I don't collect Favre or anything, but I thought this was one of the most impressive lenticular cards I've ever seen. Looks like a damn video! This gif doesn't quite do it justice, but still neat. 1995 Skybox Impact - Brett Favre #N/A
Snagged a couple half-price 2016 blasters to give me something to rip. I'll probably sit on these for a little while and use them for my June "black friday stockpile" break since I had 2018 Archives boxes tentatively penciled in there, but turns out that product isn't coming out till mid August this year.
A pair of cool Eddie Murray inserts. That 1996 Fleer Update Diamond Tribute might have been my best deal of the day. Bought it for 50¢ and the cheapest one on COMC right now is $16.50.
A few buck-a-piece vintage pickups.
My boi Fernando Tatis Jr /399.
And let's close with a couple vintage additions to my Hoyt Wilhelm PC, my biggest pickups of the day. Might have overpaid a little for these (hey, win some, lose some), but still happy to knock a pair of needs off one of my favorite guys to collect.
So there are the highlights from my haul. Not too bad. Also grabbed some trade fodder and some nickelbox cards that aren't all that exciting. Plus I bumped into Rod and he had another box of cards for me, so I'm looking forward to going through those.
See you next time.
This post will try to cram together a few themes.. still showing off my pickups from yesterday's card show. Plus it's Sunday and I've been trying to keep doing Sentimental Sundays posts. Plus all this month I've been featuring notable stuff from my music collection.
Most of the cards in my latest card show haul are from the past few years, though I did pick up a few cards from the 90s too, so let's check those out today.
Gotta admit I'm fascinated with "cards" that are actually CD-ROMs. I've shown off some Upper Deck Powerdeck examples before, but this is my first of Donruss' attempt, apparently called VXP 1.0 (not a very catchy name). It's from 1997.
I popped in the CD to check it out on an old laptop that could handle abnormally shaped discs like this. Similar to the Powerdeck cards, there's a nice highlight video. There's apparently also a little trivia game called "Swings & Misses" but I didn't install it. The "card" is a bit taller than a standard card, closer to '89 Bowman, but still pretty much fits fine with the rest of my Big Hurt PC.
Speaking of oddly shaped CDs, check this out...
The Flaming Lips are one of the most creative/weird bands around. Not only are they known for putting out sometimes-strange music, they also sometimes release it in strange forms. This is a funky shaped CD single that came out in 1996 for their song "This Here Giraffe".
Fun band. I caught them live once in 2000. BTW, I've got several Flaming Lips CDs available to a good home, along with lots of other 90s alt rock stuff. Check out my post from last week for more info.
I kind of don't want to go buckwild with my modest Jeff Bagwell PC, though I do pick up a neat card for cheap once in a while, and maybe someday I'll eventually get him into my Hundred Card Club. This isn't a standard 1992 Leaf Black Gold card, but rather a "Preview" version that's a bit more scarce.
Speaking of Killer B's from the 90s, the Breeders were pretty big in the 90s, specifically for the "Cannonball" song that was all over MTV circa 1993/1994. I was a big fan of theirs. Though I didn't see them live in the 90s, I did eventually catch them in early 2002, and got Kim Deal's autograph after the show...
That was a thrill. Also caught them again many years later (2013) in Portland. Kim Deal was also in one of my other favorite bands, the Pixies.
Here's a Babe Ruth "500 Home Run Club" card from 1994 Ted Williams Card Company. I just thought it was kind of cool thanks to a texture that almost feels like cloth, so I threw it on my stack.
Speaking of cloth, here's likely the most unique item in my CD collection. It's one-of-a-kind, in fact! Back in 2007, I went to a show by an artist called Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, and one of the opening bands was a fun group from Canada called Greenbelt Collective. I hadn't heard of them before, but enjoyed their set so much that after the show I bought a CD. One of their moms sewed up a whole bunch of special CD cases, all very different (the album is called Our Homes, so that's why the case is a house). I liked the blue and orange of this particular one, so picked it out of the available options.
Love that album, and really appreciate the personal touch of a hand-sewn CD case.
Only one card from the 80s in my quarterbox haul from yesterday, that being a 1982 OPC of badass Dave Parker.
