Saturday, June 3, 2023

Christmas in January

I'd really like to do some sort of blogging thing for Christmas (send out gifts, do a giveaway, etc.), and have wanted to do so for the last couple of years now, but planning things in advance is not a strong suit of mine. It also doesn't help that time passes so quickly these days, so even if I do actually think about it say, sometime around Halloween, it always feels like October ends and then 1.3 days later it's the week before Christmas... and I've got nothing planned! I'd like to say that this year will be different, but I'm not gonna hold my breath (even if I did, blue and purple aren't Christmas colors).

One person who doesn't seem to have this problem is, Dennis, he of Too Many Verlanders fame. I don't know how he does it, but every year, come Christmas, a rogue elf from Michigan does his best to upstage Santa Claus by sending out packages of cards to both coasts, and all points in between.

I was among the lucky many to make the nice list (what Dennis doesn't know, won't hurt him 😉) this past year, and received a top notch bubble mailer for Christmas... in January! 

Time has already begun to fuzz the details, but there was some issue with either a seller on Sportlots, or Sportlots itself. I can't remember. Either way though, the package was delayed because all of it's contents weren't available to ship until a couple of weeks after Christmas. Dennis was very apologetic about this, which he didn't need to be since he absolutely zero control over the delay. Besides, getting a package for Christmas, in January, is not a big deal, there's no expiration date on Christmas presents; unless maybe you're getting food. Thankfully, Dennis didn't send any food.

Dennis had told me in advance that my package (typing "my package" feels odd under any context) was going to be more quantity than quality, but with some of the items, like this 1988 sticker, I'd argue that there was no shortage of quality either. It's funny how the old Panini stickers use to be everywhere, and now you really have go out of your way to try and find/get them.

Because of the whole "quantity" thing, this will be a very scan laden post, and I might as well get it going with some more Reggie's...

Had I not been overwhelmed with the task at hand when it came time to scan all of these, I might've taken some to arrange the cards a little better, but even so, I still got some good pairings; such was the case with card numbers 5 and 6 here. They are a couple of years apart, and the jersey has changed, but they're nearly identical shots.

The images on Reggie's cards basically fall into four categories: 1). Head shots. 2). Ball being dropped prior to the punt. 3). The punt. And 4). The after punt. 

My Reggie Roby collection is currently paged in chronological order, which is kind of neat, but there's a part of me that would like to organize it by image category. Maybe if I ever complete it I'll play around with that and see how it looks. I'm still a ways away from that though.

This was not a good scan!

I'm always hesitant to buy any tall boys from Sportlots, or to try and trade for any of them on the TCDB, because I figure with my luck, they're probably gonna show up bent in half. Dennis' luck must be considerably better, for not only was he able to acquire two of them, that were then sent to him undamaged, he also managed to get said two to me; also undamaged.

17 needed Reggie's (and the Bo at the top of the post) would've been more than enough for me, but Dennis didn't stop there...

Reggie Roby is my #1 collection when it comes to football, and even though it hadn't been planned, Dennis Smith has worked his way up to #2 (he won't be passing Reggie though). Neither are of much interest to most collectors, and are of zero interest to investors, so it's nice to still be able to collect a couple of guys who's card prices haven't been inflated over the last few years.

It looks like a couple of receivers were wearing #81 back in 1992, so I don't know who this is, but it doesn't matter, it's all about Dennis getting the pick; one of four that he had that year. Awesome card!

I'm hardly the first to say it, but I'd like to see Action Packed make a come back, provided of course that it's not under the header of one of the current card companies. I can't even imagine how ugly the set would be under Leaf's management 💩.

I have to do a double-take almost every time I see a card from 1992 Score, as the design always makes me think that it's a TRU set.

I hadn't noticed until I was marking everything off their respective checklists, but 1992 was very well represented in this package. 

Getting a cards lone parallel at the same time as the base is always nice. And I've probably said it before, but I really like the first couple of Collector's Edge sets for football. If I cared about more of the players in those sets, I'd probably go back and try to complete them. But I don't, so I won't be.

