Three Shows In A Month - Part 2: Chantilly, VA

Two weeks after the Ephrata show, I attended the first of three yearly exhibits at the Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia.  This is the biggest show in my local-ish area.  It's about an hour's drive, and almost always worth it.

After dropping off my second submission to the guys at the COMC table (which was mostly from that storage hoard that I showed earlier), I dove in to shopping.

Here's the overall look at all my stacks - sorted by sport, sets, PCs, etc.  The two stacks on the left end will appear in other more famous blogs than mine.  

The first thing I attacked was my 2023 Stadium Club set.  Brought it down to one card, mostly from my favorite modern dealer.  Just couldn't get that last guy.  Just need the Ripken Triumvirates to complete the first trifecta of those as well.

This is the dude I'm missing if you have one to spare.

Scored some parallels and other player collection goodies from the past year as well.  Bo has the distinction of having all the Chrome parallels in SClub, while my other guys only have the non-shiny colors. 

Narrowed my 2023 Ginter short prints down to two (#373 Brett and another #384 Bo) with these five.  Amazing how tough it is to pull Ohtani from a pack.

Cut my needs of these Only In... minis in half with these.  Down to five (BAL, DET, ANA, SF & StL.)

Struck down a couple others from the '23 and '22 sets as well.  The mini inserts are always the most clever (and toughest to complete) of all the inserts - in Ginter and flagship.

Always adding to my Washington collection of course.  Some collectors concentrate on just one team and that's enough for them to look for.  For me, it's just one facet out of about six or eight that I chase all the time.  I'm out of control...

The never ending avalanche of shiny parallels.  I should have arranged these in a more horizontal array.  

Here's a closer look at a couple.  Blue Reactive Mosaic and Prestige Hyper flavors.

One vintage Washington insert that most people probably get for the Gale Sayers.  

Found a bunch of Addisons this time.  Believe it or not, I think the blue Select is the base, and the silver is a parallel.  At least I know there is a blue retail version.  Who knows what the hobby base flavor looks like without an image on the Database.

Some of these I got at the very last table that I bought from.  It was right by the front door and right next to YouTuber Chris Sewall, who I turned to and briefly discussed his latest video on grading data that blew my mind with the mention of two players whose Gem 10 slabs have dropped to about $10 in value (about 7 minutes in the linked video).  I never imagined a graded card would go below the cost of grading.  There may be hope for me to actually intentionally buy a slab in the future!

Here's what you really want to see, though.  Vintage!  One more off my 1950 Bowman set quest.  Though I'll probably be years waiting for Jackie Robinson et al to drop to a reasonable level.

I also started a micro player collection with these two.  As a player on the 1933 Goudey, and an umpire on the 1955 Bowman, Charlie Berry is a rather unique story.  Saw it on a YouTube video and always wanted a reason to get a '33 Goudey.

Finally knocked off two of the variation checklists from 1962 Topps...

The left one is the "no comma" version that lists #192 as Check List 3 (even though there's a dirt speck where the comma was on the other version).

The 6th series card variation is the general size and arrangement of the type.  The way you can distinguish them is the alignment of the E in Checklist.  In this one, it is lined up with the T in Topps.  On the other one, it is rather centered between the T and O.

Also coming down to the end of my 1957 Topps set quest.  The Senators and Kubek rookie are new, but the Fox is what I hope to be an upgrade.  His cards are expensive and hard to find in good shape.

Mauch, the reknowned manager later in his career, is a rookie as well.  Wilson, I don't know.

One of the two major finds was this Gene Baker error variation.  It was a lot scarcer (and expensive) than I thought.  But the guy that runs Uncle Dick's now gave me a great deal on it.

The "R" in BAKER is obscured on the back.  

The other big catch was this one from a dealer I know well and is from my area.  

It's not the greatest specimen, but the price was right.

So unless I mess it up, this will be my 750th total post on the blog.  Not all of them have been about cards, but I'd have to recalculate what that number is.  Thanks to the 50+ followers and many blog traders for your readership and support.  Resistance, after all, is futile anyway....

Next time, a quick trip for some more shiny....

Quick Hitters

Just checking in with some short notes.  Mostly because they won't fill out a whole post themselves.

