Saturday, March 9, 2024

Unpacking finds

 Unpacking all my cards and slowly reorganizing them has been kind of fun.  I've poked my nose in corners of my collections that I haven't been in for a while.  I have found cards I thought I had lost, and cards that I don't really need.  I am sure anyone who has collected knows those feelings.

***Skip this part if you just want to see the cards, just scroll down to the break!!!

The reason I have had to do all that packing and organizing is that I sold my house, and moved into an apartment.  For the last 2 1/2 years, my wife and I have been slowly figuring out how to divorce.  The two huge factors that made it hard for us (and made it take so long) were the kids and money.

The kids are an obvious trouble spot.  But I have three pretty great kids.  I have worked really hard to create good relationships with them and to help them be strong human beings.  Two of them are out of the house and on their own, and the youngest is about to turn 17.  They are all doing well, almost shockingly well, with the situation.  We worked hard to help them through it.  I am as happy as I can be with that.

Money is a different story.  I don't make a bad wage, but I am nowhere near wealthy.  Alimony is going to hurt a lot.  Also, over the years, my wife has insisted on several huge financial decisions in our life that cost us huge amounts of money.  These were decisions I disagreed with, but wasn't ready at the time to walk out over.  She also pushed, over the years, to keep too much of our paychecks for today, and not nearly enough for retirement.  So not only will I be living tight from now on, but I don't see a path to a real retirement.

All of those issues are due to my own decision making though, I will own up to the decisions I made, and deal with their consequences.  If you are still young, make good decisions!!  And that's all I hope to write about that!

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So one of the cards I recently found, that I had thought was lost, is a Broder.  Yes, Broders are not the most sought after cards out there, but they are not bad.  But this one always gave me a kick, and I hadn't been able to locate it for the last few years:


Love it!!  Turn your back on crack!!  I will be keeping this card, and putting it somewhere that I won't 'lose' it again.

Then I also found some older non-sports cards that I just don't want.  Don't get me wrong, I love almost anything that is old.  Old coins, stamps, magazines and even small newspaper like things from the early 1800s are all in my collection.

But in the interests of streamlining the 'old non-sports' section of my collection, I am offering these up, one per commenter at first, for free in a PWE.  They are all what we consider these days to be mini sized.


The fronts:

The backs:


And the descriptions:

1932 De Reszke Real Photographs 4th Series, # 19,
1932 De Reszke Real Photographs 4th Series, #23, 
1932 De Reszke Real Photographs 4th Series, #24
1938 Gallaher Garden Flowers - Tobacco [Base] #44
1938 Gallaher British Birds - Tobacco [Base] #6
1938 Gallaher Army Badges - Tobacco [Base] #13
1925 Franklyn Davey - Hunting # 12
1939 John Player & Sons - Animals Of The Countryside #28
1938 John Player & Sons - Aircraft of the Royal Air Force #18
1914-1918 John Player & Sons - Army Corps and Divisional Signs #33
1933 John Player & Sons - Derby and Grand National Winners #45


So anyone want some 85-105 year old non-sports cards?  If so, comment on which one you want (shoot me your address!) and I will send it out.  If they are not all gone by Monday, you can claim another one on Monday, another the next day and so on until they are gone.


Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Unusual pickups

I am still trying to get back into the swing of things.  Getting my cards unpacked after my recent move has been really slow.  The move didn't keep me from hitting a couple of card shows while all packed up though.  The shows haven't been great lately.  But still worth going to.  As usual, I stay in the cheap boxes mostly.  Here are a few unusual pickups I have made lately.

I finally completed my "Yastrzemski Generations" mini-collection.  Actually, I didn't know that there was such a thing to collect.  I think everyone knows that Carl, AKA 'Yaz' has a grandson currently playing for the Giants.  What I had forgotten, or maybe never knew at all, is that Yaz's son also played pro ball, though never in the majors.  He does, however, have 7 different minor league cards.  Here's mine:


All in the family...


