Other people's customs

I don't buy customs all that often these days, but coincidentally I scored some recently from two different independent card makers and they both arrived on the same day. One is a set of cards-that-should-have-been '80s Career Cappers by Gio at When Topps Had Balls. The other group of cards are artistic interpretations of cards-that-actually-were (and some that-never-were) by Mark at IDrawBaseballCards.

I love both and figured I'd mix them together in a post.

Kicking off with a terrific pair of 1983 Topps homages.

I won't show all the backs, but I'll give you an idea with these two. In a perfect world I'd love to see full stats on these final tributes, but I know from experience that's a pain to get all lined up. The career highlights are nice, though, and look good in the original design colors. The art cards keep it simple, as you'd expect, but provide the important info.

Rookie mania!

Here are a couple active guys in Acuña and Mookie. The sketch one is a bonus thank-you from Mark. The rest I picked out from his shop from the $1 singles, and a promo code he shared took care of the shipping. Pretty good deal. They're on nice cardstock and everything.

1980 Topps mix.

A trio of 1981 Topps should-have-beens. Yeah, would have been cool of Topps to give a tribute card to Sadaharu Oh, why not?

Hall of Famers who wrapped up their careers in 1983 and could've/should've gotten base card sendoffs in 1984 Topps that might've looked something like this.

Dipping back into the 70s to pair up Pirates and Orioles with 1985 Topps.

1987 Topps representing.

Reggie Jackson and a couple other guys who last took the field during the 1987 season and therefore would have been nice to get a final card of in 1988 Topps.

Finally, we close out with these beauties in the 1989 Topps design, including a fun McGruff/McGriff combo.

So there you have a few neat custom cards I added to my collection the other day. Mad props to Gio and Mark for their fine work.
Thanks for stopping by.

Scary Stuff and 2024 WS Champs

Quick real-life scary story for Halloween: On Monday, my wife lost her wallet on her way to work. Making matters worse: along with her driver's license and credit cards was her Passport card (featuring her SSN)-- which she normally wouldn't have with her if not for some pending work-related reason that she temporarily needed it handy. She figured the wallet popped out of her jacket pocket on the Max (commuter train) into downtown. Plenty of creeps around there and definitely not where you want to leave an Identity Theft Starter Kit for a bad person to play with. So then came the stressful exercises of placing various holds and being on high alert for fraud. After a miserable 48 hours expecting the worst under the guillotine, joy bloomed anew when my wife got a Facebook message that the wallet had been found and that a nearby convenience store was in possession of it. Aside from the cash, everything was still there, so it was pretty close to a best-case scenario conclusion to the whole ordeal.

It made for a hectic week here at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ. But yeah.. Happy Halloween!

The Dodgers won the World Series last night and I'm not exactly thrilled about it-- Remember how the Padres almost beat them! Huh?! Remember?!!-- But hey, I collect some of those guys, so I thought I'd show off some of my best cards of today's Dodgers to make myself feel better about the final outcome of the 2024 MLB season.

I got a small seat on the Walker Buehler hype train early in case he became the next Kershaw. Hasn't exactly reached that station yet, but he's at least still chugging along. While he had a shaky year overall, he's the lucky dog who got to victoriously close out the World Series for his team.

The 2015 1st Bowman parallel was a terrific card show pickup circa 2016 for like a buck, while the refractor rookie auto was an eBay pickup from early 2020. I remember waiting a few months for one to land in my price range, stubborn to hold out for a refractor rather than base. And I'm glad I did, even assuming his card prices probably haven't risen much since then thanks to all the injuries.

A few more RCs, parallels, etc. Funny how Buehler shares that multiplayer rookie card with Alex Verdugo, whom Buehler struck out to hand the Yankees their final out. Can you think of any other instances with a World Series-ending match-up like that sharing a rookie card? (I'm too lazy to dig into it, but maybe somebody else?)

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My Shohei Ohtani PC is only like 20-something cards deep, sadly, but I've at least got these pretty decent half-dozen I can proudly show off.

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I was active collecting Mookie Betts back in his Red Sox days. I fell short in my efforts to land a 1st Bowman auto (preferably refractor-- better yet, color refractor) back before he blossomed into a star, but at least I was able to score his earliest certified autograph: 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks, plus a nice Stadium Club rookie auto.

No auto here, but hey, got these solid 1st Bowmen (sic).

Other rookie-year Mookies of mine. Glad I got that 2014 Update RC back then, as it's become a sought-after card as he's continued putting together a HOF caliber career.

A pair of long-odds pulls here to close out the Mookie section, with a 2015 Topps "Sliding" photo variation (another cheap card show all-timer for me) and a 2015 Stadium Club "Crystal Ball" insert with a cool 3D effect going on (thiiick card), numbered 17/30.

-  - -o

Ha, I almost finished the post before remembering my guy, Gavin Lux.

Another World Series ring for guys named Gavin! We've come a long way, baby. lol

Above are all my Gavin Lux autographs, all purchased before his MLB debut, I believe. (Not pictured is the "Sign Here" 1st Bowman refractor which I've shown off several times already.) The Bowman's Best card (top middle) is the card where his autograph changed. He signed his full name up to that point, but halfway through signing his 1st Bowman's Best auto cards, he dropped the first name from his signature, and has used the shorter version since (as far as I know). Not saying I blame him, just funny to notice. Oh, and those blue autos in the middle row aren't dupes (per my rules) because one is the 12/25 "Christmas Card". (Holidays just around the corner, guys!) And speaking of...

Found from a 2019 post. I did not win this card, needless to say. Geez

Sure, if I could go back in time, I might be tempted to liquidate my early Gavin Lux autos back when his top prospect status was at its peak... but oh well, I'm not in the hobby to make money, I'm in it to collect and hopefully have some fun in the process.

