Backtracking with 1982 Topps (because I'm a dummy)

I completed the 1982 Topps set back in 2018. But then I stored the set away in a longbox with the Cal placed on top in a rigid plastic case to keep it extra safe (been in there basically since pulling it from a pack as a kid). And then I also put my slabbed Traded '82 Cal in there too. This turned out to be a mistake; when the box was closed, Cal's cases dug into some of the cards beneath them. I assumed it was one of those boxes that had some breathing room above the cards, but no, it was one of those boxes without much space between the cards and the top of the box.

So now I've got a few cards from my '82 Topps set that find themselves in the condition of "upgrade would be nice" thanks to ground up edges on that one side facing the top of the box. I feel like a fool, but at least it was just '82 Topps, a set of cards that-- Ripken rookie notwithstanding-- are generally ubiquitous and inexpensive, and it could have been worse, as most of the damaged cards were commons.

I say "most" because HOFer Carlton Fisk looks like he had himself a bit of a home plate collision.

Not like the card is completely ruined, but for a flagship 80s set, that's gonna bug me.

If anyone has some sharp '82 Topps singles available and would like to help me out with a friendly trade, here are the cards I would like to upgrade:

61 Tommy Boggs
63 Mario Soto
110 Carlton Fisk
285 Sparky Lyle
336 Mariners CL
645 Frank White

There were a few more with very minor damage, but these 6 are the only ones bad enough for me to worry about. Lesson learned: don't store encased cards in a box of cards like that.

While we're on the topic of 1982 Topps, check out this shiny pair...

Topps did a little run of Cards That Never Were back in 2007, and a few of them got the refractor treatment through eTopps. I just fell in love with them a few months back and have been working on the set. Expect another post on that once I collect 'em all. But anyways, yeah, these are a couple cool cards that could have been. I'm a little sour at Topps for leaving out the other of the Big Three rookies from '83 Topps: my guy Tony Gwynn. But oh well.

They did a decent job making "real" backs too, which I greatly appreciate. To nitpick, the numbering implies the cards are from 1982 Topps Traded... but the Traded backs were red in '82, not green like the base set. And Sandberg wouldn't have been in the Traded set as a Phillie since he started the year in Chicago.. so this card would make more sense in the '82 base set since he got a cup of coffee in Philadelphia at the end of the '81 season. Also, why does the cartoon say his nickname was Ryno? When did it stop being Ryno?!

As for the Boggs, the mention of his 3000th hit is *looks up a big word* anachronistic. As a custom cardmaker, I try to avoid that kind of stuff when making a "card that never was" type of dealy. 

But otherwise, yeah, neat cards!

From the same seller I got the Boggs from, I also got this baby Bill Buckner rookie for my 1970 Topps setbuild. Pretty good snag at just 99¢ and no additional S&H. I've still got a long way to go with that set, but feels good to keep chipping away at it.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading.

A haul of cards celebrating 10 years of Cards on Cards

Cards on Cards recently reached the milestone of a decade of cardblogging. Kerry generously celebrated with free group break for his readers. I jumped in and and snaked the Red Sox. Yeah, they're not my #1 team (sorry, Padres), but well, I collect a lot of their players, plus I've probably traded with more Red Sox collectors than any other team over the past year or two, so it's always nice to add some trade fodder. Seeing as he's a fellow Portland resident, we met up the other day to save shipping. I scrounged up a handful of Cardinals for him, and he gave me my haul from the break with plenty of bonus cards.

Nice Wade Boggs auto! I was pretty stoked to land one of the highlights of the big group break. Kerry tempered expectations by saying this card came damaged out of the pack, and yeah the upper right corner was dinged a little, but not as bad as I was expecting.

Some great additions to my Mookie Betts collection, highlighted by a 2014 Donruss The Rookies RC. There's only one of these on COMC right now and it's priced at a ridiculous $49.95.. Geez! He's making a strong case for 2018 AL MVP.

Some more nice cards of current Sox standouts.

A couple all-time pitching greats here, with Clemens and Pedro.

More retired legends.

Hitting some non-Boston cards now. Didi rookie! Good stuff here.

A numbered Brian Giles (making a consecutive appearance on my blog after a starring role last post) and fan favorite Rod Beck.

