plain white envel-NOPE

Heads up for users of the online card marketplace Sportlots that "Loot" (seller-specific store credit) now expires after 90 days, and in case you haven't noticed, it's been about 85 days since that policy went into effect. So if you've ever used Sportlots much, you might want to log in and check out your loot account. Click "My Loot" under the "My Account" menu option in the upper left, and you get a list of sellers with whom you've got loot.

I've got a bunch of sellers listed there where I've only got a few cents of credit with them.. not a big deal to lose out on those few cents, but I've also got a couple sellers with over a buck in credit where it might make sense to at least make a small order from them to apply a discount towards so the loot doesn't go to waste.

Oh wait. They don't want you making small orders anymore:

"...Sportlots has implemented a Minimum Value Fee. Orders under $5.00 will incur a $1.50 fee. The $5.00 minimum is calculated by adding the card values, shipping, sales tax (if applicable), and subtracting any applied loot." 

So after adjusting for the Min Value Fee, my loot discount that should have been $1.68 comes to just 18¢. If I added a 5th card, hoping to get out of "under five bucks" territory, the shipping rate from this seller jumps from $1.50 to $4. So yeah, I'm screwed in this scenario. THANKS, Sportlots. Guess I'll just let all that loot disappear. Lame.

Sure, I make big orders on the site sometimes, but I like to place a small Sportlots order every once in a while, in part because it's nice receiving cards in the mail on the regular, you know? A day without cards in the mail is a downer. PWEs trickling in helps keep the non-card-getting days from piling up. 

Sellers can adjust their minimum shipping rates to deal with their transaction fees, so I don't think a minimum value fee is necessary. Hell, some sellers let you know they don't like doing small orders by having their minimum shipping rate be like $6 or more, even for just 1 card. But other sellers like making sales, the more the better, and don't want to just hold out for the occasional large order.

So yeah, just another instance of greed making things worse than they used to be. I know I've been saying it here for a long time, but this year FOR REALS i'm gonna get my for-trade cards logged into TCDB and try to focus more on trading, especially now that COMC and Sportlots have gotten crappier. Let's hope TCDB remains usable for the foreseeable future. I know they've been adding more annoying ads lately as the site owner looks to generate additional revenue, causing some users to grimace, but fingers crossed the site will last a long time before things really go tits up there. (With my luck, the site will be sold to PSA/Fanatics and get gutted the day after I finish logging all the stuff I'm planning on logging, LOL.)

Anyways. on that general topic, my latest TCDB swap netted 3 needs for my Dick Allen PC.

User herkojerko is a prominent Phillies collector on the site who proposed a 3-for-3 card swap, all Phillies, with my return being the above trio of Dick Allen needs. I showed off the Blue Ice parallel of that 2025 Prizm a few posts back, and so now I've got the base card to go with it, plus the 2025 Ginter SP #350 with child. Must've been Phillies dupes for herkojerko. One of the cards I sent his way was one of my Dick Allen dupes, fittingly, and helps him keep place as the #2 (tie) ranked DA collector on the site.

There's your current top 10 leader board. Absolutely fascinating stuff, right? :P

Thanks for the trade, herkojerko.. Good luck with your collection, just don't overtake me on Dick Allen cards, please. ha 

Before wrapping up, I've got another small piece of mail to show, a 1-card (plus a sticker) envelope imported from Japan.

Fun Maggie Simpson sticker along with a signed Royce Lewis card, courtesy of blogger bud Zippy Zappy. Royce seems to be a pretty good ballplayer who'd likely blossom into a star if only he could stay healthy for a while. Cool to add an early autograph of his. And as I said a moment ago, always brightens my day to receive cards in the mail, no matter the quantity. Thanks, Kenny!

Sportlots by Surprise

A made a few small Sportlots purchases late one hazy night a week or two ago. I had totally forgotten about the order until PWEs with unfamiliar return addresses started sprinkling in my mailbox. These aren't the most exciting pickups, but I haven't posted since Monday, so figured I should crank out something before I lose my reputation as a blogger who posts multiple times per week.

