Baseball Card Dance Party!

It's friday!

I had so much fun making (and watching) that "drunk card" recently that I decided to create a new feature here on the blog which is just pictures of baseball cards "dancing". Silly and random. Crank up the tunes and dance along!

Aw, yeah!!

Work it! Work it!

Here's the best one-- Ken "Dancing Machine" Macha!
Get busy!; it's your birthday!

All of these cards were plucked out of my "trade" box, so if anything sparks your interest in getting a little trade going, let me know. (* cards do not dance in person. Not as much, at least.)





Have a great weekend, everybody! Got any fun plans? I'm gonna try to hit the card show tomorrow.

2014 Gypsy Queen trade bait

Ok, this stuff isn't in-hand yet, but the group break at My Cardboard Habit was earlier this evening. I made out pretty decent. Teams I had:

Dodgers
Yankees
Mets
Diamondbacks

(I jumped in early for the top-tier Dodgers and Yanks, and the Mets and Dbacks were my unclaimed random teams)

Hits I got:

Autos:
[Red] Ricky Nolasco, Dodgers 14/49
David Phelps, Yankees
Adam Eaton, Diamondbacks
Paul Goldschmidt, Diamondbacks

Blue Border Framed:
Whitey Ford, Yankees 398/499
Goose Gossage, Yankees 470/499

Colored Minis:
[Wood] Mark Trumbo, Diamondbacks 3/5
[Black] Mariano Rivera, Yankees 80/199
[Sepia] Jacoby Ellsbury, Yankees 13/50

I gotta be honest, I'm not a big Gypsy Queen guy (I always assumed it was a product aimed at Romanian homosexuals.. shows what I know!). I bought in with this break because Judson is a good guy and knew it'd be fun, plus seemed like a good source of trade bait. (Yeah, I need to stop spending good money on trade bait.)

So all this is pretty much open for trades. Gossage is a dude I collect (Padres in the HOF), so I'll hang onto that. And I'll probably find a cozy place in my collection for the Goldschmidt auto and Mariano mini unless I get a terrific offer.

But otherwise.. want any of these? Let me know and maybe we can work out a deal. Plenty of base cards and inserts available from these 4 teams too. While I'm usually pretty loosey-goosey with trades ("send me whatever"), these hits might be tougher to pry from me. I'm thinking most of this will be eBay-bound within hours of arriving. But you loyal blog readers can surely have a first shot if anything grabs ya. So let me know! Wantlist here. Thanks!

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!

My new LCS? A quick review

My last couple posts have mentioned how, since I moved, my new grocery store has a card section not too unlike what you'd find at a Target or Walmart. But there's also a real card/comic shop close-by that I pass on the way to the grocery store. I took advantage of the last lazy day in my "spring break" mini-staycation to walk the pup over there and finally check it out.

You can see it's just a little hole-in-the-wall (thanks to Google street view for the image.. No, I wasn't standing on something in the middle of the street to snap this photo, lol). I didn't have high hopes for it. And yep, it was pretty much what I was expecting. Just one-aisle big. Mostly comics. Sportscards you could get for a quarter of the price online.

I was hoping for at least some packs of new/recent product, but the unopened packs were along the lines of 1991 Score. I also had an eye out for some supplies.. penny sleeves and whatnot.. but no dice there, either. Any help for my '73 Topps set? Nope, not really. I didn't bring my needs-list, but he said he only had a couple dozen cards from it.

The guy was nice enough. Pretty much the first thing out of his mouth was that I should bring in my collection for a free appraisal, and he then went on to several times tell me how the card selling market is terrible right now. I guess he must get a lot of guys my age trying to recoup their allowance money spent on junk wax a couple decades ago.

But yeah, he was ok. Several times he referred me to another local shop which, according to him is the best baseball card shop in the state, and would be sure to have everything I'm looking for. It's just about a 10 minute drive from my house, so still not bad, but there's something nice about the idea of taking the dog for a walk on a lovely day and picking up some cards in the process. And that other place isn't walking-distance. But I'll have to drive over and check it out one of these days.

I've always been content just being an "online guy" with my reintroduction to the hobby up until this year, but when I read fellow bloggers talk about how they never get card shows in their area, or have to drive an hour to their closest card shop, and stuff like that.. it makes me feel like I should take advantage of in-person carding options outside my doorstep. I'll probably hit the card show at the mall this weekend, along those lines.

