completion.

1) Wait for my recently acquired smelly cards to de-stinkify so I can go through the ones I set aside as Frankenset candidates. Hoping I don't have to wait more than another week. I might have to do a fresh batch of baking soda in each box. Stay tuned.

2) File some of my recent acquisitions in their respective slots. (More on this in a moment.)

3) Compile a listing of the cards in Excel (this is mostly complete).

4) Fill in the blank slots with checklist cards (this will probably take the longest of any of the steps). If anyone has created a custom checklist before, I would appreciate tips in the comments below.

After I complete the set, I'll have to decide how to unveil it. I have been posting just my top three cards from each page a page at a time for a few months now, but might go back to the beginning and show each page card by card. Or I might pick a random page to show each time. We'll see. 

I've made great strides in the last couple months on the Frankenset due in large part to Card Barrel, which has a fantastic supply of inexpensive cards from random sets and years for me to choose from. Those people are undoubtedly puzzled each time I place an order, wondering why in the world I would choose the cards I do. 

Sometimes, there are some great Frankenset candidates in the vintage era, and that's where I've sought out other help. Specifically, Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life and I recently swung a trade for some mostly vintage cards that I would have had to pay way too much for on Card Barrel. Instead, I was able to take advantage of Bo's extensive trade list to nab some great cards for my final push. Behold the beauty:

1976 Topps #639, Fred Kendall; 1981 Topps #541, Steve Swisher

Leading off with a couple "lesser knowns." Both men had more famous sons become major leaguers, Jason and Nick respectively. Bonus points for the Swisher beard. 

1976 Topps #363 Dave Collins; 1972 Topps #284 Ike Brown; 1979 Topps #31 Tom House 

Some solid 70s glasses with some notable facial hair sprinkled in.

1974 Topps #382 Bob Moose

This card checks so many Frankenset boxes. Hair, mustache, facial expression, name. Phenomenal.

1994 Pinnacle #490, Chris Sabo

In a Frankenset where "glasses" is a category, it would be a crime to exclude Chris Sabo's goggles. Bonus points for appearing with the Orioles, for whom he played only 68 games.

1973 Topps #483, Dal Maxvill

A guy named "Dal." I had no idea what that was short for, and I didn't even have to go to baseball-reference.com for assistance. The back of the card has his full name: Charles Dallan Maxvill.

1973 Topps #530 Jim Kaat

An AL pitcher at the plate in a set from the year the DH debuted. Unbeatable. 

So there are nine more fantastic cards for the Frankenset. Bo is a pleasure to trade with and he makes it even easier with his trade list and want lists. Thanks Bo!

Massive Card Lot for $40? Yes, Please.

I haven't posted in a while and part of the reason why is this massive haul of cards:

I regularly search Craigslist and Facebook locally in the hopes of finding big groups of cards for cheap. I've done it before with good results. So even though I really had no idea what was in this lot, I figured $40 would be worth the hunt. And it was, but the lot wasn't without disappointment.

The Bad:

I'm not sure how many cards were in this lot. I planned to try to do a rough count, but kind of lost interest in that early on. Maybe 30,000 to 50,000. That's my rough estimate. In any event, about half the cards basically had to be trashed. I'm not one to throw away cards, but a good number were yellowed and smelled pretty bad due to some combination of dust/smoke/general mustiness. So that was disappointing. The upside of that group of cards is it was basically all Overproduction Era cards, so not a huge loss. 

A decent number of cards in the lot also had some of the stink, but none of the yellowing. Those cards are currently sealed away in boxes with baking soda. I heard this needs to be done for a week to be effective. I hope it works. I snuck a smell (LOL) tonight - after 5 days - and it seems to have helped somewhat. I might do a second week with a new box of baking soda, even though I really want to get at these cards to do more sorting and filing. If anyone has a better tip for exorcising the smell, leave a comment for me.

The Good:

The cards I'm about to show already add up to me recovering my $40, so that's some of the good news. Also, there was a nice box of about 500 Topps Archives cards from 2001, so I should be able to flip those on eBay (they looked like players with last names S-Z, so if you need someone in that range, let me know and I'll take a look for you before I list the cards on eBay). There was also a box of some premium inserts from the mid-90s that have some value. I used some of the Griffey inserts to sell a lot on Facebook, so have already recovered some of the investment:

I'm excited to keep a lot of the cards I found, including a good stack of cards to possibly plug in to my nearly-complete Frankenset (more on that in a upcoming post). There are several hundred of those to go through, so that will be fun. Some others I'm excited to keep are of course, waxy rookies!!!

If you're curious, there wasn't a ton of vintage in the lot (just a few 70s cards), but there were a few hundred early 80s cards. I'll probably ditch the Overproduction Era commons at some point, but will save cards for my player files. So if there's a player you're interested in, as always, let me know and we can work on a trade. Might be a while before I get everything filed though.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tebow Time, Bubble Gum, and a Sucker: My Favorite Frankenset Card by Page; Page 9 (Cards 91-99)

It's time for another installment of my favorite Frankenset card (by page), where I show off my Frankenset by giving you my top three favorite cards from each page of the set. Let's jump right in.

3) 2019 Bowman Draft #92, Tim Tebow

I think 2020 would have been Tebow's last best shot at taking a few at-bats late in the season at the major league level, but the minor league season was canceled. Not sure he had much of a chance to begin with, but it's probably not going to happen now. Still, what he has done at the minor league level is really impressive after not playing since high school. 

2) 2016 Stadium Club #96, Adam Eaton

Not quite a Bevacqua-level bubble, but quite impressive for an in-action photo. 

