COM-See ya

I've resisted shopping on the COMC site since my latest shipment, but I wouldn't feel confident stating definitively that it was my final COMC order because once in a blue moon they end up with a card significantly cheaper than you can find elsewhere, even with the jacked up shipping considered, and I have in fact bought a couple cards via the COMC eBay account since. But I try to avoid them. (If they're reading and want to offer me a "free shipping" voucher or something to win me back... lol)

That last (for now?) order of mine included some cards to help complete the We Didn't Start The Fire binder, as well as some needs for refractor sets I'm working on which I'll likely show off in separate posts, but for today, here are some other various cool cards I got in that big shipment.

These are probably the result of searching Tony Gwynn refractors and grabbing low-cost options that caught my eye. The 3000 hits card reminds me I wanted to make a display with the ticket from the game I got from Rod with a few cards documenting the moment, such as that one.

Seems like I'm pandering to Fuji by kicking off the post with Gwynn and Rickey, but hey, I like those guys too! That 2022 Topps Chrome Update Series - Diamond Greats Chrome in the middle there sure is attractive, in particular.

Heritage parallels that caught my eye at a good price. The Vogelmoster appearance serendipitously gives me the opportunity to tease an upcoming post of mine in the works wherein we catch up with an old friend from the cardsphere.

A pair of "Retrofractors" up top. Topps has used the term various time for different cardstock combinations. The retrofractors in 2001 Topps Traded (one of the aforementioned refractor projects I'm working on) have Chrome fronts and heritage stock backs. The retrofractors in 2002 Topps Super Teams, however, feature bumpy foilboard fronts with the heritage type backs.. not quite as cool-- I'm not chasing the set-- but I still grabbed a Kevin Mitchell and Don Hoak. (Figured I might put together a mini Hoak PC since I've got a partial autograph on a Clemente cut-auto, arguably my best card.)

The Hank Aaron kinda works as a card-that-never-was that I can sneak into my Refracting the Past collecting project of refractor reprints (and reimaginings that make chronological sense) sorted by year of original Topps design (so this "pre-rookie" gets sorted under 1953).

Akili Smith was the 3rd overall pick in '99 and made some starts for the Bengals but never had much of an impact in the NFL. But he was a local legend when I was growing up, probably the top high school quarterback in San Diego back when I was a high school athlete, so he was like a known dude. I'd love to say I competed at the same invitational track meet as him once or twice, but I wouldn't trust my foggy memory now. Turns out he played some minor league ball in the Pirates organization too (but doesn't seem to have gotten cards documenting it). And he had a nice senior year with the Oregon Ducks in 1998, so I bet Kerry has a decent Akili Smith PC. But yeah, he was a familiar name to snag while browsing cheap old-style xfractors like that.. love the pixelated movement on 'em.

I grabbed some refractors of active guys too. Solid names all around.

A little ink. Stickergraphs of MLB's current top Gavins.

As for older cards, the Roger Craig '64 need was the last card of the order, taking my store credit to just-above the required shipping cost. Still hoping to get around to completing 1964 Topps eventually, now just inching over 4/5's of the way there.

I've already got the complete set of 1988 San Diego State Aztecs 50th Anniversary All-Time Great Aztecs, but the cards damn near never surface (still have my old saved search saved out of curiosity [and because I know the Gwynn and Grace are highly sought after by supercollectors.. because they politely bug me to sell them mine!]), so I ended up grabbing "back up" copies of a couple PC guys when somebody was breaking up a partial set via COMC.

Closing out the post with a few pics of the biggest card of the order (in both size and money):

 1996 Topps Stadium Club - Extreme Players Winners - Gold #EW5 - Ken Caminiti 

I forget where I saw another collector talking about how incredibly cool these things are, but their words must have moved me, and so I took a chance on kicking up my Ken Caminiti PC with this chonker at an "over a blaster" price point. As a refractor enthusiast looking to get his socks knocked off, this does not disappoint. Topps was using their whole asses back then, delivering an impressive (and slightly oversized) special redemption prize exchanged for lucky winning pulls.

The "glass-coated" refractor is a thing of beauty and you're going to want to take it out of any packaging to enjoy the feel of it in your bare hands as often as reasonable without getting it all smudged up.

