I should've passed on this one

I've been a lot more careful in recent years when it comes to buying. A large part of that is due to the fact that I just don't have as much as play money as I used to. I also seem to have reached a point where I don't want stuff just for the sake of having stuff. Stuff takes up a space, and space is always at a premium. Because of these two things, I will often go back and forth over whether or not I really need a particular item or not, especially when it involves something for sale online. When it comes to cards, and more specifically, those of the auction variety, more often than not, other folks usually end up making my decision for me by pushing the price of whatever it is up; and out of my range. Occasionally though, something will slip through the sewer grate...

The listing for this card ended two days after the Joe Rudi that was in the last post. Had there been a larger gap in which Joe had been able to arrive before this one came up, I never would've bought this one. I do sort of collect Bert Campaneris, though I'm still a bit down on him for not signing the 1969 Topps card I sent him about 5-6 years ago, which I only did because he was supposedly signing quite actively at the time (and yes, I know, this is a terrible reason to be down on someone). That being said, and despite my usual waffling, the seemingly complete lack of interest from other bidders is ultimately what swayed me into bidding on this card. I figured, for five bucks, I couldn't go wrong. Well, I went wrong!

Having never owned any autographs from the 2001 Topps Archives set, I didn't know about the glossy finish, and if you saw the last post, then you already know how I feel about it. If you didn't, I hate it. It's so distracting. If that wasn't bad enough, Bert's card also features a slightly blurred image (it wasn't noticeable in the auction photo), which wasn't a feature of his rookie card. One would think that Topps could've reproduced one of their own cards without blurring the image, but I guess that was too much to hope for in this particular card.

I haven't looked, but I really hope that there isn't anyone else on this checklist that I feel like I need to own, because I do not like these cards, and if there is, I have no doubt that I'll forget at some point and buy another one. 

Despite my dislike for the card, I have hung onto it, and will continue to do so for the time being. Though, if I end up dropping Bert's player collection (which is very possible), I will find someone else to send this too, as it won't be worth me keeping just because it's an autograph.

I realized as I was starting this post this morning (Saturday the 2nd), that this'll be my third post in six days on here. That may not seem like much to some, but I haven't done that on this blog in what seems like years. Seeing as how Monday is a holiday, I won't be doing four in eight days, but I should have something up on Tuesday. After that, I'll probably work on some stuff for the other two blogs, one of which has been terribly neglected this summer (there's only so many hours in the day!).

Hey Joe

The Oakland A's were in Cleveland for a three-game set from April 23-25, 1976. The first game saw Dennis Eckersley get the win over Vida Blue as the Indians managed a 3-0 victory. 

For the second game, on Saturday the 24th, Cleveland went with the veteran, Fritz Peterson, while Oakland trotted out their young right-hander, Mike Norris. The Indian batters overwhelmed the future one-year phenom from the get-go, scoring two runs in the 1st, and two more in the second, which were enough to end the youngster's day after just 1.1 innings pitched. Oakland responded in kind by scoring five runs in the 3rd inning, which included a 3-run HR by Don Baylor. Four of those came off of old Fritz, which were enough to chase him out of the game. The A's padded their lead by adding another run in the 4th to make it 6-4, but Cleveland wasn't ready to call it a day yet, as they would score a run in the 7th, and two more in the 8th to take a 7-6 lead into the 9th. Oakland wasn't done though. With two outs in the top of the 9th, Tom Buskey walked Claudell Washington, and then Joe Rudi made him pay for that mistake by conjuring up some of his old postseason magic and hitting a two-run homer that wound up ending this slugfest in the A's favor, 8-7. The win ended a four-game skid for Oakland as well. Five pitchers were used by each team, with Rollie Fingers gave up two runs but was still able to pick up his second win of the early season (he'd go on to win 11 more). Tom Buskey was given the loss for Cleveland.

The A's cruised to a 9-1 victory on Sunday to close out the series. Mike Torrez got the win over Pat Dobson. Joe Rudi hit another 2-run homer as well, this time in the first inning.

Despite the game's overall insignificance, I bought this ticket stub earlier this year thinking that it would be a fun addition to my Joe Rudi collection. He did after all have a bit of a moment. Once shipping and taxes were factored in, I paid roughly the same price that the ticket originally cost. Initially, it felt like a bad (but cheap) purchase, but after reading the play-by-play (twice now), looking at in with Joe's cards a few times since, and now writing about it; I find myself being rather pleased with this get, and could easily see trying to add a few more tickets to his collection.

In addition to the ticket, I added two more cards to the collection earlier this year as well...

I paid seven bucks for this 2001 Archives autograph back in March(?). It seemed like a good price, and I was looking forward to getting it. Once in hand though, I was a little less enthused. Topps must've used an industrial buffer for the surface on these. It is so shiny. Too shiny for my liking. When I look at it, all I see is gloss; which isn't very 1969-ish. I think I would've been much more content with just getting the original version of the card signed.

