Luuuuuuuuuuises!!!!

I got another COMC order in the order day, taking advantage of a free-shipping scratch-off code from Black Friday that expires at the end of the month. It's the second one I got from that haul, after using one on my previous order around New Year's. Folks tend to think you can only use one, but that's not exactly true. Once you hit a free-shipping code, stop scratching.. save the rest of the scratch-off cards until after you place an order. Then if you hit another free-shipping code, it'll work for ya. But yeah, if you already have an unused free shipping code on your account, you can't add another one (..as is my understanding).

It's also worth noting that the codes are non-transferable. A while back, a friendly cardsphere buddy tried to give me his free shipping code as he had no intention of placing a COMC order until next Black Friday. But once you type in a code to check it out, it's tied to your account.

Among the cards I picked up in this order were some exciting young Padres that are looking to break out this year. San Diego is gonna suck donkey dong this year, don't get me wrong, specifically because of the weak rotation, but at least there are some upcoming bats that should be fun to watch.

One such kid with a lot of eyes on him this spring is Luuuuuuuuuuis!!!

That's right, Luis Urias, a 19-year-old infielder out of Mexico who's hit .317 over 229 minor league games so far. Team Mexico's youngest player in the WBC, he figures to make his way up to San Diego within the next couple years. This 2016 Panini Elite Extra Edition card seems to be his only certified auto out there at the moment. The only pickup of the order to crack double digits, I ponied up a little extra to get a numbered parallel.

But no, the real Luis everyone in camp is excited about is...

Luuuuuuuuuuuuis Sardinas! He's bounced around with 4 teams in the past 3 years, but looks to stick around in San Diego at shortstop after performing well in 34 games up top last year. This 2013 Bowman Chrome auto features a nice big, loopy signature and only set me back $1.50.

There's also this Rule-5 kid picked up off the scrap-pile in Cincinnati hoping to stick around as a backup catcher. Never heard of him before, but hey..

Nah, of course I'm just joking, as we're all familiar with Cardsphere Hero Luuuuuuuuuuis Torrens!

I've bought 2 or 3 Torrens autos in the past, but they all made their way over to his supercollector, Zippy Zappy. These 2 are for me. I'm hoping he sticks with the Padres, but I know there's still a very real possibility he gets returned to the Yanks. He hasn't been hitting much yet this spring, though has looked good behind the plate. We'll see what happens.

Speaking of Padres catchers, this guy isn't named Luis, but we'll close out the post with this trio of shiny Bowman parallels anyways. Austin Hedges has been swinging a hot bat this spring (.474 average and 1.132 OPS over 19 games) and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does in his first full season as starting catcher.

Thanks for reading! More from this latest COMC haul soon.

p.s. 2017 Topps Opening Day is out today.. Don't forget to boycott it so Topps finally lets this redundant product die. Low-end sets are great, but stuff like Bunt (physical) or Total (r.i.p.) are miles better than a lazy version of flagship with another logo slapped on it. The fun inserts are nice, but they'd be better in flagship or really any other set. I for one welcome the day this set no longer comes out. Shit, it ain't even MLB opening day yet. If they synced up the release date to actual opening day, I could give it a pass, but nope, guess that's asking too much.

Darth Vader autograph custom booklet card

There's a documentary streaming on Netflix right now called I Am Your Father about the man in the Darth Vader suit in the original Star Wars Trilogy, David Prowse. While I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a great documentary, it's definitely worth 80 minutes of your time if you're a big Star Wars fan and have a Netflix subscription.

Long story short, he pretty much got screwed. Not only were all his lines overdubbed by James Earl Jones, at the end of Jedi when you finally get to see what Darth Vader looks like under his mask, they used a different actor.

Anyways, while watching the doc, I took a look for Prowse certified auto cards on eBay. Star Wars branded cards are pretty pricey, but you can find decent deals on cards from generic "actors/celebrities" products. I found one with the intention of making a custom overlay for it. I decided to take it a step further and make my first ever custom "booklet" card.

There's the cover.

And when you open it up...

The man behind the mask!

I really like how this turned out.

David Prowse has a very nice signature, though it definitely loses some of its splendor when constricted onto a small sticker. But hey, it would have cost me about 3 or 4 times as much to get an on-card Star Wars auto, so I'm ok with a sticker in this instance.
FYI, he also sells personalized autos on his website.

The other imperfection to mention with my custom are the windows for the auto. I don't have any fancy tools for cutouts, so I just freehand it with an xacto knife, resulting in somewhat sloppy windows. Maybe someday I'll figure out a solution and re-do it. (Any suggestions?)

