Card Show Collusion

I was out of town during last month's card show, so I was extra excited for September's show today. I was a little thrown when I showed up and Bill-- the dealer whose bins I usually spend most of my time browsing-- wasn't there. So Plan B went into action and I set out to work on the 2 vintage sets I'm working on. I left after making purchases with 3 different dealers. For simplicity's sake, let's say all the singles in this post ran me about a buck each, though some were a little less and some a little more.

I was very happy to dig up a bunch of additions to my 1957 Topps setbuild. Prior to the show, I was sitting at 53.24% complete, and now I've passed 60%.

Umm... I felt quite the fool when I got home and sorted the cards, realizing I inadvertently brought home quintuplicates of Jim Brideweser here! I've bought dupes before, perhaps even triplicates once or twice, but accidentally buying 5 of the same card-- at least one from each of the three dealers I bought from today-- yeah, I think that'll stand as my all-time record. There were a couple other dupes and a couple "oops, I already had that one" from today, but nothing too bad besides this.

Founds some good '64 Topps, too, including HOFer Robin Roberts, which is an upgrade for me. Tim McCarver and Harvey Haddix were a couple familiar names I was happy to land. I had been one card away from ⅔ complete with this set, and this lot bumped me up to 68.76% (405/589).

Couldn't resist some off-condition '53s for a buck a pop. (well, turned out closer to 50¢ with the final bulk price). The ink marks in the upper right are on the sleeves, not the cards. This was from is the old vintage dealer Gene who (mistakenly?) overcharged me last time I bought from him, much to my chagrin upon realizing it driving home. But he took good care of me this time, so no hard feelings.

I haven't talked about it much yet, but I'm working on a "Flagship Binder" with one page for each set going back to '51. And I realized I didn't have any available 1953 Topps for the project. I only own like 2 or 3 '53s and all are in PCs. But now I'm just a couple cards away from a full 8-pocket page. Karl Drews is the odd man out here, with the other guys all wearing basically the same cap.

And these '56s too.

Old Bowman cards are fun when the price is right.

Picked up a couple 1963s that called out to me.

Nice trio of Billy Williams.

Three 1959 Topps cards caught my eye enough to throw on the stack.

More familiar names from the past.

It was just a few days ago I trumpeted finishing 1982 Topps and mentioned I wouldn't mind adding the corresponding Traded set to go with it someday. Well, picked this up for a bit under $20. Of course there's a catch.. it did not include the Ripken. The guy said he had that one graded and sold it on eBay. So I'll still need to track down a Cal one of these days, but nice to get everything else taken care of, at least.

And the seller was the old vintage guy who moved away a few years back, but he drives up to the show once in a blue moon. Way back at my first time attending the monthly show, he was the first dealer I ever bought from, so it's nice from a sentimental standpoint to pick up cards from him again.

So that'll do it for September's card show haul. Thanks for reading!
(Oh, and I bumped into Padrographs Rod and he gave me a great box o' cards.. I'll post about them another day.)

A crackin' package from Julie

Julie at the blog A Cracked Bat hasn't had much time for blogging this summer, but lucky for me, she found time to assemble a heck of a card package and send it my way. I showed off the Sandlot cards in my last post, but here's some more stuff.

I haven't been paying much attention to any Panini products here in 2018, but some of the shiny parallels sure look nice.

A few less visually-stimulating, but still cool, Gwynn cards.

A few Padres favorites from the age of gold foil overload. Any time I get a new Rod Beck and Crime Dog card is a day of celebration. The Finely is a Press Proof.

I finished this 1993 Upper Deck Fun Pack subset not long ago, but that doesn't diminish my excitement at receiving this big lot of Glow Stars. You can consider me the Tim Wallach Collector of glow-in-the-dark cards... I want them all, even if I already have them!

Hoyt Wilhelm is always a welcomed face in a trade package.

Neat inserts of a couple recent HOF inductees.

And we end for today with an impressive lot of George Brett cards.

So there were the retired players from the package; there's still a stack of active players which I'll show off later.

Thanks so much, Julie!

You're killin' my wallet, Smalls!

My quest for completing the Sandlot cards in 2018 Archives has kicked into gear with a big addition, Scotty Smalls himself (Tom Guiry).

