This is getting very tiresome

I'm not sure when it started exactly, but for the last few months Blogger has been selectively flagging the comments that I leave on other blogs as spam.

It doesn't happen with every comment, or even on every blog, it just seems to do it randomly. Some days all of my comments will post normally, and on others, every single comment I leave will disappear as soon I close the separate blog window that opens for each blog. 

At first, this was only a minor nuisance, one that I figured would resolve itself in due time. However, after many months now, and seemingly no resolution in sight, it's become downright frustrating. It's easily the most annoying thing that has occurred in my almost seven years of blogging.

I've tried Google for a solution, which yielded none (typical Google). I've searched through the Blogger help forum a couple of different times, and have only found that some other people have been having this same problem for upwards of three years, and Blogger has done nothing to help them (typical Blogger).

I've deleted my browsing history, cleared the cookies, ate some oyster crackers; and still the problem persists!

I've sent multiple messages to folks over the last few months letting them know that my shit is going to their spam, and had to send out another batch just last night. I'm hardly the most prolific of commenters, and my comments themselves will never win any awards, but I hate the thought of people thinking that I'm no longer reading what they're posting; especially those that have supported my various endeavors over the years.

The only trick that I've found to work some days is to leave my comment, copy it, then hit publish. It'll look fine, but if I refresh the page it disappears. So, then I paste the comment back in place, check that little 'follow-up comments' box, and hit publish again. This has had a pretty good success rate, but sometimes it can take 3-4 tries before the comment will stick around after the refresh. Bo reminded me last night that some people have their options set to receive an email every time a comment is left on their blog. I've never done that, so I had forgotten all about it. Now knowing this again, I suspect that some folks have received three or four emails with the same comment from me in it. I guess if you wondered why that was happening, now you know, it's just me trying to get a comment to stick to your post. It also means that some, or all, of my comments are being flagged on your blog. If you have a second, maybe you could go mark them as 'not spam', it would sure help me out a bunch. Of course, even that doesn't always work either, I'm already having trouble again with blogs who's owners have already marked my stuff as not spam on at least one occasion (Bo, Eric, Fuji, etc.).

I sure hope that this issue get resolved at some point in the very near future, but if it doesn't, just know that I'm still leaving comments, you just might not be seeing them 😡.

Birthday splurge

Try as I might, I can't seem to hold off the coming of my least favorite day of each year; that being my birthday.

Some would, and did, refer to this years occurrence as a milestone, and I guess they were sort of right. After all, it's not everyday that someone other than Jack Benny celebrates their 39th birthday for the second year in a row 😉. 

Depending on when this is posted, I am now 10-14 days removed from this yearly abomination, and don't seem to be any worse for wear (I'm not counting the recent smashing of my thumb with the back of a hatchet, as that was unrelated). Everyone says that life begins at 39 😉, so who knows, maybe they're right and I'm just getting started.

With this whole "milestone" thing in mind, I decided that I'd wanted to do something to mark the occasion. I've known for months that the Nashville cards show was going to be on the weekend of my birthday, and that it wasn't going to be your average bi-monthly show. No, this was gonna be a 450-table affair that was spread over three days. I thought briefly about going, but I would've wanted to be there on the first day, which was a Friday. However, thinking of having to deal with Nashville traffic on a Friday was enough by itself to keep me away. Not to mention, I'm still not ready for the boom crowd (Boomers?). I've heard about their kind of crazy, and I don't want any part of it. I've also changed what I collect so much over the last few years, that I just don't think I'd find enough things there to justify the expenses (gas) for such a trip.

Having made up my mind a few weeks in advance not to go, I decided that I would instead make a couple of small purchases online. Not only did this save me from all of the terrors that were inevitably waiting for me in Nashville, but it also freed up the Friday before my birthday, which I ended up spending in Knoxville instead (if you're so inclined, I already wrote about that here). I have no doubt that I made the right choice.

I had been eyeing two cards from a seller, Jim and Steve's Sports Cards, on the Beckett Marketplace for about a year now, and decided to finally get them. Of course, I had to see if I could add a few more things to the order, it's kind of silly to pay $4-5 in shipping just for two dollars in cards, right? Right.

