Epic Mailday - Part Two

Continuing the chronicle of my buying and trading binge that all showed up last week.  Not even skipping days this week.  Non-stop loot 'til Friday!

This time - the COMC order.

It's all her fault.  Leading off, 2016 Goodwin Champions Melissa Baker auto and short print base.  I started out this whole thing looking for the parallels and minis to regular card #50, which is the same sexy shot as in the autograph card here.  There is an inscripted auto, and a relic version that nobody had for cheap, so that's still on the list.  The other card's picture above is cute too, so I threw it in just to have one.  She's actually got a third card in the set, which I have the base, but it's not quite as nice a shot.

Here are the minis I got.  The Magician metal (/16) one is the picture from the other card.  It's really silver foil but scanned blue.  I have two more to find of the first photo - the metal and the wood (/8).  They were on there, but just too expensive for my taste.  That's why I had the other sites open.  The gold is the base mini, then the canvas, the Lady Luck back, and the Royal Red.

Keeping with non-sports, I found all the logo variations for these Pro Set Musicards.  These all have versions with the logo in the opposite (upper left) corner.  I only collect the hard rock bands from this set, so I'm done with series 1.  Most of these were close to a buck each, which is a lot for this set, but I figured it was worth it to find them.

There are several series 2 cards that I haven't seen yet, starting with this one of the first artist I ever bought music by with my own money.  Couldn't pass up the adorable Sheena.

Rounding out the musical selections, here are three blue parallels to the regular Heroes cards - some of which I still need.  These were also about a buck a shot, which was the same as the regular ones.  I figured the regulars should be cheaper, so I took them out of my cart and just got the blues.

Also on the non-sports front, the regular and bonus foil edition of the Topps 75th Anniversary cards that commemorate the 1969-70 Man On The Moon set that I finished (in mixed form) this past year.  These reprint card #50 from the set with the well-known portrait of Neil Armstrong.  Still have to watch the First Man movie I bought from Amazon that is about him.

Minis from 2013 Golden Age finishing up the non-sports segment of our program.  The Apollo 11 lunar module card has several parallels, three of which I knocked off here.  I scanned both sides of the blue one, so I actually got three - just composited the picture here.

 Picked up one of my player guys from the 2012 set as well.  These were the first rainbows I started looking for.  I'll come back to Tenace later.

Also in that vein, I got four Dave Kingman minis from the 2014 Golden Age set.  A similar lineup, but different brand names.  I have a couple other rainbows that I'll be looking for from this set too - Dusty Baker, Steve Yeager, and Catherine Bach, whose poster I had on the wall as a young man.  The autographs from this set are exquisite.

More oddball PC goodness.  Pristine Kingman in college duds, Sonic Campy oddball, and Sapphire Blue shiny Chad Kuhl.

Some throwback fun with Charlie Keller.  That's not actually his 1948 Bowman, but a 1976 promo card show reprint.  They go by HRT/RES for the names of the promoters, or they're also called Taylor/Schmierer.

An interesting and very collectible set patterned after the original 1948 Bowman baseball card series is this "1947" edition produced by Ted Taylor (HRT) and Robert Schmierer (RES) to promote their Philadelphia Area sports memorabilia and baseball card shows in 1976-1977. Made in the same size and style, and from similar clay-based cardboard as the original Philadelphia gum company's product (1948 Bowman baseball), the Taylor/Schmierer edition was billed as The Set That Never Was.

The other is a 1971 Laughlin World Series card.  I still need the 1939 one with Keller on it too.  I was a little lucky to find one so well centered for cheap.  These are a favorite of a lot of collectors.

Knocked off a couple more modern oddballs with these two Obak Tom Cheneys.  Also found one that wasn't on my list - a TCMA set of the 1960 champion Pirates. 

Rounding out the major league portion of the baseball is this Starting Lineup Jerry Royster.  My friend Stuart has sets of these, and always likes to get them autographed.  The signers rarely know what they actually are.

That's Luis Tiant in a Dodger uniform all right, but it's for the Gulf Coast Dodgers of the rookie level league that operates in Florida.  My first minor league card of one of my prime player collections.

Minor league coach and manager cards are another group I was persuing hard on this order.  There are a whole lot more of them for my PC guys on COMC, but they tend to be marked at several dollars apiece, which is overpriced in my mind.  Especially since I have about an eight page list that I'm looking for.

More PC guys as managers.  Bailor is one of the more prolific minor league skippers I collect.  Feels like he may have almost as many minor league cards as he did when he played.

The all-time Angel Jim Fregosi in a minor and major league leadership role.  The Coke White Sox is from 1988.

