some Swell customs

Back in 1990 when I first got into the hobby, I somehow ended up with a handful of 1990 Swell "Baseball Greats" and they were among my first cards of retired legends. And they weren't all Ruthian stars, but also many lesser-known "hall of very good" players of yesteryear. Young Gavin learned a lot about the game's history from those oddballs, and I still have a sentimental soft spot for the design.

So this past weekend while I was working on some customs I owe John Miller, I got distracted and made a few for myself.

I need more Buck O'Neil cards in my collection, and if real card companies won't come through for me, I'll take matters into my own hands. I posted this on Twitter and it got a great response, even retweeted by the official Negro Leagues Museum account, so that was awesome.

I wanted to give the design a whirl with a current player, and Mike Trout was the first guy to pop in my head. Not that there's a shortage of Mike Trout cards out there, but I think this looks pretty good.

And one of my favorite PCs to add to, the late Rod Beck. While I'm partial to his Padres days, I had to go with this Red Sox photo because I love the prominent "Shooter" glove he's rockin'. I added the cloudy sky to spice up a plain, indoors backdrop.

Full backs, reasonably faithful to the originals.

Swell was a chewing gum brand produced by Philadelphia Gum, the latter best known to card collectors for producing NFL cards in the mid 60s. Years later, Swell ventured into the cardboard realm, putting out separate sets of retired baseball and football players in 1988 through 1991. Founded in 1947, Philadelphia Gum went out of business in 2003, with the rights now owned by Tootsie Roll Industries.

I also made a gif card of Sandy Koufax with the design. Not one of my best, but it's something.

Not Swell related, but this Mickey Mantle gif I made a week or two earlier turned out pretty decent.

1957 Topps Sandy Koufax

I haven't posted since Monday, which is a pretty long dry spell for me. I blame the heat (card room tends to get hot in the summertime), work (playing catch-up after missing a few days while on vacation earlier this month), and the fact that making gif cards has been taking up what little hobby time I've had to spend this week. But hey, looks like the 90 degree days are over for the year (knock on wood), and I'm now pretty well caught up at work, so I should be able to return to cranking out a post every day or every other day.

Just a one-card post for today, but it's a good one.

1957 Topps Sandy Koufax! It's just his 3rd card, after his 1955 rookie and 1956 second-year. This one is graded PSA 1.5, but like the 1964 Koufax I picked up a few days before, also graded PSA 1.5, it looks perfect to me. I'm considering this one as a gift to myself (though aren't they all?).. Had my annual review at work the other day and it went well and I got a nice little cost-of-living raise, so figured I'd celebrate by targeting a special card or two.

Sandy was still just a kid with a lot of promise at the time; it wasn't really until the 60s that he blossomed into a great.

The back has some tape residue in the bottom corners, and the front has a little light creasing, but still, I think it looks damn good for being graded so low. And again, I don't care much about the grade as long as it doesn't look like hell, but I appreciate the peace of mind that it's certified authentic.

Very happy to check this big name off my 1957 Topps setbuild. While I've still got a long way to go– this card brings me to exactly 53% complete– I've been knocking off HOFers here and there (plus another on the way), and feel like I'm starting to get a handle on this set.

Have a great weekend!

sandy co-facts

While I was on vacation last weekend walking on the sandy New Hampshire shore, I was comforted by a couple facts.

Fact #1) I installed a security camera in my card room so I could keep an eye on my collection. Is this paranoid of me? Perhaps. But it's reassuring to be able to take a live look in on my babies when I'm across the country and see them safe and sound, plus be notified of any unexpected movement in the room.

Fact #2) Arriving home from a few days with a "vacation hold" on your mail means there's a good chance you've got a sweet mailday in your future. And this trip didn't let me down in that regard.

Here's the card I was most excited about. The great Sandy Koufax! And it's in perfect condition too. "Perfect" meaning it has a flaw to drastically drop the price, but barely takes away from the beauty of the card. Something like a raunchy crease across the face or some dark markings.. those could be deal-breakers for me. But a bad corner that doesn't effect the photo or any text? Hey, if the price is right, I'm totally on board for that. A recent eBay discount code and an accepted Best Offer helped bring down the price even more. Unlike my '56 Hank Aaron, no custom overlay is necessary for this paper loss. Koufax cards are no strangers to counterfeiting, so I wanted to land a graded '64 for my setbuild for peace of mind.

Very clean back, too. Koufax was coming off his monster 1963 season where he won the Cy Young, MVP, and World Series MVP.

I also paired Sandy with the 1964 Topps card of former Dodger cohort, the Duke of Flatbush...

 Looks odd to see Duke Snider as a Met, but I guess at least the uniform colors are close enough.

