Cards in the Mail

These cards came from T.J. in Louisiana.  This isn't the first time T.J. has sent cards.  His efforts do not go unnoticed.  That "highlights" card is not one I had ever seen before.  I'm not sure what to do with it. It's definitely a Nomo/Dodger card, but it's also pretty obvious that Wallach is on it.  I'm not going to count it as a Wallach or pursue anymore of them, but I'm not going to throw it away either.  I think for now it will find a spot in the back of one of the white boxes I keep all my doubles in (I have a lot of doubles).  In the back of the last box I have some odd ball cards I don't count, like the Sportflics Expos preview card, some early Fleer Expos stickers, things like that.

Here are the updated totals for the cards sent by T.J.

1988 Fleer: 142
1990 Fleer: 128
1992 Triple Play: 34

T.J. Collects Ken Griffey Jr. cards, if your so inclined check out his website, and maybe send him your Juniors.

Cards in the Mail

These cards represent the first ones to arrive from Toronto.  They were sent by G. Ma, I don't have any more info than that, so whoever you are, thank you for the cards.  They are very much apprciated, and I hope your not a hockey fan.  I love hockey, but I can't imagine being a Toronto hockey fan this week.

Updated Totals for the cards sent:

1988 Donruss: 448

1991 Donruss: 60

1991 Donruss MVP: 55

1991 Score "The Franchise": 44

1991 Fleer Ultra #210

Card Review: 7.5  I remember feeling a little bit sorry for Fleer in 1991.  It was first year they put out this "Ultra" set, which was an obvious response to the "premium" cards being put out by Upper Deck.  I'm no fan of these "premium" cards (I like my cards packed in wax, with raw cardboard backs and gum), but I still felt a little bad for Fleer.  In a vacuum this is pretty nice card.  But Topps also put out a "premium" set in '91 for the first time, and their Stadium Club set absolutely blew this and everything else out of the water.  Did Fleer know this would be the case?  I'm sure they knew Topps (and everyone else) was going to be putting out "premium" card sets, but did they have any idea just how much nicer Topps would be?  In any event, Fleer upped their ante in future editions of Ultra, and baseball cards as they had been known for the previous half-century more or less ceased to exists.

Number of this card in my collection: 22

Card in the mail

This 1989 Upper Deck card arrived along with the page from the recent Sportsnet Magazine blurb on my collection.  It was sent by Ed up in Milton, Ontario.  Thank you very much Ed.  I very much appreciate the card and the magazine page.  This card brings my total for '89 UD up to 64 cards.

And if your looking for insurance in Ontario, I recommend you check out these guys:

1994 Pinnacle #484 Artist's Proof

Card Review: 6.5  This is the 3rd variation of '94 Pinnacle.  I don't really know what the deal was with this one.  The "Museum Collection" are sort of cool, and drastically different. The only thing that makes this any different from the base card is the stamp above the name.  Was the "art" themed titles to these some sort of tie-in that I'm oblivious too?  I don't know.  There's just not much to get excited about here.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

1995 Donruss #539 Press Proof

Card Review: 5.9  This is more or less identical to the regular '95 Donruss. Just the "Press Proof" atop the front and "1st 2000 Printed" atop the back make it different.  As the banner states, allegedly there were "only" 2,000 of these.  This is sort of the "bigfoot" or missing link between the first inserts and today's individually numbered inserts.  Only it's not really missing.  They're readily available for those who want them (but for the most part nobody does).

Once again Donruss is using photos from Wrigley Field, a common trait for Donruss Wallachs.  They must of had an office in Chicago, or contracted with a photographer out of there.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

1988 Donruss Variations

          

These two cards are a little bit different.  The black/red/blue patterns along the edges are on different corners.  I first noticed this years ago and never thought much of it.  I figured it was just random and maybe it is.  Then I decided to sort them a while back and was surprised to find that the one on the left is much more scarce than the other.  At the time of writing this I have 447 of this card, of which only 34 appear as the one on the left.  That number was a lot lower a week ago too, but I recently picked up a good number of these, of which 25 were of the left variation (my motivation for finally getting around to doing this post).  That's 7.6%.  For now I'm not counting them as different cards in the running tally on the right, unless someone convinces me otherwise.

