N20 Allen & Ginter Prize & Game Chickens 6: Silky Hen

I have a lot of schoolwork assigned right now, so I haven't got around to scanning and cropping any more sports cards. That means you get another chicken from the N20 Allen & Ginter Prize & Game Chickens set, the Silky Hen. This card is graded 4.0 and again falls pretty well in the middle of the graded cards in the population report.  There is a total PSA-graded population of 7 cards, with 3 cards graded higher, one other card graded the same, and two lower-graded cards. The highest score is an 8.0 and the lowest score is a 1.0. No card in this set so far has been graded at higher than 8.0 by PSA, and only two PSA 8.0 cards from the set exist at the moment.

"Silky bantam". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Silky (Silkie) is kind of an interesting bird. They have fluffy, silky plumage, five toes on each foot instead of the four usually found on chickens, and black pigmentation to their skin, meat, and bones. That meat is kind of crazy-looking. I'd never seen that before. People say it tastes like any other chicken meat. Kind of a cool bird, even if the puffy feathers make it look like a Muppet.

I recently started a new Accounting course, and the instructor is one of those professors who believes that his course should be the highest priority in his students' lives for the duration of the semester and assigns enough homework, reading, and quizzes to ensure that is the case. I know that there are several other students falling behind in the work as quickly as I am due to distractions like work, family, personal hygiene, sleep, and other courses, so perhaps he will notice the trend and ease up a bit over the remaining weeks. We seem to get a lot of brand new adjunct professors in this program, and it seems like we go through this same cycle with most of them. It makes the first couple weeks of any course pretty painful, though, and the fatigue of trying to keep up usually lingers throughout the remainder of the classes, like a sort of academic jet lag.

I am still maintaining a 3.5-ish GPA, but that has been inflated by some pretty heavy grade-curving throughout the last few semesters. The instructors probably are under pressure to keep most of us moving through the program so that the school can keep getting that tuition money rolling in, so it seems pretty rare for anyone in any of my classes to fail a class outright after the curve has been applied. There may be a lot of C- grades, though. I've had one or two of those myself.

My box of Allen & Ginter for Gint-a-Cuffs should arrive today, which is somewhat exciting. It will be hard to wait for the rules to get posted, but I don't really have time to scan all the cards and tally up my score right now anyway. My wife got some Target gift cards for buying a billion Pull-Ups for our kids, so I used them on a blaster box of Allen & Ginter. It was the worst blaster ever, and I had absolutely no reason to scan any of the cards that came from it. Hopefully that isn't some kind of foreshadowing for my Gint-a-Cuffs box.

What eBay Hath Wrought 91: 1915 Player British Live Stock Set

After missing out on this set previously, I found a well-used copy of the set for much less than the first one went for. Some of the cards are in rougher shape than others, but the pictures are all present and the text is all there. There are three different variations of this set, printed in different years, and I believe this is the version that was printed in 1915. The paintings appear to depict specific champion animals of the breed, with the animal's name in quotation marks. The first ten cards in the set feature cattle. There is a pretty good mixture of bulls and cows, with a good variety of breeds represented.

The card backs have a nice little border design at the top and bottom, a card number, and the breed name, as well as a description of the breed's characteristics, origins, and uses. One of the clues as to when this set was printed is the brown color of the ink. There is a later variation that had blue backs, and one that is a different size.

The next six cards feature horses of different breeds. Some of these cards even feature baby horses. I don't know much about horses. I never much liked them. I've ridden a horse a couple of times in my life, and I never really felt comfortable with it.

It would seem that horses are well regarded in other parts of the world, though, even surpassing cars as the status symbol of choice when it comes to a young man chasing the ladies. At least that's what The Rubberbandits would have you believe. Be warned, this video is probably not work-friendly, and may not even be home-friendly. You should probably avoid watching it if you are averse to (lots of) swearing, innuendos, references to drug use, and especially any of those things going on in a church/wedding setting. That being said, this video is pretty funny if you're into that sort of thing. There are subtitled versions of the song out there if you can't cipher out the Irish accents.

