Back On Exhibit, With Two New Additions

The eBay purchase that arrived last week brought my closer to finishing the oldest team set in my collection (by almost 50 years).  Though it will most likely be a while until I get the last one.

You may recall from past posts the photo of the 1909 New York Giants that I got from my Dad several decades ago.  In the early 2000's, I decided to start a project to profile the members of the team.  I printed out biographies of each player pictured, and got reprints of their T206, T205, and a few other cards of the era.  

Then I got my first real one. This team set is the only group of cards that I seek graded copies of.  I have a few other slabbed items for recent set builds, but only because the price was close to what I thought a raw one should be.  Since these are so different and can be easily faked, I figured at least they should be officially authenticated - for whatever that's worth.  The grades I have don't generally approach level 5.  And they aren't all actually graded either.  But I digress...

Here's the whole set (without the two variations).  I'm only after one brand on the back too.

I set up a separate web page for this collection when I was on the Google site.  Unfortunately, the images I used for the full views of each card were lost when Google stopped having decent websites and shut them down.   The new version of this page (linked above and here) has been "under construction" for a long time.  Last week I finally filled in the thumbnail images with the date of purchase.  (The fonts are inconsistent, so I'll have to fix that).   

So before last week's purchase, I was down to four.  Now I'm missing half that number.

 You can guess which one is going to take the longest....

These are the latest additions:

The thumbnails on the T205 page are going to be linked to the images like these for all the cards I have.  For the moment, these are the only two that are.  I have to reshoot the others. 

Mr. Raymond has been very elusive.  He's apparently a decent star of the era, so he's priced above the majority (but way below guys like Cobb and Cy Young).  Ames was just the last of the common guys that finally showed up in a decent specimen for a reasonable price.

So stay tuned for further progress to bring that page up to date.  I hope to get the images done during Easter weekend.

Monday Mailday - A Time Warp From Where It All Began

The post office tends to "save up" trade mail and packages for Mondays.  The Monday after the second show weekend in a row was especially fruitful.  I had all this waiting in the box or by the door.

Most of it is trades from the Database, but one was an eBay purchase.

The late 80's are to finish a few sets I have for sale that ran short.  It's nice to be able to just trade extra stuff for them.  I'm probably going to end up with extras of the last few I need for '89 at least.  The '09 black Topps are for my Update set build.  Still annoyed that they didn't make whole blasters of these at the time.

This is the second half of that trade from BigOinPA.  Some Capitals and Sabres.  The latter are not the regular base set, but special team sets numbered out of 20.

TCDB trader RangerFreak94 contributed all this to set builds.  Anyone need a Pete Rose?  I'm ending up with four or five extras.  The basketball card was a nice try, but not going to make that set.  All the other football is for set builds, except Sam and Richie.  Anderson is a PC, and that one is the blue back retail flavor.

He also chimed in with hockey.  A couple Fedorovs and a Manon Rheaume for my PCs, more Finests for the Premier set, one OPC base hit, and more recent Caps.

The other large package contains two parts of an epic trade with SirNailhead.  The guy has been on quite a life journey, and has set me on one to gather another Heritage set.  We swapped almost 300 cards one-for-one.  My side was all 2023 Heritage - the '74 design.  I figured why not?  The first cards I ever owned were '74s.  So even though I only recognize about 20% of the fellows pictured, I went for it.  (I might do another post to see what the actual percentage is like I did before.)

 
Glad I don't have to find the Ohtani.  And there was at least one of the "other Aaron" Specials included too.

The flat rate box is the eBay purchase.  I'm going to save that reveal for the next post.  But I'll give you a hint ~ One of my other pages has been revived.  Go there and check out the last two entries.  (They're the only ones linked to full images.)  More on both of those in the next one.

Thanks to all three traders, and to you for tuning in....
 

Extra Protection

Made a quick purchase the other week to reduce my want list of T205 New York Giants (how many of you have want lists like that?).  I had to laugh at the packaging.  It may have survived the recent hurricanes.  Kudos to seller Toppsaholic for protecting my investment.

Outer white paper wrapping.  Folded and sealed securely.

That was around a box section folder and wrapped in another box section sleeve.

Which contained another cardboard envelope layer...

With a bubble mailer inside of that...

Wrapped in two slab bags...

...was the final product.

This is the "W. A." variation of Latham's T205.  The more common version is "A. Latham" on the back. 

Now I'm down to four for the team set.  Of course, Mathewson is one of them.

It's 3AM And I Must Be...Addicted

Like something out of the Matchbox 20 song, I was up late Friday night on eBay.  I found a seller that was offering 40% off (actually two, the other was giving essentially the same deal - buy 4 get 2 free and I didn't notice it was different sellers until later), so I was racking up items in my cart.  There were tons of the "pick" type auctions from different sets, parallels, and inserts with long lists of cards to choose from.  I racked up $125 worth of stuff before I compared listings on SportLots and threw more than half of it back.  I ended up with 57 items from the one seller and 27 from the other.  

I was literally up until 3AM.

