Julie trade

Good stuff in the mail from Julie!

A Beltre blast!

Neat cards from new HOFers!

O's goes!

Bringer of Rain has been brought!

Keep on rocking!

Never too old for this Schmidt!

Pads and sods. Maybin black mini super scare, #'d 10/10!

2018 Heritage base team set!

A couple dudes basically traded for each other.

And some minicollection hits with a Pride PC addition, glowing Griffey, and parallel Gavin.

Big thanks, Julie! You're the best! (I was tempted to make this a post in my GNR series for "Your Crazy" [meant with all the love] but I didn't want to offend.. lol!) I'll get a return package out to you soon!

late nite pack rip of 2018 Heritage

Grabbed a couple packs of 2018 Heritage at the grocery store this afternoon while out shopping with the fam (Probably would have gotten a blaster, but all they had was an open retail box). It's my first 2018-stuff rip. My grocery store (Fred Meyer) recently did a little remodel and now the card section is right by the Customer Service desk, which I gotta assume is good for keeping pack-searching pricks at bay since there's a worker at the desk at all times.

A couple guys I collect here in Conforto and Devers.

Pulled the Beltran sunset card, plus a Beatles insert and Yankees rookie stars.

More base cards.. available for trade.

And a "hit" of sorts with this Josh Donaldson /999 chrome parallel. He's a guy I collect, so I'm happy with this. Maybe not exactly justifying the $6 purchase price of 2 packs, but hey, a Donaldson parallel plus Devers, Conforto, and a bit of trade fodder.. I'll call the rip a modest success.

Some backs. I used to be a bigger fan of '69 Topps a few years ago until I took a closer look and got turned off by all the outdated & hatless photos. But the simple design is fine and I like the backs. But I probably won't buy much more of this. Maybe if there are discounted blasters at the next card show I'll grab one.

Thanks for reading!

The Greatest 25 Days: 2017 December card show

December 2nd.. wow, that's gotta be the earliest-in-the-month of the monthly card shows since I've been going to Portland's Mall 205 Sports Card and Collectible Show. Hey, I'm more than happy to keep away from the mall the farthest away from Christmas as possible, so I'm happy about this date. Much greater than 21 or so days from now, with St. Nick banging on the chimney. No one wants to be at the mall then.

Backtracking a little, my wife and I went to the 2017 Holiday Ale Fest last night. It was a lot of fun and we tried a bunch of interesting beers. The clear favorite for us was Three Mugs Brewing Company's Mrs. Claus's Peppermint Desire White Chocolate Ale. With a name like that, it could have gone either way, but man, it was great. But anyways, luckily my hangover this morning wasn't too bad, so it didn't effect my cardshowing, though I did keep in tight, in and out in under a couple hours.

Let's check out some highlights!

Here's a card I couldn't slam onto my stack fast enough, though I tried to play it cool. Vintage '61 Maris oddball for under a buck? Yes, please! It's got some crayon on the otherwise blank back, but still. I don't collect Maris very much, mainly because he reminds me of a certain neighborhood bully from my childhood, but hey, this was a no-brainer.

The vintage oddball scores continue with this Winfield rookie disc. I remember seeing it at the last show, but thought I had it already so passed it up, but I think I had it confused with Nate Colbert. I was happy to come across it again and not let it slip away a second time. It's a 1974 McDonald's San Diego Padres Disc. Probably came in the bottom of a Coke or something. Even with this one being miscut, I think this is like at least a $10 item (cheapest on COMC right now is $48.25), so a good deal. All the cards I bought today were from Bill's 7-for-$5 bins, by the way. Oh man, there was a scary moment today when Bill collapsed on the floor. His wife (who helps spot him at the shows) was understandably freaking out a little. Bill played it off like it wasn't a big deal, that he was leaning against the table and his elbow gave out. But man, I was right there, and it really seemed like he briefly passed out. But he seemed to be ok after he got up, so I went back to thumbing through the cards. If his wife rushed him off to the hospital mid-show, what's the etiquette there? What would be the fate of my stack?! I shouldn't be glib about it. But yeah, Bill isn't a young man anymore and he smokes like a chimney. It probably wouldn't be a shock to arrive at a show one of these months and him not being there, permanently. That would suck though. He's a good guy, not to mention my go-to dealer at the show. Anyways, back to the cards.

