Breaking All The Rules (card show recap!)

I brought home a mammoth haul from the card show yesterday, though I spent comfortably under $20. Much of that was thanks to being gifted with a box of stuff from a fellow blogger who happens to also be a Padres fan living in Portland.

I passed on last month's Christmastime card show, so it felt like an extra long time since I've thumbed through stacks of cardboard strange. No card I bought was over 50¢. I thought long and hard about picking up a blaster or hobby box of something to rip, but ultimately was strong enough to resist the urge. I don't know if I'm just at a good place with my collection at the moment, or if the pickin's were slim, but there just wasn't a lot I came across that I was feeling compelled to spend money on.

Back to the blogger box, Rod from Padrographs emailed me before the show saying he was downsizing his collection a bit and had some stuff to unload on me. Sweet!

Every new year I joke that my only collecting goal for the year is to not add any bobbleheads to my collection, keeping my total at zero. But I can't resist free shit, so here we are! While I very much appreciate the gift, I would be interested in moving these to better homes, so consider these all up for trade by motivated owner. Want one? Let me know!

This glass-framed Steve Garvey display is probably the jewel of the box Rod gave me. Looks great with a signed photo and an assortment of cards from Garv's days in San Diego.

No, thank you! Already got this badboy up on my wall.

These commemorative Gwynn things will likely end up there soon as well.

The only cards in Rod's box were these rare 1988 Topps Keith Comstock variations. One is an error with white letters in the team name, while the other is a cloth test pressing...

.. It's blank on the back. Kinda cool.. I had never heard of this. Per Baseballcardpedia, "1988 Topps Cloth is a 121-card, skip-numbered, set that partially-parallels the regular 1988 Topps issue. The set was a test issue that was never intended for release; however, was backdoored into The Hobby. Each card was printed on a very thin gauze-like material that retains water like a sponge."

Thanks for the stuff, Rod! As always, just let me know if I can ever return the favor with anything.

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Now onto the official card show haul...

Once again my weakness for thick cases pulls me toward certain cards. That woody Caminiti is pretty cool, with the translucent center. We'll be seeing more from Cammy before this post is over. The Mark Buehrle is #'d 75/149.

Some vintage, including the sole setbuild pickup from the show. I'm just 10 cards away from halfway-complete with 1965 Topps now.

I love "water cards" and so that Konerko was an easy choice. The Maddux I was hopeful was a glowing parallel, but alas, it's not one of the glowing ones. That's Jackie Bradley, Jr with the patriotic parallel. That sealed box of 1992 playing cards was just a quarter, as were most of these cards pictured so far. I'll likely open it up and distribute the cards into various PCs, particularly tempted by the Julio Franco pictured. It's weird spending money on A-Rod cards, but these "CD" diecut inserts are cool. I'm not familiar with the song "40/40 Vision". Let's see if YouTube can help me out. [...] Nope. Let's try to think up more appropriate songs for his theoretical album.
"Stuck in the Middle With You"
"Your Cheating Heart"
"Hello" by Adele

Vintage trade bait! Let me know if you're interested in any of these.

Modern trade bait! Want any of these? The Kerry Wood cards were picked up with P-town Tom in mind, but turns out he already has them, so now another Cubs fan has a shot.

Here are my pricey buys of the day, at 50¢ each for these 4 cards. I'm just a sucker for a beautiful shiny card! Mookie Betts xprismfractor or whatever. The Monte Harrison is #'d 79/250 and may end up with Tony L. at some point. Jon Gray is #'d 29/150. The Robert Stephenson orange wave is unnumbered, but might be my best buy of the day. I think he's the Reds' top prospect at the moment.

Now we're into dimebox territory. I believe these were 15 for $1. I don't really collect Tanaka, but a thick Museum Collection card for that price is hard to pass up. I think that Puig is the first I'm seeing of 2015 Prizm. Not a bad design, but I'm so burnt out on the brand and it's insistence with hitting you over the head with metallic silver.

Some Bowman cards, including a Gavin Cecchini PC need and a few other solid prospects. Again, these were sub-dime.

More cards. Love seeing Crime Dog as a Padre. Weird seeing Goose as an A. The Pete Rose card makes me laugh because of the time or two it was featured on Baseball Card Vandals.

I had been looking out for a Klesko Leaf RC, so I was happy to find it in the dimebox. Also another Caminiti sighting. Ernie Banks mini. Finest from Marquis Grissom and Reggie Sanders.

