Christmas decorations typically don't go up at my house till mid December, but this year I'm getting an early infusion of holiday spirit thanks to focusing my cardart activities for the past few weeks on creating "tree ornaments" from cards. Now that we're into November, they're ready to roll out.
There's 30-something of these in this initial batch. I basically look for cards that would lend themselves to modifying for the holidays, such as red '90 Donruss and green '91 Donruss, and then I add some shiny to help them pop on the tree. Each card has a customized semi-rigid hanger. Figured I'd throw on a Santa cap to really drive the point ho-ho-home. The santa hats are on the case, not the card, for an added 3D effect (or they can be removed if you think it's too cheesy). The backs are marked 1/1, as I don't intend to make the same thing twice.
Pardon the plug, but I've now got these up for sale at the yuletide price of $12.25 plus cheap eBay standard letter shipping (which often takes around 10 days, another reason I'm not waiting till Thanksgiving). Here's the eBay link to 'em. I still have lots of cards set aside to make additional ornaments, perhaps a whole second batch if there's interest. Normally these might be the type of thing I use as a "holiday surprise" for my hobby pals, but seeing as I'm still unemployed and trying to make a midlife pivot to creative/artist endeavors as a day job, these were specifically made for advancing the ol' side-hustle. But that said, I'm happy to make more of these for trades or whatever, so yeah, if you want me to make a similar one of these of your favorite player, either in exchange for $12.25 (USA PWE) or the rough equivalent in cards that fall under the wide umbrella of my wantlist, just let me know and we'll work something out.
Scroll through the alphabetized gallery below to check out this first batch of tree ornament cardart.
I like to round the corners when it fits with the design. These green '87 Hygrade cards work well.
No cap. This Rickey has been sold already.
Got cute with a bonus snowman in this one.
Yeah, a whopping four Rickeys, the king of Baseball Christmas.
Sneaking in a football card.
A guy was asking me about Dave Justice cardart, so I made a couple.
I made a typo in the listing that this Mattingly is '91 Post (and eBay won't let me edit it), but of course it's '94 Post with the Christmas colors.
The "crystal window" cards look pretty cool with a light behind them shining through.
The only active player in this group. Ohtani "mini" made from 1/3 of a League Leaders card. The frame is upcycled from an old greeting card I received.
Kirby is the only one here who gets a funky frame.
Fun fact: these ornaments were all made by someone who was literally born on Christmas Eve, so they naturally have more "Christmas Spirit" seeped into them than you'll find elsewhere! :)
This Nolan is leftover from last year when I first thought to make card-ornaments but it was too late to really run with the idea by then.
There you have it, my latest cardart offering. (I've got another new cardart avenue I'm even more excited about these days, but that's for another post.) Thanks for reading and I wish you all Happy Holidays this year!
Quick real-life scary story for Halloween: On Monday, my wife lost her wallet on her way to work. Making matters worse: along with her driver's license and credit cards was her Passport card (featuring her SSN)-- which she normally wouldn't have with her if not for some pending work-related reason that she temporarily needed it handy. She figured the wallet popped out of her jacket pocket on the Max (commuter train) into downtown. Plenty of creeps around there and definitely not where you want to leave an Identity Theft Starter Kit for a bad person to play with. So then came the stressful exercises of placing various holds and being on high alert for fraud. After a miserable 48 hours expecting the worst under the guillotine, joy bloomed anew when my wife got a Facebook message that the wallet had been found and that a nearby convenience store was in possession of it. Aside from the cash, everything was still there, so it was pretty close to a best-case scenario conclusion to the whole ordeal.
It made for a hectic week here at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ. But yeah.. Happy Halloween!
The Dodgers won the World Series last night and I'm not exactly thrilled about it-- Remember how the Padres almost beat them! Huh?! Remember?!!-- But hey, I collect some of those guys, so I thought I'd show off some of my best cards of today's Dodgers to make myself feel better about the final outcome of the 2024 MLB season.
I got a small seat on the Walker Buehler hype train early in case he became the next Kershaw. Hasn't exactly reached that station yet, but he's at least still chugging along. While he had a shaky year overall, he's the lucky dog who got to victoriously close out the World Series for his team.
The 2015 1st Bowman parallel was a terrific card show pickup circa 2016 for like a buck, while the refractor rookie auto was an eBay pickup from early 2020. I remember waiting a few months for one to land in my price range, stubborn to hold out for a refractor rather than base. And I'm glad I did, even assuming his card prices probably haven't risen much since then thanks to all the injuries.
