Rhymin' and Stealin' (minus the rhymin')

When it comes to blogging, I try not to borrow too much from what others are doing, or have already done. I mean certain things like card show recaps, COMC shipments, trades, etc. are universal, but as far as series' go, I really do try not to step on the toes of others. That being said, with my health thing still negatively impacting my attempts to blog, I'm gonna break my rule for today's post and steal borrow someone else's series; or rather two people's series', Bo's roundups, and Nick's cool pickups. Hopefully neither gent will mind. 

I don't think the items in this post will have quite the same wow factor as can routinely be seen in the two series' that I'm ripping off, but nonetheless, these are some of the things that have made their way South over the last few months; all of which I think are pretty neat.

Since I'm thieving one of his series', I might as well start off with a couple of cards that I got from Bo, he of the extremely prolific, Baseball Cards Come to Life!. Bo got a shit-ton of Long John Silver's cards a few months ago, and in his usual fashion, then asked if anyone was interested in the myriad of duplicates. I probably should've looked at the checklist before claiming any, but instead just went by what I could see in the post. The two guys that stood out, at least for me, were Gregg Jefferies and...

Apologies for the dust on the scanner tray, it'll appear a few more times in this post.

... Eric Davis. Having never owned any cards from this set before, I didn't realize until they arrived that each player in the set has two cards; so instead of claiming two cards, I had apparently claimed four. I really like the color-matching borders on these. The photos are pretty good too. I don't think we ever ate at Long John Silver's when I was growing up. The only two seafood places I can recall going to (aside from one not so great trip to Red Lobster), were Skipper's, and the place that used to be in the food court at the Lloyd Center mall, whose name I can no longer remember. So, aside from seeing a few of these on the blogs over the years, most of this set is pretty new to me; which is kind of neat. 

The Tony Pena up top came along for the ride too. I guess all I had to do to get that one was to comment on how how cool of an image it was. I'll have to remember that the next time Bo shows off a Mickey Mantle 😉

As always, many thanks to Bo!

It seems like there's been a lot of Venezuelans showing up on the blogs on recent years. Did that in any way contribute to me getting my first two? Most likely. If I wasn't always seeing them on the blogs, I'd never even think to look for them. Back-wise, 1966 might just be the most uninteresting year for the Venezuelans, but it also looks like it might be the most affordable set for those cards too. Correlation? Who knows. I just know that I got these two, both of guys who I collect because of their ties to Portland, for a lot less than I would've thought.

It's been a while since I last got an E-Xceptional. Pre-boom, they could be found in dollar (or less) boxes at shows, and I used to buy every one that I came across. They've gone up a bit in recent years though, but even so, I didn't mind splurging a bit for a Grant Hill; which I didn't have any other copies of (I've got 3-4 copies for a few guys in this set). And as usual, the scanner doesn't do this card justice. I should've just went the photograph route. It's amazing how flat the lenticular background looks here.

I got these two Giants, my first two '64 Giants by the way, at the same time as the Venezuelans up above. Having never handled one of these before, I always thought they'd be much thinner than they actually are. That was a pleasant surprise. I didn't realize it until I was cropping the scan, but it looks like there's some weird Siamese Twins action going on here. Would this be the ultimate switch-hitter?

A few people have already posted their gets from Kerry's, from Cards on Cards, semi-recent giveaway that featured some of his off-condition cards. Buck Williams is one of my Blazers childhood heroes, and up to this point I had had zero luck in my attempts to get his '86 Fleer (a set I'm not overly fond of), so I was kind of excited to see it amongst the offerings. There is a bit of edge wear, but I was expecting much worse. I thought it might end up being a filler, but this copy will do just fine for Buck's collection. Thanks, Kerry!

It had been quite a while since I last participated in one of Matt's (of Diamond Jesters fame) Time Traveling Trades, mostly because there isn't usually much there for me, but I knew I had to try and get this card as soon as I saw it. Prior to seeing it, I was completely unaware of the various playing card sets that were put out by Brown & Bigelow in 1953. As much as I like the image of Lou Gehrig, the ad for Filson's Cities Service (which apparently was part of an oil and gas conglomerate) is what hooked me. From what I've read, it seems that anyone could order decks with their company name printed on them. I don't know how many different companies ordered these, but there's a part of me that now wants example from as many different ones as I can find.

The other selling point for me was that this is a coupon card, and not just some random jack of spades or whatever. I couldn't find any information on the coupon cards, but it looks like they might be a bit scarcer than the regulars cards; presumably because most of them ended up getting turned in for decks.

I probably (unintentionally) saddled Matt with more stuff that he'll never be able to move, but I'm really glad that I was able to get this card. Thanks to Matt for the trade (and to John for sending it in).

