Joy of a Completed Set: 1965 Topps

Man, this one feels good to have wrapped up!

I've always really liked the look of 1965 Topps. It's just a classic design. If you looked up "baseball card" in the dictionary, there should be a picture of a 1965 Topps card. Simple design with the pennants on the front. And the real secret weapon is the awesome cartoons on the back.

I officially kicked off my Strive for '65 ("Strive for 65" ® and ™ CaptKirk42) back on August 14, 2015 after a few months of rounding up '65s from trades and the like. I probably would have started on it sooner, but 2014 Topps Heritage kinda burned me out on the design for a while.

This lot from COMC were the last cards I was waiting on, highlighted by a couple HOFers and a Yankees team card. While these were the last cards to arrive, they had been sitting in my inventory for a while, waiting for COMC's Black Friday sale for the free shipping. So, although it arrived in-hand before these, the final card I secured was actually...

..this Denny McLain rookie I scored on eBay back in October. Even sprung for a graded copy for added oomph.

Big thanks to all the traders who've helped me out with this set over the past few years. Special shout-outs to Mark Hoyle, gcrl, Kevin G, and Stubby who each contributed 20+ cards to the cause.

I've still got about 77 "fair" condition cards in the set that I'd like to eventually upgrade (such as Joe Morgan and Mickey Mantle here), but that's a low priority for me right now. There are also plenty of guys I collect in the set that I wouldn't mind having another copy of their '65 card for the PC (such as Clemente), but again, not a huge deal for me. I have no interest in the accompanying embossed insert set, so as far as I'm concerned, other than upgrades and dupes for PCs, I'm sticking a fork in 1965.

My set includes a couple "official" variations (checklists with minor differences), plus a couple unofficial ones, such as this "yellow" Len Gabrielson. I guess either the magenta was running low on this print run, or else maybe it had been displayed in direct sunlight for a few years.

Twelve cards in my set are graded. None are particularly "high grade" but I don't plan to break them out anytime soon. –Maybe someday if I decide to put the set in a binder.

But at least for now, I'm a box guy.

Years ago, I printed out 4 labels back at my old job for sets I wanted to complete. I don't put the label on the box until the set is complete. As you can see from the photo, the last set from this 4-pronged collecting goal of mine is 1964 Topps. So you'd think that'd be next up in my crosshairs now that '65 has been put to bed.

But nope! After spending a lot of time and money on '65 last year, stressing out a little trying to make my self-imposed deadline of finishing it by the end of 2017, my goal for 2018 is to not complete any vintage sets (nothing pre-late 70s, at least). I'm taking a breather.

Going easier on myself, my goal for 2018 is to complete 1980 Topps. As I've mentioned on the blog before, I've got a sentimental soft spot for 1980 Topps since I ended up with 4 or 5 cards from the set as a kid in the mid 80s, the first baseball cards I ever owned. Personally I've always considered 1980 the last "vintage" set, but I know that hobby term doesn't have an exact definition that everyone agrees on.

Over the past week, I finally sorted my pile of cards from the set so I could get serious about it.

I was hoping to be at around 70% out of the gate, but I ended up with a lot of dupes. Still though, 55% is a very good starting point, thanks to the couple starter lots I was sent last year. I raided my PCs for some cards, such as the Rickey rookie, but hopefully I'll be able to eventually score dupes to replace them. I'm optimistic I'll be able to knock off the rest of the set via trades over the year, but we'll see.

Got my wantlist up here: 1980 Topps wanlist
Please drop me a line if you've got some cards to knock off my list and we'll work out a trade.

Thanks!

Card Show High Rolling

Good monthly card show haul today. When I first showed up, my regular dealer Bill's cheap bins were completely packed with dudes flipping through cards, so I bided my time in his mid-priced bins, picking up cards a bit more than my card show norm.

Topps went nuts flooding the market with Dan Vogelbach autos in 2017, just ask P-town Tom. While I've cooled on collecting the Vogelmonster in the past year, still threw these /99 autos on my stack for the heck of it. Can you believe some collectors have no preference between on-card signatures and stickergraphs?

A couple more autos. I don't even collect Kyle Seager, but thought that was a nice looking card for a solid price. And those "glass" cards are always neat, and Chris Betts /21 here was cheap.

A couple sweet Legends variations for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset.

I just recently gave up on collecting the 2015 Topps Gallery of Greats insert set and had deleted it off my wantlist. Still though, I'll pick up needs of guys I collect. Love these.

A couple autos of young Padres. I nearly passed on the Margot, but its #/35 serial number on the back suckered me in.

Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the Padres' top prospects, so I shelled out a few bucks for this #/100 diecut. Really hope he pans out in a couple years when all the "rebuilding" should start shaping up, in theory.

A couple sets here. 1984 Mother's Cookies Padres team set, and a 1995 Collector's Choice You Crash the Game Exchange Gold set which is still sealed but I'll probably open it and raid it for my PCs soon.

I mainly bought the Mothers set (at $1.50 was among my best deals of the day) for the Gwynn, but there are a few other guys I collect in there too. As I've said many times, those are my all-time fav uniforms.. and they look great on this glossy set.

Some backs, if you were interested. Always think it's funny to see the "autograph" area. I wonder if some dumb kid was like, "Excuse me, Mr, Gwynn, could you please sign my card for me? –No, Tony, you're supposed to autograph on the back!"

Actually, now I'm kind of wanting to get a Mother's card signed on the back. Need to find one of a dependable TTM guy, send it with a sticky note on the front asking him to sign the back. That'd be hilarious.

Here's a cool vintage piece, a Willie Stargell temporary tattoo from 1971. Bonus points for the Padres mention. But wait, there's more!...

It's a complete sheet! Pretty cool, even though Stargell is the only HOFer in the bunch.

This was a freebie. I bumped into my bud Padrographs Rod at the show, and later he came back around and gifted me this Gavin Cecchini auto he had just scored for me. Awesome.. thanks again, Rod!

Speaking of free stuff, this isn't card related but I wanted to squeeze this onto the blog...

I got 5 new pairs of shoes this week! Isn't that insane? What am I, some spoiled trophy wife from Beverly Hills? The thing is I got a generous shoe store gift certificate for Christmas and I ended up using it on 4 pairs of shoes from the clearance section (budgeted nicely with just 4¢ to spare on the gift certificate!). Then at work, somebody had offered up another pair of shoes that I assume was a gift that didn't fit or something. But I tried them on and they fit great. And so that's how I got 5 new pairs of shoes in a week with no money out of my pocket. And my old shoes were falling apart, so it's appreciated. These should last me a while.

Ok, that's it for today. More from my card show haul soon.

Chipz and dip into my COMC order

After being distracted by holiday stuff, it's now time to resume unpacking my Black Friday COMC order.

I've said it before but I hate Topps Chipz. They really botched what could have been a fun product. The colored parallels were way too tough to pull. If they would have been more generous with the red and blue chips, guys could have actually used them for playing poker. I'm not even a card player, but that would have been pretty cool. But instead it was white chip after white chip, with an occasional metal parallel or glow-in-the-dark parallel. Don't even get me started on the glow-in-the-dark parallels! Instead of making the actual plastic chip glow-in-the-dark (which would have been awesome.. I'd have gone after the complete set!), they cheaped out and only put a teeny-tiny bit of glowing behind the player's head. Terrible! I'm so glad this product died after 3 pathetic years.
All that said, I was compelled to actually own some of the near-mythical color parallels, so I found the cheapest examples I could find of guys I collect. The black Matt Kemp also allegedly glows in the dark a bit. I suppose it's nice of COMC to treat these like coins and put them in those little cardboard holders which make them slightly less of a pain to store.

1990 Topps TV is a mysterious (to me, at least) overproduction-era set that I've heard about here and there, but never actually had an in-person encounter with. So like with the colored Chipz, I wanted to get some representation in my collection, and hunted down the cheapest available cards of any dudes I collect, settling on Howard Johnson and Kevin Maas here for about a buck combined.

Flipping these over, I was confused how they were both numbered 53 in a series of 66, and had somewhat different back designs. Turns out there was a main "All-Star set" (where the Hojo is from), but some teams (like the Yankees) also had a separate Team Set (where the Maas is from). It's my understanding these sets were sold on the home shopping network or something like that, hence the name Topps TV. Or actually, from googling it just now, per baseballcardpedia.com:

Topps TV are a series of six different 66-card sets produced by Topps in 1990 and available via a special TV offer. There were six different sets made: All-Stars, Cardinals, Cubs, Mets, Red Sox and Yankees. The five team sets were only marketed in the respective team's local TV market; while the All-Stars set was available nationwide. Collectors living anywhere in the country could, theoretically, order any of the sets. Distribution: Factory sets. Available through a "1-800" number.

Interesting. I looked for the commercial on YouTube but didn't see it up there. I wonder if it was just a quick ad or more of an infomercial.

