Monday, July 24, 2023

And the winner is...

First off, many thanks to everyone who entered my birthday contest. There were 28 entrants, which was around 10-15 more than I expected. A couple of the names were ones that I hadn't seen for a while, so that was nice too.

The list of entrants, before being randomized, was as follows:

Dennis
Vrooomed
The Angels In Order
Nick
Johnnys Trading Spot
kcjays
The Diamond King
karsal
defgav
GTT
Angus
hockey kazi
Bo
FiresNBeers
Brett Alan
RJ Sahl
Mark Zentkovich
CrazieJoe
POISON75
Matt
Derek
Nick Vossbrink
Crocodile 
John Sharp
Michael D
bbcardz
Laurens
Jafronius

Before I randomize the list, please remember that I said #17 would be the winner, provided of course that there were more than 17 entrants, which there were, so that's who'll be taking home the eBay gift card.

Okay, after eight mixes from the old randomizer, here's how those names shook out:

Congratulations, Gavin! When you get a chance you'll have to let me know if you want the card mailed, or if you just want the activation code sent via email (I think that this is the safer of the two options).

To everyone else, thanks again for entering (and all of the well wishes). Until just last week, I didn't know where the best place locally to go for gift cards was, now that I do, I think that this will be the route that I go for future contests/anniversaries. And speaking of anniversaries, this blog will be celebrating one in less than two months, so...

Monday, July 17, 2023

Celebrating my birthday by...

... giving one of you a gift (card)!

As promised last month, it's my birthday, and I thought it would be fun to use the day as a vehicle for a little contest.

This won't be anything elaborate, just leave a comment below (no felicitations necessary) if you want a chance at a $25 eBay gift card, and one week from now I'll randomize the comments (eight times) to find the winner. The only thing you'll need to be eligible for participation is an eBay account, and the winner will have their choice of me sending the actual card, or just sending the code via email; either one works for me.

Knowing that some people have very little luck (myself included) with landing in the #1 spot for randomized contests, I'm gonna mix things up a bit and have #17 be the winning spot -- provided I can get at least 17 entrants of course, if not, the backup number for the winner will be 7.

I guess that's it. I'm not sure if I'll be posting on here again before next Monday, but either way, this'll be the only time that I mention the contest. Entrants will be accepted right up until I randomize the names, which will probably be sometime around noon on the 24th. 

Monday, July 3, 2023

It'll be difficult to top this one

There's no doubt that there's been an uptick in TCDB trade posts on the blogs over the last couple of years. I can't remember the last time a week went by and I didn't see at least one.  I've heard a few people say that they don't like them, but given how many bloggers are using that site now, I'd have to think that those who don't like the recap posts are amongst a small minority. As for me, I guess I'd say that I'm indifferent to them. There are a few kinds of posts that I really dislike, and honestly, won't even click on; but TCDB trade recaps are not one of them. On the one hand, I'd be lying if I said that they're my favorite kind of posts to read, but on the other, I'm glad that they give so many people something to post about.

I mention all of this mostly for the folks who don't like TCDB trade recap posts, because that's what kind of post I'm doing here today. For the record though, this'll be the first one that I've done this year; and I can pretty much guarantee that it'll be the only one that I end up doing this year. Hopefully that won't be too overwhelming for those who fall into Camp BaHumBug.

Sometime back in December I was fortunate enough be part of what was, and most likely, what'll continue to be, my biggest trade on the TCDB. As far as the details go, I ended up sending a various assortment of vintage baseball cards North of the border, and Bruno, who a lot of folks on that site probably know better as sandyrusty, sent a wonderful collection of 1962 Post Canadian back in return.

It took two attempts to get this trade done, the first having gone awry thanks to a bit of miscommunication (I can't remember what it was at this point, but there's a good chance that it was of my doing), which is very easy to have happen in this era of communicating primarily through short typed messages. I can guarantee that there would've been no difficulties had Bruno and I been ironing out the details for the trade while sitting on a front porch somewhere; but alas, that's not really an option anymore -- also, we live in separate countries, so finding a front porch that was convenient for both of us to get to may have been a tad difficult.

I only had one card (Ernie Banks) from this set prior to the trade, and 20 after the trade, or in other words, 10% of the set. Of course, in typical me fashion, I've yet to add any more to the set since this trade. It hasn't been for a lack of trying though, I just can't compete right now with the seemingly endless supply of deep-pocketed folks who bid up any and all lots of these every time they come up on eBay. I figure though that there can only be so many people interested in this set, right? So, eventually they should get all of theirs, and I'll hopefully still be around to get mine once they've moved on to another set.

Like the other Post sets, I'm sure that this one has it's fair share of short prints, after all someone had to appear on the boxes of lime gelatin and Crapz-All Bran Flakes, but still being so early into the set build, I haven't wanted to harsh my mellow by looking those up yet. I'll worry about those later on. And at the rate I'm going, that'll be much (much) later on.

I thought at the time that a couple of the cards would probably need to be upgraded at some point, but given how seemingly difficult this set is gonna be for me to work on, I should probably just be content to get whatever I can get for the time being.

In addition to the agreed upon cards, Bruno also threw in an extra card, which came in the form of this really nifty Frank Lary. Oh, and it too has ties to Canada...

Since many months have passed since this trade concluded, I can no longer remember if I had mentioned to Bruno, or even if I've already discussed it here on this blog, but vintage OPC's are not something that make their way into my collection very often. I almost never saw them at shows, have zero luck when trying to acquire them via eBay, and always miss out on the good ones that pop up on COMC. You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to get a couple of cards from non-HOF players, but for me, it has been. I can't help but wonder if I screwed over a Canadian in a past life, and my punishment for that in this life is to not be able to get any vintage OPC baseball cards? Seems plausible.

I think I did two more trades after this one, neither of which I was entirely satisfied with, and haven't done anymore since. I probably should've just quit after this one, as I'm pretty sure that there's no way that I'll ever top it.