1 if by air, 2 if by dogsled

OK, let's have a bit of fun with the post office shall we?

In my post from the 23rd, I showed off a few cards that came from Dave up in Nova Scotia, Canada.  The same day that Dave shipped his, a gentleman by the name of Hugo in Gaspe, QC (TCDB User ID: Pennytendencies), sent me his portion of our TCDB trade, which included 36 cards from the 2009-10 OPC hockey set, which I'm too lazy to scan right now, and these 3 beauties...

The Serge Savard card on the left is from the 75-76 OPC set, which breaks the ice for me.  Only 395 of those 2 go!  The other 2 are from the 85-86 OPC set, which I now have 10 cards from.  Randy Moller in case you were wondering is now the man between the benches on Florida Panthers telecasts where he does a really good job, and is also famous down here for his goal calls on the radio when he was the play by play man for the club.   Take a listen, there are some funny ones there.

The same day, I received my end of another trade from frequent trade partner Mike (User ID: 49ants) which bumped my John Olerud collection up 5 cards.

OK, now all 3 envelopes (these 2 and Dave's from the other day's post) arrived on the same day.

Dave and Hugo's packages were shipped December 28th.   They arrived January 21st.
Mike's envelope arrived the same day, and was delivered to my neighbors house.  Thankfully my neighbor is a gentleman and walked it over that evening for me.

So, here it is.  2 envelopes from Canada took 24 days to arrive , yes that's 3 and a half weeks.   Sorry, but I could have walked there in that time and picked up the packages.

My other envelope was delivered in 3 days, but to the wrong address.  What the f#$%

Come on USPS, you've done better than this in the past.  Also, the prices are brutal to ship to Canada.

I mailed a 9 card package and it cost me $10!!!  No more packages to Canada I'm afraid.  PWE's only going forward to Canada.

Come on USPS, you can do better....

Thanks for reading!!

Robert

Sometimes you get lucky

I've chronicled my love for the 71-72 OPC hockey set on this blog on a couple of occasions.  Right around Christmas, I was fortunate to see a few of these available on twitter courtesy of Dave from the Wax Stain Rookie blog (twitter ID : @parkhurstcards) . 

Dave originally posted the following 70-71 Cesare Maniago card:

Sold!   I asked him if he had anything else from the early 70's.  Out come these three beauties.

Yes, creases, tape marks/stains.  I didn't care.  When you find Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr cards from a guy you trust, you have to take the leap.  

Dave said "make me an offer".   I really panicked a bit, as I looked up the values of the cards, and knowing that players such as Orr and Hull tend to hold their value even in lower conditions I was worried that I might not offer Dave enough.

I threw Dave a number, hoping not to insult him.  My offer was $10 over what he thought.   Whew!!

I love that I have these 4 cards in my collection.   Dave even threw in a Joe Sakic card that I needed.

If you ever have a chance to grab some cards from Dave, don't hesitate.  If you ever have a chance to read his blog, or his twitter feeds (he's going through 90-91 Pro Set right now, a fun read on twitter), don't hesitate.

The most entertaining part about this transaction?  The time it took for the cards to arrive.  My next post will have me do something I don't normally do, taking a shot at the USPS.

Thank you Dave for the cards, they are great!!

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Just Larry

First two scans are nothing but serial #'d cards.

Everything else, sorted by year, except for the last scan which is 4 single cards from 4 different years.

3 of the cards, $1.  1 other card, $1.02.  The remainder were between 38 and 75 cents.  I still find it hard to believe that I'm finding cards of a future hall of famer (especially serial #'d) so cheap.

Maybe the scans feature Just Larry, but when he goes into Canton, it won't be "Just Larry".  It'll be Larry Fitzgerald, known as one of the top 3 receivers of all time when it's all said and done. 

That's my opinion....

Thanks for reading!

Robert

I enjoy modern OPC hockey sets but...

They can be a bit rough to finish.  I decided as part of my last order from COMC to try and chop away at a couple of modern OPC sets that I've been working on for a few years now.  My cheapness is preventing me from taking a full on run at finishing them, even though they are now less than 50 cards each from completion.

I snagged 4 of the cheaper RC's from the 2012-13 set, but there's still 30 legends/rookies to purchase (while writing this on Sunday morning, I snagged 3 of the rookies for $2 combined, so that made me a happy camper).  Some of the prices on COMC are a bit out of whack (see Brandon Manning), so I've been holding off on making these purchases until the cards are a little more in line.

The other 2 cards on the scan are part of the Players Club parallel set from 95-96 Collectors Choice that I'm close to completing.  That want list is down to a dozen cards, a couple of which have been tough to locate on either COMC or ebay.   I may have to try sportlots to finish that up.

Michal Jordan in the lower left.  Definitely didn't have the same career as the other one...

Pulled a nice chunk of 2013-14 OPCs on this order, 15 to be exact.  Again, it's the same thing with this set, some of the prices of the RCs are out of whack, so I've been holding off on these as well.    Down to 40 on this want list.   Good chance that this will be done this year.

Been collecting Sakic for almost 3 decades, and still needed 90-91 Bowman.  UGH!

I'm still managing to pick up a few Joe Sakic base cards here and there for this PC, which is now close to 750 cards.  I decided to sit down and look at the recent Beckett hockey magazine the other night, and came to the conclusion that the days of finding base cards of Sakic for under $1 may be over.  But that's OK, as there aren't a whole lot of new releases featuring Joe, and I have a great deal of the base cards now so it's on to the parallels, which can be tough to find and pricey (see late 90's-early 00's Pacific products as an example).

Today is the last of the hockey cards from the COMC order.  Next up---Fitzgerald.  

Boy there's a lot of them....

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Some 70's and 80's hockey if you like

Most of these sets I'm about to show have a long way to go until they're complete, but the fun I'm going to have in chasing them all down is going to be endless.

I showed the 14 baseball cards from my recent COMC order yesterday, and that total is small in comparison to the 25 vintage cards from the 71-72 through 86-87 OPC sets that are pictured below.

All but one of the scans have 3 cards pictured.   It just worked out that way after going thru the pile.  The Jacques Lemaire card has a couple of creases which you can see if you look close (1 just above his head to the left, the other by his left glove), but for me they don't ruin the aesthetic of the card.  The Tony McKegney card was cheap and I wanted to get the 80-81 set going, and the Flames team card drops the want list for 76-77 OPC down to 12.  Bobby Orr and Ken Dryden are the two big "obstacles" left before that set is done.

The different colored borders that the 73-74 OPC set contains has me intrigued.  It'll be a while before I start seriously working on this set, but these trio of cards were a good start for me.  The Larry Robinson and Billy Smith RC's are pricey, and there are several other cards that go for $20 or more in really good condition, so this is another set that while not big, will take some time as I'll be picky in what I pick up for the set.

These three 83-84 OPC cards bring that want list even further down, as I now only need 11 to complete the set.  This will be done before too long (hopefully) even though I still need the Scott Stevens RC and the base card of Wayne Gretzky.

Biggest scan of the post, as these 6 84-85 OPC's were a nice cost-effective purchase.  I mailed an envelope to Norway on Saturday as part of a trade that will net me 22 of these.  When they come in, I'll be over 100 cards towards the set.

Both the 85-86 and 86-87 OPC sets are among my favorites, and I look forward to putting them together.   Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy RCs will be the major hurdles in finishing both of these, as they are tough to find for less than $150 in decent condition.

Love the airbrush on the Gamble, totally wiped out the Maple Leaf

The 71-72 OPC set I've been picking at for over a year now and I'm almost a quarter of the way through (just 2 more to get me there).   This is the one set that I've seen more cards than any other with paper loss on the back.  I'm sure many of these cards back in the day were taped into binders or onto some kind of paper, and when pulled off the backs were torn up.   It's a shame because this might be one of the best sets ever, and finding cards without that paper loss is essential for me.
I've pretty much given up finding any commons less than $1, but that's OK because I'm really only buying 2 or 3 at a time, thus not spending a whole lot of $$.

This isn't even the whole of the hockey portion, tomorrow I'll post the more modern cards.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

The 10 per cent

A weird kind of fun that I have is when I receive a package from COMC, and spend the first 15-20 minutes after opening the package just sorting the cards.   I wound up with 4 stacks this time:

• Larry Fitzgerald cards, which was the biggest stack
• Modern hockey, including Joe Sakic cards for that PC
• Older hockey, 71-72 OPC through 86-87 OPC
• Baseball

After going through all the cards, I realized that I only ordered 14 baseball cards.   The total order was 121,  so in reality it's about 11.5% of the order, and not the 10% I quoted.

Close enough.

With this small of a pile, I thought it would be easy enough to show all of the cards in one post.  So here we go.

