Late to the Party

Big weekend here at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ. Friday, my wife won us tickets to go see TJ Miller's comedy show (He's probably best known these days as playing Erlich on Silicon Valley). It was hilarious, but it was the late show and ran even later than scheduled, so we were both pretty pooped by the time we finally got home.

Speaking of being late, I'm a little late on Trevor Story mania, with his impressive rookie season cut short by injury, but I won an auction for a Ginter framed mini auto the other day..

I like it! I was lucky enough to win a 2016 A&G complete set with SPs, and not that I'm foolish enough to go after a "master set" or anything, but maybe I'll add a few hits to it too. I wouldn't mind adding the weird Urias SP one of these days.

Next let's change gears for a trade recap. Angus from Dawg Day Cards recently got in touch with me about swapping cards.

Nice lot of Gwynn/Padres oddballs!

Is it just me or did Denny's hologram technology go down in 1993? I couldn't get a good view of this one.

Yeah! Angus was able to find several cards on my dwindling 1971 Topps wantlist including the distinguished Norm Cash and Jim Bunning. While I had just recently picked up a '71 Vida Blue, I'm happy to get a second one of that iconic card that I can put with the PC.

Thanks for the great first trade, Angus! I hope to soon send you back some stuff you're equally happy with.

Again, great show. Though an alternate version of "Don't You Want Me" ("Cocktail Bar") will never leave my head.

Then Saturday my wife's dragonboat team had their big race of the year. Me and Annie went down to cheer them on.

Saturday night, Annie had a sleepover, as we dogsat a cool pooch named Jack who belongs to a teammate. That was cool except for a stressful dream I had where we lost him. But luckily the dream was not realized and he was safely returned to his family Sunday morning.

Now I'm just trying to have a lazy Sunday and spend some time on a custom card project I've got in the works.

Combined shipping autos FTW (and no football for me again this year)

Here are some recent eBay pickups.

When I found out there was another widely-available (inexpensive) Jerry Coleman auto out there that I didn't have, I set a search for one with a low opening bid. A couple weeks later this one popped up and I ended up winning for just $6.39 plus shipping. Gotta love the Colonel, second only to Tony Gwynn in the hearts of Padres fans. I picked up an original '52 Jerry Coleman back in May 2014 (wow, has it been that long already?), and this tweaked certified auto version is a nice complement.

Before paying, I took a look at the sellers other's auctions and ended up winning this card too...

My first Starling Marte auto. He's quietly having another very strong year, making the All-Star team and batting over .300 for the first time. These Topps Tek cards always look nice, and as long as it's not a low numbered parallel, they're usually affordable. Landed this base auto for just $3.25 plus 50¢ additional shipping.

Just another photo of it, showing off the acetate-ness of it in the window.


This next card I picked up along with the Coolio auto I showed off a few days ago. For just 99¢ and no extra shipping, I added this to my order...

I'm sure you guys are sick of everytime I post a football card, I go on a mini rant about how I don't care about football anymore. The only snaps I'll watch this year will be if I'm out somewhere and they happen to have a game on. Maybe if there are really interesting playoff match-ups, I'll actually put a game on voluntarily. If the Chargers PR nightmare of nearly moving the franchise to Los Angeles wasn't bad enough, then there was the ugly ordeal of trying to sign their first draft pick, Joey Bosa. They eventually agreed to terms, but both sides came out looking like assholes. So while of course I still hope San Diego surprises everybody and wins the Super Bowl for once, it'd be stretching it to really call myself a fan anymore.

Despite my animosity with the Chargers these days, I still have some sentimental fuzzies for the teams of the 90s and 00s back when I gave a damn. And so picking up a Darren Sproles stickergraph for just a lousy buck was an easy choice. He couldn't quite fill the shoes of the great LaDainian Tomlinson, but he had some exciting moments for the Bolts. I honestly had no idea before just now checking his Wikipedia entry, but apparently he's still active, currently with the Eagles. Good for him! Hopefully for his sake he retires soon, though.. Football is bad for you!


