I never lucked into pulling an Elite from a pack though I ripped a lot of early 90s Donruss back in the day. But I recently turned to eBay to rectify that.
Fred McGriff won me over during his brief time in San Diego and I've been a big fan ever since. Not a big enough name to break the bank, so he was an easy choice to target. Looks great.
I ended up complementing the Crime Dog pick-up with HOFer Robbie Alomar. He went to Toronto in the blockbuster deal that sent McGriff to the Padres, as you probably already know. I like the look of this one a lot, too. Shipping cost was more than the winning bid.
They don't bother numbering cards out of this many any more, but back in the go-go baseball card days of the time, they were tough pulls out of the millions of base cards that got cranked out.
A nice pairing together. These were from 1993 Donruss. I'd love to expand my collection into snagging an Elite or two from 1991 and 1992 sometime.
Tried capturing a little "refraction action" to give a feel of the card in-hand, dancing in the light. It was kind of a big deal as one of the first "shiny cards" on the market. There might plenty of dazzling parallels out there these days, but still hard to beat a classic insert like this.
In my last few posts, I've been conducting an experiment to see if-- as Night Owl suggested to me years ago-- including the word "cardboard" in your blog post title results in increased viewing numbers. Fuji countered with a comment saying he saw no effect from adding "cardboard" in a title of one of his recent posts. Well, which is it?! Hits or no? Let's take a look at where my view totals stand for my last dozen posts as of this writing:
Now here's where things get interesting. 888 views is a very popular post by my standards. The content wasn't anything too mind blowing-- just a trade recap. Could it be the "cardboard" bump?
I really presented a tough challenge to the hypothesis with this one. As I mentioned in the post, when I write about Guys From Granite, the views typically take a dip. The cardboard bump seems to have helped this post perform above-average, even if down from the other "cardboard" posts.
Back to eye-popping numbers by my standards. Full disclosure, I also tweeted out a link to this one, so that may have affected the numbers a little. I don't always tweet-plug my posts, but when I do, it's usually good for a few more hits.. but unless a popular account retweets it, nothing too big.
Up to this point it's tempting to think, "Hey, maybe views are up because I'm growing a following of loyal readers who appreciate my fresh, creative take on baseball cards!" The conscious decision to use the word "Cards" instead of "Cardboard" was to see if we'd find a return to norm, and as you can see, yep, the numbers were definitely down.. about what I'd expect for a trade post. Should probably hit 100 in another day or two.
And that brings us up to current.
Wow! So I think we've confirmed that putting the word "Cardboard" in a blog post title does seem to increase views-- at least for Baseball Card Breakdown. Your results may vary.
So why is it? Does the word "cardboard" connect with casual readers in some special, perhaps sentimental way? Is there a sexy mystery to it? Like with that "Cookie Cardboard" post-- had I just dryly titled it "1989 SF Giants Mother's Cookies team set", it wouldn't have seemed as interesting.
Of course the more likely reason is that somehow the word "cardboard" is a siren song for web-crawling bots that creep over the internet compiling data and whatnot for their overlords to use. But why "cardboard"? What would make that an interesting word to anyone not in the hobby or in the paper products industry? Who knows.
Most bloggers will tell you they appreciate comments more than views, and I'm no exception. The "cardboard bump" doesn't seem to translate to more comments, another indication that the additional viewers are non-human. It's almost kinda insulting to get a ton of views but not many comments, lol.
By the way.. my worst performing post? Well, at this moment I believe it's "Never Dunn Ghostbustin'" from this past March, an update to my Ghostbusters card collection. Seems not everyone is as into Ghostbusters as I am, since this post is sitting on just 99 views as of press time. Perhaps I should have titled it something like "more Ghostbusters cardboard" and maybe then it would have dunn better.
So in closing, yes, I would say that (for reasons I'm unsure of) putting the word "cardboard" in a blog post title will likely result in an uptick of views. Pretty crazy, right?! But the excess views are probably from bots, not humans, so it's nothing to get too excited over. But still, it's nice to get a lot of views on your posts, so don't be afraid to throw around the word "cardboard" in your post titles here and there if you'd like to boost your ego.
Oh, and I had been hankerin' for a Whammy! card.. fun inserts which are seeded 1-per-case in modern Donruss products. Ended up with Javy here. Pretty neat.
