I know I said I wasn't going to be posting much for the next few weeks. And you guys are probably thinking, "How can we miss you if you don't go away?" But it would be rude of me not to acknowledge incoming mail from the cardsphere.
First up is a contest win (?) from Johnny's Trading Spot. I don't know exactly what happened, but he posted asking me and AJ to pick between blue and green, then a week or so later I received a PWE from him.
Yes! I'm pulling away from the pack for the title of #1 Luis Torrens collector! This 2013 Panini Elite Extra Edition - Status Emerald #'d 04/25 gives me an "insurance run" over the collector with the 2nd most Torrenses.
Nice.. Glow Stars are always appreciated regardless if I already have them. The same cannot be said for Gavin Floyd cards, but I'm John's designated Gavin depository, like it or not. LOL. And I'm not sure if those Celebrity Predictions cards were intended for a particular avenue of my collection (if so, help me out, John.. I'm at a loss) or were just some randomness to spice up the envelope.
Regardless.. Thank you, John!
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Next up is friend of the blog Larry P. coming through with a hefty stack of 1992 Leaf Black Gold for my setbuild. Love these! This lot takes me from about a quarter complete way up to nearly scratching at the halfway point now. Thanks, Larry!
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Last one for today is a terrific surprise package from Brian over at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. I included him in my small holiday mailblast back in December, sending over a few decent Twins cards I had accumulated for him over the prior months. He hit me back with a vengeance.
Speaking of the holidays... These ornament cards are fun, and it's always nice to add a new Gwynn to the PC.
1964 Topps needs! I've been slacking on this setbuild the past year or two, so it's very appreciated when a trade buddy can help breath life into the quest with a few needs. Highlighted by the Batting Leaders card featuring Yaz and Kaline, this lot brings me to 73.68% complete, with 155 cards remaining.
Wow, a trio of early Gavin Cecchini autos! The former Mets first-rounder is currently in camp with the Diamondbacks on a minor league deal. I hope he's able to regain his form and make it up to Chase Field this season.
The festive Trout is nice, and I'm pretty sure that's my first certified auto of Chase Headley. Pretty cool.
A couple impressive José Ramírez cards! Hoping he bounces back to have an all-star 2020.
Ok, it's now last call. Let's close things out with a strong Beer...
Boom!! Christmas Card autograph of a current top prospect! That's what I'm talking about!
The Astros chose to draft Beer in the 1st round (28th overall) in 2018. Next thing you know, Seth hops over to the Diamondbacks org last summer, part of the package bringing Zack Greinke to Houston. The 23-year old chugged his way to a robust .897 OPS in the minors so far in his professional career and is ranked as Arizona's #4 prospect at the moment. I'll drink to that!
This is my first Bowman Next AFL card. I'm not sure how these things were distributed, but I assume it's an "online exclusive" type of deal (Looks reminiscent of Topps Now). As you can see, it's encased.. and no, I don't plan to crack open this Beer anytime soon. (I might need to PC this guy for the beer puns alone!)
Awesome stuff. Big thanks, Brian! I'll have to hit you back with a few more cards soon to try balancing the scales.
I almost forgot to switch out my wallet card like I've done every year since I began keeping a wallet card in 2015. Seeing as I haven't left the house all week thanks to this brutal stomach flu, I haven't actually had my wallet on my person yet in 2020, so no harm done. Let's switch it out now.
2019's wallet card was a lovely specimen of 1991 Topps featuring Mr. Tony Gwynn. It looks great! He didn't get to go on many great adventures, but he was with me through the ups and downs of 2019.
From checking the wallet card label on blog, looks like I only tagged a couple posts as having wallet card photos in 2019, the first of which being a recap of a beach trip where Tony got to dip his toe into the Pacific.
The only other wallet card appearance on the blog for the year was a 4th of July walk to grab a couple beers. Snapped a pic of Annie with the card and a dog toy she found. Man, she was a great pup and my wife and I miss her a ton.
Here is the "Before" picture from last year.
I was stressing out trying to pick a new wallet card for 2020. I'm running at diminished capacity due to the illness, so it's no easy task. Sometimes when I stay home sick, I can still be productive and do stuff around the house, maybe work on custom cards in my "to do" list (Haven't forgotten your dad, Nick!), but this time I haven't been able to do much besides sit on the couch. Even typing this post is pushing my limits right now! Let's seque now into this post going off the rails a little bit.
