COMC football dump

                                          
It's been awfully cold again down here in the land of Sleeves this past week. One would think that being stuck inside because of the cold would be conducive to "writing" blog posts, and it may be for some, but not me. I get restless when I'm stuck inside, and restlessness is the enemy of sitting down and doing anything, hence no posts this week.

I've also been in a bit of a funk again, probably brought on by the cold, but nobody came here to hear about that, so in more positive news, I received two orders from Sportlots this week, and saints be praised, the cards in both orders came in the condition they were described (a rarity for me!). I was so pleased with both orders, that I even went ahead and placed another larger one a couple of nights ago. I also sold a semi-rare DVD within just a few hours of listing it on eBay two days ago, which was extremely nice, if only because the proceeds will pay for my three Sportlots orders, and leave enough to cover the shipping for a couple of bubble mailers that I need to send out. Oh, and a somewhat hard to find Cliff Robinson (from his playing day) popped up on COMC (first one to ever to do so) yesterday, and I scooped it up within hours of it doing so! Now that I'm typing all of this out loud, I guess it wasn't that bad of a week after all, it just seems like it was.

Anyway, I don't know if ya'll have heard or not, but the BiG gAmE is tomorrow, and as per usual, it means very little to me. I have no plans to sit and waste an entire afternoon (especially one that is supposed to be slightly warmer) watching a football game (or any other modern sporting event), and because of political or social justice reasons, I just have other things that I want to do, active moving around things. I will however honor the occasion by doing a football card related post though, but since it's going to be nice outside today too, I'm not gonna waste a lot of time working on it this morning, so I'm gonna go ahead and use this Saturday, when presumably no one will be reading the blogs, to dump my misc. football scan folder; all of which came from my 2019 COMC shipment, yeah, 2019!

I had quite a bit of football in that 2019 shipment, which I broke down into four categories, vintage, 90's, color matching, and misc. The vintage portion made it onto the blog a long time ago (you could probably look for it if you really cared), but I've been extremely slow to cover the other three. The 90's and color matching folders haven't been edited yet, so that only leaves the miscellaneous stuff, which by the way is most certainly the least interesting of the bunch, and looking at them now, I wouldn't have even bothered to show them had I not spent the time scanning, but I did, and I don't want it to be for naught, so...

It seems like years ago now, and I guess technically it was, but geez was I all in on the 2018 Classics set, or more specifically, the parallels. I suppose I'm still big on it, I just haven't gotten any more since this shipment, and don't even recall when I last looked for any was.

Bo Jackson's modern cards don't do a whole lot for me, and looking at it now, I don't think I would've gotten this insert if I had it to do over again. It is die-cut, which is usually fun, but the die-cuttiness on this one is kinda lame.

Before finally becoming more focused on what I'm collecting last year, I had a tendency to fall in and out of love with things, and while I was in with them, I would often go a bit overboard in my attempt to acquire them. I had a brief infatuation with the 2015 Topps Tek purple parallels, and got a few in a very short period (probably over one evening).

Given how cheap they were, well, all except for Tommy here, I don't have any regrets in buying them, but I don't think that I'll be buying too many more (unless I come across some more cheap Barry Sanders', as I kind of want to get a full page of those). I've seen a lot of talk in recent months about acetate cards from the 90's starting to get gross (yellow), and even though none of mine have ever done that, I've still begun to hesitate some when it comes to purchasing any more, just in case. I don't know if modern acetate cards are made any differently, but I'm not looking add to many more of them to the collection either, just in case.

With there being hundreds of parallels in every single set these days, I'm not even bothering for the most part to try and remember and/or learn what is what anymore, I just go by aesthetics. If it looks good, and it's cheap, I'll get it; which is what I did with this nifty Earl Campbell! I know that it comes from the 2018 Black Friday set, but other than that, I just know it as the "199" parallel. 

I don't collect Eli Manning in the least, but I had a blue and a green version of this card, so apparently I had to get a red as well. Make sense?

