Durham Bulls Chipper Jones Bobblehead

I forget about all of the other things that float into my collection beyond baseball cards that would be cool to post in my blog space.  I had a cool piece enter my collection this week that I have decided to share.  Maybe I will post a few more during the next week.

The past week the Durham Bulls honored former Braves third baseman, and future Hall of Famer, Chipper Jones.  The team had a ceremony before the game where he became the fourth Durham Bulls player to have his jersey retired.  The others are Johnny Evers, Joe Morgan, and Crash Davis.  A work event prevented me from attending the game, so here's a picture from the Durham Herald-Sun.

Jones played seventy games for the Durham Bulls at shortstop as while he was in A ball.  While he was not in Durham a long time, it does not take a long appearance in a Minor League city for a player to have a huge impact.  I remember watching Evan Longoria and David Price play for the Bulls, and while their stay in AAA was short, I am sure they will be among the best players I get to witness playing minor league baseball.  My baseball fans in the area who witnessed Jones brief stay with the Bulls say the same thing about him: short time, great impact.

Besides missing out on the ceremony and seeing Chipper Jones in person, I also missed out on the Stadium Giveaway of a Chipper Jones bobblehead.  Luckily, someone was kind enough to pick me up an extra bobble which I really like:

Chipper Jones time in Durham came in 1992, so the polyester Bulls uniform and plain blue hat fit the era perfectly.  The face is not a dead ringer for Chipper, but it's not too far away.  The base is also kind of a cool oval shape, though I would liked to have seen a bobble of Chipper hitting.  The back of course features the most important feature of the bobble:

The retired number 10 of Chipper Jones.  I was curious about where and when Jones started wearing the number 10, but could not find any history of his jersey numbers in the minors.  Overall, I really like this bobble head and proudly place it on my Durham Bulls shelf in my man cave.

2013 Bowman Platinum Hak Ju Lee Jersey/Autograph

Time for a quick post tonight, but just barely.  My job, not as a blogger, is keeping me quite busy this week, so I am doing one card.  Fast.  I've had a great summer finding and adding Hak Ju Lee cards to my collection.  I saw one of the first home games the Durham Bulls played this spring and was greatly impressed by the Rays prospect.  This Bowman Platinum card is my latest addition.

2013 Bowman Platinum Jersey/Autograph 

While it has been a great summer for me to add new Hak Ju Lee crds to my collection, this has been a lost season for the future shortstop of the Rays.  Lee's weakness was long considered his offensive production, but he lead the International League in hitting for the first few weeks of the season before tearing a ligament in his knee and missing the remainder of the season.  I am not sure if the Rays will send Lee back to AAA next season, or if he will just jump up to the Majors.  I suppose that it all depends on his performance in Spring Training, but from what I can tell Lee is already able to play defensively at a Major League level.  I would be happy to see Lee make the Rays next year and will not complain if he is in Durham for another season.  Hopefully the knee is doing well.  

Favorite Non-Sport Ginters Part 2

Start this thread a few days back, but here's a look at my favorite non-sport Ginter cards from 2010 through the present 2013 set just released a few weeks back.


2010 Ginters
The 2010 Ginter set featured several non-sport sets with a good mix of topics and sizes.  Several of the sets were smaller with five and ten cards.  There were three large sets, Animals, Lords of Olympus, and Monsters of the Mesozoic.  The Animals set was a fifty card set and the latter two sets were each twenty-five card sets.  My personal two favorites from this set were the Monsters of the Mesozoic and the Sailors of the Seven Seas set.

2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Sailors of the Seven Seas Sir Francis Drake

2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Monsters of the Mesozoic Iguanodon 

2011 Ginters 

The 2011 Allen & Ginter set featured some really cool non-sport cards.  If I had to pick a favorite year for the non-sport Ginters this might be the one.  The sets, again, ranged greatly in size but there subjects included Animals in Peril, Bearded Figures (Brian Wilson included), Floating Fortresses, Step Right Up (Circus Themed), and my tow favorites Uninvited Guests and Mysterious Figures.  

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter World's Mysterious Figures D.B. Cooper 

The Mysterious Figures set includes The Man in the Iron Mask, Nostradamus, and famed high jacker D.B. Cooper.  It's a smaller set at only ten cards, but I really like the art work in the set.  Definitely worth checking into, but a few of the cards are a little bit tricky to find.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Lemp Mansion Uninvited Guests 

I had to get the Uninvited Guests set for the Lemp Mansion card alone.  This Ginter set features buildings and structures with a history of hauntings.  The Lemp Mansion has the reputation of being the spookiest and creepiest building in my childhood home of St. Louis.  If you are into ghosts and the whatnot here is The Lemp Mansion, as presented by The Ghost Hunters.  

2012 Ginters 

The 2012 Ginter set offered collectors a chance to collect cards of Historic Turning Points (Battles), Military Leaders, Giants of the Deep, Musical Masters, and People of the Bible.  The People of the Bible cards were not inspired by this Simpson's clip and Methuzula was not included.

Instead I have to side with the World's Tallest Buildings and Man's Best Friend as my two favorite non-sport sets from the 2012 release.  

