Vlad to know you

I've talked about the greatness that was (were?) Rod's daily giveaways, on multiple occasions now (including just last week), and have already covered all of the obvious reasons as to why they were so awesome, or at least I thought I had -- my goldfish memory has let me down again, as I had already forgot about the whole "bringing people together" thing. That was a thing, right? I'm guessing that a few people are shaking their respective heads quizzically, but it had to be a thing, because without those daily freebies, I may have never connected with, Tom, from The Angels, In Order.

I had been following Tom's blog for what's felt like years (and there's good chance that it has been actual years now), and commented on a number of his posts, but had never had the pleasure of having any extracurricular contact with him, at least not until I commented on a thank you post that he had did to Rod for some stuff that had been acquired from those daily giveaways, which subsequently led to an email from Tom, and thus the extracurricular activity between Tom and I... was born!

Since part of his post, and all of my comment, had been about Vladimir Guerrero, Tom offered to send along some of his duplicates (he's one of the preeminent Vlad collectors among the bloggers in case you didn't know) for my very recently started collection, and after looking at his want lists and seeing that I'd be able to reciprocate, I decided to go along with his offer.

I've seen those 2008 UD Documentary cards on more than a few occasions, but don't really know what the deal with them is. Judging by the card numbers, I'm guessing that it's a very large set, and given that the three cards that Tom sent are within seven numbers of each other, I'm assuming that Vlad has a few more cards in the set, all of which might contain the exact same photo? If so, I'm kind of hoping that he doesn't have like 40 cards in the set, as that might start to get a little boring after about the tenth or eleventh card.

Topps sure has done a lot of throwback sets. Of the three that are represented here, I think the '34 Goudey would be my favorite, although it would've been better if someone other than Derek Jeter could've been doing the says-ing.

Another throwback design, and not one that was done very well, but the card is new to me, so I won't complain about it's look too much.

Uhh... he's got legs, and uhh... he knows how to use them? I can honestly say that I've never been sent a leg card before, but I guess there's a first for everything.

Thanks again for the cards, Tom! And thank you, Rod, for indirectly being responsible for Tom and I's finally connecting.

But wait, there's more!

I got another package last week that was sort of related to Rod as well, in that it came as direct result of my first post of claims from Rod's giveaways, where I mentioned that I had Vladimir Guerrero to list of player collections, which, Bo, of Baseball Cards Come to Life! fame, saw, and commented that he might have some extras to spare, and apparently did.

Bo and I are no strangers to sending things back and forth, but this was the first time that he had sent any Vlad's, all of which were greatly appreciated. I got a duplicate of the on-the-ground Vlad, but that's okay. More throwbacks too, Topps really must've been running low on ideas there for a few years, although from an aesthetic standpoint, the T206 is pretty nice.

I haven't looked into yet, but I'm thinking that Vlad has a lot of "rookie" cards, which I'm basing solely on the fact that I seem to have a quite few cards of his that say "rookie" on them.

Bo also sent along a few non-Vlad cards. The Edgar Fleer Focus is really nice, and the '91 UD Roby is greatly appreciated, especially since it was glaringly absent from the box that I opened a couple of months ago. I'll need to replace the Taylor at some point, but who know whens that'll be, as I don't see me hitting a show anytime soon, and to me, it's a bit overpriced on COMC, so it might be awhile before I can procure a better copy.

Thanks again for the Vlad's, as well as the non-Vlad's (especially the Roby), Bo! Between you and, Tom, and the inserts that I already had, this collection's really picking up. And thanks again to, Rod, as his giveaways did lead to this package as well, and had he not done them, this 2/3 of this group may have never made their way to me.


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COMC Shuffle #28

Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC Hoard!

1997-98 Upper Deck Teammates #T59

I don't look for MJ inserts very often, and almost never on COMC, but at some point last year I happened upon this one from seller who was looking like they were trying to get out of the COMC game. For around $3, I figured why not? I used to see cards from this set in dime boxes on a fairly regular basis, nowadays I only ever come across Shaq's card (#T25), so I've got like 5 or 6 copies of that one, and maybe 5 or 6 individual cards from the set.

1999-00 Upper Deck HoloGrFX NBA 24/7 AuSOME #N14AU

Know matter how long I live, I will never be able to own enough of the AuSOME parallels, especially those of the 24/7 variety.

2013 Panini Black Friday Panini Collection #20

Panini seemed to have had a brief infatuation with DJ Kool a few years back, it didn't last very long though, I think Biz Markie unintentionally ended up stealing his thunder.

