Sunday, March 7, 2021

Tradin' & Thrifting

                             
Despite never caring much for formal trading, I seem to be doing an awful lot of it as of late. Well, at least a lot by my standards.

Since the beginning of the year, I've completed nine trades on the TCDB, and currently have two in progress. This averages out to just a little over one trade per week, which probably isn't a lot by some peoples standards, but it's exactly my kind of speed. I can move some unwanted cards out, and have some new blood coming in, all while not feeling overwhelmed, or needing to worry about accidently sending someone the wrong thing. Plus too, one trade a week doesn't take away from my blogging in any way (more probably would), so that's a good thing, I guess.

My scanner almost completely washed out the green from this Emerald parallel.

One of my favorite things about using the TCDB, is when I come across a familiar name. Usually it's a fellow blogger, but sometimes it's also just a person that I've had contact with before through the blog, which was the case a month or so ago when I came upon Bizzork, aka Brian, who had participated in a few of my past Free Stuff giveaways. And in his case I know him too from seeing his user name during the COMC Challenges. 

After finding him on the TCDB, I took a quick look to see if we had any compatibility trade-wise, which we did, so I sent of a quick proposal, which was accepted after brief bit of countering.

For someone who never cared much about SI for Kids (the magazine or the cards), I seem to be getting a lot of them all of a sudden (there's more coming in another trade). I never realized too that their size hasn't always been consistent, which is quite evident when looking at these 1993 and 1996 examples side-by-side.

I knew quite a bit of French at one time, and years later started to learn Japanese (that's a long boring story), and thanks to my stamp collecting, can read a little bit of Greek, but I never did pick up any Spanish. Which is kind of odd since my mom was fluent in it (I think that she's lost a little bit of it over the years though), and I would often her here using it to converse with native speakers. We also spent six years living in an area that was heavily populated by Mexicans (and before anyone loses their sh*t, that's how those folks identified themselves at the time). And if that wasn't enough I was friends too with guy from Colombia for about a year during that same time, and he would unintentionally slip into Spanish while speaking on a fairly regular basis -- and yet, with all of that Spanish being spoken around me, aside from a few choice words, I never learned any. Of course I can, and do, still enjoy Pro Set Spanish cards despite not being able to understand the non-English aspects of the set.

1990 Topps isn't terribly exciting, but this Howie is one of the disclaimer backs, so... yeah, I know, still not that interesting.

There were a few more cards involved with this trade, but the post office just had to do what they so often do these days, and try to destroy the contents of everything that makes it's way through their greasy clutches. This particular envelope took quite a beating and a few of the cards, including the best one (of course), weren't salvageable. I don't blame Brian though, it's just one of those things that now happens much more frequently than it used to. Looking at what survived , I'd still call it a pretty good trade though, and wouldn't hesitate to try and do another one with Bizzork.

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Despite them being some of my favorite places to go to, I have not found myself visiting very many thrift stores so far this year. There's no real reason why either, I just haven't made much of an effort to go to any. I think I've hit all of two since Christmas. I had occasion to make it three this past week when my mom asked if I could stop and look for something at the Dollar Tree while I was out, the Dollar Tree that just so happens to be next to Serenity Thrift.

Serenity is very hit-or-miss for me, so even though I was gonna be right there, I didn't plan on going in. Then I got there, got in and out of the DT fairly quickly, looked over at Serenity, and figured why not. I'm glad I changed my mind too, as this turned out to be one of those "hit" times, and I was able to get a couple of pretty cool videos/DVD's...


I'm pretty burned out on war pictures, and have been for awhile now, but having never come across a copy of Force 10 in the wild before, I wasn't about to not get it just because I'm tired of the genre.


Apparently whoever Larry gave this to for Christmas back in '97 wasn't to enamored with it, as they never even took the tape out of the plastic. It's been 23+ years, but hopefully Larry will take some solace in knowing (if he reads this) that I would've enjoyed being given this tape, and will open it, and will watch it -- especially since I haven't seen it since I was a kid.


Robert Mitchum! Lee Majors! Saul Rubinek! Where do I sign up!!!! I've read about this film before, and supposedly it's not very good, but it's gonna be pretty difficult for me not to like a movie with those three guys in it.


Here's one that I actually know nothing about. I'm thinking that it's either gonna be really good, or really bad, and I'll probably have to be in a particular mood to wanna watch it. Also, I've ordered a few Archives Collection discs from the WB shop during Black Friday sales in the past, but never found one for sale anywhere before (my mom has found a number of them though), so it was kind of neat to finally do so.


I'm not sure why I didn't already own Moby Dick, as it's a film that I've always enjoyed, granted I only see it once every 7-8 years or so, but still. This is the only one from this group that I watched since getting them, and you know something... it's still good!


I like a lot of Tyrone Power's work, but this isn't one of his better performances (my opinion of course). The supporting cast is what drives this film. Well, that and the story, as that's pretty good too. I've only seen this film once before, many years ago on AMC (back when they were still commercial-free), and am looking forward to seeing it again.

