Micro mini frankensets, 1st of a semi regular subset series.

 You can make a frankenset out of any theme that tickles your fancy.  I tend to notice odd things when I'm knee deep in a pile of cards. I don't know how I do this.  I'll be flipping thru a pile of cards and one will stop me and I don't necessarily know why. Sometimes I scroll back a few dozen cards and find the connection.  Others I just toss it aside and at some point later the connection card comes up.  I can't tell you how I ended up with 3 cards or more.  It's like they have always been connected and magically appeared in my collection having always been so.

 These are mini frankensets with only a few cards that make an odd set together.  Sometimes it can be a mini set within a year like this topps 1993 set.  First up is Junior Felix.  But I thought he was an outfielder so why is Junior catching?

Well, you are not wrong because Junior Ortiz is a catcher.  They cropped the shot to make sure you can see the dirt and Ortiz standing over the plate. Youll notice the ball is clearly beating the player home, is that a 3?

Yes, it is a 3 and that's Gary Gaetti about to be tagged out.  Not even close.  You'll noticed that they cropped this one a little higher and layed the name plate across the dish.  It makes for an exciting card for Gary even if he was put out.  

These were all taken within minutes, nay, seconds of each other.  you can see the guy in the checkered shirt with kid in a blue shirt over the dugout to the right

Here's a quicky Micro mini set: The ball is just not thrown hard enough to get to Alvaro before those little fingers have tickled the base.  No matter how fast you sweep your arm down...

...Rickey is in there safe.

Who is watching you?

 I've been too busy under piles of recent trades in the last few days to actually get up here and talk about them.  And that will come, hopefully a little later this week.  As I was going thru everything something caught my eye and will give you some insight into what I do with cards.  I have this nice team card from the 1957 Cincinatti Redlegs.  It has Frank Robinson in the 3rd row 3 man in from the right side. You can actually see his big smile on the card.  Nice little artifact.  

But as I looked closer I noticed something.  Who is the ghost?  In the stands behind Kenndy to the left.

Did a baseball card capture an apparition from the great beyond? Or something more sinister?  For a few years in the 50s the club went by the Redlegs, so concerned were they at the histrionics coming out of HUAAC hearings and such at being thought of as Commies.  This from the old professional baseball team in the land, the first 9 to take regular payment for their services, and really what could be more American than that?  Certainly not apple pie.  But maybe this picture shows they had reason for concern.  Is this a government spook sent to monitor that this most American of institution not be infiltrated by the by the evil empire? May we ever know?

A Miscut so bad it makes you seasick

Just a short addendum from the mailbag stuff for a few days: 

David from CardBored.com also included this Nolan Ryan miscut for the trashed set in his recent package.  It fully qualifies on condition alone, but it occurred to me a I had some other miscuts and bad prints that I'm going to start adding.  

I don't need something that's just a bit off center or only slightly out of register.  I want cards that are practically cut in half like Don Money of the Pirates here, wait...what?

Or what can only be some kind of topps experiment with 3D printing.  

Or miscuts that are so off center and angled so wrong that it makes you sea sick to look at it.  

I don't think any edges are truly parallel and they aren't even square with each other.  HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?  When alcohol and knives are used in the same setting this is what happens. Yes I'll trade for these if you have something that'll fit in any of my Frankensets. 

Pony Express Mail update Part 2

Back with a part 2 of the recent mail updates from Friends and Strangers alike.

JBozovsky has written a book about the nearly criminal nature of baseball in turn of last century North Dakota that I very much wish to read one of these days. Among my favorite aspects of baseball are colorful characters and Chicanery.  He's helped me with the 2001/2002 topps Archives sets which will become a Frankenset of Players First, Last and Best cards once I finish up the last 20 or 25 I need from 2002.  He send me a nice stack of '58s trashers that I'll be slotting in tonight.  

