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.

Quietly collecting

Normally when someone who blogs predominantly about cards, starts collecting something new, they don't tend to wait very long before letting everyone know about it.

The want to share this new collection with everyone is quite understandable. You're excited by this latest endeavor, and as a blogger, it's only natural to want to write about this exciting new thing that you're collecting. It also doesn't hurt that other card bloggers, as well as many readers of the card blogs, tend to be very generous folks. So even if it's not in the front of your mind, you do know that there's a good chance that someone reading will have some of what ever it is that you're now collecting and possibly offer to send it to you -- and I'm not saying that everyone posting about their collection's has an ulterior motive, or any other nefarious plans, but don't try and tell me that you're not aware of the overly generous nature that most of the folks in the card collecting community seem to possess, especially when that spirit of giving is a big part of what makes being part of such a community so great.

Now with all that being said, I'm here today to talk about a collection that I started last March, March of 2018 that is, and even though I was excited about this new collection, I was able to refrain from blogging about it for one reason, and one reason alone... selfishness!

You see, after I decided to start this collection, it didn't take long for me to find pieces of it on COMC, and even though I knew that the chances were slim, I didn't want to talk about it publicly and risk someone else becoming interested in said collection, then going over to COMC and purchasing any of my much desired cards before I could earn enough credit via the Challenges to get them for myself. Sounds pretty selfish, huh? This sort of behavior is pretty foreign to me, and it's certainly not very flattering that's for sure, but in this instance, I felt like it was completely necessary, even justified if you will.

It's funny too, because even though I "officially" started collecting this new thing last March, the collection actually started a couple of years before, I just didn't know it yet.

2012 Panini Black Friday Progressions - yellow #1

This is probably a good time to mention that this new/old collection that I'm talking about are the Panini Progressions. If you've seen any of my COMC Shuffle posts, than you've undoubtedly seen a few of these in there. If you haven't seen any of those posts, and you're unfamiliar with Panini's Progressions, well, they're basically just blank-backed proofs that were inserted into Panini's seasonal/specialty sets (Black Friday, Father's Day, The National, etc.) back in 2012 and 2013 (there's also a few that were made in 2014 as well).

Each Progression came in four colors (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow), and were limited to just five copies per color. This scarcity is what led to my not wanting to talk about the collection, because if my talking about it led to someone else buying one of my much desired cards on COMC, at only five copies per color, this could've led to me never even seeing another copy of whatever particular card it was. And this secrecy did work the most part, I mean there's still some really expensive (overpriced?) cards on the site that I'd like to have, but as far as the cheap stuff goes, other than a Tim Duncan that I waited too long to pull the trigger on, I pretty much got everything that I wanted.

So back to the collection. As I mentioned, it actually, unbeknownst to me, started a few years ago with the yellow Jim Brown. I got it during one of those great fire sales that you almost never see on COMC anymore, I only bought it at the time because it was really cheap, and I just thought it looked neat. I didn't even know anything about the Progressions at that time, and still didn't even after I got the card. Looking back, I really wish I would've started collecting them at that time, as I'd probably have a few more completed rainbows by this time.

2013 Panini Black Friday Panini Collection Progressions - magenta #6

Then around two years ago (it was in a blog post, but I don't feel like looking for the date), I picked up this LeBron at a show for a $1. Again, I didn't really know anything about it, but I thought it was interesting looking, and it was only a buck, so why not? I did finally do some research after this purchase, but the idea of collecting them still hadn't sparked yet.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - magenta #17

Now if we fast forward to March of last year, we'll arrive to the point where I decided to start collecting these. It happened quite by accident, I was at one of the big twice a year card shows here, looking through one of Jim's (everyone here's favorite seller) 4/$1 boxes, and out of nowhere I hit a pocket of cards that looked very familiar. I was sort of thinking that looked like the LeBron, but wasn't entirely sure if they were the same thing or not, at a quarter a piece though, I just grabbed all of them, and figured that I go ahead find out what's what after I got home.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - yellow #37

[The yellow's can be hard see sometimes, so if anyone cares, this is Jaden Schwartz] Once I got around to sorting my card show haul, I found that I had grabbed around twenty Progressions from that box, I also confirmed that they were indeed Progressions, most of the 2013 Father's Day variety. It was at this point that I my interest in collecting these was born, I guess all it took was seeing this newly acquired group altogether to do it. My want for these cards grew very fast, it was literally within just a couple of hours of having come home from the show that I was already on COMC buying up some of the cheaper copies (including the black version of the Lillard above).

