Maybe next year

It looks like Monday's informal poll went about the way I thought it would, that being that there's not a lot of interest in the Secret Santa this year (thanks to all of those who chimed in though).

Counting myself, there's all of 8 people wanting to participate this year, and in my mind that just isn't enough to make it fun. I suspected this is how it would go this year, what with all that's happened, and is still happening.

So I guess I'll just say that maybe they'll be more interest again next year, and leave it at that. Although once again, just because I'm not going to host it this year, doesn't mean that someone else can't. It's entirely possible that my ability to draw participants has diminished, and that a new host might be able to drum up more interested parties. There's certainly still time to get it up and running, but whoever would have to do so pretty soon, probably within the next week or so.

Hopefully those who were interested won't be too disappointed, I am a bit, but did expect this, so it won't be too difficult to get over.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Secret Santa 2020?

                             

As many of you know, this about the time that we usually get the sign-ups going for the annual blogger Secret Santa. However, as the host of this event for the last two years, I can't help but wonder if we should take a rain check (snow check?) this year, what with all of the turmoil that has already occurred, and will most likely continue to occur.

I know that this is very popular event (I've already received three emails asking about it), and thought of canceling it, especially now five years in, might not sit well with some, so I thought I'd try to get some feedback from past participants, or anyone else who would've been looking to participate this year?

From my perspective, I have a couple of concerns about running it this year, some of which are: 

1). I know that a few of our past participants have had some financial woes this year, and I don't want them to feel like they have to join, and possibly spend money that could've been used better elsewhere. Conversely, I don't want anyone to feel bad for having to sit out because they couldn't afford to participate this year. Our $10 spending limit might not seem like a lot to some, but this year in particular it could be quite a bit for others.

2). I know for a fact that many of our past participants have been much busier than normal with work this year, and just might not have the time, or energy, to play along this year.

3). A number of people probably live in areas that still have various restrictions in place, meaning that they could potentially be very limited in where they can look for, and purchase, their giftee's present. I know that a lot of shows still aren't up and running, and there's even some shops that are still closed. Pretty much everyone knows of the problems over at COMC, so they won't be an option this year. Which for some, sort of just leaves eBay and Sportlots. eBay's had it's share of problems this year too, so depending on the seller, this might not be the best option either. It also doesn't help that a large contingent of people have taken up 'collecting' again, which has driven up prices, and caused demand that has been greater than the supply.

4). We all know that the USPS has had issues this year, and with more people likely shopping online this season, these problems may intensify as we get closer to Christmas. To my knowledge, there's never been a lost package during the Secret Santa. I know for a fact that it has happened in the last two years, and I don't recall hearing about it happening during the previous two years under Matt's watch. This is probably my biggest concern for this year, as a lost/stolen package or two could really derail what has traditionally been a relatively problem-free event, and I really dislike the thought of taking a chance on such a thing.

So, like I said, I'd very much like to hear the thoughts/opinions of the rest of you. Are my concerns valid, or am I just being overly cautious? And of course too, if anyone thinks that I am wrong for not wanting to run it this year, they are more than welcome to take over the hosting duties, and if wanted, I will be happy to assist in any way possible. I've seen that a few Secret Santa's are going to happen on Twitter, so it is entirely possible that any and all of my concerns are unfounded, or unjust, but I can't know this unless someone says otherwise.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

2019 Secret Santa wrap-up

Seeing as how were already halfway through the month of January, and February will be here before I/we know it, I'm gonna go ahead and officially put a bow on 2019's edition of the Secret Santa.

We bested last year's total of 30, by drawing 32 participants this year, many of whom were new to our little gift exchange. Thanks to Dan's (Vroomed) efforts, we also had a number of people join from the TCDB, so many thanks go out to Dan for his help in luring unsuspecting victims increasing the number of merry makers. And of course a heartfelt thank you goes out to everyone who decided to join in on the fun, hopefully it was just that for all who were involved.

We did have a few hiccups this year, and there's still one unresolved problem (that I know of), but I'm hoping that this wrap-up will help expedite it's resolution. Other than that, things went pretty much according to plan, which is a good thing, as there should never be any problems with something that has "Santa" in the title.

As per usual, I've compiled a list of who gave to who, with all of the blog recaps being highlighted. I think that I have all of the recaps here, but if I've somehow missed one, please let me know and I will update the list. And if any more recaps are posted after today, I will go back and amend the list accordingly. So without further ado, here's the list...

Chris (The Collector) from Kirk (CaptKirk42s Trading Cards Blog)
Paul (Scribbled Ink) from Jim (cards as i see them)
Jared (CMMDTO) from Me (the blog that you're currently reading)
Henry (Cardboard Greats) from Nate (The Bucs Stop Here)
Nate (The Bucs Stop Here) from Jim (budler on the TCDB)
Adam (ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession) from Kari (karsal on the TCDB)
Greg (The Collective Mind) from Billy (Cardboard History)
AJ (The Lost Collector) from Kerry (Cards on Cards)
Kameo (Twitch Collects Cards) from Bryan (Collecting Cutch)
Mike (Not Another Baseball Card Blog) from Adam (ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession)
Billy (Cardboard History) from Kevin (KMack on the TCDB)
Roy (Nothing If Not Random) from Jared (CMMDTO)
Me (the blog that you're still reading) from Matt (Diamond Jesters)
Bryan (Collecting Cutch) from Rod (Padrographs)
Kerry (Cards on Cards) from Henry (Cardboard Greats)
Tim (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning via Twitter) from Trevor (Bump and Run Football Card Blog)
Trevor (Bump and Run Football Card Blog) from Andy (Stadium Fantasium)
Matt (Diamond Jesters) from Teresa (terrbear5951 on the TCDB)
Rod (Padrographs) from AJ (The Lost Collector)
Andy (Stadium Fantasium) from Dan (Vrooomed on the TCDB)
Kevin (Kmack on the TCDB) from Kameo (Twitch Collects cards)
Kari (Karsal on the TCDB) from Greg (The Collective Mind)
Chris (Ntlwhlr on the TCDB) from Mike (Not Another Baseball Card Blog)
Jeff (Xanadude on the TCDB) from Chris (Ntlwhlr on the TCDB)
Tyler (Rekindling The Cardboard Flame) from Jeff (Xanadude on the TCDB)
Joshua (Sportzcommish on the TCDB) from Tyler (Rekindling The Cardboard Flame)
Kirk (CaptKirk42s Trading Cards Blog) from Joshua (Sportzcommish on the TCDB)
John (John's Big League Baseball Blog) from Chris (The Collector)
Jim (cards as i see them) from John (John's Big League Baseball Blog)
Teresa (terrbear5951 on the TCDB) from Paul (Scribbled Ink)
Dan (Vrooomed on the TCDB) from Roy (Nothing If Not Random)
Jim (budler on the TCDB) from Tim (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)

Phew, that was quite a list to type out... but thanks again to everyone who made said list possible!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Do you believe in Sandy Claws?

After two years worth of Secret Santa hosting now under my belt, I can tell you that there are exactly three things that I don't like about doing so: a) worrying that something is gonna go catastrophically wrong -- and then being blamed for it, b) trying to find out why someone hasn't gotten there package yet, and c) telling whoever drew my name that they have to buy me something.

That last one is more awkward than anything, but so far both people that I've had to tell this to have taken it in stride, for which I'm eternally grateful, as I don't do awkward well.

This year's uncomfortable email was sent to, Matt, from Diamond Jesters, who is someone that I hadn't had the good fortune to have had any real contact with yet, so as far as what to expect gift wise goes, I was completely clueless (this is one instance when being clueless is actually a good thing).

Christmas cards are always a good thing! Confession, I was in such a rush to send out the package to my giftee, that I forgot to include a Christmas card, sorry Jared :(

 Sandy Claws... AWESOME!

