My first BAG

I removed all of my TCDB trade bait sometime around the beginning of January (and then gave away most of the newer stuff in a series of free stuff posts a few months later), so I was temporarily perplexed by an email I received a few weeks ago saying that someone had proposed a trade transaction. And of course those emails don't tell you what's what; you have to go login to the site to get the skinny.

Turns out that said proposed transaction came from our very own, Tom, he of the resurgent, The Angels, In Order. And what's more, it wasn't a trade proposal in the traditional sense, it was a blog appreciation gift, or BAG, as the kids might be calling it.

I'm familiar with the RAK (random act of kindness), as I've been fortunate enough to receive a few over the years, but a blog appreciation gift is a new one to me. Are BAG's the new RAK's? If so, I'm all for it. 'Blog appreciation gift' sounds much more meaningful, or at least it does if you're a blogger on the receiving end of one. I suppose it wouldn't have the same effect if you weren't a blogger. See what you're missing non-bloggers. If BAG's are gonna become a thing, that'll be just another reason for everyone to ditch those lesser mediums (Twitter, YouTube, etc.) and start a blog :)

Anyway, this BAG consisted of three cards, including the Bo Extra Bases, which is a card I just saw for the first time in one of Tom's recent posts. I'm mostly only interested in stuff from Bo's playing days, but I never bought any packs of Extra Bases, and I still haven't looked through all of his cards that I might want; so that's how I've apparently been able to go almost 30 years without seeing this particular card. Any other time, this card would be the star of the envelope, but the second card stole the show for me...

John Anderson is one of my all-time favorite character actors. If you have a favorite television series from the 50's-80's, he probably appeared on an episode. He certainly appeared on a number of my favorite shows: The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Project U.F.O., Night Gallery, and MacGyver, to name a few. He also had bit parts in two of my favorite films, Psycho and The Satan Bug. The only two cards he ever got where he's this visible are both in Pacific's Eight Men Out set. I think I have both of them on my want list, as I need a couple for various themed pages/collections, the two primary of those being the Perry Mason and Twilight Zone collections. Which one will this particular card go in, I do not know yet.

And I mentioned that this mailing consisted of three cards, but the third one is for my Portland Beavers collection, and since I don't like to double-dip, I'm gonna hold back on showing that one here and instead use it to dust off my Portland Beavers blog (and start a new series) sometime within the next few weeks.

Many thanks to Tom for the BAG. It was greatly appreciated!

Reggie MelBo

Despite the title, today's post will not be about a current NFL'er, nor the famous aborigine. No, this is just gonna be a quick thank you to a couple of folks who've been kind enough to send a few single card mailings over the last few months; and the title is just a not-so-clever amalgamation of the names featured on said single cards.

Going oldest to newest...

I can no longer remember how many have passed, but "some" months ago an unexpected PWE showed up from, Greg, the collected mind behind, The Collective Mind. At first glance, it appears to be just a regular old copy of Reggie Roby's card from the 1992 Skybox Impact set; but if one were to turn it over...

... one would see that it is instead the prototype version of the card. Greg mentioned getting this card in a trade, and subsequently thinking of me. I'm not the sort that people think of very often, so it's awfully nice when they do; and even more so when they mention having done so. Being sent a needed card is nice, too. Thanks again, Greg!

Sometime in the last few months, Tom, of the resurgent, The Angels, In Order, opened up a pack of cards from the film, Maverick, as part of his weekly junk wax series. I was never interested in the James Garner series, and therefor wasn't interested in the 1994 updated big screen version either. I was, however, interested in acquiring a card of Mel Gibson for the binder that I usually just refer to as my "childhood" binder (it really needs a better name though). It's basically just a binder full of things that remind of certain people/things from my childhood and early teen years. It's terribly unorganized at the moment, and I'm thinking that I need to start a second one, but the idea behind it/them is that I can use the items in there to recall specific memories; memories that I'm trying not to lose. If the binder(s) do ever get organized, I fully intend to start showing off pages on here, and hopefully then discussing the memories that each card provoke. In the meantime though...

I had inquired about this specific card after reading Tom's post, and he was kind enough to set it aside for me, and then out of the blue it showed up sometime later. On a negative note, I have realized now while sitting here typing this that I forgot to send Tom a thank you email after receiving the card, which is probably only the 3rd or 4th time that I've forgotten to do so in all of my years blogging. So, many apologies to Tom for not acknowledging his kindness sooner, which hopefully will not be considered a slight, as the card was very appreciated.