That's not the only difference either.  On front you can see that the blue scans much differently.  There's also a small difference on the back.  A small "arrow" in the upper right corner on the back is present on the variation.  I'd dismiss it as just a printing error, but it shows up (without exception) on everyone of the cards shown above on the left, and none of the ones on the right.


My theory is that one of these cards is from factory sets and one is from regular packs of cards.  But even if thats the case, I'd still like to know why Donruss did this, and know whats the deal with them scanning so differently? That's just bizarre.  Those two cards above were scanned at the same time on the same scanner.  You can see it's the same image.   I even tried it with others.  Is it different card stock?  Different ink?  If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them below in the comments section.

1995 Stadium Club #127 Virtual Reality Member's Only

Card Review: 0.0  Somebody at Stadium Club was a real jerk.  Rather, some people at Stadium Club were some real jerks.  Some jerk said, I think we should do a lot variations of our cards so collector's will buy a ton a packs.  "We can't have collector's simply buying enough packs to compete the set, no small task in and of itself."  I'm guessing this was one the last of the seven variations for this card.  They had a bunch of variations per the demand of some jerk, then some other jerk said, "Hey, what if we started combing variations?" Then yet another jerk said; "That's a great idea."  Then a bunch of suckers went out and bought this crap by the case.  Today it's so worthless, and so unwanted, that when somebody like me actually wants a few of them, no one is willing to take the time to sort through it to sell it (assuming they haven't already thrown it out).

So we got this.  A "Virtual Reality Variation" merged with a "Member's Only Variation."  Bunch of jerks.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

1994 Fleer Extra Bases #297

Card Review: 3.3  A small part of me really likes the novelty of over-sized cards.  But a much larger part of me is very much annoyed by the dilemma they create in how to store them.  As a young kid I loved them, and that's demographic I'm sure Fleer was going for, so I'm not really trying to complain.  In fairness to over-sized cards, the '86 Donruss All-Star is one of my all-time favorite Wallachs.  Size aside, this is just sort of a dull and boring card.  The front picture quality is well above average, but everything else is pretty boilerplate.

*Unrelated side note.  After fighting with my spell check, and subsequently looking it up, I realized I've been spelling "dilemna" wrong my entire life.  Even after looking it up, I'm not convinced I wasn't taught to spell it with an "n" and am pretty sure I see it in print with the "n" the vast majority of the time.  The "mm" spelling looks bizarre to me.

Number of this card in my collection: 2

Large Purchase from Colorado

I've been using a new method to solicit cards from private dealers.  I don't want to go into the details of it right now, because I'd like to try to milk it a little more.  In nutshell it's just a backdoor way of cutting out middlemen, and I suspect some of the middlemen wouldn't be happy to hear about it.  At some point I'll give all the boring details, which trust me, are not at all exciting.

What follows is my latests success story using this method.  840 cards from a dealer out of Colorado.  I'd like to thank him for being very reasonable with his prices and shipping.  I think there are also a few oversights of Wallach's he missed, so I suspect I may be able to hit him up for another 200 or so cards.

This probably could have been shipped in one large rectangle box, but I appreciate the care put into it.  Ultimately, I don't care how you ship them.  Just send them.



