Sparkle, Sparkle!

As I mentioned in the beginning of the previous post, this past Saturday was a card show day, and not just any old card show day, no, this was one of the twice a year card show on steroids days... featuring 180 tables of pure cardboard nirvana. Oh, and the Beckett grading people were there, as well as the JSA folks, and for the third time in the last year and a half, Denny McClain was there to sign stuff.

Having not been to a show since the last big one in September, I had been looking forward to this day for quite a while now, and thankfully the show didn't disappoint (not that I thought it would).

As far as getting there goes, it was pretty uneventful, got up at 3am so that I could hit the road by 5am in order to get there at/or before 7am. Although I did see two bunnies and a deer practically right after I got out of the driveway, so that was nice, and it must've been a good omen as the rest of the drive there ended up being quite pleasant.

I was surprised to see how many people were already there when I arrived shortly before seven, as the main crowds don't usually arrive until an hour or two later. It seemed to be rather crowded the entire time I was there, thankfully though, I left a little earlier than normal (ran out of money) so my anxiety didn't get as bad as it usually does by the time I leave. And as always, I enjoyed seeing where everyone was coming from via the license plates in the parking lot. I lost count, but I think this show beat the old record of 12 different states being represented, including an Arizona and a New York (he was a dealer, his accent gave him away) this time. Maybe it's just because I hate long drives, but I couldn't imagine driving to Nashville all the way from Arizona... that's just crazy!

As I mentioned in the last post too, since everything I bought pretty much fits into six different categories, I'm going to make these recaps a little easier by separating them into six different posts. Since the vintage stuff seems to always be the most popular, I had fully intended to start with that, but apparently the lighting wasn't good enough when I did pictures, so all the whites look yellowish... and just won't do, so instead I'll be starting with all of the glittery/sparkly stuff, aka the polar opposite of vintage.

I hit a bit of 2011 Topps Platinum Diamond Anniversary mother lode while going through my favorite seller's (Jim) quarter boxes, and I guess before I get too far along, I should probably mention that everything in this post came from two different sellers, and nothing was more than 25 cents.

If anyone's interested, the J.J. Hardy and Joel Pineiro were duplicates.

In terms of star power, the MadBum was by far the best of these Platinum Diamond's. 26 of these cards were new to me, and they almost doubled the amount of cards that I now have from this set.

Also from the 2011 Topps set, I found a couple of the Cognac's. The Banks and Sandberg are variations, of the legends variety, so it was pretty cool to find those for a quarter as they usually go for a couple of bucks apiece. The Ernie Banks is also my favorite card in this post.

Even though the scans don't show it, these cards (in my opinion) are more sparkly than shiny, which I feel need to mention because the next post is reserved for shiny cards, and I spent a couple of minutes trying to figure which cards should go in which posts.

Ooh, more Platinum Diamond's, this time from the 2011 Topps Lineage.

I love this set so much, but like everything else, I didn't know of it until a couple of years after it came out.

Of all the Topps parallels, I think the 2012 Golden Moments is the set that I have the most of. I really like the active AL batting average leaders, the base card's cool too, but it's just so much better in glimmering gold. This is another set that, in person, seems more sparkly than shiny.

I bought this Piazza mainly because of it's sparkly nature, and also because I couldn't recall ever seeing a card from this set before. I have since found out that it's a Nth Degree parallel from the 1995 Score Summit set. I don't know if I'll end up keeping it or not, but for the moment I sure do enjoy looking at it.

And finally, another card from a set that I don't recall ever having seen before. From checking COMC, I have been able to ascertain that the 1993 Collector's Edge had a five-card John Elway insert set, which came in three different versions. This one that I found is of Taraus Technologies Prisms variety, and under the right conditions, could seriously mess up your eyes. I was torn on which post this one should go in, I guess if anybody reading this has one, you can tell me which category you would've put it in. This is also another one that I don't if I'll be keeping or not, but either way, it sure is cool looking.

If you still haven't gotten your fill of gaudy cards, you'll want to come back for the next post, as it too will be full of brightly coated pieces of cardboard.

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Some non-card randomness

This past Saturday was a card show day, and quite a successful one at that, but before I start diving into all that goodness, I've got a few recent non-card finds that I wanted to share with everyone.

