#30DBCC Recap of Days 21-30 plus a bonus

Wrapping up with the final ten cards I posted on Twitter as part of the 30 Day Baseball Card Challenge. Thanks to Tony L who adapted a music challenge to something collectors could have fun with. Cards 1 thru 10 were posted here and the next group, 11 to 20, are here.

Day 21: The third segment kicked off with a "card of a rookie I thought I was 'investing' in". I really did very little of this. I didn't go out and buy cards of anyone hoping to cash in. What I did do was put away cards of promising rookies that came in the numerous wax packs I was ripping back in the Junk Wax Era. Mike Marshall (the outfielder, not the doctor/pitcher) came to mind.

Day 22: Card of a common player that eluded me. I had already posted the best example, my Mark Belanger '67 rookie, back on Day 7 as a card I bought in person w/ a story behind it. So I drove off the tracks on this one and went with a 'story' that eluded me. This '59 Colavito card led me down a long and winding path to find the shot it was based on. I finally did.

Day 23: A fave oddball from the 50s. 1954 Red Man Billy Pierce. BP had a card in each of the three red Man issues.

Day 24: A fave oddball from the 60s. I had lots of choices with Orioles team issued things, fool food related cards, etc. But I picked this Boog Powell from 1969's Atlantic Oil game series.

Day 25: A fave oddball from the 70s. (I mislabeled this as Day 24 on Twitter) It's one of many many MLBPA discs and similar items from that decade. From 1977 we have a Pepsi Jim Palmer.

Day 26: A fave oddball from the 80s. One of my favorite Eddie Murray cards is this Drakes Cakes from 1983. I even got a retweet by @Drakes__Cakes. LOL

Day 27: A fave oddball from the 90s or later  Gary Cieradkowski does some great work. His art graces this 2008 Wally Yonamine promo card for a Rob Fitts book. And he has a blog and his own books. Highly recommended.

Day 28: A favorite relic or manufactured relic card. Another category of cards I don't deal with much. I have a couple pages of relics in a binder but I haven't thought about them much. This Babe Ruth bat relic is the best of them although a Mel Ott jersey swatch card I have is cooler looking.

Day 29: A fave pre-1950 card. This was tough. I have some tobacco cards that I love and a few nice cards from the 30s and 40s but in the end my only career contemporary card of Babe Ruth won out. This is a German issued Sanella margarine card from 1932. It's worth posting the back, too.

Day 30: The last day of the challenge asked for your favorite card in your collection. This was the hardest one for me. I cycled through about a dozen cards. I eliminated those that I had been on an earlier day like the '78 Murray, 1961 Wes Covington and the 1960 Mantle All Star. It came down to my '57 Brooks Robinson rookie, my T206 Chief Bender, another card I'll discuss in a bit and this card....

....which in the end is the one card I'd keep if I had to offload my collection. Christy Mathewson is from Factoryville, Pa. I spent some summer vacations there staying with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Al. There isn't much in or around Factoryville. Mostly we sat on their front porch up on that hill and enjoyed the views of valleys and trees. At night my uncles and my Dad would go to the one bar in the area. They would take me and some of my cousins when we were teens and many intense bar shuffleboard games ensued. That's where I learned to appreciate pickled eggs from a jar and Hires root beer from a bottle.

My Uncle Al was probably the only other collector in my extended family. He had a few cards but mostly he collected baseball publications He loved books, guides and magazines. When he passed on some years ago my aunt sent me a box of his stuff. Nothing extraordinary but all of it priceless...to me.

I remember those summer days in the northeast Pennsylvania hills when I look at this card.

Day "31": I couldn't do a baseball card challenge without somehow including the 1959 Topps Bob Gibson I posted at the top. So I added a extra day to the challenge. Here's what I said about this card on my '59 Topps blog years ago:

This is by far the worst conditioned card in my 1959 set. But it's also the one that means the most and the reason I'm filling up a binder with this great group of cards. This Bob Gibson is the only '59 Topps that has survived from my childhood. Besides that, even given the condition it's in ("Poor" would be a generous grade) I love this one. Gibby looks happy to be posing for his rookie card and he's smiling out at us from an outrageously inappropriate pink setting. This is a 'high number' card, note the red and black on white reverse. One day I'll upgrade this card but I'm not in any hurry. This old warhorse of a card will anchor my set for the time being.

I don't remember how the tape got on the back but it doesn't detract from the card in my eyes. Neither do the creases or rounded corners. It had hidden in a copy of the first Beckett Price Guide as a bookmark and sat forgotten in a storage box in my closet. Sorting through the box a couple of summers ago brought Gibby's card back into my hands and the answer to the question I'd been asking myself for some time ("Which vintage set do I want to collect") was answered.

So there are the final cards in the 30 Day BB Card Challenge. I enjoyed posting the on Twitter (and here) and I enjoyed reading other fols' postings. Many are still going on. Tony, great job in putting this together! It forced me and others to dig into boxes and binders we hadn't gone through in awhile. And to think about and appreciate the cards we have in a different way.  It was great fun.

#30DBCC Days 11-20 Recap

The 30 Day blog and /or Twitter Challenge has been both fun and thought provoking for me. I've gone through binders I hadn't looked at in a long time. At least twice I posted a card for a daily challenge and then later thought "that card would have work better for THIS one."

Anyway, here is the next installment, Days 11 through 20.

Day 11...a favorite card from the 70s. I went with the Jim Palmer Kellogg's card for a couple of reasons. I have plenty of them for one thing. And they are just plain neat cards. The 3D aspect was unique then and nobody has done it as well since. 

I could have put the '78 Murray rookie here but that one would have fit in several other places. I already used it a a favorite rookie card.