Now, here's a fun one! I probably overpaid for this 1977 Hostess error, but it's pretty unique, so this was one instance where I didn't mind doing so. The lettering is all misplaced, but the double-negative effect is the real star of the piece. It almost looks like Joe's soul is beginning to ascend (knock on wood that Joe still has many more years left on this plain), which seems even more appropriate given the team. I would've loved to have seen/gotten this panel before it was cut, but this card was the only one available. And for those curious, the back is completely normal. I can't say enough good things about this purchase. Despite the food (Twinkie?) stains, and one small wrinkle (in an unimportant place), I was more than happy to pay a little over $5 for this particular copy. I can't imagine that there are too many more out there like this.

My Joe Rudi collection, though not being overly impressive in terms of numbers, has become one of my favorite player collections in recent years. I don't add items to it nearly as often as I would like, but that just makes it all the more better when I do.

Bad scans from a good trade

I don't know if any of my fellow bloggers can relate to this or not, but sometimes I will scan, or photograph, an item, load it onto my computer, without paying much attention to it's quality, save it to a folder for future use, and then when it comes time to use it; then, and only then, do I finally notice just how poor said saved image was. 

Given my absolute hatred of scanning, I'm a bit surprised that this doesn't happen more often. In the past, I would sometimes go back and try to redo whatever the item was, but again, I hate scanning, and have gotten to the point where I can barely bring myself to do it these days (that's also part of the reason why posting on this blog has slowed down so much). So with that in mind, I not-so-proudly present two poorly scanned cards that made their way East earlier this year, courtesy of a trade with Gavin, resident expert in all things pertaining to Topps Retired Autographs, from Baseball Card Breakdown (and 1991 MusiCards Blog).

Gavin added a trade bait page to his blog a while back, which subsequently saw me reaching out to see if I'd have enough to be able to swing a deal for two of his offerings; and spoiler alert, I did!

Bobby Thomson is a guy that I say I collect, but I'm not sure if my 5-6 cards of him qualify as much of a collection. I only seem to be acquiring about one new card of his about every two years, which doesn't help in building up any kind of real collection. I do, at the very least, now have a really nifty autograph of his though (which isn't speckled btw).

 

While lacking a bit in the 50's department, my Johnny Podres collection is a bit more respectable. Although once again, this card here represents my lone autograph of his. They're a bit hard to see here, but this card features another nice shot (to go along with his '67 Topps card) of the old barracks at the Dodgers Vero Beach training facility (which I already covered a few years ago).

I've talked about both of these guys multiple times before, so I don't really have a lot more to say about them, or these cards (hence my taking so long to cover this trade. Well, that and the bad scans). I really do dig the cards though, and am thankful to Gavin for the trade.

It wasn't too long after this that another, this time somewhat unexpected, PWE showed up from Gavin; and in that was one of my favorite gets this year...

Gavin had told me that he would make one of his sun-bleached '91 Fleer mods (that were all the rage last Christmas) of Bo for me, and as you can clearly see, he did. He didn't say when though, and I thought that he might not be able to do it until summer, so like I said, I was bit surprised that it showed up so soon. 

I don't keep track of my acquisitions throughout the year, so it's not really possible for me to rank them, say in an end of the year post, but if I did/could make such a list, this would definitely rank in the top 5; possibly even top 3. It's just a really neat card, that brings me a lot of joy to look at. I figured the only place in the Bo binder for this would be next to it's original yellow kin, the only problem is, when I went to do so I found, much to my surprise (and chagrin), that I don't have a copy of the original card. I don't know how that was possible, but it was. It'll pain me to do so, but eventually I'll 'breakdown' and get one of those 20¢ copies from Sportlots. Now, if Gavin could just figure out a way to make a blue-bordered version, I'd have one wicked cool looking row for the Bo binder. As it stands, I'll probably just have to get to copies of the original to go on either side of this one in the binder so that it'll balance out the row/page (that's how my collecting OCD works).

A little slice of childhood

Alligator is a film that I consider to be staple of my childhood. I can't recall the exact details from the first time I saw it at this point, but do know that it was via a rented video while staying the night at someone's house back in the late 80's. I do recall quite vividly though that the movie was pretty scary to an under 8 year-old me.

It wouldn't be until we got cable in 1993 that I saw it again. By that time, it was being shown quite regularly on the Sci-Fi channel, and would continue to be for the next few years. It was no longer scary at that point, but even so, if you had asked a then 11 year-old Jon, he would've listed it as one of his ten favorite movies (it has since dropped down the ladder a bit, but not as far as you might think).

The films practical effects probably don't hold up to a generation that's been raised on CGI, the shoestring budget is visible in places, and some of the acting is a bit over the top (Henry Silva clearly had fun with his role), but this particular cranky old man wouldn't change a thing. I love everything about the film.

Jaws is often credited with "scaring a nation out of the water". Well, along similar lines, Alligator could be credited with scaring 80's kids away from jumping (or pushing someone else) into unlit swimming pools at night 💀

Robert Forster has many fine credits to his name, but to me he'll always be Detective David Madison, the balding anti-hero that tried, mostly in vain, to warn everyone about the giant Alligator roaming around underneath the streets of Chicago.