I think 1993 Topps Black Gold inserts are my favorite 90s insert. If I have room in my cart to add some cheap without making the postage go up, I'm all about it.

A gratuitous second look. I've said it many times, but I wish Topps would bring these back for an encore, preferably in Archives, but failing that, even an online exclusive would do. Would be neat to see current players on these. But I suspect the crazy gold foil makes them a bit too tricky/pricey for lazy Topps to bother with.

This must be what initiated the Sportlots order. It wasn't long ago that I tracked down Rich Gossage's 1989 Mother's Cookies card-- the lone Giants card to come out from his short-term stint in San Francisco-- but I figured I'd also snag this tiny 1990 Publication International sticker, too.. the only other card-like-thing out there picturing Goose in the unfamiliar duds.

I have no recollection of putting this Reggie in my cart, but I think I was looking for card #1 in this subset (featuring an oh-so-rare shot of him with a KC cap), but either got this one by mistake or settled for this one when the other was unavailable. But whatever, I'm always down for a new Reggie card.

I have a love/hate relationship with Topps Chipz. I hate them... but I love glow-in-the-dark collectables, so sometimes I'll look for cheap glowly parallels, such as these. I didn't take a pic in the dark, so you'll have to trust me that they glow (just a little, behind the player). Beltre is from 2013, while I've got Cespedes in both '13 and '14 varieties.

I'm working on a big post of glow-in-the-dark stuff, but it's still a ways off since it'll have to wait till my next COMC shipment. But know that I've been hitting my glow-in-the-dark "type collection" hard lately, trying to get at least one example from every glowing trading card set out there.. which I hope to chronicle in that forthcoming post.

Anyways, that's all the baseball stuff for today.

Here are some bonus pictures from my commute home yesterday...

I ended up walking over the bridge since the Max I was on kicked us all off the stop before for maintenance or something. There are some ships in town for the big Rose Festival this weekend.

Pretty cool.

Those funky towers in the middle are part of the Convention Center. I haven't been in there. Sure would be cool in the National Baseball Card Convention came to Portland, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Here's a Max train passing me by.

You can kinda see the roof of the Moda Center here (where the Blazers play).

After I crossed the bridge, I made it to the next stop to get on a Max the rest of the way.

As I got close to home, I saw a bunny! Always a highlight of my day when that happens.

Then my cute pooch welcomed me home and wanted to play, wrapping up this little tour through my Portland commute.

Hey, it's a Card Show Weekend for me! As is my tradition, I wore a Topps shirt today, the Friday before. I originally put on my red one, but this morning I saw on Twitter that you're supposed to #WearOrange today to stand up against gun violence, so I played along and changed into the orange one.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Cardboard Potpourri

pot·pour·ri
/ˌpōpəˈrē/
noun
a mixture of dried petals and spices placed in a bowl or small sack to perfume clothing or a room.
a mixture of things, especially a musical or literary medley.
a Jeopardy category of miscellaneous crap.

Here are a few half-baked ideas not worth their own post.

1500 and Counting!

First off, my previous post recapping my beach weekend was the 1500th post here at Baseball Card Breakdown and I totally missed that until after the fact. That's a pretty legit number for a card blog! I might not post quite as frequently as I once did-- these days I shoot for every other day, whereas in the past, daily posting was the goal-- but I'm still having fun and don't plan to stop anytime soon.

I don't think I'll run a contest to honor the milestone, but my 6 year blogoversary is coming up next month, so perhaps I'll work up something special for that.

