Joy of a Completed Player Collection: Dan Walters

Back in November 1991, a Padres catching prospect named Dan Walters was a special guest at a nearby card show. I was able to talk my mom into driving me so I could get him to autograph a minor league card of his I had recently pulled from a pack. I definitely wasn't much of an autograph hound-- I think the only autograph I possessed at the time was of '50s Olympic diver Pat McCormick, who had done a motivational talk at my middle school-- but it seemed like something fun to do. Turns out Dan lived in East County San Diego, and was even an alum of a rival high school, so it wasn't out of his way.

It was pretty cool when he got called up the following June and did a fine job filling in behind the dish the rest of that season. Dan stuck on the roster of his hometown team a couple months into the 1993 season, but as a major leaguer he tapped out a career Padre with 84 total games in the bigs. His last season in pro ball was '96, then he became a police officer. Sadly, he was paralyzed in the line of duty in 2003, eventually passing away in 2020 at age 53.

When I returned to the hobby as an adult, Dan Walters became a PC guy for me, thanks to my brush with him as a kid adding a personal connection (I only got maybe 4 or 5 ballplayer autographs as a kid, and the rest were all old-timers). For a while there I was riding high as his #1 ranked collector at TCDB. Then last year, a collector going by RollingThunder88 entered his impressive collection to the site and overtook me by a few cards. My competitive nature kicked in, and I set out to complete my Dan Walters player collection, hunting down the dozen or so cards I was lacking. Took me a few months utilizing the usual card sources-- eBay, Sportlots, COMC, and a TCDB transaction-- but I was able to land all 43 cards TCDB has listed for him, cementing the title of #1 ranked Dan Walters collector. Woo!

So now let's take a look at a full run of Dan Walters baseball cards.

He's got one card each for the years 1986 through 1989, seen here. Love the bastardized 1986 Topps design of the '88 card. The Astros drafted Dan out of high school, later trading him to San Diego after the 1988 season for pitcher Ed Vosberg.

Here's the early 90s "pre-rookie" stuff. The bottom pair aren't dupes; the one with a bit more shadow visible is from the locally distributed team set version, while the other is retail. Dan spent all 1991 in AAA and played well but was blocked on the depth chart by Benito Santiago and backups Tom Lampkin and Dann Bilardello. Then in '92, he was further tearing it up in Las Vegas-- hitting .394, a special number to Padres fans-- and finally got called up when Benito suffered an injury. 

His first MLB cards are late-season releases from 1992, Traded/Update sets for the most part. The Rated Rookie is from the Update series, only available to pull via special factory sets, so it's tougher than you'd expect a 1992 Donruss card to be. The card at the end here has some meta mojo to it, seeing as it's a San Diego police card issued of a future San Diego police officer.

Now we're into 1993, where the majority of Dan Walters' cards are from.

He was included in most of the major sets that year, getting his share of junk-era rookie cards printed in the millions.

Some oddball stuff, too.

Parallels start becoming more prevalent in '93, with Stadium Club stamping a few "First Day Production" and "Members Only". Upper Deck has the gold hologram variation with it. Looks like that quiet moment taking a knee on-deck was also the image source of his 1993 Topps card, which I've got several iterations of...

Base, gold, blank back, micro, Inaugural Marlins, Inaugural Rockies, and Rediscover Topps buyback (2017).

A closer look at the stamping reveals I've got the silver foil "Rediscover Topps", meaning I could potentially add to this PC assuming there exist blue, bronze, and gold foil versions out there for me to track down (perhaps also for his 1992 Topps Traded card?), though at this point I don't anticipate putting much effort into hunting buybacks. (Welp, ok, I just set a saved search in case something I don't have pops up cheap. At least he never got a Bowman card, so I don't have to worry about buybacks there.)

Dan's production at the plate slipped in 1993, and he spent much of the season back in Las Vegas. When the 1994 baseball card sets came out, he didn't crack a single checklist. 

...But...

..he did get a prominent cameo on Jay Bell's Topps card. Close enough for a dedicated player collector without many options for expanding a PC! I've got the rainbow of base, gold, and bilingual. These (as well as the '93 blank back and Rediscover Topps) are not factored in the TCDB ranking, just some bonus overkill.

