mid December card revue

It's that time of year when free time and energy are in short supply. But I want to blog, so I'll try to keep it short and post some cards I've been meaning to give a moment in the spotlight.

I've had a little PC going for Tim Anderson for a few years now, but apparently I hadn't thumbed through my White Sox tradeables in even longer, because when I finally did the other day (looking for cards for a trade offer that fell flat), I found a bunch of his cards that I didn't realize I had, including these above highlights. While having a well-organized collection is nice, I'm sure, it's also fun to occasionally stumble upon cards you forgot you had.

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And speaking of forgetting about certain cards, when I posted my Yu Darvish PC last month, I neglected to include my lone 1/1 of him. I used to occasionally pull the trigger on the "blank back" gimmicks that Topps Vault sells on eBay.

Nothing too exciting, but hey, I can truthfully say I own a Yu Darvish 1/1. I looked it up, and this set me back $5.97 in a big Topps Vault order that also included similar 2017 Holiday blank backs for Christian Yelich and Dinelson Lamet, along with old signed Topps contracts for Matt Ginter and Marcus Giles. While Topps Vault still sells blank back cards like this for newer sets, looks like their supply of contracts has dried up, as it's been a while since I've seen the account offer any for sale. (To read more about these contracts, check my big post from 2015.)

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Check out these awesome customs I got from Gregory at the Nine Pockets blog! Love 'em! Thanks for the generosity, Greg! If you missed out on the giveaway, he sells them at a very fair price too.

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Shiny parallels from Topps Pristine and All-Time Fan Favorites are super cool. It might be anachronistic, to use a fancy word, but I love refractors of old timers who played before shiny cards were a thing. (Well ok, Charlie Hough pitched so long, he actually made it into the refractor era and was included in the inaugural refractor class of '93 Finest [and also had a '94 Finest card]) But yeah, sometimes I take a look at what's available and might pull the trigger if one catches my eye for a decent price like the above did. The Bucky is a gold die-cut refractor, though calling it die-cut just because they gave it slightly bumpy edges feels like a stretch.

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And one last shiny old-timer to close out the post...

Looks like a previous owner was so proud of this Bert Blyleven 2003 Topps Retired refractor auto that they displayed it in the sun for too long, and the signature is now considerably faded. But hey, it wasn't too pricey so I figured I'd take a flier on it. I hear Bert is a dependable TTM signer (with fee), so I'm planning to send this in for a new coat of ink and hope he's gracious enough to fulfill the odd request. But I'll wait until the new year when the post office settles down from the holiday surge. For now my question is: should I try to get off the remnants of the original auto? A little rubbing alcohol maybe? I should probably do a test run on a Chrome "junk auto" first to make sure it doesn't otherwise damage the card.

Nice career. The year this card came out, Bert received 29.2% of the vote for his Hall of Fame candidacy. He eventually made it to the magic number of votes in 2011.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your December isn't stressing you out too much!