February's incoming cards

I've got a big ol' lot of cards in transit from Bo at Baseball Cards Come to Life which will likely take some effort to sort and post about, so let's clear the backlog of cards from the cardsphere that've made their way through the winter weather to my mail slot this past month.

My trade bait page facilitated another easy swap with a friend of the blog. This time it was mr haverkamp who took a shot at the Mike Schmidt auto I had available, hooking me up with some great vintage needs in return.

Home Run King, Hank Aaron! Very happy to knock this big one off the '72 wantlist.

Plenty of familiar faces on these league leader cards.

Along with these other glorious additions, I've scratched my way up to 83% complete with 1972 Topps.

Also some good stuff for my 1970 Topps setbuild. Still barely over halfway through there, but slowly chipping away. It's not his pricey high-number base card, but that NL playoff highlight card features Nolan Ryan.. so that's neat.

I thought I had completed a basic set of 1974 Topps late last year, but as often happens, when I actually went through it, seems gremlins had run off with a few of the cards, including a consecutive run of postseason cards that I must've inadvertently missorted elsewhere. Plus there was a missing base card, #539 Lloyd Allen, which is now atop my reasonable desperate double dozen sidebar wantlist. But yeah, glad to re-acquire this above pair, including the final card from Willie Mays' playing career.

Thanks for the trade, Jim!

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A lucky comment left at Johnny's Trading Spot won me a PWE of Padres.

Some recent Topps Holiday cards. I appreciate John giving me a heads up that the Soto is a variation ("Santa belt"), as I probably would've missed it otherwise.

Vintage HOFers to balance out the PWE.

Thanks, John!

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Last up today is a surprise PWE from the illustrious Night Owl celebrating the return of baseball being played.

Another fun Holiday variation here, with Manny Machado's Santa cap being hard to miss. Fingers crossed he remains productive throughout that huge contract the team gave him.

Speaking of current happenings in the game, he's not included in this group, but a Dodger and a young player named Gavin makes me think of Gavin Lux. Poor guy just wrecked his knee in spring training and will miss all of 2023. Ouch! :( Such a bummer. Wishing the best to Mr. Lux on his recovery and Mr. Owl on a solid Dodgers season, though of course I'm rooting for San Diego, hoping the Padres can at least win it once in my lifetime. That's all I ask.. just once, damn it!

Everyone knows that Night Owl loves '75 Topps, so receiving any of those from him feels kinda special. The impressive trio above takes me to 86.82% complete-- or round that up to 87%-- with 87 cards left to track down, funny enough. (Everyone knows that Night Owl hates '87 Topps.)

Big thanks, Greg!

That'll do it for this post. Thanks for stopping by.

Completing sets and shining up PCs with COMC

I requested shipment on my COMC stuff near the end of the Black Friday sale to take advantage of free shipping. Originally estimated for an end of the year arrival, in a minor Christmas miracle, it was delivered yesterday, the 17th. God bless us, everyone!

Having checklist 265-396 in-hand, I can now claim to have completed a basic one-of-every-number set of 1974 Topps. Hey, that's something for the year-end hobby report card. Still need a dozen variations-- dang "Washington" errors. I also found Jesus in the package, with the corrected Alou card complementing the "no position listed on front" error I already had. I still can't quite boast a "complete set without variations" because of the #599 rookie pitchers card that I have the Washington variation of but neither of the San Diego variations (differing font size). I'll hope to eventually add that stuff, but I feel like that's really just "extra credit" and am happy to have more-or-less completed another vintage Topps set.

This "Shaq" was the last card I needed to complete the Sport Ball inserts from 2019 Upper Deck Marvel Deadpool. If you wanna see all of this quirky set that reimagines Deadpool starring on several notable UD/Fleer cards, the blog Nothing If Not Random recently showed them off.

Besides that pair of set killers, most of my COMC order was refractors, my collecting focus these days leaning heavy on the glory days of refractors (mid 90s through mid 00s, IMHO). About half the cards in the order were Topps All-Time Fan Favorites refractors that I won't bother showing in this post because I'm planning a fun new blog series for 2023 that's gonna feature them.

Love these refractors of retired greats in 2005 Topps Pristine. I haven't decided to try completing either these inserts-- The Legendary Years ("1965") and The College Years ("1982"), but will snap them up if the price is right.

