An act of generosity leads to a trade

I woke up one morning a few months back to find a transaction proposal, of the TCDB variety, in my email. Not currently having anything listed on there for trade, I must admit that my curiosity was piqued. At best, it would be a fellow blogger looking to send me something, official like; and at worst, it would be some rando trying to sell me something. Turns out that it was neither.

The message was from a fellow called, Marc, or as the cool kids call him, iusedtohavethatcard (an odd nickname for sure, but I'm not one to judge), and he had a card that he wanted to send me; with no desire to get anything in return. That was certainly different.

The card in question was a 1994-95 Majeur Magazine Otis Thorpe (it's a French magazine). Marc had an extra copy that he was looking to giveaway, and apparently I was the only one who had it on my wantlist (how is that possible!). He did mention that one of the corners was a bit chewy, but since this one of those sets that I never expected to even own a single card from, I wasn't about to turn it down over a condition issue.

As you can see above, the corner in question isn't that bad, especially considering that these were magazine issued cards. I was expecting much worse.

The magazine sure didn't skimp on the backs. For this sort of thing, you really couldn't ask for a better write-up. 

Having never seen one of these cards in person, I always assumed that they were similar in size to the SI for Kids issues. That assumption was just a tad off...

Here's Otis next to a regular sized 1990-91 Fleer Shawn Kemp, which also came from Marc (more on that in a second though). As you can see, these Majeur cards are rather large. Given their size, I'm even more forgiving of any condition issues than I would've been previously. I can imagine how difficult it would've been to store these for European collector during the mid 90's. 

Before accepting Marc's offer, I took at his want lists, ostensibly to try and find something that I could send in return (despite his assurances that nothing was needed, I was still gonna try). I noticed a few things on them that I had, which then got me to thinking about a possible trade. A quick glance at his trade list made up my mind, and thankfully Marc was open to the idea.

Even though I don't do a lot of trading on the site, this was the card that made me want to try and put something together with Marc. The 1999-00 Metal Emerald parallels were one of three parallel sets that I was actively working on when I walked away from collecting back in 2000. I can't tell you why exactly, but in the last couple of months, for reasons unknown to me, trying to go back and finish those three sets has felt like something that I have to do. In the case of the Emerald's, I only had a few from my original attempt, so for the most part I've had to start from scratch. Vince Carter is card #1 in the set, which, given the hype around him the year before, wasn't that much of a surprise. 

My scanner completely washes out the green on these, hence the photo; which still didn't capture this particular shade of green very well.

I'm now sort of working on the 1997-98 Ultra Gold Medallion set as well. A couple of decent names here. I always liked the photo that Fleer used for Rodman's card. 

I'm sort of working on the '98-99 Gold Medallions too. 

I forgot to scan my copy of this blue Starquest that came in the trade, so I had to "borrow" this image from the TCDB. If I remember correctly, one of the teams that Marc is a fan of is the Rockets (or possibly just the 90's Houston teams), so he had a number Hakeem duplicates. 

I've mentioned before that during my early years of collecting I was pretty much only interested in building base sets. Inserts and parallels meant very little to me, and when pulled from a pack, were just stuck in the back of the sets binder. Often times I wouldn't even give them a second glance. One of the few exceptions to that was the Pan for Gold inserts that came from the 1995-96 Topps set. For whatever reason, these really caught my attention at the time. Not enough to try and complete the set mind you, but I did spend a bit more time looking at them than usual. I don't know if I'm even trying to complete the set now, but I have been picking up a few cheap copies (thankfully no one cares about this set anymore) here and there, even if I already have a copy of said cheap copy. This was my second Rodman.

These were all freebies from my want list that Marc was kind enough to surprise me with. Much like the Pan for Gold's, the '92-93 Upper Deck Team MVP insert set was another rare one that stuck out to me way back when. I can remember trading one of the MJ's from the set (the one where he's holding the trophy) to fly by night card shop (in Gresham, OR) for five packs of 1998-99 Topps basketball series 2 in 1999. I can't remember if the packs yielded anything of note, but it felt like a good trade at the time. And even though I never collected it, I've always like the 1997-98 Hoops design. I noticed last year that I had a few of the "key" cards from it, and decided what the heck, I might as well give it a go too. I haven't gotten very far with it yet though.

Also included in the trade was the Fleer Shawn Kemp up top. A few of you know how fond I am of that particular card, and that I kind of hoard it. It's been a while since I got a copy, and I've lost count of how many I have, but I think it's somewhere between 150-200 now.

