Catching up

                                        

Even though it hadn't been planned, my two months away from the blog seem to have done me a world of good. It has rejuvenated my interest in blogging, enough so that I dare say I'm currently enjoying the blogging process more than I ever have.

A lot of this renewed zeal comes from the starting of my second blog, and the prospect of a third coming soon (all I need is a name?). But I think that the excitement from those will carry over to this one as well, at least that's what I'm hoping. This old blog has been in need of updating for quite some time now, some new life if you will. 

One of the bigger changes has been, and will continue to be, is to no longer waste time (yours and mine) on every single item that rolls through Penny Sleeve Station. The only exception to this will be when another blogger, or someone associated with the blogs, takes the time to send me something. Which leads me to my next point...

The only negative that I can think of in regards to my being away from the blog for two months, was that I wasn't giving proper thanks (aka public thanks) to the friends who spent the time and money to send me stuff. For example, Bo, the ghost sign specialist of Baseball Cards Come to Life! fame, came into possession of an extra '61 Billy Muffett, and even though it's a little rough, I had to have it. Bo obliged, by not only sending along the Billy Muffett - my 27th copy by the way - but was also kind enough to pad out the rest of a PWE with some more items of interest.

Jim Brown is always a welcome sight around these parts. Originals would be better, but reprints won't be turned away :)

I've acquired a few matchbooks this year, which has been a few more than I've ever acquired. Is Bo responsible for this? Maybe. Am I now collecting matchbooks? NO!!!! Is Bo trying to push me towards matchbook collecting by sending this matchbook? I don't know, you'll have to ask him. Do I appreciate the thought behind sending this particular matchbook? Yes, of course, I do! 

I don't go to eateries, but I am quite fond of Knoxville, and am now thinking that in honor of Bo, I should go by this place and take a picture of it with the matchbook. Wallet matchbook photo?

I never kept track of such things, but I think the only person who's sent more stuff down here than Bo, is, Chris, the hopeless romantic behind The Collector, and The 1993. 

This particular round included some cards directly from my TCDB wantlist. Top honors go to the '92-93 Parish. Robert Parish v. Bill Cartwright are the kind of battles I miss, and the lack of anything even close is partly responsible for me not being able to watch basketball these days.

Along with 8 of my wants came this pair of Juniors, both of which were new to me. Not going to shows anymore, the only time I see Juniors is when someone sends some. I suppose I could try to trade for some on the TCDB, but he's one of those guys who's cards are much more fun to find in person, and buying or trading for them online just isn't the same. Does that make any sense?

It's only taken 14 years, but I was finally able to participate in a Time Traveling Trade with, Matt, the Clown Prince of April Fool's from, Diamond Jesters. I collect a lot of stuff, but other traders seem to always be sending him everything but what I collect. That was until some months ago, when this wonderful Three-Mile Lyle showed up, which was just icing on the cake for the card that I really wanted (and yes, that's a second plug for the new blog!).

Another popular series of trading posts that I hadn't been able to get in on, are (were?) the weekly trade bait posts from, Johnny, of the recently silent, Cards from the Quarry. Despite never having been a huge fan of the Gold Label line, I knew immediately upon sight that I had to try and get this semi-low numbered Bo parallel. Thankfully I had enough trade bait of my own to make it happen.

I have had probably close to fifty copies of this Duckworth over the years, but now when I finally need one, I found myself without. Johnny was kind enough to rectify that, and he even sent along a much needed Double R too.

I can't remember when I did it, but at some point earlier in the year I quietly added a half-assed most wanted list to the top of the blog. It was only partially finished, and I never went back to it. I'm not sure how many people noticed it, but I know of at least one who did, that being, Greg, the eagle-eyed noticer of unnoticed things, from the far too quiet, The Collective Mind.

This '76 Alzado, which had been on said most wanted list, might've been the crispest card from that set that I've ever seen. It looked like it had come straight out of a vending box. And even though I'm not into the whole grading thing, it's pretty hard not to notice a semi-vintage card that's still that sharp.