Card Show Kibosh

I was planning on going to the the monthly card show this weekend-- even wore a Topps shirt to work the Friday before, as is my tradition-- but whoops, I ended up winning a string of eBay auctions this evening that added up to more than I was expecting to pay. I put "blaster+tax" bids on 14 items ("no name" guys from a parallel set I'm working on), expecting to win a few for around $5 each-- maybe a couple near my max bid-- but no, ended up winning a dozen for about a blaster each. OUCH! That adds up. So yeah, that's a lot of cash and so I shouldn't turn around and drop more $$ at the card show. If I have to defend myself, I did get another bonus at work the other day, so I can just consider them a gift to myself with my Q1 bonus money. Expect a post on those cards in a week or two. (And to the other bidder out there putting in a bunch of $20.20 bids, coming in second and costing me a lot of money: I hate you. I know all's fair in eBay bidding, but damn-- You suck! Without that one other dude causing problems for me, I would have gotten away just fine. Damn.)

"Cardboard" posts get more views?

These days, my post view counts typically level off a little over 100 views after a couple/few days. It's down a bit from peak performance 2 or 3 years ago, but I'm not too upset over it.

But recently I had another fluke popular post...

Seems nearly 600 readers were interested in checking out the cards Kerry hooked me up with a couple weeks ago (Kerry on my Cardboard Blog). That's quite the spike for me! But I remember years ago Night Owl mentioning that posts titled with the word "cardboard" in them typically saw a surge in viewership for some unknown reason. Well shit, maybe we should just shoehorn "cardboard" into every post title then! He might abbreviate Cardboard Appreciation posts as "C.A." to avoid this outlier situation, but I'm leaning into it with this Cardboard Potpourri post and will be curious if the hits are up with this one, too-- even if there's a good chance any spike in views is bot-related, not actual human clicks.

-     -   -  - --o

Teke Reds sticker

In my Kent Tekulve PC post from a few weeks back, I mentioned the only other Reds card I needed of him was an oddball sticker. (If you want to be picky about it, I also need the Tiffany version of his '89 Topps Traded card, and I assume he probably has a few "Rediscover Topps" stamped buybacks of his '89 Topps Traded card out there now, but you can't really count such gimmicks for a standard, blue-collar PC.)

I ended up buying this tiny fella off Sportlots. It was like a buck and a little shipping.. not a big deal. But damn it, such a pain trying to pay for it. Stuff like this is why I hate Sportlots. I couldn't figure out how to complete my purchase! In my fruitless efforts, I somehow ended up accidentally requesting a check be sent to me for a little over a dollar. I was very confused and frustrated.

Turns out-- remember a few months ago when that basketball card with the Menendez Brothers in the background was suddenly super popular?-- Well, I had bought one for something like 18¢ and $2.99 shipping. But the asshole seller, realizing the surge in value, nixed the sale and said *shrug* the card went missing. And so I ended up with about $3 credit in my Sportlots account over the refunded order. So when I bought the Teke weeks later, the money automatically came out of there (unbeknownst to me), and I somehow requested a check for a buck with the remainder while trying to figure out how to pay because the site is terrible and left that whole situation very unclear. I feel bad they had to waste a 50¢ stamp sending me a check for a freakin' buck (not to mention the chore for me to cash/deposit it), but there was no way to cancel it without contacting customer support, which in my experience with the site hasn't been great. COMC may be more expensive, but with how often I run into issues with Sportlots transactions (it's seriously about 50/50), I'm totally willing to pay more for no headaches.

But anyways, that's just some ranting getting in the way of a cool Teke oddball I picked up.

-   -  -  - --o

1978 Topps Daily Double Trouble

Took a while to sort out, but my 1978 Topps wantlist is now live-- er, back and improved! I'm at just about 80% complete and would love to polish this one off by the end of the year. LINK TO MY NEEDS SPREADSHEET

In my sorting, I found a couple Burger King cards mixed in causing trouble. Unfortunately there's not a good way to identify them other than their card numbers not matching up with the standard '78 Topps checklist. (Couldn't they have just slapped a Burger King logo over the stupid "Play Ball" game on the back that kids never played?!) Maybe after I complete the regulation 1978 Topps set, I might try to supplement it with the four regional BK team sets (Yankees, Rangers, Astos, Tigers), but that's definitely not a priority right now.

