Ready for the World Series

I had to splurge on a Juan Soto autograph. I'm pretty happy with this one. Big, on-card signature. Still had a few eBay Bucks left to help take the sting out of the price. He's a terrific young player who's a lot of fun to watch.

It's from 2019 Bowman Sterling. Numbered out of 25.

While I'm at it, I figured I'd show off a few of my best cards of other players I collect who are competing in the Fall Classic this year.

Stephen Strasburg is a guy I collect thanks to his status as a fellow SDSU alum. This is a custom overlay I made a couple years back.

Some of my other decent Stras cards. I hope he does well in the series.

I collect some dudes in the other dugout, too. This Carlos Correa atomic auto is a favorite of mine.

Other highlights in that PC include a prospect auto, a slabbed Pro Debut, and a Members Only parallel from Stadium Club.

A year or two back I kinda-sorta started collecting Max Scherzer. No auto yet, but I've accumulated a few solid cards of his.

I started collecting George Springer after his impressive performance in the 2017 postseason.

Dig these thicc Crystal Ball inserts from 2015 Stadium Club.

Some other Springer highlights.

Trea Turner is another Nat I collect. His success is bittersweet for me, since the Padres gave him up in an ill-advised trade.

Gotta love Jose Altuve (..unless you're a Yankees fan, I suppose). My PC of him is highlighted by an Archives auto, a Heritage action variation, and 3 rookies. Still need a parallel of his Topps rookie for my 2011 frankenset. If anybody has one, I'd love a chance to tempt you into a trade.

Shortly after his ALCS-winning jack, I whipped up this Altuve gif (at the brilliant suggestion of Dennis). The "hand cut" effect is kinda neat. I already had much of this card whipped up thanks to a custom I made a couple years ago...

Nice looking custom.

I think that's it as far as guys I collect who are in the WS. All the early Gerrit Cole cards that came my way ended up going to Matthew Scott. Pretty much any Verlander cards I've had over the years have gone to Dennis. I also collect Alex Bregman, but don't have anything really notable yet. I have an auto each from Adam Eaton and Ryan Zimmerman, though I don't really collect either player.

I think it's gonna be a fun series. Too bad the Astros had to poop in the pool with their continued poor handling of domestic violence issues. I was already lightly rooting for Washington, and now after recent stuff in the news, I'm really hoping they can pull off the upset. Though if I was a betting man, my money would be on Houston. But yeah, regardless, hope we get some exciting biggest-stage baseball.

Rod/Fuji Team-up

I mentioned in my recent card show recap that I was anxious to get the cards Rod had for me. Let's take a look at those now.

1991 MusiCards needs! This lot got me down to about 30 left (not counting the various promo cards, which I'd also like to track down). I'm kicking off a setblog for these (and more-- via customs) soon and I'm really excited about it. Rambling about music (and my youth) is one of my favorite things to do! I've already started drafting the first couple posts and it's been a lot of fun. I hope you readers follow/comment along, though I know non-baseball stuff is less exciting to the cardsphere on the whole. Anyways, stay tuned for that official announcement/link coming in October. ...probably accompanied by a contest offering up some impressive cards to bribe people to checking it out.

Rod also surprised me with a near-complete base set of 1991 Brockum Rock Cards. These are cool too, though not quite as close to my heart, as I was never a huge metal/ hard rock guy. And while I ripped some MusiCard packs back in the day, I think these are the first Brockum Rock Cards in my collection. Seems to only be missing #205 Jon Anderson (of Yes). Turns out there are also variations due to Brockum mixing up the back photos of two members of Exodus (--to be fair, they are similar looking guys.) I need #127 COR (white shirt in back photo), #141 COR (white shirt in back photo), and #198 ERR (black shirt in back photo). I was a little bummed there isn't a GNR card in there. Axl has a rare promo card, but nothing in the base set.

The music cards from Rod continue with a full 100-card set of 1993 American Bandstand. TCDB says the set is 101 cards large, but then only lists 100 cards on the checklist with no variations, so I'm not sure what the 101st card is supposed to be.. perhaps the unnumbered hologram insert. Looks like there are also "Legends Signatures" autograph inserts-- each numbered to just 100-- of Dick Clark, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Smokey Robinson. Wow! Those would be sweet pulls. American Bandstand's heyday was before my time, so I never watched the show much, but there are some acts in there I like.

Rod also was the middle man for some cards Fuji brought up with him and handed off when he briefly met up at Rod's work a few weeks back.

Nice trio of Didi rookies!

And a lot of early George Springer USA cards!

Very cool.. Thanks, Fuji!

And closing out the post with one more card from Rod...

Awesome! I know Rod has cranked out several customs of his own likeness over the years, though I don't recall ever being the lucky recipient of one before. So in the wake of my Night Owl TTM success, I made sure to ask for an auto for my budding minicollection of trader bud cards. I'll have to do a post soon recapping what-all I've got so far.

Big thanks as always, Rod!

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.

The Nickening

Looks like I'll have a string of trade recap posts this week. Yesterday was Zippy, today is Dimebox Nick, and waiting in the wings are packages from Angus and Wes that just showed up. With all these great incoming cards, it's easy to ignore the release of 2019 Topps Series One today. I feel like my interest in current flagship couldn't be lower, though I don't hate the design this year and am glad to see the return of full stats on the back.

