Rickey Remix

In a group email a few days ago, my boss accidentally typed, "The Gavin and I are available to help..." And so now I have the work nickname of The Gavin. Haha. I like it. Kinda like The Fonz or The Flash, but not quite as cool. And sometimes I have fun with it and refer to myself in the third person as The Gavin.

The Gavin can't help but think of Rickey Henderson when this happens. (...though Rickey didn't call himself The Rickey.. that might've been a little over the top!)

So if you're on Twitter you probably saw the Project 2020 cards that Topps has been offering online. Basically the idea is they got 20 different artists and each is getting creative with 20 iconic Topps cards, with the offerings spread out over the summer, each card being available to order during a limited-time window. Kind of a cool idea, though the $20 per card price understandably turns a lot of collectors off. And honestly many of the cards look dumb as hell.. (Topps Project 2020 eBay search)... but I suppose that tastes vary when it comes to art appreciation, so what looks dumb to one collector could be loved by another. And some of the cards look kinda cool to me, but not "will-pay-$20-for" cool.

But one card that seemed to get near universal approval was artist Matt Taylor's "totally radical 80s" take on Rickey Henderson's 1980 Topps rookie card. I liked it so much that I caved and purchased one for myself pretty quickly.

Sure is a cool looking card! I'm definitely gonna have this bad-boy out on display for a while.

Back to the 80s! (That's a vintage Trapper Keeper folder from my youth, btw. Does this now count as a Sentimental Sundays post? LOL) I wouldn't say that the purply interpretation is an improvement over the perfection of the original green/yellow cardboard classic, but I think it's a sweet alternate view of a favorite. I look at it and just start hearing the chill 80s synth tunes fill my head.

Fingers crossed this is the only Project 2020 card I end up buying, but I guess we'll just have to see if anything else grabs me by the time the project is over.

The print-run was 2104, which I believe is among the most plentiful of these offerings so far, but I'm not really sure. Wait, this same artist's similar version of the Jeter rookie apparently sold many more (9322).

A neat looking card in its own right, but I'm fine without this one. If, say, these were regular ol' inserts in flagship or Archives, I'd probably try to score myself more.. but at $20 per card, gotta be selective.


Oh, the most ridiculous one so far is the allegedly "1983 Topps Tony Gwynn inspired" card that is simply a random mid-80s Gwynn picture in a simple design clearly mimicking 1991 Fleer.

WTF? It's like the artist googled "Tony Gwynn baseball card" and just quickly crapped this out using a couple images that popped up in the search results. There's no connection to the '83 rookie card it's supposed to be paying tribute to.


But the ones that seem the laziest to me are those that basically just add some tracing to the card design.

Not to disparage someones artistic output, but... Why? No way I'd pay $20+ for that! Even a buck for that would seem like bad deal to me. But to each their own, I suppose. Collect how you want.


So there's my thoughts regarding Topps Project 2020. What do you think?
Until next time, this is The Gavin saying, "Thanks for stopping by!"

cardboard from mr haverkamp and beyond

I was graced with a surprise package of cards from friendly cardsphere reader mr haverkamp the other day. Let's take a look!

Tim Flannery 1987 Bohemian Hearth Bread! Sweet! My needs for this regional oddball set are now down to just one: Dave Dravecky. And Flan here is in incredible shape, especially considering these cards originally came thrown in with a loaf of bread. Creases, dinged corners, and staining are par for the course, but amazingly this one looks suitable for grading.

And I figured this was a good card to feature on Mother's Day since one of the first baseball cards I ever got was a Steve Garvey from this set thanks to being included in a loaf of bread my mom bought, back before I was collecting cards at all. She was never super supportive of my hobby, but she never threw out my cards or forbid me from spending my allowance on them or anything. She was reluctantly onboard with me collecting cards if it made me happy.

But yeah, this is a neat set with strong sentimental attachment for me, so I'm looking forward to finally completing it one of these days. I still have that original Garvey from back in the day, so this is my longest-running setbuild by far-- 32 years and counting.

