a couple cheap cards

I received this Tony Clark card in the mail yesterday, coincidentally the same day he shockingly resigned as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. My understanding is that he was being investigated for financial curiosities, and that investigation revealed naughty emails with his wife's sister, whom he had given a job with the MLBPA. These days, it seems powerful people just "ignore/lie/power-thru" after they get caught doing something they really shouldn't have (*cough* Epstein files *cough*), so good for Tony Clark for showing himself out, I guess.

I don't PC the guy, but rather I'm trying to complete the full set of Bowman refractor reprints from 1998. The insert set is 50 cards, featuring highlights from the original run of vintage Bowman, plus the Topps' revival from '89 through '96 (Bowman Chrome began in 1997, so these inserts are like a greatest hits of their pre-Chrome years.. "Refractors that never were (of base cards that were)" if you will, so to speak). Tony Clark is an odd choice to reprint with the hindsight that he was never a big star, though at that point he had just followed up a third-place ROY campaign in '96 with a solid 1997 that saw him garner some down-ballot MVP votes. He was an All-Star in 2001 and also had an impressive 2005 season, but he only accrued a dozen wins above replacement in his career, all said and done.

Anyways, I've still got a ways to go with this set, but will be bumped past the 50% threshold once my latest COMC order arrives later this spring. But yeah, I've still been hunting down refractor reprints from the late 90s and early 00s, actively building various runs that I'm excited to post about after completion.

I'm reluctant to say this is the final COMC order I'm waiting on, but I've definitely been trying to avoid buying from them since this batch. You'd figured after tripling their shipping rates that they would use that extra money to hire an additional order picker or two, but nope, they seem to be backed up again maybe even worse than they got during the pandemic, with shipping estimates pushed out for several months. The vibe I'm getting isn't "wow, COMC is doing lots of business" but rather "wow, COMC is struggling and folks are rushing to get their cards out before the site owners pull the plug and complete the transition to eBay-consignment account only". But I don't really know. Times are bad everywhere, it seems, as society is sapped of humanity and herded into an AI curated existence whether we like it or not. But back to bitching about online card shops, Sportlots keep updating their site to make it harder to use. That Canadian online card shop folded (I never got around to ordering from them, but they seemed to get positive marks from the bloggers who did). I've tried to get more active trading at TCDb but it's been an uphill slog and my successful transactions there seem to be few and far between. (I've recently finished sorting a monster box with my available Archives/Ginter/Heritage that I plan to enter in my "For Trade" list soon and hope that helps improve my trade-matching.)

Oh, and the USPS has been sucking lately, too. I had a Nolan Ryan reprint refractor show up in the tracking as delivered that I never got. :( And that Tony Clark card that arrived yesterday took 2 whole weeks to get to me from Florida.

And back to that. the eBay seller had a promotional discount offer to entice you to buy more than one card from him, so I took a quick browse of his inventory and found another card that caught my eye at a good price:

This is the 102nd Dick Allen card of mine to be logged at TCDb, and forgive the language but I'm still downright tickled pink to be his #1 ranked collector there, even now a ways into his HOF inclusion, causing him to default into being a guy that Hall of Fame collectors now collect. I figured a more focused supercollector would have knocked me off the top spot by now. But nope, second-place is currently a 3-way tie with 84.

Back to the card, this is a Blue Ice Prizm parallel of Dick Allen's 2025 Panini Prizm card. It's my first of the 33-card rainbow, though I also have a Red Pulsar Prizm and Ruby Wave Prizm pending in that eventual COMC shipment. I didn't remind myself of that fact until after snagging the Blue Ice one, so I got lucky not to double up. I like that the card shows Dick in his later Phillies stint, something you don't see on many of his cards, especially an action shot. On the downside, lawyers have instructed the cardmakers to remove logos and wordmarks from the photo due to the fact that another cardmaker paid a lot of money to have lawyers say that only they can make cards that have those special logos and words. Man, everything bad in this world always boils down to greed. Humans be greedy, put that on our headstone.

LOL, I'm sorry this quick post showing off a 2-card mailday turned into a lot of negative ranting! I just thought it was a crazy coincidence the random Tony Clark card showed up in my mailbox the very day his career took a sudden tumble. 

For a more positive coincidence, I'll mention that this past Monday I was out walking the dog making our way home and I saw what I first figured might be a crow with a big piece of bread in its beak (lots of crows around here), but as it flew closer, it became clear that, no, it was a bald eagle! Came in kinda low but it was quick and I didn't want to take my eyes off it to fiddle with my phone, so no photos. Don't see those very often in my neighborhood, and so to get a bald eagle flyover, on Presidents' Day no less, was a neat experience.

