Remembering my best Listia scores

I was just thinking of Listia the other day when reminiscing about my return to the hobby. I didn't have much disposable income at the time, so instead of spending real money on cards, I pretty much stuck to earning credits on Listia to turn into cardboard. I eventually got a decent job, allowing me to spend actual money on cards, and turned to eBay and the like, leaving the inflation and frustration of Listia behind.

But I logged in for the first time in almost a couple years to take a look. The last item I bought (a Tony Gwynn magnet) was Feb 24, 2016 . The last items I sold were an auto of former all-star (and currently detained drug trafficker) Esteban Loaiza on Sep 21, 2015, and my last hurrah, a couple Vin Scully customs on Apr 3, 2016. (I don't sell customs anymore.)

Digging into my purchase history, I found a few highlights to share and thought I'd get a blog post out of it.

I already posted about this Gaylord Perry 1966 Topps high-number years back, but it's still one of my all-time greatest auction wins. I have no idea what's the current exchange rate of credits (Listia is switching from "credits" to a new form of cryptocurrency now), but I'm sure 11,161 isn't much more than a couple bucks now. I don't think I've ever obsessed over winning a card more than this. It would be the first thing I thought about when I woke up! "Gotta win it! Gotta win it!" These days I'll just set a snipe and put it out of my mind.

This McGriff is a cool one because it's my first time dealing with a card blogger, back before I started my own blog. Spastikmooss of The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame blog and I have since done a handful of trades, and while this Listia transaction doesn't quite count as a trade, feels like this was an early cardsphere encounter, and as the comments show, I got him to combine a couple separate card auctions into one listing at a good price. Still a highlight of my Crime Dog PC.

This Rickey Henderson rookie was a steal at only 2000 credits. Almost feel bad for the seller, but hey, that was the "Get It Now" asking price they set. A poor listing title (just "baseball cards") and the main photo being the card back must have limited the number of views it got. I think it originally didn't have any pictures, which is why my comment there asks for some to be added, just to confirm it was legit. I chalk this one up to karma... Back when I was a kid first getting into baseball cards, I stupidly sold a Rickey rookie (I had no idea what I had) to a popular kid for some pocket change and it haunted me for a long time. So scoring this one so cheap felt like the cardboard gods making things right. (Talked more about this in a big post years back.)

So there are 3 memorable Listia pickups from the past. Good times, though I have no desire to get back into that site.
Thanks for stopping by!

Shaquille O'Neal auto display

Well, damn. Rocktober is off to a rough start. A horrific mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas, and the death of one of my all-time favorite musicians, Tom Petty. Life really sucks right now. It's hard to get motivated writing about cards (and music, as I was aiming for on the blog this month).

I was looking around my card room for something I could bust out a quick post on. Howabout this..

Tom Petty was from Florida, so here's an Orlando Magic card. It's one of my best basketball cards and I've been meaning to feature it on the blog for a long time, just haven't gotten around to it till now. It's a Shaquille O'Neal auto in a pretty legit display. I got the plaque back during my Listia days for what I recall was a relatively tiny amount of Listia credits (considerably less cash value than the postage the seller paid to send it to me). It included a Topps rookie card, I think, which was fine but didn't look too impressive in there. I wanted to "upgrade" the card to an auto, so I kept an eye on eBay for a while. It had to be a card from his Orlando days to jive with the nameplate, which really limited my search since most of the autos that pop up seem to be from his Lakers and Heat days. I eventually landed this 1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Pro Files card for a solid price.

Here's the back of the card. As you can see, it's hand-numbered 136/495. I'm under the impression that this is a pack-inserted certified auto, but I haven't been able to confirm that. Perhaps someone more educated in basketball cardboard history could weigh in on this for me.

I was never like a huge Shaq fan, but always liked him ok. Interesting, funny dude, and pretty dominant on the court in his prime. But yeah, I stumbled upon a decent display piece and was compelled to upgrade it with an autographed card, and here we are. I suppose this also sort of fits in with my musical theme for the month since he's put out a few albums as a rapper, though I never really listed to any of his stuff besides maybe catching a few short clips on TV.