Next, I got my first ever 1971 Topps Supers.  If you haven't seen these, they are over 5 inches tall, and are pretty thick, almost like a jersey card.  Mine are nobodies, Mays and Aaron are probably the big cards in this set.

Here are the backs, true to the 1971 Topps set.

 
And last but not least, I grabbed a bunch of older cards (1958-1967) in a quarter bin.  They were mostly in good condition, but commons.  The exception on condition was this:

A Jim Palmer rookie for a quarter!!!  Heck of a crease, but that's the kind of quarter but I will take all day.



Friday, February 23, 2024

Winner of the third cheapie hunt

 Thanks so much to the people who entered the little card show contest!  This will be a super quick post to randomize and select the winner.

As I said in the original post, I will take the entries and randomize them three times.  Here are the results:


Original list:


First randomization:

Second randomization:


Third randomization:

And the winner is defgav!!!


Looks like I will be searching the cheap boxes for refractors and cards for art projects.  Should be fun!

....

Again, thanks to all who entered, and have a great day!

From the grave - and cheapies

There are a couple of good reasons that I haven't posted in a looong time.  If I get the energy, I will do a post about that soon.  But in the meantime, please do not send me any cards to the address many of you have.  I have moved!!!!   If you need my address, ping me.  I will get around to sending it out to previous trade partners sometime...


And since that is lame content for a post, let's see if anyone wants to comment for a chance at card show cards.....  Super short window to enter, 5PST tonight will be the deadline!!


 I did this twice before and it was fun!  I didn't find AWESOME stuff for the winner, but decent stuff...So here's the deal:

I'm heading to a card show this coming Saturday (Feb. 24th), and if you are lucky, it might benefit you! 

This is a quick little giveaway with a prize that might be good, or might be bad, it depends on the cheap boxes at the show!  Here's how it works:

To enter, comment on this post with the players, teams, sets etc. that you want me to look for in the cheapie boxes at the next card show.

Examples:

"I want you to look for Francisco Lindor, Clayton Kershaw, any serial numbered under /1000"

"Please look for all Diamondbacks, any Panini colored parallels and Bowman cards of young up and comers"

"I'd like any cards from the 1950s, late 90s inserts, Tom Glavine and any O-Pee-Chee"

Feel free to be more or less detailed with your request as needed. Keep in mind that I am looking in cheap boxes, so some requests will be harder to fulfill.  Like the request for cards from the 1950s above!  If you ask for Roberto Clemente, and that is all, I may not find anything, and even if I do, they will likely be modern cards.

You can put other sports than Baseball if you like, but I spend most of my time in the baseball boxes, so take that for what you will.


I will take all the comments and use Random.org to select a winner (randomized 3 times).  For the winner, I will look in the quarter (or less) boxes for you, scanning for cards that fit your request.  You will receive up to 18 cards, depending on what I can find, PWE shipped to you.

This contest will close on Friday, Feb. 23th at 5PM PST!!

**No promises on what you will get.  I usually have good luck in these boxes, but I am looking for a really wide variety of cards.  Limiting it down to specific requests will certainly make it harder!

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Recommendation - Yogi

 First, since this is a card blog, here are all of my Yogi Berra cards:

How about that 1953 Bowman Color??  I love finding beat up old cards like that, only way they fall into my price range.

And the reason for Berra cards today, is that I watched the new documentary on Netflix called "It Ain't Over", about one Lawrence Peter Berra.

If you read this humble blog very often, you may know that I really love it when new, decent baseball documentaries come out.  There are not enough of them!!  I want them to gain popularity so more are made!  Hence my plug, go watch "It Ain't Over"!!

Not much in the way of spoilers, but this documentary is pretty good.  It is narrated, and commented heavily in, by Berra's granddaughter.  She is a bit biased, and sometimes forceful in her views.  But if a girl can't gush over her grandpa, then I don't want to be a grandpa.