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter World's Tallest Building Woolworth Building

I like the buildings on these cards.  Not only did Topps include some of the really tall buildings around the country, but they picked ones with personality.  Sorry, the Sears Tower (or whatever it is these days) is not cool looking, it's just really tall.  The Burj Khalifa has a little more personality. 

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Man's Best Friend Collie

I do not own a dog, but the day is fast approaching when I will bothered unmercilessly until I cave and spend a Saturday afternoon driving through tobacco fields to find my son a dog.  I grew up with dogs, so I am coming to grips with the fact that I will own another one soon enough.  For the moment this is my son's favorite stack of cards to look at in my card room and he's taken over several of my dupes from this set.  Since my son loves this set, it makes the list.

2013 Ginters

I had to put together the baseball card set first, that is my priority, then start to assemble the non-sports cards.  It's still a work in progress and unlike the other sets on this list, none of these are complete, but they are my current targets.  First up is the Famous Finds set.  

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Famous Finds The Tomb of Qin Shi Huang

  

I picked this set mainly for the card above which features the famous Terracotta Warriors.  I actually got to see the Terracotta Warriors in person at the Art Museum in Memphis while I was in college.  One of the coolest things I have ever seen in a museum, so I am putting together this set.  Some good looking card for sure. 

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter One Little Corner Sun

I liked the looks of the One Little Corner set, which features different bodies from space, so I made this my second non-sport target from the newest Ginter release.  I have about half of this set so far which is another non-sport collection that reminds me a lot of the original Ginter cards.  

Favorite Non-Sport Ginters-Part 1

I've been spending a lot of time this week on the newest Ginter set and figured I should do a fun post on some of the cool Ginter cards I have added to my collection over the past several years.  The 2013 release of the Allen & Ginter set marks the eighth release of the product by Topps with the first coming in 2006.  The original Allen & Ginter sets featured a lot of pop culture types of cards, almost almanac like, if that turn could be used.  Topps did a great job of keeping some of that feel alive by including a few non-sports cards in each set.  Here are my favorites from 2006-2009:

2006 Allen & Ginter

This set was the weakest in terms of non-sport cards within the Master Set.  There were the usual non-sport cards within the base set, which mainly focused around U.S. Presidents and a few notorious figures such as this cool card of outlaw Billy the Kid.

2006 Topps Allen & Ginter Billy The Kid

The 2006 set was really much closer to the T-206 set and some of the other vintage remakes that Topps has put out in the past, rather than the Ginter sets of put out the last few years, which do a better job of duplicating some of the original traits of the the Allen & Ginter set.  The rest of the inserts were dominated by autographs and relics, though there were a few others, such as the Postcards set shown below.

2006 Topps Allen & Ginter Vladimir Guerrero Postcards Front

 Back 

2007 Allen & Ginter

This was the first year that the Ginter set took on it's current look in terms of non-sports cards.  The 2007 Allen & Ginter set featured three such insert sets: Snakes, Flags, and Roman Emperors.  There is a very good original Ginter feel to these three sets.  The snakes set is pretty cool, but I really like the Flags and Roman Emperors sets.

2007 Topps Allen & Ginter Flags Columbia 

All three insert sets are featured on the miniature card format with the Flag set being the largest at 50 cards.  The original Ginter sets had flag cards, so this is a good attempt by Topps to recreate the original feel of the cards.  The subsequent Ginter sets also had flag cards, but they often tied into baseball, such as the 2008 State Flags set which featured players and the flags of their home states.  The set has more of a feel like the Bowman International cards....

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter State Flags Ryan Zimmerman North Cacilacky

The Roman Emporers set was also good in the 2007 set with a grand total of 10 cards.  Collectors can get a miniature sized history lesson on the lengthy history of the Roman Empire by putting together this set and reading through the snippets on the backs of the cards.  

2007 Topps Allen & Ginter Roman Emperors Titus

2008 Allen & Ginter 

The 2008 Ginter set picked up right where the 2007 set started and offered collectors more cool non-sport cards.  There were once again three primary non-sport inserts, all minis, in the 2008 release with Topps offering World Leaders, Deadliest Sharks, and World Icons.  My favorite two were the World Leaders and the Deadliest Sharks.  Again, the World's Leaders set was a large insert set of 50 which made a little bit more challenging to assemble.  

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter World Leaders Nguyen Tan Dung

My other favorite from the 2008 release was the Deadliest Sharks set which only featured five cards.  The cards aren't really hard to find, but I really enjoy the set.  Not sure why, just so.  

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Deadliest Sharks Oceanic Whitetip Shark 

The 2008 set also featured the Pioneers of Aviation set, but I have never added any cards from that set and never pulled any out of packs.  They are really cheap on Ebay and it appears that there are only five cards in the set.  

2009 Allen & Ginter 

My two favorites from the 2009 Ginter set were the National Heroes set and the World's Biggest Hoaxes set.  The National Heroes set, again, had the feel of the some of the original Ginter cards from the late 1800s.  

 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter National Heroes Rigas Feraios 

The hoaxes set though is really cool.  Lots of cool cards in this little set with a shout out to Enron, DB Cooper, and Cold Fusion. 

