2014 Gypsy Queen trade bait revisited

I posted about my GQ haul moments after the group break a few days ago. Now that I've got the cards in-hand, let's take a better look at them. (Thanks again to Judson for his top-notch group breakin' skills.)

As I mentioned last time, I bought-in with the Dodgers and Yankees, and randomly got paired up with the Mets and Diamondbacks. I was hoping to pull a Koufax penny or Jeter button or something cool like that, but no such luck. I didn't get any MEGAHIT$, but it also wasn't a total bust for me either. The Dbacks-- the team I had the least hopes for-- turned out to be my best performer in the break, hit-wise.

I'll post my "keepers" soon, but the cards in this post are all up for trades. I might put the couple autos and low #'d cards on eBay to try to make back a little of my money if I don't get any compelling offers for them soon, but other than that, these will definitely not take much to be yours.

So take a look at these cards and let me know if you want any of them. I don't want them! Do you? Take them! Throw me a couple cards that fit into my wantlist and I'll be happy. Team collectors of Yanks, Dodgers, Mets, and Dbacks.. I'm looking at you. Please! Save me from these Gypsy Queens! Lots of dupes.


DODGERS:

......auto is #'d 14/49

YANKEES:

Blue Whitey #'d 398/499. Sepia Ellsbury mini #'d 13/50. Zappy called dibs on the Phelps auto last time.. deal pending.

METS:

DIAMONDBACKS:

Wood Mark Trumbo mini #'d 3/5!

OK, that's it.
Most of these base cards I've got 2-4 copies of, FYI. So just because somebody "called dibs" on a card in the comments, I may still have another one available.

So let's trade!

discovering eBay Bucks

How did I not know about eBay bucks until yesterday? I feel like I've thrown away a couple hundred dollars in these past couple years that I've been buying cards and stuff on there. Seems to me all you do is click a button to sign up, and from then on you earn credit for your wins/purchases that add up to eventual certificates you can then use to pay for stuff on there. The catch is you've gotta earn at least $5 per calendar quarter or you get nothing, but if you're a frequent buyer, that doesn't seem too hard. And it's not like you lose anything if you don't make the threshold. It's basically just a free frequent buyer program.

Damn, I feel like an idiot missing out on this till now. I would see other bloggers mention having eBay bucks to spend, and figure they were just talking about profits they made by selling. Glad I finally looked into it.

In case anybody else out there is a regular eBayer and wasn't familiar with this rewards program, here's the link for more info..
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/ebay-bucks.html

I hate to feel like I'm plugging eBay, but if you're gonna use it, as the majority of us active collectors inevitably do from time to time, might as well spend a few seconds to click a button to potentially get some money back, right?

Baseball Card Dance Party!!

It's Friday! You know what that means!! It's time to dance, Dance, DANCE!!!

Uh! Uh! Work dat groove thang!

Shakin' dat ass! Shakin' dat ass!

Like last time, these soulful cards are from my trade box, so holla if you need/want any and we'll build a little PWE trade or something.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Stay safe and remember to always keep dancing!

Postage Due! Part Deux

So what was in my postage-due envelope that inspired yesterday's drunken rant?

As I suspected, it was a Listia win from a couple weeks ago with a selection of 73 Topps cards. The seller had a few different lots split up by team. The Twins ended up being the only lot I could afford / remembered to bid on in time (Somebody really needs to create a Listia sniping service). I only needed 4 of the 11 cards included in the lot. They're in decent shape and all, but I'm not happy about paying $1.83 for them on top of a chunk of Listia credits.. not to mention a trip standing in line at the post office, which as my last post stressed, I am no fan of.

I messaged the seller about it and hope he's cool enough to Paypal me a couple bucks to help make things right. We'll see. (Though $2 wouldn't come close to erasing the scars of an encounter with the evil that is your typical behind-the-counter postal worker.)

Anyways, here are the cards..

It's pretty silly that a PWE weighing 1.15 oz costs a Forever stamp (49 cents) plus an extra $1.83. So $2.32 total. I could see wanting the extra 20 cents for non-machinable, but that's excessive. If the seller broke the lot into 2 PWEs, I'm pretty sure it would have been fine with a Forever stamp on each, for a total cost of 98 cents. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Bottom line: Screw the post office.

Lesson to take away: Keep your PWEs from going over one ounce (and 1/4 inch thick), and you should be fine.

Anyways, let's try to move passed that ugliness and continue talking about my 1973 Topps Baseball set completion goal.

Mark Hoyle also came through with a PWE of 73s for me earlier this week.

You can tell I'm getting to the bottom of Mark's '73 barrel, as most of these cards are a bit rough. But hey, I'll check them off the list now and if down the road I'm able to upgrade them, cool.

And the funny thing is these 19 cards arrived fine in a long PWE (though I can't remember for certain how much postage Mark used.. maybe a couple Forevers?), but spread out 3-wide in cut up binder pages.

So let's check the big board...

343/699
49.07% complete
as of 4/17/14

Oh... so close to the midpoint!

As always, if you got some spare 73s you could part with, please check my wantlist and feel free to chat me up about a trade. Just 7 more cards would get me over the hump!

Postage Due? Fuuuuuu....

Damn it. I'm 99% sure this attempted delivery was baseball cards. Now I gotta go down to the horrible post office and stand in line for 10-15 minutes for a horrible interaction to the horrible postal workers who man the registers at my local post office and give them a buck eighty-three.

I'm not sure what this is. I don't have any eBay wins I was expecting today. I've got a Listia win I've been waiting on for 11 days or so.. maybe it's that. I've got 2 or 3 trade reciprocations in the pipeline.. maybe it's one of those.