Oh, and another happy thing to mention.. I was supposed to have jury duty today, but thankfully I got an email yesterday saying nevermind I'm not needed. I wouldn't mind being on a jury, but what had me stressed is waking up early enough to get downtown by 8am. I'm a night owl like Night Owl and don't usually get to bed until around/after midnight. But instead of being sleep-deprived waiting to see if I get called in, I got to sleep in and then ramble out a blog post with my morning. So that's cool! :)

untitled p0st for Oct 10, 2020

Here's a peek at my card room today. I'm not proud of this cluster-kerfuffle. And the other walls in the room aren't really any better. 

I'm moving in a few days. 

Oh man, it's gonna sucks transporting all this stuff. At least the new place is less than 5 minutes away. I'll just take a lot of trips, I guess.

I was thinking my new card room was gonna be a little smaller, though my wife said she thinks the new one is bigger. I don't remember it much. I've only been inside the new house once so far, over a month ago back when we first looked at it. The market is so competitive here right now that you can't pussyfoot around if you want to buy a house. Excited to get the keys soon and finally start moving in.

Anyways, I hope the new room won't get so messy. When we first moved into this current house, I hadn't quite gone so hard back into card collecting yet. There was the thought when we moved in that the room would be like my "music room" where I'd get Fiberoctopus going again and work on some tunes. But I just found myself turning to cards in my spare time, not picking up my instruments. But yeah, that room has really gotten away from me with all the cards n' crap over the past 7 years. A semi-fresh start should be good.

Tradeathon cards from Wes! I'm not a big football collector, but I've got some favorites like Walter Payton, so I pounced when Wes offered that PSA'd '78. I don't really know of the player David Grayson, but jumped at that one because of my recent infatuation with old Kellogg's cards. I've got a bunch of Kellogg's baseball cards, but this is my first football one, not to mention my first graded Kellogg's card. Pretty neat. Also called dibs on the yellow Soto rookie cup, Gwynn pinstripe, and Padres triple relic with a trio of past Padres pitching greats (wish we could have had some guys like that in 2020 on the mound against the Dodgers in that last series. Oh well, waitin' till next year. Go Braves.) Great package all around thanks to the Pancake King.

Big thanks, Wes! I hope I don't make you wait too long for the return your way.

Back to old house stuff, here's my glow-in-the-dark shelf as it stands before the inevitable clear-out. Everything here glows in the dark at least in part. I hope I find a good shelf to fill up with glowing stuff somewhere in the new house to keep that project alive and growing.

Happy Halloween-time.

Speaking of different glowing colors, check out this new card I got recently.....

This is an 1997 Oddbodz from Australia.. it's actually a "Combo Glo" parallel that includes two glowing colors.

Cool!

In my previous post I mentioned I loved cards with "hidden" glowing parts, and the cards that Farley's distributed with their pouches of Dinosaurs fruit snacks in 1993 are an excellent example of that. 

Skeleton! 

I recently tracked down 3 of the 4 cards. Just need the Brontosaurus.

Today my dog Ruby turned the big "Five Mo.".. 5 months old, that is. Here's a video of her getting a bellyrub out in the backyard the other day. There wasn't any sound because my phone's broken, so I put a short song over it that I made back in 2007 that happened to be about the same length. (I ran that "big five mo" joke by my wife and she said it wasn't as funny as I thought it was, but I'm using it anyways, lol) 

This is 2020

I almost forgot to switch out my wallet card like I've done every year since I began keeping a wallet card in 2015. Seeing as I haven't left the house all week thanks to this brutal stomach flu, I haven't actually had my wallet on my person yet in 2020, so no harm done. Let's switch it out now.

2019's wallet card was a lovely specimen of 1991 Topps featuring Mr. Tony Gwynn. It looks great! He didn't get to go on many great adventures, but he was with me through the ups and downs of 2019.

From checking the wallet card label on blog, looks like I only tagged a couple posts as having wallet card photos in 2019, the first of which being a recap of a beach trip where Tony got to dip his toe into the Pacific.

The only other wallet card appearance on the blog for the year was a 4th of July walk to grab a couple beers. Snapped a pic of Annie with the card and a dog toy she found. Man, she was a great pup and my wife and I miss her a ton.