I get why a kid would scribble out the name of the team if someone got traded but I never understood why they'd scribble the guy's name out and further confuse things by writing "Royer" (B. Hunter) or "Lance" (D. Fondy).  I also love that for a few years the Cincinnati Professional Baseball Club of the National League was so alarmed by the Red Scare that they referred to themselves as the "RedLegs" thus making a brief period in modern times where there were 3 teams (Spot all 3 above) whose name referred to their Legs or feet.  And they call baseball wholesome.  

Stevie Jay has been hooking me up with good stuff for my "'73: 50 years of wear and tear, Just like me" set but he had to retire a few things that have now been slotted into the Trashed set.  

I noticed a couple cards with Bandito mustaches that got by me on first glance.  He shared that those were donated to the cause by his 9-year-old self. It makes me wonder what his 9yo self had against the 1973 set. 

Well, nothing much it turns out.  He liked to keep his cards in team sets, stacked alphabetically, and held with rubber bands, which cause that amazing fraying along the edges.  So now you can get to making your own Trashed set with a bag of rubber bands.  That is much easier than my original theory in which he was brushing a badger with handfuls of cards.  See, my brain always goes to the most insane cartoonish explanation first for basically any event that might happen.  I'm always hearing Zebras in the distance. I mean who knew Benicio Del Toro played for the Yankees in '73.

Pony Express Mailbag update

 Again I found myself filling binders more than writing about them.  I've now got 3 Frankensets in Binders: The Action Parallel and Ivy sets are each about half done.  The trashed set is somewhere between a quarter and a third full.  That should make it easier to post pictures of full pages in the near future.  In the meantime I got some nice deliveries in the mail this week.  First up is actually a defaced football card.  

I don't know why some kid wanted to make poor Harry look like Hitler but it has convinced me to include Football, hockey, basketball (maybe other sports) in the set when they fall into my lap.  I'm not going to actively persue them but it is stitched together like the good Doctors Monster so why not.

My fellow Frankensetter MattyB87 is doing an all Minnesota Twins collection.  I don't intend to brag but (braggingly) I was the one who turned him on to the idea of doing a Frankenset encompassing his history of the Twins.  I've even sent him some good weird stuff like the card of Kirby Puckett tossing a Knuckleball.  He so kindly returned the favor with a truly choice addition to the set.  I've been lucky to find a few stars and classic cards but none bigger than this Willie Mays card from his very short time playing for the ANTS.  Not sure what league that was but some kid helpfully scribbled "Mets" on it when he got shipped back to the Big Apple.  

It's always cool to have a really heavy hitter amongst the common trash. 

Matt also pulled a Pete Crow-Armstrong Ivy card from my hometown team.  I'm not sure what the Rip Night is, some sort of promotional chicanery that makes a mockery of the standard numbering system.  In this case I could choose to slide him in at #11 or use the same card with its regular flagship number of 196.  I'm not sure which number I will end up using and it's not outside the realm that I might use them both.  So thanks Mattyb87, go to TCDB and trade him more twins stuff. 

CardBoredom.coma blog run by David and most assuredly is not.  In fact several nights when I started to get ready to post I'd go down some rabbit hole on his site.  He seems to have pared his own collection down to the bare essence of his most important sets and looks to be downsizing the rest.  I've been studying the various graphs, charts, and statistics he posts on players, his collection progress and the in-depth journalism of the most obscure variations.  He also involves his cards in his non card adventures like vacations, concerts, work trips and adventures.  He ended up sending a few things that could make appearances in several different sets.  

Larry Dorish has already slid into his binder page

Mickey Vernon here looked pretty good doesn't seem to have much of a condition issue...

...but flipping him over we see the back.  I haven't even told you of my "Backside" Frankenset, but it is in the conception phase and includes all the cards that have something related to my other sets but on the back of the card.  It'll run from Card #600 something or another down to 1.  It's got action shots, Ivy, things that make me giggle, and now hideous damage.  David also sent a really great Nolan Ryan card that will show up in a later post, as will the rest of the mail this week.  

