I need fewer hobbies

For someone who generally doesn't like formal trading, I sure have been doing a lot of it lately. Okay, technically I've only been involved in two (with a third possibly in the works), but it sure feels like a lot!

Scott, of I need new hobbies., and I, recently concluded a trade that had been in the works for almost six months. Thanks to me, there was a four-month gap between the beginning, and the end of the trade -- Scott, being the stand up fellow that he is, didn't hold that delay against me.

The above Ron Fairly buyback is what set the trade in motion. It's hard to believe that that one card would lead to such a large trade -- a trade by the way, that would see me ending up with cards from three different sports (gotta love variety).

Near the end of our back and forth, I asked Scott if he had any copies of Warren Moon's 1990 Score Hot Gun card (I'll save the "why" for a future post), he ended up having one, as well as quite a few other Moon's available for trade. The Collector's Edge die-cut and the UD Team Trio were the two that really caught my attention.

"Moon, the moon, the funkin' moon". A small prize to the first person who can identify the song that those lyrics came from.

All of these were extras that Scott ended up throwing in. There is a nice assortment of base, inserts, and parallels.

One more Moon, and a really great Shoeless Joe from the Kramer set.

Now we're starting to get into the meat of the trade. Not only does Billy McCool have a "cool" last name, but his last stop in baseball was spent with the Portland Beavers (1971).

Have you ever seen a card that you don't have so many times, that you start believing that have the card? The '69 Drabowsky just happens to be one of those cards for me, but now I do have it, so...

The bulk of the trade, as far as what I got, ended up being for 1971 Topps.

Even though the scans don't show it, most of these are in really great shape.

In my mind, these three are baseball card perfection! Great action shots, that couldn't be framed any better if you tried. I had seen the Severson many times, but the other two are completely new to me.

It's not often that you'll find somebody that has a '61-62 Fleer for trade, let alone one that features a true Hall of Famer. I still have a few of these from last year's COMC stockpile to get to, but this is the first card from the set that I've gotten this year.

Scott, thank you again for the trade, hopefully we can do it again sometime in the near future.


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The smallest prize

I'm assuming that a lot of the people reading this are familiar with Chris' (The Collector) recently wrapped up Sports Card Tour series, aka the unofficial card blog series of the year.

And of course, those who do already know of it, know that there was a contest involved as well -- which was a points earned for comments type of deal, one's accrued points then determined their position in a two-round prize draft.

By the by, if anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about, you should go and check out the series. It's obviously too late to get in on the contest, but you'll still probably get some enjoyment out of reading the 2 1/2 year-long (insert smiley face emoji) series.

So anyway, back to the draft, which I somehow ended up having a fairly high position in. There were a lot of fabulous prizes to be had, just not a lot for me, although there was one particular thing that I very much wanted.

I can't remember when this 1950 Bowman Ray Coleman RC was added to the prize pool, but I had been eyeing it ever since it had been. My interest in older Bowman seems to be growing as of late, which is kind of funny since my interest in so many other card related things has been diminishing pretty rapidly.

Ray's journey was an interesting one, the SABR folks did a really nice article about it, one that I would definitely recommend reading if you have a few extra minutes.

I still feel a little weird about getting something just for reading, and commenting, on a series of posts that I would've done so even if their wasn't a contest attached to them -- but I do have some stuff set aside for Chris (stuff that I've been meaning to send for forever and a day now), so to make it feel less strange, I'll just consider it a blind trade of sorts.

I ended up passing on my second round pick (there was no need to get greedy), but Chris still ended up sending a little something extra with the Coleman:

Normally I'm not a fan of reprints, that being said, these are kind of neat. Not only are they really well made (weight and texture wise), but after doing some Googling, I found that the history behind these particular cards is pretty interesting too (so is the blog that the link takes you to).

Chris, hopefully your SCT series will continue to get praise heaped upon it, more so than it already has. And thank you for the card(s), as mentioned, I do have some stuff for you, which I will seriously try to get mailed out sometime in the next week or so.


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Bru comes through

Some of you may recall the buyback mother lode that I struck at the card show back in June. Some of you might also recall that I ended up giving away the majority of said buybacks, mostly via Twitter.

Well, Marc, from Remember The Astrodome, was one of the people that inquired about the availability of a few of them (Astros) -- there ended up being a few for him, so I was more than happy to send them along without any strings attached.

