The Collector's Anniversary Celebration Extravaganza haul

You've probably heard that Chris over at The Collector is celebrating his big Anniversary Celebration Extravaganza. He's intending to wind down accumulation of sports cards but keep the blog going, and I wish him luck there. His blog is a favorite to read and he's a good dude. He's generous, too, running a celebration giveaway for the handful of readers savvy enough to grab a slot.

Here's an overview of my prize package, complete with a pack of penny sleeves and friendly letter.

Kicking off the cards with a selection of Joe Musgrove, highlighted by a pink refractor from '24 and a diamante parallel '26 He's been slow getting back from injury, but I'm hoping he's back on the mound soon.

Another current favorite Padre of mine, Jackson Merrill, in the house with some nice stuff here.

Part of the giveaway's entry process was to pick a player with a low-numbered jersey number which Chris would correlate to something later, and Jeter's 2 was the first to pop in my head, and now I've got a Chrome Anniversary card commemorating that choice. 

The Trenton Brooks 2025 Update base card was nice to find in there. That's a card I'm "trying to rainbow" (guy from my high school pictured playing for my favorite team), but you guessed it, I focused on the parallels and hadn't secured the base card yet, holding out hope that one would fall in my lap eventually. Sure enough!

It's kinda bittersweet seeing James Wood blossom into a star, seeing how San Diego traded him away in the big Juan Soto deal that ultimately didn't help the team win much. But I'll hoard all his cards I can get my grubby mitts on.

Since Fuji also had a slot in the giveaway, I had offered to renounce my claim to the Padres so as to simplify Chris' sorting process (and snag the Braves, who were "hot" in the Chrome Anniversary boxes Chris busted), but he was on top of things and didn't seem to have trouble finding enough Padres for both of us. But my "secondary team" the Braves had a few decent cards included as well.  

Here we've got some guys I collect who played for the White Sox and/or are named Gavin. I've got a Christmas Card of that Hoyt, so it's nice to get the base too. And glad to see Topps use that quirky "wearing shorts" photo of Goose on a card. I used that same pic on a custom a decade ago.

Lots of other good stuff from Chris filling up the box; pile pic here for brevity.

Some unopened packs! I might keep the '86 as-is for my Dick Williams PC, as long as Chris didn't have his heart set on me tearing into that cellophane. This post is long enough, so I'll hang on to the Brockum Rock Cards and the National Hockey Card Day packs for a rainy day rip.

But I definitely tore into the Mystery Pack. Let's reveal the mystery..

Autographs of Colton Cowser and Domingo Acevedo get top billing, plus a couple more solid Padres.

Non-baseball highlights for me include shiny Prizms of greats from yesteryear.

Modern players, too, with lots of guys named Jayden and Jalen and a few other dudes I'm somewhat familiar with despite not paying much attention to those sports these days.

I'm always a sucker for refractors.

And the rest! Oldest card in the lot is an oddball from 1980 of Babe Ruth dancing in the batter's box.

Well, that was a lot of fun to go through. Big thanks, Chris! Thrilled I was able to get in on the celebration. Congrats on 10 years of the blog and 40 years of collecting!

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!

Johnny two times

I received a PWE from Johnny's Trading Spot the other day, followed up shortly by a second PWE, so let's take a look.

The first envelope was mostly Gavins, highlighted by this shiny Gavin Grahovac "So Money!" auto numbered 1/7 on the back. Looks like Grahovac is still in college, off to a solid start to the 2026 NCAA baseball season at Texas A&M.

Here we've got more Gavins plus a Caminiti. Good stuff. Gavin Lux apparently grew out his beard after leaving Los Angeles. He's with Tampa now.

The second envelope was all Greg Maddux cards. I nearly got surprised by the winnings, but I was reading John's blog where he mentioned I had won the premiere edition of Maddux Monday (the ongoing giveaway of John's plentiful Greg Maddux duplicates), and before I had even finished reading the post, the envelope flopped through my mail slot, right on cue.

I thought it'd be redundant to show all 18 cards since they were all up on Johnny's blog recently, but here are four I picked out to feature. I collected Maddux since my original stint as a young collector, with his Rated Rookie being a highlight of my early collection. His career really blossomed with the Braves, and he'd go on to pitch for my Padres for a couple years as he was winding down his HOF career. A random personal connection is that he reminds me of one of my cousins-- well, my cousin is older and balder now, but back in the day he looked sorta like him, and has a similar sounding voice too.