Here's a break down of what was inside and the new totals:

 (19) 82 Topps: 365
(8) 83 Topps: 147
(8) 84 Topps: 142
(15) 85 Topps: 186
(27) 86 Topps: 121
(24) 86 Topps AS: 260
(50) 87 Topps: 481
(13) 88 Topps: 180
(11) 88 Topps AS
(40) 89 Topps: 276
(27) 90 Topps: 175
(30) 91 Topps: 78
(21) 92 Topps: 68
(6) 92 Gold Winner: 17

(1) 92 Gold: 2
(10) 93 Topps: 40
(1) 93 Traded: 11
(17) 94 Topps: 37
(5) 94 Gold: 7
(4) 95 Topps: 16
(1) 95 Cyber Stats: 5

(19) 82 Donruss: 134
(5) 83 Donruss: 54
(5) 84 Donruss: 97
(7) 85 Donruss: 51
(6) 86 Donruss: 73
(6) 87 Donruss: 217
(1) 87 Don Open Day: 11
(53) 88 Donruss: 447

(6) 88 Donruss AS: 10
(5) 88 Don BB Best: 9
(20) 89 Donruss: 150
(25) 90 Donruss: 142
(4) 92 Don: 71
(3) 94 Don: 16
(2) 95 Don: 14
(2) 96 Don: 11

(3) 83 Fleer: 61
(13) 84 Fleer: 66
(7) 85 Fleer: 38
(3) 86 Fleer: 69
(4) 86 Fleer mini: 17
(3) 87 Fleer: 80

(8) 88 Fleer: 140
(3) 88 Fleer mini: 6
(4) 89 Fleer: 132
(2) 91 Fleer: 44
(5) 93 Fleer: 13
(5) 94 Fleer: 11
(2) 95 Fleer: 10

(4) 89 UD: 63
(14) 90 UD: 106
(17) 91 UD CL: 72
(11) 92 UD: 123
(16) 93 UD: 31

(14) 88 Score: 138
(20) 89 Score: 82
(7) 93 Score: 13
(4) 93 Score Select: 10
(2) 94 Score: 24
(1) 95 Score: 18

(13) 89 Bowman: 39
(8) 90 Bowman: 26
(7) 91 Bowman: 14
(1) 92 Bowman: 12
(5) 92 Bowman USA: 15
(3) 93 Bowman: 10

And a bunch of others that you can see in the pictures.

1993 Stadium Club #686 Members Only

Card Review: 8.0 This is the 3rd and final variation put out by Stadium Club in 1993.  One would have been fine, but given the over-production of the era, they had to find some way into duping people into buying obscene amounts of product.

I find the "Members Only" stamp to be a little odd, but I guess odd is better than stupid.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

Ebay Purchase

Ebay for the most part isn't the most effective method for accumulating mass quanities of Wallachs.  I use it primarily for odd-ball items, and modern individually serial numbered cards.  Fifteen years ago it was "great" for aquiring lots of cards.  But that was relative to the size of my collection.  As I close in on the 10,000 card mark, it's rare that I find a lot large enough to make any real dent.  

Which isn't to say I don't buy smaller lots.  The one above I just "won" for $0.99 with free shipping.  I kind of felt bad for the seller when it arrived with a $2.35 postage sticker.  It's 36 cards in all.  All from '86-'91.  I'm just not going to blindly throw money at a 12 card lot priced at $5.00.  For now there are other ways to make my money go further.  

Here's a rundown of the cards and updated totals:

1986 Donruss x3: 67

1986 Fleer: 66 

1986 Topps x5: 94

1986 Topps AS x3: 233

1987 Donruss: 211

1988 Donruss x3: 394

1988 Score x2: 124

1989 Donruss: 130

1989 Fleer x2: 128

1989 Score x3: 62

1989 Topps: 236

1990 Topps x2: 148

1990 Upper Deck: 91

1991 Fleer: 42

1991 Topps x3: 48

1990 Topps Stickers #74

Card Review: 3.5  1990 was the first year that O-Pee-Chee didn't do a sticker set as well, or Topps didn't do an OPC set, I'm not sure which one is the tail wagging the dog.  In any event, this Topps Sticker is the only one.  It's just a couple of weird looking photos on the front.  That's Mike Greenwell sharing the front with Wallach, and Wade Bogss on the back as the "super star."  Wallach was also given the "super star" treatment in this set.  I don't know if they exists, but I'd love to find a Wallach Sticker with the Wallach Super Star back.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

