Better late than never

Is there a record, amongst bloggers who actively exchange cards with other bloggers, of who's gone the longest before trading with the Night Owl? If there is, I think I now own it.

I started this blog almost 7 1/2 years ago, and have been fortunate enough to receive, and send out cards to quite a few different bloggers, and blog readers, during that time. However, it wasn't until just this past December that I partook in my first bit of extra-curricular activity with the ever popular winged wordsmith behind Night Owl Cards (and now 1993 UPPER DECK as well).

Some of you might be wondering what took so long, and honestly, I don't really know. I don't think that there's any reason why, it just, for whatever reason, took us a while to swap some cards. For blog purposes, it would've probably been more exciting if their was some great backstory involving murder and betrayal, but there isn't, sorry. 

 

I think I could count on half a hand that number of times that 1987 Topps has appeared on this blog. At this point in time, most collectors seem to either really love the set, or really hate it. Haven't you heard, it's 2023, the internet demands that you pick a side! Me though, well, I guess you could say that I'm indifferent to it. Thanks to my brain slowly turning to mush, I can't say for certain anymore, but it's possible that the very first pack of cards I ever got were 1987 Topps, and if it wasn't the first, it was certainly one of the earlier sets that I collected. With that in mind, there should be at least some nostalgia attached to the set for me, but it's hard to be nostalgic for something that's never gone away -- and from what I've been able to gather, is never gonna go away. I may be neutral on the set, but after all of the blog posts that I've seen in recent years, I'm very glad that I'm not collecting anything current, because I'd probably have a very different take on it, what with it's design constantly being rehashed and all.

These two cards stem back to last year when, much to Mr. Owl's chagrin, he was "gifted" a vending box of 1987 Topps from somebody at work. The resulting blog post was equal parts "Look what someone had the gall to give me!" and "Please take these off of my hands!!!". I knew that I couldn't help him move very many, but I did rattle off a couple of names of guys that I seem to be in need of, and Jamie and Joe were the two that he was able to take care of (please don't ask who the other names were, because I cannot remember anymore). I have a blank backed copy of Jamie's rookie, but somehow did not already have a regular one. And Joe is one of a handful guys that I'm trying not to collect, but still am sort of anyway.

As nice as it was to get them, I'm not sure that these two would've been enough to justify the cost of a stamp. However, they had company...

I suspect that this, and the next card, are copies that have both been upgraded, thus rendering their slightly off-condition counterparts expendable. I too will undoubtedly upgrade this one at some point, but for now, it's just fine for my set. And given current prices, it'll probably continue to be fine for at least the next couple of years.

If the Post was unexpected, which it was, I don't know how to describe this one. I mean, it's not everyday that someone sends me a playing days Erskine. Sure, there's a vertical crease going down the middle, but it doesn't detract from the overall image very much. I've come to realize that if I want to pursue this set in any sort of serious fashion, I will have to be more tolerant towards acquiring cards that are in a similar state. If not, I'll have to be content to sit on the sidelines until the moneyed crowd moves on to something else.

Many thanks to our resident avian author for the envelope, hopefully it won't be another 7+ years before we can do this again.

On an unrelated note, I noticed yet another new blog on the block, and as usual, thought it was worth mentioning. So, if you have a few spare minutes, and are inclined to want to do something nice for someone else, go show Dillard's Dugout some love. One of the best ways to prevent a new blogger from getting discouraged is to let them know that they aren't typing into a void.

That's okay, I didn't really want to go to Nashville anyway

There was a card show in Nashville last Saturday, a VERY large card show, and you know where I was? No where near Nashville, that's where!

This was another one of those three-day affairs, that I had actually thought I might try to go to, well, that is until I saw a week or two before that there was gonna be 770+ tables; that's just too much for me. Not to mention too, if I wanted to go on the first day, Friday, I'd have to deal with Nashville traffic on a Friday just getting there, and coming home I'd have to deal with rush hour traffic, in Nashville, on a Friday. Yeah, that's a hard pass for me.

After three years, I feel like I should go to a show again one of these days, but as I've said before, I'm just not sure if the way I'm collecting now is conducive to card shows anymore. Will I find enough there to warrant the gas, long-drive, and three to four hours of sleep the night before? Also, I'm just not too keen on the boom crowd, and am not that interested in rubbing elbows with their kind. I probably will venture back to one of the regular twice a month shows (which have doubled in size since the last time I went to one) sooner than later, maybe in the spring... or summer.