Here is the "Before" picture from last year.

I was stressing out trying to pick a new wallet card for 2020. I'm running at diminished capacity due to the illness, so it's no easy task. Sometimes when I stay home sick, I can still be productive and do stuff around the house, maybe work on custom cards in my "to do" list (Haven't forgotten your dad, Nick!), but this time I haven't been able to do much besides sit on the couch. Even typing this post is pushing my limits right now! Let's seque now into this post going off the rails a little bit.

Check out these Moana stickers that were available in Kellogg's cereal in 2016. Oh, and they glow! I'm not sure if I should count these in my list of glowing trading cards. They are as wide as a card, but not as tall. Hey, they fit in my glow-in-the-dark cards binder, so they've got a home there, at least.

They look pretty good glowing.

My wife surprised me with some Kinetic Sand for Christmas. This stuff is a TRIP! It even caused Chewbacca and Cobra Commander to broker a peace treaty while the Han Solo Brothers look on under the watchful eye on Boba Fett. It's like sand but weird and clean, almost like wool or something. Pretty fun.

Speaking of Star Wars, the 2019 Festival of Lightsabers concluded yesterday. That was a late end. Usually it takes place during the week between Xmas and New Years. (My "x" key has been sticking on this laptop so I have to really pound it.. annoying. (
I used to keep track of the festival in a text file, but I seem to have lost it, so now I use my blog as a journal and keep in here. So you can scroll down past this; it's just for my records.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTSABERS : history

2007 - 1st Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I, II, III
IV, V, VI - special editions

2008 - 2nd Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I II III
IV V VI - original theatrical versions
Ewok movies

2009 - 3rd Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I II III
IV V VI - theatrical

2010 - 4th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I [The Phantom Edit fan edit]
II [Attack of the Phantom fan edit]
III [regular]
IV V VI - special editions
Robot Chicken star wars special I
Family Guy - something something dark side [empire]
Star Wars Holiday Special w/ Rifftrax commentary

2011 - 5th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Family Guy - It's a Trap [Jedi]
Clone Wars II animated film
III
IV V VI - original theatrical versions
Family Guy - Something, Something Dark Side [Empire]

2012 - 6th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Rifftrax prequels
Trilogy special editions

2013 - 7th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
New Hope [original]
Empire [original]
Clones
Sith
Family Guy (New Hope)
Jedi [original]

2014 - 8th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I, II, III
IV, V, VI - special editions

2015 - 9th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
IV - special edition
V - special edition
II "Attack of the Phantom" fan edit
III
VI - theatrical
VII (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
+ All 3 Family Guy specials
+ Fanboys

2016 - 10th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
25 - Rogue One (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
26 - A New Hope (special edition)
27 - Empire (special edition)
28 - Attack of the Clones
29  - Revenge of the Sith
30 - Jedi (special edition)
31 - Force Awakens

2017 - 11th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
24 - Force Awakens
25 - Last Jedi (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
26 - Family Guy Blue Harvest + Robot Chicken SW Episode I
27 - Rogue One
28 - IV (theatrical)
29 - Family Guy Something Something Darkside + Robot Chicken SW Episode II (I also watched the Star Wars episode of that Netflix "Toys That Made Us" show)
30 - V (theatrical) + Robot Chicken SW Episode III
31 - VI (theatrical) + Family Guy It's a Trap

2018 - 12th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
26 - Solo
27 - Rogue One
28 - A New Hope (special edition)
29 - Empire (special edition)
30 - Jedi (special edition)
31 - The Force Awakens
1/1 - The Last Jedi

2019 - 13th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Force AWakens
Last Jedi
Rise of Skywalker (imaxx 3d on xmas day)
Star Wars Holiday Special (first time watching it without funny Rifftrax commentary. My wife was like WTF?)
New Hope (SE)
Empire (SE)
Return of the Jedi (SE)
..also watched Empire of Dreams, the behind-the-scenes SW doc (via Amazon Prime). Also started watching Clone Wars and the Mandalorian on Disney+.

No prequels this year. Almost watched Rogue One, but something came up. Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on NYE (just like Tom Hanks always does!). I got that onn Blu-ray for mas (XXmas). That's a great and strange film. I also got the Back to the Future trilogo on bluray but we haven't watched them yet. I'm going to not fi typos for the rest of this post as it is off the rails and therefore I don't need to.

