Incomings and Outgoings

Got some incoming cards to round up into a post.

I did a quick swap of unofficial cards with reader David B. who fancied a copy of the Willie Stargell - Braves custom I made recently. In return, I got this pair of old school customs somebody made circa 1970. David didn't have a ton of background into on them, but he had bought a larger lot with several of them on eBay in 2021. The person who originally made them must've gotten pictures from a periodical or book, affixing them onto cardboard and turning them into cards, or close enough. They're just a hair too big to fit in a standard top-loader.

Looks they had been intended to have stats on the back, but the data entry must've ended up being too tedious-- you couldn't just copy & paste back then-- so that section got a purple overhaul instead. But yeah, happy to spice up my Wampum and Hoot PCs with these.

Thanks for the trade, David! Fun stuff.

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I fielded my first trade request on TCDB in quite a while, which is mostly my fault because I haven't added squat to my FT/FS cards there in a long time. But apparently I had a few '72 Topps on there (that I had forgotten about-- in fact I've got a couple different '72 "starter lots" from my dupes that I've been meaning to put on eBay), and a friendly guy with the username aint56cool needed one, offering this pair of 1970 Topps. I gotta admit I haven't been tracking my '70 setbuild on TCDB, I just blanketly added all the semi/high numbers to my wants a couple years back since I needed most of them. And I did in fact need these two. Now just 310 cards left to go. Maybe by the time my retirement benefits kick in, assuming I live that long, I can use that 401k to finance landing a Nolan Ryan and Johnny Bench. lol

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Next up is a surprise mailing I received from Japan.

Imported fresh! Love the early Darvish, and always down for an attractive lady on a trading card.

Zippy Zappy didn't include a note this time, but I'm assuming these were some leftover stragglers from the tail end of his through-the-mail autograph acquiring activity, with his budding Rockies fandom apparent with his lot of fellas. You may recall ZZ decided to tighten up his collection a while back before escaping America, jettisoning his non-personalized TTM returns, much of which has been entrusted to me. Happy to add these to the hoard.

Thanks as always, Zippy!

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Ok, those were the "incomings", now for the "outgoings".

The Mark Fidrych Memorial Bird Feeder (a.k.a. The Bird Birdfeeder) has closed for the time being after about 2 years serving neighborhood feathered friends. Squirrels had occasionally been a nuisance in the feeder, but a recent late night rat sighting forced the closure, as I don't want to be supporting unwanted rodents on my property. I'm hoping to "reopen the restaurant" at some point, perhaps in a different spot. Anyways, the above card was the featured entertainment for the birds to enjoy while they ate. It's faded in the sun somewhat, but there's still some yellow hanging on.

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Sad to hear Val Kilmer passed away the other day, though I know his health had been in the toilet for the past several years. He did a lot of great work, from his early quirky films to the big-budget stuff. I watched his documentary a couple years back and he really was a fascinating dude. Anyways, this above Ginter auto is a cherished piece of my collection, scored in a blogger trade back in 2016. (Bubba, are you still out there?)

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Now an update on my "latest art drop".. the silhouette cards from my previous post. Happy to report I sold out the Rickey Henderson cards within 48 hours! Interest was not nearly as robust with the other two featured athletes, however. So far I've moved just one Bo Jackson and zero Jordans.. kinda surprising to me, as I think they're super cool, but that's just how it goes sometimes. (Update: just sold 4 more Bo cards to one guy but don't feel like rewriting this paragraph.) Both Jordan listings had a weird thing where the listing didn't show up on the site until a day later, despite showing as active on my end. Not sure if that was a technical hiccup, or if perhaps listings mentioning 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan have a higher rate of getting flagged for moderation since counterfeits are so rampant with that card. But anyways, they're available now and we'll see if folks eventually start coming around to them. 

But my takeaway is that the market for Rickey cardart/custom stuff is strong, which is cool with me. I already had more Rickey stuff in the works anyways, so I'll continue that route, and spend less time on making new Bo and Jordan cards. (I also have plans for more subjects-- already made a Tim Flannery '88 Fleer silhouette card for Rod, plus a few Barry Bonds ideas for my guy who buys most Bonds cardart I whip up. [Though he passed on the pair of Christmas tree ornament cards. Maybe he doesn't celebrate? Fair enough!])