Ramped up my Pete Richert post-player collection with these four.  He just looks like he's having fun year after year.

These two aren't actually manager cards, but they're players.  Pookie never made it to the majors.  And Kemp, after many years with the Tigers, went to the White Sox, Yankees, Pirates, up and down with the Rangers around '86 when this card was made, and finally the short-lived Senior League.

Probably doubled my post-career/manager collection of Lou Piniella with this order.  Found all these Mother's Cookies, Keebler's, and miscellaneous oddballs for between 75¢ and $1.25.  The Crown Orioles also kills all my PC guys from that huge set.

Also piled in a partial rainbow of Rookie Cup Lous with this serialized quartet.  This is a really neat set even with the simple design.  They're just too numerous, expensive and hard to find.

And finally, ol' Gene Tenace leads this foursome of oddball singles from the 2010 National Ethnic Heritage Foundation Sons Of Italy set.  100 cards of nothing but Italian dudes.  An interesting aspect of players as cultural individuals.  Still looking for Larry Bowa and Joe Torre.  Might add on Buttercup Dickerson since he doesn't appear to have any other cards.

I finally found enough on COMC to justify and order, instead of going with SportLots for the same things.  But like I mentioned last post, I went there too.  Stay tuned to the Loot Channel for our next parade of pasteboard!

Epic Mailday - Part One

Hi, my name is Greg.

<Hi, Greg>

And I'm addicted to cardboard*.

I've been on a binge lately.  I found a bunch of stuff on COMC that was cheap enough to make up an order, while comparing to similar items on SportLots, which I then, of course, had to fill out two more orders as well, and at the same time also found the best deal on a few things on eBay.  While all this was going on, there were some trades in the works too.

It all came together last Monday.

All these were sitting on my stoop when I got home from work.  And there was one more in the mailbox.

In all, seven packages arrived that day.  The only one that I was still waiting for was the second SportLots order.  That showed up Wednesday.  I also got another blog trade on Friday.

Monday's haul looked like this:

I'll break it down by packages all this week.  It's a very eclectic mix.  I went into COMC looking for oddball stuff to begin with, and all this came out, plus the trades.

First up is a batch from Night Owl.

My Heritage sets got hit hard this week, including these 2011s in their woodgrain and floaty head greatness.

A couple big name short prints from 2007 Heritage as well.

Excellent selection of Allen & Ginter inserts from years past and present.

And Night Owl's favorite....MINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS.  Love this insert set.

I'm pretty sure he also included an unopened pack of Space Shots series 2.  I may leave it unopened if I can stand it, since I got the complete set all at once.

Thanks a lot, Greg!

Much more loot to come!

*No offense to those whose addictions are an actual burden in their lives. 

Penny Sleeves From Out Of This World

Got a return package from Jon at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts this week.  We've got a multi-stage swap going, and this was a great first step!

Expertly packed, and not showing the finery inside....

First off is this Favre card from 2009 Mayo with him in what many would say is the wrong dang uniform.  This completes my set, and opens a spot in my priority want list.

Next is a starter set of Hall Of Famers from SSPC or TCMA or Renata Galasso, depending on the listing.  More well known as the Baseball Immortals, this is a 199-card set of famous and not-so-famous HOF'ers issued in 1980, and updated a few times after that.  Since I'm one card away from the basic set of Hygrade All-Time Greats, this was a logical next set.  This won't be the first starter set Jon bestows on me.

Jon kills another priority want, and a favorite insert set, with the last Heroes of Spaceflight card from 2009 Topps American Heritage Heroes - a non-sport set of presidents, war heroes, astronauts, historic figures, pioneers, scientists, etc.  Gemini 4 was missing when I thought I had finished these the first time.  These are one of the first sets I put in my Space binder.  But wait, there's more!

An amazing contribution to my astronaut collection, Jon also sent this relic from the Shuttle's first commander and the eventual director of Kennedy Space Center.

From Panini's Americana Heroes & Legends in 2012.  This is the 16th relic out of 20.  Flippin' sweet!  I'd consider going for them all, but I bet the Sally Ride is a tough one to find cheap.

Looking forward to the next round, Jon!

Racers & Scooters For Skaters & Shooters

The first batch of cards to find a new home from the vintage lot that I scored from Bruce at Primetime were an odd selection of racing and motorcycle cards.

I knew immediately who I thought would like them and contacted him through the Trading Card Database.  Billy Kingsley came right back and said they were right up his alley, or drag strip, in this case.

He sent me back a selection of Washington Capitals cards.  A nice mixture of eras, with a bunch that I'm pretty sure I can use.