I bought these 3 '68s specifically to complete pages in the set.  Since I put the '68s in pages a couple of weeks ago, I find that I'm enjoying this set much more than I did when the cards were sitting in a box.

Case in point, here's the page that the Richie Allen card completed.

#'s 217-225

Doesn't hurt that this page also features Harmon Killebrew.  Still a long way to go to complete the set, but now that it's in a binder and pages, I might be more inclined to pick up cards here and there.

Cisco Carlos is the only card from the '69 set in this order.   He's pretty lonely.

Love the George Scott game action photo.  It looks as if he's popped one up on the infield.

The '74 and '76 sets have received little love from me on this blog, and that's a shame.  Both of them are over 3/4 complete, and it seems as if I've never written about them at all.  There's a slim chance that either of them might be completed this year, as the only major card that I need from the '76 set is the Eckersley RC, while the '74 set still needs the Winfield RC and a few other pricey items for completion. 

Still have to get both of these want lists on the TCDB as well.  Maybe this weekend if I have the chance...

Not much in the way of modern cards as you can plainly see.   The John Olerud card was the only baseball player PC card I picked up.   There seems to be some scarcity to Olerud cards, as I ran through the site many of the base cards were $2 and up (what's up with that?)  Still want to finish the Baseball Equipment of the Ages insert set from last year's A&G, I have 13 of them left to go (8,11,12,14,16,20,21,22,23,25,26,29,30 are the numbers if you're so inclined to check).  Would love to hear from you if you have any.

Still a lot to show off from COMC in the coming days, hopefully you'll check back....

Thanks for reading!

Robert

5 in a row

Funny what pops into your head when you start to write a post.   Me, being the obsessive numbers guy, thought to myself "when was the last time I posted 5 days in a row?"  Took a couple of minutes to look it up, but Sept. 20 through the 24th was the last time that happened.

Slacker.

No big deal really, as I'm still on the card trail most every day.   My desk is proof of that. 

Last weekend's card show knocked off a few cards from a trio of vintage sets.  At a quarter apiece, it wasn't hard to pick up these...

5 cards gone off of the '70 Topps set with this purchase.   This is the one set that I never have any intention of purchasing every time I go to a show, and somehow these cards just fall into my pile. 

Of the 5 sets between 1968 and 1972, this is probably my least favorite.  Of the 5 sets between 1968 and 1972, this is probably the one that I'll finish first.  The Munson RC and a 3rd year Nolan Ryan will be the stumbling blocks, but other than that with some patience I should be able to get the other big names for reasonable prices.  This year I'll probably just hit the 50% mark....

Another group of cards that I couldn't leave behind at 25 cents apiece.  While flipping through the stack that the dealer had, I tried to get what I could of the team cards as well as the rookie stars.  I still haven't even the 100 card mark for this set, but there's no hurry as it's probably near the bottom of the "expect to finish before the 2020's end" list.

Was there a time when Billy Martin wasn't arguing as a manager?

Ralph Garr=blurry

Various pitching poses

Reading the Night Owl's blog that chronicled his chase of the '72 set, especially the high numbers, makes me wonder if I may have bitten off more than I can chew. 

Seeing these '72 Topps cards brings me back to the late 1990's when I first started picking some of these up, and then got frustrated with how slow I was putting the set together that I got rid of them.  I still wouldn't be anywhere near completing the set even if I had those, but I sure would be further ahead than the 16% I am right now. 

Still have a lot of cards to post, so hopefully I can keep the string of consecutive days going. 

Thanks for reading!

Robert

1 for 3

That's not a bad day at the plate, right?   I'd take someone who hit .333 any day.

In my case, 1 for 3 describes my 2nd completed TCDB trade of 2019.  I offered Bruno (User ID:  Sandy's Singles) 3 Nolan Ryan cards for this Nolan Ryan card.

Beauty.  Great looking card from the '78 Topps set.  Interesting that this card was shipped in a PWE from Canada over a week later than 2 other packages that were shipped in brown envelopes and it arrived first.

I may have to limit trades to PWE's for Canada until further notice.  Oh well.

Thank you Bruno, this is a great addition for my '78 set!!  Look forward to more trades with you.

98 trades left to get to my goal...

Thanks for reading!

Robert

A bit warped?

I'm kind of writing this on the fly tonight so hopefully I'll make my point before the end of the post.

I stopped collecting football cards a few years ago, as I thought it would be the first step in reducing how much product I bought.  But as time has gone by and my collecting tastes have evolved, football cards have crept their way back in.