This trio out of the mainstream wraps up the cards of Dan Walters:

1994 Osceola Astros 10th Anniversary - This might be the only card in the PC I had to break double digits buying. Not a great looking card, just a black & white sketch of a headshot, but it's scarce (guessing the set was only briefly available at a minor league stadium), so what are you gonna do?

1995 Colorado Springs Sky Sox - A friendly TCDB user sent me this tough card for free after I asked about it. Hobby warm fuzzies, right? I did my part to pay-it-forward a bit by scanning it for the site, as it was Dan's only card without images uploaded. Seems to be a Rolling Rock he's celebrating the PCL championship with in the photo. It's nice that he had that high point to remember at the twilight of his playing days.

1996 Edmonton Trappers - A stoic shot from his final stop as a ballplayer. Kind of a downer to go out on, contrasted by the happy faces on the other 2 cards here. But maybe that's fitting with how his story ended. (Rest in peace, Mr. Walters.)

So there's my Dan Walters supercollection, I guess I can call it. Thanks for checking it out with me.

How Yellow was my LaValley PC? The Yellowest possible!

It's Gavin LaValley's birthday today. He was the first "Gavin" to hit the scene after I returned to the hobby, and inspired me to give a shot at the "advanced collector moves" of rainbowing and supercollecting. (Gavin Floyd was on the downslope of his career at the time, and there was also Gavin Cecchini who popped up in 2011, but as a Mets #1 draft pick, his card prices weren't conducive to going after too hard, and he already had cards when I came around, whereas I was there with LaValley from the beginning.)

With LaValley currently out of affiliated ball, topping out at AA so far, chances are he won't be getting more cards, at least not in a major release like Bowman. (I'm still hoping he ends up becoming the next Mike Trout, don't get me wrong!, but that'd be unexpected.)

So unlike supercollectors of the likes of Griffey or Garvey with endless cards and more coming out every year, since I'm dealing with a significantly less renowned player, I've essentially got a finite checklist to work with here (just keep an eye out for future Bowman buybacks, maybe). There have been a couple 1/1s that "got away" over the years but for the most part I've been successful in my supercollection targets. 

One particular type of 1/1 that I've hit 100% complete?

Yellow printing plates!

Yep, a total of 6 sets of printing plates have been packed out featuring Gavin LaValley. With a recent pickup, I've now secured every Gavin LaValley yellow plate ever released.

LaValley was included in Bowman products in 2014 and 2018-- I'm just calling them all "Bowman" for simplicity, but there's 2014 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects (paper plus Chrome), 2014 Bowman Chrome Mini, 2018 Bowman (paper plus Chrome), and an auto in 2018 Bowman Chrome. He also got cards in 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks and various minor league issues, but only the Bowmans (Bowmen?) had plates packed out.

Yellowbacks.

For fun, here are all of my LaValley printing plates together in one photo. I haven't yet achieved the 4-plate rainbow that comes with the old collector joke of "Now I can print up as many copies of the card as I want! LOL",  but I'm just one color away on a couple of them. Black is the toughest plate type for me to find, apparently, with only one. Since he's pictured with Cincinnati, it's no surprise the magenta plates seem to pop the most. I suppose I'm partial to the cyans, considering blue as my favorite color.

Anywho, Happy Birthday, Gavin! I hope your age-27 season is a bright and sunny one on and off the field.

Superfractor Supercollection

Boom! I was excited to see the 2014 Bowman Draft Gavin LaValley superfractor pop up for auction last week. I put in a healthy bid and ended up winning it for surprisingly less than I was expecting. This is a card I've rainbowed pretty hard the past few years, with nothing left to chase but a frustrating number of 1/1s. So yeah, this is an awesome card to highlight not only the rainbow, but my LaValley PC as a whole.

Plus now I can do this...

There are currently 3 superfractors of Gavin LaValley in existence, and I've got all of 'em. Nice!
2014 Bowman Draft, 2014 Bowman Chrome Mini, and 2018 Bowman.
Seeing them side-by-side emphases how unimpressive 2018 superfractors look compared to how bright and shiny the 2014 versions are, especially in hand. The '14 cards have a nice "spinning wheels" effect, while '18 just sits there.