I love Pee-Wee's Playhouse. In 2019, the "big post I need to finish" was the glow-in-the-dark cards post. Didn't finish that one until made it my mission to finish it as a tribute to my pup, plus it gave me something to take my mind off things during that rough time. In 2020, I think the post that'll be my new albatross will be my big Pee-Wee cards post. It'll be a lot, but I hope to publish it "soon".
I mentioned it on Twitter, but in that above shot, you've got legendary Dave Letterman prop Calvert DeForest (Larry "Bud" Melman), plus the girl of the left is in this video..



And the boy is in the Mighty Ducks and the girl on the right is in Orange Is The New Black and other stuff.

I've been neglecting my List of cards in movies and TV (I guess with all the time spent on my big list of glowing cards it's hard for me to keep up 2 different lists of cards at once! klol)

But yeah, here's a baseball card in Friends.

I wish I knew how to add an outline/border to my pictures I put on blogger. The white borders of this card get lost. When you see cards on my blog, I pride myself on also showing you the corners and edges. I don't crop cards too close because then you lose some of their story. This image was taken from TCDB, I believe.

Back to Friends.. we were binggging it a bit trying to get thru as much as we could before it was taken off Netflix streaming when the calendar changed. We made it to Season 6, Episode 17 "The One with Unagi". That Duane Ward '92 UD card appears in a few Season 6 episodes back on the bulletin board in Joey/Chandler's place. Matthew Perry (Chandler man) was raised in Canada (born in US), so maybe that's the significance of the Blue Jay on the corkboard.

My wife has watched all the Friends many times, but me, I watched the first few seasons back when they were new, but I lost interest and stopped sometime in the final few seasons. I've still never seen the finale, though I know generally what happens (NO SPoilers but Ross and Phoebe Buffay end up together, I'm pretty sure! lol)

Shoeless Joe makes an appearance too!

RIP Don Larsen.

How'd I do on my goals in 2019?

I don't think I made any. I didn't finish any of my big setbuilds I'm working on, but made a lot of progress. As I've got several builds going at once, I'm ok with taking my time. I should hopefully finish off a set or two from the late 70s or early 80s this year. But again, I'm not in a hurry. I just want to keep on enjoying collecting, and for me that includes having a lot of pokers in the fire. Lots of sets to build, lots of players to collect, and minicollections that grab my attention for a while at a time.

I picked up some big dream cards in 2019. Clemente auto! Cognac Trout! Mantle auto! Nothing specific on my mind for 2020 yet, but we'll see how it shakes out. I will likely focus on non-sports a little. like the Simpsons stuff I mentioned yesterday. Also, MST3K autograph cards are hitting the market as we speak and I will probably try to go after them all if I can. I hear some are short-printed and may end up being very expensive to bring home.



BEERMAS!
I know a couple readers kinda care about my annual thing where I get a beer-a-day from my wife leading up to my bday/xmas eve.

Attn: Fuji, check out the Beastie Boys inspired label among these!

I haven't had the last 3 in this photo yet. Beermas has had some delays this year and will wrap up soon after I recover fully. And yes, I've decided to not to a "dry January" this year after staying away from booze the previous 2 or 3 Januaries. I will make an effort to drink less, though, but overall I've been fine lately and not drinking too much (plus the big annual work party is in late January this year, so trying to have a dry month ain't gonna fly), though I really want to lose some weight. I weighed myself at the in-laws over the holidays and was at my heaviest ever by several pounds. Yikes.. tummy got away from me! But hey, a silver lining of this stomach flu is it starts the diet off strong! lol

Anywyas, these are good beers,. I don't have much "reviews" to give about them this year. Sorry the photos are great and I'm too lazy to type up what these are (but feel free to ask with any questions). The peach IPA was the only one I didn't like, which is surprising since it seems it'd be up my alley.

UPDATE to stress that my wife is super awesome. I feel bad that she caught my stomach flu and has been going thru all the same hell as me but a day later.


Hey, but back to TCDB... I've achieved #1 COLLECTOR ranking for a certain pl;ayer!

This is not a joke. Yes, according to trusted info source The Trading Card Database, yours truly is the world's top Luis Torrens collector.  Feels good to be the best!



