Vintage pickups

I won another card from Greg Morris auctions the other day, and then set bids for a bunch more ending shortly and wound up winning a few to join in on the flat-rate shipping. Might as well get a post out of 'em, right?

A couple big boys from 1975 Topps to kick things off.

Nice pair of dueling All-Stars.

I ended up winning a couple Jim Rice rookies that ended around the same time, but I'd stop short of saying it was an accident; the cheaper creased card on the right can get thrown in the player collection.

Then I got Yaz from another eBay seller, and Vida Blue is also on the way, making the Reds team card with Sparky Anderson all that stands in my way of a complete 1975 Topps set. I'll have to grab one soon to wrap that up.

Back to the Greg Morris stuff, here's a pair of HOF Giants. I'm hoping to finally finish off 1964 Topps in the next year or two.

I'm not too picky with condition if it's a good deal, though I shy away from "Poor/Good" beaters when I can.

A couple more notable names and Bennie Daniels, notable for being the set's final card. Around this same time, I also knocked off more needs in my forthcoming COMC order that should push me over 80% complete when that shows up.

This Willie Montanez rocking the glorious ASR trophy was the initial win that prompted this round of pickups. Funny enough, I ended up losing all the proceeding 1972 Topps needs I bid on, but oh well, I got this one at least, and the few '75s and '64s to go with it. My '72 set currently sits at 95%, so I should be able to wrap up that one this year if I keep at it.

Planning on hitting a local card shop later this week for the first time in years with a blogger meetup scheduled for the local cardsphere crew and a visiting guest of honor from San Jose, so maybe I can score some needs then. Regardless, it'll be great to hang in person with some blogging buddies, assuming the inclement weather in the forecast doesn't spoil our plans.

more cards from Rod (and a couple PWEs from John)

Some highlights from the third box of cards Rod hooked me up with recently.

Lots of additions to my PCs of current Padres. Notables here include a bunch of sweet Jackson Merrill rookies, a Dylan Cease Topps Now x4, and a Tatis logofractor.

Bobby Witt, Jr. and Julio Rodriguez are a couple young stars of the game that hadn't been all that well represented in my collection yet.

Something for my Chris Jones supercollection.. a near-complete 1986 Phoenix Firebirds team set (that screwed up his name), just missing the trainer card.

I ripped the pair of hockey packs and even scored 2 or 3 guys I've heard of, so that's pretty cool.

And the glow-in-the-dark playing cards were a nice surprise.

Snapped a pic with the light-out to give you an idea how they look in action. I'm not sure how feasible it'd be to really play games with them in the dark and/or underwater, but it's a neat concept and another interesting thing to add to the "Glow-in-the-dark museum" that doubles as my basement bathroom.

A bit of vintage slipped into the box.

1952 Bowman Television and Radio Stars of the NBC #20 Joel McCrea

1958 Topps TV Westerns #57 Tales of Wells Fargo - Dale Robertson (as Jim Hardie)

1952 Topps Look 'n See #64 Winston Churchill

Some modern cards of HOFers I collect. I appreciate keeping those PCs fresh with a sampling of the new stuff that Fanatics cranks out these days.

And again, that's just a small percentage of the cards he dropped on me. Muchas gracias, Rod! I can't thank you enough for all the great cards and stuff you've given me over the years.

-  - -o

I know I'm very fortunate to live close to Rod, facilitating card dumps like this without having to worry about postage. 

Closing the post with a couple PWEs from John Miller, another MVP of my collection these past several years. Sometimes I wish I lived near him over across the country so I could help him thin out his vast hoard of nonkeepers for my collection's benefit, but alas, we must rely on the post office as the middleman.

Heavy on Gavins here, with most new to me. Dig the shiny cards of Sheets and Cross. Gavin Sheets was let go by the White Sox in November, so I'm curious if/where he resurfaces this coming season.

Thanks a lot, John! I had just mailed an overdue package out to you the same day the PWEs arrived, so hopefully that arrived safe by now. 

That's all for this time.. take care, guys!