But anyways, I'm always happy to add to my Greg Maddux PC, and any common dupes can be useful for cardart, so Maddux Mondays are right up my alley.

This contest win comes on the heels of scoring the Hunter Renfroe SSP featured last post, and while it's tempting to try riding that hot streak-- like, how hilarious would it be if I ran the table on Maddux Mondays?! lol-- I should probably give it a week or two before trying to claim more free cards from the cardsphere, and maybe think about running another contest/giveaway of my own one of these days.

Thanks for the cards, John!

Renfroe, Hunted

 
After being the lucky winner of the Diamond King's big serial-numbered lot giveaway last December, I got greedy and spoke up for the Golden Mirror variation he generously put up for grabs the other day. But it had been up for a few hours with no one yoinking it, so I figured it'd be ok for me to raise my hand. Royals fans probably don't think much of Renfroe after he struggled with the team in 2025, getting released in May. 

But I have a big Hunter Renfroe PC, accumulated mostly passively by virtue of him being a hot rookie on my favorite team back during the height of my pack-ripping and blogger-trading days, and he was one of those rookies that Topps went nuts over, with tons of rookie-year cards produced. But yeah, he's a guy I collect and I fondly remember him cranking some big home runs for my Padres back in the late 2010s.

As a nod to Kevin, I thumbed through my Renfroe PC with the intention of picking out 5 highlights to feature on the blog, and well...

 
Over a decade on, I still have a boner soft spot for 2015 Bowman/Bowman Chrome parallels, and had to gather these half dozen together.

A couple solid Panini cards here, with a Draft Picks autograph and a Rated Rookie /10 artist proof.

The last card I picked to show off is a Clearly Authentic rookie auto, obtained in trade with Coffee Matt a few years back, if I recall correctly. 

I've been doing lots of organizing and straightening up in the cardroom lately, and was excited to find the fabric sample book I had misplaced, so don't be surprised to see more funky background in my card photos this year, occasionally spicing up the plain white backdrops. In fact, here are a couple alternate shots of the clear card: 

Doesn't look like Hunter has latched on with another team since Kansas City cut him last season, so that might be all she wrote for his playing career, but here's wishing him the best. Thanks again to Kevin for the giveaway and to you all for stopping by.

Rod rules

Remnants from Padrographs Rod's holiday pack ripping have been popping up on the blogs recently, and I've again been fortunate enough to be included on his Nice List. Rod swung by my house last month with a reusable grocery bag full of goodies including north of a thousand cards, mostly recent stuff. Took me a while, but I've finally got it sorted enough to pick out some highlights for a post.

After this instant-PC, looks like I'm rooting for Marcelo Mayer to breakout as Boston's next superstar. And he's a fellow San Diego area kid, so that's cool.

My Blake Snell PC pretty much doubled thanks to the stack from Rod, with the eye-catchingest ones pictured above. 

Elly De La Cruz is a fun player to watch/collect.

Tatis additions are always welcomed, especially fun stuff like this.

More shiny cards of guys I collect.. love it!

Funky stuff here with a modern Manny Machado oddball that has a nice gold swirl effect in-hand, a Corbin Carroll card you could play with if you're brave enough to pop it out, and a Jackson Merrill mini parallel.

Big ol' box o' Gwynns! By the handwriting on the box, looks like it originated from a local card show dealer I've bought from in the past (back in 2019, boxes of 1970 and 1972 Topps with similar writing on them). Sure, this box is mostly overproduction era, but there are undoubtedly a few needs for me in there, plus other modern Gwynns were mixed in with the other cards from Rod. So yeah, I'm due for a Gwynn PC update (he's one of the few guys I try to keep logged at TCDB). And I don't mind restocking on extra junk dupes because they often come in handy for cardart ideas.

I tried to get cute with this photo of some of the more visually interesting football cards of the lot. That's Adam Thielen in the back, Nick Bosa and Justin Herbert in the front.

My first pass through the boxes, I didn't know who Drake Maye was, just to give you an idea of how little attention I've been paying to football in recent years. But I've since ascertained that he's had a great season and helped lead the Patriots back to the Super Bowl, which is happening one of these days coming up, probably on a weekend, I'd assume. lol  But yeah, cool additions for my modest pigskin collection.

