cardboard concentration

I don't get bored very often. Despite being home most of the time for the past couple weeks, still feels like I have dozens of little projects I want to get to one of these days. If I ever get to the point where I run out of things to do, then I might start getting worried-- but I doubt I'll ever get to that point. Always more cards to sort.. customs to make.. trade packages to put together.. and that's just talking about card stuff! Other around-the-house stuff to do too.

And I'd love to post more, both here and at my MusiCards blog. How is it I seem to have more free time to post while at work than when I'm working from home?! LOL, don't make no sense.

I'm also behind in reading the card blogs. I still haven't gotten to the wave of '88 Score Phil Niekro posts.. but almost there. Should be fun reading through all those.

But anyways, I received cards from a couple folks this week, so that's good motivation to squeeze out a quick post.

Johnny Miller has been doing some fun giveaway games lately. I got in on one of them and ended up with this well-loved vintage Mickey Mantle checklist from 1967. This'll be a sweet addition to my Mantle PC.

John also included this 1980 Kellogg's Bruce Bochte. Another project on my long to-do list is to sort all my Kellogg's cards and finally put up wantlists for them. The long-term goal is to complete every Kellogg's set from 1970-1983, but I'm sure that'll be tough and take several years. Hey, no rush. Not sure where I'm at now, but doubt I'm anywhere near even halfway with any of these sets.

Thanks a lot, John! Your generosity is appreciated! I've got some cards set aside for you I'll try to drop in the mail one of these days.

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The other cardsphere mailing I received this week is from Nate at The Bucs Stop Here. He put together a great package of cards for me with guys I collect.

Impressive Kris Bryant lot right here. The holiday card is one of the metallic snowflake parallels.

Kris' teammate Javier Baez was along for the ride as well.

Young Dodger studs represented here with Cody Bellinger and Gavin Lux.

Woo! A pair of Vlad Jr RCs. You know I'm a sucker for hyped-up rookies. I was really looking forward to seeing how his 2020 season shaped up.. but it'll have to wait.

More good stuff. Vogelmonster gold #'d 0057/2020. Early Didi. Tim Duncan refractor. Bol Bol RC.
Not sure if you saw my tweet from a few days ago, but I recently sorted my little basketball card collection. Tim Duncan was the largest PC by a comfortable margin, which I guess isn't a big surprise. I've gotten a lot of help from friendly traders.

Let's end on a hit. Nate hooked me up with this Joe Musgrove RC auto. I already had the base auto, but this badboy is the refractor parallel, #'d /499. Musgrove is from my hometown, so there's a little personal connection for me there.

Thank you for the excellent trade, Nate! I'm sorry my Pirates selection is a little thin at the moment. I'll keep an eye out for more Buccos and hope to balance the scales next time we swap cards.

My wife and I made up a "seclusion safari" game where we earn points by spotting cute animals from our windows. She's been kicking my ass so far. But it's just something fun to do while stuck at home. Always brightens our day when the backyard is visited by a local bunny. Funny how much entertainment value we get from watching the adorable little guy nibble on the lawn.

Guess that's all for now. Thanks for reading and stay safe!

Cody Bellinger PC

Cody Bellinger has been on fire here in the early going of the 2019 season. I figured it'd be a good excuse to take a look at my little PC of the guy.

I don't have any "sick mojo hits" to brag about here, but this Heritage Chrome RC /999 is nifty enough to get top billing. Plus I got it in a trade with my oldest cardsphere trading buddy, Marcus, which is always a nice way to acquire a card.

More cards on recycled Topps designs.

Plenty more Topps.

The manurelic is the closest thing to a hit. Jackie Robinson tribute cards like this always seem to make more sense when it's a Dodgers player.

Some cards from one of Topps' online offerings of 2017.