TV Autos Tonight

Buckle up for some nonsports autographs I've added to my collection over the past few months.

Took me a while, but I watched through all the old episodes on YouTube of Cheat Seats, a funny show that ran on ESPN Classic with the Sklar Brothers making sorta Mystery Science Theater 3000 style riffs over footage of old non-mainstream sporting events from ESPN's archives. For example, there's an episode with a ridiculous Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing special.

Anyways, I wanted to mark the occasion by picking up their matching Ginter autos from 2016. Randy set me back $21.64, and then a few days later, Jason cost $22.05 from another seller. Factoring in for inflation, I'd call that a wash.

-  -  - -o

Sarah Langs is a good follow on social media, full of fun and interesting baseball stats and tidbits. Her life and career as a reporter have faced the unexpected challenge of dealing with ALS, or ol' Lou Gehrig's Disease as we used to call it. Her courage is inspiring and she's an amazing person, doing lots of good in her limited time. I realized she had a Ginter auto from 2023 and soon scored myself one.

- - --o

I'm still trying to add to my collection of Steven Universe autographs.

- - --o

I've been a big Amy Sedaris fan since Strangers With Candy, a hilarious show on Comedy Central back around the turn of the millenium. A while back I got myself a Star Wars autograph featuring her character who appeared in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, though I was compelled to make a custom overlay for it.

Whipped this up recently using a comely photo from a red carpet type of event and built a simple design around it.

Gotta say I'm excited to again have a home printer that does a decent job printing photos, effectively rebooting my custom card making activities that were somewhat dormant in recent years. After burning bridges with Epson (hate!), Cannon (hate!), and HP (hate so much!), I'm down to the last major printer company left: Brother. So far so good.

-  - --o

Closing out the post, here's another new custom overlay for an old purchase.

I showed the bare version of this Bob Newhart slabbed cut auto a few posts back in the wake of his passing. I'm glad I could finally spruce it up a little.

Other customs I've printed up recently are on the way to John Miller and Best Bubble Bob, and I've got other stuff in the works, so I'll likely have more customs to show off on the blog soon. Thanks for stopping by.

cool cards from Rod (and a couple from Nick)

Rod from the Padrographs blog (and fellow NE Portland resident) has been spreading more cardboard cheer lately and I was lucky enough to be a recipient of his generosity yet again. Last weekend he swung by with a pair of full 660-count boxes. Then just yesterday, before I could get a post out on them, he stopped by again with another box. Always a joy to thumb through the cards and see what jumps out. Here are a few highlights I set aside from the first 2 boxes.

Kinda neat to see the 1975 Topps design with the color drained out of it. I had just snagged a similar Spencer Strider on COMC prior to coincidentally finding his teammate among the haul from Rod. And here with a similar batting stance is a wonderfully gaudy Luis Robert, Jr. gold refractor insert numbered out of 50.

I had been wanting to check out the revamped All-Etch inserts put out in 2024-- and in another COMC coincidence had recently secured the logofractor version of that Austin Riley-- so it was nice to see them in hand a little earlier than anticipated. Sharp looking cards.

And the All-Etch Rookie Rush design, too, paired here with a logofractor Future Star. 

I get a kick out of these inserts that call to mind Lisa Frank stickers that were popular with the girls back in the day.

A couple interesting vintage cards sneaking in among the modern stuff. These are my first 1952 Topps Look 'n See cards.

A Skenes RC and snazzy Ripken insert were a couple of the other cards that warranted a happy verbal reaction when I came across them.

I feel like I've built up a solid little Elly De La Cruz PC thanks to Rod. Fun player.

 -   - -o

Thanks a ton, Rod!

I'll plan to make another post for the 3rd box since I haven't gotten around to taking any pics of those cards yet. But for an addition to this post-- ironically the only Padre cards today [Rod's 3rd box was more Friar focused]-- here's a recent PWE from Nick/n j w v that he originally attempted to send me a year ago.

Better late than never, and I'm very glad Nick hooked me up with this fun pair of customs. These are part of a brilliant series of his with the 1981 Topps design reimagined with various celebratory headwear.