A couple short-term-stop legends.

While I'm not crazy about the Gold Label reboot (they should be on Chrome stock, damn it, not foilboard), I still am a sucker for parallels. Goldschmidt /99, Donaldson /75, Votto /50.

And some nice unnumbered black parallels.

Maybe you remember my post from the November show where I lamented passing up some 2017 Museum Collection "Canvas Collection" cards? Well, lucky me, they were still there this show (except the Kris Bryant seems to have been snatched up, but a Cal from 2016 popped up in his place). As I said then, I don't really care for mass-produced art cards like this (see also 2017 Topps Gallery). But hey, for the right price, I'll pick up PC guys.

Ok, let's call it good for today, but I've still got probably 2 or 3 more posts worth of cards from the show. See ya next time!

bountiful trades for which to be thankful

Here's a Thanksgiving Day trade roundup with some cards friendly folks on the cardsphere have sent my way over the past week or so— and one that was actually sent several months ago but just finally made its way to me recently.

First up is a nice package from Paul from Scribbled Ink, a brand new trade partner for me. My latest trade bait post lured him into getting in touch, and we quickly had our first trade completed. The package took a detour to Honolulu for some reason, but it eventually arrived safely.

Those shiny Topps Fire cards look great, even if overall the product doesn't do much for me. The Hercules mini gets me to halfway complete with the glow-in-the-dark Constellations insert set from 2017 Ginter; 5 down, 5 to go.

Nice Donaldson lot here. As the writing on the penny sleeve indicates, the Bowman card is #'d /499, though you'd never suspect it was a parallel by the looks of it. Guess they ran out of colors for the border, so they just greyed it down a bit. Silly Bowman!

A couple Pucketts, a couple 1980 Topps (wantlist coming soon), plus a footballer and a hockeyer. (huh, apparently "hockeyer" is a real word according to my spellcheck! Gretzky is hockeyer than thou.)

It's a Vladvalanche! I'll bet this lot finally gets me over the 100-card hump with this PC.

Shiny Lindor highlights this trio of hot, young infielders.

Marquis! I've been saying, "I should probably do an update post for my Marquis Mania project one of these days" for the past few years now, but hey, good news! I actually started drafting up such a post the other day. Expect that soon.

And the highlights of Paul's generous package wrap up with a random auto (P-town Tim?!?) and a stack of 2017 Update. I'm not going after that set, but was able to pull out a bunch of keepers.

Big thanks, Paul! Hopefully that was the first of many trades for us. I feel like my return didn't quite measure up to your end, so I'll do my best to balance the scales next time.

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Next up is my prize from the BFG: Basement Fun Game, run by Matt at Summer of '74.

I lucked out by ending up with a prize of a guy I actually collect, Junior Seau. Sweet! It's an extravagant promo thing that was originally sent by the card manufacturer to a card shop, with an acetate President's Reserve Seau card as the focal point.

Matt threw in a bunch of bonus cards of guys I collect, too. Thanks a lot, man! I should send you a little thank-you soon.

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And now here's a nice little "just because" PWE from Sport Card Collectors. I was crushed when I lost his big season-long pick-em contest last month after surprisingly making it into the finals. It'll take me a while to recover from that, if I ever truly do. I think it's better to do a few smaller contests rather than one big-ass one— you know, to help spread around the goodies—but I get that that means more money on postage, which sucks.

Lots of shiny here, with 3 Hunter Renfroe cards. Very nice. Thanks, man! I sent you a return PWE; hopefully you need some of them. Do you still have that Clearly Authentic Renfroe? If so, I might have to scrape up something together to swap with you for that.

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Next up is The Lost Collector hitting me back for a Ty Hensley refractor I ended up with that he needed for his supercollection a while ago.

It'd be great if these 2 guys could return to San Diego someday (Strasburg an SDSU alum, and Trea a Padres draftee). But hey, best of luck to them over in the undrained swamp that is Washington DC.