Thankfully I don't need to go to any shows for blog content, as I've currently got piles of unscanned cards from the Baseball Card Store, and Sportlots, to pull from should I so desire; which I did a few days ago.

I did two orders from the Baseball Card Store in recent months, my first since they started capping them off at 40 cards. Some folks may not have liked that change, but if it helps keep the shipping cheap, then I'm all for it. My first order, from back in September, was 40 cards worth, while the second was a card or two under that. I still haven't scanned the second batch, but I did do some of the first; probably too much, but here we are anyway.

These two Joe Carter's had been on my most wanted list, and were the first two cards that I grabbed when I started this order. I'd like to get his '86 Leaf at some point too, but it's not a high priority right now.

At some point I noticed that I had almost two pages worth of (different) Arnold cards, and have since started adding more to the... collection? I don't really know what I'm doing with that right now, but until I figure it out, I might as well keep adding cheap cards to what I have already. As for the bottom row, Ronny Cox is headed to the Perry Mason collection ("The Case of the Heartbroken Bride" - TV movie), Michael Ironside was gotten just because he's awesome, and Sharon Stone will be added to a themed page that's currently in progress. [The theme isn't being revealed right now, because I'm thinking about doing some sort of "guess the theme" contests next year]

This card isn't very attractive in person, and is even less so here. I rarely get any new (to me) Admiral's anymore, what with the not going to any shows and all, which is probably the only reason I grabbed this one. Panini really dropped the ball by not naming this set "What the Flux!"😉

I'm not 100% certain, but I think that these are the first Kay-Bee cards that I've ever owned (I've since got my most wanted one too), which is kind of strange considering how much time I spent at their stores as a kid. Of course, I wasn't ever going there for cards, so that might have something to do with it. To further that, I don't think that I ever even knew that they made cards until I started reading the blogs.

I've tried a couple of times in the past to get this card from those sellers on eBay who have those fixed price "choose your card" from a specific set listings, but the Maverick listings are always missing this card. I'm a big fan of Graham Greene, and was very happy to finally get this card, which is essentially his only card. Definitely my favorite from this order.

I've mentioned before that I loved the MusiCards set as a kid, and was the only kid I knew who did, but over the years have grown a lot less fond of it (I know, I'm in the blogging minority on that). I think it's mostly because, as an adult, I just dislike so many of people who are featured in the set. And of course too, I can't help but wonder why so many people that should've been in the set, aren't. I probably had 5 or 6 complete sets at some point way back when, but those are long gone; and until just recently, never thought I'd be buying anymore. And yet, here I am, buying more! 

There is no order to it yet, but I've been putting together a binder of cards that feature things from my childhood, and teen years. Basically just a collection of cards that can take me back to a specific time, or moment, just by looking at them. I couldn't tell you why, but working on this binder has been my biggest priority as of late. I'll probably do some posts and go more in-depth on the cards in it once I get a little further along, and possibly organized somehow. In the meantime, all three of these will be going in there, Hammer for an album, Biz for a song, and Debbie because she was an early crush of mine. And for the record, that crush has never gone away, not only is she still a smokeshow, but she's still really fun. She doesn't seem to have ever gotten all bitter like so many others end up getting, and you ever see her do an interview, it shows.

I never thought I'd be buying any more Yo! MTV Raps either. I'm most excited about getting Whodini, as they were the latest addition to my new-ish Halloween novelty songs collection (see Monday's post about that) for "Haunted House of Rock". It's not very often that I can remember where I first heard a particular song, but I can with that one, it was on one of Dr. Demento's old Halloween shows; though I couldn't tell you which year. The other two will be going into the childhood binder.

This was gotten for the Pippen cameo. It's always kind of fun to see future teammates sharing a card years before playing together.

 

More folks for various collections: One Bernard Fox for the Perry Mason collection ("The Case of the Laughing Lady") and the other for my Columbo collection ("Dagger of the Mind" and "Troubled Waters"), Parley Baer for Perry Mason (he was on six episodes), and Aneta Corsaut for Columbo ("A Stitch in Time").

This is a fun card from an unlicensed dice game that was put out in 1989 by a "company" called Grand Slam. Apparently they can be found with two different border colors, which is news to me, as was the game/set itself.

I'm assuming that this game is kind of like APBA except with dice, though, given the size of the set, you're probably playing as a pseudo All-Star team, instead of an actual team. It looks like you must use another die or possibly a spinner to determine which action is represented by your original throw. This has gotten me curious to know now if a game with teams from actual seasons, like APBA, could be developed using dice instead of spinners? It might actually be more fun with dice. Even without knowing the rules of this one, if I had anybody to play it with, I'd buy this game in a second. Since I don't though, I'll probably just try to get the couple of guys I collect from the set, and call it good.

