Perfect Crime (Guns N' Randoms)

This post isn't crime related, just the next song up on the list of Guns N' Roses songs that I pull from for post titles when I want to show off some random recent cards I've picked up and can't think of a decent title.

It wasn't exactly a steal (eh? eh? tying it in with the post title), but this slabbed Adrian Beltre rookie was a pretty solid deal and I used an eBay discount code to help me out further. I showed off my Beltre PC a month ago and mentioned the one card I still had a hankerin' for was his 1997 Bowman Chrome card. And so now with this pickup, I'm satisfied and feel like the PC is at peace. (Though a final tribute/sunset card next year with complete [non-truncated] career stats would be nice.)

"Has tools of a Gold Glover at third." It's a rare instance where Bowman's hyperbolic write-ups were correct, as Adrian brought home 5 Gold Gloves.

The rest of the cards in this post are more from my latest COMC order. I think I was just looking for cheap Goldy parallels and ran into this yellow one from 2014 Topps retail. Or maybe I was looking for cheap yellow parallels from 2014 Topps retail and ran into this Paul Goldschmidt. Sad to see him leave AZ. He basically left a team I don't like and joined another team I don't like, so that's not a big deal, but I really thought he was the face of the franchise and had a shot at being a rare-these-days one-team career player. That would have been cool. Oh well.

As for the Caminiti, I don't have much cool inserts from the mid/late 90s, and wanted to snag one of the old Instavision inserts from Stadium Club. Pretty cool card from the past days of holograms on baseball cards.

A couple Padres autos. I was a Carlos Baerga fan when he was a hot rookie in the early 90s. Heartbreaking that the Padres delt him away, but kinda cool that all these years later he gets a card in a San Diego uniform.

I think I was looking through cheap autos, looking for anybody I collected, and found the 2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary Ryan Klesko auto for just $1.44.

A couple lumber sweet sigs. I actually bought these to destroy them, the Brian Giles one, at least. I want to pull out the signed wood piece and use it in a big custom with the laundry tag from the game-used pants of his I've been cutting up.. so I can make it a big oversized relic/auto box-topper type extravaganza. I might not get around to that anytime soon, but it's on my to-do list. At least the Giles card already shows some damage around the cutout, so it won't hurt me quite so bad to tear it up. I don't think the wood piece is actually from a game-used bat or anything, but it's still cool. Maybe I'll end up doing it "overlay style" so I won't have to actually destroy the card.

Rod Beck PC additions! One of these days I want to add all my Rod Beck cards to the TCDB and see how far away I am from being his #1 collector on there. The Sports Illustrated card is the Extra Edition and numbered to 500 or something. The 2002 Topps card is a gold parallel #'d /2002. The die-cut is kinda neat. And as for the illustration.. full disclosure, it's not actually Rod Beck, but rather Mario. For whatever reason, I really wanted to snag a 1982 Topps Donkey Kong card (sticker) after seeing one on the blogs a while back, and went with this one. Whack!

Last thing for today-- a late addition to the post-- my boss just gifted me this Tony Gwynn figure for Christmas today. What a cool boss, right? This might be my first McFarlane's figure. While I generally tend to stay away from stuff like figures and bobbleheads, this is a big hit with me. My favorite player, plus he's in my favorite uniform (their white/brown/yellow/orange getup from the early 80s)!

Not exactly a spitting image in the face, but close enough. I'll likely keep this displayed at work.. Probably keep it in the package for now, but might bust it out of there at some point.

For my coworkers, I gave them little magnets of stuff they like (similar to the minis in rip-cards I sent to my trader buds a year or two back), with a cool nickname for our department on 'em (Data Force! lol). Like, one of my coworkers is a big Frank Zappa fan, so I made him a little Frank Zappa magnet. And my boss is a Batman nerd, so I made him a Batman one. They seemed to go over well. That was fun. Now I'm looking forward to a 5-day holiday weekend.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend. I've gotten in a few nice trades and a contest-win that I need to post about ASAP. And I need to round up some prizes for a contest of my own on the horizon. So that'll keep me busy leading up to Christmas.

Trade Recapitation

Got a few nice trades packages from the past week or so to show off.

Ozzie Smith rookie bringing the boom! Story behind this is an Ozzie collector came across my old Simpsons customs being talked about on Reddit and got in touch asking if he could buy copies of the two Wizard cards in the little set. I don't sell my customs, but told him I'm up for trade offers, and specifically I could use an Ozzie RC if he happened to have an extra. Lucky for us both, he did have a poor condition copy he'd be willing to part with. That was fine with me, and we swung a quick trade. It's miscut and has some wrinkles, but I'm happy to refill this hole in my collection. (I used to have a '79 Ozzie, but had to give it up in order to seal a big trade with Matt Prigge last year that netted me a nice Carlos Correa auto.)