I had bid, and lost out on, many copies of this card before finally winning one early last year. I think mine was around $18 shipped, which was a bit of money, but not anywhere near the $30-50 that all of the previous copies ended at that I had bid on. If memory serves, this one ended on a Sunday night, so that may've played a role in my getting it for much less than it had been going for at the time.

Works for me

The television show, Hunter, debuted in September of 1984. I would've been 2 years old at the time. It's entirely possible that I could've been watching it with my mom, or more likely, with my grandpa, that early on, but I don't have any memories going back that far, so I can't say with any certainty either way. I do know though that I had been watching it regularly for at least a few years before it was cancelled in 1991. My memory tells me that it was already in syndication before it ended, thereby allowing me to catch up on all of the earlier episodes, but I can't find anything that says when it went in to syndication (in the old days it was usually after five seasons or 100 episodes, whichever came first) so I might've just been watching the new episodes, and then caught up on the rest later on. Either way, it's one of those shows that feels intertwined with my childhood, and as is often the case with such shows, I have accumulated a few cards that remind of said show; which in this case, amounts to a small Fred Dryer collection.

I have been trying to obtain the above autograph for a couple of years, but could never find one that I considered to be reasonably priced. Well, at least not until earlier last year when I was able to get this one for (I think) around $14 shipped (I'm afraid to look, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they could be had for less now). Previous copies that I had bid on always ended in the $25-30 range, so I was quite pleased to get this one for so much less; and what's more, there was nothing wrong with the card!

In a perfect world, I'd be able to get Fred's autograph on a card of him as Rick Hunter, but I don't see anyone putting out a Hunter set anytime soon, so I had to make due with this one. At least the signature was on-card. 
 

I'd also really like to get a Stepfanie Kramer (Sgt. Dee Dee McCall😍) autograph to pair up with Fred's, but no official ones exist as of yet; and she doesn't appear to sign requests through the mail. I suppose at this point too, if she did ever actually sign some cards for a set, it would probably be for one of those atrocious Leaf Pop Century sets, which I absolutely loathe! Even for her, I don't think that I could bring myself to buy one of those monstrosities. But then again...

These two were not created equal

I think it was last year, or was it the year before, I don't know, I can't remember and I don't want to go look it up -- but at some point in the last two years, there was about a month-long stretch where this Topps Chrome set was all the rage on the blogs. Being a modern set, and a shiny one at that, I tried to follow along with everyone's excitement, but after a couple of posts, I kind of had my fill of it. Before checking out completely, I did however see somewhere along the way that Gene Tenace had an autograph in it. And even though I wasn't too sure how I felt about the looks of it, I figured I'd try to get one if I could, i.e. only if one showed up for dirt cheap would I buy it. Well, maybe six months or so ago, one did, so I did!

For around five bucks shipped I got myself this shiny auto, and I have to admit, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, at least not initially. Fast forward six months, and now I kind of hate it. I'll keep it, but I don't like it. I was never all that keen on chromed cards, and these days, I really dislike them. Aside from a few sets, shiny cards have completely fallen out of favor with me. And I don't know why, they just have. Not surprisingly, there's like 47 parallels of this card, none of which I will be chasing... though... if I ever come across any for just a couple of bucks or less, I'll probably get them... begrudgingly! Gene has become one of my favorite people to collect, so even if I don't like them, it would be pretty hard to pass up a cheap autograph of his; even if it is ugly.

About a month after the Gene's arrival, I won another autograph for around the same price...

Now that's a much better looking card. Up until about a month ago, I only had maybe 4-5 cards of Joe Rudi, half of which were autographs, but thanks to a few recent small purchases on the Sportlots, I'm probably up to around 10 or so. Some of my guys have jumped in price, again, just since the New Year started (why?), which kind of sucks, but it just gives me an excuse to shift over to the likes of Gene and Joe, who's prices I don't see ever escalating all that much know; no matter how Boomy the Boom crowd gets.

In unrelated "news", I had an unexpected, and rather pricey (at least for someone of my means) household expense pop up a couple of weeks ago. As a result, I had to scramble to get some things sold in order to cover said hefty bill. I was able to do so, but only after many days of using all of my free time to scan/photograph, edit scans/photographs, and list items on eBay. It is nice to have that option to fall back on, but geez is it a lot of work. And so much computering!!! I was having to spend so much time doing all of that, that by the time I was done each day, I just couldn't do anymore things on the computer; which isn't the end of the world for me, but I did get terribly behind with the blogs. It was only about two weeks, so I don't imagine that anyone would've noticed my sporadic appearances, but in case you did, now you know why. I've been trying to go back and comment where I can, but it sure isn't easy trying to catch-up on two weeks worth of posts (everyone seems to have chosen those two weeks to go on a posting spree). 

In slightly cheerier news, I got myself a Level 4 clearance on the TCDB, and have been using to add some links to cards that previously had none. I've also created a few new pages for actors and actresses that hadn't been previously recognized by the site. As I recently told Dennis (who unintentionally inspired me to do these things), I'm sure that no one using the site will even care about these additions, but I had fun doing it nonetheless.