You don't need to try to make sense of the back's text, but it's cool how the card is like glass on the front and then metallic when you flip it over.

And there you have some highlights from that shipment. I might eventually have a follow-up with stuff I didn't get around to covering here, and I think I've still got a stack of cards from my previous COMC order that I haven't posted about because I was going to do it via handwritten post, but then I ended up doing the handwritten post idea on peeling protective films on other cards. But enough time has probably passed where I could get away with doing another one soon. Anyways, yeah, thanks for reading!

Soup or 70s?

Hey, I haven't posted in nearly a couple weeks. Time for some card soup.

Rod kindly dropped another box of miscellaneous cards on me last weekend. While I ended up with a big stack of keepers, I think this Hank Aaron mini from new Ginter Chrome was my favorite. Rest in Peace, Hammer.

More Aaron. I haven't posted since he passed, so this is sorta doubling as a tribute post.

But yeah, I too got one of those boxes of Topps' online offering Super 70s cards that gave folks a glimmer of hope that Topps was putting out a set of cards that old-school collectors could appreciate. I'm in the same boat as the other bloggers who've reviewed this offering: A collector tiring of modern cards/players, looking for a nice throwback set with fan favorites I grew up loving, at a decent price without having to battle in the current retail card hellscape.

The design is a '77/78/79 Topps mashup. The inserts are similar but bring '75 into the mix, and come 2 to a box. While the price-per-card wasn't great, at least I collect just about every guy I pulled, so even though I didn't luck into an autograph, I don't regret the purchase.

I should mention I'm a fan of the Super 70s Sports twitter account and have been a follower since my early days on the app. It's good for an occasional laugh or interesting perspective, even if I don't always agree with sentiment. Also, the guy who runs it-- Ricky Cobb-- has a tendency to repeat his most popular tweets a few times every year.. which I find a little annoying and repetitive.. as are the frequent tweets hocking t-shirts, but I get that it must be hard trying to make a living as a Twitter personality. By and large, the account is a great follow.

Not sure how much of a say Ricky had when it came to these Topps cards. I'd have loved to see it get a little more "out there". In one of the first reviews of the set I saw, there was Mike Piazza featured as a Marlin, so I got excited for some quirk, but no, it's a pretty straight set apart from that one card. Ricky loves to show crazy pictures like Dave Parker wearing a hockey mask on the field-- would have been cool to get that on a card, but nope Cobra's card is a yawner. Or how about a new Mark Fidrych card? That would have fit right in with the spirit of the set, but Bird isn't in there. Oakland's Matt Olson has a card in the set for some reason. I checked, and Matt Olson has never once been mentioned in a Super 70s Sports tweet. (Fidrych has been mentioned dozens of times.)

The set is like a third big-name HOFers, a third current stars, and a third lesser-known 70s/80s fan favorites (these retired guys also find themselves as the autograph checklist, basically). Looks like all the autos are stickergraphs (boo!) besides the curator Ricky Cobb himself. I bet Topps gave him a list of "fan favorite" players they had a stockpile of autographed stickers of on hand and let him narrow down the list from there for his curated set.

After the mild disappointment of not pulling an autograph from my box, I was compelled to track down a Cobb auto on eBay. I guess this'll go to the "bloggers cards" area of my collection. He's not really a blogger but close enough.

Despite plenty to gripe about (oh, also the backs are very hard to read), it's a fun set and while it could have been a lot better, I appreciate the attempt.

I could spend a lot of time daydreaming about what a Baseball Card Breakdown curated Topps set would include, but I guess that's why I make customs.

- --o

I made 3 purchases from the Topps online store in 2020: a Project 2020 Rickey Henderson earlier in the year, then that box of "Super 70s Sports X", and finally a Throwback Thursday set in December.....

This is 2020 Throwback Thursday Set #49 featuring the 1988 Topps Football 1000 Yard Club inserts design, helping me add yet another solid Hank card to the PC.

I had just days earlier noted to myself how I dig those glossy Topps Football 1000 Yard Club inserts after getting a few in a previous misc box from Rod, so when I saw the 6-card set up for sale, I gave Topps my $19.99. Looks like the print run ended up being 503, damn near scare compared to that Bernie Sanders Topps Now card of him sitting down (91,169 printed!) 