Especially Larry Fitzgerald.  I started collecting him a few months back; I've always liked him as a player, and after watching the Amazon "All or Nothing" series on the Arizona Cardinals my desire to collect his cards grew.

OK, this brings me to my story.   I hit the monthly card show last weekend and stopped at a table that was offering inserts 3/$1 (a great way to add to my PC's).  I wound up with 36 cards out of those boxes, so I started digging through his other more valuable inserts/parallels hoping to round out my purchase to $20.

I found this card:

2017 Panini Select Premier Level Purple Die Cut Prism #'d 75/75

The price on the card?  $10.  I figured based on last month's purchase that he'd knock the card down to $8 to make it an even $20.  Nope, he gave me the card for $5!  Even better....

But here's how I've thought about my PC's lately.   I had no problem at all paying $5 for this card, and would have paid the $8 (or $10) easily.  Any of my other PC's, including my longest and largest one (Joe Sakic), I probably would have said no. 

Not sure why I've progressed this way, but I'm more excited and willing to pay more to add cards to my Fitzgerald collection, especially limited serial #'d cards such as this one.  I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Maybe my preferences have become a bit warped?  Maybe it's because I find more Fitzgerald cards at the card shows than I do most of my other player collections? 

I honestly don't know.  Maybe I'm thinking too much and should just enjoy the fact that I found this card so cheap...

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Another trade knocks down the '84T set some more

A couple of weeks into the year and I finally got in some cards on a trade from the TCDB (more on that when another trade arrives, if it ever does).   I pulled off my 2nd trade overall with Ben (user ID : BenG76) and nabbed 14 cards from the '84 Topps set. 

I'd totally forgotten that Gene Tenace had played with the Pirates, what I wasn't aware of is that he was born in nearby Russellton, PA which is roughly 30-40 minutes from Pittsburgh up State Road 28.  The Tenace card would be the last of his career as he finished with the Pirates in '83.  I never took a good look at Tenace's stats, and was surprised to see that he had more than 100 walks in a season 6 times. 

In this scan is the Pirates other part time catcher, Milt May.  Milt only got into 7 games with the Pirates in '83, and yet winds up with in my opinion a pretty cool looking card in the '84 set.

Bring back the Expos!  I don't recall ever seeing the Expos wearing those red uniforms during the regular season, I'm guessing that Mike Vail's photo was likely taking during spring training.  Although the stadium in the back drop might say otherwise.  What say you card sleuths?

I also took a quick look at Larry Bowa's card back, and he looks every bit of the 2000+ games that he'd played through the '83 season.  Bowa would finish with 16 seasons and 2247 games played to wrap up his career, after that managing over 850 games to have an incredible total of over 3000 games as part of a major league team.

48 cards to go to finish this set.  The next Sportlots order should take care of most if not all of the cards, save the Don Mattingly RC. 

1 trade down, 99 to go.   Thanks Ben!

Thanks for reading.

Robert

A bit of Ebay love to a trio of sets

For some reason I got the ebay bug last weekend and hopped on the site to try and find some cards.  I hit one of my usual sellers, Burbank Sportscards and found 7 cards for $20 to take advantage of their free shipping offer.

3 want lists are now a little lighter.  Let's start with 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee hockey

I figured it was time to really try and finally cut this set out of my way.  What I thought would be more costly are the three Gretzky league leader cards.  The 3 of them cost $8 total.  Unbelievably cheap, and add in the Steve Larmer UER for another 3 bucks and I'm just 14 cards from completion.   A trio of cards coming in my next COMC shipment drops that number even lower....

For just $2.25 this Darryl Strawberry rookie has found a home.   My next post will show off a few more '84 Topps cards as this set winds its way down to completion.  I'm sure many years ago the Strawberry rookie was probably worth more than a couple of bucks, but I'm not complaining that I got it so cheap. 

That leaves me with just the Mattingly RC to go as far as the higher value cards needed to finish the '84 set.

A long neglected set build has been the '59 Topps set, which had been sitting on 103 cards remaining for several months.  I came across the Covington all star card for $5 (another good deal) and started hunting around.  The only other card I found was Johnny Antonelli for a couple of bucks. 

Honestly?  It was just good to get a couple of cards knocked off the '59 want list as part of this purchase.  The '59 set will not be one of the five that I finish this year.   The '84 Topps and 83-84 OPC for sure will be.

Tonight's post is just the start.

Thanks for reading!

Robert