For those about to scroll - we salute you.

This is a long post about some trades and freebies I have received.  But it might be worth the read, see you at the end!

First up is a trade I made with Matt over at Sport Card Collectors.  I send him a variety of basketball inserts from the later 90's and he sent me a ton of McGwires and one player to be named later!

There is a reason these are sorted by year, and it has more to do with than just sorting my McGwires.  That reason will come in another post later this week.

2013s.  Patriotic.

2014s.  Classy and clean.

2015s.  Getting shiny and a double mini.

2016s. More A's than Cardinals.

2017s.  Parallels galore and another mini.

2018s.  Some nice stuff, serial numbers and another mini.

2019s. Hodgepodge.

2020s.  My first 2020 McGwire!  Also serial #d.

In all honesty, I only had 3 or 4 McGwires from after 2005, so almost all of these were new to me.  A big addition to my McGwire numbers!


But there were 2 more cards in the bunch...

Graded 9 with a piece of bat!  Very cool.  It says it is from the Hidden Treasures Diamond Collection.  Not sure what that is.

And McGwire's partner in crime (in more ways than one!)  Jose!!  This was the 'player to be named later'.  Looks so young...

Thanks a bunch Matt!!


Next up is a group of cards from Free Card Friday at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary!

So much color!!  Right up my alley.  My favorites are the Barry Sanders Finest and the Ripken 3000 Club.  But the rest are awesome too.  Thanks Brian!!!



And now, if you got this far, I noticed that a couple of our very generous Free Card Friday folks have decided to take this Friday off for various (good) reasons.  So I thought I would fill that void a little.  Now I have extremely little current stuff in my collection, so these cards are all a little older (but not OLD!). But still, free is free right?

Like most of the other Free Card Friday posts out there, please pick by page and card number from top left to bottom right.  So of you wanted the Matt Cain die cit, claim page 1 - #8.  Only the cards below are free today, not the stuff up above!

Let's go for a max of 6 cards per claimer today.  Thanks!

Die cuts.

Sideways cards.

Miscellaneous.

More misc.

And the rest.  If your name is Joey, then the Hale Irwin should work for you!  The Larry Walker is an O-Pee-Chee card with a 'special offer' on the back, not part of the regular set.

Go to town!

Blog readin and some incoming

All right, I have been back, actively reading blogs for a bit now, and am wondering if the technology has changed in the time since I have been away.  In other words, how are the kids doing it now??

So, how do you keep track of/read blogs?

I currently use Feedly.com.  I have 91 sports card blogs that it aggregates for me.  Some of those are dead, but I keep them in the list for now anyway.  I also like Feedly because I have quite a few other blogs on different topics that I keep up on.  I don't really want to put those blogs on my blogroll.  This seems to work OK, but maybe there is a better system.

What are the other or better ways to keep all the blogs you read easily accessible? Any tips and tricks? Thanks for any and all feedback!



On to some more packages!  The first one is some Free Card Friday loot from a few weeks of the giveaways from Nick at Dimeboxes!

First up is some wonderful newer stuff that is sorely lacking in my collection.  Any Trout insert is most welcome as I am Trout poor!  I LOVE good looking cards of Expos uni's, so the Randy is a total score.  Beautiful Bo too.

The other 4 are inserts or parallels that I did not have in my collection, and are all very cool.

Didn't I just mention loving Expos unis??  These oddballs fit the bill.

These three stamps round out the PWE!  They appear to be from 1970 and can be put into stamp albums like this one:

I have a couple of these, but didn't know exactly what stamps are supposed to go in them.  Now I know!

This is the inside of the stamp album.  The pictures appear to match the color pics on the stamps.  You guys have these in your collections?

Thanks a ton Nick!!


And I was also lucky enough to receive a cool PWE from the great Fuji!

14 McGwires, always much appreciated!  And I placed the lone Griffey, pointing at the McGwires as if to say, haha, I didn't do steroids!!!

Thanks a bunch Fuji!!

Some quarters are better than others

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!! 

The local card shop has opened, though they only allow 4 customers at a time in.  The shop is not my cup of tea, as I am definitely a bargain hunter.  This shop caters to the higher end box buyers, and though they do have a huge number of quarter boxes, I have never found a single card in them that I would have even plucked out of a dime box.

However, they seem to do quite a bit of business, so the collectors in my area must not be clones of me!

Since I have been itching to get my hands on some cards, I made the trip and spent some time there. Like 40 minutes, looking at anything that I would consider a good deal.  I ended up spending a quarter.  One stinkin quarter!!

But for my money (haha, horrible pun), I scored a deal!