Day 12. A favorite from the 80s. Rochester Cal Ripken. The only card I own that I ever considered paying to have graded. I have two of these, the other is on display on my shelves. That one isn't off-center.

Day 13. A favorite from the 90s. I was a David Clyde fan since I watched him as a high school phenom. He was a man playing against boys.

Day 14. A favorite from the 2000s. 2008 Topps Barack Obama. No comment other than I remember buying one pack of 2008 Topps cards at a Wal Mart and opening them in the parking lot. I remember being disappointed in the design. 

Day 15. A favorite from the 2010s. I could have chosen any of about a hundred great Stadium Club cards from the last three years. This one is about as good as a card gets.

Day 16. A card of a guy I didn't like but admired. .My only decision was which Reggie to post. I chose a great one I picked up from the late Bob Lemke. RIP Bob

Day 17. A card from the first set I put together by hand. .I decided to use a card from my first major set blogging project, '59 Topps. I'm sure i put together several sets as a kid but I couldn't swear which the were. Probably '62 or '63. Those were school yard sets projects. Picking the '59 gave me the chance to post this great Frank Robinson card.

Day 18. A card of a player who went on to manage your fave team. Could have used a Frank Robinson card here as well. I scanned his rookie card but then decided to use a Bauer for variety. This one had just arrived as an upgrade for the '58 binder.

Day 19. A favorite from outside the USA. This one was right in my wheelhouse. I flipped thru my Japanese card collection and chose three different Sadaharu Oh menkos. 

I'm in doubt about the legitimacy of this one:

I like this one .....

....but I like this one the most!!

And finally we get to Day 20: A parallel you like not for the player but the design.  I pay next to no attention to parallels so I was at a disadvantage on this one. First one I found was this framed Brooks from an Upper Deck set. Winner by acclamation I guess. 

I'm in the midst of pulling and scanning for the final leg of the challenge. They may be the most fun of them all. I hate to see the end of the 30 days coming at me.

I'll post those once the challenge is done.

#30DBCC 10 Day Recap

The #Twitter 30 Day BB Card Challenge 'thing' I mentioned previously is also being posted as blog entries by several folks and it works just as well there. Maybe better since blog posts don't have the 140 character restriction.

Anyway I thought I'd recap my first 10 days of my cards here. Why Not?

Here are the original guidelines as posted by Tony of the Off Hiatus blog. Tony got the idea from a music version of the same thing which I tried to follow but failed at.

Some participants have deviated from them to meet their own collecting interests and that makes it even more fun. In a few days when we get to 'A Fave Card from the 2000s' I'll be reeeeally challenged. For several of these I've had a hard time narrowing it down to one to post. For the next couple I'll have trouble coming up with even one. LOL

So here is what I've done so far:

Day One: Current Year Card with a cool photo...I loved the Adam Jones Topps Now card of his homer theft WBC catch. I bought this card but it hasn't arrived yet. I can't tell you who hit this thing or what country AJ was playing against but I thought the picture was awesome.

Day Two..a Multi Player card. I've always liked this '67 card with three Birds..

Day Three..A card from the 1st set I tried to complete. I remember the '62 set as a playground staple at St. Mary's School in Nutley, New Jersey.  We bought nickel packs with money we earned from collecting bottles, swapped doubles, flipped against the school wheelchair ramp, whatever it took. I think I had the whole set eventually. I picked the Mudcat Grant card because it's Mudcat Grant. No better reason needed.

Day Four...Rookie Card of a favorite player...Eddie Murray '78 Topps. Spectacular card.

Day Five...Certified Auto of a favorite player. Billy Pierce Certified Auto checks both boxes.  I have four different CA Billys. I like this one best. My scanner doesn't though.

Day Six... card I spent more that $10 to get...Looking back I believe I missed this challenge. It may be somewhere on Twitter as a reply but my Twitter skills are still Level 1. :::shrug:::

That was a very challenging challenge. I've spent more than $10 on a boatload of cards. I considered many many different ones, my Brooks Robinson rookie for example, but I thought I'd do a non-Oriole for this.

So here is the card I was planning to tweet...1958 Topps All Star Mickey Mantle. I don't recall what I actually spent but it wasn't cheap. This is a card I wanted for a looooong time. I love the '58 All Star design. And Mickey Mantle is simply a baseball icon. Took me forever to find a decent copy at a price i was willing to pay but I nabbed this one in 2012.

BTW...the Koufax card I posted up top was one I seriously considered for a couple different categories. I put it there for fun.


Day Seven...a card I bought in person and the story behind it...1967 Mark Belanger/Bill Dillman high number rookie. I called it my 'First White Whale and you can see the story in my post from four years ago. In a nutshell it was the card that finished my first 'grown-up' card project, collecting all the Orioles from 1954 onward.

Day Eight...A card that reminds me of a family member. This wasn't hard. Almost any card with a nice view of Yankee Stadium reminds me of my Dad and all the good times we had there. I picked the '59 Ford because that was the year of my first  ballgame with him. And Ford was a real favorite of his.

Day Nine...a favorite '50s card. Wow...which to choose? I went with a 1957 Topps Campanella. Can't go wrong with Campy. I considered about two dozen others though.

Day Ten...a favorite '60s card. Now this was crazy...Tony and I independently chose THE SAME CARD. Out of all the incredible cards from that decade of sweet sets we both decided to use the 1961 Topps Wes Covington. He posted hours before I did but I promise I hadn't seen it when I posted mine. It's a beauty for sure.

The #30DBCC is now up through Day 11 or 12 for some folks although everyone is on their own timetable. I'll do another recap once I make it through 20 days.