Thanks again for the trade, Benjamin!

-  - - ---o

Next up is a quick swap with notable reader Mark Hoyle knocking off a bunch of my remaining 1982 Topps needs.

Thanks, Mark! Hope you like what I sent you back (should arrive any day now).

-  - - --o

Chris the Collector is next up.

Seven cards now checked off my '84 Donruss setbuild. Much appreciated!

Also a Dick Williams and Steve Lyons. Jedi Jeff gave me a heads-up on the '89 Fleer card a while ago and so I put it on my wantlist. Check the batting gloves. Figured this would make a solid card for my "We Didn't Start The Fire" binder for the Psycho entry.

Thanks, Chris! I'll hit you back with a return soon.

-  - - --o

Next we have a surprise Stealing Home package. I was happy to be included in his latest wave of outgoing cardboard.

Nice Goldy lot highlighted by a blue parallel.

A couple Bryants and a Fernando.

But the most impressive card of the package was this Wil Myers commemorative not-a-patch. I've cooled on collecting White Queso in the past year or two, but still like getting hits or numbered cards of his in trade. (UPDATE: he hit a couple three taters today!)

Thanks, man! I'll round up some Dodgers to send your way shortly.

-   - ---o

Last one for the week, a trade with reader TSHenson, who seems to be the most active Indians collector on the cardsphere these days.

Some Didis including a gold parallel, neat Judge insert, a Gavin, and a glow-in-the-dark Utley.

Cool Marquis selection to boost the PC.

But the real star of Tim's package was an impressive lot of 1982 Topps, featuring a bunch of big names I needed. Thanks to him and Hoyle, I'm down to single-digits left to put this set to bed:

66 Howe/Ryan TL
200 Brett
450 Bosley
496 Grubb
549 Brett AS
582 Luis Pujols
586 Fingers IA
610 Rickey Henderson
754 Joe Morgan

Thanks a lot, Tim! I've got a bunch of solid Indians rounded up for you and I'll drop them in the mail very soon.


Thanks again to all my trading pals. If anyone else wants to trade, take a look at my wantlist and get in touch. Thanks!

Bonus Content! In my continuing quest to get attention on Twitter, I've made another card gif. This one may be one of my best, if I say so myself...

The great Satchel Paige would be celebrating a birthday today, were we lucky enough that he was still with us. Love to get a look at his incredible windup!

p.s. Unsolicited plug, but the "boom" background on the top Ozzie pic is a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shredded Wheat. Picked up a couple boxes for a great close-out price and it's pretty good stuff!

Check out my shiny cards

Let's take a look at some more cards from my COMC Black Friday order. Any time I have a big selection of cards and want to break it up into multiple posts, I look for groupings to slip up the cards. Today's post features the shiny cards from the order.

I wanted a Jose Abreu auto and this was the cheapest on-card option I could find. I think it's a nice-looking card, and the fact that he's in a Cuba uniform helps, since Panini is allowed to show it.

More Panini. When you catch this just right in the light, it's like there's a bunch of lasers shooting off all around.. very cool.

Sparkly '95 Score parallel of Vince Coleman swiping a bag.

Three shiny Adrian Beltre cards for the PC.

I don't really seek out Sean Burroughs cards, but this auto of the Padre bust was cool looking and really cheap.
AJ Burnett knocks another card off my slow-going 2004 Black Chrome setbuild. Now 135 cards down.

This one kind of pissed me off. It's the "glowing" version of the parallel, and I had long be hoping to score of of these for my glow-in-the-dark minicollection. But it turns out "glowing" in this case does not mean glowing in the dark. I guess it's more of like how a pregnant lady looks "glowing" sometimes. LOL. Oh well. I think I even already have this Piazza, so if a trader bud reading this wants to call dibs, let me know. It cost a few bucks, so give me something decent for it. These parallels are more scarce then the standard "Soaring Star" inserts that have a star pattern as opposed to the rippling waves of the "glowing" version. Now I'm going to assume no glow-in-the-dark version exists, though I'd love to be proven wrong.

That's it for today. I'm getting a backlog of stuff I want to post about.. so many cards, so little time! Still more from this COMC order and my latest card show haul to feature soon.
Thanks for stopping by!

Catching up on trades

This post will cover three terrific trade packages I've gotten in the past couple weeks.

