A not so Secret Santa

Matt had mentioned in the past, that the most awkward thing about hosting the Secret Santa, was telling whoever drew your name that they did in fact draw your name, by doing so, your basically telling someone that they have to buy you something, and you know something... he wasn't wrong!

It may have been even more awkward for me this year, because I had to tell Nick, of Dime Boxes fame, that he had drawn my name for the second year in a row. I don't know what the odds of that happening are, especially since I wasn't the one doing the randomizing last year, but it did happen. Nick took the news in stride, as I expected him too, but it still didn't make sending the email any less easy.

Nick and I have exchanged cards a few times now over the last couple of years, so I knew that what ever was sent, would end up being good, and I was right.

The package started with a pair of big names from the 1973 Kellogg's set, aka the best Kellogg's set (yep, I said it), and much needed hall of famer from the '76 Hostess, which btw is the only Hostess set that I'm still working on. Both of these sets have been slow going, as I never see them at shows, and COMC rarely has any reasonably priced copies that I need.

I've been chasing the 2011 Legends Parallels quite a bit as of late, so this Paul O'Neil was a nice surprise. The Hitman Hearns Bread for Energy was even more appreciated, in fact when I went to cross it off the checklist I noticed that once this was removed I was down to needing just one more to complete the ten-card set, a quick jaunt over to COMC revealed that the last card, Norm Cash, was on sale, so I'm to report that this insert set is now officially in the books.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to revive my buybacks frankenset or not, I wonder if this is Nick's way of saying that I should? And if I'm not mistaken, this is the first TCMA Baseball's Greatest that I've added to those sets since last year's Secret Santa package from Nick. The guy that I was buying these from at the card show, hasn't been there in quite some time, so trying to complete the sets (cheaply) has become considerably more difficult.

While probably not the "best" card in the package, this '61 Topps Billy Muffett would rank as my personal favorite. If anyone's seen my newest tab at the top of the blog, you might have noticed that I'm looking for multiple copies of this card, why? Well, I don't exactly know! You see, I only just saw this card for the first time a couple of months ago while working on the COMC Challenges, and when I did it was love at first sight.

I don't exactly know why I like it so much, I mean Mr. Muffett didn't do anything overly special during his MLB tenure, and he never played for the Portland Beavers, which is a trait that has become quite appealing to me over the last few months. And it certainly isn't the appearance of the old Yankee stadium in the background, heck, that's shown in like half the cards from the '61 set alone. So like I said, I don't know what the appeal is, I just know that I want as many as I can get -- you'll see what I mean when I start getting to my COMC stuff.

I should also note that as per usual, I had to go and take the picture before taking the wax stain off, one of these days I'll remember to start doing the other way around.

It must be getting close to Christmas, because it's not everyday that someone sends you a vintage Willie Mays! I keep going back and forth as to whether or not I want to work on the 1972 Topps set.
I do love the set, and I've probably got half of it, but I just don't know if trying to complete the other half is even financially doable anymore -- even if I don't though, at least I now have another cool vintage Mays to join the couple of other old cards of his that I have.

It seems like it's been forever and a day since I was last able to cross a card off of my 1960 Fleer checklist, George doesn't look too happy about it, but I was!  And I'm not positive of this, so don't go and quote me on it, but I believe that this might have been the first card to show Mr. Sisler as a Brave, if that is indeed the case, I wonder if one could refer to it as his Braves rookie?

All of these were great, and really were more than enough, but Nick being Nick, he had to go and toss in some extras. And when I say extras, I'm talking about 60-70 more cards. There was easily two posts worth of stuff, but since I'm so behind with posts right now, I've decided to go the best of route, or, if you prefer, the Whitman's Sampler route:

I guess these would be classified as the miscellaneous section of the extras. Got a little bit of everything in here, I needed the Hornsby for my set, the Marichal Deckle is pretty neat, and there's even an Ichiro disc -- speaking of Ichiro...

Counting the disc, there were 19 Ichiro's in this package, all but the DeLong looking one were new to me, and even with that one I don't mind having a duplicate (or two). Nick didn't say as much, but with him being an Ichiro collector, I have to assume that these were all duplicates.

A few more Ichiro's, these being of the, shiny but rendered less so by the scanner, variety. Having not seen it before, I was impressed by the niftiness of the Gold Label card.

