Cards from John, Kerry (though still nothing from John Kerry)

I was lucky enough to get a "Christmas in July" package from John Miller a few days ago.

I hadn't seen these before. Cool acetate Simpsons cards from Sykbox that you can apparently stack to create a completed image. Anybody got more of these to trade? Would love to add the missing piece(s) to this.

HOF relic!

John can always be counted on to send me a few Gileses.

Heck of a Josh Donaldson lot, with a couple shiny ones in the upper right.

End of Story; I just recently took Trevor Story off my wantlist and replaced him with teammate Nolan Arenado. Gavin Floyd is also fresh off the wantlist, though I did need that blue parallel. Nice Bird.

Here's some Padres cards, highlighted by a Wil Myers black parallel from '17 Stadium Club.

And a few miscellaneous odds and ends, including relics of Josh Hamilton, Juan Gonzalez, and Todd Helton.

Thanks, John! Always a pleasure.

-  - - - ----o

Next up is a surprise package from fellow Portland dweller, Kerry at Cards on Cards.

A Hawk sighting. The red parallel is #'d 3/25. Impressive!

It's the aforementioned Nolan Arenado, just added to my wantlist like 3 days days ago. Quick!

Bryce is having another solid year. Love that rookie cup xfractor!

Donaldson and Pedro representing Canada.

Manny Margot and Michael Conforto.

A couple legends.

Mookie!

Trout!

A few more cards, with Kerry even sneaking in a basketball card. I don't have many (any?) San Diego Clippers cards, so that World B. Free is pretty cool to get.

We close out with a couple nice relics; Adam Jones bat chip and a Chris Sale jersey swatch.

Awesome.. thanks, Kerry! I'm rounding up a return package for you and will get that out to you soon.

Card Show Recaptualization

Here are some more cards I got at the show this past weekend. I've since mixed them together, but I believe they were culled from 3 different bin digs, with deals ranging from 5-for-$1 to 6-for-$5.

I like cheap Bowman parallels from recent years. Alex Gordon is the only guy here I collect, and the only unnumbered card of the six. The rest are trade bait. I should really be better about staying away from trade bait for teams I never seem to trade, such as the bottom row there.

Shiny Topps Chrome cards of dudes I collect. Pretty sure I already had that purple Mookie, but it's #/250 and I just couldn't pass it up at that sub-buck price.

Yankees. Anybody need that Eric Duncan auto? Zippy?

Braves. Who wants that Heyward?

Some numbered Topps parallels. I was pretty excited to see that Strasburg gold in a quarterbox. I bet back in 2011 that card sold for a decent chunk of change.

More trade bait if anyone wants these. Luis bat chip. Autos of some football guy named Ronald Martin and some baseball guy named Mitch Canham.

I pulled a terribly off-center copy of that minor league Frank Thomas card from a pack when I was a kid and it was a big deal to me. I'll hang onto the sentimental old copy, but couldn't resist upgrading to a respectably-centered specimen. Billy Hamilton and Yoenis Cespedes are fun guys to watch that I'm tempted to start collecting in earnest, but for now I'll just occasionally pick up parallels and inserts such as these when I find them cheap.

So all these cards pictured ran me comfortably under the price of a blaster.. not a bad haul, though nothing to really knock your socks off. Not pictured are a few cards already set aside for trader buddies. I've got more cards to show off from the trip, but they weren't from a purchase but rather a generous gift (Padrograph Rod striking again). I need to finish digging through the boxes and pull out some favorites to feature on the blog soon.

That's it for this post. See ya later.

The Black Sheep minicollection gets a PWE boost

Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life kindly shepherded enough black sheep cards in a recent PWE to cover multiple posts in the series. To recap, this minicollection of mine features lesser-known baseball players who are related to someone who had considerably more success in the pursuit of athletic greatness. I just always get a kick out of pulling a card with a familiar last name and discovering the guy is in fact related to the other guy.

We start off with a sweet specimen for the minicollection: a 3-player rookie card with all three guys being sons-- Juniors, even-- of noted baseball players. Nice one, Topps!, assuming this was on purpose.

Tim Raines, Jr / Gary Matthews, Jr / Garry Maddox, Jr

I already covered Tim Raines, Jr. in a previous black sheep post, so I'll direct you to that rather than repeat myself.