Prior to getting this package, I don't think that I'd ever seen a single card from the 1993 Fleer set before. I wasn't collecting football at the time, and the design doesn't look familiar at all. I know that collectively were all supposed to hate grey/silver borders, but I've always kind of like them; this despite not being a huge fan of the color itself. 

More stickers! Mongo is one of those guys that I always mean to look for cards of when I'm putting together in order somewhere, but just can't ever seem to remember to do so. Apparently Dennis didn't have that problem...

By all accounts, Steve has always been a standup guy, liked by seemingly everyone who ever met him, which makes his current situation seem just that much worse. Why is it that you never hear about assholes getting ALS? It's always the good people who have to have it inflicted upon them. From the last update I saw a couple of months back, it sure doesn't sound like he's gonna be able to fight it for too much longer either.

I don't know what the deal is with the Super Bowl stamped Stadium Club cards. Were they an in-pack parallel? Special Box set? I do know that sellers online tend to attach a small premium to them, as opposed to the Member's Only parallel that's to the left of it, those are usually just the same price as the base cards. And this was my first card of Mongo as a Packer. I do remember it happening, but seeing him in yellow and green is still a bit jarring. It was good move for him though, as he did get a ring out of it. I didn't realize that he had played every game that season though. Pretty impressive for a 37 year old playing that position.

No need to adjust your eyes, there are indeed four copies of the same sticker here. I figured these might all have different backs, but...

Well, two of them do! I suppose that there could be something different about the three Joe Morris backs, but if there is, I couldn't tell at the time.

I didn't have a want list/checklist for Steve prior to this mailing (I don't have one as of this typing either), but none of these cards were duplicates for me. That was pretty impressive on Dennis' part.

These two cards provide quite the contrast, don't they? If I recall, the Prestige card here was my first post-playing days of Howie. I never bothered to look, but I would imagine that it's got 87 parallels to collect for those so inclined. For now, I'm good with just this one.

Dennis seemed to have hit the sticker motherlode. I'm grateful to him for sharing some of the wealth from such a strike.

I think that this was the most football cards that anyone had ever sent me before, though there was that one baseball card too...

I'm thinking that all of our Bo's talk of equipment in recent months has started to wear off on me, because when I went to edit this scan, I noticed that the number on the bat didn't correlate to Bo's jersey number. Bo wore #22 with the Angels, and that second number clearly isn't a 2. I thought it was 29, but apparently that was Rod Carew's number, which was retired by the Angels in 1991; so that "9" must be a 4 (still looks like a 9 to me though). Eduardo Perez was #24. It's one thing to pose for a picture with someone else's bat, but to actually use it in a game is a whole nother can of worms. Why was Bo using Eduardo's bat? I know that he was on the downward trend, but you'd think that, Bo, of all people, would have his own bats. Have I inadvertently finally figured out something that Bo didn't know... bats? 

It's hard to believe I've been sitting on these scan since January. It feels like not more than a month could've passed since I received the package. Of course it's hard to believe that we're already halfway through 2023 too. I really don't care for this whole 'time moves quicker with age' thing. Not one bit!

Anyway, many thanks to Dennis for the extremely well thought out package. Heck, it was just nice of him to even think of me around Christmas. I do regret taking so long to get to the post though, but again, it just didn't seem like that long since I got the cards.

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Almost like it was meant to be

I recently pulled this ad out of water-damaged free comic book that I picked up. 

Normally I wouldn't have even bothered picking up a comic, even if it was free, in such a state, but after flipping through it and finding this ad, undamaged (save for a bit of toning), I decided to take the book so that I could pull the ad out. I have quite a few books with this ad in them, and have always liked it, but wasn't going to be destroying a whole book just to get a copy of the ad. 

It's been a few years now since I moved away from set building, but as was the case last year with the old Post sets, I've really been wanting to start working on the Hostess sets again. Thankfully I never sold, or gave away, any of what I had, so at least I won't be starting from scratch if I do give in to the urge. 