It's looking like it's gonna be a busy week down here in the land of Sleeves, so I think if I can get the rest of the scans edited tonight, I'm just gonna be lazy and blog about my recent Sportlots purchases this week. Due to length, I'll have to break them into two posts. Neither will win any awards for writing, but they should have a few fun, and slightly different, items contained within, and will hopefully still be worth your clicks :)

20 comments:

  1. I love to see these posts despite probably rarely having anything in common and I'm sure you're the same on my posts. I will say The Gunfight caught my eye and I might have to look for that now. Maybe one day I'll watch Force 10 From Navarone, but first I'll have to watch The Guns of Navarone. Older films and westerns have never been my thing, but then again I said the same thing about Charles Bronson and last year finally watched all the Death Wish movies, so never say never.

    I'll have to keep an eye out for more of the types of movies you like next time I visit my thrift stores. Usually I just browse and don't check out the movies too much because its next to the books and a lot of people hover around. My next trip I might look a bit more.

    Nice post, and on top of all that, nice cards too. I'll have to see if I have any SI Kids cards you might want. I get the magazine free just for the cards, but not sure how much longer I'll get it. I'll also have to keep an eye out for you on the COMC leaderboards, I don't get too many challenges anymore, but still get some here and there.

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    1. I'm sure we have more in common film-wise than you think, it probably just doesn't seem like it because we both already own those common-interest films, therefor aren't talking about them in posts that are showcasing our most recent additions.

      It might not be the worst idea if we were to exchange "most wanted" lists?

      If you've been getting the magazine for awhile, there's a good chance that you would have at least a few that I need. And as far as the challenges go, A) I haven't been doing very many of them lately either, and B) That account was created years before the blog, so my user name on there is considerably different than the pennysleeves handle that I usually use most places these days.

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  2. Nique! Always great to see him even if it is in a Clips uni. Force 10 from Naverone is a great movie. Not that familiar with the others. Always like Abdur-Rahim as well. Plenty of good cards and good post.

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    1. Shareef was one of my favorite players in the late 90's. He's fun to collect too, if only because nobody cares about him, and his stuff can be had for next to nothing.

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  3. The Dominque is super cool. I feel like I had a card or two from the insert set growing up, but can't fully remember who. It looks familiar though.

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    1. Despite his sporting a Clippers uni, it is still pretty cool.

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  4. Can't wait to see what other SI for Kids cards you've traded for. Love the variety of sports and the inclusion of women athletes each month. And the 1991 Pro Set Spanish is a very cool set. Maybe one day I'll track down a complete set and toss it into a binder for easy viewing. Until then... I'll just have to treasure the Favre.

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    1. I've wanted to get a box of Pro Set Spanish for the longest time, but apparently I waited too long, because like everything else, they've gone up considerably in price. And like everything else as well, I suspect that it's gonna be a long time before those prices come back down to Earth.

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  5. Love cards like that Dominique Wilkins card at the top. I know he bounced around at the end of his career, but not sure I have actually seen a card of him on a team outside of the Hawks.

    My freshman year of high school, I had an English teacher who would show us movies after we had completed reading a book. She was huge on the classics. We read Moby Dick and she brings in that movie to show us. Turns out it is her favorite movie of all-time. She paused it numerous time, would rewind the tape and make us rewatch scenes, etc, etc. She literally turned that movie into 4 class periods. One of the greatest time wasters of my academic career. Should probably go back and watch the movie. I love old movies and I am sure it's at least decent. Gregory Peck, right?

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    1. It always looks so odd to see him wearing anything other than a Hawks uni.

      That's some kind of obsession right there. I don't know if I could do that with any film, or be sitting and watching a film with someone doing that, and not quickly begin to hate it. And yes, the great GP is the star of the film.

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  6. I read the Maugham book of The Razor's Edge.

    Los Angeles is Spanish for Los Angeles.

    The Spanish Howie wins the round.

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    1. I have not, but wouldn't be opposed to giving it a go.

      I'm pretty sure that I at least knew that much :)

      I'll be sure to put a gold star next to Howie's name on the big board.

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  7. Love a good "hit" trip to the thrift store.

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    1. They certainly are better than the misses!

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  8. My nine year old just started learning Japanese for fun on Duolingo. She knows about ten Japanese words, which is nine more than I know.

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    1. That's really great! Hopefully if it does become an interest of hers, she'll stick with it, and not have to have any regrets about not doing so when she's older.

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  9. Nice stuff. I love stumbling into Thrift Shops. So much fun stuff to explore. You have a great taste in movies for sure!

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    1. Sounds like someone needs to pick up their feet when they walk, it'll do wonders -- might even prevent you from "stumbling" into places :)

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  10. Sweet RAhim and I couldn't tell it was an emerald until you pointed it out

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    1. Yeah, I figured that most people weren't gonna be able to, hence my mentioning it.

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