Unlike the previous cards, this next one was actually bought a few months ago, but I never got around to posting it here and since I'm talking about old Chargers guys I remember rooting for back in the day, here's this..

Shawne Merriman was a heck of a football player. His legacy took a hit with PED fingering, but hey, it's the NFL, that shit should be expected, right? I picked up this card while on my kick of going after xfractor autos.. they're just so cool looking! He had some great years with the Chargers. Then a couple meh years with the Bills, then called it quits before his 30th birthday. Good for him! Hopefully his brain isn't too damaged.

One last football card for today and long as I'm cleaning out football card pickups from the past couple months..

Ain't nobody better say nothing bad about Mr. Tomlinson! He's one of the all-time greatests. Good guy off the field, too. This 2016 Donruss Elite parallel breaks the post's theme of autographed cards, but it's the numbering on the back that called me to it..

Yep, my second LaDainian Christmas Card! (Could have sworn I posted the first one on the blog before, an auto, but I can't seem to find that post now.)

That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Current Padre pickups from COMC

Well, it's yet another lost year for the Padres. At this point, I'm almost happy with a daily loss.. just tank it and get a good draft pick next year, right? In spite of it all, I'm still a Padres fan till the day I'm in the cold, cold ground, and so in my latest COMC order I picked up a few cards of "notable" current Friars which I'd like to show off to you today.

This might be the highlight of my modest Wil Myers PC now. A cool looking translucent auto. Just look at all those squiggles!

And it's a Christmas Card!!! Wil had a very nice 1st half, then I guess participating in the Home Run Derby fucked up his swing or something, and he's been scuffling since. Oh well. Let's hope he comes back strong next year. He's the best marquee dude we've got.

And some more Myers cards. Me and Shane love those Bowman bubblefractors..  They got a nice look to them, and at /99, they're scare enough but without being prohibitively pricey. The middle card is a thick-ass (TOO thick, if you ask me) Five Star auto that features a "good" auto by Wil Myers standards (more squiggles). The Bowman Sterling card on the right is an example of a typical "bad" Wil Myers auto (few squiggles), and a stickergraph, but it was the cheapest auto of his on COMC so I snatched it up.

Here are a couple young guys whom the future success of the Padres might depend on: Travis Jankowski and Austin Hedges. Those Leaf Crusade cards sure are pretty.. I'd love to pick up a real (1998 Donruss) one sometime.

And the rest!

Adam Rosales has been a handy utility guy for the Padres this year.

Luis Perdomo kinda came out of nowhere to be San Diego's de facto ace. But APPARENTLY THIS IS A CARD OF A DIFFERENT GUY NAMED LUIS PERDOMO WHO ALSO HAPPENED TO PITCH FOR THE PADRES A FEW YEARS AGO. D'oh! That was a waste of a few bucks. I guess I'll just feign ignorance and pretend that this is an auto of the current Padres hurler. *grumble*

Pat Kivlehan has gotten into just 5 games for the Padres this year, But, well, he had a timely hit at some point that inspired me to grab this inexpensive Onyx auto. Nice looking cards with the on-card gold ink on black card. Let's hope he turns out to be the next Mike Trout, shall we.

And finally, Alex Dickerson has shown some impressive power when he gets ahold of one, occasionally taking it deeeep. His numbers ain't great overall, but San Diego hopes this local So Cal boy (Poway, CA) can develop into a dangerous force in the heart of the order. This cheap on-card auto sounded good to me.

There you go.. desperate pickups from a diehard Padres fan. Maybe one of these years they'll win it all.
HEEEY.. IT COULD HAPPEN! :P

You know, in all honesty, it's probably better for me that they don't. If they ever did win the World Series, I'd be compelled to supercollect every last dude on the 40-man roster that year for the rest of my life. That could be costly. LOL

Keep on rockin', fellas!

