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.  

The Action Parallel Frankenset Binder Pages 1-3

 This is the finished first 3 pages of my "Action Parallel" Frankenset.  It has the type of 'ball floating' action shots I like on a NONBASE Parallel/variation. Most cards are action of this sort but there are a few themes I have as subsets, like guys looking like they are dancing, old timey, or aerial chicanery 

So here is page 1

Here's page 2.  

In a lot of cases I might have multiple cards for a different number slot, so in some cases I started sticking them on the back page.  Some pages have quite a few filled.  I've been tryin to decide if I should do a full set on the back side or pull them out for an all new set. 

 I'm even considering starting 2 new sets, one being all Portrait cards (orientation) and the other being all landscape.  So sometimes I'll show you the back side too.  

Here's Page 3. 

You will of course note the prevalence of Ozzie Smith in a backflip.  The ball is not in his glove or even in any way present.  But there is nothing cooler than the wizard of Oz floating in the air.  And its my set and I get to make the rules and exceptions, and there will be many of both.  Also Archie Bradley on card 10 looks like he is doing some sort of Russian Dancing Bear act.  

And the back of 3.

 

And yes, I have checked and all of the Ozzie cards qualify.  I'm Pretty sure.  Several are inserts or SPs.  There are even 2 or 3 more in the set and my goal is to get all the Ozzie backflip cards in somehow.  (EDIT update: One of the Ozzies may not be the parallel version I'd been led by my self, to believe it was.  I believe #19 the UD Masterpieces, still doing the research and then will replace it or find the correct variation upon completion of report.  Or if you do, trade it to me.)  I'll be sharing interesting finds for this set and pages in various states of completion going forward.  And I've got more binders. 

 Ivy up next.  

Floating balls bat thwacked like piñatas with a sparkling confetti finish

 I haven't spent much time sharing my Action Parallel set and have ripped thru some 2026 Topps Series 1 packs to see what I can find that'll fit in this one.  I love these Action shots where the ball is floating in midair, just before it is hit or just after the ball was thrown.  It's gotta be out of the glove, ideally, although the ball just barely in the mitt before the player has closed it is acceptable.  Occasionally a bat toss or other equipment in air.  It's about the thing that is about to happen, before it has happened.  The ball is in play but not possessed by anyone yet. These are some of the Highlights.

I started a test set, but it lacked some pizzaz at first and I haven't figured out how to construct a frankenset visually instead of numerically.  So, I decided to make it a little harder.  All cards must be NON base cards.  Parallels, SN, even inserts are allowed. So now if I see a card that fits, I have to find if it has a parallel and then figure out how to trade for it.  Occasionally I'll get lucky and pull them out of new boxes before I even have the base card.  I went thru the recent series one and found these various Parallel versions to slot in the set. (Next to each base card, obviously)

These two are the Confetti parallel from the Celebration mega boxes.  

A nice rainbow foil of Angel.

This Moniak is a Spring Training Foil variation parallel. 

This is the real pull.  The vintage stock version SN /99.  I like the new design of the cards with the fabric look, but it cleans up into a pretty crisp looking 70s type vintage. Too bad it doesn't hold up as well.  Somehow they used a flimsier cardboard that is prone to lightly crease on the back from just pulling it out of the pack. I promise I was not tossing it across the room into my upturned hat. (sorry about the lesser quality photo, but I didn't want to risk it by pulling out of the binder and this test shot was the only one I took of it)

It's always cool to pull these things out of a pack and then look up and see that there is a blank spot in the binder.  Normally I have to scour all of your collections for possible candidates to send trade proposals.  I will post a list of empty binder spaces for all the franken sets soon.  So if you notice a good card you can check if I need that number and offer it to me in trade, even if it's not on my want lists.  In a lot of cases I don't know what card I actually need at a given number until I actually have it in hand. Well, towards this end, I have made list of the open numbers for each set.  I will post them in the coming days.  If you see a great action shot parallel that matches a blank space lets trade. And next up the first 3 finished pages of this set. 

Enraged 10 year olds stabbing pens into your face (metaphoically)

 I got a couple really cool defaced cards that I found on Ebay.  Nice efficient work here on Cal McLish from 1958. I almost missed it scrolling through some random search of cards, scrolled right by and had to stop a buncha cards later and say "wait, was that..?" 

And someone expertly turned Charley Maxwell into a Pirate despite his being in Detroit.  

I've been working on a couple of the other Frankensets and have a few pages done to show, so I'll try to be back with that soon. 