Last week a kindly reader emailed me offering help with my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset. Turns out Gabe had around 150 cards I could use. I'm always a bit wary of dealing with a stranger, but he seemed like a good guy, so we worked on hammering out a trade. Once he started dropping the dreaded term "book value", and how 2011 Topps parallels apparently have pretty decent BV.. well, our trade talks looked like they were going to break down. But we were able to regroup and shake on a smaller deal. Instead of the entire big lot from him, I just picked out a dozen cards I was especially interested in. So while my overall completion percentage didn't see much of an uptick, at least I checked off some good ones.
The Legend Variations are super cool, so the few Gabe had available were must-haves for me. Maris, Yaz, Cobb, Rickey, and Robby Alomar.. impressive group!
Some of the more notable RCs in the set: Blackmon, Kipnis, and Alex Cobb. Some lazy "refraction action" going on here.
And some other big names. Ok, Xavier Nady isn't really a big name, but he's a cool name, and a guy I collect (though I forgot he was ever a D-back). And I went ahead and got a couple Beltre cards since he's also a guy I collect. The /2011 gold parallel will go to the PC, since shiny cards take priority in the frankenset.
Big thanks for the trade, Gabe! If you ever feel like dumping the rest of those 2011 parallels, you know where to find me. :)
- - - ---o
But wait-- more such cards came into my collection recently.. these one's hand-delivered!
Renowned cardblogger gcrl was in my neck of the woods on a business trip, and we had the opportunity to meet up for a few minutes to talk cards and do an in-person swap. That was pretty cool. Jim is just the second blogger I've met IRL (after Padrographs' Rod). He was nice enough to put together some 2011 parallels for me, and though he didn't have a chance to check them against my wantlist, I needed most of them.
And they call them the Diamond Dodgers. And Cognac Chisenhall RC and the Greatest Gavin. (I suppose I'm rooting for the Jays in the AL Wild Card game tonight. Floyd is out for the season with yet another injury, but it'd be nice if he finally got a ring.)
Giving your eyes a break from all the hypnotic shiny, here we have a couple "all-black" parallels (Walmart exclusive), a throwback (Target exclusive), and a couple golds.
Jim also handed off some files for a customs project I'm helping him with.
Very cool to put a face to the name. His latest blogging endeavor is called cards as i see them, and as usual, it's an enjoyable read.
I hate to be a copycat, but I'll cop to following in P-town Tom's footsteps by starting a Dan Vogelbach PC. (For the record, I think I announced my Brooks Kieschnick PC before Tom officially started PCing him! So there.) The Vogelmoster is just too awesome to deny collecting! In my recent COMC order, I loaded up with a few snazzy cards of the guy. I divided them up by pairs, let's take a look!
I love color refractors. They just look great. These 2015 Bowman cards are #'d /150 and /250, respectively.
And I love Bowman Chrome wave refractors. This Refraction Action image tries to convey the awesomeness, but can't quite duplicate seeing them wave-away in person.
A couple blue beauties of the mini variety. These look great. Both are numbered /250 on the back.
Let's spice things up with a couple die-cuts. The one on the right is extra special...
Christmas Card!
And gotta throw a couple autographs into the cart. The stickergraph on the left was cheap, just a couple bucks. The card on the right was twice that, but I loved the big, on-card, silver signature.
Both are numbered under 200. I think that might be my first Onyx card. Give 'em a license, I say.
That's it for COMC. The jewel of my Vogelmoster PC comes by way of a recent eBay win...
Now I'm definitely a legit Dan Vogelbach collector! I failed in my attempt to win a regular refractor (/499) of his 2011 Bowman auto, so I doubled down for this /150 blue refractor and came out victorious.
If you come into any sweet Vogelbach cards, give Tom first dibs on them, but if he already has them, I'm your man.
Have a great weekend, guys! I'm off today (Good Friday), yet I get paid.. I'm a middle-aged man and this is the first time in my life I've gotten holiday pay. It's pretty sweet.
We're gonna try to do our taxes this weekend, which is always stressful, especially trying to figure it all out without the help of a professional. But hopefully we'll work it out.
Take it easy.