I had completely forgotten that I had asked Greg to set aside this Amelia Earhart, thankfully for me, Greg didn't! This had been a longtime want.

A healthy dose of Vlad's made up the bulk of this mailing. I pulled just a few of the fancier ones for scanning.

I almost never come across 90's Tek, so I don't even need to figure out/write down which pattern this one is, because I can guarantee that I'll never stumble upon another one. Ionix was a cool brand, and one that thankfully neither Topps or Panini will ever own.

And last but certainly not least (I was trying to go in order of everything's arrival), I won a prize from, Brendan, the enigmatic proprietor behind, The View from the Third Floor. 

Brendan did a months long series on his 100 favorite films (my favorite blog series of the year). There was a contest accompanying the series, one which I was all gung-ho to participate in, at least at first. After a few weeks I started to feel guilty about all of the stuff that he's sent, and the lack of stuff that I've sent in return, so in the hopes that whoever was behind me would catch up and eventually win, I stopped guessing, and just tried to comment where I could. Thankfully someone did overtake my top spot, but apparently second place got a prize too, which has how I came into this mailing. 

I'd be lying if I said I knew who Tyrann Mathieu is, but John Riggins I know, and collect! It's kind of interesting to see that Panini went with a Jets era photo, it's a nice change. Both of these parallels come from the 2019 Black Friday release, which apparently had quite a few more parallels than the sets early days. Despite the shitty scan, I really like the look of the Riggins in person (it's also #'d to /99 in case you can't tell), just don't ask me what the name of the parallel is.

I don't know what the prize for first place was, but I can't imagine that would've been any better suited to my collection than this second place prize was. Normally I'd be less than enthused over receiving an initialed stickergraph, but J-Stew is one of my guys, so obviously that greatly elevates the card in my mind. I only had one other autograph of his, in which he's pictured as a Duck. And now I've got the Panthers covered, I just need to see if he's got one in a Giants uni to complete the trifecta.

Many thanks to everyone who's traded with me, allowed me to win a prize, or who's sent something just because over the last few months. Everything has been most appreciated!

Free cards, contest winnings, and a surprise

                                         
My mailbox has been jumping as of late [note to self: mounting the mailbox to a pogo stick probably wasn't the best of ideas]. Thanks to a couple of small purchases, numerous TCDB trades, and some generous mailers from my fellow bloggers, I have officially been inundated with cards. First world problem, yo!

I said at the beginning of the year that I'd be dropping down to two posts a week, and that has been working well for me, but I'm thinking that I might have to increase my output for the next month or two if I want to catch up on everything. Either that, or I don't show everything, and that's never been my way -- so you can probably expect to start seeing a few more "LOOK AT ALL MY NEW SH*T" posts in the very near future.

Since mail from bloggers is always the best, I'm gonna catch up on a few of those packages here today, starting first with an unexpected PWE from Matt, he of the recently anniversaried, Matt's Wonderful Blog of Hobbies, that I received a couple of weeks back.

I don't talk about my Tim Brown collection very often, mostly because there's not much of a collection to talk about, but I did so a little while ago, and Matt saw the post, and decided to add to some new Brown's to my miniscule collection. The biggest addition is 2016 Panini Absolute Spectrum Red up top. I did have to look it up to see what it was called, but that doesn't take away from it's coolness, I'm just not familiar with a lot of the newer sets. With the thousands of 1/1's that now come out each year, I don't think most collectors are overly impressed by something that's numbered to /100 anymore, but to me they're still kind of awe inspiring, especially too since it's not like I'm receiving them in the mail everyday.

I'm not very computery, but I think this is one of those arted up photos (digitized photos?), as opposed to an actual artists rendering.

Was fantasy football around back in 1997? I never heard about it if it was. And if it wasn't, I don't understand the point of the card. I do like the look of it though, I'm just curious as to why it is.

A few non Tim Brown's made it into the envelope as well. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something awfully similar about these cards 😉

Thanks for the surprise mailing, Matt. All were new to me, and all were greatly appreciated!