I included an original '88 insert in the above pic to show they did a pretty good job recreating the design, though the new ones don't have the thick gloss of the originals.

I'm a sucker for big round-number milestones like these, plus I collect all 6 of the dudes included, so it felt worth the money.

The Clemente is the star of the set in my eyes. Beautiful!

- --o

One reason I haven't been posting as much lately is that I got my little "music room" area going in the basement, so I've been spending some after-work time jamming out. After not really picking up an electric guitar for a long time, it's been a lot of fun just noodling around and trying to remember how to play songs I loved rocking out back in my 20s when playing guitar for an hour or two was part of my daily routine. Some songs have faded from my brain over the years, but others come flooding back with crazy muscle memory.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hoyt! Hoyt! Hoyt!

I did some photoshop work for a Hoyt Wilhelm supercollector back in 2017 and then he ghosted me when I was expecting some neat Hoyt stuff promised my way in return. A bummer, but it happens.

Then after nearly 3 years of radio silence, Brett finally got back to me earlier this year, apologizing for life n' such putting my haul on the backburner. But in a glorious resolution to the story, he finally hooked me up with a fantastic package to knock the socks off a Hoyt collector such as myself.

We start off with an autographed postcard from Hoyt's swansong in Los Angeles. Nice!

Now we enter into a string of glossy 8x10s. Like with the postcard, this would be cool enough as is, but the fact it's signed only ratchets up the coolness more.

Another autographed photo. Big signature on this one, the last of the signed items here.

Print of a different shot from Hoyt's Dodger days.

And an action shot from Wrigley.

Awesome photo of a pair of baseball greats tipping their caps.

Another terrific print featuring Hank Aaron.

I'd better start doubling up these photos or the post will get huge.. but yeah, a couple nice White Sox 8x10"s.

Here we've got a press photo featuring Hoyt's son, plus a hometown newspaper feature that Brett helped provide some photos and information for from 2017.

Not sure how legible these photos are, but here's the article in case anyone wants to try zooming in to read it.

Very cool stuff!

But for this card collector, what I was most excited about was the set of custom cards Brett created...

This is a comprehensive batch of cards examining Wilhelm's life.

From his early amateur days, to his 21-year MLB career, through his stints as a minor league coach, it's all covered here.

The cards were not cheap for Brett to make, as he worked with a printshop to have them printed up, but he was gracious enough to honor my request to acquire a second set to give to fellow Hoyt-head, Nick from the Dimeboxes blog. I just wouldn't have been able to enjoy the cards to the fullest knowing my buddy Nick was left out of the Hoyt lovefest. But it all worked out and I was able to surprise him with his own set.

Here's a peek at the incredibly informative backs. Lots to digest here, and I still need to carve out time to read through them all.

Brett, huge thanks for the Hoyt mega-mailday! This stuff dwarfs the moderate work I did photoshopping a few pictures, so I'm in your debt.. Just let me know if I can ever lend a hand with anything for you.

Any fellow Wilhelm Warriors and Hoyt Hounds should be sure to check out Brett's new Hoyt Wilhelm Online Museum blog and corresponding Hoyt Wilhelm Fan Page Twitter account.

2004 Topps Retired Hank Aaron Refractor Autograph

Boom!

Extremely happy to check Hank Aaron off my list of needs for the 2004 Topps Retired Signature Edition autograph refractor set that I've considered my #1 highest priority collecting goal for the past several years. 

Going by purchase price, this Hammer is the third best card in my collection now. (And top Retired card.)

Yeah, I overpaid and the signature isn't even that clean-- it's a 2004 signature that looks more like his present-day signature-- and it's an awkward photo (what is going on??).. but I don't care. I welcomed this card into my house like a newborn baby being brought home from the hospital! Huge name I no longer need to worry about anymore (Seriously.. he has no vintage Kellogg's cards for some reason, so he won't be a factor in my latest setbuilding venture.)

A true legend. You gotta love Hank Aaron if you're a baseball fan.

More gratuitous glamor shots to help you fully soak in the majestic essence of the card...