The Cecchini Brothers haven't done much this year; Gavin hanging out in AAA, Garin playing in Mexico. But best of luck to them.

Oh, some more Sox, with a nice trio of Devers. Love that shimmer mini.

Fine Young Bowmans.

Bryce and Stan and Correa. Good stuff!

And Kerry hooked me up with a bunch of basketball cards too.

My Dirk PC got a big boost here. Happy to hear he's coming back for another season.

Hometown hero of mine, TJ Leaf! I only had 2 or 3 cards of his cards prior to this.

B-ball greats Wilt and Dr. J!

And a bunch of other Red Sox that didn't fit my collection to add to my tradeables box. Plantier minor league, Nomar SC insert, #'d Schilling. All up for trade.

Unopened pack of '89 Score to add to my rainy day stockpile. I like this set despite being horribly overproduced and would likely pick up a set if I found it for ~$5 at a card show sometime. So yeah, should be a fun rip.

Finally, a little cloth. Love the Hosmer relic. He's been solid for the Padres this year, though the team has had a lousy 2nd half. (I'm deeply troubled about reports they're looking to give up some of their top prospects in exchange for a starter like Chris Archer or Syndergaard.. NO!! Trust the process. Just have patience for another year or two. Don't do anything stupid and screw up the future.) And Kerry must've remembered my post talking about my love for Rilo Kiley / Jenny Lewis, hooking me up with this cool little patch.

Thanks so much for your generosity, Kerry! Lots of great stuff here. Congrats again on a decade of blogging!

Tim B. brings the big guns

Tim B. of I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning answered my call last month when I was trying to get a flurry of trade packages out before postage rates crept up. I had a decent little handful of cards set aside for him, but he really outdid himself with his return package. Hit a lot of bulls-eyes for my collection. I showed off a solid lot of 2011 Topps parallels yesterday, and now here's the rest of the goods.

Kirby's 1985 Topps rookie card was sorely lacking from my expanding PC of the guy, so this really hit the spot. I feel like '85 Topps has been growing on me over the past few years, and I might have to add it to my list of possible future setbuilds.

McCovey McChristmas Card!

Chicken Man Christmas Card!

A couple more cards off my Desperate Double Dozen. The Maas RC is card that I remember as one of my "best" cards for a while as a kid, but after he turned out to be a bust, I got rid of it in the purge when I moved out of state years back. So, nice to get that one back since restarting the PC.

The Denson was a need for the Pride PC. I've got the Chrome version of it, and even a couple autos of it, but the regular ol' base "paper" was elusive.

Four cards for consideration in the "We Didn't Start the Fire" binder! It'll be a tough call for me whether to swap out the vintage Beatles card currently in it for the Panini Golden Age card.

Nice Gwynn lot here.

Some Padres parallels. The Dickerson is a vintage stock parallel, and really makes the other cards feel like crap in comparison.

And let's close out with some attractive lady wrestlers. As I mention pretty much every time I feature wrestling cards on my blog, I don't follow the sport, but occasionally get smitten by a cutie and am compelled to collect her cards a little, such as with AJ Lee and Alexa Bliss here.

This 2015 Topps WWE - NXT Prospects card is apparently a "pre-rookie" card, like the equivalent of a 1st Bowman Card. So that's pretty sweet. Looks like that was before her character got developed much. Very nice to get some quality cards of hers to go with the auto I picked up a while back.

Huge thanks for the impressive trade package, Tim!

Card Show Cacophony

Ya'll ready for a bunch more card show pickups? The cost of each of these ranged from a dime to a quarter.

Pujols refractor. Beltre framed #/99. Big Hurt #/699.

These crazy Metal Universe cards are a trip. Where is Wade going with that bee hive? Gonna put some honey on his chicken? And is Rickey running underwater? Bizarre!

1993 Topps Gold. Carter (+ McGriff), Thome, Pedro.

Michael Jordan & Friends oddballs.

The backs. I think these are basically semi-professional customs from the early 90s. Anybody have more info on their origin?

More 90s craziness. Pacific loved to get as shiny as possible. And love the wooden-textured Piazza.

Cards of big guys back before they... um, expanded. That's Bartolo on the end, if you have trouble reading it.

A couple O's. It's a rare day that I pay money for a Rafael Palmeiro card, but it's #'d 090/100 and was only 10¢ (or maybe it was a quarter.. can't remember) so I reluctantly threw it on my stack as future trade fodder.