Gary Matthews, Sr., "Sarge", was NL ROY with the Giants in 1973 and went on to have a fine career that stretched 16 seasons. His son Gary Matthews, Jr had a pretty respectable MLB career too, and in fact he doesn't qualify for my black sheep minicollection because he exceeds the success parameters. His best year was 2006 when he was an All-Star with the Rangers.

The similarly named Garry Maddox won a bunch of Gold Gloves in the late 70s and early 80s patrolling centerfield for the Phillies, earning the badass nickname "The Secretary of Defense". Garry Maddox, Jr played from 1997 till 2003, but never made the show despite some pretty good years on the farm. He seemed to excel in A and AA, but falter in AAA.

Jeremy Barfield

Jesse Barfield was a big bat in the heart of the Blue Jays lineups of the 80s, and All-Star in '86 when he led the league with 40 home runs. I knew his son Josh Barfield played the game thanks to a strong rookie campaign for the Padres in 2006. While Josh's career petered out after he was traded to the Indians the following season, his 300+ career games keep him out of the minicollection. His younger brother Jeremy Barfield, however, hasn't cracked the bigs. Jeremy's still active, spending some time in 2015 with Colorado's AAA club, so who knows, he's still got a chance. He also seems to have a pretty amusing Twitter presence, @BarfontheField.

Mike Glavine

Before this card, I didn't realize Tom Glavine had a younger brother who played baseball (or if I knew at one time, I had since forgotten). Mike Glavine did reach the majors, but only managed 1 hit in 7 at-bats for the 2003 Mets. His brother Tom was also on the team. Pretty cool. He retired after spending 2004 in AAA.

That's it for this time.

Big thanks for the cards, Bo!
He actually originally sent his PWE like over a month ago, but it was MIA for weeks, eventually being returned for postage due. Ironically, on the re-sent PWE, the 2 Forever stamps haven't been canceled. Meaning someone could possibly be persuaded to reuse them if they weren't above stooping to the discouraged practice, thereby costing the post office considerably more than the few cents they were whining over in the first place. Funny how things work out!

The Big Three auto trifecta

Today's the last day at work for many of the people I work with. The company's gone from around 120 people in the Portland location a few months ago to just about 20 left after today. I'll be a part of the skeleton crew sticking around, but I'm not sure for how long.. could be a week or two, could be a month or two. My goal would be to stretch into 2016 because that would look better on a résumé, getting that "extra year" on there, but I'll be surprised if they keep me around that long.

Most of the workforce here is older Asian ladies, so it's not like we've got a ton in common outside of work, though I've still become "work friends" with several people here I'll miss.

So on that theme of working together with people for a while, let's showcase autos I've acquired of Atlanta's Big Three. These guys made the Braves a perennial pennant winner for several years. As a kid in the early 90s, the Braves were probably my 2nd favorite team, in large part due to the availability of watching their games on TBS. Dave Justice might have been my first "hyped up rookie" experience, and I remember being overjoyed the day I pulled his minor league card from a pack of 1990 CMC. I've still got an old Braves hat I've had for over 20 years that I still wear on a regular basis. I'm amazed it's held up so long.

Anyways, yeah, the Braves are cool (were?) and I'm happy to bolster my collection with autographs of these 3 Hall of Famers. Let's take a closer look at the cards...

Here's the recent pickup that completed the trifecta for me. I love the Rockwellian portrait of Tom Glavine on this. The on-card signature is fine, though a little small. It's #'d /49.

I picked up this John Smoltz auto a month or so back. These Sweet Spot "on ball hide" autographs are notorious for fading, but I think that's mostly when Sharpies are used; ballpoint pen seems to last ok. It's always refreshing to get an auto that's not in blue or black ink, so I'm digging the red.

And of course Greg Maddux. I've had this card for a year or two and have shown it off on the blog a couple times before, but it's a nice one, so here it is again.


