my big score from the card show

Just about done recapping my haul from last weekend's card show. Again, these are all pickups from the 50¢ bins.

The guy had a few 2013 Topps Mike Trout cards, which are fine but I've already got.. you know, like that horizontal shot of him sliding into third making a funny face.. but then I came to one I didn't recognize. Didn't seem to be an All-Star card, checklist, or something like that, so figured it might be a variation and added it to my stack.

Yeppers! Looked it up when I got home and its a sunglasses variation that eBay's at $15. Pretty nice! Probably turned out to be my best buy of the day.

Also added a couple early cards of Nat's stars Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg.

And early cards of Andrew McCutchen and Mike Stanton. I think I already have the Giancarlo, but hey, 50¢.

Normally I try to stay away from collecting guys with feminine first names because I'm just so fucking manly and macho, but Shelby Miller has been pitching pretty well this year, so I grabbed this gold RC. As for the Austin Meadows, I was smitten by the Outfield/Pitcher position designation. I was just commenting on a Night Owl post a couple weeks ago about how it's too bad Brooks Kieschnick never got a card dually listing him as such even though he definitely deserved one. Meadows is doing pretty well down in A-ball in the Pirates organization these days.. he shook out to be a center fielder and hasn't pitched at all. And I couldn't pass up a #'d Miguel Cabrera card, even if it's from the set that tried to kill any meaning left to serial numbering, 2008 Moments & Milestones.

A couple recent HOF inductees in Randy Johnson and Frank Thomas. Big Unit is #'d /1956 and Big Hurt is a neat-looking die-cut.

Finally, I had put these two cards back.. but then I counted up my stack and had a little wiggle room to make an even 50 total cards, so added them back. It's hard for me to pass up liquorfractors. Kind of a cool shot of Felix Hernandez with the ball coming at'cha. And as for the Gwynn, I know I've got the "CD" version of this insert, but don't think I had the "vinyl" one to pair with it.

So there you have it. I'll probably scrounge up a trade bait post in the next day or so and that'll wrap up my haul from May's cardshow. Thanks for reading!

70s pickups from the 50¢ boxes (card show recap)

In November of 1998, I fell in love with an unidentified song on a tape recorded off the radio. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out mystery songs, but it was sung in a foreign language, so googling the lyrics was no use. I even tried one of those apps that identifies songs, and it couldn't help.

Well, took me nearly 17 years, but I finally tracked it down today!

Ah, the joy of a completed quest and mystery solved!!

(I can't find it easily embeddable, but if you're curious, here's a link to the song.)

Ok, now the cards in this post aren't exactly white whales along the lines of my hunt to figure out what song that was. But hey, they're still pretty cool pickups in their own right.

So let's get on with it... Here are some more old cards I got from the 50¢ bins at the recent cardshow.

Some big names here.

Back-to-back Fergies. I've got all these in my 73 setbuild already, but I suspect they may be upgrades (I still need to check), plus I kinda PC these guys, so no harm in picking up a dupe.

The hits keep coming with 1975 Topps. F-Robbie's final Topps card as a player. And rookie cards respectively highlighted by Freddy Lynn and Keith Hernandez. I always just thought Lynn had his arm out in a batting pose in this photo, but the blogosphere educated me that Topps just bizarrely whited-out the bottom of his picture for whatever reason.

Onto the late 70s. The Lefty is my first '77 cloth card. I remember getting throwback inserts in Archives of this type of thing and just assuming it was a new gimmick they just came up with.. but no, there really were weird cloth sticker things in 1977. And I love Willie Stargell, but this is definitely not one of his better cards. But pretty sure I needed it, so for 50¢.. yeah.

And then just a couple 80s cards to finish out the post. I've got to be creeping up on the 100 cards needed to knock Rickey off my wantlist, but he's still got a few classic cards I'd like to pick up, such as this '82 Donruss. And the Pete Rose OPC quoting "Now with Expos" is kinda neat.

Have a terrific weekend, everybody!

Do any of you guys have mystery songs you like a lot that you haven't been able to identify? Hum a bit of it in the comments and maybe somebody could help you.

Surprise cards from Corky and Underdog

Man, working full days this week has been kicking my butt, even with the short week. I had really grown accustomed to my 6 hour days. I think 6 hours is the ideal maximum length a workday should be. That's probably in the bible somewhere, right? While we're at it, every weekend should be a three-day weekend.

There were a bunch of spiderwebs on my bike when I went to ride home yesterday. I thought that was funny.. I was at work so long that my bike had cobwebs!

So anyways, I'm tired. But the week has been considerably improved thanks to a couple surprise PWEs showing up.