Everybody knows 2015 Stadium Club is an incredible set. But I'm not really a set builder (at least not modern, full-size sets), so all I bought from it was one blaster that didn't pack much punch aside from the cool photos. But from reading about the set online, what really got my attention were the Crystal Ball inserts. Each of these things were purported to be a huge brick of a card and give off a cool visual effect in-hand. I'm a sucker for an innovative/gimmicky card, so I made a note to land one once the prices cooled off a bit. Seeded at one-per-case, they're definitely one of the scarcer hits you could pull.
10 cards. 1 per case. Serial numbered #/70. PARALLEL CARDS: Gold Foil #/30
CB-01 Mike Trout - Los Angeles Angels
CB-02 Bryce Harper - Washington Nationals
CB-03 Jorge Soler - Chicago Cubs
CB-04 Yordano Ventura - Kansas City Royals
CB-05 George Springer - Houston Astros
CB-06 Mookie Betts - Boston Red Sox
CB-07 Javier Baez - Chicago Cubs
CB-08 Taijuan Walker - Seattle Mariners
CB-09 Jacob deGrom - New York Mets
CB-10 Daniel Norris - Toronto Blue Jays
Trout and Harper would be cool, but very pricey. After those two big stars, the checklist takes a steep downturn to young guys with just a year or two of major league service under their belt (I guess that goes with the whole theme of a crystal ball-- "looking into the future of these promising young players" or whatever). Out of the remaining names, Mookie Betts was the most intriguing to me. He seems to be a solid 5-tool player who quietly wrapped up an impressive first full season in the bigs. Maybe if Boston was in contention this year he would have gotten more attention.
And so anyways here we are and I've landed one of the #/30 Gold Foil parallels for about the price of a blaster plus tax.
It's a pretty cool card (if you can call it a "card"!) It's kind of like a shadowbox thing, with the player's photo on the bottom of a "well" area, and a clear dome over it, giving off somewhat of a spherical look, with a flat top layer over that all with a clear window down into the "crystal ball" hole. If these things were super cheap, I'd love to dissect it like how I did with a Gallery of Greats card the other day.
thick
While it's a neat item, I'm not quite so enamored with it to where I'm eager to blow a couple hundred bucks chasing the full set of 10. But I might keep an eye on eBay to maybe try snatching up some of the others if I can land them in the single-digit range.
A little while ago, I finished the base sets for all 3 Archives Reserve products (2001 Baseball, 2002 Baseball, 2001 Football) and I've now set my sights on the hits, slowly creeping toward the goal of an Archives Reserve Master Set. I'm just enamored with these refractor reprints from the glory days of cardboard. I've decided my A.R.M.S. will be cards-only. 2002 Baseball boxes came with autographed balls (most of which have since faded considerably), and 2001 Football boxes came with autographed mini helmets (which seem to be pretty hard to find). I really don't care about these non-card items. It might not be a 100% master set without them, but f*dge it, I'm a card collector, not a ball or mini helmet collector.
But anyways, I've recently added a few relics into my ARMS and I'd like to have them dance for you now, as it's hard for still pictures to do these shiny beauties justice.
Gwynn and Stargell are a couple all-time favorite dudes of mine (and sure, Boggs is pretty cool too), so these are very nice to add.
Notice the Stargell card says "Authentic Game-Worn Uniform" while Gwynn's says "Authentic Game-Worn Jersey"? Kinda odd. I assume the Stargell swatch must be from pants, since jersey usually refers to the shirt part, though most of the time the terms uniform and jersey are used interchangeably, right? The term pants always seems weird on relic cards, so I'm in favor of calling it uniform. Nobody wants a swatch of fabric that may have been from the crotch of the featured dude's pants. Well, maybe not nobody, but most collectors would be weirded out by the thought, I assume. Along those lines, I wonder if game-worn uniforms get washed before being made into relic cards. On one hand, swatches with evidence of action, such as dirt, are pretty cool. But a stinky crotch relic card? I'm not so sure I'd be excited about that. Come to think of it, I can't recall ever seeing a sock relic card, Curt Schilling aside. I'd like to build a little collection of quirky relics (--that is to say, stuff besides jerseys and bats). I just won a glove relic last night that I'm excited about.
But back to my budding ARMS...
I've also recently picked up a couple autos at good prices.
Clete Boyer was the Yankees' third baseman during the early 60s. Probably would have won a bunch of Gold Gloves were it not for a guy named Brooks.
And you've got to love Minnie Miñoso. I started liking him even more when I discovered he played for the Padres in their PCL days. I consider him a part of my Pads In The Hall minicollection, even if he's not technically in the HOF yet (a miscarriage of justice!)