Since my company is moving, a ton of stuff in the building is available for sale. It's kinda like the workplace has become a giant yard sale, with the Buyer for the company being inundated today with requests to sell stuff. I actually bought the coffee table from the lobby for $5. My old coffee table is kinda beat up and we'll likely say goodbye to it. I mention it because it's the tile thing in the background of these pictures. Emotional, right!? Haha. Oh, and of course there's the fact that my company is moving to the outskirts of the Atlanta area (Norcross, GA).. so this post is all tied together.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Contest winner! + some more card show recapping

In the bottom of the 14th of Game 1, with a tie score, bases loaded and no outs, most of the baseball world was watching Royals vs. Mets, but to me it was Matthew Scott vs. Red Cardboard. With the running total of 22 hits in the game, the contest was Matt's to lose. A hit would give it to Red Cardboard, but a walk, sac fly, error, passed ball, wild pitch, HBP, etc. would seal it for Matt. Eric Hosmer came through with a sacrifice fly that sunk not only the Mets, but also Red Cardboard's chance at winning the contest.

While I'm a big fan of Red Cardboard and his blog, I was happy to see Matt of Bob Walk the Plank win since I was a winner of his most recent contest a couple months ago (post). So now we've essentially done a trade via contest winnings! I thought that was cool on a karmic level. And ironic that in my post that gave the contest lineup, the first card I showed off had a Pirates logo and I mentioned I had a cache of cards ready to send to Matt. If I had then simply randomized for a winner and Matt was #1, it would have looked very suspicious of funny business. But luckily I had no power over how many hits the Royals and Mets combined for, so I'm in the clear. That's a big reason I add that extra bit of randomization to my contests; Just want to make it very obvious it was truly random and nothing sneaky if, say, the winner is a guy I had a bunch of cards set aside for burning a hole in my "set aside for traders" box. Or like one of my early contests that Night Owl won. Because of course I would like it if Night Owl won, because if he wins your contest, you get a nice plug on the most popular card blog around when he eventually posts about his winnings.

But anyways, congratulations to Matt! So you say you want a Bob Walk custom? Sounds good.. any specific requests (photo, design), let me know. Obviously I assume you want him in a Pittsburg uniform, but let me know if you have anything else in mind, or just want me to surprise you with something. In either case, I'll whip it up for you and send it along with a bunch more Pirates soon. It won't be quite "jaybarkerfan war" magnitude, but it'll pack a good punch!


Now here are more pickups to show off from last weekend's card show.

The dealer I buy most of my cards from always has plenty of Jeter in his bins, and I normally thumb right through them. But I'm a sucker for a serial numbered card, whether /99 or /9799, as with these specimens here.

It's tempting to try flipping them to make a little profit, but they'll likely stay put in my tiny Jeter PC.

Hey, here's a guy both Matt and I collect, Brian Giles. Giles, of course, spent much of his career in Pittsburgh, so he's well-represented in Matt's collection. I collect him because he's from El Cajon and went to the same high school as me. If you missed my big Brian Giles story from a few months back, it's worth a read.
As for these cards, here we've got a nice quad bat relic also featuring Preston Wilson, Shawn Green, and Todd Helton... nice group of players.. I probably would have picked up this card even if it didn't have Giles on it. I already had that auto, I believe from a trade with Mark Hoyle, but for less than a buck, I couldn't resist picking up another one. Maybe someday I'll find another (non-team specific) Brian Giles collector and unload my dupes on them. Seeing as this is an Indians/Kinston card, I don't think Matt would have any interest.

I was happy to come across this Tom Glavine relic. I just recently picked up a Glavine auto (haven't showed it off on the blog yet), so now with this jersey swatch, my PC is off to a good start. --or more like restart, as Glavine is a guy I kinda collected, then kinda stopped, then recently started again.

Lastly for today, this 2013 Miguel Cabrera photo variation SP was a good pickup for me. Looking at eBay, seems to be about a $10 card, so for under a buck, nice addition to my Miggy PC.


Ok, now I know I promised a "second chance" contest for anyone who pimped the contest, so let's bust that out.

There were 7 valiant souls who shouted about the contest to the vast expanse of the internet:
Bo
Jason T. Carter
Jon
Mark Aubrey
Stealing Home
the bowl cut kid
Tony L.

Here they are in random order. Let's say the winning number is the total number of runs scored in Game 2 of the 2015 World Series.

Again, the winning number is the combined runs in Game 2.
Anything over 7, we'll cycle back through the list. So 8 = Stealing Home, 9 = Tony L., etc.

Best of luck to you guys!