I'm pretty sure that Matt is just a baseball guy, so to get something that wasn't baseball related from him was kind of surprise, but to get something as seemingly hard to find as this 1986 McDonald's Reggie Roby from him was just like... whoa! I haven't looked into the details of this particular promotion yet, but I do know that it was a regional thing. They came in three four different colors (black, blue, gold, and green), which probably meant something, and as you can imagine, there aren't a ton of unscratched cards still around. There doesn't even seem to be a lot of cards without tabs around, so either they didn't make a lot of them (I doubt that), or just not very many people hung on to the cards after they were scratched. Coming in at roughly 3" x 4 3/4", I was a bit surprised at how big the card was, but I guess that's what happens when you've never seen one in person before, and haven't seen any measurements online either.

That card alone would've been enough for me, but there was more...

I can honestly say that unopened packs of anything are about the last thing that I would've expected to see come out of my SS package, but there they were... and they didn't stay unopened very long! Opening up new packs is not something that I get to do very often, so no matter what came out of them, it was gonna be fun either way.

These days collectors seem to be all about the "hits", so I'll start with the "hits". This card was in the pack backwards, so I was pretty sure that that meant something, but after looking at it for minute, I couldn't figure out what? The border was different from the others, and there wasn't any extra shiny bits, so I was left wondering... at least until I took to the webz! I'm sure that everyone who's looking at this can see what's so special about it, but just in case there's another me out there, his bat is a candy cane!!!!!! Apparently I haven't paid enough attention to the blog posts that I've seen with these, because I had no idea that I was suppose to be looking for things like that. I found out that this is an SP variation, and it falls at 1:7 packs.

It's hard to tell from the scan, but this one has the metallic snowflakes, which at 1:2 packs, are the most common of the parallels.

To me they're just "meh", but to a lot of other collectors these days, rookies are where it's at... so here's some rookies!

Got some guys that I'm familiar with...

... and some that I'm not!

Horizontal cards may not always look the best in pages, but they often allow for much better images. The universe must be trying to tell me that I need more Jorge Soler in my life, as I got him in both packs.

I'm seen some folks dismiss the holiday sets for being too "gimmicky", but they don't bother me in the least, as really anything other than a base card could be considered too "gimmicky", and there aren't too many people who only collect base cards anymore, so their complaints tend to sound like someone who's complaining just for complaining sake. I like the holly border on these BTW, I would've preferred it to be a full border, but they still look good as is.

Thanks for the fun Secret Santa package, Matt! I got to add an elusive card to the Reggie Roby collection, and I got the opportunity to open up some Christmas themed packs, seemed like a win-win in my book :)

Oh, and one final thing. Even though is post was about Matt's gift, I just wanted to publicly acknowledge the cards that I've received this month from Billy (Cardboard History), Chris (The Collector), Greg (The Collective Mind), Josh (Royals and Randoms), and Matt (Sport Card Collectors). This month got away from me, but I fully intend to post about each and every one of these packages in January, so until then, thanks again for all of the generous things that were sent my way.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Time for a mini vacation

After two days of doing so, I have finally finished sending out the last of the Secret Santa emails. If you're participating this year's SS, and you somehow haven't received an email with the name/address of your giftee, please let me know (jtef82@gmail.com) and I'll resend the information.

This is also now my 11th post in 13 days, which is an awful lot for me, so that, combined with the 31 emails, has got me a bit tuckered out... hence the need for a mini vacation!

I'm going to take a few days off from blogging now, which will give me some time to recharge, and it'll also allow me to catch up on about a week's worth of everyone else's posts.

I can't imagine that they'll be any need for any more Secret Santa updates, at least not until the wrap-up post, so I'll be back in a few days with some non-SS content.

P.S. Thanks again to everyone who signed up to participate this year :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

The field is set

The sign-up period for this year's Secret Santa is now closed. I don't know how it happened, but we ended up with 32 participants this year, which bests last year's mark by two. As Billy can attest, I had my doubts about even being able to find 20 interested parties this year, what with the blogs being a bit down and all. So with that being said, thank you to everyone who joined this year!