Speaking of Cobra..
COBRA!!!!!! Time for the toys part of this Sentimental Sundays post. I was big into GI Joe as a kid in the 80s. These are a couple Cobra bad guys I managed to hang onto over the years. Still in pretty good condition!
1998 Fleer Sports Illustrated Then & Now - Extra Edition parallel #90
I don't pick up every Tony Gwynn card I come across, as that would be overwhelming. But once in a while, I'll grab one that catches my eye.. and a good way to catch my eye is to be serial numbered. This one even has cameos on the back of Killebrew, Brock, and Brooks.
Tony was definitely one of the good ones.
And continuing with GI Joe, here are some good guys. The submarine dude is from my childhood collection (remember playing in the tub with him), but I think the other 3 were actually picked up many years later, in a trade for CDs or something. I haven't taken the plunge of buying old toys on eBay, though there are lots of stuff I'd get a kick out of picking up... Maybe someday down the line if/when money and space are less of an issue.
Last card of the post. This 1997 Upper Deck UD3 seemed pretty neat.. it's got a "bat" textured surface, plus a shiny foil inset photo.
And to pair up the card with this item.. well, um, it's orange like the Orioles colors. And uh, Steady Eddie kept his HOF career in cruise control on the highway of life. Whatever. These little digital games sure were a lot of fun back then, though compared to today's video games, it was the equivalent of hitting a rock with a stick. I'm tempted to find a battery to put in this thing to see if it still works.
That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed these blasts from the past. Thanks for reading!
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas Day. Mine was very nice. Finally saw Rogue One.. I really liked it. Then a great dinner with the in-laws and popped in Scrooged on dvd.. classic. I got some awesome gifts including my first smartphone (Google Pixel), nice noise-canceling headphones, and of course cards.
This post wraps up my trilogy of holiday box breaks. First there was 2016 The Mint (including an incredible pair of Trouts), then 2015 Tier One (with a David Wright /5 auto), and now we close with 2016 Triple Threads.
This is my first time breaking any Triple Threads. The fact the autos are mostly stickergraphs is a turnoff for me. If I'm spending a lot on a box of cards, those autos better be on-card. But this showed up in Dave & Adam's Black Friday sale at a decent price, and I thought it could be a fun break, so I went ahead and added it to my xmas wishlist.
My in-laws were nice enough to put it under the tree for me. So here we are. Let's see what I got!
Mini-box #1 had some solid base cards. David Wright on the blog back-to-back days.
Ooh, here's a nice hit. Jorge Soler triple relic auto. And the signature is on-card! And all 3 relics swatches look different, too, which is a definite plus. It's #'d 40/99. Soler was a key role-player on the WS Champion Cubs team this year, though earlier this month he was traded to the Royals for Wade Davis, as Chicago needed to fill their closer vacancy with Chapman defecting back to New York. Here's hoping Jorge flourishes down in KC.
Speaking of switching teams, Taijuan Walker was sent to the Diamondbacks in the Jean Segura trade last month. This is a decent looking relic, #'d 32/36.
The parallels in the first minibox were excellent and both dudes I collect. Kris Bryant #/250 and Ted Williams #/150.
Mini-box #2 had base cards of a couple guys I collect, Big Unit and Pooh Holes.
Again, I did well with the parallels. Mike Trout #/340 and Freddie Freeman #/250.
Oh, for fuck's sake! If you remember my break yesterday of Tier One, I pulled a 1/1 auto of busted pitcher Alex Cobb. Well, now here's a 1/25 relic/stickergraph to go with it. Looks like I'm being forced into becoming an Alex Cobb supercollector. Though honestly I'd be fine going the rest of my life without ever pulling another Alex Cobb card.
Boom.. here's the hit of the box (or at least right up there with the Soler auto), a triple relic of 3 HOF Orioles: Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, and Jim Palmer. The swatches aren't too exciting in their plainness, but it's fine. Numbered 25/36, this will likely go in the Steady Eddie PC, with all due respect to Cal and Jim.
