Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, and more Johnny!

I don't think that I'm telling most regular blog readers anything they don't already know, when I say that Johnny's Trading Spot has been a hotbed of activity for what seems like the better part of a year now. Of course, with nearly daily giveaways going on, that is to be suspected. If there's one thing that blog readers like, it's free cards. And with folks only having to comment on posts the day they go live, it's not that difficult to get qualified for a chance at a 9-card PWE.

In the early days of my blog reading, I was pretty good at being able to comment on posts within a few hours of them dropping, but in recent years I'm almost always 3-7 days behind. As such, I haven't been qualified for many of John's giveaways, maybe 10 (?) out of the 200 (?) that he's done so far. Surprisingly though, out of those 10 (?), I've actually won three. And seeing as how those three arrived quite a few months ago, I'm way overdue in giving proper thanks. Today I'm giving said thanks.

The first envelope was nine-pack of Junior, all of which turned out to be needed.

I rarely look for Junior on my own, so a few of these were new images to me as well, including the Topps Chrome here where 2010 Griffey looks like he ate the Score era version of himself.

Sometime between my first and second wins, John sent a bunch of people envelopes fully of original Wacky Packages for reasons that I can no longer remember. Since I was one of those people, please pardon the slight detour while I show most of those off...

I may not remember why I was included in these mailings, but I do remember when my envelope arrived, if only because I had had the Fruit of the Tomb and Snarlamint cards in my COMC watch list. They were there in the hopes that the person would be running a sale during the Black Friday sale, which at the time, was only days away from starting. I believe this envelope showed up the day before the sale started, which couldn't have been more timely if John had tried.

I even got part of a puzzle, which, when completed, will look like this...

I am not well versed at all in being able to tell the different WP series' apart. As such, these are still sitting in a stack, patiently waiting for me to get the sorting bug.

Back to the contest wins...

The second winning envelope started off with a Junior subset (?) that I wasn't familiar with. I only ever collected Collector's Choice in basketball form back in the 90's, so I'm constantly seeing cards from the baseball and football sets that are new to me. 

I had the silver signature version of both of these, so the images weren't new, but the base version of the cards were.

It seems like I only actively look for a handful of guys anymore, Boog being one of them, so to get three that I didn't have all at once was kind of nice.

It may be sun bleached, but this Reggie Roby auto was still a nice addition to his binder. I'd like to think that this was somebody's prize possession at some point, perhaps out on display for many years, hence the fading, but obviously there's no way to know for sure.

The third and, probably final, winning envelope was made up of nine cards from what appears to have been at least a 20-card Junior subset; which was once again new to me. Like a lot of folks, I miss certain things about cards from the 90's, but one thing that I don't miss is all of the subsets and insert sets that were devoted to a single person. Upper Deck was especially notorious for doing them, but was far from the only guilty party. I doubt that I'll ever go out of my way to complete this one, as a page of them seems like more than enough.

I don't know how he's been able to do it, but I'm sure that I speak for many others when I say thank you to John for running these giveaways. And from myself, thank you again for these four mailings. I'm way behind in trying to send some sort of reciprocal package, but am still slowly working on it.

The Early Wynn gets the worm

Is it just me, or are the blogs in a really good place right now... maybe a better place then they've been in years?

Despite all that's currently happening in the world, we've got blogger's returning from long absences. We've got very active bloggers who have somehow managed to increase their already staggering output. We've got daily, bi-daily, weekly, and monthly free stuff posts to look forward to. We've got other assorted free stuff, but not called "free stuff" posts to whet your whistle. And last, but certainly not least, we've got a weekly mini-BFG, hosted by the ever generous, Johnny, over at Johnny's Trading Spot.

Given that most people are currently stuck at home on Friday nights, these games have really taken on a life of their own, and tend to get filled up rather quickly when the sign-ups become available at the beginning of each month. Even though John's been running them for a couple of months now, I waited until just last month to finally join one. The only reason I hadn't joined one sooner, is because as recently mentioned, I've been spending a lot less time on the internet, which often includes entire evenings, and I didn't/don't want to be the one responsible for holding up a game if I'm not around on that particular night.

Despite my worries of a looking like a flake, I broke down and joined a game, a game that seemed to move really quickly, like an hour or less quickly, and when all was said and done, I ended up with what I'm calling the Early Wynn lot... although it could just as easily be called the players of yore lot!

The only Panini Diamond Kings I have are those that have been sent to me by other bloggers. I like the players that are featured in the sets, but some of the images are really hit or miss, and like a lot of modern sets, I can't tell one year from the next just by looking at the fronts.

I don't own very many, but I do enjoy the various Sport Kings revival sets, one of these day I might actually have to sit down and look through all of the checklists and see how many cards I need for player collections.

This one wasn't in the lot, but I'm certainly not going to complain about getting an uncracked Kellogg's for a freebie, especially not one that so prominently features the old-school Mariners trident logo.