The last post I put up about COMC was my 666th.  I considered commemorating that with some heavy metal feature something or other, but there's enough crazy going on in real life so I passed.  Been rocking to Unleash The Archers lately.

Speaking of them, my inventory is now up to 40 cards for sale (look for loqtus) and I actually sold one!  My 2019 Update Gold Mike Trout sold for $8.60 via eBay.  Woo hoo!  There goes the shutout!

Only 200 more to get processed...

I've been making football trades on SCF.  Just pulled batches of Broncos and 49ers for different forum members.  Have a couple more in the works.

Also waiting on a SportLots order of mostly Fleer Team Action football and other gridiron wants.  About 200 cards total among two orders.  Just waiting for the second one to reach my "mailbox" at SpL and then they'll ship out.

Have an eBay order also on the way with several recent 5x7 online exclusive Topps cards and some player collection oddballs.  I'll try to post them before I put them all away.  I've been sent packages from Night Owl and a couple other traders that I piled all together and didn't scan first.  I really need to find the discipline to do that so my post numbers go up.

At some point this year I will get back to the classic automobile work and then get out to more shows.  Have a few things to do before I take either ride to the show so it doesn't look like I did absolutely nothing over the off season.

Stay safe & cool, keep trading and collecting and have fun!

Updating The Software

The blog header here has been the same for a couple years now, and since a few of the major blogs have had theme changes, I figured it was time for at least a tweak.

Originally, I thought I would keep up the Borg / Trek theme in more than just the look of the blog, but that soon fell to the wayside.  Was thinking I would analyze cards and products in the deadpan style of the Collective, but it would have become cumbersome and cheesy after a while, so I let it go.  The main concentration of "trekkiness" is in the banner.  It started out like this:

The background and colors were already established.  Then I found the cool cyborg font...

Here's a better look at the first background.  Tried to represent the major parts of my collecting.  Set building ('72s), Priest Holmes player collection, vintage sets, etc.  Then threw in some star cards and game used just to appeal to a wider audience, so to speak.

Went with that for about a year, and then changed the cards and computer controls... 

New background looked like this:

It was really just a rearrangement of half of the same items in a somewhat less random layout.  Turned out a bit less busy, but still keeps that "only a Borg could use it" look.

And then today did it all over again.  Was tweaking the color saturation and contrast between the titles and the background, and the cyborg font came out with a lot more depth...

But I could only get it to be this pale green or whiz yellow, so I went back to the plain white you see at the top of the page.   I played around with saturation and luminance and got a couple other color combos that I may show later.

Here's the new background:

See if you can find some of the more subtle things.  There's the retro Topps logo (in place of an original skull), three representations of sets I've finished in the last year (listed as "Assimilation Complete"), and one of my custom Leading Ladies images.  There's the AAF card analysis on the left - computer is trying to compare it to NFL heroes.  And the hotness detection up top,

Major pieces of the techy stuff came from this image I found.  Converted some parts to green to match the other stuff and the background colors already on the blog.  (Not that it matches well, though).

I'm still wondering if I should mellow the white post body text a shade or two.  Looking at Night Owl's new theme, it's very easy to read the posts. (Just not easy to read the preceding posts from the top one).

What say you?

Should I keep this white text?  Or mute it down a little?  Or a lot?

How about the banner?  Stay with the bright titles or try it with some color?

500 Total, 400 Official

My last post was my 500th to the blog in general.

But since there were 96 posts before I proclaimed this an "official" card blog, this means that my post about the hoard that I bought is actually my 400th "official" post.

I was also able to calculate that the post about the first two visits to "Kevin & Dad's" shop in Middleburg was my 300th post.

Not that any of this makes an impact in anybody's life at this point.  My blogging has deteriorated into a haphazard schedule and I've relied on loot posts for about two weeks.  I'm publishing the one item I write at the time instead of putting in a little more effort and getting a few posts ahead.

I've already got plenty of stuff to send out and I haven't come close to getting all my stuff put away or counted yet, so no great celebration for the milestone, just continuing business as usual.

Two Hauls From My New Favorite Shop (300th post)

There is a guy on YouTube who posts videos that he makes when he finds card shops or booths in antique stores and flea markets.  His moniker is Jabs Family.  I love that they discover new sources of cardboard, but the stuff they actually buy is kinda goofy by my standards.  I can tell they are youg guys that aren't in it to collect for sentimental reasons. 

