OK Bots, quit it!

(Editor's note: This post has had four digit readership for the last month or so. (7215 total so far.) That can't be real. I changed the title to see if they will quit.)

Even though illness prevented me from attending this year in Chicago, I didn't totally miss out on adding cardboard to my collection.

After I had sufficiently recovered, my girlfriend took me to the Morning Sun Marketplace in Thomasville, PA near York.  We walked through the outside flea market and through all three buildings in the course of the day.  One outside dealer had a couple binders with random assortments of mostly newer baseball, football and hoops stars and every card was $5.  

I found this Jordan Addison /8.  I have two others from this Leaf set as well, so I was happy to add this one.  

Inside, we passed through a booth that had lots of supplies and non-sports cards and figures.  I came back and got this set:

It's complete at 100 cards.  Still shrink wrapped.  Not sure if I'll unwrap it or not.

The highlight of the visit was to go through the inventory at Jason's Sports Cards.  I went through his '63 Topps, but they were generally all commons with a lot of repeats, so I didn't get any of those.  He had a lot of jerseys and autos from lesser baseball and football players at the far end of his display, all marked at $4 each.  He said everything was discounted to two bucks as I was halfway through that section.  I snagged up on some Washington hits that I would have normaly passed over, but for that price, why not?

I hit another Jordan Addison in the Vikings row, but all the others are DC.  No JD5's or anything, but some low serial numbers, even if they're rookie jerseys.  The Jason Campbells are all /25.  The rest are in the 2-300s or so.  They'll be added to the pile of DC hits that I've accumulated over the past year and change.  Unfortunately, I don't have the drawer space to put them with the rest of my Redskins+ gamers & autos.

The other source of pasteboard treasures is my man Marv from Michigan.  Didn't get to see him, but he's been supplying me with 1963 Topps in a couple shipments since May or so.  These are the highlights.  Marked prices were reduced at final sale.

Had to cut out a Gibson that was not quite up to par, but these are a few of the big guns in the later series that I can now cross off my list.

Knocked out some of the better combo cards too.  I've seen the Bomber's Best listed for $125 or more.  These aren't perfectly centered, but the more I look at '63s, the less I expect them to be.

So I didn't totally go cold turkey for a month or more missing out on the National.  I've got sources to keep me collecting for sure.

Next up, my 800th total post... 

Spring Chantilly Show - Youth And Old Age

There's an old saying that I've quoted before, "There's no such thing as a bad day when you're fishing."  The same holds true for card shows.  I woke up this morning so stiff and achy after spending most of yesterday on my feet at the Chantilly card show, but it was worth it.  I got to the show about 10AM, and left as they closed at 5.  Here's what I brought home.

Started with a few more for the '65 set build.  This will be a recurring theme.

 Usually I'll start at the far end of the show floor and work my way back, but since I had to get autograph tickets from the section of the building in the other direction, I jumped in at that end.  Dave Rosen & family at All Star Sports Cards out of Levittown, PA always has a big selection of insert and parallels from the current releases.  It's a great resource for me to find player collection stuff without having to open boxes.  

Got the Stadium Club Chrome, Red Foil, Pink Foil, and Sepia Bo's....

Picked up the Prizm, Chrome SC, Refractor, and Pink Younts for my friend Eric.

The biggest rainbow was Palmer, with the base, Chrome, Refractor, Red, & Pink.

He had a couple nice bonus items too.  Torre is one of the rare Cycle Succession A&G inserts out of the three I need.  And this 2024 Impeccable auto of Luis Tiant commemorating his debut.  Numbered out of 25, he must have signed this one shortly before his passing.

Next dealer had these '65s in a book.  Only the Agee rookie was more that $2-3.  A couple of these are upgrades.  I'm hoping that Agee isn't a duplicate, since I was working from my website and a printed list at the same time and that card was only on one.  Haven't found another one yet.

Then I heard my favorite local dealer Steve say hello over into the next aisle, so I stepped up to his table.  He had several of the Steve Carlton rookies that was the last of the big money cards I needed for my set.  I picked one out that was in the middle of the range of prices, and said I needed a Uecker too.  He gave me a good discount on them and then we worked a deal for the extra '64 Uecker and the two '57 mid series duplicates that I had from previous shows.  That almost cut my cost in half.  I was very happy.

At this point, I heard the announcement for my autograph signing and headed over to the lines.

Since he's from my hometown, went to the schools I work for, and knows my coworker, I started collecting Jordan Addison's cards.  I have them all in top loaders and didn't really have a favorite, but figured I'd be putting a binder together at some point, so I made the image below and printed it out for him to sign. It will go on the binder cover.

He went to Tuscarora High School, so that was the inscription that I had him add.

Resumed my shopping after the ink dried....Came by Stan's table, who I've bought from several times before.

Andy Pafko's '50 Bowman has some staining, but would have probably been twice as much otherwise.  And Vern Stephens is #2 in the set - the lower numbers carry the premium, but this one was spot on my target price at $12.

For this show, I began a set build of 1962 Post cereal cards.  I've been picking up a few of the biggest names here and there just as a novelty over the last year or so.  So the day before the show, I went through and listed the ones I had - about a dozen - including Mantle, Clemente, Aaron, Mays, etc.  Since I was that far, why not go for it?  I wrote out the remaining HOF'ers still missing, and snagged some of them here.  I just like the look of these, and they're a cheap way to owning megastars.  I'll flip the script on the normal set build and start with the big ones and find a common starter lot later.

Found another pair at the next dealer, who I've seen at the National a couple times.  (Not sure what his name is.)  Also filled out more of my '65s.  After all was said and done, I'm down to 17 cards for the set, and the biggest names lacking are Aparicio and Lolich.

Killebrew is shown twice, but I only got one.  Knocked out one of the remaining Hostess player collection needs with the '78 Ferguson.  Most of the Hostess I can't find are from the '79 set.  Not sure why they're so elusive.  Also finally found a '58 Ollie Matson that I liked to bring that set one closer to the finish.  But that end is years away, since that guy named Brown is still on my list.  I started the 1961 Golden Press's with a database trade months ago, and they've been fun to find since.  For a moment, I thought this dealer had a couple hundred of them, but they were BEHIND the divider, not in front of it, so there were only a handful, which was still plenty.

Made it down to Barry's, who generally has tons of recent inserts and bulk base.  He had lots of Heritage High Number in the '75 design, but I'm probably just going to buy a short set rather than boxes, so I didn't need singles.  Hope to get a line on the SP's too.  Found these A&G parallels for Eric & I, as well as the Palmer 206 for this year and a surprise Dynamic Duals with Bo Jackson.  I have two of the Dusty Baker / Lou Piniella one, but didn't know about this one.

It was a lighter haul than usual, but had some bonus oversize items too.  The Prizm card shows the scale.  Went blind on the Jordan, which of course I already had, so he's available.  The Torre is a postcard, and I'm happy I didn't have the Fisk Heritage topper.  He goes with the Gene Tenace that I did own.

Late in the day, I was getting tired and could feel my heart rate rising from being on my feet most of the day.  Brother Mike was based at the farther end of the floor, and had a vacant table next to his, so it allowed me a nice break to sit in a chair and dig through one of his 8/$1 boxes.  I came up with seven, plus the Jeets mini and a couple dollar finds.  Total of $3.

The announcements for the closing of the show had begun, so I quickly moved through the last couple rows of sale tables.  One dealer had sectioned plastic boxes labeled with certain sets or themes.  There were a couple with Chrome Anniversary parallels.  Found these two PC guys.

Sutter is the Rose Gold Mini Diamonds flavor numbered out of 75.  Got a dollar off the total, so it's reasonable, I guess.  There are so many parallels of these, you gotta get 'em when you find 'em.

So that was my show.  I'm finally feeling alive again around dinner time the next day, but that's what I get for sitting around too much otherwise.  Like I said, is there any such thing as a bad day at a card show?

Trading With Myself (Or The World)

Business is good.

Those sets are flying out of here, almost a couple every day or two.  I'm still in disbelief about how 1988-1990 sets are selling so well.  And if you don't know ~ eBay is a lot of work.  This is why I'm only posting a couple times a month.

But anyway, that's not what this post is about.  I finally photographed my last COMC order that I submitted in November 2024, and took delivery of in January.  I was trying to come up with a better way to show over 200 cards, but I ended up just laying them out and taking pictures with minimal glare.  I was only mildly successful at even that.  All the little bar-coded slips are still in each card's sleeve, though I did try to overlap them and crop them out.  But since they're all in penny sleeves, they catch all the reflections they possibly can, sorry.

Since my inventory on COMC is down below 100 cards, my credit balance is way up.  The last batch I submitted was 90% from the storage hoard (the upstairs batch in my house).  They've done well, and I've paid the owner his part, though I haven't cashed out the credit on the site.  I figure since I've paid out the money, I might as well get the cards from the site for myself.  My last order was over 200 cards like I said.  And most of them were around a dollar or less, so there are many more coming back than have gone out.  

