A post inspired by a post about blog inspired purchases

Say that five times fast!

A semi-recent post from Jim about purchases inspired by things seen on blogs reminded me that I too had a couple of older blog inspired purchases still sitting in a scan folder.

I couldn't tell you when it was, but at some point in the not too distant past, Nick, of n j w v fame, did a post in which this card of Rita Cansino (better known as Rita Hayworth) appeared. I already had a few cards from the 1936 Moderne Schönheitsgalerie set, so I was somewhat familiar with it, but apparently not enough to know that a young Rita Hayworth (she was either 17 or 18 here) had been amongst the subjects.

After seeing Nick's post, I set off to find a copy of my own, which, not surprisingly, didn't work out very well, as there were none available for sale anywhere at the time. Since there was nothing else to do, I put it in my eBay saved searches and commenced to wait until an affordable copy popped up. I want to say that it was around this past Christmas that my saved search yielded a result, well, make that two results. The seller had two copies, one with the normal Kurmark back, and one with a Sultan back. As cheap as they were (I don't remember the prices, sorry), I knew that they wouldn't be up for very long, but for the life of me, I could not decide which back I wanted, so, I just went scorched earth and bought both...

Technically, these ado come from two different sets, but in my mind, since the fronts are identical, they might as well be from the same set (and both companies would've been under the same umbrella). Either way though, neither back is overly exciting, so let's get back to the front(s)...

In retrospect, I probably didn't need both, but... Du lebst nur einmal, habe ich recht?

For the sake of this post, I was trying to think of the first movie that I ever saw her in, and I guess it would've been Charlie Chan in Egypt. I saw most of Warner Oland's Charlie Chan pictures while still fairly young, and have seen "in Egypt" multiple times over the years. Like a number of other old franchises (Universal Monsters, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, etc.), the Charlie Chan films are my version of comfort food.

Without looking at a list I'm probably forgetting a few, but a couple of the pictures that I really liked her in were: The Shadow, Homicide Bureau, The Lady from Shanghai, and Human Cargo. [Yeah, I'm definitely forgetting a few]. 

Anyway, they're really nifty cards, and I'm grateful to Nick for posting about his, otherwise I might still have been in the dark on this one.

I can't remember if the shipping was free, or if there was no charge for additional cards, but I did get more cheap cards from the same seller.

I had been needing a Gail Patrick card for my Perry Mason collection (she was one of the shows producers and also appeared in the very last episode), and this 1934 Garbaty seemed like a really good choice. The border is a little chippy, but I sure like the design on this one, the blue really pops in person.

This card is kind of interesting because by the time it was released in 1936, Clara Bow's career had already been over for close to two years. She did appear in one of those Screen Snapshots shorts in the 40's, but those weren't really pictures per se. 

I have a bit of a Clara Bow collection, though I couldn't tell you why. I mean I've seen a bunch of her films, and am endlessly fascinated by early Hollywood, and even more so by the some of the early mega stars, but I don't think that's the reason why I'm attracted to her cards. Even though they weren't comparable in stature, or talent, I have a similar unexplainable draw to, and collection for, Marion Davies. It's one of those things that I really don't even think about the why, and if I do ever try to come with a reason, I just chalk it up to something from my childhood that I've since forgotten. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea, but it's as good of an answer as any.

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.

At least they weren't lost

Like a lot of other folks, I claimed a few cards back during Nick's big "Dime Box Anniversary Giveaway Extravaganza" series of posts some months ago. 

I'm usually a few days behind when it comes to blog reading/commenting, which isn't conducive with participating in giveaways. Such was the case here as well. I saw the first couple of giveaways days after they had dropped, and was not in the least bit surprised to find that there wasn't much left to claim by that point; Nick is a pretty popular fellow after all. My memory of such things has already begun to fog over, but I do seem to recall lucking into being early for at least two of the ten giveaway posts. In fact I think that those were where the bulk of my 11 claimed cards ended up coming from.

There was a period not too long after the series of giveaway posts that the blogs seemed to be nothing but people gushing over their various claimed goods. And given what, and how much, some of you claimed, I think you were completely justified in your gushing. 