BACK TO wallet card!
I was looking for a card among my Padres dupes but I had trouble remembering what cards I've already used. I know I've saved my old wallet cards, but I don't know eactly where in my collection they all are. But I turned once again to my blog's archives to remind me of my life.

my wallet cards thru the years:
2015 - 1988 Topps All-Star Gwynn
2016 - 1987 Topps All-Star Gwynn
2017 - 1987 Fleer "Limited Edition" Gwynn
2018 - 2008 UD Masterpieces Gwynn
2019 - 1991 Topps Gwynn
2020 - ?,,,,

2020 is 30 years removed from 1990. I began collecting in 1990, and ignoring my many years away from the hobby, I'm celebrating 30 years as a card collector this year. I figured I'd throwback to 1990 for this year's wallet card.

I considered taking a break from Tony and giving the honor to Bip Roberts, though ultimately chose to stick to Gwynn. I was about to settle for his base '90 Topps card, though my first choice was his '90 Topps All-Star card, but I could have sworn I already used that one as my wallet card.. it's just so imprinted on my brain. But nope, consulting that list I posted a couple paragraphs up, the A.S. card has not been picked yet!

Here it is! I've got like a dozen of this one. I tried to find one already in rough condition, but they were all decently sharp.
The card is a perfect encapsulation of my first entry into obsessing over cardboard during the awesome summer of 1990. It's a beauty.

Wishing this Wallet Tony and all you readers a very happy 2020!

Scattershot Thru the Heart (trades, tweets, and tribulations)

I'm just going to throw some quick stuff together in this post, including a couple trade recaps, but first let's start with the gif cards I've made recently.

9/12:
On this day in 1979, Carl Yastrzemski picks up his 3000th hit in a 9-2 Red Sox win over the Yankees. Yaz would finish his career with 3419 hits, still good for 9th all-time.

9/19:
Happy Birthday to one of baseball's all-time most inspirational players, Jim Abbott.

Here's a sketchcard I made to throw in with my return package to Julie for the latest batch of cards she sent me. It's from the '68 World Series play at the plate with Bill Freehan blocking Lou Brock. Didn't turn out too bad by my standards!



Hey, Bill Cosby is trending again. Good enough excuse to plug my best post of 2016.

The List of Baseball Cards in Movies and TV got a good amount of attention over Friday and Saturday, and I ended up adding/updating about 20 entries over the weekend. Thanks again to everyone for the response and tips! It's looking pretty good now, though still a work in progress.

Speaking of looking pretty good, how about Lauren Holly in a bikini showing off an Upper Deck Ted Williams card in a 1993 episode of Picket Fences?

Which brings me to the next thing I wanted to mention. Brian at Collecting Cutch whipped out the big guns last October for his monthlong celebration of curvaceous women and raising breast cancer awareness. I ended up winning a sweet Pete Rose auto from last year's festivities, and Brian is back with a couple new contests for this go-round. Visit his post here to get in on the action.

- - ---o

I recently swung a quick trade on Twitter with Heavy J (@HeavyJ28) who was able to take my '85 Donruss needs down to a single card remaining: Lee Smith (which is now atop my Desperate Dozen: can anybody be a set-killing hero for me?). This lot includes four cards from back when painted baseball cards didn't cost $7.99 each (yes, that was a dig at Topps' Living Set, which I dismiss as overpriced Diamond Kings), four HOFer base cards, the inspirational Dave Dravecky, and a couple young Yanks who went onto respectable MLB careers.

A small part of my recent "Twitter tribulations" I mentioned last post, even though he stuck a pair of Forever stamps on it, Jason's envelope arrived postage due $2.50. His mistake was he stacked all the cards together in one team bag, so the envelope was over 1/4" thick, meaning it got counted as package rate, no longer the cheaper letter rate. He was totally apologetic and quickly reimbursed me thru PayPal, so I only mention it here as a heads-up: Remember if you're sending several cards in an envelope, spread them out in 2 or 3 smaller stacks to keep it under a quarter of an inch thick.

I've actually got a big "how to" draft that's gathering dust about sending cards safely and cheaply that I should get around to finishing and posting one of these days. I think it's got some handy tips.

-  - - --o

Next up is a surprise PWE from Bru over at Remember the Astrodome.

An assortment of Padres. Love the Gwynn parallel.

Miles of Giles. I wasn't familiar with 1999 Fleer Brilliants (in the center here), but it's pretty cool. It's on chrome stock and has a classy, minimal design. Reminds me a little of old school Topps Gold Label (not the foilboard reboot). Looks like it only lasted one year, but also had basketball and football counterparts. If boxes weren't so expensive, I'd be tempted to rip some of this.

And finally.. always great to get a Hoyt I didn't have.

Thanks, Bru! I'm dropping a return to you in the mail today. Now next time print me out one of your '68 Nate Colbert customs!

