Cardartin' check-in, Spring 2024

I've still been spending a lot of my time on cardart pursuits.. Thinking up things to do to cheap old cards that might be cool/fun/interesting/ridiculous, then getting around to actually working on some of those ideas. 

Here's a big project that was an endurance test for my short attention span, but I'm really happy with how it turned out:

Randy Johnson rookie super rainbow display consisting of 9 mods of his Topps rookie card

I'm currently able to make 9 different color "supers"-- silver, gold, yellow, pink, red, purple, light green, dark green, and blue-- so that works out perfect for filling up a binder page or one of these 9-card screwdown frames. And the frame is hangable, making it a nice wall display piece.

The backs are.. kinda interesting? I think using color-matching pens is a nice touch. 

I definitely want to make more displays along these lines "rainbowing" cheap iconic cards from before the parallel saturation of today. Got a few 9-deep stacks of certain cards set aside already, just gotta get around to devoting the energy to do it.

I'll hang the display at home for a while, but as it was created for the side-hustle, it ultimately seeks a Big Unit supercollector to give it a forever-home. As for pricing, I'm thinking I'll set this at $99 shipped w/case OBO for now, though honestly I probably won't consider lower offers for a while until I'm ready to rotate something new onto the wall. LOL

Not to throw a sales pitch at you, but if you've got a certain favorite junk-era, dimebox-type card that isn't worth much but you love it and would like 9 different colored artsy variations of it to display on your wall or in a binder page, and you didn't scoff too hard at the price mentioned in the previous paragraph, feel free to drop me an email to potentially discuss commissioning something.

My wife is thankfully pretty cool (desensitized?) about the fact that we've got baseball cards displayed in every room of the house except the main bathroom, so putting up a display like this in the living room doesn't faze her. But even if you had a partner or boss who might raise an eyebrow at cards being put on display outside the designated "man cave" type area, well, one could invoke "Warhol inspired pop art" to quiet them down in their quest to stifle your creative expression.

And yeah, it's true that this proto-parallel style of cardart that I often work in was inspired by Andy Warhol. In fact, Pete Rose was my first subject for a display along these lines:

These 4 cards have already been sold to a friendly Pete Rose collector I know named Tom. He helped inspire this type of project when he put together a display from the page of Warhol customs I printed out a while back:

I can't take much credit for this-- not my artwork; I just found Warhol Rose prints online and printed them out card-sized to make a fun binder page for myself-- but I love how Tom's display turned out. It's neat that a little idea of mine grew into this and got signed off on by Charlie Hustle himself.

But back to the cardart, the "purple super" I made for the Randy Johnson was actually the 2nd such card I've ever made using that color. The first one was a show of respect to the purple one himself:

Prince! I have so many duplicate MusiCards-- I've almost completed a 3rd master set-- that it was inevitable that I'd eventually start using those extras as cardart.

It was trying to build a return card package for noted headbanger GCA that I finally inspired some MusiCardart, with the above Ozzy being among the cards I made for him. (Don't worry, I asked first if it'd be the type of thing he would want). But yeah, he seemed pretty happy with the package and indicated a post on his blog about the cards was imminent.

Other non-sports cards I've been working into the side-hustle lately are my many duplicate Mystery Science Theater 3000 cards. I've found that the glossy cards work great modified as fridge magnets:

Been able to move a few such magnets at $5 a pop. Took me a while to figure out the eBay seller settings, but I think I've finally figured out how to make combined shipping show up easier. (I felt bad the couple times buyers paid 2 identical postage costs for buying 2 items.. one of those I did a partial refund for the extra amount, the other one I just threw in a cool Dale Murphy bonus card that was better than the two he bought. But that should all be worked out now and automatically discount combined shipping.)

Plenty of old stuff still on eBay but I make a sale now and then. Here's the link to my eBay listings.

If you'd like to read more of me rambling about my cardart, I put up a side page on the blog to recap and function as my cardart homepage.

Another avenue of cardart I'm really excited about making these days are interactive cards. 