Check out these Moana stickers that were available in Kellogg's cereal in 2016. Oh, and they glow! I'm not sure if I should count these in my list of glowing trading cards. They are as wide as a card, but not as tall. Hey, they fit in my glow-in-the-dark cards binder, so they've got a home there, at least.
They look pretty good glowing.
My wife surprised me with some Kinetic Sand for Christmas. This stuff is a TRIP! It even caused Chewbacca and Cobra Commander to broker a peace treaty while the Han Solo Brothers look on under the watchful eye on Boba Fett. It's like sand but weird and clean, almost like wool or something. Pretty fun.
Speaking of Star Wars, the 2019 Festival of Lightsabers concluded yesterday. That was a late end. Usually it takes place during the week between Xmas and New Years. (My "x" key has been sticking on this laptop so I have to really pound it.. annoying. (
I used to keep track of the festival in a text file, but I seem to have lost it, so now I use my blog as a journal and keep in here. So you can scroll down past this; it's just for my records.
FESTIVAL OF LIGHTSABERS : history
2007 - 1st Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I, II, III
IV, V, VI - special editions
2008 - 2nd Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I II III
IV V VI - original theatrical versions
Ewok movies
2009 - 3rd Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I II III
IV V VI - theatrical
2010 - 4th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I [The Phantom Edit fan edit]
II [Attack of the Phantom fan edit]
III [regular]
IV V VI - special editions
Robot Chicken star wars special I
Family Guy - something something dark side [empire]
Star Wars Holiday Special w/ Rifftrax commentary
2011 - 5th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Family Guy - It's a Trap [Jedi]
Clone Wars II animated film
III
IV V VI - original theatrical versions
Family Guy - Something, Something Dark Side [Empire]
2012 - 6th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Rifftrax prequels
Trilogy special editions
2013 - 7th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
New Hope [original]
Empire [original]
Clones
Sith
Family Guy (New Hope)
Jedi [original]
2014 - 8th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I, II, III
IV, V, VI - special editions
2015 - 9th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
IV - special edition
V - special edition
II "Attack of the Phantom" fan edit
III
VI - theatrical
VII (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
+ All 3 Family Guy specials
+ Fanboys
2016 - 10th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
25 - Rogue One (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
26 - A New Hope (special edition)
27 - Empire (special edition)
28 - Attack of the Clones
29 - Revenge of the Sith
30 - Jedi (special edition)
31 - Force Awakens
2017 - 11th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
24 - Force Awakens
25 - Last Jedi (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
26 - Family Guy Blue Harvest + Robot Chicken SW Episode I
27 - Rogue One
28 - IV (theatrical)
29 - Family Guy Something Something Darkside + Robot Chicken SW Episode II (I also watched the Star Wars episode of that Netflix "Toys That Made Us" show)
30 - V (theatrical) + Robot Chicken SW Episode III
31 - VI (theatrical) + Family Guy It's a Trap
2018 - 12th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
26 - Solo
27 - Rogue One
28 - A New Hope (special edition)
29 - Empire (special edition)
30 - Jedi (special edition)
31 - The Force Awakens
1/1 - The Last Jedi
2019 - 13th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Force AWakens
Last Jedi
Rise of Skywalker (imaxx 3d on xmas day)
Star Wars Holiday Special (first time watching it without funny Rifftrax commentary. My wife was like WTF?)
New Hope (SE)
Empire (SE)
Return of the Jedi (SE)
..also watched Empire of Dreams, the behind-the-scenes SW doc (via Amazon Prime). Also started watching Clone Wars and the Mandalorian on Disney+.
No prequels this year. Almost watched Rogue One, but something came up. Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on NYE (just like Tom Hanks always does!). I got that onn Blu-ray for mas (XXmas). That's a great and strange film. I also got the Back to the Future trilogo on bluray but we haven't watched them yet. I'm going to not fi typos for the rest of this post as it is off the rails and therefore I don't need to.
I love Pee-Wee's Playhouse. In 2019, the "big post I need to finish" was the glow-in-the-dark cards post. Didn't finish that one until made it my mission to finish it as a tribute to my pup, plus it gave me something to take my mind off things during that rough time. In 2020, I think the post that'll be my new albatross will be my big Pee-Wee cards post. It'll be a lot, but I hope to publish it "soon".
I mentioned it on Twitter, but in that above shot, you've got legendary Dave Letterman prop Calvert DeForest (Larry "Bud" Melman), plus the girl of the left is in this video..