- - ---o

Ok, one more thing for this post, falling under the "tribulations" grouping.

I thought about making this a separate post titled "Ghosted" but I'll just tack it onto the end of this here post instead.

Ghosted

Earlier this month I got an email from a guy named Adam P. who said he was pointed my direction by Larry P. (no relation, lol), whom I've traded with a few times. He was looking for Reds autos (or autos of guys who played for the Reds at one time) and any Barry Larkin cards he needed. I had some stuff that fit his wants and was very agreeable to working out a deal.

Adam proved himself to be one of those thoughtful traders who spends quality time looking through your wantlist, finding what you need and not wasting your time with what you've already got. He sent me an email listing what he had for me that really made me anxious for our trade to go down:

So here is what I have for you:

61 1975 topps

43 1974 topps

1 Beltre

1 bregman

1 Bellinger 

1 Lindor

24 Puckett 

2 Stargell 

3 Dawson

1 Bryant

18 Brett

6 Martinez 

24 Trammell 

18 Fisk 

12 Yount 

33 bo jackson

33 bonds

13 strawberry

13 Iván Rodríguez 

35 canseco

53 McGwire 

52 Clemens

16 Reggie Jackson 

3 Phil Niekro 

1 rob beck (you will like this one!)

2 Padres autos (turner draft pick and Stauffer)

Brett Boone relic

Jen welter relic (hot girls)

There are cards for players from every level of priority on your want list. From highest to you are complete and only want stuff I know you won’t have. That was the case with Reggie. I checked and you don’t have any of the cards I am sending. Some are pretty cool oddballs. For every player you have a link for I check as to not send duplicates. For the ones that didn’t have a link, I can’t guarantee anything lol.  But you could always send back cards you really don’t want. 

Hopefully you are able to find something in other teams, but if not you could just even it out the best you see. 

I think if I counted correctly it’s 474 cards for you 

So this looks awesome to me. I had already given him my address before this and he said he'd send me everything he had for me and that I could just send him back whatever I thought was fair. So I scoured through my various non-PC autos looking for Reds and guys who played for the Reds at one time (didn't have to be in Reds uniform, he was just looking for an all-time autograph project) and I built up a decent stack for him.

I emailed back with a "do you need these guys? ..." message and then a couple days later figured it'd be better to ask him to just send me the list of the guys he doesn't need.

But the sad thing is I haven't heard from him since that email where he listed all the stuff for me, which was nearly 3 weeks ago. I tried contacting him again last week: "Hey Adam, haven't heard from you in a while. Having second thoughts about this trade? We could start with a smaller trade if you like. I've got some good stuff set aside for you. That'd be a bummer if our deal fell through, but no worries. Please just let me know."

Still silence, and that's where we stand now.

So yeah, that's a bummer. I didn't send him anything yet, so it's not like he ripped me off... just gave me the cardboard equivalent of blue balls, I guess. (I'm dying to know what the Rod Beck card was, damn it! lol.) I've had trade negotiations fall apart before-- sometimes my fault, sometimes the other guy's fault-- but not like this. Seemed like we were on the same page and then it just suddenly derailed. The guy went through the trouble of specially picking out a stack of 474 cards for me. I know if I spent that kind of time and effort on a tentative trade, I damn well wouldn't let it go to waste without a fight, much less disappearing without a word.

I can only assume "life stuff" happened and rendered pictures of sports men on cardboard rectangles unimportant. Who knows. Maybe I'll eventually hear from him again, maybe not. Sucks to get ghosted like that. Unless some "life turned upside-down" level shit went down, I think a courtesy reply to my checking-in email is reasonable, right?


(And I've got a somewhat similar story to this one for another day-- the main "Twitter tribulation" that had me frustrated recently-- but looks like that one may have a happy ending after all. Stay tuned.)

Anyways, thanks for reading!

quick trade roundup and other rambling

Got a couple PWEs in the mail this past week.

First up are a few cards from GCA.

Always love getting a new Rod Beck card! Pretty cool one. I visited the Golden Gate Bridge once when I was a kid.

A trio for the Kris Bryant PC.

A couple Sox I collect.

Nice! I had this card in my ongoing '78 Topps setbuild, but happy to score another one for my Tim Blackwell PC.

Thanks a lot, GCA! I'll continue keeping an eye out for cards for ya.

-    -   -  - --o

And now here's a surprise PWE from friend of the blog mr. haverkamp.