So yeah, in closing, while I was holding a shred of hope that the card shop a few blocks from me was great and I could buy a bunch of stuff and support local commerce and all that, I left empty-handed and don't see myself going back there anytime soon.

keepers from the grocery store

Two posts in one day? Look out! Last post, I put up some trade bait from my haul of packs I conveniently bought while grocery shopping this weekend.

But now these are cards that I plan to hang onto. So back off! lol

Here are some promising whippersnappers. That 2012 Bowman Chrome Xander Bogaerts is a nice pull worth a few bucks.

Here are some horizontal cards

Here's the tangential Padre faction

A couple Griffeys, a Jeter, some HOF oldies, a diecut, and Appier RC(!!!) (Kevin Appier for the Hall!) [Sorry for the poor photo, my camera batteries died right after this.]

As I came to the last pack in the repack, I was feeling somewhat disappointed in my pack-ripping booty. But I went out on a high note with this semi-hit from the 2012 Heritage pack..

While I haven't officially added Miggy to the list of players I collect, I've been trying to get a modest little PC going. Love him or hate him, the guy crushes it and puts up monster numbers. So this relic of a probable future Hall of Famer made me happy and helped justify the $26 I spent on all these cards. I definitely won't pick up cards every week when I go shopping, but every once in a while, it'll be nice to have a close-by ripping fix.

trade bait from the grocery store

I mentioned a little while ago that since I moved in February, our new local grocery store (Fred Meyer) has a respectable trading card section. This is handy for me because I never shop at Walmart and rarely shop at Target, so I don't come across cards for sale in the wild very often. I splurged a bit this weekend and bought some packs to rip.

I've been reading blogs about some good experiences lately with those $19.99 "20 packs + a hit" repacks, so when I saw one (the only one on the shelf), I threw it in the cart.

I wanted some '14 Heritage (hadn't busted any of that yet), but didn't see any. But then I noticed a few jumbo packs stacked on the back of a shelf, so grabbed one of those ($5.99).

Also stocked up on hot sauce while we were out.

So let's see if my $26 was well spent. I'll break these up into 2 posts. The first one, this one, is all trade bait. See a card you want? Let me know! The next post will be the keepers.

Let's start with the 2014 Heritage. Spoiler alert: it was a dud. No players I collect, no parallels, SPs, no nuthin'. A bunch of boring base cards plus a Malcolm X news flashback.

Now on to the 20-pack repack.

Here's the loose hit they threw in..

Meh, could be worse. Nice looking card, #'d 45/99. Wily Mo Pena never quite lived up to his potential in the majors. He's playing in Japan now, off to a great start in 2014 (batting .400 in the first 8 games).

And here's what else I got. Again, these are all up for grabs via a quick trade if you want.

One pack sure gave you a lot of cards back then.

It's like every base card is a yellow parallel!

Always lots of '08 UD/UDFE in these repacks. Ryan Howard's legs look funny.

Sorry this photo is worthless. Cliff Lee gold.

The Zito is #'d 739/2013, if memory serves.

Marichal mini.

There ya go. Again, I'd be happy to trade off any card in this post, so if anything caught your eye, just let me know.

Next up, I'll post the cards that will likely stick around in my collection.

Drunk on liquorfractor: A liquored-up Refraction Action

I'm taking off work Monday and Tuesday, giving myself a nice 4-day weekend for some much needed rest and relaxation. The highlight will likely be Monday night, seeing one of my all-time favorite bands in concert for the first time ever.. Very excited about that! (Check out the above if you're not familiar with that album. You'll probably hate it on first listen, but stick with it and by the 3rd or 4th time around, it'll be your new favorite album. Or maybe not. But I like it.)

In honor of my "spring break", as I'm calling this extended weekend, I'm cracking open the cardboard cognac.

2011 Topps Cognac Diamond Anniversary #496 - Gavin Floyd

I expanded my Greatest Gavins collection in a recent COMC order, and picked up this bad boy among the additions. Looks pretty sweet in action! Talk about a trippy Floyd light show!

Spring break!! Wooooo!!

This party's just getting started. Pour me another.

[slurred speech] You know what? You know. I love you, man. You are you are the best. You don't even care that this post is a post on a joke from three years ago. No, I mean that. ...Ace is the place!

Ug.. oh jeez.. hurp.. I think I've had a bit too much. *buuuh* I'm gonna hurl... 

Oh man, I'm gonna be hungover tomorrow. Ya gotta be really careful with liquorfracor intake. Enjoy in moderation, guys.