Frankly Friday: 2008 Donruss Threads Frank Howard Rainbow Style

2008 Donruss Threads: Frank Howard Rainbow

One of the card sets that I see a lot of is the 2008 Donruss Threads, at least the base cards from it. I still don't have a complete set but I will someday. I have a least 6 of the Frank Howard base card, maybe more if one or two are hiding in an uncatalogued pile somewhere in my card hoard. Anyway there is a Frank Howard rainbow to build and I'm going for it of course, minus any GUs I don't like those so my rainbow will not be a true "Master" set rainbow, just a mini rainbow. Not sure how many more to go but I'm pretty sure there is an autograph version. Here is what I have:

First I have the base card:

2008 Donruss Threads 50 Frank Howard Senators Base Card

(Front and Back)

Then we have the Emerald (or Green) parallel serial numbered to /250 I don't recall where I purchased it from. Maybe from another forum member somewhere. I don't think it was from Ebay but might have been.

2008 Donruss Threads: Emerald Parallel 50 Frank Howard Sentors #d 011/250

(Front and Back)

Then we have my most recent purchase from Ebay for $1.99 plus $1.99 shipping the SP Silver Parallel Serial Numbered to only /100. This one is #33 Frank's Jersey number from 1969 to the end of his playing career. I'm not sure if the seller was aware of that or even cared they didn't mention it. Some dealers try to milk more money out of you if they have the Jersey number or "Ebay 1/1" this one didn't thank goodness. it is "sealed" in it's toploader not sure if the dealer did that or it came that way?

UPDATE: I double-checked the image from the auction and it was shown raw out of any casing so the little silver dot sticker is from the dealer. I could have removed it from the toploader for scanning if I wanted or needed to.
 

2008 Donruss Threads: Silver Parallel 50 Frank Howard Senators #d 033/100

(Front and Back)

Hmm the image of Hondo on the front looks a little familiar:

Might be, might be.

It's Curly W Cards 2nd Blogiversary!

It was 2 years ago today that I started this my third blog (2nd card blog) that concentrates on my Homie Baseball Team the WASHINGTON NATIONALS as they prepare to start their 10th Season. At the time I started I wanted to have my blog posts about My Homie team separate from my main trading card blog. I had noticed there were several blogs about the Nationals and there were several card bloggers who collected either the team or individual players but there was no card blog specifically dedicated to The Nationals (at least not a currently active blog). It is both interesting and a little ironic that the year I decided to start this blog was the year the Nats finished in 1st place in the Division and made their first ever Playoffs birth as the Washington Nationals. Hopefully it is not their last.

For laughs you can read my First Curly W post (which is also my Welcome Page) Skipping ahead a year here is last year's 1st anniversary post.

As with my other blogs I hope that as this one goes on I improve the quality of the posts with each passing year. Sometimes I think it does improve with each post, other times I think it just gets stale and becomes uninteresting until I show a cool card...

Hmmm speaking of showing cool cards... Oh I haven't gotten around to showing this card yet. I keep meaning to do a Cury W Version of this cool early 1990s set.

 1994 Ted Williams Baseball 90 Eddie Yost Senators

(Front and Back)

Since I first laid eyes on the Frank Howard card from this set I fell in love with it. Since I was mainly on hiatus from active card collecting in the early 1990s I missed the boat on the Ted Williams Card Company. I think I had heard of it when it first started up but I'm not sure. At any rate I am currently trying to complete both the 1993 and 1994 sets.

Here is the current count for my progress on the Ted Williams Sets:

1993 Ted Williams:
Base: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 126, 127, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159,
Brooks Robinson: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Roberto Clemente: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

1994 Ted Williams:
Base: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 17, 23, 25, 27, 36, 37, 50, 60, 62, 63, 64, 73, 74, 102, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117, 121, 127, 130, 131, 135, 136, 137, 139, 141, 143, 147, 153
500 Club: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

As you can see I have made more progress on the 1994 set that is due to starting with it and also a Generous Random Act of Cardness or two.

I try to keep my Master Want List up-to-date. As time goes on it will be more current than this anniversary post listing.

New Nats Skipper Matt Williams pitching during Spring Training 2014.

Maybe he thinks the quality of this blog is going down hill?