This is Duke's final card from his playing days. After one year back in the Big Apple, he finished up his career with a lackluster '64 season in San Francisco, but did not get a card in 1965 Topps (probably a blessing to Dodgers fans who ache at the sight of their all-time greats suited up for the rival Giants).

Cool to add these two of HOFers to my 1964 Topps setbuild. And that's a fact! :P

I'm now literally just one more card away from crossing the ⅔ complete milestone, so if you've got any '64s available and want to feel the pride of getting a fellow collector to within a third of the set left to chase, please check out my needs and get in touch about a trade. Thanks!

(Late Nite Bonus Post: Deleted Scenes)

Here are some cards from the card show today that weren't quite cool enough to get into the main post for my June 2018 card show haul.  So act like this is a DVD and you've just clicked on the deleted scenes. More 72¢ cards for me.

Oh yeah.. Reggie /199. Buxton PWS relic. Rocket /350.

Shiny: Koufax, Meadows, Baez mini

More shiny, rookies.

Bill had a bunch of Giants IP autos. I picked out a couple good ones. Padres legend Dave Roberts and A's legend Barry Zito.

Check it out, Brian.. Kennys variant and non-variant as a 2-for-1 in the same penny sleeve.

Chrome 4-pack. Couple Pads, negative Urias, and Devers. Good stuff here.

Closing with a Pedro "bobble head" /2000, Maddux Bazooka temp tattoo, Giancarlo tarot, and Pujols Ginter back.

Sold pickups!
Thanks.

It's So Easy (card show recap)

It's so easy to build a tall stack of cards at the card show. Sometimes I have to police myself a little and be like, "Is this a guy I collect, or a card that would be appreciated by a trader buddy, or a killer deal I shouldn't pass up?" And if the answer's no, I (usually) put it back, even if it's a cool card that in a perfect world where money and space weren't an issue, I'd grab along with a ton more cards.

Here are some more cards that made the cut last weekend.

A nice lot of Kris Bryant cards.
Get ready for a bunch more 2017 Gold Label.

Some greats.

And yet more Gold Label. I wasn't joking the other day when I said I spend a lot of time at this show squinting at Gold Label cards trying to read the tiny text trying to find out which class they were, scoring a few class 2 and 3's.

A couple inserts of young Red Soxes.

Big Unit /199. Cutch /499.

Fine Young Padres! Margot /99.

Gold rookies and a Kellogg's Reggie will close us out for the day.

That'll do it. Thanks for reading and hope you have an easy weekend!

50¢ Serenade

More of my recent card show haul to feature today, now moving up into the 50¢ bins. I think these are usually Bill's 7/$5 bins, so he must have been trying to thin out his inventory somewhat.

A few cards from 2017 Museum Collection highlighted by a /99 Wizard.

I'm a sucker for wave refractors, especially when I've heard of the guy. The Walker Buehler 2015 Bowman Chrome Black Wave Asia Refractor might be my Pickup of the Day™. None on COMC right now, and the cheapest currently on eBay is like $20 after shipping. He made his MLB debut earlier this month and the Dodgers have high hopes for him. (He's also Zippy Zappy approved.)

These are pretty cards. Didn't these used to be serial numbered in previous Heritage sets? Maybe not. Oh well.. still nice cards.

Really like that smiling Clemente. I was right in guessing that it was the photo variation. But to my chagrin, according to COMC, the base version is actually harder to come by and worth a few more cents than the variation.. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The Boone relic was a decent pickup. Don't collect him too heavily, but a tiny bit, mostly because he's an East County San Diego boy like myself.

Some numbered purples and blues.

Last group of cards for today. I'm sick of the '87 Topps design, but that's a sweet Koufax. Solid Lindor RC. And a Griffey /725. I believe this is from some massive numbered set Upper Deck put out. So it's not all that unique, but still easily worth my 50¢.

See you later. Trade Bait post tomorrow, probably.

1965 Topps Sandy Koufax and Dodgers friends

Amazing package from gcrl arrived the other day. I was super excited for this card. Apart from a beat-up league leaders card, I don't think I previously had any playing-days Sandy Koufax in my collection. It pairs nicely with the sweet autograph I splurged for last month. But technically, this isn't for the Koufax PC, but rather the 1965 setbuild. It's in the right the condition I like for vintage: just off enough to keep the Slabbing Sect away, but still a fantastic, eye-pleasing specimen of a baseball card.

The back's a beaut, too.

And we're not through with the vintage Koufax...

Jim also included this iconic LL card featuring the one-two punch of Koufax and Don Drysdale.

Jim is the cardsphere's premiere Steve Garvey collector, and looks like he had some dupes available to share with me.

We differ in that my fond memories of Garv are from his Padre days, while I'm sure gcrl would have rather he spent his entire career in Dodger blue.

Nice selection of 80s oddballs.

Here's a card that made my eyes light up. Terrific looking relic card.

