LTTF Parallels of these Series 2 cards for my Action Parallel Frankenset

 I finally went thru 2026 Topps Series 2 and assembled a list of cards I can use that have open slots for your trading pleasure.  These are the base cards, but if you have a parallel of any one of these, trade it to me! 

That's a lotta Pittsburgh

Last two.

Parallels come in different sparkly patterns and many shimmering border colors.  If you have any of these cards in any other form you can help this Frankenset knock off a few numbers.  See my previous posts for examples.  My July 10 Post has a list of open numbers I need to fill.

I got a rip card and you won't believe what was in it!

 I bought another small collection on ebay for the trashed set and there are some very nice things in it.  (Laughs maniacally).  I couldn't use all the cards because some of the numbers were filled and  this happens more and more, which actually gives me some trashed cards to trade.  Anyone else working on a set like this or have some other idiotic use for cards that should be in the trash?  They always say that you can understand the most about a society by studying their trash, so I want to collect it from far and wide.  

For some reason I see a lot of 1958s.  I don't know if the space in the background encourages doodling and writing or if that contributes toward handling them carelessly, but we end up with these.

Now I'm seeing a lot of 57s and Brooklyn.  

Erskine probably wouldn't qualify without that little razor cut.  Even with it I might someday come across something in worse shape at #252.  But I'm not gonna be looking hard.  

The original bigger cards also seem to get their corners nicked off more often, like the cardboard was more brittle.  By the 70s it had to be gnawed at and chewed off.  

By this point many of you will be in tears over the hefty chunk of the Brooklyn team set that I've assembled and the condition it in.  I do not condone or endorse the savage mistreatment of classic cards, I just collect them. For educational purposes only.  

Gil is in 2 pieces, and the tape has somehow fused with the card because there is no stickiness to it.  Or maybe the fibers reattached themselves to each other over the last 69 years.

Originally it was these 2 that caught my eye on this auction.  And I did it the old-fashioned way of hiding out until the last minute to throw a bid up 30 seconds before close and watched it close while chewing my fingernails to the nub.  No bots for me.

I love that this was done, specifically, to a Rip Repulski card.  I understand the separating two distinct pieces with a tear, but why tape it back together.  Looking closer it seems like they used some kind of bandage tape, rather than cellophane.  And what is going on with it, are those...

WHISKERS??!?!!  

What kind of degenerate rat bastard tapes whiskers onto a torn card? Trade them to me so then I will know.

Whoever you are I need another pile of cards, or several small piles of cards that I can sort through and add to the open spots.  If you have a pile, that you have been hanging onto all these years, it's time to trade them.  I'll even trade regular non trashed cards for them.  I'll take any year/brand/player and love to mix it up with old and new. The more trashed and the better the variety the more I'll trade for them.

Weasels tearing at my frankenset flesh into two

 

I got a real nice trade from Hal whose handle is Toppsrbest on TCDB.  It was a bunch of cards I fished out of his traders that have that ball floating in play, but not in anyone's possession.  But more importantly each card is a parallel of some kind which goes in the Action Parallels set.  It's already bindered up to something like 3/5ths done, but I'm not liking how the Landscape/Horizontal cards match up with the Portrait/Vertical cards.  Like this.

Or this.

So, I'm thinking of splitting the Frankenset into 2.  One Landscape and one Portrait so there would be a little consistency with them.  It would open the whole process up to more cards and probably get more of the UD Silver and Gold signature cards in there.  And it would take me twice as long to finish, thus keeping me collecting that much longer.  Show of hands in the comments if you feel strongly about 1 set or two. 

Here are a couple more of the Sparkly cognacs and Walmart black and such from Hal and below that is a current and mostly up to date list of the open numbers that need a card to slot in and fill it up.  When you find a cool shot on some sort of parallel or insert flip it over and check the number and see if I need a card of that number and trade it to me.  

Action Fset Needs by Number July 10, 2026

 32 34 35  59 60 63 67 69  75 77  81  88   98 

 113  118 125 148 168 169 180  186 191 193 197 199 

201  205 208 214 219 222  235 240 241 242 248  250 255 263 266 269 271  273

274 275 277 280 283 285 287 288 296 299 

   302 313 315 319 322 323 325 327     329 330 331 332 335     337 339 340 341 345 346 347 350

351     353 354 358 361 363 364 365 366 367 369 374 375 376 378 379 380 381 384 385 386 388 389

    394 395 396 397 

404 405 406 407 408     410 411 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 422 423 425 428 429 430 431 433 435

    438 439 442 444     447 448 449 450     453 454 455 456 457 458 460 462 463 464 470  

476 477 478 480 482 485 486 494 

500 501 503 505 507 508 509 511 512     516 519 520 521 522 523 524 525     530 532 534 537 538

539 540 541 542 544 546 547 548     550 551 553 554 555 556 557 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 568 570

571 572 574     576 577 578 580 584 586     589 591 593 595 596 597 598  

600 602 603 604     607 608 609 610 612 613 614 616 617 618 620 621 622 623 625 626 627 628 629

633 634 635 636 637 638 640 641 642 643     645 646 647 648 649     652 653 655 657 659 660 662 

663 664

The New Cards are not concerned with how trashed they can be turned. They got crumpled creases huh. I think it's funny. I'm buying Trash with real money

You might be surprised to learn that getting really trashed cards of a more recent vintage can be tough. They don't hold the same appeal as a trashed vintage card.  2 Superstar pitchers will make an appearance amongst all these old cards like Jim Lemon that almost seem to be carefully sanded down and gently twisted to crinkle up into some kind of work of art.  Same just doesn't hold for Orel and especially Smoltz where it looks like you have to try and hurt the card to get them to this point (and sorry to who I'm not crediting for these; they came in a trade a while back and I didn't write it down) (JBozovsky was that you?).

I did write down BoRonsy when he sent me some really great newer stuff that totally had bad accidents and were not "antiqued" for my benefit.    

And then he added these 3, er 2 1/2 cards from the old wayback machine.  Skowron looks like he was barfed up by a moose who couldn't figure out how to get that sweet smelling gum out of the packet without chewing the cards in it as well. Despite it all that Jerry Adair has some gloss.

 If I had funds enough to slab things I would pack these two up and send to one of the graders and keep sending it back and demanding a review with a lower score until they go in the negitives.  I'm normally not much of a slab lover but there is something about these two cards that just begs to be encased, just so by white gloved hands.  Bo reached out to me with a new trade and will be helping me out on my new Frankenset of cards of guys named Dick (or Dyck).

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?