I haven't gone so far as to make any checklists or anything yet, but I do know that I've got at least 60% of the '76 set, and maybe 10-15 cards for each of the other sets. Obviously 10-15 cards isn't very far along, so I'd probably just start with 1976 and see how much joy I get out of trying to complete it before making any decisions about going after the other sets. I tend to believe that things happen for a reason, so finding this ad, at this particular time, almost makes me think that the universe is telling me that, yes, I should start working on the set again. Why the universe would care about me of all people, doing something as trivial as this though... well, that's a whole 'nother matter; and one that is most certainly above my pay grade.

I knew that I didn't have Steve Garvey, but figured that I could at least recreate the right side of the page. Turns out I don't Have Joe Morgan either! The recreation doesn't look very good with only one card, especially when said card is overlapping the card that's supposed to be overlapping it. If nothing else, I have to at least get Joe and Steve so that I can properly reproduce the ad. 


On an unrelated note: I sent out 1/3 of the envelopes/packages from my recent giveaway last Wednesday, and am dropping off an even bigger batch at the post office later this morning. That leaves me with five packages (Matt K., Nick V., Dan, Al, and Merlin) and two PWE's (our resident teenage bloggers seem to be unable to respond to messages... kids!) left to do. And if all goes well, those last five packages should be done by the end of the week.

Monday, May 15, 2023

All kinds of future free stuff

First off, thanks to all who participated in the recent giveaways. Some may not believe me when I say that I really didn't expect so many people to show up for them, but it's true. I'm grateful to all of those that did though. By my rough estimate, 675 cards were given away across those five posts, which isn't too shabby. Even more so when you (or I) consider that those 675 cards were just sitting, unloved, in various boxes. It's nice to know that they'll now be heading out to homes where they'll be more appreciated.

I'm gonna take a couple days off before I start packaging everything up. I have no doubt that it'll take me a week or two to get everything done. I'll also be trying to add an extra card or two to the packages where I can, but there's a lot of people on the list that I have interacted with before, so I'll have to send a few emails out to find what some of you collect [Note: if anyone that I don't already know wants to be proactive and send me a message with what you collect, that would be great!]. I can't guarantee that everyone will receive any extras, but I will be trying my best to do so.

As far as future free stuff posts go, they'll be more, I just don't know when yet. In the meantime, I think I'm gonna steal an idea from Julie and create a free stuff page on the blog. Despite her assurances to the contrary, I'm not so sure that Julie's gonna be coming back, so why let a good idea go to waste. Besides, this'll be a good place to stick some unwanted basketball, football, and non-sport cards, as even though there are some people interested in such things, there aren't enough to warrant adding a lot of those cards to actual free stuff posts. Oh, and don't fret baseball guys, there'll be baseball cards too. And who knows, if that goes over well enough, I might be able to skip the free stuff posts altogether, which really would be a win-win scenario; folks could come claim stuff at their own leisure, and I wouldn't have to clog up everyone's blogroll/reading list with free stuff posts, or their updates. I'm gonna try to have that page up sometime within the next month or so, but unlike Julie, I'm gonna announce it very subtlety, most likely in a post that I don't think very many people will click on. Or not, I don't know yet.

And if all that wasn't enough, I decided sometime in the last few days that I'm gonna celebrate my birthday this year by giving one lucky person an eBay gift card, though I don't know how much said card will be for yet. I still have a little over two months to figure that out though, so I'm not worried.

So, if you like contests and free stuff, I've got a bunch coming up. If you don't, well, I don't what to say, maybe go take a cold shower or something. 

Friday, May 12, 2023

Free Stuff Friday (2023) #2

Updated Version.

Hey all, welcome to yet another Free Stuff Friday!

As I suspected, this'll be the last free stuff post in this recent series of giveaways. I foresee doing a couple more sometime within the next few months (more on that in the next post), but I'm getting a tad burned out from all of this scanning, so I need a bit of a break.