While sorting, I had a couple "wait, is this a printing flaw? Do I need an upgrade?" moments. Like this this Bob Forsch-- the stuff at the far left center is some printing flaw mess that doesn't bother me too much, but what about those lines around his head? A COMC search reveals that all copies of this card have those marks. So this one's good.

Howabout this Manny Trillo? Looks like maybe some stray marks in the background behind him? But nope, again, all copies have that stuff. I'd have to guess it's a glove on the left and maybe a bat on the right, but I'm not confident about either.

Another card along these lines is the '79 Topps Dusty Baker that appears to have a printing flaw across his chest, but it's present on all copies of the card. I ended up asking for an upgrade of this card, and when I received one (from Night Owl, I believe) I realized, whoops, they're all like that.

-     -    -  --o

Somehow it seems terribly unfair that Oliver Perez has now pitched in 619 major league games, while you and I never got to pitch in any.

— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) May 11, 2019

Wow, I still think of Oliver Perez as the promising rookie getting called up for the Padres in 2002. Crazy that while he never quite became a star, he's managed to stick around for so long. (Bonus points for 619 being the main area code for San Diego.)


OK, that's all the potpourri I've got for today. Thanks as always for reading. Hope you have a great Mother's Day weekend.

cards for the meantime

I'm in that anxious waiting period where I have a bunch of posts I want to write, but they're held up waiting on cards, mostly from my big COMC order that's currently being filled.

But for now, here are a few other cards I've gotten in recently. First off is a consolation prize PWE from John Miller. I'm admittedly a bit of a sore loser when I miss out on contests, especially when I give my all and still fall short. So a thoughtful little bonus like this goes a long way to help me quit crying like a baby.

This makes two posts in a row leading off with a vintage Yaz card. Well hey, he is kind of the mascot/poster boy for my blog, or at least his 1966 Topps card is, so it's fine. I recently semi-sorted my Yaz PC, as I mentioned last post, and so I know that this beauty from 1972 Topps is a need for me.

Here are a couple more Yastrzemskis, but I already had these. In fact, I had several of those 1978 cards. I wonder if it was double printed or something, since it seems to be so common. The only Yaz I had more copies of was his 1990 Donruss "here's what the completed puzzle looks like" Diamond King card.

Johnny dropped some more "guys I collect" vintage on me. I just saw that Rose featured on Night Owl's Best Cards of the 70s countdown, so very cool to add it to my collection now.

Big thanks, John! Much appreciated.

- ---o

We've still got some time, so let's also take a quick look at a recent Sportlots PWE.

Snagged a couple SP needs for my 2016 Ginter X quest which is nearly complete thanks mostly to a big trade that I'll be posting about soon. The penny sleeve reflection gave Starlin Castro a funky aura here in my pic.

Since I had room for a couple more cards before the shipping cost would go up, I took a quick look at the seller's other stuff and ended up adding a pair of 18¢ cards for the heck of it: 2011 Finest Adrian Beltre and 2011 Bowman Finest Futures Mike Stanton. I wonder if Giancarlo's cardboard will see a little bump in interest once he gets out of Miami.

That's it for today. Thanks for visiting.

The Vintage Vigilante strikes again

More strides in my vintage setbuilds!

I've been ponying up for some old set needs lately.

Let's check out my recent pickups!

These 3 cards should all appear in Night Owl's forthcoming "best cards of the 70s" countdown. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see them ranked #1, #2, #3, respectively. I already had a creased Clemente and an Allen, but these are upgrades and now I have dupes for the PCs.

HOFers being majestic.

More big names! I think the only legend I'm missing now is Mays.

And a bunch more (mostly) high numbers! Most of these 71s I'm showing off are from an eBay seller apparently breaking a set (I snagged a bunch of lots and singles with no additional shipping), and some of them are from recent Sportlots and COMC orders.