I got the smaller order today (Monday) after work.  Seller richindeals7 sent all this:

Three out of the last five to finish 2015 Topps Field Access.  This was a tough set to fill out.  I've got Drew Brees coming from the bigger order, so I'm finally down to card #1 - you guessed it - Mr. Brady.

The final four to kill 2002-03 Pacific Private Stock, my all-time favorite hockey set.  Well, it's at least the last ones to finish the first part of the base set that aren't jersey cards or serial numbered rookies.  So that's something. 

And as a bonus, also got the last three InCrease Security inserts.  Goalie inserts rule.  There's the back of the Potvin to balance the image and because the scans obscure the gold foil.

Now moving to baseball, but not for sets.  These will all be for player collections.  Knocked off a pair of pewter parallels (say that three times fast) from 2006 Fleer Greats.  They'll go with each player's other cards.  I need a few inserts for the set, but I'm not trying for the parallel sets.

This is an unusual one.  Torre completed the list of Italian American players from this set from which I also had Gene Tenace, Doug DeCinces, and Joe Ferguson.  The border is gold foil.

Picked up my two HOF'er guys from the 2013 white bordered Gypsy Queens.  

Got a second Fisk from the regulation-sized and shiny '88 Big from Archives. 

As for Palmer, got his Ginter X from 2019 and the more recent Chrome Platinum Anniversary.  I keep finding more of my PC guys in there.  Also found the '75 mini from 2011 Lineage.

Quintupling my total 2022 Topps cards, these four stamped, starred or shiny parallels to my only active player collection, Chad Kuhl.  I didn't even know about these until I searched him while shopping.  Got the All-Star game and Montgomery stamps, the gold stars, and rainbow foil, which scanned very weird.  I tweaked it a little to look more like shiny.

Saving the treats for the end, here's the bronze version of Paige's 2018 WWE card.  I have the base, but she's such a hottie, why not get a few from the rainbow?

And now the most obscure but most elegant card in the whole night's chase.  A rendering of Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra from Firefly.  This set is called "The Verse" which I believe is short for The Universe in Firefly-speak.  She qualifies for Ms. Universe for sure.  I have no words otherwise.

Stay tuned for the other order, and I should try to piece together images from a couple more batches that I've already received and put away from other sources. 

I Am Now A Scanning Machine

OK, not quite like that...

I recently upgraded my ability to contribute images to the Trading Card Database as well as this blog and any other endeavors that use images of trading cards. 

Before, the normal method was a flatbed scanner, which in my case is the top half of my Canon inkjet printer.  Up to about nine cards would be loaded onto the scanner surface face down, covered with a piece of foam to darken the background, and then the lid is set on top. 

Then I use my Paint Shop Pro program from 1996.  Hit one button and it quickly sweeps the scanner bed and gives you a preview of what you've got set down.  Hopefully they stay aligned to the edges of the bed.  Then the scan area is designated, the picture mode selected, and the Scan button clicked.  A minute or two goes by while you wait for the scan to complete...bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Now you get the group image.  Each card you want to separate must be cut or copied and pasted into a new image file and cropped down, resized, and tweaked.

Quite often even when they don't move, the images are just so slightly rotated (shown by red area in picture) that it's only correctable by overcropping the image.  The Database is a bit picky that you don't leave any space around the edges.

So I've contributed a decent number of images to TCDB, but it's not an efficient operation.  Until now.

I have seen several videos about Fujitsu scanners and their use for trading cards. Now I don't sell singles on any sites that I need to scan, so I don't upload to services like shown in these clips, but it works for manually putting images on the Database too.

I got the Fujitsu fi7030 scanner.  They retail brand new for around $550.  I was hoping to find one for much less on a Black Friday deal.  No dice.  Then I realized that this model has been around a while, so there should be some on eBay!  From a quick Google search (initially from any store), I found one on there for just over $300.  But a lot of the cheap ones are missing the feeder tray and/or the AC power adapter - and that's a deal breaker.  I found one that was complete and tested by the store that was selling it - for just over $275 - but with a Best Offer option.  They accepted my $250 offer!  So I basically got one for half price! They're about the size of an average fax machine if you're old enough to relate to that.

You simply call the program up to scan and load some cards in the feeder.  Set off the process by clicking the button on the configuration that you set up initially. Pardon my quick & dirty phone videos...

The scanner starts feeding cards and is done in mere seconds. 

The images of both front and back are captured for each card as it passes through the machine.  Sometimes it flips them around, but that's correctable with a couple clicks.

Then you "release" that batch of scans into the folder you designated, and voilà!  Your images are there.  For the most part, they are cropped right down to the edges.  (I have my scan area set to exactly 2½ by 3½ inches, so there's little margin left.)

You can now go to the database or wherever you need the images and upload them into place.  The whole process takes less time than the first page of flatbed scanning typically would!  Plus, you can add batches to the ones you just scanned and get hundreds of images in just a few minutes!  Unfortunately, this model only really does regular base cards.  I tried a thicker jersey card and it wouldn't make it through the feeder.  I did confirm with a few junk cards that it doesn't leave marks on cards from the feeder rollers or anything.  I might be able to set it to mini size scanning in order to do those. They'd just have to be done separately.  The bulk of what I need to do is regular stuff anyway.

Watch out database!  Here I come!  I bet Database champions like Billy K have something like this...

As If I Needed Another Player Collection

It doesn't take much for me to collect a guy. (It's even easier if it's a girl, but that doesn't happen often.)  So after a bit of quick research, I decided to add another player to the long list of "I want everything".  

Back in the day when I started most of my PC's, I just happened to have a few of the same player that weren't part of a set build (I was only a few sets in at this point), and thought "he's cool" - in the binder(s?) he went.  The consequence of this is that there are a few guys that I look at now and think "If I need to sacrifice a couple of these, he's one of them."  I only have real attachments to about a dozen or so out of the 60+ PC's I maintain.

Edwin Jackson is the newest draftee to my player collection team.  He technically supplants Royce Clayton, because I collect them for the same reason - modern player that has been on several franchises over his career.  Jackson has now set the record at 14 teams.  Clayton had played for eleven, which was the top total before Edwin.

The 39-year-old right-hander last pitched in the major leagues in 2019 with the Detroit Tigers. More recently, he helped Team USA capture a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics last summer.  

Along with the Tigers, Jackson also made stops with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Devil/Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres, Baltimore Orioles, Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays. 

His career accomplishes included an All-Star appearance in 2009 with the Tigers, a no-hitter in 2010 with the D-Backs and a World Series title in 2011 with the Cardinals, a three-year stretch that perfectly captures his nomadic career. He finishes his days as a pitcher with a 4.78 ERA and 1.47 WHIP across 412 games (318 starts). He struck out 1,508 batters in 1,960 innings.

Above are the five base cards that I happened to have in my extra stuff.  I thought I had seen several of his cards as I have been sifting through "The Hoard", but I probably sent them off to Cubs collectors or in set chunks.

I should be able to find his basic cards pretty easily.  Often he is limited to Topps flagship, Update, and maybe Heritage, GQ and Upper Deck flagship aside from his rookie year (2003) where he's in just about everything, but as a dreaded rookie.  

He's also got a lot of rookie autographs too, and since I'm not much of a rookie collector, I figured I'd see if eBay had a good batch to give me a head start.  

Boy, did I hit one!

Thanks to eBay seller sellwhatIfind, I got 27 cards, broken down into

4 Unnumbered RC's
6 #'d RC's, as low as /10
2 Auto/Relic RC's /22 and /150
14 Autos- 13 RC 1 non rc #'d as low as 16. Almost all under /100
1 1/1 Rookie Printing Plate

And I offered 3/4 of the asking price and was accepted!

This 2003 Just Minors is sticker-sealed in a top loader so it doesn't scan perfectly.

2003 Elite Extra Edition die-cut /100.  I like how they stamp across the sticker.  A lot of these have that feature.

'03 Flair Future Fame, Fleer Genuine Upside and Fleer Authentic Ticket To The Majors.  Some of the higher serial numbers of the bunch.

These two '03 Leaf Limited Phenoms are both shiny silver, but the rainbow shiny Silver Spotlight scans bluish.

Pairing these two low numbered ones throws off the chronological order.  Anyway, we have the first of many 2004's, Fleer Authentic Club Box Ticket to the Majors - this time /25.  Jumping ahead to '05, this Diamond King gold is /10.

Cyan Press "Proof" Plate 1/1 from Fleer Classic Clippings.  Had to use a magnifier to find that on the front. 

At some point I'll look up which particular Flair parallels these are, but for now I'm just basking in the low-numberedness.  I kind of like the parchment paper that the one auto is on.

The second Fleer Genuine [Insider] Upside in this lot.  This is the 2004 flavor bronze base version.  There aren't actually other color or gold/silver parallels, just "Reflections" /99.

This '04 Fleer Platinum Inscribed looks more like a minor league issue until you find the Plat logo.

Still more Fleer, this one Sweet Sigs Platinum Autograph, in EJ's case numbered to 22.  I always go back (or in this case forward) to the 2007 Sweet Spot Classics autos that are famous for fading.  Glad this one hasn't done that.  Probably looks worse in the scan.

A trifecta of Playoff Honors, which I just started as a set not too long ago.  Will need another one of these base cards.  

More fancy '04's.  Studio auto and two from Skybox Limited Edition, nice die-cuts.

Two of the few regular base.  I figure you probably know what the backs looks like...

Besides the printing plate, this is the biggest hit of the lot.  The one swatch + auto - Donruss Prime Patches from 2005.

The Mirror White and Gold auto flavors of 2005 Leaf Certified Materials.  These scan real nice.

And finally, the UD Trilogy Generations Future Signature numbered out of 35.  It's really faint right above his nameplate on the front.

So howzzat for a jump start?  I actually made a graphic checklist for all the base cards that he has thinking I'd just go for the regular stuff to show all the different teams.  But after finding this auction, I guess I'm a supercollector in the making.

I think I remember seeing Edwin live at a game in the outfield before first pitch.  Can't recall what game it was.  I thought it was cool that he played for both Washington and Baltimore.  That's why Pete Richert is one of my PC's.  

What inspires you to start a player collection?