Also, thanks to those of you who helped to promote this year's SS on your blogs, Roy (Bulldog) and John Sharp come to mind first.

And a very special thank you goes out to, Dan (Vrooomed), from the TCDB, who started a thread on the site to help promote this year's SS. I'm fairly certain that this thread was responsible for drawing about 1/3 of our entrants, so I'm very grateful for his efforts.

As mentioned, we've got 32 entrants for this year's Secret Santa, all of which are listed below:

Me (that's yours truly, not someone who has "Me" for a user name)
bbcardz
Trevor P
Mike Matson
John Sharp
GCA
The Bucs Stop Here
Vrooomed
Billy Kingsley
Karsal
Scribbled Ink
The Lost Collector
budler
Tim B.
gcrl
Matt
Sportzcommish
JayP
Chris
Ntlwhlr
Rod (Padrographs)
arpsmith
Bulldog
Henry Blanchette
KMack
Xanadude
ketchupman36
terrbear5951
CaptKirk42
Madding
Collecting Cutch
Kameo

Now that the field is set, I will randomize the names tonight to see who get's who, and will then start sending out emails tomorrow. Please note though, last year I pushed myself and got all of the emails done in one night, which was not a smart move on my part, so this year I'll be sending half of them on Tuesday, and will finish up the rest on Wednesday. And once again, thank you to everyone who joined this year!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Looking for one more

We're currently sitting at 31 participants who have signed up for this years Secret Santa, which is really great because that tops last years count of 30, but it would be nice even it out if possible -- so if anyone's on the fence, or if you somehow hadn't heard that the Secret Santa is happening again this year, you've got until tomorrow to sign up. It's not a big deal though if we can't get to 32, as I will take care of the extra person, but still...

*Update* The 32nd participant has been found!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Time is running out!

Just a quick reminder that there's only two days left to sign up for this years Secret Santa. As of this writing we've got 28 participants, which is fantastic -- but there's still plenty of room for more. So if you haven't already done so, go ahead and click on the link and get your name added to the list!

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A reminder from the Raisins

If you've ever seen Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration, then you already know of the longstanding association that The California Raisins have with Christmas, and if you haven't seen it, wait... you haven't seen it! I refuse to believe that there's anyone out there who hasn't seen Will's CCC, so I'm just gonna pretend like that didn't just happen.

Anyways, California Raisins! Christmas! You know who else is associated with Christmas? Hopefully you said Santa, because that was the correct answer! Now that you've mentioned Santa, I'm reminded that we're still accepting entrants for this year's Secret Santa. So if you'd like to join, and have yet to sign up, you can do so here.

Also, many thanks to Greg (GCA), of The Collective Mind fame, for recently sending this group of Raisins -- they're now the second batch that he's sent this year, and I couldn't be more happy with them!

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Secret Santa reminder

Just a friendly reminder that all interested parties can now sign up for this year's Secret Santa. After just one day we already have 15 participants, which is pretty good, but folks don't say "The more the merrier" for nothing, so if you haven't already done so yet... go get yourself signed up!

And just in case you're wondering, the answer is yes, I'm gonna be doing this all week! There will however be some actual posts in between the reminders, so it won't all be just fluff from me this week, I'm planning to use this week (and part of next week) to catch up on some thank you posts.


Thank you for taking a moment to look at my page.

Initiating Secret Santa 4.0

Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, we're now entering the Christmas season, which for the last three years has meant - at least for the blogging community - that Secret Santa season is nearly upon us as well.

In an effort to give everyone an extra week to shop, I've decided to go ahead and launch the fourth annual Secret Santa a week earlier this year.