Moving onto 1965 now, these few card-savered cards are from a trade with Mark Hoyle. Thanks, Mark! I've got a return package for you just about ready to drop off.

And here are a few more 65s from Sportlots and COMC.


Where am I at after the dust has settled?

Over 90% complete with 1971 Topps!

Over 2/3 complete with 1965 Topps!

I'm not typically one for setting deadlines for my collecting goals, but I'm thinking I could possibly knock out 1971 by the end of 2016 if I stay focused. And maybe 1965 by the end of 2017.

I think I'm going to print out updated needs lists and make finding vintage needs a priority at the next couple monthly card shows.


Not vintage set related, but thanks to Bo for mailing over a bunch of Dave Henderson cards...

A postseason star, in 20 career World Series games, Hendu hit .324.

And a few Adrian Beltre needs for good measure.

The package arrived torn up in a USPS "Oop! Your package got chewed up by our machines" baggie, but luckily I think all the cards were still there, and no worse for the experience. Bo, if you had included a '52 Mantle or something and it was lost in the sea of mail sorting, please keep that information to yourself rather than break my heart. I'll shoot ya back a return soon.. thanks a lot!

Well, thanks for swinging by and I hope you guys enjoy the holiday weekend.

A couple lots from Sportlots [HT throughout]

[This post is a submersive, interactive experience. It can be read as-is or you can go synergistically deeper by activating additional text using your electronic device.]

Wanna see some cards from a couple Sportlots orders that arrived yesterday?
(No? Screw you, here they are anyways!)
Let's do it, bitch.

Rod Beck! Embossed. Electric. Rainbow. Red. Cubs. Baby. Remember that season of Eastbound & Down where Kenny Powers has to take care of a baby? I'm pretty sure it was based on that baseball card at the end there. I should mention that each card featured in this post was the 18¢ Sportlots minimum, plus shipping from 2 sellers.

Giancarlo "The Man" Stanton! How's your vision, buddy? Hoping for a strong 2015. How many fingers am I holding up? Giancarlo? Hey, over here!

At the rate I've been picking up Goldschmidt cards lately, he'll be inducted into my 50 Card Club pretty soon.. and 100 Card Club by the end of the year.

Story time!!! So the other day I found out Mike Jacobs here attended Grossmont Community College in El Cajon in the late 90s just like me. You might know I collect players who went to my high school, and while Jacobs didn't attend my high school, going to the same JC as me-- at the same time, no less-- is probably grounds for PCing, too.

So I figured I'd pick up a few of his cards in this Sportlots order, even though I never gave him a second thought before. He looks really familiar in that Bowman card. In fact, I've got a suspicion that I had a class with him. It was an "Introduction to Baseball" class, taught by the manager of the school's baseball team.. obviously an "easy A" elective specifically created to boost the GPAs of athletes, and as you can imagine, much of the baseball team was in that class. I was a baseball nut, so I took the class, too, along with a few other non-athletes who just liked baseball and wanted an easy A. I may have ended up with a B, but that's because the class was early in the morning ("early" for me at the time, anyways) and I only showed up about half the time. (The following semester I tried to try out for the team, but it didn't go my way, and my dreams of being a ballplayer fell on their sword. Still bums me out to think about. I coulda been a star.) Anyways, the class dealt with the rules of baseball and history and stuff like that. Well, one of the questions on a quiz was about cities with a ballclub, and one of the choices was Tampa Bay, and one of the jocks scoffed, "Haha, Tampa Bay?!" And one of the smarter jocks had to explain to him that, yes, Tampa Bay did recently get an expansion team. I thought that was hilarious, and was my first realization that just because a guy is good at playing baseball doesn't mean that he knows shit about the big picture of the game. Anyways, I'm not saying that I'm 100% positive that the clueless jock from the story was Mike Jacobs... but it might've been. Definitely might've been. I'd put a couple bucks on it being him.