Apparently The Rubberbandits went viral a couple of years ago and I completely missed it. Looking at their Wikipedia page, I guess it's because they reached the height of their popularity just as I was getting settled in on my 2nd government-sponsored visit to Iraq. The video has been passed around among my Army acquaintances recently as a 'cool new thing,' so I guess it makes sense that we'd missed the first go around.

Pigs only get a couple of cards in the set. Both cards feature boars, I guess because boars are more majestic(?) than sows. Pigs are all right when they are little, but as they get older they just seem to get meaner. I never really liked having to get into the pigpen for repairs or to flip over an upended trough because it seemed like I spent more time trying to keep the pigs from eating me than I did doing the work. They sure do taste good, though!

And finally the set closes up with 7 breeds of sheep, in the same style as the other animal types featured. I don't have much experience with sheep. I think they're kind of goofy-looking.

Well, that does it for this set. I am getting close to the end of my current stock of posts featuring animal-related trading cards, so you may see some actual athletes featured on this blog sometime in the near future.

Pack of the Day 75: 2014 Allen & Ginter Blaster Box

I was able to find some 2014 Allen & Ginter at the local Target, so I picked up a value pack (3 packs plus a pack of 3 exclusive minis, which may or may not be crimped on the edges by the pack-sealing machinery) and a Blaster Box (7 packs + 1 bonus pack, also known as 8 packs).

I started out thinking I would scan all the cards from the blaster, but like Night Owl did halfway through his post, I came to the conclusion that I didn't have time for that. So I scanned six of my favorite cards from the group. Out of these, I think the best card has to be the Mike Piazza card, although I can't 100% say why I feel that way. All I know is that I pulled it from the pack and said (inside of my head), "That's probably the best-looking base card in here." Maybe it's the mustache. I thought Will Clark had a decent photo. I am pretty sure the Werth photo has been reused at least once in other Topps products. Another egregious example of a reused photo is on Didi Gregorius' card, which has been reused at least twice now. If mustaches qualify you for inclusion in the Top 6, then Buffalo Bill Cody gets in for sure. I guess most people know Felicia Day from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I know her from her web series The Guild, as well as her typically nerdy posts on her Facebook page. I will probably try to track down her auto in this set.

The Pastime's Pastimes set is a great concept, and some of the players have legitimate hobbies listed on their cards, but a large percentage of the cards I've pulled so far list philanthropy as the player's hobby. I'm not saying that philanthropy is bad, but I am saying that I would like to hear about your real hobbies. The best hobby out of this group comes from a badly outnumbered Red Sox player, Dustin Pedroia, who enjoys watching Bigfoot documentaries and wears a Sasquatch t-shirt. Now that is a hobby. I sure got a lot of Orioles in this box. The main thing the Orioles have going for them in my world is that they are probably my favorite AL East team, which I suppose is sort of damning them with faint praise.

Sometimes I think the Natural Wonder-type cards lose a little in the translation to cardboard. Lake Retba is famous for being a funky color because of salt-loving algae that turn the water pink. I think Topps could have found a better picture for it that maybe shows the water a bit more. They will airbrush an entirely new uniform onto a baseball player, but they won't add some pink to a lake?

I think the Coincidence set is retail-only, and features odd occurrences that may or may not have been accidents. Festivals and Fairs is pretty self-explanatory, as is the World's Capitals set. Running with the bulls just seems like a really stupid thing to do. Maybe I am just too risk-averse.

There are plenty of minis in this set, and they come about one per pack which isn't anything new for A & G. The Ty Cobb card is the black-bordered parallel, and I don't really like this year's black-bordered cards as much as last year's. It looks too busy by far. Larger than Life features the heroes of Tall Tales, and then there are a couple of base cards there too.