There were a pack or two worth of Cooperstown cards in the dimebox. I pulled out these 3 guys including Vin Scully, a man who definitely needs more cardboard representation out there, a cause I've taken up by making customs.

A couple each of Vlad and Miggy.

Last thing.
I really try to keep my collection limited to cards only, mainly for space/storage reasons, but confronted with free bobbleheads and cheap signed baseballs, I'll sometimes break the rules.

I said 50¢ was the most I spent on any card, but my splurge of the day was $5 for this autographed Ken Caminiti ball/card/display piece. It was priced at $10 and I debated it for a long time, walking by and talking myself into and out of it, and ultimately it was my final purchase of the day as I was on my way out, asking the guy if he'd take $5 for it. He said yes without hesitation, so everybody left happy. There's little doubt this is an authentic signed ball, because if someone were to bother forging it, they would certainly have done a better job, such as signing on the sweet spot. It's not the most impressive looking display stand, but for $5 I'm loving it. I'll likely swap out the card for one with him on the Padres, but that signed 1992 Leaf card is pretty cool, too.

The late, great Caminiti is a deep link for me to the Padres teams of the late 90s. I wasn't collecting cards at the time, but I watched nearly every game on TV and loved those teams, especially the '96 and '98 squads when they got into the playoffs. It's really just been in the past year or two that I've posthumously forgiven him for the PED shit and embraced collecting his cards, and this is a nice cornerstone of the Caminiti PC now.

So that wraps up another card show haul. Thanks for reading!

Tony Gwynn SDSU custom print

Just a quick post today. Got a few surprise trade packages in the mail I'll type up in a post soon, probably tomorrow, and I'm excitedly awaiting a few TTMs that'll hopefully start trickling in soon. But for now I just want to show off this custom 4x6 print I put together.

I came across a cool black and white photo of Tony Gwynn showing bunt from his days at San Diego State. I threw a SDSU logo in the corner and put on a facsimile auto, popping with the same shade of red from the logo. For added coolness, it's his rare full name signature that he often used for legal documents, but rarely for cards and memorabilia. His full name signature can be found on some later-career Bowman cards, though they seem to use his early autograph (notably with a different style G.)

So anyways, I'm happy with this print combining my favorite player and my alma mater. Makes for a nice little display piece. I suppose I could shrink it down to standard trading card size, too.

Here's a bonus Gwynn for you to check out while you're here..

Picked up this 2010 Topps Tribute b&w refractor #'d /99 for 99¢ in a bulk combined shipping eBay win a while back. Shiny!

There's a less rainbowy photo of it.

Thanks for taking a moment out of your day to stop by. Have a great weekend-- hopefully it's a 3-day one for ya.

Goonies autograph display project completed!

Really happy with this! Just knocked out a collecting goal I had kicking around in my head for a while now. The Goonies has been one of my all-time favorite movies since I was a kid. Besides the DVD and the NES game, I never owned any Goonies stuff. Rectified that in a big way recently with certified autos of the 4 main goonies (L-R: Corey Feldman, Sean Astin, Ke Huy Quan, Jeff Cohen) and designed this display piece with that frame I serendipitously snagged as a parting gift on my way out of work last week. The final piece to fall into place was the Chunk auto, picking it up in my post-Christmas COMC order. The center picture has the distinction of being the first thing I've printed with the fancy new printer I got from my wife as a birthday present.

Sure, the cards are all stickergraphs, but at least I can be reasonably assured they're authentic, which is more than you can say about the various autographed 8x10's on eBay and the like. The Corey Feldman card even has a star-shaped clothing relic in it and is numbered /250 on the back. Funny enough, that was the cheapest card of the four. I paid the most for the Ke Huy Quan Indiana Jones Heritage card. All told, I was able to keep the project comfortably within double-digits, and could have been less had I exercised a bit more patience waiting for cards with low opening bids rather than grabbing Buy It Now's. But I was pretty excited to put this together.

I've shared these photos here before. They're from our trip to the Goonies House in Astoria, OR on the day I proposed back in 2013.

There are three other goonies I wouldn't mind adding autographs of to my collection: Kerri Green (swoon!), Martha Plimpton, and Josh Brolin, but those 3 don't seem to have easily available certified auto cards out there, so I'm not going after them at them moment. Perhaps Cryptozoic or a card company like that will come out with a Goonies card set one of these days with autos and such (similar to the upcoming Cryptozoic Ghostbusters set; another favorite film of my childhood). That would be cool.