Had to show the full backs, even though my photo turned out blurry. Incredible work all around! Thanks again, Nick!

Have a great week, everybody.

Vagabond Binder: Kevin Mitchell

Some of you readers might remember my Vagabond Binder collecting project, yeah? Been a few years since I've done one of these, but to refresh your memory: I like to fill a 9-pocket page with cards of a guy featured on 9 different teams. It's really just players that mean something to me that I go out of my way to complete a page for. So like, I don't go adding Octavio Dotel cards to my Sportlots orders, but I'll set them aside if they fall in my lap. My blog's Vagabond Binder label includes past posts for Rickey, Benito, Canseco, and Goose.

Today's man of the hour is Kevin Mitchell. I drafted most of this post a week or two ago but held off  posting to sync up with his birthday today, January 13th. Happy Birthday, big guy!

Unlike past Vagabond Binder inductees up to this point, I never fully PCed him, at least not too heavily, but I remember him terrorizing my Padres while in his prime with the Giants. In recent years I've gotten a kick out of seeing non-Giants cards of Kevin Mitchell, with random pickups here and there. And I just recently acquired my ninth different team, so hey, time to dust off the Vagabond Binder and get a post out of it.

There's the full page. Now we take a closer look at the cards..

Like myself, Kevin Mitchell was born in raised in San Diego, though he's from the rougher side of town. He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Mets and made his Major League debut with a cup of coffee in 1984, though got left out of the national baseball card sets of 1985 and spent that next year in Triple A. But he was a versatile part of New York's championship season of 1986, playing six positions for the Mets that year. They rewarded him by shipping him out to San Diego in a big "Kevin M" swap that saw Kevin McReynolds heading to Shea. The Padres flipped him to San Francisco after just a few months and at least got a Cy Young season from Mark Davis to show for it.

As for the cards, the Mets are represented by what I refer to as a "Birchwood Edition" modified 1987 Topps.. call it "cardart" or "a custom" or "altered junk" or whatever. I gotta admit I thought these things would make more of a splash, but the lack of social media response and my eBay sales tell me that nobody else really gives much of a shit about bleached borders on 1987 Topps. Hey, more for me; I love 'em! This one got a little sloppy on the left side of the name box, but still a pleasing "color match" DIY parallel of what was already a fun card with the huge dust cloud.

The Padres card is 1987 Bohemian Hearth Bread Padres. I've completed that set-- still looking to upgrade my Gwynn and Kruk-- and had a dupe Mitchell to go towards this. If these weren't so tough, I'd be tempted to bleach the borders, too, a la my '91 Fleer tweaks. Not many other options for Mitchell Padres cards, though he does have a 1987 Donruss Opening Day card where he's suited up for San Diego. And there's the nutty '87 Fleer Update that features two photos splitting the card: one as a Padre and one as a Giant.

Kevin had a monster 1989, leading the Giants to the pennant and winning NL MVP. I had an extra 2002 Archives Reserve paying tribute to that season available for the page.

San Francisco traded Mitchell to Seattle for the 1992 season after he put on some pounds. The Mariners then shipped him to Cincinnati before the 1993 season. I've got both stops represented here by Bowman cards. The guy was known for being kind of an asshole, with multiple allegations of violence on his rap sheet, so that might help explain why ballclubs often treated him like a hot potato.

He played for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 1995. Like his other mid 90s seasons, he performed well at the plate when healthy, but was out hurt a lot. This is a Japanese card from a 2022 retro set that apparently features several retired players, all with autographs in the product too.

 

Kevin returned stateside in 1996, signing with the Red Sox. Boston traded him midseason back to Cincinnati, giving him a second stint with the Reds. That was his last year with much success at the plate, but he stuck around a bit longer.

Kevin made it into 20 games with Cleveland in 1997 and 51 games with Oakland in 1998. He has a few Indians cards to choose from, but his only other A's card other than parallels of this Pacific Online eyesore is a Mother's Cookie card from a stadium giveaway. That'd make for a nice upgrade, but this project has already gotten costly enough, what with the imported Japanese card that wasn't cheap, plus that Tidewater Tides minor league card from a few posts back that I ended up not having to use in this page thanks to the Japanese card.