Some appreciated needs toward my '84/'85 Donruss setbuilds, with a couple HOFers and an MVP. The "Jeff" Pendleton error is more common than the Terry correction. While I'll consider my set complete without the corrected variation, I wouldn't mind snagging one someday.

This seems to be the card that was the catalyst for the mailing, as mr. haverkamp is a Danny Gladden supercollector, and he noticed I threw this '91 UD card onto my Desperate Double Dozen recently. It's for inclusion in my Thumbs Up minicollection I'm just starting.

Big thanks for the generosity, man! I definitely owe you cards at this point, as this is probably the 3rd or 4th "unanswered" PWE from you, so please let me know if I can return the favor (perhaps some Gladden customs or something?)

- - - ---o

Padding out the post with some non-card miscellany. (If you follow me on Twitter, some of this may be a repeat for you.)

Earlier this month I tackled the project of trimming down a massive bush that had pretty much taken over our front yard. (Yes, my wife took the first picture; not my nails, LOL) I think it was my first experience with a chainsaw, and I'm happy to report all my limbs and digits are still intact! Funny thing is we kinda miss the shade now that it's gone. But the stump bit remaining is already growing back strong (we didn't want to 100% kill it, just get it under control). So I'm sure it'll be back to a reasonable size soon, and then we'll just have to remember to trim it down once in a while so it doesn't go nuts again.

Also pruned some flowers out front that gave us a nice bouquet for a day or two till it withered.

Coming home from work the other day, I saw not one, but TWO bunnies in the front yard of our neighbor on the corner. I'm not sure how these wild rabbits are thriving in this busy city area, but as long as they don't munch up our garden, I'm happy to see these cuties hop around when I can.

Here's Annie ready to protect our garden from any fluffy intruders.

I often doodle on our Tupperware lids to differentiate them from similar containers in the work fridge. Crow is the latest one I've done, just whipped up yesterday, which inspired me to take a pic of a few of them. Nobody at work would dare mess with Satan. And I'm sure I've confused people with "Warning: Contents may be sardonic". I'm an odd guy, what can I say.

Here's the tracklist for a Valentine's Day mix cdr my special gal made me several years ago when we were still in our long-distance courtship. I've been recently ripping all my discs to mp3 (this is a big project begun many months ago that I'm still finishing up). I got a kick out of her including the Mike Piazza song, even if she did misspell it Pizza. :) Hey, she's not a baseball fan, so you gotta give her a break.

We celebrated 4 years of marriage last week (my blogging anniversary is right before, so it works as a nice reminder, haha). We checked out Solo (both liked it) and had a nice dinner at a place near the theater afterwards. Nothing fancy, but a fun evening out.

She's out in Canada for the weekend now, so I had some "me time" to work on a couple new customs and put together a couple trade packages. Also watched Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok. I'm not a big superhero movie fan (nor is my wife, which is why I watched them while she's gone), but I thought they were decent. Best thing I've watched lately is The Strange Name Movie, which is a 52 minute documentary streaming on Netflix right now. I'd recommend it if you like amusing names, which it seems most of us card collectors do. (Sadly, baseball dudes such as Dick Pole, Rusty Kuntz, and Pete LaCock were not featured, lol.. but still worth your hour.)

Thanks for stopping by, everybody, and all the best to you in the coming week.

Skinny-dipping in the Topps Vault

Man, Topps may have sent me a cease & desist a while back, but there's no hard feelings between me and the only game in town as far as officially licensed baseball cards in this day and age.

I recently snagged 4 discounted items from the Vault on eBay in a combined shipping order. Let's check them out:

Klesko may be a That 70s Show caliber name these days (no, wait, that's Kelso), but I have fond memories of Ryan being in the heart of the lineup for those Padres teams from a decade or so ago. I figured my Ryno PC could use a "1 of 1" to give it a little legitimacy in the eyes of the cardboard elite, and this 2016 Archives blank back fits the bill (even if it is a bit of a ploy as it was never packed-out but rather created specifically to be eBayed). I consider this to be a "finishing touch" to that PC which I'll probably post about one of these days.