A few more RCs, parallels, etc. Funny how Buehler shares that multiplayer rookie card with Alex Verdugo, whom Buehler struck out to hand the Yankees their final out. Can you think of any other instances with a World Series-ending match-up like that sharing a rookie card? (I'm too lazy to dig into it, but maybe somebody else?)
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My Shohei Ohtani PC is only like 20-something cards deep, sadly, but I've at least got these pretty decent half-dozen I can proudly show off.
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I was active collecting Mookie Betts back in his Red Sox days. I fell short in my efforts to land a 1st Bowman auto (preferably refractor-- better yet, color refractor) back before he blossomed into a star, but at least I was able to score his earliest certified autograph: 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks, plus a nice Stadium Club rookie auto.
No auto here, but hey, got these solid 1st Bowmen (sic).
Other rookie-year Mookies of mine. Glad I got that 2014 Update RC back then, as it's become a sought-after card as he's continued putting together a HOF caliber career.
A pair of long-odds pulls here to close out the Mookie section, with a 2015 Topps "Sliding" photo variation (another cheap card show all-timer for me) and a 2015 Stadium Club "Crystal Ball" insert with a cool 3D effect going on (thiiick card), numbered 17/30.
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Ha, I almost finished the post before remembering my guy, Gavin Lux.
Another World Series ring for guys named Gavin! We've come a long way, baby. lol
Above are all my Gavin Lux autographs, all purchased before his MLB debut, I believe. (Not pictured is the "Sign Here" 1st Bowman refractor which I've shown off several times already.) The Bowman's Best card (top middle) is the card where his autograph changed. He signed his full name up to that point, but halfway through signing his 1st Bowman's Best auto cards, he dropped the first name from his signature, and has used the shorter version since (as far as I know). Not saying I blame him, just funny to notice. Oh, and those blue autos in the middle row aren't dupes (per my rules) because one is the 12/25 "Christmas Card". (Holidays just around the corner, guys!) And speaking of...
Found from a 2019 post. I did not win this card, needless to say. Geez
Sure, if I could go back in time, I might be tempted to liquidate my early Gavin Lux autos back when his top prospect status was at its peak... but oh well, I'm not in the hobby to make money, I'm in it to collect and hopefully have some fun in the process.
If I wanted to extend his post, I could dig out some of my best Clayton Kershaw cards, but I'll be lazy and not do that since he didn't pitch in the World Series. But here's an old link to my best Kershaw, a 12/25 auto, for good measure. Perhaps surprisingly, I've never really collected Freddie Freeman much, though I think I've got a few decent RCs of his kicking around. He really wrote himself into the record books this year.. wow.
Anyways, congrats to the Dodgers and their fans. :/
I never owned a 1957 Topps card during my original stint as a card collector in the early 90s, with my modest smattering of vintage not stretching back further than 1969 or so. The first 1957 Topps card I acquired was a year or two after I had returned to the hobby, scoring myself a beat-up, miscut Mickey Mantle for $54 in November 2013. Over a decade later, October 18, 2024, I acquired my last 1957 Topps card, coincidentally also a Yankees outfielder, and between those 2 purchases, I tracked down the other 405 cards in the 407-card set. Yep, 1957 Topps is in the books!
My "setbuild bookend" cards are fittingly off-center towards each other. Tony Kubek isn't a big name today, but he won the AL ROY that year, and add to that the "Yankee tax", and his high-numbered rookie card shook out to being my final need, settling for this one.
Fulls stats, write-up, and a comic.. it's a solid card back design. (BTW, Happy Birthday, Mickey Mantle!)
After the Kubek rookie arrived, I queued up a playlist of Billboard's Hot 100 for the year 1957, and thumbed through the cards to confirm they're all there. When they started counting bananas in "Day-O", it nearly threw me off as I mentally checked off card numbers, lol. Then my heart nearly sank when #156 Gus Triandos wasn't in its place, but thankfully ol' Gus had just been misfiled a couple cards back.
All cards were accounted for, happy to report. The set is in a box, not binder-- apologies to you purists out there-- but I've got several graded cards in there anyways. I'm no "slab bro" or anything, but I plan to keep them encased for safety.
Billy Pierce is my highest-graded card at PSA 7, and turned out to be the only dupe that slipped into my set, also finding a creased raw copy in the box during my verification process. Pierce's upgrade and the PSA 6 Wally Post were scored in a trade with Chris the Collector in 2019. Luis Aparicio (previous pic) was a contest win, I believe, but I think the rest of these slabs were purchases. For a while I was trying to get big names in graded form just to be careful in regards to counterfeits. Not sure I'd bother quite as much today, but no regrets.