I knew nothing of 1990 Topps Heads Up! until I was looking through these peoples selection of Bo items. I probably should've looked into it a bit more before adding this to the cart. I thought from the picture that it was gonna be a card-sized head, but nope, turns out they're like 4"x 5", or thereabouts. It's a giant head! The only thing that I can think to do with it is to put on the inside front cover of the Bo binder. 

Just in case I wasn't the only one who had never seen these, here's the back. The suction cup prevented it from laying flat on the scan tray, which caused the blur, but you can still see most of what's going on here.

I was, and still am, unfamiliar with these as well. From what I can gather from COMC, these come from a sheet that was inserted into a 1991 book about... kids who grew up to play professional basketball? I don't know, and honestly I don't really care, they were just something different that I could add to these two player collections.

I don't know what the origins of this set of University of Kentucky playing cards are either, it just looked fun, so I grabbed the Bowie, even though I'm not really trying to collect any of his post-playing days stuff.

I probably had multiple duplicates of this sticker back in 1990-91, but all of my old Panini stickers were in with the cards that I donated to a charity auction back in the early 2000's (because I didn't think that I'd ever take up card collecting again).

A part of me has been thinking that I'd like to take an extended break from cards if I ever complete the Reggie Roby collection. Counting what you'll be seeing in this post, I'm about 40 cards (and other assorted items) away from finishing his catalog. Unfortunately for me, no copies of his Wild Card 1000 Stripe have shown up recently, and even if one did, it would probably be in an eBay store with a stupid high BIN, so I might have to be sticking around for a while longer.

Having grown up with Franz Blazers cards, I'm no stranger to cards coming with bread, but even so, it's still a little weird to think of a football card coming with your bread. That wouldn't have gone over very well in Portland. I like this one quite a bit though, it's now one of my favorite Reggie's. Oh, and this was the card that led me to this seller in the first place. I figured that if they hadn't sold it in the last year or so, that that might mean that I was suppose to buy it.

If I had anyone to play it with, I would've bought that old Franchise board game years ago. I could be wrong, but I always thought that it looked like a cross between Monopoly and fantasy football (fantasy football before it became the lame version that everyone likes so much now). And sure, the players are all from 1989, but those are the guys that I know. I think it would still be fun. Since I probably won't ever be buying the actual game, I might as well start picking up the game cards that I need for player collections. I think I still need 4 or 5 more, but I got the most important one crossed off the list.

In case anyone cares about the backs.

The last item from these folks was a bit disappointing, as it's in much worse shape than the advertised NM (there's always gotta be one). McDonald's didn't do Dennis any favors with this tightly cropped photo. A wider shot would've been pretty cool, we would've been able to better gauge how this meeting between Dennis' and Bruce Hardy turned out.

With shipping, this order came out to just about $20. Were these worth $20? Probably not. Buyers remorse set in right after I placed this order, but that's pretty normal for me these days. I still feel it a few weeks later.

I can't remember what night I did the Beckett order, but the day after I did so, I made another small purchase on Sportlots, from a person calling themselves, vogs59xa. I feel like I might've bought from them before, but I'm not sure. Like the Beckett seller, I've had three cards from this person sitting in my cart for about a year. After seeing that the shipping price for three cards would be the same for up to 10, I started looking for a few more to pad out the order.

I'm not really sold on magnets as collectibles, even if their appearance, and distribution, were similar to that of trading cards. I also don't remember them in the least when they were new, so I have no connection to them or their concept, and therefor don't really like them all that much. That being said, they do add a little bit of spice to player collections, and at a quarter apiece, I didn't have to break the bank to add them to said collections.

For a magnet, this one actually looked pretty good (too bad you can't tell from the scan), but unfortunately the front of it is peeled down some up in the right hand corner. I'm not sure why this person would send something with this kind of damage when it was listed as NM. I certainly never would've done that. I guess they were hoping that I wouldn't notice (no honor among thieves?)

The first run of Gold Medallions never scan good. Oh, and this card was far from the stated NM as well.

I think that this sticker put me at about the halfway point with the Dennis Smith collection. I think I only need two more of his stickers now too.