I have been on a real ALF kick as of late, which has also included going back and watching all of the ALF Tales cartoon series, which by the way, is still quite enjoyable. Not surprisingly, this has caused me to seek out some ALF stuff that I don't already have, including these four 1990 Wendy's ALF Tales figures. There are six in the set, but these four were under $7 (with free shipping) on eBay, which seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. At some point I will be trying to find the other two, but for the moment, it's not among my highest priorities.

I found this cool SpongeBob golf ball in spot (the side of the road) that was no where near a golf course. I had no idea they made such things, which might be why I've been so enamored with it. I did already show it on the Twitter, but since it wasn't some of kind anti-Trump message, or pertaining to baseball, I don't really know if anyone saw it or not.

My mom found this Webstor at an antique shop in Knoxville for, in her own words, "a price that was too good to pass up"... so I'm guessing that he wasn't more than two dollars. He's missing his grappling hook and rifle, but on the flip side, he's got virtually no paint loss, and is a serious upgrade to my childhood figure. An excellent addition to my recently renewed MOTU collection!

I found this jar (make-up?) in the creek last week, it had been there for a really long time, but I think it still cleaned up pretty good. I absolutely love finding stuff, I always have, so if anyone's wondering why this jar is being shown, well, now you know. In fact, once I decided to give this blogging thing a try, my first thought was to do a blog of nothing but the interesting stuff I find... aka interesting junk that people discard along side the road, in the woods, etc. Realizing that no one would probably read such a blog, I then thought about doing a stamp blog, but you have to be kind of smart to do such a blog, so that ruled me out. I then settled on sports cards, which now in the last year or so has morphed into a blog about all of my interests, and one of those just happens to be finding other people's interesting castoffs/litter.

For nobody but me, here is the bottom. The best part about finding interesting discards, is trying to find a way to put it to use. As of right now though, I have no idea what I'm going to be using it for, but I'll come with something :)

Last, but certainly not least, is this Godzilla bust bank made by Diamond Select Toys.

This sculpt is based on the 1989 version of Godzilla, which basically just means that it's the Godzilla from Godzilla vs. Biollante.

I have been watching this bank on Amazon for awhile now, but in typical Amazon fashion, the price keeps fluctuating, and it always seems to be on the higher side when it comes time for me to be ordering something from the site... that was at least until last week when the price was at the lowest I had ever seen it, so I bought it, as well as two other bust banks. Amazon broke the order in to two shipments, so that's why you're only seeing the Godzilla.

Now that that stuff has been shown, I can do a couple of card show posts, which for my benefit, will be broken in to a number of smaller posts featuring items grouped together by common themes.


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How's the weather up there?

Today were going to take a look at a couple of 1970-71 Topps basketball cards (or as the kids call them... "Tall Boys") that I had in last year's COMC accumulation.

In year's past, I've had quite a few more (from this set as well as the '69-70 set) built up by the time I take advantage of the free shipping after the Black Friday sale, but I think I've just about exhausted the supply of cheap singles that I still need from the site. And trust me when I tell you, COMC is not a good place to buy anything other than commons from this set, as the stars and even most of the semi-stars tend to be very overpriced.

Before getting to the cards, I feel the need to mention that I actually took the time to scan some cards for once, including these, so if you wonder why some of the images look kind of crappy, that's why!

As mentioned on the back of his card, Jimmy Walker was an absolute stud at Providence, so much so, that his all-time scoring record (set in three seasons) stood unbroken all the way until 2005. Spent nine seasons in the NBA, and was a two-time all-star with Detroit. He is also the father of Jalen Rose, although he left before Jalen was born, which in my mind, negates any of his athletic accomplishments.

Em Bryant played for three teams during his eight years in the NBA, and won a championship with the Celtics in 1969. He played in all 18 of Boston's games during '68-69 playoffs, and saw his minutes double to almost 34 a game. Seeing more playing time, his scoring average increased to 11.0 ppg, and he chipped in 20 points during the finals game 7 victory over the Lakers.

Shaler played for four different teams during his 4 1/2 years in the NBA, before moving over to the ABA for a season and a half to play with the Chaparrals. His best season came as a member of the Trail Blazers during their 1970-71 inaugural season, when he averaged 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg, as well as 2.7 apg.

