Incomings and Outgoings

Got some incoming cards to round up into a post.

I did a quick swap of unofficial cards with reader David B. who fancied a copy of the Willie Stargell - Braves custom I made recently. In return, I got this pair of old school customs somebody made circa 1970. David didn't have a ton of background into on them, but he had bought a larger lot with several of them on eBay in 2021. The person who originally made them must've gotten pictures from a periodical or book, affixing them onto cardboard and turning them into cards, or close enough. They're just a hair too big to fit in a standard top-loader.

Looks they had been intended to have stats on the back, but the data entry must've ended up being too tedious-- you couldn't just copy & paste back then-- so that section got a purple overhaul instead. But yeah, happy to spice up my Wampum and Hoot PCs with these.

Thanks for the trade, David! Fun stuff.

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I fielded my first trade request on TCDB in quite a while, which is mostly my fault because I haven't added squat to my FT/FS cards there in a long time. But apparently I had a few '72 Topps on there (that I had forgotten about-- in fact I've got a couple different '72 "starter lots" from my dupes that I've been meaning to put on eBay), and a friendly guy with the username aint56cool needed one, offering this pair of 1970 Topps. I gotta admit I haven't been tracking my '70 setbuild on TCDB, I just blanketly added all the semi/high numbers to my wants a couple years back since I needed most of them. And I did in fact need these two. Now just 310 cards left to go. Maybe by the time my retirement benefits kick in, assuming I live that long, I can use that 401k to finance landing a Nolan Ryan and Johnny Bench. lol

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Next up is a surprise mailing I received from Japan.

Imported fresh! Love the early Darvish, and always down for an attractive lady on a trading card.

Zippy Zappy didn't include a note this time, but I'm assuming these were some leftover stragglers from the tail end of his through-the-mail autograph acquiring activity, with his budding Rockies fandom apparent with his lot of fellas. You may recall ZZ decided to tighten up his collection a while back before escaping America, jettisoning his non-personalized TTM returns, much of which has been entrusted to me. Happy to add these to the hoard.

Thanks as always, Zippy!

-  - --o

Ok, those were the "incomings", now for the "outgoings".

The Mark Fidrych Memorial Bird Feeder (a.k.a. The Bird Birdfeeder) has closed for the time being after about 2 years serving neighborhood feathered friends. Squirrels had occasionally been a nuisance in the feeder, but a recent late night rat sighting forced the closure, as I don't want to be supporting unwanted rodents on my property. I'm hoping to "reopen the restaurant" at some point, perhaps in a different spot. Anyways, the above card was the featured entertainment for the birds to enjoy while they ate. It's faded in the sun somewhat, but there's still some yellow hanging on.

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Sad to hear Val Kilmer passed away the other day, though I know his health had been in the toilet for the past several years. He did a lot of great work, from his early quirky films to the big-budget stuff. I watched his documentary a couple years back and he really was a fascinating dude. Anyways, this above Ginter auto is a cherished piece of my collection, scored in a blogger trade back in 2016. (Bubba, are you still out there?)

 - - --o

Now an update on my "latest art drop".. the silhouette cards from my previous post. Happy to report I sold out the Rickey Henderson cards within 48 hours! Interest was not nearly as robust with the other two featured athletes, however. So far I've moved just one Bo Jackson and zero Jordans.. kinda surprising to me, as I think they're super cool, but that's just how it goes sometimes. (Update: just sold 4 more Bo cards to one guy but don't feel like rewriting this paragraph.) Both Jordan listings had a weird thing where the listing didn't show up on the site until a day later, despite showing as active on my end. Not sure if that was a technical hiccup, or if perhaps listings mentioning 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan have a higher rate of getting flagged for moderation since counterfeits are so rampant with that card. But anyways, they're available now and we'll see if folks eventually start coming around to them. 

But my takeaway is that the market for Rickey cardart/custom stuff is strong, which is cool with me. I already had more Rickey stuff in the works anyways, so I'll continue that route, and spend less time on making new Bo and Jordan cards. (I also have plans for more subjects-- already made a Tim Flannery '88 Fleer silhouette card for Rod, plus a few Barry Bonds ideas for my guy who buys most Bonds cardart I whip up. [Though he passed on the pair of Christmas tree ornament cards. Maybe he doesn't celebrate? Fair enough!])

Also, the glowing cards did well-- they seemed to be among the quickest Rickeys to go, and the first Bo sale was a glower-- so I'll likely focus on more g.i.t.d. cards, which are my personal favorite anyway.