Tom Petty on the other hand.. man, I'm gonna miss him. I think he's 3rd on the list of most songs in my iTunes library, behind only the Beatles and David Bowie. I'll have to work up a post later in the month with some of my favorite songs of his and stuff.

Thanks for reading.

Listia's got me shaking my head again

Gah, Listia these days, am I right? I've been pretty quiet on there recently. The inflation on credits has skyrocketed, yet as a seller, 499 is still the maximum opening bid without being penalized. So it's basically "feast or famine" on there now, with everything either selling for thousands of credits, or barely any at all.

The only thing I've won in the past two months was a 3-card lot for 100 credits.. which would convert to like 2¢ or so in money. What transpired was amusing enough to where I thought I'd get a post out of it. (And later I'll get to the '57 Ted Williams above.)

I'm no grammar Nazi, but this punctuation-challenged message gave me a chuckle. I wonder if she talks like William Shatner in person.

The cards showed up a few days later, each one in a separate envelope. Let me remind you it was one auction that included 3 cards, and I won it for the opening bid of 100 credits (2¢ or so) and free shipping. I felt bad for the lady spending nearly 2 bucks on postage, envelopes, and cute kitten stickers. But hey, if that's what she wants to do, so be it. She has nice penmanship (though I'm not sure why she felt the need to put the zip codes in parenthesis).

The cards arrived safely in sleeves apparently made from cut 9-pocket pages, wrapped in a piece of yellow paper. Perhaps a piece of cardboard would have been nice to help prevent bending, but otherwise I don't have much complaints about packaging. A lot of times getting cards from Listia from a lady seller will result in the card being tossed loose into an envelope. (Sorry if that sounded sexist; plenty of guys are bad at shipping cards too, but the ratio seems to be greater with females, as the majority of them aren't very familiar with the hobby.)

I didn't care about the Jody Reed or Glenn Hubbard cards; this Ken Caminiti UD Vintage was my sole interest in the lot. I very well may already have this one, I didn't bother to check. But for just 100 credits, who cares? Hopefully I needed it, though. I'll have to sort my Cammy PC one of these days and find out.


Changing gears now, there's a guy on Listia lately who has been selling a ton of homemade counterfeits-- OH, EXCUSE ME, I MEAN "REPRINTS."

"It looks 100% original and It does not have 'Reprint' stamped anywhere on it." 
Um, that's what's known as a counterfeit, asshole.

Look, I like making my own cards, too, and have even attempted (without much success) to make a buck off them, but I definitely disagree with making counterfeits. Even if I made a "reprint" of a card, I'd be sure to at least make a notation somewhere on the back distinguishing it from an authentic specimen. Shit like this is damaging to the hobby. I know he makes it clear in his auctions that it's a reprint, but what's to stop the person who wins it from turning around and trying to resell it without mentioning it's a fake? If they get busted they can plead ignorance, but maybe they'll get lucky and find a sap who gets fooled. Or maybe it wouldn't even be malicious, but like.. down the road, the guy who buys the card dies and his family sells the card under the impression it's legit? It's just a bad idea all around to make counterfeits, polluting the marketplace with fakes.

This guy makes a ton of counterfeits from all years and sports, which he likes to proclaim as "Stunning & Mint" in the item's title for the modern cards he copies. He gets cute artificially aging his vintage counterfeits, like the Williams and Mays above, sometimes overdone to a comical degree.

But yeah, I really have a problem with people doing this shit. I've rambled here in the past about how homemade cards will be the death of the hobby, and my fear definitely hasn't lessened. It's tempting to try reporting this guy or try reasoning with him or something so he'd hopefully knock it off. But that's probably futile so I'll instead just block him.. out of sight, out of mind. I'm sure stuff like this is on eBay too, it's just easier to stumble upon in the smaller pond that is Listia.

Anyways, that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by. What are your thoughts on all this?

Wock the Fuss?!

Hey guys. Here are some recent Listia wins.

Leading with the eye candy, here's a new AJ Lee card for my collection. I heard she retired from the WWE recently. This was after she had been outspoken about equal pay for female wrestlers. Nice to see she's more than just a pretty face. Wishing her all the best his her post-wrestling life. (Being out of the spotlight, hopefully her card prices will eventually cool off to where I can pick up an auto reasonably. They used to eBay for around $30 just a year or so ago when I started collecting her, now it's more like $70, and we're just talking base stickergraphs.)

