Rhymin' and Stealin' (minus the rhymin')

When it comes to blogging, I try not to borrow too much from what others are doing, or have already done. I mean certain things like card show recaps, COMC shipments, trades, etc. are universal, but as far as series' go, I really do try not to step on the toes of others. That being said, with my health thing still negatively impacting my attempts to blog, I'm gonna break my rule for today's post and steal borrow someone else's series; or rather two people's series', Bo's roundups, and Nick's cool pickups. Hopefully neither gent will mind. 

I don't think the items in this post will have quite the same wow factor as can routinely be seen in the two series' that I'm ripping off, but nonetheless, these are some of the things that have made their way South over the last few months; all of which I think are pretty neat.

Since I'm thieving one of his series', I might as well start off with a couple of cards that I got from Bo, he of the extremely prolific, Baseball Cards Come to Life!. Bo got a shit-ton of Long John Silver's cards a few months ago, and in his usual fashion, then asked if anyone was interested in the myriad of duplicates. I probably should've looked at the checklist before claiming any, but instead just went by what I could see in the post. The two guys that stood out, at least for me, were Gregg Jefferies and...

Apologies for the dust on the scanner tray, it'll appear a few more times in this post.

... Eric Davis. Having never owned any cards from this set before, I didn't realize until they arrived that each player in the set has two cards; so instead of claiming two cards, I had apparently claimed four. I really like the color-matching borders on these. The photos are pretty good too. I don't think we ever ate at Long John Silver's when I was growing up. The only two seafood places I can recall going to (aside from one not so great trip to Red Lobster), were Skipper's, and the place that used to be in the food court at the Lloyd Center mall, whose name I can no longer remember. So, aside from seeing a few of these on the blogs over the years, most of this set is pretty new to me; which is kind of neat. 

The Tony Pena up top came along for the ride too. I guess all I had to do to get that one was to comment on how how cool of an image it was. I'll have to remember that the next time Bo shows off a Mickey Mantle 😉

As always, many thanks to Bo!

It seems like there's been a lot of Venezuelans showing up on the blogs on recent years. Did that in any way contribute to me getting my first two? Most likely. If I wasn't always seeing them on the blogs, I'd never even think to look for them. Back-wise, 1966 might just be the most uninteresting year for the Venezuelans, but it also looks like it might be the most affordable set for those cards too. Correlation? Who knows. I just know that I got these two, both of guys who I collect because of their ties to Portland, for a lot less than I would've thought.

It's been a while since I last got an E-Xceptional. Pre-boom, they could be found in dollar (or less) boxes at shows, and I used to buy every one that I came across. They've gone up a bit in recent years though, but even so, I didn't mind splurging a bit for a Grant Hill; which I didn't have any other copies of (I've got 3-4 copies for a few guys in this set). And as usual, the scanner doesn't do this card justice. I should've just went the photograph route. It's amazing how flat the lenticular background looks here.

I got these two Giants, my first two '64 Giants by the way, at the same time as the Venezuelans up above. Having never handled one of these before, I always thought they'd be much thinner than they actually are. That was a pleasant surprise. I didn't realize it until I was cropping the scan, but it looks like there's some weird Siamese Twins action going on here. Would this be the ultimate switch-hitter?

A few people have already posted their gets from Kerry's, from Cards on Cards, semi-recent giveaway that featured some of his off-condition cards. Buck Williams is one of my Blazers childhood heroes, and up to this point I had had zero luck in my attempts to get his '86 Fleer (a set I'm not overly fond of), so I was kind of excited to see it amongst the offerings. There is a bit of edge wear, but I was expecting much worse. I thought it might end up being a filler, but this copy will do just fine for Buck's collection. Thanks, Kerry!

It had been quite a while since I last participated in one of Matt's (of Diamond Jesters fame) Time Traveling Trades, mostly because there isn't usually much there for me, but I knew I had to try and get this card as soon as I saw it. Prior to seeing it, I was completely unaware of the various playing card sets that were put out by Brown & Bigelow in 1953. As much as I like the image of Lou Gehrig, the ad for Filson's Cities Service (which apparently was part of an oil and gas conglomerate) is what hooked me. From what I've read, it seems that anyone could order decks with their company name printed on them. I don't know how many different companies ordered these, but there's a part of me that now wants example from as many different ones as I can find.