Magnets? Dog Tags? Shit was crazy back in the 90's! I thought I was just ordering the regular version of this "card", but I got the Plus parallel instead. Normally I'd send them a message and let them know that they accidently sent a slightly rarer version, but I figure that this makes us even for the two damaged cards that they decided to send without saying anything.

This may look like just your average old 1990 Topps, but it's actually the Tiffany version. I'm pretty sure that this is the first Tiffany card that I've ever owned. I always kind of wondered how easy they would be to tell apart from the regular Topps version. If the 1990 set is anything to go by, it would be very easy to tell them apart. The glossy finish on here is very noticeable, and it could never be mistaken for one of the regular cards.

Both of these are kind of boring parallels, the Choice is a Silver (because of the big silver 'Redskins' across the bottom), and the UD is an Electric Gold (because of the gold 'Electric' up in the left hand corner), but they were both needed, and cheap. I do really like the image that they used for the Choice though; if I tried to do that I'd probably never walk again. Physically, I'm in pretty good shape, but I've never been very flexible.

With shipping, this group came to a little over $5. Was it worth $5? I guess it was. I probably couldn't have found all of them at a show for less than what I paid here.

So there's my $25 birthday splurge. I do feel like I could've gotten something else more enjoyable for that amount (or less), but what's done is done. At least I got a few more Reggie's out of the deal... and a giant Bo head!

**************************

Before you go, I mentioned in the last post that I thought that I was forgetting another blog that I thought everyone (who doesn't already know about it) should go check out, and I was right; If You Build It, They Will Come was the odd-man out. This guy's collection is quite varied, and includes all sports, some non-sports, old stuff, new stuff, etc. Given the variety that he posts about, one would think that there would be the occasional something for just about everyone's tastes. So, if you have a few minutes, maybe you could use them to go say hi.

Go show some love, if you can

I've been meaning to mention something at the end of a post for what seems like months now, but I don't post very much on here, and when I do, I keep forgetting to do the thing that I want to do. So, since I can't ever remember to say it after a main post, I'm just gonna go ahead and give it it's own post. 

Looks like too that, because I've waited so long, there's now three things that I think are worth mentioning...

There a fellow called RR who's running a new-ish blog called, Hockey Autographs On Ice, who could definitely use some more readers/commenters. I know very little about hockey, so I, unfortunately, can't be of much use to his efforts (though I have been trying). And I know that a number of the hockey bloggers have closed up shop and sold their souls to join the mindless masses on Twitter and YT; and many of the hockey readers have probably followed, but there's got to be a few like-minded folks still around. If there is, it might not be a bad idea to go see what's what with this guy and his blog.

Another blog that deserves some love is, My Cardboard Life. It's been around for awhile, but I think that it's still flying under a lot of peoples radars. I don't know the man behind the blog, but he does seem to have some good stories to tell. I found his most recent post to be quite enjoyable, and I suspect that some of you may be able to relate to the story that he told. If so, don't be shy, and let him know!

Given how far card blogs have fallen on the online food chain, it's not easy for folks to establish a readership these days, and since readers/commenters are what fuel most blogs, and inspire their respective operators to write more, I feel like it's the responsibility of those of us who've been around a little longer to try and help send some more traffic in the direction of those who have yet to build up a solid following. So, if you have a few minutes, go check these guys out. Maybe even say hi if you're so inclined.

Oh, and even though a lot of people are already familiar with him and his blog, Dawg Day Cards, some folks may have missed Angus' glorious return the other day from a multiple year hiatus. Not only does it appear that he'll be posting on there again, but he also announced a new set themed blog as well, 1988 Swell Greats Football - Card by Card. I'm sure that he wouldn't mind some of you going over and checking that out. Even established bloggers can have trouble getting eyes on newly created blogs.

I feel like I'm forgetting somebody, but this'll have to do for today. If there is someone else that I wanted to mention, and I remember who it is, I'll be sure to do so at the end of the next post on here, which, should be up on, or before, this coming Friday.

Give a little, get a little

Jeff, from Wax Pack Wonders, recently let it be known that he was now working on the 1973 Topps baseball set. Having about a hundred cards left from my abandoned set build, and absolutely no use for them, I was eager to see if I could help. 

I wasn't able to knock off as many of his needs as I would've liked, but did find a few. 