One seller had several auctions going for various 73's last week. I bid on many, and ended up with these 4. A little chagrinned that it turns out I already had them all-- could have sworn I checked my needs before adding each to my watchlist-- but these seem to be condition upgrades for me at least, so it's fine.

A couple swanky Goldschmidt inserts. Think I used Get-It-Now for each of these, sacrificing patience for some extra credits.

I got this one just as I was wrapping up my Piazza collection, so it's a little late to the party, but kind of a cool card. I didn't bother to make a gif, but it's a lenticular card with the explosions in the background moving around.

I opened the post with a sexy card, so now let's close it with more sexiness: an auto of the legendary silly-named great John Wockenfuss. Ain't it a beauty?

Thanks for taking a look. Catch ya next time.

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.

Big mailday (package vs. letter postage?)

Mondays suck. But at least there seems to be a greater-than-average chance of cards in my mailbox thanks to the Sunday build-up. Let's check out the 4 mailings I received yesterday (and take a look at the shipping methods).

First package was from Julie at A Cracked Bat. Not to come off as a neanderthal, but I believe this was my first-ever instance of trading cards with a girl. Hopefully it's the first of many. Boys are gross.

Julie was able to get away with sending a bubble mailer with postage of $1.10, which impressed me greatly. Anytime I send a package like that, it's at least $2.32. As such, I try to stick to PWEs when I can. When I sent Julie cards a few days earlier, I used 2 separate PWEs (about 8 cards per) with a Forever stamp on each. I probably could have saved a few cents if I loaded up a long envelope, but alas.

But back to the the varying postage cost to send a bubble mailer.. I guess it depends if it falls into the definition of envelope or package. Maybe that's a grey area. Technically a bubble mailer is more of an envelope than it is a box, right? But I'm under the impression the USPS counts these as packages. Hmm. But yeah, if you can get away with calling it an envelope, I guess you can save a little money.

Julie used to work for USPS, if I recall her mentioning, so she must be a postage pro! Any good mailing tips to pass on?

But back to cards...

Julie offered up a bunch of off-condition Kellogg's cards on Valentine's Day and I called dibs on these two greats. The rest of the cards were surprises, as Julie checked my wantlist for guys I collect.

A couple Rickeys, including a thick Triple Threads base card and an always-appreciated Padres-era Rickey.

A couple Piazza cards I didn't have.

A couple legendary catchers.

A couple batting champs, Musial and Boggs.

Marcus Giles jersey relic! And a Padres one, at that! Very cool. And love the Ozzie Smith oddball.

Great stuff. Thanks, Julie! I hope the cards I sent in return are ok.


Next up were a couple Listia wins from the same guy.. a couple Roberto Alomar cards. He sent each card in a separate PWE. I always think this is so dumb to waste a stamp when you could combine both for the same postage. But maybe that would throw off the dude's flow or whatever. And I guess it's true that every once in a while a buyer gets confused when you send 2 separate wins in 1 envelope. "Where's the rest of my stuff?" It's all there, buddy.

I thought I had knocked Robbie off my wantlist thanks to accumulating 100 different cards, but then I counted and came up just a few cards short. So back to Listia for a cheap card here and there. I think now I've made it. Or at least on the cusp. Need to count again.


Next is Bru from Remember the Astrodome. He read my recent post about Ken Caminiti and graciously answered my call for more Caminiti cards.

Awesome! My Caminiti PC is much more respectable now.

And Bru didn't just stop there:

A few more guys I collect. Very appreciated! Thanks a ton, Bru. I'll try to hit you back with some cards you need soon.

Oh, and as for postage, Bru stuffed a long envelope and stuck on a couple 32 cent stamps. The letter arrived marked 27 cents postage due, but thankfully the mailman was cool and delivered it as normal.


We close with a stuft PWE (91 cent stamp, I think) from Johnny's Trading Spot. Man, John has really generously bombed me with cards over the past few months!

A bunch of Gavin Floyd cards, including a sweet numbered jersey stripe, and a nice looking relic from Brian Giles.