I had the blue and green versions of this card too, so of course a red was necessary, right? The only difference this time is that while I don't actively collect Gronk, I do set his cards aside when I come across them. 

This one is so-so, but I do have the purple version currently sitting in my COMC account, and that my friends is quite spectacular.

Eric Dickerson is one of those retired guys that seems to have a lot of modern cards, way too many to collect all of, so I just stick to the scraps. Tired of 2015 Prizm yet? I can't hear you of course, but if you answered, yes, well, good news; this was the last of them. 

Staying with Prizm, but going back a year, we've got a couple more ED's. I don't have my cards of his cataloged yet, but I've gotta have at least 6 or 7 of parallels now, and probably duplicates of a few as well.

There are a couple of cards in this post that I wouldn't bought today, but this final 2014 Prizm offering isn't one of them, even after a couple of years I still really dig this card, and wouldn't mind getting a few more copies.

So there it is, definitely not one of my better posts (I did warn you in advance though), but they can't all be sunshine and lollipops. I can however promise that next week's two will be much better, I've got a baseball post planned (but not written) for Tuesday, and McKay's recap for Thursday, so in other words, one for you, and one for me :)

Climbing back into the card show saddle

Up until two weekends ago I hadn't been to a card show since February, that's seven months for those of you playing along at home. I realize that for some of the folks reading this that might not seem like a long time, especially for those of you who aren't fortunate enough to have any card shows in your area, but for me it is a long time, or at least it is since I got back into card collecting.

Before this stretch, the longest I had gone in the last 8 or 9 (or 10) years, was five or six months, and that occurred just last year. It's no coincidence that these "long" stretches have come so close  together, as my interest in cards has begun to wane a bit, well, actually wane might not be the right word, let's just say that card collecting hasn't been as important to me in recent months as it had been in the last few years.

I can tell you that this past summer (April through last week), other than blog about cards, and trying to keep up with everyone else's blogs, I've hardly done anything with actual cards in months. I started a sorting project sometime earlier this year, and haven't gotten back to since the weather started getting really nice. I tend to spend a lot of time outside doing things, rain or shine, but this past summer I really outdid myself, in terms of work and play. I've been trying to venture outside of my comfort zone a bit, which sometimes leads me to places that I technically shouldn't be, but oh well, I'm not getting any younger, and there's still plenty of things that I'd like to do while I can.

I've spent a lot more time exploring local areas (forgotten areas?) this past summer as well, which combined with some of the things that I've found while doing so, has made me become a lot more interested in the local history -- something that I hadn't been interested in though my first couple of years living here. I'll probably do a post or two on this at some point, which I think a few of you might be interested in, especially some of the old baseball stuff.

But it hasn't been all fun and games though, there's been plenty of sweaty backbreaking work to be done as well (even mucked up my back a few months ago), not that I really mind, as it certainly provides for good exercise... and there's no such thing as getting too much exercise!

So anyways, cards! As mentioned, the last show that I went to was back in February, one of the big super mega 190-table affairs. If hadn't been one of those, I probably wouldn't have made the trip. Two weekends ago was another one of the giant shows, and even though I wasn't overly excited about the prospect of doing so much driving, these shows only occur twice a year, so I felt sort of compelled to go -- if it hadn't been one of the big shows, I most certainly wouldn't have went.

I said that I wasn't looking forward to the drive, which is true, but I've also been skipping the monthly shows because I didn't feel like getting up crazy early, only to then put in a long drive. But the day of reckoning arrived, and I was up at 3am (woke up at 2), left at 4:30, and got to the show at about 6:15. About 1/3 of the 100+ dealers were either already set up, or still setting up when I arrived, and didn't take long for the other 2/3 to show up and get their wares set up. And of course there were already plenty of patrons in attendance, some of whom had already been there for almost an hour.

I spent about four hours at the show, and realized later that I only bought stuff from four different dealers, so much for spreading the wealth, huh? Had the weather not been so nice that day, I probably would've stayed longer, but it was in the mid to upper 90's, and I really did want to try and get home as early as possible, because OUTDOORS!