And the boy is in the Mighty Ducks and the girl on the right is in Orange Is The New Black and other stuff.
I've been neglecting my List of cards in movies and TV (I guess with all the time spent on my big list of glowing cards it's hard for me to keep up 2 different lists of cards at once! klol)
But yeah, here's a baseball card in Friends.
I wish I knew how to add an outline/border to my pictures I put on blogger. The white borders of this card get lost. When you see cards on my blog, I pride myself on also showing you the corners and edges. I don't crop cards too close because then you lose some of their story. This image was taken from TCDB, I believe.
Back to Friends.. we were binggging it a bit trying to get thru as much as we could before it was taken off Netflix streaming when the calendar changed. We made it to Season 6, Episode 17 "The One with Unagi". That Duane Ward '92 UD card appears in a few Season 6 episodes back on the bulletin board in Joey/Chandler's place. Matthew Perry (Chandler man) was raised in Canada (born in US), so maybe that's the significance of the Blue Jay on the corkboard.
My wife has watched all the Friends many times, but me, I watched the first few seasons back when they were new, but I lost interest and stopped sometime in the final few seasons. I've still never seen the finale, though I know generally what happens (NO SPoilers but Ross and Phoebe Buffay end up together, I'm pretty sure! lol)
Shoeless Joe makes an appearance too!
RIP Don Larsen.
How'd I do on my goals in 2019?
I don't think I made any. I didn't finish any of my big setbuilds I'm working on, but made a lot of progress. As I've got several builds going at once, I'm ok with taking my time. I should hopefully finish off a set or two from the late 70s or early 80s this year. But again, I'm not in a hurry. I just want to keep on enjoying collecting, and for me that includes having a lot of pokers in the fire. Lots of sets to build, lots of players to collect, and minicollections that grab my attention for a while at a time.
I picked up some big dream cards in 2019. Clemente auto! Cognac Trout! Mantle auto! Nothing specific on my mind for 2020 yet, but we'll see how it shakes out. I will likely focus on non-sports a little. like the Simpsons stuff I mentioned yesterday. Also, MST3K autograph cards are hitting the market as we speak and I will probably try to go after them all if I can. I hear some are short-printed and may end up being very expensive to bring home.
BEERMAS!
I know a couple readers kinda care about my annual thing where I get a beer-a-day from my wife leading up to my bday/xmas eve.
Attn: Fuji, check out the Beastie Boys inspired label among these!
I haven't had the last 3 in this photo yet. Beermas has had some delays this year and will wrap up soon after I recover fully. And yes, I've decided to not to a "dry January" this year after staying away from booze the previous 2 or 3 Januaries. I will make an effort to drink less, though, but overall I've been fine lately and not drinking too much (plus the big annual work party is in late January this year, so trying to have a dry month ain't gonna fly), though I really want to lose some weight. I weighed myself at the in-laws over the holidays and was at my heaviest ever by several pounds. Yikes.. tummy got away from me! But hey, a silver lining of this stomach flu is it starts the diet off strong! lol
Anywyas, these are good beers,. I don't have much "reviews" to give about them this year. Sorry the photos are great and I'm too lazy to type up what these are (but feel free to ask with any questions). The peach IPA was the only one I didn't like, which is surprising since it seems it'd be up my alley.
UPDATE to stress that my wife is super awesome. I feel bad that she caught my stomach flu and has been going thru all the same hell as me but a day later.
Hey, but back to TCDB... I've achieved #1 COLLECTOR ranking for a certain pl;ayer!
This is not a joke. Yes, according to trusted info source The Trading Card Database, yours truly is the world's top Luis Torrens collector. Feels good to be the best!
BACK TO wallet card!
I was looking for a card among my Padres dupes but I had trouble remembering what cards I've already used. I know I've saved my old wallet cards, but I don't know eactly where in my collection they all are. But I turned once again to my blog's archives to remind me of my life.
2020 is 30 years removed from 1990. I began collecting in 1990, and ignoring my many years away from the hobby, I'm celebrating 30 years as a card collector this year. I figured I'd throwback to 1990 for this year's wallet card.
I considered taking a break from Tony and giving the honor to Bip Roberts, though ultimately chose to stick to Gwynn. I was about to settle for his base '90 Topps card, though my first choice was his '90 Topps All-Star card, but I could have sworn I already used that one as my wallet card.. it's just so imprinted on my brain. But nope, consulting that list I posted a couple paragraphs up, the A.S. card has not been picked yet!