My set is a basic "one of each card number" set, not a master set. There are unnumbered checklists (with variations) and contest cards that I don't really have interest in. Same for the one error variation and a "lucky penny keychain offer" card. As it stands, I just have the one above contest card as a representative for the unnumbered appendix stuff. I've thrown the other stuff on my TCDB wantlist just in case, as I wouldn't mind trading for them, but I don't want to pay big bucks for boring cards that are only expensive today because kids back in '57 understandably threw them away with the wrappers most of the time.
Some more big cards that are too good for just a penny sleeve's protection. Another quirk of my set is that the Duke Snider is a buyback auto from 2004 Topps Originals. But hey, that's a real 1957 Topps card, so I count it. If I were one to grade cards, I'd be very curious what that Brooks Robinson rookie I lucked into would score. It seems pretty sharp for one of the top cards in the checklist, and isn't very representative of my set as a whole. For instance..
Consecutively near the front of the set at #8 and 9 are these well-loved specimens. There are several beaters in my set, can't deny. Looks like I've got 155 cards currently logged in a status of "upgrade would be nice" on my spreadsheet. Sure, I wouldn't mind upgrading them someday, but I'm also totally fine if that day never comes. I can truthfully make the claim that I've completed a set of 1957 Topps Baseball, and that's enough for me!
And an even bigger big-picture collecting goal for me wraps up now too: I've now completed my original vintage setbuilding goal of my personal "holy trinity" of favorite sets, one from each decade of the Topps golden era. First for me was 1973 Topps (started circa 11/28/2013, finished 9/26/2015-- my 1st ever completed full-sized set), then came 1965 Topps (kicked off 8/14/2015 and completed 1/7/2018). And now finally, I've completed my trifecta of personal favorites with 1957.
The Mantle was originally purchased as part of my little Mickey Mantle PC-- no intention to ever complete the set at the time. But soon thereafter I started attending the local monthly card show and would always grab '57s when I found them in the sub-dollar bins. The earliest post I found with the "1957 Topps" label on my blog is a card show recap from August 2015: "I was especially happy to score the two 57s. That's a definite 'maybe someday I'll work on completing that set' dream set for me."
Hey, dreams do come true! :) It's also kind of neat how I tried to keep track of the source of each card on the spreadsheet, helping to tell the story of how this particular set came together... via trades, card shows, and online purchases. As for the cards themselves, I love the "non-design" of the set and how for the first time Topps let the photograph be the card without much bells or whistles getting in the way. The set makes for terrific snapshots into the game at the time.
I hit the '57 wantlist hard for the next few years at the monthly card show, as longtime readers might recall-- (post titled "Wanna see more '57 Topps pickups? Too bad, here they are anyway" lol). Then when covid hit, I stopped going to the card show, and haven't been inspired to return since. Now here in 2024 I realized if I was gonna finish the set, I'd need to get more proactive and start picking off needs at COMC and eBay. And so I did, and a few months later, here we are. I'm glad I did the heavy lifting before the pandemic pumped up vintage prices. It's safe to say this will remain as my oldest completed set from here on out. I have half-hearted whims of pursuing 1959 Topps someday if prices drop or my ship comes in, but besides that, I still have 1964 Topps stalled at 76% and would like to complete that one eventually before my collecting career wraps up. But my focus is jumping back up to the 70s now, aiming to complete a run of that decade's flagship Topps sets. The pesky high-numbers of 1972 Topps, in particular, are currently in my crosshairs. In fact...
The final 1957 card was won from a Greg Morris auction, and if you're familiar with that seller, you know if you win one card from him you should try to snag a few more cards within the next few days before you pay because it's a flat shipping cost for all cards won within a week or something. I scored a bunch of '72 needs, including the 4 highlights above (Finally have the real Ron Cey rookie card!). From my experience, you want to find his auctions that end in the middle of the night (like these)-- his auctions ending in the afternoon/evening seem to end higher (than they probably should) with last minute bids, which I guess makes sense, but something I should try to keep in mind when bidding on his stuff. People might overpay a bit since they know it's still an ok deal with the combined shipping considered, plus he's a trusted vintage dealer not some rando who might try to slip you a fake or try funny business regarding condition issues.
But yeah, before I expanded to include all of the 70s, my longterm vintage collecting goal was completing the '57/'65/'73 trifecta of my favorite sets, so it's a great feeling to wrap that up. Thanks for following along, folks!