This 1958 Kane Products Lucille Ball isn't exactly new to me, as I got it sometime last year, or possibly the year before, but until just recently it had, unbeknownst to me, been sitting under a couple of postcards probably since right after I got it -- so I'll call it "newly uncovered". I really like this set, and had wanted this particular card for a number of years prior to getting it. There's still a few more on my wantlist, but this had been numero uno.

It's gonna be slow going, but I'm still all in on the SLU cards. Right now, I'm just trying to pick up the cheapies whenever I can. If I remember correctly, these two were around $1.50 apiece.

Here was another longtime want, and probably my favorite card in this post. Despite being well over a hundred years old, cards from the Ogden's set are still fairly plentiful, it's just a matter of trying to find copies that aren't overpriced just for the sake of their age. Wilma Neruda was a world-class violinist whose prime came, unfortunately, just a little too early to have been recorded for posterity. Being a fan of the violin, I can appreciate the card just because of her reputation alone, but the primary reason I've wanted it so long is because she was mentioned in A Study in Scarlet. I know from past posts that there doesn't seem to be many Sherlock Holmes fans amongst blog readers, but I've been so since early childhood. I have a few cards to celebrate said fandom, this now being the best. 

I've had pretty good luck so far in being able to get both cards at the same time for the players in the 1990 SLU football set. I think these two Bo's might be two of the more expensive cards in the set, so to get them for less than five bucks shipped seemed like a pretty good deal. At some point I'll need another pair for my Bo binder, but I'd rather seek out more needs from this set before spending too much time looking for another cheap pair of these.

As far as player collections go, Sal Maglie is probably one of the ones that I add to the most infrequently. Not by choice mind you, it just seems to work out that way. Knowing that, it always feels like a cause for celebration when I do get something new. Despite my liking them quite a bit, I never really think to seek out exhibits; they just seem to continually be flying under my radar. The only reason I ended up with this one is because I noticed it amongst a seller's other items on eBay. It was one of those times where I had won something else (not shown in this post), and just wanted to see if I could take advantage of their really good combined shipping discount -- and as Sal can attest, I did! I appreciate to that this card comes from the '47-66 release, so the odds are fairly good that he might've still been playing when it was made. At least that's what I'm choosing to believe.

A few other notes:

#1: Almost all of my various minor and slightly less minor health issues seem to have recently decided to band together and create a Super Friends of suck. I don't mention this to seek any sympathy (please don't do that), so much as I am to explain the few and far between posts, as well as the fewer and further in-between comments left on the posts of others. I've got ideas galore right now for all three of my blogs, but trying to execute any of them is proving to be rather difficult. This post alone, which let's be honest, is pretty crappy, has taken me almost five hours to complete (one hour each morning for the last five days), so the prospect of me getting to any of what I hope would be some non-throwaway posts doesn't seem very likely for the time being. 

#2: I finally got around to requesting a shipment from COMC back on January 29th. At the time, the estimated shipping date was 2/26, which seemed a bit far out there given that I waited until after the Black Friday and Christmas rushes, but what are gonna do, right? Anyway, I checked the counter a few times during that period to see how many orders were still ahead of mine, and after seeing that said counter had hardly moved by the middle of February, I realized that my order was probably gonna end of being late. And I was right. 2/26 came and went with no shipment being sent, and no word from COMC. A few days later, just about the time I was thinking I should send them an email, they sent me one instead. It was a generic "we're so sorry about the delay" message, which apparently has been caused by "extraordinarily high demand", and to show how regretful they are, I was given a $5 discount off of my next order, but only if I use it before the end of May. Wow! That's some consolation. It wouldn't even cover the shipping cost. Old COMC probably would've refunded the shipping cost for my delayed shipment, or at the very least, added a few bucks credit to my account to use whenever. New COMC gives me a shitty discount that expires just about the time I'll be getting my original shipment. The best part of this too is that after the my original ship date came and went, I was given a new estimation of 4/4, and as of this morning that's already been pushed back to 4/11. Had I known that this was gonna be such a problem for them, I would've just waited until after the next Black Friday sale to have my shit sent. I really miss pre-boom COMC.