Here it is! I've got like a dozen of this one. I tried to find one already in rough condition, but they were all decently sharp.
The card is a perfect encapsulation of my first entry into obsessing over cardboard during the awesome summer of 1990. It's a beauty.
Wishing this Wallet Tony and all you readers a very happy 2020!
I missed May's card show this past Saturday, an aftereffect of my wife's car being totaled earlier in the month, but it was ok since I've had so many new cards to go through thanks to that big lot from Rod I posted about already, plus a few recent incoming maildays which I'll feature here today.
Ok, first up.. I've been Zippy Zapped! This brick of cards unexpectedly arrived on the day of the show, so it was soothing comfort when I needed it most.
The highlight has to be this glorious hunk of clear acetate autographed by Luis Torrens. The sticky-note from Zippy stated he was giving this to me on the condition that I keep it in the case as-is (complete with tampered-with tamper-proof seal). Ha, you got it, man. Thanks! I finally caught a game on TV where Torrens got the start behind the dish. He looks like he can hold his own, despite being rushed into the big leagues via Rule 5. Hopefully his bat comes around. I like how this 2014 Leaf Trinity card doesn't mention New York anywhere, so I can try fooling myself into thinking it's a Padres card.
Here are some keepers from the ample selection of Padres cardboard included.
Incredible lot of sparkly 2011 Topps parallels, featuring some favorites such as Jim Thome and Derrek Lee. Some dupes for me here, but plenty of needs too. I'm now over 2/5 complete (40%) with this crazy frankenset idea of mine.
It's not often you can send someone a 1992 Upper Deck card and a 1991 Topps card and have that person actually need/want them, but thanks to my recently rekindled Kevin Maas PC, Zippy pulls off the improbable. Also a couple other one-time Yanks I collect, Xavier Nady and Arod.
I got a laugh at that Steve Cummings, which I gotta assume was in response to my recent Dick Cummings pickup. I gotta stress, guys, please don't dump all your Cummings on me! I don't want to end up drowning in Cummings.
Also here is a Gary Sanchez (I guess his cards have cooled off a bit since last year?) and a couple Trevor Stories.
Shiny!
Some cool black border parallels. I think the 1962 design looks silly with black borders since you've still got that woodgrain corner. They should have made that all black and then changed the black text to light brown or something.
Some more Heritage Minors.. I believe these are parallels with various tints.
Some more cards that caught my eye.
Oh man, I love black refractors!
While not shiny, these Asian exclusive black boarder Bowman cards are pretty neat too.
Back to the shiny! More black refractors. Did you catch Hunter Renfroe's grand slam to beat the Cubs yesterday? As a Padres fan, it's nice to see them win once in a while.
Wave refractors! Love these! I wish Topps/Bowman would ditch that tired "transformers logo" refractor pattern they've been overusing this year and instead go nuts with wave refractors. Perhaps they could do a whole set.. like, Topps Wave consisting of nothing but various wave refractors! If that sells well, do Bowman Wave too. Eventually they'll get to Topps Wave Heritage and Bowman Wave Heritage. Five Star Wave. Wave Archives. Bunt Wave. Opening Day Wave... nah, scratch that last one.. not even making every card a wave refractor could save Opening Day from the redundant afterthought it's become.
Some shiny Star Wars cards, too.
Wrapping things up with a random game card (Magic?) and a couple hotties. Yuki is my favorite here. In fact, here's the back of that one...
Thumbs up!
Thanks a lot, Zippy! I'll do my best to round up some cards you might like.
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Commishbob was already on my list of "guys I owe cards" thanks to a great '64 Eddie Mathews he sent me a few weeks back, but before I had a chance to hit him back for that, he surprised me with a nice half-dozen 1957 needs he kindly scored for me at a recent card show...
Awesome.. thanks, Bob! Now I'm at 52/417 cards, good for 12.47% complete.
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Next is my first time trading with Jason's Sports Card Blog, a new blog started this past March.
Here we have the only two Gavins to ever play in the MLB. Unfortunately, 2017 hasn't been a good year for Gavins in baseball so far. Floyd was released by the Jays in spring training and doesn't seem to have caught on with another team, so his career might be finished. Cecchini is down in AAA, learning to play second base to make way for hot Mets shortstop prospect, Amed Rosario. After a slow start with the bat, Gavin's starting to heat up a bit, though we'll see if he gets called back up any time soon.