As per usual, I'll be spreading out my purchases across multiple posts, but not all in a row though, as I do have a few non-card posts in the works.

First up will be the stuff I got from Jim, who dare I say, is the most popular dealer at the Nashville shows. And for good reason as well, his prices, and the stuff that he has access to is beyond equal. Believe it or not, there are people that go to these shows who will only buy from him, which seems a little weird, but it's not my place to say anything, so...

Jim was still setting up when I got there, but was already being swarmed by deal seekers. I've seen it many times before, but I'm always amazed by the deals that are being made even before everything is set up. I mean people will be dropping hundreds of dollars, and he's only put out three boxes. His "sick hitz" boxes are really popular, and tend to be decimated within a few minutes of being put on the table. O of course am waiting for his bargain boxes, which he is equally well known for, although this time I was a little dismayed to see that were only two 3200 ct boxes of 5/$1 stuff, two 3200 ct dime boxes, and two 3200 ct 2/$1 boxes -- everything else was vintage, high end, and high end vintage.

I could tell right away that the dime boxes weren't going to be very good, so I quickly switched to the 5/$1 boxes, which is where everything that you'll see today came from. He must've recently bought somebody's prospecting collection, because there was an awful lot of rookies from the last few years in these boxes, which meant plenty of Bowman, and if you've ever come around here before, you probably already know that rookies aren't my thing, especially those of current players.

Baseball wise, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot there of interest to me, but I was still able to find a few things. There were about twenty copies of each of the Mantle cards, probably should've gotten a few more of the vertical one. I've already got one of the gold Helton's, but what's one more. Still haven't looked to see if I needed the Kaline or not. I don't like the newer Diamond Kings sets, but I didn't have the Ichiro, I think it's a parallel of some sort too. And twenty cents was probably too much to pay for an A&G Maris base card, but they're probably aren't too many cards from that set that I would want, and I was there, and it was there, so I grabbed it... very cool card BTW!

I hate to keep saying "normally" or "usually', but normally Jim's boxes are a wellspring of 90's inserts, especially those of the basketball and football variety, not this time though, Steve here was the ONLY 90's insert that I saw in those bargain boxes. And to my knowledge there wasn't any basketball period, new or old. Considering how much neat stuff that I've gotten from Jim over the last 4 1/2 years, I figure he's entitled to have an off show or two, and not finding a bunch of 90's inserts isn't the end of the world, besides, I did make up for it a little bit through two of the other dealers I bought from later in the day.

Did you know that Prizm Draft Picks was a thing? And did you know that this Prizm Draft Picks has mascot cards in it? Oh, and did you know that the LSU Tiger was called Mike? I knew none of these things! Obviously these are both parallels, pink shimmer and blue? Nice looking cards though. If there wasn't a 1/1 in play, I'd probably try and build a Duck rainbow, but since there is a 1/1 out there, I will instead be content to try find a few more cheap copies of the base and other parallels.

Picked up a few color matching (save for Andre Johnson) Prizms from the last few years too. The Woodhead is #'d to /75, so that's something, though I think I like the Alex Smith the most.

Jim's boxes may not have been the best for me this time, but I did find a number of things for other people, which was nice. I also grabbed this 1992 Topps Mike Bielecki blank front for whoever wants it, he's a Brave if that helps. I love me some blank backs, but blank fronts don't do much for me, so it's available if anyone wants it.

 

I must've made a happy noise of some sort when I came across these, because the guy next to me turned to see what I was holding, saw what it was, then rolled his eyes and went back to pulling out cards of prospects -- that's okay guy, you keep hoarding cards of little boys, and I'll keep grabbing cards of folks who've actually done things! By the by, this set was new to me, it's called Pieces of the Past, and was put out by a company called The Bar(?) back in 2017. The cards are really quite pretty in person, got a really nice texture too. I definitely wouldn't mind finding some more of these, provided their cheap of course.

