Joining the Elite

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.

Dust N' Bones (Guns N' Randoms)

I'm not going to have a lot of blogging time for the next week or so. An issue at work delayed my production schedule for the month by a week, so I'm playing catch-up and won't have a lot of downtime to type up posts. Plus, much of the free time that I do have is spent working on my big List of Baseball Cards in Film and TV which is coming along wonderfully and is fun to research and I think will be a big hit, but takes a lot of time digging and building.

So for the time being here's a quick "Guns N ' Randoms" post where I just show off some random recent pickups. I also use a GNR song as a title since that saves me time trying to think up a clever title or way to tie the cards together. We're now up to "Dust N' Bones", a fine but largely forgettable track off Use Your Illusion I.

In cardboard terms, "dust" could be acetate cards.. you know, because you can see through them.. or something. So let's start off with a couple clear cards.

While I pretty much consider my Roberto Alomar PC "complete enough", one thing that bothered me is that of my 2 autos of his, one is a 1988 Topps Traded card which I mistakenly thought was a buyback auto, but turned out to be non "pack-certified" (my fault for not reading the description close enough). And the other Robbie auto I got is unlicensed, plus is a Toronto card. But now this certified, on-card, licensed, Padres card checks all the boxes for me and caps off the PC nicely.

I'm really hoping Francisco Mejia pans out for San Diego. He's got a lot of potential but needs to prove he can hit major league pitching. I recently kicked up my new PC of his with a 2018 Clearly Authentic auto in the style of 1993 Finest.

Here's the pair in the light.

The backs of these cards tend to look cool too. (Although the signature on the Mejia visible from the back is a bit unfortunate.. looks like somebody doodled him pooping. lol)

Now for the "bones" portion of the post. When I think of "bones" of a card, well, I guess I'd say printing plates, right? So here are a couple printing plates I've picked up recently.

Another card for the Padres section of my collection. Looks like Cal Quantrill is currently #10 on the list of San Diego's top prospects. He was a little shaky in AA earlier this year, but improved after getting promoted to AAA. Hope he has a good season next year and makes it up to Petco before long.

And a new addition to my Gavin LaValley supercollection. Actually, it's not all that super, as there are a ton of parallels I don't have for this card. But when a 1/1 shows up, I go after it.. and figure I'll worry about the less scarce cards down the line if I decide to rainbow the card.

Believe it or not, this is my 9th LaValley plate... but it's my first black plate for him, funny enough. Most of what I've got are yellows and magentas.

So anyways, there were a couple autos from 2018 Clearly Authentic and a couple plates from 2018 Bowman.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Best of luck to those of you out East dealing with Florence.

Great trades to soothe a mailless day

Man, I love three-day weekends!

But the worst thing about them is having a couple consecutive days without mail service. I need the prospect of potential cards in my mailbox to help get me out of bed in the morning.

But luckily for me, I got a few nice trade packages in the mail late this past week, so that helps take the sting out.

I purposefully held off going through the box I received from Julie until today to give myself some celebratory cards for Labor Day.

Let's crack it open!

The cards are alive with color!

Gavins! The Goof-Off without text on the front is from the 70s (that I had been meaning to track down), while the other is a reprint from 1988.

Been a long time since I got a new Matt Ginter for the PC! And I love the Miguel Tejada Christmas Card.

Great lot of the Giles Bros.

Just call Julie the Bringer of Donaldsons.

Oh, I'm bein' followed by a Machado. Machado, Machado!

I've been desperately pleading with traders to stop sending me Wil Myers cards, but I'll admit I was happy to see many of these. That early Tri-Star card in particular is a nice addition to the PC.

Nice pile of teammates Correa and Altuve!

And the cards just keep on comin'! This is one of those packages that could easily have an entire week's worth of posts dedicated to it, but let's just wrap it up here. So many awesome cards.. Huge thanks, Julie!

- - - ---o

Tough to follow that, but here's an excellent surprise mailer from Kerry.

Some big stars of today on fancy inserts.

A pair of Arenado DKs (one is a refractor), and a pair of World's Fair inserts from 2017 Ginter. I wanted the Monorail card because it makes me think of that one Simpsons episode. The Ferris Wheel card makes me think of a Neutral Milk Hotel song.

Kerry must have caught when I said that, while I don't really follow the NBA much, I might go ahead and call the Spurs my favorite team in the league. And that's largely because of Tim Duncan, featured with a sweet lot here.

And fellow Spurs, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

Thanks, Kerry! I'll round up a return for you soon.

- - - ---o

One more trade to post about today, this one from Stealing Home.

Always happy to take his dupes of Dodgers I collect.

Solarte auto! If I recall, OM pulled this in a repack and was kind enough to set it aside for me. On the day I received this trade package, Solarte hit a walkoff homer for my Padres against the Dodgers. Looks like this auto escaped enemy territory just in time!

Awesome surprise, right here. I'm a sucker for glow-in-the-dark cards, and these weren't even on my radar. Seems they came with Kid Cuisine frozen meals in 1997. Love it! I'll have to try to track down the rest of the set someday.