I never thought the time would come where I'd be seeking out any '91 Fleer again, but I found myself doing so after putting away the sun-bleached Bo '91 Fleer mod from Gavin, which revealed that I didn't have a copy of the original to pair it up with. And being the way I am, I actually need two copies to balance out the page's row. I was thinking that I'd have get them via Sportlots at some point, but, Randy, who some of you frequent blog readers might know as RJ Sahl, intervened and offered to send the two copies that I wanted. I really appreciate Randy doing so, mostly because I know with great certainty that this would've been one of those things that I'd only remember when I flipped by that page in the binder, and then would immediately forget again after I closed said binder. And it would've happened often, much more so than I would've ever admitted. Thanks for sparing me from that, Randy!

Many thanks once again to Greg, Tom, and Randy for their generosity.

Sometimes they do come back

One of the things that I noticed back when I was first started reading the card blogs was how often former bloggers/blogs were mentioned in passing. I guess it would be around 8 or so years ago now that I first stumbled upon (one of Fuji's posts came up in a Google search) the previously unknown to me world of card blogs, and at the time it seemed like there were hundreds of them, probably because there were. But even so, with names of fallen comrades being bandied about so frequently, it felt like I had just missed a time when there had been thousands (a slight exaggeration, but you get the point) of people writing public love letters to cards on a near daily basis.

I was amazed that so many former bloggers, many whom seemingly dropped off the face of the earth without nary a word, were still remembered so fondly by so many of those that were still around. Eight years later though, I get it, for I too now have quite the mental rolodex filled with defunct blogs, and their wayward operators. Without making a list (which I'm not gonna do), I have no idea off the top of my head how many people have stepped away from their blogs since I started this one, but it's definitely been more than a few. And yet, I'm pretty sure that I remember them all, or at least I could with a little bit of time to think. 

It's always a bit sad when somebody closes up shop, but there's always the hope that they'll come back at some point, like Tom, from The Angels, In Order, did earlier this year. People that leave don't always write a goodbye post, but Tom did, and after reading that post, if I would've been betting on whether or not he would've ever been coming back, I would've bet on no. Thankfully, I'm often wrong, and after about a year away, Tom came back! 

Since returning, Tom has done a couple of trade bait posts that seem to have generated a lot of interest, two of which I've even participated in; though not to the extent that some others have. But even so, I've netted a couple of neat things thanks to his posts.

I know at some point not too long ago that I mentioned having an ever increasing urge to collect Dave Winfield, but I've been fighting it, if only because I didn't want to take on anymore player collections. Yeah, about that, I think I might be fighting a losing battle.

This and the next card weren't part of the trade bait posts, but were instead cards that Tom saw on my cheap wants list, and offered to send them. This is the first card that I remember being desired by collectors, and even though I had quite a few copies at one time, those were all given away many years ago. It's nice to have one again.

Carney is another guy that I've been very tempted to collect. I haven't looked, but I can't imagine that he has too many cards out there, and wouldn't think that too many of those that are have been pushed into the stratosphere by the boom crowd price-wise. I only saw this particular card for the first time earlier this year in one of Night Owl's posts. I never collected this set, or even owned very many cards from it, so there's probably quite a few of them that I still haven't seen. And speaking of seeing things, you'll be seeing another copy of this card in the next post, as two showed up on the exact same day; and that wasn't a bad thing!

I had no idea there was 2016 Topps MLB Wacky Packages set, and from what I can gather, this particular card is from a minor league subset(?). Not that I care about any of that mind you, no, I just wanted it because the parody features one of the traditional monsters (vampire, Frankenstein's monster, mummy, etc.); which I've started seeking out in WP form.

I think I stopped collecting baseball cards in 1992, and stopped collecting Panini's baseball stickers after the 1993 set. And because this was the last baseball set that I worked on (never finished it), I have some strong nostalgia for it. I don't have any interest in going back and working on the set again, but if the opportunity arises, as it did here, I won't mind picking up a few choice singles. The foily sticker sure scanned weird though, I wonder if it was because of the black construction paper that I've been using behind the cards? 