In fact, here's a sneak peek of my latest finished item with the lights out...

I'm still coming up with new ideas, as well as sitting on some good ideas that have been brewing on the backburner for years, so even if you don't dig the silhouette vibe, your boy Gav has more tricks up his sleeve, don't you fret. Thanks for following along!

new cardart: Silhouette Cards

I haven't really shared any new art projects of mine so far this year, but I've been tinkering on a project for the past few months. All the Christmas tree ornaments that I made back in November '24 kinda burned me out on that style of cardmaking (cutting up real cards and adding shiny backgrounds, etc.) and so starting in mid December, I began working on a new concept: silhouette cards!

Rickey Henderson was my muse the first subject chosen. When he suddenly passed away shortly after I began working on the concept, it became a more somber tribute to him. I made a lot of "prototypes" as I figured out the best way to go about things through trial and error, so it was nice to at the same time be celebrating the memory of a legend. And while I've got other Rickey silhouettes in the works (running, etc), for this initial batch, I stuck with his rookie card stance, in a Warhol-inspired repetition of variations.

In addition to singles, I've wanted to put together displays, further leaning into the Warhol aesthetic with the color quadrants. I customized a BCW 4-card magnetic holder with "The GOAT" banner in the middle.

I've also got Bo Jackson in this "GOAT" series, putting a vertical twist on his iconic '90 Score FB/BB card.

This "Black Metallic" themed display is available in both standard (sharp corners) and rounded corners:

Also a "Black Gold" variation display..

I really want to improve at making videos, because this stuff generally looks better in-hand with the light jumping around.

And you readers know I'm nuts for glow-in-the-dark stuff, so the glowing versions are probably my favorite. I sampled several types of glowing material searching for the best and brightest.

The trio of this first batch of silhouette "GOAT" cards is rounded out by a renowned basketball guy.

Riffing on the iconic Michael Jordan card in 1986-87 Fleer basketball.

So there you have it, an overview of the latest creative endeavor in the Baseball Card Breakdown catalog. All these cards and more have been made available for sale on eBay now. (I might soon try putting stuff on Etsy too, and of course I'm always down to trade.) I'll be interested to see what styles sell and what don't. Then I'll likely work up a second batch once I get a feel for what people like (ie, more variations of the styles that sell well), along with other ideas I've got kick. Even if this stuff does sell well, it'll be a while till I recoup the investment on my manufacturing costs. But if people dig them and I can achieve my dream of being able to make a thing and then easily sell the thing, that'd be awesome. I don't do it for the money, I do it because I like creating neat stuff (and generating walks to the post office with my dog), but sure, it'd be nice to eventually turn a profit and be able to consider myself a "working artist" with this crafty side-hobby of mine.

If you're interested, here's the link to my eBay listings. 

Thanks!

COMC haul misc

Happy Opening Day, everybody. I recently got another shipment from COMC and I've been meaning to show off some highlights.

Some refractors that caught my eye. I sorted Juan Soto refractors cheapest-first and grabbed that Béisbol one. I wanted an All-Etch logofractor, and ended up with Austin Riley, whom I've kinda fell into PCing, I guess. The blue 2008 Adrian Gonzalez pickup was inspired by a gcrl post. I haven't logged my Brian Giles PC yet, but I probably needed at least most of this trio of Bowman refractors.

Grabbed a few parallel Gavins. (Not pictured, but I'm happy to see that Gavin Sheets secured a spot on the Padres' OD roster! The first Padre named Gavin!) Gavin Sawchuk, a gridiron Gavin, is a new name for my collection. I don't have much use for modern football cards these days, having detached myself from the NFL over the past 15 years (and never really getting into college sports), but I guess I don't mind an excuse to sample some of the new designs and parallels Fanatics uses for football products, but I won't go trying to "rainbow" any of his cards or go nuts with building a PC (The previous notable Gavin football player, Gavin Escobar, I collected a lot, but he had the added connection of being a fellow SDSU alum). Sawchuk is still a running back for the Oklahoma Sooners-- oh yeah, Bowman U is for college kids; kind of a weird thing to get used to-- so we'll see if he eventually goes pro.

I'm not feeling too optimistic about my Padres this season, but hoping Jackson Merrill continues developing into a star.

Dick Allen PC got kicked up with this four. The Kmart card is a blank-front, so it's an oddity that doesn't count in my quest to hit 100 cards in the TCDb-leading PC.