Many thanks to fellow Otis Thorpe fan, Marc, for offering me the awesome Majeur card free of charge. It's been a few months, and I still have it displayed on one of my bookshelves. I'm also very grateful for the trade, as I was able to add some pretty neat cards to multiple set builds.

Celebrating Opening Day with a scan dump (Part 1)

I've already mentioned a few times that one of, or rather, my only, unofficial goal for this blog, this year, is to empty all of my old scan folders -- and with it being so hard for me to post right now, the only way that I'm gonna be able to achieve this goal is to do some scan dumps throughout the year.

So far I've been able to get the football portion of my old scans done, and with Opening Day fast approaching, I figure that this is as good of a time as any to get the baseball dumped.

Part 1 will cover stuff from Sportlots, most of which was gotten early last year, and Part 2 will feature items from COMC, most of which has now been sitting in folders for 3-4 years. A lot of the cards, especially in today's post, were intended to be shown in more elaborate posts, so most of them weren't scanned together, as one would normally do with cards of this sort.

I've flip-flopped many times over the years about whether or not I like the '86 Donruss/Leaf border design. My current opinion is that I don't like it very much, but if asked again this same time next year, it'll probably have gone back the other way.

I bought quite a few card over the years at Kay-Bee (and even more at the Kay-Bee Toy Liquidators outlet store in Troutdale), and yet, I don't recall ever seeing any of their branded sets during all that time. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I didn't even know that they ever had their own cards until after I started reading the blogs. I might go back and collect those sets someday, but in the meantime, I'm all for adding cards like this to player collections.

This is a good looking card. The only way that it could've been better is if Topps would've let the image breathe a bit more (i.e. not cropped it down quite so much).

One nice thing about collecting Gene Tenace is that all of his playing days cards are plentiful, and aside from his rookie in OPC form, all are very cheap. It's hard to believe that Fleer could not find a better image for their '84 set. That one is really bad.

I'm usually a little less excited to get cards from after someone's playing days, but this one from the '87 Mother's Cookies set was an exception. It's just such a great looking card. And as an extra added bonus, I'm fairly certain that that's Joe Rudi there in the cage behind Gene. 

I knew when I bought this one that I a couple of Gene's Hostess cards, but didn't think I had this one, and didn't double-check before purchasing. Turns out that I did in fact have one already, but it worked out okay as I've since decided to put my Hostess set builds back together, and since my other copy is cut better it went towards the set, while this one was able to replace that one in my Tenace pages.

I'm not far enough along with the '77 set to justify buying singles, as I should be looking for a nice lot, but Bert was awfully hard to pass up for a quarter.

I've really cooled on Topps Coins in recent years, so much so that I rarely ever even look to add them to player collections. Obviously, I made an exception for Boog. Now if I could just remember to stop trying to scan coins, as the result is always the same, that being that the scanner focuses on the rim and ends up blurring the image below it.

It's funny how much joy a crappy looking card can bring me. Bones Ely is notable for many things, but for this blogger, he and his brother purchasing, and then selling, the Portland Browns (the Beavers before they were the Beavers) during the 1904 season is what made this particular card, his only card, so desirable. And for such a cheap thing, it sure proved difficult for me to get. I feel like I've been trying to do so for more than a few years now. At some point, I hope to do a much longer write-up about him over on my Beavers blog.

Jamie Moyer in Dufex? Yes, please! 

I have a page of post-playing days Chuck Connors, which this was a fun addition to.

I started out the post with a Big Bo, so I might as well close out the post with a handful of regular sized Bo's. These two were long-time wants as well. The blue Classis is, well... classic!

I thought I had already had a couple of copies of this Traded card, and bought this one thinking that it would get me closer to a page's worth. As it turned out, I had none. I must've been having a flashback to my original collecting run.

Did you know that were cards on the bottom of 1990 Fleer boxes? I didn't.

I bought more packs from this set as kid than I'd like to admit to, but never got a box, and apparently never saw the bottom of a box, so I had no idea that there were cards under there. I never know what the going rate is for something like this, but I think that this card was around a buck, which seemed reasonable. It was cut well, and isn't wrinkled, so that's about the best I could hope for a "card" of this sort.

That's it for this one. If all goes well, I should have part two up by Wednesday or Thursday.

