The 700 Club

Today's post is #700 for this blog.

On one hand, it doesn't seem like a lot compared to some other folks, as that's less than two years worth for the daily posters; it's taken me over seven to get here. But on the other hand, a lot of other blogs have come and gone during the last seven years, the majority of whom never even got close to 700 posts. 

It does feel like something to me, but I don't know where it would rank on the chart of great blog accomplishments. So, with that in mind, I'll just be conservative and call it a mild accomplishment... yay me!

A much larger accomplishment was recently achieved by another blogger, that being, Nick, who just celebrated his 11th year over at Dime Boxes. 

Like the previous year, Nick celebrated his anniversary with a giveaway, which as luck would have it, I was actually kind of early for. 

Normally, I wouldn't refer to working on, and then getting stuck on, a blog post, as a good thing; but that's exactly what happened on the night of Nick's giveaway, and it actually worked out fairly well, for me that is. I don't know if it's because I'm looking for inspiration, or just seeking out a distraction, but I will often go check my blog reading list if I get stuck somewhere on a post in progress (which happens more often than it probably should), read a post or two, comment where I can, and then come back to my post and see if I can get it moving again. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. On the night of Nick's giveaway for example, it didn't.

Early as I may have been on this particular occasion, I wasn't the earliest. I think I was #3 or 4, but was still able to get my top want, so you'll not hear any complaining from me.

Having just started back up with my Post sets, it seemed rather fortuitous that a '61 Post Jim Bunning would be amongst the freebies, and what's more, it hadn't been claimed yet! I think it's considered a win anytime you can add HOFer to a set-build. I would've been more than content with just that card, but did push the greed boundary with two more claims.

I've mentioned it a few times before, but when I was a kid, the only Mother's Cookies I ever saw (and owned) were those of the Mariners variety; thus leading me to think for the longest time that they only ever made them for the Mariners. In fact, I don't think that it was until I started reading the blogs that I found out that there had been whole mess of non-Mariners Cookie cards produced throughout my childhood. Nick had 4-5 A's up for grabs, I missed one that I would've liked to have by just a couple of minutes, but still managed to get these two. I say that I collect Blue Moon Odom, but that collection consists of only a few cards, and almost never gets added to. And I just a said few posts back, I've been very tempted to add Carney to the list of player collections, but have yet to officially do so. In the meantime though, it doesn't hurt to pick up a few of his cards here and there.

Thus ends the claims portion of the post, but if you were fortunate enough to participate in the giveaway, you're probably already well aware that Nick included some extras in each envelope/package...

It's funny, I didn't grow up an A's fan, nor did I ever even know an A's fan, and yet, as an adult, I seem to be drawn to a lot of former A's. Gene Tenace, Ken Holtzman, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, and John Odom are all players that I collect. And Sal Bando and Carney Lansford are among the players that I've thought about collecting. It's also interesting, and a bit odd, that aside from Carney, all these guys [Edit: save for Vida] retired before I was even familiar with baseball. It's just strange.

Worst scan you'll see on the blogs today!

I'm pretty sure that this is the first card from this set that I've ever seen in person, and even though I'm sure that I've seen cards from it on the blogs, it feels like this is the first time that I've even heard of the set. And without even looking at the checklist, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that this would be the card that I'd want the most from it. Oh, and aside from a suspicious "relic" card, this is now my only other post-playing days card of Senior.

Nick always includes a couple of extra Juniors, and the last couple of times they've all been new to me; this time being no exception.

These were the random portion of the extras. The is pretty neat, so I'll be keeping that one. The other two though, well, if anyone wants them, just say the word. I am thinking about working on a Kellogg's set, just not this one. And as good as Johnny Bench was, he is of almost no interest to me collecting-wise. 

Thanks again for the giveaway, Nick. And congratulations, again, on hitting the 11-year mark, it really is quite a remarkable achievement.

Christmas from The Collector

I don't know how kids these days feel about them, and I don't know how kids from generations prior to mine felt about them, but I do know that when I was young, the vast majority of kids didn't give two rips about greeting cards. Oh sure, we'd anticipate receiving them on birthdays, and for Christmas, but that's only because we'd be hoping that they contain some cash or a check. The cards themselves were merely a vessel for our new-found, albeit temporary, wealth. The cards that appeased us with an offering were tolerated, those that didn't, were as good as trash; that is of course unless mom got to them first, then they'd be put up on the fridge, mantle, etc. where you'd have to look at them for at least a month before they were taken down, only to then be squirreled away in a drawer somewhere for safe keeping.