Jeff, being the sort that he is, wanted to send something in return. Not having any public want lists for Jeff (or anybody else for that matter) to peruse, I just went and looked at his 'for trade' list on the TCDB, picked out 10 possible cards, and told him that I'd be fine with whatever combination of those he wanted to send. He sent all of them, plus an additional card. He's that sort, too.

It's probably been a few years now, but at some point I got, and showed off here on the blog, the gold version of this card. Ever since then, the base and silver versions have been pretty high up on my personal want list. I didn't think it would take so long to acquire the base version, but apparently the blue border is prone to chips and dings, and most of the copies online seem to be of that variety; which is what I didn't want, so I waited, and then waited some more. I saw this on Jeff's list, and figured that if anybody was gonna have a nice copy, it would be him. And I was right, it's very nice. I would've been quite content with just getting this one back for those 73's. 

Bo is one of the few players that I still actively look for cards of, and I feel fortunate to have gotten four needed cards in a single mailing. I didn't realize it until the cards got here, but the one on the right is an insert. I thought from the picture on the TCDB that it was from a subset. Nope, it's an insert, and a very subtle one at that.

I've thought to myself many times that I'd like to complete Danny's entire baseball run, but the idea never seems get much further than that. This is the one baseball card of his that I already owned, mine has a punky corner though; this copy is considerably nicer.

Cool card, terrible scan.

I'm not sure why, but lately I've been thinking about guys from my childhood that I should've been collecting (but don't), either from the beginning, or when I came back to cards a dozen or so years ago. Dave Winfield is one of those guys. It feels like it's too late to start such collections now, but that doesn't mean that I can't add the occasional interesting card of one of these guys to my "just because" binders.

I think I've mentioned it on here before, but after noticing that I had some pretty nifty Tim Salmon cards, I went ahead and decided to collect him, at least selectively. I don't want all 10,000 cards of his, but will try to add a "good" card to his pages from time to time. I thought this one was kind of interesting, or "good" if you will.

I remember seeing this card for the first time just a couple of years ago. I thought it was pretty neat, decided that I wanted a copy, and then promptly forgot all about it. I saw it again somewhere recently, and was even more enamored with it than I was a few years back. Finding it on Jeff's trade list just a few days later seems pretty coincidental, like it was just meant to be. Joe Carter is another guy that I should've been collecting. If it weren't for Bo's Gun show, this would've been my favorite card of the bunch; it is a very close second though.

Here's the extra one that Jeff threw in. I have 2 ½ pages of this card in refractor form, on e whole page in golden sparkle form, and maybe another pages worth of it's various parallels. I haven't put it away yet, but I think that this is only the second copy of the base version that I have. I should probably get at least one pages worth of this one too. This was a nice surprise, very unexpected it was.

Not being overly focused on acquiring cards right now, I'm more than happy to send things out and not get anything in return (I tried to do so in this instance). That being said, this was a cool bunch of cards to get in return for some others that I no longer wanted. If they could always be like this, I might actually try to get stuff in return more often. 

Thanks again, Jeff!

At least they weren't lost

Like a lot of other folks, I claimed a few cards back during Nick's big "Dime Box Anniversary Giveaway Extravaganza" series of posts some months ago. 

I'm usually a few days behind when it comes to blog reading/commenting, which isn't conducive with participating in giveaways. Such was the case here as well. I saw the first couple of giveaways days after they had dropped, and was not in the least bit surprised to find that there wasn't much left to claim by that point; Nick is a pretty popular fellow after all. My memory of such things has already begun to fog over, but I do seem to recall lucking into being early for at least two of the ten giveaway posts. In fact I think that those were where the bulk of my 11 claimed cards ended up coming from.

There was a period not too long after the series of giveaway posts that the blogs seemed to be nothing but people gushing over their various claimed goods. And given what, and how much, some of you claimed, I think you were completely justified in your gushing. 

I had to wait a little longer than most folks to get my stuff, hence the lateness of a proper thank you post. 

