Anyone want to card draft?

 OK, here is an idea I want to try, let me know if you are interested.  If I get enough interest, I will do an official sign up post.

This would be a PWE based share/draft.  Here is how I see it working:

1. A set number of people would get to participate (I'm thinking 6-8 including myself myself)

2. Each person participating sends a 9 card PWE to me with the 9 cards they are donating to the draft

3. Once I have all the cards, I scan them and make a draft post where they can all be seen

4. We do a randomization of the participants to determine draft order

5. In order, we draft the cards each of us want from the available cards until they are gone.  I guess we'd just do this in the comments unless someone can think of a better way.

6. I PWE the 9 cards each of you drafted back out to you

I am hoping enough people collect a wide variety like I do, and would find this fun.  I know team collectors might not be as interested because there is no guarantee that many of their preferred team would be available.  But regular group breaks are already out there for team collectors, this would cater to a different crowd.

It seems to me that doing it this way keeps the risk low.  All you are putting up is 9 cards that you aren't emotionally tied to, and the PWE to get them to me.  Sure, you might not be able to draft 9 cards that are totally amazing to you, but hopefully there would be some fun ones.

So what do you think?  Any interest?  Any questions or things that I need to think through to make this work?

Multi-player cards

The main way I organize my keeper collection is by player.  But there are a lot of cards out there that feature more than one player on them.  Sometimes I might get 2 copies and put one with each player.  An example is the Alan Trammel/Paul Molitor RC.  I have 2 and each player gets one.  That works sometimes, but I rarely have 2 copies of some of these cards.

So I have a whole box dedicated to multi-player cards.  Here are a few of my favorite examples:

One of the most common card types in the multiplayer box are the League Leaders cards from the 70's and earlier.  And as I was recently looking through this box, enjoying the star power, I noticed that I had a lot of this one same guy on a bunch of my 70's league leaders cards.  The guy, in this case, was Nolan Ryan, who led the league in strikeouts for 7 of the 10 years in the decade.

And it turns out that I have 6 of the 7 strikeouts league leaders cards of him!  He was the league strikeout leader in:

1972 - don't have this one... sad

1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979

Here are the 6 that I have:

After 1979, Ryan took 8 years off from leading leagues.  That is kind of strange, but in 1987, he decided to kick it back up!  He then led the league for the next four years, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990.  Unfortunately, Topps had stopped making those league leaders cards by then, or I would be all over them.

However, I do think I need to add the final Nolan Ryan League Leaders card to my collection.  It commemorates his 1972 season, and is 1973 Topps #67.  I added it to my 'Top 9 Most Wanted' widget in the upper right of the blog.  Anyone got one they'd be willing to trade?

Nolan Ryan has quite a few "woah" kinds of stats.  I think that it is hard to consider him one of the top few pitchers of all time, but he is interesting and unique enough that he has always held my attention.  I already mentioned his weird 8 year gap in leading the league in strikeouts.  How about this one.  In 1987, the year he started leading leagues again, he not only lead the league in strikeouts, but also led it in ERA, with a 2.76 mark.  That's not the funky part.  That year his record was 8-16!  Man, Houston must have been a really, really bad team!

And cool Nolan Ryan stats or stories?

More fun with dimes

 Yet another look at some stuff I grabbed at a card show...

Football first, then basketball, then some random stuff before finishing off with baseball!

Many of these probably look like standard Dime Box fare to many of you, but to me, these are just awesome!  Rice as a Raider is fun, and the junk wax insert of him is cool too.  A RC of the current 'scariest defender' for a dime seems like a steal, even if nobody's cards are worth much in football except quarterbacks and running backs.  Base cards of Brady are not something I see for cheap anymore.  And those QBs on the bottom row are a lot of fun!  In fact, the Brady checklist card on the bottom right is probably the most 'valuable' card in this scan.

These two McGradys were pretty impressive finds for me in a dime box.  The Topps card with Kobe was going for an inflated price for a while when Kobe-mania was going on, so I am happy to have one.  And the Mosaic Jam Masters Silver really pops!

And now for a brief intermission for some non-sports cards.

These are 1992 Little Debbie Presidents cutouts.  Like most cutouts, they are in various conditions, none of them mint.  I grabbed them hoping someone would want them.  Let me know if you are interested!  Funny thing, when I was looking these up on COMC to see what year they were from, I noticed that someone has marked some of these as PRC or Pre-Rookie Cards.  Kind of hilarious!