Building A Rainbow: Nick Johnson Style

If you read enough card blogs on the internet then you have heard of "The Rainbow" which is simply a mini or sub-set collection of the variations/parallels of one specific card. Well I have been building a rainbow of this Nick Johnson Card:

2010 Topps Baseball 181 Nick Johnson Marlins

(Front and Back)

Oh boy was I steamed when the Nats Traded "Nicky Boy" over to the Marlins. Well that is part of the game players get traded. Anyway this is a cool looking action shot of Nick in the Fishstripes. I have a few of the variations or parallels of this card. Some of them I had gotten from COMC some months back. I still plan on blogging about that 44 card purchase from last year. No not all of the cards were of Nick and there thank goodness are not 44 different variations of this single one card, although it does seem like it at times.

So here is the latest parallel I got. This came from Ebay for $4.99 + $2.50 shipping. It is the Factory Set Red Parallel version serial numbered to /299. I am also blogging about this card on my regular card blog and mention the bonus "FOOTBALL" cards that were sent with it.

2010 Topps Baseball: Factory Set Red Border Parallel 181 Nick Johnson Marlins #d 214/299

(Front and Back)

Ninety-Nine Cents Nick And Paul

From a semi-recent catch over at The Bay (Ebay that is) I picked up four cards from a single dealer for 99¢ each with Free Shipping. Two of the cards were Nationals the other two were not. I blogged about the whole batch at my regular card blog here. Rather than just provide that link to the general blogging of this batch I decided to also do a more in-depth post over here about the cards that are Curly W cards.

The first of the two Nats is one of the two 2008 Topps Allen And Ginter's cards I got in the batch. The other A&G card was a famous Classic Music Composer. Anyway this Curly W A&G card shows Paul Lo Duca who even though he was only with the team for a short part of a season quickly became a fave of mine. He was on the team in 2008 when the Nats were trying to figure out what they were going to do with their fragile injury prone catchers. I thought I already had this card, I might even have the mini but I'm not sure since I hadn't yet recorded it into my Zistle PC list.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter's 271 Paul Lo Duca Nationals

(Front and Back)

The other Curly W card from this group can now be considered an Oddball I guess even though it wasn't intended to be. The card is from the 2005 Donruss Zenith set. It is a beautiful card and now I have to get the rest of the Nats from this set and eventually the full set. It seems that 2005 was the only year for Zenith. That is a shame because it is a very nice look set. The design is both simple and complex. The color or lack of color is very classy and sort of art deco. 

2005 Donruss Zenith 162 Nick Johnson Nationals

(Front and Back)

Porterfield Tobacco

1954 Red Man Tobacco Baseball AL18 Bob Porterfield Senators

(in Toploader)

ACK! I'm surprised I hadn't mentioned Mr. Porterfield on this blog yet. I recently got my second Bob Porterfield Red Man Tobacco Card. My first one a 1953 I have blogged about on my regular blog. This one the 1954 I got from Ebay for $10 with Free Shipping. Cool I still haven't spent more than $10 before shipping costs on any of the now 4 Red Man cards I have. 

The picture at the top of this post is how the card is stored with the special size toploader, that is how it came. Well that is not entirely true it did come in the toploader but when I got it the front appeared a little more messed up. Here is what it looked like, the image is from the Ebay auction (well the first half, the auction image has the back image to the right of the front image. I did some cropping)

Image of card from Ebay auction

 

Other than the color difference from different scanners, scanner settings, if  you look on the left of the card in the Ebay image you will notice some dirty water droplet type marks. Well with a little light fingernail scraping and then a very careful wiping with a lightly damp paper towel (only about an inch worth or smaller of area of the paper towel damp) I removed the splash stains.

1954 Red Man Tobacco Baseball AL18 Bob Porterfield Senators

(Front and Back)

So my 1954 Red Man Tobacco Bob Porterfield card joins my 1953 Red Man Tobacco Bob Porterfield card.

1953 Red Man Tobacco Baseball AL19 Bob Porterfield Senators

Senators Singles: Cardinal Whitey Herzog

Whitey Herzog: Cardinals Manager

OK so here is a single that is not specifically a DC card, but a player turned manager Whitey Herzog. Whitey played for the Senators 1.0 from 1956 - 1958 and is a Hall of Famer. I got this card from a 30 card repack purchased from a dollar store. This is a duplicate as I have many of the 1988 set (but my set is still incomplete).

1988 Topps Baseball 744 Whitey Herzog MGR Cardinals

(Front and Back)

Expos Extra: Showing My Dollar Tree Hand

Expos Extra: Extra Inaugural Edition

I got the idea for this feature while composing a post on my regular card blog. That post will be published simultaneously with this post. This new feature mostly for this blog is called Expos Extra. It will be for those older Expos cards of players that never called DC their home at least at first then I might start slipping and adding guys who transitioned onto the Nats in DC. I think now I can justify showing them off here at CWC. I know when I first started this blog I said some of those guys I wouldn't mention here, or show their cards. Well I will allow exceptions since they are all the Expos Franchise. I'm using the bloggers prerogative clause that states "My blog, My Rules... So there!"