There are several touching segments to go along with all the baseball.  They are well done.  At more than one time, Berra reminded me of my own grandpa.  He passed 2 years ago, and like Berra, was loved by everyone, and underestimated by many.  Like Berra, he was short, funny, stubborn and had a unique way of expressing himself.


Have you seen "It Ain't Over"?  What did you think?  Are there other baseball docs I may have missed?  And most interesting to me, what subject would make the next big baseball documentary???

Monday, October 30, 2023

Quirky Show Pickups

 Well it looks like whatever Blogger was doing to keep my posts from getting seen is over, thank you to those who provided me some feedback.  Back to the normal...


The cheap boxes were not overly kind at my most recent show. I think the dealers in my area are either running out of stuff I like, or just putting it in the more expensive boxes.  But I will stick to my strategy for now!

Here are a few things that I grabbed out of a dime box:

The Koufax is a prizm, so that was a fun find.  The Judge is from the "2020 Topps X Super 70s" set and the Robert is from "2020 Topps Throwback Thursday's", supposedly 1665 produced. 

Other than the Randy Johnson, I don't think any of these will make it into my keepers, but they sure were fun for thin dimes.

The Alonso in the lower left corner is a custom art card #d /25 from Team Brinkz.  Here's the back.
It is not something I would want to pay real money for, but at a dime, it was a very fun find.





Then here are three cards from 2020 Topps Brooklyn Collection.  Whatever that is!!  Some kind of Montgomery Club exclusive.  I did a little math based on the info on baseballcardpedia.com and it looks like there are probably about 320 copies of each base card out there.  So these aren't super common.  I had never seen them before!

Again, not something I really need, but they are limited, and kind of cool.  Maybe I will throw them into the next card draft I put together (Thanks to Chris for reminding me I need to do that!)


Here are some of my favorite oddball type cards I got:
Yes that top row is more of the "2020 Topps Throwback Thursday's" set.  Weird.  I quite like the Molitor, we don't get that food issue around my part of the country.

What's up with a beat up Bud Harrelson, you ask?  Well, it is actually folded up.  When you unfold it, you get this:


Totally hammered, but a 75 Pete Rose in a panel for a dime?  Worth it just for the giggles!

Thanks for reading!

Friday, October 27, 2023

Another try...

 I am still not getting any page views on my recent posts.  I have posted a few times, but nobody ends up visiting.  It is definitely viewable on my site, but it didn't show up on anyone's blogroll, which is how I seem to get all my traffic.


Anyway, if you see this post, let me know.  I have some stuff I want to show/do/give away, but until I know the blog is 'working', I am going to hold off.

And since it's a card blog, here is a random card for you:



Sunday, October 22, 2023

Anyone hear me?

 Hey, just testing blogger.  I posted a post earlier this week and it never got viewed.  So I posted it again.  Nothing.  And over and over.  It is definitely viewable on my site, but it didn't show up on anyone's blogroll, and the only person who visited it was someone who I told specifically about it.  The post is here if you care.


Anyway, if you see this post, let me know.  If not, I am not sure what to do to get my posts viewed!!

And since it's a card blog, here is a random card for you:



Friday, October 20, 2023

Quick Gwynns from Rod!

 ***This is the 5th time I have tried to publish this post.  Each time I try, it does not show up on anyone's blogrolls and I don't get any pageviews.  Trying again....

Real life blogger meetups are extremely rare for me.  I don't want to list the two I remember for fear of offending someone who I forgot, but even if it is more than two, I have been blogging (off and on) for over 10 years, so the number isn't large.

Well I recently posted that I would be going to a show, and who reached out to me but Rod from Padrographs!  He is a good example of the generosity of bloggers.  He's given away quite a few cool things over the years, including a few to me!

