Look - if I don't get something posted soon, I will never do it. I spent the past two days organizing my desk, and sorting out more mailings I need to get out, so I've been productive. Not saying I Marie Kondo'd my room (is she even still a thing?), but everything is slowly moving from stacks to boxes/binders.
Just don't come to my part of town.
While I haven't been posting, I haven't stopped trying to find decent deals on ebay. While this is by no mean a comprehensive list of purchases over the past year, here's some of my favorites to share.
Newest player collection for me is Danny Mendick, so here's a start for his PC. The most expensive card of the group was the auto, which set me back $6. Otherwise, most of what you see was a couple bucks. Might go for the rainbow on his 2020 Topps - not sure yet.
All these are additions to Project 2005. It leaves me 7 autographs short of the players/coaches from the Sox 2005 World Series team. I am very pleased I found that AJ in a White Sox uniform with a decent autograph. Most of his TTMs tend to be scribbles.
These for are SPs from the 2013 Heritage set. A dollar each. I wish the seller had more I need.
Sticking with the Heritage style, here's the original. Like many, I scored a $25 "gift card" from ebay, so I used it to pick up these five cards. The leaders cards are all in the first 10 while the Brewer is a high number - 5th card from the end of the set. I had to fork out $4 and change for these five.
Just a Lou Fonseca autograph for $2.
More autographs, this time from the ice. I've been looking for a Pilote autograph for a while, and I grabbed these 5 for under $4 each, including that 4x6 of Guy LaFleur. Cuz everyone should have a Guy LaFleur autograph.
Last we have random collections. Paulie is a black border, Happ goes into the 10/19 binder, the Star Stamps are for the Golden Age build and the Robert I needed for the team set. I picked up two in an auction for $32 total, which is crazy, but at least it's off my list.
So St Patty's day was Saturday. People really seem to enjoy drinking on that day. A lot.
Number of folks with Irish ancestry in image: maybe 1?
But driving them drunks around? That was mighty profitable. Best one day total for me, and I was home by 3:30am. Got out later than I wanted to - like 5. So I made some good bank, that made a lot of my bills quite happy. And bonus cash tips to buy baseball cards.
On the other end of the spectrum are the quarters, nickles, dimes and pennies. A couple recent mailers came from purveyors of two blogs with coin related names, starting with Jon over at Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts.
Couple sweet miscuts (sorry Phil and Nolan - you will forever be on edge until eternity). Jon also included a few early Topps stickers. and didn't just send Fisk by himseld, but the matching Carter tang to Fisk's ying. Omen to one of the card purchases I made over the weekend?
Main highlight of the package was a bunch of help on my Cooperstown builds. I don't consider anything Panini released after 2013 as "Cooperstown". Just the 2012 and 2013 sets. Base are done (except a few SPs), but the crapload of insert sets are a lot of work. Some nice help with 2013...
...and 2012 sets. Being labeled 2000, the Fisk is a White Sox card. But the build needs it more than the Sox box. The nice thing about Cooperstown in 2012 is that they got the right Buck in the set. Joe Buck sucks.
Cooperstown is not the only Panini baseball set I am building. I love me Golden Age. LOVE LOVE LOVE the sets. Three years I need to build, and once again, inserts are king. So a few to delete numbers from the want list makes me smile. Those stand ups are great. The stamps? That set totals 30 "cards", and I think you pull one a box? Maybe two. So it's a rough, long build. I'll just have to bite the bullet and get them on COMC or somewhere. Can we have St Patty's Day every weekend? Thanks Jon.
Once again Nick from Dime Boxes dropped a healthy stack of cards that set him back probably $4. Shipping was more expensive I bet. Some nice new additions, with a Heritage Moncada (but he pulled that) and my first Fire card. Now I remember why I avoided those packs at Target. Sweet foil Eaton for the PC. With Nick's mailings, I can count on lots of damage for my specialty binders.
Stacks of throwbacks. I like that the pirates brought back the yellow top with the black pants. They need to rest the home white throwbacks for a few years, or maybe go back prior to the 70's. Duel throwbacks on the Fleer Snow.
A fill of the twin kill with a lot of double play cards. The bottom two must be triples since Nick collects DP as well as multi image cards. On the Almoar card is possibly Lyle Mouton. All I know is the Sox (and other teams) should really go back to no name on home uniforms. Looks much cleaner.
Last was a mound of laying one down. So many bunt cards, including an elusive Kellogg's Lopes card. Interesting on the Ichiro - not a drag bunt. He must have been sacrificing on that play.
Nick also included a couple vintage miscuts with a '67 Palmer and a '73 Taylor. And how about a well loved (with scotch tape) Post Minnie. It's separating from the back, but it will find a new loving home in the 2x3 base camp. See you next card show, Nick.
And if you go out and have a few too many, hail someone like me. And give them a few bucks tip for a pack of cards.
We all know a manila padded envelope in the mailbox is a good thing. Whether ebay, JustCommons, COMC, Sportlots or from a gracious soul that just wants to drop something into your house, it's tough to beat going to the curb, pulling on the mailbox door and seeing that yellow staring at you from within.
No envelope can hold me.
As you know, my daughter is WAAAAAAAAY up north, and it turns out there are not one but two card collectors at her job. So a while back I dug up any Barry Sanders cards and sent them off. If I could get to a card show, I will continue the process, but not happening lately. I'm on the hunt for more Sanders and Lions in general as an FYI.
One of her coworkers, Steve, sent a great return package, so howze about a few scans of some lovely gifted cards?
You want White Sox rookies? I got White Sox rookies. Ok, yeah - Paulie is a Dodger, but just like all the Junior fans forget about Griffey's 41 games in black, Konerko's time in Dodger blue or Red...er....red, doesn't count. Nice orange Sale Chrome refractor. The Black Jack Donruss - I just love that card. He looks like such a baby face when he first got on the mound. Lastly - Lyle Mouton. (sigh) Yet another flash in the pan in Comiskey that flamed out quickly.
MINIS!!!! A nice dozen or so that go towards numerous sets I am completing. Duke is not putting up with any of your crap, photographer.
Some vintage was within as well. Half a dozen or so 1980 Sox for the team set. Love the shop job on the Davis inset photo. That LA logo on the cap is ginormous! And the top cards from 1961 Fleer. That is a set I really, really want to build. Two is a start. ButI need to clear some of my Want list before I add another vintage set build. I can't do multiples at one time like the rest of you yokels.
Since 2015 is the last Topps set I acutally cared about, I don't have many manufactured relics. This one is actually from 2015, but I think I bought two blasters total, and White Sox were few to find then, and even less now. So this is a nice expected fill to a collection hole.
BOOM!!! 2014 Golden Age star stamp stickers. These are hard to find anywhere but online, and some of the prices are crazy (I'm looking at you stamps 11, 24 and 26). I believe these dropped one to a box, and a total crap shoot from a blaster, as my Want list will tell you how short I am on a 30 "card" set. Knocking 4 from the list is four less I need to bite the bullet on.
Yup - them's football. And no, I haven't started collecting. But Steve sent over a few relics and Bears cards. I know enough people I should be able to flip them into nice return cards. If anyone sees something they like, let me know. But I will only take Lions and Barry Sanders cards in return.
One football card, though, is not available for trade.
Like Gretzky in Edmonton, Jackie in Brooklyn/LA, Bird in Boston and many others, you would be hard pressed to find a player more loved in his home town team than Sweetness. I contend that Walter would probably win out in a battle between him and Jordan. Nice 1984 Topps that lists Payton as 3rd on the all time rushing list when printed. It took him until October of that year to make the print incorrect. I might give crap that Emmitt Smith is not the real leader, but he took almost the exact same number of games that Walter played to pass Payton on the list, so props to Emmitt.
But to bring this post full circle, Barry Sanders should really be the all time leader.
Thanks Steve. You should try blogging sometime.
And maybe my daughter gets a raise? She deserves it.
With the Uber driving, I was able to build up some funds for me to spend on Black Friday. While I did go through and load up my COMC shopping cart, I never pulled the trigger on any of the cards. I don't know - I just wasn't feeling like some of the cards were that great of a deal. But I always had my eye on some boxes. When all was said and done, I bought 4 boxes to rip from BF deals.
* box of 2016-17 Upper Deck hockey series 1 from my LCS
* box of 2015 Upper Deck Firefly:The 'Verse from Dave and Adams.
* box of 2012 Panini Golden Age from Steel City Collectibles
* box of 2013 Panini Golden Age from Steel City Collectibles
Did you mean how'd I do? Like were the boxes good and did I get nice hits? That's what you meant, right?
Let's start with the UD hockey. No, I did not pull the Auston Matthews Young Gun. Boo! But I did nab that card about an hour ago with a blaster, so I am happy. The box was a great start at building the set. I did pull on gold exclusive and one Clear Cut acetate card.
Not huge names. I also pulled a relic from my box.
I know someone with "too many" cards that will be receiving this soon.
Next up let's look at the 2012 Golden Age. I have talked of my love of this set, if only for the 3 years it existed. But since Panini killed it, we can get over run with football and baseketball releases that all look the same, so yay 'Merica.
I pulled one of the felt pennant box toppers of Citation. This was the first pack I ripped from either box, and probably a foreshadowing. You are guaranteed one relic and one auto in a box.
I nice Yankee jersey swatch from Sweet Lou, and the name Jean Cruguet may not be a household name, but on Seattle Slew he brought in the first undefeated Triple Crown horse across the finish line.
Let's jump to the Firefly box, because while I have a tough time picking which box was better, I am going to believe many will pick the 2013 Golden Age with the best hits. This is my 2nd box of Firefly, and I was not able to complete the set. Which just means I have to buy a third! You get 3 hits per box: one manu relic and usually 2 autos - one of an actor and one of an artist. I beat the odds big time.