Greeting cards have always seemed like a waste of money, and time, but mostly money, to me. I could appreciate the sentiment that they conveyed, but more often than not, a phone call would've sufficed.

Something has changed for me in recent years though, for I now actually look forward to getting greeting cards, and don't need them to contain greenbacks for me to appreciate them. I don't know why this is, maybe I've entered the grandma stage of my life (that's normal, right?), and now appreciate just being thought of on special occasions. Such was the case a few weeks ago when I received an unexpected package from, Chris, or as he's known on the streets, The Collector. 

My initial thought was not of the goodies that undoubtedly lay inside, no, I was thinking of how nice it was that Chris had thought about me; and being so near Christmas was just that much more meaningful. 

The contents of the package were a small bundle of trading cards, and greeting card, which clearly felt like it contained something else; probably more trading cards. In years past, I can say with complete certainty that I would've started with the bundle first, but in 2022, I guess I now am the sort who starts with the greeting card, and not because of the mystery bounty that's obviously being held within it's confines -- those were set aside until I finished reading the card. After reading the card, I did a very grandma-ish thing, and went and put the card on the entertainment center, you know, so that I could look at it when I'm in the living room. Now I could look at the cards...

That's really nice looking card, isn't it? Even if I weren't collecting Luke Easter, I still would've wanted this offering from TCMA, it's just that good! This had been on my Cheap Wants list, which meant that Chris had also taken the time to peruse at least one of my lists; that's awfully thoughtful too.

I can guarantee that is the worst scan that you'll see on the blogs today!

Here was another one of my Cheap Wants. Some may recall that there was a copy of this card in my last post too, yep, two arrived on the same day from two different people. Funny how that works. Now if I decide to start collecting Carney, which I'm still thinking about, I'll have one for that collection and one for my random 80's pages. If I don't start collecting him, I'll have two for the random 80's pages, and will have to get a third to finish off the row. Although, I actually wouldn't mind having an entire page of this card :)

Terry was the point guard of youth, and John was the point guard that young me was supposed to hate, but was actually a super-secret fan of (because you couldn't be a fan of anything Jazz in Portland when I was a kid -- that might've warranted a stoning back then).

I should probably note too that in case things are looking off, none of these cards are mis-cut, I've just been getting really lazy with my scans. I don't mind wonky scans, so hopefully you all don't either.

If I were to ever start building a 90's base set again, this one would be a serious contender. It's one of those sets that's just loaded with nostalgia for me. It's also a set that I can still remember a lot of the details from it's initial announcement through it's actual release. It was kind of a big deal at the time.

Here's another Cheap Want that Chris was able to knock off of the list. With this Gold Stamp parallel in hand, I have officially completed my 1992-93 Topps Archives Jerome Kersey rainbow (it's only two cards - base and gold). It's funny too, I remember the golds being a one per pack parallel, but that's a false memory, because the golds were released altogether in a separate box set. I know that I had a bunch of the golds way back when, but I know for a fact that I never got one of the box sets, so I have no idea where all of mine would've come from. I got a box for my birthday in 1992, and I guess over the years the memory of opening it has been altered some to include a gold parallel in each pack. Brains are strange.

Of all the cards that came from this unexpected package, Fred Cox was probably the unexpectiest of the bunch. I already the Alzado, but this one was nicer than my other copy. And I didn't realize it until I opened this package, but I completely forgot to look for both of these guys during COMC's recent Black Friday sale. Which then led to the further realization that I forgot to look for a bunch of other guys too, siiiiiigh. Hopefully I didn't miss out on too many deals; though, thinking back to the lack of deals that I came across, and remembering how few cards I picked up during the sale, I can't help but assume that I didn't.

Many thanks to Chris for sending what turned out to be the only Christmas card that I received this year. The trading cards that accompanied it weren't too shabby either 😉.