Here's Bowman. The Bowman Platinum is my earliest card of the guy, 2016. Probably his best card is an auto in 2015 Bowman (didn't have a base card, just the 1st Bowman Chrome auto). I should have snagged one of those when I could. If he keeps his career going like this, that card could possibly end up being in the same boat as the 2011 Update Trout as a modern iconic, highly sought-after card.

Here are my Cody Bellinger cards that were not put out by the Topps Company. The /99 is my lowest-numbered card of his. The UD and Fleer customs were whipped up by yours truly back in 2017.

Figured I'd show off my handiwork on the backs, too.

Dupes I've got. Funny how I've ended up with 3 of his Heritage High Number rookies (4 if you count the Chrome parallel up top). I'm pretty sure I pulled one from a pack, snagged another cheap at a card show last year, and think I received another in a trade package somewhere along the line. From looking on COMC, they ain't cheap these days.. so I'm not complaining! But my extras are on the table for trade offers.

So there you have my little Cody Bellinger PC as it stands heading into May 2019.
Thanks for reading.

more card show keepers

My haul from this past weekend's card show was pretty much evenly split between cards for my collection (pictured left) and cards picked up with others in mind / trade bait (right).

This post will feature some more of my keepers. Again, they're all numbered parallels I picked out of a 50¢ box.

Lots of shiny here. The non-shiny card is /99.. the only copy of which on COMC right now is $10+, so I'll count that as a nice deal for me.

Red Sox legends Yaz and Dewy.

More HOFers. The Smoltz is the lowest numbered of this bunch at /100.

Slugging 3rd basemen. I'm thrilled my Padres signed Machado, but with such a big, long deal, you can't help but be nervous. But give me just one championship over those 10 years and I'll be over the moon.

More San Diego-centric cards.

New cards for my PCs of Mike Jacobs (though it's technically a Hanley Ramirez card) and Mark Buehrle (though it's technically a Paul Konerko card).

A pair of /99 Tigers.

Here are more cards. Vlad, D-Lee, and Chili.

Some hip young dudes with blue hues. Lewis Brinson has been having an incredible spring training with Miami (5 HR in 26 AB as of this writing).. maybe this'll be his breakout year.

Let's end on some thicc cards. Tribute, Triple Threads, Inception, etc.

Solid card show haul. I think I've got one more post to get out of it: the trade baits. Coming soon.

Cards from Doug, Greg, Matt, Billy, and Jeremy

We're entering that ol' season of giving, and while in the past I've done mailing-blasts and blog-events leading up to Christmas, it always ends up being an exhausting undertaking, what with all the other stuff going on this time of year. So this year, I'm thinking a nice post-xmas giveaway. It'll likely be a card "draft" giveaway not too unlike Night Owl's recent event, with lots of prize options and multiple winners. I've been a lucky winner in a few recent cardsphere contests (not to mention greedily calling dibs on a bunch of primo slots in Wes's big 12/25 event), so I feel the need to give back. So stay tuned for that and be sure to take a moment later in the month to check in with the blog for a chance to win some cards.

Got a few different incoming mailings to cover in this post, and this first one is from Doug at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. This card is one of those gimmicky but fun cards from Panini where they take a photo of a guy wearing a Santa hat, then make relic cards from the hat. Nice card to spice up my modest PC of this guy I went to high school with.

I think these are the first 2018 Heritage Minors cards in my collection, maybe. Good selection of future Friars, highlighted by a blue Logan Allen.

Some 1970 Padres.. imported from Canada....

O-Pee-Chee! Always fun.

More nice Padres cards of promising guys who failed to become quality major leaguers or are on their way to such a fate (prove me wrong, Francisco, prove me wrong!). Sean Burroughs bat relic, in case you can't read the tiny text. Keyvius Sampson made the majors with the Reds in '15-16, but looks like he was out of baseball last year. Neat auto. Like most Padres 1st round picks, Donavan Tate washed out of baseball after an unimpressive minor league career. The former two-sport star tried to return to football last year, but doesn't look like that panned out.