The other selling point for me was that this is a coupon card, and not just some random jack of spades or whatever. I couldn't find any information on the coupon cards, but it looks like they might be a bit scarcer than the regulars cards; presumably because most of them ended up getting turned in for decks.

I probably (unintentionally) saddled Matt with more stuff that he'll never be able to move, but I'm really glad that I was able to get this card. Thanks to Matt for the trade (and to John for sending it in).

This 1958 Kane Products Lucille Ball isn't exactly new to me, as I got it sometime last year, or possibly the year before, but until just recently it had, unbeknownst to me, been sitting under a couple of postcards probably since right after I got it -- so I'll call it "newly uncovered". I really like this set, and had wanted this particular card for a number of years prior to getting it. There's still a few more on my wantlist, but this had been numero uno.

It's gonna be slow going, but I'm still all in on the SLU cards. Right now, I'm just trying to pick up the cheapies whenever I can. If I remember correctly, these two were around $1.50 apiece.

Here was another longtime want, and probably my favorite card in this post. Despite being well over a hundred years old, cards from the Ogden's set are still fairly plentiful, it's just a matter of trying to find copies that aren't overpriced just for the sake of their age. Wilma Neruda was a world-class violinist whose prime came, unfortunately, just a little too early to have been recorded for posterity. Being a fan of the violin, I can appreciate the card just because of her reputation alone, but the primary reason I've wanted it so long is because she was mentioned in A Study in Scarlet. I know from past posts that there doesn't seem to be many Sherlock Holmes fans amongst blog readers, but I've been so since early childhood. I have a few cards to celebrate said fandom, this now being the best. 

I've had pretty good luck so far in being able to get both cards at the same time for the players in the 1990 SLU football set. I think these two Bo's might be two of the more expensive cards in the set, so to get them for less than five bucks shipped seemed like a pretty good deal. At some point I'll need another pair for my Bo binder, but I'd rather seek out more needs from this set before spending too much time looking for another cheap pair of these.

As far as player collections go, Sal Maglie is probably one of the ones that I add to the most infrequently. Not by choice mind you, it just seems to work out that way. Knowing that, it always feels like a cause for celebration when I do get something new. Despite my liking them quite a bit, I never really think to seek out exhibits; they just seem to continually be flying under my radar. The only reason I ended up with this one is because I noticed it amongst a seller's other items on eBay. It was one of those times where I had won something else (not shown in this post), and just wanted to see if I could take advantage of their really good combined shipping discount -- and as Sal can attest, I did! I appreciate to that this card comes from the '47-66 release, so the odds are fairly good that he might've still been playing when it was made. At least that's what I'm choosing to believe.

A few other notes:

#1: Almost all of my various minor and slightly less minor health issues seem to have recently decided to band together and create a Super Friends of suck. I don't mention this to seek any sympathy (please don't do that), so much as I am to explain the few and far between posts, as well as the fewer and further in-between comments left on the posts of others. I've got ideas galore right now for all three of my blogs, but trying to execute any of them is proving to be rather difficult. This post alone, which let's be honest, is pretty crappy, has taken me almost five hours to complete (one hour each morning for the last five days), so the prospect of me getting to any of what I hope would be some non-throwaway posts doesn't seem very likely for the time being. 

#2: I finally got around to requesting a shipment from COMC back on January 29th. At the time, the estimated shipping date was 2/26, which seemed a bit far out there given that I waited until after the Black Friday and Christmas rushes, but what are gonna do, right? Anyway, I checked the counter a few times during that period to see how many orders were still ahead of mine, and after seeing that said counter had hardly moved by the middle of February, I realized that my order was probably gonna end of being late. And I was right. 2/26 came and went with no shipment being sent, and no word from COMC. A few days later, just about the time I was thinking I should send them an email, they sent me one instead. It was a generic "we're so sorry about the delay" message, which apparently has been caused by "extraordinarily high demand", and to show how regretful they are, I was given a $5 discount off of my next order, but only if I use it before the end of May. Wow! That's some consolation. It wouldn't even cover the shipping cost. Old COMC probably would've refunded the shipping cost for my delayed shipment, or at the very least, added a few bucks credit to my account to use whenever. New COMC gives me a shitty discount that expires just about the time I'll be getting my original shipment. The best part of this too is that after the my original ship date came and went, I was given a new estimation of 4/4, and as of this morning that's already been pushed back to 4/11. Had I known that this was gonna be such a problem for them, I would've just waited until after the next Black Friday sale to have my shit sent. I really miss pre-boom COMC.