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - black #38

There were multiple hockey players amongst the group that I got at the card show, which wasn't a bad thing, as it actually made me want to read up on some of these guys, heck, I even bought a few more Progressions of hockey players. I've completed two rainbows so far, Chris Kreider being one of those two.

2013 Panini Father's Day Studio Progressions - yellow #8

Prince was the only baseballer from the card show. Other than a cheap Whitey Ford, I don't think that I've gotten any other major leaguers. The lack of a logo kind of bugs me on the Progressions, it just seems like it's more noticeable when everything is in one color.

2013 Panini Father's Day Inked Progressions #AH

My scanner doesn't do well with the non-mirror backed Progressions, so my apologies for this terrible picture. Panini also made Progressions of the autograph and relic cards that were inserted into the specialty packs as well. I'm still kind of on the fence about these particular cards, but since I get half of this Adam Henrique rainbow for just fifty I am inclined to want to complete it. And the same can be said about...

2013 Panini Father's Day Inked Progressions #CS

... these Cory Schneider's too!

Close to half of the cards that I got from that show were the Progressions for the relic cards (the top two in the photo), those I'm really not crazy about, and have no plans to collect (don't know about the two inked cards in this photo either).

I didn't take a picture of all of them, but you get the idea of what the relic version's look like. I keep meaning to try and trade some of these, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

As I've mentioned, and as you may have seen in the last couple of months, I've gotten quite a few Progressions off of COMC since I started actively collecting them. Those of course will continue to pop up in the weekly Shuffle posts, but I have gotten a few from eBay over the last year as well, so I might as well tack those onto the end here:

2012 Panini Black Friday Thanksgiving Classic Progressions #5

This Rob Gronkowski was my first completed rainbow... and this too sort of happened by accident! Last summer I was looking at something or another on eBay, clicked to view the seller's other items, and there it was, a full Gronk rainbow separated into three different listings. I can't remember exactly how they were listed, but it was something like the black and magenta together in one listing, and the other two were listed individually with a copy of the base card. This was the first time that I had seen a full rainbow, so that was kind of exciting at the time. I didn't waste any time getting my best offer's in on these three listings, and thankfully the seller quickly accepted all three offers.

As an interesting aside, at some point in the last couple of months I was going through my eBay purchase history from last year attempting to find out how much I paid for something else. While doing so, I ran across these (if anyone's interested, I paid around $16 total for these) and noticed that it said that this seller was no longer a registered user. Curious, I did little feedback searching and found out that not too long after I got these, the seller listed, and sold, a bunch of rare Tom Brady cards, but never sent them out to their respective buyers. I thought that this was kind of odd, because I had communicated with the seller and had found them to rather pleasant, they even sent me a message to apologize for taking three days to send out my cards (a message that was completely unnecessary btw). So I don't what happened, but I am sure glad that I got these when I did.

Also, I'm using the term "rainbow" to describe the four Progressions by themselves. Most of these sets have other parallels as well, cracked ice, lava flow, and autograph's -- some people might say the rainbow isn't complete until you get all of those as well, but in my mind, it's complete once the four colors are gotten.



 

Not too long after I got the Gronk's, I was actually searching for the Progressions on eBay -- and that reminds me, searching for these on eBay is a real pain in the butt, as they get listed under multiple different names. Part of that is Beckett's fault, because even though Panini calls them Progressions, Beckett lists them as Make Ready, which is what the SAGE proof's were called, not Panini's. So you got people out there listing them as Make Ready, Progressions, and then there's the folks who can't take a few seconds to any research, and just list them as proofs. And the you got the Beckett Marketplace and Sportlots, who both have them under Make Ready. Thankfully COMC knows what's what, and has them under their proper name!

So I was searching on eBay, came across this wicked awesome DJ Kool (the base card is there to help you see it better) from Steel City Collectibles, and even though the price was a little higher than I had paid on any of my other one's up to that point (no best offer option available), I still went ahead and bought it. This is a card that I'd really like to complete the rainbow of too, but I still haven't even seen one of the other colors pictured anywhere else, so there's probably a good chance that it might not end up happening.

 

2012 Panini Black Friday Kings Progressions - yellow #2

I know that this has turned into a really long post, so you'll be happy to know that we're hitting the home stretch. My final Progressions via eBay, whose presence I became aware of thanks to a saved searches email, came just before last Christmas. A seller had listed a couple of these, but I was only really interested in two of them, Broadway Joe...

