comeback post

You probably didn't even notice, but I haven't posted in a couple weeks. Since starting this blog in 2013, I can't recall ever going one week between posts, much less two!

I've got some reasons:
- My last post featured an authenticated Roberto Clemente autograph, and that's a tough act to follow. Sort of a "mic drop" post, and it took me a while to pick up the mic again.
- I have a set workload I need to take care of at work each month, and with February being a short month, I've got to fit all that work into fewer days (and therefore have less downtime to draft posts).
- Family stuff: my father-in-law had a heart attack and subsequently a triple bypass. He's recovering fine now, but definitely some scary times over the past couple weeks.
- Laziness. It was nice to take a little break and not worry about posting for a while.

But I'll try to get back into the saddle here.

Nolan Arenado just signed a huge contract extension. I'll bet he and his agent were like, "BOOM. We did it." ..to quote a shredded wheat cinnamon toast crunch cereal box.

I recently decided to kick up my lil Arenado PC by adding a certified auto, and settled on this 2016 Topps Tek card.

It's a fine card.

My apologies for keeping A+ content like this from you for over two whole weeks! lol. Thanks for coming back.

The Zappening

I've gotten plenty of nice cards from Zippy Zappy over the years, but this latest package, sent from Japan no less, might top them all. Let's check out some highlights.

Sweet! Big rookie cards I needed for my McCutchen and Altuve PCs, respectively.

Early cards of a pair of today's best third basemen, Arenado and Castellanos.

More big-name minor league cards.

And notable Bowman RCs up the wazoo.

More Bowman highlights.

Additions for the Arod and Jeter PCs.

One random basketball card, and a nice one at that, with this sparkly, diecut Kyrie Irving.

At first glance, this would seem to be regular ol' 2002 Topps Pudge, but no...

2002 Topps Kanebo Gum Japanese card! HOFer import! Very cool.
And this begins the Japanese-cards portion of the post.

Ohtani! Wowee!

More special Nippon Professional Baseball cards featuring Sadaharu Oh (home run king), Kazuhisa Makita (he's on the Padres now), Tetsuto Yamada (sparkly), and Wladimir Balentien (didn't do much in the majors, but has since had a fine career in Tokyo).

Here are a couple fun ones, including a lenticular card from 1996 and what seems to be a vintage (Calbee?) card on the right, though I couldn't say what's the story with them.

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Somewhat "NSFW" picture warning. Proceed with caution.
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Oh man! These might have been the most exciting cards of the package for me. I'm an admitted horndog female form enthusiast with a decent "girlie card" collection. I've got cards autographed by lovely ladies, and I've got cards with naked women on them, but I believe these are the first cards in my collection of autographed naked ladies. I try to keep my blog more-or-less "family friendly" so I've covered up the naughty bits. (The back photos are even better!) These are all numbered /200. Cool signatures.. especially the little drawing. Love these!

I think this is called an Icon box or something, right? Features a couple mini boxes of cards. Mariya Nagao here keeps clothed, though scantily clad.

Gonna end this post here rather than stretch it out too long, but man, still plenty of other good stuff in the package.. a bunch more rookie cards, minor league Topps cards, numbered parallels, etc.

Thanks so much, Zippy! This was a zippy zapping to remember. I'll round up a return for you soon.

a trade supplement

Matt at Red Cardboard generously surprised me with a bonus package of cards in the wake of our recent swap.

Leading off with a vintage oddball of Tony Perez.

And more HOFers.

Sweet-ass lot of Reggie Sanders!, most of which are 90s parallels. Nice bump to the PC.

Plenty of active guys were included, too, such as Kris Bryant. The 2015 RC is actually a Berger's Best reprint (--unlike the '75 George Brett reprint above, I need to point this out.)

Nice Nolan Arenado lot.

Coming up Cutch.

Lindor to my door.

More and more Manny Machado.

Altuve por mi aqui.

Springer and a Bregman.

Mookie had a huge game today.