Some favorite players of mine.
A couple more needs for my 2011 Topps parallels frankenset.
Thanks a lot, Jason! I'll scrounge up some cards to return the favor soon.
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Finally for today, here's a quick one-card PWE from reader mr. haverkamp...
...knocking off a need for my 1964 Topps setbuild. The star of the show here is Jim Ray Hart, who put up several solid seasons in San Francisco.
Thanks for the trade, man!
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To wrap up, May 2017 will go down as one of the worst months of my entire life. Let's see, there was the nastiest car accident I've ever been involved in, a heartbreaking incident where a scared lost dog slipped away from me as I was trying to help get her home, gruesome stabbings by a white extremist in my neighborhood, plus serious health problems emerging for some beloved members of my extended family. In light of all that, having to miss the card show is no big deal, but just piling on the shitshow of a month.
Thankfully, I've got the cardsphere to raise my spirits with thoughtful mailings of cards here and there. Big thanks again to everyone who's sent me cards. Thanks also to everyone who reads/comments on my blog. Always appreciated! BTW, this was post #999 for me.. expect a big contest next post.
I got another COMC order in the order day, taking advantage of a free-shipping scratch-off code from Black Friday that expires at the end of the month. It's the second one I got from that haul, after using one on my previous order around New Year's. Folks tend to think you can only use one, but that's not exactly true. Once you hit a free-shipping code, stop scratching.. save the rest of the scratch-off cards until after you place an order. Then if you hit another free-shipping code, it'll work for ya. But yeah, if you already have an unused free shipping code on your account, you can't add another one (..as is my understanding).
It's also worth noting that the codes are non-transferable. A while back, a friendly cardsphere buddy tried to give me his free shipping code as he had no intention of placing a COMC order until next Black Friday. But once you type in a code to check it out, it's tied to your account.
Among the cards I picked up in this order were some exciting young Padres that are looking to break out this year. San Diego is gonna suck donkey dong this year, don't get me wrong, specifically because of the weak rotation, but at least there are some upcoming bats that should be fun to watch.
One such kid with a lot of eyes on him this spring is Luuuuuuuuuuis!!!
That's right, Luis Urias, a 19-year-old infielder out of Mexico who's hit .317 over 229 minor league games so far. Team Mexico's youngest player in the WBC, he figures to make his way up to San Diego within the next couple years. This 2016 Panini Elite Extra Edition card seems to be his only certified auto out there at the moment. The only pickup of the order to crack double digits, I ponied up a little extra to get a numbered parallel.
But no, the real Luis everyone in camp is excited about is...
Luuuuuuuuuuuuis Sardinas! He's bounced around with 4 teams in the past 3 years, but looks to stick around in San Diego at shortstop after performing well in 34 games up top last year. This 2013 Bowman Chrome auto features a nice big, loopy signature and only set me back $1.50.
There's also this Rule-5 kid picked up off the scrap-pile in Cincinnati hoping to stick around as a backup catcher. Never heard of him before, but hey..
Nah, of course I'm just joking, as we're all familiar with Cardsphere Hero Luuuuuuuuuuis Torrens!
I've bought 2 or 3 Torrens autos in the past, but they all made their way over to his supercollector, Zippy Zappy. These 2 are for me. I'm hoping he sticks with the Padres, but I know there's still a very real possibility he gets returned to the Yanks. He hasn't been hitting much yet this spring, though has looked good behind the plate. We'll see what happens.
Speaking of Padres catchers, this guy isn't named Luis, but we'll close out the post with this trio of shiny Bowman parallels anyways. Austin Hedges has been swinging a hot bat this spring (.474 average and 1.132 OPS over 19 games) and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does in his first full season as starting catcher.
Thanks for reading! More from this latest COMC haul soon. p.s. 2017 Topps Opening Day is out today.. Don't forget to boycott it so Topps finally lets this redundant product die. Low-end sets are great, but stuff like Bunt (physical) or Total (r.i.p.) are miles better than a lazy version of flagship with another logo slapped on it. The fun inserts are nice, but they'd be better in flagship or really any other set. I for one welcome the day this set no longer comes out. Shit, it ain't even MLB opening day yet. If they synced up the release date to actual opening day, I could give it a pass, but nope, guess that's asking too much.