91 Fleer ProVisions complete set!

Now honestly, a quarter might be about the going rate for one of these sets.  Maybe 50 cents.  Maybe $1.  Don't really know, don't really care, I left the shop feeling like I got a good deal, and that's all I was really looking for.

Not only do I love the fronts of these cards, but they also have very detailed, great backs:

Keepers!!

Diamond Nine #21

The rules:

9ish cards are up for grabs.  Free!  Just claim what you want.  If you like it, claim it and I will send it out within a few days in a PWE.  (I'm cheap, PWE's all the way!)  Or if you like, I'd be glad to hold your stack until you have a few claimed.

Leave your claim in the comments, first come, first served.  You will have to shoot me your mailing address the first time you claim something.

Wow, subpar scanning skills!!!

The upside down one is a refractor...
Hamilton /999
Lowe /2007

Uncle cards - the finale

Welcome to the fourth post about my uncles childhood cards that they kindly let me look through and post about.  Here are the other posts about the collection:

0. Intro and Football
1. Miscellaneous
2. 1958s
3. 1965-66s
4. 1959-60s
5. 1962-64s (today!)

The finale!  You are probably glad this will be over if the pageview numbers mean anything!

The 62's.  There were only 6 of them.  The first 4:

Somebody didn't like Eddie Kasko much...

And the two that were 'in the book'

McCarver RC!  Excellent card, a good look for a young McCarver.

Another guy someone hated.  Those pin holes are oddly placed.  Sure, there are a couple in the face, but most are on the hat and the glove.  Maybe they hated the Cubs and leather?  I try to ignore the pinhole at the crotch, that's over the line.

The 63 commons...

Decent group, lots of head shots again.

Three that I like.  The Alou brothers always intrigued me.  I have a couple of brothers, and it would have been awesome to all make MLB.  Larsen in a Giants uni weirds me out.  And I think I have already shown a couple of Podres cards, so I will leave that there.

The 1964's!

This set is why I left this group until the last post.  I have always had a love for this set, and I don't know where it started.  But this, for me, is the set of the 60s.  There were about 140 64's in the collection, easily the most of any year.


A few cool commons...

Another of those Alou boys...  And what I thought as a kid was Rusty Staub's RC.  Even back then it could be hard to tell what the RC was.

Boog!!  I love me some Boog.  That sounded wrong.  But its true!  And a card of the long time 'fines and discipline' czar for MLB, who was once quite a fine ballplayer.


On to the cards in the old Beckett...

Nellie Fox has made a good number of appearances through this saga. 

Seeing double.  Hoyts! The one on the left isn't in too bad of condition.

Seeing double again.  Juans this time.  I remember Marichal for the awesome leg kick and of course, the Roseboro incident.  But I imagine that he might be proudest of the 16 inning game he pitched against Warren Spahn and the Braves where Willie Mays homered off of Spahn in the 16th to give Marichal the victory.

Seeing double part three.  Eddie Mathews has been all over these cards.

Double Dodger league leaders.  Oh, and a Red too if you don't like Koufax and Drysdale.

Hammerin Hank!!  I might have mentioned that Aaron is one of my top 2 or 3 favorites of all time.  This copy is hammered, appropriately.

And the finale, the 'best' card in the bunch.  Any Vintage Mantle is a card worth having, no matter the condition, and I was glad to see this one.  The Mick looks none too happy, maybe because he's been treated so poorly.

Thanks for taking this ride with me, it has been fun to catalog this collection a little on the blog.  Like some of you have mentioned in the comments, I hope my uncles can find a way to keep these in the family.  I don't think many of their kids, my cousins, have a lot of interest in cards, so eventually they might get sold off for whatever can be gotten.  Hopefully that day is a long way off!

Mail recap and Diamond Nine #20

Here is an overdue mail report, thanks a TON to anyone who sends me cards for any reason!!  They are all appreciated!

Jeff at Wax Pack Wonders had a cool giveaway where you picked 3 players, one from each of three lists, a Hall of Famers list, a Former Stars list and a Recent Stars list.  I picked Ken Griffey, Barry Bonds and Jose Altuve.

Griffey is rapidly rising up my list of players to collect, at least his cool inserts/parallels and refractors.  I know, that's a tough sell since everyone at least likes Griffey and many actively hoard him.  The Black Gold Bonds is cool, he's so skinny!  And I really didn't have any Altuves, my collection is sadly lacking in players from the last 6 or 7 years.  Thanks Jeff!


Next up is Night Owl!  He jumped on the free stuff bandwagon and gave a ton of great stuff away!

This Kershaw was my winnings.  It is beautiful to me for many reasons.  The card itself is awesome due to the throwback unis and how huge it looks on Clayton!  Hilarious!  It's also a SP, and really adds to my very limited Kershaw collection.