I love finding new ways to engage with (play with) my cards and get more fun out of the hobby. (Not sure if Blogger will post the 3 videos above, but) So far I've made the Ozzie Smith spinner and some "bobblecards" that are a lot of fun to boop. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Christmas Cards 2023

I still buy new cards for my "12/25" collection every once in a while. Here's the big one I picked up this year..

Flipping through a childhood binder of mine recently reminded me that the Big Unit is a guy I've PC'd since my first days in the hobby, proudly paging a bunch of early Randy Johnson cards together. I'll loosely count that as a prospecting success contrasted against cards of Kevin Maas and Pat Listach in the binder. And I've enjoyed casually adding to the PC after returning to the hobby as an adult, but I had never gotten around to landing an autograph. So I had been keeping an eye out for one-- specifically a Christmas Card, since a lot of times I figure if I've decided to shell out a few bucks for an auto, might as well go all-in for one that's a double-bullseye for my collection, right? I eventually ended up with this cool metallic sig from 2023 Topps Tier One. Looks great and caps off the PC nicely.

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Sportscards From The Dollar Store showed off his Robert Smith auto the other day, so hey, I'll go ahead and show mine! Again, I found a 12/25 issue to snag, settling for a stickergraph. I was planning to make a custom overlay for it anyways; See...

I made a custom in the style of the officially-released MST3K autographs to show Robert's brief guest-spot on the show. So that's laid on top of the real card, and since it's me, I had to extend the window for the signature to include my favorite serial number.

My wife isn't the fan of the show that I am, but she allows me to force a little on her on my birthday, so we've got a double-feature of the classic MST3K Christmas episodes playing today.

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I don't really "keep up with modern cards" as far as my player collections of past greats, because unless maybe you just focus on one lower-tier guy, there's just too much being churned out these days. But sure, every once in a while it's fun to buy a shiny new Hoyt Wilhelm card. And of course it's easier to sucker me in when it's a Christmas Card.

Ho Ho Hoyt!

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I'm my house, the Ryan Express is representing on the tree this year.

I didn't really get the idea till it was too late in the season, but assuming I'm still side-hustling late next year, I should do something with tree ornament cardart along these lines. Right? Mixing lots of red and green, maybe even ham it up adding Santa hats and such.

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Last for today, here's a Christmas nice gift I got from my buddy Doug that I figured I'd throw into the post. He got me a nice personalized capo and pick. I've told the story before, but it was back around the heyday of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice when Doug and I would b.s. about our forthcoming career in hip-hop. He was MC Doolay and I was DJ Defgav, and that's how I got the "defgav" handle that I use online sometimes. Funny how life works out. Years ago he got married to an awful woman back home in East County San Diego, then moved up here after he got divorced, and has since married a lovely woman. While I didn't introduce them or anything, hey, I was motivation for him to start fresh in Portland, so it makes me happy to at least play a part in a couple finding each other. He's a good dude.

That'll wrap up the post. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

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.

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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!

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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.

Stealing home a prize package from the Lucky 13

Stealing Home of All Trade Bait, All The Time picked up the baton after John Miller's Big Fun Game and ran a similar game called Lucky 13, which I was lucky enough to get in on. I did a little stealing of my own, and brought home a nice lot of 60s vintage.

Harmon Killebrew sure has some great looking cards. Love this '68 in wonderful vintage condition with the slightly fuzzy burlap corners. It's a cozy card.
(Topps really should have played up the burlap angle in this year's Heritage. Like, parallels on actual burlap. Perhaps a special edition factory set that came in a burlap sack. They really dropped the ball!)

As awesome as the '68 Killer is, this Luis Aparicio was the chief reason I yoinked this prize option out of Penny Sleeve Jon's clutches. Little Louie seems to be a deceptively tricky card to nail down in many vintage sets, often being among the final few needed cards. So it was great to be able to check this high-number (#540 out of 587) off the list. My 1964 Topps setbuild keeps crawling along, now at 43.29% complete.

