Do Canadians Dip their baseball cards in Canola oil?

 My Canadian Pal Chris (TCDB Chrisrivers) sent me some stuff for two of the Frankensets this time out.  He never fails to amaze me in finding really good trash cards in his trades with others. I never fail to wonder who these degenerates are that are doing these things to cards that, to hear Chris tell it, then try to pass off an Orlando Cepeda with punched out eyes AND NOSTRILS (see previous post) as totally acceptable and normal trades (to anyone buy me). So he offered up a 1968 Game of Dean Chance he thought I'd like

Boy, did I.  It's almost as if some kid up in Canukistan there thought "what is the way to protect this prized Strike Out piece that I could throw down like a domino to end an inning" while we play endless rounds of card baseball inside our Ice fishing huts, waiting, long the winter, for bites.  So, like the baby Achilles held up by his ankle, this kid dipped Dean Chance into a bucket of Canola oil, which really seems to have caused the image to slowly slide off the card, a process that continues to this day.  I also need to find someone who reads braille because it made some bumps that I'm hoping randomly assembled themselves into some sort of obscene gibberish.

He also sent a '65 John Blanchard who he thought had been somebody's wallet card, which I'm not sure is the case.  I mean who would be carrying a wallet full of baseball cards out on the plains of the Canadian Rockies back then when the main local currencies would have been Loonie Toonie coins and beaver pelts?  

It looks vaguely like turtle skin.  And my sister raises free range rescue house turtles, so this looks like the card got wet and was then taped to a turtle while it healed some sort of injury or strip poker loss.  Turtles are very sensitive about their nakedness.  

Whenever I get a trade offer from Chris, or really any of you, I usually scour the traders and specifically look for the Gold foil and purple holo foil and Toys r Us purple border and Walgreens Yellow borders and fuzzy background type parallels to see if I can find any for my action set.  Whenever I find a card that has the ball floating in the air between the batter and fielder I can then see if it's a number I need and I found a couple. 

Gold foil Cavan Biggio is frankly cooler than what passes for "gold" now and is way cooler than the usual rainbows because it combines the best of both.  

This landscape orientation of Jose Siri floating in the air about to catch a floating ball has given me a thought.  I'm constantly having to change orientation of the binder when I flip thru the action parallels and often I have 2 or 3 possible candidates at a given number.  I'm seriously considering stripping out all the landscape cards out of this and start a second Action Parallel Landscape edition frankenset for just this orientation and leave all the portrait orientations in the current one.  I think I've got the binder and the pages to do so, but I need to sort all my loosies and dupes into Horizontal and vertical orientation and count out how many of each in the current binder to see where it all sits.  In the meantime keep looking out for those trashed cards and the Parallel action cards and offer them up.  

All the Glory to the Ivy

I guess I have never done shots of the Ivy Binder.  It's actually filled up the fastest, both in terms of cards in binder and the dupes.  I've got enough to start a second binder, maybe, or even go back to just stuffing them in any which way into a true Frankenset.  Of Course, if any of you out there want to trade for Ivy cards to build up your own set...

Here is the first page, as it currently stands (or stood, when I started writing the post and forgot about it).

This is the first page before I got some recent trades from Guags and others.  You can see how I could easily swap out 3 or 4 cards.

Of course, then a couple more came and I readjusted, yet again.  This is the current Page 1 of the binder because it shows the glory of the Ivy.  

Page 2 has some familiar names and sets, but it's also filled up.

Page 3 and you'll note I need a #25.

Page 4 which lacks #36

Page 5 needs #43. 

If you have cards for any of those crucial numbers, get in touch.  I'll post the full list of needed numbers for the Ivy set soon.  

Jordans you won't believe

 Here's another in the occasional micro mini frankensets series.  An odd pairing of Brian Jordan cards.  You could make arguments either way to pick one of these. 

You could go with this

Or you could go with that

I think they are both where it's at.  

I know not if Ricky Jordan has anything to do with Brian, but he is practically his own twin on these 2.  

Instead of a brother from another mother, he's got a picture from a different angle.  Everything about it appears to be identical but for his position. I've tried to place fans or even the fences on the right side in the other card, but I think it is so far to the opposite side of the field that the Pylon behind him is not the same pylon, but 2 different pylons 15-20 feet apart from each other. 

You can see the same patterns in the folds of his uniform, especially the way his pants bunch up on his left ankle.  Why is he in the outfield trying to rob homers when he is listed as a 1B by Upper Deck?

