Red Cardboard

Monday, April 13, 2026

The Big Donkey

When I was in Little League, I swung at everything. It's baseball, man. Get stick, swing stick. Had to swing. Loved the ones up high. Coaches would say I need to improve my plate discipline. This just resulted in me deciding to take the first two pitches no matter what, then going right back to mashin'. Once kids got good enough to actually pitch, I was toast.

Which brings me to my favorite player, Adam Dunn. My boy hit .204 with 41 homers one year. He also struck out 2,379 times in 2,001 career games. He is also one of only 41 people to hit 450 career dingers. That's more than all but 26 Hall of Famers. Legendary.

He hit a home run from a ballpark in Ohio that landed in Kentucky. Watch that here. And watch Secret Bases's treatment of his career here. Worth the ten minutes.

As for my collection, it's both vast and modest. Vast, as in I have 1,584 different Dunns. 1st among TCDB users by a lot.

But modest, because there are certainly more serious superfans out there, as my collection has precious few rarities. And somebody(s) outbid(s) me. Always. By many, many dollars.

Dunn being one of the stars on the Reds during the card glut of 2002-2008 resulted in a hell of a lot of cards. But it all started with his only card of 1998, a Billings Mustanges Minor League team issue:

This popped up on feeBay and I snagged it for way too cheap. The other guys must have all already had this one. And probably not graded a paltry and pathetic 9. I also have two printing plates, 2006 Upper Deck Ovation and 2013 Topps Turkey Red:

These randos are all /10:

And thus ends the rare card run. The other 1,577 cards are a lot of stuff like this

And this:

It's was fun for a while when I could bring em in as fast as I could grab em. But I'm really only acquiring a few new ones each year any more. Y'all will be seeing several of my Adam Dunn cards and things. Lots of silly stuff.

Big Ol' Donkey, he's as pretty as the angels when they sing
I can't believe I'm out here at the ballpark in this swing
Just a-swingin'

Go Redlegs.

Saturday, April 11, 2026

$100,000 Worth of Aristides Aquino Cards

For those of you who don't remember the specifics, Aristides Aquino was left for dead in Billings, Montana, changed his batting stance to one where he was fully facing the pitcher, blew the roof off the minors, then, in 2019, became the first player in the history of baseball to hit 10 homers in his first 16 games and the first rookie to hit 14 homers in any month, much less his first.

During those 16 games The Punisher was hitting .353 with an OPS of 1.361. His card prices were going bonkos and I had a Panini Elite autograph parallel /100. I picked it up for a buck fifty when he was just a fledgling single-A guy, and sold it for well over a hundred during this run. I've only done this for him and Rece Hinds because the prices were too insane to ignore.

Then the league figured out he couldn't hit breaking balls. Like, at all. Outside of that first month, Aquino played in about 200 games and hit about .190. Not good, Jim.

This means that his autos were practically being thrown away on COMC a few years later. Enjoy what was, at one point, one hundred thousand dollars worth of Aquino autos. Give or take.

Dear Cincinnati. Please stop hitting like Aristides Aquino and please start hitting like Aristides Aquino.

Go Redlegs.

Thursday, April 9, 2026

Complete Junk Wax Set - 1990 Pro Set Super Bowl MVPs

I loved this little set as a yoot. Great artwork. Tough S.O.Bs. It's the reason I know the order of early Super Bowls and what went down. It was so long ago that this represents less than half of the games, which gives me pause to reflect on aging... woof, better stop that.

I have a memory of these coming in a little box, but this is classified as an insert set. Pro Set, in general, was distributing their cards any and every way they could, so maybe it was both. How many boxes of Pro Set are withering away in garages right this moment? I'll leave that to the philosophers.

Go Redlegs.

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Single Card Post - 1964 Topps #50 Mickey Mantle

My grandpa traded four used tires for this card in 1995 at a South Carolina jockey lot. 'Jockey lot' is a southern term for flea market, by the way.