2012 Panini Black Friday Thanksgiving Classic Progressions - yellow #6

... and Timmy Tebow! As usual, offer's were made, and said offer's were quickly accepted. Within in minutes of them accepting my offer's, the seller sent me a message asking if I was interested in anything else from the Black Friday sets, I didn't know necessarily if I was or not, but said that I wouldn't mind hearing about what else they had for sale. Most of the stuff ended up not being of any interest, but there was one more Progression mentioned, which a deal quickly struck on. I'm not showing that one because initially I bought it with someone else in mind, but liked it so much once I got it, that I decided to keep it for myself (more selfish behavior). So I'm not showing it, because that person would probably be able to figure out that it was supposed to be for them, and I don't want them to know that I kept a thing that was intended for them.

I realize that some folks might consider these to be a bit gimmicky, especially if you're of the anti-parallel mindset, but I really do like them. Do I think that they're a bit gimmicky? Sure they are, but most cards are. Hell, one could argue that the idea of cards coming in packs is gimmicky. How about cards that come packaged with a food item, that's a straight up gimmick right there. And yet, that doesn't stop anyone from purchasing these things, does it? Most modern "collectibles" are gimmicky, but if you enjoy whatever it is, does it really matter what someone else might classify it as? I for one certainly don't think so, and neither should you.


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Black Friday boxes

I told myself that I wasn't going to do it again this year, but once Black Friday rolled around and I saw this year's sale prices were lower than last year's...

... I wasn't able to resist buying some more boxes of Golden Age from Steel City Collectibles. With this being the third year in a row that I have done so, it's starting to feel like a yearly tradition.

This year the prices on the 2012 and 2014 edition was $22.95 each, and the 2013 was $24.95. In retrospect, I probably should have just gotten one of each, as I don't need a ton from the 2012 edition, but with the draw of finding one of the case hit original Goudey's, I ended up getting two of the 2012's. And besides, this is the only time of the year I ever open boxes of anything, so why not splurge on some cheap fun?

I told myself I was only going to open one box a week over the next four weeks, apparently I'm a self liar, as I already opened two last night, and I suspect the other two won't remain sealed much past the day (Tuesday) of this writing.

I will start posting the box results sometime soon, but in the meantime, Steel City advertises that every purchase during their sale comes with a free gift:

I got a pack of 2016 Leaf Draft football, and a pack 2017 Panini player of the Day, plus the usual scratch-off. Neither of these packs excited me all that much, but their free, so I really can't complain.

Before getting to the contents of the packs, the scratch-off, just like last year, yielded a $5 gift card. It expires in June of next year, and since I don't plan on ordering anything before then, if somebody thinks they might be buying something from SCC before then (their sale runs all this week), just let me know in the comments that you're interested and I will email you the code.

On to the packs, starting first with the Player of the Day:

The good news is that I actually know who both of these guy's are, the bad news though, is that neither card does anything for me. So if either of them floats your boat, just let me know, and their yours.

And finally, the Leaf Draft:

I wasn't expecting much out of this pack, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised with the uninteresting contents. After seeing these, I can't imagine anyone that would intentionally buy this product, it's just so blah! I nave no idea who any of these kids are, so again, if anyone is interested in any of them, just let me know.


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COMC Black Friday Contest

For anyone new, or for those who just don't remember, I ran a contest earlier this year in which I gave away some of my earned COMC credit. After the contest was over, I mentioned that I would be doing it again later in the year for the Black Friday sale.

So now that it's later in the year, and the sale will be starting in less than two weeks, it seems like a good time to get this contest going.

Who's eligible: EVERYONE! It doesn't matter which part of this wonderful planet of ours that you happen to live, you're invited to enter.

How to enter: Just a leave a comment, simple is that. You can also earn an extra entry for promoting the contest on your blog, and for those who don't have a blog, a Twitter plug will be accepted as well --just be sure to leave a link in the comments.

The prize: The winner will get $15 in credit to use on whatever you want during (or before if you want to) the sale, but you will have to let me know what you want sometime before Monday (the 27th) night, that way I can put in my free shipping request. Oh, and that $15 total isn't set in stone, so don't worry if you end up going over by a buck or two. A prize will also be awarded to whoever comes in last place, I don't know exactly what it will be yet, but I will try to come up with something that will be of some interest to you. I should probably mention too that since moving to Tennessee a couple of years ago, I seem to be for whatever reason, just about the last person to receive their post Black Friday shipment. The last two years, I haven't received my shipments until a couple of day before Christmas, so whoever wins the grand prize, probably won't see their item(s) until after Christmas.

The rest of the details: The contest will run from today until 5pm (EST) next Wednesday (the 15th), at which time I will randomize the list of names six times, and announce the winner(s) later that night.

I think that covers everything, so to anyone who decides to enter, I wish you the best of luck.


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