A No Autograph Autograph Card

The title leave you confused?  Puzzled?

Well, allow me to explain.

Darwin Barney was included in 2007 Donruss Elite Extra Edition set.  He was coming off a great career at Oregon State and had just been drafted by the Cubs.

First off is the has a base card.

Then, along with OSU teammate Mitch Canham, he's included in the College Ties insert set. 

This is a shiny gold foil carded numbered to 500.

There's also a green foil card /1500.

The two were also paired on a jersey card, again numbered to 500.

Then, we get to the autograph card.  It's also numbered, though only to 100.  Here's part of the back...

....which states that...

....it includes authentic autographs personally signed by Darwin Barney and Mitch Canham.

Now, take a look at the front...

....and only one autograph, Cahahm's.  Barney's sticker should be on the top of the card, but instead it says....

....No Autograph!

My very first No Autograph Autograph card!

According to this page on the Panini website, they tried but could never get Barney to sign.  The site also specifically mentions this card, and that it will have a "No Autograph" stamp on it.  Barney was also supposed to have a couple redemption cards in the set, but had to be replaced.

I wonder what happened?  It doesn't seem like Barney to stiff them.  Was he promised something that Panini didn't deliver?  He signed a boatload of cards for USA baseball around the same time.  Was he exclusive to them?

For whatever the reason, I end up with a no autograph card and an autograph of a catcher that spent most of 2012 with Long Island in the independent Atlantic League.

Merry Steve!

I knew this guy played a few games for the Cubs, and I knew that I just had to get a card of his. He played only three games for the Cubs in late April of 1986, and he was just one for nine, a crummy .111 batting average. As far as I can tell, this card from the Cubs team issued set is the only card that features him as a major leaguer, though he did play with the Reds in 1983 and the White Sox in 1984.

He didn't have much of a big league career, but once a year his card will be here on Wrigley Wax

Merry Steve Christmas to all!

The Christmas Story According To Luke

If the networks can run A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph, and the Grinch every year, then  I think I can re-run this post every Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

From the Gospel according to St. Luke, the second chapter: 

In those days

Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire

world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So

also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of

because he belonged to the

and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the

to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. 

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a

because there was no

for them in the inn. And there were

living out in the

nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at

An

of the

appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." 

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

May the simple, yet miraculous truth 

of the Christmas story 

touch your heart anew this year.

Peace,

Paul

Wrigley Wax

Added a Few Oddballs

I picked up a few oddballs for the player collections recently.  Take a look:

They're nice looking cards, but I have no idea where they came from.  Here is a peek at one of the backs:

They're obviously from 1990, but that's about all I can get.  They must be unlicensed, which may explain why any information about the publisher is missing.

But they're glossy, have nice color pictures, and fit nicely into the player collections.

Billy Williams 1972 O-Pee-Chee

Sorry, but it's another Billy Williams post today!

I was able to add both of the 1972 OPC cards recently.

Up first,

the base card.  It's identical to the Topps version.  The back is bilingual.

My card was a bit off-centered, but that's ok with me.

He also had an In Action card.

taking a swing at Candlestick Park.

The back puzzled me, though. Take a look....

....No French!  I wonder why?  Obviously, there is a lot of text there, and to put both languages on the card would not be easy.  The font would have to be pretty small.   I assumed that OPC didn't have any choice, though.

Well, I have a choice and I choose to go bilingual.

The only problem---my two years of high school French were a long time ago.  I relied on Google Translate, and I have no idea how accurate this is.  Anyone parlez vous francais that can help?

2007 USA Baseball Darwin Barney

I'm in a bit of a lull between Topps releases that I collect, so I've been using the time to fill in some holes in my Darwin Barney player collection.  Barney was a member of the 2006 USA baseball team that won the University Games and was included in their 2006-2007 product.

The problem I've had with this product is the number of parallel cards.  Accoding to Beckett, there are 17 different cards for Barney in the set:

USA Baseball #8
-------------------
USA Baseball Foil #8
-------------------
USA Baseball In His Own Words Signatures #8..../20
-------------------
USA Baseball Patriotic Patches #8..../20
USA Baseball Patriotic Patches Signatures #8..../1
-------------------
USA Baseball Signatures Black #8..../595
USA Baseball Signatures Blue #8..../275
USA Baseball Signatures Red #8..../100
USA Baseball Signatures Green #8..../2
-------------------
USA Baseball Signatures Jersey Black #8..../295
USA Baseball Signatures Jersey Blue #8..../150
USA Baseball Signatures Jersey Red #8..../50
USA Baseball Signatures Jersey Green #8..../2
-------------------
USA Baseball Today & Tomorrow Signatures Black #9 D. Barney/M. Moustakas..../295
USA Baseball Today & Tomorrow Signatures Blue #9 D. Barney/M. Moustakas..../150
USA Baseball Today & Tomorrow Signatures Red #9 D. Barney/M. Moustakas..../25
USA Baseball Today & Tomorrow Signatures Green #9 D. Barney/M. Moustakas..../2
-------------------

Of the 17, I've got five (they're the ones in bold).  You can also see all the different parallels they've got for the signature cards.  I'm content to just have one of the versions, I don't need a rainbow with these.

If you narrow the cards down to different designs, there are seven and I've got five of the seven.,  I'm missing the In His Own Words signature card and the Patriotic Patches.  Both have only 20 copies out there, so I'm not too sure about seeing them any time soon.  I've got an ebay search saved, and if anything pops up, I'll be in the hunt.

Here are the five cards I've got, in the same order as the bold cards in the list

Billy's Cooperstown Cards

Panini continues to crank out unlicensed sets, with Cooperstown being their latest.  At this point I've just picked up the Billy Williams cards.  I may go back later to get Ernie, Andre, and Ryno.

I'll say this about Panini---they've embraced the idea that their sets are not going to have official logos and I like that.  The Triple Play cards with the drawings instead of photos was a nice way to work around the lack of logos.

They've done the same thing with Cooperstown, designing the cards to minimize the missing logos.  You can see that bump on the top of the picture border, which matched with the general curve of a baseball hat bill.  Slide the picture into the bump and you can show a face but lose the top of the hat and the logo.

The photo frame is similar to this Donruss Classic card.

I've never been a fan of the unlicensed, logoless cards, but I do like what Panini is trying to do.

Billy was also included in the Induction insert set.  Logos weren't an issue here.