Signs point to LaValley being included in 2018 Bowman Chrome (the separate product, not to be confused with the Chrome segment included in 2018 Bowman [Regular]), due out in September. And perhaps 2018 Bowman Chrome Mini, assuming that's still a thing (factory set). So my LaValley superfractor supercollection won't likely stay complete for long, but I'll enjoy the supercompleteness for the next several weeks, at least.

The only other superfractor I own is Brian Humphries (Guy From Granite). The first three I bought set me back a decent chunk of change, while the latest was only about a third of what I was used to paying. Maybe it's because LaValley has been hovering around the Mendoza line most of 2018 in AA. Hopefully he turns his season around.

But still, very happy with the pickup. It's a pain there are so many 1/1s left out there before I can officially complete the rainbow for 2014 Bowman Draft + Mini:
o Topps Vault First Edition blank back 1/1
o Orange paper 1/1
o Black paper 1/1
o White Ice 1/1
Plus several printing plates.

I'm not hitting his 2018 Bowman rainbow nearly as hard, but still keep an eye out for good deals, such as a few parallels that were being sold together in a lot. Always love atomic and shimmer refractors.

Also snagged the magenta paper printing plate.

That brings me up to 3 magenta plates for LaValley.

But yellow is still on top..

..with 4 plates!

I've only got 1 cyan plate.. and surprisingly zero black plates. But I'll keep an eye out.

Since I'm showing off all my LaValley 1/1s in this post, let's go ahead and revisit his 2014 Panini Prizim Draft auto Black Finite Prizm (that set's version of a superfractor). Nice looking card I scored a couple years ago.

And let's wrap up this post with another look at the "1st Bowman" superfractor. Terrific addition to what's probably my most impressive player collection. Now he just needs to turn into the next Mike Trout and I'll be set for life! LOL, nah, he's a fun dude for me to collect, without worrying about any "investment" stuff. But I'm hoping for the best for him in his career.

Thanks for swinging by.

The LaValley of the Shadow of Death (clean version)

[Ok, my first draft of this post was angry and obscenity-laden. Let's take a deep breath and try it again with a better mindset.]

So Gavin LaValley got a card in 2018 Bowman. It's first first mainstream card since 2014 when he was in Bowman Draft and Panini Prizm Draft, both cards I rainbowed pretty hard, eventually getting down to a handful of scare parallels remaining. So I figured I might see about going hard after his 2018 Bowman card, too.

A while back, Mr. LaValley shared photos on social media of him signing 2018 Bowman autographs, but they didn't end up in this product. I guess that means they're going to be included in 2018 Bowman Chrome..? Either that or they ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor, I suppose.

But still he's got a base card ("paper") and a Chrome card in 2018 Regular Bowman. I figured I'd get a good foothold in a rainbow and I ended up winning an auction for a player break of 12 cases (8 JUMBO BOXES + 4 HOBBY BOXES). I was pretty sure that would land me some good stuff. The only question I had was if I'd walk away with only 1 printing plate or maybe I'd get lucky with 4 or 5 printing plates.

Well, queue the sad trombone. Not even one stinking base refractor! Just a fat stack of each base card and NOTHING ELSE. Wow. By far the worst player break I've been involved in. Never have I gotten such a brutal shaft, and this was easily the largest break I'd ever gotten into, so it just doesn't make much sense from a mathematical standpoint. I was crestfallen when I went through the package. I almost quit collecting right then and there. Twelve freaking cases -- not boxes, CASES! -- and not even one lousy parallel? That's ridiculous. The cardboard gods really kneed me in the crotch there. I mean, it only cost me a bit over a blaster, so it wasn't a huge financial hit, but still devastated me emotionally.

To the breakers credit, he threw in a bonus pack of 2018 Series One and a pouch of penny sleeves. That was a nice gesture, I guess. (There wasn't anything good in the pack.)

And anyways, I decided I'm not going to rainbow this card now. Too painful. Plus, turns out there are 5x7 Topps website-only parallels of it. Listen up: I vow right now here today to NEVER rainbow any card that has any 5x7 versions. I HATE oversized cards. Maybe an occasional big oddball can make it's way into my collection, but those 5x7 cash-grabs Topps puts out with various numbered parallels really irk me. I will never chase them.

2014 Panini Prizm Draft sure were ugly cards, but you gotta respect that there were no oversized versions. And no printing plates to chase! That makes for a very supercollector-friendly rainbow. I recently scored the /10 gold parallel of the non-auto.