Some more odds and ends. Sometime in the upcoming year I plan on doing a post about my collection of minor league cards, I say collection, but it's really just a couple of hundred cards in a monster box -- the only question is, will I be discussing my finally getting around to organizing it, or will it end up being a massive giveaway post?

It wouldn't be a proper package from Nick without a large contingent of old-timers, all of these ended up being new to me, so I'm certainly not complaining.

And here's some old-timers with fancy borders. The 2005 Donruss Greats is apparently yet another one of the players of yore sets from the mid-2000's that I missed during my hiatus from card collecting.

Imagewise, the scanner really did a number on these two, no matter though, they look really great in person. Both will be nice additions to my newly created team binders, the Randle features a great action shot, and I believe that this is my first card of The Bird.

And finally, some more vintage in the form of a needed '62 Post card, and a rarely seen in person by me, 1970 Fleer Laughlin, featuring the once (in)famous Philadelphia Athletics $100,000 Infield (times have certainly changed).

Nick, thank you so much for the cards, and for being such a good sport about drawing my name... again! As much as I enjoy receiving packages from you, I do very much hope that someone else gets to benefit from your generosity next year, for your sake, and theirs.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.


P.S. Thanks to Nick for unknowingly providing the title for this post as well!

I need fewer hobbies

For someone who generally doesn't like formal trading, I sure have been doing a lot of it lately. Okay, technically I've only been involved in two (with a third possibly in the works), but it sure feels like a lot!

Scott, of I need new hobbies., and I, recently concluded a trade that had been in the works for almost six months. Thanks to me, there was a four-month gap between the beginning, and the end of the trade -- Scott, being the stand up fellow that he is, didn't hold that delay against me.

The above Ron Fairly buyback is what set the trade in motion. It's hard to believe that that one card would lead to such a large trade -- a trade by the way, that would see me ending up with cards from three different sports (gotta love variety).

Near the end of our back and forth, I asked Scott if he had any copies of Warren Moon's 1990 Score Hot Gun card (I'll save the "why" for a future post), he ended up having one, as well as quite a few other Moon's available for trade. The Collector's Edge die-cut and the UD Team Trio were the two that really caught my attention.

"Moon, the moon, the funkin' moon". A small prize to the first person who can identify the song that those lyrics came from.

All of these were extras that Scott ended up throwing in. There is a nice assortment of base, inserts, and parallels.

One more Moon, and a really great Shoeless Joe from the Kramer set.

Now we're starting to get into the meat of the trade. Not only does Billy McCool have a "cool" last name, but his last stop in baseball was spent with the Portland Beavers (1971).

Have you ever seen a card that you don't have so many times, that you start believing that have the card? The '69 Drabowsky just happens to be one of those cards for me, but now I do have it, so...

The bulk of the trade, as far as what I got, ended up being for 1971 Topps.

Even though the scans don't show it, most of these are in really great shape.

In my mind, these three are baseball card perfection! Great action shots, that couldn't be framed any better if you tried. I had seen the Severson many times, but the other two are completely new to me.

It's not often that you'll find somebody that has a '61-62 Fleer for trade, let alone one that features a true Hall of Famer. I still have a few of these from last year's COMC stockpile to get to, but this is the first card from the set that I've gotten this year.

Scott, thank you again for the trade, hopefully we can do it again sometime in the near future.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Buybacks, buybacks, and more buybacks

My infatuation with buybacks has been waning for the last couple of months, I can't really explain why it has exactly, I just know that my interest level isn't anywhere near what it was two years ago when I started my frankenset.

With that in mind, it seems kind of ironic that I would now stumble upon a proverbial mother lode at the show two weeks ago.

I found the first couple in Jim's 5/$1 boxes, upon seeing me pull them out, Jim mentioned that he had added quite a few to his dime boxes. Eventually I got over to those dime boxes, and "quite a few" was right, all in all, I ended up with 158 of them.