Rod said he had something for me and wanted to meet at the show.  We made the connection and had a few minutes of chatting, before he ran off to some good quality family time.  The box o' goodies he gave me held mostly Tony Gwynns!!  Who doesn't love Gwynn?  Quite a variety, just a few are pictured below that I threw on the scanner:


Filled some holes in my Mr. Padre collection.

Rod also dropped these three Project 2020 cards on me!  I love them!!  Bulky for sure, but a small price to pay for these fun slabs.



As cool as those are, my favorite card was (I think) a Rod custom creation!!  Check this out!

An autographed Frank Peters card!!  Who you ask?  He was the manager of the Portland Mavericks, the subject of the documentary "The Battered Bastards of Baseball".  I think you can probably catch that on Netflix if you haven't already.  Very fun watch!

Here is the back for some more info:

Thanks a ton Rod!!

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Winner of the 2nd Cheapie Hunt

  Thanks so much to all the people who entered the little card show contest!  Super quick post to randomize and select the winner.

As I said in the original post, I will take the entries and randomize them three times.  Here are the results:


Original list:

First randomization:

Second randomization:

Third randomization:


And the winner is Chris!!!


Looks like I will be searching the cheap boxes for 1993 Donruss Diamond Kings inserts, current/recent Packers and any color Prizm football parallels.

....

Again, thanks to all who entered, and have a great day!

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Card show cheapies for someone - part 2

 We did this once before and it was fun!  I didn't find AWESOME stuff for the winner, but decent stuff...So here's the deal:

I'm heading to a card show this coming Saturday (Oct. 14th), and if you are lucky, it might benefit you! 

This is a quick little giveaway with a prize that might be good, or might be bad, it depends on the cheap boxes at the show!  Here's how it works:

To enter, comment on this post with the players, teams, sets etc. that you want me to look for in the cheapie boxes at the next card show.

Examples:

"I want you to look for Francisco Lindor, Clayton Kershaw, any serial numbered under /1000"

"Please look for all Diamondbacks, any Panini colored parallels and Bowman cards of young up and comers"

"I'd like any cards from the 1950s, late 90s inserts, Tom Glavine and any O-Pee-Chee"

Feel free to be more or less detailed with your request as needed. Keep in mind that I am looking in cheap boxes, so some requests will be harder to fulfill.  Like the request for cards from the 1950s above!  If you ask for Roberto Clemente, and that is all, I may not find anything, and even if I do, they will likely be modern cards.

You can put other sports than Baseball if you like, but I spend most of my time in the baseball boxes, so take that for what you will.


I will take all the comments and use Random.org to select a winner (randomized 3 times).  For the winner, I will look in the quarter (or less) boxes for you, scanning for cards that fit your request.  You will receive up to 18 cards, depending on what I can find, PWE shipped to you.

This contest will close on Thursday, Oct. 12th at 5PM PST!!

**No promises on what you will get.  I usually have good luck in these boxes, but I am looking for a really wide variety of cards.  Limiting it down to specific requests will certainly make it harder!

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Back to the shows - Stained Glass edition

 So I went to another card show recently.  I know, I have been showing soooo many card show pics lately, right?  But those were all from a few shows over the last few months, this one was very recent.

I left this show with the fewest total cards purchased, well at any card show ever!  I walked out with only 24 cards, which is crazy for a guy who spends a lot of time at cheapie boxes pulling card after card out.

Anyway, blah blah, here are 4 cards I bought, then some fun with stained glass, and at the end a card I did not buy.


Here we have a holiday variation (candy striped arm) of Acuna - $.25.  And a refractor version of the 2023 Topps Pristine Rollie Fingers, also $.25.  The Rodgers is from the 2013 Panini Elite - Portraits insert set.  I love cards like that where the pic is created by tiny cutouts in the card - $.50.  And lastly, my first Home Field Advantage card!!  These guys are somewhat rare, so I was happy to land this Perez for $1.  Yeah, he's not the biggest star out there, but I do like him.  Happy with the deal!

I have always loved stained glass cards.  I have a few, and will generally pick them up whenever I can find them at cheap prices.  Which is NOT OFTEN!!  Here are a few that I have in my collection:



I also have the Mike Trout from the 2013 set, which is quite a nice card.  By the way, if you have any of these kinds of cards for trade, let me know.



OK, the last card...  I was watching a friend pick out a stack from a box that did not have price tags, but was obviously more expensive stuff.  When I saw he had pulled this card, I expressed my jealousy, maybe a little too exuberantly.  But I like the card, and I had actually not seen this set before:

Well about a half hour later, my friend walked up and handed me the card for free!  He had gotten a good discount for buying a large stack, and is just a really nice guy.  Pretty awesome!  

And when I got home and looked for details about the set, I was even more blown away.  These are kind of tough pulls!  The print run is only 25 (no serial number though).  Sure, I might want other players on the checklist more (McGwire comes to mind...) but this is an awesome card that hits my love of stained glass cards and my love of tough pulls all in one!


Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Quick show scans - Last Scan!

 Scan 17 - $???


OK, so I cant' actually remember how much these cost, I just know they were all in 50 cent boxes or cheaper.  None of these actually made it to my keeper boxes, but I had the scan, so what the heck.

The Ryan is a 2020 Topps X Super 70s - On Demand Ultimate Uniforms.  Whatever that is, but it is a cool looking card.

Most of the rest are serial numbered, including: Marichal /299, Blyleven 149, Lux 999, Jones /999, Aparicio /100 and Ashburn /199


And I am out of old show scans!  It's been nice posting every day.  I definitely won't keep that up, but I do have some things on the horizon, hopefully I won't go dark.

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 16

 Scan 16 - $3


4 .50 cent cards, and 5 .20 cent cards.  Kershaw, Raines and Chicken are my faves.  The mini's almost look like they are uncut here, but there were just 2 cards in each penny sleeve.

Monday, September 25, 2023

Leaf is the dumbest-est

Another quick break from my endless card show scan posts.


All card companies do dumb things.  Irritating things.  Obnoxious things.  Leaf is the worst.  Here is proof:


This is, at least as far as I can tell by the name of the player on the card, a Tim Duncan card.  Tim's picture does not appear on the front of the card.  I am not as knowledgeable about basketball, but I do know that Jazz player pictured is not Tim Duncan.  

Tim Duncan is also not on the back of the card:


I get that this is a ticket card, and tickets don't have all the players in the game pictured on the card.  But it still seems like a really lazy and uninspired card (or complete set of cards!) to make.

A case could be made for a lot of other card companies, bit right now, I feel like I can go on the record saying that Leaf is the worst.

If this sounds like I'm mad about this, I really am not.  I would never go purchase these things, I got this one for free.  I am actually pretty amused by it.  But Leaf is still the worst today!

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 15

 Scan 15 - $1


All of these were back to back in a very fun 20 cent box.  Insta-rainbow!!  I am sure there are more variations of this card, and if I see any, I will try and get them to 'complete' the rainbow, something I have never done.

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 14

 Scan 14 - $2.40



I love so many of the Stadium club shots, and several of these have been on my "get that" list for a while.  The Kershaw, Boggs and Bench with the balloons are a few of those!  All of these were either in dime boxes or 20 cent boxes.

Friday, September 22, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 13

 Scan 13 - $1.50


Yep, six quarters here.  

On the top row are variations, Schmidt and Ozzie are 2022 'Greats Variations'  SP's for quarters, very cool.  The Ruth is not a variation, but is from 2011 Topps Archives.  Nice card.

The Vladdy Sr confuses me.  As far as I can tell from research, it should be serial numbered /299.  But nope, no serial.  Don't know if it got left off inadvertently, or if I am just missing something.

The Bichette's were new to me.  They are from the "Topps X Pete Alonso" set.  I guess it was a topps.com online thing?  3000 sets made.  Very weird.  But I do like Bo Bichette RCs, so...