I'm not sure how many months passed since the extravaganza ended, and my cards arrived, but it was long enough that I had written them off as not going to show up. I figured that Nick had either forgotten about me, or that they had been sent, but had been "lost" somewhere along the way. Turns out that it was the former. It's not all that surprising either since Nick and I don't interact very often, and of the two possibilities, it's certainly the better of the two. I don't mind being forgotten about, but absolutely hate the thought of someone paying to send me something only to have it be misdelivered or pilfered while en-route. I was eventually remembered though, and was sent my claims, as well almost two team bags worth of  random stuff. 

As mentioned, I claimed 11 cards, mostly just stuff for player collections, well, save for George Foster up top. I thought about collecting him, but don't really want to take on anyone else at this point. He will instead be added to one of my pages of 80's cards that I like for whatever reason, but have no where else to put them (I have pages like that for 50's-90's). 

I was surprised to see this Finest Bo show up in one of those posts. I don't particularly care for the set itself, but have wanted this particular card for a couple of years now.

Junior is from the Topps Magazine. Those cards are very alien to me, so anytime I can get one of somebody I collect, I will.

I like this Fernando card, though I couldn't exactly tell you why. I just do. He'll be added to an 80's page as well. And I had seen this Larry Walker on the blogs many times over the years. It too has been coveted for a while. He'll be making his way onto a random 90's page.

Personally, I would've been fine with just those, but as mentioned, there were two additional team bags full of mostly random stuff. I say mostly because there were about 25 more Ichiro's in there, and I'm pretty sure that those weren't random.

I didn't feel like scanning everything, so here's just a few of my favorites. I particularly like the Donruss Classics and the Opening Day next to it. With me not going to shows anymore, it's kind of a rarity for me to go find the Ichiro binder so that I can add some new cards to it. I think 23 of the 25 cards were new to me, which wasn't too bad.

I don't normally collect reprints, but these were fun to find in with everything else. I've never even seen one of the Tom Barker game cards, real or reprinted, in person before. For a reprint, this one is on some really nice cardstock.

If I could go back and start collecting over, or even start back when I returned to card collecting in 2010, I would go after those SI for Kids sets, at least up to the mid 90's. A few of those cards are pretty pricey now, and I'd never pay $50 (or more) for a Tony Hawk "rookie" (I don't know if I'd even be willing to pay 50¢ for one), so trying to collect them at this point is pretty much out of the question. I feel like I really screwed up on that one. 

I think a few of these other cards were duplicates from Nick's many mini collections; approaching baseballs? Players with animals?

More mini-collection dupes? Microphones on cards? Guys signing things? Orel's in Cleveland?

More dupes? Baseball scratch-off's? Guys pretending to play the git-fiddle?

The mini-collection dupes were fun, and many will be added to binders, but my favorite of the extras was this Ken Griffey. I saw the '82 Donruss design showing just a bit while I was going through the cards and thought that it would be neat if it was Ken, or Dave Winfield, and did that slow reveal thing that Twitter tells me everyone who opens a pack these days does when there's a "hit" in the pack. I don't remember people doing that way back when, but whatever, I did it for this card; turned out to be a pretty good "hit" too. I probably you should've filmed it for the YouTube😊. Anyway, it's a neat card, and was a pleasant find amongst the stuff in Nick's team bag repacks.

Many thanks again to Nick for the cards. Considering I don't have any want lists up for public consumption anymore, he did really well in picking out extras (there was plenty more that were worth posting, and I totally would've done so if I could've gotten someone else to scan them all for me). I think going through these team bags was the most fun I've had while doing a card related thing this year, so I'm grateful for that as well.

A first

COMC shipments have been a staple of this blog from the beginning, but today will be the very first time that I've been able to cover an entire shipment in one single post.

Normally my shipments are made up of hundreds of cards, which is a byproduct of often waiting a year or two to request shipping. However, today's shipment, built up for all of four months, is just 26 cards strong. 

I don't know how many people saw it, but back during the Black Friday sale, one of the perks for buyers was that people who requested shipments of 100 cards or more received a $4.99 shipping credit (basically free shipping when choosing the economy option) for that shipment, and would receive another one that was good until March 31st of this year. Having over two years worth of cards on the site as of the BF sale, it was not difficult for me to take advantage of this offer. I got my 200-ish cards shipped for free, and now had this other free shipping credit to play with.