1993 Topps Micro #570

Card Review: Incomplete  This thing is tiny.  Just ridiculously small.  Too small to be graded as a "card."  It's a novelty item for all intents and purposes.  If I remember correctly these were sold in box sets that resembled a skinny tube of toothpaste box.  I never bought one because while I wanted the Wallach, I didn't need the other 824 cards in the set ('93 Topps was huge).  This is the 5th, and I believe final, variation of the 1993 Topps base card that I've posted.  If you click this all five will pull up, plus the '93 Topps Traded which, mercifully, didn't  come with any variations.

Number of this "card" in my collection: 1

1994 Leaf Limited #122

Card Review: 5.0  I guess as far as over-produced, over-priced, over-slicked sets from the mid-90's go, this one isn't the worst.  This, like so many other similar sets, just doesn't feel like a baseball card to me. Baseball is dirty.  Baseball is grass stains.  Baseball is that weird leather sweat that gets on your hand when you wear a glove.  It's hat head.  It's cheap cement and wooden dugout floors littered with sunflower shells and gum.  It isn't whatever this card is.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

Cards in the Mail

The above assortment of cards arrived today from Jeff in Antelope, California.  It's 39 cards in all and a nice assortment.  Thank you very much Jeff, it's greatly appreciated.

A couple of notes on the cards that Jeff sent.  The '92 Stadium Club is the first one that I've picked up since I posted on it.  That's a bit of a strange anomaly.  At least I think it is, maybe people are hoarding massive amounts of '92 Stadium Club.  It was also nice to see some '90 Donruss and '91 Fleer.  I really like the red and yellow (I know many others don't).  For some reason despite the copious amounts of these sets that are out there, I don't see many of these two cards come across my desk.  My final observation is the '91 Upper Deck.  I love this card, but I also love the '91 UD Checklist, which is the Perez painting of Wallach.  More often than not when I buy large collections (100+) I'll receive a good a number of the '91 UD base card, but none of the checklist.  I think this is due to a lot of online reference sites not including it as a "Wallach."  I actually go out of my way now to let private dealers know that I want that card as well when I purchase large lots.  

Here are the updated totals for the cards sent by Jeff:

82 Fleer: 46

86 Topps: 89

86 Topps AS: 230

87 Topps: 431

88 Topps: 167

89 Bowman: 26

89 Topps: 235

90 Donruss: 91

90 Topps: 146

90 Upper Deck: 117

91 Fleer: 41

91 Score: 66

91 Stadium Club: 22

91 Topps: 45

91 Upper Deck: 88

92 Leaf: 13

92 Pinnacle: 8

92 Stadium Club: 6

1994 Stadium Club #217 1st Day Issue

Card Review: 8.5  This is the 4th (and I believe final) variation of the '94 Stadium Club Wallach.  Of the three "fancy" ones I like this one the best.  But I prefer just the clean base card to all of them.  Way too many gimmicks for my taste.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

1995 Panini Stickers #52

Card Review: 3.4  I had no idea Panini was still pumping out these sticker books as late as 1995.  Granted I know they popped up on shelves again, I just thought there had been a hiatus.  Guess not.  As young kid I loved them.  Not just the baseball ones either.  I can recall having He-Man, E.T., Return of the Jedi, and feel like their were a lot more that I'm forgetting.  Baseball was what I had every year though, until probably around 1990.  In any event, I kind have a soft spot for these Panini baseball stickers, even from the sets I didn't buy at the time.

