A weekly roundup for old times' sake

A couple of you loyal readers out there may have noticed I stopped doing my weekly Wednesday roundups where I take a look at incoming Listia winnings and the blog's webtraffic over the previous 7 days. I guess it was just getting a little stale and not bringing in the clicks, as it were. But I suppose I can still bring it out of retirement once in a while. I've gotten some particularly nice Listia winnings in the past couple weeks that I want to show off.

This Paul Goldschmidt 2014 Bowman Chrome mini refractor insert is a sweet card, here waving majestically in the rainbowed wind thanks to the magic of animated gifs. (Take a moment to stare at it for a while; you've earned it.) Got it for the opening bid of 999 credits.

Happy Wilhelm Wednesday, guys! This beautifully-worn '59 Topps Hoyt might be one of my favorite-ever Listia wins. Ran me 3,689 credits, which even missing a corner is still a steal in my eyes.

Gotta love that old school Orioles logo.

I'm stumped on trying to identify what uniform he's wearing based on the bit of cap logo visible. Hoyt went to Baltimore late in the 1958 season from Cleveland. He hadn't been with the Indians all that long (32 games), and before that was with the Cardinals for most of 1957. And before that he was with the NY Giants for several years. The cap logo looks almost like that of Brooklyn or maybe Detroit, a couple cities he never played for. Weird.

Serial-numbered (/2010) Giancarlo Stanton rookie debut gold parallel. Nice addition to my Stanton Stack. Got It Now (then) for 5,000 credits, which judging by completed eBay sales is a pretty good deal.

And now how about my first Stanton bat relic? Pretty cool. At 9,999 credits (another Get It Now), it's one of my pricier Listia pickups in recent memory. But I had some credits to burn and don't regret it.

Other than that, a few cards knocked off my 71 and 73 Topps needslist (I'll do a separate update post for these setbuilds soon), but nothing else too exciting arriving via Listia lately.


As for the webtraffic round up, well, it's been a big week for the Breakdown, including an unprecedented (for me) four posts in a row that reached 100+ views.. always nice to see a good turnout.

In case you missed it...

a nickelbox haul not for the faint of heart (3/4) 83 views. Showing off some cheap cards from the recent card show.

(A very special post!) My classmate the All-Star (3/5) 104 views. Hey, if I preface the post title stating it's a very special post, you know it's gotta be good! It's another one of my probably-too-personal tales about going to school with Marcus Giles.

Exclusive Magnet Cards! (3/6) 109 views. Some neat custom magnet cards I had whipped up.

Turning cards into songs + CONTEST! (3/7) 217 views. Nice turnout for the contest so far. I'm shamelessly trying to get a few more social media fans for my "band" and offering some autos and magnet cards as prizes. Go check it out if you haven't yet. We'll try to shake it out this weekend and find some winners.

card show trade bait! (3/8) 127 views. Happy to get a few trades in the works. Still a lot of cheap autos available.

Sy Berger contracts (3/9) 77 views. This post shows off a bunch of Topps contracts I've purchased recently that are signed/"signed" by the late, legendary Topps executive Sy Berger. I had planned to deal much of them (Still looking to trade or sell.. anybody?), but my plan hit a snag when it came to light that some of Sy's signatures were identical, questioning if they were all hand-signed or if some were "autosigned" with a stamp or autopen or something.

After publishing that post, I received an email, apparently from a relative of Mr. Berger. I don't think it'd be off-base for me to share the crux of the message here:

As a family member intimately familiar with Sy Berger throughout his life and career, I am certain that anything he signed was done with his own hand.
He never used any stamp or other method.
Even in his later years as it become more difficult to write, he would meticulously and slowly sign his name.

Hmm. Very interesting to hear he wasn't known to use a stamp or other means to autosign his name, and I appreciate the email. But it's fishy that some of the signatures match up exactly. I don't know about you, but I don't think I could sign my name perfectly the same way twice like that no matter how hard I tried.

Anyways, thanks for reading and see you next time.