Past greats on new cardboard, it doesn't get much better than that! Well, maybe past greats on old cardboard, but you what I mean. I tried to scan these multiple times, the scanner couldn't handle the Dickerson and Sayers, so instead you get a wonky photo.

SLU cards are not something that see here (or even back in Portland) very often, this probably the third or fourth that I've found in the last five years, because of this, and because it's Bart Starr, I had to get it.

I have multiple copies of this '84 Payton, but I don't mind owning another one. I grabbed the Jim Plunkett, because Jim Plunkett! It's from the 2017 Classics set, which I don't particularly care for, and it's one of those faux blank back parallels, which I really hate, but still... it's Jim Plunkett!

Who doesn't like cheap autographs of questionable authenticity? Although, for the record I did compare these to "authenticated" samples, and they do seem to match up. Plus who's gonna bother forging signatures of these guys, it's not like they're autos are going to be commanding top dollar or anything! I already had this same Craig Morton cards signed, I think I paid a quarter for it last year at a show, his prices must be going down, because this one was only twenty cents. Nick Fotiu had a pretty solid career, but I picked it up more for the neat card than the autograph. Apparently Tim Cheveldae was a Bruin at some point, so I guess I'll see if Marc wants him, if not, he'll be looking for a happy home elsewhere.

Even counting the stuff that wasn't shown, aka the stuff for everyone else, this was by far the least that I had ever purchased from Jim, but again, I picked up some neat cards elsewhere, so it all evened out in the end. I did mention too that he had some vintage stuff, but I was really only looking for a few specific guys this time, so other than one card for a friend, I didn't get any vintage from him either -- although I did get a few of those elsewhere as well.

For those interested, Friday's post will feature another portion of my purchases, and don't worry, it'll be considerably shorter in length :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

An overdue card show post

Last Saturday saw me attending my first show in about five months now. Now I know that no one is wondering why I haven't been to show in so long, but I'm going to tell you anyway, the answer is rather simple...it has been crazy hot and Nashville is not a fun place to be when it's been this warm.

Summer started here (and I'm assuming in most other places in the South as well) in mid to late April, and by all accounts it has been on average at least ten degrees warmer than is normal, per day, during most of that time. Even where I am, which is at around the 1900 ft elevation mark, it has been averaging over 90 degrees with a real feel of over a 100 degrees since basically May.

And this past Saturday was no exception with the temperature at 95 degrees and the real feel of 105. I really wasn't in the mood to attend this particular show, but I have been in desperate need of supplies and there is a guy there that has just about the best prices on such things, that I have seen.

Also, since everyone seems to be gearing up for the end of September show, which is supposed to be the biggest one in their history (120 tables) I didn't know what to expect as far as dealer turn out goes. But it turned out to be sell out show, with what seemed to be even more people attending than normal, which made the room even hotter (and whiffier, but I won't go in to that).

The last thing I will mention before getting to some pictures, is this show was a bit unusual for me in that I didn't buy anything over 25 cents, with most of it being from the ten cent boxes. Not that I'm complaining, it's nice to go to a show and only spend a little over $20 on cards for a change, and the total cost of the supplies that I went there for was $22 (I wanted to make sure I didn't need anything for a while again).

So after all that, here is a small sampling of what I got:

This one through me off when I first saw it. I mean obviously it's a 1971 Kellogg's 3-D of Billy Williams, but it's a piece of hand cut cardboard and definitely not 3-D.

Not until right before going to google for help did I realize that it must of been the card pictured on the cereal box advertising the card inside. After getting no help from google (as usual), I went to eBay and found four or five more cut out cards from the 1971 series, but I still don't know how many different cards were featured on the boxes.

This '66 Gonzalez and '72 Buford were the only two vintage set needs that I was able to get. Both are in pretty good shape considering they were only a dime apiece. There wasn't much vintage to be had this time, except for the couple of sellers that are always there with crazy Beckett prices attached to their stuff. There was also a new seller there with a 3200 ct box full of really great stuff that wasn't priced, but since he couldn't even look away from his phone to acknowledge me, I just walked away.

