So, it has been about a month since my last post, so I figure I am due... I have received SO much great stuff in the mail this past month... Smeds Card, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz, Cards on Cards, Dawgbones, Democratic Roadkill (HUGE!!!), plus several of my awesome readers have all blessed me with packages which I appreciate SOOO much!I am staying very active in collecting... My budget has been small, so I have been spending my time sorting and organizing... We have a fancy antique wood bench in our dining room. It has become the spot for me to stack cards to send off for surprise packages to my trade buddies...
Yesterday I sent out 8 such packages. I have 11 more stuffed and ready to go... I hate that they are sitting in my dining room still, but postage aint cheap... I am hoping that next Thursday all of them will be en route... I am trying to trade away EVERYTHING that isn't a part of a set or PC that I am chasing.... I put together over 2600 cards to send out for my blogger brethren and a couple 100 are on postal trucks as we speak. If yer curious - folks living in the following zip codes can expect a package from under the bridge real soon - 55418,16101,30052,98105,22031...
I also have over 5000 cards ready to go to Commons 4 Kids! I am super excited about this donation and already have a second 5000 count box in the works. The only problem I am facing is that when I took this to the Post Office to ship I was told it would be $38.! The box came back home with me. I am open if anyone has any suggestions for getting these out a little cheaper... Commons 4 Kids seems like a super awesome organization and I totally support and recommend them and encourage you to click this link and check them out...
In other card news, my wife surprised me with a jumbo retail pack of 2012 Heritage yesterday... I had not realized that it was out just yet, I need to pay a little more attention I guess. So, longtime readers of this blog may know that I am a pretty big of Topps Heritage. It was the product that got me hooked back into collecting and while collecting the 2007 Heritage set and trying to google a checklist of short prints I stumbled upon this AMAZING blog which led me to more blogs, like this AWESOME blog and this AWESOME blog and ultimately led me to start blogging (and BTW all 3 of those blogs are STILL around and are still 3 of the BEST) , so thank you Topps Heritage!!! On a negative note - I spent many hundreds of dollars buying box after box of 2007 Heritage (I included over 2000 dupes in my Commons 4 Kids package) AND spent nearly 2 years blogging and aggresively trading before I finally finished that set...
I had 2008 Heritage nearly complete, SPs and all, when they dropped Heritage High Numbers... Around 2010 I finished that one. I am still working on the 2010 set and did not buy a single pack of 2011. One of the reasons that I stayed away from the '11 set was that I was sooo excited about the 2012 set as it is based on '63 Topps which is one of my favorite sets of all time and is also a set that I am chasing... SO, I am super psyched about 2012 Heritage! The stupid budget isn't gonna allow much along the lines of wax in the near future - I may be able to rip a blaster here and there, but I will relying HEAVILY on trading, so keep me in mind as you get dupes, PLEASE! I will explain how and why later, but I have many, many Allen and Ginter minis available to trade. I also have quite a few 1963 Topps cards (especially if you are an Indians fan), along with some random other cards from the 60s and 70s and many 2010, 2011 and 2012 Topps cards.
I also have this card which came from the jumbo pack that Super Wife got for me. It is the RED SP parallel version of card #276 of reigning NL MVP Ryan Braun (shown at the top of this post). So far 3 of them landed on eBay, one has sold and for pretty good money, too... I would, of course, much rather trade it with a blogger, perhaps for one of the 27 Ginter minis that I need to finish my Frankenset, whatever, I am open to offers, just get in touch if you wanna make a deal, okay? Anyhoo... Stay tuned, I just might make a second March post, MAYBE a third... I might even drop a spring training update or some of my opinions on the Rays and the Pirates...
I believe those 2 teams are facing off this Saturday afternoon and the Wife and I MIGHT be attending... As always, thanks for reading - I will do my best to be a better blogger. I do seriously have some things in the works and many plans for this season. I do apologize for the lack of images. I hate expecting people to just read words with no photos to keep it interesting.... Gotta go though, Wifey is waiting!
Go Rays!!! troll out.
This is what she came up with: “While starting a baseball card collection for his two-year-old son Jacoby, Mike learned about the Ginter Code Promotion and teamed up to co-champion the 2009 Ginter code-cracking effort. Mike and Jacoby enjoy rooting for the Red Sox and collecting cards from their home in Portland, Oregon. “
Oh, by the way, I wanted to show off my Mike Gellner 1/1 with this post. It rules! Thanks for reading! 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 
The legendary 
The result was 3 more completed pages, oh the joy!
Thanks
I pulled, you know about the awesome mini Ancient Icons
card (Beardy's claimed this one) I pulled and you know about my super patriotic trio of jersey swatches. 
You've seen all of those cool cards (and seeing them again now), but I am going to reveal the remaining two hits in this very post, so read on... No sooner than the packs were ripped that night, the cards that I needed found a home in the Ginter binder, so I don’t have many scans of base cards. I was thrilled to pull card #307 of Pat Neshek
(opps, forgot to scan, eBay image) short print (could use a second for my PC). 
I got Carlos Pena, Akinori Iwamura, James Shields and BJ Upton from the Rays, too. I got this sweet trio of miniature awesome authors
and I pulled Brian Roberts as well. What I haven’t shown you yet are the two best hits. The best pull came in the very first pack I ripped. My wife ripped her pack and got nothing and then in my second pack I pulled the first card I am gonna show you… Now before I go on-Drew from Drew from the 
This is the first bat relic I have pulled from Allen and Ginter from any year… I had long considered collecting Prince for a few reasons. His Dad was awesome! I love watching
That’s right-in my first two packs (right off the top) I pulled an autograph card and a bat card of Prince Freaking Fielder!!!! I could not believe it! I can count the number of autographs that I have pulled in my lifetime on one hand-I normally just have really bad luck when it comes to ripping packs. There was something special about this box. It ended up producing 3 jersey relics, 1 bat relic, 1 certified (on-card) autograph, 1 Ancient Icon, 1 World Leaders and 1 shark card. Not too shabby… Anyone have a rookie card of Prince that they want to trade so I can complete this Trifecta? Like I said, I have the worst luck when it comes to ripping boxes, so I am feeling pretty good right about now… My 2008 Ginter want list can be found here. Thanks to everyone for reading…. Also, another HUGE thank you to 
Going into it I needed over 200 cards to finish the set, now I only need 70 cards to finish it off. I will scan some cards soon cuz I really like this set, but for now I wanted to show off my All American Relic Trifecta of Carlos Zambrano, Delwyn Young and Tom Gorzelanny. My lone complaint was that the last box I ripped had a Gorzelanny jersey in it, too. Now I wouldn’t mind doubling up on Carl Crawford or Joe Mauer, but Gorzelanny? Oh well. The order I pulled them was perfect. Red first, then white and finally blue. Awesome. I scanned them backwards, but you get the idea, right? These weren’t the lone hits either… There was one that was even better. Stay tuned for that. For now I wanted to throw out a super mega thank you to Duane from 
I have sweet foil cards of them. Not too bad considering that I haven’t ripped ANY Goodwin’s at all… Anyway, here is the cloudy Kazmir 
and if anyone has Carl Crawford or Evan Longoria to spare, send em my way! These two Aki minis came from Democratic Roadkill. He knows how much I love the Rays speedy second baseman. 
I think I have shown these minis before, so how about a shot of the back of the card? 
He didn’t stop with the minis though, he added along a Goodwin’s full sized card for good measure. 
I do like the look of these cards. It is weird to me because that is a really old picture of Aki used in the rendering and the background, although cool and old timey, just doesn’t make sense for a player who plays in a dome. Anyway, Aki Rules and these are fancy and cool looking cards. Speaking of fancy-Duane added in a 4th Goodwin’s Aki card in the package! This one is from the memorabilia series and has a sweet gray swatch in the shape of an M on the front. I guess that the M stands for memorabilia? 
It obviously doesn’t stand for Aki or Rays, maybe TaMpa Bay? I don’t know, but I like it! I am terribly nervous that the Rays are not going to resign Iwamura, which would be tragic. He was a huge part of their rebuilding effort and their success in 2008. He is unmatched defensively at both 2nd and 3rd base, he’s just too valuable an asset to let slip away and I know the Dodgers, Marlins and Mariners are all seriously interested and so are their fans. I can’t go a whole post without including a Carl Crawford card and I do LOVE these Carolina blue Bowman’s! 
This is a 2009, card #149 and is serial numbered 437/500. Okay, I am going to show one last card from Duane for now. I still haven’t unveiled the surprise he sent in the last package and no one has guessed what it was, here is the hint again. 
With all these awesome cards I am showing, you would think these are it, but it actually gets even better! I had horrible luck with 2009 Allen Ginter. I had fun putting together the set, but I bought way too many blasters and didn’t pull many relics at all. I didn’t even realize that BJ had a relic in there, but here it is! 
I really liked his base card this year with the yellow background, but it is very cool that they had a totally new pose for this relic. Thanks so much Duane, your kindness is mind-blowing!
It is one of those cards where it says he is on the Tampa Bay Rays, but shows him in a Twins uniform. I really don’t care much for those, but I was still excited to add a Garza relic to the old collection. I know have relics of three of their current starting five (Shields, Niemann and now Garza) which means I will be on the lookout for David Price, Wade Davis and/or Andy Sonnanstine. Anyway, Garza isn’t my favorite Ray on the team. I think it’s because of all of the spitting. I don’t care for that. He had a rough year this season in the win loss department, but actually pitched really well. His ERA was 3.95 (16th in AL) and his 189 strikeouts were good for 9th in the League, but his 8-12 just didn’t look too good. He did much better on turf this year (7-5) than he did on grass (1-7) and after the All Star break he didn’t have too many decisions, but was 2-5 when he did. He’s like BJ Upton though, you know he’s capable, you just wait for it. 