Also in the package were 3 needs from '75 Topps, serendipitously all in my favorite color combination: "green grass" on the bottom and "blue sky" on top. Beautiful.

And a half dozen '77 Topps needs, funny enough all Expos.

Some 1980 Topps for upgrades for my set, plus dupes for PCs of Sparky Anderson and Dick Williams.

And here's an '88 Topps George Brett that was on my Desperate Double Dozen. I consider '88 Topps among my least favorite Topps flagship sets*, and so despite billions of them out there in circulation, I don't have many in my collection. So I need to fill in some PC holes like this one.

*I mean, the design is fine. There are some nice looking cards like Brett here. The backs are drab. Could have been a pretty cool set if it wasn't so crazy over-produced.. and maybe throw a Griffey "1st Draft Pick" card to give it a special boost.. Then that would have been a pretty solid set.

Big thanks, mr haverkamp! Much appreciated. I'll try to hit you back soon.

- - ---o

And here are some bonus vintage additions for this post.

I found a couple PC dupes to put towards my '76 setbuild. Great to be able to check off this pair of fan favorites.

A couple '57 eBay pickups. The Colavito rookie has a dirty back, which kept the price down, but I'll likely upgrade it someday. The Bob Rush was snagged for next to nothing thanks to another recent $3-off coupon code. Now at an even 300 cards acquired.. the set is coming along, slowly but surely.

Thanks a lot for stopping by!

Vintage Influx

I need to apologize to GCA for forgetting to include a PWE from him in my last trade-roundup post. But it included a few vintage needs, so it goes well with some other incoming cards from Bo that I can combine into this post.

A few big names from GCA for my '79 Topps setbuild.

Thanks, Greg!

 -  - --o

Next up is a box from Bo.

Nice chunk of '79 Topps. Many of these are off-condition (which Bo gave me a heads-up on beforehand) that I'd eventually like to upgrade, but still welcomed placeholders. This lot plus the above from GCA gets me over 90% complete! Shouldn't be too long now.

On the topic of my 70s setbuilds, I should mention I've recently been pulling my vintage wantlists that I had on TCDB off there and into my own Google docs. I gave the TCDB thing a shot, but ultimately it wasn't working for me, at least not with vintage setbuilds. I like the flexibility of doing my own thing (for instance, I like being able to mark a card "upgrade would be nice" or "dupe wanted for PC"). I thought maybe getting some lively trade action would be a benefit of TCDB, but it's been fairly quiet for me on there, though I know I'm largely to blame for not adding more "for trade" cards to my account. I'll definitely consider giving TCDB another go in the future, but for now, it just doesn't jive with my collecting/cataloging habits.

While I completed my 1980 Topps set a year or so ago, there's still some unfinished business there.. with a few cards marked the aforementioned status of "upgrade would be nice" or "dupe wanted for PC". After these, I'm now down to a even dozen cards I'd like to upgrade and five guys-I-collect I'd like a dupe of for their respective PCs.

But the bulk of Bo's box was 175 needs for my 1978 Topps set. These are mostly in great shape, too. I'm in the middle of revamping my '78 wantlist, so I'm not exactly sure where I'm at with the set right now, but I'm probably down to needing about 100 or so cards.

Thanks a lot, Bo! I dropped a return package in the mail for you today.

If anybody else would like to help in my quest to complete a run of 70s Topps flagship, my needs can be found linked on my main wantlist. Thanks!

Have a great weekend.

Joy of a Completed Set: 1980 Topps.. but nuts to that-- more 57s!

Big thanks to EP of Old Red Sox Cards for finally knocking off the last card I needed to complete 1980 Topps.

I wouldn't have expected this pedestrian Ruppert Jones to be the final card I acquired, but that's how setbuilding goes sometimes.

I feel like I've posted about the set enough the past few months, so I won't rehash too much here or post a bunch of pictures. But yeah, it's a cool set, and plenty of sentimental value to me thanks to being the first cards I ever owned as a kid. Even though I didn't really start collecting till a few years later, still feels kinda like the completion of my ultimate longest-running setbuild, in a way.