Blackeyed Serpent tongued musketeers with Gaudy swinging earrings all from from Ebay

Bought myself a single binder page on eBay with some nice defacements.  I got them to come down by about 1/3 off the asking price, which is probably still more than they should be worth.  I'd really have preferred to trade for them, but eBay doesn't exactly have a way to do that.  

You could be forgiven for thinking the Jim Brewer and Billy Martin mustaches were on their own lips, expertly applied as they were, but in the case of the Martin they added a few stands of hair coming out of his cap on the left side.  It's very light but makes me laugh for some reason.  Someone was just downright mad at Donn to scribble his neck so violently. What game did he blow back in 1962?

George Culver may have been hedging his bets for an offseason modeling career by trying out for a Tareyton Cigarette ad here.  

If those smokers were so reluctant to switch you think they would have gotten good at ducking.

The main reason I bought the bunch was these 3.

Bob Bailey has some sort of 3 Musketeers' like mustache and a serpent tongue but is also the first defaced card I have found that seems to have a fart.  The Sox rookie card has what I can only assume are an attempt at gaudy hanging ladies' earrings that are swinging away, which I have seen on a few defaced cards.  Nowadays you wouldn't be caught on your big debut card without some big rocks on your ears.  Who'da thunk that in '72.  

And the Stan Williams is one of my fave defacements in the whole collection.  I love how expertly drawn it was and if you turn it in the light a bit it appears that someone just drew a Mr Magoo face with a mustache on it.  Very Clever.

Miscuts by drunken Topps printing plant workers

 Based on a previous post Egreenwo from TCDB reached out with a fantastic collection of things that were Miscut so badly that I can only assume the printing staff was drunk. He sent me  picture with a stack of 18 or 20 cards laid out on a table and I could tell I needed to act.  That's all you really gotta do, is send me a sample of some of what you got and if it fails to meet any standards by my own really low ones I'll offer up some stuff in trade.  I think I sent back some commons and recent stuff to fill in slots on his set builds.  I sort of like waiting until they show up to go thru everything and this was a pleasure to do so with.  I Decided that really bad miscuts should go into the set, the more off kilter the better. 

Looks like they had some Quality Control problems in 1984.  Especially on the White Sox card which is more a parallelogram than a rectangle.  

1975 was even worse apparently.  With no borders to line up with and colors cutting the card in half it's a wonder they got any of these into packs as they were designed.  

And the backs were no better.

This one takes the cake.  I pity the poor kid who pulled this, especially if he had been experimenting with the old Wackey Tabaccey.  If you opened up your pack of cards in 1975 to get a couple of these you might be especially confused but Freehan here is a 6 sided disaster that, as far as I can tell, 4 sides are not even parallel to anything, which is actually something of an accomplishment if you stop to consider it.  This one might very well have blown some kids mind and put him off cards forever. 

Or maybe he found his true calling and now works for Topps Quality Control Office: Edge & Corners division.  There is much to be desired about the current quality of Fanatic Topps, but at least all the ones I see are straight and square. If you have a miscut like this from the last 10 years I want it.  Badly.  

Mailbag is the Reason. Ride Frankie Ride

 Well I'm not really going to give you a month of what I got in the mail in one post.  I'm not sure where the time went, but I looked up and realized I'd made some excuse to myself about not having anything to say for at least 15 of the last 30 days.  But being a blog about Frankensets I should probably just let the cards do most of the talking.  The hard-hitting analysis and pithy turns of phrase will come as they may.  

My Canadian TCDB Pal Chrisrivers sent me this classic 1962 Canadian Post Cereal card of Orlando Cepeda. Some Good Ontario Boy out on the prairies of Canada, possibly near a town like Moose Knuckle, was eating Frosted Rocks & Twigs cereal for energy to get out to do some Sluicing for gold on the riverbed before trudging to school uphill in the September snow was able to find the time to poke both Eyes and nostrils out.  

 Not only was the hand cutting it out less than steady, but the kid was slightly off on one of the eyes, probably the Zamboni fumes that kept him constantly lightheaded, which makes poor Orlando look more like an evil Robot Alex 'Worm Lips' Rodriguez who has come from the future like a centaur with laser eyes.

Chris is one of my regular trading pardners from North of the border and without a doubt the most fun.  He tossed in this nifty Barney Rubble, er I mean Schultz card too.

Other TCDB pals, like the above from Jamestagli, started including extras in trades or even occasionally sending me a stash that they have spent years holding on to for no good reason.  I guess I offer a good reason.