Tino in center is my latest pickup. (Jealous, Lost Collector? lol) The seller first put it up at a hefty Buy-It-Now, but as the weeks went by he dropped the asking price and eventually I got it off him for a fair best offer.
I'm thinking I'll try to add a couple more, then call this quirky collection good at an "even" 9 cards.
Well, this is a short post, so here's some bonus content I may have posted on Twitter already.
Check out this tree in my neighborhood with an attitude problem.
Ruby had a great time out with the family at my wife's birthday lunch this past weekend. She's a cutie but a hellraiser.
Transferring the contents of the old car's glove compartment to the new car is kinda like opening up a time capsule. Found some goodies such as a vintage Kentucky Fried Chicken towelette I've had on hand since the 90s. I've also had that Gwynn since the 90s; Back in the early days of this blog I posted about The Worst-Condition Card I Own. I had forgotten that Tony was even still in the car, honestly! Looks like it lost a chunk at some point in the past decade. I think I'll "retire" the card to my Gwynn PC now before it disintegrates further.
Whoever ends up with my collection after I die is going to have a lot of "WTF?!" moments when they go through it all. LOL
I've got a small cache of rainy day unopened packs that I'm making a point of finally opening. I figure there could be cards in there to put towards my #cardart activities, so might as well. Let's get a quick post out of one.
Here's an old pack of 1987 Topps that fell into my lap at some point. I'd most like to hit a Bo Jackson or Barry Bonds. McGwire, Canseco, or even Will Clark would be some other potential good pulls.
Looks like this pack may have been through some inclement weather at some point in the past 37 years, as all the cards seem to be a little warped. Might not make for the best cardart canvases to work with. Ron Hassey here is a textbook "gum stain variation" with a prominent pink silhouette. I put it in a sleeve right away to quarantine the mess. The gum itself had cracked into a bunch of small pieces long ago, but left a memory of its heyday as a viable stick of gum for some kid to chew. I've gone on record on this blog as being a guy who is liable to "eat the gum" from vintage packs, though now that I'm older (and the gum is older), those freewheeling days of throwing digestive caution into the wind are behind me.
I pulled a Griffey and a Trout, so there's that.
The pack wasn't without some star power. These 4 are my best bets to turn into something crafty. The Dwight Gooden already seems to be an "unofficial variation" what with printing flaw making it look like Doc spilled Froot Loops on his jersey.
Welp, the best rookie I pulled was Doug Drabek, but still a fun way to spend a minute or two.
Bonus "wood border" action before ending the post...
Maybe you remember last year when I was doing a lot of "border art" for a minute? Can't believe at the time I didn't think to draw a simple wooden frame. That might be a little boring by itself, so a blackened background helps give the card a more distinctive look.
I even score the borders a bit to give them some texture. It's a neat effect in hand, mimicking an old wooden frame. Nothing incredible, but yeah, just another style to add to the repertoire.
I still haven't bought any retail since covid, and while I like what I've seen of the 2024 Topps flagship design, I haven't been compelled to go out and buy any. But thankfully I still get the thrill of new-to-me cards with a little help from my blogger buds.
Actually CardBoredom was a new one for me, under my radar for these past few months. But it's a really well done site/blog. I've been going back to read David's old stuff and interested to see what's next from him.
I had read about David's attempts at replicating a wax pack, and was thrilled to receive one after he reached out about wanting to send me a few cards I'd probably like. The wrapper looks familiar and in fact it's a riff on the 1972 Topps wrapper.
Personalized and everything! Not pictured, but yep, there's even a stick of gum.
And here's what I pulled:
A pack of 1972 Topps high numbers for my setbuild! These are all from the toughest 6th series. I've never ripped a real pack of '72 Topps (several packs of '82 Topps from my LCS back in the early 90s is the closest I've come), so it's pretty incredible to get a simulation such as this. Big thanks, David!
Thanks to this pack, I'm up to 88.94% complete, with 88 cards left to check off.
(a band called The 88)
I think I'm rounding third with this set, not too far away from coming home. That high-number series is a bear, though. Pretty incredible to get this many at once, and from a #RAK mailing no less.
Thanks again to CardBoredom for the awesome surprise!
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The same day I received that pack of '72s in the mail, Padrographs Rod stopped by my house with a couple boxes of cards for me. It was a good day! Let's take a quick look at some highlights.
Smelling like goats over here, lol. Some of the biggest names you could hope to pull from Goodwin Champions.
Lovely ladies are always nice to see when thumbing through cards.
Looks like Juan Soto will go down as a great player who had a brief layover in San Diego during his HOF career, joining the likes of Rickey Henderson, Mike Piazza, Greg Maddux, and Willie McCovey. Oh well, glad he suited up for my favorite team, however fleeting. Still probably my favorite active player or at least high up on that theoretical list.
Here are some other dudes I like/collect who are currently still with the Padres. Hope those big contracts work out. (I could die happy with just one damn championship in my lifetime. I wouldn't say no to a dynasty, but really, just one is fine.)
Thank you, Rod! Always very much appreciated.
BTW, Rod, expect to see a new vehicle in the driveway next time to stop by. Everyone is fine, thankfully, but my wife had a collision on Presidents Day, and crumbled up the hood of our trusty old Mariner just barely to the point of it getting "totaled" by insurance. We're buying a new Subaru Crosstrek. I generally have a negative impression of Subarus, but that's just because I seemed to get cut off by Outbacks all the time back when I had a nasty daily commute. I haven't driven the new car yet as I write this, but I will have by the time you're reading.
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Late addition to the post.
The last time I won a contest on Twitter, it was actually named Twitter still. I don't "RT" stuff much, and as such I don't enter many giveaways there. But Mashing Dingers ran one where all you had to do was like the tweet to win a random lot of sportscards, so I clicked the heart icon and next thing you know I won. Mashing Dingers seems like a good dude. We had even chatted a couple/few years back about him writing a guest post on Baseball Card Breakdown, but he got cold feet. (I suppose I have a blanket offer out there to any cool hobby folks who want to write a random interesting blog post but don't want to start their own blog just for one thing they want to talk about one time.. yeah, feel free to get in touch with me about writing a guest post. Lord knows I don't make blogging a top priority for myself these days, so I could use occasional help keeping the cobwebs away.)
Anyways, took a while to get the cards (giveaway was back in mid December), but they were fun to go through.
I'm not a big collector of basketball or soccer, but I don't mind sprinkling some diversity in my collection here and there, such as in a lot of random winnings like this. Cool to check out the crazy designs with various shine/sparkle stuff I haven't seen in-hand before.
Of course the highlights for me were the baseball cards included. I think it was seeing the powder blue Killebrew in the tweet that made me throw my name in the hat for the giveaway. A bunch of rookies and some shine here also. I think that's my first card of Jasson Dominguez.. I'll be curious to see how he performs after he heals up. Also hoping former Padres prospect CJ Abrams puts up some good numbers.
Alright, calling the post good here. Oh, yeah, the new car handles well, btw, though I kinda miss being higher up after so many years with the SUV.. moved up from San Diego in that car, so I guess I'm a little sentimental about it, but it was about time to move on from it anyways, so it's all good. Gotta go pick up the dog from daycare now. Thanks for reading.
