Cardboard OCD Chapter 7 (Revised): The Trick To Stick

Back at the start of the pandemic, I wrote an OCD article about processing mail packages and printing labels.  At that time, I was printing the labels on paper and taping them to the mailers.  

I've updated the process now to use sticker labels.  And with all the set sales and TCDB trade packages that have been flowing out of here, I'm glad I did.  The trick is aligning the label as it comes from eBay or the database to the proper orientation to print out on the actual stickers.  Here is that process...

So you get your label from eBay or PayPal/ShipStation etc. and it shows on the screen like this.  (eBay labels face one way, and the others are the opposite, in my experience.)  Hit the CTRL + Print Scrn buttons to take a screenshot.

Then open your favorite graphic editor.  I still use Paint Shop Pro 4 from the early 90's.  One of these days I'll take a course in PhotoShop.  I also recommend PhotoScape X that will do the same job.  Either way, you just need some way to crop and rotate your label screenshot.  Select just around the lines and below that little code box in the corner.  I leave off the tag lines (lower left). 

 

Then rotate the image 90° to the left (or right) to stand it up. 

Then copy the label image to the clipboard.

I print labels out of Word since it's less cumbersome than the Avery program.  

Paste the label image in, select it, and right click.  Go to Size and Position...

I've found that 68% is the right proportion to make the image fit the label properly.

With the image still selected, go to Mailings > Labels in the menu bar.

Confirm that you still have it set for the right label under Options - I switch between 5168 Shipping Labels and 48160 address labels, and even though I have two different documents set up to print each one, Word in its infinite genius only keeps whatever the last setting was.  Then change to Single label and set the position of the next available sticker on your current sheet and hit Print.

That's probably overkill as far as useful procedure.  Many of you probably have a totally different way to print these out.  Let me know in the comments how you get 5168 labels to print properly without having to modify them like this.

State Of The Collective Part 3: Distributions And ... Sales?

I briefly mentioned at the end of my last post that I have been trying to move two large batches of cards out of HiveMind Headquarters.  

The first was documented here and the major revenue has come from a COMC shipment, including a $350 graded Michael Jordan PSA 7, and a few unopened box and set sales.  There are still some sets left (of early 90's Classic 4-Sport and mid-90's basketball series) and a lot of bulk singles (a little baseball and football and a whole lot of basketball, all through the 90's decade).

That pile is on the second floor of my house.

 

The second is a stockpile of complete sets - factory and hand collated, and including traded/update sets in many cases - of baseball, primarily from 1988 thru 1990, with a few older single sets, plus Topps football sets from '87 thru '89.  The itemized list is below

1984 Topps set - verified and sold.
1985 Topps - no Gooden.  I have an agent hunting that one down.
1986 Topps - 2 hand collated sets, unverified.
1987 Donruss set - factory sealed.
1987 Fleer set - factory seal broken but set intact.
1987 Topps set - hand collated, unverified.
1988 Donruss - 10 sets, selling well
1988 Fleer - 10 sets and 10 Updates, selling well
1988 Score - 6 cases (8 sets each)!  10 Rookie & Traded sets
1988 Topps - 10 hand collated, 10 Traded sets, and 2 unopened wax boxes
1989 Bowman - 10 hand collated sets
1989 Donruss - 10 factory sets, 10 Traded sets
1989 Fleer - 10 factory sealed sets, 10 Update sets
1989 Score - 10 factory sealed sets, 9 Update sets
1989 Topps - 10 hand collated sets, 10 Traded sets, and 4 wax boxes
1989 Upper Deck factory sealed sets - sold first
1990 Donruss - 10 factory sets
1990 Fleer - 6 factory sets
1990 Score - 10 factory sets
1990 Topps - 9 hand collated sets

1987 Topps football - 10 hand collated sets
1988 Topps football - 10 hand collated sets
1989 Topps football - 9 factory sealed sets - sold in one purchase

Not everything is currently listed, but you can see what I have available by searching for my seller name qaplagca (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fss=1&_saslop=1&_sasl=qaplagca&LH_SpecificSeller=1)

Those are all still stacked in my living room on the ground floor as they were when they arrived.  My house is now officially full of cardboard, since my collection and tradeables fill the middle floor and these two hoards occupy the other two.

I'm amazed that sales have been so steady since I started listing things after New Year's.  1988 sets are the most popular so far - especially Fleer and Donruss.  I would have never though that was possible.  Not sure what the draw is except that I think I'm about the only seller that pairs the Fleer base set with the Update.  Plus, I assess what each item has actually sold for and set my prices accordingly.  A lot of these are bringing less than $10 each after eBay fees and me paying for shipping.  But it all adds up.  The original owner said just get what you can for them, and the revenue is already approaching what I thought the whole shebang would go for. 

It's a lot of work though.  Every day or two, a couple more sets sell.  So then I pull them from the boxes, and cut a bubble envelope flat and wrap it around the set.  Then I cover that in brown bag paper and print the label sticker.  I've had a couple orders of multiple sets - one was all nine '89 football sets, and another was three '88 Donruss sets.  Had to find the right size boxes for those.

