Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Big lot of oddballs with a mystery

As much as I prioritize vintage these days, I'll never stop enjoying a big cheap box of modern cards. I got lucky with a good one on eBay - less than $8 shipped for maybe 2000 cards. I found several hundred that I needed.

What drew my eye in the listing were the Wheaties cards. There was a near-complete set of 1984 Indians. It was missing Bert Blyleven, Julio Franco and a couple of others, but still had other stars and lots of interesting photos. They're a bit larger than standard cards and are almost paper-thin.
Another nice oddball was this oversized (4 x 6) 1982 TCMA issue of Willie Mays.
There was also an autographed card of Kevin Millwood. Here's where we get to the mystery. I can't figure out what set this card is from.
There were a few others like it, not autographed. (The box came from Texas and had a lot more Rangers than any other team.)
These cards look like 2006 Upper Deck, but do not have the foil logo or player name that the standard set had. I can't find any mention of a parallel set like this - the only parallels were shinier, not less shiny. If they were a printing error than they should just be blank where the foil was, not colored in. It does not appear to be a team issue either. In subsequent years UD did put out "First Edition" sets like this, but I don't see any mention of that in 2006. (There was a First Pitch that year with a totally different design). Does anyone know anything about this set?
As for trades, there were hundreds of cards from this box that are available. It was Rangers-heavy, so I'd love to trade with some Rangers fans. (I believe there are some newer bloggers who are Texas fans?) There was plenty of junk wax but lots of other cards too, largely in the 2005-2007 range. By far the most cards were from the 1990 Topps Traded set, all gray backs if anyone collects those variations.


8 comments:

  1. Don't know for sure but those UDs might be a team issue that were used for autographs when they did an Autograph Wednesday or other special autograph event.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's an amazing deal for $8! Especially love the Wheaties cards.

    ReplyDelete
  3. (Raises his hand): I'm a Rangers fan.

    I'm afraid I don't know about the Upper Deck cards. But hey, a couple thousand cards for $8 isn't too shabby.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Those oversized Indians are really cool. Not sure when the first mascot card was produced, but I don't think I've seen one that old.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think those 2006 are the UD Special FX set. It's a monster with over 1000 cards. I've been working on the purple parallel set since ... 2006 :). The Millwood looks like an in-person auto to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This sounds right. Here's an example https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/1964/cid/203344/2006-Upper-Deck-Special-F/X-464-Mark-Teixeira

      Delete
  6. I just recently came across that Wheaties set on Sportlots while doing a Joe Carter search. I'll probably get his card at some point.

    ReplyDelete