I also somehow never noticed before that Fred was born on Halloween (lucky fella!). Seeing that got me to thinking about starting a mini-collection of folks who were born on Halloween. I'll have to see who that would encompass before committing to it though.

This order was really good for the Perry Mason collection as Lori Petty also appeared in one of the television films ("The Case of the Musical Murder"). Malcolm McDowell on the other hand, will be a rare add to my Batman: TAS collection ("Showdown"). I had completely forgot that Tank Girl had gotten a set. I can remember going to see that in the theatre, and, well, thank goodness movies didn't cost as much to see back then as they do now; not one of my favorites.

Here's some cards for my random 90's binder. I'd kind of like to start collecting Joe Carter, but he just has so many darn cards. Even if I just stuck to playing days stuff, he's got a lot.

Demolition Man was a favorite of mine during my teens. I use to have it on video, and probably watched it more times than any sane person should have. It's been about twenty years since I last saw it though, might be time to view it again; see if I can still appreciate it now that I'm old and jaded.

Sandra Bullock will be headed to the childhood binder, more for her role in Speed than Demolition Man though. Glenn Shaddix will be added to a themed page (probably won't be hard to figure out that theme). I didn't even notice how miscut the card was until I scanned it. It's fine like that for now, but I'll need an upgrade at some point.

Silver Banshee doesn't have a lot of cards out there, so it was nice to be able to add a new one (on the right) to my mini-collection of hers, and it was even better to be able to get a much needed upgrade of her Cosmic Teams card. My original copy didn't fare so well in the box that it had been in during my decade away from cards.

I already had a copy of this card, but needed another one.

Scan-wise, it looks like I saved the worst for last. Given his continued affordability, I've been focusing on Gene Tenace quite a bit this year, and I guess if the masses continue to overlook him, I'll be continuing my trend into the coming year. I can only vaguely remember seeing Chris Sabo play a couple of times, and yet, for some reason I always thought of him as a star player. He did have a decent career, but looking back, I don't know if his cards warranted the "rubber glove" treatment that they got from me. 

I do plan to scan some of the cards from my second shipment one of these days, and then on one of the days following one of those days, I might actually get around to blogging about it.

Give a little, get a little

Jeff, from Wax Pack Wonders, recently let it be known that he was now working on the 1973 Topps baseball set. Having about a hundred cards left from my abandoned set build, and absolutely no use for them, I was eager to see if I could help. 

I wasn't able to knock off as many of his needs as I would've liked, but did find a few. 

Jeff, being the sort that he is, wanted to send something in return. Not having any public want lists for Jeff (or anybody else for that matter) to peruse, I just went and looked at his 'for trade' list on the TCDB, picked out 10 possible cards, and told him that I'd be fine with whatever combination of those he wanted to send. He sent all of them, plus an additional card. He's that sort, too.

It's probably been a few years now, but at some point I got, and showed off here on the blog, the gold version of this card. Ever since then, the base and silver versions have been pretty high up on my personal want list. I didn't think it would take so long to acquire the base version, but apparently the blue border is prone to chips and dings, and most of the copies online seem to be of that variety; which is what I didn't want, so I waited, and then waited some more. I saw this on Jeff's list, and figured that if anybody was gonna have a nice copy, it would be him. And I was right, it's very nice. I would've been quite content with just getting this one back for those 73's. 

Bo is one of the few players that I still actively look for cards of, and I feel fortunate to have gotten four needed cards in a single mailing. I didn't realize it until the cards got here, but the one on the right is an insert. I thought from the picture on the TCDB that it was from a subset. Nope, it's an insert, and a very subtle one at that.

I've thought to myself many times that I'd like to complete Danny's entire baseball run, but the idea never seems get much further than that. This is the one baseball card of his that I already owned, mine has a punky corner though; this copy is considerably nicer.

Cool card, terrible scan.

I'm not sure why, but lately I've been thinking about guys from my childhood that I should've been collecting (but don't), either from the beginning, or when I came back to cards a dozen or so years ago. Dave Winfield is one of those guys. It feels like it's too late to start such collections now, but that doesn't mean that I can't add the occasional interesting card of one of these guys to my "just because" binders.