I knew when I was adding all of these to my pile, that I would most likely not be keeping too many of them, but since a lot of other folks seem to be collecting buybacks now, I figured it wouldn't be too hard to find some interested parties. Initially I only had 3 or 4 other people in mind, but after showing the picture above on Twitter, a number of other people came forward and asked if I had any of this team or that team, for most part I did, so why not spread the wealth out a little more. Plus, as I was going through them a little more thoroughly, I noticed some that I thought might appeal to a few more people, so that ended up dividing the pile up even more. When all was said and done, 147 (I took out 11 for myself) buybacks have been split up and are (and will be) sent out to 18 different people... not too shabby for a days work!

Not wanting to show all of these, I thought instead I would just show the eleven that, for the moment, I am tentatively keeping -- tentatively being the key word.

For what it's worth, I can now say that I own a Roberto Clemente buyback!

A pair of Hall of Famer's.

Higuera was the last name of one of my first best friends in life, so I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Teddy's cards.

I was a big fan of Raul's when he was with Seattle, and I liked Jason when he was still with the Braves.

Remember when pulling a McGwire card was a big deal? Seems like a lifetime ago doesn't it?

With the stamp, it makes this card look like it says Rediscover dinals... which makes me laugh!

Among all the Topps Rediscover cards, I found three A&G buybacks as well. This one was the only one that I had planned on keeping.

To anyone who's getting some of this horde from me, stay tuned, as you might end up getting more in a couple of months should I decide that my interest in buybacks truly is no more [spoiler alert: I am really leaning in that direction].


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Some random cards to go along with some random thoughts (blog-bat-around?)

I have had a couple of different blog related things on my mind lately, and I've got some random cards that were pulled from the 25-cent boxes at last month's card show, hmmm... what to do? I know, let's combine the two and make a super long post that most people will probably won't end up reading all the way through. Sounds like a plan!


2003 Bowman Heritage Black Facsimile Signature #142

Some of you might not be aware of this, but there's been a blog-bat-around making the rounds. Having not participated in one before, I kind of wanted to give this one a go, but probably won't, if only because... I'm slightly confused by the question, or at least I became so, after I started reading the posts of others.

So far I've seen three different interpretations of this topic -- there's been the "What I'm currently working on (card wise)", "What I collect (card wise)", and "What I collect (cards and non-card stuff) -- so, which is it? If it's one of the first two, then I don't really understand it's purpose, and by that I mean, if somebody wanted to know what I collected and/or what I'm currently working on (card wise), they could just scroll up to my want lists and see what's what, which would then make a blog post on the subject sort of unnecessary, right?

Now if it's supposed to be about what I collect in the broader sense...


2018 Topps 1983 Topps Design #83-89

... then that's a little different, and normally I'd be all about doing such a post, but right now is probably the worst possible time for me try that kind of post, at least with pictures and all (without pictures it would really be boring). You see, the bulk of my stuff is still in boxes (toys, statues, coins, stamps, etc.).

I've mentioned it before, but when I moved to Tennessee a couple of years ago, I had to leave my super awesome ginormous display case behind, as it would've never survived a cross-country journey. I have only just recently acquired two display cases (the two combined still aren't as big as my old one), both need some repairs, which I've waiting until the weather warmed up to do, which it has, but I just haven't started working on them yet. So for the moment, everything gets to stay in boxes.

I'm also not sure that Night Owl had that kind of post in mind, and judging by the lack of views on my non-card posts as of late...


2007 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Americana #LA-64

... I'm not sure that's what kind of post that reader's had in mind either. And besides, I don't think that I could even fit everything that I collect into one post. Not to mention, what about all the stuff I have that other people might consider a collection, but I don't? I mean I probably have close to a thousand (maybe more) movies on multiple formats, does that count as a collection? Some people would say yes just because of amount that I have, I on the other hand, don't consider them as a collection, I would just say that I might be a bit of a film fanatic that's all (and normally all those are out on shelves, but I had to take everything down and move it to other rooms for the upcoming painting of the living room... see bad timing all around)

I have quite a few records (vinyl) as well, so is that a collection? Again, I don't consider it to be, I just like music, so I have a lot of it. And what about all the stuff that I've bought over years that I only did so...


2017 Topps Archives 1959 Bazooka #59B-14

... because I thought that if I didn't, it would end up getting broken or thrown away. Case in point, I have a handful (maybe more) of different 100+ year old demitasse saucers that have been bought over the years. Is that a collection? I don't think it is, in my mind I was merely trying to save them from a world that no longer cares about such things. And that's just one example, I have quite few things that fall into that category. So you see, even if want to, how am I suppose to participate in this kind of blog-bat-around? Especially when I don't even know what the parameters are.