Updated goodies in the mail

 I've found myself working on Frankensets more than writing about Frankensets the last week or so  I really should be able to find time to do both, but having the spreadsheets up to date lets me look at what I have with some detail rather than saying I currently have "13 inches of Ivy cards".  I started putting those in the  binder and got about halfway thru the stack and up to card 415.  It left me with like 3-4" of duplicate numbers which makes me wonder 2 things.  What am I gonna do with those duplicate numbers and where the hell am I'm going to get 353 more Ivy cards (at specific numbers, no less) to round out the set.  So if you see a particular set that has a lot of Wrigley Ivy cards (1981 Donruss, Fleer 91, Fleer Tradition 98 and 99) let me kwow so I can start scouring through the checklists.  If you happen to have thrown ivy cards into a similar pile and lost interest I want to trade for them. 

Since I last posted I've had a few things turn up in the mail that soon go into the Binder of Misfit Cards:

I'm not sure if Mike Hegan had a reputation of which I'm woefully unaware.

Likewise if you know why someone would take a hatchet to poor Fred's nose I'd sure like to know.

This could only have come from a 3 year old overdue for a nap.

Here that same 3 year old earnestly tries to make Alvin dark. 

Not sure if this was art or geometry practice but it does suggest simplicity sometimes is the best course of action.

This one proves it with 2 little perfectly placed pokes that sends me into hysterics whenever I see it.

Even more than Ivy cards if you have cards like this that have been defaced, I want 'em and I'll trade for them.  

Thanks to the Blog Welcoming Committee

 It appears that blogging may have benefits beyond navel gazing in public.  I got a very nice little goodie B.A.G. (Blogger Appreciation Gift) in the mail from fellow TCDB traveler "CalAngels".  Tom also writes the "Batting out of Order" blog and is the welcoming committee for the new bloggers.  He pulled out 3 really choice items for my "Defaced, Defiled, & Downright Trashed" Frankenset.  To recap, its a set of the most beat-up trashed cards I can turn up sandwiching whatever defaced cards I can find that were doodled on by glue sniffing juvenile delinquents.  

Now, to start off is a nice 1961 Cubs card that I thought might be meant for the Ivy set at first. But then I noticed some gum residue and couple light creases.  Maybe not exactly trashed.  Until I noticed the bullet hole.

It hadn't occurred to me to look for cards from the Hostess box sets and the like but this here angel looks like it was chewed OUT of a twinkie.  No matter how I edited it I can't get it to line up quite straight.  Closer inspection made me realize it was cut out freehand with left handed safety scissors (remember those?) by a drunk 8 year old.

Finally this 1966 Ron Nischwitz.  What. A. Beauty.  Its one thing to scribble with a pen, but this beard has been scraped off of the card. It ends up giving it a textured look that reminds me of the 1960s 12" GI Joe dolls that had real fuzzy beards.  The expression on Rons face seem to be just as surprised as we are, almost seeming to mutter "Where did this Uncle Remus beard come from?"  It is carefully lined up exactly around his jawline and lines his mouth perfectly.  And the vandal behind this gem seems to have been a bit ahead of his time with the peace signs beneath his eyes, for no apparent reason. This has got to be one of my absolute favorite defaced cards that has ever turned up.

I truly believe that every collector out there has 1 or 2 cards they don't know what to do with but just can't bear to throw away.  It might be some card that turned up in a shoebox that a kid drew mustaches and black teeth on.  Or someone cut the action shot out to make a stand up. There is always that "classic vintage" card your dog chewed up and barfed out that you can't even justify as a placeholder.  Those cards want to be gathered together and collected into this Binder of Misfit cards.  You have let them be lonely long enough, let them come together with their own kind.  Send me a couple pics or even a description and tell me what you want off of my trade list.  If you have something as compelling as those above or as trashed as some of the other posts I will trade you new stuff, sparkley parallels, even vintage.  I'm serious.  And I'm nuts.  Certifiably. 

Stick Tap to Tom at Batting Out of Order for the cards