After retiring, Mr. Halimon came back to Portland at some point and started driving a bus for Tri-Met. After hearing about him being a bus driver in the early 2000's, a friend and I decided to try and find him, which we did, even going way out of our way just to ride the bus he was driving. I hadn't returned to card collecting yet, so I wasn't even thinking about trying to get an autograph or anything, it was just more about being in the presence of a former Blazer than anything else. That day is kind of a blur at this point, but I do remember thinking that he looked really well for his age. Also, while trying to do some research for this post, I saw that he was also named as Tri-Met's bus driver of the year in 2010, which had to be pretty cool for him.

Another Oregon connection with Loy here, who played college ball at Oregon State. His NBA career only lasted for two seasons, both with the Bulls. It's unknown to me as to why his career ended up being so short.

Not only is this the last card in the set, but it's also the last card in the eight card subset that recapped the 1969-70 NBA finals in which the Knicks defeated the Lakers in seven games.

Looking at my checklist, I see that I am now 44 cards away from completing this set, which means I'm like 75% done, and oh how I long for this set to be done. I'm hoping that this weekend's card show will produce a few more reasonably priced needs, but you know what they say about hope...


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Sweetness... and a baby snake

After doing some rather strenuous work outside yesterday, I'm feeling a bit tired and lazy, so it's just going to be a one card post today:

Part of last year's COMC accumulation, this 1963 Topps Roberto Clemente was probably my biggest individual (not counting auto's) baseball card purchase from the site during the year. Being a Clemente, as well as a high number, this card usually carries a hefty price tag. Obviously mine's got a few condition issues (just a few), but even so, a card like this still sells for $10-15 on eBay, so I didn't think my paying a little under $9 for it was too bad of a deal.

Looking at Roberto's stats for 1963, it was pretty much business as usual as far as his numbers go, although he did have 12 stolen bases that season, which not only was a career high, but also the only time that his swipes reached into the double digits. It's also interesting to note that, in 1963 he set  personal records in games played and at-bats... both of which would be broken in the following couple of seasons.

I'm still not entirely sure if I want to work on the '63 set or not, but either way, this is still a pretty cool card to own... although someday I wouldn't mind getting one that's in a little bit better shape.

And on completely unrelated note, check out this cute little baby grey rat snake that I came across yesterday:

These are non-venomous and extremely common here, but somehow it's still the first one that I have seen. And don't worry, he (or she) was only in this coffee can long enough for me to move him to somewhere safer, as he was in danger of getting stepped on. It's hard to believe that this little fellow might end up reaching upwards of six feet in length, in fact while I'm on the subject...

 

... here's a picture (the head is to the left) that my mom took a couple of years ago showing the only grey rat snake that she has encountered in her time here. According to her, she was tending to her garden, and turned to find this guy curled up next to her feet, which gave her quite the start, as one would expect when finding an almost five foot long snake at your feet. It then proceeded to follow her around for the next hour or so, before disappearing just as quickly as it had arrived. I very much wish I could have seen this one.

Speaking of animals, I also saw a bald eagle this morning (flying very low), and while they were a common site back home, here in Tennessee they're much more of a rarity in the skies... so that was pretty cool too. Okay, I'm done rambling now!


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DC comics buyout at Ollie's part 2

In part one of this series, I mentioned that if all went as planned, I would be going to the Nashville Ollie's (as well as back to the Cookeville location) to see what might still be available from this sale that has been going on for six weeks and counting, and even though mother nature seemingly tried to dissuade me from doing so, I did end up going last Saturday... and thankfully there was still plenty to be had.

The forecast was calling for 2-4" of rain to fall throughout the day (and it did), being from the Pacific Northwest I am quite comfortable driving in any adverse weather conditions, but the people here are a different story, so I do have some mild concerns about sharing the roadways with them during inclement weather.

About 30 minutes into the drive there, it started dumping, so the next hour or so was spent traveling through a whiteout. Thankfully though, the traffic kept moving at a decent pace (75-85 mph), so my time table was effected in any way. I actually ended up getting there early, and was the first person through the doors that morning.

Once again I'm starting off with a couple of Showcase "phone books". I wasn't familiar with Strange Adventures in the least, but with a cover and synopsis like that, how could I not give it a try?

This series sounds like it was pretty hokey, but for $3.99 it's worth the risk.