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Next up is a prize from, Brendan aka Elliptical Man, of The View from the Third Floor fame. 

A couple of bloggers ran Super Bowl contests, all of varying degrees of difficulty. Brendan was one of those bloggers, and since his contest was the easiest (I didn't even understand how to enter Kerry's, sorry Kerry), it ended up being the only one that I participated in. 

The contest was a simple guess "the total points scored" affair, and even though I don't remember what my guess was, I 'guess' I ended up being closest. I will say for the record too, that I knew the Bucs were gonna win before the playoffs even started, and not because of some grand conspiracy, no, I just knew that Tom Brady wasn't going to let his team lose this past post-season. I didn't have any clue on the score though, that was just pulled out of my backside.

The winner got their choice of prizes, and I chose the "Ghost Cards" lot, or in other words, the retired players lot. Given a choice, I'm always goona go with past greats!

In case you haven't noticed too, there was a lot of neat cards in here, featuring guys that actually accomplished things. I'll take these cards over current rookies any day of the week!

This last group is especially interesting. Bob St. Claire is a guy that I collect, and don't get "new" cards of very often, so I was kind of excited to see this one, even if it did use same photo that graced his 1990 Pro Set card. The Sayers is a rookie reprint (obviously). You can't ever go wrong with retired greats from 2018 Classics. And the Bledsoe is a Prizm Prizm Silver, very shiny in person!

Thank you very much for the contest, and the prize, Brendan! You might be the most difficult blogger for me to try and figure out what I could possibly send you, but I will crack the code at some point.

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And finally, there's not a lot of Free Stuff posts anymore, but Kerry, of the long-tenured Cards on Cards, is still plodding on with the occasional Friday giveaways, one of which popped up just a couple of Friday's go.

Stan Humphries is quickly moving up my player collection list, at least in terms of how much I enjoy collecting them. Numbers-wise, I still don't have very many of his cards, which is why this one was an easy claim. I hadn't seen one of the SC football Super Teams in person before, and am really impressed by it's overall attractiveness. The foil sections really pop. Barry Sanders was an easy claim too, why? Because it's Barry Sanders, duh!

Despite the many offerings, I only made one other claim, and it was a little bit bigger than your standard trading card...

Anyone know what's in here before I open it? I'll give you a sec to guess

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Give up? 

Look at that beauty! Apparently these were in a magazine, but I never saw one before.

I love this breakdown of the various subsets, all of which were included in the opposite pages sample.

I've seen a lot of people rag on 1991-92 Fleer over the years, but I've always liked it. Was is it the best looking Fleer set ever? No, of course not, but it wasn't the worst either. And it looks a helluva lot better than most of today's sets. That's a hill that I'm willing to die on btw. I appreciate Fleer for trying something different at the time, and like I said, I like the design, nothing else ever looked quite like it. I also dig the fact that there's so many different versions of this set, you've got the normal set, these nifty promotional samples, this was the first year of Fleer and Tony's Pizza brief partnership, so you've got them in that form, and there's the uber-great Wheaties cards (just picked up a few more of those too). 

I was quite content with those couple of claimed items, but if you know Kerry, then you know that he's almost always going to try and toss in a few more items, it's what he does!

Even with the possibility of extra cards being added, I would've never expected this one. Kerry has now provided both of the cards that I needed from this set (Ronnie Lott being the other), and as much as I dig the design, it's kind of nice to know that I don't have to get anymore of them if I don't want to.

I can't remember if I've told this story before or not, but back in 1993 we moved from Beaverton (west of Portland) to Gresham (east of Portland). I loved where we lived in Beaverton, it was my favorite place we ever lived when I was growing up, and even though we only lived there for 2 years, it was still very difficult to leave. It didn't help too that I absolutely hated the apartment complex that we moved to in Gresham, it was right on a busy road, and was surrounded by nothing but other apartments and businesses. The previous two years had been spent roaming around countless acres of forest/creek areas (most of which is now gone) in what was almost a Lord of the Flies existence. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but us kids were practically feral, and lived by our own code. I might go into that more in-depth at some later date, but the point is, it was very difficult to try and adjust to my new concrete jungle, and I was pretty miserable there. It didn't help too that I only ever made one real friend there (this after having dozens for the previous two years), Steven, who I just recently mentioned. I guess his older brother, Scott, was a friend too, but I always thought of him more as a protector/bodyguard (a lot of teens in this new world thought that they were gangsters, and would try to prove it any time they could. And you know nothing says "gangsta", like picking fights or trying to attack an 11-year old).