Here they are in action. Very cool concept of having the skeletons glow.

A book! I've been wanting to read Mint Condition for a while now. It's supposed to be a great telling of the history of the hobby. I'm still working through Ball Four, but this one will be next on my reading list. Or who knows, maybe I'll read them concurrently. (Ball Four is an ebook I've been reading on my phone, not a physical copy.)

And last item of the post, an elegant bronze Roberto Alomar 1988 Topps Traded RC mint-card. Mr. Stealing Home ended up with this card-like-thing in Johnny's Big Fun Game, and seeing how he bleeds Dodger blue, didn't necessarily have a lasting place in his collection for a Padre, so we were able to work out a trade and bring it to a home where it'll be more appreciated. I won't show a bunch of pics of it, but if you're interested, a recent ARPS post featuring the Will Clark version of these things does a great job giving you a clear idea of what they're all about. Part of me wants to trash the big plastic case since it's crumbling somewhat and takes a lot of room, but the collector in me doesn't want to lose the case that's "part" of the item. Still debating.

Thanks a lot, OM! I'll put your return package in the mail soon.


Happy Labor Day, everybody. And thanks again to Julie, Kerry, and OM for the excellent cards! I hardly even noticed there was no mail today. :)

Haul of cards from Rod at the card show

Imagine you're at a card show digging through the bins, when someone comes up to you and says, "Here you go," and dumps a couple long boxes totaling around a thousand free cards beside you. That's basically what happened to me a couple weekends ago. It was the third time I was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of fellow Portland-area Padres fan's downsizing efforts. I'm talking of course about Rod of Padrographs.

Sometimes he gives me more cards than I know what to do with. You know those "LaMarry Christmas" ornaments I spread around last Christmas? The 1987 Topps cards I used for those were from Rod.. just an example of the massive quantity of Padres he's known to kindly dump on me. I'd be lying if I said I had a use for all the various Padres cards I get, from Rod or well-meaning traders, though among the Terry Kennedys and Jerald Clarks I don't collect, there are usually plenty of Pads I do collect.. Bip, Benito, Templeton, and of course Tony Gwynn, to name a few.

Anyways, it's taken me a couple weeks, but I've digested the haul from Rod into some highlight groups to photograph and comment on, so let's do it!

A nice little selection of autographs. Bip! The rest are customs of Rod's own creation. Just last month I showed off my own Dave Kingman '77 Padres custom that I got signed through the mail, now I've got another. Dig that lounging-in-the-dugout shot. Lowell Palmer is known for looking cool on his 70s cards sporting his trademark shades. Orlando Hudson won 4 Gold Gloves during his career, and spent a year and a half with the Padres near the end of his run. And Bud Black helmed San Diego from 2007 until getting canned last season. It looked like he was about to sign on to manage the Nationals recently, but he thought their offer was too low and then Dusty Baker slipped in and snagged the job, leaving Bud to settle on a front office position with the Angels, with whom he was pitching coach prior to his Padres tenure. I've got nothing against Bud, but I was also never much of a fan either. I'm hoping new skipper Andy Green can work some magic and help the squad contend this year.

This? This is all Tony Gwynn cards. Probably a couple hundred cards here. Sure, some multiples and plenty of cards I already had, but still a lot I needed.

And here are a couple hundred Benito cards! Thanks to this lot, I think I can call my Benito collection Finito. (Oh, that's a clever turn of phrase! I need to do a post of my PC and I'll title the post "Benito Finito" or something along those lines.) Maybe I could use some more of his later career cards, but I think I'm good on Padres/junk era now.

Bip! Always a favorite. I think this lot bumped me over the 100 card goal.

Mid 80s Padre favorites Goose and Garvey. Goose was in the news recently for a tirade against today's game. Didn't seem like very many were in his corner.

More Friars of yesteryear, including Tim Flannery, Ozzie Smith, and John Kruk. Looks like Flan triple-signed that 85 Topps card.. like he signed it once.. wasn't happy with the pen, then traced that signature.. decided it looked bad.. then signed it fresh again. Speaking of being in the news recently for a tirade, Flan typed up an angry post aimed at Padre fans who hassle him for selling out and going to the Giants or whatever. Personally, I never had a problem with the guy and definitely didn't blame him for following Bochy up to SF when he got pushed out. Anyways, love those Kruk minor league cards.

More Padres, now working our way into the 90s. Dan Walters was a backup catcher whose career wasn't anything special, but he was the first guy who ever signed a baseball card for me, so he's got a place in my heart. After his playing days, he became a cop and sadly was paralyzed from a gunshot.
Pretty sure I had most of those Roberto Alomar cards, but probably a couple new ones for me.
And I needed most of those glorious Caminiti cards.

Ryan Klesko was a guy I liked alright when he was in the heart of the San Diego lineup for a few years, though I wasn't collecting at the time. Once I returned to the hobby, he was never really a "PC guy" for me, though I did kinda hang onto his cards when I got them. With this big lot, he's probably knocked into Hundred Card Club territory. Highlights here for me are the Victory card (not often you see a fast food bag on a baseball card) and the retro 89 UD and 55 Bowman designs.