And if you haven't already done so, go check out the Young Guns series that Chris is currently doing. I know very little about hockey, and even less about hockey cards, so I've been learning a bunch about both thanks to this series. And of course, in typical Chris fashion, the series has been extremely well researched, and has been written in a manner that makes one think that he should probably be getting paid for doing this.

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Sometimes they do come back

One of the things that I noticed back when I was first started reading the card blogs was how often former bloggers/blogs were mentioned in passing. I guess it would be around 8 or so years ago now that I first stumbled upon (one of Fuji's posts came up in a Google search) the previously unknown to me world of card blogs, and at the time it seemed like there were hundreds of them, probably because there were. But even so, with names of fallen comrades being bandied about so frequently, it felt like I had just missed a time when there had been thousands (a slight exaggeration, but you get the point) of people writing public love letters to cards on a near daily basis.

I was amazed that so many former bloggers, many whom seemingly dropped off the face of the earth without nary a word, were still remembered so fondly by so many of those that were still around. Eight years later though, I get it, for I too now have quite the mental rolodex filled with defunct blogs, and their wayward operators. Without making a list (which I'm not gonna do), I have no idea off the top of my head how many people have stepped away from their blogs since I started this one, but it's definitely been more than a few. And yet, I'm pretty sure that I remember them all, or at least I could with a little bit of time to think. 

It's always a bit sad when somebody closes up shop, but there's always the hope that they'll come back at some point, like Tom, from The Angels, In Order, did earlier this year. People that leave don't always write a goodbye post, but Tom did, and after reading that post, if I would've been betting on whether or not he would've ever been coming back, I would've bet on no. Thankfully, I'm often wrong, and after about a year away, Tom came back! 

Since returning, Tom has done a couple of trade bait posts that seem to have generated a lot of interest, two of which I've even participated in; though not to the extent that some others have. But even so, I've netted a couple of neat things thanks to his posts.

I know at some point not too long ago that I mentioned having an ever increasing urge to collect Dave Winfield, but I've been fighting it, if only because I didn't want to take on anymore player collections. Yeah, about that, I think I might be fighting a losing battle.

This and the next card weren't part of the trade bait posts, but were instead cards that Tom saw on my cheap wants list, and offered to send them. This is the first card that I remember being desired by collectors, and even though I had quite a few copies at one time, those were all given away many years ago. It's nice to have one again.

Carney is another guy that I've been very tempted to collect. I haven't looked, but I can't imagine that he has too many cards out there, and wouldn't think that too many of those that are have been pushed into the stratosphere by the boom crowd price-wise. I only saw this particular card for the first time earlier this year in one of Night Owl's posts. I never collected this set, or even owned very many cards from it, so there's probably quite a few of them that I still haven't seen. And speaking of seeing things, you'll be seeing another copy of this card in the next post, as two showed up on the exact same day; and that wasn't a bad thing!

I had no idea there was 2016 Topps MLB Wacky Packages set, and from what I can gather, this particular card is from a minor league subset(?). Not that I care about any of that mind you, no, I just wanted it because the parody features one of the traditional monsters (vampire, Frankenstein's monster, mummy, etc.); which I've started seeking out in WP form.

I think I stopped collecting baseball cards in 1992, and stopped collecting Panini's baseball stickers after the 1993 set. And because this was the last baseball set that I worked on (never finished it), I have some strong nostalgia for it. I don't have any interest in going back and working on the set again, but if the opportunity arises, as it did here, I won't mind picking up a few choice singles. The foily sticker sure scanned weird though, I wonder if it was because of the black construction paper that I've been using behind the cards? 

Thanks again for the cards (and stickers), Tom. Hopefully you're back for good this time, as the blogs are a much better place with you around 😊.

On an unrelated note: Jeremy, from Topps Cards that Never Were, mentioned the other day that he's thinking about going all in on the TCDB, but has some questions before doing so. It doesn't appear that anyone has answered them as of this writing, so if anyone has a few minutes, maybe you could pop over and help him out. Despite having been a member of the site for a few years now, I still don't have a firm grasp on all of the the ins and outs (Dennis is my go to for TCDB questions), so I'm hardly the one to answer such questions -- but I know that there's a lot of folks who could, which is why I'm mentioning it here.