Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone out there in the blogosphere! Hope your day is filled with horror movies, trick-or-treaters, awesome parties, and all kinds of fun stuff!

Members Only?

These were another part of the giant yard sale haul from this past spring that I've mentioned before. Apparently the person I bought these from was a charter member of Stadium Club (whatever that means) and got these "members only" cards as a bonus. There's two packs here, one "charter member" pack and one "members only" pack. Judging by the back's of the cards that are set up as fake newspaper headlines (sorry, didn't get a scan of the backs) these appear to have been made in 1991. Let's see what lies within ...

First, the Charter Member pack:

First up we have Ken Griffey Jr (and Sr. making a cameo), Bobby Thigpen, and Dave Stewart

Barry Bonds, Cecil Fielder, and Randy Johnson

An odd assortment of characters ... Andy Hawkins, Doug Drabek, and Kevin Maas.

DeSheilds will definitely be going with my defunct teams binder.

Two Hall of Famers, Sandberg and Fisk, along with Dave Justice, one of the top stars of the 90s.

Another odd assortment of Ellis Burks, Dave Stieb, and Jose Offerman.

Two Nolan Ryan cards. He seems to be in just about everything from the early 90s.

Rickey love Rickey.

A couple horizontals. I really like this George Brett card.

And a good collection to round out the baseball portion of the pack.

But wait, there's more!

A really nice batch of hockey cards thrown in with guys I actually remember from the early 90s!

Oh, and there were these football cards. I'll be honest, I have no need for these except the Warren Moon for the defunct teams collection, so if anyone wants to give them a good home, let me know.

Now, on to the relatively small Member's Only pack:

Two pretty nice horizontals. The Orioles one features everyone who pitched in the combined no-hitter they threw the in the 1990 season.

The gold is coming off the Molitor, other than that, it's the best card of this batch.

A very nice Rickey card. I like the Winfield here too.

Another one for my defunct teams binder. Thompson has a bewildered look on his face don't you think?

Let's end with a quote from one of my favorite comedians, Mitch Hedberg:

"I order the club sandwich all the time, but I'm not even a member, man. I don't know how I get away with it. How'd it start anyway? I like my sandwiches with three pieces of bread. So do I! Well let's form a club then. Alright, but we need more stipulations. Yes we do; instead of cutting the sandwich once, let's cut is again. Yes, four triangles, and we will position them into a circle. In the middle we will dump chips. Or potato salad. Okay, I got a question for ya, how do you feel about frilly toothpicks? I'm for em! Well this club is formed; spread the word on menus nationwide."

Now you know how to join the club! How about a sandwich?

The Reds Binder: Page 2

I was doing some organizing the other day and while trying to maximize space, I realized a few things had to go ... unfortunately the very unfinished Reds frankenset was one of them.

Fear not, though, fair readers! Instead of a Reds frankenset, now you will get a glimpse into my completely stuffed full Reds binder! My only rule for this was no more than one card of any player or any specific product on one page. Other than that, it's anything goes!

The one completed page I had of the frankenset I left in tact and put that as the first page of the binder. I've already shown it here.

Here's page 2:

First, the fronts

And the backs:

Lots of fun stuff here, two minor league cards (Sean Casey and Joey Votto), a Hal Morris card from the 1994 Kahn's team issue, and one of my favorite cards, the Jay Bruce Classic Walk-Offs insert card from 2012 Topps. That card captures one of the most amazing moments in Reds history perfectly, the walk-off home run that won them the 2010 NL Central title, and always brings a huge smile to my face whenever I see it.

On a completely unrelated note, I've got a pretty cool research article that I've been writing and working on here and there since the spring based on a strange autograph book I found at the card shop a few years ago. I'm hoping to have it finished before the end of the year but I have a bit more work to do before I take it to the final draft. More to come on that down the line.

Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame Coins

I meant to get this up earlier this week but I've was really busy all week and have just now gotten around to having time to write. Anyway, I found these hiding in one of my boxes of commons and I'd completely forgotten I had them.

The Hall of Fame class of 2000 consisted of three Reds ... Sparky Anderson, Tony Perez, and Marty Brennaman, plus Red Sox and White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk. Kroger released these coins to celebrate the induction of Brennaman, Perez, and Anderson and could be purchased at the customer service counter for about $8.99 each (I think). I had these hanging from a shelf in my grandparents basement for years and gathered them up after my grandfather passed away a few years ago and the house had to be sold.

These coins have been in their holders for the last 15 years since I got them in the summer of 2000. While they've got some wear on them, I think they're still in pretty good shape. It's not everyday that you randomly find collectible coins in a box of commons. I need to find someplace to display these.

The Thrift Store Trio - Part 2

Back again with the final two bags I picked up from the thrift store. An observation before revealing the contents though ... the bag on the right is half the size of the bag on the left but yet they were the same price. Personally, I would think that the smaller bag would be cheaper but it's the thrift store so anything goes.

First up, the bigger bag:

Here's the best card that came out of this bag, this Manny Ramirez rookie card. Pretty nice looking card and I've always liked 1992 Pinnacle.

There was also this weird Ozzie Smith oddball card. Have no idea what it's out of but it reminds me of something that you might find out of the Wacky Packs.

More basketball cards? Again, not really a basketball collector so if anyone wants these (along with a bunch of other basketball cards I've got lying around from this era), feel free to let me know. The Payton may wind up with my defunct teams binder.

There was a good smattering of football commons mixed in with everything as well. Reggie White with the Eagles is pretty cool.

Some more 1992 Pinnacle. The more I think about it, the more I think I like having Charlie Hough cards. The dude pitched forever (1970-1994) and although his stats won't get him into the Hall of Fame, the fact that he hung around that long is really cool.

And now, the last pack:

The last pack was all over the place. First there these 1992 Post Cereal cards

Then there were these two Donruss Coca-Cola Nolan Ryan cards

These two cards were apparently produced by Score but I have no idea what set they are from. If anyone has any info on them, feel free to leave a comment.

This bag covered all four major sports. These were the best of the football cards in the batch ...

Followed by some more basketball. There were also three early 90s Stadium Club hockey commons that I forgot to scan.

Then there were these two random 1974 Topps Reds cards of two guys I've never heard of but they just might make the frankenset. Otherwise, they'll be part of a new project I'm working on.

Then we had some Studio cards. I like the Fred McGriff one with him balancing the bat. Hrbek's expression in the 1991 card looks like he was kind of caught off guard.

The last of the good baseball cards included. 

Trying my luck at the thrift store was pretty fun, although as I described the scene in part 1, it wasn't great. There's a big Goodwill store a few minutes down the street from the seedy thrift store where I got these so I think I'll try there next time.