As far as other possible additions, The Fratelli Brothers, Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi, both have auto cards out there, but they're not a priority for me. I'll wait for a good deal. Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) and Sloth (John Matuszak) sadly died back in the late 80s, so they don't have anything in the way of pack-certified autographs. If I really wanted to be thorough, I could also go after autos of director Richard Donner and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Hell, even Cyndi Lauper would be a sweet addition (soundtrack star and another dreamgirl of mine from the era). But for now I think I'm content with just the 4 main goonies.

Rod Beck and the painted canyons now have some kids to keep them company on the south wall of my card room.

What do you guys think? Pretty badass, right?!

The Man, The Myth, The Rod Beck Collection

I love Rod Beck. One of those "like to have a beer with" type of dudes, and in fact he was known for hanging out with fans doing just that. He also was enthusiastic about working with childhood AIDS charities. This real-life inspiration for Kenny Powers was a big guy and a big personality who sadly succumbed to his demons.

I try to keep my collecting habit to cards-only, but I made an exception for this custom 5x7 that I made recently using a couple photos of victorious moments from his time on the Padres, with a window cut out for an autographed index card I got for a few bucks on eBay. I've got it hung up in my cardroom as a reminder to 1) Be excellent to each other, and 2) Stay away from the hard stuff. Good rules to live by.

Rod began his pro career in the late 80s and played into the mid 00s, so he's got a ton of cards out there, mostly "commons" that aren't expensive but still somewhat overwhelming in number. Luckily for me, I'm not trying to get them all; my goal is just 100 different cards. I don't think I'm quite there yet, but let's take a look.

That's funny; I've got 3 minor league cards from 1989 ("Baby Becks" as I call them), but nothing from '90 or '91. Only one true rookie, in that 1992 Fleer Ultra.

Shooter really broke out onto the cardboard scene in 1993. Upper Deck is the star of the show here, with even a basic pitching shot looking great on '93 UD.

Looking good in 1994. Some neat parallels here including a Stadium Club rainbow foil (or whatever they called it), a Silver Signature Collector's Choice, and an Electric Diamond Upper Deck.

1995 crams the scanner, highlighted by a sweet Seals throwback in the middle, with a sparkly Score parallel beside it. A trio of great cards lines the bottom, including a credit card looking thing, an autograph-signing photo, and a rare closer at the plate shot from Collector's Choice.

1996 features my only two autographed Rod Beck cards, one of which is slabbed authentic (I don't believe Rod ever had any pack-certified autos put out, so this is as close as you can get). The Fleer Ultra card with him holding a baby is a classic.

Here we've got a few '97 cards, and one of Rod's last appearance on a Giants card.

1998 saw Beck slinging it for the Cubbies. As you can see, the parallels are in full force in this scan.

After a few more Cubs cards in 1999, my Beck-lection goes dark. No cards from 2000 through 2002. I hadn't realized I don't have any cards from his stint on the Red Sox! I'll need to rectify that soon.

Here's the final scan, and as a Padres fan, it'd say it's the best of the bunch. Filling in for an injured Trevor Hoffman, Shooter was a bright spot on a last-place San Diego team in 2003, saving 20 games (for a team that only won 64) with a 1.78 ERA. This is even more impressive considering he sat out all of 2002 recovering from Tommy John surgery. His numbers weren't nearly as good in 2004, and he was released near the end of the season and called it a career.

Rod died in 2007 after a few years of sinking into a crack addiction that had earlier cost him his marriage. Through it all, the couple remained close, living in houses just a few miles apart and sharing holidays and custody of their two daughters. Since I'm posting this on Thanksgiving, I feel I should tie this into being thankful for your loved ones and all that. So yeah, take a moment to be thankful that/if neither you nor your immediate family are drug addicts.


Anyways, that's 58 cards by my count. Geez, barely halfway to a hundred. Oh well, I look forward to adding more Rod Beck cards to my collection. Perhaps a Rod-focused Just Commons order is in my future, with specific interest in his later years (Cubs, Red Sox, Padres). Doing posts like this is helpful for me to sort out my collection and see what I have/need. If you have any Rod Beck cards not pictured here to send to a loving home, get in touch.

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!

nice Dodgers 1988 WS display piece

There was this shadow box that showed up on eBay not long ago commemorating Kirk Gibson's dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series. What caught my eye was the inclusion of a Kirk Gibson 2004 Topps Retired Signature Edition certified autograph. Anyone who's been reading this blog for a while knows that I'm bonkers over this set, and my current foolish obsession collecting goal is to obtain all 76 autographs in the set. And I needed that Gibby. Also included were an Eckersley auto from the same set (I already got that one) and a commemorative postcard signed by Gibson.

