Contest Winnings from the Common (Card) Man!

The Common (Card) Man is a blog run and maintained by Tony, aka Milwaukee Southpaw, who at the beginning of the season started a year-long contest. It involved predicting things, much like an 8-ball predicts the future. In short, my 8-ball won out, and I received some Braves goodies! The sweet Kelly Johnson Auto above is from 2007 Upper Deck S2.

I have a theory, which is that cards with such intriguing, new things as manu-leather-nameplates take about a year to find their way out of retail and hobby boxes into various trade and contest winnings packages. The card above is from 2011 Topps S2.

There was a nice assortment of late 90s-early 2000s Chippers too. The Finest Gamers (upper right) does a nice job of summarizing: "Chipper inspires his teammates with a 'go-get-'em' attitude." 'Nuff said.

1999 Topps Stadium Club and 1999 Pacific Prism...

And a 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Black Border!

Finally, rounding it out were two massive Dale Murphy cards from 1983 Donruss and 1984 Donruss. Cool stuff-I especially appreciated the equally oversized toploader! Thanks so much, Tony!!!

Not to squeeze another unrelated card into this post, but I want to show off a nice refractor from Topher, over at blog Crackin' Wax! Topher's been a great guy in the blogging community with his "Take My Cards" program, so magna laus to him for that. (That's great praise for the non-Latinists :-) Thanks Topher!

Chunter, out!

Quite Possibly the Weirdest Post About Packing Materials Ever Written.

(As of the writing of this post, the blog has about 4498 views. Something tells me a contest is in order for the big 5-0-0-0. What do you think?)

"So Close" to 5000 views!

I know that baseball card bloggers (all rise!) are amazing packagers. I've seen baseball card packages that seriously belonged in an art museum as defying space, reason, and time. As for me, I don't claim to do anything but get the job done. I know some of you are like that too. I've seen bubble mailers filled with the traditional toploaders, painter's tape, and mini boxes, and some with baseball card packs for packaging, Scotch tape, and perhaps a stray hair. That's all cool-in no way do I want to call anyone out or criticize. In fact, I sort of appreciate the funky packages more because of their added "character." That said, I wanted to give a little disclaimer, in case any questions are raised about my future bubble mailers to be mailed.

Just before the Election, I received in the mail a package of a few bumper stickers. Cool, thought I, seeing as I collect the things from campaigners of all stripes, colours, and temperaments. The next day, I received oh, about 50 more.

You read that right. Oh, and about 75 pamphlets.

What to do, I thought, beginning to sweat. Surely I'm not expected to distribute these, say, on street corners?!





Yeeah, no.

  Yeah, no. So, being the practical gent I am, I thought: "Well, they'd make a good tape substitute." This was not so much my ingenuity as my noticing that the sticker-mailer had done the same thing on the mail package to me.

All this to say, for those of you who receive a Rocky Anderson 2012 bumper sticker used as tape in a trade package, neither dismay nor rejoice. Head-scratching, however, is totally allowed. Not out of support, or lack thereof, necessarily, (no politics darn it!) but out of sheer pragmaticism do I utilize these stickers. In my humble opinion, they actually do look pretty sharp.

Overall this has been a rather odd campaign cycle. Humorous, though! You know somewhere, Vermin Supreme is smiling.

Having some fun, Lewis Carroll-style!

The time has come, good Chipper said,
To talk of many things:

Of farewell tours, and hunting-trips;
Of futures of the teams;

And why this background's maelstrom-like,

And whether Klesko [ate] too many wings.

"But wait a bit!!!" Bo Jackson cried,
"Before we have our chat;

For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"

"No hurry!" said then Larry Wayne.

They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," Dale Murphy said,

"Is what we chiefly need:

Though it's no better than a Diamond

Skills entry card, indeed--

Now if you're ready, Chili dear,

We can begin to feed."

Hey, you didn't really expect anything to do with Carroll to make any sense, did you? Oh well. I had fun with it regardless.

These cards were from reader Scott in a recent trade. Scott doesn't have a blog, but is a Marlins fan, and so finding some cards to send his way was not *too* difficult. Thanks a million Scott!

Google Question

For those of you with Gmail, have you noticed that the sign-in favicon is a little Fox News copycat logo? Nobody said election season was going to be this weird!*

*Okay, somebody probably did say that.

A Box of Chocolates from William

As a native of the same state as the fictional Forrest Gump, I have heard my share of lines, references, et ceterae from the movie. Not having seen it, however, I was a little wary of posting about it (albeit indirectly). But pragmaticism prevailed, as I couldn't think of another good title.

William of Foul Bunt, has a good rep for sending generous card packages. There's often a good mixture of stuff, but it's unpredictable (in a good way) as to what's inside the package:

For example, it could be a pile of 87 Topps (Hey, I could put several Braves team sets together out of these!)

Or some 81 Donruss...

Or 2012 Bowman Platinum! You get the idea. Regarding BP, my favorite part of these cards is that they scan cool-ly. Just looking at the card, the background is dark blue-ish or black. That's neat, anyway.

Chrome rounds it out. Some Chrome cards pop a little better than others, and these do so. Hoping Uggla and B-Mac can pick it up next year...

(I'm pretty sure this is the clearest scan I've ever made.)

Sum Kimbrel! The chrome's the actual card that launched a blog post title. The back of said card states that Craig watches Forrest Gump "at least twice a month." As a fellow Alabamian, and Braves fan, I don't think I can not like the guy.

These Team Pinnacle cards have no "card back", at least not in theory. I say Greg Maddux gets precedence over Jack McDowell, though, don't you?

A Schafer RC! I believe I received this several weeks ago. Today I got a TTM auto back from
Jordan and it is also posted alongside the other card photo. Speaking of being in the right place at the right time....

 A ginormous Chipper...

 A classy Hudson...

And a dual Chipper/Francouer card. Um, anyone care to explain the origin of this set? Maybe I'm just not used to seeing Chipper get the "Larry Wayne" treatment.

 A glossy, reprinted, card-your-mother-threw-out non-Rookie card of Chipper Jones. *Breath*

 Randy Johnson in the mix! What, you say he's a pitcher? You must be thinking of somebody else.

The square area of these two Bowman Heritage cards is roughly equivalent to seven cards of regular thickness. Being Rookie cards, one of whom is of an underrated star, this is perfectly okay.

Thanks to William for the package!

Gotta run!