Great stuff.. thanks, Jim!

And there's more from the package, too, but I'm going to spread it out over another post or two.

- --o

And since this post is heavy on Dodgers and it happens to be Ron Cey's birthday, here's a bonus card to show off today that I picked up off eBay a little while back:

Ain't that pretty?! You know I'm crazy about Topps Retired, and if I see a refractor auto I don't have pop up with a low opening bid, you can bet I'll throw a bid on it.

He'll always be an Oakland Athletic to me.

Just kidding.

Cey seem like a great guy, and is very generous signing autographs for fans. Got a nice TTM return from him last year.

Happy Birthday, Penguin!

Behold: Sandy Koufax autograph!

Here's a big name I had been wanting to score an autographed card of for a long time. A nice belated year-end bonus check from work helped make that dream come true for me.

Sandy Koufax 2015 Topps Tribute To The Victors die-cut auto /30

I believe this card comes from the "special edition" of 2015 Tribute, which was like the "re-do" after the product was originally recalled due to the autographs not staying on the cards very well because of the finish used. This acetate card seems like it'd be more at home in High Tek, but it's origins aren't all that important to me.. just that it's mine now! :)

A terrific card of a legendary all-time great and I love it!

I also got a somewhat-corresponding card I'm equally enamored with, but I'll save that one for tomorrow's post.

Cards of Merriment and Joyousness

Looks like my Holiday Blast is in full effect across the nation. Well, if Kenny all the way over in NY got his, I'm assuming the rest I sent the same day have either shown up yesterday or will today. Call it a narcissistic goal, but I'd love to make it a full week with "cards from Baseball Card Breakdown" posts posted on the cardsphere. That'd be cool, right?! Already at 2 consecutive days going for me (Dec 14, Dec 15), though I don't think I've gotten one yet today and the hour is growing dark.

I got some nice incoming card packages over the past few days. Let's take a look.

Here's a surprise 1-card PWE courtesy of Trevor over at Bump and Run Cards. And what better for a Christmastime surprise than a Christmas Card! A card trumpeting Chase Utley's times being hit by a pitch (specifically the 17th time out of 25 times total on the year) is a bit of an odd card, but it's serial numbered 12/25, and so I will take it to the grave with me. Big thanks, Trevor!!

-  -- - ---o

Next up is Tim B. from the blog Wish They Still Smelled Like Cardboard Nobody's Got Time For. (Sorry, I'm drafting this at work and have had a couple work beers to ring in the weekend.) He's had a busy year and I don't think we had swapped cards yet in 2016, but I'm glad we were able to reconnect here in mid December. He hooked me up with some great stuff.

It was June that I last was able to check a card off my 2014 Chrome Black setbuild, so this Aaron Rowand is very appreciated! And while I've got that Gavin LaValley-- several copies, in fact, thanks to getting in on some group player breaks-- it's a welcome sight.

Quick aside... another Gavin, Gavin Lux is featured in 2016 Bowman Draft. I put in what I thought were very competitive bids for his slot in about a dozen group breaks and I got decimated in each auction. So yeah, while my Gavin LaValley 2014 Bowman Draft rainbow is pretty impressive, I will not be rainbowing Gavin Lux's 2016 Bowman Draft card due to financial infeasibility. I'll just have to be happy with eventually landing his base card, base auto, and maybe a parallel or two.

When I came to this card, I was like, huh? I thought maybe the wrong card got slipped in the package.. was this meant for Giant fan Sport Card Collectors or somebody? But nope, turn it over...

Christmas Card!!!!!!!!1

Here's a Sparky and a Trout. (mmmm.. seared trout)

Limited edition!

These aren't just any 2016 Topps cards, but rather the much more scared Lids/New Era versions. Very nice! I actually already had the Cutch (with an expensive Padres hat to prove it), so it's available for trade.

2011 parallels! Utley makes another appearance in this post. Cashner was/is a PC guy, so that's a bonus. Zimmermann's pretty good, right? The purple refractors are /250.

Diamonds! Diamonds! I haven't had a chance to update my wantlist with these, but looks like a great lot with some big names.

Larry Walker legend variation!

Freddie Freeman RC!

Awesome.. thanks, Tim!!!

- - - ----o

Next is a nice "Operation PWE" package from Stealing Home.

Johnsons and Schmidts. (or, crude slang, dicks n' shits) Love that minor league pic.

Here's a #'d mini and an autographed Neshek. Sweet!

More cards!

Dodgers I happen to collect!

Some current dudes I collect, including a Rizzo RC back on those happy days when he was a Padre.

HOFers!

At this point my wife was calling me for dinner, so here's a rushed shot of some other keepers in the package.

Thanks a bunch, buddy!

Thanks again, Trevor, Tim, and OM for the thoughtful cards! Very appreciated.

See you next time.