Closing out with a Kershaw reprint and a Bryce. Expect to see plenty of Gavin LaValley on my blog in the near future, as he was included in 2018 Bowman and I've been going after some of the parallels lately.

Thanks again, Matt! Dropped a little something in the mail for you the other day.

The New Book Value (more from the card show)

When I go to a card show, I'm keeping an eye out for cards I need for my collection (guys I collect, set needs), and sometimes just random cards that interest me, and of course I look for trade fodder for my regular trade partners.

And sometimes I buy a card because I suspect it's a great deal. I spend enough time reading card blogs and such that I can usually spot a rare/valuable card hiding in a stack of lesser cards. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of variations and rare inserts that get by me (and plenty of stuff I don't know much about from the decade I stepped away from the hobby), but I'd like to think I'm pretty good at finding diamonds in the rough.

I rarely take the time to look up a card value while at a show, but once I get home, I'll look some of them up and try to determine my best deal of the show.

For me, the new "book value" is the cheapest one on COMC. I suppose another good way to find out what a card is worth is to check completed eBay listings for it, but that is a little more work and can have other influencing factors, such as time the auction ended and the seller's feedback. So while it's not infallible, I find looking up a card on COMC is quick and usually gives me decent idea what it's worth.

I think this might be my best deal of the show according to COMC. Brandon Morrow has been a key arm out of the pen for the Dodgers this year. This 2007 Bowman Chrome Prospects X-Fractor /275 cost me a quarter, but the cheapest on COMC right now is $15.25. Fifteen dollar theoretical profit!

Here's another "(Gold) Blue Label". After pulling a Cano auto recently, I'm tempted to get a little PC going for him. This one isn't on COMC currently. The Tim Anderson card falls into that "hmm, maybe this is a valuable card?" category and is a 2017 Topps Stadium Club Chrome refractor. It isn't on COMC right now either, but the regular Chrome parallel (non-refractor) is priced at $5.25, and I assume the refractors are tougher pulls. The Fisk 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes State parallel is a PC need. This White Sox card isn't on COMC, but his similar Red Sox card is $0.99.

A couple Beltres and a Brock. I've really enjoyed bumping up my Beltre PC over the past year or so. Finally pulled the trigger to kick it up further, which will be coming in a future post.

A nice Nolan Arenado trio.

Brown mustard Bowman RC parallels of Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas. These both run under a buck, but not bad.

A couple fancy Giancarlo cards. Billy was asking about those Bowman Platinum "Ice" parallels the other day.. yeah, when I was thumbing through the boxes, I pretty much zoomed passed any Bowman Platinum card unless it was a parallel, as generally speaking, I'm not into that line of cards (not a big fan of foilboard cards), but those bubbly cracked ice parallels look pretty cool in the light. This one goes for $1.25 according to COMC. It surprisingly beats out the /650 2013 Topps Triple Threads card available for only 89¢.
Dee Gordon /250 is also $1.25, while the Trevor Story goes for 95¢.

A couple 2017 Heritage High Numbers here. Honestly, I was just looking to get any ol' Eric Thames Brewers card, since his start to the 2017 coming back over from Korea was just awesome. Turns out this is the action variation, so my 25¢ investment balloons to $4.57, if we're going by the gospel of COMC. As for the Carlos Asuaje, as I mentioned recently, I'm a sucker for any blue burlap parallel, but I was especially happy to find this one of a promising Padres rookie. This one isn't on COMC right now, but the cheapest blue burlap card of any player on there is $3.50.

A pair of shimmering mini Padres here. The Renfroe is /150. It's worth over a buck, safe to say. And while listed at over a quarter (no cards are for sale on COMC for under 30¢), the Austin Hedges might be my "worst" buy of the day, using our COMC guide, as it's listed at only 31¢. But heck, I like it.

And we'll close today with some more San Diego goodness (I refuse to acknowledge the Padres traded away Eric Owens to the Marlins). For what it's worth, the Lamet ice is on COMC for $3.75, the Colin Rea "Missing Black Plate" $1.13, and the Owens 2001 Traded refractor at 85¢. Really though, that Eric Owens may have been my personal favorite pickup of the day, if we're judging by how high my eyebrows raised and my mouth smiled when I saw it. Always love stumbling upon a card I need from a somewhat obscure player I collect.