Anyway, amongst all of the establishments that were now around me, was a 7-Eleven right down the road (2-3 blocks away). 7-Eleven was never my kind of place, so I rarely went in there. But on one particular afternoon (probably on the weekend) back in '93 or early '94, I found myself in there with Steven, and who of all people should walk in? None other than Jerome Kersey himself! I remember that we were the only two customers in there at the time, and I was looking out the window/towards the door while Steven decided what he wanted, when a silver Mercedes (my memory says Mercedes, but I guess it could've been a Beamer too) pulled up out front. A tall black guy got out on the drivers side, while an attractive blonde (who was also tall) stepped out from the passenger side. Both were dressed extremely nice. Being a basketball fan, and more specifically, a Blazers fan, I instantly identified the tall guy as Jerome Kersey, and I'm assuming that the blonde was his wife. As he was walking in, I nudged Steven and said "Hey, Jerome Kersey just walked in". Steven not being a sports fan in the least, said "Who?", which probably generated a 'Really?' look from me, decades before "Really?" was a thing. But I digress, as Jerome came in, I heard one of the two guys at the counter say "Hey, it's Jerome Kersey!", and a few seconds later heard Jerome say "No autographs". The pair must've only needed one thing, because they were in and out within two minutes or less. I had gotten his autograph at a signing a year or so prior, so there was never any thought of me bothering him for one, plus it's not like I always carried around some Jerome Kersey ephemera just on the off chance that I would see him in the wild someday, so no regrets. It was kind of a surreal experience though. In retrospect, it was about the last place that I would've ever expected to encounter a Blazer. I have always kind of wondered how it was that they came to be in Gresham that day. I wish too that I would've seen what they stopped in for, as I think it would've made the story just a little bit more interesting. I remember too that Steven and I went back to his apartment afterwards, and he said "Hey, dad, we saw..." turns to me and asks "who did we see again?" Me: "Jerome Kersey". "Oh yeah, we saw Jerome Kersey". His dad wasn't overly impressed either, but at least he knew who Jerome was. Despite Steven and his dad's lack of interest in our encounter, I thought it was cool. It probably doesn't make for the most interesting read though.

As for the two Franz cards, the '94-95 that shows Jerome with Otis Thorpe on his hip is kind of interesting, if only because they'd be playing together by season's end, as Otis was traded to the Blazers with like 30-something games to go that season (that was part of the trade that sent Clyde Drexler to Houston). Both players would be gone before the next season though, with Otis being traded to Detroit during the offseason, and Jerome being selected by the Raptors in the expansion draft, thus ending 11 great seasons with the Blazers. A lot of fans were upset when Clyde left, but he had let it be known how unhappy he was in Portland, so I was basically of the 'good riddance' mindset when it came to him. Jerome on the other hand, gave no indications that he wanted to leave, and even though he was starting to slow down some by '95, he was still one of my two all-time favorite Blazers, and I was not happy about him being left unprotected in the draft. It's 25 years later, and I'm still not happy about it!

Anywho, thanks again for the free stuff, and extras, Kerry! I've got a small stack with your name on it, which I've been meaning to package up and send for months now. Hopefully this latest mailing will inspire me to get to doing that.

On an unrelated note, the weather here has gotten really awesome all of sudden, and I very much hope that it's doing the same thing where all of you live too!

A prize pack, Black Friday, a new collection, snow, and the TCDB

                                         

Ever since I finished organizing my collection earlier this year, I've been making a concerted effort to limit my acquisitions to things that I'm currently collecting, and leaving all of the 'maybe someday' stuff for everyone else.

