Opening (Mail) Day

When 2018 Topps first came out, I debated whether to get Opening Day instead of the flagship set, since the inserts for OD were so much better than the main product.  But if you buy one box of Opening Day (roughly $25 each), you basically get the whole base set.  So then completing the inserts is tougher unless you want multiple base sets, and not that cost effective.

And since the designs were the same, why not do the regular base set and get the OD inserts to go with it?  I actually started with the Team Traditions and Celebrations when I found a bunch of them very cheap.  I was down to four. 

I ended up trading for both Series 1 and 2 flagship base sets without much trouble.  Guess I'll be doing the same for Update unless they come up with some original insert ideas all of a sudden.  So now what?

Then I was on eBay looking for something else and decided to see if I could find the whole Opening Day set and inserts together for an economical price.  And I did - they arrived today.

I found the base set and the four basic (non-exclusive) insert sets for basically what one hobby box would cost with normal shipping.  Cards 1-200, with a top-loadered Ohtani, the Mascots, Team Traditions and Celebrations, Before Opening Day, and Stadium Opening Day sets all came in a nice clean 400 count box packed in three inches of styrofoam peanuts and an outer corrugated box.

So now I've got all of the Team Traditions & Celebrations set (except King's Court, OD Parade, Rally Monkey & Sweet Caroline) available for trade.

These should fill out the eventual two row shoe box I'll use for 2018 Topps nicely.

Thanks again to eBay seller bolynick for a great buy!

Who's Cataloging The New Stuff - Vol. 2

My post about reference books on cards had about four times the audience that I normally draw.  I'm really not sure why that was, but I'll expand my audience when I can.

Anyway, so I pointed out that there has been no detailed documentation (in physical book form) of any sets beyond 2010.  There are no currently available books that describe or provide checklists, values, or configurations of anything past that point.  Vintage - from the earliest issues up through 1980, is well covered.  There are older texts available for the 80's, 90's, and 2000's.  And the latest of those goes up through 2010 (printed in 2011.)

After that, nothing.

There are actually a couple choices for vintage, I've discovered.

The SCD catalog, last published in 2016:

There is also a Beckett version that I just saw ads for:

I haven't ever seen one of these, so I don't know what's in it, though the descriptions say that it's full listings, descriptions, photos, and of course pricing (however irrelevant) for cards from 1887 to 1980.

So we're good thru 1980.  That stuff really doesn't change much.  So whichever book you have should do for a long time.

Now, the last complete guide to newer sets was 2011's Standard Catalog.

Which is much more thorough than the regular Beckett Price Guide.

There's no way anyone can expect Beckett to be able to cover every set ever made in 816 pages.  So they pick their favorites.  One reviewer on Amazon said this:

Over 800 pages of prices. No Fleer Flair, no Leaf, no Select, no Pinnacle, no Skybox, no Collector's Choice. Yet, every card from the 1987 Fleer set, all 660, is listed and the entire set is worth $15. That's just one of many many examples.

Thanks for trying, Beckett.

What they really need to do, as I said before, is this:

Leave the vintage book as it is.

Produce either a couple smaller volumes for each decade afterwards, or one or two comprehensive books on the 80's, 90's, and 2000's.  I mocked up the covers of my proposed books.

The 80's book could either cover the whole decade, or just up to about 1985 or so.  That stuff is mostly just the first variations, and the emergence of Donruss and Fleer.

The next one would be 1990's or the Overproduction Era - otherwise known as the "Junk Wax Era".  Though that term has some resistance or resentment, apparently.  Years include 1985 thru 1994-ish.

 

OR

Continuing the series, 1994 through 2000 could round out the decade.  Then you have a nice dividing line since there is so much more volume by then.

And finally, conclude with 2000 through 2010.  Or maybe 2015 if it all fits in a reasonably sized (and priced) tome.

At that point, you can update the editions or just wait for the next chunk of time.  2015 thru 2020, published in 2021, etc.

The Binder Dilemma

I've mentioned before that I am able to get a lot of spare binders.  I've got many more than I can use at present, and there will be more coming.

