Suite Experience At Camden Yards

While I was on vacation, one of my co-workers (who is always after a deal) arranged for a few of us to see an Orioles game with one of our vendor companies.  But this wasn't going to be just another evening in the stands making runs to the food counter and souvenir shop.  

It was the August 8th matchup with the Houston Astros.  We left work around 4:30 and arrived about an hour before first pitch.  The first bonus was a parking pass that put us really close to the home plate entrance.

It was the first time I had used an app for tickets to an event.  The MLB Ballpark app is pretty much about tickets, even though it talks about following any player, and other things.  It's about the tickets.  Anyway, we went in the door and then in the elevator to the fourth floor.

We stepped off into what felt like a hotel lobby.  It's the Club Level.  There's a reception desk and tons of historical information, artifacts, trophies, and artwork about the history of the Orioles on every wall and in the hallways and lounges all the way around this floor of the building.

This is a stock shot I took off the internet to show some of the other areas.  I snapped the rest of the pics, but stuck to the stuff that interested me.  I haven't asked my friends to send me theirs yet.  I'm sure they shared them on social media.

These jerseys were right behind the main lobby.

This Frank Robinson panel was down one of the walkways to the upper seating sections. 

This side room was all about Cal Ripken.  I don't think these were the original numbers that hung on the side of the warehouse when he was breaking the streak, but I could be wrong.  Seems like they'd be a lot bigger.

This painting was in our actual suite.  There were cafe tables, couch seating, the buffet (quesadillas, hot dogs, salads, sodas, adult beverages, the whole works!), a private rest room, and a glass wall with two sliding doors that lead to the outside seating.  You sat in rolling office-style chairs outside.  Here was our view:

We were up the third base line.  It was a great evening to watch a game.  Not too hot or cold.

 

I snapped pics of the starting lineups.

The O's got off to a rousing start with two home runs from Adley and Mountcastle.  They built a 6 - 3 lead into the 9th inning.  Unfortunately, the closer Bautista, who came into the game with great fanfare ~ flashing lights and dramatic music ~ couldn't get anyone out and they lost in the top of the 9th.  Stupid Astros...

Other than that it was a stellar experience.  One of the hosts knew the Orioles Alumni Director, who came by and brought Larry Bigbie in to meet our group and sign autographs.  (I passed.)  The other company that sponsored the event bought several different hats for everyone.  They were nice.  I got a regular O's hat with the Jackie Robinson 42 patch on it.

Hopefully, we can do that again before the season is over.  

I still haven't watched more than a few games this year.  I should pay more attention since they're going to be in the playoffs.  I'll watch more of them then.

In The Zone

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Dave has put out notice that the shop will close 31 Dec 2023.  

In recapping my card hunting in the various shops, flea markets, shows, and antique malls in Michigan, I'm not going to go in chronological order, nor am I going to cover every card.  Mostly because I don't remember exactly and am lucky to keep straight what I got where.

The Collector's Zone, 1425 Wildwood Ave, Jackson, MI wasn't our first visit, but it was pretty early in the week.  It's paired with a jewelry store, and has a large selection of comic and gaming materials along with cards.  My host Stuart and I had been there a couple times before.  The proprietor, Dave, is always friendly and willing to negotiate pricing.  He doesn't organize and store everything perfectly, but believes in just having it all available for customers to dig through.  But it's relatively neat compared to some shops we've been to.

He had a few boxes of new arrivals on the tables (in the right part of the photo) that we dug through first.  I found several football set needs in there.  One box was all vintage baseball, including a lot of '62 Topps, which will become a recurring theme in these posts.  We also found a few other odd baseball items that hit some of my other lists.

I'm leisurely collecting the 2011 sparkly legends...the Gullett is an OPC upgrade...Mattingly is a set need....Nettles is the Craig back variation.  The others are the start of my official set build, before it became official.  More on that in a later post.

Dave also had a couple boxes of the typical shiny football I kept running into at about every shop we visited.  I tried hard to meticulously pick these out and not get anything I already had.  And then I went back through them and put back the duplicates.  Of course, I missed one as you can see.  (Hint: third row).  The first row of Bowman are all serial numbered except for the last one.