1994-95 NBA Hoops Big Numbers - Rainbow #BN11

I realize too that this blog-bat-around might also be kind of a "getting to know you better" sort of thing, but I feel like I already know what everyone collects (card wise), so it doesn't really do much for me. If we're all trying to get to know each other better, I'd much rather see people make lists of their all-time favorite movies, songs, television shows, etc. And not like the "this songs reminds of this card" type of thing, just straight up lists. I probably don't have enough pull to influence others to follow suit, but I will most likely do a number of just such lists at some point in the next couple of months, and not because I think anyone will care to read them, no, it'll be just because it sounds like it would be fun thing to do.


1997 Score The Franchise #3

I mentioned the lack of interest/views on my non-card posts, but that's only half the story, as interest/views seem to be down in general as of late. I don't know if it's a cyclical thing, or if it's because of all the non-card posts, or if folks have just gotten tired of my schtick. Some bloggers might try and fix such a problem by finding out what the readers like, and then doing more of it... at this point though , I can definitely say that I am not one of those bloggers.

In fact, since my readership seems to be dropping off, I'm probably going to start doubling down on the non-card posts, as they tend to be the only posts that I actually enjoy putting together. And it's not because I'm losing any interest in cards, on the contrary, I've had more fun with cards in the last couple of months than I have in the last few years. It's just that every card post I try to add words to lately just feels like a grind, actually it feels like something more than a grind, but I just can't think of another more suitable analogy at the moment. So I guess I could say, that if you want to know more about what I collect, stick around, as I've only begun to scratch the surface.

And I still enjoy reading other people's card posts, in fact, blog posts and comic books, are for time being, pretty much the extent of my reading material.


2015 Topps Allen & Ginter's Buyback Framed Mini's 10th Anniversary Issue

After hitting the publish button on the last post, I noticed that it was #299, meaning of course, that this one is #300. That may not seem like a big deal to the folks that crank out a post every single day, but I don't, so it is... especially if you consider that during my bout with depression last summer, I was for all intensive purposes, done with the blog. But the depression went away, and I came back.

Speaking of depression, I have felt it trying to get another foothold for the last couple of months, I've been able to keep it at bay thus far, but it's only a matter of time before I can no longer do so. People that have experience with depression probably know what I'm taking about. I don't think it will cause me to stop posting this time, but if my posts become more negative in tone, at least you'll know why. Drugs don't work for me, so really I just have to wait, and let it run it's course, but it will... it always does.

Back to 300th post, I should probably be holding a contest of some sort, but only being aware of this impending (now) mini milestone since two days ago, I didn't have much time to plan anything, much less acquire something interesting to give away. Besides, after the disaster that was my last contest, I'm a little down on holding contests right now. I never mentioned it, but neither winner claimed their prizes from my COMC Black Friday contest, well actually the first place winner did try to claim $15 credit to use during the Black Friday sale, the only problem was... that they waited until February to do so, yep... February. So in the end, all I did was waste a bunch of people's time entering a contest that would end up having no winners. Needless to say, I probably won't be trying that kind of contest again.

[Spoiler alert: I will most likely still do a contest in September when the blogs third anniversary comes around]


1995-96 SP NBA All-Stars Die-Cut #AS27

About a month ago now, I started dipping my toe into the YouTube waters. I've made a couple of videos so far, really terrible videos, so bad in fact, that I won't be directing anyone to my channel on there until I get a little bit better and/or more comfortable making them. I bring this up because sometime in the next few months, I might start doing more card related videos that would be sort of like companion pieces to what I'm doing here on the blog.

Also, if I do get more comfortable talking (literally) to a larger audience, I'm probably going to start doing the card show recaps in video form, as they seem to be taking longer and longer for me to do, I mean I'm still doing this post with cards from last months show in it. The year end COMC stockpile would likely end up being shown in a couple of videos as well, at least then I'd actually get around to showing it all, instead of just the small percentage of it that I usually do.