#3: I have had a lot of trouble with the TCDB since around Christmas, namely with the pop-up ads that, well, pop-up at the most inopportune times. I've had two instances where I was out and about and tried to use my phone to see a couple of my checklists, only to have one of those GD ads take over the whole screen and then freeze my phone. So that, combined with the already annoying process of having to click on 5-6 things/pages just to get to my checklists on there has prompted me to start moving all of my checklists over to pages on this blog. Only two screens will have to be clicked to get to them here, and I don't have to worry about any more ads fucking up my phone. I actually started doing this back in January, but like everything else computer related, it's been slow going. So far, I've managed to complete three pages, and figure that I've got 4-5 more to do. I am primarily doing this for myself, but I guess it'll work out well for the occasional person who asks what I collect as well (a few folks were kind enough to do back around Christmas). And, because these will mostly be for me, I will be leaving them up permanently this time. This is probably gonna come across as a not-so-subtle attempt to get everyone to look at my wantlists, but I can assure you that it isn't, in fact, I'm only mentioning it because I was amused to see, while adding to one of the current pages the other day, that that particular page had an obscene amount of views; more than could ever possibly be coming from real people. I don't know which word or combination of words is doing it, but obviously something in that page has obviously attracted the bots en masse. I must admit that I'm mildly curious as to what it is that they've found so appealing, but not enough to try and look into it any further.

I guess that it'll do it for now, as I don't want to be working on this post for a sixth day... five has been ridiculous enough as is!

Starting to Lineup a new collection

Looking back at the last 14-15 years of my card collecting, or in other words, since I returned to card collecting, I see that a good 60-70% of my focus has been on cards that were produced before I was born; which, shockingly, feature players who mostly played (or who had their prime years) before I was born as well.

I'm sure that there's many reasons for this, my love of history, bigger personalities, less gentle play, etc., but I think the biggest reason is that, despite having never seen the majority of these guys play, I just feel like I can relate to them more as people. I'll probably get into this more in a future post (one that'll feature a baseballer whose prime was during the 30's), but basically it's just a lot easier for me to identify with folks who farmed or worked another job during the offseason, and who didn't have every whim catered to, than it is guys who are making fifty million dollars a year, and having every need (and vice) catered to. Not to mention too, maybe it's just because of my mindset, but it doesn't seem like a lot of the modern athletes have very interesting life stories. I know that there's a few occasionally who do, but for the most part, they're just boring people, who are getting paid a lot of money to play watered down versions of what were once better sports. That being said, I'm still human, and still a collector, and like most modern humans (primarily those in the West), and collectors, I find myself being drawn to the days of my youth. Nostalgia after all, much like cocaine, is a helluva drug.

I'm not one of those people who think that the sports, and the athletes who played them, during my formative years were the best that they've ever been, as lot of the above applies to them as well, but still...

[Note: I was too lazy to get this card out of it's binder prior to posting, so I swiped this less than desirable image from the TCDB]

I have a number of player collections, mostly on the basketball side, for guys that I grew up watching, which has satiated my collecting itch for the last few years -- but now that my old set collecting ways seem to have returned, player collections haven't been enough. Of course, for me that presents a bit of a conundrum, as there are no shortage of set designs from my youth that, honestly, I'd be quite content if I never saw again. And even the sets that I do still have some affinity for from that time period feel like old hat, undoubtedly because I've already collected them a few times over the years. And at this point, I'm not really interested in collecting them again. 

At some point last summer I was putting a few cards away, one of which was going into the Scottie Pippen binder, and it was while flipping through those pages that I came across this 1992 SLU card, that quite honestly, I'd pretty much forgot ever getting. Seeing it again at this stage of my collecting life seemed to trigger something though. Something of the nostalgic variety.

I never owned a lot of Starting Lineup figures as a kid, maybe a dozen or so at best. G.I. Joe's and Hasbro WWF figures were pretty much at the center of my toy universe during the early 90's, but I did briefly flirt with them back in '92 and '93, which I can remember only because all of my dozen or so figures, both baseball and basketball, came with a black and hot pink card. Those figures, and their accompanying cards, are long gone, but I never forgot that design; and how much I liked it.