I was watching one briefly, (I have to quit because he's wearing a camera and keeps turning quickly which makes me motion sick after a while) about a shop they found northwest of Hagerstown in Middleburg.  It's called Blue Ridge Collectables, and it's right up the road from where the monthly show used to be.

A week or so after they posted, I went up there and was amazed to find the sheer volume that they had in star cards, inserts, oddballs, vintage, gamers & autos, wax boxes and complete sets.  The booth has three sides and they're filled to the gills with monster boxes of 25¢, 50¢, and $1 mixed singles, as well as some boxes sorted by player, some by single year, and the football in the back by team.  Then the binders have commons from many different sets and years, plus oddballs and inserts sorted to varying degrees.

I've since made another trip up there before Christmas shopping took over as a priority (with only two weeks left, I had to draw the line).

Here are the results of my visits.  I've combined them since I couldn't fit any of it on my sorting table at the moment. 

A few random Redskins from a small box of 2018 stuff.  One odd insert from 2011.  And a big batch of 1978 Fleet Team Action football.  I got those and the oversize Favre while my phone was still working on the first trip.  Luckily, I had a printed list of '71 football so I could still pull these after the phone died.

Oddballs everywhere.  Those two mini puzzles were spur of the moment buys that ended up being dupes, but for 25 and 50¢, I couldn't go wrong.  Some great finds with the two stamps, the Milk Duds Kessinger, the funky Fisk sticker thing, and the Keller et al TCMA.

There are entire binders full of past year inserts.  I came back the second time and loaded up on most of these 2003 Topps inserts.  The Cal's from '96 are excellent finds.  I actually picked up the entire set of the oversize version of those Cals from this place too for a buck a shot.  I already sheeted 'em up, so I didn't take a picture.  Great to knock off a couple more Hygrade variants too, as well as my last Fleer Extra Bases base card.  The Aarons are reprints from 2000 or so.  And the 2005 Donruss checklists are SPs.

Stupid reflections - I can't take good pictures at night
anywhere in the house without reflections. 

I was overjoyed to find '75 minis - especially for a quarter or two each.  The Coopy Rickey kills my set, except for a couple of the SP colorized ones.  More SPs and inserts from 2000's sets.  And rounding it off are some 2017 Topps.

There are also boxes of inserts separated by year that go back to about 2006.  The vast majority are Topps, but that's a great resource to have for trading.  Return trips are guaranteed.

A better look at the minis.

The bulk of my first visit was all these from 2006 Heritage.  Pretty much a broken set in a binder.  I cleaned up.

I'll be a regular customer up there from now on.  And I'll be able to make some awesome trades this coming year too.

200th Post Milestone Passed!

This blog was originally started in 2005 as an exercise in creative writing and commentary on life in general.  I posted a total of twenty times that year on topics like the petroleum industry, soy, the internet, the grocery store, kinds of people, cellular phones, and just random ramblings and thoughts that occured to me at the time.  Some of it is quite amusing, though no one was really reading it except me and a couple of my friends. 

Then I paused.  For about four years.  In 2009, I started back up putting up posts with custom cards and sports commentary.  Had some pretty creative ideas for customs - mostly of relic type cards.  All in good fun.  I averaged about a post a month from then until the beginning of 2017, when I started posting about three times a week at least.  That's when I consider the "real" start of The Collective Mind.  It's when I got on the blogrolls of Night Owl and several other "legit" card blogs.  I feel like I'm in with the "cool" card people now.

So there were 96 posts before the "official" start of TCM.  The last one about the Chantilly show was #296, making it the 200th regular post.

In honor of the milestone,......well, ..........hmmm.

I can't decide what to do to celebrate.  I was thinking of having a giveaway, but I've already been picking up or pulling cards for several blogger bretheren, so that's a bit redundant.

Usually, other people hold contests for big hits or gift certificates to dealer sites.  I could do something like that.  I could hold a draft for all the weird stuff and extra card stock I have. I've got a lot of stuff i could move, but it's mostly set builder stock.  I'm not beyond shopping for something though....

What do you guys think?