Ranking Among the Collective

Matt over at Cards Over Coffee just posted his rankings on the Trading Card Database for several of his player collections.  That made me curious, as I've been trading like mad over there - just completed 60 trades this week - and I haven't entered all my player collections or their wants on the site yet.

Found out I can probably crack the top 10 on a few guys...

The first one is the only one that I track exclusively on the Database site. I originally intended to start with just basic base cards to show all the different teams he played for, but when I found a big lot of gamers and jerseys, I decided to go for the gusto and supercollect Edwin Jackson.  (In his case, it's true, but when I show gamers and autos for my other PCs, it doesn't represent a lot of what I actually have. For most of my PCs, I have a few, but not usually a major percentage.)

I'm leading the pack by more than double!

My next newest guy is all "new stuff", and I'm #1 with him, too!

He doesn't have that many cards total, so if you get a few parallels, it's easy to jump up the ranks.

The last guy who I've already entered is an even more severe case of the same thing.

He's got less than 10 cards total, and all of them are minor league.  I'm only missing two. 😄

I looked up some of my largest PCs to see if I can crack the top 10.  It's almost definite on several of them.  I figured the number of collectors of these guys would be a lot higher.  I guess it's just that only so many of them have catalogued their collections on the site.

The biggest one I have is probably Jim Palmer.

He's under 200 by #6, so I'm almost assured of blowing that away.  

With Carlton Fisk, I'm not so sure.  I might have a couple hundred, but is it enough to stay in the top rankings?

Ya gotta break 300 to get past #13.  I dont' know...

I scanned through the first two pages of the players currently listed as in my Collection to see any other of my actual PC guys were there. 

I found George Foster on the second page.  I have only traded for a couple of his, so that's all I have in there so far.

Under 100 by 7th place.  I'm in for sure.

My Mussina collection isn't going to hit the top ranks, I can guarantee that.  It's because I restrict mine to only his Oriole cards.  He's got way more Yankee cardboard.  And as popular as the Yankees are in general....you know there are gonna be some hoards.  3500 is unbelievable.

Not sure I'm even hitting top 20 on that one. 

I've got all the basics and a few unusual Tiants, but as far as volume, it could be hit or miss.

Though to beat 76 at the third place spot shouldn't be that tough.

Finally, my oldest PC - Charlie Keller.  It's tough because after his '50s Bowmans, etc. it gets pricey to find some of the more diverse cards, especially when he's paired with other players like that DiMaggio guy.

But 21 is easy to make Top 10.  So I'll be in the middle somewhere. 

Maybe on the long Memorial Day weekend, I'll get some PC data entry done.  I've still got a long way to go on my extra stuff.

Cardboard OCD Special - Split It, Don't Rip It

I was fortunate enough to pull a Rip Card out of one box of 2021 Allen & Ginter last week.  I could never leave the inner contents unrevealed, but how to preserve the outer card and still get to the mini inside?  Watch and learn!

I've never believed in destroying cards if they are in presentable shape, even if they're 1990 Donruss or something.  And with Rip cards, I figure there has to be a way to get the mini out of the middle without tearing up the outside card.  These are thick enough that you should be able to slice the edges and keep the outer card whole, right?  But how to keep the blade aligned?

So I found that an old Donruss puzzle piece is about half the thickness of a Rip card.  This should make a good base.

• Lay both the Rip card and the puzzle card on a flat surface. 
• Place a razor blade on the puzzle card so the end only protrudes about half an inch or less.  You don't want to cut any farther into the Rip card than you have to.  
• Push the Rip card up against the puzzle card.  
• Hold down the blade firmly in one hand while guiding the Rip card along the edge - sorta like running a board through a table saw. 

• Repeat for the two short edges

This should split the Rip card enough to get to the mini inside.

 And your Rip card is still in presentable condition!

I got a metal Manny Machado in mine.  (Say that 3x fast).  There are apparently only three of each metal mini.  It's the Mini Exclusives Extended Metal #386. 

Here's a better look at the finish on the metal. 

Backs are white.

Anyway, hope that helps you preserve your Rip cards and not slice up your fingers!