But the closure celebration can't quite reach 100% yet as I've still got a few cards I'd either like to upgrade (16 cards) or would like a dupe of for PC guys (6 cards). So my 1980 Topps wantlist will remain up for the time being.

But the key part of EP's trade package was– true to his blog's name– old Red Sox cards.. specifically a bunch of Red Sox I needed for my '57 Topps set!

The part of the trade that got me to agree to give up a bunch of primo trade fodder were the 5 cards from the tough 4th series (cards 265-352), including Haywood Sullivan who got the same "orange sky" treatment as the classic Brooks Robinson RC.

Jim Piersall might be the best known name in the group. Of course the biggest one in the team set is Ted Williams, which I picked up earlier this month.

I'm now just #342 Gene Mauch away from completing the Boston team set. Not bad! (*This factors in an additional Red Sock from a COMC order that just arrived today. Post[s] to follow.)

EP helped me blast past the ¼-complete mark with '57-- in fact, I'm all the way up to 28% now (117/417). Pretty sweet!

GCRLive: cards as I receive them

I briefly met gcrl a year or two ago when he was in Portland for business. When he came back around this time, we turned it into a big cardblogger meetup. He was nice enough to bring along cards for the group. Let's take a look at what he had for me.

Kicking it off with college cards of a couple Padres greats, plus some other very goods players of yesteryear.

Here are some current guys, including 3 additions for my new Eric Hosmer PC. That 2018 Donruss Arenado card was "pack fresh" as can be, as gcrl had the foresight to pick up a few packs at Target for us to rip together, and that was among the cards pulled.

A couple infielders who didn't quite pan out longterm in San Diego, Sean Burroughs and Marcus Giles. The encased gold refractor Burroughs is #'d 086/170.

The Marquis Grissom is appreciated for my big Marquis Mania project. The two 1980 Topps cards are upgrades for my set (they have unchecked checklists on the back, which I prefer over marked-on cards). And the four 1987 Fleer Update cards get me closer to completing that little set.

And we'll end with this sweet Norm Zauchin, a high number for my '57 Topps setbuild. Love getting help there via trades.

Thanks again, man! It was great seeing you. Sorry I'm running low on Dodgers at the moment, but hope you were happy with the cards I rounded up for you.

Who's Johnny?

I was recently the lucky recipient of a box of cards from the awesome John Miller of Johnny's Trading Spot fame. He had earlier commented he was gonna knock off my 1980 Topps needs, so I was somewhat expecting that, but there was more good stuff too.

John valiantly took my 1980 needs to task, slashing off numbers with reckless abandon, plus many upgrades and wanted dupes for my PCs. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite able to deliver the deathblow. Seems he made a clerical error and included the Dave Stieb RC I already had (#77) instead of the Ruppert Jones card I needed (#78).

So now somebody has the chance to steal the glory and shoot me over Ruppert to complete my set. Anybody?

John also sent me a partial set of 1987 Fleer Update, which combined with the other partial set I got recently, leaves me with just 15 cards shy of the 132-card thing.

1987 Fleer Update needs:
13 Ralph Bryant
15 Ellis Burks
17 Steve Carlton
31 Cecil Fielder
33 Willie Fraser
39 Albert Hall
49 Reggie Jackson
51 Dion James
68 Greg Maddux
69 Bill Madlock
75 Fred McGriff (found a dupe of this in my Crime Dog PC)
76 Mark McGwire
80 Greg Minton
85 Randy Myers
129 Matt Williams

Maddux and McGwire are probably the big ones here. (Wow, poor Fleer really missed the boat not including Big Mac in their '87 base set, the Aaron Judge of that year!) The complete set w/box can easily be found for under $10 shipped on eBay, so I'm hoping for traders to help out rather than me getting nickel and dime'd picking up these needs.

I was also super stoked to get this sweet lot of Glow Stars. The big one for me here was the Kirby, as I've got the others already, but don't mind dupes for PCs or just sticking.

I'm now down to only needing the Ryne Sandberg (1993 UD Fun Pack #80 Glow Star) to complete this subset! So please let me know if you've got one to trade.