The Super Bowl of scan dumps (Part 2)

I'll probably jinx it, but I was surprised by how many people stopped by the previous post. I was gonna say in that one that two football posts in a row is akin to blog suicide, but maybe I'm wrong for thinking that? I'm guessing that the two-part scan dump that'll have to do for basketball in a few months might be a bit rough though. I'll probably have to follow those with a free stuff post just to get folks to come back again.

Similar to the first post, a lot of today's stuff came from COMC, and has been sitting in folders for a few years now. There are few exceptions though, like the above SI for Kids Eric Dickerson, which I had marked as just "TCDB". I don't recall getting it, but it must've been part of a trade some years back. I may not remember getting it, but I do really like the card. It's always fun to be able to add those cards to player collections. Even more so if said player collections are in binders, as these cards can really brighten up a page.

I'm pretty sure that this was the only time that Ernie Ladd was ever referred to as "Little Samson". Someone at Fleer must've thought that he needed a nickname. It didn't stick. A few years later people would come to know him as "The Big Cat", which was a moniker that he proudly wore for the rest of his life. If you're like me and gonna own only one '63 Fleer, this is a pretty good one to have.

I originally bought this card for myself, as I really liked the colors when I first saw it, but somewhere in-between the buying and getting I fell out of love with it. That happens to me more than it probably should. At least in this case though, Steve was able to find a good home with Fuji.

Wild Card stripes are a real bitch for player collectors, especially those elusive 1000's. I think this 50 is the only one I have for Ronnie's "rainbow" so far.

I don't know who, or if, anyone still owns the Action Packed name, but if it could be done right, i.e. look like it used to, I'd be all for seeing the brand's return. Of course the way things are now, it'd probably end up being a Leaf product, and end up being Action Packed in name only.

This card had been on my want list for quite awhile prior to getting it. I know I had bid on, and then subsequently lost out on multiple copies on eBay. Under the photo in my scan folder I had noted the price of $1.50, which I must've thought was good at the time to have wanted to save it. This was, and still is, my only card of Fran as a Giant. I really should work on getting more.

Despite not being very interested in modern happenings, I found myself quite enthralled with Alex Smith's situation a few years back. As far as comeback stories go, his was one of, if not the most impressive that I can recall. Not only was his determination to return amazing, but his story also highlighted just how far sports medicine has come (now if the rest of the medical profession could just catch up). Like all modern players, Alex has close to 3 trillion cards out there, which I didn't want to collect all of, but did, thanks to his saga, want to pick up a few. I ended up targeting red cards only, mostly just because he played for three teams who had red in their jersey colors, which all look really good on red parallels.

I got all of the card in this post (as well as a few more) right around the time of his return, and despite the media attention, there didn't seem to be a lot interest from other collectors in his stuff. Because of that, I was able to get pretty much all of the cards I did for less than a buck apiece, including some that were serial-numbered.

I'm not really all that big on refractors anymore, but this one is just awesome in person. I think too that this was the only card of his that I paid more than a buck for. It's also my favorite. My collection as it were, ended up at around a dozen cards. I haven't been actively looking for anything to add to it, but I probably will start doing so at some point.

This scan and next one contain the oldest purchases from these last two posts. I'm not as into the Kellogg's 3-D cards as a lot of the other bloggers seem to be, but I do really like the two football sets, and if I weren't afraid of them all cracking eventually, I'd love to collect both sets. It's been so long that I can't even remember why I got Ed Meador. Dave Wilcox is one of a handful of former Ducks that I actively collect. And I had an idea to start seeking out cards of guys doing the Heisman pose, hence the Lance's inclusion. I didn't get very far with that collection, but it's not one that I've abandoned either.

All six of the Kellogg's came from the same seller, and if I remember correctly, the ones in the first row were around a dollar each, while these three were around two dollars apiece; which seemed like a pretty good deal given their collective star power. I actively collect all three of these guys, Mel, because of Ducks again, Alex, for his post football career, and Deacon, because he was a destroyer of worlds.

I was eight years old when Action Packed first came onto the scene, and I can remember being completely blown away by their look the first time I saw them. I never got more than a few packs, but have as of late I've really been thinking about trying to build the set via a box (or two if need be). These two came from Sportlots last year, and both went towards my Reggie Roby run. I can't keep track of the Collector's Edge parallels, but this was one of them.

And from another Sportlots order, this Silver Die-Cut(?). Part of me wishes that Reggie had been able to play longer so that I'd have more cards of his to collect, but then the other part is glad that he didn't, otherwise I'd have considerably more kooky parallels to have to try and track down.