As I look for an excuse to add more refractors to my collection, I often check what I can find cheap from some of my lesser PCs that don't have a lot of competition. Quintin Berry and Mike Jacobs are a couple San Diego guys who both went to the same junior college as me-- which is not a minicollection I hit as hard as my same-high-school dudes, but still like to get them decent representation in my collection. Nice to add some more rainbow shine to that pair of PCs.

In a post last month I mentioned going on a bit of a 2005 Finest kick recently. Guess that big circle in the center has got me hypnotized! Love the look of these. But yeah, again just seeing who caught my eye down around the cheapest available refractors and trying to get some parallel variety.

A few more miscellaneous refractors that jumped into my cart, including a couple Beers. My shtick of being a "Pre-covid Card Collector" held true with this order for the most part, with only 1 card from the current decade.. I had to score myself a logofractor to check out.

Finally, a couple glowing cards-- that's the Little Dipper in the middle-- (I already had both, but will sometimes grab dupes of glowing cards if cheap) and a Satchel Paige mini close it out. Love that Brooks Kieschnick card, the only baseball card I'm aware of where the card itself glows (not just glowing ink printed on it, but rather it's printed on glowing paper stock).

Thanks for stopping by, and best wishes to you all this holiday season!

Pair of PWEs and COMC consternation

 
I hammered out a quick PWE swap with Bo for a couple cards from my sidebar wantlist. Hank Aaron bookends the 1975 Topps set and this #660. Still need the #1 highlight card among the 95 cards left on my '75 Topps wantlist. I'm closer to the finish line with '74 Topps-- more on that in a minute. Great leg kick photo on the Juan Marichal.

And a few nice bonus cards of PC guys along for the ride. Love the O-Pee-Chees (O-Pee-Cheese?).

Thanks, Bo! Always a pleasure.

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Chris The Collector recently celebrated a blogging milestone and sent out cards to some lucky readers to say thanks for reading and commenting. Great to score more cards of instant Padres legend Joe Musgrove, my first additions since his no-no. He's joined here by fellow Padre Eric Hosmer and fellow San Diegan Stephen Strasburg.

A couple Xanders, a Doolittle, and the star of the envelope Jim Palmer. I'm now down to just 27 cards left on my '74 Topps wantlist, with about half of those being variations that I ultimately might not worry about when it comes right down to it.

1974 Topps needs (not counting Washington "Nat'l Lea." variations)

7 Jim Hunter

20 Nolan Ryan

85 Joe Morgan

160 Brooks Robinson

201 Batting Leaders Carew/Pete Rose

202 HR Leaders Jackson/Stargell

207 Strikeout Leaders Ryan/Seaver

212 Rollie Fingers

273 Checklist 265-396

300 Pete Rose

338 Jackson/Billy Williams AS

414 Checklist 397-528

598 Rookie Outfielders (Ken Griffey)

599A Rookie Pitchers (Padres reg font)

599B Rookie Pitchers (Padres big font)

608A Rookie Pitchers ERR (Apodaco)

654B Jesus Alou COR (outfield)

I should really hit this hard and close the book on '74 one of these days (..seems like I've been saying this for a couple years now, lol). Please let me know if you've got any of these available for trade and I'll try to find you something nice in return.

Great stuff, Chris-- thanks! Congrats on 500 posts and here's to many more!

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And one purchase to squeeze into this post.

I've got a ton of Wil Myers cards and don't really need any more, but in a moment of weakness last week I pulled the trigger on this Christmas Card for a decent price.

I didn't realize it until just now scanning through my blog's archives, but this is the 4th 12/25 "Silver Signatures" card from 2013 Topps Five Star in my collection!

Neat. Cornering the market on these things. haha

Anyways. So I got a "Shipment Update: Shipped" email from COMC the other day and I got really excited that my order from last November was finally on the way. But then I was crushed when the just above Wil Myers card arrived in a lonely, small bubble mailer. Turns out I didn't even look at the seller when I bought it, but it was through COMC's ebay consignment account.

So that was a bummer. BUT then yesterday I got another "Shipment Update: Shipped" email from COMC, and this time it really is my big order from last November. So I've got that to look forward to soon. I barely remember what-all is even in there at this point, but I'm sure there's a bunch of fun stuff that I'll show off on the blog in the near future.

a vintage advantage

Expect to see plenty of vintage on this blog in 2021 as my interest in current cards continues to wane (I don't plan to attempt ripping much if any current product this year). I've revived my goal of completing a page of each vintage Topps baseball set, and I've been filling out my new vintage (non-flagship) frankenset. Plus I've also got a few vintage setbuilds in varying stages of advancement, and sometimes I just pick up random singles for PCs or whatever. Such as...

