SPIFF-y treats!

I got home today from work to find a box of cards. Not just ANY box of cards, though. As soon as I saw the box, I recognized the designs on the sides. It was one of my 'trick-or-treat' boxes come back to haunt me! Or so I thought...


Inside was a note from Spiff, "Hope you can use some of these." Under the note was a box full of Indians cards! In fact, there was a teeny-tiny baggie full of cards in there, too...


Whoever said there is no God does not know that God is not only around, but He has quite the sense of humor and timing. One day after I post a "Things Done To Cards" article on the SIZE of cards, I get a box in the mail with some of the smallest cards I have ever seen: 1991 Topps Micro. The entire lot he sent fit on the scanner with room to spare!


"But, that was just the roof of the thing." (Do you know the quote? Hint: Stephen King) - There were minor league cards featuring players like Graham, Sanders, and Odor. What an unfortunate name that is.


Classic Donruss brought out faces from the past, and there were some newer Upper Deck in there for good measure, too.


And then, there cards featuring players from the way-back machine. But also cool little things thrown in like the ProSigs Blue Signature card! Very cool indeed!


And then we take a stroll down memory lane brought to by Fleer!


These Donruss cards show something of an evolution of the brand's card sets from the early, ugly days to the days of cool borders and better pictures.


I love me some Tribe stickers! And I don't think I've ever seen that Topps "Tribe-unal" card before... Very cool!


And, of course, any time you get Tris Speaker in a box of cards, you know it's all good! He is surrounded by teammates who came along long after his playing days. You can't really make out the Kobyashi card, but the foil got hosed in process and the letters actually came out almost in 'reverse-foil.' Weird.


There was a great mixture of Topps cards in the box, too. Plus, some ORIGINAL O-Pee-Chee cards to boot! (None of those up-and-coming UD knock-offs here!!)


The Topps cards ranged in age from the 70's to recent releases!


I have always been a fan of the Ted Williams set of cards! The box included the cool 'Opening Day' versions of several of the cards. A fellow blogger once commented how he likes the blue foil on cards. I have to agree... SHINY!! :-)


I haven't had a chance to take a GOOD look at the cards, but believe me, I will be going through them again as I check them against my collection!! Awesome stuff. A HUGE "Thank You" to Spiff for sending me a great box of Tribecards!

Side Note: I showed my wife the 1991 Topps Micros. She looked hard at the one in my hand and said, "Oh... Alomar, Jr..." She was, of course, referring to the onslaught of Alomar cards I had sent dayf...

A question for collectors

I collect Indians cards. Pretty straight-forward for the most part. I also collect Naps cards because that was the team name at one point. Okay, really, if it's a Cleveland baseball franchise, I'm collecting it... I digress.

Here is the problem I have whenever I am handing out trades: Which team collectors get old-school cards? For example, do Brewers fans also collect vintage Milwaukee Braves cards? Do current Braves fans get the old cards because the team is the "Braves" after all? How about the Brooklyn Dodgers? Does that go to current LA fans, or Mets fans, Yankees fans!? St. Louis Browns cards usually go to St. Louis fans when I dole them out. What about Washington fans? Do you collect Senators cards in addition to Nationals cards?

I have lots of cards that I have never handed out because I'm not sure who actually "wants" them from a team-collector perspective. How about NY Giants!? Is that a Mets thing or a San Fran thing? I know I have other examples, but those are escaping me for now...

Chime in and let me know how you collect when it comes to particular teams... Or, if you are of the mindset "It's blankety-blank vintage! I don't care WHO is on the front, I'll take it!!"

After all, when I am sending out TRICKS, none of this matters, but when I am sending out TREATS and TRADES, it could mean the difference between sending a "good" selection and just ticking someone off... :-)

I got Fluck(inger)ed...

When I heard the 2009 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards came with a DVD, I immediately jumped online and snagged up a copy. Maybe I should have waited. Maybe I should have read a review or two. Maybe I should have spent the money on a box of Americana-II.

The book, of course, is everything the catalog has come to be known for: big, bulky, full of cards most of us never heard of let alone laid eyes on.

The DVD? It's a 165MB PDF of the book. Yes, you read that correctly. A single PDF of the book. Oh, you can use Adobe Reader to search and find, but so what? And, if you understand how optical storage devices (CD's/DVD's) work, you know that a CD holds up to 800MB of information. A DVD? Up to 8+ Gigabytes... Okay, so let me break this down for you... The PDF is 165 Megabytes. What does a CD hold? Yeah, 800MB. You could store at least FIVE COPIES of the book on a CD. Why on EARTH would you put something that small on a DVD!? Useless. Waste of space.

I guess I thought I was going to get a database version of the book. Something I could pull names and sets from. You know, something like: "Give me every Travis Hafner card from every manufacturer." Now, THAT would have been handy. Instead, I have an electronic version of a book that makes more sense to flip through the ACTUAL pages than the virtual ones....