Some more dudes I collect.

Nothing wrong with a little overproduction-era stuff to bulk up a package. I think I needed some of these, too. The Hojo is a "Rediscover Topps" buyback. While I'm happy to get this, I'm really hoping Topps lays off the buybacks in 2018. Wouldn't that be refreshing?

TLC's package wraps up with a couple autos. Andy Benes seems to be a great TTM signer, though I haven't tried him. This Collector's Choice card looks great. Slap hands!

And of course look at that, a Ty Hensley auto! Fingers crossed that Ty gets healthy and back on his career path to the bigs soon. If/when he does, having this auto will easy the regret of trading that parallel to the Lost Collector. Big thanks!

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Last one. Strap in for this! This one is a wayward PWE that was originally sent way back on April 7th, 2017... but to the wrong person. See Matt from Summer of '74 posted about an item and offered it up for grabs in trade. I was lucky enough to be the first one to comment on the post, calling dibs. But then a couple days later, Matt posted saying he would be soon sending it out to Dayf of Cardboard Junkie fame. I didn't think much of it, just assuming Dave offered a specific/better trade offer to best my vague offer. But it turns out, no, it was just a mixup. Matt can be forgiven, since he was a relatively new cardblogger at the time, and Dayf and Defgav are somewhat similar usernames. Matt eventually realized his mistake after a couple months and made it known. I then contacted Dayf over the summer about it, explaining the situation, and he graciously offered to forward the cards my way. A few months went by with nothing, then I nudged him about it again, and it seems he was under the impression he sent them out, but alas they had hidden themselves in a laptop bag or something. So like 7 months later, the PWE finally made it to its intended recipient!

Another '90 UD Marquis! Always appreciated. Also a Gavin, Stewart Gavin.
But the real highlight...

Prepare to have your mind blow. What you see above is an authentic Warren Spahn autograph. And yes, that's a 2015 Topps Archives card. And yes, Spahn passed away November 24, 2003.

Buuut... h'howww?

Did you figured it out?

Young Matt sent a TTM request to Warren back in the day. Warren went ahead and signed the penny sleeve instead of the card within it. And so, an autographed Warren Spahn penny sleeve was created. And all you have to do to have an "autographed" Warren Spahn card is slip any card into the penny sleeve, as I've done here with the 2015 Archives card. Perhaps one of these days I'll whip up a special custom to reside in the sleeve. But for now, this'll do.

Huge thanks to Matt (and also to Dayf [@CardJunk] for the kind assist). I'll round up some good Brewers or whatnot soon to finally complete this extended trade.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading, everybody. Hope you have/had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A trade roundup to let the sunshine in

Three recent incoming trades to feature.

First up is Mark Hoyle, who surprised me with a package of oversized cards.

Great looking Winfield. This is my first 1980 Topps Super card.

These Topps Baseball Foldouts panels from 1983 are postcard sized. They're separated, but apparently they come connected, hence the name, and are double sized. For example, Steve Garvey is on the other side of Bill Madlock... both guys I collect, but lucky for me I keep my oversized cards in a separate box, so I don't have to decide which PC to store it with.

Big thanks, Mark!

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Next is a PWE from Sport Card Collectors.

Nice Conforto mini, though the star of the show is the Vogelmoster autograph. It's my first of his in a Seattle uniform. Seems he's been getting a lot of love from Topps this year, though he still hasn't done much in his limited MLB action. While my enthusiasm for collecting him has waned lately (unlike P-town Tom), still nice to add another auto of his.

And a few Padres cards, including a #'d diecut Kemp, and a couple Templeton buybacks.

Thanks, SCC!

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Finally, here's a surprise PWE from Dimebox Nick.

Here's a Gavin and a few big names of today. The Cecchini is a fancy parallel #'d 18/25. I think the Trout is my first card from the 2017 National Baseball Card Day promotion. Dig the early Donaldson card.

Some late, great Padres of the past. Always love getting new cards from these guys. Especially exciting to see the minor league Caminiti.

Some more quality Padres.

