Card Show Khlav Kalash

November's card show was today. I left my house at 9:07 AM and returned at 12:02. That makes for about 3 hours in the dollar bins (7 for $5), amassing a big stack. Let's check out some highlights.

Cool 2013 "Shades" variation of the probable NL MVP. I think it gets announced Wednesday. Looks like he probably won't be back in Miami next season.

Landed a couple Judges, including the Beckett thing #'d /5000. The Christian Arroyo action variation might've been my pickup-of-the-day, at least according to COMC where the cheapest you can currently buy it is $13.45. As for the Bundy, I sure find those Blue Burlap parallels appealing.

Speaking of old designs with colored borders, I'm digging 1987 with the blue and orange swapped in for woodgrain.

A trio for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset. Turns out I already had a diamond Trumbo RC, but I consider a liquorfractor an upgrade, so no harm there. The Frazier is $7.56 on COMC, so it would seem to be a good deal for me.

Some old stuff. I don't much care for those embossed 1965 inserts, but couldn't pass up Ernie Banks. Cool to pick up a Dale Murphy RC. Looks like he's got another opportunity for the Hall, included on the Modern Baseball Era ballot, to be voted on next month, though I'd be surprised if they vote in anybody, tragically. Personally, I'd put them all in. Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Marvin Miller, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant and Alan Trammell. Put 'em all in. Anyways, I'll probably try to complete 1977 Topps one of these days, so that's a nice one to get out of the way. And the 1961 Post Cereal is a great addition to my Dick Williams PC.

2015 Bowman's Best - Hi-Def Heritage - Atomic Refractor #HDH-AG. Not a bad looking card, and a dude I collect(ed), but really I just snagged this one for the one-touch case. lol

Hot rookie Rhys Hoskins. So I got a Rhys and a couple Judges, but didn't come across any Bellingers, for those scoring at home.

Man, I love wave refractors. There were several in the bins, many of which I initially added to my stack but ultimately ended up taking out as I tried to get my stack down to a reasonable total, but I held on to this Kenny Giles. He sucked in the postseason, but his Astros pulled it off despite his 27.00 World Series ERA. Nice looking card, and a good deal according to COMC where it's listed at over $6.

That's all for today. I'll have some more to show off later this coming week, with probably some trade bait too. Thanks for reading and Happy Veterans Day!

Tom Petty and the World Series

As a long suffering fan of the underdog (specifically the Padres, but really whoever), I'm happy we've ended up with a World Series matchup of the Dodgers vs. Astros. A team that's never won versus a team that last won 29 years ago. Either outcome, I'll be happy. But that said, my default is to root for the team that's gone the longest since winning, so I'm pulling for the Astros. (and as a Padres fan, I'm required to hate the Dodgers on some level.)

I've been meaning to do a tribute-type post with some of my favorite Tom Petty songs, so let's focus on some of my best Dodgers and Astros cards as we listen to the late, great Tom Petty.

George Springer - "Swingin'"

Big swingin' Springer led the Astros in strikeouts this season, but had a good year. I picked up this 2015 Stadium Club Crystal Ball insert back when I briefly considered going for the set. I dropped that idea, but I've still got this, easily my best George Springer card.


Adrian Gonzalez - "Don't Come Around Here No More"

A-Gone is a guy I collect because he had some nice years with the Padres in the past (and he's from the San Diego area, too). But honestly these days I could care less about him. He's out for the postseason with an injury, so he won't be a factor (just as he wasn't for the regular season.. if anything he negatively contributed to LA's embarrassing losing skid that marred their otherwise incredible year), but I guess it'd be cool for him to finally get a ring.

Clayton Kershaw - "I'm Depending On You"

I think the Dodgers' chances depend heavily on how Kershaw pitches. If he's his usual lights-out self, they'll have an easy go of it. But if his reputation of being beatable in the postseason catches up with him again, the Astros could take advantage.

Ken Caminiti - "Mary Jane's Last Dance"

Cammy, one of my favorite PC guys, spent much of his career in Houston, sadly not around to watch this series.

AJ Reed - "Yer So Bad"

One of my under-the-radar semi-PCs is young Astros slugger AJ Reed, who rakes in the minors, but is so bad with the big league club.


Vin Scully - "The Last DJ"

Vin Scully really was the last of the classic old-school baseball broadcasters. The #1 reason why I would possibly want the Dodgers to win the World Series is for Vin Scully. They choked it away during the twilight of his career, but maybe they can still bring home another championship in his lifetime, at least.