Also, the glowing cards did well-- they seemed to be among the quickest Rickeys to go, and the first Bo sale was a glower-- so I'll likely focus on more g.i.t.d. cards, which are my personal favorite anyway.

In fact, here's a sneak peek of my latest finished item with the lights out...

I'm still coming up with new ideas, as well as sitting on some good ideas that have been brewing on the backburner for years, so even if you don't dig the silhouette vibe, your boy Gav has more tricks up his sleeve, don't you fret. Thanks for following along!

The Bird bird feeder (Mark Fidrych PC)

My live-in marital partner surprised me with a bird feeder last Christmas, knowing how I've enjoyed having an active hummingbird feeder for a couple years running. Took me a while to get around to putting it up, waiting for the rainy season to be over, but I've had it up for a week now and it's pretty cool. 

It's made of clear plastic and meant to be hung in a window so you can get a close look at the birdies on display. At first the clear side walls were confusing them-- often fluttering against them trying in vain to get in-- so I stuck on some Fleer team logo stickers on the sides. But I soon upgraded that idea to slotting in a pair of Mark Fidrych cards, thereby dedicating it as a Mark Fidrych Memorial Bird Feeder... or The Bird Birdfeeder.

It's designed to be hung with suction cups to a window, but the best viewing spot I could identify was over a screen, so I rigged up a hanger instead.

I'm a little worried about a squirrel raid, (and/or maybe the crows/ravens who run the neighborhood will come by for their "protection" fee?), but no trouble yet.

I didn't take the decision to "sacrifice" good baseball cards lightly. But I already have these cards. I've got one of the '77 Toppses in my setbuild, and two more in the PC in addition to the lesser-conditioned triplicate selected for the birds. As for the '78, also got one in the 78T build, plus one in the PC, plus another one that's autographed (for/from former blog buddy "Tony L." who pops up to talk about soccer on twitter once in a while but sadly seems like Off Hiatus Cards is in fact never returning from the hiatus it's currently on). 

Ruby does some birdwatching.

But yeah, the cards in there are packaged with water-resistance in mind, and it's on the north side of the house, so not a ton of direct sunlight, so we'll see how the cards are looking after a few months, assuming they don't go missing or anything. I bet it won't take long for these cards to be imprinted on my brain more than they already are due to looking over at them many times in an average day. I suppose I could pop in any old trading cards to do the job-- perhaps favoring teams named after birds.. yeah, maybe I'll swap in some Orioles/Cardinals/Jays commons once the rainy days return-- but at least for now it will continue to serve a dual purpose, acting as a safespace for li'l tweet-tweets to find an assortment of small seeds and nuts available to eat.. while also paying tribute to a fascinating former ballplayer who happened to be similarly nicknamed due to his appearance calling to mind the character Big Bird.

A guest to the Bird feeder checks out Fidrych's early stats.

The feeder isn't super busy, but has flurries of activity at least a couple times a day so far, which is perfect. Mostly common sparrows, as far as I can tell, which are cute, though hopefully I'll be lucky enough to eventually spot some "fancier" birds stopping by.

On the topic of Mark Fidrych, I just went ahead and logged my PC into TCDB today. My 23 unique cards were good enough to crack the Top 20 there, so that's cool. I did the "add all missing cards to wantlist" thing, too, so hopefully that'll spark some trades and help me move up the list... though he only has 214 total cards listed, and most of those are either oddballs from the late 70s or low-numbered stuff from the aughts when the card companies started going nuts with cards of retired favorites. But yeah, it'd be cool to build up the PC to where I could "hang with the big boys" of Fidrych collectors.

Here's the PC, more or less (turning this post into an update of my previous Fidrych PC post from 2018)...

Some of Gio's customs infiltrated this group of cards I've got of Bird's early days.

You can see I've got dupes of his '80 and '81 Topps cards (No OPC in the mix here, sadly), though they are less fun to look at than '77 and to a lesser extent '78.. but could be called into active bird feeder duty if needed.

Love the minor league cards, even if that must've been a frustrating time for Mark.

Some post-playing days cards, including a 2003 Fan Favorites auto I scored not too long ago. I believe it's my second certified auto of his, following the (not pictured) 2003 Retired base auto I got back in 2018. 