Check it out! I hadn't picked up a playing-days Clemente in a while, and when I saw this '62 Post with a low opening bid, I took a run at it. The first four cards in this post were from the same seller, taking advantage of combined shipping. Not in perfect condition, but just right for my collection.

Clean back, too.

And here's a '61 Post Willie Mays. I threw bids on a handful of cards from the seller and this was another that I ended up with after the dust settled. Again, not in mint condition, but considering the fair price, works just fine for me. Helps kick up my little PC of the Say Hey Kid.

Some light pencil marks on the back that I've resisted the urge to try taking an eraser to.

I also snagged this '60 for my Minnie Minoso collection.

Looks good.

Here's the main card I was after from the seller. Bobby Richardson was one of the few notable rookie cards missing from my 1957 Topps setbuild. Took me a while to find one that looked ok in the price range I was hoping for, but I'm happy with this one.

Just barely makes it out of my personal "upgrade needed" threshold. It's from the toughest series of '57, so you can't be too choosy unless you really want to pay up.

Here are a couple more rookie cards of All-Stars that I needed for my set. Chris the Collector surprised me with this pair recently.

Thanks again, Chris! Very much appreciated!

About half my recent Sportlots box order was vintage cards, including a couple more '57 needs plus Don Larsen for my '64 build. It's been slow going, but I'm nearing 80% complete with both. Doubt I'll complete either this year.. maybe in 2022.

A more realistic goal for me this year would be to finish off at least one of the 70s sets I've got in the works. Thanks to these from Sportlots, I now have only 29 cards left on my 1974 wantlist, though the remaining cards are pretty much all HOFers and "Washington" Padres variations (the latter of which I've been considering cutting bait on). The Red Sox checklist finishes all of those red-bordered inserts for me, though I'd like to upgrade many of them from marked on the back to unmarked.

My 1978 build is a bit further out, with 131 cards still remaining after checking in these four. As always, please check out my wantlists and get in touch if you think you might be able to help me out with anything in trade. Thanks

We like ROY

Sort of a random little post revisiting 3 cards and taking a look at 3 new additions. 

Despite my half-hearted attempt to rebrand myself as The Pre-Covid Collector, I find myself with nice cards of each of the recently announced 2020 Rookie of the Year winners. The pair of Kyle Lewis refractors were a surprise in a Zippy Zapping from a couple years ago. While I'm always happy to receive random shiny prospect cards, gotta admit at the time I didn't see him ending up as the unanimous AL ROY.. very nice surprise, indeed.

The Devin Williams auto was included in a lot of nine cheap Bowman autos I bought in 2014 during a combined shipping eBay spree with a few other items from one seller. The other 8 prospects in that auto lot have pretty much all faded away, but nice to see Devin break out with a dominant shortened season. I sure don't own many 1st Bowman autos of ROYs, so that's pretty cool, even if his card prices aren't too wild as a 26-year old relief pitcher. While it would have been nice for me to see Padre Jake Cronenworth take home the award in the NL, well, I don't own any of his cards, so screw him, lol.

The Diamond King reached out to me shortly after I moved offering up this second-year Mike Schmidt card. Heck yeah! He seemed to indicate the condition left something to be desired, but no, it fits in perfectly with the rest of my 1974 Topps setbuild. There are a lot of '74s currently populating my Desperate Dozen sidebar wantlist as I make a push to close out this set sooner rather than later, and this is a big one to check off. Just 35 cards left to go. (Be sure to appreciate the bullpen cart in the background!)

Michael Jack Schmidt had trouble making contact during his rookie campaign, so no ROY votes for him-- Gary Matthews of the Giants took it that year-- but he figured it out the next year and went on to become an all-time great.

Big thanks, DK! Glad you're feeling better now. I haven't had much luck finding cards on your wantlist, but hope to return the favor soon.

Here's a very shiny Jose Abreu card. He was an unanimous selection as AL ROY in 2014 and has been consistently solid since.

My favorite part about this sweet card...

Christmas Card!

Featured here on another super shiny card from 2019, Eric Hosmer placed 3rd in AL ROY voting in 2011 behind Jeremy Hellickson and Mark Trumbo.

This gold wave refractor and the Abreu orange wave refractor were scored in an easy PWE purchase from @MashingDingers on Twitter. Took a while to find my mailbox, forwarded from my old address, but eventually showed up safe and sound. Thanks, Eric!