The first one stumped me as I pulled it out of the mailbox.. the name in the return address wasn't ringing a bell. I thought it might be a random Listia win, but I hadn't won any lots lately, and from the thickness, there were definitely several cards in there. But thankfully a little note was included and it turns out it originated from Pack War! I know him best as Corky, but that's not his real name so it threw me.

Gotta lead off with this beaut. In his note, Corky said my recent Reggie PC post made him remember he had this card, and as I was in such need, he thought it'd go better in my collection. Wow, thanks, man!

If that wasn't enough, he also included this sweet Giancarlo RC (that actually looks much better than it scanned). Another key need for me!

A few Carson City Chargers were along for the ride. Great stuff and don't think I had any of these. The Te'o is a refractor, and the Gates is numbered out of 249 or something.

Lastly from Corky, here's an odd double-wide "Triple Folder" fold-out card-- I think this counts as a card, right? Good ol' Natrone Means. Very cool.

Thanks again, Corky! I'll have to return the favor soon and try to dig up something for you. If I ever post any trade bait that catches your eye, please let me know!

Another surprise PWE this week was from The Underdog Collector. This time I recognized the return name/address, but what surprised me is he just sent me a PWE like a couple weeks ago (remember that Gwynn coin card?). This makes the third batch of cards from him in the past few weeks! Hard to keep up with the guy!

Turns out Underdog got some Padres action in a 2015 Bowman group break, and had some dupes to share with his fellow Friar Faithful on the blogosphere. It's a sharp looking design. Up there are the Chromes, and down here are the non-Chromes...

Very appreciated! Thanks, man. I'll have to find some more cards to shoot your way soon.

Thanks again to these two guys for their generosity. And thank you for reading about it. Have a great rest of your day.

60s pickups from the 50¢ boxes (card show recap)

This month's cardshow netted me a bunch of good stuff. As is my usual m.o., I'll show off most of my discount bin finds roughly separated out by era in a small handful of posts. Here's 4 bucks' worth of cards I got from the 1960s.

I had no idea what these were.. but they looked cool and old, so for the price, why not? Turns out they're from a set called 1961 Golden Press. Hate to admit it, but Pie Traynor is best known to me because of his split-second appearance on The Simpsons (featured at the bottom of this post). A bit before my time, I guess. Home Run is a great nickname. Hey, I just noticed this pair is a Pie-Baker combo. Nice. Somebody please bake me a pie.

I love pre-1981 Fleer cards when I come across them cheap. This Earl Averill is from 1960 Fleer.

Eli here looks a little disgusted by the dog hair that accidentally got into the photo. Sorry, Mr. Grba (if that is your real name. Pretty sure he just made that up.) I have very few 1960 Topps cards, so went ahead and grabbed this one.

Rookie card!

Here's a '67 Topps card of some dude on the Dodgers named John Werhas.

This isn't necessarily a trade bait post, but if you need any of the above cards, I could probably be talked out of them without much trouble. I like 'em, but don't really need 'em.

I don't want to be one of those guys whose lifelong collecting goal is to finish every vintage Topps flagship set. Too much for me. (Whom I kidding, that'd be great. But no, I mustn't!) But after I eventually complete the two old sets I am working on, 1973 and 1971.. if I then start getting a hankering to try putting together another vintage set, 1965 would definitely be in the running. Apart from all being off-center to the right, this trio is in nice shape, and even a semi-star there in Matty Alou. Ryne Duren wasn't a guy I had heard of (another ballplaying Ryne?!) but he was a 3-time All-Star.

Love the comic book-style backs.

See ya next time!

The joy of a completed PC: Mike Piazza

(The first part of this post was drafted about a month ago.)

Thanks to a hefty lot in a recent package from Daniel at It's Like Having My Own Card Shop, I've obtained my 100th Mike Piazza card, thereby knocking him off my wantlist. Hooray!

That's a nice Piazza pile. Big thanks, Daniel!

Mike Piazza might have more baseball cards out there than anybody, save maybe Griffey. I always thought he was just fine (not a super fan, but didn't dislike the guy), and thought it was surreal in 2006 when he played for my hometown Padres for a one-year stint near the end of his run. Though voters are "sending a message" by making him wait a while, smart money is on Piazza being inducted into the Hall within the next few years. He's got to be included on any shortlist of baseball's all-time catchers, right up there with Bench and Berra.

And as a probable to-be member of my Pads in the Hall minicollection (any former Padre inducted into the Hall of Fame), he's a main guy I collect. But now thanks to my adopted 100-and-done method of player-collecting, I can stick a fork in this PC. Right?
Well, almost.