If you are thinking about buying this because it has a DVD of the book, please save yourself the trouble and the money.

For the record, I used the "bookmarks" feature in Reader to navigate the catalog. Okay, you can jump to certain pages by using the bookmarks. That is kinda helpful. But, if you pull up the index, you cannot jump from the index back to the page with the information you want. You have to go find that yourself. Well, you can also type the page number in at the top and jump to that page. Frankly, I can do that with the paper version.... Okay, yeah, the paper version weighs a ton and takes up a lot of room on your desk (r folding chair next to your computer)... Okay, you know what? For a first time (please tell me this is the first time they included electronic media), it's not bad. Not great, and not necessarily as useful as the paper copy, but not toooooo bad....

My guess is that you can find the electronic version online somewhere if you look hard enough.

Beckett (I know, a dirty word among bloggers) had the best solution out there at one point: a database that gets update regularly based on their own cataloging. I know, you can do it online now. I'm old-school - I want the program to run on MY computer. That way, if the 'net is down, I can still enter cards into the program.

Don't get me wrong, I love the program I use (TheCardCollector), but they are missing a lot of the sets included in the Standard Catalog. I just think the Standard Catalog should have included a way for its readers to actually... ummmm.. CATALOG their cards....

Okay, you asked for it....

If you scroll down just a bit on the right side, you will now see a section detailing my "Want Lists." Before everyone notices: Yes, I have a lot of BASE cards on there. I was out of the hobby for quite a bit, and kinda 'skipped' around in my collecting.

There are very likely cards listed that I received recently but have not put in my database, so if you read the lists and see that I have cards on there that I specifically mentioned in a post or a thank you, it just means the card(s) haven't gone into the database yet.

There are cards that are not on the lists that I do, in fact, need. I just don't know that I need them. For example, I do not have a comprehensive breakdown-by-team of the T206's. So, there is a VERY good chance I need a lot of the Tribers. Same holds true for any sets that I do not have team assignments on. It also holds true with late '07 and all of '08 sets. I have not purchased the update to my database program with those sets loaded yet. If I happen to know they were Indians and I need them, they'll be in the list.

There is a "Here is what I own" list, too. Why? Two reasons. First, it gives anyone who is looking to send me specific cards a way to see if I already have those cards. Second, I get to "brag" a little... What's so wrong with that? :-)

Final note: My want lists are only for those folks who want to use them. By now, most of you know my general philosophy about getting Indians cards: If you have them and don't want them, I'll take them! :-) I am an 'old-school, love-to-collect' type collector. I am always thrilled when I get cards in the mail, whether I "need" them or if I already have them. Yeah, I'm kinda funny that way....

A Fastidious Night Owl...

fastidious: (adj) giving and careful attention to detail.


I received a box in the mail the day after Halloween. It was from NightOwl! His gift included a hand-written note in which he hoped I might "need 1 or 2" of the cards he sent... I haven't checked it against my database yet, but I have a feeling the 'hit count' will be much higher than 1 or 2. Just a cursory glance gives me the feeling it will hit a dozen or more easy!!


One of the first things I noticed about the box was that the cards were arranged alphabetically by the players' last names! If anyone else has sent me such an arrangement and I failed to notice, I apologize. That takes some serious work to organize a bunch of random Indians players by name. :-)


There were a lot of familiar faces in the bunch! There were also some familiar faces on not-so-familiar cards. Hopefully that means more to add to the collection, and not just a sign that I'm losing my memory...


There were quite a few vintage cards in the box! I love me some vintage, and some not-quite-vintage! I have to say, the 1969 Dave Nelson is spectacular! The Ted Ford is sharply cut, but the photo is canted slightly to the right. You look at it and wonder if you are really seeing what you think you see... Something out of a horror movie, for sure. :-)


For the first time in a LONG time (and I'm not sure I have ever actually done this before), I scanned in ALL of the cards sent to me. I don't know why I haven't done this in the past, nor what triggered the idea to start doing it now, but from this point forward, I plan to scan in all the cards I receive as part of trades or gifts. I just think it's a cool idea.... Then again, I thought posting a new "All-Time Tribe by Uniform Number" each day would work... We see how THAT has worked out thus far...


Included in the box was a stack of 1989 Bowman cards, too. I have yet to figure out the right box size for over-sized cards. It looks like a 300-count might be the best option, huh?


The box contained cool things like "Opening Day" versions of base cards, SportFlics cards, and the span in years was nearly 40 years! One of my faves happened to be the first card in the box: a 2008 A&G mini Hafner.


A B-I-G thank you goes out to Night Owl for a great box of cards and a great job with the sorting! Certainly, this was a treat!