Some other PC cards. Good stuff.

And cards of lady wrestlers I collect. I think my Alexa Bliss PC doubled thanks to this mailing!

Very appreciated, Doug! I think this return makes the Felix Millan auto you traded me for pale in comparison, but I'll try to hit you back next time.

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Next up is my prize from Night Owl's recent 10 Year Anniversary giveaway. I was lucky enough to get into the list of eligible players, though the randomizer threw me down near the bottom of the draft board. By the time I was on the clock, most of the cards that caught my eye were gone, though I was able to add a nice Andre Dawson 2011 "legend variation" to the PC.

Greg was kind enough to throw in a bonus card for my recently-begun '72 Topps setbuild. I am at 6.6% complete with this godforsaken set and already know it will be the Baines of my collecting existence for the next several years. I just need to keep telling myself it's a long term project. Just moving along with a random card here and there, such as Jim Brewer here, and eventually down the road, I'll have it in my sights.

Thanks, Greg!

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Next up is a PWE from Sport Card Collectors.

Lovely pair of cards here. Billy Hamilton was surprisingly let go by the Reds recently and picked up by the Royals. Best of luck to him in KC.

Some Astros and Bellingers.

Thanks, SCC! Hope you like the return PWE I sent.

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Here's a surprise holiday PWE from Billy at Cardboard History.

A half-dozen basketball dudes I collect. Tim Duncan trio, Dirk, TJ Leaf, and Manute Bol.

Thanks, Billy! I've been working on sending some cards your way soon.

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Lastly for today is a contest win from Jeremy at Topps cards that never were.

I wasn't expecting this lot of Brian Giles cards.. and though my PC of his is pretty large, pretty sure I needed just about all of these!

The prize in the contest was Jeremy would send you a few customs he made of your choice. I was a little confused if he had already made them or not, and I asked about Chris Jones, a guy from my high school who played in the bigs but never got a real card from his MLB career. Jeremy kindly obliged. Glad to have these whipped up for me!

I also asked about some missing Rod Beck cards that Topps neglected to make, and he came through big there, too! (Beck has a Gold '92 Topps card-- a replacement for a checklist-- but not a standard issue in the set.)

Of course I'm partial to the San Diego era cards, but all are appreciated.

Thanks so much, Jeremy!


Thanks again to everybody who's sent me cards. And thanks for reading.

A half-priced blaster of 2018 Update

I had another one of those grocery store coupons for "$10 off when you spend $40." This past weekend I bought about $25 of groceries and grabbed a blaster to take me into the savings threshold, effectively giving me half off the blaster. I debated over which box to get for a few minutes. I was hoping to find the new Stranger Things cards, but no dice. On the shelf were a couple Archives, one Heritage High Number, three Ginter, a couple Fire, four Big League Baseball, and three Update blasters. I ultimately decided to grab the only product of the bunch I haven't ripped any of yet this year: ol' "Series Three", also known as Topps Update.

Let's see what it's got for me.

These were probably my best pulls: Mookie Betts gold parallel (/2018) and a Hank Aaron SP. Nice.

A couple Padres and rookies.

Some inserts. Looks like the Xander is a black parallel, and a tough pull despite not being numbered. The Don't Blink Tim Raines is kinda cool.. but makes me wish it was a "3D" lenticular card. The Postseason Preeminence cards are neat enough, though probably more plentiful than anyone needs.

Some more cards. Sorry the photos in this post are a little blurry. I took them at work (it's been a slow work week) and I guess the lighting wasn't great.

A few more PC guys for me.

The cards in the above photo are available for trade.

And finally, my promised hit-like-thing, a manufactured "patch" mentioning Jackie Robinson and featuring Cody Bellinger. Hey, he's a dude I kinda collect, so I'm happy with it. And it works well with the concept since he's a Dodger and plus you can see his 42 jersey number in the photo.

So that was a decent box, especially if you consider it was half price.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody.