Changes To My Auto Collection

Here I am again, with only a few days left in the month, and I haven't posted a damn thing.  Well, this is part of why that happened....I got a new red Charger auto.

But it's not like this at all...

I traded in my 2011 Dodge Charger (SE 6 cylinder)...

For a 2022 Charger R/T (8 cylinder).

Still have the sunroof, but now also have the backup camera, a better sound system and seats, as well as a hell of a lot more engine power.

It even came with the floor liners that go up the sides.

Also in car news, the Ford is back!

Back on the road (and in the garage) after nine months at the repair shop.  Still needs some things done, but at least she's running again.  Hope to get her out to a couple cruise-ins or shows before winter.

And finally, the Buick has been active too.

"Dyna" was at the annual benefit show for Alzheimer's at the local Motor Vehicle office.  They gave out plaques for the top 25 cars voted on by all the owners.  And she got one!  First time ever winning anything at a show!  Usually the muscle cars and pickup trucks take all the prizes.  But not this time!

So between all of this, I've also been managing my COMC inventory, adding some lots on eBay, and watching a steady influx of TCDB trades piling up on the desks here at Hivemind headquarters.

I've got trade piles right at my keyboard.  The eBay lots are at the upper right.

The desk behind me is full of incoming, outgoing, and unfiled extra stuff.

Even when I started to sort and put stuff away, it sits.

And the biggest piles are the incoming / checked off stuff that goes in boxes, binders, or the set piles right behind them. 

So blogging ideas have fallen down the priority list.  Kind of used up my best idea after the grading post.  Since I don't collect flagship sets, and haven't paid any attention to baseball games (even though my Orioles are in the playoffs), or hockey in a couple years, I don't really have a lot of post ideas.  And I keep stacking up all the incoming cards, so they haven't been appearing here even in loot posts.  I see YouTubers putting up discussions about new products, or recent purchases, etc. but they deal in mostly graded singles.  I need to go back through a lot of the recent blogs and find some creative ideas.

Thanks for sticking around even though I've been slacking again.

And by the way, the Justin Herbert auto at the top is from an eBay auction I found.  I don't own the card, and would never think about buying it, since it is currently priced at almost half what I paid for my new car!

Image edited for space

Shiny Autos

How's that for a clickbait title?

I've got hundreds of photos from the car shows I took the Buick to this summer.  Figured I'd throw some of the highlights up on here.  

(Those of you expecting foilboard signatures ~ sorry.)

First, my car among the participants:

And the rest of the exhibits:

Those are just a few of the better group shots I took.  I have tons of individual car shots I'll put up in future posts.  Let me know what eras, types or styles are your favorites and I'll try to post some themed groups.

New Numerous Notes

Another "notes" post to update you about miscellaneous things I've been doing.  Ideally, this would come in between real posts about deep subjects involving cards or sports, but except for mocking the current downturn in the (greatly inflated) card market, which really only involves high dollar graded cards anyway, I've really not had much to post about.  

Aw, your Gem Mint 10 Ohtani rookie isn't still worth
6000% of what it lists as a raw card any more?

I did get some mailings from Night Owl and a few others, but a while back a lot of people said that "Look what I got" posts were boring.  One Trading Bases member just destroyed my 2021 A&G wants with a huge stack of base, inserts, and short prints.  He was celebrating a cancer-free health report from his doctor apparently.  I still have minis and other things to trade from A&G.  

I'm also awaiting the other four parts of a five seller order from SportLots.  It was shipped yesterday.  I originally went on there to knock out the last few cards from some of the most recent sets that I had narrowed down at the National, but ended up with more from several years ago that really didn't clear many set entries from my lists at all.

Not my dog or house

Aside from all that, I'm immersed in my YouTube addiction (music, cars, dogs, cards, etc.) and the NFL season.  I thought I did OK in my fantasy draft - got all the guys I wanted.  I stayed away from anyone I had last year, with a couple exceptions.  Now those are the only guys that are scoring high.  Oh well, it's early yet.  And of course, my Washington team had to go to Plan B after the first game.  I like Taylor Heinicke and I hope he can stay healthy and keep us as competitive as he showed against the champs last year.

On the brighter side, the old Buick is back in action.  I cleaned out the filter at the carburetor and it started and ran much better.  Took it to a show at an airport museum about half an hour away last week.  Have another one Sunday here in town.  Last week's show had most of the parking lot filled with classic cars, plus the museum's collection of vintage (mostly Fairchild - the building was the old Fairchild assembly plant) aircraft.  Also around were fire trucks of varying ages, military vehicles, and a few motorcycles.  For $150 donation, you could take a 30 minute ride in one of a few different vintage airplanes.  No thanks, but it was nice to see aircraft and things again.

My latest musical obsession.  Nightwish performing Ghost Love Score at Wacken Open Air 2013.  Floor Jansen is one of the most incredible vocalists on the planet.  Around the 8:00 mark, she takes it to another level.  Gives me chills every time.

 

Numerous Notes

I'm still not really in the swing of things as far as posting regularly, but in an effort to move that along, here are some quick things I wanted to throw out to you.

Thanks to a couple good samaritans who helped me get the old Buick back home today after it broke down in the middle of a three lane road in the busiest part of town.  The ol' girl was about out of gas when I left for a show this morning, and has been hard to start the last few times.  I got her going and made it to the gas station OK, but after filling up, she quit on me and it took about 20 minutes of holding the hood up and cranking on it to get out of the road.  Then she quit again when I got just around the corner going the other way.  A couple gents helped me push her all the way out of the traffic lane, and another guy named Leroy stopped twice - the second time to bring starter fluid and we got her going again.  I made it home OK after that.  I think there must have been sediment in the bottom of the gas tank that got drawn up into the engine when it was low, and then got stirred up when I filled up.  Who knows...

I thought about posting my J.R. Richard player collection after he passed a while back, but never did.  I'll look to see how many oddballs I have of him.  Let me know if that's something you'd like to see.

I bought two boxes of 2021 Allen & Ginter and need to trade for about half the base set and bunches of inserts.  I have player minis and a couple hits and inserts available.  I know Nachos Grande has a lot of trade fodder.  Anyone else?  I got a Yadier box topper and an Arenado N43.  (Cardinals hot toppers!).   I also got a Rip card and figured out a special technique for opening them that I will post right after this.

Got a PWE from Jon at Penny Sleeve blog.  Thanks for the sharp '57s!  I do actually prefer centering to corners, but it was great getting them anyway - much appreciated!

Celebrating Something Else Born in 1951

OK, I've been teasing this long enough.  

I've been looking for something like this for a while now.  I joined a club of fellow enthisiasts to find it.  And in April, I saw an ad for just what I was looking for.  And I went and got it.  It was delivered to me Sunday.

This 1951 Buick Special Riviera is sitting in the garage at my mother's house.  I still can't believe it's mine.

It all just fell into place.  I had been looking on Hemmings website for months for early 50's Pontiacs or Buicks.  Then I joined the Buick Club of America, figuring I liked those best and any members selling on there would be in it for the enjoyment of the cars and not trying to hawk rustbuckets for a quick buck. 

Lo and behold, in the April issue of the Buick Bugle magazine, I saw the ad for this one.  Garaged all its life, they just wanted it to go to a good home.  It checked all the boxes for what I was looking for.  I decided "Life Is Short." and figured out when I could take off and go see it.  The catch was, it was in Menlo Park, California.  I live in Maryland.

But what the heck.  I booked flight and hotel, and went out on May 7.  Drove it the next day and we made the sale.  The owner couldn't have been nicer.  His father in law owned the car originally, but commuted to work, so the mileage was very low.  Then they got it and only put 1500 more on it.  

It was repainted, rechromed, and reupholstered in 2002.  And it never went east of Sacramento its whole life.  I booked a shipper and they picked it up a week ago. (The owner was out of town in between.)

I got the call yesterday at noon and met the shipper in a Home Depot parking lot.

Took it home and introduced it to my old Ford.  To my surprise, the Buick is just a bit longer.

I've driven it now three times total.  It's a workout.  It's an automatic, but has no power steering.  It's going to take a while to get used to driving it.   I also got the shop manual, and reprints of the owner's manual, and a second book on the DynaFlow engine (inline 8 cylinder). Plus some extra vintage light bulbs, radio tubes, weather stripping, air ducting and a custom cover.

My favorite part is the piano style hood that opens from either side.  The engine was repainted with all the stencils and labels too.

So Topps can celebrate their 70th anniversary and that's cool and all, but this car was made the same year they started and I like it's design much better.  I considered picking a card from the '51 Red and Blue Backs set to hang on the mirror or something, but there weren't any west coast teams yet, and I don't really have a favorite player that far back except for Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones, who I started collecting just to see the 50's cards.  I looked through the Topps World On Wheels set, but the closest thing there was a '53 Roadmaster convertible, which is just too different than mine.

So that's what I've been preoccupied with the last month or so.  I finally got some stacks of cards put away in the last couple days.  I need to get back to sorting my football hoard and generating more trades.  I've got a lot of work to do on all three cars now too.  Like my old boss used to say, "It keeps us entertained."