But anyways, then Kevin played a few games in Mexico in '99 before kicking around Independent ball to wrap up his playing days in 2001. No cards seem to exist from those post-MLB stints. Theoretically, it might be fun to slot in one of those and then use the '87 Fleer Update card for both his Padres and Giants stops, thereby squeezing 10 teams onto one page. I suppose I could to that with the Tides card, but that's kind of a cheat since it's still the Mets organization, so I'd prefer sticking with my current configuration.

And there you have a page of Kevin Mitchell cards, each featuring him with a different team.

This has been another installment of the Vagabond Binder. Safe travels till we meet again.

Christmas Cards 2024

Guys, with this post I've bested my record (set last year) for least number of posts on my blog in a year. Hurray! It's a Christmas miracle; 2024 wasn't my least prolific year as a blogger! We're trending upwards!

Let's count down some cool cards numbered 12/25 that I got this year and haven't featured on the blog yet.

#6 Luis Robert, a.k.a. Lou Bob Jr., had a down year in 2024 with the historically bad White Sox, but he's a guy I've kinda collected since pulling a nice parallel of his back when he first popped onto the scene (1st Bowman mega box parallel). I needed an auto for the PC and eventually landed on this 2022 Topps Definitive card for about the price of a blaster. I'll be interested to see if he gets back on track next season or if his peak is in the rearview now.

#5 Spencer Strider made a big splash a year ago before being sidelined by Tommy John surgery. I landed this nice Five Star auto a few months back. He's another guy I hope is able to bounce back next season.

#4 is a Yogi Berra bat relic from 2005 Topps Pristine Legends. I'm working on a refractor version of the base set, and while I'm not actively trying to complete any of the hits, sometimes they pop up in my searches, and if the price is right, I might take a run at it... especially if it's serial numbered 12/25.

#3 - I had an eye out for a Max Scherzer autograph and landed this solid one from 2014 Topps Five Star. It pairs nicely with a similar Christmas Card I've got of another of the era's top starting pitchers...

Twice the holiday dominance! I was thinking how cool it would be if I could get a Verlander to go with these, but looks like Justin wasn't in Five Star that year, so no chance to match up with these guys. But maybe I'll score a different Verlander auto in 2025. Trying to nab autos of these "no doubters" before they're enshrined.

#2 is a big boy: Albert Pujols! I wanted an autograph as the cherry on top of my Pujols PC and, again, figured I'd better do it now before he's up for Cooperstown and his card prices see a bump. I held out for a Christmas Card, and wound up with this Leaf Pro Set "LFG!" acetate. That must stand for "Let's friggin' go!" as the kids like to say these days to psych themselves up. On the downside, it's an unlicensed stickergraph, but it otherwise looked cool to me and the price was right.

Drum roll for the #1 card in our Christmas Card countdown...

...

...

#1 - Ichiro auto! And it's licensed and on-card. Glad I got him in a Mariners uni, too. It's from 2020 Topps Transcendent, my first ever pickup from this popular high-end set, if I'm not mistaken. The metal frame is a classy touch. "[ OF ]" in the bottom corner nearly looks like "1 OF 1", but no, it's even better than that! It's 12/25!

Have a wonderful December 25th, everyone! And Merry Christmas, too, if that's your thing!

Joy of a Completed Set: 1978 Topps

This year I've been trying to stick a fork in some long-term collecting projects that had been languishing in "almost there" status over the past few years. The big boy was 1957 Topps, completed back in October. And thanks to my latest COMC order, I've knocked out a couple more sets, including previously covered 1992 Leaf Gold and this one from about 47 years ago..

Yep, today's post is to bask in the joy of a completed 1978 Topps set. While my "birth year set" is technically 1977 Topps, I was born during the offseason near the end of the year, so if I really wanted to push the parallel of entering this world around the same time as a baseball card set, it makes more sense to align with '78 Topps. Plus the '77 set features photos from the 1976 season anyways. So while it's not exactly a "baby book" for me, I can at least work up a little extra personal connection with the '78 set today.