Also, I closed my Twitter account a few weeks ago. And no, it's not because of who now owns the site, or any other social/political reasons, there just isn't any reason for me to have an account anymore. I only opened the account originally to try and help my blog (now blogs), and I think it did initially, but in recent years people stopped clicking on the links, and so I stopped promoting posts. For about the last year all I've been using the site for is the DM feature, but all of those people have my email address, so there's really no need for me to stay on there just for that. Plus too, I had thought that joining the site would be a good way to keep up with all of the former bloggers that moved over to there, but it's really hurting my soul to see how uninteresting so many of them have become since scuttling their blogs. It's like I said in a comment to someone recently on here, Twitter seems to be the place where old bloggers go to die. I don't know what it is, but folks sure change, a lot (and not for the better), once they start spending all of their time on that site. It's quite sad to see, and I'd just prefer not to see it anymore.

As a possible alternative, I finally joined the Net54 site, but have yet to do anything there. And looking at some of the open discussions currently going, I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to add too much to the site. A lot of those folks seem to be more moneyed collectors, and so far I'm finding it a little difficult to relate to their sort. But, we'll see. Right now, I'd just like to get a few posts done (for all three blogs), and try to keep catching up on all of the posts that I've been missing.

Christmas Catch-Up: Part 3

Today's card could've only come from one person, right?

I don't know which would be the bigger giveaway though, the fact that it's a 2003 Topps Retired Autograph, or it's Christmas-y overlay.

Obviously this came from our resident mad scientist, Gavin, whose creations have included both Baseball Card Breakdown, and 1991 MusiCards Blog.

I hadn't been expecting anything from Gavin, so just seeing an envelope from him was surprise enough, let alone what was inside! Given all of the other Gavin related posts that were popping up right around Christmas, I thought that said envelope might be related to those, but nope, it was Boog!

This is my second Boog autograph, and honestly, is by far the superior of the two (my other one is from 2012 Golden Age). It's also the first time that I've seen a Topps Retired card of any kind in person. Now that I have, it's not hard to see why Gavin likes them so much. I think too that I've only become aware of these cards because of Gavin, and I can't help but think that I'm not the only one.

As great as this card is, and as nice of a gift as it was, I'm afraid that I don't have a lot to say about it. I suspect that my fellow bloggers know all about that, I can say that it's cool as shit fifty times, but no matter how true it may be, that doesn't make for much of a post. I can say that it does look pretty neat in with my Boog pages, though the page that it's now on still needs to be filled out a bit.

Thanks again for the card, Gavin; it's arrival was undoubtedly the biggest surprise of this past holiday season.

*********************Bonus Content!************************

My mom and I did the same thing this Christmas as we did last year, where instead of buying presents, we just went halfsies on a Newspapers.com subscription (during Black Friday when they offer their lowest rates of the year). It's a good arrangement, that works out well for both of us. That being said, she did end up getting me one physical item, that being this book.

I had a Smithsonian book of some sort many (many) years ago, which wasn't very good. It was basically just pictures of items in the museum with a very brief two-line write-up under each one. Much more effort was put into this one, as there's plenty of meat (i.e. stories) behind the items being shown. It'll probably be a few months before I get to this book, but in the meantime, I took a bunch of pictures to give y'all a feel for what's inside:

I'm happy to say that I'm officially caught-up with all things Christmas. And I hadn't planned it this way, but these led right up to a bit of milestone for this blog, which will be the subject of the next post...

A purchase, a gift, and an anniversary

Has Topps always done parallels for their Fan Favorites Autographs? If so, how come I haven't seen them before? Is this the first year that they've done a purple one? I feel like I would remember having seen a purple autographed card before, but I don't. I guess it doesn't really matter though, I've seen one now.

I had forgotten to delete my saved search emails for Gene's base auto (as seen in my previous post), which is how I came to find out that he had parallel autographs in this years Archives as well. Parallel autographs really are a silly concept, and one that I'm not too keen to participate in, but here I am, the (semi) proud new owner of a parallel autograph.

I had mixed feelings about the purple when I first the listing for this card, now that it's in hand though, I think that I actually kind of like it. I'm not sure if other people don't like the purple border, or if I just lucked out some, as I got this one, after taxes and shipping, for under five bucks -- which is about a dollar cheaper than I got the base version for. One would think that a card numbered to /150 would fetch more than an unnumbered card, but I'm done trying to figure out why things sell for what they do these days, so I'll just say that I'm content with the price that I got it for, and was prepared to go a couple dollars higher if need be.

After finding out there was at least one parallel to Gene's autograph, I did something that I never do, I sought out a checklist for this years Archives set. Turns out there's four versions of this card, the base, purple (#'d to /150), silver (#'d to /99), and of course, what would a modern set be without a 1/1. I can't remember what color the 1/1 is, but that's obviously out, however, I can, and probably will, try to get one of the silvers though. Hopefully the silver version won't cost too much more than the two I've already gotten, because it's ugly as sin, but it would complete a row on one of Gene's pages, so my own personal collecting OCD will force me to get one; despite it's hideousness.