Packed flawlessly, like a good trader should.

 Ultras, Pro Sets, and O-Pee-Chee Caps in all their (now) retro finery.  Turns out I needed a few of these even!

And some of the new guys.  Probably only have the Victory Bondra already, since I bought a bunch of that, but most of the others will probably find spots in my collection.  The Caps are one of the few sub-collections that I actually don't track at all (yet).

I appreciate the trade, Billy!  Might get on the database and contribute some more scans from the "almost done" list this week.

What's Your Hobby / Industry Score?

Great post from SumoMenkoMan at his Sumo Wrestling blog.  He's come up with a scale that illustrates everyone's motivations in the card hobby, and how much value and profit are involved.

In my initial comment on the original post, I said I figured I was an H9.5 or so.  Mostly because I have sold a few things on eBay and tried to set up a table at a show one time.

But the more I think about it, and reread Ryan's post, the description of an H10 is totally me.

H10 Pure Hobbyist: This is the foundation of the hobby.  These are the set builders, blog content creators, TCDB scanners, traders, and pure enthusiasts.  Profit is not in their vocabulary and they do it for the love of sorting, cataloguing, and collecting.  Part of the Hobby Base.

I'll try not to completely rehash my activities, philosophies, and motivations here, but that description fits me to a T...

I've been a set builder since 1978.  Back then that's what most people did, since there were no inserts, hits or parallels.  I originated some player collections then too, which started out as extra cards of interesting players that weren't part of a set build at the time.  I've branched out since then to a 60+ player collector, football (and casual hockey) team collection, astronaut and space non-sport collection, and a few other small projects along with building a couple baseball sets annually (not necessarily the same ones), and occasionally a football or hockey set along the way.  The latter two haven't been happening very often lately.

This blog has been chugging alond steadily for just over two years now.  I can't say it's grown exponentially, since my average view count is still around 50, but it does make most of the major blogrolls and the occasional mention on more famous ones.  Guess I have my moments.  Not sure how much social media helps people know about it.
I do wish I was better at eloquently expressing the aspects of the hobby that I enjoy and find in common with other collectors and explore them on a deeper level.  But most of what I put out is complaints on designs and bloat, and much more shallow ideas.

I do enjoy contributing to the Trading Card Database.  It's such a valuable resource to me that I almost feel compelled to give back in any small way I can.  To improve the content of what I think is the definitive reference for the hobby is very important.  The only thing that would surpass helping other collectors with information about cards is to be able to send them cards myself.  I've been at this a long time, and have accumulated so much - both in cards and knowledge about them - so it's nice to be able to pass that along to others.

As for the money side, I remember the days of looking up every card in Beckett's guides, rejoicing about picking up new stars for bargain prices or pulling that hot card out of a pack.  Now that I'm not limited to a $5 allowance, or a part time income, I'm pretty much over the price guide thing.  Over the years, I've become a good bargain hunter, and can usually find that vintage high number for well under book value.  Any time a dealer pulls out the Beckett magazine these days, I know I'm probably not buying much at his table.  My price reference is COMC, mostly because you can look things up so quickly, but even then, you have to ignore the ones in the dark framed images, because those are marked up by the cooperating dealer.

I am truly blessed to be able to basically spend what I want on cardboard for the most part.  (Or cursed by addiction to have little resistance to doing so.)  I'm not at the level of buying cases or high end boxes, and don't drop more than double digits on any one card most of the time.  I still buy singles and boxes of junk wax just because I like the set.  I'll readily select a big name star card that's got a few imperfections to finish my set and save money rather than holding out for a pristine specimen.  If old cards are too perfect, they look fake.  I'm only after an example that looks good and fits with the rest of my set and don't care if it's only resellable for a fraction of whatever number.

$107.50 for a plastic prison and a label???

As I've said repeatedly, grading has its place in sight unseen transactions and verifying the authenticity of an item, but shouldn't inflate the price beyond the Hi column in the guide for a raw card.  Who cares how many people have decided to submit that card for grading and have recieved that rating?  It's all dependent on the whims of the people involved.  Why would you wildly increase the dollar value based on that?

This casual attitude carries over into trading too.  I don't actually mind if someone wants to make an even trade, that makes sense.  But it's too much work to me to look up every individual card and tally the guide price and then add and subtract to hit an exact number.   I guess it works much easier for high end traders since they're only dealing with a few cards at a time.  But if I've got a stack of cards for you, and you have some for me, then unless there are some high dollar items involved, it's all good, right?  Quite often, I'll get a request that a trader has several cards from my lists and references their wants site.  I'll go and start pulling whatever I have for them.  Sometimes, I'll end up going through a large set list and when I'm done, I'll have twice the number of singles that they started out with for me.  We'll either add on or go to a second round a bit later.  Sometimes, if they're not especially valuable, I'll just send the whole stack the first time.  Better you have them to finish your set than just sitting in a box here.  I'm not out to "win" every trade, and get annoyed at those who do.  I've got such a volume of extras, that it's better to me to move out more than I take in when I can.