That's my manu relic. It's ok. At least it's different than the first box. I think these fake relics suck, so let's move on.
Nice grouping here, with a 1/1 sketch card of Mel done by John Sloboda, and a reprint card (a card drawn by the artist printed with a matte finish) autographed by Karen Hallion. John autographed the back of the sketch card too. All the artist did great work in this set, so it's nice to add their autographs.
Three leather cards in a box. I just showed them off to remind people that the woman on the right is a younger Christina Hendricks.
You like my excuses....
No huge pull on the actor autograph, pulling Edward Atterton. But if I ever go for master set, I have it crossed off the list. And btw, that's 4 hits, and there was one more to be found.
It's the blue plate on the left. I matched the card with it so you can see the full image it builds. Five hits in total in the box. And here's the interesting thing: if this was an open box in a store, if you pulled the correct stack of packs, you would have yanked the entire box. All five hits came from the same stack (upper left if I recall).
Ok - 2013 Golden Age. I completed the base of all three years, but at $25 (for 2012) and $30 (for 2013) a box, I could not pass up the deal. Plus all the inserts and minis. Some folks gamble on $300 boxes. I do the same at 1/10th the cost.
Back to the horses with the Exhibit style box topper. Steve Cauthen is a little better known, riding Affirmed to the Triple Crown in 1978 at the tender age of 18, the youngest Triple Crown jockey ever.
And some monster hits with the relic and autograph. Nice leather swatch from a glove of Gene Tunney. It feels super soft. In the pack before I snagged the Berra auto, I pulled a Berra mini and commented "Pulling this signature would not be bad at all". Then boom.
Good times from this year's Black Friday. There will be Golden Age and Firefly cards available in the upcoming Tis The Season IV. Yes - that will be starting very soon. Be ready! Oh - and one last thing from the Firefly box.
Ok - before I get to the spoils from my last card shop trip, let's close out this contest I have. Again - some really great entries. Everyone is a winner in my eyes, and you can be sure I'll send a little bit of something to each person. But only one is voted on by you, the fans.
So we ended up with quite the close race to the top. But when all is said and done, AJ at Lost Collector wins the stack of autos and relics. Congrats to all that entered. AJ, I should get your winnings out next week.
So if you have been reading the blogs, DimeboxNick, Tony Burbs and myself all hit the Orland Park card show. Tony had limited time and was not able to find Nick and myself, and I arrived late, but Nick and I did some major damage at some cheap sellers (if you see Nick's two posts I linked), which also seem to be the same place Tony spent his wedding cake budget on.
But honey, people LOVE Twinkies.
As we are separate collectors, my haul was different than Nick or Tony, but quite amazing as well, in my eyes. Let's show off the cards I added to my boxes from the more current releases. Tomorrow (or so), we'll hit the yummy vintage. One group I won't be scanning is the White Sox series 2 cards I needed. Needless to say, that is complete.
History of the Game is one of those great insert sets I forget about since it's buried in a box with the rest of the 2010 set. I think Night Owl finished it recently. But there were 5 I pulled from a dime box. I don't have a list, so I'm not sure how many of the 5 I need, but I will put this set in its rightful place in some pages and figure out the cards I still need.
Panini's fun, quirky, one off release of Hometown Heroes has FAR TOO MANY insert sets. Again, I have no list, but when 16 of these showed up in the same dime box, it's worth the chance of how many I will never. A couple of the City Hall inserts were gold border too. Not sure why you would need to parallel an insert, but Panini.
With my "Collect All the Ginter" mentality, one thing you may see missing from my A&G wants in the yearly large insert set that Topps has put in the set since 2010. I really need to get a list of what I need for those, so 29 that I found for a thin dime each - more taking of chances. That sketch card of the Big Unit was one of two sketch cards I found from the 2008 set. The other being Longoria.
Now here are some insert sets I actually have on my Want lists. I love me some Golden Age. Thank goodness Panini killed it in favor of crap like Optic and their weekly football set. Rare to find any Golden age base at a card show, so inserts are like the baby of Bigfoot and a Yetti. Finding 14 of them at a dime per is a hell of a deal, with many of these going for a couple bucks on COMC. The DeLong Gum were hard pulls. I found 5, so I paid two quarters for them. The five would have cost me $22.17 at the current lowest price on COMC.
Last we have 18 cards from the 2012 and 2013 release of Cooperstown, another set with a lot of inserts and that I am SOOOOO happy Panini basically killed (high end set in 2014 & 2015 and it looks gone for this year). The worst part about these cards from the dime box was the number I already cleared off my wants. I only ended up with 16. I could have had close to double that. Oh well - gift horse/mouth.
So there's the start of the sorting. We'll get to the vintage soon, hitting both baseball and hockey.