This first one is from Kerry at Cards on Cards. We work just a few blocks apart in downtown Portland, and have gotten into the groove of meeting up to exchange cards in person every so often. It's great cutting out the postal service to save a few bucks.

ROY mojo! I have no doubt that Judge will get the record for fastest guy into my Hundred Card Club (assuming I kept track of stuff like that). He just has a ton of cards from 2017 and I'm sure that'll continue in 2018, and I'm here for the Yankee haters looking for an appreciative dumping ground for them. Same applies to Bellinger.

Bryce and Stras. Always nice to see in trade packages.

Geez, Kerry seems to pull a lot of Nats! Impressive Trea Turner lot here.

Notable Red Sox.

More cool cards.

A Padre and a couple local San Diego guys.

The highlight of the baggy of cards (gotta wonder what people think when they see a couple middle-aged dudes meet up in front of a Subway and exchange mysterious little baggies) was this sweet Goldschmidt red refractor #'d 6/25 that Kerry was lucky enough to pull a little while ago.

Big thanks, Kerry! I don't think my side of this swap measured up to these cards, so I'll do my best to balance the scales next time.

-  - - ----o

Next up is a hefty holiday package from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders.

Here's a shiny trio of Padres.

And a shiny trio of Cecchinis.

Nice bump to the Michael Sam PC. Fun fact: he's a gay man who played football.

The real weight of the package was from a few magazines, such as this Sports Illustrated from 2003. Trepidatiously interested in reading the Kirby Puckett exposé.

More Kirby. I had this 1992 Beckett back in the day.

I remember having this Gary Sheffield Beckett then too.

But 1988 was before my collecting days, so this Benito Beckett is new to me. Funny how they edited the photo so the other guy (Gene Walter) in the rookie card is blocked.

Lastly, here's an SI from 1984 with a couple Padres on the cover. It was a good year for San Diego, but a better one for Dennis' Tigers. I made a custom using Goose from this pic a year or two ago. Cool to have the actual magazine now.

Thanks a lot, Dennis!

-  - - ---o

And here's a friendly Christmas surprise from All Trade Bait All the Time.

Big boost to my little Big Unit PC.

Some other dudes I collect.

And pairs from Bryant, Giancarlo, and Darvish.

Very cool.. thanks, man! I'll hit you back with some Dodgers soon.


Thanks for stopping by, everybody.

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!

Card Show Cacophony

Ya'll ready for a bunch more card show pickups? The cost of each of these ranged from a dime to a quarter.

Pujols refractor. Beltre framed #/99. Big Hurt #/699.

These crazy Metal Universe cards are a trip. Where is Wade going with that bee hive? Gonna put some honey on his chicken? And is Rickey running underwater? Bizarre!

1993 Topps Gold. Carter (+ McGriff), Thome, Pedro.

Michael Jordan & Friends oddballs.

The backs. I think these are basically semi-professional customs from the early 90s. Anybody have more info on their origin?

More 90s craziness. Pacific loved to get as shiny as possible. And love the wooden-textured Piazza.

Cards of big guys back before they... um, expanded. That's Bartolo on the end, if you have trouble reading it.

A couple O's. It's a rare day that I pay money for a Rafael Palmeiro card, but it's #'d 090/100 and was only 10¢ (or maybe it was a quarter.. can't remember) so I reluctantly threw it on my stack as future trade fodder.

I don't collect Alex Gordon very passionately these days now that he sucks, but couldn't say no to these 2 refractors.

Here are some young dudes. Strasburg had a solid outing in his first start off the DL the other day.

Here are more cards. Among the cards I passed up at the show after much deliberating was a Stargell bat relic #/99 for $4. It was very tempting, but it was a tiny piece of bat and an unlicensed Panini card. Still though, I've got some minor regret letting that one slip away. When I think about it, I make an expression like Willie has in this Heritage flashback insert.

I showed off most of my vintage pickups yesterday, but here are a couple I picked up from a different dealer. Pretty sure I already have that '74 Vida, but this might be an upgrade. Such a classic "happy card" from the 70s. And I don't collect Elston Howard, but couldn't pass up that '67 for a quarter, even with it being miscut.

I know all that glitters isn't Goldschmidt, but I like these shiny refractors.

Boggs doing his thing.

Parallels. The rainbow foil Bryant for 20¢ was a pretty good score. Cheapest on COMC right now is $5.50.

2016 Archives "Super" inserts for a dime each.

Let's stick a fork in today's post with Vlad & Son. The Fleer card is a gold parallel, #/150.

Thanks for reading. Still more from this weekend's haul to show another day.