126 Autos or 1 Chrome Mega Box. Choose Wisely. Part 1.

I recently connected with a guy unloading cheapo Reds autos. He saw a group post I often make about my willingness to buy any Reds auto that I don't have for a dollar. I snagged 126 tasty autos for $131 shipped. Beat that deal.

A quick perusal of Wally-Mart's site tells me that a 2026 Topps Chrome Mega Box is $133 with tax. I don't know if that's a proper competitive price, but whatevah, you get the idea. Autographs fall about one in sex mega boxes. So, did I choose wisely? Uhhhhhh, yeah.

I made a few mistakes. 7 of the autos I already had and I circled 4 autos from his scans twice. So the count is still 115 new-to-me autos, 14 factory and 101 in-person. Friggin' thrilled.

 

 

Chris Okey auto/mem combo with the camo and the catcher's gear is a great start. Miguel Perez isn't exactly a superstar (0 for 3 lifetime in the bigs, oof), but these Black Chrome cards just can't miss. The Alejo Lopez is mistake #1, as I already had it. That's my third variation of that Reiver Sanmartin release and I have like 20 Ryan Wagner autos at this point.

 

 

Serial numbered goodness. Nobody here made the majors with the Reds, but no matter. Golds /50 are a quick snag.

 

A few minor league issues tossed in, from my appropriately named AAA Louisville Bats. I go see them often when they come to Columbus, forcing myself to be a man without a country. All except Luis Bolivar are new names to the auto collection.

 

 

Freddie Benavides got a little pro action with the Reds, then became a beloved Minor League coach, a beloved MLB bench coach, and a two-time beloved interim manager, once when David Bell was suspended and then a few years later when Bell got canned. 

 

Closing with the most interesting card of the bunch. The Memphis Red Sox had no affiliation with the Reds, as they were a Negro League team in its waning years after MLB integration. And Charlie Davis, aka "The Whip" never played on an MLB team. His Negro League highlight was certainly relieving Satchel Paige in an All-Star Game in 1953.

But I have now learned that MLB had a special "draft" in 2008, at the behest of Dave Winfield, in which each team chose an overlooked Negro League player as an honorary draft pick. The Reds chose Davis and someone produced a homemade card for him to sign and it has found its way to me 18 years later. Does this qualify as an official Cincinnati Reds auto? Hell. Yes.

28 down. 87 to go.

Go Redlegs. 

Junk Wax Photo Dump

Some 80's and 90's JUNK for ya. Mostly from TCDB trades. The junk wax binders are gettin' beefy 'round here.

 

kk

 

What a sad day it will be when I complete all the Sausagefractor sets. I still have many, many Drake's needed. 

ggg

 

It's a crying shame when a Starting Lineup card has lost its statue, and yet I collect them anyway. I'm a monster. 

That Leaf Cool Papa is from a set made for the '87 Special Olympics. And I keep picking away at the '92 Triple Play set a few at a time thanks to useless throw-ins in better trades.

 

 

 So tempted to pop these. Maybe I'll got for a second set and have a popper party.

 

Stadium Club inserts up top. Three card set, the third being Chipper Jones. And I have now completed the 1991 Leaf Gold Rookies Set, a monumental achievement.

1995 Ultra 2nd Year Standouts is a good lookin' set though lacking in star power. That Griffey/Gonzo finishes the Crash the Game set for me, yet another tremendous achievement. Totally on fire here at headquarters lately.

Go Redlegs.

Ohio State Buckeyes Who Played in the NFL - QBs and O-Line

Big game tonight. Time to dive into  THE  Ohio State alumni binder. I made a post for the modest collection of Ohio State baseball alumni, but football is the beast. Requires several posts, as Ohio State has had a pro presence since the NFL began in the 1920's. I'm obviously missing tons. More than half of the all-time alumni, matter of fact. But I'm at a respectable 253 of 523 Buckeyes with an NFL snap. Decent.

Here's the quarterback and offensive line portion. 

ff

 Across the top are the three starting QBs for the Buckeyes' 2002, 2014, and 2024 title games. Shout-out to Braxton Miller who started the brunt of the 2014 season though. 

 

Joe Burrow made his college bag elsewhere, which relegates him to page 2. With Art Schlichter, hardened criminal.