#3: I have had a lot of trouble with the TCDB since around Christmas, namely with the pop-up ads that, well, pop-up at the most inopportune times. I've had two instances where I was out and about and tried to use my phone to see a couple of my checklists, only to have one of those GD ads take over the whole screen and then freeze my phone. So that, combined with the already annoying process of having to click on 5-6 things/pages just to get to my checklists on there has prompted me to start moving all of my checklists over to pages on this blog. Only two screens will have to be clicked to get to them here, and I don't have to worry about any more ads fucking up my phone. I actually started doing this back in January, but like everything else computer related, it's been slow going. So far, I've managed to complete three pages, and figure that I've got 4-5 more to do. I am primarily doing this for myself, but I guess it'll work out well for the occasional person who asks what I collect as well (a few folks were kind enough to do back around Christmas). And, because these will mostly be for me, I will be leaving them up permanently this time. This is probably gonna come across as a not-so-subtle attempt to get everyone to look at my wantlists, but I can assure you that it isn't, in fact, I'm only mentioning it because I was amused to see, while adding to one of the current pages the other day, that that particular page had an obscene amount of views; more than could ever possibly be coming from real people. I don't know which word or combination of words is doing it, but obviously something in that page has obviously attracted the bots en masse. I must admit that I'm mildly curious as to what it is that they've found so appealing, but not enough to try and look into it any further.

I guess that it'll do it for now, as I don't want to be working on this post for a sixth day... five has been ridiculous enough as is!

No Mas!

Every card blogger is known for at least one thing, right? I mean I could throw out any random blogger's name, and most of the people reading this would immediately associate them with some particular player/team/collection, yes? For example, and this is just an example (wink wink, nod nod), if I mentioned, Kerry, aka madding, the longtime proprietor of Cards on Cards, what would you think of first; Cardinals? Trail Blazers? Oregon Ducks? For what it's worth, I think all of the above, but after last year, I'd also add sender of crazy generous bubble mailers to the list as well. 

I received two from Kerry last year, both completely unexpected. The first was shown many moons ago, and the second, well, that one has been languishing in a scan folder for quite a few months now, BUT only because I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of cards that were sent, which had to be well over a hundred.

I had claimed that nifty Lou Gehrig insert, and this SI for Kids sheet (which despite excellent packing, the PO tried to destroy, see the bottom right corner for evidence of that) from one of Kerry's free stuff posts, which ended up being accompanied by what could be called an instant basketball card collection. With so many cards included, I had a hard time trying to figure out which ones to include, and of course, how many to include? Too little would be an insult, and too many might make some folks regret clicking on the post, it really is a fine line. Out of respect for Kerry, and his kind gesture, I ended up settling somewhere near the halfway point, so if you've got a minute...

This package arrived a week or two before Cliff's untimely passing, and must've had close to 40 cards of his in it, about half of which I did need.

1991-92 Skybox sure has gotten popular all of sudden, has anyone else seen what those boxes have been selling for? They're now going for more then they were when they were new, never thought I'd see that!

I didn't much care for Upper Deck's Special Edition (bottom right) when it came out back in '93, but it's grown quite a bit on me over the years (one would've thought that daily showers would've prevented such a thing, but apparently they weren't enough).

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I can recall that during the 1991 playoffs, most of the kids in my 4th grade class were allowed, and encouraged, to support the Blazers by making signs and hanging them on the sides of our desks. There were a couple of oft repeated slogans, but the one that comes to mind first was "Buck [Buck Williams] and Duck [Kevin Duckworth] say yuck to Magic [Magic Johnson]", which was used during the western conference finals. As it turned out, the support from 30+ nine year-olds wasn't enough though, as the Blazers fell to the Lakers in six games that year (at least the Lakers went on to lose in the finals).

Ask any Blazers fan about what if's, and they'll probably be able to rattle a handful off before you can even finish your sentence. Taking Sam Bowie ahead of Michael Jordan in the 1984 draft is often mentioned first (and it doesn't help that it was rehashed in that garbage "documentary" last year), why I don't know, as far as what if's go, that one's pretty simple to answer; if Jordan had gone to the Blazers, he never would've got Scottie, and therefor never won a ring, see? Simple! For me though, the biggest Blazers what if, will always be what if Arvydas had been allowed by the Soviets to come over right after he was drafted in'86? [Hawks fans can wonder the same thing, as he was drafted by them a year earlier] Many a expert considered him to be the best player in the world at the time (which was warranted by the way), I have no doubts that had he come before his knees were shot, the Blazers would've been the dominant team of the late 80's/early 90's, winning multiple rings, and completely rewriting the history that is currently known.

Have you noticed a theme yet? I'm thinking that Kerry cleared out some of his dupes box for me. It's nice to know another Blazers fan in the blogging world.

It wasn't all Blazers though. Dan was top 5 player for me as a kid. No one's asking, but the other four were Cliff Robinson, Jerome Kersey, Larry Johnson, and Shawn Kemp. Larry Bird and John Stockton would be #'s 6 and 7, and the only reason that Larry isn't in the top 5, is because I didn't get to see him play enough at the time, and didn't see any of his prime years until much later on video, and then eventually, the internet.