Here's another oddity from the junk era (forgive me for using the hobby slur). I also wanted to add some more 1991 Topps Operation Desert Shield cards to my collection. I previously only had the Bip, I think. You know the deal, I searched by cheapest-first and looked for dudes I collect. Ended up with a couple of the Springfield Nine and Hendu, each costing me a buck or two.

Lastly for today, a short-term stop trio of Kevin Mitchell cards. I don't really PC him, but for whatever reason was compelled to track down a card of his from each team he played for. (This was likely around the time I scored the 12/24 card of his and was reading up on him more.) The Giants, Reds, and Mets are the main teams he's known for, of course. As far as partial-season stints, Red Sox (27 games), Indians (20 games), and A's (51 games) are represented here. There's also the Padres (which I know I have a card of) and the Mariners. Pretty sure I had a Seattle Mitchell card at one point, but may have traded it away over the years.. so I may have to rectify that at some point to complete this mini-goal of mine.

That's all for now. Thanks for checking it all out.

Catching up on trades

This post will cover three terrific trade packages I've gotten in the past couple weeks.

This first one is from Kerry at Cards on Cards. We work just a few blocks apart in downtown Portland, and have gotten into the groove of meeting up to exchange cards in person every so often. It's great cutting out the postal service to save a few bucks.

ROY mojo! I have no doubt that Judge will get the record for fastest guy into my Hundred Card Club (assuming I kept track of stuff like that). He just has a ton of cards from 2017 and I'm sure that'll continue in 2018, and I'm here for the Yankee haters looking for an appreciative dumping ground for them. Same applies to Bellinger.

Bryce and Stras. Always nice to see in trade packages.

Geez, Kerry seems to pull a lot of Nats! Impressive Trea Turner lot here.

Notable Red Sox.

More cool cards.

A Padre and a couple local San Diego guys.

The highlight of the baggy of cards (gotta wonder what people think when they see a couple middle-aged dudes meet up in front of a Subway and exchange mysterious little baggies) was this sweet Goldschmidt red refractor #'d 6/25 that Kerry was lucky enough to pull a little while ago.

Big thanks, Kerry! I don't think my side of this swap measured up to these cards, so I'll do my best to balance the scales next time.

-  - - ----o

Next up is a hefty holiday package from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders.

Here's a shiny trio of Padres.

And a shiny trio of Cecchinis.

Nice bump to the Michael Sam PC. Fun fact: he's a gay man who played football.

The real weight of the package was from a few magazines, such as this Sports Illustrated from 2003. Trepidatiously interested in reading the Kirby Puckett exposé.

More Kirby. I had this 1992 Beckett back in the day.

I remember having this Gary Sheffield Beckett then too.

But 1988 was before my collecting days, so this Benito Beckett is new to me. Funny how they edited the photo so the other guy (Gene Walter) in the rookie card is blocked.

Lastly, here's an SI from 1984 with a couple Padres on the cover. It was a good year for San Diego, but a better one for Dennis' Tigers. I made a custom using Goose from this pic a year or two ago. Cool to have the actual magazine now.

Thanks a lot, Dennis!

-  - - ---o

And here's a friendly Christmas surprise from All Trade Bait All the Time.

Big boost to my little Big Unit PC.

Some other dudes I collect.

And pairs from Bryant, Giancarlo, and Darvish.

Very cool.. thanks, man! I'll hit you back with some Dodgers soon.


Thanks for stopping by, everybody.

second-chance winner announced

Let's find out who was the second-chance winner for my recent contest. I usually do the whole number-assigning thing, but I'm a little exhausted and want to just bust this out now so I'll randomize the names once and the winner will be the #1 person and you'll just have to trust that it's all on the up-and-up.

Congrats, Angus!
It's been a while since I sent you cards– Is your PO Box from 2016 still a good address to send your prize to? Let me know.

Side note, I just realized today that there's another post office close to where I work that has a self-service kiosk (as opposed to the other nearby post office I visit on the regular that not only doesn't have one of those, but also has a creepy dude behind the counter that I dread having to deal with). Very happy about this discovery and will likely make it my go-to package mailing spot.

I've got a card show coming up this weekend, so I'll hold off sending out the prizes in case I find cards there to add for Nick and Angus, plus consolation PWE winners Fuji and Matt S.
Thanks again to everybody who entered. I'm sure I'll get around to doing another contest before long.

- ----o

I hate to do a post without any cards, so here's a random card I've been meaning to feature..

I've never watched any Orphan Black, but for a few bucks, picked up a new autograph for my collection of dudes named Gavin. Mr. Fox has a neat-looking signature.

Thanks for swinging by.

