This winter, with nothing new to rip I decided to start putting all of my Allen and Ginter minis to good use. I got some cool pages and a binder and the Allen and Ginter Mini Frankenset was begun... I have done quite a few trades and I now have 299 cards out of 350... I still have a lot of empty spaces and I have some numbers that I have 6 different cards fighting for the spot... Jesse from Minneapolis sent me 55 random minis for my quest - got 'em today!
I filled up some spots, but was left with quite a few dupes which are all shown above... Its hard choosing who gets that spot... If you are wondering how a black bordered Ken Griffey Jr. didn't make the cut-well, he is card #290 - the same as Cat Osterman, Carlos Pena and a score of others...
Anyhoo, everything in this pic is up for trade and my list is up to date. I need just one more card to hit 300! Help me out, please! The list is HERE.
Thanks for reading! Go Rays! Go minis! troll out...
To help me along on this mission I have decided that I will be willing to part with some of the minis that I have hoarded and hidden over the years… Anyway, these are the card numbers that I need. Any year, any back, any border – I do not discriminate… Send me these card numbers please:
Okay, everything here (other than Toto, for now) is up for trade. I have several copies of some of these. Anyway, as y’all now, I am still trying to finish off the regular Topps sets from 2007 – 2011, PLUS Rays gold cards, PLUS Rays Ginter minis, plus 2008 Upper Deck Documentary, PLUS 2010 Allen and Ginter, plus some Vintage sets. In other words, I am pretty easy to trade with…
Here we go! Starting with card # PP1 of unaccredited telephone innovator Antonio Meucci. 
Wow, I have nothing to say about him, how often does that happen?
Card number PP4 of deranged blacksmith and Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant, Igor. 
I’m gonna guess that Igor is even shorter than Tim Collins, so I guess that makes him pretty cool. I guess.
Card number PP5 is my favorite of the set so far… It features the hype machine known as the Hare. 
The unbeatable speedster who lost a race in one of the great upsets of all time…
Card #PP6 features the Lone Rangers faithful sidekick Tonto…
I am quickly running out of time before I am expected to actually work while at work, so…
Card PP7 shows composer Antonio Salieri, 
while card PP8 features Sancho Panza, squire to Don Quixote…
The final card I have is of a little dog… 
Card #PP10 of Dorothy’s pooch Toto.
Of course Goodwin’s Champions and looking back Pacific Private Stock was making them in the late 90’s. I have never owned an actual Topps T206 original, but I have possessed several 1887 Allen and Ginter cards. I actually still have 2 of them. I don’t really know what the attraction is. Maybe they are cute because they are small, maybe it is still the newness which has yet to rub off. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t seem to shake my obsession with these little bitty cards. Since I have gotten pages to hold them efficiently I have been obsessively filling them. I finished off the 2009 Allen and Ginter World’s Greatest Hoaxes set and still have those. I was working on the World Leaders and Creatures of Myth Legend and Terror, but almost all of them are long gone. I wasn’t very close to finishing either set off, so I am not crushed over it. When my infamous card theft occurred I had a fair amount of minis in the box. I have mentioned that were several 1887 originals and there were also a number of cards from my various collections. 
I lost 3 different 1 of 1 cards and a number of cards that were not nearly that limited, but were pretty darn neat. I didn’t lose everything though. I had about ¾ of my minis safe at home. In the last 2 months my readers and all of my friends in the Blog-o-Sphere have come through big-time to share their collections with me. This last week I have been doing a lot of sorting and cleaning up regarding my card collection. I have filled some want lists, pulled off some trades and sent out some random blogger kindness packages of my own. By no means am I done either. I still have far more cards than I need hanging around in my house. I am slowly buying more binders and more Ultra Pro pages. If it doesn’t fit into a binder or in the Rays or vintage showcases, it must go! 
I really hate posting “trade bait” but I may have to eventually to fully liquidate. For now I have been having good luck sending cards to the many folks who I have traded with in the past, many of the same peeps who have blessed me with their kindness. Back to the minis and their magical majesty. Prior to today I had my mini cards that were part of sets or were planning on growing into sets in a binder, but my single minis-the Rays cards and such were relegated to a box that had the word MINI scrawled on it in crayon. This was not a fitting showcase for such awesome cards so I liberated them all from their boring box and randomly stuffed them into 15-card pages. The result is 60 cards in a binder. 60 glorious minis! Rays and Roberts and Robinson to Cat and Pat and Mr. Shoppach. I am pretty psyched to see all of these minis spread out in all of their glory. 