As okay as this card turned out to be, about a month ago, I was sent an even better one...

Dennis Smith doesn't have a lot of "big-time" cards (thankfully), there's really just three, so if someone were to say to me that they had a card of his to send my way, it's only natural for me to assume that they're planning to send a common base card, after all those do make up like 90-something percent of his catalog. Such was the case a few months ago when, Eric, aka The Snorting Bull, said that he had one of Dennis' cards for me. I figured he was talking about something like, I don't know, an early 90's Upper Deck card or something else along those lines, which, if I needed it, would've been great. Little did I know that, Eric, wasn't thinking so small, and proceeded to drop one of the "Big 3" on me...

For non-football card collectors, this is a 1991 Pro Line Portraits autograph, and also just so happens to be Dennis' only certified autograph (the 1994 Pro Mags autograph doesn't exist - it would be nice if someone who has any pull over at the TCDB would remove it from the site). A discerning eye may have noticed a hint of the Certified Autograph stamp in the lower right on the front of the card, but you can see part of it a little more clearly on the back.

Pack inserted autographs were still pretty new back in 1991, as I believe that they had only become a thing the year prior, and at the time of it's release, the Pro Line Portraits autograph checklist was the largest, and most ambitious to date. Looking at everything that's been produced since it's release, I'd argue that it's still one of the most ambitious sets to have ever been created. Probably one of the most difficult to complete as well.

A number of the autographs in the set were signed with pens that weren't ideal for the surface of these particular cards, causing the effect that you see up above. It's a minor drawback for some, but it doesn't bother me too much, especially since all of Dennis' cards seem to have been of this variety. I'm just grateful to have been able to mark this one off of the checklist, and am very thankful to Eric for making it happen. Trying to complete Dennis' entire catalog is one my few real collecting goals, and this was a big step towards doing so!

In other news, today is this blog's seventh anniversary. Time flies.

The blogs have changed quite a bit in just the last seven years, but I'm still here. With three blogs now, I'm down to only posting on this one a couple of times a month, which works well for me, and because of that I don't see myself going anywhere anytime soon. Besides, I pretty much hate all of the other formats that the "cool" kids are flocking to, so there really isn't anywhere else for me to go. I've had my ups and downs, but in the end, I think I'm gonna be a lifer. I know at this point that I'd miss everybody too much to ever be able to walk away. Crazy as it may sound, but for the most part, blog people are the only people that I'm interested in interacting with. Blog writers, and readers, may be a dying breed, at least that's what the non-blog folks keep claiming, but I tend to think that as long as there's blogs, there will be readers. It's not flashy, and it'll probably never reach "trending" status again, but long format collectible talk still has it's place, it just takes a special sort to realize that.

During my first few years doing this, I sometimes felt like I had to get a certain amount of posts in per month, and probably did force more than a few in order to fill that self-imposed quota. This caused much burnout, and many thoughts of giving up. Thankfully, I was able to get past this idea that I had to match the pace of other more prolific bloggers, and have long since found my comfort zone. These days I only post when I feel like it, and only post about the things that I think are interesting; there's no need for me to post about every single purchase.

A lot of bloggers who've left in recent years have cited declining readership as one of their primary reasons for closing up shop. I can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't noticed too much of a decline, although I gave up stat watching a long time ago; so maybe there has been a drop, and I'm just too dense to realize it. Either way, I do appreciate those who come around here and comment where they can, but even if some of those folks were to start going elsewhere, I'm at that point where I don't mind doing posts for myself. Unlike some of the other social media sites, blog posts show up in Google searches, so I figure even if people were to stop caring about what I'm putting out now, there's always the chance that they will do so at some later date.

I think I've rambled enough for one day, but before I go, I mentioned a few posts back about doing a contest to celebrate this anniversary, and I am going to, your just gonna have to wait about another month for it to drop. I'll be bringing back my old COMC credit giveaway, in which the winner will get X amount of my credit to spend on whatever they want (on the site of course). Since the site runs Black Friday sales for practically the whole month of November now, I figure that'd be the best time to give someone the chance to go on a mini-spending spree. I'll be starting the contest on the last week of October, so that should be something worth coming back for?

For the price of a pack

Looking at my purchase history, I see that I've now only bought five things on eBay so far this year. I know that I didn't buy very much on there last year either, but unless something changes in the next few months, I'll be setting a new personal record for fewest eBay purchases in a calendar year.

Between the lack of items being listed, and the stupid high prices of those that are, I just don't have much incentive to look for things on there anymore. I still get my daily saved search emails from them, 90% of which I can disregard without even opening thanks to them showing the items price in the title. And as far random searching goes, I'm down to about once a month on that. Not bad, considering there was a time not too many years ago when I'd be on there every other day searching for this or that. I may not care for them too much as a people, but in some ways I'm very grateful to the boom crowd, as they've given me back some of my free time. As an aside, I recently learned how to do Sudoku, and a lot of this free time that I speak of has been going towards that. My time spent reading has really dropped off in the last couple of weeks, as I've found that those puzzles are quite addictive. I suppose though, if one has to get addicted to something, there's far worse things to fall under the spell of (like eBay). So, yeah, random searches are down. Searches with a purpose are way down too, although I do sometimes still see something on the blogs, something that I like, and go see if there's another availble somewhere for a decent price; something like this....