More base cards in the form of Longoria, Machado, and the Polar Vortex. Some of these are A & G back parallels, which seem to fall more often than regular base cards. Maybe the A & G back is the default this year? I don't really know. The World's Deadliest Predators card is pretty cool. That is a set I will be trying to put together.

Closing things out, I pulled a Masahiro Tanaka relic card from the blaster, which is one of the more desirable relic cards in the set. I don't have a lot of interest in it, so I tossed it up on eBay pretty quickly. It should at least cover the cost of the Blaster Box. The design on these is pretty good. I like the layout and the frame. The player picture takes up a decent amount of space and the relic with its little nameplate looks all right. I wasn't expecting to pull anything really nice out of a retail purchase, so this was a nice surprise.

Here is the back of the card. I scanned it for the auction, so I might as well put the picture on here, right? I like the design of this year's set. It's not a big departure from other A & G sets, which I guess is kind of the point. I am looking forward to Gint-a-Cuffs VI this year, and I will probably try to put together a set along with some of the inserts.

N20 Allen & Ginter Prize & Game Chickens 5: Malay Cock

This card is another one from that lot of cards I bought from a seller on the Network 54 vintage non-sports card forum. It's a pretty nice card, even if the picture isn't my favorite. I like the large, squat chickens more than I like the tall, lean ones. This particular breed can grow over two feet tall and can be pretty aggressive, often associated with the 'sport' of cockfighting.

That is a ridiculous-looking bird. It's like a dinosaur bird. I don't trust it at all. Unfortunately, I needed a Malay Cock card to complete my set, and this one fits the bill. According to the PSA population report, my card is pretty well in the middle, with three cards graded higher (a high of 6) and two cards graded lower (a low of 2). I am not going for the highest-graded set, but I think it would be nice to average around a PSA 4.

What eBay Hath Wrought 90: 1938 Gallaher Dogs 2nd Series

It seems that a few bloggers, me included, have got dogs on the brain lately. I recently picked up a set of tobacco cards on eBay for about the price of a discounted blaster box. It shipped all the way from England and was printed in 1938. I don't claim to know a lot about old tobacco cards from England, but given that this is the second series I am assuming there is a first series. I may have been a detective in my past life. Anyway, there are 48 cards in the set. The first two, pictured above, are in vertical format while all the rest are horizontal. The cards are nice and colorful, without a lot of ornamentation.

The backs of the cards are similarly businesslike, with a paragraph describing the history and characteristics of the breed that is pictured on the front. Also on the back are the series name, the series number, the card number, and the name of the tobacco company, Gallaher Ltd.

Outside of Labrador Retrievers, my favorite dogs are the hounds, which are smelly, noisy creatures. It is fun to see many of the other breeds out there, though, even if I don't much care for the small fluffy dogs.

Speaking of tobacco cards, I went out in search of 2014 Allen & Ginter this evening. The stuff doesn't even release for a few days, but I was hoping that a local shelf stocker had got excited and put some out early. No such luck, so I had to settle for a discounted rack pack of last year's Allen & Ginter (the highlight was a Bryce Harper mini), a rack pack of 2014 Heritage (I got an SP I needed), and a value pack of 2014 WWE Chrome (I got some sweaty-looking wrasslers). Okay, I didn't have to settle on anything, but that's the stuff I picked out.

I do like the St. Bernard as a breed, but they are a bit large even for me. And about the only smaller dog I can stand is the Schnauzer. I like their grumpy little bearded faces. And their fur is so soft! Before I went to the store I watched the early part of the Astros-Rangers game, and it was nice to see the Astros batting around a bit early on. Granted, they weren't going up against a top-end pitcher, but a win is a win. Jose Altuve also broke the Astros record for hits prior to the All-Star break, so that was pretty cool.

After I got back from the store I had to work out, which is something I loathe. I've got a physical fitness test and weigh-in for the Army this weekend, though, so it's a necessary evil in my life. My push-ups and sit-ups weren't all that good today, but I had the fastest run I've had since I was in my 20s, so there was some good and some bad. My weight is almost where it needs to be to avoid the secondary weight test, which is a tape measure thing that I would have a hard time passing because of my skinny neck.