1968 Topps #327

One for the "Telstar four" collection. Also, did Tony Taylor ever age? Judging by his cards, I'd say no... must've stayed away from those cigars that his country his so famous for.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Yellow and Red Mosaic Prizms #28 (x2)

Twin towers?

1999-00 Skybox NBA Hoops Decade Draft Day Dominance #8 DD

Like MJ, I don't look for Kobe inserts very often, but I love me some Hoops Decade, and can't get enough of it's inserts (even the one's that scan poorly), so yeah, Kobe!


2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Green Crystal Shard #96

The bad thing about deciding not to finish a set that you're pretty far along on, is that you end up having a lot of unwanted cards (like this one), and no idea what to do with them. I did pull out half a dozen or so, but still have a rather large pile to deal with.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Yellow and Red Mosaic Prizms #183

I didn't think it would ever happen, but I've actually to regret a few of my Prizm purchases. I'm just not feeling some of the color combinations anymore, Karl here is a perfect example of that, purple doesn't exactly mesh with red, white, and yellow so well. After going through my current COMC holdings, I found a few more that I'm no longer overly fond of as well, and those have been put back up for sale -- one of which, sold almost immediately right after I relisted it, even made a ten-cent profit on it!

1962 Topps Mars Attacks! #35

I absolutely love the original Mars Attacks! set, but that doesn't make me immune to the fact that most of it's story, and imagery, were pieced together from - or inspired by - other works. This card is really fantastic, but it was clearly inspired by Them!, which is okay, because Them! is awesome, but still... a little bit more originality would've been nice.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - yellow #38

It fitting that the randomizer would choose this card to finish off today's post, as it just so happens to be the final piece of my Chris Kreider Progressions rainbow.

In case you hadn't noticed, today's post isn't so great writing wise, my apologies for that, but this Saturday is one of the bi-annual super mega card shows, and I've been busy trying to align the stars, so that I might be able to go -- which has really taken me out of blog mode, hence this hastily thrown together offering.


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COMC Shuffle #26

Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC hoard!

1970 Topps #324

This has always seemed like an odd photo to me, not quite as awkward as the Hank Aaron from this set, but it definitely doesn't look natural.

1999-00 Upper Deck Ultimate Victory - Ultimate Collection #146

This was just an impulse purchase, it was cheap, shiny, and just so happened to be a hard to find 90's parallel, so...

1971 Topps Milk Duds Whole Box

If Willie Davis ever asks you if you'd be interested in seeing his famous disappearing bat trick, take my advice and... run away as fast you can!!!

2018 Panini Classics Timeless Tributes Orange #102

I love Eric's card from this set, but after getting this basic orange, as well as one of the orange Optichromes, I can honestly say that I probably need them. The blue's and gold's look great, but the orange's not so much (at least not for Dickerson).

2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Green Crystal Shard #32

Replacing one logo for another. That's exactly what Panini did with this photo, Jimmie now looks like he's playing for the National Baseball Hall of Fame's... can't say that I've ever heard of that team before?

1909 T206 #?

Harry Gaspar (misspelled on the card) played four seasons of professional ball, all with Cincinnati. During this time he compiled a record of 46-48, with his best season being his first (1909), in which he went 19-11, with a 2.01 ERA. In 1910, he and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown led the majors in saves, each notching seven respectively.

I had forgotten that there was a stamp on the back of this one. Now I'm gonna have to go find it and see if I can see what it says.

1974-75 Topps #30

Set need. This card proved surprisingly difficult to find in decent shape for a realistic price.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Yellow and Red Mosaic Prizms #209

Recently I responded to a question on Twitter by a posting a picture of Shawn Kemp's 1990-91 Fleer rookie, this then led to someone who I didn't know that I was mutually following mentioning growing up in the Northwest and watching him and Gary Payton, I then said that I saw plenty of them while growing up in Portland, which led to them to reveal that they too were from Portland!!! Portland isn't a small place (at least not anymore), and I know that a lot of people have come from there, but it's still always a bit of a surprise when I encounter a fellow native.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Blue and Green Mosaic Prizms #198

Even though the 2014 set has two different kinds of all-blue Prizms (regular and mojo), I think that Elgin looks best on the blue-green combo, although him on those all-blue's looks pretty good as well, and I certainly wouldn't mind getting a few of them :)

2000 EX - E-Xceptional Red #7 XC

When talking about the big three, it's kind of amazing to see the difference in price with E-Xceptional inserts. On the basketball side they keep going up, most of the baseball are still fairly cheap (a few have gone up though), meanwhile the football is in the gutter and isn't showing any signs of climbing out anytime soon. As far as this insert goes, most of my examples are of the basketball variety, but over the last year or so I have started picking up more of the super cheap football's.


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