A couple Gavin Floyd cards. Hey, I just now while drafting this, just this very second found out he recently signed with the Cleveland Indians for 2015. Woot! (or should I say, "Woo woo woo woo [places hand intermittently over mouth while making these noises in a racially insensitive manner, but I don't mean it in a racist way. I love Native Americans. Seriously, I'd rather not celebrate Columbus Day.]) Good luck for a successful 2015 season, Gavin! Coincidentally, that minor league card on the left looks like it could easily be an Indians card with some quick logo photoshopping.

Should I pick up a few more Wilhelm cards?
Eh, couldn't Hoyt! Pun credit: Stealing Home of Some Trait Bait, Some of the Time. Seriously man, when was the last time you posted any trade bait? Your blog title is false advertising! :P

Bip in Blue! Love those blue "baseball's best (or whatever they're called)" '90 Donruss cards. It makes me wonder.. If the flagship set of '90 Donruss was blue, and a less-common sideset was red.. would I be as enchanted by the red (and conversely as blahed by the blue)?
Probably, yeah. Definitely!
And if a fire at Topps in early 1988 resulted in 95% of the printrun of '88 Topps being destroyed, causing the set to be much more scarce, I'd probably love that set. But as it stands, I think it's shit.

The Felix Fermin and '06 Bowman checklist weren't part of either order, but were thrown in as bonus front-and-back protective cards. Definitely appreciate when sellers/traders do this, and try to do the same myself whenever I can. (If you get a trade package from me, there will likely be junk wax bookending the cards.) Sometimes people think these are the "real cards" from me and I feel distraught about it when they show them in their "trade recap" posts. I mean, if by some miracle you need them, GREAT!, but hell, I pretty much expect you to throw them away.

Someday I may try to scrape together 1991 Stadium Club, so I guess it's a cool bonus card to get. (It's a bittersweet set for me thanks to buying it on eBay a couple years back, noticing much of the key cards were damaged, and returning it for a refund, eating the return shipping cost.) As for the checklist, well, Tom at Angels In Order has been on a checklist collecting kick lately (!!! somebody wants checklists!!!), so maybe I can get a trade going with him to unload a few checklists, including this one.

As for other cards not pictured.. well, there were a couple each for 2 upcoming "Guys From Granite" posts, so you'll have to stay tuned for those.
Also, the 2 Sportlots sellers responsible for all the cards in this post have something in common: they were the only sellers left on Sportlots that had 10+ copies available of Marquis Grissom 1990 Upper Deck #9. I cleaned them both out. I'll need to do a Marquis Mania post one of these days to update that project. I've got a fat stack of that card waiting to be paged.

That's it for today. Keep it real, yo. Does anybody bother reading the hidden text? I hope so!

My first bad Sportlots experience (Archives 2001)

First, I'd like to announce that I'm abandoning my setbuild of 2001 Archives. I got nearly 40% of the set, but I've since realized my heart isn't in it. What really kills it for me is the backs. Yep, I'm one of those collectors who cares about backs. The cardboard used for that set is too dark and the backs are too hard to read.. even worse than the vintage originals. It would bring me down everytime I flipped through the set or added new cards to it, so it's dumb to continue trying to complete it.

Huh? What? I can barely read that.

I'll pick out the guys I collect for my PCs, but I'll have about 150 cards from the set available for trade, so let me know if any of you guys are working on that set.

But I'm still very much working on 2001 Archives Reserve! It's a similar reprint set, but smaller (100 cards) and all refractors. Plus, the backs are bright and very legible! JOY!! I'm up to 89 of the 100 cards.

Yes! That's more like it!