While I'm hitting these hard, I know I'm an idiot for doing it now. Only retail '18 Archives has been released so far, so all these Sandlot autos on the market are from retail. Once hobby boxes are finally released in late October, there will be a big influx of these cards on the market and I expect prices on the Sandlot autos to dip if not plummet. So a smart collector would wait until November to begin going after the set. So why don't I exercise a little patience?



But I'll try to be content with Smalls here for now-- who enticed me to pull the trigger with a reasonable BIN price-- and try to wait on the other "big names" I still need (chiefly Ham and Wendy, both very popular) until prices fall into a more comfortable range.

Going back to the actor who played Smalls, Tom's other notable appearances are U-571, The Mudge Boy, Black Hawk Down, Mystic River, and The Four Diamonds. Guiry also played Jimmy Donnelly on the NBC drama The Black Donnellys.

I also picked up Tommy "Repeat" Timmons. Almost looks like that signature could say Shohei Ohtani; but no, it's Shane Obedzinski. Close! Shane doesn't seem to have done much other acting besides the Sandlot.

I've got a couple more Sandlot autos on the way, too.

As far as the non-autos, here's a kickass lot I just received from Julie at ACB. These were part of a package so impressive that it makes you tremble thinking about the daunting task of assembling a sufficient return package, not to mention drafting up a blog post covering it all. I'll likely have to break it up into 2 or 3 posts.. so except to see more from the mailing in future posts.

Thanks to Julie, I don't have many non-autos left to chase.

Inserts:
SL-AM Alan "Yeah-Yeah" McClennan
SL-BJR Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez
SL-BW Bertram Grover Weeks
SL-H Hercules
SL-HP Hamilton "Ham" Porter
SL-KD Kenny DeNunez
SL-MP Michael "Squints" Palledorous
SL-SS Scotty Smalls
SL-TIM Timmy Timmons
SL-TOM Tommy Timmons
SL-WP Wendy Peffercorn

Coins:
C-2 Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez
C-5 Michael "Squints" Palledorous
C-8 Hercules
C-20 Hamilton "Ham" Porter

These wants have now also been added to my Desperate Dozen. If you've got any Sandlot stuff available for trade that I need, hit me up!

Hey, speaking of The Sandlot and The Simpsons, I've got a big project in the works of compiling a list of all the times baseball cards have appeared in movies and tv shows. And it'll be a "living list" since I intend to keep on updating it indefinitely. I'm pretty excited about it! Expect it soon.

2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Baseball box break

Freakin' 2018 Topps Archives hobby boxes have been delayed again, now not coming out until late October (10/24/2018)! Crazy it's taking them so long, seeing as retail packs and blasters were released back in the middle of August (8/15/2018). Geez.. What's the hold up? Frustrating for me since I pre-ordered a couple hobby boxes back in the spring. Getting impatient.

So I've had to tinker with the planned schedule for my stockpile of unopened cards that I ration out each month. My Archives boxes will have to become my November break now. So for September, I dug out what I had originally planned to save for November: 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Baseball hobby box. Nothing too exciting, but let's check it out.

A pair of highlights from the inserts. Andrew McCutchen doesn't have many Upper Deck cards, seeing as he was coming up just as UD was being sued out of the baseball card market.. so it's kinda neat to get this one to mix in my PC with all the Topps and Panini cards.

Some of the base card highlights, including an early Kershaw.

The box (which I paid a blaster-and-a-half for during a Black Friday sale last year) promises 4 hits, but the downside is most of them are no-name Team USA kids. And seeing as the product came out nearly a decade ago, if you haven't heard of them by now, you never will. These 3 cards are available for trade.
Luke Scott had a respectable 9-year MLB stint swatting 135 career dingers, mostly for the Astros and Orioles.
Asher Wojciechowski made the show in 2015 and also pitched in 25 games for the Reds back in 2017. He's still active but spent 2018 in AAA.
Matt Newman played in the Blue Jays chain, but topped out at AA a few years back.

Every pack included a thick "dummy" blank card for some reason (I guess to dissuade pack-searchers, but it wouldn't be hard for them to figure out and work around, as the dummy card is thicker than all the hits, at least in my box). So that was kind of annoying, but at least I can repurpose them for making sketch cards.

But let's wrap up with my 4th hit, which was a solid one..

Hey, Manny Machado! There's a guy who panned out. Cool to add a pre-rookie relic card to my PC of his, even though it's not a very interesting card.. with just a boring little plain white swatch. But it kept me from feeling like the box was a dud, at least.

Thanks for reading.