Last year Garza was the ALCS MVP and was untouchable against Boston. He was 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA in that Series and he Ked 25 Sox in 25 innings. I hope come Opening Day that the 2008 version of Matt Garza shows up to play. If that Garza is out there, I could almost excuse the spitting… Okay, that is all for now. I still have a number of things from DR that I still need to post and I probably have more from RotB, too. As often as I trade with both of these guys, I could conceivably have something in my mailbox tomorrow from either one of them. I will end this post with a little begging… If anyone has Aki cards from this year’s Goodwin’s Champions that I didn’t list here, I want them! I want to be an Aki completist for that set cuz I am so close. Also, my Carl Crawford list is up and is up to date. I seriously thought I was at 200 different cards of him, but unless I have card gnomes stealing them while I sleep, I only ever actually had 129. Much of what I am missing is base cards, so help a Troll out! The list is here: 
I promise to catch up on new acquisitions one of these days. I still have some really awesome stuff to post from JDs Wild, My Past Time and Cobb and Halladay, plus more from Democratic Roadkill, plus my take on the World Series and a profile of young Wade Davis, so stay tuned! Thanks again ED and DUANE, you guys ROCK!!! Oh, and if you wondering about the card on the top of the post, that falls into the category of a wishlist card...Go Rays! Troll out.
Yep, he is the swindler behind the scheme that bears his name that has come back in style of late. The Ponzi Scheme is scam that offers cash return to early investors, but the money comes straight from the pockets of later investors. He bilked unsuspecting folks for millions in 1920 and then spent a bit of time in prison.
This is straight from the back of the card… “In an internet proliferated parody of attempts to ban the teaching of evolution, the April 1998 issue of New Mexicans For Science reported that Alabama had voted to change the value of Pi from 3.14159 to the “Biblical value” of 3.0
In 2005 a crazy lady from Georgia faked her own kidnapping to avoid marrying a guy named John Mason. You got lucky dude. After a massive manhunt she surrendered to police and was sentenced to probation and community service.
I really wanted this card so I could read what the hoax was. I have been to Idaho and I eat potatoes that come from there on a regular basis, so I wondered how an actual state could be a hoax. Turns out that the hoax comes from the state’s name. Lobbyist George Willing convinced the US Congress that “Idaho” was a Shoshone Indian word for “gem of the mountains”. He eventually admitted that he just made up the word.
In 1770 a machine called “The Turk” was “invented”. This machine could play chess and the “machine” defeated many people including Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. Turns out it was just a costume and there was a person inside it, but it was a person who was really good at chess.
This shouldn’t need an introduction, but here goes… Enron had been a legitimate Houston based energy company before its bankruptcy in 2001. Then, it was found out that it operated almost solely on fraud and deception. The whole scandal brought down many, including the Arthur Anderson accounting firm.
She claimed to be the long lost Grand Duchess of Anastasia. She wasn’t, but it wasn’t exposed until post-mortem DNA tests exposed her.
This guy was a lot of things, but not really. He is the inspiration for the book “The Great Imposter” and the TV show “The Pretender”. Throughout his life Demara impersonated a surgeon, psychologist, prison warden, lawyer and a monk.
Britain’s “Guardian” newspaper created the island of San Seriffe as an elaborate April Fools day joke in 1977 when they published a 7 page history of the phony island.
This was the name given to the mystery man who hijacked a Boeing 727 in 1971 obtained a $200,000.00 ransom and parachuted from the plane never to be seen or heard from again.
Another April Fools Day prank, this one happened in 1933, complete with photos of the ruins and all. The Madison Capital Times newspaper ran this story as a joke saying the Capital fell after a gas leak caused an explosion.
The man who sold the Eiffel Tower. He posed as a Parisian official and told the scrap metal company that it was too costly to maintain and had to be destroyed in 1925.
Good ole Orson Welles and his narration of the HG Wells novel on the air on Halloween night in 1938… One million Americans were convinced that the earth was being invaded by Martians. Read a book America!
Much like Vic Lustig, Parker was a business man who sold things that he didn’t own including a number of New York City landmarks, the most famous being the Brooklyn Bridge. The expression “And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you” came from Mr. Parker.
In 1917 the New York Daily Mail published a fictitious history of the bathtub which is still repeated as the truth today. The story claimed that bathtubs were unacceptable by the populace until President Mallard Fillmore got on himself.
Again, in 1917, but this time in England, the news fooled the public. Two children were photographed with “fairies”. The photographer later admitted that the pictures had been faked and the fairies were cardboard cut-outs, but insisted that they had actually seen spirits.
In the late 19th century, Reavis devised an elaborate scheme to attempt to prove that he owned the state of Arizona. He had false family diaries, deeds and a long family tree to attempt to substantiate his right to ownership.
For 40 years the discovery of bones in Piltdown, England were regarded as evidence of a new type of early man, but in 1953 they were found to be an amalgamation of human and chimpanzee bones.
In 1869 workers digging a well in Cardiff, New York allegedly found the petrified remains of a 10-foot-tall man. It was actually made of gypsum and planted there by George Hull who hired the workers to unearth it.
Had it been real, “cold fusion” may have provided the world with an inexpensive and plentiful source of energy. This was claimed by two scientists in 1989, but was later deemed impossible and an example of pathological science.