Bunch o' Bip! Love the Duracell card. Hell, I love all these, even if I already had some of them. Those Black Gold cards from 1993 Topps are still probably my favorite insert set of all-time. Close to the top, at least.

And more Brian Giles! Wow, this is a Giles Brothers-heavy post. I'm certain I've hit 100 different cards for Brian, so he's officially off the wantlist for now. I couldn't have done it without you, John! Thanks again. I've pretty much tapped out my Braves and other stuff I had set aside for you with the last package I sent you, so forgive me if it takes a while for me to get some return cards out your way.

There you go. Thanks again to Julie, Bru, and John for the cards.
And thank you for reading.

weekly roundup

I wasn't familiar with these SSPC puzzle cards (the backs form a picture when you collect them all, sort of like Topps All-Star cards did back in the day), but a seller has been making it rain with these things on Listia lately. I bid on a few but only ended up winning Cobra here. These are larger than a standard card, so storage might be an issue. I also won a '75 SSPC Ted Williams manager card from the same seller in a separate auction, but it never arrived. Not cool. Hope it shows up eventually.
790 credits

Hey, there's my girl, AJ Lee! What a nice looking card that is. Mmmm. This was a 2-card lot and the dude with the goofy look on his face is apparently CM Punk, whom I'm to believe is married to AJ, though I'm not sure if that's just "on the show" or in real life.
808 credits

This was a 6-card lot of Robbie Alomar, but I only scanned the three I needed. That's not a young David Ortiz in that '95 Score card on the right, though I did have to do a double take.
510 credits

I feel kinda dirty winning 3 separate auctions for D-back cards. But 2 Goldschmidts and a Randy Johnson.. not too bad. I think that card on the left might be my first 2014 Stadium Club card. I know most of the blogosphere was smitten with the product, but honestly it fills me with indifference.
963 credits total

I'm sure you guys are just as sick as I am of seeing Gavin Escobar cards on my blog. Let's hope this is the last one for a while. But I couldn't pass up this #'d 61/99 parallel (The Roger Maris eBay 1/1, after all! lol).
2000 credits

One evening I got a little buzzed threw bids in on a few random cards that were ending soon. This was one of them. I love those 2011 cognac parallels. Liquorfractors, that is. If I had more time, I would have made it an animated gif. Just doesn't seem right letting it sit there flat and still!
503 credits

Tattoos of Padre legends Tony and Rickey!

Through the magic of technology, this is what the tattoo looks like when it's not backwards.
1000 credits

Vogelmoster! For some reason I have to collect everybody P-town Tom collects.
305 credits

Two "girlie cards" in one week? Yep. This was from my earlier drunken Listia spree. I was bidding on a different girlie card, but lost out. Desperate and frustrated, I went looking for other girlie card auctions about to end. Kind of like last call at the singles bar. One thing led to another and Jeisa here came home with me. Sure, she's no AJ Lee, but still quite lovely. However, in the sober light of day, I'm left questioning my choices and not seeing a long-term future with her.
404 credits, though, so not a big deal


Webtraffic:

dedicating this weekly roundup [1/21] - 57 views.

Concern over counterfeit and custom cards on the market [1/22] - 319 views.

Joy of a completed set: 2001 Topps Archives Reserve [1/24] 77 views.

The future of sticker autos [1/25] 105 views.

Paying Topps to advertise for them [ 1/27] 50+ views.

It was a big week for Baseball Card Breakdown! My paranoid ramblings on counterfeits and customs reached a lot of people. (Really, though, it's something I feel strongly about so I'm glad it got some traction. Big thanks to everyone who retweeted it on Twitter for helping get the word out.) My post about acetate auto cards also got a nice number of hits. The guy from The Breaks even tweeted about it and said kind things about my blog. He's a bit of a celebrity in the collecting world, so that was super cool to get a shout-out from him.