I don't remember picking up 26 cards since the BF sale, but I guess it's easier to forget such things when your using earned credit, as opposed to cash, to pay for things. Had the shipping not been free, I would not have requested it, but it was, so I did. I waited until the 31st to request it, and was given a ship date of April 27th, which they met spot on.

I still have scan folders chock full of cards from the big two years worth of stuff shipment, but am bumping this one ahead, if only because it's the latest and greatest. I haven't gotten very many cards of late, so it was kind of fun fondle some cardboard again. Still wasn't fun to scan it though.

The post was led off by a really nifty Kellogg's Merlin Olsen. One of those scan folders that I mentioned has 4 or 5 more cards from this set in it, including a couple of HOF's for player collections; as was Merlin. There's a small part of me that would like to collect this set, but thankfully there's the much larger part of me that doesn't want to spend money on people that I don't care about. And it's a lot easier to listen to that larger part when money is tight, as it has been, and probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Cards from this set are really only worth, at best, about a nickel apiece. I overpaid by 35¢ for each of these, but didn't have to go anywhere to get them, or pay for shipping, so it was worth it to me. Denver Pyle (on the left) was needed for the Perry Mason collection. I didn't want a card of him as Uncle Jesse, which doesn't leave a lot of options. Hal Smith is needed for two collections, Perry Mason, and a Brady Bunch guest stars themed page. I don't know which one I'll use this card for yet, but he has a few more cards in the set, so it'll be easy enough to get another one of him.

I haven't looked yet, but I think I now have all of the Carnage cards from this Golden Web insert set. 

With the ridiculous prices that people are putting on all things Marvel these days, I don't spend a great deal of time seeking them out anymore. These last three were all found just looking through people's sale listings, and were all below the current COMC/eBay going rate. Because of said high prices, most of my character collections have had to be put on hold. With that in mind, it was nice to be able to add a few cards to them with this shipment, especially the Sentinels gold chase card.

Hey, it's my first Kahn's! I decided a few months ago that I was gonna start chasing Griffey Sr.'s cards a little more actively. I don't think it would be too hard to put together an entire playing day run of Seniors, Junior not so much, that is unless you're fabulous wealthy. And even though it's a little outside my comfort zone, I've been thinking about doing a post comparing the careers of father and son, and arguing (if need be) that senior actually had the better career overall, which would apparently contradict just about everything else I've read online.

More player collection needs, although this is only my second card of Tom's, so I don't know if that can really be called a "collection" yet.

I think I mentioned it before, maybe not though, I don't know. Either way, while I'm still collecting J-Stew in general, he's got so many cards out there, that I decided a while back to just focus on his blue cards. They're a little less plentiful, and they got the pretty color matching action going on. So far, I've just been picking the low hanging fruit, like these two dirt cheap refractors, which were both less than fifty cents apiece.

I've been trying to replace some of my lesser conditioned Franz cards when I can. It's funny to see all the kooky online Franz prices, because when I was a kid, you couldn't give away Franz cards in Portland. Every single person pretty much had an entire run of them tucked away in a drawer somewhere, and most of those folks weren't even collectors in the traditional sense; that's just how plentiful the cards were at the time. Nowadays, there seems to be a slight bit more demand for them online, though Clyde is the only one that people are paying the higher prices for.

I already showed Paul here back in my post about starting to collect the Fran Tarkenton puzzle. Bruce has since joined the fun.

With the Steve Stonebreaker elbow piece (not shown here) that I already had, I've now completed Fran's right arm. And yeah, I know, it's terribly exciting.

How's this for a mix? Jackie Cooper goes into the Columbo collection (see the last post). I didn't want one of the many cards of Jackie as a child, but this one worked perfect. Richard Loo is another new entry for the Perry Mason collection. And I got the stupid idea last year to try and do a Sarah Connor Chronicles themed page, which is where Summer Glau destined. I say it was a stupid idea only because three of the people from the show that you would want to see on such a page (Richard T. Jones, Garret Dillahunt, and Dean Winters) don't appear anywhere in card form. Considering how long Dean Winters has now been doing those Progressive Allstate (thanks, Brett!) commercials, you'd think there'd at least be a promo of some kind out there, but no, there isn't. Oh, and how is that Shirley Manson only has one card in some Jack Daniels (or some other booze) playing card set? That doesn't even seem possible! First world problem, I know. At least Fuji will appreciate my struggle to make this page happen :)

I've been thinking about adding Stan Humphries to the list of player collections for a few years now, and had been setting aside his cards just in case I ever did start collecting him. The only thing that was keeping me from officially collecting him was that I already had so many other player collections going, and didn't really want to take on another. I solved my predicament a couple of months ago though when I dropped around a dozen basketball player collections (I'm about to drop a few more too). With those now out of the mix, I figured I could take on one more guy. And unless I find out something really interesting about somebody who's currently flying under my radar, this'll be the last new player collection that I start.

