2007 SP Legendary Cuts

The pack contains 4 cards.
There are 100 cards in the base set.
There are inserts Legendary Lineage Die cuts (numbered to 550)
There are parallels galore Legendary Material ,When It Was A Game, Masterful Material, Inside the Numbers, A Stitch in time, Material Signatures (numbered to 10), Legendary Signatures (numbered to 199), Legendary Materials (numbered to 199), Legendary Americana (numbered to 550), Material Cuts (numbered between 5 and 1),Legendary Team Cuts (1 of 1), Legendary Quad Cuts (1 of 1), Dual cuts (1 of 1), Signature Cuts (1 of 1),Quotation Cuts (numbers vary), Hall of Fame Cuts, Historical Cuts.
Cuts, cuts and more cuts.
I bought three packs, knowing full well that there would be just base cards.

Pack 1:

#1 Phil Niekro Braves

#16 Ernie Banks Cubs

#30 Lou Boudreau Reds

#85 Satchel Paige St. Louis

Pack 2:

#2 Brooks Robinson Orioles

#21 Nellie Fox White Sox

#29 Bob Lemon Indians

#86 George Sisler St. Louis

Pack 3:

#15 Rod Carew Angels

#44 Kirby Puckett Twins

#72 Steve Carlton Phillies

#99 Vern Stephens Red Sox

I like the look of these cards. The black background marble effect works for me. Photographs in black and white, the player surrounded by a red oval, sometimes breaking free of the confines and the gold lettering. It all fits very well. Only 100 base cards to collect, a box should do...how much were they again?

2003 FLEER Authentix

These packs contained 5 cards. There is a possibility of a memorbilia card in every 8 packs.

The regular set consists of 100 base cards, 10 Future Stars, 15 Tickets to the Majors (numbered to 1,850).
There are inserts Ticket Stubs and Ballpark Classics.
The parallels are Balcony (numbered to 250), Club Box (numbered to 100) and Standing Room (numbered to 25).

Base cards:

#2 Tom Glavine Braves

#21 Moises Alou Cubs

#35 Raul Ibanez Royals

#95 Paul Konerko White Sox

Insert:

#108 Future Star Michael Restovich Twins

A nice concept. Cards that look like tickets, number, tear off section, darker colours. All that effort and they use the same stadium picture on the back of the card. I would rather have the ticket to be honest. No Red Sox again.

1980 Topps Baseball variations

I realised I needed to attack my 'Pursuit for 1980 Topps' with a bit more gusto and started to search e-bay US for some sellers with the 'complete your set' tag. I stumbled across, to my surprise, quite a few. There were two types; those that said they had some 1980's Topps and those that listed all the numbers they had available. I purchased 100 from 1 seller and 75 from another on the same day. The 100 cards charge for postage was $13.95 ! (When it did arrive the postage cost $8.50- that is some very expensive packaging.). The second lot of 75 cost a mere $5.00, but has yet to arrive. Hmmmm. I'm not here to talk about the irregular postage system but in my search I stumbled across:

An unopened pack of 3 1980 Topps cards free with Squirt (washing liquid?, Actually a soft drink- thanks Steve.),

An unopened pack of 3 1980 Topps cards free with Hunts bread and

An unopened pack of 3 1980 Burger King 'Pitch, Hit & Run cards.

These were according to the seller '...regular 1980's Topps cards...plus... the possibility of a Rickey Henderson Rookie...' I didn't think for a minute that these would be un-searched. I have also come to appreciate the variety of places that baseball cards can be obtained like cheese, dog food, fast food places and now bread! Plus my oddball meter did a little dance. I bid and won all three.

They arrived today.
In the 1980 squirt packet:
A squirt card with Lifetime .300 hitters statistics on the back ,
#421 Doug Bird (needed)
#596 Rick Matula
#662 Red Sox future stars.

In the 1980 Hunts bread packet:
A Hunts bread card with Players with 3000-or-more hits statistics on the back, oddly with a O-Pee-Chee branding,
#216 Phil Mankowski
#417 Craig Chamberlain (needed)
#598 Fred Kendall.

Finally the 1980 Burger King:
Hang on a minute, red backs! Not blue! What is going on here?
Luckily the Burger King card is a checklist and I have realised that this is not the regular 1980 Topps set, but rather a 33 card set of Pitchers, Hitters and Runners. Hence the name.
It looks like Topps, feels like Topps, made by Topps but not Topps.
Included was:
#3 Rollie Fingers
#16 Keith Hernandez
#32 Frank Taveras

Sadly I have missed the Pitch, Hit and Run competition running from July 7th -13th, its for boys and girls aged 8 to 13 years. Oh well.

If you can shed some light on these cards, it would be greatly appreciated.

1983 Topps

I bought these packs from e-bay UK. If packs ever come up in the UK, I will bid. The seller had 1987 Topps and 1988 Fleer as well. I won this lot of 3 packs of 1983 Topps. I like the design of the 1980's cards, in particular 1980 to 1984 (although I could take or leave the 1982 'hockey stick' design). I have bought from this seller 'derbymark' before and I can safely say he hasn't searched these packs.

Each pack contains 15 cards and 1 stick of gum. There are 792 cards in the set which includes sub-sets; All-stars, League Leaders, Record Breakers, Super Veteran and Team Leader cards.