If I wanted to extend his post, I could dig out some of my best Clayton Kershaw cards, but I'll be lazy and not do that since he didn't pitch in the World Series. But here's an old link to my best Kershaw, a 12/25 auto, for good measure. Perhaps surprisingly, I've never really collected Freddie Freeman much, though I think I've got a few decent RCs of his kicking around. He really wrote himself into the record books this year.. wow.

Anyways, congrats to the Dodgers and their fans. :/

Kerry on my Cardboard Blog

Met up with Kerry downtown Friday afternoon for a quick swap of cards. He metaphorically dunked on me and the team bag of cards I handed off to him by giving me a very impressive box of cards.

The Vlad Jr. hype is intense! On mlb.com the other day, the top 7 or so news stories were about him and his debut. A bit over the top, but like most baseball fans, I'm interested to see how he turns out as a big leaguer.

The gold standard, Mike Trout!

More Trouty.

Reining NL MVP Christian Yelich. Good stuff here! The mini is /99.

Reigning AL MVP Mookie Betts. Sure, sometimes I feel like a "basic bitch" of a card collector, turning my head for any hot rookies and MVPs. But hey, I also collect guys like Travis Taijeron and Matt Ginter, so I feel I've got well-rounded wants.

Mookie's teammates Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi.

Rhys!

Alex Bregman!

More Astros. Love that Correa Heritage refractor.

I've lived in Portland for over a decade now, but have yet to really jump on the Blazers bandwagon. But after that epic playoff-advancing buzzerbeater the other night that had all of Portland bumping, I was like, "Damn! I need to collect Damian Lillard cards!" And Kerry, a big Blazers fan/collector, was kind enough to get that PC started with this lot of dupes he had.

As I add one new name to the short list of active b-ball guys I collect, I lose another, as Dirk retired after the regular season.

Most of the guys I collect in basketball are greats of the past, like Wilt and Dr. J.

...And Dikembe, Kareem, and Manute.

Back to baseball, with plenty of shine here.

And some old-timer favorites. Dave Henderson cards always make me smile. And I hope Bartolo gets an opportunity to pitch this year, but it's not looking likely at this point.

I just sorted out my George Brett PC the other day, seeing if I had hit the 100-card mark yet.. but fell short, around 90 cards. Keep creepin' up, though.

Current Padres representing. Almost May and we're still in contention!! LOL

JOY OF A COMPLETED SET!!!

I got a factory set of '90 Score for Xmas back when it was current-- that and a cheap '89 Topps from the Sears catalog were my first ever complete sets-- but never had a Rookie & Traded set to complement it. Some great cards in here!

Some nice Nats.

And a hit to take us home! Sweet!

Big thanks, Kerry! Great stuff. I'm in your debt and will try to balance the scales soon.

Rod's card show bonus

It's always nice to bump into Rod at the local card show.. and if he's brought cards to hand off to me, even better! Here are some highlights from the lot he gave me this past weekend.

No surprise that there were some spare Padrographs for me. One Bowman Chrome auto plus a few customs. Good stuff.

Rod also sometimes whips up non-Padre customs for autograph dealer buddies, and he happened to create one not too long ago for Chris D. Jones, a guy who went to my high school. While Jones had a couple cups of coffee in the majors, he unfortunately never got a major league card. So this custom helps fill that void. Hell, it's the first photo I've seen of him in a major league uniform! I'm planning to shoot him a TTM request soon, with big help from Rod finding a mailing address for me.

There were also some WWE ladies for me, including Ronda Rousey carrying people on her shoulders.

And my first in-hand taste of 2019 Topps.

I can't really get excited about flagship this year, but I'm happy to add some new cards of guys I collect.

Tempted to scratch the code on the Yelich and play the Home Run Challenge, but don't think I can bring myself to it.

Big Gleyber Torres lot with some of his Target exclusives. Curious to see how his sophomore season pans out.

Thanks again, Rod!

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Oh, and here's a nice PWE that came in a while back from The Lost Collector highlighted by a low-numbered (for its time) Trevor Hoffman from Pacific. Thanks, AJ! I'll try to hit you back soon.

A half-priced blaster of 2018 Update

I had another one of those grocery store coupons for "$10 off when you spend $40." This past weekend I bought about $25 of groceries and grabbed a blaster to take me into the savings threshold, effectively giving me half off the blaster. I debated over which box to get for a few minutes. I was hoping to find the new Stranger Things cards, but no dice. On the shelf were a couple Archives, one Heritage High Number, three Ginter, a couple Fire, four Big League Baseball, and three Update blasters. I ultimately decided to grab the only product of the bunch I haven't ripped any of yet this year: ol' "Series Three", also known as Topps Update.

Let's see what it's got for me.

These were probably my best pulls: Mookie Betts gold parallel (/2018) and a Hank Aaron SP. Nice.

A couple Padres and rookies.

Some inserts. Looks like the Xander is a black parallel, and a tough pull despite not being numbered. The Don't Blink Tim Raines is kinda cool.. but makes me wish it was a "3D" lenticular card. The Postseason Preeminence cards are neat enough, though probably more plentiful than anyone needs.

Some more cards. Sorry the photos in this post are a little blurry. I took them at work (it's been a slow work week) and I guess the lighting wasn't great.

A few more PC guys for me.

The cards in the above photo are available for trade.

And finally, my promised hit-like-thing, a manufactured "patch" mentioning Jackie Robinson and featuring Cody Bellinger. Hey, he's a dude I kinda collect, so I'm happy with it. And it works well with the concept since he's a Dodger and plus you can see his 42 jersey number in the photo.

So that was a decent box, especially if you consider it was half price.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody.