Some photographs I've been meaning to post

I've given the reusable grocery bag full of cards from Rod a first pass, but still have another round or two of sorting before I snap pics of some highlights (lots of good stuff!), but in the meantime, here's a post of photos from the past couple months or so.

I know it's been a long time since Rod last dropped off cards on me.. because back in May he asked if I was going to be around one weekend to receive some cards, but sadly that was the weekend I was out at the coast for a family getaway. And it wasn't until just recently that Rod was finally able to swing by again, and so it was a glorious card-show-comes-to-me type extravaganza several months in the making. But anyways, back in May, I was a little upset with myself that I forgot to take my customary beach photo of my wallet card being dipped into the Pacific Ocean, but at least I grabbed this shot with the water in the background as we were starting the drive home.

Now here's some cute wildlife photography, mostly bunnies and my dog..

This bird spent a few minutes in my Mark Fidrych Memorial Bird Feeder recently, and seemed to really be giving a thoughtful look to the faded '77 Fidrych rookie that graces the feeder, and I had to try grabbing a photo.

I wore my Card Belt the other day, not to brag. :) They're all the rage, with a player wearing one during All-Star Game festivities or something. (Thanks again, Bob!)

The annual free concert in our neighborhood park was a good one this year, with local cover band Covered Structure performing for a solid turnout. I only caught a few songs during a dog walk, but they sounded great. Highlights included "elderly woman behind the counter in a small town" by Pearl Jam and the Fleetwood Mac favorite "Dreams".

Our neighbors across from our backyard aren't coming back, and so an estate sale was held at their house. I didn't go the first 2 days, but I stopped in on the last day. The final-day deal was $20 for whatever you could fit into a paper grocery bag. I got a nice bag full of stuff I can use. No cards/sports stuff, but some crafty stuff that I have cardart plans for. Also some other household stuff and yard stuff and a hanging shelf thing. I grabbed some tea and kitchen stuff, too, along with snapping this above pic. It was cool to see the inside of a house I see the outside of everyday (and to see my house from a new perspective). What's odd is we rarely saw the elderly couple who lived there. They seemed nice enough the rare times we noticed them about, but it must've been a seldom-used second home for them or something. I gotta admit it was nice having a mostly-empty neighboring house. Hopefully whoever moves in there next is cool and quiet. 

Speaking of old people dying, let's squeeze in at least one card photo before ending the post. Sad about Bob Newhart passing, but like I said recently about Willie Mays, I think he got the most out of life that one can get. Score the man a 10/10 in life fullness, right? A few years back (back at the old house) I was hankering a certified autograph of Bob the comedy legend, and ended up settling for this reasonably priced check cut-auto from Leaf with the intention of making a custom overlay for it, though I haven't gotten around to that yet, so here it is with a sparkly background to help it out instead for now. RIP, Mr. Newhart.

Welp, back to sorting the cards from Rod. Thanks for reading!

Some cards I've been meaning to post

With this pair of notable former Dodgers, my 2004 Chrome Black setbuild is down to just 20 cards remaining.

My longterm dream of putting together a run of Topps playing days Mantles sorta faded away with the covid boom, so now I'm pivoting to a frankenset of vintage and refractor reprints filling in the gaps where I don't have the original. Hopefully I finish that someday and get a blog post out of it. After these shiny revisions from '96, my current needs are 1952, 1953, 1956, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1967.

Baby Dave Winfield. The '73 is a WTHB custom.

1970 Topps is probably the vintage design that benefits the most from refractorification.

Turns out Mr. Show is in my baseball card collection.

My ARMS is on the cusp of 75% complete, with 122 cards remaining.

A couple recent Topps Retired auto pickups.

I also got a Parker Posey autograph.

I know I just showed that Jim Abbott, but turns out it completed the 2-card Angels team set for me, meaning I've got an excuse to show off the Nolan Ryan I bought in Hawaii years ago.

Bob at Best Bubble has been generous with me lately, first was a package with a couple Gavins and a couple girls..

..and a bunch of 1992 Leaf black gold. Some big name, too! And then more recently, a ton more of these showed up from him in a pair of flat-rate boxes.. and when the dust settled, I'm left with just 21 missing cards to finish the parallel set. Nice!

Also a new Gavin for my collection-- I believe the first basketballing Gavin I've got-- plus some PC guys and many duplicate "bubble" cards from Bob's collection, some of which I plan to do crafty cardart stuff to and then send back to Bob.

Plus a stack of Glow Stars and several more gals.

Big thanks, Bob! Much appreciated.

That'll do it for today. Thanks for reading. Sorry I haven't posted for about a month, but I should be back with more cards to show off soon. (Padrographs Rod dropped off a few hundred various cards this past weekend that I'm excited to check out.)

2003 Topps Retired check-in (surprise Part 2)

Yep, more of these shiny cards from a simpler time! 

Reggie Jackson is pretty cool. He was my first "top guy I collect" back in the day and he's still one of my better PCs. This photo in direct sunlight brings out the scratches on the case, but still a nice looking card. And...

It's the Christmas Card! Holly jolly Jackson.

Reggie's former A's teammate Vida Blue is up next. It's a base auto that popped up on COMC cheap enough for me to snag, but I'm still hoping to find a refractor parallel one day.

It's crazy that Vida's 24 wins in 1971 didn't lead the league (thanks to Mickey Lolich's 25).

The last 2003 Topps Retired auto to feature today is a Kent Tekulve refractor I was happy to score a while back.

He pitched in a lot of games, including leading the league for the eventual champs in '79. 

Like Reggie and Vida, Teke also happens to be a solid "PC guy" in my collection. In fact, I've now completed the full Tekulve rainbow for this set:

They didn't include printing plates in '03 Retired (though '04 and '05 had plates included for both base and auto cards), so that's a true finished rainbow, not to brag! :)

The foundation work I mentioned in the previous post went just fine-- thanks for the well-wishes in the comments-- and it's nice to have the cardroom level. It was an expensive job, but in somewhat of a cosmic rebate, just this morning I noticed a thick roll of blue tape in the bushes near where the guys were working. Must have fallen back there and gotten overlooked. But yeah, it was kind of like finding hidden treasure for me because I use plenty of this stuff packing up cards and in various other household situations. Usually I reuse tape I receive from others, rationing it out carefully as needed, but now I can be a high-rolling blue-taper, snapping off endless blue without a care in the world! lol

Thanks for reading. Hope you're all keeping cool this hot weekend. Supposed to top out at 103° for us in Portland.

2003 Topps Retired check-in

My card collection is being taken up a notch today. Literally. The side of my house with the cardroom has been slowly sinking a tiny bit since we moved in nearly 4 years ago, and today the foundation is being worked on to secure the house and raise it back up a little. It's been a nagging concern of mine for a while now, so I'm glad it's being taken care of. But yeah, another expensive adventure in homeownership.

Anyways, here are some 2003 Topps Retired autographs I've picked up over the last while.

Sad that Orlando Cepeda passed away. Time marches on and we just keep losing stars from that classic 50s-70s era of baseball, and it's a bummer. But at least they live on in our collections.

"Last off the line" here, with number 25/25. Nice shot of his career stats. You can see a couple big injures leaving their mark.

Quick tangent, back in my early fascination with "Christmas Cards", I featured Orlando Cepeda's 2004 Retired 12/25 refractor auto in a blog series and gave it its own silly photoshop:

Rest in Peace, Baby Bull.

My "setbuild" of 2003-05 Topps Retired autographs leans strongly to the refractors, but I'll snag a base auto if the price is right, and that's what happened when this Bo Jackson popped up with a better buy-it-now price than I can remember seeing. I'll still hope to score a refractor someday, but it's a beautiful card even without the extra shine.

The rainbow behind Tug McGraw lets you know this one is a refractor. Love the smiley face Tug liked to add to his signature.

Last one for today is Jim Piersall, proudly refracting.

And it's the Christmas Card!

Thanks for stopping by.

Remembering Willie Mays

Like many collectors, I took a moment to appreciate Willie Mays in the wake of his passing by looking through my cards of his.

I watched the Willie Mays doc on HBO a while ago and really enjoyed it. He's got solid representation in my collection, but Mays is a bittersweet figure in my personal hobby history, with a couple questionable decisions on my part regarding good cards of his that I parted with.

About 10 years ago, I bought a Mays 2003 Retired refractor auto for a whopping $300. A guy who read my blog post about it offered me double for it. I couldn't resist that ROI and agreed to part with it, though I've since come to regret the decision in hindsight, still chugging away on a run of Retired refractors as perhaps my #1 collecting goal. With part of the proceeds from the sale, I picked up a replacement Mays auto (more modestly priced at $160 shipped) for another ambitious collecting project of mine: the "Archives Reserve Master Set" I've been slowly building over the years..

It's a nice consolation prize, for sure-- they don't sell for anywhere near $160 anymore!-- though I still miss the '03 Retired refractor. I'm still in touch with the buyer, Dan, and we've done more swaps since. Last time I checked in with him, he was 8 cards away from his goal of completing the 2003 Retired refractor autos. (I'm going for all 3 Retired releases, with 2004 my priority, but Dan doesn't mess much with '04 or '05, instead laser focused on 2003.)

But my initial $300 purchase had a nice bonus included in the lot, and I still own that one:

I call these "charcoal" parallels of 2003 Retired, though officially they are called black borders (despite clearly being speckled dark gray). It's a nice looking card, even if not refractorized. 

It's got the "ebay 1/1" distinction of being jersey number 24 out of 99. You get a nice back of complete career stats, with the black and red text easy to read against a white background, which is appreciated even more in these days of Topps making Archives backs harder to read than the originals they mimic. If you want to check for typos-- I've noticed Retired cards often have uncorrected errors in the stats-- here's his baseball-ref page.

The other bonehead move I made with Willie Mays cards is a few years back when I forgot I had bought his 1957 Topps card for my setbuild and then bought another one. Hey, I was drinking too much in those days. I ended up trading the extra to blogger bud The Diamond King for a Cody Bellinger SSP photo variation RC. Of course, like clockwork, Cody then instantly fell off from the MVP numbers he had been consistently putting up to start his career. LOL. At least he's bounced back somewhat now. Anyways, the card pictured above is the one I still have in my set. Man, I should really prioritize the last 79 cards I need to finally complete a basic set 1957 Topps to hang my hat on.

Ten years ago I was in Hawaii getting hitched. Yep, Willie Mays died on my 10th wedding anniversary. I'm weirdly honored to share a special day with the legendary Willie Mays. It's sad he passed, but he made it to the impressive age of 93. An incredible life to be celebrated for years and years.

Trenton Brooks makes it!

It's been a while since Baseball Card Breakdown has had back-to-back posts, but I was happy to learn this morning that Trenton Brooks got called up and made his MLB debut last night for the Giants, inspiring this quick post.

Trenton becomes the ninth grad from Granite Hills High School to make the show. 

I got a nice TTM return from him way back in 2016, signing my GHHS custom, graciously accepting the couple additional copies as my gift to him, throwing in a bonus signed card from his college days, and jotting a friendly little note for me on the back of the envelope. Glad he kept grinding and was able to reach that vaunted level of professional baseball that so many dream of. Hopefully he makes the most of his opportunity and is able to stick on the big league roster.

As a card collector, I'm now on high alert for some mainstream cards of him. It's a double-edged sword because while I would love to add some fresh cards to my Guys From Granite subcollection, I like the place I'm at hobby-wise these days where I don't have to pay too much attention to Fanatics and the good and bad and drama and bullshit of modern cards, instead having fun chasing refractors from the aughts, building Topps sets from the 70s, and cardartin' with the glorious junk wax era.

As a 28-year old rookie not expected to see a ton of action, Trenton likely won't be hyped too hard in the hobby-- he never got a prospect card from Bowman or Panini-- but hopefully he gets a RC in a major product. (It's a bummer that all Travis Taijeron got from his MLB experience in 2017 was one Topps Now card followed by an autograph in Topps Chrome.. no standard RC.) ...We'll see what happens.

With 9 men on the list, my high school can now boast a full "page worth" of Major Leaguers, so I pulled out some cards for a group picture:

Nice, right? In hindsight I'd use a Brian Giles card from his younger days with the Indians, but I had already put the cards away by the time I came to that conclusion, so oh well. Maybe I'll redo it once Trenton gets a real rookie card, replacing the minor league issue here.

Now the wait begins to see who will be the player to take the school into double digits. I believe there's only one other active guy from Granite in the minors currently: Dillan Shrum, a big-swinging first baseman with the Royals' AA squad. Best of luck to him and all the other young ballplayers who passed through the halls of Granite Hills working towards that goal.

Congrats again to Trenton Brooks on his MLB debut and thanks for stopping by.

Lego-heavy Zapping

Hey, let's get a quick post out to pair with a similar Zapping recap at the njwv blog today, as I too received another fun mystery package from Zippy Zappy a few days ago.

The bulk of the mailer was a couple Lego Star Wars sets in various states of completion. I'll hope to build these back to their full glory one day.

I don't have much in the way of cool minifigs, so these are very welcomed in my Lego tub. (Skateboarding Yoda will be displayed out for a while.)

My Star Wars card collection consists basically of one modern completed set (Remember back when I went after the 40th Anniversary set to ring in my big birthday?), 2 or 3 decent autographs, and then like a potpourri of a few random cards from a bunch of different sets. Which feels perfect since I'm a big Star Wars fan but not like a full-on supernerd about it. Nice to get a look at what's out there. The autograph here is Hermione Corfield as Tallie Lintra (an A-Wing pilot in The Last Jedi).

Legos and Star Wars are cool, but baseball is the best. Can't forget 2011 Topps has a bunch of solid rookies besides the big one. Kenny also had plenty of empty top-loaders and card savers to pass on to me, not pictured.

And a few non-baseball cards. Love to see Alexa Bliss pop up in a trade package, though it turns out I already had these 3 cards in the PC. No worry, though, as it's a good excuse to sacrifice them for use in cardart.

I probably should have looked these up first, as it turns out the Wrestlemania card was like a $10 card before I cut it up. Whoops! lol, oh well; for art. I also accidentally cut myself during this project-- my first cardart injury to break the skin-- though just a tiny cut. Blood, sweat, and tears, am I right?!

I made a quick video of them, with bobbling action:

Thanks again, Kenny! Always appreciated.