I've done pretty well with this so far, but have slipped a few times, a couple being by accident (e.g. weakness), and one by choice.

The by-choice slip occurred via a Halloween themed giveaway that Elliptical Man was running back at the end of October over on The View from the Third Floor. 

Given that the prize was a mystery football pack, I (now) normally wouldn't have entered, BUT, it was Halloween themed, and I just couldn't not get in on it. Besides, I figured that I'm collecting enough players now, that the odds were good I'd end up with at least a few guys I collect -- especially since it was mentioned that some of them would be of the retired variety, and that's pretty much what I collect, so...

My hunch paid off as I did end up with a couple of new cards for four different collections, as well some guys that I don't necessarily collect, but am not opposed to getting cards of...

I've seen some Donruss packs opened on the blogs, but didn't realize that Panini had been going so heavy on past greats in recent years.

Not too bad of a group here, huh? I know that Brian Urlacher said something(?) recently that offended some people with too much time on their hands, and we're all supposed to hate him now, but I didn't see what it was, and honestly don't really care. He was good at the football, and I'm not upset over receiving this card.

Many thanks to EM (or Em - short for Emmett?) for the cards, and the series of giveaways. Maybe at some point I'll find out what his real name is, and what he collects, so that I can try and send a proper thank you.

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Despite all of their problems, COMC still went ahead and ran their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale this year. Did anyone buy anything from them this year? They labeled this year's sale "Our Biggest Sale Ever!". I don't know about that, I remember much bigger, and better, sales from them a few years ago. 

I wasn't really looking forward to the sale this year, and suspected that the deals weren't going to be nearly as good as they have been in the past, but still went and took a look around after breakfast on Friday morning. I had about 50 cards in my watch list, and majority of them weren't discounted all that much (6% off, really? Get the f*ck the outta here!). And I think most telling, none had sold yet, which I can't remember that ever happening before.

I had plenty of credit to play with (more on that in a second), and to my surprise, actually had some fun with the sale this year, probably the most card related fun I've had in months. The discounts certainly weren't as good as they usually are, but as always, there were some deals to be had... you just had to look really hard for them! 

I ended up purchasing 15 cards between Friday and Monday, which is the least I've ever gotten during one of these sales, but I did get some really great cards, and didn't have to pay for them out of pocket, so I can't complain too much. Now if I could just get the 148 cards in my account before 2022!

I also won an eBay auction from COMC on Sunday night, which I believe is now the fifth auction I've won from them. I always forget to check their listings, but should do so more often, especially since you can pay for them with your credit and avoid the shipping fees. Because of all of their shipping woes, I, like most people, haven't been able to get my stuff when I would've liked, and as such have had some cards sitting in my account for about a year now. After going through my inventory recently, I found two cards that aren't really doing anything for me anymore, so I decided to put them back up for sale. Both of the cards were won via auctions back in January, and neither had any current comps, so I just kind of had to guess on the resale price. Turns out my prices must've been pretty good, because both cards sold within a week of being relisted. One I bought for $2.80, and sold for $15.00. While the other was bought for $16.75 (I really wanted this one at the time), and ended up going for $49. So needless to say, I had a little bit of play money for this sale.

Normally I wouldn't show a card that I don't have in hand yet, but I went a little splurgy on one (technically two, but one was much more expensive than the other), and was kind of excited to get it, so...

When I first decided to super collect Reggie Roby, I identified two cards that might be a little difficult to acquire, his 1992 Wild Card 1000 stripe, and his 1991 Pro Line autograph (his only certified auto by the way). I've yet to see the Wild Card 1000, but have seen two autos, this one, which I've been watching for over a year now, and one that sold on eBay earlier this year. I let the eBay example go, because it looked like the pen had started running out of ink when it was signed. Despite that, it still sold for around $13 with shipping. This much better copy has been sitting on COMC for $35 for over a year, which was a bit much to me. It was on sale last BF, but still was too high for me to pull the trigger on. This year it was on sale for $18.25 on Friday through Sunday, and I woke up Monday morning to find that it had gone down a little bit more to $15.25... I could resist no longer! I'm still not sure if it was a good price or not, but the signature is strong, and it's one of the biggies checked off the list, so I'm content with the price.