Great to pick up my first autograph of his.
Incredible addition to my Gavin LaValley rainbow! I landed the 2014 Bowman Chrome Mini superfractor.
Here it is.. superfracting away in all its glory:
I love this card! I could watch those little gold wheels spin all day. It might not be quite as impressive as the regular-sized superfractor (still out there in a pack somewhere, as far as I know), but still damn cool. I think this has gotta be the new centerpiece of my Gavin LaValley PC, and probably my Greatest Gavins minicollection as a whole.
This is the second superfractor in my collection, joining the Brian Humphries one I picked up earlier this year.
As for checking in with Mr. LaValley here...
After a slow start to the Midwest League season, he's raised his average considerably in the past couple weeks, batting .450 over a 10-game stretch. Nice! Let's hope he continues this pace for the rest of his career, eventually makes it into Cooperstown, and this superfractor makes me rich beyond my wildest dreams! But even if it doesn't quite shake out that way, I'm still extremely pleased to own this card.
It wasn't that long ago that Zippy dropped a Wampa on me (I know the spirit behind it is I Wampa somebody else in turn, but dang it, that cute fuzzy guy is like a member of the family, so I haven't been able to bring myself to send him away quite yet.) And just the other day, Zippy assaulted my mailbox yet again. There was no monstrous creature tagging along this time, but it was just as immense of an experience.
Shiny! Always love getting purdy, rainbowy cards. Giancarlo and Hoyt are dudes I collect, as a nice bonus.
Here are some Padres, highlighted by a #/10 Trevor Hoffman and some more shiny cards. Very nice.
Some Padres prospects, including numbered cards of Austin Hedges and Hunter Renfroe. Sweet!
More Padres prospects. Max Fried got traded away this offseason, I believe. Part of me wants to become a big Nick Torres supercollector (bottom left) and rename my blog Torres Up Cards. But I won't.
Gavins! Here we've got a Gavin LaValley blue refractor, and the card that made me squeal like a little girl when I saw it, the Asia-Exclusive Black charcoal base. I'll be posting an update on my LaValley rainbow very shortly, btw. This is a key addition! I haven't seen any on eBay. I was under the impression Zippy didn't hit any LaValley base in his Clone Breaks of 2014 Bowman Draft Asia Edition, but I guess it slipped by me.
And also extremely cool is the Sega card of Gavin Floyd.
And here are a few more cards to round out the package, including some more hot prospects and a couple legends. My heartfelt thanks to Zippy for the awesome zapping! I sent you off a package of cards 2 or 3 days ago, so hopefully that shows up real soon.
Hey.. I might already have that Dave Winfield pop-up. [Gavin goes and checks.] YES, I DO! You know what that means!!! I get to play with my cards~!
:)
I think I already have that Clemente mini puzzle too. But no, I don't think I'll break the pieces apart on that one.
HEY WAIT A MINUTE?! WHAT's GONING ONNNNNN???!?
The Wampa is attacking!
Look out! This is a real David (Winfield) and Goliath situation!
OOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Hurray! Dave was able to use his incredible athleticism to slay the mighty beast.
Let's continue showing off some more pickups from the card show a couple weeks ago.
Something you don't see everyday.. kicking off with some Dodgers love on a Padres-centric blog. But shiny Kershaws, a top prospect, an imminent HOFer, a Kemp RC, and a Russell Martin relic.. all nice cards for 50 cents each. Now that Kemp is a Padre, I have to start corralling my Kemps into a PC instead of throwing them in the tradables box. And the Martin was pretty much picked up for trade bait, but I wouldn't mind hanging onto it if nobody hops on it.
Chavez Ravening gave me the McGwire of those holographic cards recently, and I liked it so much, I had to add this Junior to my stack when I came across it. I think that is my 3rd of those Fleer Ultra diecut "CD" inserts (also have the Gwynn and Ripken).. love em. It's incredible seeing a Simon & Garfunkel reference on a baseball card.
Finally, here's exciting Rangers prospect Joey Gallo. He's a big swinger who's crushed 104 minor league home runs and just turned 21 last month. Hopefully he gets his strikeouts under control and doesn't fall into being a Rob Deer type of batter.
That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by. I've got one more post's worth of pickups from the December card show-- including some tradebait-- which I'll show off soon.