Unrelated to my latest COMC haul, but here's a photo from the other day when I rounded up all my Dick Allen cards that featured the 1972 Topps design.. including Topps, OPC, customs, and a couple Topps Vault pieces. Dick's card seems to have usually been the last one packaged into the '82 Kmart box set, touching the gum, so it's very common to find with a gum stain on the back. If the stain is raunchy enough, I consider it somewhat of an unofficial variation and add it to the keepers.

Also grabbed some additions for my glowing card collection.

The Harry Potter one and all the Upper Deck Space Patches were new sets to me, and I've since updated my Glow-In-The-Dark Cards page to include them.

Found a couple cheap Project 2020 cards for the Big Hurt PC. This is where COMC's flat shipping comes in handy, since those bulky plastic cases otherwise ratchet up postage. Flippers went nuts back then, so now some of those cards with high print runs can be snagged on COMC for less than they'd cost to ship alone. The artists are Naturel (left) and Matt Taylor (right). Matt Taylor's version of the Rickey rookie is the only Project 2020 card I actually bought "live". I also ended up with his Gwynn thanks to Rod a couple years later. So it seems I've got myself a little Matt Taylor art collection going. But as far as 1990 Topps Frank Thomas, I think I prefer Naturel's colorful rendition here.

I'm embarrassed to admit but when I first saw 1992 Leaf black gold cards come out of the package, I was like, "WTF, I thought I already completed this set last year!?" But duh, I momentarily forgot I'm now trying to complement that set with the tougher "of 33" preview cards. This lot helps get me to 21 of 33.

1964 and 1972 needs, including some notable names and a pair of '72 Cubs variations (green under the "C" and "S" instead of yellow).

And I've now completed 1980 Kellogg's thanks to Garv and Yaz here. Probably. I still need to sort through my set to confirm, but it's tricky because I sort my Kellogg's cards by curvaceousness, not card number. lol

Thanks for reading and best of luck to your favorite team this MLB season.

My latest customs

The new printer has been working out pretty well other than sometimes having trouble getting on the Wi-Fi without turning it off-and-then-on-again. I owed return card packages to blogging buds Johnny and Bob, and I don't have much in the way of real cards available that they'd want, so my first priority with the new printer was to finish some customs to send their way (again).

Back in 2022, I made a 9-card custom set called Bubble Gum Baseball featuring bubble-blowing photos of ballplayers. I had whipped up a "2nd series" with a new design in the middle of 2024, but my home printer at the time wouldn't cooperate, so here in 2025 I got to do the thing like real card manufacturers and not actually put out a product until the next year, kinda like how Topps (Fanatics) typically puts out those Chrome Anniversary sets a year late.

But yeah, here's a second page of bubble customs:

I retained the Bubble Gum Baseball logo and '73 Topps position silhouette from the 1st series for continuity. However, I decided to go all-horizontal and full-bleed this time. I admit the gumball design is not my best work, but it's fine. When it comes time to make a 3rd group of these, I'll most likely go back to a vertical design with borders.

 

The backs each feature a write-up paragraph, typically with added context for the front photograph (e.g. that was Joey Votto's final game in Cincinnati). Tiny text, but zoom in if you like.

 

 

 
The print run on this set is currently just 3: Bob, John, and one for me. But I could print more if anybody wants to make a trade offer involving any.

But wait, there's more!

I also made some All-Time Braves customs for Johnny in the style of cards put out by TCMA in 1986. I tried to think of notable Braves who don't have (m)any Braves cards out there. I love stuff like "short term stops" and other familiar person in unfamiliar uniform pictures.

I remember as a new collector getting a card or two in this design from a Sears catalog "collector kit" repack, circa Christmas 1990, so I've got a soft spot for it. Chances are I do more of these, and for more teams, because they're fun for me to whip up.

The backs mimic the real TCMA cards and similar to the bubble customs feature a write-up with more context.

 

 

I made a couple extras of each of the above All Time customs for trade bait and trade package thrown-ins, so if you'd like any, just let me know. Shameless link to my wantlist.

 

 

And one last new custom to show off today, but this one is really just for me. Two of my "under the radar" PC guys happen to be in camp with the Padres this spring as non-roster invitees fighting for a bench spot. I've got my fingers crossed that at least one of them makes the club.. hopefully both! But regardless how it shakes out, I at least wanted to get the moment documented in my card collection.