Unfortunately for me, I can't celebrate too hard just yet because I sort of have an unwritten rule that a guy in my Hundred Card Club can't officially be considered a "finished" PC without a certified auto to crown the collection. (This rule will really become an issue once Clemente and Mantle crack triple digits.) Piazza pack-certified autos are tough to come by and have thus far eluded me. (Well, hey, I do have an auto of his cousin who's also named Mike Piazza, if that counts for anything!)

But I'll keep a lookout, and hopefully make that happen one of these days.

For now, let's take a look at my Mike Piazza collection.

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UPDATE: Ok, like I said, I originally drafted that up like a month ago. I assumed I had 100+ Piazzas, but turns out I fell short and was just at 87 cards. D'oh! So this post had to wait a while till I really got 100 different cards of the guy. The nickelbox I showed highlights from the other day thankfully came through and helped me achieve the goal.

So here are 100 Mike Piazza cards!

Rookie cards! The graded '92 Bowman was a sweet prize from Bob Walk the Plank last year.

A couple Marlins cards! Thank you, Fleer!

Happy Memorial Day, by the way. Thank you to the heroes.

Ok, the 2 cards on the right are technically the same card, but the tint is different enough to where I guess I'll consider one an unofficial variation rather than a dupe.

I love the 2004 Topps design (see my love for 2004 Topps Retired) and the little sketch-thing in the corner is a cool concept, but it doesn't really work with every picture.. and this is a prime example of a fail. Closer look:

WTF?

2005 features a cool Piazza relic. It came from Nate at Big 44 in a trade last year.

Ah, 2006! Padres Piazza! Nice.

Piazza just doesn't look right in the white n' green. But neat, in a weird way.

Getting to the end now. Let's flip these 4 over:

Sunset cards / final tributes with full career stats.. always appreciated.

Wait.. one more Piazza!...

Yep, I ponied up for an auto.

My streak of posting a Christmas Card on the 25th of every month was about to come to an end.. but No! The tradition continues.

I'm happy with this card.. though yeah, would've been nice if it was on-card and featured more interesting jersey pieces. But whatever, it's cool. Piazza certified auto and a Christmas Card.

So that's 100 cards even (101 if you count the 2002 unofficial variation). That wraps up my Mike Piazza collection. He's now off my wantlist. Really the only Piazza cards I've got interest left in are maybe any I'm missing from his brief stays on the Marlins and Padres. But if there are other "must-have" Piazzas you think I need in order to have a respectable PC, feel free to let me know in the comments. Otherwise, I'm done!

I ♥ Nickelboxes (not Nickelback)

Pretty good cardshow weekend for me. Made two purchases: 50 cards @ 50 cents each, and an entire nickelbox for $20.

Today let's talk about the nickelbox. I dug through most of the thing and came up with a stack of around $5 worth, but there was plenty of decent stuff in there I was passing up, so I decided to offer the old guy $20 for it all.. he hemmed and hawed for a moment, then agreed.

Plenty of cards for my collection, as well as lots of fodder for my tradebox. While I could get a month's worth of posts outta the box's contents, I'll try to keep it concise with just a post or two.

Let's get started!

Holographic cards of guys who crushed it in their prime but nobody really likes anymore. The animated gif misses the mark but you get the idea.

These 3 Bowman Is Back inserts are kinda cool, even if they are minor leaguers I've never heard of.

More shiny. Vogelmoster!

Serial numbered cards for a nickel are always great (or a couple cents each or whatever it works out to), even if the print runs are all around a couple thousand minimum, topping out just shy of 10,000 in the case of those Topps Stars cards above. Especially nice to see decent Pirate cards since they're a hot trade commodity.

Some vintage in the box, possibly highlighted by these 71s. Turns out I've got all these Giants in my setbuild already, but I'm pretty sure these are all significant upgrades for me.

We played a quick game of Hoyt Or No Hoyt before the show, which is where I ask my Twitter followers to guess if they think I'll come home with a Hoyt Wilhelm card or not, and if they're right, maybe I'll send them a PWE prize. Smart money is on Hoyt, but once in a while I come home empty with No Hoyt. But this time it was indeed Hoyt. Hoyt x3 actually. A couple of these even had dupes too.

Here are a couple nice highlights from the box. Gold framed legends McCovey and Mathews.

Nickel Griffeys are hard to pass up.

Big stacks of Piazza and Frank Thomas. I may have just knocked both of them off my wantlist and into the Hundred Card Club, but I'll need to sort those PCs and weed out dupes before it's official.

The king of the box was without a doubt A-Rod (not pictured).. hell, I may have inadvertently just inducted him into the Hundred Card Club thanks to this box alone. Also lots of "once hot, now not so much" guys like McGwire, Mattingly, Canseco, Strawberry. Not too much junk, and the junk there was was mostly "stars" so it's cool.

So that's an overview of the sweet nickelbox I just picked up. Thanks for checking it out!