Well, I could keep going with more songs and players but I'm in a ton of pain thanks to this infected ingrown fingernail (really hope the antibiotics start helping soon), so I'll stop here. Rest in peace, Tom Petty. And here's hoping for an exciting series.

Thanks for stopping by!

trade roundup (Nachos off the wall)

Got a couple recent trade packages to show off.

First up.... I claimed a couple consecutive Trade Stacks from Nachos Grande a week or so ago.

The first stack was pretty big (26 cards), and these are among the ones I was interested. I kinda-sorta collect Jim Edmonds, and I'm a sucker for Topps Gold Label.. specifically the classic Gold Label cards from the turn of the millennium that were on hefty Chrome refractor stock, not to be confused with the current reboot of the product that's on disappointingly flimsy foilboard. (sorry I've been whining about that a lot lately.)
And it's a creased and miscut, but hey, I need the '85 Sparky Anderson for my PC. (I consider him a former Padre in the HOF, as he coached for San Diego in '69 before taking over the Reds the next year.)
Chances are I already have that Gwynn, but I'll have to check.

The other draw for me in the first stack was the Killebrew mini poster. And then the 2nd stack consisted just of the framed Killebrew and I wanted that one, too! Unfortunately I was too slow to save Chris a stamp, but he kindly let me have it as well. (I sent him back several 2017 Archives needs for his setbuild and a Barry Larkin I think he needed.)

He surprised me with a couple "uncommon" Starquest cards in the second envelope, Vlad and Big Unit.

Very cool. Thanks, Chris!

- - - ----o

Next up is a big package from Shane Katz. His blog is Off The Wall, though it hasn't had a new post in a few months. But he's still active on Twitter.

This package was a Padres dump, and while I generally discourage traders from blindly dumping their unwanted Padre cards on me, I definitely understand it's easier to just sort cards by team and ship them off. And with a big lot, it's still fun for me to go through a bunch of Padres, even if I'm not exactly much of a team collector by nature. And in this instance, I'm happy to say the stack of "keepers" was much larger than the stack of "rejects."

Tony Gwynn was the star of the package, without a doubt. Lots of nice cards here.. And Tony wearing glasses?! That's a strange sight for me.

Some obscure "limited edition"/"collectors' series" sets from the 80s represented here. In addition to collecting Red Sox, Shane is a big oddball collector, so it's no surprise he's dug up some cards I haven't seen before.

And some more Gwynns, with a couple cool Fan Favorites among them.

It was 33 years ago today that the Padres lost the 1984 World Series to the Detroit Tigers. Here are 3 guy who were a big part of that pennant-winning run.

Some additions to the Trevor Hoffman PC here. Hopefully he gets the call to the Hall next year and his cards see more respect from collectors.

Nice Jake Peavy lot. At the start of the season, he had talked about making a mid-season comeback once he worked out some homelife issues. Haven't heard anything about him since, though, so I'm guessing his career may be over. But who knows, maybe he'll give a 2018 comeback a shot.

Adrian's Dodgers made the playoffs despite a bad, injury-plagued showing from him this season. Some wonder if his chronic back issues mean we've seen the last of him on the diamond. Again, I guess we'll have to wait and see how 2018 shakes out for him.

A couple HOF Friars.

IP autos of Andy Ashby and Greg Vaughn are pretty cool! I really like the look of those Woolworth cards. Donavan Tate was a bust as a ballplayer, but is attempting to hit rewind on his amateur decision to pick baseball over football, and has returned to college, now a quarterback for the Arizona Wildcats of the University of Arizona. How awesome would it be if he managed to become a great quarterback and all his worthless Padres prospect cards became valuable! ha

And the rest of the keepers. Peep that Anthony Rizzo RC! And yes, a Carlton Fisk card even worked itself into the Padres package. It was included because the back has a sticker of a Padre (Chris Brown?), but joke's on Shane because this White Sox card is going in my Fisk PC whether he likes it or not! LOL

But seriously, big thanks, Shane! I very much appreciate the package. Lots of good cards in there. I'll work up a return for you soon.

trade roundup (Johnny's Highly Subjective Trading Spot)

Got excellent trade packages in this week from Johnny's Trading Spot and Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary.

First up is John.

Leading off with a couple neat ones.. a Christmas Card of Omar Luis Rodriguez and an autograph of a pretty girl named Kathleen. Omar seems to be out of the game after not having had much success in the low minors for the Yankees. As for Kathleen, well, no last name is provided so I can't really find any more info on her. I hope she found a kind soul to tie her bikini top for her, though, the poor thing.

