Cards from the Collector

I might have the chutzpah to call out dudes who I feel owe me cards, but I could never be a debt collector. That's gotta be a rough line of work, as I'm sure Chris the Collector would tell you.

Chris and I recently swung a trade centered on whipping up some quick customs for him. He shot me back a nice bunch of cards for my PCs.

Here's a sharp 1st Bowman refractor for my George Springer collection.

A couple old-timer autos. Gotta admit the name Curt Simmons didn't ring a bell for me, but he had a long, distinguished career on the mound, stretching from 1947 to 1967, and was a 3-time All-Star and a WS champ with the '64 Cardinals (as this Topps 65th Anniversary Archives card seems to give a nod to). Chris suggested I might work some custom magic on the Bobby Doerr auto, seeing as the card is a bit creased a couple places in the upper left. Maybe I will someday, but I like it enough as it is.

Happy to add another hit to my Giancarlo PC.

A nice selection of big names from the past.

And some modern stuff too.

Big thanks, Chris!


---------o

p.s.

My boss bought me ice cream today and surprised me with a Padres helmet bowl! How cool. I remember having these as a kid in the 80s. Love it. Thanks, Boss!

another Topps Retired rendezvous

When I open a new tab in my web browser, the first page displayed in my top 8 most visited sites is the bookmark for my Topps Retired eBay search. That just goes to show you the extent of my obsession with this short-lived product Topps put out from 2003 to 2005. My most clicked-on site isn't Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, or something like that.. it's a specific eBay search. I check that bookmark several times a day, hoping to see a 2004 refractor I need pop up, or perhaps a decent deal on a 2003 or 2005 card. The email alerts from eBay can't be trusted. I used to receive them every day. Then I stopped getting them for a few months for no apparent reason. Now they've recently started back up again. So yeah, they're not dependable. And plus they only go out once a day, so you might miss something that pops up with a Buy It Now option if someone beats you to it.

Anyways, here are a few recent Retired pickups.

Love this refractor auto of the late, great Bobby Doerr!

Seems a little silly paying decent money for an autograph of a guy who freely signed his name more times than anyone in the history of civilization, but hey it's a very limited card of a Hall of Famer.

Sweet Don Larsen refractor, huh?! He's seen here enjoying a lovely spring day with the Orioles. This must have been taken at spring training 1966. Baltimore released him at the end of camp and he sat out the season before making a brief comeback with the Cubs in '67 to end his career.

Perhaps you were curious how I ended up with two similar (but non-refractor) Don Larsen autos to give away in my contest a few weeks back? Well, one I bought a few years ago. And then the other I pulled myself in an ill-advised purchase of a few unopened packs that netted me nothing I needed but cost me a good chunk of change for the privilege. And then I ended up scoring this refractor parallel on eBay a little while later. I have a thing where I don't like to keep the base Retired auto once I've "upgraded" to a refractor parallel (unless we're talking about a top tier guy I collect like Tony Gwynn), so both base autos became available and ended up as contest prizes.

This slabbed Tom Niedenfuer refractor was won with combined shipping from the same seller as the Larsen, and it stayed in single-digits. He's kind of an odd selection for this set, as he wasn't that great or even much of a fan favorite, as far as I can tell. GCRL tells the story of how Dodger fans referred to him as "a certain reliever we need-in-fewer games." LOL

Looks like he had a pretty good peak, at least, and was especially good in 1983.

Lastly for today, here's a base auto of Howard Johnson. While not a huge name, I rarely see this card pop up. The internet is telling me it had a print run of 220 copies. I don't buy too many non-refractor Retired autos, but I've been kicking up my little HoJo PC over the past few months, and again, this card doesn't show up on eBay very often and it was under ten bucks factoring in combined shipping with a Phil Nevin patch card I got from the same seller.

Hard to remember he captured the NL home run crown in '91. And of course he got rings with the '84 Tigers and '86 Mets.