Now a number of people asked if they could something in return, to those folks I simply said "I appreciate the offer, but it's really not necessary", and that seemed to be a satisfactory reply to most -- but not Marc -- he was much more adamant about sending something in return (which I completely understand btw), and since I didn't want to come off as being difficult, I acquiesced to his generosity... although he did end up sending more than I sent him (that's going to need to be balanced out sometime soon).

I've been getting an awful lot of help with Cooperstown sets as of late, not that I'm complaining mind you, I'm just a bit surprised that so many people still had lying around. I love that photo of Ron Santo by the way, if anybody (Bob?) knows the origins of it, I would very much like to hear about it.

After marking off the seven 2013's that Marc sent, I am now down to needing just 11 to complete the set, although seven of those eleven are short prints, so...

The Cooperstown's were great and all, but as per usual, the Golden Age is the show stealer. With the addition of these four, I now only need 1 card (Dusty Baker) to complete the 2014 set!

Thanks for all the set help, Marc! You really didn't need to send anything in return, that being said, I'm awfully glad that you did.


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Hoarding minis

Thanks to the generosity of some of my fellow bloggers, it's been kind of like Christmas in August for the last week and a half. I received three packages last week, and two so far this week, which probably wouldn't be considered to be a lot by some folks, but it is for me!

Jason, from Hoarding Cardboard, mentioned that he might have a couple of Golden Age minis to send me, which is something that I wish I heard more often.

I was just sort of expecting a PWE with maybe two or three in it, instead, a bubble mailer showed up with...

... fourteen (all being of the 2014 variety) in it!

This is one occasion where it's socially acceptable to stare at a beautiful backside, or rather, backsides! Five of the six different backs were covered in this mailing, which made the group just that much better.

It is so rare for me to get this many Golden Age minis at one time, heck, even getting one at any given time is becoming a cause for celebration -- so, thank you again, Jason, you really went above and beyond here. I appreciate the Topps coupon (not shown) that you included as well, it actually gives me incentive to try a pack of something that I normally wouldn't... decisions, decisions!


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exchanged cards as i see them

Another day, another trade package. Today's cards were sent by everyone's favorite upper case challenged blogger, Jim (gcrl), of cards as i see them.

Jim sent cards from three different sets that I'm working on, all three of which seem to be drying up for me at the card shows. First up is this trio of 2001 Fleer Greats, the Maris being my favorite of the group, but just barely, as Catfish (and his green sleeves) is a pretty darn likable card as well.

2012 Cooperstown has completely disappeared from everyone's dime boxes at the Nashville card show, so these (as well as the others that I've received as of late) are very much appreciated. And closing out the package, was a Koufax from Topps Lineage (probably from Jim's duplicates box). Lineage is still findable at the shows, but it seems to have moved from the dime boxes to the quarter boxes. To me, 25 cents is a lot to pay for a base card from a seven year old set that not too many people are collecting, so I've been passing on a lot of needed cards over the last couple of months... including this Koufax!

As always Jim, thank you, not only for this mailing, but also for all the other's over the last few years. It's nice to have someone to exchange cards with, minus all the formalities that are often involved with traditional trading.


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From his Card Shop to mine

I had planned on doing some card show post this week, however, judging by the amount of mail that I received last week, it would seem that some of my blogging friends had other ideas.

I've been sending out quite a few things as of late, and a few folks are starting to send some stuff in return, which was completely unnecessary, but still very much appreciated -- after all, I, like most people, do enjoy getting mail... especially when it contains some sort of collectible(s).

The first envelope came from Daniel, of It's like having my own Card Shop, who decided to help out with my meager collection of 1998 Donruss Signature Series', by sending this extra Andy Benes that he had:

I only remembered Andy Benes from his half a season with the Mariners back in 1995, so I was kind of surprised to see that he ended up playing for 18 seasons, finishing with a record of 155-139, and he even led the NL in strikeouts (189) during the 1994 season. Granted, I did start to lose interest with baseball around '96 or '97, but I still should've remembered him for more than just half a season's worth of play.

Daniel, thank you again for the card, it was pleasantly unexpected. I fully intend to pursue this set a little more actively once I complete a few others, but in the meantime, it's nice to be able to check another off of the list before ever even having to search for it.


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Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 7

Last weekend was the 50% off of everything sale at Goodwill that's now held on the first Saturday of each month, and since I'm mentioning it (in a post no less), one can safely assume that said sale is the source of today's show & tell.