One of the more unusual finds was among several stacks of non-sport cards.  I have been looking for sets or boxes of this particular set for a while.  Most of the time the boxes are outrageous, and actually very impractical since this is only a 40 card set.  I keep thinking these are from the '90s, but they're actually 2008 PopCardz.  The above photo is not mine, I snagged it off the internet to save time.

Here is a sample back.  The info is rather whimsical, but interesting.  As you might guess, I just got them for the gorgeous gals.  I don't even know who a few of the dudes even are.

Here are my top picks.  I threw in Anton since he was in the alternate universe Star Trek movies.  But the women outnumber the men by about three to one in the checklist.  Perfect!

So as we were settling up, I mentioned to Dave that I was an aspiring Priest Holmes collector.  He said he had something I would like and pulled this out:

It's 5 x 8 inches and is a deluxe addition to the other two I have that are just plain red or white swatches.  This one's a sick patch that appears to me to be the upper left corner of his nameplate (the bottom of the H in Holmes) and the top corner of the 3, all turned 90°.  What a surprising find that was!

We actually returned a day or two later to see what else we could dig up, but I don't recall which of this stuff I got on which trip.  Thanks again to Dave.

Post-National Pause

I'm on my customary self-imposed hiatus from trading, buying, sorting, and putting away cards after spending a week in Michigan hitting shops, shows, antique malls, and flea markets then journeying to Chicago for three days at the National.  Hopefully, I'll come up with some semblance of structure to show off a lot of what I brought home and mention a few of the dealers and places I saw along the way.  For the moment, I just need to decompress and get past some house and car issues and get back to having fun with cardboard again.  I had a good time, but it's total immersion and I get a little burnt out.

Oofda....only one post in July.    One.    Sheesh.   I thought I had a few decent ideas for writing, but was so caught up in Database trades that they never came about.  Will really try to do more in August.  Though you've heard that before....  Again, I haven't lost the excitement, it's just that writing about it doesn't come as easy any more.

Anyway, here's a little tease from my loot....

Just a sampling...

A Century of Swaps

Just hit a landmark in my TCDB trades.  Completed my 100th trade in total on the site.  About 70 of which have happened coninuously since the first of May.

Most of them have been the typical PWE with somewhere from 6 to 15 cards each.  The extremes have been....

...as small as two for one.  (This burns up stamps a bit too fast.  I'd rather wait until we have at least a half dozen or so.  You know, fill the envelope to some degree)...

...to the massive exchange.  This one was very lopsided too.  That's how I like 'em.  I get a bunch of cool stuff, but still manage to move out a big pile.

I won't bore you with the large batches of base cards for sets like 2020 Prestige & 2019 Score football, or 2003 Upper Deck baseball that I've dwindled down from multiple deals.  But here are some other highlights to my recent exchanges.

The most fun ones are the diverse batches.  A little bit of everything.  Mulitple sports, inserts, sets that you don't see any more, and on and on.  These are from a dozen sent by GeoGeo.

Doing well on some of the serial numbered inserts in sets like Donruss Classics and Playoff Honors.  A pair here from 49ants, who is probably the leader in most trades so far with six.

Mike also contributed to the marble flavor of these 1996 Ultra Sensations...

...and even one of the last five 1971 Topps Game football I had left to find.  Mike is also in my original trading group from Yahoo!, Trading Bases.

These look like more old-school-ish football, but these two sets of Members Only Stadium Club are actually listed under Multi-Sport.  Took me a while to find them.  Thanks to 49ants, I don't have to worry about them any more.

Trader Midnight112x also pitched in to the Washington football effort with these two serial numbered beauties.  Gotta love acetate die-cuts especially.

Speaking of beauties, CH34 added this one in at the end of a line of 2020 Prestige football.  I had a couple parallels, but not the horizontal base card.

And finally, Oldschoolcards sent a trade that included this Hostess Hernandez, and a genuine '78 Andre Dawson, which I'm glad I bypassed paying a lot of cash for at a show earlier this year.  I was almost more excited about the nine 1980 Fleer logo stickers that I picked out...

...because they completed (until I found I was missing 1952) my World Series back set.  They run from 1940 until 1979 on the backs of these stickers.  They are reprints of the '71 cards.  I might have to go back to him to get the last one.

Thanks to all the traders on the Database, and to all my readers for checking in.

A Little $2 Surgery

The Chantilly show I attended on Friday was a bit disappointing in that I didn't find a whole lot of set killers or special player collection cards.  So I'm still debating on whether to make a post about my haul.  I got almost as much for a fellow collector who has been holding a stack for me than I did for myself.   What I got was largely the same things I usually come home with - 1950 Bowman, 1957 Topps, and a few miscellaneous more recent things.

I did spot Chris Sewall, of Baseball Card Collector Investor Dealer YouTube fame.  I introduced myself and said I watch his videos often even though I consider myself the anti-collector (or anti-hype collector - don't care about grading, rookies, or shiny).  I fumbled over describing what I collect and we parted ways.  Check out his channel, he's not one of these "influencer" guys.  His Q&A sessions are always informative.

But anyway, part of what I bought included a couple 1957 Topps cards that were only a dollar each.  That's generally a great find, but these had a bit of an issue.

They look fantastic on the front, but when you turn them over....

They both have these paper strips stuck to the back of the card.

This one is shown in progress of removal.  I have actually seen this before and was able to cure it.

What you need is a little bit of water (I used a bottle cap), a scraper (or if you're daring, a razor blade - though I'd recommend using the non-blade edge.), a cotton swab, and if you're old like me, a magnifier - preferable that will stand on it's own.

What I do is dip the swab into the water and tap or roll it off so it's not soaked.  You only want to dampen the strip, not so much of the surface of the card.  Just enough to make the glue let go.  Keep the leading edge of the strip damp, but if you get too much water, let it dry and then reapply to just where you need it.

Then I switch to the scraper.  Not sure where I got this one, but it's perfect for the job.  Keep pushing the paper with a light scraping motion, being careful not to press too hard into the card surface.  Once it stops sliding off easily, apply the water again. 

Continue working it down and dampening the leading edge.  Typically I would get about and eight to a quarter of an inch increments before dampening again.  It's slow work, but it pays off.  The first strip was basically whole and came off in one piece.  Wasn't perfect, but it'll do.

The other one had been partially removed so it came off in fragments.  And there was a little damage already at the end.

But they're both much better than they were.  I guess those strips were how someone catalogued their cards or something.  Well, now I have a couple really decent '57s that were only a dollar each!

Let me know in the comments if you've ever had to do rehab work on a card...

Does Heritage Stay True? (1959 vs. 2008 edition) Chapter 6

I'm almost at 100 trades on the database, and I'm heading to Chantilly this weekend (Friday if my back will stand the concrete floor), so I'll have more to show and cross off my lists. 

Meanwhile, back to the comparison of '59 and '08 Heritage...

We start at #304, which is another team card match, the Chicago Cubs.

Gave this one the "mini-check", because whoever laid out some of these in 2008, has a lousy sense of balancing the space.  I get it, the team photo is 30% longer than the old one, but why do the fonts have to be so miniscule?  Try this:

The '59 card is almost too crammed together, and the '08 one is sparse.  Here's a decent place in between.

Next up, Dice-K - coming off a phenomenal rookie season.  You match him with a Yankee?  What kind of blasphemy is that?  

Jerry was an up and coming rookie hurler for Boston too. 

At #310, a couple of White Sox.  But sorry Jerry, you're just not quite the guy for the job right here.

Slugging Sox Shortstop?  That's better.

A couple well known National league pitchers at #312?  Yep.  Cool black color scheme?  Yep.  Approved.

Are they just matching color at this point?  Jacque did OK, but...

...This guy was the star 1st Baseman for the Braves.  He should have been #315.

Down at #327, Big Papi and Gary are.....yellow.

Vic is described as a power hitter, so he'll do since Ted Williams isn't in this set.

Now we get on a bit of a good run two cards later.  Tigers match up well.  Still a bit of space below the wall there, but I'll let it slide.

Reds star pivot men in the black scheme at #335.  Cool....

Tigers household names at #338.  'Nuff said...

Right after them, a steady pair of Pirate pitchers coming off good years.  Sure...

Three in a row!  #340 pairs decent hitters for the team that became the other team.  I like when they match up Senators and Rangers or Twins, Pilots and Brewers, etc.

At #346 - See?  THAT's how you compose the picture and use the right size lettering.  Good job!

And at #350, a couple more star National League shortstops.  Don't know if Rollins will ever make the Hall of Fame, but he had a heck of a year in 2007, so this is a pretty proper pairing.

Next time, the thrill isn't gone, but it's about 100 cards off!