I had to wait a little longer than most folks to get my stuff, hence the lateness of a proper thank you post. 

I'm not sure how many months passed since the extravaganza ended, and my cards arrived, but it was long enough that I had written them off as not going to show up. I figured that Nick had either forgotten about me, or that they had been sent, but had been "lost" somewhere along the way. Turns out that it was the former. It's not all that surprising either since Nick and I don't interact very often, and of the two possibilities, it's certainly the better of the two. I don't mind being forgotten about, but absolutely hate the thought of someone paying to send me something only to have it be misdelivered or pilfered while en-route. I was eventually remembered though, and was sent my claims, as well almost two team bags worth of  random stuff. 

As mentioned, I claimed 11 cards, mostly just stuff for player collections, well, save for George Foster up top. I thought about collecting him, but don't really want to take on anyone else at this point. He will instead be added to one of my pages of 80's cards that I like for whatever reason, but have no where else to put them (I have pages like that for 50's-90's). 

I was surprised to see this Finest Bo show up in one of those posts. I don't particularly care for the set itself, but have wanted this particular card for a couple of years now.

Junior is from the Topps Magazine. Those cards are very alien to me, so anytime I can get one of somebody I collect, I will.

I like this Fernando card, though I couldn't exactly tell you why. I just do. He'll be added to an 80's page as well. And I had seen this Larry Walker on the blogs many times over the years. It too has been coveted for a while. He'll be making his way onto a random 90's page.

Personally, I would've been fine with just those, but as mentioned, there were two additional team bags full of mostly random stuff. I say mostly because there were about 25 more Ichiro's in there, and I'm pretty sure that those weren't random.

I didn't feel like scanning everything, so here's just a few of my favorites. I particularly like the Donruss Classics and the Opening Day next to it. With me not going to shows anymore, it's kind of a rarity for me to go find the Ichiro binder so that I can add some new cards to it. I think 23 of the 25 cards were new to me, which wasn't too bad.

I don't normally collect reprints, but these were fun to find in with everything else. I've never even seen one of the Tom Barker game cards, real or reprinted, in person before. For a reprint, this one is on some really nice cardstock.

If I could go back and start collecting over, or even start back when I returned to card collecting in 2010, I would go after those SI for Kids sets, at least up to the mid 90's. A few of those cards are pretty pricey now, and I'd never pay $50 (or more) for a Tony Hawk "rookie" (I don't know if I'd even be willing to pay 50¢ for one), so trying to collect them at this point is pretty much out of the question. I feel like I really screwed up on that one. 

I think a few of these other cards were duplicates from Nick's many mini collections; approaching baseballs? Players with animals?

More mini-collection dupes? Microphones on cards? Guys signing things? Orel's in Cleveland?

More dupes? Baseball scratch-off's? Guys pretending to play the git-fiddle?

The mini-collection dupes were fun, and many will be added to binders, but my favorite of the extras was this Ken Griffey. I saw the '82 Donruss design showing just a bit while I was going through the cards and thought that it would be neat if it was Ken, or Dave Winfield, and did that slow reveal thing that Twitter tells me everyone who opens a pack these days does when there's a "hit" in the pack. I don't remember people doing that way back when, but whatever, I did it for this card; turned out to be a pretty good "hit" too. I probably you should've filmed it for the YouTube😊. Anyway, it's a neat card, and was a pleasant find amongst the stuff in Nick's team bag repacks.

Many thanks again to Nick for the cards. Considering I don't have any want lists up for public consumption anymore, he did really well in picking out extras (there was plenty more that were worth posting, and I totally would've done so if I could've gotten someone else to scan them all for me). I think going through these team bags was the most fun I've had while doing a card related thing this year, so I'm grateful for that as well.

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!

The Secret Santa has landed

Thanks to some glacially slow mail delivery ('tis the season), my Secret Santa package from Nick, didn't arrive until Wednesday -- which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't a big deal at all -- at times, we should all just be grateful that are mail ever gets to and from it's intended destinations.