   

I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to tack on a newer purchase to the end of this second post. A recent lot from eBay really helps my burgeoning 1990 SLU set. 

The lot was made up of eight cards, and as you can see, four guys were "complete". Finding cards paired together like this really makes things easier. It seems like though, despite each figure coming with two cards, more often than not you just see singles being offered for sale. I think that this lot was a perfect example too of why I'm getting so much enjoyment from the SLU cards, in that these were all guys that I remember from my earliest days of getting football cards, but they're being shown on cards that A). I haven't already collected once before, and B). that I haven't seen a million times over the years. Both of which make collecting a set much more fun for me.

I'm getting this one in just under the wire. As mentioned in the previous post, I won't be partaking in tomorrow's festivities, but for those that will be doing so, have fun; but don't overdo it. And for those out driving, be careful, there's probably gonna be a lot of drunks out there on the roads; before, and after, the game.

Birthday splurge

Try as I might, I can't seem to hold off the coming of my least favorite day of each year; that being my birthday.

Some would, and did, refer to this years occurrence as a milestone, and I guess they were sort of right. After all, it's not everyday that someone other than Jack Benny celebrates their 39th birthday for the second year in a row 😉. 

Depending on when this is posted, I am now 10-14 days removed from this yearly abomination, and don't seem to be any worse for wear (I'm not counting the recent smashing of my thumb with the back of a hatchet, as that was unrelated). Everyone says that life begins at 39 😉, so who knows, maybe they're right and I'm just getting started.

With this whole "milestone" thing in mind, I decided that I'd wanted to do something to mark the occasion. I've known for months that the Nashville cards show was going to be on the weekend of my birthday, and that it wasn't going to be your average bi-monthly show. No, this was gonna be a 450-table affair that was spread over three days. I thought briefly about going, but I would've wanted to be there on the first day, which was a Friday. However, thinking of having to deal with Nashville traffic on a Friday was enough by itself to keep me away. Not to mention, I'm still not ready for the boom crowd (Boomers?). I've heard about their kind of crazy, and I don't want any part of it. I've also changed what I collect so much over the last few years, that I just don't think I'd find enough things there to justify the expenses (gas) for such a trip.

Having made up my mind a few weeks in advance not to go, I decided that I would instead make a couple of small purchases online. Not only did this save me from all of the terrors that were inevitably waiting for me in Nashville, but it also freed up the Friday before my birthday, which I ended up spending in Knoxville instead (if you're so inclined, I already wrote about that here). I have no doubt that I made the right choice.

I had been eyeing two cards from a seller, Jim and Steve's Sports Cards, on the Beckett Marketplace for about a year now, and decided to finally get them. Of course, I had to see if I could add a few more things to the order, it's kind of silly to pay $4-5 in shipping just for two dollars in cards, right? Right.

I knew nothing of 1990 Topps Heads Up! until I was looking through these peoples selection of Bo items. I probably should've looked into it a bit more before adding this to the cart. I thought from the picture that it was gonna be a card-sized head, but nope, turns out they're like 4"x 5", or thereabouts. It's a giant head! The only thing that I can think to do with it is to put on the inside front cover of the Bo binder. 

Just in case I wasn't the only one who had never seen these, here's the back. The suction cup prevented it from laying flat on the scan tray, which caused the blur, but you can still see most of what's going on here.

I was, and still am, unfamiliar with these as well. From what I can gather from COMC, these come from a sheet that was inserted into a 1991 book about... kids who grew up to play professional basketball? I don't know, and honestly I don't really care, they were just something different that I could add to these two player collections.

I don't know what the origins of this set of University of Kentucky playing cards are either, it just looked fun, so I grabbed the Bowie, even though I'm not really trying to collect any of his post-playing days stuff.

I probably had multiple duplicates of this sticker back in 1990-91, but all of my old Panini stickers were in with the cards that I donated to a charity auction back in the early 2000's (because I didn't think that I'd ever take up card collecting again).

A part of me has been thinking that I'd like to take an extended break from cards if I ever complete the Reggie Roby collection. Counting what you'll be seeing in this post, I'm about 40 cards (and other assorted items) away from finishing his catalog. Unfortunately for me, no copies of his Wild Card 1000 Stripe have shown up recently, and even if one did, it would probably be in an eBay store with a stupid high BIN, so I might have to be sticking around for a while longer.

