Custom TTM Success: Travis Taijeron

My first through-the-mail return of 2017 is in! This is a very sweet success for me. My oldest "pending" request is from when I sent a Topps Pro Debut card of Travis Taijeron to be signed c/o the Las Vegas 51s back on 9/1/2015. Then, after getting into making my own custom baseball cards at the end of 2015, I impatiently tried sending a custom for him to sign at Mets spring training on 3/3/2016. Still nothing, the persistent bugger I am, I then tried via the 51s again on 5/7/2016.

I essentially walked back to the proverbial dugout after those 3 swinging strikes, and I mentioned as much during my 2016 Guys From Granite recap. While bummed, I totally get that he's in no way obligated to respond to fan mail such as mine, so there were no hard feelings.

But I lucked out and happened to catch the attention of someone who has Travis' ear. This person kindly got in touch with me and offered to mediate any signing I needed. I know this person isn't looking for a shoutout and I feel they'd probably rather remain anonymous, so I won't mention them by name, but I'm definitely very grateful for the assist. (Huge thank you!)

I sent 3 copies each of 2 different customs (always nice to offer extras for them to keep if they'd like) to this helper back in November, and I got back all 6 signed the other day. Sweet!

I like the Mets/Leaf Signatures custom a lot, though the Granite Hills/1983 Topps custom is the one I was most happy to get back. I'd love to get Granite customs signed by all active Eagles in pro ball from here on out. This was a big one to check off!

One thing I learned about Travis Taijeron recently (among the funny facts in this YouTube video) is that his last name is pronounced like "Tyrone." Good to know.

Looks like Travis is still with the Mets organization (I figured he'd have been traded or snatched up in the Rule 5 draft), so he'll most likely be stuck in AAA Las Vegas for the 3rd straight year in 2017. Kind of a bummer he hasn't gotten a shot to show what he can do in the Bigs. He was recently invited to the big league spring training camp again, though. (The announcement of which Mets farmhands were invited got a little more attention than normal this year for who wasn't on the list: Tim Tebow.)

Best of luck with your career, Travis.. Hoping 2017 is the year you crack the majors and go on to big things! And huge thanks again to the intermediary who was crucial at making this autograph return a success!

Trades, Beer, and Snow

You know me.. I'm all about the TBS: trades, beer, and snow.

Shoebox Shane was kind enough to send me a PWE to thank me for the holiday blast PWE I sent his way last month.

Oh man, these atomic refractors from 2011 Topps Chrome are among the best parallels the company has put out.

They're all numbered to /225 on the back. I seem to recall Shane has been working on putting together the set of these himself, and so I assume these may likely be dupes from lots he's picked up over recent years.

They are very appreciated additions for my frankenset, with all being needs besides one upgrade (over the regular refractor).

Big thanks, Shane!!

 -  - - - ---o

Next up is a 2-card bomb from P-town Tom.

Tom pulled these 2 cards during a pack war on his blog a little while back, and I commented expressing interest in case he didn't have other plans for them, seeing as Bogaerts and Lindor are a couple of my favorite newer PCs and I was lacking both these sweet cards. He kindly obliged!

Thanks a ton, Tom!

-   -   - -- --o

That's it for the trade portion of the post, though I'm still working on sorting through the thousands of cards Padrographs Rod gave me the week before Christmas. Expect a series of posts on that big lot in the next week or so. Some great stuff there.

-  - - - --o

Now the portion of the post to make the beer connoisseurs jealous. Every year my awesome wife treats me to the Twelve Days of Beermas, with a new craft beer each day leading up to Christmas. And just when I'm running out of high quality beer to enjoy, my in-laws routinely supply me with another nice selection of beers for my birthday, essentially turning Beermas from a 12 day event to 18 or so. I like to take pictures of them to document them for posterity, so here are what I got this (past) year (I mistakenly mixed up the ones from my wife and the ones from my in-laws, so they aren't really in order).