Even with all this volume, I still enjoy managing it.  I can no longer keep it all in my head, so I'll find stuff I didn't know I had all the time.  I actually don't catalog what I HAVE in any central form.  I do intend on counting everthing and arriving at an approximate figure sometime soon.  It probably wouldn't take much to create an inventory, since most of it is sets or teams that are catalogued elsewhere, but I really don't have a need to know what's here.  I focus on what I still want to add.  A want list is basically the opposite of an inventory, and it shrinks instead of grows when you get stuff, so isn't that better?  I have my central wants on a Google site, and then many other lists, most of which are physical printouts of electronically created inventories.  I do like creating charts and image enhanced lists.  Before the Database was around, I used to offer to other player collectors to make them comprehensive lists by pulling data from the Beckett site and then cleaning it up in Word with columns and color to condense it by several pages and make it pretty.

used to be faster

That's what makes the hobby enjoyable to me.  It gives me little projects and keeps my mind working.  So does sorting.  That's the real relaxing part.  For a while, I could sort a box or two of flagship in record time.  The need for a magnifier hinders my speed on some sorts nowadays, so I've slowed down in general.  But it's still cathartic to put order to the chaos of a stack of random cards.  Some collectors think sorting is work.  I like it, it's part of the fun. 

I think that's one of the main reasons I like collecting.  Putting order into chaos, completing a list, expanding your scope.  It's like solving puzzles, or creating art.  The process is interesting, and you feel a sense of accomplishment when you're done.  And the interaction with other collectors is the bonus benefit.  (Not to mention the fitness effect of lugging montster boxes, but I digress.)  I'm definitely not in it for the money.  Value seems to get less and less as time passes anyway.  It's more like it's in my blood to need these little cardboard slices.  It's almost a hormonal effect when I sift through a box or peruse a binder - the serenity and feeling of contentment.  I just love the dang things.

Sick Days, eBays, and Maildays

The big snowfall that hit the eastern US this past week (from Oklahoma to Ohio and east to DC and Baltimore, down to Tennessee) brought early closings to Maryland schools, including the district I work for.  So I was excited Tuesday night to stay up late and have the next day off to catch up on laundry and card business, including blog posts.

Well, that all went south when I woke up Wednesday morning with what I guess has to be called "flu-like symptoms".  Basically, I couldn't sit up or move around for very long without feeling sick and having to lie down.  That lasted into Thursday, though it had subsided enough that the sick feeling went away for the most part.  I made it to work today (Friday), and still felt a trace of it until after lunchtime.

So I haven't done much of anything for a few days.  I did manage to pack up a couple trade packages, and am waiting on a couple more addresses.

Meanwhile, the loot keeps rolling in.  I'll post a couple blogger packages in the next couple days.  Today I'd like to show off a minor eBay purchase.

At one point, I had COMC, SportLots, and eBay all open at the same time last weekend, or maybe it was Monday the holiday.  Anyway, I have a COMC order coming, which I finally managed to fill out with oddball stuff that was more expensive on the other sites.  Of course, I ended up filling out the SportLots order too, after a few items of similar subject matter turned up there.  And in between, I picked up these things...

The first is set #34 of 1989 Topps/LJN Baseball Talk cards.  If you don't know these, they are oversize cards that have a circular etching of sorts pasted on the back.  This etching is like a phonograph record (millenials will have to Google it) that plays back audio when inserted in the custom player that was sold separately.

Found the set for the same price I was seeing Fisk for by himself, so I went for it. The others in the set are available as trade bait.  Pete Rose, Dave Parker, and Rick Sutcliffe are on the block.
Then, of course, you have to add items to ease the shipping cost.  So I picked up a cheap baseball auto for a player collector I know, and then found these...

That's Gus Frerrotte, Heath Shuler, Mark Moseley, and Skip Hicks.  Redskins veterans from pretty much the 80's through 1999.  They aren't certified, except for Hicks, but they looked fine to me.  And the price was right....

With combined shipping, they weren't even close to a buck apiece.  Sorry vine_jay, you did everything right, but didn't make a whole lot of profit on that one.  But I thank you.