Seeing as how this is the last giveaway (for the moment), I'd like to give a few of the folks who can't be here right when the post goes live a slightly better chance of nabbing a "good" card or two. So, while you'll still be able to claim up to 15 cards overall during the first couple of hours, I'm gonna ask that you limit your non-base card claims to 6 for the first 24 hours (I probably should've done this from the beginning). After that, if there's anything that you still want, please feel free to go nuts. And if by chance somebody skips this part and claims more than 6 non-base cards in the first 24 hours, I'm only gonna acknowledge the first 6 when I update the post in the morning. I'm sure that this will annoy a few people, but I'd just like to see if a few of the better things can last past the first 4-5 people, especially knowing how difficult it is for some to get here right at 8pm.

Okay, let's see how this goes...

Page #1: Base cards
Claimed: 2,4,5,6

Page #2: Parallels (#2 and #3 are gold samples, #4 has a few surface marks, #8 and #9 are Bobby Bonilla and Jeff Kent Golden Idols)
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9

Page #3: SI for Kids and Buybacks (#7-9 are buybacks)
Claimed: All!

Page #4: Inserts (#8 and #9 have a few surface marks)
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9

Page #5: 1988 Pacific Legends
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

Page #6: More 1988 Pacific Legends
Claimed: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Page #7: Even more 1988 Pacific Legends [Bobby Murcer is from '89] (Mays has a slightly touched corner)
Claimed: 1,3,4,5,7,8,9

Page #8: Parallels (#1-7 are silver holofoils)
Claimed: All!

Page #9: 2011 Topps Lineage
Claimed: 6,8,9

Page #10: Parallels (the Mookie Betts foil has a small surface mark)
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9

Page #11: Base cards (#6 is Billy Martin)
Claimed: 1,2,3,5,8

Page #12: Odds and ends (the two Monkees cards are very well loved)
Claimed: 1,2,3,5,7,8,9

Page #13: Mostly Ichiro (#7-9 have some surface marks)
Claimed: All!

Page #14: Serial numbers
Claimed: All!

Page #15: Serial numbers and inserts (#1-5 are serial numbered, with the Schilling being a second copy of the one from page #14) (#4 is Jose Reyes and #7 is Ray Dandridge)
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9

"Page" #16: 1987 M&M's Star Lineup panels (I can't bring my self to separate these, so Cal/George are #1 and Tony/Ozzie are #2)
Claimed: Both!

As always, thanks for looking, and an update will be coming in the morning.

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Take My Stuff Tuesday #3

Updated version.

Hey all, welcome to yet another Take My Stuff Tuesday!

I won't know for sure until I do another round of scanning, but Friday might be the last entry in this series of giveaways. It looks like there's enough for one more, but not enough for two, in which case Friday's post would most likely have a couple of extra pages. I'll let you know on Friday though. And remember, that post will be going live at 8pm CST.

Okay, onto tonight's cards...

Page #1: Base cards
Claimed: All!

Page #2: Parallels (the Buhner Tiffany has a bit of a punky corner)
Claimed: All!

Page #3: 1988 Pacific Legends
Claimed: All!

Page #4: 2011 In The Game Canadiana
Claimed: All!

Page #5: Inserts
Claimed: All!

Page #6: Base cards
Claimed: 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9

Page #7: Base cards
Claimed: All!

Page #8: Parallels (#5 is Bengie Molina, of Toronto. #8 and #9 are refractors)
Claimed: All!

Page #9: 1989 Pacific Legends 
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9

Page #10: More 1989 Pacific Legends
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9

Page #11: Ichiro (#7 is one of those Berger's Best things)
Claimed: All!

Page #12: Base cards
Claimed: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9

Page #13: Inserts
Claimed: All!

Page #14: Base cards
Claimed: 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,

Page #15: Serial numbers (#1 has a few scuffs)
Claimed: All!

Thanks for looking. See you again on Friday!