The Big Sort

Here's a draft I started a week or so ago, tentatively titled "dumb borning draft".. so you know this isn't going on the "greatest hits" album. But the day got away from me and it was this or no post today.

I recently did an overdue sort of my tradable cards into teams. I happened to sort out some autos last, so the stacks look more impressive than they really are.

Looks like Angels, Mets, and Yankees seem to be the biggest stacks. Hit me up for a trade, team collectors!

Founds some good stuff I didn't even know I had, such as rookie cards of very-possible 2018 ROYs Juan Soto and Miguel Andujar.

I've also recently been putting more of my wantlist and "for trade" cards in my account at The Trading Card Database. Check me out if you're on there. Still no trade nibbles, but hopefully soon. I'll try to add more soon.

Anyways.
Recent pickup..

My first Sandlot auto.. more on the way!

Hope you had a nice Labor Day.

Sportscards from the Dollar Store and the Night Owl

I turned that accidental Richard Hamilton printing plate from SCC into the catalyst for a trade with Doug at Sportscards From the Dollar Store.

Nice auto of San Diego's top pitching prospect (and 2nd overall prospect behind Tatis Jr.), MacKenzie Gore!

Some more up and coming Friars.

More Padres.. some good stuff here.

Bonus Cubs prospect auto. Don't know much about Michael Rucker, though he seems to be progressing through the minors pretty well, with a solid '18 season in AA. (Unfortunately, a few of the cards seem to have taken a little damage through the international shipping process, as can be seen at the bottom of the Rucker.)

And Doug hit some non-baseball PCs I've been trying to build up, too.

Awesome.. Thanks for the trade, Doug!

-   -  - ---o

Next up is a trade with Night Owl, hitting me back for a PWE I sent his way recently highlighted by a Shirley Manson custom I whipped up for him.

Sweet Trout lot. The RC is actually a "Topps Rookie History" insert from '18 Archives, though the foil didn't show up well in the photo. I have a running gag with Greg that if/when he ends up with another Trout liquorfractor rookie (like the one he ended up with from a reader a few years ago and then gave away in a contest on his blog), that he has to give me first dibs on trading him for it. (The card often sells for $1000+ these days.)

Some Padres action. I can see myself going after '83 Fleer once I complete some of the other 80s sets I'm working on at the moment. Love the Margot SP.

But the real jewel of Night Owl's mailing..

The great Larry Doby! Makes me very happy adding another Hall of Famer to my '57 Topps setbuild.

Much appreciated, Greg! Thanks for another terrific trade.

Sports Card Tour comes home

One of my favorite blog series of 2018 was The Collector's Sports Card Tour, where he'd target a city and write about their sports teams and sports cards.  It was cool to read about the different players he's collected over the years as well as his thoughts on the sports town itself.  Each post along his fifty-one city tour was very entertaining, educational, and motivated me to sit down and think about which athletes I've enjoyed collecting across the four major sports (and soccer) in North America.

If that weren't enough, he turned the whole series into a interactive contest, where you'd receive points by leaving comments.  Participants took turns picking prizes from his huge pool of goodies. 

I plagiarized all that from Fuji rather than type it up in my own words, but we meant every word of it!

Great blog series and cool prize draft. I was down low on the draft board, and saw some of my tentative 1st choices get selected out from under me, but still came away with some goodies.

The '60 Fleer Baseball Greats George Sisler was my 1st draft pick. I pretty much just grabbed the oldest card that was left. Neat card, even if he looks sort of like the dad from That 70s Show.

The '55 Topps Ted Kazanski was actually a pick by Bo, who indicated his desire to bust it out of the slab. I figured somebody paid PSA good money to have it graded; sure would be a shame to see that go to waste. (Perhaps it was Chris himself? Both cards seem to be from the same submission, as the ID numbers are close.) So anyways, I offered Bo a couple non-graded '55s in exchange for this one, and he agreed and Chris moved it over to my stack.

Might as well show the backs too. Gotta love vintage.

For my second round selection, I went with the Sports Card Tour Passport Pack, a lovingly curated mix of cardboard featuring cards from each stop in the series, alphabetical in order. It'd be a bit much to show off every card here, but I've plucked out a few notables...

Fun stuff! Big thanks, Chris! (While a generous prize like this would probably warrant a little "thanks" package, Chris did mention after our last trade that I may have over-delivered on my end, so I'll let that absolve me of any guilt and just call it square. lol)