That's all for today. Thanks for stopping by.

super 70s influx

Time for another trade roundup. Lots of quality Topps cards from the 70s to show off in this post. Our exhausting new puppy has cut into my spare time for carding activities, so I'm trying to limit my trading commitments.. but cards keep arriving and I try to keep afloat! (Apologies to the few guys I've been slow to send cards or reply to regarding trade propositions.. will try to catch up when I can.)

This first mailing up is a doozy! I believe it's my first exchange with Scott Crawford, who has been blogging a long time but we just hadn't crossed paths much before. But some of my music-related customs caught his eye and so we hammered out a deal sending him a short stack of Baseball Card Breakdown originals in exchange for some vintage Topps, heavy on '74.

Look at all these Hank Aaron cards within cards! These are pretty neat. I'm lucky enough to own a few of those older Aaron cards. I was excited thinking I had completed all the Hank Aaron cards in 1974 Topps with these, already having the "New Home Run King" card #1, but looks like I'm still short the All-Star card he shares with Dick Allen. I've got that card in my Dick Allen PC, but since I consider Mr. Allen one of the top dudes I collect, I'm reluctant to pluck out a PC card for a set (something I'm otherwise not all that opposed to). But maybe if I get down to a couple cards left and it's one of them, maybe then I'll cave and worry about replacing the PC card later. ("PC" in this context is for "Player Collection", for any newbs reading.)

And a bunch more '74s from Scott! Thanks to these, I'm down to just 45 more cards on my wantlist for the set (a decent percentage of which are Washington Nat'l variations).

And some big-name '79s. The Reggie on the end isn't a dupe, but rather a Burger King card. Note the difference in space above his helmet.

Thanks, Scott! Just mailed out your customs. Pleasure dealing with you!

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I know I said I'm trying to cool it a little on trading for the time being, but I made an offer on Twitter last week for anybody to send me vintage needs in exchange for a Joan Jett custom I made a little while back-- trying to swing a few quick and easy trades-- and got a handful of guys to take me up on it, with two swaps going through so far.

Night Owl sent me a PWE heavy on '77 Dodgers I needed for my in-progress set. Looking good!

And there were a bunch of Kellogg's in there, too! Always love to see those funky 3D beauties slip out among the cards I receive.. Even when cracked to hell! (Pops is shaping up to be the star of the post, and we'll see more of him in a moment.)

Thank you, Greg! A return is on the way to you currently.

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Here's another bounty thanks to Joan Jett.

John @phitter72 on Twitter is a guy I was familiar with due to his amusing "Literals Series" customs he shares (such as a card depicting Ernie Banks doing his banking). This was my first swap with him, netting me 4 solid names to check off my 70s vintage Topps wantlists, highlighted by Billy Williams' final card as an active player. Thanks, John!

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Reader David G. returned with a 3rd recent PWE of '88 Fleer needs for me, plus a Madlock and another wonderful Kellogg's need. Thanks, David.. I'll scrounge up another envelope of Cardinals for you soon.

-   -  -  - --o

Wes, a.k.a. The Pancake King, dropped a shortstack of 3 PWEs on me in short order, each containing one Gavin card plus an autographed business card. Bonkers! Thanks for thinking of me, Wes!

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Last one for today is a great bubble mailer from ARPSmith, hitting me back for a package of cards I sent him recently.

Nice bunch of current cards featuring guys I collect. Man, this 2020 "season" is wild. I'll be surprised if we actually make it all the way to a World Series this year, but here's hoping for the best.

Complete Willie Stargell puzzle from 1991 Donruss! This'll be nice to bolster my Pops PC. If/when I get a second set, I'll bust out the pieces and piece it together.

The real punch of the package was the vintage. Been a while since I've added to my '57 Topps setbuild.. not since 2019, in fact. The pair are both from the toughest series, making them even more of a big deal. Same can be said for the '72: first time all year I get to update my needs spreadsheet, and it's a tough high number, to boot. Nice!

As far as the 74 and 79s, they might look familiar, as this same trio was among the cards I showed from Scott Crawford earlier in this post. Adam's copies are in better condition, so they'll go into the setbuilds.. But don't worry, Scott's cards can still find a home for now in the respective PCs since I collect these guys too.

Thanks for another great trade, Adam!

That's gonna wrap up the post. Thanks for reading, everybody. Stay safe out there.