As for the card, I've had this one in my watchlist for almost two years, just waiting for it to drop to a more reasonable price, which it finally did after a succession of ever increasing sales. I think it was down to $1.49 when I got it. This is the first football PPI from this year that I've ever held, so I didn't realize that a lot of the bits were raised, sort of embossed like. Allegedly these are limited to /250 copies, which I have no way of confirming, but either way it's pretty neat card.

I grabbed these two from the same seller right before I had to put in the shipment request. Both were on sale, and I figured I might as well celebrate my newest collection with a couple of "good" cards. I know that everyone loves all things 90's now, but a Printers Proof parallel for a phone card was just silly, and I dare anyone to argue otherwise.

This was my first football Rave. Apparently they go for a lot less than their basketball counterparts. 

I'll probably shock a few people by saying that I've never been much of a fan of the Back to the Future franchise. I've seen the first one a couple of times, and each of the sequels once. I know that it's beloved franchise (or at least the first two films are), but they just don't do anything for me. I like time travel stuff, love the 80's, but just don't care for those pictures. As such, I've never spent any time looking through the card sets, so it was only by happenstance that I came across one of the cards from the first set that I thought would make a perfect center card for an 80's themed page. I still haven't gotten my center card, but have acquired a few others for the page, including this very spiffy Huey Lewis from that old AGI Rock Star Concert Cards set. Huey's got a few card in the set, but this is the one that I wanted for my 80's page. There has almost never been anything more 80's than this card, and I absolutely love it! I actually won this card from one of their auctions too. It's great going through your account to bid on things because you can add the card to your account after paying for it, and avoid those brutal eBay shipping charges. I think this was just over a buck, and was very much worth it.

Here's some more auction wins. These Monty Gum cards have been on quite the rollercoaster over the last few years. They went from worthless before the boom, to crazy prices went the boom first started, and now aside from a couple of the bigger names, have pretty much slipped completely back into worthless territory. I got the Sarge for a childhood themed binder that I've started (more on that some other time. I've got a page dedicated to OMG/Akeem, and Jesse will go into the Portland Wrestling collection.

Orson Welles doesn't have nearly as many cards out there as he should, and trying to find one that wasn't made by Panini has been quite the task. I guess all I had to do was wait a little bit, because this 1959 Maple Leaf playing card practically fell into my lap through yet another auction. This was $1.54 well spent, and would be my favorite card from this shipment if it weren't for this...

From what I've been able to gather, this 1962 Dutch Gum is Barbara Eden's first card, or as the profiteers would call it, her rookie card. To me it's just her first card, and now it's all mine! I love this card so damn much, and couldn't believe that was only priced somewhere around $3. In this condition, I would've easily paid upwards of ten for it. I like too that the Dutch Gum folks had to tell everyone that she was a fox, as if no one would've known otherwise. And yes, I'm joking, Fox is the studio that she was with at the time -- my scenario is better though.

I wish that this shipping credit would've been dated a little further out, as I did get three more cards during the recent spring sale, and would've loved to have been able to include them in with these. I'll probably get those at the end of the year, so it's not like I'll have to wait that long.

It felt kind of weird getting an entire shipment into one post. I think the last time I had such a small order shipped from them was back in 2010 or 2011 when I has just found the site; that feels like a lifetime ago.

On a completely different, and final, note, I sold a card on eBay last week to Mark Armour, you know the SABR guy/pretty well known writer (of actual books). I thought about sending him a message saying that he was the first celebrity that I've ever sold anything to, but figured that he probably gets that a lot, so I spared him the message. It was still kind of neat though.