Here's where I really had to limit what to show, and what not to, as a lot of player collections were touched on, just about all of them actually. I can't remember if I ever had the Mitchell Wiggins/Otis Thorpe error card before, so that made for quite the surprise.

The Fleer Metal sets really got popular there for a bit earlier this year, but have since come back to earth, save for the Jordan's of course.

It's impossible to tell from the scan, but Cedric is one of those Reebok Metal's, and Shaq is a Prizm Prizm Silver. 

After Brando Roy, Wesley Matthews is my favorite modern Blazer, but after being a Buck last year, and signing with the Lakers this season, I find it really difficult to want to collect him anymore.

I already two copies of Bill's '77-78 Topps (white back), but would never have turned down another. This one came with a fairly hellacious wax stain (you can see it in the scan), but even so, it was no match for the all-powerful pantyhose! And I did have the Jerome as well, but this one was in better shape than mine.

Many thanks (over a hundred I suppose) to Kerry for this overly generous mailing, it truly was another great one.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Is this thing on?

If there's three things that I've learned from my years of blogging, it's that a). People go wild for basketball card posts, b). "Look what I got" posts generate more comments than any other kind of post, and c). Analytically speaking, there is no better day of the week to publish a post on than Sunday... Sundays are absolute money!

So it's with this great insight that I'm presenting part 2 of my order from the Baseball Card Store...

I received an unexpected package from Kerry a few weeks ago (which I of course haven't gotten to yet), in it was, well, a lot of stuff, but one of the main attractions was around 40 or so cards of Uncle Cliffy. I've been focusing quite a bit on Cliff in recent months (mostly just picking up rare-ish items on COMC), so I found this package to be rather timely, and believe it or not, was the impetus for my finally giving the Baseballcardstore a whirl.

Most of my card stuffs are currently covered in, or are blocked by, toys, but having just recently finished sorting all of my basketball cards, I had a pretty good idea of what I currently own, and now with a new unsorted stack of Cliff's in hand, I decided to see if the site had anything of his that I didn't. They did. Around 15 cards I'd say, which not surprisingly ended up leading to a much larger order.

I don't normally chase early 2000's stuff, but with me not collecting at the time, I'm finding that I need (or want) an awful lot of cards from that particular era, so it was nice to be able to find some of them listed on the site. The SP Authentic is a really nice card, but the Finest sure looks snazzy in person (side note: I'm glad that Topps stopped using those dumb peels at some point).

Oh, and just for the record, Kerry's package arrived about two weeks before Cliff's passing, and my order was finalized a little over a week after that.

Since I was already looking up one Blazer, I figured that I might as well search for a few more of my past favorites. I already had the '89-90 Fleer (it's in a set), but needed another one for the Kersey collection.

Found a cool trio of Buck's too! It's hard to tell from the bad scan, but the Metal is a Silver Spotlight, which is something that I never see in the wild anymore, and haven't for a long time.

One of the other things in the package from Kerry (geez, I really should've done that post first!) was a pair of 1994-95 Pacific Crown Collection Dan Majerle's, a set that I never even knew existed! Other than the fact that the set contains twenty cards, I still really don't know anything about it. I'm terribly curious to know how it was distributed, seems like it would've been done so as a set, but I could also see them coming in 2-3 card cellophane packs as well.

More Thunder Dan. He's another one that I've been focusing more on in recent months, basically all of my childhood favorites are being bumped up in the collecting hierarchy, something that I should've done much sooner, but dumb me, I had to be wasting all of these years working on sets, sets that somewhere in the back of my mind I had to of known were never going to get finished.

I have a lot of Shawn Kemp's, and with him I couldn't remember what I did and didn't have, at least as far as the base cards go. These three were he only ones that I was absolutely sure of.

Ditto for Stock. Like Kemp, I have a lot of his cards, all of which are in a binder that would've been difficult to get to, so I had sort of guess on these.

David Robinson gets almost no hobby love (these kids today don't know anything), so it wasn't a surprise to see a couple of pages of his cards on the site.

There aren't a lot of inserts to be had on the site, at least not that I've seen, but I did find one in the form of this 1996-97 UD Choice Miniatures, a card that I thought that I already had at least one of (but wouldn't have minded more of), turns out that I didn't though.

Holy horizontal grandmamambo's, Batman! Yeah, I know, I'll see myself out (you know in your heart of hearts that it was a pretty clever LJ reference though).

Hopefully the few of you who actually made this far today, were able to find a few things of interest. In case you hadn't figured it out at the beginning, posts like these, on this day of the week, are akin to blogger suicide -- but I don't mind playing to the ghost town crowd, it sort of serves as a voluntary humbling, which I believe all of us are in need of from time to time.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.