(The Buoy IPA was actually a Secret Santa gift my wife got from work, though she did kindly split it with me.)

 whoops.. you can't really read that middle one, so here's another pic:

I'm not much for giving beverage reviews, so I'll just say that all of these were very tasty, not a stinker among them. My favorite might have been the peanut butter one.. PB beers are hit or miss, but this one from Wild Ride was a very good one. Bottle-wise, my favorite has to be the Rogue Dead Guy Ale, which I've had many times before but this one was special, as I didn't notice till I was drinking it. I'm not one to typically save my empties, but this bottle glows-in-the-dark! And if you've been reading my blog for a while now, you know I unabashedly love glowing stuff. Trading cards, toys, you name it.. if it glows, I dig it.

This is my first glowing beer bottle (though full disclosure: I don't routinely shine a bright light on every beer I drink and then take it into the dark, so who knows). Very cool! I think I'm going to rinse this out well and hang onto it, at least for a while.

- - - - ---o

Snow deeper than #walletcard? Think that qualifies as a #snowday in Portland. #pdxtst #pdxsnow pic.twitter.com/xeiytupcUT

— Breakdown Cards (@breakdowncards) January 11, 2017

Hey, it's a snow day! The largest snowfall since I've been living up here in Portland, in fact. I'm sure you guys around historically snowy regions will chime in about how it takes 3 feet of snow for you to even notice, and 6 feet to impede you from getting to work. But here in the pacific northwest, we're not quite as used to it, so a couple inches tends to slow us to a crawl. But yeah, I heard this snowfall was the most here in 37 years. So I stayed home from work, and likely will tomorrow as well.

Stay safe, everybody! I'll leave you with a bunch of pictures of my dog playing in the snow, as is customary on this blog for any major snow day.

Rainbow Complete! Gavin LaValley 2014 Prizm Draft auto

There were 9 different versions of Gavin LaValley's autograph card in 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks And Prospects Extravaganza or whatever it was officially called. Only one 1/1 (thankfully no printing plates), so it was do-able. Took me a little over 2 years, but I just now completed the rainbow. The gold /10 was the last one I bought [eBay], though the green /35 was the last to arrive, a COMC pickup.

Now, this rainbow only counts for his autograph card. LaValley also has a base card in the product (different photo, so different rainbow.. in my eyes, at least). Still missing a couple low-numbered cards for that one. But yeah, for now, let's give this rainbow its moment in the sun...

base

Press Proof, /199

Purple, /149

Red, /100

Blue Mojo, /75

Orange, /60

Green, /35

Gold, /10

Black Finite, 1/1

Feels good to have finished off that goal! This is the biggest rainbow I've ever completed, and it'll likely be a long while till I top it.

My favorite card of 2016: Ken Griffey, Jr. 1/1 Archives auto

I pulled this redemption over the summer from my annual 2 boxes of Archives (which were otherwise pretty forgettable), and had been recently getting worried about it ever showing up.. I checked the website and there was a new "request replacement" option, and I figured that was a bad sign. But then last month Topps tweeted that Junior had just signed a bunch of cards for them and it filled me with hope. FedEx made me sweat it out a bit, but the card finally arrived.

Ken Griffey, Jr 2016 Topps Archives Father & Son 1/1 black border autograph

Oh, that's nice!!

Easily the best card I've ever pulled from a pack (if you want to get technical, I pulled the redemption card, but you know what I mean), and will be damn tough to beat. A Topps Junior 1/1 auto such as this could likely sell on the secondary market scratching at the 4-figure mark. To be honest, I'm a little nervous having this card around the house, even with a rottweiler on the premises and a decent security system. I'll display it at my desk at work for a while (which is in a secure room that not even the cleaning crew has access to) and then after it's sufficiently ingrained in my brain, eventually move it into the family safe deposit box.

As you can see from the edges and corners, this card would obviously not grade out to be a 10.. pesky black borders.. so I don't think I'll bother submitting it. I mean, I've never submitted a card for grading.. but if I ever did, well, it'd be a card like this.