The set/design has grown on me over the years after not doing much for me as a kid. One compliment I can give it is it's among my favorite designs to see in refractor form. I'm still working on a run of Topps All-Time Favorites refractors and I'd rank the '78s at the top (best looking) there, maybe just slightly below the 1970 Topps refractors when they make the borders shiny silver (sometimes they didn't and just left them matte grey, which doesn't look nearly as cool). I think maybe the fact Topps hasn't run 1978 into the ground in their modern era has helped the design remain sorta fresh.

Funny enough, the final pair of needs arriving in the COMC order were both team cards: #451 Minnesota Twins and #577 Oakland A's. The third-to-last need was also a team card (Pirates, from Sportlots). I don't even remember who the last player card I needed was. Thanks again to Dennis for sending me the Trammell/Molitor rookie a while back, which helped the setbuild be relatively painless to wrap up.

I've got 23 cards in the status of "upgrade would be nice" on my spreadsheet, but these days upgrading is very low priority and I don't really care about the condition of the set, I just find peace in the knowing that I've got a complete set of 1978 Topps there to take a look at whenever I want to.

My 1978 Topps set is a basic one-of-every-number set, currently, but I wouldn't mind expanding it slightly to include the 2 recognized variations. The #23 Bump Wills error has a black circle drawn in area between the crotch and rookie trophy. Seems to cost upwards of $20, which is more than I care about it, but I'll put it on my TCDB wantlist just in case a future trade partner has one to spare. I also need a #374 Jose Morales error where the stitching on position baseball is black, not red. Turns out the copy I have (red laces, like the rest of the set) is actually the more scarce variation, with the black laces version being the common. Guess I'll have to grab one in a future Sportlots order or something.

I'm also interested in possibly adding an appendix of the effectively "1978 Topps Traded"-type cards from that year in the same design via OPC and Burger King or Zest or whatever. But yeah, I'm only interested in the cards where the photo is significantly different than the flagship Topps card. Can anybody point me to a list of such cards to target? (Feels like this is something up GCRL's alley.)

I've now got a new oldest 3-year run of completed sets thanks to already finishing '79 and '80 in recent years. I'm focused on wrapping up '72 and '75 now, and after that I'll hope to bust out the relatively lightweight sets from '76 and '77, leaving 1970 Topps as the toughest obstacle on the horizon as I try to complete the run of 70s Topps flagship.

BIRTHDAY BONUS

I received a pair of mailings from blogger buds just in time for Christmas Eve, so let's check them out!

First up is a PWE from beloved chronicler Fuji. The envelope looked like it had been rained on a bit while out for delivery, but the main card was safe inside.

Nice! Going old school with a Helmar Turkish Cigarettes card with the Oregon state seal.

Great addition to my collection. Love super old cards plus cards with a personal connection, so happy to get this vintage representation of the state I've called home for the past 15 years.

Thank you, Fuji!

-   - -o

Next up is a little bubble mailer from another of the cardsphere's top solid dudes, Dennis from TMV.

Bringer of Gavins! Shiny Sheets and a nice pair of Escobars.

But the real highlight was this Gavin Floyd plate from 2011 Topps! 

Not just a cool 1/1 Gavin-- 2011 Topps is a modern favorite of mine. You might recall I've still got a massive parallel frankenset crawling along where I'm trying to build that year's flagship sets (S1, S2, Update, Chrome) as a mix of the various parallels. Surprisingly I didn't have any printing plates among those cards despite having nearly every other parallel from that year. But yeah, this one's going to further pump up my Gavin Floyd PC.

[A little coincidence to mention, Fuji included a pair of 2011 Topps cards as bonus protection for the Oregon Helmar, though his note specified they were just along for the ride as support.]

Big thanks, Dennis! That brightened my day.

And thanks to all you readers for finding a moment to swing by the blog. Happy Xmas Eve and I hope you have an awesome Christmastime season.