Here are highlights from the rest (John, I think this is the 2nd time you've sent me Ben Petrick cards, but I don't collect him; must've gotten me confused with JediJeff or ARPSmith. I also don't need anymore Gavin Floyd base cards. But thanks for thinking of me!). Needed that Gavin Lux Pro Debut, as well as the Scott Gavin Erickson minor league card. I was a little confused why Fernando Romero was included in the package until I turned it over and saw he's a fellow 12/24 birthday boy... nice.

Sorry for the corny title of this post, but I was just looking for an excuse to include one of my favorite pop hits from the 80s.

Big thanks for the cards, John! I'll be dropping off a return package for you soon.

I ♥ the '80 Topps

Got a couple nice trade packages in last week. Reader Larry P. followed up the big lot I got from ARPSmith with another nice lot of 1980 Topps. Included were 100+ needs, upgrades, and wanted dupes for PCs. I'm now at 94% complete with the set! 43 cards to go.

The "Highlights" and "League Leaders" subsets have both been completed now. Nice to be rounding the corner with this set already thanks to generous traders.

I appreciate it, Larry! I've got your return package ready to be dropped in the mail asap.

-   - - ----o

The other trade package I received was from Tom from the Angels In Order blog. He expressed interest in the Jim Piersall auto I had available, and I used the opportunity to thin out my tradeable Angels on him while I was at it, filling up a small flat-rate box.

Tom sent me a sizeable stack of 1980 Topps. Unfortunately, most of these were trumped by better condition copies from Adam or Larry, but there were still a handful of cards in there I could use. While I had gotten a Nolan Ryan in Adam's lot, I'm happy for the dupe from Tom since I've got a PC of the guy, so no harm there.

There were also about 100 cards from the 1987 Fleer Update set. I'll have to whip up a wantlist soon and see if I can track down the missing cards eventually. (Anybody have any '87 Fleer Update to trade? Let me know!)

Vintage! A need for my '64 Topps setbuild and the first upgrade of '65 Topps I've received since recently completing the set.. much appreciated! Felt good to replace the old copy of Les Narum in my set that had tape stains on the corners.

And I was happy to see this '93 UD Fun Pack Glow Star among the cards, with Andy Van Slyke making his second appearance of the post. I'm now down to only needing 4 more cards to knock off this one-per-team subset: 80 Ryne Sandberg, 130 Cal Ripken Jr., 142 Darren Daulton, 191 Kirby Puckett

Thanks for the trade, Tom!

Oh wait, I also got a great trade package from gcrl the other day, but I don't think I'll be able to fit it in this post, so it'll have to wait another day.
Thanks for reading.

Joy of receiving a complete set of 1986 Fleer plus more

ARPSmith is looking to clear out a bunch of cards, so check out his blog if you haven't recently. He happened to have plenty available from my current #1 setbuild (1980 Topps), plus many of my "future setbuilds?" that I had coincidentally been hoping for starter lots to fall in my lap. So I rounded up my best available SF Giants cards to return the favor, and we had ourselves a nice deal.

Adam sent me about 200 cards for my 1980 Topps set with lots of needs and upgrades, taking me from 55% complete all the way up to 80%. Just 143 cards left to go; pretty good considering how recently I started the project.

Most of the cards were in great shape. A few had some wax stains on the front. I tried the old hair dryer and paper towel trick and was able to clean them up nice, with a Before and After example here from Lynn Jones. I think this was my first time using that trick, and it definitely won't be the last. (Thanks, P-town Tom, for posting about this a while back).

And I was stoked to get a complete set of 1986 Fleer from Adam, too. It's one set that for whatever reason, I just never had many cards from in my collection, so in my mind it's more scarce than it really is.

While it's not the greatest design ever, I like the simple dark blue borders. It's got some great looking cards in there.

Adam even included a full set of the 22 sticker inserts from '86 Fleer. Apparently the variation of the Cardinals logo with the yellow beak is somewhat rare and worth a few bucks.

But the best part of these stickers is the Laughlin artwork on the back.

