f(ph)rankenset project and another payoff

there are many frankensets within the blogosphere's collective collections - mine is a dodger frankenset with cards numbered from 1 to 726 - and the latest has been rod's padres focused endeavor. he's been asking for help in picking cards for his set over at his blog, with prizes awarded to randomly selected commenters/voters. i was lucky enough to be able to choose several prizes as a result of the first 99 cards being voted in to his set.

the prizes featured a number of autographed cards and topps project 2020 cards. i stayed true to my dodger roots and chose three dodger project 2020 cards

and three other project 2020 cards:

the koufax is by naturel, and the jackie robinson cards are by joshua vides and fucci, respectively.  i had considered purchasing vides' version when it was released, but ultimately decided against it for some reason. i'm glad to have had another shot at it, even if it is a fairly minimal transformation of jackie's 1952 topps card.

the ken griffey jr card is by don c, and it is easily the most unique of the cards i chose. the water doesn't look much like the pacific in seattle, but that's ok. perhaps the next time i travel to the caribbean, i will try to recreate this image.

the bob gibson card is by ermsy, and i like it because gibson looks so darn happy. the george brett card is by keith shore. it's got a pilgrim kilroy guy looking over the fence, with an evil looking royals mascot lurking back there, too. actually, the mascot is more like mr. met wearing a crown. not sure why he looks so sinister.

thanks rod for offering up some great prizes! 

i also won a card over at the diamond king in his "cwick contest for commenters"

that's a 2017 topps triple threads julio urias sapphire parallel, numbered to 25. not a bad card of the world series champion. thanks kevin!

be sure to check out my post from yesterday - it's not a contest, but it is my first (almost) giveaway of 2021!

cardpocalypse 7 day trading card challenge, day 7: what fresh hell is this?

so i finally made it to day 7 of the cardpocalypse 7 day trading card challenge. you remember that challenge? the one that everyone else finished months ago? i have not constrained myself to a strict interpretation of the timeline for the challenge, obviously. days in a biblical sense, perhaps. anyway, the day 7 topic was a favorite hobby trend that emerged this year - i am just getting this post in under the wire!

it's been over 9 months since i, like many others, began working at home, which was quite a change considering that i had been working out of a project office out of town three to four days a week for the prior fourteen months or so. i went from being home hardly at all to being home all of the time.  being home during this time has allowed me to spend more time with my collection as has been evidenced here through a higher and more consistent volume of posts. lucky you. so, my favorite hobby trend that has emerged this year is that i am still alive and collecting! 

actually, it's not, as there are a number of things that have been happening that i enjoy.  such as the free (and almost free) giveaways that popped up all over the place.  i am also happy about the renewed interest in the hobby, as i've been able to unload some junk wax michael jordan, sammy sosa, and mark mcgwire cards as a result, so that's been nice. it's also been great to see the returning bloggers, new bloggers, and even though it is not a trend, the veteran bloggers that make up this online community.  all of those trends have been written about extensively elsewhere, so i will write a bit about the topps turn back the clock cards that gave me a baseball fix during the first three months of the wfh situation when there were no games being played.

i thought it was dumb when a couple of websites started touting simulated games when it became clear that the baseball season would be postponed. i mean, i enjoyed playing seasons on tony larussa baseball as much as everyone else, but i didn't see the point in trying to get people excited about simulations. i did get excited, however, when topps brought us the online "turn back the clock" cards to fill the void of their regular "now" releases.  i have been a fan of the topps turn back the clock concept since i first saw the 1977 maury wills card 

in the late 1970's (it is strange that it has taken me a long time to pick up a spare copy to add to my dodger stadium binder, which i did earlier this year). this year, topps used the concept to remind us of events from seasons past, and so i looked forward to each day's release to see what events a topps now set might have recognized in previous seasons throughout baseball history. i even picked up the april 15 card

as it featured jackie robinson. sometimes, i tried to guess what the card subject might be for a given day, but i was always wrong. in fact, i was hugely disappointed when they did not choose shawn green's 4-homer game as their subject for may 23. they went for an albert pujols 5-hit game instead of the game that set the mlb record for total bases by one player in a single game. still, the series has produced a number of cool cards that i would like to add to my collection, but so far i only have the jackie above.

i also purchased three of the topps 2020 project cards:

mike trout (blake jamieson)

sandy koufax (tyson beck)

jackie robinson (efdot)

those first two were sort of novelty purchases at what might have been the peak of the project 2020 hype. the trout has one of the highest print runs of the whole checklist.  the jackie came out shortly after the trout and koufax, and i really liked the design. i wasn't the only one, as night owl did a good writeup of it.

now, i'm ready for 2020 to be over but i am curious if topps will bring the turn back the clock set back next year. i am much less interested in a potential project 2021, however.