This is the 2nd time I've gotten one of these orange notices since I moved here mid February. Head's up, prospective trade partners, my post office are sticklers for correct postage. Don't just slap a Forever stamp on a bubble mailer and assume it'll be fine. Grrrr. Oh well.

I'm temped to hide a couple bucks in change on my front porch somewhere and put a note in my mailbox for my letter carrier saying, "In case of postage due, check the flower pot" (or whatever).

I remember sometimes in the past at my old place, they'd give me a note that was like, "hey, postage due, buddy" but still deliver the item, and include a mini manila envelope for you to put funds and leave for them to pick up next day. But not these guys. Maybe there's a limit for that.. like, over a buck, you gotta stand in line in the hellhole that is the postoffice.

I hate standing in line at the post office and deal with the soulless pricks who work there. When I mail stuff, I always use the automated kiosk unless I absolutely can't, such as International packages to mail. (Sorry, non-US peeps, but not only is it costly, it's a pain in the ass.)

I've dealt with the postoffice several hundreds of times in my life. Let's pay tribute to the cool postal workers I've interacted with:

• El Cajon, CA - Jamaican lady who is proud of her hair - She was not overly nice, but still a decent person and did me right.
• El Cajon, CA - Mannish fat white lady - Reasonable friendly. I remember once she let me slide with sending a box of magazines media rate even though they should have been 2nd class or someshit. She was cool.
• El Cajon, CA - Chubby Laotian lady - A rarity indeed! A friendly postal worker! She was really sweet.
• Downtown Portland, OR - Friendly black lady - Another genuinely kind postal worker. Her post office has since closed (PSU post office), I'm not sure where she ended up, but I hope she's doing well.

And there you have it. From the hundreds of postal workers I've dealt with in my time, there are the four I wouldn't wish horrible misfortunes upon.

I should clarify that letter carriers I've interacted with have generally been cool. I'm directed my vitriol on those who deal with customers in the post office. In their defense, I'm sure they deal with a ton of assholes and idiots everyday, and so their souls have been beaten to dust and now they simply don't give a shit about anyone or anything. Power games with the poor saps who have to bow down to them are how they get their kicks.

Thank God for the automated machines.

The Many Rated Rookies of Sandy Alomar, Jr

In 1989, Donruss rightfully noted that Sandy Alomar, Jr. was a hot catching prospect for San Diego and marked his card a Rated Rookie.

In 1990, they again gave his card a Rated Rookie logo.

By 1991, they were addicted and just couldn't stop themselves!!!

They were maniacally bent on rating Sandy Alomar's status as rookie!

Now you're just embarrassing yourselves, Donruss!

Oh, for the love of..

Give it up, Donruss!

Ok, ok, all but the first 2 of these are obviously fake, I admit. The fact the 2014 Donruss card has team logos gives it away.

Come take a gander at some cards I got (Card Show Recap)

At my last card show (which was my first card show as an adult), I mainly dug through the vintage guy's dollar boxes. This show, I was efficient/lazy and dug into the first dealer through the door, spending 45 minutes or so going through his 7-for-$5 boxes filled with a good mix of stuff, coming away with 21 cards for a cool $15.

I grabbed a few quirky 90s inserts including this Frank Thomas photo slide card from '94 Leaf, here held up to the window for the full effect.

Here's another Big Hurt. 1991 Stadium Club has a checkered past for me. Last year I bought the complete set off a guy on eBay, but several of the cards had a weird scuff thing going on that I couldn't stand for. I ended up sending the set back for a refund, meaning I basically rented the set for a few days for the return postage I coughed up. Bummer. At least now I got these 2 key cards from it. The guy had a ton of Griffeys, but this is the only one I pulled the trigger on.

A couple crazy Ripkens. I wasn't necessarily going after Cals, these just happen to be funky types of cards I had an interest in. The first, an addition to my glow-in-the-dark mini-collection. The "CD" diecut is an insert set I've been wanting to get into my collection for a while.. joining my loves of baseball cards, music, and puns into one.

The only non-baseball card I picked up, a sweet Jerry Rice 2nd-year. I was sure to check all the dealer's cards that were in hard cases (notice several of these cards I'm showing are in hard cases). I know some of you binder guys don't like your cards "incarcerated" as such, but a hefty plastic case on a card makes me happy, what can I say. Plus it made me feel like I was getting an even better deal since screw-downs ain't free, ya know.

Speaking of screw-down cases, check out that Maddux! What a case! As for the card, it's some Sportsflixy "SAMPLE". Cool. The guy had a lot of Maddux cards, but I limited myself to just this one. These 4 cards above were the Padre-ish cards I picked up. Up top is a Brian Giles bat relic #'d 22/25. Below that, a shiny #'d Gaylord and a 3D Ozzie.

A couple more relics.. Ivan Rodriguez and Craig Biggio. Just a couple guys I kinda like that I didn't really have any hits of. 72 cents a pop? Sure.

I seem to have a soft spot for "we are family" Pirates.

Of course I couldn't not throw some sweet vintage onto my stack! Never heard of Heinie (giggle) Manush, and honestly can't tell you what set that's from without Googling it. (I know it's old Fleer.) But I like it. (Do you like my Heinie?)

And we finish up with some dudes who are still active, including some potential "Refraction Action" subjects.

So there you go. Not a bad "less than a blaster" haul. My neck/back won't allow me to be one of those guys who kills several hours hunched over going through cards, but they have this card show about once a month, and as I mentioned last time, it's a short drive from my house, so I have no problem keeping my outings brief.

Thanks for reading, Robert. And everyone else, too. Keep it hot on the corner, Pat. Happy Sunday and sayonara!