Next up is a nice Muhammad Ali from 1991 All World Boxing.  Pretty cool, and also available for trade.

And finally on to the baseball!  First up, it is hard for me to pass up colorful parallels in the dime boxes.  Like this first scan below.  After I got home, I looked at baseballcardpedia.com to see which of these 2020 Donruss parallels were more or less rare.  And that's when I got kind of sick.  Turns out Panini just throws TONS of parallels out there, not necessarily more or less rare depending on color.  I'm sure most of you already know that kind of thing, but I never buy packs.  Seems like the least imaginative way to add variety to the product.  Lazy.  I'd definitely welcome other perspectives, I obviously have no real experience here!

Anyway, I initially thought that some of these cards might have made my keepers, but now I just am not feeling it!  So these are available too!

I almost always willing to pick up base cards from premium sets when I find them in a dime box.  These four fit the bill!  I did not even notice the writing on the Bobby Doerr when I grabbed it.  I can't tell if someone actually tried to fake a signature, or if it was pressed against another card and ink came off.  Very weird.

Some more dimes of interest...

Blake Snell - I'm starting to accrue a few of these Holiday variations.  Don't know how many more I need, but for a dime...
Don Mattingly - Decent old school insert
Tony Gwynn - I will gladly take any 93 or 94 finest, especially stars
Roger Clemens - Weird colors on this set.  Cool!
Randy Johnson - See Clemens above.  Randy looks pretty young here.
Max Fried - Just thought this was nice.  Don't have much Fried, and this is pretty shiny
Juan Soto - A very nice 2019 Fire parallel of one of my favorite youngsters
Cody Bellinger - I don't even know what this is.  It has a rainbow finish, is not serial numbered.  Dime boxes, you get what you pay for, I guess!
Albert Pujols - I guess this is the Blue Chip parallel?  Seems nice.

And some more...

Fernando Tatis Jr. - This is a 2021 Panini Donruss - Livestream Silver #d /349.  To find this in a dime box really surprised me.
Yadier Molina - I have been envious of all the Molina refractors Kerry at Cards on Cards shows all the time, so was thrilled to grab these two.
Juan Soto - Another card that was strange to find in a dime box.  This is some kind of rainbow foil from 2021 Topps.  Scanned brightly!
Clayton Kershaws - Three great parallels!
Interleague Preview - Old Topps Chrome with 2 HOFers!
Lou Brock - 1973 Hall of Famer.  Give me this, you can have my dime!
Ichiro Suzuki - 2006 Flair Showcase.  Nice set, and I love Ichiro.

Another good show in the books!

Lots from Jeff and others

 I have been out on the road for most of the last week, super busy.  But on the bright side, that means I got a week's worth of mail all at once.  After I recycled the 8 lbs of political flyers and other assorted junk mail, I was pleasantly surprised by three PWEs!!!

But before I get to the new PWEs, I realized that I hadn't posted about a few other cards that have come in from bloggy friends!  I'd better get those out of the way, and sorry for the delays on these.

First up was an 'out of the blue' PWE from Jeff @ My Sports Obsession.  Man, those 'out of the blue' PWEs are pretty awesome, right?  Jeff shot me some wild and wonderful Juan Gonzalez cards to bulk up my Juan Gone collection.  Very cool.

And he also threw in one of those cards that I collect ALL copies of, the Fleer Shawn Kemp RC!  I now have 31 copies of this card, keep em coming.  Thanks a bunch Jeff!

Next, another 'out of the blue' card, courtesy of reader Derek.  He and I have slowly been passing stuff across the Canadian border for a while, and I see no reason to stop!  He hooked me up with this O-Pee-Chee McGwire that was a need for the Big Mac Collection.  I now have 1272 unique McGwires!  And a big thank you to Derek!

I have seen a few of you show these next cards off on the blogs, so I better too.  These are incredible customs from Greg @ Nine Pockets.  He was generous enough to offer some of these up for free a while back, and it was too tempting to pass up.  I grabbed these three, and I am super pleased with my choices!

If those tickle you, he has many more available for purchase at his Ebay Store.  Worth it!  I love how Andre's position is 'Giant'.

I swear I am missing some cards from someone else, but can't figure it out.  If I missed you, I apologize!

Now on to this week's bounty.

Out of the Blue from gcrl!  Not a rectangle in the bunch, these are destined for my Cuts & Colors collection!  I bet it was hard to get these into the penny sleeves with all the corners.  Three Albert Belle's, too, thanks!