Buybacks for a dime are always a welcome sight.

A whole bunch of set needs!

I almost always buy any of the Topps parallels that I find in the dimes boxes, but I still find it a bit surprising that something like this 2011 Update Blue David Ortiz can be found for such a low price. And I recently decided to start working on the Chasing History insert set, as it doesn't seem like it will be to hard to complete. This Gary Sheffield brings me to a total of 7 or 8 now, only around 140 to go!

I feel like I could do an entire post on what I like and don't like about this 1986 Louisville Redbirds Mascot card, maybe sometime in the future I will, but for now the image alone will have to suffice.

Even though I don't really have any interest in keeping it, I still couldn't pass on this Broder Pete Rose for a dime.

It's kind of nice being so late to the A&G party, because I can find cards like these three from the 2010 set, and still get a great deal of enjoyment from them.

I'm not actively pursuing these 2003-04 Fleer Ultra Roundball inserts, but since moving here, I have acquired about 3/4 of the set through dime boxes.

How about a 1998-99 Molten Metal Xplosion Joe Smith for 10 cents? That's what I call a good deal. This parallel set is very high on my priority list right now, easily in the top five, as far as sets I'm pursuing goes.

Eight 1994-95 SP Premium Collection inserts, which is eight more than I have seen in quite a few years.

I have been working on the 2013-14 Prizm set and any of the parallels that I can find cheap, but I don't really know if I will be actively looking for cards from any of the other years worth of Prizm. That being said I still picked up a few of these 2012-13 Prizm Prizms...

...and about dozen Prizm Prizms from the 2014-15 set...

...and three blue Prizms, which are numbered to /99 (these shouldn't be able to be gotten for only 10 cents each), also from the 2014-15 set...

...and from the same year these two blue mojo prizms...

 ...and these wicked cool die-cuts, both colors are numbered to /139 (and as a side note, I would like to applaud Panini for including Louie Dampier in a modern set)...

...and finally from the 2014 set, around 25 yellow and red mosaic prizms. Even if I'm not looking for them, it's hard to pass them by when there priced that low.

Even though I'm not a big fan of the retro insert craze, I was compelled to pick up this 2013-14 Fleer Retro Fleer Metal Precious Metal Gems Red numbered to /150 for a quarter.

I'm still on the fence when it comes to the various Panini Crusade sets, much like Prizm, there seem to be an awful lot of parallels to chase and I don't really know if it's worth the effort. These came from the same vendor as the above Prizm, I grabbed about 20 base cards from the 2013-14 set, which are the blue and yellow, and 5 of the red parallels which are #'d to /349.

 And also this 2014-15 Panini Excalibur Crusade Camouflage.

I have been slowly picking up parallels and inserts from both the 2014 and 2015 donruss sets. Here are a couple of the swirlorama parallels from the 2014 set.

Some Scoring Kings from the 2014 donruss set...

...and some Kings cards from the 2015 edition. I really like the canvas like texture on these cards.

This was my first time seeing cards from the 2013-14 Panini Timeless Treasures set. With base cards as thick as these are, and numbered to /299, I'm guessing the hobby boxes weren't cheap.

Another first for me was this 1997-98 Upper Deck Diamond Vision card of Jason Kidd. I must admit I'm slightly disappointed in the motion feature of this card, I thought they would bi similar to the 1997 Topps Screen Plays, but there not even close to being as fluid as those are.

Since I was done with the show relatively early, just a little after 10am (the inside of the card had to be at least 150 degrees already), I decided to eat my lunch (I always bring my own) early and stop at a thrift store before heading home. Even though this particular thrift store isn't one of my favorites, I hadn't been there for at least six months, plus it's easier to get back to the highway by heading in that direction. I didn't end up finding much (as expected), but I was able to walk away with a couple of videos that were new to me:

So far I have only watched The Deadliest Art, which was really good, it had clips from quite a few movies that I hadn't seen-a few of which I am now on the lookout for.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.