Here are a bunch more various Padres keepers for me. Love minor league cards (like the Mark Parent cards there) from before they became ubiquitous circa 1989. Sega CardGen cards are always cool to get. And that Cameron Maybin at-the-wall shot is a photo variation SP.

It wasn't all Padres, as Rod included a bunch of these Heritage cards from the 2009 American History set. I had seen these online, but never owned any. Pretty cool.

Even a few 2010 Pro Debut numbered parallels and a LeBron!

Thanks so much, Rod! This haul definitely helps me fill several holes in my collection. Much appreciated. And I'm still very much in your debt, so as always, let me know if I can ever help you with anything to return the favor.. Assistance on customs or whatever. I'm at your disposal!

And the rest of the box from Marcus

In a post last week, I started digging into the box Marcus sent me recently as he works to downsize his collection. Let's go ahead and plow through the rest of it now.

We start with autos, autos, and more autos.

Lots of good stuff here. Love that '87 Joyner. A bunch of Benes (including a couple oddballs). Denorfia on the bottom.

Ah, the Padres team of my youth. With this jumpstart, I wonder if I could put together a signed Padres team set of 1990 Donruss without too much trouble? That would be pretty neat for me since 1990 Donruss (for better or worse) was the first wax I ever ripped. Sentimental value, you know.

Some postcard-sized generic autograph sheets. This might be tough to identify, but let's give it a shot. I'd guess the first one is Nick Hundley (#4). Next is Nick Vincent (#50). The "D" name seems to be Dale Thayer (#55). "AG34" looks like it could be Adrian Gonzalez, but he wasn't #34. Ok, I just looked up #34 and it's Andrew Cashner.. cool! And #45 looks like "Greg B" but again, I can't find a match. Ok, looked up #45 and it's Anthony Bass. I originally thought the last one is was Eric Stults, but now I'm pretty sure it's Tim Stauffer.
I might trim these down to standard card size, perhaps doing something interesting with them like doing sketch cards around the signatures or something.

Howbout a football auto? This postcard sized Stan Humphries auto is pretty cool. Sounds like the Chargers will be sticking around for at least another season, so that's cool, I guess. But ownership has definitely been shitting the bed left and right, and it won't be easy to win back a lot of disgruntled San Diego fans such as myself.

Here's a nice dual screw-down with the Alomar brothers featuring minor league cards from 1988. Pretty sweet.

Marcus added some variety to the box with a few coins, including 3 actual money pieces. I've never been all that big on coin collecting (besides several bucks worth of 1976 drummer boy quarters I've been collecting since childhood), though I do have a few random foreign coins, so I'll throw these in with them.

Here are a bunch of oversized cards. Even that Sheffield in the corner is larger than a standard card. The Fernando(s) and Dale Murphy could be available if anyone needs them.

More jumbo cards and postcards.

Here we've got a Padres program from 2013, and then a few issues of Pocket Pages from 1993-1994. Gotta admit I wasn't familiar with Pocket Pages the publication, but they seem kinda cool. The best thing about them is obviously that they contain cards...

They even got some shiny on 'em. What do you guys think? Should I take these out and cut them up into individual cards, or keep the magazines intact? I'll probably cut them up unless someone yells at me not to.

There were a bunch of 1971 Topps cards, a few of which will likely be needs or upgrades for my setbuild, though I haven't checked yet. Also included were several 2011 Topps parallels which I can put toward that frankensetbuild.

Mini mania! Anybody working on 1975 Topps Mini needing those 3 cards? Let me know. Here we also see a Goose need from 1986 Fleer and several Bowman mini refractors.

So many Rymer Liriano cards! Bummer he never quite blossomed with San Diego. They recently cut him loose and he wound up with the Brewers. All the best, Rymer!

A couple of my all-time favs, Dave Winfield and Eric Owens. Pretty sure I needed most of these.

More Geese, including a duo from his early days as a White Sock and a trio from his latter days as an A.

Greg Maddux 1/1!!! Ha, no, that's from the annoyingly deceptive A&G Dick Perez insert set or whatever where Topps went ahead and included Perez' handwritten 1/1 on all the mass-produced cards, leading to great confusion and disappointment among collectors. The Adrian refractor also made me scratch my head a moment...

Numbered 99/60?! That's unpossible! LOL, ok, so maybe I'm looking at it upside-down and it's actually 090/660.

While the Padres were definitely the stars of the box, non-SD fellas could be found as well. A couple Mike Trout cards. Bryce Harper mini. Rainbow foil 2015 RBI LL. Gerrit Cole rookie. An addition for my Non-Yankee Babe Ruth PC. And favorites Willie Stargell and Paul Goldschmidt.

And so that's gonna wrap it up. There were plenty more cards I could show off and write about, but in the interest of time, let's call it good.

Again, big thanks, Marcus, for passing down these cards to me and please just say the word if/when I can return the favor with anything!