 

 

Orlando Pace is probably the best NFL Buckeye of all-time. I'm biased toward o-linemen though, as I was one. He's one of 9 NFL Hall of Famers from the school. Pretty much dominated at every stage of his career. 

 

 

LeCharles Bentley and Shane Olivea are the Ohio State boys from the Topps Total. How dare they smoosh so much mass into a single card?

ff

 

Let's beat Texas, kids. Go Bucks.

 

Go Redlegs. 

Adam Dunn Memorabilia Card Gallery 2001-2002

Favorite player. Favorite team. Played during the card boom of the 2000's. A recipe for financial ruin.

Not counting auto-mem combos, I have about 250 unique Dunn memorabilia cards. Still not enough to reassemble a jersey or bat, though. Which really puts things into perspective. This is a joke, because none of us have any perspective.

Here are the 45 I have from his first two years in the Bigs. 2002 was this man's only All Star year as a Red even though he had five 40-dinger seasons with us. Something, something, low batting average, something, something, defensive metrics. Bah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legend.

Go Redlegs.

2003 Upper Deck Gold Star Chili Cincinnati Bengals Complete Set

On the eve of the NFL season, I had to post the most Cincinnati-ish set of all time: 2003 Upper Deck Gold Star Chili Cincinnati Bengals.

16 cards, released at Gold Star Chili restaurants in the Greater Cincinnati area. For you poor souls who are unaware of Cincinnati chili, well, maybe it's for the best. The Haters say "it's not chili". The Lovers point out it's a Greek-style chili SAUCE resplendent with cinnamon and grade C meatfood, meant to be slathered on anything, particularly hot dogs and spaghetti. My sister calls it dog food. My grandpa, a Southerner who grew up quite poor and learned never to turn down or waste food, refused to eat it. I shun these family members in favor of my cinnamalicious heritage.

I'll spare you the philosophies of Gold Star Chili vs. Skyline Chili, as that is a distraction from the true battle, Cincinnati vs. The World. And much like this era of the Bengals, our hopes for the battle were high, but we were destined to lose in glorious fashion.

Sprinkle some shredded cheese on the ground for your fallen homies today. 

 

 

Who Dey!

Go Redlegs. 

Our Honor Defend, We Will Fight to the End...

FOR O-HI-OOOOOOOO.

CFB is back, baby. Here's my modest 42-card Buckeyes football auto collection. A lot of solid names you college football historians might recognize. And many you won't

 

 

 

 

GO BUCKS!

And Go Redlegs. 

Newly Acquired Bengals Vintage Oddities

A super generous TCDB user hooked me up with some old Bengals stuff. Some stuff I'd never seen before. Some storage-nightmare stuff. Lots of stuff. Here's some of it.

 

1976 Pepsi Discs, unpunched. Both Pepsi and Coke had plants in the Cincy area, which resulted in some nice local releases over the years. This set has 40 cards, 20 of which are Bengals. I had 4 of em, punched out. Now I have all 20, unpunched. Huge. 

 

 

 

 

1976 Town Talk Bread Ken Riley. 1971 Kellogg's Jess Phillips, Mike Reid. Scanner cut Riley's top off. The only difference between the Town Talk and Wonder Bread sets are "Town Talk" in place of "Wonder" on the back. 

 

 

1982 Kellogg's, panel and individuals. Not vintage, really, but I'm a sucker for 80's-90's grocery store cards.

1977 Topps Mexican. Tough cards to come by. And all in great shape. I'm also a sucker for Spanish or French on my cards. According to some article from a couple years ago, only 39 people have put together this entire set. I only have 522 to go!

 

 

 

1971 NFLPA Wonderful World Stamps. These were re-released in 1972, with only a small change in font boldness on one line on the back. These old eyes struggled to decipher. 

 

70's Fleer/Kellogg's stickers up top. 1983 NLF Huddles, 1990 British Petroleum in the middle. 1993 Cardz Flintstones on the bottom. E C L E C T I C.

  

1990 Topps Wax Box full panel. David Fulcher makes this a Bengals collectible, but I'd've taken it no matter who was on it. Love wax box cards.

 

 

1986 DairyPak NFL Superstars Cris Collinsworth, all 7 variations. Not technically a food release, as DairyPak in Ohio made packaging for dairy products, not the dairy products themselves. They also misspelled Cris' first name, but that's ok.

Who Dey, baby. Let's get this season going.

 

Go Redlegs.