Collector's Log: Stardate 198204.05

"When we last left our heroes" back in 1982, they (my friends & I) were sorting and underpricing our extras to sell in the neighborhood, and making room for the new '82 cards that were coming out.

Something a little different in school on the 26th, got to watch 'em rehearse the school play.  Even though I got into filmmaking in school, I was never interested in drama (stage or otherwise).  But it was better than pep rallies.  My lack of enthusiasm probably comes from about third grade, when I had the lead role in "The Little Prince".  I knew my lines cold from the second reading and it was going fine until I leaned a little too far in and bumped into the microphone.  The only memory of that experience is the entire crowd breaking up into laughter.  Guess that was the end of my acting ambitions.

My stepsister was over for the weekend again.  Her brother lost interest after a while, so he stopped coming.  I still laugh at my comment.

Anyway, the main highlight of this entry is the trip to the Hanover card shop.  I imagine we were sorting and making lists the day before, and then made the trip.  I didn't realize I had started my Pumpsie Green "supercollection" (he has a total of ten active career cards, and fifteen more post-career issues) that soon.  Got the brand new (and now rather ubiquitous) KMart MVP set.  That little set is nice and still stands out to me from all the other - mostly later - box set issues.  Also added some more '81 Fleer stickers - another one of the "original" non-standard issues that came out in that time period.

Not sure what that mining operation was all about, except kids thinking that shiny rocks are somehow valuable gems.

I can't believe I don't have the original entry for when I was presented with the collection from a nephew of my stepfather.  It was several hundred cards, most of which were 1970 Topps - which of course, is the design of the pending Heritage release.  They were generally in decent shape, but had been handled a lot, so there weren't many with four sharp corners.  But most of the stars were there, and in multiples.  I took the first starter set, and then passed it on to a couple of my buddies, and then kept what was left.  That's probably still the source of the row of dupes in my vintage monster box.  I would go on to round out the set in similar condition along with a batch of '72s from the card shop I patronized for 20 years when they closed up.  Both sets are now complete, but the high numbers are in better shape than a lot of the rest.

April brings us back to the Putt-Putt arcade and my killing it on several games.  Of course, there were no deals running that day to reward me.

(not my ticket)

Opening Day 1982 started off with a win for the Orioles.  Eddie Murray had a Grand Slam in the third inning.  In the inning before, the new kid socked one over the fence too.  He ended up with 431 homers in his career, so it was a decent run.

The dude in the middle was pretty good.

They got more packs of '82 Topps.  I had bought that set as well as Donruss, I think, so I was only building Fleer at the time.

Ran out of space in the entry, so I abbreviate "Twice" as "2ce".  I had so much better writing style back then. 😁

Next time, the Fleer build continues, one of the guys narrows his collecting focus, and we learn of things that will bring a whole new aspect to our collecting!

Winning Isn't Everything, But It Sure Beats Whatever's In 2nd Place!

I actually won something!

I casually put my 2¢ into CynicalBuddha's Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web this year with a heavy dose of cynicism.  I really wanted to see Saints vs. Chiefs play the game, but figured the Patriots would win because it feels like it's dictated by the league.  So I picked Patriots over Saints and guessed four field goals and a middle of the road total score number.

By gosh, my cynicism paid off.  I've had Brady on my fantasy team for the last two years, and he scores OK, but my team ends up dead last both seasons.  I've mentioned many times that he makes good decisions, and is an accurate passer, but nothing else justifies the idol worship that everyone seems to have for him.  So I'm not a fan.  But this time I got rewarded.

I actually skipped over reading the post when it was first put up.  I thought "I'm sure I didn't  come close."  It wasn't until a day or two after that I pulled it up and saw my entry highlighted.  "NO WAY!!  What the heck did I win?"  I didn't even know.  I hadn't looked at the prize post either.

Well, they showed up today.

I won't reproduce the images for the prize pieces.  He did that in this post.  The best part for me was the stack of Redskins I got on top of those.  I figured it would be some shiny serialized singles and a pile of base and inserts.  I was pleasantly surprised to find several higher end jerseys and autos among the Washington faction.

There were some regular and parallel rookies.  All of which I needed except three older ones.  Sweet!

A nice 2005 UD rookie piece of Jason Campbell...

A Momentum jersey (/99) and a serial numbered (/100) Prestige of Santana Moss...

A very deep blue and shiny Spectra jersey of ol' Hank, also numbered out of 99...

And a crazy shiny Unparalleled autograph of defector safety/linebacker Su'a Cravens (/199).

All told, I got some great additions to the Redskins collection.  The type of stuff I saw at a recent trade night at my local shop, but wasn't equipped to trade for.  Nice to get some anyway. Thanks CB!