I recently picked up a few singles from Sportlots, and here's where we get to the bitching. First, one seller I bought the Clemente from (and nothing else.. even with shipping, was still the best deal I found) backed out of the sale quickly, but at least he was cool and gave me a quick refund. But another seller I bought several cards from.. well, first 2 weeks went by with nothing. I finally opened a report on Sportlots about it. Then the next day or so the guy responded with a tracking number. He had obviously just finally gotten around to sending. No apology or explanation or anything. Then when the cards finally came, 2 were missing. If even included a note that acknowledged this, and said he had reimbursed me. But he didn't. And the several times I tried to open a report on Sportlots about it to request a refund on the missing 2 cards, the site gave me a message that "this issue has already been submitted." They must have been talking about the previously-submitted issue of not receiving my order after 2 weeks, but now this was a new issue! So with no other way to contact the seller, I had to give negative feedback for one of the very few times in my life. I didn't bother trying to email Sportlots about it. I was only out about a buck fifty, but still! Very frustrating, both with the lame seller (CCCards1) and the Sportlots website. I had a previous Sportlots order once where the guy couldn't find a card or two, and he was cool enough to throw a couple bucks cash into the package, more that covering the cost of the missing cards. Now that's customer service, right there! But this CCCards1 guy obviously didn't have his shit together.

Anyways, rant over. As I say I'm 11 cards away from completing 2001 Archives Reserve.

Can anybody help with these nefarious 11?
2.     Brooks Robinson 57
5.     Hank Bauer 52
8.     Bill Skowron 54
11.  Roy Campanella 52
14.  Gary Carter 75
16.  Orlando Cepeda 58
17.  Roberto Clemente 55
18.  Dale Murphy 77
22.  Don Drysdale 57
39.  Harmon Killebrew 55
56.  Roy Face 53

I'm thinking I'll probably go after 2002 Reserve next, another 100-card refractor reprint set.. though sadly, the backs use a grey base instead of white, meaning they're not as bright as 2001 Reserve. Lame.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Getting with the times.. Twitter & Sportlots

I kinda hate Twitter, but I gave in and joined (again). I was on there years ago, but not for any trading card purposes.. Just sucked up freetime reading funny barbs from comedians, mostly. This time around, I started a new account just for card stuff.

So if you're a Twitterer, give me a follow and I'll follow you back.

@breakdowncards

("Baseball Card Breakdown" or any approximation of that is apparently too long for a username.. grrr.)

For the moment, I'll just take it slow and see how it goes. I might do a contest to help build up some followers in the near future, but we'll see.

In other "branching out" / "getting with the times" / "welcome to 2007" news, I placed my first ever order on Sportlots last week. Man, that site is confusing. I still don't know how to search by seller.. as such, shipping doesn't make fiscal sense for me the way it does on COMC or Just Commons. But I found a bunch of 2004 Topps Retired base cards from one seller for good prices, so I picked up several I needed. I should save them for a separate post, but-- spoiler alert!-- after winning the Mike Schmidt on eBay the other day, I'm down to needing just 1 card to finish off the base set: #50 Cal Ripken. I don't suppose anyone has this card to trade? The few copies currently available out there at the moment are more than I'd like to pay, so I'll just have to be patient.

I also ordered several dozen copies of Marquis Grissom 1990 Upper Deck from one seller who happened to have dozens of them cheap.. I cleaned him out! Apparently there's a way to make offers and/or maybe get discounts for buying multiple copies of the same card, but, again, I couldn't figure that out. I had to break my Marquis Mania ground rule by paying over a quarter per card (shipping included), but not by much. Anyways, stay tuned for a future post where I'll do the math and see where I'm at in my quest to collect 792 copies of that card. Or maybe 999 would be a better goal. I haven't really set a number to aim for yet. Who knows. For now, the goal is just to get a shitload of 'em and fill up a binder.

In summary, Sportlots is confusing to me. I might try getting more familiar with it (please feel free to post any tips in the comments), but for the time being, doesn't look like it'll become one of my main sources for picking up cards.

p.s. Here's that Twitter link again @breakdowncards, primed for following!