Night Owl also threw in this Deion Sanders 2017 Donruss Legends Series insert!  Super shiny, the scan does not do it justice.  Much thanks Night Owl!


And of course, Johnny threw his weekly BFG and here is what I won!!

Wonderful cards, very cool.  And the Robin Roberts was a set need for my 2001 Archives Reserve set!!  I am also very passively collecting the early Fleer Star Stickers, so the Niekro was very welcome.  Big thanks Johnny!!



And here is what many of you are probably here for, the Diamond Nine.

The rules:

9ish cards are up for grabs.  Free!  Just claim what you want.  If you like it, claim it and I will send it out within a few days in a PWE.  (I'm cheap, PWE's all the way!)  Or if you like, I'd be glad to hold your stack until you have a few claimed.

Leave your claim in the comments, first come, first served.  You will have to shoot me your mailing address the first time you claim something.

This is basically a test to see if basketball has any draw beyond Michael, Kobe, LeBron and the top stars.  These guys ain't bad though!

The Howard is a refractor, a couple others are parallels or inserts.

Uncle Cards - 1959-60

Welcome to the fourth post about my uncles childhood cards that they kindly let me look through and post about.  Here are the other posts about the collection (finished and upcoming):

0. Intro and Football
1. Miscellaneous
2. 1958s
3. 1965-66s
4. 1959-60s (today!)
5. 1962-64s

59 commons...

Not a ton of 59s.  Food looking set overall.

Some 59 cards that meant a little something to me.  Piersall, Podres and Roseboro feature in some of the good old stories I grew up reading.  The Braves card makes it because it's a vintage Hank Aaron.  !!!!!!!  Love vintage Aaron's.  And Stengel teaching Larsen his wisdom is pretty cool too.  The back of the card implies that Stengel turned Larsen around and might be responsible for the World Series perfect game.

And here are the 59s that made a 10 year old Beckett...

Hall of Fame middle infields should get a little better looking card than this.  I guess there was no Photoshop back then though, so I guess I'll let it slide.

Another Eddie Matthews!  Even though this pose is kind of cliche, its a good looking card.

And another Baby Bull!  This one looks like a real baby bull played with it a little.

Rocky Colavito!  AKA Rocco, his real name.  Lot's of repeat players in here.  Where are all the Mantle's?????

Another repeat, Mr. Cub!  Excellent looking card here, even though it is simple.  Maybe that is why it is so cool.



Time to move on to the 1960 cards...

There were quite a few here, one of the biggest collecting years for my uncles.  This design was quite a step up from the simplicity of the 59 set.  2 pictures on the fronts, one action, one closeup.  I have always liked this set.  Of course, I have always liked the 59 set too, just for different reasons.

Cards I liked..

Burdette makes me think of Warren Spahn, his teammate.  Burdette seems like Don Drysdale to Spahn's Sandy Koufax to me.  He was a pretty good pitcher, but not quite in his teammate's league.

The Face/Wilhelm card is OK, but I like any card that references a specialty pitch.  Wilhelm was famous for the Knuckler, but I didn't know Face well enough to know he was a master of the Forkball.

Bob Elliott.  Dang, that dude looks excited for baseball.  If we ever get a season started, I might have that expression on my face!

Curt Flood, obviously most famous for holding out and helping to create the modern player/management situation we have now.

And like in the 59s, I had to show a Giants team card because its vintage Willie Mays!!!!!

Great child-altered card here!  Willey didn't play for the Mets until 1963, but this 1960 card bore the brunt of his move.  Very comprehensive, I love that the Braves logo is scribbled out.  The NY logo drawn on the hat looks more like a Yankees logo to me though.

There were more Art Mahaffey's in the collection than any other player.  Here is proof in the form of 4 Mahaffey RCs!!



1960s that made the old Beckett...

Richie Ashburn was a Phillie.  I can't really think of him in any other uniform.  And I'm pretty sure the uniform in the pictures are Phillies unis with a little airbrushing for the C on his hat.  Because according to Baseball-Reference.com, he didn't play for the Cubs until 1960, the year after this set commemorates.  But who knows.

Hey, who was complaining a while back about no Mantles???  Well, here one is.  A nicely framed look at a famous ballplayer and one who time has largely forgotten outside our little baseball historians sphere.  Boyer was a 7 time all star and won the 1964 MVP.  So he's worth remembering. 

Another Early Wynn...

Hey now, Stan the Man!!  I really like this card.  Stan is for sure one of my favorites.

And finish it off with a Say Hey Kid!!  I hope Mays and Hank Aaron live forever.  They were my 2 favorites as a kid, and it's going to be a sad, sad day when they are no longer with us.  At least I have a couple vintage cards of each to remember them with.