A bunch of Simpsons temporary tattoos! And there are a few dupes, so I might even put some of these into action. (um, probably won't try my luck with the "Yellow Power" tattoo, however.)

John is good at hooking me up with additions to my Brian Giles PC.

A bunch of Bowman Padres.. though only Wil Myers is still with the team. In fact, looks like Myers is about to sign a six-year deal to stay in San Diego, pending a physical. So that's cool. He's definitely one of their few bright spots these days.

A couple Gwynns, a Donaldson, and some Panini Rewards points. Pretty cool. Are they still doing that program? I wonder if I could get anything for 150 points.

Marquis Mania! A couple 1990 UD towards my goal of 1000 copies, plus a "mail in" card that collectors could have sent to Upper Deck and gotten back some update cards. Pretty neat.

A bunch of 2011 Topps diamond parallels for my frankenset! Some good names here, like Thome and Konerko.

While I'm not working on any other parallel frankensets (yet?), I don't complain about getting various shiny cards in trade packages.

Big thanks, John! And you were asking about that customs project you were wanting me to help you with? Well, coincidentally, just a couple hours before this package arrived, I finally finished the big custom project that had been taking my free time for customs-making for over 3 months. And now that that's out of the way, your customs are next on the docket. So I'll plan to get started cranking them out soon.

-  -  --- ----o

Next up is Brian returning the favor for some cards I sent his way recently.

Some exciting young Padres. Nice. I think that's my first card of Cal Quantrill, the Padres' 1st pick in the 2016 draft.

Padres/Dodgers greats on shiny cards. The blue A-Gone is numbered to 219 or thereabouts.

Vintage Padres oddballs. Always love getting Kellogg's cards, and own very few from this set.

We finish off with a nice '53 Mantle reprint, a Gavin for my Greatest Gavins minicollection (gotta love the Whalers logo), a canvas Greg Maddux Masterpiece, and a Billy Hamilton off my Desperate Double Dozen. I've got a decent little PC going for the speedy Hamilton, but was missing his Topps RC.

Thanks a lot, Brian! Hope to do it again soon.

Ha, ok, temporary tattoos from the early 90s don't work that great today, but maybe I'll be able to fool someone into thinking I have a really bad neck tattoo.

the rest of my latest card show haul

Ok, the remainder of my pickups from last weekend.. let's bust this out.

I was stoked to find a rich deposit of 2011 Chrome parallels during a dimebox dig. Brought home a healthy stack of Xfractors, regular refractors, and even 3 purple refractors (which are #'d /499). Some decent names, too. Thanks to this lot, I've passed the 1/4 complete milestone with my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset, the Chrome section of which was lagging behind, so this was a great help there.

Here are a few all-timers. Ernie Banks is a guy I kinda collect, but am willing to part with cards of if my trader buddies holla at them. Hank Aaron on the other hand, nah, sorry Braves buddies.

And a closer look at the Satchel Paige base card from 2016 Topps Tribute. Very nice. Sometimes I think I should kick my Satchel PC into gear. Such a cool dude. Would love to pick up his '53 Topps someday.

Some more miscellaneous cards. Adrian Gonzalez makes his second shiny appearance of the post. John Donaldson is a bit of a sleeper PC for me (though I recently picked up a 12/25 auto but forgot to include it in my latest Christmas Card post). I might need to start a Francisco Lindor PC.. he just won't be denied. I picked up that Rolling Stones card with OM/Stealing Home in mind (He's one of those freaks who vastly prefers the Stones over the Beatles). I probably already have that Khalil Greene diecut, but it was worth the risk from the dimebox. AJ Reed wasn't able to duplicate his past success in the minors up in Houston last season (.164 over 45 games? ouch), but he's still got time to prove himself.

Some Bowman inserts from a few years ago.

That's pretty much it.. not counting lots of trade fodder that I won't bother posting because it's already pegged for trader buddies.

Thanks as always for stopping by!

Served up my first piece of Trout

Been a slow couple weeks for trades, but maybe I'll pick up some enticing tradebait at the card show this weekend. The one trade package I've received recently was a good one, though. Andy over at the new blog Ain't Nobody Got Time For Cardboard! won a prize in a contest of mine a while back, but this was our first time trading. He was mainly interested in having some custom cards created for his li'l tyke who's just begun his amateur baseball career. Here's what I scored in return..

A pair of Trout hits! I've got a decent little Mike Trout PC going (highlighted by an auto), but this is my first relic of baseball's best player. The card on the right claims to be a commemorative pin, though I'm not sure that description would hold up in court. It's cool, though. Calls back to the 2010 All-Star Futures Game, though the card is actually from 2016 Topps Series 2.