I just recently started using an eBay sniping site (head nod to the site Gixen and user Junichi for letting me know about it in a previous comment).. very handy and less stress than trying to be around to place a "live" bid near an auction's end. So I entered a sniping bid basically just a bit over what I had recently paid for just the Eckersley card alone. I ended up with the winning bid (just 3 cents under my max bid) and got it. Cool.

This is a neat display, but again, I really just wanted it to scrap out the Gibson card (which I don't think I've seen for sale elsewhere yet). But I liked the concept of this display. Some things about it I wasn't crazy about, though. The Gibson card features him in a Tigers uniform, so it doesn't really fit the theme. Plus, since the postcard thing-- ("Gateway cachet" is apparently the medical term for this particular type of memorabilia item.. and it's not actually a postcard, but an empty envelope)-- is also signed by him, it seems a bit redundant to have 2 autographs by the same guy in one display.

So I looked around for a nice-looking Gibson card I could swap in. I found just the ticket in a 2005 eTopps card. It commemorated the home run in question, and featured a photo from that famous trot. Plus it was in one of those encased "uncirculated" cases, so it fit the feel of the display (and matched the encased Eck). And it was a refractor, so it was all purdy n' shiny. According to the seller, only 714 were made and most are kept in online portfolios (I think this is my first eTopps card.. I still don't totally get the concept).

So I got the card and swapped it in there. Pretty pleased with how it turned out.

While I'm not a huge Dodger fan, as a baseball fan, I definitely have a reverence for that magic moment. So I'll proudly prop this puppy on my wall for the time being and admire it when it catches my eye. While I'm not anxious to part with it, I'll let it be known to y'all that I'm open to trade offers. I'm specifically looking for "upper tier" guys I still need from the 2004 Topps Retired autos.

Here's the original details from the seller:

THIS ONE FEATURES:
A GATEWAY CASHET ENVELOPE CELEBRATING THE 1988 WORLD SERIES HOME RUN BY KIRK GIBSON IN GAME 1. 
THE ENVELOPE HAD BEEN PLACED IN AN ACRYLIC SCREW DOWN HOLDER. 
IT FEATURES A SILK INSERT SHOWCASING DODGER STADIUM AND THE OAKLAND COLISEUM. 
IT IS POSTMARKED OCTOBER 15, 1988 THE DAY THE FAMOUS HOMERUN WAS HIT. 
THE NEXT 2 CARDS ARE A 2004 TOPPS CHROME CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH BLACK CHROME REFRACTOR. (ed. note: the cards aren't really refractors, as I could tell from the photos.)
EACH OF THESE CARDS HAS A SEAL FROM TOPPS AND ARE WHAT ARE CALLED ENCASED.
IF THE SEAL IS BROKEN, IT VOIDS THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE AUTOGRAPH. BOTH SEALS ARE INTACT.
THERE IS ONE AUTOGRAPHED BY KIRK GIBSON AND THE OTHER AUTOGRAPHED BY DENNIS ECKERSLEY.
EACH OF THESE CARDS HAS A TOPPS HOLOGRAM STICKER ON THE BACK OF THE CARD.
I MADE THESE SHADOW BOXES MYSELF.
I USED BRAND NEW CARD CASES THAT DO NOT HAVE ANY SCRATCHES (EXCEPT FOR THE ENCASED CARDS IN THIS AUCTION).
I USED A 2 LAYER VELCRO TAB SYSTEM TO ADHERE EACH ITEM TO THE BACKING. (ed note: I was able to take the velcro off the Gibson auto card without too much trouble or any damage to anything, and stuck it on the the refractor I swapped in.)
THIS CREATES A FLOATING EFFECT FOR EACH ITEM.
THEY WILL NEVER PEEL OFF OVER TIME.
THE BACKING WAS CUSTOM ORDERED FROM A FRAME SHOP WHICH HAS A TEXTURED FINISH.
THE FRAME INSIDE IS AN 8X10, BUT, THE ACTUAL FRAME ITSELF IS 9X11.
I CLEANED THE GLASS FROM BOTH SIDES.
EACH PIECE IS READY TO HANG.

Oh, and here's an attempt to show you the glory of the refractor, though it kinda turned out terrifying.

Kirk Gibson is being attacked by flying rainbow banshees! Save him!