There are four boxes under my sorting desk...

And more than five over in the computer room, along with a few 5" biggies.  The ones nearest the doorway are the most recent additions. 

They're some smaller sizes.  Most of these are round rings, but that's OK for small ones.  All the bigger sizes are D rings.

The bulk of what I have are around the 3" ring range.

I would love to ship these out to other collectors, but the cost is prohibitive.  A medium flat rate box from the post office is $13.65 to ship pretty much anywhere in the US.

You can get a four pack of brand new 1" binders from Wal-Mart for less than $9.

I can get four small binders into the flat rate box, but it's still not as good a deal.

Or three with bigger sizes combined.

But only one or two standard Ultra Pro binders fit in the same box.

And don't even think of shipping a larger ring size.

Guess I'll just have to stick to live exchanges. 

Anyone going to Chantilly on Sunday the 14th and need some binders?

Take A Crack At World Series Predictions!

Get your picks in before Saturday for the 8th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web by Collector's Crack.

You make the call to predict who will win the World Series, in how many games, and with how many home runs struck by both teams.

He's already shown some of the prizes.  Hostess panels and a Mike Trout Bowman rookie!

Sign up now!

Oh Yeah, It's The Postseason

Football is in Week 4, and hockey starts tomorrow night.  My teams have been out of it since basically the All-Star break, so baseball has taken a back seat for a good while now.  I actually didn't even know the season was over until I saw a tv ad for the tiebreaker games taking place a few days later.

So since topics have been so scarce lately, let me throw out a quick post about who I hope wins.  You'll notice I didn't say who I'll be rooting for because I may not watch much of the playoffs either.

At least there are still some teams that haven't won in a while.  That's probably the biggest qualifier for me to get behind someone.  And if they are division rivals to my O's and Nats, of course.

As I write this, it's 1-0 Rockies in the 8th inning.

I'm torn, because I always like to see new teams in the playoffs, especially when they've never won much of anything.  But then again, it would be nice for the Cubs to continue their success for many years in a row.  Two championships in three years would be incredible, but not quite like back to back.  So I'll go Rockies here.

Oakland A's vs. the Yankees?  Well that's a no-brainer.  Call me Gint-A-Cuffs junior.  No Yanks allowed.

First up, Braves vs. Dodgers.

The Bravos have pretty much led the division all year if I'm not mistaken.  They've been waiting to finish the rebuild and start winning again.  The Dodgers have been on the cusp a couple times now.  Sorry Night Owl.  I'm going with Hotlanta.

The other series will be Rockies vs. Brewers unless the Cubs break the tie they're currently in.  The only thing I know about either team that there are players I like and a couple I'm not big on.  Colorado has former Nat Ian Desmond who has done OK for them.  Plus, I know Arenado and Trevor Story are two of their big stars, who don't seem too full of themselves.  On the Brewers side, there is Schoop from the O's, Gio from the Nats, and several other guys that I know better from former teams.   Braun takes away a couple points - I'm not a fan - but there are enough other likable guys that I'm going to have to say Brew Crew.

So then the A's will have to move on to kill the other AL East rival Red Sox, who have been perched atop the whole AL all year, much less the division.  That would be nice, but probably ain't happening.

Then on the other side, the Indians face off against the (still-doesn't-feel-right-in-the-AL) Astros, who are the defending champs.  Cleveland's drought is the longest, and their football team is making strides, so they have to keep up.  Tribe are my pick.  'Stros, you had yours.

Update: Still tied at 1 after 9.

Braves vs. Brewers is my ideal Championship series.  And pretty much a coin flip between the two.  Markakis for the win with a liner past Braun.

There will still be resistance from the Sawx or Yanks, but hopefully we get the recreation of the 1948 World Series matchup.

...with the same outcome.  Indians end the drought.  And somewhere Satchel Paige is smiling.

NLWC still tied after 10.  Guess I'll go turn it on.

Update: I'm 1 for 1!  The Purple Badness persevered over the Cubbies well into the night!

