Return of the Dime Box Frankenset(?)

1991 Score #884 Doug Jones

I've recently realized that I don't discuss my Dime Box Frankenset(s) much on the blog anymore, which is odd since this is probably the one specific, concrete project I'm working on amidst all the other randomness of my collection.

Granted, my frankenset is built around randomness, but it's a bit more of an organized chaos (if that makes any sense), and that's why I enjoy building it -- so much so that I now have two Dime Box Frankensets (kinda like major- and minor-league versions). Readers who've been with me for a while might remember the bracket I held a couple years back which culminated in the crowning of our first Frankenset King.

I started posting pages from my second Dime Box Frankenset shortly after, but they received little attention and eventually I scrapped the series altogether.

2016 Topps #688 Shawn Tolleson

But lately I've had a growing itch to bring back the frankenset.

For those who weren't around at the time or may have forgotten about those frankenset posts, it went like this: each week, I'd post a page of nine from my frankenset binder and leave a poll on the sidebar of the blog. At the end of the week, the card with the most votes from my readers would win the page and get thrown into the frankenset bracket I held after all the pages had been covered, and a new page would be posted and voted on, and so on.

I had a blast with those first frankenset posts, especially the interactive part of it. I want to bring them back either way (with pages from my Second Dime Box Frankenset), but I'm trying to gauge if the interest would still be there as far as the voting aspect of it goes. I don't really want to do it if I only get like 5-10 votes a week, but if we get a good number of people voting it really makes it a lot more fun (for me at least). 

I might change up the format a bit, but the general voting system would be the same if I were to bring back these frankenset posts.

1983 Topps #789 Bryan Clark

So whaddya think -- should there be a return of the Dime Box Frankenset?

While you consider, I thought I'd offer a refresher on how my own frankenset works. The one concise rule I have is that the only players eligible to be included are those who aren't already part of my standard team binders. Thus, most big stars are nixed, and as a result my frankenset provides a fun use for cards that wouldn't otherwise fit in my collection (which is the main reason why I'd urge everyone to start a frankenset of some kind).

My two frankensets are comprised of 666 cards each -- about the size of a standard Topps set and divisible by nine so it finishes up at the end of a nine-pocket page (plus the number 666 itself is memorable, for better or worse).

In short, here's a few of the main things that make a card a Frankenset Nominee (featuring high-numbers over #666 which, sadly, eliminates them from being in my binder, though I still enjoy keeping them around).

2002 Topps Total #671 Luis Alicea

Mini-collections...

This is where the bulk of my frankenset hopefuls come from: any card of a non-binder player that hits one of my many mini-collections is automatically eligible for inclusion.

1992 Upper Deck #701 Clemente Nunez

1992 Upper Deck #710 Ryan Turner

Historic cards...

These are fairly rare for my frankenset, since most historic cards are of bigger names and thus already included in my standard team binders.

But every once in a while I'll stumble across a more under-the-radar piece of cardboard history that doesn't fit anywhere else, and more often than not they end up making the frankenset. Examples are the two seen above, notable for the fact that they're the first-ever cards in the history of the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies.

Neither Clemente Nunez nor Ryan Turner ever ended up making the big leagues, but they'll always have this memorable claim to fame under their belts.

1993 Upper Deck #676 Howard Johnson 

On the flip side...

I don't make it a point to chase fun flip-side photos -- they don't often end up in my frankenset since I can't bear to put my cards backside-first in a binder -- but I'll always give them due consideration if a good one comes along.

(1993 UD is a goldmine for this sort of thing.)

1992 Stadium Club #676 Bill Pulsipher 

So bad, it's good...

Again, I don't try to chase just plain bad cards, but some are so horrible that you just have to pay attention to them, like the weird fashions that were apparently en vogue amongst rookies of the early 1990s.

1993 Topps #706 Sherard Clinkscales 

The name game...

I know absolutely nothing about Sherard Clinkscales other than the fact that his name is Sherard Clinkscales, and that alone makes him eligible for the frankenset.

1990 Upper Deck #696 Rick Reuschel

Everything else...

But the fact of the matter is that a lot of stuff ends up making my frankenset for the sheer reason that they're just great cards, even if they don't fit snugly into any of the categories I've just listed -- more often than not, these end up being some of my favorite frankensetters.

Were it not a dreaded high-number, you could almost bank on this one being in the frankenset. A fantastic pitching action shot with a blurred hitter in the foreground (and that blurred hitter is Greg Maddux!). If not for my frankenset, I wouldn't know what to do with it. And that's why I'm so thankful every day of my life that this frankenset has given me another part of my collection to admire and enjoy.

Again, if enough of you are interested in bringing back the old frankenset voting system, I'd love to get it going again -- but either way I'll probably return to posting pages from my binder in one form or another, because cards like these deserve to be recognized.