I didn’t scan the backs, but those are pretty darn cool, too. I have the Tampa Bay team set filled for 2008 and 2009 Allen and Ginter. It’s nearly done for ’09 Goodwin’s. My current mission is to fill both 2002 and 2009 T206. Chris Harris from Stale Gum hooked me up with a few from both years and lit the fire under me. I think I like the 2002 set even more and it includes Grieve and Gomes as well as Upton and Dewon. Anyway, I am really happy to be able to flip through my binder and admire my minis. I hope to fill a 5th page VERY soon. Thanks for looking. I hope you can actually what is what in the scans. If you have any minis that you want to get rid of, I would be glad to offer them good homes. Also, with all of the organizing this week I have filled up a number of pages. Pages of sets, team sets, insert sets, player collection pages and theme pages. I do plan on showing them all off. You have been warned! Go Rays! Troll out.
He hooked me up with TEN of them! I want to dedicate a special post to all of these awesome cards, but I can’t resist showing 1 right now. 
This is the first Jackie Robinson mini that I have ever seen! 
He also included a pair of Ginter Ad back cards of former Negro Leaguers Clyde Parris and my friend Willie Williams. 
There is a pair of Pablo Picasso minis and four more Rays minis with Ginter backs. 
I seriously love this series of cards! He also included my first Pat Neshek mini. 
I think that over half of my Neshek collection is Ginter cards. I can’t resist showing another Baseball Legends mini, so here is Johnny Mize. 
You will have to wait to see the other 8 in all of their glory. The trade pack included more Rays for my collection and more great Allen and Ginter cards. He finished off my State Card set and got me very close to finishing the 2008 Allen and Ginter base set, 1-350. For those concerned, the few cards I still need are: 43,55,83,95,238,305,315,318,320,341 and 348. Another thing that DR included in the package that I will tease, but will save for later to show in its entirety is the complete set of Worlds Victories cards. 
AWESOME! With all of these amazing cards I saved the best for last. This card absolutely blew me away and I honestly never imagined seeing one of these, never mind owning it. It is a mini, but its number is 399. The set ended at 350 making this an EXTENDED MINI! Absolutely amazing! I think the only way to pull an extended mini is by desecrating a rip card which I think are case hits. From there the odds of getting this one are astronomical. 
This is easily the best BJ Upton card I own and have ever seen. 
I LOVE IT!!! Thanks so much Duane, you have been hooking me up huge for nearly a year now. From my first Evan Longoria card to my first Rays relic to my first Allen and Ginter card and then mini to my first extended mini, wow, you are the best! A huge thank you to Duane and the 
Here he is: The Sultan of Striking Out, the Legend of runners Left on base, the DH who is “all glove, no bat”, Mister Pat the Bat Burrell! He is joined by 10 of his teammates making the fun sized Rays set complete! Included are Evan Longoria, Dioner Navarro and Carl Crawford. 
Also, Akinori Iwamura and Scott Kazmir. 
Cycle hitter BJ Upton and the AL Home Run King Carlos Pena.
Last, but not least, a trio of starting pitchers: Matt Garza, James Shields and David Price. 
I have the whole set in standard back form and have about the half the team in Ginter back style. 
I do not have a single black bordered mini and I am okay with that. I really would like to add at least on Bazooka back to the collection. Carl Crawford would be my preference, but I would really be thrilled to have any of them. I am excited to have the whole team together in miniature form. I still don’t have the full team in full sized cards… I am missing Aki, Kazmir and Navi. Okay folks, that’s all for now… The rest of this package is pretty f-ing jaw dropping. I couldn’t believe it myself. I will probably start posting it next week. Thank you so, so much Duane! I owe you big time and you rock out loud my friend! Here is a clue to one of the cool things that may have been in there…
Much more to come! Check out Duane’s blog at 
I don't know who I sent it to, but originally I wasn't chasing this set and now I am. It is a really fun subset, I think and this card is the only one standing in my way. I would like to do a full-set display post, like I did with the Highlights Sketch cards for this set, but I can't in good faith do this knowing that my set is incomplete... Anyone wanna help a blogger out? More posts coming tonight... troll out.
The rarest card of the bunch, serial number 1 of 10, autographed Rickie Weeks card is still here. Current Rockies closer, Huston Street and his patch card, numbered 33/50 is also still here. 