  

The Trout above is one of several set hits that I knocked off with this purchase.  Set hits were not the majority of this order, though.

Stupid reflections...

The four 2006 Ginters are set killers.  The Trout is the penultimate 2012, but I still need Harper's rookie too.  Cal is the last one I've been searching for to finish that SP insert - and he's been elusive!  As you can see, the Pacifics are promos, and the first half of that group that I decided to dive into while picking out this order.  Jeffries is the proper Prism version - not the circular type.  And the Dominators and black GQ minis are both rather lifelong quests it seems...

Brett & Brady are the entirety of my football set hits this time.  They are also two of the more elusive finds and set killers.  Favre is a throwback promo from 2005 and Brady kills my 2015 Field Access set.  There have been many attempts at a Stadium-Club-like, unusual photo themed product in recent times, but they never seem to last more than a year or so.  They just keep getting different names.  

Some hockey list hits from a few different decades.  Guy & Mark leave only the big rookies for those two sets (Yzerman & Roy respectively), and Gretzky for the former.  Pretty sure the three '89-90s should kill that set.  The Flames team card is from one of my favorite hockey sets - 2005 Parkhurst.  Still looking for the Leafs and some of the higher number cards which aren't short prints, but are still hard to come by.  The remaining inserts are from Parkhurst of '16-17.  I have more trouble finishing the huge sets of recent years than I do the older ones.  

While I'm working on hockey sets, I always have to get a second batch of the Capitals too.  Many of these complete the team sets either outright or by upgrading the last ones.

  

And finishing out the hockey theme, I updated my list of Manon Rheaume cards that I have and want and looked at a whole lot of her stuff on the site.  Ended up with these that didn't exceed the cost threshold - a couple bucks or less.  Her older stuff is still surprisingly costly.  I suppose she's the only reason that people still look at early 90's off-brand hockey.  She's officially on my player collection list now.  Like Edwin Jackson, and Jordan Addison, it's only on the Database for the moment. 

Let's keep going with the player collections, and I'll save the coolest stuff for the end.  (Sorry about the mammoth image count if you're on a phone or something).  Found a few missing entries from my smaller football PCs.  The Upper Deck on the lower left is Dan LeFevour in the CFL. 

Of course, my biggest football PC is still Priest Holmes.  I found tons of his and had to filter out my take just to the cheap ones.  Had to draw the line at these so I didn't spend all my credit.  Between him and Jordan Addison, I could go all night.  Except for a half dozen "easy" base cards, I've been down to mostly serial numbered and scarce parallels - and mojo hits - for Priest for years.

Now, here's where I really went nuts.  I said I narrowed down my choices for Jordan Addison.  And I really did cut out any regular base cards that I figured I'd get in trade on TCDB.  But I still ended up with all these.  I'm out of control.  Here's a look at some of them close up....

A couple jerseys among them.  Only a few bucks apiece. 

Got these "Keepsake" base and parallels.  Don't even know what they are, except low numbered.  

And there was this silly thing.  

And these are the epitome of the parallel glut that is happening these days.  These are, in fact, different parallels.  The left one is the "Mini Diamond Refractor" version, as opposed to the "Speckle Refractor" on the right.  Come on people, you're really running this stuff into the ground.

Rounding out the player collection theme, here's all the baseball PCs from this order.  Lou Piniella isn't really one of my major guys, but there are so many of his managerial cards out there for less than a buck or so, that I can't help but try to fill them in.  The Pookie Bernstine in the very top left is the eighth one out of his ten total cards.  The only ones left are the gold version of that one and a TCMA.  The MCI Sparky Lyle isn't normally autographed, but at only $3, I couldn't grab it fast enough.  Got a pair each of minor league coach cards and Chrome Anniversary parallels for Gene Tenace at the same time.  The bottom corner Edwin Jackson is a 2010 Printing Plate that was only $8.50 - one of about a dozen cards over $2 on the whole order.

Moving on to fictional beings, Deathlok is my favorite comic character.   The Specialist card finally ends that Marvel set.  The first two cards are the same Captain America cover shot, but vastly different interpretations as far as color.

More sci-fi, but this time the classic stuff.  The last card to finish all the color series of the entire Star Wars set.  I'm also whittling away the 1977 Star Wars stickers - the cheap ones of course - these were all less than a dollar.  I'll be finishing the 1980 Empire Strikes Back set soon too.

And now the bonus for reading all the way to the end.  A few lovely ladies to complete the package.  A strange playing card Sheena Easton - my first musical love, before I heard the sound of metal guitars years later.  A Farrah mini from Golden Age to knock another of the five backs off the list.  A recent Saraya wrestling card - AKA Paige from WWE.   And some colorful images of golf influencer and total smokeshow Paige Spiranac.

Thanks for plowing through all my mediocre images of some cool cards.  As if I needed to add more cards to my overflowing desks, I have yet another order kinda like this one (though not as large) being picked right now and shipment is set for early March.  Stay tuned for that one!

My theory is that I'm basically swapping the cards I sell for all this, so it's really a bargain. It's kinda like trading with myself - or several hundred COMC users all at once!

Auspicious Beginnings And A Melancholy End

It usually doesn't take a whole lot for me to collect a certain player.  But in the case of Brian Matusz, it was a lot more than usual.  I never met him in person, but the connection was closer than most other players I follow.  He wasn't a superstar, but I rooted for the guy more than anyone else I ever watched.

Brian was found deceased in his home this past Monday, January 8.  Phoenix authorities are still investigating and have not released the cause of death.  

As described in the linked article above and many others, Matusz was an Orioles starter for a few years and did OK, but then extended his career in 2012 by moving to relief.  He continued in this role for a few more years.  He was well known for being able to strike out David "Big Papi" Ortiz 13 times out of their 29 matchups with only four hits and no homers.  He was traded to the Braves after his numbers declined in 2016, but didn't last long.  He caught on with the Cubs just enough to earn a World Series ring.  He spent a couple more years in the minors and Mexican League before retiring in 2019.

I first saw him when he was with my hometown minor league Frederick Keys.  I was at his debut game there, and then also happened to be at his major league debut in Detroit while visiting Stuart.  Ironically, that was also the same date (Aug 4) as the debut of another of my Oriole PC's Mike Mussina.  During his time here, Matusz lived in the neighborhood in Frederick that was managed by another good friend of mine.

So all that inspired one of my first "supercollections".  Here is my attempt to show it all to you.  Please forgive the reflections.  I can't ever take photos without reflections fogging up the images no matter what angle or lighting I use.  I'll highlight some of the more interesting cards.

I've got most everything in top loaders in chronological order.  These are minor league and Team USA issues from Razor, Upper Deck, and Obak among others. 

I've got the whole name in these signed Lettermans.  Though it is a hybrid of both sets.

These were some of the first autographs I found of his.  This particular one came a bit later than the rest, since it's only numbered out of 25.

I've been lucky to find almost all these UD USA baseball jerseys, patches and autos.  Even the low numbered ones.

I found these Obak printing plates at their table at the National one year.  They had almost every card in this series along with all the plates for each.  Not sure if they do that regularly, or they were shutting things down.  I'm glad to have them either way.

A lot of these parallels take me a minute to figure out the differences.  This one (and the green one like it) are die cut versions.  (Again, the reflections on the penny sleeves).

His 2010s start with a bunch of Bowmans.  

...and continue with Topps issues including Chrome and eTopps.

I got one without and one with the sealed case. 

Sorry for the blurry shot of the Bowie Baysox team set.  He's on top, so there's no reason to open it.

Transitioning from 2010 to 2011 starting with Upper Deck, then back to Bowman and Topps again.  

That Triple Threads jersey auto really caught the light.  The Futures Game swatch is how all GU's should be.

Haven't seen many other gold Upper Decks after this one.

He got on the checklist for these online 2011 Diamond Die Cuts.  

Lots of colorful shiny-ness in the 2011's too.

Some really fancy stuff in the 2011-2012 range.  A little bit of everything.

Don't remember where I bought this A&G printing plate for that year's mini.  These are really nice looking, though.

These are all logo- and photo-less issues by Upper Deck.  Not sure what ostriches have to do with Baltimore baseball, but this is what you get with exclusive contracts.

My 2013's include more printing plates, colorful parallels, and minis.

Here are the standard size plates...

...and the mini one.  (Could have put a reference card in the photo I guess.)

Angled this shot to keep the reflections at bay.  Rainbows are pretty cool.

Probably should have tried that with these too.  Ah well, you get the gist.

Ooh, shiny...

And a closer look at the stamps on the lower ones. 

To cap it all off - his bobblehead in the box.

I'm number one on the Database among Matusz collectors, of which I don't imagine there are many who seek him out specifically.  His passing just fuels my ambition to find everything they made of him.

Rest In Peace Brian.  You've been immortalized in cardboard at the very least.