I'm pretty sure that either Eric or Fuji posted about this 2021 Archives Gene Tenace autograph sometime in the last few months. Apologies if it was someone else though, I tend to only associate those two guys with Gene Tenace. Not being one to keep up with the latest releases, I usually only find out about new things after seeing them on the blogs. Such was the case with this card. After whoever's post, I knew that I had to have one, so I went looking for one of my own. And after just a few short weeks, I was able to have one in hand.

Google tells me that the average price for a hobby pack of 2021 Archives is $6 (seems like a lot, but what do I know), which is almost exactly how much this card cost after the shipping and tax were added in. Considering that I didn't have to go anywhere to get it, nor did I have to buy any packs to try and get it, I feel like six bucks was a pretty good deal.

Having not been collecting at the time, I had to look it up to find out this card is on the 2002 Topps design, which, with it's orange-ish gold border, works really well with the photo of Gene that was used. Speaking of 2002, if I didn't know any better I'd have swore that I had gone back to then to make this purchase, as it took all of two days to get here. Granted, it was only coming from one state over (GA), but still, two days, when's the last time you got an eBay purchase in two days? The USPS hasn't moved mail like that since probably... 2002!

As far Gene Tenace goes, I recently added what I have of him to a binder. I knew that I didn't have a lot of his cards, as it turned out though, my collection of him is even more meager than I had previously thought. I think I'm gonna have to try and do something about that.

Difficult, but far from impossible

                                           
It's been two or three years now since I decided to switch from mostly set collecting, to mostly player/person collecting. For the most part, I have no complaints, and still feel like it was the right thing for me to do.

I do occasionally miss the thrill of the hunt that comes from collecting sets, but on the flipside, don't miss the long stretches of not being able to find, or afford, needed cards for certain sets. 

Right or wrong, I was never, or couldn't ever be, content to leave sets inactive for very long, and felt a lot of pressure to always be seeking out missing cards. I suppose even this wouldn't have been too bad if I had been able to limit myself to just a couple of sets. Unfortunately for me though, once I took up collecting cards again, I just kept starting more and more sets - mostly of the vintage variety - and things just got out of hand. It was making collecting feel more like a chore than a hobby, and my interest in said chore started waning... hard!

Speaking for myself, there seems to be a lot more flexibility with player collecting, and certainly less pressure. I don't feel like I always have to be adding new cards to the player collections, and am completely okay if any of them end up going dormant for months at a time. And unlike sets, I don't feel like I have to try and complete every single player collection, which is a good thing, since it would be darn near impossible to do so with anyone who's appeared on a piece of cardboard in the last decade or so -- that is unless you, or someone you have an in with, have a very deep pocketbook. 

I've started quite a few player collections over the last few years, spanning across the three major sports (there's even one from the fourth major sport). I also have a rather robust number of celebrity/character collections going as well. Not only do these collections provide the variety I crave, but they also insure that I'll always have something that I can collect. This way, if somebody I collect appears in some dumb Netflix documentary that inspires the masses to start collecting them, i.e. driving up their prices, I can just set that collection aside and focus on other folks until everyone loses interest in my other guy (or gal); which the majority of them undoubtedly will.

One thing that I haven't been able to figure out so far, though, is the arbitrary manner in how I go about deciding which cards I want to collect for each player/person. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, and it varies greatly from person to person. Very little time or research is spent making these decisions either, with most being almost instinctual. More often than not, I know from the moment that I start collecting somebody whether or not I just want stuff from their playing days, or if I'd be happy to just get anything I can from them, or even, and this is a much more recent development, if just one pages worth of cards will do. And then there's those folks who's entire catalog is on my want list. 

For anybody who's entire catalog consists of say, a hundred cards or more, trying to collect them all can be quite a lofty goal. If they played into the late 90's, you'll likely have to contend with inserts and parallels galore (PMG's, Star Rubies, etc.), not to mention possibly some of the rarest pack inserted printing plates in existence (if they even still exist; I have my doubts on some of them). And if it's anyone who's played in the last two decades, or even had the ever present, tribute cards, printed up in the last two decades, well, then you're really in for a challenge, what with the endless amount of 1/1's and all. No, deciding to collect someone's entire oeuvre is not something that should be taken lightly

There are a few players who I'm trying to collect every single 'card' of, but of the guys with a hundred cards or more, there's really only two that I think I have a genuine chance of achieving that goal for. If you've been unfortunate enough to have been coming around here for at least the last couple of years, then there's a good chance you already know that Reggie Roby is one of these two guys. 

