Quick Hit: Ichiro, the Cher/Madonna/Prince, well maybe not Prince, of Baseball

So I received a small stack of 2012 Topps the other day. It was a trade I did through "The Bench". (Great trading site btw).  I'm looking through the cards and this one jumps out at me.

I'm looking at the "name plate", for lack of a better term, and think, Oh look, an error, no last name.  So after a little research, I see that the 2012 Ichiro Topps out there, don't have a last name.   As I write this, I'm looking at his uniform, and the back says ICHIRO, shouldn't it say SUZUKI?  After all, it is his last name.

I guess the only other players that would qualify for this honor would have to be Superstars, say Pujols, Jeter.  But I've never really heard of anyone just using those players first name.

2013 Topps Toys R Us

Okay,

Been very remiss in posting.  I'm sure not too many people are shedding tears over it.

Anyway, as you all know the 2013's are out.  I stopped by TRU to see if they had any "special" cards as in years past.

So I see this

As you can see, the top right corner is the tease.  "3 Exclusive Inserts Inside, Complete The Entire Set".  So I'm hoping it will be something like the purple diamonds from two years ago.

Nope,

These again, ugh.  I call deceptive advertising.  These aren't inserts they're parallels, and there is no way on God's green earth that anyone will try and complete this set.  With only three in a pack and a pack price of $2.99, it's just not going to happen.

If anyone wants them, I'd be happy to trade them.

Beyond belief...

I know, I know.  I need to start posting again.

In the meantime, check out this auction...

Beyond belief # 1


Seriously?

This is insane

If you've checked out my want lists, you now that in addtion to the sets, Yankee team sets, and subsets that I collect, I also have player collections.  I'm working on a Guidry, Nettles, O'Neill, and Tino Martinez player collection.

Like most collectors, I have searches on Ebay that send me alerts every day. (Which sucks when I'm at work for 38 hours straight, nothing like coming home to 300+ e-mails).  Well this listing came up a while ago, I didn't bid on it, but I added it to my watch list to see where it would end.

1975 Topps Mini Graig Nettles


Is that insane or what?  I can't decide if this is a collector who is putting together a PSA 10 mini set, or a Nettles Super Collector.  I mean, it's a nice card but $610, crazy.

What Topps has made me do! Part 1

I think many of us have been lamenting Topps monopoly of the licensed trading card industry.  So I pose a question, how has it affected your collecting?

It's affected mine, by having me go backwards.  I know a fair amount of collectors love vintage.  For me, I like it, reason being, I'm too picky on condition.  So as much as I like vintage, I don't go out of my way to collect much of it.  I'm still working on several Yankee team sets in the 60's and now I've decided to go after these.

Yes, the (apparently) highly sought after Topps Rookie Cup cards.  I plan on going all the way back to the initial issue in 1960.  The cards look at little different in that first year.

As you see, as large portion of the card is devoted to the trophy and other information.  One thing I noticed when I started to checklist this set, is that for as many players that became stars, there are at least two others who were total busts. BTW, this McCovey card has a day to go on ebay and is priced at $132.50, yikes.

Here is another one that will set me back a few cents.

$61.00, with just under 4 hours to go, and lastly

 This one is going to be brutal.  We all know how chippy the 71's can be, and I need two, one for the cup set and one for my Yankee set.

I don't know why I never collected these as they were released.  Probably because I also put together the League Leader, Highlight, All-Star and Post Season subsets, and decided one more set was too much.

In  a future post, I'll discuss this subset a little more.  In the meantime, check my want lists from 1990 to 2012.  I still need a bunch of these.

Garden State Plaza Transformation

On of my previous posts mentioned the shopping malls in Paramus NJ.

CaptKirk42 mentioned that there is a mall near him that was once and open air mall and is now enclosed.

The Garden State Plaza was like that as well.  When my parents first moved to NJ in 1974, The Plaza, as it is affectionately known looked like this.

I'm not sure if it was this section, but there was a baseball card store that had space in this mall.  They originally started out in another mall (Bergen Mall) but out grew their space and relocated here.  I remember standing in line at this mall to get an autograph from Roy White.  That store still exists, it is now known as Buddy's Sport's Corner. It has moved several times and is now located in his 3rd Paramus Mall, Paramus Park.

Here's another exterior shot

You can tell these are pretty old, Bambergers changed their name to Macy's in 1986.  The company was actually owned by Macy's.  My impression is that Bambergers was a more suburban store.  Macy's was a  little more upscale and urbancentric.

Even to this day I remember this,

When Santa went up, you knew Christmas was close by.

Here is what the mall looks like now.

All enclosed and very upscale.

Now the interesting thing is that I hardly ever go to this mall.  It is now probably double or triple the size of the original open air mall.  For me, that's too big.  I can hardly remember where anything is and the parking is  a nightmare.  I stick to Paramus Park, it's smaller and has a more welcoming feel to it.

So, if you're ever in Bergen County, stop in one of these malls and look around.  If you let me know ahead of time, I might meet you there.

Who doesn't love Nachos Grande?

And by Nachos Grande, I mean both the delicious appetizer/meal, and Nachos Grande the blogger.

I just completed another trade with Chris and here is my take.

Now this is something you don't see everyday.  A bumper sticker, and a quite nice one at that.  Unfortunately, it will not fit on my motorcycle.  But I will try and find a place for it.

You see the url for Nacho's blog.  I don't know why, but I always think it says "fan of freds". Who exactly is this Fred guy and why is Nacho a fan of his?  Fred Flintstone, Fred Willard, that dorky kid Fred

from those lame Youtube videos?  I hope its not the last guy, I'd lose all respect for Chris.

In addition to the bumper sticker there were cards, a nice bunch of them.  Here are the highlights.

The blue CC is from 2011 Topps Wal-Mart hanger packs.  The red Teixeira is from the Target version, I really like both of them and I'm trying to obtain the rest of the Yankees.  The O'Neill is the shiny version to add to my O'Neill collection. The Diamond Duos is the last I need for that particular insert set.

Thanks Chris. If you haven't checked out his site, go take a look.  It will be worth your while.