That leaves me with only one last card for the MASTER RAINBOW. Just need the non-auto 1/1 "Infinite Black Prizm" (Panini's version of a superfractor). I've never seen it for sale, but I'll keep an eye out and hope to land it someday. I've got the auto version of it, as you can see in the upper right.

While I'm not happy with how '18 Bowman treated me, I'm still trying to score low-numbered LaValley parallels when I can find them reasonably priced on eBay.

Paper yellow plate.

Chrome Magenta plate.

Superfractor.

As for LaValley, last I checked he was hitting .214 in AA. Hmm.. well. I hope he starts raking and becomes the next Mike Trout, but regardless, it was quite the ride supercollecting him for a while there.

Thanks for reading.

Sentimental Sundays: McDonald's pioneered Superfractor technology in 1978

Once again, it's time to take step back in time to my childhood.

Here's my school pencil box from circa 2nd Grade...

Saw action in 1986 or 1987, probably. It currently stores a bunch of various crap from my youth. This treasure trove could probably keep me stocked on material for Sentimental Sundays posts through 2016 if I really stretched it!

Here's the inside of the lid. Lots of neat stickers: puffy Casper, "manufactured patch" penguin in a tux, scratch-n-sniff lilacs (?), Kool-Aid Man, etc.

Ed (up by puffy Hong Kong Phooey) is a popular name in my family, with 4 generations of Eds. If I ever had a son, I'd be tempted to make him Ed the Fifth to keep the line going, though I'm not an Ed so I'm not sure that's legal. I don't think my Cousin Eddie (The 4th) is going to sire children at this point, as he's pushing 50. At least he's out of prison and apparently doing fine now, though I haven't seen him in over a decade.

Check out that Ronald McDonald sticker (© 1978) where he's happily holding up a shiny refractor 2x4. It's the same "spinning wheels" effect that is the basis for superfractors, though without the gold tint. I thought it was funny to realize that whole thing was showing up as a free Kids Meal toy twenty years before superfractor cards were a thing. We were promised jetpacks.

Diving into the box.. For a brief period in my youth between "caring about baseball cards" and "caring about girls" was a "caring about comic books" phase. I guess this Superman pin from 1993 was in there. Truth be told, I never actually saw the kid. One of these days I'll do a post or two on the few comic books I still have.

My first job was working at Kmart,. Stuck around there for over a year (May 1995-June1996). It wasn't too bad.. straightening shelves and rounding up carts in the parking lot. The worst part was probably apologizing to people when the good stuff on sale that week was all sold out. The location has since closed down; I think it's now a KOHL'S last I checked. It's been nearly 20 years, but I've still got my old name tag. Those "Ask Me! I Can Help!" cards are good for a free coffee. Wonder if they'd still be honored at this point.

Here's proof of registration from my first car, a 1990 Mitsubishi Gallant. White. It was a decent car.. a hand-me-down from my mom. My 2nd card was also a Gallant, also from my mom, a 1994 Gallant. That car served me well, too.

I know I've bragged on the blog once or twice before that I was a sprinter track star back in high school. Ah, glory days! They'll pass you by in the wink of a young girl's eye. My school pencil box held a nice little pack of clippings with track meet results from the local newspaper. That afternoon verses Grossmont HS was a good one for me, winning both the 100 and 200, and I'm pretty sure I was on the victorious 440 relay team too. This was '94 or '95.
"Grossmont" is a confusing word because my HS district was called Grossmont Union High School District, and the JC I went to was called Grossmont College.. but Grossmont High School was a totally different thing. Also, my first girlfriend went to Grossmont HS. I remember hanging out on the vacant campus on the weekend with her and my bud Doug and his 1st GF Leevie.. good times. But by this time we had broken up, so I suppose that made the victory over them all the more sweet.
Looking it up right now, turns out Grossmont HS has had a few notable grads. Frank Zappa, for one. Wow, a musical legend! Also weed comedian Doug Benson and "Joe Isuzu" David Leisure. As far as baseball players, their best known guy is probably Barry Zito, but looks like he didn't graduate from Grossmont, just went there for a while then transferred. I remember them for having a pretty strong track team, so I'm sure to spank them so well was great for us.

