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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.