And finally in this group, we get to the breed of the two dogs that have been mine during my adulthood, the Basset Hound. The Basset Hound has very few redeeming qualities, being a noisy, smelly, and in my current dog's case, a food thief. They do have very soft fur, though, and a variety of physical features that make them irresistibly cute, like short legs on a regular-sized body, big floppy ears and loose skin, sad eyes, and a paintbrush tail with a very lazy wag to it. I can't help liking these dogs, and I am glad this set includes one.

And that does it for this set. It's not quite as old as the chicken cards from Allen & Ginter that I've been featuring lately, but it is fairly old, predating the 2nd World War and well worth the price of a few packs of modern cards.

N20 Allen & Ginter Prize & Game Chickens 4: Buff Cochin China Cock

I probably could bundle this lot of Allen & Ginter N20 chicken cards into one post, but I'm not going to. They are pretty cool cards and I think they each deserve their own post. That being said, there really isn't a lot to say about them. They are old as the hills, provided the hills are only just over 120 years old. This particular card features the male counterpart to the hen I posted a few days ago. This Buff Cochin China Cock card is graded 4.0 by PSA, and is the 4th card I have added to my collection as I try to build the full set.

At the Trade Deadline 23: Package from the Quarry

A while back, hiflew over at Cards from the Quarry expressed an interest in the 1986-design cards from 2014 Topps Archives. I have purchased a fair amount of that product and sent the doubles I had from the set his way. In return he sent me a package that touched on many of my player and team collections. Headlining the package was the above white-framed parallel from this year's Gypsy Queen product. While the base Gypsy Queen cards tend to leave me a bit cold, I think the frames really add a lot to the cards and look quite nice. But outside of participating in a 5-box online break a couple of months ago I haven't gone out of my way to chase down any of the cards. It was nice to get this card that I otherwise might have missed out on.

I don't have a lot of Josh Reddick's earlier stuff from his time with the Red Sox, which makes it nice to pick up some of his Rookie Cards, like this one from Bowman. I am pretty sure I didn't have this Hakeem Olajuwon card, either, as when I went through my Olajuwon cards a while back I was surprised at how many base cards of his I was missing.

I didn't have any of the Camo parallels from Panini's Prizm product. Even without logos, this Jose Bautista card is pretty sweet. I'm surprised that Panini chose to use a photo with team members in the background, as that means they had to paint out more logos. Topps would have just zoomed the photo way in to avoid it.

The rainbow-era Astros got some love in this package, with a pair of 1980 Topps cards and some early 90's stuff in the form of a Ken Forsch Swell Baseball Greats card from 1990 and a 1991 Topps Stadium Club card featuring a slightly-less-rainbowy-than-the-rest Curt Schilling.

Another player collection got some representation, with Mark Reynolds being shown both batting and fielding. It's surprising that the ball appears in that top card. I wonder if Topps' zoom button was broken on that photo? Jose Bautista also makes another appearance on an insert from 2012 Topps.

Josh Reddick makes a couple more appearances wearing a minor league uniform and his Oakland A's garb, followed up by a few more members of the Houston Rockets. The most notable Rocket in the stack is Clyde Drexler, who glided his way to a berth in the Hall of Fame along with an NBA Championship, a spot on the 1992 Dream Team, and numerous individual awards and accolades.

Finishing off the trade package are a couple of team lots from the Astros and Mariners, spanning many sets and decades. There is a little of everything here. I feel a little bit like those folks who try to collect every card of specific teams are completely nuts, as even just collecting the base cards from every product and every team would be ridiculously hard. There are sets here that I've never even heard of.

This was a pretty cool trade package, and it was good to get something neat in return for a bunch of doubles that were sitting in my Archives stack. Thanks, hiflew!