Excited to find a bunch of 2025 Topps Chrome Disney cards in the boxes, as these are all the rage with a certain segment of card collectors, right? I seem to recall I tried bidding on a Christmas Card of one of these things and getting blown out of the water. Remember how canary diamond was a 1/1 parallel back in 2011 or so? Well, this pair is unnumbered but I'll pretend they're really rare. Cheshire Cat is a nice pull. That Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite Disney flicks, with the original Mary Poppins and sleeper pick Bedknobs and Broomsticks rounding out my top 3.

Last thing to show today isn't a card but a nice replica jersey of Yu Darvish's City Connect uniform.

Very cool item to diversify my collection a bit, not just my Darvish PC, as I don't have much stuff like this. (I still have the partially cut-up pants that I used to make some custom Brian Giles game-used relic cards years back. I should really do something with what I still have unused. Maybe I could make cardart cards out of the pants or something?) But I'll resist taking a pair of scissors to this jersey. Yu is out for the year and likely to retire rather than slog through another long rehab as he pushes 40, but his agent wants to make sure he milks the Padres for all they can get before he walks away from that contract. Oh well, he had a solid career but collectors who've been keeping his cards in their "maybe HOF?" box will likely be cutting bait if they haven't already. I still luv Yu, though, and really dig this jersey.

Thanks again for the cool stuff, Rod! 

Incoming birthday/holiday cards

Merry Christmas Eve, everybody! Yep, it's also my b-day, too. 

A while back, there was a Blog Bat-Around about cards numbered with your birthday. With mine so late in the year, it takes an extra large set to include a number 1224 in the checklist. But yeah, I've rounded up 3 of them so far...

A couple minor league sets from the 80s and one from the Conlon Collection.

Gotta love old TCMA, and I do kinda collect this Brian Giles as like quirky side-PC to my big PC of the better-known Brian Giles.

And I ripped a lot of those blue '89 ProCards packs back in the day. I started collecting in 1990, so they were "older" and I was looking for the hot '90 rookies, and yeah, even Mark Gardner had some hype, and went on to a respectable MLB career, sticking around through the 2001 season. 

I don't have much to say about Joe Bowman, but he was probably cool too. I think I threw these cards into my Sportlots cart months ago, and eventually placed orders with the respective sellers. Has anybody ordered from Sportlots lately? The past week or so, it's taken me to new "improved" shopping cart which doesn't let you separate between sellers. Not cool! Is it just me, like maybe I have too many cards in my cart, or did they really F up their cart interface? That'd be a bummer if they took a dump so soon after COMC also took a turn for the worse too. Running out of good, big online card shops to use! :(

The backs. The number on the Giles is in small text after the copyright.

-  - -o 

Now for some incoming cards that some blogger buds sent to brighten up my holidays.

First up is a nice package from Dennis at TMV. Sorry these, photos are dark, by the way. I took them last night, knowing the 24th and 25th would be busy, but I could sneak in some blogging time hanging out with the fam. (Keeping it tight for time.) But yeah, one thing I asked for this year is a light box, so I'm hopeful that I'll kick up my card-photographing game soon. But yeah, here's a sweet quad relic of Marcus Lattimore #'d 12/25 with a Gavin Sheets relic sporting a pinstripe.

Gavins!

More Gavins!

Good stuff. Thanks, Dennis! Very nice of you to keep up the string of holiday mailings that I've been lucky enough to be included in. I'll hit you back with a thank-you soon.

-  --o

Next up are some signed cards from Japan. 2011 Topps is a fav modern design for me, and Neshek is a PC guy.

And some Bowman cards, including a couple former Padres I remember rooting for in years past.

Thank you, Zippy! Merry Christmas, even if this wasn't specifically meant as a holiday surprise. 

-  - -o

Last is Bob from Best Bubble surprising me with a yuletide-timed card package.

Gotta pay the Gavin Tax when you send me cards, lol. Nice variety here.

This trio of neat Tony Gwynns off the beaten path might've been the highlight for me.

More Padres, including some autos.

Attractive ladies!

The backs.

More lovely gals.

Big thanks, Bob! I've been working on a package for you, and hope to get that sent out soon.

Thanks again to these folks for the cards, and happy holidays to everybody reading. I'll be trying to get a Christmas post out tomorrow if I can find the time to type it up.