Well, thanks for stopping by.

dedicating this weekly roundup

First off, congrats to Marcus over at all the way to the backstop and his wife for welcoming their 3rd child into the world yesterday. Allow me to "dedicate" this scan to newborn Maxwell Coleman:

Yes, it's a beautiful vintage 1956 Topps card of his middle-namesake, Jerry Coleman. Last time I saw a vintage Coleman pop up on Listia, I was tight on credits and could only watch it sail by. Luckily these days my virtual account is relatively bountiful, so I was able to pony up 7050 credits on this excellent addition to my PC of the Colonel. Actually, there don't seem to be a whole lot of mainstream playing-days cards left of his that I need, so I might be able to finish off his flagship Topps and Bowman runs sometime in the foreseeable future. Nice.

This scan is dedicated to The Card Papoy

Sticking with vintage, but changing sports, here's a sweet 81-82 Topps Julius Erving. I'm not a big non-baseball collector, but love occasionally picking up all-time greats such as Dr. J here. There's a bit a wax residue on the front that the seller neglected to mention, but it's fine. Set me back 1499 credits.

This scan is dedicated to Daniel Wilson

I've again struck gold(schmidt)! Sorry for the pun. My Paul Goldschmidt collection keeps expanding every week. That A&G is an SP. One of these came with a Marty Akins college football card I don't need, but was a cool bonus from the seller regardless.

I'll dedicate this one to Robert at $30 a Week Habit and Mark Hoyle. You guys gotta share the dedication, sorry.

Here are a couple more fixtures to my Listia recaps, Roberto Alomar and David Ortiz. The two of these Latin American greats are racing to see who gets off my wantlist first. (Once I accumulate 100 different cards of a player, I stop actively collecting him.. that's my plan for 2015 anyways.) And the end is in sight for both of them. The Robbie card is from 1995 Stadium Club, while Big Papi shares this 2012 Heritage card with Will Middlebrooks.. who I think might be a Padre now, if I'm not mistaken. So if he has a good season, I'll probably start collecting him too.

This one goes out to ARPSmith. --Well, the card stays with me, but I dedicate the scan to him.

Rod Beck is another bargain-bin favorite of mine. (Is that his hair, or is he standing in front of a dead bush?) Back when Wallet Card was getting started, at least a couple participants noted that these Studio faux credit cards would be perfect choices for the game. But perhaps a little too "on the nose," and I don't think anybody ultimately ended up picking one of these for their wallet card. This card, from 1995 Studio, has pointy corners, rather than the rounded corners most of these types of inserts seem to have.
This card came in an auction along with a Matt Williams insert I don't need. (The trouble with collecting a select few Giants is I end up with plenty of Giants that I don't want.)

So those are the Listia wins that showed up since last time. Now onto the webtraffic.

A young Gerbil tops this week's recap (1/14) 38 views. Man, I hate to bitch about clicks, but just 38 views for a post boasting a vintage rookie card of a big name? Oh well. Let's hope today's recap post can comeback with a decent turnout, otherwise I should probably think about nixing the concept.

A couple lots from Sportlots [HT throughout] (1/15) 63 views. This was a fun post with "hidden text" sprinkled within it. Got off to a slow start, but eventually blew past the 50-view target.

Tom Fordham went to my high school (Guys from Granite) (1/17) 35 views. The least-viewed post in quite a long time [*sob, sniff*]. But yeah, I get that Tom Fordham isn't exactly a sexy name. Thank goodness for Matthew Scott, the only person to comment on the last two Guys from Granite posts, for keeping my streak without a comment-less post alive. But now we're into the top 3, which are interesting "known" guys, so I'm hopeful the ratings for this series will rebound as we head toward the finale next month.

more silly animated gifs of baseball cards! (1/19) 90 views. There we go! I had to bring my A-game to help stir up some support for "blog of the year" award voting currently underway. Animated gifs of cards are always fun to whip up and usually get a good reception. The first 3 gifs were made the prior evening. Then that night I had the idea for the airplane one and whipped it up before work the next morning. I'm glad I did, because it cracks me up and seems to be most peoples' favorite too. Anyways, if you haven't voted yet, don't forget to exercise your democratic right and do so both here (A Cardboard Problem) and here (2 x 3 Heroes).

Alright, that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by!

A young Gerbil tops this week's recap

It's time once again for the Baseball Card Breakdown Weekly Wednesday (W)roundup.