I don't collect Alex Gordon very passionately these days now that he sucks, but couldn't say no to these 2 refractors.

Here are some young dudes. Strasburg had a solid outing in his first start off the DL the other day.

Here are more cards. Among the cards I passed up at the show after much deliberating was a Stargell bat relic #/99 for $4. It was very tempting, but it was a tiny piece of bat and an unlicensed Panini card. Still though, I've got some minor regret letting that one slip away. When I think about it, I make an expression like Willie has in this Heritage flashback insert.

I showed off most of my vintage pickups yesterday, but here are a couple I picked up from a different dealer. Pretty sure I already have that '74 Vida, but this might be an upgrade. Such a classic "happy card" from the 70s. And I don't collect Elston Howard, but couldn't pass up that '67 for a quarter, even with it being miscut.

I know all that glitters isn't Goldschmidt, but I like these shiny refractors.

Boggs doing his thing.

Parallels. The rainbow foil Bryant for 20¢ was a pretty good score. Cheapest on COMC right now is $5.50.

2016 Archives "Super" inserts for a dime each.

Let's stick a fork in today's post with Vlad & Son. The Fleer card is a gold parallel, #/150.

Thanks for reading. Still more from this weekend's haul to show another day.

[Original] Back to the card show

I whined about missing last month's card show and how being a one-vehicle household now means attending the monthly show won't be a given for me anymore. But I'm happy to say I was able to make it to this month's show on Saturday. Believe it or not, I hadn't bought any cards this whole month up to Friday night when a 2004 Retired Gossage refractor auto popped up on eBay for a good BIN price. But yeah, all the pickups and boxes I've shown on the blog this month were actually paid for prior to 6/1. So anyways, I had the itch to pour through thousands of cards and create a big stack to bring home, and that's just what I did. Let's check out some highlights.

I will pretty much always pick up a NNOF 1990 Frank Thomas "Cards Your Mother Threw Out" 2010 reprint when I find it in Bill's discount bins. Last year I picked up 3 at one show and flipped them on eBay for a tidy profit (not that I do that type of thing very often). I figured this was another one of those, then just about vomited with excitement when I turned it over...

Original Back version! These are super rare. You can find the regular "corrected" reprint original back, and you can find the NNOF reprint with the "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" write-up back, but the combination of the NNOF with original back seems to be a SSP which is damn near as scarce as the original 1990 error. So this is an excellent pickup for my Big Hurt PC.

And that Frank was found in a fertile cache of original back CYMTO reprints! While these ones aren't as rare as the NNOF Frank, they're still not that easy to find.

Here are a couple more. The Steve Carlton, like the '90 Frank Thomas, is an error reproduction, with no black ink. I picked up a second Randy Johnson RC reprint from that silly insert set where Topps reimagined notable Topps rookie cards if they were marked with "Future Star" designation.

Here are the backs so you can see I'm not yanking your chain. Normally I'm not too crazy about reprints, but these are pretty cool, plus they were cheap. (All the cards in this post are from the quarter bins.)

Shiny cards of guys I collect.

Some additions for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset. The Josh Hamilton is the first sepia refractor (#/99) to the Chrome portion of the setbuild.

Some All-Star cards, including #'d Kershaw and Altuve cards. As for the faux Padres uniforms, it's nice for me to fantasize about the likes of Harper and Arenado playing for San Diego.

A couple more shimmering cards. There's always so much Griffeys.. I never know what's worth big money and what's not.. but hey, from time to time one jumps out at me, like this 2000 Prism here. And I may make a run at that psychedelic 1999 Bowman "Late-Bloomers" insert set, assuming I can find them all for around a quarter each.

Similar to Griffey, Bill's bins have many (too many) cards from the likes of Bonds, McGwire, and Boggs (and Mattingly, Jeter, Ripken, Arod). Usually I flip through them without hesitation, but every once in a while, something grabs my attention. The Bonds dufex looked kinda neat. As for the '89 Bowman McGwire, what caught my eye is it's the tiffany version, something you don't see too often. And the pic of Boggs pitching is pretty cool.

Well, it's super hot today. I think I'm gonna end the post here, though I've still got more pickups from the show to probably post about this week. See ya!