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

trade bait from the card show

It feels a little irresponsible of me soliciting trades seeing as I've been dragging my feet getting cards into the hands of people I owe (such as Bo, GCA, Kerry, Shane Katz), plus building "CDs & Cards" boxes for N.O. and Chris the Collector, plus a big simmering trade in the works with Bubba and other outgoing-cards activities I need to spend time on.

So I might not be super quick getting trades turned around, but hey, here are some card show pickups that are up for grabs. Check out my wantlist and get in touch if you want. If you're a frequent trade buddy of mine, feel free to ask me to set any of this aside for you.

It bothers John Miller if I don't post any available Braves, so here're some, including a couple 2011 Topps parallels I didn't end up needing.

Cubs, including a Fergie in an attempt to lure Twitch into a trade.

Truth be told, the Chris Davis parallels were from the previous card show. I tried to line up the purple with the Yan Gomes card.

A bunch of Yankees, including a Willy Mo Pena autograph.. seems he nearly made a comeback with the Indians in 2017, but returned to Japan instead.

Dodgers. That Jackie Robinson was in yesterday's post of keepers, but I fight the urge to collect him, so hopefully someone takes it from me. I love Jackie, don't get me wrong, but you can't collect everybody, and if I went down that rabbithole I'd want to land some playing-days vintage, and that could get dangerous.
The 2000 Keebler bag was the complete set. Hated to do it, but I had to pull out Sheffield and Adrian Beltre for my PCs.
I know Night Owl already has more Shawn Green relics than he needs, but maybe someone else would want them.

Johnny Bench is another all-time great I fight the urge to collect. Sometimes in my weaker moments, I even consider putting my Madison Bumgarner cards together.

More memorabilia cards. The Johnny Damon has a dinged corner. I'm not really familiar with Luis Ayala, but thought the Expos manupatch was cool.

Blue Jays. Justin Jackson's mediocre pro career topped out at AA.. but still, it's hard to pass up cheap 1st Bowman Chrome ref autos.

Finally, a couple more autos. Brad Penny helped the Marlins win the World Series in 2003 and went on to have a couple All-Star seasons with the Dodgers. I don't know anything about Troy Stecher, but just took a flyer on a hockey guy in case somebody could use it.

So there's some trade bait. Nothing super enticing, but if anything caught your eye and you wanna work out a trade, just let me know. There may have been a few more pickups already set aside for folks (a few Pirates, maybe a couple Rynos, etc). This wraps up the November card show haul (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3).. thanks for following along!

- - - ---o

And before I end this post, allow me to pay my respects...

I was sad to hear about the passing of Bobby Doerr this week at 99. He really was the patron saint of through-the-mail autographs. Just a great guy who brightened the day of countless card collectors over the years. Though he lived a full life, just shy of a century, it's still a bummer he's no longer with us. First, I got that Distinguished Service insert signed. Then I whipped up a Padres custom cut-signature card using an index card I got cheap on eBay (I realize it's silly to pay for his autograph when he's so generous with it, but I suppose it's nice to have an earlier, smoother signature from him.) Then I got those couple customs signed, two of my all-time favorite TTM returns. I really love how they turned out. Thanks again, Bobby! Rest in peace.

♥♥♥ Jumbo Trade Roundup ♥♥♥

I've been preoccupied with other stuff lately and so some of the posts I've wanted to write got held up. But I've received many incredible cards in the mail via trades over the past couple weeks that've been patiently waiting for their moment in the sun, so let's take a look.

The first of many trades to cover today comes from Sport Card Collectors. He's a good dude, and I'm envious of him because not only does he win contests left and right, but he also often gets complementary boxes from card companies in exchange for reviewing them on his blog. Where do I sign up for this?! Haha.

Well, he recently bust a box of 2016 Bowman and a low numbered Michael Conforto parallel caught my eye and I inquired if it was available.