For a change of pace, here's a Mike Trout card without anything embedded in it. Also nice cards of Roberto Clemente, Jose Abreu, and Andrew McCutchen.

And we close out with this colorful trio. The Strasburg purple is #'d 161/250. The Chris Sale DK is my first 2016 Donruss Optic card, which if you're not familiar is a new Panini offering which is basically Donruss Chrome. The breaks I've seen on the cardsphere have been intriguing and I'm tempted to bust some of that.

Great stuff! Big thanks, Andy. Hope you're equally happy with the cards I sent.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Pairs of serial numbered cards

Time for more of my haul from the card show. To refresh your memory, I picked up 120 cards for a quarter each. After such a big haul, I often grapple with how I should work the cards into a blog post.. trying to find a theme, or separating the cards into groups or whatnot.

This post features a few guys I collect, each represented by a pair of serial numbered cards. Um, perhaps we could make this more interesting by trying to declare a winner between each match up. Yeah, let's give that a shot. 

Ernie Banks 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game 292/500 vs. 2002 Donruss Classics 521/1500. Gotta go with the left here. The powder blue border is nice, plus it's 3 times as rare as the other card.

Eddie Murray 2011 Topps Marquee 109/199 vs 2011 Tier One 597/799. Hmm.. both cool cards. Guess I'll have to give the win to the Marquee thanks to the scarcity.

Al Kaline 2013 Triple Threads 321/650 vs 2011 Gypsy Queen 188/999. GQ has the cool gold border, and nice to see the stadium background, but ultimately it's a boring, awkward pose. The TT card has got the action. Hate to seem like I'm awarding the win to the lowest numbered card every time, but yeah, Triple Threads wins this one.

Johnny Bench 2011 Tier One 390/799 vs 2011 Triple Threads 1196/1500. Here we go with an underdog win. The red border of the Triple Threads card beautifully frames the photo.

Jake Peavy 2005 SP Collection 228/299 vs 2010 National Chicle 293/499. We're taking a break from the HOFers for a former Padre standout I kinda still collect even though I should probably call the PC good at this point. Gotta go with the Chicle here. That set is hit-or-miss with the artistic renderings looking either kinda cool or pretty dumb, but this is a good one. Nice refractor shine to it.

Adrian Gonzalez 2011 Tier One 784/799 vs 2013 Triple Threads 209/650. Like Peavy, a dude I collect thanks to his days in San Diego though I'm trying to stop, but hey, a cheap, numbered card is hard to pass up. I think I'd give a slight edge to the Tier One card here.

Randy Johnson 2005 Donruss Classics 189/800 vs 2014 Triple Threads 274/325. Let's give this one to the TT.

2002 Gold Label 210/500 vs 2014 Museum Collection 18/199. The Museum Collection card looks good, but it's hard to go against Gold Label.. always a great looking set.

Lou Brock 2005 Playoff Absolute 12/150 vs 2010 Triple Threads 387/525. Our final bout, this one is not even close. The Playoff card has the lower number, but it's obviously a naked card designed for an auto or at least a relic. TKO for the TT card here.

So there you go, a pair of numbered cards for a bunch of Hall of Fame guys plus a couple former Padres crashing the party.

Thanks for reading!

. . .

Oh, now that April is over, let's check out the handwritten post contest entries. There were a dozen people who made such a post and commented on the entry post with the URL to it.

Tony Burbs

Tony L.

Robert

Mike Matson

Sport Card Collectors

Angus

Billy Kingsley

The Chop Keeper

JediJeff

John Miller

The Junior Junkie

Matt Stupienski

I know there were a few others who did handwritten posts but didn't officially get in on the contest due to not posting the link in the comments. But rules is rules. I did kinda bend the rules a little for JediJeff and his punch card post, but it was in the spirit of the contest, so I let it count.

Did you guys see a spike in hits on your handwritten posts? The one I did is easily my most popular post of 2016 so far, with nearly 900 views! I hope bloggers had fun with the concept and maybe even do another handwritten post once in a while for the heck of it, even without the incentive of a contest.

Ok, so let's assign numbers (not pick a winner) to the entrants..

Let's say the winning number is the total number of runs scored in this afternoon's Padres vs. Dodgers game (5/1/16). Anything over 12 loops around (so, 13 = Tony L). The game has already started as I type this (no score in the 1st inning), so I'd better get this post live ASAP. Good luck to all participants!

UPDATE: Kershaw pitched a shutout and drove in the game's only run to beat San Diego 1-0. So Tony L. stands as the winner. Congrats, Tony!