Last week you saw some of Nick's warm-up package (that really doesn't sound right), so since this post is being finished a day later than planned, let's not waste any more time in getting to the goods:

Even if Nick hadn't already told me that the Secret Santa cards came from COMC, I would've known anyway once I saw this Pat Jarvis buyback, as it was the last card that I was contemplating whether to buy or not during the Black Friday sale. Ultimately I passed on it, only because I figured I had already bought enough during the sale (including a number of buybacks), but it must've been meant to be, because... here he is!

It seemed like for a while there, I was finding a couple of cards from TCMA's 1982 "Baseball's Greatest" sets at just about every show that I attended, and figured it wouldn't be very long before I was able to complete them, boy was I wrong. The well seems to have ran dry, as it's been at least six or seven months since I last added a card to one of the sets.

1961 Golden Press, wasn't expecting to see one of those :)

I've said it before, and I know I'm alone when I say it, but the '73 edition of Kellogg's is my favorite year of Kellogg's cards.

I don't ever come across Kellogg's 3-D cards at shows, so these were a very welcome surprise.

You can never go wrong with Hostess! Nick is knocking off set needs left and right.

I could see Toby standing above the rest of the cards in the team bag, so while it was a surprise to get a '53 Topps, it also wasn't, if that makes any sense.

Even though he did end up playing five seasons of pro ball after the knee injury that's mentioned here on the back, it was still what ultimately led to his early retirement.

Even though it was the first thing I saw (well, other than Toby sticking up) when I opened up the team bag, this 1964 Dick Stuart coin, was by far the biggest surprise to come out of the Secret Santa loot. It has been almost a year since I was able to cross one of these off the checklist.

I always assumed that the all-star section of the set was for guys who, depending on when these were released in '64, had been all-stars either the year of, or the year before. This particular coin cleared up that misconception on my part, as I didn't think Dick had been an all-star that late, turns out I was right, Dick was a two-time all-star... but that was in 1961 (back when they had two all-star games a year). So obviously, the all-star section of the set, must have been reserved for guys who were all-stars at some point in there career.

As amazing as the Secret Santa portion of the package was, Saint Nicklaus (you see what I did there), decided to add two more full team bags of  "extras"...

Once again, Nick went above and beyond with these extra's, knocking off set needs, and providing me with cards from sets that I didn't know I needed. Because just isn't possible to show everything in one post, here is just a small sampling:

These box bottom cards are really different for me, so much so, that I didn't even realize that boxes of '86 Donruss and Topps even came with cards on their respective bottoms. Very neat!

This Donruss Classics from '03 is yet another set that I didn't even know existed. I missed out on so many of these "player's of baseball's past" sets while I was away from collecting in the early 2000's.

Oh, and Luis here, is a gold parallel to boot.

This was by far the biggest surprise of the "extras". If I were able to better focus on my baseball card collecting goals better, I would work almost exclusively towards completing the Post sets, before continuing with anything else. Thanks to my lack of focus, there's a good chance that I will never complete even one of these sets, that being said, I still get excited every time I get a new (to me) needed card from one of these sets.

I've never seen these embossed 2003 Fleer Tradition Milestones before. They look really good in person.

I almost never come across these 1992 Action Packed All-Star Gallery's.

How have I never seen this one before?

I can now say that I own the famous Lance Berkman Sumo suit card!

There were a bunch of A&G mini's in the last package, but apparently Nick had at least one more lying around.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I do sort of collect pre-production/sample cards, so this 1994 Sportflics 2000 sample is a nice addition to that collection.

More Kellogg's.

I certainly won't complain about getting another needed Hostess.

Some vintage set needs. Bill Stoneman has a bit of a wax stain, but that will require almost no effort to remove.

My first two cards from the 2004 Legendary Cuts set.

A variety of set needs.

A hodgepodge of fun stuff.

And finally, a few more odds and ends.

Nick, thank you, once again your generosity has been almost overwhelming, and while I do think that there are many people who are much more deserving of such thoughtfulness, I greatly appreciate it nonetheless. These last two packages have elicited many a ooh and aah while going through the cards, hopefully I will be able to repay you in kind throughout the coming year.

And a final thank you goes to Matt for organizing this whole Secret Santa thing. If there is another round next year, I feel like you should just toss my name in as a sender only, what with Nick sending me at least half a dozen years worth of Secret Santa gifts and all :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.