P.S. I'll probably be showing this card again when I get it. I'd like some images of it on the blog without the the COMC watermark.

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In somewhat of a related topic, I've made no secret about the fact that I don't pay much attention to current sports happenings. I'll read an occasional recap, and maybe watch a set of highlights here and there, but that's about it. That being said, I've been following the updates on Alex Smith since his terrible injury a couple of years ago (and no, I didn't watch that video). And even though I don't have a vested interest, I've been kind of hoping that he would recover enough to lead a semi-normal life post-football. Given the seriousness of his injury, I really didn't think that he would ever play again, even if he did say that's what he was striving for. And here we are just a couple of years removed from him nearly losing his leg (and his life), and he's back playing again, crazy! I've actually followed his last couple of games, and am amazed at how well he looks out there.

After seeing some interviews with him (and his wife), and realizing that he's a fairly decent human being off the field, I sort of decided that I wanted to start collecting him. The only problem is, being a modern player, he's got like 8 trillion cards out there, and I don't want to deal with all of that, so what to do?

Well, thanks to me trying to find something a few weeks ago for someone else, I stumbled upon a forgotten card show purchase from a few years back...

... and it hit me! He's played for the 49ers, Chiefs, and now the Redskins (yeah, I said it, get over it!), all of which have red in their team colors, so why not just collect Alex Smith red parallels? So that's what I'm doing now, and was able to jump start this collection with a couple of BF purchases, including one that was numbered to /25. Looking at his card prices, it would seem that the influencers aren't telling people to buy his cards, because even some of his low-numbered stuff is still very affordable. I think that this is going to be a fun collection.

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Have I ever mentioned just how much I hate snow?

Up until just last Friday, the highs around here had still been in the mid to upper 60's (with some some 70's sprinkled in), which has been nice, because I hate cold weather. I'm an economy model, and don't have any extra insulation, so when it's cold, I really feel it. Now all of sudden this week it's officially butt-cold out there, with a few days struggling to get above freezing for the highs, and some balmy low 40's later in the week. And don't even get me started on the lows, 14°? I don't want any part of it!

And I realize that 2" of snow isn't very much, but any amount of snow is too much snow for me. If I live long enough, I can easily see myself needing to move even souther (I know, it's not a real word) at some point, somewhere that never sees ice and snow. Belize is sounding mighty nice right about now!

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I've mentioned more than once in recent weeks that I'm starting to add some of my collections to the TCDB, and have continued to do so, albeit at a very slow pace -- like 1 hour every three days slow. I am starting to see how some people could become addicted to the site, which won't be happening to me, but at least I can finally understand some of the site's appeal.

I think I've entered around 600 cards or so, and have even added a couple of images to the site. It's just the fronts of a few cards that I have sitting in scan folders waiting for future posts, but I would have to think that they're better than nothing. I have noticed that a number of the cards from my collection aren't pictured on the site, so I guess maybe someday I'll go back and add a few more images, at least on some of the rarer/more unique items.

And I was even able to use a few of my checklists already, they really came in handy while perusing the COMC sales this past weekend. They're probably also going to be a lifesaver when looking to add cards to this new Alex Smith collection of mine, because I'm not familiar with the majority of the sets that these red cards are coming from, and there is no way that I'd ever be able to remember all of them.

Oh, and I said last week that I probably wasn't going to be any trading, well, an apology is an order, as that turned out to be a lie. I found a familiar name on there who I've already had some past contact with via email, and noticed that they have a few cards that I kind of really want, so after I find a few things from their list, I'm gonna go ahead and send a trade proposal (scary stuff!), hopefully they'll be down for trading with a noob.

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I think that's about all I've got for today. I hope everyone else had a nice weekend, and I hope that your weather is treating you better than mine is me

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.