Last year's gift exchange went over swimmingly, we had 30 participants, no one was stiffed, and to my knowledge, no one was unhappy with their gifts. Since it was my first year as host of the Secret Santa, I couldn't have been more pleased with the results. I know that the blog's have been down a bit this year, so it might be a little difficult to draw 30 people again, but I'm hoping for at least 20 entrants, as it might not be very fun, or even doable, with less.

For those who've participated in the past, nothing has changed, Matt laid down a solid set of rules when he created the SS four years ago, and I see no need to try and reinvent the wheel.

For those who haven't participated in the past, the rules are pretty simple:

- The limit is $10 for the actual gift.  Feel free to add extra trade bait to take full advantage of the envelope.

- Please reveal your identity at some point to the recipient of your gift. This helps me do a nice wrap up post at the end and may help introduce some new trade partners to our community.

See, pretty simple!

There are a few other bits of not so fine print to mention as well, so please read the following items before signing up:

1. Who's eligible to join?: All bloggers are welcome of course, as are all the friends of the blogs (frequent commenters, trade partners, etc.). TCDB members will be welcomed with open arms. People from Twitter will be allowed to join too, although this will be on a case by case basis, meaning that if I've interacted with you, and know that you're not gonna flake out on everyone, then you're good to go -- or if someone else of note can verify the quality of your person, you'll be welcome to join as well. And then of course all former bloggers on Twitter will be encouraged to participate as well.

2. Canada, eh?: If we're lucky, we'll have a few a Canadian participants amongst the Secret Santa field, so keep that in mind. There are cheap methods available when it comes to shipping to Canada, but if this is something that worries you (it shouldn't though), it might be a good idea to sit this one out.

3. Reach out and touch somebody!: This one can't be stressed enough, please send a quick thank you to whoever your Secret Santa was. I realize that life can get sort of busy around this time of year, and maybe you won't be able to get a blog post up, or get a tweet sent out, but you can certainly spare a minute to send off a quick thank you email -- plus it has the extra added benefit of letting your Santa know that the package they sent did arrive at it's intended destination.

4. You must be new around here!: If you haven't participated before, please send me an email (jtef82@gmail.com) with your address, and if you're not a blogger, please also include a link to your TCDB wantlist, or at least give me some sense of what you collect, so that I can pass these things along to your Secret Santa. Also, if you have participated in the past, but are now at a different address, please send an email with your new address.

5. Help!: Last year I asked folks to help spread the word, and you did (thank you again for that), so I'm going to ask for your help in doing so again this year. I hate the thought of someone wanting to join, but missing out because they some how didn't see my posts, or just have never come around here before. I'm not asking for full blog posts here, but if you could just maybe mention it at the end of a post, that would be great, and probably would go a long way towards getting as many participants as possible.

I think that just about covers everything, if I've forgotten anything, or if you have any questions, please let me know in the comment section or via email.

I'll leave the sign-up open for a week (there's going to be plenty of reminders between now and then), so that should give everyone plenty of time to update/add to their wantlists, or if you're like me, give you some time to actually create some wantlists.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Secret Santa wrap-up post

I can't remember how long after Christmas it was that Matt did the wrap-ups for the two previous year's worth of Secret Santa's, but the middle of January seems like reasonable amount of time to have waited (at least to me), so here it is!

I would like to thank everyone again who participated this year, I haven't heard any grumbling, so I'll have to assume that we can call this year's outing a success. And I know that I've already said it at least once before, but I'd like to say thank you again to everyone who helped promote the Secret Santa on their blog this year, I truly do believe that that was the difference maker as far as people joining in went.

You'll find a list of who sent to who below, with links to everything that has been shown publicly, or at least everything that I've seen that was shown publicly. If I've somehow missed anything, just let me know and I'll update list.