On my regular blog in the last few days I mentioned the booty I got from a repack adventure at the Dollar Tree store near me (part 1, part 2). These are the Expos cards I got from the Repacks and well since the latest year of a card pulled was 2002 from the first pack NO Nationals just a few Expos.

This poker hand of cards are Expos ancestor cards of my Homie Team The Nationals. Since these guys never played in DC or called Washington their home I wasn't going to show the cards here at first. Finally I decided I would after coming up with the Expos Extra feature title. Plus it gives this blog some more potential which might help me post to it more often.

Now on to the cards:

1994 Pinacle 355 Ken Hill Expos

(Front and Back)

Pinnacle way back in the day made a very fine product. In recent years Panini (was Donruss) still makes a fine product including some in the Pinnacle name but without the official licensing from MLB so they can't use team logos or the team names. That means logos are airbrushed out, cropped out or covered up by card design.

1994 Upper Deck 274 Home Field Advantage Larry Walker Expos

(Front and Back)

It's all Upper Deck's fault. Yes there I said it, way back in 1989 they set a very high quality bar for the baseball card universe and now everything is in ruins but still very high quality. These Home Field Advantage cards are a sub-set within the main set. I have made a mental note to at least get all of them if not the complete main set.

1984 Topps 390 Tim Raines AS Expos

(Front and Back)

Mr. Raines was "The Rock" way before Mr. Johnson was, but both are cool. It is a shame that the Expos couldn't afford to keep the high salary high quality stars like Tim Raines on their roster. Had they been able to keep those guys in the early 2000s they would still be in Montreal and I wouldn't have a Homie team.

1997 Pinnacle 10 Jeff Fassero Mariners (Marked Mariners but in Expos Uni)

(Front and Back)

I have said before that I don't like this particular Pinnacle year's design because of the gold foil and being difficult to read the players names sometimes, especially when I first got one or two of these cards. When I first got this card I saw the Mariners name and logo and laughed a little. Then I studied the card a little more and discovered the weird picture border cropping they did to the profile picture on the back. I checked the other 1997 Pinnacle card I had gotten from that repack and it had the same weird "crop design". I don't like it. It doesn't do anything for the card.

1984 Topps 503 Elias Sosa Padres

(Front and Back)

The uninitiated are wondering why I have included this "riding into the sunset" (is that a Dimebox term?) Padres card on my Nationals blog in a post of Non Washington Expos? Well just check out who Mr. Sosa was playing for in 1979-1981. Yes Siree them Canadian Fellers up in Montreal.

Oh that's it I've shown my hand. Cash in your chips folks. The game is over.

Da New Skipper

Matt Williams The New Manager Carded

Image from www.veooz.com

Number 9 is a good number for Washington Sports

I haven't looked through my collection that thoroughly enough but in a recent pack opening of a repack I got a Matt Williams card from his playing days. I probably have a few other of his cards* but I'll have to check my 1980s and up cards carefully to double check. Anyway here is my one verified Matt Williams card:

2000 Fleer Tradition 40 Matt Willaims Diamondbacks

(Front and Back)

I am sure I will soon be finding more cards of his to add to my collection, including newly released ones of him as the Nats Skipper. Welcome aboard Mr. Williams.

In case you were wondering about my number 9 comment:

*UPDATE:  According to my Zistle I have a total of 8 of Matt's cards, all but this one during his Giants years. I'll need to dig them out an scan them for this blog. Including his 1987 Topps Traded RC (That I know for a fact I have, since I have all the 1980s Topps Traded sets).

Senators Singles: Well Sort Of

Building Blocks: Spencer Kieboom

This featured card I got from a group box break. My chosen team the Nats of course. Sadly it was the only Nationals card I got from the break. I received 8 other random cards including a big hit that had its own special randomization. I just mentioned the break on my regular blog (in the February 2014 posts for that blog) to be posted around the same time that this post gets published.

The featured card for this post features two players both prospects one for the Tampa Bay Rays Richie Shaffer and our own Nationals prospect Spencer Kieboom a catcher. Spencer was drafted by the Nationals in the 5th round of the 2012 June Amateur Draft. Currently in the Nats Minor League System Spencer played for the Auburn Doubledays in the 2012 season and in 2013 for the Gulf Coast League Nationals.

2012 Panini Elite Extra Edition: Building Blocks 16

Richie Shaffer Rays and Spencer Kieboom Nationals
(Front and Back)