A new hit, an Upper Deck Masterpieces Captured on Canvas card of Red Sox starter Josh Beckett is here. 
I really like the look of this card and I would prefer to trade this one for a Crawford or Kazmir from the same set. The Joakim Soria dual swatch, number 60/75 is still unbelievable unclaimed. 
Every time I do a trade bait post I include this card, then people write to me about it, but no one offers anything in return, then if I offer to just send it, they won’t send me their address. What’s up Soria fans? That is it, everything else is GONE! I have shipped out over 30 relics in two weeks and I have already got some beautiful Rays cards in return. My want lists are getting smaller for the Heritage sets and SotCS and reader GreggG have knocked 200 cards off of my 1978 Topps list between the two of them. That list (and all of them for that matter) are updated. Every set is above 90% complete and I would really love to finish one of these! For 1978, I am still missing the Murray, Nolan Ryan and Paul Molitor, so I may never finish the set, but if I can complete it minus those 3, I would be a happy Troll! If you want any of the cards that I listed above, please check out my want lists and drop me a line at bacontowne at yahoo dot comm. I have one hour to leave for work and I feel rushed already. The package from the Hamiltonian had the elusive Carlos Zambrano sketch card I have been hunting for the last two months in it. That means the Allen and Ginter, Baseball Highlights, Kong sketch cards set is complete. The very first blaster I opened I got the David Price card and I was hooked! I made a few trades, including one with Mike of JDs Wild Cardz, he sent me 17 of these bad boys! I though the set would be a breeze to finish with that big head start, but a few blasters and boxes later and I had 3 partial sets, and all of three of them were missing cards 2, 3 and 4. Those eluded me for a while. I have had good luck trading away my dupes and I finally found the last remaining card. I had promised to not post any of these until it was done and now it is, so my next post will be the complete sketch set. I’ve heard mixed reviews on this one. I like them. I don’t love their choice of highlights, but the cards are beautiful. I was disappointed that some of them already appeared on UD Masterpieces, but since I didn’t rip much of that (up till last week!) they were brand new to me. Tricia didn’t send just one card either, she hooked it up. I will show just a few cards before getting into the set. Aside from Mike-I think I got a card or two along the way from Beardy, Brian/Play at the Plate and Nachos Grande, so thank you guys! For a while, Nachos, Beardy and me were all looking for the same cards to finish our sets. I hate Topps collation. Anyway, here are just a few of the highlights of the Hamiltonian trade. This card is easily the coolest part of the O-Pee-Chee set. It is the Face of the Franchise, card # FF22 of Evan Longoria. Sweet. 
I pulled the Lincecum on my box and sent it to JD Wild and he is a total OPC hater, but he liked that card. I have been looking for this Longo for as long as I knew that he was in it. Thanks Hamiltonian!!! My OPC set is now missing just the regular Longo card, JP Howell and Gabe Gross and I am done!!! She also included a bunch of Ginter minis that I needed. I still don’t have a list yet for the regular set. I plan on doing what several other bloggers have done and fill the set (1-350) with cards from various years. The wrinkle that I have added is my set will be baseball players only…. Anyone with a stack of old minis that needs a new home hit me up!
Here are two Negro League minis I needed, Frank Evans and Art “Superman” Pennington, she also heeded my call and sent some full sized Negro League cards, too. I love the Creatures of Myth and Terror set even though I had no luck pulling these. 
I now have two cards, the Unicorn and the Dragon, which she sent me. Thanks to Tricia and Duane from Democratic Roadkill, my Hoaxes set is nearly complete. If any one has Hoaxes card #5, PLEASE, please think of your friend the Troll! Okay, back to the trade…she sent a few including this one of Victor Lustig, 
the man who sold the Eiffel Tower. I love Ginter! A history lesson in every pack! I am going to end this post now, but a huge and hearty thank you to Tricia from the Hamiltonian blog for this trade!!! I am so glad to be done with this set and the extras you sent are awesome!!! Thank you, thank you so very much! I look forward to trading again with you soon! A few endnotes... Minesota Twins, you guys are gonna need a lot more than a few card bloggers rooting for you to get past the New York Yankees, good luck! This is a pic from the Sunshine Skate State Championship in February 2009 that I just got. 
Seven very geeky derby announcers from all over the country, all in the same place at the same time... Captain Canuck, a package is heading your way, be on the lookout for it in the next month or so. The Chipper sketch I promised in there along with some very cool stuff that you very well may enjoy...Go Rays!! Troll out.