It seemed too daunting at the time, but I even briefly thought about trying to collect just the '92 sets six or seven years ago when I found Scottie at a show. In retrospect, I definitely should've started collecting them at that time. Something something, living and learning, right?

Fast forward a few more years and I started getting a few cheap SLU cards from various years (most of which I was seeing for the first time) on COMC for player collections, which really started piquing my interest in them; namely that it might be fun to try and build a set or two. Not too long after that, Chris, started posting about the figures (and their cards) more often than he previously had, which exposed me to even more cards that I had never seen before. It was just too much to resist!

It took a while for me to realize it, but familiar names and faces, on unfamiliar card designs, is apparently the exact thing I had been looking for; i.e. something from my early years that I haven't already collected at least once before. Sold!

And since I can never do anything in moderation, I am now (as of a few months ago) officially collecting somewhere around 20 different SLU card sets (6-7 basketball, 6-7 baseball, 4-5 football).

I think that the bulk of my collection so far is currently sitting in my COMC account, which I'll be requesting the shipment of sometime in the next few weeks -- in the meantime though, I thought it might be fun to show off what I currently have in hand (or binder). All of you 'baseball or bust' types will be SOL though, as aside from the Bo up top, all of my baseball (and football) SLU's are in my COMC account (mass exodus beginning in 3, 2, 1... 😃). 

Kareem here came from COMC a few years ago, and judging by how many copies are on the site now compared to then, it's the one card in this post that I overpaid for. That happens sometimes, it's not the end of the world. I can't even remember what prompted me do so at this point, but I bought a lot of 6 packaged figures on Sportlots 7-8 years ago. I know the price, with shipping, was less than $20 at the time, but other than that, all of the other details are a bit fuzzy. Anyway, Larry here was part of that lot. I sent the figure to Chris a few years ago, but obviously I kept the card.

I can't remember if these ever made it onto the blog or not, so if they have, apologies. Spud and Dee came from Sportlots a few years ago, and up until now were part of their respective player collections. I did have the Shaq figure to go along with his card, but that was another one from that Sportlots lot that I sent to Chris. Prior to this, the card had been residing on one of the back pages in Hakeem's binder.

I don't why the switch was made, but the lovely black and hot pink design of 1992 was the last time that the NBA would use unique designs for their SLU cards for a number of years; they wound up just using regular cards with the SLU logo on the front and a different number on the back. None of the other sports did that, much to their benefit. These two came from one of my old COMC folders of stuff that I still haven't gotten around to showing on here. At the time of their purchase, they were for their respective collections as well. I hadn't really planned on collecting any of post-1992 basketball sets, but there were a bunch of 50-75¢ cards from the '93-96 sets during this past Black Friday sale, and well, I just couldn't pass them up for that price. So, I guess I am now collecting those as well.

A few more from that old COMC folder (which by the way is also where that wonderful Bo at the top of the post had been sitting, in digital form, for the last few years). I really hate to take Cliff out of his collection, as it took me a long time to find an affordable copy of this card. Hopefully it won't take me as long to find another one.

Onto some more recent non-COMC gets...

I got this card on eBay a couple of months ago for $1.25, which I thought was a pretty good deal (all of the white crap on it is from my scanner tray). One curious thing though, looking at the TCDB checklist for this set, I don't see this particular card on there. The Admiral does have a card in there, but it ain't this one. I've had so little time for computering as of late that I still don't know what the deal is, but I'll figure it out at some point.

I made a small purchase from Hoody's Collectibles on the Beckett Marketplace back in November. I want to say that there were around 15 cards in that order, 8 of which were SLU's. 

The 1988 set is not one for the budget-minded collector, meaning that I have zero chance of ever completing it. I might've had a chance if I had started it fifteen years ago, but not now. Even with that in mind, I'm still gonna try and get them where I can. I'll probably have to go the off-grade route if I ever want to try and get some of the rarer ones, but if that's what it takes, that's what it'll take.