So there was that box. Not too shabby.. though if it was my hard-earned $150 on the line rather than a gift, I might be a bit let down by it. But yeah, some #'d parallels of guys I collect, a hell of a Jorge Soler card, and a HOF triple relic.. solid box. But now my high-end box breaking days are over, for about 12 months, anyways.
The day after Christmas is an exciting day in our house because it marks the beginning of The Festival of Lightsabers, which is where we watch a Star Wars movie every day between Christmas and New Years. Got an early start this year with Rogue One in 3D on Christmas, and will slide right into A New Hope tonight, then maybe "flashback" to Attack of the Clones tomorrow, followed by Revenge of the Sith (skipping Phantom Menace this year), before jumping back to Empire, Jedi, and the Force Awakens (which I just got on BluRay for xmas). (Update: RIP Carrie Fisher.. that fuckin sucks!) Speaking of Disney, I also got the DuckTales redux PlayStation 3 game which I'm excited about, as the NES original is an all-time favorite of mine. Fun times.
Thanks for stopping by! And to paraphrase Tiny Tim, may the force be with us, everyone.
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.
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!
A few months ago I made a list of Top 10 tough autographs I'd like to get someday and added it to my wantlist. It's got some legendary (expensive) name like Clemente, Mantle, and Ted Williams, but some more realistic guys too. I finally checked a name off the list recently, scoring this Eddie Murray auto/relic:
With 504 home runs and 3255 hits, he's an all-time great. Eddie has never been a very prolific signer, so he's one of the trickier modern-era HOF guys to land a certified autograph of for under $30.
This on-card auto fits the bill for me, though it's not perfect. Some chipping near the bottom (note the white dots in the corners). And the photo of Eddie staring at you in front of a red curtain could be more interesting. Looks to be from his brief later-career double dip in Baltimore rather than during his initial run with the O's. Steady Eddie's signature is as steady as ever, and the bat chip made to look like a baseball is a nice touch.
More chipping on the back in the bottom corners. To the seller's credit, he did mention, "Card has just a touch of white on bottom left and on bottom back of the card." I wasn't too particular about condition in this case, so I was happy to go after the card as an affordable option.
Now if you'll excuse some bitching, this card was the source of some frustration for me. When I set a sniping bid for it, I was unaware that the auction ended on Eddie's birthday... Always a mistake for a buyer. Times you don't want to buy include right after the guy is in the news (his birthday, his deathday, after he does something that gets attention). Those are good times to sell, as the guy is on people's minds and they think, "Hey, maybe I should buy a good card of the guy." So that probably cost me a few extra bucks, though it was my fault for setting the bid where I did.
And a big eBay pet peeve of mine is when a seller sends an invoice moments after the auction ends. It's like.. "Yeah, no shit, buddy. I know how eBay works."
Here are times when it's appropriate for a seller to send an invoice:
- Winner won multiple items and the seller is giving a combined shipping discount.
- It's been over a day since the auction ended and the winner still hasn't paid.
- The winner is new to eBay and has little to no feedback. Even then, give them a couple hours.
- The winner requests an invoice (Maybe they need it for work or their records or whatever).
Being sent an invoice for 1 item moments after the auction ends is annoying and if I'm feeling cranky, may result fewer stars when it comes time for me to leave feedback.
The worst part about the Eddie Murray seller is that even after his impatient invoice which I paid right away, the guy still took a freaking week to drop the card in the mail. And he hasn't bothered to leave feedback for me yet, no surprise. It's not enough to classify him as a "bad seller" but I'd rather avoid the jabroni in the future.
I wish it was possible to add like virtual "sticky notes" to sellers in eBay, because I don't often even look at the seller's ID, much less remember it later unless it's a guy I've bought from multiple times. It'd be great if I could add a little note saying "Stay away from this guy" that would pop up every time I viewed an auction from a seller with whom I had a bumpy experience. I wouldn't want to totally block the seller though, just in case it was something worth putting up with a headache for. If I was a programmer type of guy, I would totally make an app/ browser extension for this. That's a million dollar idea, right there!
Anyways, sorry to sully this post with so much negativity. I'm still very happy to add an Eddie Murray auto to my collection, and along with the 1978 rookie card Junior Junkie sent me a few months ago, it's a great crown jewel pairing to my modest Steady Eddie PC.