COMC and me

While Paul Goldschmidt is technically off my wantlist now, I've got a weakness for his cards and for Bowman Chrome refractors, so it's no surprise I broke down and threw a couple numbered parallels into my latest COMC order.

With COMC upping their flat shipping rate to $3.99, I feel like I need to be a little more strategic with when I ship out cards I've bought, and so some of these have been sitting in my inventory for a while. This pair of #'d Drew Pomeranz cards were picked up back when he was still the Padres' ace, before they sent him to Boston in the middle of July for 18 year-old pitching prospect Anderson Espenosa who, while highly touted, still has a long way to go. Drew hasn't exactly kept his All-Star caliber numbers going with the Sox, but he pitched a strong game yesterday in his return to Petco, finding himself on the losing side of a 2-1 ballgame.

Here's a card I bought in that narrow window of time between the Padres trading Matt Kemp to Atlanta for Hector Olivera, and before they released Olivera, just eating the rest of his contract. I figured they'd be desperate enough to give the a-hole a shot at sticking around, but nope. Oh well, it was only a couple bucks. Know what really appealed to me about this card? Red ink auto! I'm kinda sick of blue and black at this point, so give me a red or green (etc) signature, and you've got my attention.

I love Dave Winfield and I love Archives Reserve, so picking up this bat relic for cheap was an easy buy.

Snagged a Mookie Betts framed parallel #/99. He's having a great year.


Er.. ok, now this one wasn't bought on COMC. Jeff at 2x3 Heroes is doing a contest where you have to make a custom card of yourself from your childhood ballplaying days. And dang it, 1st prize is a sweet bunch of cards I'd love to win, so I brought my A-game. While I sadly never played organized ball-- not even T-Ball or Little League-- I had a couple old photos of awkward-aged brace-face me holding a bat. I went big with the 1956 Topps design, because everybody seems to love it but it's tough to customize. Once the poll is live, I'll bug ya'll to vote for me.

[Update: I've since removed the picture of the card since it included my name and signature, making me a little nervous of baddies that might come across it. But I think it was a passable replica!]

So there are some random cards that've made their way into my collection recently. Thanks for checking them out!

A banner day for the blog

It's done! A couple letter cards in my latest COMC order finished off this project for me. Behold the new header for Baseball Card Breakdown:

Labor Day 2016 - ???

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. That's 21 auto letter patch cards spelling out the blog name. A couple dupes, but hey, I was mostly just trying to find the cheapest specimens I could find. I filled up the blank space with my pride n' joys, 2004 Topps Retired refractors. Go ahead, give it a long look, lingering from card to card over the span of several minutes. You know those bumper stickers that say "Ask me about my grandchildren"? I need a bumper sticker that says "Ask me about my 2004 Topps Retired refractors".

And as we pass the torch, let's pay respects to the blog's previous banner...

January 2014 - Labor Day 2016

This is a photo of my little "card display" area from my old place. I haven't lived there for well over two years, so I was probably overdue to make a new banner. I always felt a little guilty having such a big header, as I feel they make your readers have to scroll down a little extra every time they visit your blog. I'm happy my new one is a bit smaller. Though, sure, I'll miss this image. I'm the type of guy who typically isn't a fan of change for change's sake.

And the original..

Day 1 (June 15, 2013) thru January 2014

This is a sparser image of the same display area. The autos are Marcus Giles and Gaylord Perry. Ah... simpler times. I was just getting back into the hobby then. One thing I love about looking at my banners is each card holds a story for me. That '66 Gaylord in the upper right is the spoils of an epic Listia battle, fought hard and won (I remember lying in bed stressing out over it while the auction was going, becoming downright obsessed with winning the card). The adjacent Clemente RC reprint is also very meaningful to me, somewhat of a representation of my first dog Lucy, as she was so great and an embodiment of awesomeness just as Clemente was... and similarly taken too soon, as we had to put her down due to an extended fight with cancer not long after I pulled that card from a blaster of Archives.

