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.

Newer cards from an old card show

In the last post you saw some vintage baseball from the card show back in July, this time the focus will be on some slightly more modern (1990-present) baseball cards -- most of which were plucked from dime boxes.

It seems like I've been seeing a lot more Broder's at the last couple of shows, most of which I have been passing on, but this one was different... it was a Bo Broder (say that five times fast)! For a dime I just couldn't resist, it's a cool image, and I really do just like the overall presentation of the card.

For a while now I've been picking up any and all of these Red Hot Foil's that I find for 25 cents or less, but I recently decided to stop doing that, and just buy the one's that I like. This decision wasn't made until after the show, of these three, I'm only keeping the Gutierrez, so the other two are available if anyone's interested.

And out of these two, I'm only keeping the Helton. I didn't notice until I loaded the pictures into the post that the scanner didn't crop some of these properly, I wasn't in the mood to go back and fix them, so you'll just have to live with it.

What I said about the red's applies to these Emerald Green's as well, from this group I'm only keeping the Perez.

Some of you might find this hard to believe, but this was my first card of both Jose Altuve and Paul Goldschmidt, I guess that's what happens when you don't buy very much of the new stuff.

Maybe someone out there who's more in the know can a question for me, that being, is Tyler Austin still supposed to be somebody that I should be paying attention to? Or did his recent trade kill all of the hype?

Came across a few Ichiro's. The one in the middle is a die-cut, which are always fun to find. The 2012 Topps Chrome refractor is my second in as many shows -- I'm not confirming it, nor denying it, but I may have bought eight more of that particular card during COMC's recent summer sale.

Found some neat Junior's too, all of which were a quarter apiece.

And one more of The Kid, I think monetarily speaking, this one was the best of the bunch.

I'm not working on the Lineage refractors anymore either, the Britton is available if anyone wants it.

Some miscellaneous sparkle...

... and some miscellaneous shiny.

The dealer that I got these from had like five copies of this 2000 Pacific Invincible Ripken insert, in retrospect I really should have bought them all :(

Here's two guys that I don't usually find inserts of.

Neither of these guys do anything for me, but I like the lenticularness of the Harper, and the shiny, sort of refractorness, of the Frazier -- so I bought 'em.

Just some odds and ends here. I really do like the Negative's, even if it is a bit gimmicky. I already have one of the serial numbered blue Greats of McCovey, but it doesn't hurt to have another one. And the Gehrig is just a card that I've wanted for a couple of years now, it's not very often that I care about a modern base card, but this card isn't/wasn't your average run of the mill base card.

And finally, what had to be one of my better deals of the day, getting the famous 1990 CMC AAA Tino Martinez on Edgar Martinez's card for just a dime. This is another card that I've long wanted, but wasn't willing to shell out the $5-10 that it usually goes for... can't complain about finding one for a dime though!

That's it for the baseball portion of the bounty, next time the focus will shift to football.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.