Shane Katz (Off The Wall via Twitter) sent by Kirk (CaptKirk42s Trading Card Blog)
Peter (Baseball Every Night) sent by Brian (Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary)
Mike Matson (Not Another Baseball Card Blog) sent by AJ (The Lost Collector)
Adam (Cardboard Clubhouse) sent by Andy (Stadium Fantasium)
Nick (Dime Boxes) sent by Chris aka ntlwhlr (TCDB)
Adam (ARPSmith's Card Obsession) Paul (Scribbled Ink)
AJ (The Lost Collector) sent by Tim (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
Brian (Collecting Cutch) sent by Angus (Dawg Day Cards)
Bulldog (Nothing If Not Random) sent by Colbey (Cardboard Collections)
Fuji (The Chronicles of Fuji) sent by Matt (Diamond Jesters)
Kirk (CaptKirk42s Trading Card Blog) sent by Adam (Cardboard Clubhouse)
GCA (The Collective Mind) sent by Shane (Off The Wall)
Jon (A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts) sent by Nick (Dime Boxes)
Angus (Dawg Day Cards) sent by Mike Matson (Not Another Baseball Card Blog)
John Hazen aka Mihome316 (TCDB) sent by Brian (Collecting Cutch)
Andy (Stadium Fantasium) sent by gcrl (cards as i see them)
Colbey (Cardboard Collections) sent by Billy (Cardboard History)
Chris aka ntlwhlr (TCDB) sent by Kin (Bean's Ballcard Blog)
John Sharp (John's Big League Baseball Blog) sent by Roy (Nothing if not Random)
Brian (Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary) sent by Fuji (The Chronicles of Fuji)
Matt (Diamond Jesters) sent by Dan aka vrooomed (TCDB)
gcrl (cards as i see them) sent by Tyler (Rekindling the Cardboard Flame)
Kin (Bean's Ballcard Blog) sent by John Hazen aka Mihome316 (TCDB)
Paul (Scribbled Ink) sent by Chris (The Collector)
Chris (The Collector) sent by Mark Hoyle (Twitter)
Dan aka vrooomed (TCDB) sent by GCA (The Collective Mind)
Mark Hoyle (Twitter) sent by Jon (A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts)
Tyler (Rekindling the Cardboard Flame) sent by Peter (Baseball Every Night)
Tim (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning) sent by Adam (ARPSmith's Card Obsession)
Billy (Cardboard History) sent by Jon (A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts) filling in for John Sharp (John's Big League Baseball Blog)

I didn't know if I should mention it or not, but just in case anyone's wondering about the last entry on this list, John Sharp ran into some difficulties (of the personal variety) not too long after the names were randomized and given out. He sent me an email to let me know that he was going to have to drop out, given who he is and what he was going through (not to mention what time of the year it was), I asked him to stay in to receive his gift, and that I would take care of Billy for him. Knowing most of you as I do, I didn't think that anybody would have a problem with this arrangement, but if I'm wrong and someone does, well, you know where to find me.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

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!

Last Secret Santa update, Penny Marshall, a scam, and a contest plug

I'm sure that some of you are getting tired of hearing about the Secret Santa, if so, you'll be happy to know that this will be the last update until I do the wrap-up post (it'll be done the exact same way that Matt always did them). Okay, so I got the last of the emails sent out yesterday afternoon, I made my list and checked it twice, but if you're a participant, and somehow you didn't receive an email from me with the name of the person that you'll be shopping for -- please be sure to contact me sooner than later so I can resend all of the information that you'll need about the person you drew.

Since I haven't been showing a lot of cards lately, I thought I'd shoehorn my most recently purchased Golden Age autograph into this post:

Penny Marshall is of course best known for her work on Laverne & Shirley, and to a slightly lesser extent, for directing A League of Their Own. Though she does have a slew of other acting and directing credits to her name as well. Ms. Marshall is my 25th card from the 2013 set, which means that I've now officially reached the halfway mark!

My email account through Gmail is usually pretty good about keeping spam/junk mail from reaching my inbox, but yesterday I received mildly interesting piece of mail that got through, one that I think might be of some interest to my fellow bloggers:

Cooperation with www.pennysleevethoug​hts.blogspot.com

 

Harvey Kayne <harvey.kayne@gmail.com>	Tue, Nov 13, 4:58 PM (14 hours ago)
to me

 

Hello,

My name is Harvey. I'm a freelancer who works for Media-Top, an online media agency.