Sorry for the sentimental tangent. But thanks for being here for the dawn of a new era for the blog, at least as far as the banner image goes. Hopefully I'll have plenty of good content and cards for you to check out over these next few years until I get bored with this banner and make a new one.

Take care, everybody.

Overlay Voyage (sumpin' brand new for dat ass)

Once again, I have dressed up a few recent autograph pickups with custom overlays that I find more interesting than the original cards.

My first Stephen Strasburg auto! I mainly collect him due to his San Diego State ties, so it was a no-brainer to transform this boring 2014 Prizm auto into a SDSU card. 1985 Donruss seemed like a good choice, matching the red & black school colors.

Here it is without the overlay.

Next up.. Coolio!

The story behind picking up this card is a weekend or two ago I had a couple drinks and watched this amusing Pete Davidson clip and decided to see if Coolio had any cheap auto cards out there. Sure enough, a couple days later I was the high bidder on this 2013 Leaf Pop Century card for $2.80.

Coolio was pretty huge in the mid 90s. To be honest, I've never really liked the song "Gangsta's Paradise", his biggest hit, preferring the Weird Al version if I had to pick. But I love a few of his other songs like "Fantastic Voyage", "I Remember", "Geto Highlights", and "C U When U Get There" to name a few.

Boom! For lack of a better idea, I just did another 1985 Donruss style overlay. When this photo of Coolio in an Angels jersey popped up, I figured that'd be a good choice to use on a baseball card. It was taken in November 2002, with Anaheim fresh off their World Series win. Jersey #22 was David Eckstein, so that's pretty cool.

Last one for today, Padres All-Time Home Run King, Nate Colbert..

Sadly, this is the only real certified auto Colbert has out there. He's not even on it! Just a picture of his bat. Lame. I already had one of these cards in my Colbert PC, but threw another cheap one into my latest COMC order with the intention of spicing it up with an overlay.

That's better! I didn't do much design-wise here, just found a cool photo I hadn't seen before. The nameplate is actually from a photo of a game-used bat.

So yeah, I'm very happy with these overlays and definitely think they're an improvement over the raw cards.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Vintage Vigilante strikes again

More strides in my vintage setbuilds!

I've been ponying up for some old set needs lately.

Let's check out my recent pickups!

These 3 cards should all appear in Night Owl's forthcoming "best cards of the 70s" countdown. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see them ranked #1, #2, #3, respectively. I already had a creased Clemente and an Allen, but these are upgrades and now I have dupes for the PCs.

HOFers being majestic.

More big names! I think the only legend I'm missing now is Mays.

And a bunch more (mostly) high numbers! Most of these 71s I'm showing off are from an eBay seller apparently breaking a set (I snagged a bunch of lots and singles with no additional shipping), and some of them are from recent Sportlots and COMC orders.

Moving onto 1965 now, these few card-savered cards are from a trade with Mark Hoyle. Thanks, Mark! I've got a return package for you just about ready to drop off.

And here are a few more 65s from Sportlots and COMC.


Where am I at after the dust has settled?

Over 90% complete with 1971 Topps!

Over 2/3 complete with 1965 Topps!

I'm not typically one for setting deadlines for my collecting goals, but I'm thinking I could possibly knock out 1971 by the end of 2016 if I stay focused. And maybe 1965 by the end of 2017.

I think I'm going to print out updated needs lists and make finding vintage needs a priority at the next couple monthly card shows.


Not vintage set related, but thanks to Bo for mailing over a bunch of Dave Henderson cards...

A postseason star, in 20 career World Series games, Hendu hit .324.

And a few Adrian Beltre needs for good measure.

The package arrived torn up in a USPS "Oop! Your package got chewed up by our machines" baggie, but luckily I think all the cards were still there, and no worse for the experience. Bo, if you had included a '52 Mantle or something and it was lost in the sea of mail sorting, please keep that information to yourself rather than break my heart. I'll shoot ya back a return soon.. thanks a lot!

Well, thanks for swinging by and I hope you guys enjoy the holiday weekend.