I haven't been doing a whole lot of trading lately, though I've been active on Listia, so that sort of feels like trading. I keep on selling cards from my trade boxes (mostly football cards from a pennybox I bought at a card show a couple months ago), and then spending the proceeds on cool cards for my collection.

Here's my big score for the week...

Don Zimmer 1955 Bowman rookie card. It's in rough shape, but not too pricey, so I'm ok with it. Zim is a guy I've sort of started collecting over the past year. As I've said before, being a Padres fan doesn't allow for many vintage cards (pre-1969) to go after. So pre-Padres cards of prominent future-Padres is a decent solution for team-minded vintage collecting. And Zimmer fits into that group thanks to beginning his managerial career with San Diego in 1972-1973. And beyond that, he's just such an iconic baseball lifer who's fun to collect, and inexpensive for a "household name" from that era. This card features a rare photo from before he was bitten by a radioactive gerbil that morphed him into an adorable man-gerbil hybrid. In the offseason, I can picture Gerbil-Man in full costume fighting crime and promoting youth baseball in the inner-city. He was a good one.

Gaylord Perry is another oldtimer-turned-Padre. I had his 73 Topps card already, but picked up another for my setbuild. (I could've sworn I also won an autographed copy of this card on Listia a couple years back, but it's gone missing. I hope it turns up someday.) The Jim Hickman was another set need. It's a high number (#565). I'm approaching the homestretch with this set, currently at 86.55% complete.

Seems like one of the very few Padres-era cards of his I was missing, but didn't have Roberto Alomar's 1988 Fleer Update rookie, so put in a bid and won it cheap. Expect Robbie to be a mainstay on these Listia roundups until I finally crack 100 of his cards.

Love adding new Jerry Coleman cards to my collection. This also came with a similar Bill Dickey I don't need. Unfortunately they came from a clueless seller who threw the cards loose in an envelope, so of course corners were dinged in shipment. Oh well. (BTW, I'm really excited about another card of The Colonel I won recently.. look for it in next week's roundup.)

Paul Goldschmidt 2004 Topps AS camo #'d 55/99. Sweet.

Classic looking Mike Trout card. Set me back just 391 credits.

Doug Flutie is pretty cool. This card is #'d /1999 and cost me 495 credits. "Zone of their own" rhymes. I should start a minicollection comprised of subsets/insert sets that have a rhyming name.(No, I shouldn't! But someone should. Nick? John Miller?) "Call to the Hall" and the like. Now I'm trying to think of more. "Bringers of Dingers" isn't a real insert set (according to an eBay search I just did), but it should be. You guys should make up some fake rhyming insert names of your own in the comments below. Panini will be all over them.


Not pictured: David Ortiz lot of 15 cards. Sorry, I filed them away before scanning. I needed nearly all of them, so that was nice. Included were a couple sparkly cards and a couple numbered cards. The seller was delayed on sending and made up for it by including several more Red Sox.. very cool of him. Some of them I could use, and the rest will be headed to Hoyle. I'm now up to 85 different Big Papi cards. Just 15 more to knock him off my wantlist and into the Hundred Card Club.


Now for the part where I guilt you for not reading everything I post, also known as the webtraffic roundup.

A phantom card haunts this week's Listia recap [1/7] 78 views. Pretty good.

Chris Jones, but not that Chris Jones (Guys from Granite) [1/9] 44 views. If you skipped this post, you should at least scroll down to the "fake cards" because the photoshopping is so bad they're good for a laugh.

Sock Card ain't no game [1/12] 55 views. A gripping, spine-tingling story from my childhood about the time I stole a baseball card. I'm thinking about turning it into a screenplay.

Surprise Hoyling [1/13] 38 views. Recap of a nice package of cards from Mark Hoyle.

And the charts.

So, not a bad week, but a sharp dropoff from the Wallet Card hype the week prior. Perhaps Wallet Card will end up being the Simpsons to my Tracey Ullman Show. By that I mean it will grow in popularity and go on for a very long time.. Long after the origins are forgotten and gone. But hey, if that ends up being my blog's legacy, I'm ok with that!

Anyways, here's my second-favorite gerbil hero behind Gerbil-Man: Lemmiwinks.