Number of this card in my collection: 4

1995 Stadium Club #259 Division Series

Card Review: Fail
Oh wow, another 1995 Stadium Club variation.  I'm just sick of this card.  This is now the 7th (I've still got two more to feature), and I believe final variation of this card.  The card itself was a pretty nice card.  But nobody needs seven slightly different versions of it.  It'd be one thing if they all had different brightly colored back grounds or something.  But minor differences in the gold stamping don't warrant this kind of repetition.  This one gets a "fail" not because it's any worse than the others, but just because I'm sick of finding new variations.  When I finish listing every known Wallach I'm going to actually rank every single one and go back and amend grades accordingly.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

Online Purchase

I recently negotiated this purchase with a dealer out of Kentucky.  It's not going on the map as I solicited the sale from him, but I am happy with the purchase.  537 cards at pennies apiece, plus very reasonable shipping, works for me.  It's still kind of a jolt to my system to open up a box like this.  Today 537 cards represents about 6% of my total Wallach collection, but I can still recall bragging and carrying on when I reached 100 cards as a kid, probably around 1990.  I think 10 year old me would have gone into cardiac arrests had 537 cards shown up in the mailbox at once.

As it is, it's still pretty cool.  I bought them more or less blind, so I was happy to discover it was heavy with '89 and earlier cards.

Updated Totals:
'82 Donruss: 116
'82 Topps: 346
'83 Donruss: 49
'83 Fleer: 58
'83 Topps: 139
'84 Donruss: 92
'84 Fleer: 53
'84 Topps: 134
'85 Donruss: 44
'85 Fleer: 31
'85 Topps: 171

'86 Donruss: 64
'86 Fleer: 65
'86 Topps: 87
'86 Topps AS: 226
'87 Donruss: 210
'87 Donruss Opening Day: 10
'87 Fleer: 77
'87 Leaf: 8
'87 Topps: 429
'87 Topps Tiffany: 12
'88 Donruss: 391
'88 Topps: 166
'88 Topps Tiffany: 11
'88 Topps Tiffany AS: 7
'89 Bowman: 25
'89 Donruss: 129
'89 Fleer: 126
'89 Topps: 231
'89 Upper Deck: 59
'90 Bowman: 18
'90 Fleer: 127
'90 Leaf: 18
'90 Upper Deck: 90
'91 Stadium Club: 21
'92 Bowman: 11
'92 Bowman USA Gold: 10
'92 Pinnacle: 7
'92 Score: 11
'92 Topps: 47
'92 Topps Gold Winner: 11
'92 Ultra: 51
'92 Upper Deck: 112
'93 Bowman: 7
'93 Flair: 11
'93 Fleer: 8
'93 OPC: 4
'93 OPC Premier: 9
'93 Pinnacle: 8
'93 Score: 6
'93 Score Select: 6
'93 Score Select Update: 4
'93 Stadium Club: 16
'93 Stadium Club Dodgers: 3
'93 Studio: 8
'93 Topps: 30
'93 Topps Gold: 16
'93 Upper Deck: 15
'94 Donruss: 10
'94 Triple Play: 10
'94 Topps Finest: 2
'94 Flair: 4
'94 Leaf: 15
'94 Score: 22
'94 Fleer: 6
'94 Score Select: 9
'94 SP: 5
'94 Stadium Club: 10
'94 Stadium Club Golden Rainbow: 2
'94 Studio: 10
'94 Topps: 20
'94 Ultra: 10
'94 Upper Deck: 44
'94 Collector's Choice: 15
'94 Collector's Choice Silver: 2
'95 Donruss: 12
'95 Flair: 8
'95 Fleer: 8
'95 Leaf: 6
'95 Pinnacle: 11
'95 Score: 16
'95 Studio: 11
'95 Topps: 12
'95 Collector's Choice: 5
'95 Collector's Choice SE: 7
'95 Topps Embossed: 2
'95 Ultra: 16
'95 Ultra Gold Medallion: 5
'95 Upper Deck: 14
'96 Flair: 8
'96 Collector's Choice: 8
'96 Collector's Choice II: 6
'96 Pinnacle: 18