The "booklet" is really just a couple penny sleeves taped together, but it works.

Here's the back. As with all my custom overlays, the original card is untouched underneath.. in case I ever decided to re-do it or want to sell the original card or something. Maybe someday I'll get a James Earl Jones auto and make it a dual-auto Darth Vader booklet card.. that'd be cool.

There's what the original card looks like. Having a dark background under the sticker wasn't a smart design choice by Donruss, so the auto doesn't pop very well off the card. But again, it was the cheapest David Prowse pack-certified auto card I could find, so I went with it.

While I don't want to really jump too hard into the deep end with collecting Star Wars cards/autos, I think I'm going to at least dip my toe in a bit. See, we're both turning 40 this year, Star Wars and I, and in some way it helps to go into this holding the hand of a beloved multibillion-dollar franchise.

Trudging over the hill... together.

Dropping an F-bomb

Got a couple trades in the mail this week to feature today.

I've read the Angels In Order blog for a long time but hadn't had the pleasure of trading with its author, Tom T. until he got in touch a few days ago. Always nice to pick up a new trading partner, especially a collector of a team that's amply represented in my tradebox such as the Angels.

Tom packed 4 cards in his PWE, highlighted by perhaps the most infamous card of all time...

It's the world's best known profane bat knob! I picked up the more-common "black box" variation a while ago at the card show, but was looking to add the uncensored original to my collection, so I was very happy to land this one in our trade. (If you missed my old post creating silly fake cards inspired by the Billy Ripken fuck face card, I think it's worth a minute of your time.)

John Blanchard is flanked here by a couple 20-game winners in Mudcat Grant and Mickey Lolich. These 3 were very appreciated needs for my 1965 Topps setbuild, though I'll probably try to upgrade the Lolich eventually, as it appears a small rodent snacked on it at some point.

Big thanks for the quick trade, Tom! I dropped a PWE of Angels in the mail to you the other day.. hope you like. I damn near went ahead and filled a flat-rate Priority box to majorly thin out my Angels, but resisted.. maybe next time!

-  - - --o

Next up is a nice bubble mailer from Mr. Stealing Home over at All Trade Bait, All The Time.

As a Dodgers collector, he usually has some dupes to pass on to me of guys I collect like Clayton Kershaw...

..and Adrian Gonzalez and Matt Kemp. I definitely don't have many A-Gon cards featuring him from his early Texas Rangers days.

Obligatory Padres with a Gwynn Berger's Best reprint.

And some other dudes I collect. Especially digging the Father's Day Giancarlo and the Stadium Club Larry Walker.

Thanks a lot, man!

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Hoyt Wilhelm player collection

Haven't done a "Wilhelm Wednesday" post in a while. Here's an update of my Hoyt Wilhelm collection. He's a fun guy to collect... long career, relatively affordable HOFer from the vintage Topps era. I definitely don't supercollect him or anything, but try to add a card here and there when I can.

50s 

I've got another copy of the '57 that's in my young setbuild. As for the pair of 59s, this is one of those instances where I suffer from choice paralysis as far as which is the "keeper" and which is the "dupe" so I just hang onto them both. The one on the right is sharper (though slightly more off-center), but the middle one has great character. I had never really been a huge fan of 1959 Topps in the past, but there are a few guys on the cardsphere currently working on it, so I feel like I've been seeing more of it these days, and I'll admit they sure do look nice in a page together. I'm trying to talk myself out of it, but I could see myself deciding to work on completing the set, but it would be years from now, after I complete 1965, 1964, and 1957. But yeah, if I still have a hankering for working on another vintage set after those are put to bed, 1959 would probably be the top contender. And if/when I do, the card on the right would probably go toward the set. (Update: I've since added a 1953 Topps card to the PC.)

60s

I've got a few Hoyts from the 60s, but still several left to hunt down. (Update: I've since added 1963 and 1969.)

70s

Just need 1970 to wrap up his 70s Topps cards. (Update: I've since gotten the 1970 Topps card.) The '71, '64, and '65 are dupes, in that I've got additional copies of those with sets. I'm not above "sharing" a card between a set and a PC, but if I end up with two of them, fine.

Archives

Some reprints and/or Archives. Funny that the 2 recent Archives cards use the same photo, though the '83 design has it correctly colored for the era (blue), while the '91 design uses modern Giants colors.

Upper Deck

Some more modern cards, these ones from Upper Deck. I like those cards with fuzzy parts (bottom left), though some collectors are creeped out by them for whatever reason.