 

Trenton Brooks is a guy who went to the same high school as me, and Gavin Sheets shares my first name. I've been following/collecting both dudes for years, so it's cool to have them suiting up for my favorite team this spring. For the custom, I modified a 1986 Fleer rookie prospects template I had from years back. I plan to print out a copy for each PC.

 

 

Trenton would be just the third Guy From Granite to play for his hometown Padres, with the Giles brothers being the other two. And Mr. Sheets would be the first guy named Gavin to play for San Diego. Good luck, fellas!

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next post.

Vintage pickups

I won another card from Greg Morris auctions the other day, and then set bids for a bunch more ending shortly and wound up winning a few to join in on the flat-rate shipping. Might as well get a post out of 'em, right?

A couple big boys from 1975 Topps to kick things off.

Nice pair of dueling All-Stars.

I ended up winning a couple Jim Rice rookies that ended around the same time, but I'd stop short of saying it was an accident; the cheaper creased card on the right can get thrown in the player collection.

Then I got Yaz from another eBay seller, and Vida Blue is also on the way, making the Reds team card with Sparky Anderson all that stands in my way of a complete 1975 Topps set. I'll have to grab one soon to wrap that up.

Back to the Greg Morris stuff, here's a pair of HOF Giants. I'm hoping to finally finish off 1964 Topps in the next year or two.

I'm not too picky with condition if it's a good deal, though I shy away from "Poor/Good" beaters when I can.

A couple more notable names and Bennie Daniels, notable for being the set's final card. Around this same time, I also knocked off more needs in my forthcoming COMC order that should push me over 80% complete when that shows up.

This Willie Montanez rocking the glorious ASR trophy was the initial win that prompted this round of pickups. Funny enough, I ended up losing all the proceeding 1972 Topps needs I bid on, but oh well, I got this one at least, and the few '75s and '64s to go with it. My '72 set currently sits at 95%, so I should be able to wrap up that one this year if I keep at it.

Planning on hitting a local card shop later this week for the first time in years with a blogger meetup scheduled for the local cardsphere crew and a visiting guest of honor from San Jose, so maybe I can score some needs then. Regardless, it'll be great to hang in person with some blogging buddies, assuming the inclement weather in the forecast doesn't spoil our plans.

more cards from Rod (and a couple PWEs from John)

Some highlights from the third box of cards Rod hooked me up with recently.

Lots of additions to my PCs of current Padres. Notables here include a bunch of sweet Jackson Merrill rookies, a Dylan Cease Topps Now x4, and a Tatis logofractor.

Bobby Witt, Jr. and Julio Rodriguez are a couple young stars of the game that hadn't been all that well represented in my collection yet.

Something for my Chris Jones supercollection.. a near-complete 1986 Phoenix Firebirds team set (that screwed up his name), just missing the trainer card.

I ripped the pair of hockey packs and even scored 2 or 3 guys I've heard of, so that's pretty cool.

And the glow-in-the-dark playing cards were a nice surprise.

Snapped a pic with the light-out to give you an idea how they look in action. I'm not sure how feasible it'd be to really play games with them in the dark and/or underwater, but it's a neat concept and another interesting thing to add to the "Glow-in-the-dark museum" that doubles as my basement bathroom.

A bit of vintage slipped into the box.

1952 Bowman Television and Radio Stars of the NBC #20 Joel McCrea

1958 Topps TV Westerns #57 Tales of Wells Fargo - Dale Robertson (as Jim Hardie)

1952 Topps Look 'n See #64 Winston Churchill

Some modern cards of HOFers I collect. I appreciate keeping those PCs fresh with a sampling of the new stuff that Fanatics cranks out these days.

And again, that's just a small percentage of the cards he dropped on me. Muchas gracias, Rod! I can't thank you enough for all the great cards and stuff you've given me over the years.

-  - -o

I know I'm very fortunate to live close to Rod, facilitating card dumps like this without having to worry about postage. 

Closing the post with a couple PWEs from John Miller, another MVP of my collection these past several years. Sometimes I wish I lived near him over across the country so I could help him thin out his vast hoard of nonkeepers for my collection's benefit, but alas, we must rely on the post office as the middleman.

Heavy on Gavins here, with most new to me. Dig the shiny cards of Sheets and Cross. Gavin Sheets was let go by the White Sox in November, so I'm curious if/where he resurfaces this coming season.

Thanks a lot, John! I had just mailed an overdue package out to you the same day the PWEs arrived, so hopefully that arrived safe by now. 

That's all for this time.. take care, guys!