It's that time of year when free time and energy are in short supply. But I want to blog, so I'll try to keep it short and post some cards I've been meaning to give a moment in the spotlight.
I've had a little PC going for Tim Anderson for a few years now, but apparently I hadn't thumbed through my White Sox tradeables in even longer, because when I finally did the other day (looking for cards for a trade offer that fell flat), I found a bunch of his cards that I didn't realize I had, including these above highlights. While having a well-organized collection is nice, I'm sure, it's also fun to occasionally stumble upon cards you forgot you had.
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And speaking of forgetting about certain cards, when I posted my Yu Darvish PC last month, I neglected to include my lone 1/1 of him. I used to occasionally pull the trigger on the "blank back" gimmicks that Topps Vault sells on eBay.
Nothing too exciting, but hey, I can truthfully say I own a Yu Darvish 1/1. I looked it up, and this set me back $5.97 in a big Topps Vault order that also included similar 2017 Holiday blank backs for Christian Yelich and Dinelson Lamet, along with old signed Topps contracts for Matt Ginter and Marcus Giles. While Topps Vault still sells blank back cards like this for newer sets, looks like their supply of contracts has dried up, as it's been a while since I've seen the account offer any for sale. (To read more about these contracts, check my big post from 2015.)
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Check out these awesome customs I got from Gregory at the Nine Pockets blog! Love 'em! Thanks for the generosity, Greg! If you missed out on the giveaway, he sells them at a very fair price too.
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Shiny parallels from Topps Pristine and All-Time Fan Favorites are super cool. It might be anachronistic, to use a fancy word, but I love refractors of old timers who played before shiny cards were a thing. (Well ok, Charlie Hough pitched so long, he actually made it into the refractor era and was included in the inaugural refractor class of '93 Finest [and also had a '94 Finest card]) But yeah, sometimes I take a look at what's available and might pull the trigger if one catches my eye for a decent price like the above did. The Bucky is a gold die-cut refractor, though calling it die-cut just because they gave it slightly bumpy edges feels like a stretch.
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And one last shiny old-timer to close out the post...
Looks like a previous owner was so proud of this Bert Blyleven 2003 Topps Retired refractor auto that they displayed it in the sun for too long, and the signature is now considerably faded. But hey, it wasn't too pricey so I figured I'd take a flier on it. I hear Bert is a dependable TTM signer (with fee), so I'm planning to send this in for a new coat of ink and hope he's gracious enough to fulfill the odd request. But I'll wait until the new year when the post office settles down from the holiday surge. For now my question is: should I try to get off the remnants of the original auto? A little rubbing alcohol maybe? I should probably do a test run on a Chrome "junk auto" first to make sure it doesn't otherwise damage the card.
Nice career. The year this card came out, Bert received 29.2% of the vote for his Hall of Fame candidacy. He eventually made it to the magic number of votes in 2011.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope your December isn't stressing you out too much!
I've finally rented through Seinfeld on DVD and am watching the end now as I start drafting this up. I originally watched the show back in the day when it was on, and then scattered repeats in syndication over the years, but haven't hit it in order since the original run. My wife isn't a big fan, so it's been an activity for the evenings she's out at grad school.
This doesn't have much to do with a pack war, but maybe we'll pull a Keith Hernandez or Roger McDowell or something loosely related. Al Newman, even. Wouldn't that be great and tie this post together?! Fingers crossed!
Today we'll be pairing off junk wax against the last 2 packs of the discounted 2015 Bowman blaster I picked up a month or so ago.
Let's do it!
The first challenger is 1991 Fleer, packing a bright yellow punch.
Oh right, the foil names on these Bowman cards don't show up very well. Probably not the best product for this. Oh well. That Brewer guy vs. Jay Howell. No score.
A Giant vs. Rosario. No score. Oh, and looking at the edge of the photo, we learn that previous Brewer was Matt Garza.
Here we go.. Eric Hosmer vs. Rock Raines. Gotta go with Raines. Hopefully HOF voters get him in on this final chance on the ballot coming up.
Hough is tough enough. 2-0 Fleer.
Smoltz has this one easily. 3-0 Fleer.
No score.
No score.
Yawn. No score.
Eh, let's get Bowman on the board here. Fleer 4, Bowman 1.
Too close to call.
Bonus point for Fleer's surplus of cards and a sticker.
Final score: Fleer 5, Bowman 1. Congrats, Fleer.
Next up...
Bowman asks for another shot. 1987 Topps takes that challenge.
The gum was very crumbly. Gotta admit I ate a tiny piece of it for old times' sake. As the saying goes, "If it's brown, put it down. If it's pink, it's ok, I think." It was fine, though I didn't want to tempt fate eating the whole thing.
Blarf.
Hey, that's Mike Trout! Suck it, Traber. Bowman up 1-0.
The name Chico is always good for a point. 1-1 tie. Also, Chico sounds close to Bosco. Bosco!
Johnny Ray always gets "We Didn't Start The Fire" stuck in my head. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Topps 2, Bowman 1.
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
I remember as a kid thinking how did a light-hitting second baseman make it into this song. I mean, sure, he led the league in doubles a couple times and often hit around .300, but he's hardly on the same level as Joe DiMaggio! LOL
Hey, it's the surgery guy, Dr. Thomas Jonathan. Point! 3-1
That's a great Floyd Rayford card, but gotta give it to the A's kid, in the spirit of this Seinfeld edition of Pack Skirmish.
