100 Words - 5 Crows

Life Cycle of a Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos):

At hatching, newborn Crows have naked skin, devoid of feathers and hair.

Shortly thereafter, feathers and other body coverings are added which turn black and the Crows develop an iridescent shine.

Between the ages of two and four, Crows reach sexual maturity and begin to breed.  Multiple smaller Crows are born in each hatching, bearing a resemblance to their parents.

The average life-span of a Crow in the wild is eight years.  Crows are susceptible to West Nile Virus and Ulnar Collateral Ligament problems.

The Crow in his natural habitat.

CAW!  CAW!

The Sickest Ryan Braun Auto I Have Ever Seen

Oh.  You thought I meant that OTHER Ryan Braun??????   Sorry, pal.

 That was just a tease to show you something else spectacular.  Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk has been running a "Free Card Friday" contest for the past several weeks.  It's easy -- you comment and are entered. Sometimes you have to guess the # on a serial numbered card.  It varies, but it's never hard.  A few weeks ago -- I was the winner!  And not just the winner of a few cards....I won the "big lot."  It was 250 cards, six total hits, plus a little bag of Royals goodies just for me.  Wes packed a small flat-rate box full for me, and I'm ready to show it off.  If you aren't reading his blog yet....MAKE SURE YOU DO!  Everything in this post came from him.

In addition to the Braun above at the start, there were two 2011 Royals liquorfractors:

KC Minis.

Another "MINDS" insert for me.  He also included a Tesla one, too, but I didn't see that until I had already scanned everything.  I am making steady progress on this subset.

(Everything below this point is for trade if there is something that you want for your collection.)

FOUR Hits.  Dang...that is a LARGE autograph on the Bird card.  Brandon Phillips looks unnaturally happy.  Geovany Soto looks unnaturally small.

Here is a whole Mess-o'-Minis.

Here is a whole Shebang-o'-Shinies.

Diamonds and Die-Cuts.

And lots of everything else.  This isn't even 20% of everything he sent me.

Thank you so much, Wes!  This was incredible!  I showed them ALL to my wife.  She was shocked at how good it was.  Much love, brother.

History of the World, Part I

No Mel Brooks movies here.  This is all cards, baby.  I've had the good fortune of recently receiving three history-themed trades and I'm going to show them off.  This first set of cards came to me from Laurie at LV's TTM Autographs.  She and I actually made this trade happen over Zistle.  Her profile is here.

She and I worked out a great deal where she sent me the two cards above..."Minds That Made The Future" from 2011 Allen and Ginter.  I think that this is a subset that I am going to chase.  I'll have a few more of those coming up in the next few posts, then I'll post a want-list. 
 

The other subset that I want to chase is the "Historical Turning Points" set from 2012 Allen and Ginter.  Laurie included one of those for me, too.

2012 Allen and Ginter - Culinary Curiosities - Kopi Luwak

Yep.  That's poop coffee.  Kopi Luwak. 

We've got a flashy pink Bo, a Pacquaio, and an old Willie Wilson.

Sweeney blocking the plate.  There's that Bo!  If you remember my sealed box post, then that was the main card I wanted from that box.  I'm definitely not cracking open that box now.

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary - David DeJesus

Here was the favorite card she sent me.  Even though DDJ was no longer with the Royals, he's still one of my favorites, and that sparkly card is beautiful.

Thanks again, LV!

I Don't Give a Hoot

...but Night Owl does.  I sent a pile of '77s his way, and he hooked me up with some offbeat recent stuff and a few oldies.  Here were my faves.

Jeff Francoeur with a mouthful of shiny dirt in the slide. 

2011 Topps Update Diamond Anniversary - Jeff Francoeur

Sean O'Sullivan with the liquorfractor...More like Sean O'Douls.

2011 Topps Update Cognac Refractor - Sean O'Sullivan

 I posted this Brayan Pena that I got awhile back...but here's the Wal-Mart version.  I don't have a Wal-Mart close enough to me to go there, so I like getting these parallels in trade.

2012 Topps Wal-Mart Blue Parallel - Brayan Pena

Cheslor Cuthbert was a big Latin American signing for the Royals two years ago.  He's still only 19 and is playing in High-A ball. 

Bret Saberhagen looks like he is making some Communist Vietnamese propaganda. Willie Wilson is just golden, baby.  Like Barry White's voice.

Thanks, Night Owl for another great trade.  But next time let's get Saberhagen saying U-S-A! U-S-A!

Baseball Dad's Refractor Pad

Baseball Dad sent me a little package in exchange for the handful I sent him. 

We've got the Billy Butler X-Fractor, and a whole mess of 1991 Topps MICRO.  How have I never seen these before?  I think he gave me the full set (didn't scan them all, obviously)....but these guys are TINY.

Happy Father's Day, Baseball Dad!

Pack Searching with SCIENCE! - 2011 Topps Football

My birthday is this week, and my present from my wife arrived in the mail from Blowout Cards.

That is a Hobby box of 2011 Topps Football.  36 packs.  I have not had a full box of any product since 1987 Topps Baseball, which my Grandma bought for me when I had a broken leg.  This is very cool.  (Yes, my wife is awesome - thank you for noticing.)

The selling point on these cards is this:

Since I've been reading blogs, I've heard a lot about pack-searching.  I still have no idea how people do it while standing in the card aisle at the store.  They must use magic or potions or something.

Given that there is a guaranteed hit somewhere in here, I want to find it.  I could just rip open 36 packs, but these have to last me the full NFL season so I won't be doing that.  What should I do?  I suck at magic and am out of potions.  However, I have one tool left in my toolbox:

SCIENCE!

The packs with a relic/auto card have a different number of cards in them, so they should either be thicker or thinner (I don't know which) than the "regular" packs, right?  So I just have to measure them.  How do you measure pack thickness?

You bust out your calipers!  What?  You don't have engineering calipers?  I do...and that's how I will figure this out.  Thanks college lab courses!

Here's what I did:

1. Open the box.
2. Label each pack with a marker (1-36).
3. Use the calipers to measure the width at the top, middle, and bottom of each pack.
4. Put that data into Excel, graph it, and look for trends.

Here's the result of my measurements for all the packs.   

There were two things happening here:

1. Some packs were much thicker at one end than the other (see the green box).  Sometimes the top was thicker and other times the bottom was thicker.
2. Pack #8 was consistently thicker than all the other packs across all 3 measurements.

Looking at just the middle width measurement:

Putting error bars of 2 standard deviations on the middle width, I would bet that the hit is in one of the outliers (either pack #8 or #15).  I was willing to open these two:

and......I WAS RIGHT!

Pack #8 (the thick one) did have the hit.  It is a Ben Roethlisberger Gameday Jersey insert (GDR-BR).  This would be awesome, except that I hate Roethlisberger.  :-)  So that one is for trade or for sale if anyone wants it -- let me know.  That pack did feel noticeably more rigid than the others once I checked it again.

Pack #15 (the thin one) had both a Super Bowl Legends Giveaway card and a Sam Bradford mini.  The giveaway cards and minis both feel thinner than the regular base cards.  This also confirmed that the packs which are thicker on one end are packs that contain a mini.  So if you are looking for the minis, there you go.

I can't believe Topps doesn't throw in a dummy card on this product.  Panini puts in ones of various sizes, so I doubt this analysis would work on those products. 

Summary:  To find the hits, look for packs that measure over 0.170" in the middle, and keep your calipers hidden from the local shopkeep.  Easy!  :-)

Have any of you ever noticed a measurable variation like this in other products?  Did you use that knowledge for good or evil?  :-)