I think I've mentioned it on here before, but after noticing that I had some pretty nifty Tim Salmon cards, I went ahead and decided to collect him, at least selectively. I don't want all 10,000 cards of his, but will try to add a "good" card to his pages from time to time. I thought this one was kind of interesting, or "good" if you will.

I remember seeing this card for the first time just a couple of years ago. I thought it was pretty neat, decided that I wanted a copy, and then promptly forgot all about it. I saw it again somewhere recently, and was even more enamored with it than I was a few years back. Finding it on Jeff's trade list just a few days later seems pretty coincidental, like it was just meant to be. Joe Carter is another guy that I should've been collecting. If it weren't for Bo's Gun show, this would've been my favorite card of the bunch; it is a very close second though.

Here's the extra one that Jeff threw in. I have 2 ½ pages of this card in refractor form, on e whole page in golden sparkle form, and maybe another pages worth of it's various parallels. I haven't put it away yet, but I think that this is only the second copy of the base version that I have. I should probably get at least one pages worth of this one too. This was a nice surprise, very unexpected it was.

Not being overly focused on acquiring cards right now, I'm more than happy to send things out and not get anything in return (I tried to do so in this instance). That being said, this was a cool bunch of cards to get in return for some others that I no longer wanted. If they could always be like this, I might actually try to get stuff in return more often. 

Thanks again, Jeff!

The beginning of a Joe Carter super collection?

A couple of months back I ran my first contest, and as one would expect, said contest had a winner... Richard, who can be found at the helm of Toronto Blue Jays Collection. He also happens to run, what may be the most unique player/team oriented blog that I have seen, George 'Moon' Gibson. Over the past month or so, I have finally had the time to go back and read all of the 'Moon' posts, and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys seeing old stuff and/or stuff that you don't see very often (two of my favorite kinds of stuff). Seriously, go check it out!

So anyways, during our email exchanges following his win, a trade was proposed. Richard was interested in a two of my three 1994 Collector's Choice gold signatures, which normally I wouldn't have been interested in trading away, but seeing as how Richard is working on a 1994 Choice master set, I was able realize that my whopping three gold's weren't likely going to be materializing into a set anytime soon -- so why not just call it a day, and send them to a better home. I also ended up being able to help Richard finish off his base set, having the eleven cards he needed to do so, which I was very happy to be able to help with.

Normally I wouldn't show the best card first, but since this was the card that Richard initially mentioned as sending for his side of the trade, I figure that this is one time where it makes sense to show such an awesome card first. As of late, I have been trying to put a little more effort in to looking for autos from both the 1997 and 1998 Donruss Signature Series sets, so I would have been way more than content getting this '98 Joe Carter for the cards I ended up sending as my part of the trade. This card is so freakin' cool, I mean just look at that nice big signature, he couldn't have fit that on a sticker. This is (and probably will be for awhile) by far the biggest name that I have gotten from either set so far.

As if that wasn't enough, Richard ended up sending a few more cards in an effort to help with some of my many set(s) needs. If the title of the post didn't clue you in already, see if you can spot the common theme.

This 2002 Topps Archives Reserve sure is a beauty. By sending this, Richard doubled my haves for this set from one... to two!

 Not only did I get Joe's base card from 2005's Upper Deck Classics...

... But there were also two serial numbered inserts from the set as well. Until getting these, I had never even thought to look for any of the inserts before, in fact I didn't even know this set had any inserts before receiving these. It's kind of funny to see that Upper Deck used the same base card photo for Post Season performers too, it seems like Upper Deck would have more than two images at their disposal.

I always enjoy finding/getting needed 2001 & 2002 Fleer Greats. In a weird away I almost don't want to complete either of these sets, because I would no longer have a reason to look for them if I did, and the thought of that makes me sad. I wasn't aware that Joe Carter had been included in both of these sets, seeing as how he retired in 1998, I think he had to be the most current "great" on both of the checklists.

I was very excited to see this 2002 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classics included in the package, as I almost never come across any of them. And on the few occasions when I have stumbled upon them in the wild, they are almost always in terrible condition, Joe here however... was in really great shape. The only bad thing about this set, is that with the all shiny silver, they don't scan or photograph well at all.

2006 SP Legendary Cuts is another set that I hadn't ever thought of looking for inserts from. This #'d Baseball Chronology sure is an awesome looking card, it also photographed really well, which is always a plus.

Richard, thank you again for the cards! I really enjoyed being able to mark these off their respective checklists. And hopefully next time it won't take me nearly two months to show off such a neat package.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.