1994 Score Select Salute #SS2

I guess I really should try to talk about at least a few of these cards: The Clara Barton Legendary Americana was a fun find, but I don't think Nick has to worry about me duplicating his feat anytime soon though. It's hard to believe that after twenty+ years, I'm still trying to find all the rainbow combinations of the Hoops Big Numbers parallel. The A&G framed mini buyback is the first one of those that I've seen in person, I can see why some people would have hated them, but I think their kind of neat. The SP die-cut all-stars are one of my favorite 90's basketball insert sets, with the addition of Rasheed, I think I now have around 2/3 of the set.

How about that Select Salute Dave Winfield? I had never seen one before, apparently it was just a two-card insert set to honor some recent achievements from Dave and Cal Ripken Jr. According to BaseballCardPedia, the odds of pulling that card were 1:360! And you can't really tell from the picture, but it's got that cool creeping shine effect when the card is moved back in forth.


1998 SPx Finite Radiance #253 (error)

And finally we've got a card that Billy might find interesting, an error! As far as errors go, I normally only chase blank backs, but that doesn't mean that I won't pass up any other non blank back errors that I come across. I noticed that something was amiss with this Eric Davis right away, but it took me a second to figure out exactly what it was.

As you can see, there is a cardboard bit (which I've never seen by the way) still covering the medallion in the middle, obviously this card escaped the machine that was supposed to pop it out. For anyone who might not be familiar with the SPx Finite set, here's a side by side to show you what's what:

Pretty cool, huh? It just seems so strange to be able to see the impression of the medallion on the back, but not be able to see it on the front. I wonder how many people would just go ahead and pull the tab off the front? I certainly won't, but I bet that some people would.

My apologies for yet another long and rambling post, it may not seem like it, but I'm really trying not to make these a habit.


Thanks for taking a moment (or two) to look at my page.

A Cracked Bat in the belfry

Recently, thanks to the magic of Twitter (perhaps the only time that you'll ever see such a phrase uttered on this blog), Julie, of A Cracked Bat fame, and I, pulled off our first informal trade (more of an exchange than a trade).

I had been meaning to contact Julie for what seems like ages now, as I had a few things that I thought she might like, the only problem was... my social anxiety! I don't know if it's normal for folks with social anxiety to be affected by communicating with people online, but I often am, especially when it comes to trying to contact someone for the first time in order to get their address (there's still like half a dozen people that I would like to contact, but haven't been able to get up the courage to do so yet). Luckily for me, this ended up being one of those instances where I didn't have to initiate contact with a "can I please have your address" email.

This Bob Skinner buyback is directly responsible for Julie and I's first exchanging of cards. Julie was showing off the contents from her box of 2018 Topps Heritage on the Twitter -- and Bob just happened to be amongst those contents -- since I didn't think that he was going to be something that she would be keeping, I decided to inquire about his availability... and that's how we got to where we are now!

A couple more 2017 Archives were removed from the want list. At this rate, thanks to the recent help from fellow bloggers, I might actually be able to complete this set by year's end.

I had just been talking about my love for, and lack of, 2011 Topps Lineage base cards in the second to last post. Kerry was kind enough to include some in the package he sent me, and now Julie...

... up's the ante...

... by sending me...

 ... like 1/8...

... of the set! Oh, and so many great cards in here -- Gibson, Snider, Jenkins, Morgan, Palmer, etc. -- I really could keep going on, but these weren't even the best thing to be included in the package.

 

Julie had mentioned that she might have some 2013 Topps Chasing History Silver Holo-Foils for me... and boy (or girl) did she! I will get to those in one second, but first, there was also this really great Stan Musial non-foil included as well.

Now we've arrived to the heart of the package, the Silver Holo-Foils! I only had a couple of parallels before this mailing, now...

... I have...

... considerably...

... more! Julie's "some", ended up being nineteen. I don't know what the pack odd were on these, but just the regular non-foil base inserts were seeded at 1:4 packs, so someone would've had to of opened quite a few packs to have gotten all these, and I'm guess that that someone wasn't Julie. Either way, I am very happy to have received all of these.

And lastly, even though it wasn't on any of my lists (not that I'm complaining mind you), is this 1980 Kellogg's Darrell Porter. I only have a couple from the 1980 edition, so this was certainly a nice surprise, especially on top of everything else that was sent.

Thanks again, Julie! These were really fun to go through, and all the set(s) help was very much appreciated.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.