Ralph 316 Says I Got 'Em All!

I am now completely finished with 1959 Topps baseball, one of my all-time favorite sets.  About a week ago, I received the last of the variations - #316 Ralph Lumenti thanks to my #1 trading buddy Stuart.  In September of 2015, I had at least one of each card, but now I have all the variants too.

Ralphie is one of six cards that come with or without a "Traded" or "Optioned" statement on the back.  (Scan is not my actual copy.)  The others are listed below:

321 Bob Giallombardo "Optioned"
322 Harry Hanebrink "Traded"
336 Billy Loes "Traded"
362 Dolan Nichols "Optioned"
416 Haywood Sullivan (Circle around ©, period after U.S.A.)

And there are also three different Warren Spahns (#40) with different birthdates.

I'm not concerned with getting all the white and gray back pairs.  They occur from #199 to #286.  My set is a mixture.

I'm just satisfied with completing such a landmark set.  It's my first one in the 50's.  Next up is '57!

Hail To The Chiefs!

As you know, I'm partial to the "other" red indian team, but I'm glad the Chiefs won the Super Bowl.  And not just because I win the pick'em league that I took over running this season.

Glad for Andy Reid finally winning one, and not for those green guys in the NFC East.

Glad for Mahomes, Kelce, and Tyrann Mathieu, who was supposed to be a trouble maker when he was first drafted, but has become a quality player and kept himself straight ever since.

Glad the halftime show had artists I actually know.  Though I had no clue who those rapper dudes were.  But I wasn't looking at them much anyhow.

And I thought it was cool that the Chiefs final score was the number of my favorite Kansas City player.

NOW = Nationals Overall Winners

In what is my first venture into an actual purchase of Topps NOW! product, I got in on the Washington Nationals World Series set.  It showed up today.

They offered four different tiers of the set -

10 base cards* for $25,
the full 20 base cards for $50,
20 base cards and one autograph for $80,
and 20 base cards and all (six?) autographs for $...  Well, that one's not there any more.

Now that I look at them again, the 10 base cards are almost all different photos than the 20-card set.  That's annoying, unless they put out the ad before they finalized the cards.

The autographs consist of:
Scherzer
Soto
Corbin
Suzuki
Robles
Kendrick.

I thought I saw Strasburg on that list earlier, but maybe I'm wrong.

Would love to get Scherzer or Soto for their star power.  I liked Robles all season, and would definitely take Kendrick for what he did in the postseason.  And it's probably Fuji's influence, but Suzuki is hard not to root for either.  So that only means one thing - I'll probably get Corbin.

In the mailer, there is a little yellow card that basically says you only got the base set right now, the auto will come in a later shipment.  This was also in the listing on their website, so they were up front about it.

The set came in a cardboard sleeve and a two-piece deck box.

I laid all the base cards out on my kitchen table for this picture, and of course discovered that it's impossible to take photos of glossy items anywhere in my dang house and not get reflections or shadows.

These are extra glossy, and are made of nice decent stock - as they should be for 40¢ each.  The backs have a cool feature...

Topps logo holograms across the entire surface, a nice deluxe touch.  The back of the first card discusses the Nats facing the Astros and their four road victories.  An appropriate caption for the celebration picture on the front.

Unfortunately, they put that one on all twenty cards in the set.  You don't get individual blurbs for each player.  There is more specialized information on their regular flagship base cards than on these.  Points off for this shortcoming.

But there are some nice features on the fronts...

Cool championship logo in the top corner and a simple name, year and team line with the curly W below.

Good shot of Kendrick celebrating.  Could be his home run off the foul pole, but we can't be sure.

And I have no idea what "Baby Shark" Parra is doing to Rendon in this shot.  It's fitting that he's doing something goofy since he brought the most energy and lightheartedness to the dugout through the season and the Series.

Just have to wait a few months until the autograph shows up.  Keeping my fingers crossed!

Washington Trophy Checklist 2019

Washington DC has been on a championship run lately...

Hockey:

Basketball:

Not quite the NBA, but pretty close...

And most recently, MLB:

 

So there's only one more to get...

Well Dan, ...