I'm happy to trade any on the top row if anyone is interested.  Probably the Vladdy too.  Hit me up.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 12

 Scan 12 - $2.25


Quarters.  The Top Sosa, I grabbed just for the pic.  It is a pre-production card.  The Guerrero is a Club Level parallel, kind of cool.  Serial numbered Mantle and Kershaw, Sweet Larkin insert and Gold Rush Bo all made my day.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 11

 Scan 11 - $1

Oops, today we have 2 scans instead of 1, but there is a reason!

I pulled this Greg Luzinski bat card to pair with the Luzinski Auto I got last year.  A buck is steep for me, but worth it.  I was skipping through a box pretty fast, so I didn't notice that the top loader it was in was a little thick, and even if I had, aren't bat cards thick sometimes?

But I got it home and pulled these out from behind it:






All in the same top loader for a buck.  Awesome!

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 10

 I'm posting one scan of cards per day, of cards I got at some recent card shows until I run out of scans.  Quick posts!

Scan 10 - $4.50


All 9 out of a 50 cent box today.  Every one of these is quite cool to me.  The Gwynn is my favorite, I want all of that set.  The blue Vlad in the middle is #d /99.  And the 2015 Vlads at the bottom are pretty cool too.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 9

 I'm posting one scan of cards per day, of cards I got at some recent card shows until I run out of scans.  Quick posts!

Scan 9 - $1


Two cards from a 50 cent box today.  The McGwire is amazing, and on COMC.com and Ebay, it goes for way more than 50 cents.  Quite a deal, especially since I collect all McGwires.  This was my 1310th unique Big Mac.  The Perez is just crazy.  I agree with Night Owl's disgust with Topps for just recreating old stuff forever, but in hand this card pops hard!  Better than the scan for sure.  Numbered /99 to boot.

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 8

 I'm posting one scan of cards per day, of cards I got at some recent card shows until I run out of scans.  Quick posts!

Scan 8 - $1.50


Super thick cards today...  Bad scan on the Trout, but it looks fine in hand.  The Posey was 50 cents, and is pretty cool!  The Trout was $1, and I couldn't pass it up.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 7

 I'm posting one scan of cards per day, of cards I got at some recent card shows until I run out of scans.  Quick posts!

Scan 7 - $2.25


I think these were all quarters.  Love getting quality catcher RCs for a quarter!

Friday, September 15, 2023

Quick show scans - Scan 6

 I'm posting one scan of cards per day, of cards I got at some recent card shows until I run out of scans.  Quick posts!

Scan 6: $1.35


Dimes and quarters again.  I think the Canseco, Ryan and Sabathia were quarters.

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Koufax

 Hey!  Taking a one day break from the card show scan posts, they will resume tomorrow.  Though today's post isn't that different really.  It's a 2 scan post of a card I got out of a cheapie bin at a card show.  I guess the only real difference is a bit more rambling from me.

Even though I dislike that only parallels and inserts are really 'worth' much, and serial numbered versions even more, the sheer number of variations sometimes benefits me.  What I mean is that sometimes there are rarer versions of a card that slip through the cracks and make it into cheapie boxes.

This is one of those posts.

I found this cool Koufax, and snapped it up as quickly as I could, before moving on through the rest of the box.

When I got it home, I realized that it is one of those pesky serial numbered cards that don't look too different from the base.  It turns out that it is an Orange Refractor from 2020 Topps Stadium Club Chrome.

Since it looks pretty blue to me, and not at all orange, I was confused until I noticed the orange backing to the logo in the upper right.  I guess that's it!

And the numbering that goes along with that on the back:

Yay!  /25!!  There aren't any of these on COMC, but there is a gold version, numbered /50.  That one has a price of $57.98.  Which is ridiculous, but still gives me happy thoughts when I think of this version of the card in my hands.

Honestly, the big Dodger fans out there probably would appreciate this card more than me, but I definitely like it!  Cheapie box wins....