It took some hammering out, but it wasn't too hard for us to agree to a deal both parties were happy with. Check his post to see the goodies I sent his way. I gave some backstory to my Conforto collection last month after I scored a sweet Bowman refractor auto from madding. A hot young player on a big-market team, Conforto is a guy who might be out of my price range as far as buying much cards of his, though I'll try to build a nice little PC through trades and occasionally adding a card through pack rips or the discount bins at the card show.

And how's about that above photo, huh? Getting the front and back of the same exact card in an undoctored picture is kinda cool, if I say so myself! Give me a Bip Award for that!

Anyways, a sweet auto and now this low-numbered orange parallel, my small Conforto collection is off to a great start. Big thanks, SCC!
But he didn't stop there.. He surprised me with a few more nice cards..

A couple Goldschmidts I needed!

Some Padres needs.

An unopened pack of Elvis cards! Expect to see this in a fun Pack Skirmish one of these days.

Thanks again for the trade, SCC!

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Next up is Nachos Grande. He has a neat "trade stack" thing on this blog where he adds cards until someone claims the stack in exchange for any one card on his wantlist. This was my first time grabbing a stack.

The 2011 parallel was a bonus thrown in, which is appreciated as I work toward that parallel frankenset. The cards from the stack here aren't really ones I had interest in, though I do have a passive Jim Edmonds PC, so there's a card I can use. But no, the draw that made me claim the stack...

Munnatawket custom minis! These things are cool.

Thanks for the trade, Chris!

-   -  - - ---o

Next up is a quick 2-card PWE from Ripken collector Bill B. who bought some customs from me a while back. He wanted an extra copy of one of them, and facilitated this by sending me a SASE, a little $, and a couple cards as a bonus..

Kinda random pair of cards that don't exactly fit into my collection, but I appreciate the gesture nonetheless! The John Lujack is #'d 99/100 on the back.

Thanks, Bill!

-   -  - - ---o

Next is a great PWE from TX Marcus. Fellow suffering Padres fan, he was the first blogger I ever traded with when I first poked my head onto the cardsphere. After his blog went quiet for a while as he bought a house, it's been nice to see him get some new posts up recently.

Chris Sale is locking up the 2016 AL Cy Young already, and we've still got several months to go. Nice addition to that PC.
Carlos Correa is having a good sophomore season.
Andrew McCutchen has been off to a bit of a slow start with the exception of his monster 3 HR game, but he typically starts slow and finishes strong, so he should hopefully rebound as the season goes on. I love this pair of sweet Heritage cards.

Big thanks, Marcus! I'll be shooting you out a return ASAP.

-   -  - - ---o

Next is possibly my first-ever transatlantic card trade. Kevin Papoy was among the traders I sent a holiday PWE to last December. He apologized for taking so long to return the favor, but it was definitely worth the wait!

That's my first 1976 Topps basketball card. Didn't realize they were so big! Always love checking out non-baseball vintage designs I'm not very familiar with. And gotta love Jordan before he became best known as the crying meme guy.

Heck of an Adam Jones relic #'d 14/99! It might not be visible in the photo, but the grey swatch appears to be a little dirty, which is awesome in a jersey relic.
Chris Sale makes his second appearance in this post, this time xfracting, as does Paul Goldschmidt #'d /99. Plus a cool Bobby Doerr parallel.

Check out this lot of Carlos Delgado cards! As a Blue Jays collector, Kevin must've had some dupes to spare for me. I'll always love Delgado ever since buying a minor league team set with him back in 1991, one of the few "prospecting" instances in my collecting career where the guy actually became a star eventually. Carlos was a beast and definitely deserved more HOF attention than he got.

A couple ultra-premium Paul Molitor cards keeps the Toronto love flowing.

Awesome cards.. thanks, Kevin!

-   -  - - ---o

Now we come to a hell of a vintage package from Stubby. He doesn't have his own card blog, but I know him best for the insightful, in-depth comments he often leaves on Night Owl posts. He read my recent 65 Topps update and graciously offered some cards to help me out.