Would you be interested in writing and posting an article for a fixed fee?

The article should be relevant to the category and to the readers of your site.

If you are interested, please let me know and I'll provide you with more details.

Also, if you own other sites please send me their URLs, so I can review them.

Depending on your local law, you may need to make it clear that the links you use are in

fact adverts.

--

Best Regards,

Harvey Kayne

Media-Top Online Services

harvey.kayne@gmail.com

Initially I just thought that this was going to be a blog comment from a name that I didn't recognize, but after clicking on it, I obviously realized right away that that's not what it was. After reaching the third line, it was clear that this was not on the up and up, because nobody in their right mind is going to be offering to pay me to write anything... ever!

This person clearly went through the blog to get to me (sneaky move btw), which is probably why Gmail didn't block it. After about 3 1/2 minutes of reading up on this Harvey Kayne (he is a real person) on Google, I came to the conclusion that while it's not quite as scammy as usual, it's still scam. Basically it sounds like they agree to pay you to write something for him/them, you then write an article and give it to them, and they reward you by coming up with a bunch of excuses as to why they don't have to pay you... and apparently people have fallen for it!

Since I have to assume that I'm not the only blogger to have received such an email, and even though I would hope nobody would be buying into this spiel, I still thought it was worth mentioning just in case.

And finally, Peter over at Baseball Every Night, has just started an Ugly Sweater contest. Nothing is being gained by me for promoting it, I just thought it looked like something that a lot of you might want to try and get in on, not only for the fun factor, but there's also a pretty solid prize being offered to the eventual winner -- so if you like fun, and you like the idea of choosing your own prize, just click on that link to get all of the details.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

The Secret Santa field is set

The 2018 Secret Santa is officially closed to anymore new entrants. The good news is, we ended up with 30 people, which is far more than I thought we'd get. The bad news is, well, there is no bad news, so...

There are a couple of things that I wanted to mention real quick, so hopefully some of our participants will actually click on this post.

First off, thank you to everyone who helped promote this year's Secret Santa, I truly believe that was the real difference maker, especially when multiple people mentioned that they found out about it from other people's posts.

I would also like to thank the couple of non-blogging members of the TCDB for signing up, I was hoping that a few of you would join, and hopefully your participation will lead to more members of the site getting on board with future Secret Santa's (no matter who's hosting).

Also, a special thank you is in order for Peter, who offered to take two names if we ended up with an odd number of participants. Thankfully I didn't have to take him up on his offer, but it was still very generous of him to put that out there.

I will randomize all of the names sometime in the next couple of hours, and then start sending out emails. I've never sent out 29 emails before, but I would imagine that it's going to take a little bit of time, so I'll probably do half today, and get the other half done tomorrow (Tuesday).


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 9

  
Before I jump into today's post, I of course have to plug the Secret Santa real quick. As of this morning we're up to 30 confirmed participants, and there's plenty of room for more, so if anyone else is interested, you've still got until Monday morning to sign up.

This past Saturday was yet another one of the monthly 50% off sales at the Goodwill, and like everyone else, I was there bright and early, hoping to find some neat things at heavily discounted prices. [spoiler alert: I did!]

No matter how hard I try though, I just can't seem to get there when it opens. They're supposed open to at 8am, I arrived at 7:20, the parking lot was completely full, and it was already full on Supermarket Sweep inside (I have no idea what time they're actually opening).

As per usual, my first stop was the media section in the very back of the store. To get to this area, you've got to walk down one of 7 or 8 aisles/sections (knickknacks, holiday stuff, kitchen, etc.), it should come as no surprise to anyone reading this, but I always opt for the toys and games aisle.