Speaking of Fan Favorites, the "1977" (2004) refractor from a few pics above didn't really catch the light there, so here are some bonus shots of it to close us out for today: 

Refraction. Simple, yet elegant refraction.

I like how the rookie cup has gone supernova in this one.

"Get out of there, Mark! The field's on fire!!"

Big Ol' Trade Post

Hey, here are a bunch of cool cards that I've received over the past couple weeks from friendly collector folk.

Holy heck, check this out! Giancarlo Stanton 2010 Topps Chrome rookie refractor autograph! It may be off-center and have some surface scratches, but still a "big card" and not the caliber of card that typically shows up in your mailbox without some wheeling and dealing beforehand.

But yeah, the incredible Matthew Scott has been working on his big, mostly-Pirates collection and decided Giancarlo didn't really have a place. He asked if I was still collecting him. Yep! Maybe not with as much fervor since his trade to the Yankees, but still definitely a guy I collect. And this rookie auto is a nice crown jewel for my Stanton PC.

Numbered 104/499. Sweet! While I'm not rooting for the Yankees, generally speaking, I do hope Stanton has himself a great comeback season.


And if that RC auto wasn't a big enough boom on its own, along with it was this..

Wow! This 2013 Topps "Chasing History" auto ain't nothing to sneeze at either! The number of Giancarlo Stanton autographs in my collection tripled thanks to this mailing.

Bob Walk the Plank is still on hiatus for the most part, so you guys didn't get to see all the neat Pirates I mailed him a while back unless maybe you caught some highlights on Twitter. But yeah, I always try to sniff out good Pirates cards for Matt (and some left over for my other Bucco trader buds), and will hope to gather more for him before too long. Huge thanks again, Matt!

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Friend o' the blog Alex T. and I have been back to our routine where I help him out with some custom card projects and he returns the favor with cards. Here's a nice run from Mark Fidrych's playing days, including a pair of rookies.

And a couple Upper Deck factory sets! I already got '91 UD just a couple months ago from The Diamond King, but Alex had the '90 set I needed plus a '91 he didn't need and since there was room in the flat-rate box, he offered to throw it in for the heck of it. If anyone needs it, I'd be willing to sell it for just a smidge above the postage cost (or a trade equivalent). Otherwise maybe I'll open up the wrap and raid it for my many PCs; there are probably a few that are lacking '91 UD cards, believe it or not. But yeah, I'm excited about the 1990 set. I ripped a fair amount of that in my first year as a collector, but never came anywhere near completing it. I really need to thumb through this set sometime soon and let the familiar cards take me back to those days.

Alex surprised me with this Padres batting practice jersey. There's no name on the back, and he says it's unlikely to be player-worn (sorry I'm too lazy to relay the full background story he shared), but still cool. Size XL, it's too big for me, but if/when the Padres win the World Series, I might have to don this anyways. (I'll probably have filled out enough to fit into it by then, lol.)

Alex's collection has a focus on minor league cards. He knows I collect Tim Blackwell and so he hooked me up with some team sets featuring that marvelous mustache. Even if I already have some of these singles, it's pretty cool to have the full team sets, too.

A nice lot of early 90s black gold!

Here's a sealed '92 Topps pack with a multiplayer "Top Prospects" card showing on top that features a couple guys I collect, Ryan Klesko and Dave Staton. Neat!

Some more cards highlighted by a Dick Allen oddball I needed and the classic Bevacqua bubble card from 1976 Topps.

Alex was downright apologetic for including these customs he had made through a Topps promotion a few years back, but I think they're awesome. I already have a little minicollection of bloggers' cards going, so it's easy to stretch that into including blog-readers' cards too. Made sure to get his approval before posting them for privacy concerns.

Then if all that wasn't enough for the little project he had me working on (several copies of a custom minor league card for a friend of his), he sent a nice PWE on top of it shortly thereafter...

Another oddity for my Tim Blackwell PC, a Floyd auto I didn't have, a Templeton oddball I needed, and a pair of Rafael Garcia signed oddballs sponsored by Carta Blanca, a mexican beer (one of which intended for Rod if he has any interest). Also known as Ralph Garcia, he pitched in a few games for the Padres in the early 70s and is in the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame.

Thanks, Alex! Good stuff! I'll drop your customs in the mail by the end of the week.

