Complete Set Review - 1996 Bazooka

Back before Christmas I was able to pick up a few smaller sets and partial sets of cards from a seller on Sportlots.  The sets were all listed as auctions starting at a quarter.  I bid on probably two dozen sets and brought home 7 or 8 of them.  This 1996 Bazooka set is probably the set that fits least into my collection and collecting interests, I think I got caught up on the chase a little bit.

Regardless, I thought I would share some highlights of this unique set.  1996 Bazooka is a fairly small set, 132 cards.  Research shows it was released in both a factory set format and in 5-card packs costing 50 cents each with a stick of Bazooka gum.  The factory sets contained a reprint of Mickey Mantle's 1959 Bazooka card, I did not get that in the set I purchased.

The card fronts feature nice bright and colorful photos of the player with the Bazooka logo in the upper left corner and the players name and team overlaying a baseball bat near the bottom border.  Thumbing through the set I picked out 25 cards that caught my eye one way or another to share.

The back of each card contains one of five different Bazooka Joe characters (Ursula, Mort, Joe, Zena and Metal Dude), along with the Bazooka Ball flipping game, the player's biographical data and 1995 career statistics. Every card contains a Funny Fortune, which predicts the fate of each player on a particular date.  If I wasn't so lazy, I would consider researching the Fortunes and seeing if anything came close to being true.  Here are 5 sample card backs with each of the characters and examples of each of the 3 types of card types (Great Play, Bonus and Effect). 

 In addition to the 132-card set I received a header card that contains the rules on the back (the rules seem a little confusing to me).  Just in case you are interested in hearing how to play the game, here you go:

As I stated above, this doesn't really fit into my collecting lanes but there are some nice cards in the set.  I may not have been the only person to feel this way as Topps stopped producing Bazooka set until 2003.

My February T206 Addition

I set a goal late last year to start picking up one T206 Giants card per month through at least the end of 2016.  Right at the first of the month I missed out on a few cards in last second eBay sniper bids.  I was disappointed but kept looking then one day I got an email from an eBay seller I had bought from before advertising a set break of T206 cards.  I quickly went to their site and bid on a bunch of the cards that hadn't already exceeding my desired purchase price.

In the end I brought home 2 of the cards and will share one for the February pick up and save one until next month.  For your viewing pleasure, here is my newest T206 addition:

I typically don't seek out PSA graded cards but for this collecting I am going to make an exception.  They present pretty well and should keep these 100+ year old cards safe.  This is a great looking card of Jake Weimer.  Weimer was a starting pitcher for the Cubs, Reds and Giants, spending only his final year of 1909 with the Giants which resulted in this card.  Looks like he won over 20 games in 3 of his first 4 seasons then faded.  His nickname was Tornado Jake which is a cool nickname and seems even more appropriate with my pending relocation to Tornado country.

This card is listed as a miscut in the PSA lable which I am assuming is due to the top/bottom imbalance but I felt fine picking it up as his name and team are still fully visible.  While my move will most likely impact my ability to add to my collection until I get settled, I think this is one area of my collection that I will make sure to stay current on.

Kansas City Here We Come

Big changes coming for the ARPSmith household.  About 2 weeks ago I accepted a new position with my employer in the Kansas City, Kansas area.  It is a great job with some advancement potential and the company will pay full relocation.  My family and I are excited but it will be the first time living outside of CA for all of us - a pretty big change I expect.  My wife agreed to the move sight unseen, she has never been there.  Fortunately I have been out quite a few times for work and have some good friends who are either there now or have lived there in the past.

I spent last week out there meeting my new team and trying to get a lay of the land as the house hunting will need to begin soon.  Didn't get a chance to seek out any card stores, if you have been there and know of any LCS, drop me a line.  My only collecting interest that touches on KC sports would probably be collecting Matt Cassel cards for my USC football collection.  He was at his peak as a Chief which resulted in some nice patch cards.

2010 Certified Mirror Prime Patch 10/50

2011 Totally Certified Prime Patch 46/49

2012 Totally Certified Platinum Gold Patch 18/49

We wont be moving until early June to let the kids finish out the school year so any trade or supertrader packages coming my way should be fine for a couple months.  I will try to get a post up a few weeks before and also let Brian/Wes know so the spreadsheet can be updated.

In the meantime, expect sporadic posting at best.  I need to get my collection packed up and labeled in a way that the movers can box up and hopefully limit any damage and I will be spending about 50% of me time in KC until we move permanently.  Wish me luck, it is going to be a crazy few months!

Catching Up With Ben Petrick

I am working hard to get all my cards filed away but there are quite a few I want to share prior to filing so you can expect a few Catching Up posts over the next couple weeks. 

I have shared quite a few of my Ben Petrick cards that I have acquired and I am pretty happy with my player collection progress.  My Petrick collection is in honor of my Grandma who battled the same disease, Parkinson's, that Petrick is currently fighting.  I am going to share a pretty cool group of cards I have tracked down via COMC and eBay over the last few weeks.

Here is a trio of different parallels of his 3-player Topps rookie card.  I have the Topps base and Chrome in my Giants collection due to the presence of Mirabelli but the refractor is currently only in my Petrick binder.  Sometimes I find myself having to decide where to place cards that fit in different parts of my collection and the order is usually Set, Player Collection then Team Collection.

This is a somewhat eclectic group of cards with only Petrick tying them together.  The SPx card on the top right is the Radiance parallel and is numbered 040/100.  The card looks pretty cool in hand but scans even better.  The Middle card is minor league release from 2004 and is the last card on my checklist besides a buyback card released in 2005.  I was happy to track it down.

These are all Bowman/Topps parallels.  The upper left card is a gold parallel numbered 30/99.  The upper right is the Topps Gold parallel numbered 1964/2002. The lower left card is a refractor the bottom right is the mini with a Carolina Brights back.  The mini completes the "rainbow" of 4 different backs that were made of Petrick back in 2002.

Here are some Fleer/Skybox releases.  It is impossible to tell in the scan but the Fleer Tradition card is the glossy parallel and is numbered 121/200.  The Fleer Focus is the green parallel and is numbered 143/300.  I already had the Ultra Gold Medallion but now added the base, I am still on the lookout for the Platinum /50.  The Skybox card is the Ruby parallel. there is a Ruby Extreme parallel /50 that I would still like to add.

Here are a trio of Pacific parallels.  The top left card is the Copper parallel numbered 90/99.  I still need quite a few parallels from that set including Emerald Green /99, Gold /199, Platinum Blue /75 and Premier Date /37.  I really like many of the Pacific designs and parallels but they are not easy to track down.  The Private Stock card is the Silver parallel and is numbered 132/199.  Finally a nice looking Prism Holographic Purple parallel numbered 54/99.  I am getting close to finishing off this rainbow of 15 cards needing just the Holographic Blue /80, the Premiere Date /61 and the Tinsel Silver /331.

I will finish off the post with a couple hits.  The Bowman's Best Locker Room Collection has a nice jersey swatch and pairs nicely with a Bat card of the same design I added a few months back.

I am pretty happy with these additions, most were somewhat rare and serial numbered.  My Petrick collection now stands at 201 different cards with a total of 307 appearing on my checklist for a nice 65.5% completion percentage.