Many thanks to John for letting me be a part of one of his games, it was fun, and I can't imagine that I won't try and join another one at some point :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A tale of two Roby's

A few weeks back, Rod (Padrographs) showed off a bunch of autographs that he got from a trade with John Miller (Johnny's Trading Spot). Amongst those shown was a 1990 Pro Set Reggie Roby, and as some of you might know by now, that's somebody who I'm collecting - one could even say super collecting - so it was kind of a downer to see that Johnny had an auto available that I didn't know about. I left a quick comment saying as much, and while the comment was just supposed to convey some minor disappointment before moving on to the next blog to read, it apparently was  interpreted much differently than I had intended by the two folks who had been involved with the trade.

I would soon find out that my dumb comment had set things in motion, things I truly didn't expect, for less than two weeks later I was to become the proud owner of not one, but two new Reggie Roby IP auto's!

Rod was secretly sending the Pro Set Roby (along with the Karl Noonan from the last post), right around the same time that John was letting me know that he might have another autograph for trade, which was soon confirmed by the arrival of a wonderfully signed 1992 Fleer.

Reggie only has one certified autograph ('91 Pro Line Portraits), so getting both of these was really cool, and they've made for a wonderful addition to my still relatively small collection, but I still can't shake the feeling that I unintentionally guilt-tripped my way into both of them. My apologies to both guys if that's the way that the comment came across, I would hope that most people know that that's not the way I operate, and if you don't, please try to remember that in the future.

I may have obtained both of these through "nefarious" means, but both fellows will be rewarded for their generosity, Johnny's went out on Sunday, and even though I got a little sidetracked last week, I'm still looking for something to send Rod, hopefully whatever it ends up being will have been worth the wait.

Many thanks once to again to both Rod and Johnny! I really (really) dig these cards, I just wish that I could've acquired them in a slightly more honorable way.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

T&A from a BFG

I, like a few of you reading this, was fortunate enough to be a part of, John Miller's (Johnny's Trading Spot), most recent Big Fun Game -- in fact, I was the first to join, which unbeknownst to me, meant that I would be picking first.

My first pick (I don't remember which number it was) yielded a three-box lot of unopened cards, which was promptly stolen by the very next contestant, aka Julie (of all people)! Since my prize had been callously taken from me, I got to pick again, this time ending up with a stack of likely future hall of famer's (baseball).

I'm sure there was probably some good cards in that stack, but it didn't look like anything that I collect, so I was kind of hoping that somebody would steal that one too... but nobody did.

Thankfully, John, had added a new twist to this particular BFG, which was that once the game was over, four people would have the chance to swap out their prizes and pick one of the remaining numbers, which I did! This last pick yielded something that I was not expecting (not that I'm complaining though)...

... a stack of cheesecake/pin-up arcade cards.

I was hoping that I would recognize a few of these gals, but alas, I didn't.

There were a few duplicates in here, so if anybody's interested in those, you know the drill.

These cards represent a couple of different era's, but all of the cards have the exact same white back, and are all printed in the exact same manner, which tells me that they're reprints. I'm guessing that they were produced sometime during the 1980's, as these kind of reprints were being done a lot during that time period.

The woman on the top right card has been bugging the s*** out of me, she looks so familiar, but I just can't seem to place her. Anyone?

And finally, everyone who played the game seems to have gotten one of these Mickey Mantle homerun cards. I'm not for certain, but I think everyone's homerun card coincided with their place in the game, which means that I got HR #1. If I'm right, this was a very creative idea on John's part.

John, thank you for letting me be a part of your game, it was very fun! And even though I haven't sent you anything in return yet, rest assured that I have been looking, you're just not a very easy person to find stuff for :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A rare contest win

A month or two ago, John, of Johnny's Trading Spot, started showing some of the cards that were part of a rather large vintage collection that he had recently acquired. There was also a contest that was going to coincide with this series of posts, in which entries were earned by leaving comments, that would later be entered into a randomizer.

I don't how many comments I left during the month(?) long contest, but knowing that the randomizer was going to be involved, I figured my chances were pretty slim as the randomizer doesn't seem to like my name all that much. So, when that contest was nearing it's end (spoiler alert: I didn't win that one), and John announced that there would now be a separate contest that would be won by guessing how much was paid for the entire lot without going over, I jumped at the chance to control my own destiny and got my guess out there first... and surprise, surprise, I was the closest!

I didn't know exactly what I had won, but I actually won something. After a very short wait, my prize package arrived, and here's what was inside:

There's some star power... and I actually needed two out of the three.

Needed a couple of these 72's too.

My attempt to build the '73 set is sort of on hold, and I don't really have an accurate list of what I have at the moment, so I don't really know if any of these are new to me or not. Either way though, getting a vintage Clemente is always a good thing.

It looks like McGruff took a bite out of Harmon.

 Here's something I really wasn't expecting, a Gary Carter rookie!

 Not one of my favorite sets, but the Yaz is a neat card to have.

 Having never seen it before, I really dig the '78 Niekro/Ryan strikeout leaders.

My first card from the 2017 Stadium Club, and not a bad first player to get, cool photo too.

Thank you again, John. Not only for the cards, but also for holding a contest in which the winner was going to be determined by something other than having their name tossed into the randomizer, it actually made me feel like I had a fighting chance for once :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.