Here's a nice one to kick off with. McCovey is a big PC guy for me, plus I'm thinking I'd like to make a run for Kellogg's sets at some point in the coming years.

A little deja vu from yesterday's Japanese girlie cards, another one of those boxes with a bunch of swimsuit cards of one particular young lady. Jun Amaki here is quite lovely. Perhaps this was re-traded by way of Zippy? Hey, I'll happily take any unwanted girlie cards (and probably pass off any I don't want to Billy.)

Back to baseball, here are some minis. Always love adding a new Hoyt.

These old Baseball Card Magazine pseudo-customs are fun. I had been debating whether or not to cut the sheet I recently got featuring the Kevin Maas card, but thanks to this already-cut one from Nick, I can leave the other intact.

And more various cards of  guys I collect.

Solid selection of Padres from this decade. Looks like I needed all 3 of those 2011 Topps parallels for my frankenset, so that makes me happy.

Trea Turner is a guy I recently bumped off my wantlist and retired the PC into the Hundred Card Club. That didn't take me long.. feels like he was just recently a rookie, fleeced from San Diego's org. Hopefully Tatis Jr at shortstop takes the sting out of that transaction soon. Anyways, nice lot here.

Nick and I are both Rod Beck collectors, and he's good about throwing his dupes my way.

And of course Mr. Padre. Dig the cartoon fly with backwards hat.

Impressive lot of George Springer cards.

Bunch of Brian Giles.

And little bro, Marcus.

More Pads of the Past. Some nice ones here. Note the minor league Bochy with "C/CH" position. That was his last stand as a player.

The package wraps up with some vintage cards from Nick's dad, buttering me up for another batch of music customs on the horizon.

The '64 Topps needs are much appreciated. Inching toward ¾ complete with this set.

The highlights here are legendary manager Walt Alston and a combo card featuring Yaz. (Not sure how Chuck Schilling squeezed onto this "Sox Sockers" card; the guy hit a total of 23 homers in his entire career.)

Big thanks, Nick! (and Nick's dad!) I don't think I've got much left set aside for you right now, but I'll keep an eye out. And just let me know when your dad wants to get that custom project going.

Mailday Before Christmas

Good stuff under the tree to recap from Collecting Cutch, Fuji, and Too Many Verlanders.

I was thrilled to win this awesome Harold Baines card from Brian the other day. He had a contest post of predicting where Andrew McCutchen would end up. I pulled Philadelphia out of my ass, and wow, a few hours later, it was announced that he did in fact sign with the Phillies!

I've always liked Harold Baines and was pleasantly shocked at the news of his HOF election. This is a great card to ring in the occasion in my card collection. Panini Flawless cards are always classy. No logos, but there's enough going on to where you don't really notice, between the two impressive patch bits and his crazy autograph. Harold doesn't have the most visually appealing signature, but still much better than a lazy squiggle. The low serial number is a nice feature, too.

And I won this pink parallel in Brian's wonderful Save The Boobies event back in October. Victory was mine in this instance thanks to my lucky pick back in September that J.D. Martinez would hit the first double of the 2018 World Series. Sure enough that prophecy was fulfilled a month later in Game 1! For my nostradamus-like abilities, I scored this Giancarlo Stanton / Aaron Judge "award show" checklist from Series Two #'d 42/50. I collect both these guys, though I'll likely throw this in the Judge PC since I already have well over 100 Giancarlo cards and I'm still getting there with Judge.

Always down for bonus Cutch cards thrown in for the ride.

But the real surprise punch of the package was this Adrian Beltre bat relic #'d 60/99. Heck of an addition to the ol' Beltre PC.

Thanks for the contests and the bonuses, Brian! Very generous of you.

-  -  - ---o

Next up is Fuji. I figured we were square, but somehow I was still on his "hit list", and hey, I'm not going to object to receiving cards in the mail.

The 2015 Chrome George Springer is a refractor.. nice! And Fuji was just a little late on getting me that '82 Jack Morris I needed for my set, beaten to the punch by Turrdog, but still appreciated.

The meat of the package was this pair of Mad Dog Madlock relic cards.

Awesome stuff! Thank you, Fuji!

-  -  - - - --o

Lastly, Dennis from Too Many Verlanders graciously included me in his blast of holiday mailings.

Kicking off with a neat pair of blue Gavins.

Some Pads from the Past I collect, Gwynn Jr, Nevin, and a golden Giles.

Wow, now this is a Christmas package. These ornament cards from Pacific are a blast.

But the "Christmas Cards" that really get my attention are 12/25 cards. I'm always happy to land a card of any player with that yuletide numbering.. but a guy I collect? That's a bullseye for my collection! HOFer Greg Maddux and Guy From Granite Marcus Giles, both top tier dudes I collect.

Big thanks, Dennis! I'll hit you back with a return soon.


Merry Christmas, Brian, Fuji, and Dennis! Your generosity brightened my holidays.

And Happy Holidays, all. Thanks for swinging by.