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Here's another PWE full of '88 Fleer needs from reader David G., our third light swap along these lines. A cool thing about getting cards from David is he uses magazine cologne ads to wrap them in, so the cards come out smelling lovely and you get a bonus air freshener! Thanks, David! I'll send you back some Cardinals soon.

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Brett the Hoyt Wilhelm superfan graciously offered to send me a copy of Hoyt's 2020 Topps insert.. heck yeah! Always love adding new Hoyts to the PC. Thanks, Brett!

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And here's the last one for today. It's a package from Bob at the Best Bubble.

Big lot of pack-fresh 1976 Topps! These needs take me up to 36% complete with the set. Funny thing, these cards are all found around the back end of the set. So if you look at my '76 Topps wantlist, you'll see my haves are pretty sparse at first, but I'm in better shape once you hit #400.

More late 70s Topps needs including a few solid names. I'm really close with '79 Topps now, down to just 6 more needs to finish the set:
6 Strikeout Leaders - J.R. Richard / Nolan Ryan
115 Nolan Ryan
313 Dyar Miller (Dyar Miller?!)
369A Bump Willis (Blue Jays error variation)
412 Hank Aaron / Hack Wilson ATL RBI
610 Mike Schmidt (this one looks to be set aside for me already)

And still a ways to go with '78 Topps, but those few needs take me past 81% complete. Not too bad.

I've already got most of these Gavins, but at least a couple I didn't have. I just looked into what Gavin Cecchini is up to these days. He had gone to spring training with the Arizona Diamondbacks on a minor league deal, but they released him a month or so ago. And before that he had moved to Australia to play baseball there, but then fled the country after the crazy brushfires decimated much of the continent. Not sure what's next for him, but wish him the best of luck.

Finally, Bob threw in a few ladies on cardboard. Always a nice touch.

Thanks, Bob! I'll try to round up a return package for you soon, but you might need to have some patience...

Gonna be a busy rest of July for me. Between the usual work craziness, and now trying to raise a tiny puppy who needs constant supervision, and plus my close friend from way back is going to be in town staying with us next week. So it'll likely be a while till I'm able to spend much quality time with cards.

Oh, I also got a nice box of cards dropped on my doorstep last week by Padrographs Rod, but this post is already pretty long, and I still need to sort that stuff out a bit, so I'll save that for another day.

Thanks for reading!

Tweeting the Bird

I had a crazy Friday morning, waking to see my Twitter blowing up. A tweet of mine from the night before had caught on with a several retweets, including some prominent sports accounts. My tweets usually get "likes" in the single digits, so it's pretty thrilling to tweet something that got hundreds of likes, even impressing ESPN dudes like Darren Rovell and Pedro Gomez.

June 28, 1976: Rookie Mark Fidrych wows the nation in a complete game win over the Yankees on Monday Night Baseball. I made a gif card of it. pic.twitter.com/8Zr87q22q3

— Baseball Card Breakdown (@breakdowncards) June 29, 2018

Funny thing is this was like the 3rd time I've tweeted this gif since making it back in April. I normally don't like repeating myself, but I've noticed a lot of popular accounts like @Super70sSports aren't afraid to post the same pic/joke every few weeks, and nobody seems to mind or even notice. So whatever. Sometimes it goes unnoticed, sometimes it goes viral. If you got something good, don't be afraid to break it out once in a while, I guess. And my custom card gifs tend to get a good response, so I really should whip up more of those.

Oh, the other thing that made my Friday morning eventful is I biffed it during my little morning jog, scrapping up my hands a little. Got an unfortunate cut on my right thumb right where you'd use it for typing the spacebar and dragging/scrolling. So that limited my typing for a day or two (my post on Friday was mostly written the day before), but it's doing better now.

Coincidentally, the recent anniversary of the Bird's big game on June 28th was also the day I received my first certified autograph of the man, having scored this 2003 Topps Retired auto for a bit over a blaster. (There had been a refractor parallel of this card on eBay for a while at a price that was "reaching" [and no "Or Best Offer" though I did send the dude a message trying to work out a deal, but he politely declined], and it finally got boughten the other day.) But yeah, this base auto is pretty cool, too.

Nice back. Love this card. I'm a big Topps Retired guy, as regular readers are well aware, and Fidrych has been a favorite recently-prioritized PC this year.