Glory to the Leaves

 I did a real nice trade with Guags on TCDB for some ivy cards recently.  What made this special is that he filled specific holes in the Frankenset from amongst the Ivy cards he'd been setting aside.  I've made a list of every empty number in the binders of all the sets and can make it available on request.  So, he sifted thru his cards and found the ones I actually needed, and I traded him a bunch of nice stuff for his extra work.  Let see what we got. 

I always hated Jim Edmonds, as much for his frosted tips and pouty lips as his Cardinal-ness, but I love this shot of him throwing in front of one of the several doors painted up and allowing entrance to the bowels where few get to go.  Or at least before they put luxury seats everywhere and walls of video boards where once there was fresh air of the street beyond where the mailman who caught a homerun ball could go skipping happily down the street clicking his heels like Ron Santo in full mailman shorts with the bag.  I actually saw this happen on TV once.

Another nice shot of how it used to be, with a guy who used to be a cub.  Also, I never get tired of all the cards where a ball is bouncing away from Sammy or he's about to be caught off first with the early spring twigs on the wall in the far distance.  Even back then the card companies didn't seem to like him

To think in those classic card sets of the 60s everyone loves so much they used to paint the ivy right off the team card.  

There's a lot of high-quality Kerry when talking Ivy cards, believe me. Even with the ivy faded out into the background it's still magnificent.  Since this is really supposed to be about the Glory of the Ivy it's possible a card would come a long with more glorious Ivy.  Part of the fun as well as the bane of Frankensets.

I wonder about this BFF thing that Topps is pushing between these two.  DiMaggio and Mantle anyone?

A near perfect shot with DeRosa here.  The shadow of the ball just before the orb hits the leather is just luscious.  This sort of thing is what I look for most in a card.   I don't care who the player or team is, I just do the fist pump like I pulled some kind of Ohtani SN card.  But if all I actually pulled with Aaron Judge and Soto and Bryce parallels it leaves me lacking.  I mean it's nice to have the cards that'll be good for trade, but they bring no joy or excitement the way pulling a great action shot will.  There is a limited SN'd parallel edition of the DeRosa and if you have it, I want to trade for it for my action set.

And finally, a couple pitchers in somewhat odd circumstances.  Zambrano is on the other side of the foul lines, so he must be on one of the old bullpen mounds they had in foul territory 50 feet up from the dugout, but he was a starter.  And why was Doc on the basepaths without his jacket on.  Did he ever get inserted as a pinch base stealer on an off day?

This wasn't everything but there were a few things that didn't quite live up to ivy glory or I filled the number while we were working the trade.  I'm gonna list all the open numbers below so if you are saving up ivy cards for me you can see what I need most.  If you have a card with glorious Ivy turn it over and see if it matches one of these numbers, which are open slots in the binder, then trade it to me.  Or at least tip me off so I can look for it.  

IVy Fset needs by number June 15, 2026

6 11 17 25 34 43 45 63  69 78   81 84 93 95 96 97 98 100 101 106 108 110 111 113 115 117 127

129 131 134 136 139 146 147 153 154 161 163 165 168 169 171 173 176 180 181

185 187 188 190 191 193 197

202 203 205 208 211     214 215 218 219 220 222 223 227 228 229 230 233 236 237 238 240 242 246

249 250 253 257     259     265 267 268     277 278 279 283 285 287 288 289 290 294 295 296 299

302 303 304 305 307 308 310 311 313 314 319 320 321 322 326 328 329 330 331 332 334 338 339 340

341 343 344 345     349 350 352 353 355     360 361 362 363 364 367 368 369     375 380 381 383

384 387 388 389 390 393 395 396 397 398 

400 402 403 404 406 407 408 410 411 412 413 417 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 432

433 434 441 443 444 446     448 450 451 452 453 454 456 457 460 461 462 464 465 466 467 469 470

471 472 473 477 479 480 484 486 487 491 493 496 499

500 503 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 516 517 521 523 526 528 529 530 531 532 533 534

535 536 539 540 542 543 544 545 546 548 549 550 552 554     556 563 564 565 566 568 569 570 571

583 584 585 586 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 

600 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 611 612 613 615 616 618 619 620 622 623 624 626 627 628 629

630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642     644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653

654 655 656 657 659 661 662 663 664 665 666 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 677 679