Just 11 more cards to go and this dark shiny beast of a set will finally be finished. My rate of scoring new pickups for this project has slowed way down in recent years-- not that I'm not still searching as obsessively as ever!-- but maybe if I'm lucky I'll complete it within the decade.

I already had the base autograph from a while back. I'm torn on whether to throw it on eBay, put it on the trading block, or just hang onto it. (Once I "upgrade" to the refractor, I typically part with the base auto; I don't feel the need to have both.) I think the signature is better on the base (though neither are an A+), and it's cool having 2 Hammers, but we'll see.

The refractor is #/25 while the base isn't serial-numbered but has an announced print run of 50.

I used to have another base Hank auto like this one, and I "supertraded" it to Tony Burbs a few years back as the main card in a package to score an Axl Rose auto. Maybe I'll hang onto this base Hank as an "ace in the hole" for a possible future supertrade someday. If you happen to have something really cool/$$$ that'd be a great fit for my collection and seems like it'd be a fair swap, feel free to get in touch about feeling out a deal.

card show carnage

Kind of a rough card show for me today. I left my house around 9:30 and was home about 11.. which might be my briefest card show experience to date.

I shouldn't complain too much, since I picked up a few decent cards, plus I know not everybody has easy access to a monthly card show, but I left feeling unsatisfied. A big part of it was there were so many people flocked around the good dealers that it was hard to check out all the bins I wanted to. But the most painful part was I had my eye on a couple boxes of off-condition vintage that a dealer was getting rid of really cheap. Without laboring over the story too much, the boxes got swiped out from under me due to a moment's hesitation. It was pretty crushing, but I guess that's how card shows go sometimes.

But let's put on a positive face and check out some of the cards I brought home. This post will be bookended by a couple cards that ran me $20 for the pair, and then everything in the middle was 50¢ each.

Gotta love a vintage Hank Aaron. Wasn't a steal or anything, but a solid pickup.

Hard to pass up any cheap pre-war vintage. Took a flyer on this old-looking bird card. Looking it up, seems it's 1933 Dwight's Soda Useful Birds of America Sixth Series #14 Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. Not in perfect condition, though the junk in its beak is supposed to be there... must've been on its way to build a nest. (UPDATE: I've have been corrected! It's more likely a potato bug in its mouth about to be chomped down. Oh, the carnage!)

Looks like it's worth a few bucks, so it was a good buy for 50¢.

Some of today's big names.

A pair of numbered Heritage parallels from last year.

Bartolo /100, Ortiz /149, and Gavin Cecchini /499.

Some shiny young dudes.

record scratch---oh wow, looks like my find of the day is that Carter Kieboom mega box mojo refractor. Turns out it's the "white jersey" photo variation SP (as opposed to the base version featuring a red jersey) and goes for around $20 according to COMC. Nice! Got lucky there. Perhaps I should start feeling better about how I made out today.

Also, COMC is telling me that Yordan Alvarez is a $10 card. Now I regret leaving the other 2 copies I came across near it. Hmm.. is it too late for me to go back to the show? LOL. They might still be there as I type.

COMC also has the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. listed at $16. Yeah, looks like these 3 were my shrewdest purchases of the day.

Then I bumped into Padrographs Rod and he had a couple things for me...

Sweet!.. I was looking for this 2019 AAF card to effectively wrap up my Gavin Escobar PC.

Honestly, '88 Topps might be my least favorite set ever-- way overproduced... drab, dark backs-- but I have a long-term goal to get all the main sets from that era, so it's nice to check this one off. Rod wound up with a 1988 factory set he didn't need, and was kind enough to pass it off to me. Thanks, Rod! I appreciate it.

And my last pickup to feature from today...

I had been wanting Stan Musial's "Topps Rookie" for a while, so I was happy to score this one. Musial wasn't under contract with Topps for most of his career until finally showing up in 1958 with this All-Star card.

So there are the highlights (also grabbed a few more cards that either weren't interesting enough to show or are already set aside for trader buddies). While it was a somewhat frustrating experience in the moment, I feel ok about my haul now. And I only spent $30, which is on the low end for my card show expenditures, so it's all good.