I also have a small Red Schoendienst PC going, so it was nice to add another vintage card to it. I believe this is his first post-playing days card. Red was in the game forever, first as a player then manager and coach, so he's got lots of fun vintage cards to chase down. The HOFer has suited up in a baseball uniform for 73 consecutive seasons and is still with the Cardinals as a special assistant coach even at 94!

And here's now the oldest Babe Ruth card I own. Pretty cool!

And here's the rest, heavy on 1960 Topps and Dodgers. I'm not collecting these dudes or sets, so feel free to let me know if you wanna trade for them.

By virtue of being a fellow West Coaster, I was awake and able to catch a late-nite "first comment wins" bonus prize during the game.

My bonus prize was an excellent condition, new-in-box 1995 Starting Lineup Randy Johnson figure. Not bad. I do try to keep my collection to cards-only, best I can, for space/storage/wife concerns, but I won't pass up a free Big Unit.

Big thanks, man! Great stuff. And thanks again for putting on the fun game. Sorry you missed out on my similar game, but I'll try to hit you back with something as a little token of my appreciation soon.


Speaking of my Big Fun Game, all the prizes have now been mailed out (except Julie's, per her request), so if you played the game, expect the prize to show up soon, if it hasn't already.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

[Original] Back to the card show

I whined about missing last month's card show and how being a one-vehicle household now means attending the monthly show won't be a given for me anymore. But I'm happy to say I was able to make it to this month's show on Saturday. Believe it or not, I hadn't bought any cards this whole month up to Friday night when a 2004 Retired Gossage refractor auto popped up on eBay for a good BIN price. But yeah, all the pickups and boxes I've shown on the blog this month were actually paid for prior to 6/1. So anyways, I had the itch to pour through thousands of cards and create a big stack to bring home, and that's just what I did. Let's check out some highlights.

I will pretty much always pick up a NNOF 1990 Frank Thomas "Cards Your Mother Threw Out" 2010 reprint when I find it in Bill's discount bins. Last year I picked up 3 at one show and flipped them on eBay for a tidy profit (not that I do that type of thing very often). I figured this was another one of those, then just about vomited with excitement when I turned it over...

Original Back version! These are super rare. You can find the regular "corrected" reprint original back, and you can find the NNOF reprint with the "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" write-up back, but the combination of the NNOF with original back seems to be a SSP which is damn near as scarce as the original 1990 error. So this is an excellent pickup for my Big Hurt PC.

And that Frank was found in a fertile cache of original back CYMTO reprints! While these ones aren't as rare as the NNOF Frank, they're still not that easy to find.

Here are a couple more. The Steve Carlton, like the '90 Frank Thomas, is an error reproduction, with no black ink. I picked up a second Randy Johnson RC reprint from that silly insert set where Topps reimagined notable Topps rookie cards if they were marked with "Future Star" designation.

Here are the backs so you can see I'm not yanking your chain. Normally I'm not too crazy about reprints, but these are pretty cool, plus they were cheap. (All the cards in this post are from the quarter bins.)

Shiny cards of guys I collect.

Some additions for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset. The Josh Hamilton is the first sepia refractor (#/99) to the Chrome portion of the setbuild.

Some All-Star cards, including #'d Kershaw and Altuve cards. As for the faux Padres uniforms, it's nice for me to fantasize about the likes of Harper and Arenado playing for San Diego.

A couple more shimmering cards. There's always so much Griffeys.. I never know what's worth big money and what's not.. but hey, from time to time one jumps out at me, like this 2000 Prism here. And I may make a run at that psychedelic 1999 Bowman "Late-Bloomers" insert set, assuming I can find them all for around a quarter each.

Similar to Griffey, Bill's bins have many (too many) cards from the likes of Bonds, McGwire, and Boggs (and Mattingly, Jeter, Ripken, Arod). Usually I flip through them without hesitation, but every once in a while, something grabs my attention. The Bonds dufex looked kinda neat. As for the '89 Bowman McGwire, what caught my eye is it's the tiffany version, something you don't see too often. And the pic of Boggs pitching is pretty cool.

Well, it's super hot today. I think I'm gonna end the post here, though I've still got more pickups from the show to probably post about this week. See ya!