Most sets are listed individually, but I did also offer a couple bundles of all the sets for a particular year.  I will probably do the same for the Traded/Updates.

I'm just glad the stuff is moving.  I was afraid I had burdened myself with a whole pile of unmovable merchandise for the next ten years.  Though at some point, I will take what's left of both batches to the local dealers I know to get rid of them.  

For the longest time, I thought the worst thing I could try to do was sell something, even if it is cards that I know so much about.  The one time I set up at a show, I didn't sell a damn thing.  So this has been a revelation.

I'm also doing halfway decent in my COMC sales as well.  Half of my total revenue was from the first batch above, but I had sent two submissions of my own stuff before that (and took back a portion of the first one that didn't sell).  Here's my progress:

Excluding the graded card sale, I'm averaging around $4 a sale.  And they're constantly trickling in all the time.  I put up 20% discounts on Thursdays that run through the next two weekends every few weeks.  The best part is I've exchanged 186 extra cards for 672 cards that I wanted for myself.  I had $400 store credit at one point until I put in another order.  (I paid the owner of the basketball stuff from my own fundage.)

I'm going to take a week off from work since I didn't really get a break during the holidays.  That way I can catch up on managing all this, plus my TCDB trades, and clearing off all the incoming singles I have for my sets and other collections.  And maybe thin out some of my total collection to make room for the stuff I don't have boxes or space for .

But that about wraps it up for what's happening at HiveMind Headquarters.  Stay tuned for the previous 200+ card COMC order, and other recent activities.

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.

Recycling

I try to use the top loaders, penny sleeves and some of the modified 9-pocket sheets that I get from trade shipments.  Mostly for shipping other cards out, since they generally aren't clean enough for display or long term storage.  It's better than throwing it all out.  There's enough plastic out there as it is.

The same goes for painter's tape.  If you're doing it right, you're using painter's tape to secure your card shipments.  If you're using scotch tape, deduct three bonus points from your collector score.

I keep mine on the front of the file cabinet next to my computer desk.  That way it's handy to grab some when I'm packing packages.  I've seen other bloggers do the same thing. 

Mine is getting full.  Thanks TCDB traders!

PWE = Pretty Wacky Experiences

Chugging along with the Database entries and more trades.  Most of them are PWEs like I mentioned before.  Got another one that arrived completely intact, but looked like it had been shot with a shrink ray.

Those are standard size card pockets, but no, the cards are supposed to be that way.  Those are the Topps Micro versions from each of the three years they were made ~ 1991 thru 1993.  These just about complete all my player collections except maybe Carlton Fisk.

Also last week, I got a return envelope from somewhere I've never sent cards before. 

This was the inside wrapping around the plastic page that held the cards.  The envelope actually had a return address of New York, NY, but I sent to Israel.  That was pretty cool.  Only cost me a bit over $3 for First Class International.

Then Friday, I got a major mailday:

One bubble mailer and four PWEs.  You can see the different postage on each one.  The butterfly stamps are equal to one regular first class stamp plus the extra ounce / non-machinable extra charge.  The bunnies are the extra oz./non-mach by itself.  So if you have a two ounce envelope that is rigid - it's one of each.

After depackaging, this is what I ended up with.

Here's a sampling of what was in those trades.

My last base (SP) from the latest Ginter set.  The Ohtani is a duplicate, because I didn't have any of the Banner Seasons on my want list.  I think I missed updating the database after buying a bunch of '22 Ginter at Chantilly.  That's the downside of keeping two sets of wantlists.

Love all the special Cal Ripken sets and subsets.  Though I figured no one will be trading things like this, so I ended up buying this on and one of the Skybox E-Motion ones too.  This one's got an issue with the foilage, as you can see it's a different shade in the left section.  Hopefully the one I bought is consistent.  This one is available cheap when that one gets here.

Some "A-list" retro stuff from a couple different trades.  The Aaron is from the '94 Archive set, and Abreu is one of three '07 Heritage SPs that I knocked off.

I picked this 2020 Archives Robles just to add to the random cards of his I occasionally pick up that generally get added to sets of the same year and not a player collection.  I actually ended up with two of these - the database will repeat a match between two traders for some reason and I didn't catch it.  Mostly because I don't analyze my trades that closely since my main goal is to move out as much stuff as possible.  I know it makes people feel better if they have a couple more to match up when I'm sending twice as many.  Not sure that was the case here, but either way I have one available...

A couple that look like pure Overproduction era commons, but upon closer inspection, you'll realize that the '90 Donruss checklist is the factory version with a different range of numbers, and the '91 Comstock is the Mariners version (vs. the Cubs version which is blue bordered.) I had a notation about lines in the bottom right corner being extended, but I can't find the reference to it, so I crossed it off since it definitely isn't the Cubs version.

Down to Pat Benetar for my series 2 set of ProSet MusiCards!  Metal horns up! I'm not building the entire set, just the hard rock acts and a few awesome females.