"It was shrinkage, Jerry!"
Topps 3, Bowman 2.
Hmm.. this is tough.. shiny insert vs. Willie Wilson. I guess Appel just barely squeaks by. Tied up at 3.
It's Tiger vs. Tiger. But what's this?...
Oh man, the gum managed to damage through the card to the front. That's crazy. Immediate disqualification for The Bergman. Point to Bowman.
Gotta give it to the former Padre. Wisler's doing ok for the Braves these days, picking up the win yesterday. Bowman taking a good lead, 5-3.
Hey, it's not Keith, but teammate Sid Fernandez is close enough. Were this not Seinfeld Edition, Altuve would certainly take this round. But it is. Topps inches back, down a point, 5-4.
Oh, the good times they shared!
Bowman is tapped out. Topps keeps on swinging. Up off the mat to end in a 5-all tie.
Here are the highlights from the other packs in the Bowman blaster that I opened earlier:
A shimmering mini of Eric Jagielo. He went to the Reds in the Chapman deal and has been struggling in AA this season.
Those grey parallels are among the most boring ever, but hey, I won't say no to a numbered Nick Castellanos card. He's having a great year, hitting .340 so far.
And the best card of the blaster, the diecut Francisco Lindor #'d /99. Last year's AL ROY runner-up is having himself a very nice 2016 season, too.
That's it. I'll admit this was a clunker of a post. Sorry. I'm just gonna dump this out midday Saturday where not many people will see it.
But thanks for making it thru! Hope you're having a nice weekend.
I've done it! I've reached the "Tough Schmidt" point in my 1973 Topps setbuild. If you're unfamiliar, that's the term for when you've completed the set aside from the pesky top value card, #615 "Rookie Third Basemen" Ron Cey/John Dave Hilton/Mike Schmidt. (I realize the old gag of Schmidt sounding close to shit is getting pretty played out at this point, and for that I'm sorry.)
You may recall a few weeks ago, I got cute and tried to obtain #615 before knocking out the rest of the set. The cardboard gods punished me for this impudence and the card I had bought turned out to be a fake. That's right: Counterfeit Schmidt! I learned my lesson and put that card on the backburner while I picked off the rest of my needs. The final few cards come thanks to COMC and eBay. Let's check out a few highlights of these latecomers.
The Schmidt RC gets all the attention, but honestly I'm just about as excited over this Dwight Evans rookie. Dewy is sort of a sleeper PC for me; his card aren't often on the forefront of my cardboard agenda, but I always really love 'em when they enter my collection. So I'm happy to now own the RC of this Hall-worthy Boston legend.
Surprisingly to me, these boring ol' checklists were a couple of the trickiest cards to land. The high-number checklist in particular is just silly. Even ugly, marked-up copies often sell around $10. I figured if I have to pay decent money for a friggin checklist, I'm gonna go all-out and get a nice clean one. And so I ended up with this graded one for about the price of a blaster. It's the only graded card currently in my setbuild and the costliest 73 for me to date, though it will be surpassed in that department once I buy the Schmidt, I'm sure.
The Yankees team card was also tough to find at a reasonable price. I had some patience and won this one on eBay for about $5 shipped.
It was very satisfying to finally complete the set of team checklists. These little buggers can be deceptively hard to find (in contrast to the similar red versions from 1974). I would like to eventually upgrade the roughly half of these I own that are marked up on the back. The cheapest I paid was 50¢ each on Sportlots for some marked-up ones, while the most was $3 for the Reds on COMC, surprisingly elusive.
Here are a couple of the bigger "All-Time Leader" subset cards. I was happy to have my offers accepted on COMC that shaved off a couple bucks bringing them each to a very reasonable price.
1973 Topps #20 Stan Bahnsen variations
Ah, my trio of Stan Bahnsen variations. Turns out I had the "big gap" version and the "small gap" but I was missing the corrected "no gap" version. Picked it up on COMC for 35¢ (and even that one has a minor border issue at the top.. Geez, why did Topps have so much border problems with this particular card?). There's still a 4th known variation that maybe I'll bother to add someday if I really want to be exhaustive. It's the one with a big left gap and no right gap. As you can see, mine (left) also has a small right gap, which is ultra mega rare and probably worth a few hundred dollars if I could get a couple 1973 Topps mastercollectors in a bidding war over it.
Finally for today, here's a Charlie Hough rookie. Or is it?! Nope, Hough had already been included in a 3-player rookie card in 1972 Topps, so this here is actually his second-year card. But being a high-number, it's generally more valuable than his actual RC. I lucked out and grabbed this one on eBay for just a couple bucks shipped.
So I'm at 99% complete, with only the Schmidt standing in the way of cardboard immortality (hey, Cardboard Immortality would make a good blog name-- someone out there thinking about starting a card blog should use that! "The Cardboard Agenda" would be a good one too). My plan is to see at next weekend's card show if my favorite dealer still has the copy he had at last month's show.. and if so, what kind of deal he could offer me for it. If that doesn't pan out, I'll just keep an eye on eBay, placing low/mid-level bids here and there hoping to luck out with one.