My 2018 Box Busting Schedule and more

This plan worked well for me in 2017, and so I'm keeping it going in 2018. I got a bunch of discounted boxes on Black Friday, and I'm rationing them out throughout the coming year. The ol' delayed gratification. Something to look forward to.. don't underestimate it. A nice, regular ripping fix. Also keeps me from spending too much on retail; don't feel like I have to buy something just to buy something.

Here's how my schedule looks for the year:

Jan - 2017 Topps Archives Signature Series 'Active Player Edition' Baseball Box
I typically stay far away from the pricey one-card boxes Topps has been cranking out lately, but in a weak moment, added this one to my order. I'm already regretting it, so I'm putting it first so I can get it over with.

Feb - 2016 Topps Strata Baseball Hobby Box
For the same price as the Archives Signature box, I picked up this 2-card box.

Mar - 2016 Bowman Platinum Baseball Hobby Box
This was the most expensive item in my Black Friday order.

Apr - 2016 Topps Chrome Update Baseball Mega Box

May - 2013 Panini Pinnacle Baseball Hobby Box

Jun - 2018 Topps Archives hobby box x2 (pending purchase)
Not in-hand yet, of course, but I'll likely keep up my tradition of pre-ordering up a couple boxes of Topps Archives. Penciled these in for June, but depending on the actual release date, may end up switching with another month.

Jul - 2017 Panini Stars and Stripes Baseball Hobby Box

Aug - 2016 Bowman Baseball Fat Pack
I didn't quite end up with enough boxes to get me through the year, so a couple months will be sparse, with packs instead of boxes.

Sep - 2017 Panini Father's Day Multi-Sport Pack + 2017 Panini National Gold VIP Party Pack

Oct - 2015 Topps Complete Baseball Factory Set - Nolan Ryan medallion edition
Picked up the 2015 Factory Set for the price of a blaster. I had been after that Kris Bryant #616 RC for a long time, so hey, this works, plus I get the rest of the set too.

Nov - 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Baseball Hobby Box
I ordered one of these last year, but turns out they were out of stock and I ended up with store credit. But this time, I snagged one.


So there's what's lined up for me. Yeah, it can be tough to know they're right there waiting to be opened, but I just label them and hide them away out of sight, and then it's not so bad.

- - --o

Blog goals and stuff.

Here are my yearly post totals:
►  2017 (257)
►  2016 (254)
►  2015 (280)
►  2014 (283)
►  2013 (93)

My posts were up slightly in 2017 over 2016, but several of those were from the Big Fun Game, which consisted of many quick posts over the course of 2 or 3 days, so I can't celebrate too hard there. Still though, not that bad.

I feel like I fell into too many "check out these cards I've gotten recently" posts in 2017. While posts like that are the backbone of the cardsphere, I would like to do more different posts. Photoshop fun.. customs.. gifs.. quirky shit like that. I feel like those are the types of posts that put my blog on the map and I've gotten away from them somewhat over the past couple years. Those posts generally take more time/work/thought and I guess I've been busy/lazy. But yeah, I hope to do more "outside the box" posts in 2018.

As far as collecting goals, I'll probably hit those in another post tomorrow or the next day.

But hey, it's the 1st of the month, so let's rip January's box.

Last time (only time so far) I opened a box of Archives Signature, I hit a nice one with Bo Jackson. Will my luck continue?

Well, definitely not a big hit, but could do worse than Odubel Herrera. (For example, Henry Owens is in this product.) Herrera is a solid young player with the Phillies. Was an All-Star in 2016. I like the mathematically pleasing 33/99 serial number.

- - ---o

Wallet Card stuff.

Time to retire 2017's wallet card.

Thumbing through my Gwynn dupes, I went with an UD Masterpieces card for 2018's wallet card. I was a little reluctant to sacrifice such a card for the cause, but hey, it was pretty off-center anyways. I'm curious how the canvas stock will hold up for a year in my wallet.

While out walking my dog today by a statue, I decided to take a few pics to ring in the new year.

Ha, I snapped this photo just in time, as it's falling off the bread.

- - - ---o

Oh hey, congrats to Dimebox Nick for winning my big contest yesterday! The Chargers beat the Raiders with a combined score of 40 points, which was Nick's assigned number.

But this contest had a twist!!....

Yes, TWO identical prize packages! That means we've got a second-chance winner to find. Let's not drag this one out, but if you'd like to enter, comment below specifically stating you'd like to be in the running for the second-chance prize. (Must have entered the prior contest to be eligible.) And we'll random it off in a day or two. (UPDATE: entry period is now closed.)

Thanks for reading and Happy 2018, everybody!