So yeah, it's the pull of my life, and it's gotta be my pick for favorite card of the year.

The serial number on these Father & Son autos is on the back at the top center (the base [white border] autos are /10).. so we'll just have to trust that this is actually numbered 1/1. I'd hate to break the sticker to take the card out.. OCD and keeping the card in it's "original, pristine" presentation. But check around on eBay and it will confirm for you that, yes, the black bordered cards in 2016 Archives are all 1/1's.

Topps was nice enough to throw in a bonus auto to apologize for the wait. Hey, it was only a few months, so not really necessary, but a generous gesture. Daniel Corcino cracked the bigs with the Reds in 2014, and spent last season pitching well enough in the Dodgers' organization after missing most of 2015 to injury. Looks like he recently signed a minor league deal with the Cubs for 2017.

But yeah, the star of this post is Ken Griffey, Jr, the man elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with a record 99.32% of the vote. This is my 2nd auto of his. While I like the first one a lot, this 1/1 is clearly king of my Junior PC.. hell, it's probably the best card in my entire collection now.

The game-changer of getting a smartphone + Wallet Card update

I was a late adopter at getting a cell phone, with nothing but a landline until finally getting a flip-phone in 2009 that I used through the end of 2016. But my lovely wife helped usher me into the 21st Century by getting me a smartphone for my birthday, a sweet Google Pixel.

Exciting indeed! From a carder perspective, it'll come in handy at the card show, being able to look up a card I suspect is a variation, and check online prices, and reference my set wantlists (rather than worrying about having updated printouts). And it'll be nice being able to read and write blog posts on the go (though I'm not great typing with my thumbs, so I probably won't draft too many posts on it). I also try to keep up with my Twitter feed while I'm on the train to and from work.

While I really don't give a crap about collecting digital cards, I gotta admit I've gone ahead and got on Bunt. I don't really know what I'm doing yet, but I try to logon everyday to get my free coins, and I'll usually rip open a digital pack or two, though I've yet to pull anything interesting. I'm not sure if "adding friends" is really a thing on there, but feel free to hit me up on there, username defgav. I haven't done any trading-- again, I haven't really pulled anything anyone would want-- but if anybody wants to pity-trade me a Padres insert or something, that'd be cool. But yeah, it's something to kill a couple minutes during my daily commute, though I can't see myself getting too enthralled with Bunt.

Also, this phone has a great camera built in, so most of the card pics you'll see on my blog going forward will likely be from it, and I can retire my old, heavy, AA battery-draining Pentax camera.

Oh, and yeah, I'll be able to take more wallet card photos now! Gotta admit, I briefly forgot about wallet card and my 2016 card was still in there for the first few days of 2017.

Ol' Wallet Tony doesn't look all that bad, considering. I can't show you the back because I use it as basically a little note card with bits of info, such as the passcode for my work gym. Hey, might as well give the card something to do, right?

But yeah, rather than double down, I wanted to use a new card for 2017. I figured I'd stick with my #1 guy Tony Gwynn.

I did mix it up a little this year, though. After two consecutive years of Topps cards, I went with Fleer this time. Thumbing through my Gwynn dupes, this 1987 "Limited Edition" card stood out as the best choice, with Tony flashing a nice smile during some pre-game catch. So yep, that definitely passes the test of it being a card that makes me happy.

It was kind of surprising how many cards I rejected because of what I associate with them. For example, I love Gwynn's 1990 Upper Deck card, but didn't want to choose that one because of a regret attached to it. See, I used to have a gimmicky "parallel" of that card that a company had encased in a block of lucite and resold as like a neat paperweight or something. I jettisoned it in the big downsizing of my collection back when I moved away from San Diego in 2009. It's one of the few items I regret getting rid of (another atop that list being a Dick Allen ball that I got signed by him in person as a kid). I haven't been able to track down another lucite 90UD Gwynn, and if I saw that card in my wallet on a regular basis, it would only remind me of that sad fact.

On the topic of sadness, my wife's family cat had to be put down today. He made an appearance on the blog a couple years ago ("the perils of a collector having pets") while we were cat-sitting. Poor guy got a tumor on his thigh, and it couldn't be removed without him losing the leg, and he was such an active cat, who was all about going outside and hunting mice and whatnot, so it would have been too big of a hit to his quality of life to slash his mobility and have to get used to being an inside-only cat. But yeah, that's definitely a tough decision to make. He was like 12 or 13 years old.
I only thought to mention it because the fact I chose to photo my wallet cards on dog toys this morning, though that was before I heard the news that it was Joey's last day. I'm glad we had a chance to say goodbye to him over Christmas, at least.

Another sad thing to mention, trading card icon Bob Lemke passed away the other day. In addition to all he did for the hobby-- tirelessly cataloging, digging up fascinating old articles and writing his own-- he's probably the granddaddy of custom baseball cards, setting the bar for making neat, design-accurate cards-that-never-were. Though I don't think I ever personally interacted with him other than an occasional comment on his blog, he was definitely a big inspiration when I was getting into making customs. Sorry to see him go.


But back to the game of Wallet Card. Let's go ahead and crown Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life as the winner for 2016. He was runner-up in 2015, when The Junior Junkie dominated to Ruthian levels. But this year TJ was busy with his first child, opening up the field. Bo continued to show off interesting bits of old New York's lingering past, all the while his beat-up 1989 Don Mattingly Topps Sticker poking into frame.

Congrats, Bo! I'll try to send you over a prize soon. Like a Mattingly auto or something?

And the rest of you guys, share some photos! It's fun! It kinda breaks my heart when I see a "photos from my recent trip" post on the cardsphere and there's no wallet card to be found. Haha.. throw a wallet card in there and it helps keep the post "on topic" with cards.

If you are in for Wallet Card 2017, let's see what card you picked (assuming you've decided to pick a new one), and how the old one has held up. Looks like Brian has led the way with this so far.

Thanks, guys! Take care.

Joy of a completed base product line: Topps Retired

Topps Retired Signature Edition (or shortened to Topps Retired) ran for 3 years, 2003 through 2005, before eventually morphing with Fan Favorites and Lineage into the modern version of Archives (or that's how it fits together in my mind, at least).

It's one of my favorite brands ever. The autos are the big draw, but the base cards are pretty sweet, too. As a guy who always flips over a card to check out the back, I very much appreciate the full career stats on the back. I pieced together the 2004 base set a year or two ago, then followed that up with the 2003 set complete off eBay not long after.

I recently finally finished off the trilogy by picking up the 2005 base set from an eBay seller for a terrific price. While it's probably my least favorite design of the 3, it's still got plenty of great looking cards in there.

I also picked up another 2003 set from the same guy, though I already had a complete 2003 set, but couldn't resist picking up another one at that price to break up for my PCs, seeing as I collect like two-thirds of the guys in the 110-card set.

And hey, while we're here, let's check out a sweet auto from 2003 Retired I've picked up recently...

A refractor of the great Robin Yount. That's a nice card!

New Years post of goals, grades, and a box break

Happy New Year!

- Every year my #1 collecting goal is the same: to have zero bobbleheads in my collection. How'd I do this year?