Dark Clouds Over DC

No, not because of the Nationals finish to the baseball season.  That was lame, but this is worse.

It's not the Redskins either.  They're actually doing pretty well so far.

I was sorry to hear about the impending departure in a couple weeks of Washington DC station NBC channel 4 meteorologist Sheena Parveen to San Diego, California. 

Parveen was the "It Girl" in Philly for five years.

Sheena was the weekday evening meteorologist for Philly's NBC10, where she inspired a deep level of devotion from many local viewers.

Then in late 2016, she moved to Washington.  My local network stations are all DC and Baltimore here in Thurmont, shown above.

She has been the highlight of the morning and midday news since then.

Active in the community, she brought attention to the Humane Rescue Alliance, a shelter in DC that has locations on New York Avenue NE and Oglethorpe Street NW.

Parveen is striking out west to San Diego, where basically every weather report will glow as much as her.

After graduation from Florida State University, she began her tv forecasting career in Tallahassee.  Moving on in 2009 to Tampa's WTVT, a FOX affilliate.  While at WTVT, Parveen was also the host of the segment called “Pet Adoption” on the Sunday morning program, wherein she covered varied pet adoption issues in collaboration with the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.

"While I've appreciated the opportunity to forecast all different types of weather events in different parts of the country, I'm excited to finally make my way to beautiful Southern California; an area I have dreamed of moving to," Parveen said of leaving D.C., NBC7 reports. "I'm thrilled to be working at NBC7 with such a great morning team and I hope San Diego will wake up with us every morning so I can help people have their best day!"

Waking up with her would make my day for sure....

All is not lost, though. 

At least we still have Angie Goff...

...and Erika Gonzalez doing the regular news.

Gint-A-Stuffs X

Since I am way too late for the actual Gint-A-Cuffs X contest, I figured I'd just go through the two boxes I got and score 'em accordingly just to see how I did.  I've never participated for real, so it's kinda like a practice run.  This is the higher scoring box.

Not gonna scan every pack's contents, but I'll put up images of key pulls (Editor's note: The images are not my scans, but are identical images I quickly downloaded). Here is my list.  Legal pad would have worked better.  Last couple packs were on the back.

My Favorites are the Orioles and Bo Jackson.  I was considering my second team, the Nationals, since they probably have more guys in the checklist, so I marked an N next to packs with Nats.  Will go back and see if I lost points on that or not.

Box Loader - BL11 - Don Mattingly.  Wasn't sure if box loaders count half when they're Yankees, only because it's not specifically listed.  So this is either +4 or only +2.

I'll list the first few packs with the full titles of the different things, then just run with the abbreviations (in parentheses).

Pack 1: Fantasy Goldmine (FG) Rickey +2.  "Rickey says you got off to a slow start."

Pack 2: Flag Of Lost Nations (flag) East Germany +2, Equipment (Equip) Shin Guards +2, New York Yankee (NYY) Capt. Cheeseburger -1.  Yanks strike early.

Pack 3: A&G back mini (A&G) - Stugotz +2/-1, World's Greatest Beaches (Beach) Venice +2.  Diluted mini.  Mark my first Nat here.

Pack 4: Indigenous Heroes (Ind) Crazy Horse +2, Magnificent Moons (Moon) The Moon +2, NYY Gehrig -1.  That's a shame, Gehrig is one of the good ones.  It would be funny if the Solar Eclipse card #222 that showed up here would negate all points in a pack.

Pack 5: Favorite Team (FT) (Orioles) Beckham +1, FG Brett +2

Pack 6: FG Cobb +2, NYY Severino mini & Torres -2.  Ouch, dud pack.  Yanks killed it.  Having so many Yankees in the checklist this year really ramps up the damage that they do.  Coulda had a Nat point in this one.

Pack 7: A&G Alonso +2, FG Foxx +2, Champ Pederson +1.  Also pulled Dustin Pedroia, for whom I would penalize two points in my special rules.

Pack 8: A&G Clemente +2, Moon Titan +2,

Current Total = 26 points.  That's counting the box loader as two.

Pack 9: Black border mini (BBM) Marwin Gonzalez +4, Equip Batting Helmet +2, NYY Tanaka -1.  I would definitely have to add a bonus for pulling the Babe of the Set.  Got her here - #287 Paige Spirinac.  +3, put it on the board....yes!  The basketball gal is cute, but Paige is just plain smoking hotness.  As usual, they picked a really conservative photo for the card.

I could forget about the rest of the box break after this one, but here's a collage of some of her images.  Click for larger image.  I'll wait here.

Ok, shall we continue?

Pack 10: Beach Trunk Bay +2, The World's Hottest Peppers (Pepper) 7 Pot +3, and a Nat.

Pack 11: FT mini Brooks Rob. +1, World Talent (WT) Abreu +2, NYY Severino -1.  First World Talent.  I always work across a box, layer by layer, instead of a stack at a time.  The inserts seem to fall in clumps.  Three or four FG's or Equips, then Beaches and WT's together.

Pack 12: WT Neverauskas (who?) +2, NYY Stanton and Bird.  Another dud from Yankees.

Pack 13: FT mini CDavis +1, WT Ngoepe +2, NYY Didi -1.  See how they repeat pack to pack?

Pack 14: BBM Cryptocurrency +4, Beach Paradise Island +2.  Great score on a rather lame mini.  But I'll take it.

Pack 15: FT CDavis +1, SP mini Clark (#316) +3, Moon Io +2.  A Rendon to swap with Davis just in case.

Pack 16: KBryant A&G mini +4 (2+2), Equip Vintage Bat +2, FT Schoop +1.

Two thirds of the way in and I stand at an even 60 points.  Good pace.  And no hits yet!

Pack 17: FG JackieR +2, Framed mini auto Troy Scribner (who?) +7.  First hit of the box.  Dang rookies.  Who wants the Angel kid?  Trade ya for a Nat or an Oriole.

Pack 18: A&G Trout +2, FG Nomar +2, NYY Gray -1, Framed mini relic Jim Thome +9 (3+6) Back to back hits.  I was getting worried.  But more about that later.

Pack 19: BBM Clevenger +4, Gallo +2, Moon Triton +2, Stugotz -1.  Now we're getting some decent numbers!

Pack 20: SP mini Urena +2, Equip Catcher's mask +2, Ohtani +2, NYY Montgomery -1.

Pack 21: Mystery mini Dennis The Rash +4, Beach Roatan +2, NYY Jeter & Betances -2.  One of three unannounced minis of made up characters.  And they're not that rare.  Topps is just weird. 

Coming down the home stretch....

Pack 22: WT Didi +1 (2-1), Riley -1, Home Run Challenge Trout +1.  Net plus one on a Trout game insert.  Yeesh, this box is flaming out.

Pack 23: A&G Bour +2, WT Gohara +2, Dozier +2.  One pack left and I'm only at about 105.

Pack 24: WT Ohtani +2.  Rules don't say anything about inserts of Favorites. No third hit?

Final Tally - 109 if box loader is only two and Ohtani insert is only two.  Max 113.  That's pathetic compared to the top four boxes listed on the GAC site.  And my other box landed at about an even 100.  Geez. 

The Nats vs. Orioles was just about a wash.  Difference was only about one point, so that's not a factor.

The wrappers say Hobby, but I didn't get any Baseball Superstitions - the best insert set of all of them - or either of the SP Folio Of Fears or Postage Required in either box.  The Exotic Sports minis are retail only, so I didn't expect those.  Would have been nice to get at least one of the others though.  I can't find any definitive list that says if any of the others are retail only.

No other third hit except maybe the silly mystery mini?  I hope they don't think those count, that would be a joke.  I swore I pulled three hits from each box when I actually ripped the packs.  But I've looked all over and can't find another full size jersey card.  Guess I got gypped.

Well, looks like my luck at GAC is about the same as it usually is pulling great stuff from packs or fantasy football - about zilch.  Maybe next year.