He had warned me that most of them were in bad shape and I'd likely want to upgrade nearly all of them eventually. But I was pleasantly surprised by the condition when they showed up, with only a small number of cards, such as the dirty Bud Daley there, being below my preferred standards with this set.

More 65s! As I type this, I haven't updated my needs spreadsheet yet, but this is a definite big stride of progress with the set for me.

More needs and upgrades.

Some HOF action with Red Schoendienst and a Catfish Hunter rookie. (Shoutout to Blue Moon Odom as well.) A bit creased, but I'm not complaining at all!

Even an unmarked high-number checklist for my 1971 Topps set.

Great stuff.. thanks so much, Stubby! I'm putting together a return package for you and will get it mailed out soon.

-   -  - - ---o

We close with... MORE 1965 TOPPS!

These are from the esteemed Mr. Hoyle, who came across them at a recent card show and was kind enough to think of me.

Curt Flood is the last card Stubby needs for his set. Sorry, Stubby, this one's mine! :) Also here is Mr. Perfect Don Larsen in the final card from his playing days. And that's a nice upgraded Blair/Johnson RC for me.

Looks like Mark ripped a few packs of 1989 Fleer recently. Some PC additions for me here.

Big thanks, Mark! Let me know what you think about a Yaz custom to whip up for us and I'll get working on it to include with your return batch of cards.

So yep, definitely some good stuff making its way to Baseball Card Breakdown headquarters over these past couple weeks. Thanks again to everybody who sent me cards and thanks to you, the reader, for checking them out! Have a great week, everybody.

Custom TTM success: Bobby Doerr!

I've hit up Bobby Doerr for another TTM request, and this success might be my favorite return yet!

I don't want to take advantage of Mr. Doerr's generosity, after all the guy's 97 years old. Not that I'm any authority, but personally, I'd say a requesting two or three cards per year is cool for free TTMs, and more than that's getting greedy. I sent Mr. Doerr one card last year that he kindly signed and promptly returned. Since it's a new year, I figured I'd try him again, this time with a couple cards I whipped up myself.

Really happy with this one! You may recall a few months ago I made a cut-auto Bobby Doerr Padres card using a signed index card. While I was happy with that card, I figured I would upgrade/supplement it with an on-card version. The familiar Conlon Collection design from the early 90s seemed like a good choice for a black & white photo (it's the only SD Doerr image I've been able to dig up). I'm finding black borders can be problematic (note the smudging near the bottom), not to mention all the ink needed, so going forward I will probably shy away from using such designs. But I'm still very pleased with how this turned out. And think about it; it's not very often here in 2016 that you can get a photo from 1936 signed by the subject! This photo was taken 80 YEARS AGO! Whoa! God bless you, Mr. Doerr!

The back focuses on his minor league career.

The cut-auto from last year for comparison.

Here's the second card he signed for me this time around:

True color photos from Doerr's playing days are few and far between. I was happy when I came across this one, as it was just what I was looking for to work into this design inspired by 1996 Leaf Signature Series. The photo looks like it's from late in his career, perhaps even from his coaching days. Maybe one of you awesome baseball nerds can date it by the shoulder patch.

The back isn't bad, though a little wordy, with a long bio paragraph.

Thank you again to the esteemed Mr. Bobby Doerr!
He really is a living legend in the baseball world, particularly a treasure to our card-collecting segment.

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While I'm tipping my cap to great, old ballplayers, let me take a belated moment to pay my respect to Monte Irvin. Like Doerr, Irvin was known as a very generous signer and all-around good man. He lived a long, full life, but nobody lives forever, and his time came earlier this month. He'll definitely be missed.

Let's take a look at a couple cool Monte Irvin cards I have...

You know I love the Topps Retired brand, and was happy to pick up this auto for under $15 back in 2013.

This 1951 Topps was the first such card I ever got (I've since added a Jerry Coleman). Got it for about the price of a blaster back in 2014. I love how this looks and have had it on display in my card room since I got it.

Rest in peace, Mr. Irvin.