Also included in the big box were probably half-complete sets 1983 Topps and 1984 Fleer, so I should probably get wantlists for those typed up one of these days. Also solid stacks of (in order of most) 1982 Topps, 1987 Fleer, 1978 Topps, 1984 Donruss, and 1985 Donruss. These are all sets on my "maybe probably someday I'll work on these sets" list, so it's great to get a big chunk to get me going, though I'll likely wait to land another good lot of each before I figure out my needs.

Big thanks again, Adam! Great stuff! Hope you're as happy with the cards I sent.

Thanks for reading, guys.

Joy of a Completed Set: 1965 Topps

Man, this one feels good to have wrapped up!

I've always really liked the look of 1965 Topps. It's just a classic design. If you looked up "baseball card" in the dictionary, there should be a picture of a 1965 Topps card. Simple design with the pennants on the front. And the real secret weapon is the awesome cartoons on the back.

I officially kicked off my Strive for '65 ("Strive for 65" ® and ™ CaptKirk42) back on August 14, 2015 after a few months of rounding up '65s from trades and the like. I probably would have started on it sooner, but 2014 Topps Heritage kinda burned me out on the design for a while.

This lot from COMC were the last cards I was waiting on, highlighted by a couple HOFers and a Yankees team card. While these were the last cards to arrive, they had been sitting in my inventory for a while, waiting for COMC's Black Friday sale for the free shipping. So, although it arrived in-hand before these, the final card I secured was actually...

..this Denny McLain rookie I scored on eBay back in October. Even sprung for a graded copy for added oomph.

Big thanks to all the traders who've helped me out with this set over the past few years. Special shout-outs to Mark Hoyle, gcrl, Kevin G, and Stubby who each contributed 20+ cards to the cause.

I've still got about 77 "fair" condition cards in the set that I'd like to eventually upgrade (such as Joe Morgan and Mickey Mantle here), but that's a low priority for me right now. There are also plenty of guys I collect in the set that I wouldn't mind having another copy of their '65 card for the PC (such as Clemente), but again, not a huge deal for me. I have no interest in the accompanying embossed insert set, so as far as I'm concerned, other than upgrades and dupes for PCs, I'm sticking a fork in 1965.

My set includes a couple "official" variations (checklists with minor differences), plus a couple unofficial ones, such as this "yellow" Len Gabrielson. I guess either the magenta was running low on this print run, or else maybe it had been displayed in direct sunlight for a few years.

Twelve cards in my set are graded. None are particularly "high grade" but I don't plan to break them out anytime soon. –Maybe someday if I decide to put the set in a binder.

But at least for now, I'm a box guy.

Years ago, I printed out 4 labels back at my old job for sets I wanted to complete. I don't put the label on the box until the set is complete. As you can see from the photo, the last set from this 4-pronged collecting goal of mine is 1964 Topps. So you'd think that'd be next up in my crosshairs now that '65 has been put to bed.

But nope! After spending a lot of time and money on '65 last year, stressing out a little trying to make my self-imposed deadline of finishing it by the end of 2017, my goal for 2018 is to not complete any vintage sets (nothing pre-late 70s, at least). I'm taking a breather.

Going easier on myself, my goal for 2018 is to complete 1980 Topps. As I've mentioned on the blog before, I've got a sentimental soft spot for 1980 Topps since I ended up with 4 or 5 cards from the set as a kid in the mid 80s, the first baseball cards I ever owned. Personally I've always considered 1980 the last "vintage" set, but I know that hobby term doesn't have an exact definition that everyone agrees on.

Over the past week, I finally sorted my pile of cards from the set so I could get serious about it.

I was hoping to be at around 70% out of the gate, but I ended up with a lot of dupes. Still though, 55% is a very good starting point, thanks to the couple starter lots I was sent last year. I raided my PCs for some cards, such as the Rickey rookie, but hopefully I'll be able to eventually score dupes to replace them. I'm optimistic I'll be able to knock off the rest of the set via trades over the year, but we'll see.

Got my wantlist up here: 1980 Topps wanlist
Please drop me a line if you've got some cards to knock off my list and we'll work out a trade.

Thanks!