Some foil-stamped football from various years.  These are 1997 Upper Deck and 2015 Prestige.  I think the Prestige card's scan stretched at the end.  The extra glossy (and usually shiny) ones tend to do that in my scanner.  I've also been getting a lot for my builds of '97 Stadium Club and this set...

...from two years before.  There's a lot of rainbow foil on these.  The logos for the first season's of NFL in Carolina and Jacksonville are cool.  The foil doesn't scan well, of course.

And finally, one of my favorite products to get in trade (or find cheap for sale) is Fleer Action Football.  These killed off half my 1986 wants.  I also got one of the two Washington stickers from this set, but odd size stuff won't feed through my scanner.

You've Got Mail ~ Just Barely...

Since I began my quest to enter all my trade bait into the Trading Card Database site in February, there have been 18 trades generated along the way.  Eleven of them have been completed just in April alone so far.  As many of you know, PWE (Plain White Envelope) trades are very popular on that site.

Everything has been going swimmingly, except for a couple deliveries that showed up a bit traumatized.  Nothing was lost or stolen, but the envelopes barely survived.  Addresses are obscured for internet security.

This one came in rather shredded, but the sender packaged everything in an inner cardboard sleeve, so no harm done.  I've had PWE's arrive in Post Office bags when they're this beat up, but this one hobbled in on it's own.  I imagine it must have happened in the delivery truck.

This next one was also dual packaged.  The inner sleeve was undamaged, but was exposed to the elements on the way somehow.  The end of the outer envelope was neatly sliced off.

I can't even guess how that happened.  Random inspection?  I know I've been getting a lot of envelopes lately, but is that suspicious?

This last one isn't a damage case, but was interesting to me because of the packaging overkill.  I'll never criticize someone for packing cards to withstand any disaster, but I felt bad that this guy spent so much to ship six cards.

There is an outer clasp envelope sealed with tape at both ends, an inner bubble mailer packet, and inside that, the one team bag of cards.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad job.  Just this...

It was from the west coast, so it cost over five dollars!  I mean, it's not Canadian prices, but dang!

I've linked these before - These are the semi-rigid photo envelopes I get from Amazon - 400 at a time (17¢ each).  Or 75 for $17 (still less than a quarter each).  They have a strip across the adhesive so you don't have to lick them and they fit two card savers side by side.  I get up to about 8 or 10 cards in one packing them this way.  By that point, it's usually over the weight limit and I'm already using the additional ounce/non-machinable stamps as it is.  You can see them in action in this post.  

What's your preferred method of making someone's mailday?

WFT Rebrand: Texas Did This Better Too

As a lifelong Washington football fan, I'm rather obligated to put up my take on the new name and uniforms revealed today.  Being a fan of the team is a tough job.  There are a few NFL followings that are tougher, but not many.  And it didn't get a whole lot easier today.

The Commanders isn't horrible on it's own, but it does lend itself to perversion into "Commies" (to become the Patriots natural rivals instead of the Cowboys?)  It would have been worse with the "Red Tails" tribute to the WWII fighter pilots (of another geographical area) which I'm sure would have been what Dallas fans would call us after "they just done whipped those tails."

The circular logo is the nicest, though it was pointed out that the championship year is not the year that the Super Bowl game was played, but the previous year's season.

The folded W is a slight downgrade in my opinion.  My first thought was that it is a stylized version of the list of charges that Snyder is about to receive in the Congressional hearings that are coming up soon.

The uniforms are surprisingly bland.  I expected a fancier design, especially with the gradients and embroidered stars that were teased before the reveal.  The stars actually appear inside the jersey collar - where you can't see them - brilliant.  There are no stripes down the sides of any of the three ensembles, so it's like Color Rush every week.  And the wordmark is huge on the regular home jerseys.  Wouldn't mind that as much, but the font is really generic and doesn't quite inspire the military flavor that the containing stripes are also supposed to suggest.  The number fonts aren't bad, there are worse around the league.  I think I like the black uni's scheme the best, even though it's still a bit spartan and was created to follow a fad that has probably passed.  Hopefully these will all evolve in the next few years.

This isn't the first we've seen of this name in this decade.  The San Antonio franchise of the Alliance of American Football was also the Commanders.  And they executed it very well.  Every team in that league had deep meaning to their community.  This team even played in the Alamo Dome.  The Alamo appears in the logo along with a Lone Star and a sword.  The burgundy and red color scheme works rather well, I think. 

Blended with the right amount of white, it's a very distinctive look.  The nameplates and numbers on the helmets (one side) are a nice touch.

The helmets were their best feature.  Two colors, the side numbers matched by the regular logo on the other side, plus the subtle Alamo in the back with the city initials.  

I guess I like Riddell's style a lot more than Nike's.  You can already see what could have been a much better executed Washington design has already been a victim of Nikefication from the jump.

And once again, the Texas people come out ahead...

Oh and there is this one other curious fact - remember what the Bidens welcomed around Christmas time?