Night Owl shot me three pitchers, all from the same team, go figure.  Great stuff!  And also threw in the Gold Strawberry, a card I have always liked.  Unique framing, for sure, with the Straw running right off the edge of the card.  Thanks Greg!

And last, but not least, I won a contest over at It's Like Having my Own Card Shop!  I correctly guessed the year of a new Hank Aaron acquisition in his collection correctly (1968!), and he said he'd send me a Hank Aaron of my own.  Well it turned out to be two.  And I never expected an actual playing days card of Hammerin Hank!  Check this out!  Thanks a ton, Daniel.

Thanks everyone, these PWE's always make my day!

Raiding set builds - giving up on Diamond Kings

 So if anyone actually reads the drivel I put on this blog, you will know that I have a section of my collection that I consider my keepers.  Both individual cards, and completed sets.

Then I also have set builds that are in progress.  I am not very good at completing these.  I mean at all!  I have had partial insert/parallel sets from the Donruss and Diamond Kings issues from the early 2000s going for 15 years.  And in the last 5 years, I have probably only acquired 2-3 total cards toward completing them.  I rarely ever see them at shows, and they are too expensive for my cheap rear end to go pick them up individually online.

So I have decided to raid those partial sets for keepers!  Here are the cards that have moved from the partial sets part of my collection to the Keepers part:

They are all parallels or inserts from various Diamond Kings issues.

Here are closer shots of some that I really like.

The 'Artists Proof' Cabrera is #d /100.  The color of the Artists Proof logo is not my favorite.  Kind of jarring contrast to the rest of the card.  The 'Season Stat Line' Helton is #d /337.  Very, very shiny.  And the 'Studio Series' Rolen is a very nice looking card as well.  It is #d /250.

I really, really like the look of these 2001 inserts.  They look great!  Probably hard to see in the scan, but the logo in the bottom-center of these cards has a bit of depth to it.  Looks like it isn't just a flat card, but a little 3-D.   Piazza /2500, Rodriguez 250/, Helton /250, Ripken /2500.

All four of these are #d /2500.  The 2 on the right are similar to the cards above, with the 3-D look to the logo. 

All framed parallels here.  The Glavine, Guerrero and Martinez are all #d /400, and the Black framed Gonzalez is /100.

Like I said, I never see any of these anymore, especially any of the serial numbered ones.  Anyone got any of them hiding around that you want to trade me?

Kevins? Who needs em

 A recent post over at Can't have too many cards talked about the various Daves and Davids that have been great athletes in the major sports.  I thought it was a nice idea, so I stole it for this post!

For those of you who don't know, my name is Kevin.  Side note: Evidently Germans think that people with the name Kevin are low class or stupid people.  I'm not really in a position to offer any evidence to the contrary, so take that for what you will.  Not really related to the point of this post, but I thought that this perception of people like me should probably be promoted a little more strongly.  Sometimes even the Germans get things right!  (no offense, all you Germans, just having fun)

Your average, every day Kevin

So here are the notable Kevins from the 4 major sports!

Baseball

Kevin Appier
Kevin Brown
Kevin Elster
Kevin Gross
Kevin Kouzmanoff
Kevin Maas
Kevin McReynolds
Kevin Millwood
Kevin Mitchell
Kevin Seitzer
Kevin Youkilis

Hall of Famers: Zero! 

Kevin's show up in baseball quite a bit.  But they can't seem to excel.  Enough to make a decent team here though, most positions could be adequately filled by this group. And if not, there are a lot more MLB Kevins that didn't quite make this list.  Two of my favorite "not quite a star" players here, McReynolds and Youkilis.  Hard to say who the best all time MLB Kevin is though.  Thoughts?

Football

Kevin Greene
Kevin Mawae

Hall of Famers: Two

Football did not quite make as good a showing as Baseball in terms of quantity, but beat it in quality.  Hopefully I missed somebody good, because only two decent Kevins is embarrassing!  Come on, Kevins of the world!  Both of these guys were very high level players though so I hope that counts for something.

Hockey

Hmm, I seem to have forgotten to research Hockey....  Nope, I actually did, but the Kevins in the NHL are few and far between.  And those that did show up were not familiar to my eyes.  But I am not much of a Hockey guy, so maybe you guys can tell me some decent Kevin in that world.

Basketball

OK, saved the best for last.  There are far more studs named Kevin from the NBA than anywhere else.

