Working to Lift the Ban

Self-imposed bans are tough.  Quite a while back, I mentioned that I was in desperate need of cleaning up my trade posts.  In an effort to facilitate that, I decided that I wasn’t going to trade anything until I was all caught up.

Well, with my two month absence from the blog due to computer issues and general malaise, I’m two months further separated from trading.  I did make one exception along the way, but generally I’ve stuck to my guns.

I need to get my trade packages posted more timely, so that I don’t keep running into situations like trading with Reader Adam in August of 2011 and only writing about it now.  I value my trades too much to keep doing that.

Also, I really want to start trading again, because that whole having to buy a car thing wiped out my card purchasing budget almost completely.  I’ll be relying virtually solely on trades for personal collection stuff this year.

This trade spurred from me having the luck to pull a Christy Matthewson Diamond parallel last year.  Adam saw that, and a Mark DeRosa Target parallel and we worked on a trade.  I was expecting just one or two Kerry Wood cards in return, but instead I got a slew.  I can’t remember anymore if I sent anything more than those 2 cards, but if I didn’t, I think I owe someone a few Giants.

Ah, the standard hexagonal picture window

Victory has always seemed like Collector’s Choice’s younger sibling.  Not as cool as it’s older brother (which is saying something), but obviously trying to emulate him to some degree while figuring out his own identity.  Too bad Victory didn’t also inherit the same photography genes.

Foilboard - making crappy scans since 19-whenever they were invented

Ooo, shiny. Foilboard is the most boring kind of shiny, but it’s still shiny.  I don’t think Elite has changed its design once.  Good for branding; bad for excitement.  One thing it does have going for it is the Batting Avg Against stat on the back.  I don’t recall seeing that too much.  Kerry’s career BAA was .210 up to this point.

Probably a strikeout

I can’t help but think of 1995-96 Fleer when I see this design.  You don’t get much more basic than this, folks.  You also can’t always get away with it, but Ultra does.  Ultra rarely does wrong by me.  If I was a crazy person, I think I’d try to collect all Fleer Ultra cards the way Andy is hunting down anything Stadium Club.   Sidenote: oddly enough,this card also features the BAA stat.

Couldn't that logo be a little bigger in that giant circle?

i messed up the scan – The Bazooka sets confuse me.  I’m pretty sure this is the regular, normal base card from the 2003 set.  If that’s true, then I also need a copy with a colored in logo in the upper right, a mini version with gray logo, mini with color logo, silver parallel with gray logo and silver with color.  I know it’s not a mini, but the silverish color below the black pennant shape (which is terrible by the way), makes me wonder about base vs. silver.  If I didn’t have some Padres silver borders from one of Cards From the Quarry’s group breaks, I might still be wondering.

I hope these packs came with gum

Then there’s the 2004 set.  My checklist is smaller for this.  I don’t have anything about gray vs. color logos, but my mini has a gray logo.  Did they not do the same thing this year?  I see a red chunks version (if you’re going to spew…spew into this), but no logo differences.  It worries me because it’s not like Topps to take away parallels if they can help it.

What happened to the pin stripes?

Ooofa!  Platinum Portrait?  Bronze at best!  I don’t see an artist credit, so my guess is photoshop filter.  Regardless, I know Kerry’s eyes aren’t usually the most open in his pictures, but you could do better than this.  It’s like he fell asleep standing up with gas pains – and I should know.  Well, at least the card stock is nice and the design is a good attempt at being a frame without falling back on cliches.

I have 2 or 3 cards total from this set. Is that enough to play?

Back to Victory.  Finally in 2003, he found his identity.  Then he was promptly shunned by the rest of the world for picking a dumb one.  He became a playing card where you can’t tell if you’re looking at the jersey number or the card number.  He adopted several parallel sets and 100 short prints in a 200-card set.  There’s a weird shape in the upper left corner which I assume means “P” for “Pitcher”, but could be some hieroglyphic that’s part of the game.  The back of the card doesn’t help me determine how the game is played, because it’s another picture of Kerry Wood.  I think someone needs to put an online tutorial up about how to play it, because “Walk” doesn’t help me much.

Kerry Wood is under-represented in my Player Collections so far.  I’ll be looking to boost those stats once I can trade again, so get ready everybody!  I’m now only 9 trade posts away from getting current!  Single digits, baby.  A couple of them are quite hefty, too.

Thanks Adam for the great trade.  Seeing and writing about Kerry Wood in a Cubs uniform is getting me excited for Spring Training.  Go Cubs!