1) 1993 Upper Deck #99, Mark Portugal

This is the quintessential Frankenset card. Signing autos. The glasses. The STRAP on the glasses! The sucker in the mouth. Golden.

With page nine now in the books, here are the Frankenset standings. For this post, we have an "Wrong Sport" with the Tebow, a "Gum" card with the Eaton, and a combination "Glasses" and "Signing Autos" card with the Portugal. The Portugal fits into more than one category, so it will be split into half points. After nine pages, here's what we've seen:

Category
Lesser Known:	4.5
Odd Team:	4
Glasses:	4
Mustache:	3
Pitcher Hitting:	3
Field Action - Awkward:	2
Equipment Oddity:	1
Facial Expression - In Action:	1
Field Action Fail:	1
Pitcher Running Bases:	1
Position Player Pitching:	1
Gum:	1
Wrong Sport:	1
Why is he bunting?:	0.5
Chew:	0.5
Funny Name/Nickname:	0.5
Hair:	0.5
Signing Autographs:	0.5

What is your favorite card from page nine?

Thanks for reading!

The Reliable Brett Buntler

I'm well acquainted with the cards of the Overproduction Era, simply because I've seen them so many times. So when I think in terms of patterns or themes in cards, my familiarity with the 1988-1993 or so crowd comes to the forefront. Some patterns I've noticed:

Kirt Manwaring seems to always be the catcher in a play at the plate.

Jose Rijo and Roger McDowell are oftentimes doing something goofy. 

Ken Griffey Jr. is often playfully smiling with his hat on backwards.

And Brett Butler always seems to be bunting, so much so that I have now dubbed him:

Brett BUNT-ler!

The pun is just too easy. 

So I took my Brett Butler cards out and decided to see if my recollection was right. How often is he shown bunting? Surely it couldn't be on every card, but it happened often enough for me to notice a pattern. Here are my findings:

I have 43 different Brett Butler cards ranging from 1983 through 1996. 11 of those cards show him somewhere in the process of bunting.

Here's the lineup:

The 1995 Collectors' Choice Special Edition is my favorite of the bunch. Great shot of the ball hitting the bat. 

Here's the final card, showcasing Butler giving advice on bunting! This was part of a six card subset from 1993 Upper Deck Fun Pack. 

1993 Upper Deck Fun Pack #210 - Brett Butler

That's just over 25% of my cards showing Butler bunting. Pretty healthy incidence of bunting I would say. I always enjoy a good bunting card. 

Are there any players that you picture doing the same thing on many different card issues? 

Thanks for reading!

Goals and Milestones - Frankenset and Vintage Cubs Set Additions

 I've been a less frequent poster recently due to general busyness, but also because I have been focusing on a couple of my collections. The first is my Frankenset, which has become kind of a painful slog. I'm now trying to find cards to fit specific slots in the set, which is a lot of work. By some extensive trial and error, I have finally found a good way to find cards to fit a particular number. I go on COMC and type in the card number in the search box. Then I sort oldest to newest, click the category of Baseball, and scan through the pictures. Previously, I had started looking for some of the higher number sets, since the 661 to 792 range is where I have the most gaps to fill. But going set by set to see if there were cards to fit my particular needs was too much work. 

1984 Topps #754 Kent Tekulve, part of the Frankenset

So far, this new method is working much better, but I'm just ready to be done with it at this point. I want to be done so I can sit back and enjoy what I put together, then can casually replace cards as I find upgrades. I'm wondering if I can ever truly be done with the set, though, because there always might be a better card out there to fit a particular slot. It would be kind of cool to just have it be a fluid process, but there are a couple problems with that in my mind. First, I wanted to create checklists in part to fill in some of the card numbers I was missing. So I'd have to finalize the set at some point in order to do that. Second, I try not to repeat certain card themes. For example, no more than one card showing Kent Tekulve's awesome sunglasses, even if there are 10 out there. If I find another awesome one and forget that I had one in the set already, I would end up breaking the rule.

1988 Donruss #535, Kent Tekulve
This card got the boot from the Frankenset
 due to qualifying under the same criteria 
as the 1984 Topps Tekulve seen above.

I'm leaning toward setting a final goal of 780ish cards and filling in the rest with custom checklists, even if some of the slots could still use upgrades. Then down the road, maybe as I collect the upgrades, I could do a mass update to the set all at once every year or something. We'll see. 

The other collection I have been working on is my Cubs binder. I'm now up to over 790 different Cubs players for my all-time Cubs team.

The first set of cards came from a trade with Bo at Baseball Cards Come to Life, 

The next set of cards came in two separate acquisitions. I didn't own any 1956 Topps cards before the two you see below. I also recently traded with Matt at Diamond Jesters as part of his time travel trade program. I sent him a couple 1955 Bowman duplicates I had and got these 1957 Cubs in return.

I really like the backs of the 1956 Topps. Really detailed and unique. 

At this point, all Cubs players from the 80s and 90s are almost completely covered. My focus lately has been on the 60s and early 70s, since it's easier to find the exact cards I need without trying to track guys down in a million different sets. Take a look here if you think you can help me out. I have vintage cards from these years to trade in return for Cubs players. I also need cards of guys from the 2000s and 2010s, but that list is much more haphazard because of all the random places you have to look to see if the player was ever pictured on a card in a Cubs uniform.

As far as goals, I would say I hope to complete the Frankenset by the end of the year and think I might stop at 1,000 different Cubs cards. But that might take a while. 

Thanks for stopping by!