Vintage 1965 Clemente! (trade roundup)

I'm back after a few days off stressing about finishing my taxes and some changes at work. Let's round up the recent trades that've come in.

Recently a guy emailed me saying he found my blog while looking for pictures from the Simpsons softball team episode. He mentioned he noticed I had 1965 Topps Roberto (Bob) Clemente atop my current wantlist, and that he happened to have one and was willing to sell it. I'm sure I don't have to tell you fellow bloggers out there that card solicitation emails from strangers are generally bad news and it's usually best to ignore or politely decline and point them to eBay for their card-selling needs. But John seemed like a good guy and I definitely wanted that card, so I asked if he'd be interested in trading instead, and offered up one of my Simpsons custom sets in exchange. He happily agreed and a few days later this baby arrived:

Very happy to land this card! Not only is Clemente among my all-time favorite guys to collect, but 1965 Topps is also a favorite and a set I'm building. So this is definitely a card I needed.

Love it! Thanks again, John. Your cards are on the way.

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Next up is a nice surprise envelope Mark Hoyle. I still had been meaning to mail him out some cards to thank him for the previous PWE he sent my way, but dang it, he lapped me! But don't worry, I just put an envelope in the mail, with another one hopefully on its heels in the next day or two.

These are great! Looks like Mark acquired a White Sox deck and was kind enough to shoot me these three. Hoyt Wilhelm, Dick Allen, and Minnie Minoso, three of my favorite old-timers to collect. I don't know much about these playing cards, though I've seen them mentioned on the blogs before and if I weren't so lazy, I'd look up them up.

Many guys I collect among this lot of 2016 Heritage Then & Now inserts.
Big thanks, Mark!

Mr. Hoyle still doesn't have a blog, but he has started showing off some of his collection on Twitter, so that's a start!

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From not enough blog, to too much blog.. Next up is a fat envelope from Tony Burbs at Wrigley Roster Jenga. I love his blog, but my browser does not. When I visit it, my computer slows down, the page takes a while to load, and has even crashed my browser on rare occasions. Speaking of an overload of awesome (that's a good segue, right?), he sent me a nice bunch of cards...

I just showed off my Pedro PC a couple weeks ago, and that post is already paying dividends in the form of these three needs. That crazy thing in the middle can barely be called a card, as it's thin and clear, reminding me of my school days with teachers using overhead projectors.

Here it is on top of real cardboard:

So yeah, it's weird but a cool addition to the collection.

Some legends. I got many of those 100 Years of Wrigley inserts thanks to having the Cubs in a Series 1 group break, but since this Stan Musial is actually a Cardinals card, it didn't get funneled into my haul. So it's nice to get it in trade.
Hoyt makes his second appearance of the post.. I've seen that photo on other cards before, but the teal border really makes this one pop.
And Teddy Ballgame is always a welcome sight.

And we close with a great lot of active guys (plus Marcus Giles, represented by a cool minor league card). I think that Trout's an SP, isn't it? Very cool. Happy to get the Sale and Mookies as well.

Big thanks, Tony! I'll get some Cubs sent out your way soon. Please let me know of anything in particular you'd like that I could send you.


Thanks again to John, Mark, and Tony for the wonderful cards. Hey, did you notice there were zero Padres cards in this trade roundup? That's a rarity, for sure. And with how the team has been playing this season, I'm totally fine with this.

See ya'll next time!

A high-end pack break of 2005 Retired

I put in a best offer and ended up winning this pack of 2005 Topps Retired for thirty-ish bucks. That's the original "retail price" ($29.99) plus shipping, so that works for me. They typically sell for substantially more than that these days, like $60 per pack or $200 for a hobby box of 5 packs. I'm crazy for 2004 Retired, but I also like 2003 and 2005 from the "Retired Trilogy" of products. Odds are the promised auto in this pack will be a Rick Cerone or some minor semi-star of that ilk, but hey, maybe I'll beat the odds and pull a Nolan or Gwynn or somebody like that.

I haven't opened it yet as I type this, but let's "live" rip it right now.

Maybe P-town Tom would like this wrapper as a bonus item for his Ryne Sandberg collection..? I'll open it carefully to keep it somewhat collectable, just in case.

This actually arrived a few days ago, so I'm pretty proud of myself for the restraint to wait to open it. I suppose the fact that I'm 99% sure the one promised auto in the pack will be a disappointment has helped me exercise some self-restraint. I've opened my share of 2004 Retired and been disappointed every-fuckin-time, so I've got no expectations that my first experience of ripping 2005 Retired will be any different. But, ever the optimist, I'm holding out a shred of hope for somebody good.

2005 Retired is the only one of the trilogy that I still need the base set for, so even if that auto isn't anybody, the I guess the 4 base cards will still be good to help me creep toward that setbuild.

Ya'll ready? Let's do this!

**ripppppp**

Well we're off to a great start (*eye roll*) with the sticker from the encased auto being stuck to the base cards in the pack. Great job, Topps.

I like Jim Piersall.. but.. Meh.

I like J.R Richard. But meh.

Hey, here's a cool upside-down card. Let's flip it around..

Very nice! Johnny Bench gold parallel /500.

And now for the moment of truth...

Ouch! Our auto is Roger Craig, definitely among the worst possible pulls. No surprise. Would have at least like to have pulled a "nobody" player like Glenn Hubbard or Rafael Santana.. but a "nobody" manager? Weak!

So yeah, that pack was definitely a bust. Had I known the contents, I wouldn't have paid more than $3 for it, with the Johnny Bench parallel being the only card to perk my interest at all, but still not being enough to salvage my auto being a championship-less manager. Gawdamit! Anybody want that Craig? APRSmith? Honestly, thanks to the heavy case, this card isn't even worth what it would cost to ship it. Plus the case is scuffed (lower left), so it's not even worth salvaging to put another card in it. Sucks. Waste of money, though I was pretty sure it would be going in. At least I didn't spend more than the 30-ish original retail price.

That's it. Thanks for stopping by.

Custom TTM Failures: The Sandlot

The Sandlot premiered in theaters nationwide 23 years ago today, April 9, 1993. That's a good enough excuse to post this today!

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you may recall I've made some custom cards based on the movie. Back in January, I went on a spree of sending out Through-The-Mail autograph requests, and among my requests were 3 actors from the cast. Unfortunately I struck out. But I'm gonna show off the unsigned customs anyways, as a few of you out there might get a kick out of them.

Mike Vitar starred as Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez. For a long time, he was known as a dependable signer through his PO box. But last Halloween, he and another firefighter (yeah, he became a fireman when he grew up) beat up a guy over an argument or something, and he might be looking at prison time. He's apparently closed his PO box, as this request came back with an undeliverable/return to sender label.
Bummer! I was really happy with how these three 1972 Topps-style Dodgers cards turned out. Looks like it got damp somewhere along the line, as you can tell the black ink smeared.

Here is the bad, undeliverable address that didn't work:
Mike Vitar
PO Box 74150
Burbank, CA 91521

If you have a working address to send Mike Vitar fanmail, please let me know! I'd love to give it another shot getting these signed.

Next up is cutie Marley Shelton, who played Wendy. I made a 1997 Leaf Signature type card using a lovely relatively-recent photo, and also included one of the other Sandlot cards I made a while back. Again, my envelope came back with the dreaded yellow postal label of death.

Here is the bad, undeliverable address that didn't work:
Marley Shelton
c/o Untitled Entertainment
1801 Century Park E #700
Los Angeles, CA 90067

If you have a working address to send Marley Shelton fanmail, please let me know!

Finally, here're a couple cards for Art LaFleur. He played the Babe. Art was also in Field of Dreams, and so I made a custom for that one as well. Now, these have not been returned-to-sender.. so I suppose there's still an outside chance they'll come back signed someday, but it's been several weeks at this point, so I'm not holding my breath.

That's it for today. Thanks for checking out the cards.

Conforto: The Redemption Redemption

I usually group incoming trade packages into a weekly roundup, but when I receive a card from you with an eBay value in the neighborhood of $100, damn it, you get your own frickin' post!

To set the scene for this epic trade, way back in December of 2014 I pulled a Michael Conforto redemption (/149 purple parallel) from a box of 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks. While I was correct in my assertion that it was the probably the best pull of the box, at the time he was still just another prospect making his way through the minors. I previously had a couple frustrating experiences getting mail from Panini due to them requiring a delivery confirmation signature, and ever since then I've been reluctant to fuss with redemptions, and would rather sell or trade them away for somebody else to worry about. So I sat on the unredeemed card for a few months, hoping a Mets fan would take it off my hands in trade. In July 2015, with the expiration date creeping up, I put it on Listia and found a guy to buy it for 55,000 credits, which really isn't much, especially with the skyrocketing inflation that plagues Listia.

Just three weeks later, Conforto got called up and surprised everybody with his impressive play and ended up being a key component of the Mets' pennant winning stretch run. His card prices took off and I was left kicking myself. I should have redeemed the card myself, or at least waited a month before I sold it and gotten exponentially more for it.

Since then, I've sort of started collecting his cards out of spite, to be honest. I had been hoping to one day land a sweet Conforto auto to fill the void in my soul created by letting the redemption slip away.

So when one night last week Kerry from Cards on Cards tweeted that he was lucky enough to pull a Conforto auto from a pack in his recent Loot Locker package, I drunkenly excitedly expressed my interest should he be looking to move it. He was open to listening to offers for interesting Red Birds cards in exchange, so I dug deep and was able to put together a solid package highlighted by a 2004 Topps Retired Ozzie Smith auto, and lucky for me, Cardinals fans are powerless to turn down the Wizard.

Behold:

Love it! As you can see, it's the refractor version, though it's unnumbered (these are typically #'d /500). These Conforto cards are weird because while a 2014 Bowman Chrome card, they weren't actually included in that product and instead packed out in 2015 Bowman Chrome. Were they purposefully "held back" by Topps? Was Conforto late in getting the cards back into Topps' hands, and so they decided to squeeze them into a product better late than never? I don't know, but whatever, I'm very happy to give this card a place in my collection.

I can now hear the name "Michael Conforto" and smile in the knowing that I've got this sweet-ass card, rather than how I used to wince when I heard the name, a bitter reminder of the card that slipped away.

It wasn't easy to part with the 2004 Retired Ozzie, though. As I've mentioned many times, completing the 2004 Retired auto set is my #1 collecting goal since returning to the hobby. I was at only needing 3 more cards, though with letting go of the Ozzie, it's now up to 4 more to go. Since I ultimately was going to want to upgrade to a /25 refractor version, I figured I could take the step backwards and just hope a refractor Ozzie pops up one of these days and I'm able to land it, though I know that day may never come. Still, though, no regrets! (Fingers crossed Conforto continues on to a solid major league career.)

And as if the Conforto refractor auto wasn't enough, Kerry surprised me by loading up the package with a bunch more cool cards for me:

Some incredible PC and setbuilding needs for me. The '71 is an elusive high number.

Check out this great Joe Montana lot! While my football fanhood has waned over the past few years, I've still got a soft spot for superstars from my youth, so these are awesome.

From one all-time great quarterback to another, here's a bunch of John Elway cards to close out the package.

Again, thanks so much, Kerry! This has gotta be among the best trade packages I've ever received. I'm in your debt and will be keeping an eye out for more Cardinals to send your way. Hopefully one of these days we can meet up for an in-person trade and/or grab a beer. (We both live in Portland and work a few blocks apart downtown.)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend, everybody.

Granite plates

No, I'm not talking about stone dishware! I'm talking about printing plates of Guys From Granite, which is what I call my minicollection of pro ballplayers who, like myself, attended Granite Hills High School. I've picked up a couple recent additions, so I figured I'd show them all off in a post.

Here's my latest acquisition, Brian Humphries 2012 Bowman Chrome black printing plate. Last year I acquired a near-complete rainbow of this card from a Rockies collector, missing only the 4 plates. Well, now I've knocked one of the plates off the list. You could say I've got something of a standard rainbow now, seeing as I've got one of each type of parallel available, though I'd love to go for a master rainbow someday, hunting down the 3 remaining plates. It probably won't happen, but never say never. I think black plates are probably the coolest color, so this was a nice one to land, plus I was the high bidder with the winning bid comfortably in single digits.

As for Brian Humphries the player, after being cut by Colorado last spring training, he played very well for an independent team, setting career highs for batting average (.310), homers (15), and RBI (58) in 98 games. His 197 total bases were third-best in the American Association. I was hopeful his performance would help him latch on with another major league franchise, but no such luck. This offseason, he was acquired by another team in the American Association who seem pretty happy to have him. So that's cool, even if I'm sure he'd love to get back on track to crack the bigs someday. But yeah, I'll be rooting for him to have a great 2016 season with the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks.

Next up, another guy named Brian..

Here's Brian Giles, the Granite grad who had the most major league success. This is my first plate of his, bringing it home a month ago for about the price of a blaster (a little more than I would have liked to have paid, but oh well). I believe it's from 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars. Cyan is the 2nd best color to get after black. Plus it's a Padres card, always a bonus in my eyes. I've got a pretty legit B-Giles collection going, with several autos and relics among the 100+ different cards, but I believe this is my first 1/1 for that PC.

Keeping with the Giles Brothers, howbout Marcus Giles? Yep, I've got a pair of Marcus plates for the same card, 2007 Bowman Heritage. I got them last year.. I believe winning an auction for one, then picking up the other on COMC to complement it. Funny thing Bowman did with their plates that year was put a color border sticker on them. Ok, whatever. (Not sure why my scanner made a bunch of lines in the yellow plate, yet the blue one scanned fine.. Crap like that is why I usually photo cards rather than scan them.) Again, it's a Padres card, which I like, and it's just a great looking card, with Marcus donning the uniform of his hometown team, big smile on his face. Sadly, his stint with San Diego didn't go as well as this spring training shot would seem to optimistically predict, and his career would come to an abrupt end after the season.

For fun, here's a composite of both plates combined via the magic of Photoshop. It really is a pity there aren't green printing plates, don't you agree? lol

And so, there you have it, all the Granite plates I've currently got.

On the subject of Guys From Granite, I want to give a quick shoutout to Travis Taijeron who had a heck of a spring training and led the Mets' big league camp in several offensive categories. (I don't own a printing plate of his yet, though there is one on eBay overpriced at $100 with no Best Offer option.. lame.) Looks like he's starting the season in AAA but the odds are good that at some point this year, he'll get called up and become the 8th guy from my school to play in the majors. So I'll be rooting for him to continue his hot hitting. And I'm hoping he gets some more cards too, as his only mainstream cards right now are 2012 Pro Debut & 2012 Heritage Minors. Would love to see him sneak into a Bowman product this year and tempt me to rainbow it.

Thanks for reading!

tossing junk dupes (my Julio Franco, Bip Roberts, and Benito Santiago PCs)

My wife recently started her final term of grad school, taking night classes after work twice a week. I've been taking advantage the evenings alone to sprawl cardboard across the living room, specifically doing some long-time-coming sorting of my larger PCs, trying to weed out dupes and tighten up my collection a little. Plus I was home sick today with a case of snot overload and scream sneezes, so I did some more sorting.

Here's my Julio Franco PC:

Part 1: 1983-1990. Sorry this pic is too small to really appreciate the cards, but the purpose is so that I (and potential trading partners) can look at it to see what I've got and what I need.
Notable needs: 1983 Topps Traded, 1985 Fleer, 1986 Topps, 1987 Fleer, 1988 Fleer, 1988 Topps, 1989 Topps. (I shudder to type that I need boring base cards from 1988 and 1989 Topps!)

Part 2: 1991-up. Have I cracked 100 different cards? No!! :( After sorting out a ton of dupes, my count comes to 90 cards. Ten more to go. I'm missing a lot of his later-career cards.. Dude was in the majors till 2007 yet my PC petters out a decade before that. I'm sure most of these base needs can be had for the site-minimum price at places like Just Commons and Sportlots, so maybe next time I place an order at a site like that, I'll pick up a few cards to get me to my goal. But I'll give it some time in case valiant traders out there can send any needs my way.

Dupes destined to be traded/given/thrown away. More on this in a minute.

Next let's do Padres fan favorite Bip Roberts.

Part 1: 1986-1992. Some neat stuff amidst the junk here, like a couple minor league cards, 1987 Fleer Glossy and 1987 Topps Tiffany, also 1991 Topps Desert Shield. Bip's often my go-to guy when I want to go after a relatively-scare type of card from the junk era, as his cards are a lot cheaper than, say, Tony Gwynn or a big star like that.

Part 2: 1993-1995. A 1993 Topps Finest Refractor is the highlight here. I included two 1993 Topps Black Gold cards because one has a noticeably bigger "glow" or whatever you call it around the player.. not sure if it's an actual variation, but I'm hanging onto both to play it safe.

Part 3: 1996-up. Have I reached the magic number? YES!! By my count I'm around 108. My Bip collection is complete. Don't send me no more Bips! Or if you do, please make sure they're not already included in the above photos.

Oh, speaking of junk wax, also today I made a hardcopy custom of this Cal Ripken "fuck face" what-if card I originally posted (digital only at the time) on the blog back in January 2014. It's always been a personal favorite of the silly cards I whipped up, so I figured I'd make a physical copy to spread around. Let me know if you want to buy or trade for one. You may recall I also made a magnet card of this a while back, but this one is a regular card, with a back copying Cal's original 1989 Fleer.

Back to sorting junk, here's my Benito Santiago collection:

Yeah, I didn't bother to photograph this one all spread out. But you can tell I've amassed a pretty huge stack of Benitos. A lot of traders consider me a Padres team collector (though I'm really not!) and well, a Padre semi-star from the junk wax era? You bet the quantity of Benito cards out there is immense, and a good chuck of them find their way to me.
After the dust settled, I had about 130 different cards, and a stack of dupes nearly three times that size. My Benito Santiago collection is complete! Don't send me no more Benitos! Or if you do, don't send me any Padres cards of his.. I mainly only need later-career cards from once he started bouncing around team to team.

Fat stacks of Bip and Benito dupes.

Now, I'm typically not one to throw away cards. Even damaged junk commons give me pause before tossing. If nothing else, I use unwanted/untradable cards for outer layer protection when shipping out cards. But even my stock of those such cards is getting unwieldy and rather than expand to accommodate more junk storage, I've given in and started dumping some (not all!) junk dupes into the recycling bin. I suppose there are options such as trying to find a place to donate them to kids, or putting together a big lot for someone to haul away via Craigslist, maybe they'd even pay you a couple bucks for a big enough lot, but nah, I'm going the easy route by just tossing them, sorry to say. I guess you could look at it from the half-full perspective that throwing away overproduced cards is actually beneficial to the hobby.. somehow.. maybe.

Since this is already a disjointed post (hey, I'm home sick, I get a pass for not being completely coherent or cohesive), here's another card...

I went digging into my Rockies tradables looking to find any Trevor Story cards. The kid is off to a smoking start this season. While I didn't find any autos or parallels or anything cool like that, at least I didn't strike out, coming across this 2014 Topps Pro Debut card.

That's it for me. Take it easy, everybody!

Blurring the lines between contest winnings and trades

I seem to have settled on a weekly trade roundup post every Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe Monday would make more sense, but I typically fall behind with blog reading over the weekend and then end up spending my free time Monday trying to catch up, so often I'm unable to get a post of my own off on Mondays.

Let's get going with this week's roundup...
It was just about three weeks ago that I showed off some cards sent to me from Jeff Jones (with the Jedd Gyroko auto Christmas Card being the big highlight). I figured Jeff was just starting up another blind trade, and so I scrounged up a return bunch of Braves soon thereafter. But then I realized that what Jeff sent was actually my prize for being a winner in his Super Bowl contest. So I had actually begun a new trade circuit rather than completed an old one. Rather than simply accept the cards I sent as a "thanks for the contest" gift (which would have been completely fine), Jeff was quick to shoot another batch of cards my way. Nice guy!

Check out this great lot of 1979 Kellogg's! A bunch of guys I collect in there.

Colin Rea made the club after a solid spring training, but that's all I really feel like saying about the Padres right now. I caught an inning or so of their opener against the Dodgers and it was painful. Looks like it's gonna be a long, depressing season for San Diego fans. Again.

Also included here is another 2011 Topps parallel for my frankenset, an awesome minor league Giancarlo, and BOOM a Gavin Escobar auto #'d /299, plus it pictures him in a SDSU Aztecs uniform with logos left intact.. nice!

Thanks again, Jeff!

-    -    - - - - -- ---o

Next up..
Fuji was a lucky winner in my big 700th Post contest a while back. He was so happy with the prize package, that he decided to surprise me with a mailing of cards to say thanks. That's some cardsphere generosity, right there! He obviously didn't have to do that, but I'm not one to turn down cards.

This quartet of autos kicks off the package with a bang. Love the Kevin Kouzmanoff auto. His might be my most impressive passive PC, meaning I've accumulated a pretty sweet Kooz collection without really trying.
Mark Loretta is another Padres fan favorite guy.
I had to look him up, but Walker Weickel is a big right-hander the Padres drafted out of high school in 2012 (55th overall) who has been creeping his way up through the minor leagues with mixed success.
And of course, a Fuji auto, this one in the style of 2015 Topps. These are always cool to get, though I must admit it's a dupe for me. Would it be weird to send out another blogger's personal card in a trade package? LOL. Maybe eBay?

Here we've got a couple neat dufex cards, a Target parallel, and a Gwynn diecut.

And some more Gwynns and other Padres of the past and present. That's a cool looking McGriff I don't think I had yet.

Great stuff. Thanks again, Fuji!

-    -    - - - - -- ---o

Here's a funny one. I recently won a contest from Sport Card Collectors (remember the Game of Thrones Hobbit 1/1 art card).. well, soon after that, SCC surprised me with a "thanks for winning my contest" bonus PWE! Ha, ok, maybe that wasn't the purpose of it, but that's what it felt like. Maybe it was a consolation prize because I came in 2nd in his subsequent contest. Can you imagine if I won two of his contests back-to-back in such a short time span? He might have to lay a lifetime ban on me! Haha, no, what kind of prick would do something like that?

This tight 4-card blast featured a gold theme to it, with 3 gold parallels, plus a red one. I think the Wil Myers is my favorite here, though the Headley #'d /199 is pretty sweet.

Very cool.. thanks, SCC! I'll drop a few Yankees and/or NY Giants your way soon.

-    -    - - - - -- ---o

Finally for today..
This one doesn't have anything to do with a contest. A Darryl Strawberry supercollector named Eric found out about the Darryl cards included in my Simpsons custom set and he got in touch to inquire if I had any other Strawberry customs kicking around he might be able to procure. It turns out I did have a spare magnet card from a while back. Eric was down for that, and we quickly agreed on an easy trade.

Some top guys I collect here, with most of these being needs for me.. Gaylord Perry, Dick Williams, Dwight Evans, and Bill Madlock.

So many Julio Franco cards! I must have cracked 100 different cards by this point. I need to sort out all I got and weed out dupes.

And we close with the main card of the trade.. the elusive 1984 Donruss Tony Gwynn. This may have been the final card I was missing from Tony's mainstream/flagship runs. I need to do another big sort to check what I'm missing (yeah, I'm definitely not one of those guys who keeps good records of his collection), though I think now I've got all the main base cards from his career. That's a quite a milestone for me, though probably something I should have accomplished long ago seeing as Tony's my all-time favorite player.

Thanks again, Eric!