What a legend. And so is Mick.

Is it mint? Hell no. Is it my favorite card? Hell yes. It's my only base Mantle and I don't foresee that changing. I do have five others from his playing days that will be posted someday. But for now, enjoy the '64 goodness.

Go Redlegs.

Sunday, April 5, 2026

More Junk WaXXX Trades

Mailbox coming in hot with the sexy, sexy junk wax. This is my TCDB profile. Trade me some non-base junk wax.

My junk wax retail binder is becoming enormous. K-Mart was middle class heaven, man. Crappy toys. ICEEs. FIFTY CENT CARD PACKS. Country Aisles take me home to the place I belong. I am also trying to complete those silly Donruss puzzles. Don't even remember which one this piece is. Maybe Clemente.

Granola cards. Sure. Five and Dime Canseco. Stray K-Mart. '89 Donruss is junk wax hall of fame, of course. Truly 10 million printed. And I feel I get one or two of these Topps All Star cards in every trade and I'm still many, many short.

'85 Woolworth on top next to a Score Sample of Ellis Burks. I'm enjoying finding these card shop samples. You can see the breadth of my 1980-1995 wants here. Gimme everything.

1992 Hardee's Discs. Storage nightmare! I let em stick out the tops of 8-card pages, 6 to a page. Until I need the page for actual vintage. Then I throw these away maybe.

I'm 2 away from the 220 card Nolan Ryan Pacific set. Soon. 1991-92 Fleer Basketball is being chipped away at. As is 93 Donruss and 93 Topps Traded.

That '94 Donruss sorta-parallel set is 100 cards strong. I'm rockin' about 60. Yet another stray K-Mart in there alongside some rando Frank Thomas (my boy). '92 was when Diamond Kings cranked it up to 11. Black Leaf is best Leaf. And I'm two stickers away from '91 Fleer master completeness.

FROM THE TOP TURNBUCKLE, MEAN GENE! Sorry to smack you so hard at the end here. This is my first pile toward my 80's WWF hunt. Not high on the list of things to focus on, but it exists.

Junk wax heaven, brother.

Go Redlegs.

Friday, April 3, 2026

Vintage Rarities - Ugly Drab Edition

All vintage is great. Vintage Reds are even greater. But some vintage is more greater than others. Below are old oddballs that will NOT impress your friends.

1948 Blue Tint (R346) #46 Johnny Vander Meer

Apparently this is some mysterious set with unclear origins. Released in strips in the New York market, 48 total cards, blank backs, and gone as quickly as they came.

1935-37 George Burke Photo Stamps Sammy Byrd

Made by a Chicago photographer for players to use to answer fan mail. Neato. These are very tiny and poorly printed, but hey, it was the 30's.

1947 Bond Bread Ewell Blackwell

Bond Bread was named as if it was guaranteed in the same manner as bank bonds. This worked as a selling point after The War, I guess. Bond Bread's company went bankrupt in the 70's after a spate of unsanitary working conditions and being thwomped on the shelves by Wonder Bread.

1962 Topps Baseball Bucks Joe Jay.

Not terribly rare, but dull and gray and no fun to look at. A proper cash money green and better paper stock and these coulda been special.

1931 W517 Strip Cards Pete Donahue

Standard strip card action, but BIGGER. 3x4 for a set of strip cards is gigantic. As you see, my version snags a hint of the dotted lines.

1934-36 Batter Up #44 Adam Comorosky.

These come in several printing hues, each as drab as each other. BUT they pop out like those 60's Topps and 80's Donruss stand-ups, so they were obviously a manufacturing marvel for the time period.

Maybe the color refractor age ain't so bad after all.

Go Redlegs.

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Cincinnati Bengals QB Autos.

Presented in reverse order of Bengals quarterbacking success. There is no Joe Burrow auto at the end of this, sadly. I instead bought a car. If you've even heard of half these dudes, I'm impressed.