I was feeling somewhat spry on this particular Saturday, so much so, that I was even able to leave on time for once (I'm almost always 15-20 minutes behind schedule). They open at 8am, and it was looking like I would be getting there with about ten minutes to spare, which I did. I expected to see a long line of "bargain" hunters eagerly waiting for the store to open, instead I was greeted by the sight of people already leaving the store, many of whom were pushing carts that had been filled with the spoils of war.

The store had obviously opened up considerably earlier than normal, so while I was still technically an early bird, I just wasn't one of the earliest birds! Now the only question was, would there be any worms left?

Believe it or not, I haven't seen this since it originally aired back in '94... it seemed like it might be time for another viewing.

This series is in the public domain, and has been for a long time. I also already have the entire series on DVD, but for a quarter I couldn't resist this still sealed tape... me thinks that the previous owner's may have taken the "Collector's Edition" a little too seriously.

I think I might be one of the few people left who hasn't seen this movie, sometime after Thanksgiving I'll change that.

Here's another series that I have all of on DVD, but I've never found one of the Amazing Stories VHS volumes before, and again it was only a quarter, so...

It's not what one would call a "good" movie by any stretch of the imagination, but Hackers is one of my favorite movies of all time, probably in my top 25. I already have it on DVD and VHS, but I didn't have this second video release. Without even looking at the date on the back, I could tell this was a later release because Angeline Jolie is given top billing on the cover. Jonny Lee Miller was the star of the movie, but she was the bigger name when this tape was released in 2000, so in an attempt to capitalize on that (and to sell more copies of course), her name and face were prominently featured on the front. Personally, I never considered her to be a star, and in my mind she was never a bigger name than Jonny Lee Miller.

Another cheap back-up copy.

I haven't seen this one before, and it's not the type of film that I go for, but it does have an awesome cast, so I might as well give it a go.

I hadn't heard of this one before, but I'll watch anything with Gene Barry in it, so it was kind of a no brainer. Sounds like it's going to be Hitchcockian in nature, which is just fine by me.

The cashiers always ask if you want to round up your total to support their job training program, you'd have to be a real heel not to, so after rounding up, my eight tapes set me back a whole $3.00... works for me!

As an aside, on my way back to the media section, I walked through the toy aisle. While doing so, I noticed about half a dozen baseball SLU's from the mid 90's. They were still in package, and with the discount they would have been $1.50 each. This was now the second time in a matter of weeks that I have been tempted by those poorly sculpted pieces of the past, and once again I was able to resist their pull. I did sort of want the cards, but $1.50 seemed like a lot to pay just for a SLU card of Mike Mussina, JT Snow, or Mike Greenwell (among others). After I was done shopping, I walked back down the toy aisle on my way to the checkout, as I did, I passed a guy that looked like he might be a few years older than me who was gathering up all of those SLU's -- I wasn't surprised to see someone else buying them, as that was a good price -- but the thing that caught my eye, was the look of sheer happiness that was pasted across his face, it was like seeing nostalgia in it's purest form. Even if I hadn't bought anything, being able to witness that moment would have been worth the entire trip alone.


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Bo knows trading

I recently completed a trade with Bo, of Baseball Cards Come to Life!, normally I'm not big on formal trading, but as I'm sure many of you already know, Bo is very easy to work with, so in this instance it worked out pretty well.

Bo had featured these two cards in a trade-bait post a couple of months back, I expressed interest in both of them, and after a short delay the trade was officially underway. I absolutely love the '67 Frank Robinson!

For anyone who might be interested, I will have a '72 want list up within the next few weeks.

Help with Fleer Greats and SP Cuts is always greatly appreciated.

I think I got a lot of Bo's duplicates, I'm not a big Yankees fan, but I am a fan of getting cards that help fill set gaps.

It's funny, I could swore that I had these three cards already, but after getting out their binder I found that I did indeed them. And I think I've passed these up at card shows on more than one occasion, because of thinking that I already had them, at least now I can pass 'em up knowing that I do in fact already have them.

This scan is atrocious, but the card itself is really quite wonderful, as all Archives Reserve's tend to be.

Closing out the package with...

... a bunch of... 

... Topps Lineage needs!

Thank you for all the set help, Bo! Hopefully we can trade again sometime.


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