Normally there isn't anything in the toy aisle for me to even stop and look at, let alone buy, but this day was different, as I noticed a bit of bright yellow sticking out from some sort of weird fuzzy stuffed animal-backpack thing -- turns out that that yellow thing was the base of a 1987 California Raisins bank.

If you're of the right age, you probably remember how big the Raisins were in the mid to late 80's. It seemed like they were everywhere for a couple of years there, and as a wee lad, I could not get enough of them, so much so that my mom even went out and got me the 45 of Marvin Gaye's " I Heard it Through the Grapevine" -- which also just happened to be my first record.

As far as the bank goes, I think it might of been a mail-away premium, but I'm not a 100% sure on that. There's quite a few on eBay, so that tells me that there were quite few of them made and distributed. One thing I know though, I absolutely adore this bank, and consider the $5 price tag to be quite reasonable.

Since this post is already starting to get pretty long, and I haven't even gotten to all of the assorted media that was purchased, I will skip over the part about the woman that literally tried to take this bank out of my hand, in what I can only imagine was some sort of fit of anger for not finding it herself (she's very lucky that she wasn't a dude trying that).

Finding that bank was only the beginning, and it was probably a good omen too, because the media area was absolutely packed with good stuff... stuff that nobody else was caring about.

It's not often that I come across a non-western Barbara Stanwyck film that I haven't seen, but apparently I did on this day, and I couldn't be more pleased about it!

I had completely forgotten about this picture, I've only seen it once, and that was many (many) moons ago. At this point I don't usually remember when and where I first saw something (unless it was in the theatres), but I'm pretty sure I saw this one on WGN sometime in the early 90's, my memory tells me that they were on bit of Chuck Norris kick (pun not intended) for a year or so, because I remember staying up late on more than one occasion to watch his older films.

There were an awful lot of sports videos there on Saturday, all of which were still sealed. As an aside, did you notice that old price sticker on the front of this one, apparently that was the bargain price too.

A lot of tapes were NBA related, but this was the only one that looked like it would be of interest to me, as a lot of the other one's were just like "The best of Shaquille O'Neal" or "The best of Charles Barkley" aka stuff I don't care about.

There probably won't be a single play shown on this tape that wouldn't draw a penalty flag in today's NFL.

This was just a backup copy. I think I might be one of the few people who can honestly say that they genuinely like this film.

I always enjoy finding movies that I hadn't heard of. The odds are high that I'm not gonna be digging this one too much, but for a quarter it's certainly worth giving it a go.

Somehow this one had flown under my radar too. As you can probably tell by the synopsis, it was yet another Invasion of the Body Snatchers clone, because there just isn't enough of those out there. Not a terrible movie though (I watched it Saturday night), without giving away any spoilers, I will say that the last ten minutes or so was completely unnecessary, but it's still worth seeing, especially if you're into these kind of pictures.

One of these days I'll actually remember to remove the plastic before taking the pics! This is a movie that you usually find in one of the public domain multidisc sets, so it was kind of cool to find a standalone copy (still sealed too).

One of these days I'll actually remember to... ! I thought the California Raisins bank was going to be the most obscure find of the day, that was until I found this sealed copy of Ladron De Cadaveres. Talk about unexpected, I mean I wouldn't have been overly surprised to find this in a thrift store back in Portland, but here in Tennessee this feels very out of place (like me). I haven't watched it yet, but I already know that there's almost no way that this movie will be able to disappoint me.

I thought I already had all of the PS1 games that I wanted, apparently I was wrong though! This is the second of a three game series, and while I vaguely remember the series, I don't remember ever playing any of the games -- which is a real shame, because I've played this for about two hours so far, and as much as fun as it is now, I can only imagine how much more I would've enjoyed it twenty years ago. I don't keep up with game prices anymore, but I would have to think that finding a copy of this game in such great shape (no scratches on the disc) for $3 was a pretty good deal.

I have to say that overall this was the best half-off Saturday so far, I just hope it's greatness doesn't spoil in any future trips, I'll just have to try and remember that this particular Saturday was probably an anomaly.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.