I failed! Rod saddled me a few bobbleheads and I haven't cast them away yet. (Just teasing here; I'm very grateful for being on the receiving end of Rod's generosity. That didn't sound right, but you know what I mean.)
Goal: Have no bobbleheads
Grade: F

- In 2015, I completed 1973 Topps, the first vintage set I ever completed. I nearly followed that up by completing 1971 Topps in 2016.. and I thought I had.. but then when I went to sort and collate it all out, I found myself one card short. I've already snagged it off COMC, though, and it should be in-hand shortly. So stay tuned for that upcoming post. But yeah, that goal didn't quite make it in time for the 2016 cut off. That's ok, because I don't tend to worry about collecting goals like that. It'll happen when it happens, or it won't. That said, by the end of 2017, perhaps I'll have finished 1965 Topps. That'd be cool. If you had to wring a 2017 collecting goal out of me (other than no bobbleheads), it'd probably be that (..with 1964 penciled in for 2018, then 1957 Topps in 2019, then I'd have finished all the vintage sets I want to complete. Though if I feel the itch after that, I could possibly see myself going after a late 70s or early 80s set, but no more true vintage.)
Goal: Complete a vintage set I love
Grade: A-

I'm also tantalizingly close to my goal of completing the 2004 Topps Retired autos, with only 2 cards to go (though I also want to upgrade to refractor parallels of them all, and I've still got quite a ways to go for that ultimate collecting goal of mine.)
Goal: Make good progress on 2004 Topps Retired
Grade: A

- My post total on Baseball Card Breakdown was down a little in 2016. After 283 posts in 2014, and 280 in 2015, I was down to only 254. I think the drop was just because I didn't necessarily feel obligated to post every day. Some days I just don't get around to drafting up a post, and I no longer stress out over squeezing a post out when I'm busy. And sometimes a post doesn't get the number of views I think it deserves, so I don't post the next day out of spite. lol
Goal: Post about as frequently as in years past
Grade: B

- I haven't posted about my favorite card of the 2016 because I haven't gotten it yet. But it's supposed to arrive soon via FedEx. Very excited for it!
Goal: Pull a super sick mojo hit.
Grade: A+
Goal: Successfully redeem said card.
Grade: (incomplete.. F for 2016, but early 2017 is looking A) 

- Maybe you remember, I bought a bunch of hobby boxes on sale Black Friday with the intention of doling them out over the year. So far I've been good and patient with them. They're all labeled and hidden away out of sight. I guess a goal for 2017 is to stick with my schedule of spreading out these boxes, and not buy more boxes other than the couple I've been planning on getting.

Let's crack open January's box. It's one of the several boxes of 2014 Prizm Draft on tap for me this year. Each box usually gets you four on-card prospect autos, so for less than the price of a blaster each, I had to grab up a few of them. My hope is to pull a Trea Turner and/or Kyle Schwarber auto, but there's plenty of other good stuff to hope for in there.

I scored a pair of Press Proof parallel autos. Honestly, that's my least favorite parallel, as it's just a base refractor but with a dumb stamp on the side, and numbered /199 on the back. Not familiar with these guys, but let's look 'em up... Nick Howard put up an ERA of 7.58 in 2015 and followed that up with 8.10 in 2016. Next! Luis Ortiz went from Texas to the Brewers in the Jonathan Lucroy trade. His numbers look pretty decent, putting up a 3.08 ERA last year, mostly in AA. And yeah yeah, I know I still use arcane stats like ERA and wins to judge a pitcher, rather than much more accurate metrics that are used these days.

Ha, Gavin LaValley. I've got a ton of his cards, but I think this is the first one I've ever personally pulled from a pack. I've already got this base auto (and nearly all the parallels of it), but still a cool pull for me. As for Forrest Wall (great name!), he was the 35th overall pick of the 2014 draft. Nothing extraordinary, but he's put up decent numbers in the minors so far.

As far as regular refractors, Miguel Sano is a decent one to pull from the one-per-box Minors Gold inserts.

The colored parallels are always the highlight of any Prizm product. Thanks to the 2 auto parallels being Press Proofs rather than color parallels, these 4 are the only color from the box.. kind of a bummer. Reds are /100, powder blue /199, electric blue /75 (these look pretty neat), and green /35.

As far as base card highlights, I pulled the 2 aforementioned big names. So that's cool, I guess.
Goal: Pull some great cards from this box of 2014 Prizm Draft.
Grade: C

Anyways, here's to a great 2017 for ya'll!