Having grown up with Franz Blazers cards, I'm no stranger to cards coming with bread, but even so, it's still a little weird to think of a football card coming with your bread. That wouldn't have gone over very well in Portland. I like this one quite a bit though, it's now one of my favorite Reggie's. Oh, and this was the card that led me to this seller in the first place. I figured that if they hadn't sold it in the last year or so, that that might mean that I was suppose to buy it.

If I had anyone to play it with, I would've bought that old Franchise board game years ago. I could be wrong, but I always thought that it looked like a cross between Monopoly and fantasy football (fantasy football before it became the lame version that everyone likes so much now). And sure, the players are all from 1989, but those are the guys that I know. I think it would still be fun. Since I probably won't ever be buying the actual game, I might as well start picking up the game cards that I need for player collections. I think I still need 4 or 5 more, but I got the most important one crossed off the list.

In case anyone cares about the backs.

The last item from these folks was a bit disappointing, as it's in much worse shape than the advertised NM (there's always gotta be one). McDonald's didn't do Dennis any favors with this tightly cropped photo. A wider shot would've been pretty cool, we would've been able to better gauge how this meeting between Dennis' and Bruce Hardy turned out.

With shipping, this order came out to just about $20. Were these worth $20? Probably not. Buyers remorse set in right after I placed this order, but that's pretty normal for me these days. I still feel it a few weeks later.

I can't remember what night I did the Beckett order, but the day after I did so, I made another small purchase on Sportlots, from a person calling themselves, vogs59xa. I feel like I might've bought from them before, but I'm not sure. Like the Beckett seller, I've had three cards from this person sitting in my cart for about a year. After seeing that the shipping price for three cards would be the same for up to 10, I started looking for a few more to pad out the order.

I'm not really sold on magnets as collectibles, even if their appearance, and distribution, were similar to that of trading cards. I also don't remember them in the least when they were new, so I have no connection to them or their concept, and therefor don't really like them all that much. That being said, they do add a little bit of spice to player collections, and at a quarter apiece, I didn't have to break the bank to add them to said collections.

For a magnet, this one actually looked pretty good (too bad you can't tell from the scan), but unfortunately the front of it is peeled down some up in the right hand corner. I'm not sure why this person would send something with this kind of damage when it was listed as NM. I certainly never would've done that. I guess they were hoping that I wouldn't notice (no honor among thieves?)

The first run of Gold Medallions never scan good. Oh, and this card was far from the stated NM as well.

I think that this sticker put me at about the halfway point with the Dennis Smith collection. I think I only need two more of his stickers now too.

Magnets? Dog Tags? Shit was crazy back in the 90's! I thought I was just ordering the regular version of this "card", but I got the Plus parallel instead. Normally I'd send them a message and let them know that they accidently sent a slightly rarer version, but I figure that this makes us even for the two damaged cards that they decided to send without saying anything.

This may look like just your average old 1990 Topps, but it's actually the Tiffany version. I'm pretty sure that this is the first Tiffany card that I've ever owned. I always kind of wondered how easy they would be to tell apart from the regular Topps version. If the 1990 set is anything to go by, it would be very easy to tell them apart. The glossy finish on here is very noticeable, and it could never be mistaken for one of the regular cards.

Both of these are kind of boring parallels, the Choice is a Silver (because of the big silver 'Redskins' across the bottom), and the UD is an Electric Gold (because of the gold 'Electric' up in the left hand corner), but they were both needed, and cheap. I do really like the image that they used for the Choice though; if I tried to do that I'd probably never walk again. Physically, I'm in pretty good shape, but I've never been very flexible.

With shipping, this group came to a little over $5. Was it worth $5? I guess it was. I probably couldn't have found all of them at a show for less than what I paid here.

So there's my $25 birthday splurge. I do feel like I could've gotten something else more enjoyable for that amount (or less), but what's done is done. At least I got a few more Reggie's out of the deal... and a giant Bo head!

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Before you go, I mentioned in the last post that I thought that I was forgetting another blog that I thought everyone (who doesn't already know about it) should go check out, and I was right; If You Build It, They Will Come was the odd-man out. This guy's collection is quite varied, and includes all sports, some non-sports, old stuff, new stuff, etc. Given the variety that he posts about, one would think that there would be the occasional something for just about everyone's tastes. So, if you have a few minutes, maybe you could use them to go say hi.