Find me a 3rd musketeer card, dear readers

 You have no idea the amount of time I have to spend searching out defaced mustache cards on eBay.  Nobody ever cops to having one up front, despite it being obvious in the picture.  It's rarely mentioned, even when searching for things like "Defaced" and poor condition, filler cards, and so on.  It's tough enough to find a good, trashed card that some schmuck isn't trying to get $5 or $8 or $17 for because it's "a vintage card", it's a HOFer, he won the triple crown and such.  That's fine and all but your card was also attached to someone's kid brothers' bicycle wheel while he pretended to be part of the Satan's Disciples MC on his Schwinn banana seat 3 speed. I've been trying to fill slot 10 with a particularly gnarly Ernie Banks with rounded corners, tears, creases, pen markings and edges that will make you cry but despite being the only person who has shown interest in it for a month or two no getting it below 2 digits where it should be. A new candidate recently appeared that has even worse corners and stains as well and it might be posted by a man reasonable enough to do business with.  

I tried a work around with this Vada Pinson and didn't quite know just how big the '71 Topps supers are and there is no way to fit this monstrosity into the binders, unless...I trim the edges ever so sligh--eh, who am I kidding, I'd have to hack off at least a cm on each side. But if I use some left-handed children's safety scissors it'll probably give it a jagged shark tooth cut with little hairlike strips of paper left on it. Nothing in the Frankenset bylaws expressly prohibit this sort of thing but it's generally frowned upon to self-Trashify a card.  The seller put it up at a low price of a buck, without ever mentioning the condition, not even in the description.  Like they thought they could sneak by them by as unobtrusive pencil lines of an accidental sort.  They then tried to charge a high shipping cost to make up for it, as if it was so thin it would need extra backing in a PWE.  When I pointed out the folly of protecting a card going into a trashed set they relinquished the card for a couple bucks. And Vada looks like he would have totally rocked a Dali stash with a Van Dyke rounding out the face, but the little delinquent could have just lightly followed his 5 o'clock shadow with a fat marker and could have had a killer fu Manchu, possibly a rival to LOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEE Tiant's.

Matty here was in one of the PYC sales where they put a binder page up and a stern warning to examine the picture of the titled auction and such, like they might sneak that caterpillar to someone not paying attention. but it was attached to a price that barely covered the stamp, so I don't see how exactly he could have made anything. It was such a tremendous piece that I would have paid double, maybe triple the price to secure it for this Frankenset.  I had an open spot at that number, but I would have tossed just about any other card into the trash to get his stash in the brash set this is becoming.  But I have noticed something on these last acquisitions and on other mustache cards. You might notice on previous posts that no matter the player or implement of defacement they seem to be so overcome with the giggles at their own cleverness that the whole thing is wildly off centre of the face and how a mustache would sit.  Since most of these are in pencil, we cannot blame the fumes of big fat magic markers of that bygone era to account for such odious misuse of space and perspective.  No, it can only be the drug like spasms of their own laughter, which is part of the charm for me.  

Sandy Koufax does not have blue Boogers

I hate this.  People are so obsessed with making every last dollar out of Vintage HOF cards, even when they are beat up.  I get it, there will always be people needing low grade fillers of Mays, Mantle and Koufax, because they will never see a nice midgrade specimen, much less afford it.  But here someone drew a mustache on Sandy, who would never be caught dead with a caterpillar on his lip, and now the seller comes along an tried to remove the mustache ink, but really just leaves him looking like he has big blue boogers.  What could have been a perfectly good throwaway card to add to my future museum quality frankenset of "Trashed and defaced misfits and miscuts".   Booooooooooooooooo.  Boo Hiss I say.  And I'll betcha that big crease in the middle of his chin is from where they were trying to use a ball point pen eraser on the front. Which is totally cheating in meeting the spirit of the thing.

Prince Fielder in Mini Frankenset, a continuation.

This is not exactly a mini Frankenset, but it is interesting and I sort of like it.  Here is Prince Fielder doing what he does best, right?  You see how he has just crushed this ball. Funny, you'd think he would be doing his fielding best of all with the name.  Demolished it into the stands.  He must have torn the seams off, cover flapping in the wind with that swing just Destroying it, right.  

But if you drop down directly from his wrists until it meets a horizontal line directly into the catcher's glove, you'll see.  The Ball

Here's the Blowup

Kind of a mean thing to do, make him look like a fool in front of all those fans on a big-time chewing gum card.  So, I can only guess they wanted to accentuate his amazing swing and showcase the coiled power and monstrous muscles and such.  

So they erased the catcher and ump and added more fake fans To witness his humiliation because they forgot to erase the ball from the picture.  Again.  

At least now the catcher won't hold the 3rd strike and he can run for first.