And very cool to land needed cards from Bake McBride and Vida Blue. The glow-in-the-dark Ginter mini is also appreciated, though I already have it. In fact, I think this is the 3rd copy I've gotten of Aquarius, which is kinda crazy seeing as I only have 3 of the 10 Constellations cards so far. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, indeed.

Thanks, Nick!

And thanks again to Mark and SCC. I was proactive putting returns to you 3 guys in the mail quickly, and they should be arriving any day now.

Great trades to soothe a mailless day

Man, I love three-day weekends!

But the worst thing about them is having a couple consecutive days without mail service. I need the prospect of potential cards in my mailbox to help get me out of bed in the morning.

But luckily for me, I got a few nice trade packages in the mail late this past week, so that helps take the sting out.

I purposefully held off going through the box I received from Julie until today to give myself some celebratory cards for Labor Day.

Let's crack it open!

The cards are alive with color!

Gavins! The Goof-Off without text on the front is from the 70s (that I had been meaning to track down), while the other is a reprint from 1988.

Been a long time since I got a new Matt Ginter for the PC! And I love the Miguel Tejada Christmas Card.

Great lot of the Giles Bros.

Just call Julie the Bringer of Donaldsons.

Oh, I'm bein' followed by a Machado. Machado, Machado!

I've been desperately pleading with traders to stop sending me Wil Myers cards, but I'll admit I was happy to see many of these. That early Tri-Star card in particular is a nice addition to the PC.

Nice pile of teammates Correa and Altuve!

And the cards just keep on comin'! This is one of those packages that could easily have an entire week's worth of posts dedicated to it, but let's just wrap it up here. So many awesome cards.. Huge thanks, Julie!

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Tough to follow that, but here's an excellent surprise mailer from Kerry.

Some big stars of today on fancy inserts.

A pair of Arenado DKs (one is a refractor), and a pair of World's Fair inserts from 2017 Ginter. I wanted the Monorail card because it makes me think of that one Simpsons episode. The Ferris Wheel card makes me think of a Neutral Milk Hotel song.

Kerry must have caught when I said that, while I don't really follow the NBA much, I might go ahead and call the Spurs my favorite team in the league. And that's largely because of Tim Duncan, featured with a sweet lot here.

And fellow Spurs, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

Thanks, Kerry! I'll round up a return for you soon.

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One more trade to post about today, this one from Stealing Home.

Always happy to take his dupes of Dodgers I collect.

Solarte auto! If I recall, OM pulled this in a repack and was kind enough to set it aside for me. On the day I received this trade package, Solarte hit a walkoff homer for my Padres against the Dodgers. Looks like this auto escaped enemy territory just in time!

Awesome surprise, right here. I'm a sucker for glow-in-the-dark cards, and these weren't even on my radar. Seems they came with Kid Cuisine frozen meals in 1997. Love it! I'll have to try to track down the rest of the set someday.

Here they are in action. Very cool concept of having the skeletons glow.

A book! I've been wanting to read Mint Condition for a while now. It's supposed to be a great telling of the history of the hobby. I'm still working through Ball Four, but this one will be next on my reading list. Or who knows, maybe I'll read them concurrently. (Ball Four is an ebook I've been reading on my phone, not a physical copy.)

And last item of the post, an elegant bronze Roberto Alomar 1988 Topps Traded RC mint-card. Mr. Stealing Home ended up with this card-like-thing in Johnny's Big Fun Game, and seeing how he bleeds Dodger blue, didn't necessarily have a lasting place in his collection for a Padre, so we were able to work out a trade and bring it to a home where it'll be more appreciated. I won't show a bunch of pics of it, but if you're interested, a recent ARPS post featuring the Will Clark version of these things does a great job giving you a clear idea of what they're all about. Part of me wants to trash the big plastic case since it's crumbling somewhat and takes a lot of room, but the collector in me doesn't want to lose the case that's "part" of the item. Still debating.

Thanks a lot, OM! I'll put your return package in the mail soon.


Happy Labor Day, everybody. And thanks again to Julie, Kerry, and OM for the excellent cards! I hardly even noticed there was no mail today. :)