Still another post or two from my quarterbox haul to go. Thanks for sticking with me! Have a great weekend, everybody.

Great trades to soothe a mailless day

Man, I love three-day weekends!

But the worst thing about them is having a couple consecutive days without mail service. I need the prospect of potential cards in my mailbox to help get me out of bed in the morning.

But luckily for me, I got a few nice trade packages in the mail late this past week, so that helps take the sting out.

I purposefully held off going through the box I received from Julie until today to give myself some celebratory cards for Labor Day.

Let's crack it open!

The cards are alive with color!

Gavins! The Goof-Off without text on the front is from the 70s (that I had been meaning to track down), while the other is a reprint from 1988.

Been a long time since I got a new Matt Ginter for the PC! And I love the Miguel Tejada Christmas Card.

Great lot of the Giles Bros.

Just call Julie the Bringer of Donaldsons.

Oh, I'm bein' followed by a Machado. Machado, Machado!

I've been desperately pleading with traders to stop sending me Wil Myers cards, but I'll admit I was happy to see many of these. That early Tri-Star card in particular is a nice addition to the PC.

Nice pile of teammates Correa and Altuve!

And the cards just keep on comin'! This is one of those packages that could easily have an entire week's worth of posts dedicated to it, but let's just wrap it up here. So many awesome cards.. Huge thanks, Julie!

- - - ---o

Tough to follow that, but here's an excellent surprise mailer from Kerry.

Some big stars of today on fancy inserts.

A pair of Arenado DKs (one is a refractor), and a pair of World's Fair inserts from 2017 Ginter. I wanted the Monorail card because it makes me think of that one Simpsons episode. The Ferris Wheel card makes me think of a Neutral Milk Hotel song.

Kerry must have caught when I said that, while I don't really follow the NBA much, I might go ahead and call the Spurs my favorite team in the league. And that's largely because of Tim Duncan, featured with a sweet lot here.

And fellow Spurs, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

Thanks, Kerry! I'll round up a return for you soon.

- - - ---o

One more trade to post about today, this one from Stealing Home.

Always happy to take his dupes of Dodgers I collect.

Solarte auto! If I recall, OM pulled this in a repack and was kind enough to set it aside for me. On the day I received this trade package, Solarte hit a walkoff homer for my Padres against the Dodgers. Looks like this auto escaped enemy territory just in time!

Awesome surprise, right here. I'm a sucker for glow-in-the-dark cards, and these weren't even on my radar. Seems they came with Kid Cuisine frozen meals in 1997. Love it! I'll have to try to track down the rest of the set someday.

Here they are in action. Very cool concept of having the skeletons glow.

A book! I've been wanting to read Mint Condition for a while now. It's supposed to be a great telling of the history of the hobby. I'm still working through Ball Four, but this one will be next on my reading list. Or who knows, maybe I'll read them concurrently. (Ball Four is an ebook I've been reading on my phone, not a physical copy.)

And last item of the post, an elegant bronze Roberto Alomar 1988 Topps Traded RC mint-card. Mr. Stealing Home ended up with this card-like-thing in Johnny's Big Fun Game, and seeing how he bleeds Dodger blue, didn't necessarily have a lasting place in his collection for a Padre, so we were able to work out a trade and bring it to a home where it'll be more appreciated. I won't show a bunch of pics of it, but if you're interested, a recent ARPS post featuring the Will Clark version of these things does a great job giving you a clear idea of what they're all about. Part of me wants to trash the big plastic case since it's crumbling somewhat and takes a lot of room, but the collector in me doesn't want to lose the case that's "part" of the item. Still debating.

Thanks a lot, OM! I'll put your return package in the mail soon.


Happy Labor Day, everybody. And thanks again to Julie, Kerry, and OM for the excellent cards! I hardly even noticed there was no mail today. :)