Kevin Duckworth
Kevin Durant
Kevin Garnett
Kevin Johnson
Kevin Love
Kevin Martin
Kevin McHale
Kevin Willis

Hall of Famers: 3 (Garnett, McHale and eventually, Durant)

Only 8 guys in my list, but you could put this group up as a team against pretty much anyone.  Insanely strong in the frontcourt with Garnett, McHale and Willis/Durant.   Not a ton of bodies in the backcourt, but if KJ can play a lot of minutes at the point, they'd get by.  Move Durant back to shooting guard and let Kevin Martin spell him and KJ.  It could work! This team is loaded with shooters at every position, and plenty of toughness too.

OK, who'd I miss?  I'm sure there are a few...

Dime show

 Here's a few highlights from the most recent show I was able to attend.  Other than a couple of exceptions noted below, I ONLY spent money at dime boxes this time.  I think I brought around 130 cards home, but I will only show a few here.

2019 Panini Donruss - Independence Day Yadier Molina - Parallel Yadi's always make it for me.

2020 Topps Archives - Nickname Poster Pete Alonso - Probably only worth a dime, but it's a cool looking card.

1986 Donruss 'The Rookies' Bip Roberts - Bip!
2020 Topps Chrome Update Pink Wave Refractor David Ortiz - All Star cards are kind of gimmicky in Update.  Crazy refractor parallels are kind of gimmicky.  Regardless, I really like this card!
2020 Topps Chrome Update Pink Wave Refractor Bryce Harper - More gimmicky.
2021 Panini Donruss - Holo Orange Rod Carew - I think 2021 Donruss is a horribly plain and uninteresting set.  That said, a parallel of one of my all time faves, is a keeper!
2019 Panini Diamond Kings - 2004 DK Retro - Clayton Kershaw - Loved this set in its original incarnation. 
Jim Thome's - 2021 Panini Donruss - Liberty and Holo Red - The Thomenator in parallel.  Don't see many of those 'Liberty' parallels.  I prefer to call him Popeye, rather than Thomentator.

2009 O-Pee-Chee Black Border Joey Votto - This one seems kind of hard to find, so I am glad I grabbed it!

1986 Donruss 'The Rookies' Andres Galarraga - Big Cat XRC from the old days...

2019 Topps Gallery - Masterpiece Willie Mays - A decent parallel of a nice looking card of an all time great
1993 Topps Finest Jose Canseco - I want all the 1993 Finest.  Send them to me, please.
2020 Topps Holiday - Juan Soto (Candy Cane Bat Variation) - Probably my favorite of these cards.  I really like Soto, and the holiday parallels are a lot of fun.
2019 Bowman Platinum - Ice Refractor Joey Votto - Sparkly!
2020 Topps Update Series - Walmart Royal Blue Albert Pujols - Any parallel of Pujols is a parallel of mine.
1987 Topps - Box Bottom Steve Carlton - I don't even remember these mini box bottom cards.  Alzheimer's?  They are definitely cool for a dime!
1987 Topps - Box Bottom Rickey Henderson - Another dime well spent.

Here are the items that I paid more than a dime for:

$1

$1

$1

$1

$1

Nice old SI's for a buck each. Some all time great athletes on the covers!

Thanks for reading.

Recapping the Flash experiment

 Nope, this isn't another Flash giveaway.  This is actually the end of my Flashes.  Don't be sad, I am sure I will be giving away cards again soon, but this experiment was meant to run through the end of 2021.  And here's how it went:

All in all, I did 24 Flash giveaways over the last 4 months.  The purpose behind this type of giveaway was to do the following:

-Give cards away.  I like doing this.  I bring home cards from shows most every month that I know aren't going to make it into my keeper collection.  And they build up!  

-Not spend a ton on postage.  Mission accomplished.  This probably only cost me $15 in postage and supplies. Spread out over 4 months, that feels very manageable.

-Have posts to fill the void.  I have not been very good about posting good, regular content.  I hope to get better.  But these Flashes kept the blog going in some down times.

So out of the 24 Flashes, I gave away a total of 46 cards.  I hope the cards that went out now have happy homes where they will be appreciated!  *14 total people claimed Flash cards.  Four people claimed 2 times each, two folks claimed 3 times and one claimed four.  That's OK, I was very happy not to have to make anyone ineligible for picking too many!

And since this is a card blog, below are my favorite cards out of the 46 that went out my door.  They were all doubles in my collection (most of the Flash cards were, though not all).