Pack 1:

#44 Don Robinson Pirates

#64 Bill Stein Rangers

#143 Joe Pettini Giants

#181 Terry Felton Twins

#287 Bobby Brown Mariners

#289 Jerry Dybzinski Indians

#343 Bob Bailor Mets

#461 Steve Trout White Sox

#488 Alfredo Griffin Blue Jays

#489 Tom Herr Cardinals

#532 Dave Stewart Dodgers

#612 Steve Swisher Padres

#696 Chuck Tanner Pirates

#731 Al Williams Twins

#766 Barry Bonnell Blue Jays

Pack 2:

#52 Onix Concepcion Royals

#174 Jerry Ujdur Tigers

#198 Kiko Garcia Astros

#246 George Bamberger Mets

#278 Kevin Hickey White Sox

#301 Mike Schmidt Super Veteran

#327 Bobby Castillo Twins

#358 Jerry Garvin Blue Jays

#385 Mike Easler Pirates

#525 Frank White Royals

#598 Dwayne Murphy A's

#629 Charlie Lea Expos

#651 Angels Checklist

#761 Gary Lucas Padres

#792 Chris Chambliss Braves

Pack 3:

#15 Ron Cey Dodgers

#88 Jim Gantner Brewers

#91 Larry Milbourne Indians

#132 Todd Cruz Mariners

#227 Chris Bando Indians

#297 Ned Yost Brewers

#241 Rich Gossage Super Veteran

#381 Red Sox Checklist

#390 Reggie Jackson All Star

#393 Carlton Fisk All Star

#528 Jamie Easterly Brewers

#545 Floyd Bannister Mariners

#573 Andy Hassler Angels

#663 Tom O'Malley Giants

#739 Rick Ownbey Mets

Disappointingly one Red Sox in 45 cards. It also says on the wrapper that there should have been a 'Winning Line-up' game card inside. There wasn't one in any of these packs, they are needed to purchase the 5 card collectors sets and its too late to obtain a free game card as that finished on the 15th December 1983. Oh well.
These cards are in excellent condition, cannot say the same for the sticks of gum!

2003 FLEER Showcase

The pack contains 5 cards.

The regular set consists 105 basic cards and 10 Showcasing talent cards.

There are inserts SweetStitch.

There is a parallel set Legacy (numbered to 150) and Masterpieces (numbered 1 of 1).

Base cards:

#80 Kazuhisa Ishii Dodgers

#84 Scott Rolen Cardinals

#91 Craig Biggio Astros

#93 Austin Kearns Reds

#98 Robin Yount Brewers

Really nice looking cards. A plain grey outer border and off white inner border with the gloss player picture on a matt background, that makes the player stand out. Good card stock. I bought these from a seller on e-bay who was also selling 'hit' packs, so I guessed there would be nothing but base cards in here. Pity there were no Red Sox.

2008/9 Match Attax with Stale Gum

I sent a couple of packs of Match Attax to Chris at Stale Gum. Although there was not a lot of love for these cards on A pack a Day here and here when I posted them. Chris, The Captain at Waxaholic, Todd and even Travis at PunkRockPaint were interested in getting a few packs. I am always happy to oblige a request that is very easy to fulfil.

Click here to see Stale Gum's Match Attax bust.

Trade with Todd

This is my second trade with Todd aka Darkstar from Bondurant, Iowa. Todd is a Soccer and Kansas City Royal fan and we linked up through A Pack a Day. Enclosed in the package, which turned out to be a Roger Clemens fest, was:

1981 Donruss #214 Carl Yastrzemski
1981 Fleer #224 Carlton Fisk
1987 Donruss #2 Roger Clemens Diamond King
1987 Fleer #634 Roger Clemens /Gary Carter
1987 Fleer #640 Roger Clemens/Dwight Gooden
1987 Topps #87 Roger Clemens
1988 Donruss #51 Roger Clemens
1989 Donruss #280 Roger Clemens
1989 Fleer #85 Roger Clemens
1989 Score #350 Roger Clemens
1990 Bowman #268 Roger Clemens
1990 Donruss #184 Roger Clemens
1990 Fleer #271 Roger Clemens
1990 Score #310 Roger Clemens
1991 Donruss #BC3 Roger Clemens
1993 Leaf #279 Roger Clemens
1993 Leaf Gold leaf Stars #20 Roger Clemens
1993 Pinnacle #25 Roger Clemens
1993 Upper Deck #135 Roger Clemens
1993 Upper Deck #D9 Roger Clemens
1993 Upper Deck #R7 Roger Clemens
1994 Fleer #26 Roger Clemens
1994 Score #25 Roger Clemens
1994 Triple Play #201 Roger Clemens
2003 Fleer #48 Manny Ramirez
2005 Donruss Champions #359 Carl Yastrzemski
2005 Throwback Threads #G17 Roger Clemens
2005 Topps #5 Johnny Damon
2007 Allen + Ginter #210 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2007 Artifacts #77 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2007 Topps '52 #50 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008 Allen + Ginter Greatest Victories #5 Jon Lester
2008 Baseball Heroes #21 David Ortiz dark blue 19/50
2008 Baseball Heroes #28 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008 Baseball Heroes #198 Papelbon/Ramirez/Varitek/Ortiz
2008 Spectrum #13 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008 Topps #TCP19 Manny Ramirez
2008 Topps #360 David Ortiz
2008 UD Masterpieces #12 Wade Boggs
2008 UD Masterpieces #13 Curt Schilling
2008 UD Masterpieces #14 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008 UD Masterpieces #15 David Ortiz
2008 UD Masterpieces #16 Jonathan Papelbon
2008 UD Masterpieces #17 Manny Ramirez
2008 UD Masterpieces #84 Jason Varitek

Thanks to Todd for the great selection of cards. I really like the Masterpieces' cards. There wasn't a great deal of difference between 2007 and 2008, but I like the look and feel of them. A surprise Baseball Heroes David Ortiz jersey swatch numbered to 50. Brilliant Todd