Thanks again for the cards (and stickers), Tom. Hopefully you're back for good this time, as the blogs are a much better place with you around 😊.

On an unrelated note: Jeremy, from Topps Cards that Never Were, mentioned the other day that he's thinking about going all in on the TCDB, but has some questions before doing so. It doesn't appear that anyone has answered them as of this writing, so if anyone has a few minutes, maybe you could pop over and help him out. Despite having been a member of the site for a few years now, I still don't have a firm grasp on all of the the ins and outs (Dennis is my go to for TCDB questions), so I'm hardly the one to answer such questions -- but I know that there's a lot of folks who could, which is why I'm mentioning it here.

Vlad to know you

I've talked about the greatness that was (were?) Rod's daily giveaways, on multiple occasions now (including just last week), and have already covered all of the obvious reasons as to why they were so awesome, or at least I thought I had -- my goldfish memory has let me down again, as I had already forgot about the whole "bringing people together" thing. That was a thing, right? I'm guessing that a few people are shaking their respective heads quizzically, but it had to be a thing, because without those daily freebies, I may have never connected with, Tom, from The Angels, In Order.

I had been following Tom's blog for what's felt like years (and there's good chance that it has been actual years now), and commented on a number of his posts, but had never had the pleasure of having any extracurricular contact with him, at least not until I commented on a thank you post that he had did to Rod for some stuff that had been acquired from those daily giveaways, which subsequently led to an email from Tom, and thus the extracurricular activity between Tom and I... was born!

Since part of his post, and all of my comment, had been about Vladimir Guerrero, Tom offered to send along some of his duplicates (he's one of the preeminent Vlad collectors among the bloggers in case you didn't know) for my very recently started collection, and after looking at his want lists and seeing that I'd be able to reciprocate, I decided to go along with his offer.

I've seen those 2008 UD Documentary cards on more than a few occasions, but don't really know what the deal with them is. Judging by the card numbers, I'm guessing that it's a very large set, and given that the three cards that Tom sent are within seven numbers of each other, I'm assuming that Vlad has a few more cards in the set, all of which might contain the exact same photo? If so, I'm kind of hoping that he doesn't have like 40 cards in the set, as that might start to get a little boring after about the tenth or eleventh card.

Topps sure has done a lot of throwback sets. Of the three that are represented here, I think the '34 Goudey would be my favorite, although it would've been better if someone other than Derek Jeter could've been doing the says-ing.

Another throwback design, and not one that was done very well, but the card is new to me, so I won't complain about it's look too much.

Uhh... he's got legs, and uhh... he knows how to use them? I can honestly say that I've never been sent a leg card before, but I guess there's a first for everything.

Thanks again for the cards, Tom! And thank you, Rod, for indirectly being responsible for Tom and I's finally connecting.

But wait, there's more!

I got another package last week that was sort of related to Rod as well, in that it came as direct result of my first post of claims from Rod's giveaways, where I mentioned that I had Vladimir Guerrero to list of player collections, which, Bo, of Baseball Cards Come to Life! fame, saw, and commented that he might have some extras to spare, and apparently did.

Bo and I are no strangers to sending things back and forth, but this was the first time that he had sent any Vlad's, all of which were greatly appreciated. I got a duplicate of the on-the-ground Vlad, but that's okay. More throwbacks too, Topps really must've been running low on ideas there for a few years, although from an aesthetic standpoint, the T206 is pretty nice.

I haven't looked into yet, but I'm thinking that Vlad has a lot of "rookie" cards, which I'm basing solely on the fact that I seem to have a quite few cards of his that say "rookie" on them.

Bo also sent along a few non-Vlad cards. The Edgar Fleer Focus is really nice, and the '91 UD Roby is greatly appreciated, especially since it was glaringly absent from the box that I opened a couple of months ago. I'll need to replace the Taylor at some point, but who know whens that'll be, as I don't see me hitting a show anytime soon, and to me, it's a bit overpriced on COMC, so it might be awhile before I can procure a better copy.

Thanks again for the Vlad's, as well as the non-Vlad's (especially the Roby), Bo! Between you and, Tom, and the inserts that I already had, this collection's really picking up. And thanks again to, Rod, as his giveaways did lead to this package as well, and had he not done them, this 2/3 of this group may have never made their way to me.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.