I'm not sure what my current count is, but I do know that I'm past the halfway point as far as his catalog goes. I haven't spent a lot of time looking for base cards in the last year or so (those can be gotten anytime), but do spend some time each week seeing if any of his slightly harder to find cards have popped up anywhere. Not surprisingly, people aren't going out of their way to send his items into COMC, but a few do show up occasionally, and more often than not, I'm the one who ends up buying them.

Both of my semi-recent shipments from the site had cards of his in them, some harder to find than others. I did overpay for the Stadium Club card, but since I could see that it was problem-free, I didn't mind ponying up 50¢ for such a clean copy. The McDonald's orange and '86 Police were the better two of what's been seen so far, but the real prize was a card that I showed two Black Friday's ago when I won it.

I don't like to show the same cards over and over, but I'll make an exception for Reggie's only certified autograph, besides last time it had the COMC watermark over it, and that's not a good look.

The front for anyone who cares. Note the stamp in the lower right corner.

Two more of these Pro Line autos have shown up, and are both currently still sitting on the site, since I bought this one; thankfully neither are cheaper though. There are really only two hurdles to clear for someone trying to put together Reggie's entire run, this one, and his Wild Card 1000 stripe. The 1000 hasn't appeared anywhere for sale in quite awhile, and I'm sure if it does during this boom, it'll most likely be out of my price range. I did get that 20 stripe up above, which was my first of the 5 striped denominations. I'd really like to get that 1000 out of the way though.

The only other player over the hundred-card mark that I think I have any chance of getting every card for is Dennis Smith, and wouldn't you know it, I just so happen to have knocked a few of his cards off the checklist, too. 

With Reggie, I knew without even looking at his checklist that I wanted everything, Dennis I had to look up first before deciding. I had to make sure that he wasn't appearing in a bunch of modern sets before I committed myself, thankfully he wasn't. As a brand, Finest has never really done a lot for me, and I know I'm in the minority, but refractors, especially the early ones, don't really excite me either. Because of this, I'm almost never willing to pay the going rate for them. I had been watching this one for almost two years before it finally went on sale for a buck (I think), and even though that was more than I wanted it for, I didn't want to wait any longer for a cheaper copy, so... here it is!

They're not as highly regarded as refractors, but I find Pinnacle's Trophy Collection (Museum Collection for baseball) cards to be the more interesting of the two parallels. Dufex just looks cooler, to me. And if that wasn't enough, the Dufex parallels can be had for considerably less as well, and that's never a bad thing.

I'm not sure how far along I am with Dennis' collection either, but do know that I don't have any of his big 3 cards, those being the Pro Line autograph, the Wild Card 1000 Stripe, and some crazy rare thing that came out in 1987 called an "Ace Fact Pack". It's a card of some sort, but that's about all I know.  [Edit: There's also the 1994 Pro Mags autograph, but from what I've read, it's entirely possible that not all of the advertised signatures made it into the final product; Dennis Smith being among them.]

Reggie's last playing days card appeared in 1996, Dennis' in 1994, so both were able to avoid having cards made during the craziness that was the late 90's. Both guys have only appeared on a couple of tribute cards, and aside from a pair of Score buybacks three years ago, neither have appeared in a modern Panini set. Because of this, I feel like I have a very good chance of completing both of their entire runs. though with Topps (under Fanatics) coming back into the football card fold sooner than later, there's at least a slight chance that my plans will be foiled at some point. Topps is going to need plenty of bodies to flesh out their dozens of football sets that I'm sure will be coming each year for the foreseeable future, and I'm just hoping that given how unpopular both guys are with modern collectors, that Topps will leave these two bodies alone (And I see you lurking over there in the dark, Panini, you stay away too!).

Pink is the new orange

I'm not sure why October always ends up being so busy for me, but it does, and this year has been no exception. It seems like the days are just go, go, go, then come night time, I'm too tired to get anything done... especially blog posts!

I always have tons of ideas for Halloween related posts, but rarely get around to doing more than 2 or 3 of them, and this year has been no exception! Looking at my draft folders, I see that I've got 6 Halloween themed posts started, but at the rate I'm going, will probably only end up getting to 2 of them, 3 if I'm lucky.

One of the 3 posts that I've managed to finish this month was a 1-card pink themed post to try and help Brian spread the word about his annual Save Second Base event. It was nice to be able to try and spread the word (even though pretty much every one already knows about it), but it wasn't what you'd call a great post (1-card posts rarely are), a fact which I acknowledged in the post, and said that I'd try to do one more for him (and his cause), something with a little more eye candy if you will. Well, I had a spare hour earlier in the week, and found myself possessing the want to look through some cards, more specifically, to look for some 'pink' cards. 

I ended up finding enough for a top ten post, of sorts. It's probably more like "Here's ten pink cards that I own and am showing in no particular order, half of which have already been featured on the blog at some point". It should be noted too that I didn't even need to look through any of my baseball player collections (barely touched the football ones either) to reach my goal of ten cards, so hopefully since it's for a good cause, all of you 'baseball or bust' types will still stick around 'til the end (commenting wouldn't be a bad idea either, especially since each one equals a $1 donation from Brian).