This was by far the biggest, both in price and in sheer size, purchase of the day. I had seen this book being shown in some of the YouTube videos that were made right after the sale started, but I figured that after almost a month and a half later that there was going to be no chance of my still being able to find one. The comic book gods must have been with me that day, as it was the last copy that they had. Also, within just couple of minutes after I put it in my basket... another fellow showed up, and by the way he was checking the prices of everything on his phone I could tell that he was buying for resale purposes, and had I not gotten there before him, this book would have been listed on eBay by day's end.

See how big this honker is, I would be very surprised if it weighed in at less than five pounds.

The retail price of this book was $60, and it's currently $40 on Amazon, so even though the $12.99 price tag seems like a lot, it really isn't. Considering that this was the book that I was most hoping to acquire, I would have been happy even if that was all that I ended up getting, but it wasn't... so let's get back to it.

I believe that there are three different Tales of the Batman books out there, all three of which were done by a different artist, on this particular day I able to pick up two of the three (the other one is a couple of books down).

More Batman of course. This is the third book of a three-part series, so I'm going to have to try and find the first two at some point.

For such a relatively thin book, this one has got a lot going on!

This is the one book that I have a little bit of buyer's remorse on, as I didn't read the back as carefully as I should have, but maybe The Outsiders teaming up with John Walsh won't be as bas as it sounds.

This Shazam hardback didn't have a synopsis, and with it still being sealed and all, I just have to hope that it will be good. Me thinks that Billy might have some choice words in regards to this particular title.

I suspect that this will be the better of the two Tales of the Batman books that I ended up getting. I was surprised to find that the Nashville location still had so many different hardbacks available, not that I'm complaining mind you, I'm just sayin'.

No one should be too surprised to hear that I had to make a quick perusal of the toy aisle before leaving, or that I ended up finding something of interest either. They also had the Arnim Zola figure from this series, but it is a very unattractive figure, so he had stay behind.

The Nashville Ollie's also has a fairly decent DVD section as well, and not surprisingly, I found a couple more things of interest, including this boxed series of BBC's Life. This was another great production from the BBC, my only complaint was them having Oprah narrate it for the American audience, while the great David Attenborough narrated the version meant for European audiences. David always narrates the BBC nature programs, so I still don't know why they changed it up for this particular series. I mean if you were going to change it up for the American crowd, you could have at least gotten someone with a more distinguished voice to the job... and someone who wouldn't mispronounce as many words as Oprah did throughout the series!

No, this isn't Manbo, it's the surprisingly enjoyable Manborg.

I hadn't seen this before, and had no idea what to expect, but I ended up really liking it. It's cheesy as all get out, and the budget for this picture had to be like $5, but they made it work. I really can't put into words why I liked it, but I would recommend giving it a chance, especially if you come across it for $1.99.

So as I mentioned at the beginning, I took an oh so slight detour before heading home in order to hit up the Cookeville store again. I was most curious to see if anything new had been put out in the week since my previous visit. It's about 75 miles between stores and it was of course, still raining... now I was driving right into the storm, so for the next hour and change it was like driving straight into a monsoon. The highways here were not designed to accommodate a lot of rain, so they tend to acquire standing water pretty quickly, which made the drive a little more interesting as well. I saw one car that, judging by the angle of it's resting place, had hydroplaned off the road on the opposite side of the highway. And a car in front me hit a pool of water and almost lost it, as the driver obviously panicked when he/she started to slide and almost over corrected right into a concrete divider, which obviously would have been bad for them... and for me, as I probably wouldn't have been able to avoid hitting them, especially since there was a semi on my right, so was no where else for me to go.

Anyway, I made it to Cookeville in one piece (not that I thought I wouldn't), and ended up finding a few more things:

Without even trying I seem to have acquired a mini-collection of these Showcase books. This was yet another title that I wasn't familiar with, but since sounds sort of Thundarrish, I am looking forward to reading it.

I'm expecting this to be really good too, and how great is that cover?

There was quite a few different titles that hadn't been out the week before, but the above three were the only one's that jumped out at me. I thought it was kind of interesting too, that all three of the copies that I got, appeared to be the only copy of each title available.

All in all, I would say that it was another successful outing, and certainly worth all the driving. After making the trek to the Knoxville location a couple of days ago, I now have at least one more entry for this series, but I'll probably get a few card posts in before I get around to the haul that was brought home from that trip.


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