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Biggest Hoaxes Cold Fusion

Was this card based on the plot of a Val Kilmer movie?  Roger Moore was way better in this role...

  

Two New Inception Cards

The Inception set has been out for awhile and I am still adding pieces to my collection.  The set lacks some of the star power of other Topps releases this season, but there are many things that I really like about the set.  First off, the set has a great design.  The cards remind me a little bit of the Five Star product released at the end of last year, but without the ridiculously thick card stock that chips.  Second, you have to love when card companies take time to get the players to sign the actual cards, not a bunch of stickers.  Third, while the set lacks the star power of other Topps set the prospects who signed for the set are high end prospects or are worthy of checking out.

Months after the sets release, I am enjoying the fact that the autographs seemed to have settled in price and allowed me to add a pair of great looking autographs for a small amount of money.  Less than $10 shipped.  My new cards:

2013 Bowman Inception Taijuan Walker Autograph 

The guy pitches in the Mariners minor league system.  He's got only 22 wins in four minor league seasons and this season his record stands at 8-10.  I partially understand the price of his cards if you are just looking at the superficial statistics like wins, but this guy is going to likely be a very good player.  While he is 8-10 in two stops at AA and AAA this year he is the youngest player in both leagues at 20 and is averaging more than a strikeout an inning while maintaining a three to one strikeout to walk ratio.

Baseball America rates him as the #5 overall prospect in the game and there are rumblings that he could be called up in a week when the calendar turns to September and the Major League rosters expand to 40.  I also understand collectors being cautious with Mariners prospects after the likes of Dustin Ackley and Justin Smoak, have left people with disappointment and lost investments.  I have a better feeling about Walker.  

2013 Bowman Inception Jake Odorizzi Autograph 

I also added another card of Rays prospect Jake Odorizzi.  I have added several others this summer including his Inception Jersey/Autograph.  Odorizzi is currently pitching for the Durham Bulls who just clinched their sixth International League Southern Division Championship in the past seven years.  I am guessing Odorizzi could get a spot start for the Rays down the stretch, but is likely in AAA until he is given a crack at the rotation next spring.  

Atomic Awesomeness!

There are some great inserts around from the 90s that I wish card companies would bring back and reintroduce into their products.  Parallels and chase cards nowadays can be complicated and overdone.  How many different color variations does Topps put into some of their sets now?  The fact that there are collectors make whole rainbows, not half a rainbow, out of one players cards should probably tell you that there might be a few too many.

This past week I had the chance to go back in time and chase down a parallel of one of my favorite players.  I've been looking for a 1997 Bowman's Best Atomic Refractor of Ray Lankford for some time, but had not been able to pin one down yet.  I found one on Ebay about a year ago and got busy the day the auction closed and missed the card.  Another one popped up recently that I watched for a long time.

1997 Bowman's Best Ray Lankford Atomic Refractor 

I was not sure I wanted to pay more than $5 for this card plus $3 in shipping, but the seller eventually came down and I was able to pick up the card.  I can now say that I have the 1997 Bowman's Best "Rainbow" of Ray Lankford card.  You know, all three of them.

I used to love finding the Bowman parallels in the late 90s when the card set simply had refractors and atomic refractors.  The refractors generally came two per box and atomic refractors came one per box.  Simple, no serial numbers, and no crazy colors upon colors.  The cards are still highly collectable too and many cards fans of the 90s are willing to pay good money to pick up a copy of a refractor or atomic refractor of their favorite players.  Perhaps Topps should try this simple approach with some of their 2014 products.  

A Pair of New Cards From Facebook

A picked up a new pair of cards late last week from a Facebook friend and have been a little too backlogged with all of the Ginter posts this week to post the new acquisitions.  I have been not very active on my Facebook trading page in recent months, but still try to maintain some contact with a few of my favorite traders around the different trade pages.  It seems like many of the collectors around Facebook have become hooked on raffles, which really are not my cup of tea.  So, here are two quick cards for this evening.

First up tonight is a 2013 Topps Matt Moore autograph.  I actually did not pick up very many base autographed cards out of the two Topps series when they released earlier in the spring and fall.  The Moore card was on my radar, but I had not found it for a price that I liked until now.

2013 Topps Matt Moore Autograph 

  

While the card features a sticker autograph I really like the design of the card with the giant Rays logo behind the action shot of Moore throwing a pitch.  He's also have a great season with a 14-3 record and almost a strikeout per inning.  Moore is one of my favorite former Durham Bulls.

Next card:

2012 Donruss Elite USA Baseball Dom Nunez Jersey/Autograph

I took a flyer on a Dom Nunez card.  I am going to put this card in a box for the next four or five years and forget I have it.  Hopefully when I find it I will be pleasantly surprised and happy.  Nunez appeared last summer with the High School All-Stars at USA Baseball.  I heard some good stuff about him from some locals, so I figure he might be worth a gamble.  This summer the Rockies selected the infielder in the sixth round and assigned him to the Pioneer League.  He is currently hitting under .200, but half of his hits are extra base hits.  Maybe this card works out, maybe it does not.  It's one of the fun things about this hobby.