Great song, with its message renewing itself far too often, such as in the wake of the recent tragedy in Paris.

That's all the nostalgia for today. Back with more next time. Thanks for being here!

The Nate Colbert Report - Q1 2014

Hey, it's Nate Colbert's birthday! Happy 68th, big guy! A couple of you might remember how a while back I pondered the idea of supercollecting Nate Colbert (The "Supercollector" Conundrum)? Well, over these past few months I have indeed built up a respectable PC of the Padres' All-Time Home Run King. It's not going to floor anybody in its current state, but it's coming along nicely and I feel good about it. I'd estimate I've got about 90% of his "readily available" cards out there, plus a small array of relatively obscure stuff. Sure, it feels kinda like cheating, supercollecting a guy whose career missed the junk wax era and the subsequent parallel madness we're in now. And he rarely gets included in modern "old-timers" sets. But there are enough fun oddities to hunt down and keep me busy, yet not overwhelm me (I'm easily overwhelmed!)

I'm just going to go ahead and post the cards in my collection here without much commentary (fronts only), then a ways down the road when I have more time, I'll break down each card more in depth and probably get around to scanning the backs. (I wasn't planning on getting this posted quite yet, but figured I'd rush it out before the day was up to celebrate his birthday.)


Topps flagship

Topps color test blank backs

Topps variations

Topps oddballs

O-Pee-Chee

Kellogg's

More Topps/Other vintage oddballs

Minor league (coach) cards

Modern stuff

Known needs
1966 Houston Astros Autograph Picture Night Photos 6 Nate Colbert
1970 Dayton Daily News M137 41 Nate Colbert
1970 MLB PhotoStamps 111 Nate Colbert
1971 Dell Today's Team Stamps 223 Nate Colbert
1971 Topps Tattoos 3 Nate Colbert S1
1972 Topps Venezuelan Stamps 57 Nate Colbert IA
1972 Topps Venezuelan Stamps 126 Nate Colbert
1973 Deans Photo Service San Diego Padres 4 Nate Colbert
1973 San Diego Padres Photocards 2 Nate Colbert
1973 Topps Comics 5 Nate Colbert
1973-74 Linnett Portraits 48 Nate Colbert
1974 Deans Photo Service San Diego Padres 5 Nate Colbert
1974 Topps Deckle Edge 34 Nate Colbert
1974 Topps Pin-Ups 5 Nate Colbert
1975 Montreal Expos Postcards 9 Nate Colbert
1976 Montreal Expos Postcards 5 Nate Colbert
1975 SSPC 330 Nate Colbert
1977 Padres schedule cards - 13A Nate Colbert/Shown waist up
1977 Padres schedule cards - 13B Nate Colbert/Shown full/blank back
1977 Padres schedule cards - 14 Nate Colbert and friends
1987 Rock's Dugout - Wichita Pilots Nate Colbert CO
1986 TCMA All-Time San Diego Padres 1 Nate Colbert
1989 Best Riverside Red Wave 24 Nate Colbert CO
1989 ProCards 1391 Nate Colbert CO
1990 HOF Sticker Book 80 Nate Colbert
1990 ProCards 2622 Nate Colbert CO
2012 Panini Golden Age - Black 141 Nate Colbert
2012 Panini Golden Age - White 141 Nate Colbert
2012 Panini Golden Age - Mini Black 141 Nate Colbert
2012 Panini Golden Age - Mini Broadleaf Blue Ink 141 Nate Colbert
2012 Panini Golden Age - Mini Broadleaf Brown Ink 141 Nate Colbert
2012 Panini Golden Age - Mini Crofts Candy Red Ink 141 Nate Colbert
2012 Panini Golden Age - Mini Ty Cobb Tobacco 141 Nate Colbert

Update: Turns out many of the missing O-Pee-Chee cards I thought I needed don't actually exist! I foolishly assumed vintage OPC sets duplicated the Topps checklist, but the sets contain less cards, and looks like Nate got left out some years. Oh well, less cards for me to hunt down!

So there you have the Nate Colbert Report for April 9th, 2014. If you've got any cards of his not pictured here (or substantial condition upgrades of cards that are) that you're willing to part with, please let me know and I'll do my best to round up a nice trade package to offer you.. Thanks!