Nothing will ever top the lovely black and hot pink design of 1992, but I find myself really liking the 1990 design as well. Every sport looks good on it. Having zero recollection of them prior to one of Chris' posts, I'm not sure if I ever even knew that the 1990 figures came with two cards. One regular, and one for the player's rookie year.

The scanner crud returns!

It was kind of nice to be able to get both cards for Joe Dumars and Chris Mullin. In the future though, I should probably scan these with rookie year card on the left. It looks a bit off this way.

These three guys were pretty good at the basketball. I just won the yellow rookie year card for David Robinson the other night on eBay, so I now have three completed players from this set.

Well, that's it for now. As mentioned, I've got a bunch sitting in my COMC account, two on their way from eBay, and I think one or two sitting in my Sportlots box (including one of a guy whose name rhymes with Cycle Gordon😄). I think I have enough sets to chase now, and barring any major windfalls, I'm pretty sure that I won't be taking on anymore sets after this.

On an unrelated note: I don't know if everyone saw it or not, but after like a four or five year hiatus, Raz, has started posting again. If you weren't aware and have a few moments to do so (and of course are inclined to want to do so), it might be nice to go welcome him back. He mentioned that he might be giving it another go, and comments usually help determine whether someone is gonna stick around or not, so... you have the power!

And on a second, and final, unrelated note: Brian, also posted the other day for the first time in over a year. He wasn't very clear as to if he was planning on planning to return or not, but either way, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to give him the 'welcome back' treatment as well.

A much desired bobblehead and a couple of SLU's

Let me start off by saying that I am not really a fan of bobblehead's. It's not that I dislike them, it's just the fact that the idea of them has never really appealed to me. That was until I found out there was a bobblehead of Satchel Paige in a Portland Beavers uniform. I should probably mention that before this I had all of one bobble in the form of Harley Quinn that I got early last year on clearance. I bought it because it was Harley Quinn, not because of her bobbling head.

Anyway back to Mr. Paige. This figure was a giveaway at a Portland Beavers game in 2002. But I only became aware of it's existence thanks to an unrelated ebay search about two years ago and have looked for it off and on ever since. They don't seem to come up very often and when they do it's usually for around $25-30, which is more than I wanted to pay. So fast forwarding to a couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to win this one via an auction for around $14 shipping included. It didn't come with the box, which wasn't a big deal. It was nice to see that it looked even better in person as well, since giveaways can sometimes be lacking in quality. It is also much heavier than I would have imagined.

Hopefully the pictures are alright, we have had snow again for the last couple of days which makes for really bad lighting.

I don't know if anyone cares, but here are few more angles:

Portland has never really been a big baseball town, despite having a minor league team (they left in 2011) that has had a plethora of former and future big time names playing for the club over the years. Satchel Paige joined the Beavers in 1961 at the age of 55 for a little less than three weeks. His best days were far behind him, so he was really only brought in to help boost attendance for the team and of course to earn a paycheck for himself. He ended up pitching a total of 25 innings with the team going 1-4 during his outings, he finished with 19 strikeouts and gave up 18 earned runs. But the hopes of boosting attendance worked, both at home and on the road as a lot of people showed up to see him even during the games he didn't play in. And of course he provided the crowds with plenty of entertainment (as he did everywhere he played), including sitting in a rocking chair outside of the dugout to poke fun at his age.

It would have been neat if the Beavers would have done more bobbles for other past players. I personally would have loved to own a Jim Thorpe bobblehead.

I got some Starting Lineup's a few months ago off of Sportlots and figured they would sort of fit in with this post. They all came in very beat up packages, but that just meant that they could be had for a much cheaper price. I can't remember the last time I got any SLU's, if I had to guess though, it would have to be around 15-20 years ago. I bid on a few more from this same seller, but these were the only ones that stayed cheap.

These first two are from the Cooperstown line.

Up first is Tris Speaker:


I really like how they made the figure depicting his later career. I don't know how well you can see it, but he has gray hair and eyebrows.

Up next is Buck Johnson (in a very cool Homestead Grays uniform):

Next we move to basketball with this Larry Legend figure:

This one is from 1988 and therefor looks a little crude as some of the earlier one's did. If this one were in a Mavericks uniform, you would swear it was Brad Davis.

And finally, Wilt and Kareem from one of the Legends lines:

The picture isn't so great, but I think these two look really good. I also like the fact that neither is in a Lakers uniform.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.