And the seller was super cool and threw in a great surprise bonus card...

Woah! That's his 1977 Kellogg's rookie card.. nice! It's in awesome condition too. If I were the kind of guy who sent in cards for grading, I'd probably send this one in.

This might be the best bonus card I've ever gotten in an eBay purchase. The cheapest copy of this card on COMC is currently $14. So yeah, great deal and generous seller. Seems to be a Tigers fan slimming down his collection. (Here's a link to his listings.)

Thanks for reading!

There's no trade like a Bo trade

As you might know, Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life recently dropped the "no going after vintage" guideline to how he collects, diving headfirst into old cards now. So that's opened up some trade possibilities with him, and I was able to find a bunch of available vintage to send his way. He hit me back with a nice return package.

Bo's recent influx of vintage included some dupes, including this lovely '68 Phil Niekro I needed for the modest Knucksie PC I've got going.

I needed that '81 Bird too, plus an '87 Fleer Update need taking me down to just 5 more cards to wrap up that update set (I recently caved and bought the Maddux and McGwire rookies during the recent COMC sale).

More Didis for my PC.

Wow, my Kevin Maas PC just doubled!
No wait, make that tripled..

¡Mas Maas! ¡Gracias!

Some good star-power here in this '82 Topps lot. Won't be long till I knock this one off.

And a big lot of 1978 Topps. Very nice. Gotta love that awful Greg Minton card. I think I'm probably past halfway with this set now.

Big thanks for the trade, Bo! I'll round up something to balance the scales soon.

I'm wearing Brian Giles' pants right now

Yes, I'm wearing Brian Giles' game used pants right now, no joke, but that's a topic for another day. Lots of incoming cards n' stuff lately piling up, waiting for its moment in the sun on the blog, then to be filed away. Time for a blast of awesomeness.

Oh first, I made a couple new baseball card gifs to show off! I really should do more of these; they're fun and seem to get a good response. I spent some time this morning (took longer than I care to admit) on this Ken Caminiti in honor of what would have been his 55th birthday. He's a favorite of mine.

I also whipped up this Mark Fidrych gif last night to help plug yesterday's post. Love it.

1980 TCMA minor league cards are neat. Just showed off the Fidrych from this set yesterday, and here are a couple other favorites of mine I was happy to pick up. The red borders make me think of McDonald's, though the Julio Franco card is decidedly affiliated with a rival chain.

The Julio Franco card was an eBay win. I took a look at the seller's other items and snagged a couple bonus cards for a buck each including this beautiful Hank Aaron refractor reprint.

The other combined-shipping add was the gold Hoffman. And then the other day I got another minor league card of his for the PC. Still ecstatic he made it to the HOF.

A couple nice new Gavin cards. Score an assist to Doug at the Dollar Store for emailing me with a heads up about upcoming hockey guy Gavin Bayreuther. I was able to pick up this autographed custom for a few bucks. Always cool to add a new "autoGav" to my collection. I wish him a successful career on the ice! And I was also happy to score that Gavin Sheets acetate Leaf Trinity auto for cheap recently. Take a closer look at the upper right corner... Christmas Card, baby!

I got a sweet deal on this lot of 1987 Bohemian Hearth Bread Padres. All the cards are in less-than-mint shape, and I only needed the Gwynn, but it was too good of a deal to pass up. And now I've got dupes for my Templeton and Garvey PCs, with the rest available for any Padres fan who might want to trade. I'm down to just needing Dravecky and Flannery to finish off this oddball set.

Speaking of my Garry Templeton PC, here's my first managerial card of the man.

Another Padres fan favorite, here's a Bip Roberts card from his last year as an active player, bouncing between Detroit and their AAA affiliate before being traded to the A's to wrap up his career in 1998. (I struck out trying to get Bip's early minor league cards from back when he was property of the Pirates.. but one of these days.)

And here's the last Rod Beck minor league card I needed. (Actually, there's apparently a "glossy" version of an '89 San Jose Giants card that I still need.. grrr, can't even escape parallels when dealing with minor league issues.)

And let's close with this lot of Vince Coleman minor league cards. Two from his early days when the world was his oyster, and two from the twilight of his career when he was struggling to stay in the game. Great cards to spice up my little VC PC.

Thanks for reading! I'm going to go take off these pants now!