And here's another one. Colin Rea is a guy the Padres are really counting on blooming if they're going to contend have a shot at being over .500 in the next few years. I too am banking on him flourishing as a top of the rotation guy, and this is the 2nd 1/1 blank back I've picked up of the guy, though I don't think I've shown off the 1st one yet. One of these days.
(UPDATE: And now he's traded to the Marlins. *sad trombone*)

Ok, now here's a quirky item for my Greatest Gavins minicollection. A back-up catcher for the Twins, 92-94, Derek GAVIN Parks doesn't seem to have any official certified auto cards out there, but I was able to add a certified auto in the form of this Topps contract! He didn't sign his full middle name, but did include the G at least! I'll take it! It's the first legal document in my little collection of Gavin and Gavin-related cards and card-related items. March 1st is my longtime friend Chris' birthday, so I'll give it some bonus points for the date. By the way, if you're interested in a similar Topps contract signed [or stamped or autopened] by Mr. Sy Berger, I've still got a few I'm looking to unload, trade or sale. I bought some up a while back thinking I'd flip them for a profit but it didn't turn out that way for me, unfortunately. This one up here isn't a Sy, but rather Philip Carter, who also seems to be pretty prolific at signing ballplayers to card contracts/extensions. [...] A quick google reveals Mr. Carter is currently "Director of Sports/Licensing at The Topps Company, Inc" (via LinkedIn).. Cool. Good to know he's been able to stick around among all the changes and employee turnover Topps has seen since then. I doubt there are many others still there who've been with the company since at least the early 90s.

We close with another "blank back 1/1", this of Braves prospect Touki Toussaint. He's not doing great this year in A ball (3-7 4.32), but still has a shot at being a solid major league pitcher in 2 or 3 years. I think of this as an investment to probably eventually send one of my Barve-collecting buddies when I find myself in the need to hit them back with a quality card sometime in the future.

- - - ----o

[now some rambling which you can skip past]
Matt, your 800th Post prize package has officially been dropped in the mail. Mr. Hoyle also has a package enroute. Shane, your runner-up prize package is packed up and ready to go but didn't make it out today. See, I went to the post office today after work but the damned automated machine is still on the fritz. Anticipating this, I brought a bunch of stamps, which is how I was able to get Matt and Mark's stuff out. But unfortunately I didn't have a good combination of stamps to fit on your small (but powerful!) package. But I think I'll be able to mail it out tomorrow. I have to go to the post office for work (I basically just burn and ship dvds as my job; I work at a big data archiving company.. it's not bad), so I'll try to mail it then. ON THE CLOCK! Lol, no, I'm salaried now (hallelujah!!) so whatev's. I use Stamps.com for my work packages, but not for my own stuff. (Shipped out a bunch of international packages recently.. damn, that shit's expensive these days!) But yeah, as for me.. Gotta stand in line for that. And no automated machine at the downtown post office. But again, I'm working, so I don't really care if it takes me a few extra minutes. Hey, I don't always take a full hour for my lunch, so it's cool. I try to workout in the building's gym a couple times a week when I can, but haven't had time this week. I gotta get my monthly DVDs out by the end of the month, so this week is a bit stressful for me, but I think I'm gonna make it. I'm rambling a bit now. I'll usually ride on the stationary bike for 22 minutes while I watch an episode of The Simpsons or The Onion Sportsdome (RIP.. this was a fricking hilarious sports show! Sad it only lasted one season. Sports and comedy are hard to pair just right for the masses, I guess), and then do some weight/machine work for a few minutes, usually arms and abs (my legs and glutes are good as is, not to brag, lol). Really would like to get my beer belly under control. I'm not "fat" but after a meal it looks like I'm smuggling a basketball in my shirt. My least favorite part about the gym is the occasional guys who linger in the locker room. It's like, dude, do you get off on catching glimpses of flaccid wieners? Don't just hang out in a locker room. Not cool. Oh, and one time the combination on my lock jammed after I had taken a shower.. I'm standing there for like 10 minutes in nothing but a towel desperately trying to unlock my locker and get to my shit. It was an ordeal, let me tell you, but finally I finagled the combo just right and it opened, thank the Lord. I also am a member of a local gym now, thanks to my wife who uses it more than me but Work reimburses us so why not add me to it too. They have a pool, which I'm excited about, although I'm more or a "splashing in the water" guy, not a "swimming laps" guy. We tried to go last weekend, and I had suited up and taken my pre-swim courtesy-shower and everything, but then we found out it had closed early that day for a swim meet. That sucked. It was my first time at the new gym (it's actually and old gym, kinda like a YMCA, but my first time there.) At least I spent a couple minutes punching a heavybag to get a tiny workout in and take out some frustration with the situation. Maybe we'll try again this coming weekend. Swimming is pretty great. Ok, I'm done rambling.

That's it for this time.. thank for reading!