So without further ado, here's ten 'pink' cards that I own, and very much like...

1971-72 Topps #48

The '71 basketball set has a number of notable pink cards in it, especially since it's the background color for both the Lakers and the Pacers (among other teams), so you've got all-time greats like Wilt, West, and Baylor representing pink for the Lakers; and rookies of guys like Roger Brown, Mel Daniels, and Billy Keller on the Pacers side. And yet, my favorite pink card from the set is this Em Bryant. Pink aside, it's one of my favorite cards from the set, period! I'll even take it a step further and say that it's one of the quintessential 1970's basketball cards, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. Disagree? Prove me wrong!

2012 Panini Black Friday - Panini Collection Progressions (magenta)

You had to know that there was going to be a Progressions in here, right? Biz is my favorite of the rainbows that I'm trying to build, I've got 3 of the 4, and no, I can remember which one that I need off the top of my head (it's not like your sitting on one of these anyway).

2018 BBM True Heart autograph

I hate the thought of ranking things that people have sent me over the years, and would never do so, but still, I sometimes find myself reminiscing about the package that RAZ sent me a few years ago, it truly was that good. This Mochi Miyagi (no relation to Mr.) auto was one of the many great items in there.

P.S. RAZ, if you see this post, please come back to us. I know that you're on Twitter, but it isn't the same.. not even close!

2014 Cryptozoic Adventure Time Holiday Foil #HE-01

Did you watch Adventure Time? No? You should, it was a great show. It's not too late either, it still holds up, and will continue to do so for quite some time. These Holiday Foils were exclusive to the retail blister packs a bunch of years back. I couldn't find any of them in stores, so I bought a big lot of packs on eBay, maybe 10-15 packs, and since each blister pack (which contained two retail packs btw) had one of these foils on top of the packs, I ended up with a huge stack of them. For those that don't know, the show was set in a post apocalyptic world, where many traditions have been lost (big surprise, right), including Christmas. This card is from their two-part Christmas episode (Holly Jolly Secrets), in which the back story of one of the main characters is finally revealed, and Christmas is "re-created" (rediscovered ?), albeit in a slightly different manner than most of us are accustomed to. The episode had all kinds of heart, and is still very popular amongst the shows fans. The card has all kinds of heart too, even though it's foil-y goodness has been rendered null-and-void by the scanner.

1969 Topps #34

Other than Shawn Kemp's 1990-91 Fleer RC, I don't think that any other card has been shown on the blog more times than Merlin's Topps RC (not his true RC, but the 'geniuses' over at Beckett don't acknowledge that), so who am I to get in the way of a good cause, and not show it again :)

1957 Topps Hit Stars #80

Cyd Charisse has very few trading cards, don't ask me why though. If I was in charge, she'd have many. I freely admit to having a long standing crush on her, so I may be a bit biased.

See, I couldn't help it! Although, this photo does fit the theme that Brian's October posts tend to follow, so I'm just playing along, nothing else. It would make no sense for me to do so, but I've thought of doing a top 10 most attractive actresses/entertainers post before. If I ever did (I won't), Cyd Charisse would easily make that list.

1972-73 Topps #32

Is this a stretch as far as pink cards go? I probably wouldn't have used this one had I not seen an eBay listing for a copy the other day (during an unrelated search). Rookie cards seem to have gotten big again, and this one appears to have gone up in price a bit since I bought mine 5-6 years ago. Unrelated, can we refer to those as the 'good old days' yet?

2013 Panini Golden Age #DDG

This ones a bit of stretch, as it's more of a red card, but Ellie Mae is wearing a pink shirt, and does have pink ribbons in her hair, so? This is one of my favorite autographs from the Golden Age sets, so anytime I can find an excuse to show it, I'm going to. I watched a couple of episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies this past week, and while it's not my favorite program ever, I do enjoy a few episodes here and there.

1985 Topps WWF Stickers #3

Watch out ladies, Brother Bruti is on the prowl!

I haven't been a wrestling fan for quite some time now, and don't collect anything wrestling related anymore either, but the '85 Topps set, as well as the subsequent '85 O-Pee-Chee series 2 set, were amongst the few things that I held out back when I sold my wrestling collection. As far as wrestling cards go, those were the tops for me, it's been downhill ever since.

1984 Topps MOTU Stickers #20

Masters of the Universe has gotten big again too, and I'm thinking that it's like the tenth time that it's done so now? It's cool that so many people are into the various re-hashings, but I only care about the original. The new stuff just doesn't appeal to me, but of course I could say the same thing about everything from my childhood that's been reimagined in recent years, it all feels second rate, and I choose to have no part of it.

If by chance you haven't seen what Brian has been doing, I would highly encourage you to do so. He's doing lots of  good things, raising lots of money, and bringing awareness to a terrible disease. His dedication to the cause is very admirable, and he deserves all of the accolades that he has been getting.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

F*#%

Damn, another childhood hero passes on.

Safe travels, Uncle Cliffy!