Fleer

Good ol' Fleer.

Donruss/Panini

Topps

More modern stuff from Topps.

Oddballs

Some neat oddballs.

Relics

Love the vintage cloth uniform bits.

Relic addition - thanks to a recent trade with Dimebox Nick

Autos

Signed 8x10

Dupes available for trade

A couple creased vintage cards plus some more recent stuff. Let me know if you'd like me to set aside any of these dupes for you, as I don't need them.

And of course I'd be happy to get any Hoyts I'm missing.

That'll do it. Thanks for stopping by!

Judson and the Night Owl: Fighters for Justice

Got a couple great trade packages in this week. One I had been waiting on for a few months, and one surprise.

Last fall, I swung a couple trades with Judson of My Cardboard Habit. The wait for the second batch seemed to stretch for a while, but I figured he was just busy and I didn't worry about it. I finally got around to bugging him about it, and turns out he sent it but it was a victim of the USPS, disappearing into darkness somewhere between Judson's place and mine. But he graciously put together a heck of a replacement package right-quick.

Love this Cory Spangenberg Topps Chrome RC refractor auto! He missed most of 2016 with an injury, but hopefully he can come back strong and build on his earlier success.

Speaking of promising young Padres getting sidelined for significant length of time, Colin Rea is likely out for 2017, but I'm still really high on him... perhaps it's the underlying Star Wars reference:

(image by @LobShots)

But yeah, thrilled for this pair of autos!

I'm excited to see what Hunter Renfroe does in a full season after a terrific late call-up. This Heritage Minors black parallel is a sweet addition to my growing PC of the guy.

And Judson hooked me up with my first auto of Padres top prospect Anderson Espinoza. Topps chose a derpy photo of the kid for this card, but I still like it. He's been sorta inconsistent in the minors thus far, but he's got a ton of raw talent and is still a teenager, so looks like he's likely got a nice career ahead of him, knock wood.

Great stuff.. Thanks, Judson!

- - - ---o

The other package to mention today is from blogging royalty, Night Owl, dropping an unexpected bubble mailer on me.

Nice A&G lot of Manny Machado.

Some Red Sox favorites.

Dodgers dupes of dudes I collect.

Sparkly lot of 2011 Topps parallels for my frankenset.. all of them needs!

Great looking trio of Trouts.

Here's a pair of Chris Sale cards, including my first parallel from 2017 Topps.. kinda weird, like he's being impaled by brown ("gold") spikes.. but yeah, I'll take it!

More guys I collect. The Conforto Future Star is pretty neat.

Ha, I love Parks and Recreation, so it's nice to finally get a few cards from the show.

Thanks a lot, Greg! I've already scrounged up a few cards off your wantlist, so expect those to show up later this week.

See you guys next time.

Oh wait, I just sketched out a quick idea for a comic book based on the title of this post:

A box for March

It's a new month, so I grabbed another box to bust out of my Black Friday stash. I gotta say I'm happy with how this idea has gone for me so far, always having a box to look forward to, and it keeps me from getting too tempted to spend money on boxes elsewhere. Sure, it prevents me from ripping the latest stuff (no 2017 Heritage here), but that doesn't bother me too much.

Scheduled for March is another box of 2014 Panini Prizm Draft, one of the several I grabbed at a sweet sub-blaster price. Still hoping to land an auto of Trea Turner and/or Kyle Schwarber. Let's crack 'er open!

The refractors were heavy on Yankee pitchers.

Nobody too interesting in the colored refractors. Those "electric blue mojo prizm" (or whatever) look kinda cool and this was the lowest-numbered parallel of the box (/75), but Matt Railey is an outfielder who hit .165 in A-ball last year, so...

And the autos. Ugh. All pitchers.. Always a bummer for me when all the promised hits are pitchers. Nothing low-numbered here. Kodi Medeiros has a minor league career ERA of 5.34 going into 2017. Nick Howard is nearly the same, at 5.38. Luis Ortiz is a top prospect for the Brewers, so I'd say this "Press Proof" /199 is the best card of the box, but I already pulled an auto of his from a previous box, so not too exciting for me. Chris Ellis reached AAA (and sucked) in the Braves org last year.

So yeah, the box was pretty much a dud. At least there was one base card I was happy to pull: a Michael Conforto "Draft Class" insert that I didn't yet have in my modest MC PC. Sounds like he's off to a hot start in Spring Training this year, so hopefully that carries into the regular season.

Besides the Conforto, all the cards in this post are available for trade, though I might be reluctant to part with the Luis Ortiz auto unless for something decent.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading.