Maybe 5 was a bit conservative?

I'm feeling pretty good about the progress I'm making on quite a few sets over the month of April.   I've already completed 15 trades on the TCDB, with another 2 on their way.  As I mentioned last night, there have been a few lately that have knocked off 50+ cards off of my want lists.  Maybe this is what is giving me confidence to believe that my 2019 goal of 5 complete sets might have been a bit conservative. 

Today's post features a new trade partner, Jill (TCDB ID: jt58203) who I was smart enough to heed her profile message requesting larger trades of 25-150 cards.  This trade turned out to be a 57 for 56 deal which might be the largest I've been involved in.

This is the only card for my player collections that came my way, a 2002 Topps John Olerud.  This is the 95th Olerud I own, with no hurry to build it up.   If they come my way, that's great!

15 more cards off of the 1983 list, including Canadian born Dave McKay of the A's.  It is a bit depressing seeing Blue Jays as part of these deals, as it always amazes me that I never grabbed any dupes of the Jays from the early 80's.   Oh well...

Still not quite at the 50% mark for the '83 set, which is a bit disappointing as I thought I might be able to finish this set quicker than some of the others in the 80-86 run, but it appears I was mistaken.

Here's 40 more cards from the '82 set, which makes it's way past the 50% mark with 424 out of the 792 cards in hand.  I'm hopeful that I can finish this set this year, as the only big name RC is already in hand (Ripken Jr.) and there are only maybe a dozen or so cards that I need that will cost $1 or more.  If I can land a couple more big trades to get me over the 500 card mark then I'll likely make a push to finish the set later on....

Overall a great first trade with a new trade partner.  Thank you very  much Julie, the cards are great and really appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Robert
#210

On the Mark

This time I got it right.  Instead of giving trade partner Mark (TCDB ID: Mark1010) the credit for the wrong cards from his end of our 1st trade, our 2nd trade which I received a few days ago I am making sure that I post the correct cards.   All 50 of them.

All these years of hoarding serial #'d gold parallels and silver signature parallels from the 90's paid off, as I sent a half dozen of those off to Mark for 50 cards from the '81 Topps set.

While scanning the cards this evening I decided to test my memory and play a game of "Do I remember this guy?" I don't think I fared too badly, as I couldn't remember just 2 of the names (Tom Hausman in the 2nd scan and Dennis Kinney in the final scan).  Yes there are a lot of stars and famous players here, but how many of you 50 somethings remember John Verhoeven and Ron Pruitt?

I have almost 2/3 of this set in hand now, which has been made a lot easier recently by generous trade partners such as Mark on the TCDB.   It seems as if 50 has become the magic number for cards coming my way recently, as I've finished a half dozen trades (or so it seems) that have netted me 50 or more cards off of my want lists. 

Thank you Mark for the cards, they are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks for reading!

Robert
#210

Serial Saturday #23: I think Dennis hit a vein

This week has been a write off for me, this cold cost me 3 days of work and a week's worth of any blog posts.  That didn't stop packages from coming my way, including another very generous one from Dennis at the Too Many Verlanders blog.   Dennis has long been a big supporter of my serial #'d pursuits, and with this latest envelope his legend as serial supporter grew even more. 

I haven't even taken the time to check and see how many of these cards I actually need for the SNI hockey set, but it's been fun just looking at them anyhow.

I originally thought that all 29 serial #'d cards were from various Artifacts sets from the past decade, but while scanning I noticed the Ron Francis card is actually an Ultimate Collection card from the 10-11 set.   Love this year's Artifacts ruby parallels, the red is really striking in hand.

There are a lot of big names on the 2nd scan, but the name worth talking about right now is in the lower left hand corner.   Robin Lehner is a new man with the Islanders, and their 4 game sweep of the Penguins was a bit of a shocker.  Not that they beat the Pens, but in 4 straight was something that few likely expected. 

Another big shocker in the first round is Tyson Barrie and the Avalanche dispatching the Flames in 5 games.  Before the playoffs I thought that the Avs were probably the only team in the western conference that didn't have a chance of advancing past the first round.   Shows what I know!!  How many of you noticed that there are 2 players on this page with the first name of Ondrej...

While Sean Monahan and the Flames have already broken out the golf clubs, Ben Bishop and the Stars are even with the Predators in their series with Game 5 to go today.  The ruby didn't scan as well on these 2 cards, but they still look great in hand and I'll have to check later to see if I have these numbers on the SNI list.

Dennis also added some Sakic, Fitzgerald and a few Leafs cards as well to the envelope.   Great stuff all around, thank you Dennis, the cards are appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Robert

4 in the door and 2 feet on the go

Well, there have been a couple of benefits of all these trades I've been completing over the past couple of months.  A big part of 2019 for me on a personal note is trying to lose all this excess weight I've been carrying for years.  My house is roughly a 10-15 minute walk to the Post Office, so weekend mornings have been spent gaining steps and some exercise while sending packages in the mail to trade partners all over N. America.

Here's the latest 4 trade packages to come in the door for your consideration.

I put this set up on the TCDB website a few weeks back on a lark, wondering if I would get any hits on it.  Boy, have I been surprised so far.   These 7 2008 UD X die-cuts came to me via TCDB user ID jrayes7of9.   I sent a few Heritage SPs his way and these 7 cards get me to just shy of the 1/2way mark for this 100 card set.

This trade was a hot one, as Steven (TCDB ID: parsley24) offered up these 4 cards for 4 '18 A&G Minis featuring the hottest peppers in the world.  The 2 A&G cards leave me with just 11 to go to finish the set, and the Cutch and Ichiro cards help those PCs out.   I've added quite a few base cards to the want lists for most of my player collections, and I've received quite a few hits in the past couple of months.

I was also very happy with this trade with TCBD user ID suedehead6 (I gotta start remembering to write people's names down, once they close the trade I can't see their names anymore!!).  I found it interesting that he collects both the New York Rangers and Kansas City Royals, but there's never any telling what people collect anymore just by geography.  I sent him some cards from those teams, and got back some much needed hockey from a couple of OPC sets (12-13 & 13-14) along with another Joe Sakic base card that I didn't have. 

Last but not least, this trade with Kevin, who has one of the best ID's on the site (kdinthejaw), sent me a nice chunk of 91-92 OPC Premier cards.  I'm sure that he's probably had them sitting in a box for quite a long time and was happy to get them off of his hands.   91-92 OPC Premier was another want list that I put on the TCDB site on a lark, and sure enough I have received quite a few cards for the set, with 5 more on the way from Hawaii!   Kevin also sent a Keith Tkachuk card and a couple of Joe Sakic cards for those player collections. 

I started the effort to drop some weight at the end of January, about a month before I saw my doctor for my annual physical.  A lot of this stemmed from being tired all the time (especially on weekends), and not wanting to be round anymore (lol).  Well, at the end of February I was weighed at the docs office at 284, and that same day I received a FitBit and vowed to start improving my health.

I'm down to 267 right now, and the best part for me is that it is noticeable.  My goal by the end of 2019 is to weigh 210 lbs.   I've also cut down on big meals, I don't eat as many sugary snacks (especially in the evenings), and my goal is 35 active minutes a day.   I'm not starving myself or going on one of those fad diets, just eating less and walking more is helping me tremendously. 

So keep those trades coming, the walks to the post office do nothing but help me out!!

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Try A Pack #17: 2019 Donruss

Haven't seen a whole lot of these on the blogs, but I kind of like this years Donruss.  Yes, it still doesn't have any logos, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.  But it's not very expensive and it's loaded with parallels, which after a few packs I kind of think there are benefits and drawbacks to the parallel insanity.

What I do like is this:

Like that Donruss used the '85 design for the young players

The base set has both black and white bordered cards.  Different, and I like the look.   If anything, maybe a bit too busy on the diagonal stripes on the white bordered portion, but the black looks really sharp (as it always does when used by card companies). 

The retail fat packs contain one holo red and one vector parallel in each:

The vector parallel scanned better than I thought it would, because I had a little trouble seeing the design if I had the card tilted a certain way.  The holo red parallels scan quite flat, they actually have a foil shine on them and they look good in hand.

Quite a few of the big names in the set have variations, as evidenced by Juan Soto above.   I also pulled a Walker Buehler with his twitter handle on the front (@buehlersdayoff).  In my opinion, these may have run their course as they've been done in the past. 

In my first pack, I pulled a Signature Series card as well...

I haven't had much luck for the longest time pulling any jersey or autograph cards out of any retail packs, so seeing this in the first pack was a welcome sight.  I've yet to see Caleb Ferguson pitch, but just looking at his stats over his first season + 2 weeks it looks as if the Dodgers have another solid young player to add to the group of under age 25 players that form a nice chunk of their 25 man roster.

Not bad from what I've seen so far, not sure if I'll try and build the set yet but the first few packs were a fun rip.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Pay attention, things happen quickly

Fellow blogger and TCDB trade partner Paul (TCDB ID: pjdionne12) offered up a trade just under two weeks ago.

A good chunk of the trade was for cards from '78 Topps

Here's more from '78, along with a couple of 81's, one 2008 UD X and one of the few remaining 2018 A&G cards that I need (I think the total is down to 13 to go).

There were a few 83's, and a trio of 09-10 Artifacts cards.  I have 2 or 3 different Artifacts sets that I added to the want list to try and hopefully finish them up. 

The funny part of this whole deal was the offer and acceptance.   Paul sent the list of cards on the offer, and I breezed through them and accepted the deal.

Neither of us noticed until after the trade was accepted that Paul had accidentally included some duplicate cards.  Paul was very classy about it, threw in a few more '78s (including the Yount, very cool!) and even put on the note he included a reminder for me to add the 4 cards to my collection, as the ones he added wouldn't automatically come off my want list.

So that's the pay attention part.

The topper of the trade was this Old Judge Jim Thome jersey card.  I haven't added anything for Jim Thome in quite a long time, so this was a welcome sight.

We've all bashed the USPS from time to time about delays, damages, etc., so this is a chance to actually give them some due when it is earned.

Paul shipped this bubble mailer on Saturday, and it arrived at my house on Monday!  Michigan to Florida.   That's PDQ.

Thanks for the trade Paul, the cards are really appreciated!  Looking forward to our next one...

Thanks for reading!

Robert

It counts, but it doesn't count

I was pretty happy to see a bubble mailer in the mailbox today from Pat (TCDB ID: itsjustoldcardboard), even though it contained only 6 cards.  I was surprised to see all 6 of the remaining cards I needed to complete my 2018 Allen & Ginter Baseball Equipment for the Ages set pop up last week on his trade list, so I took the opportunity to strike up a trade quickly.

My favorite of the bunch here is the old time baseball sweater card in the lower right corner, as it's something you don't see any more in the big leagues, even in March and April when the weather still isn't agreeable.

Now that I have these in hand, I decided to do a quick scan of all 30 cards to show them off.

I don't remember seeing a whole lot of love for these cards on the blogs, but I really like them.  I'll probably start a binder of Allen & Ginter insert sets and add this to the Starting Points set that I put together a couple years ago.

Of course, I'm counting this as another trade in my quest for 100 trades this year (I'm at 30 so far in 2019 as I write this post), however I'm not going to count this in the complete set category as it's only a small insert set.  Thus, there's still 5 sets to complete, with a trio of sets with less than 10 cards on the want list. 

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Big or small I'll try to post them all

Decided to try and get a couple of trade posts melded into one today for the primary purpose of getting cards off of my desk in a hurry.  Sheepishly I credited Mark (TCDB ID: Mark1010) with sending me all those '78s last week, when in actual fact he sent me all of these 81's.

These 50 cards bring the total in hand close to the 60% mark.  Making some big dents in my want lists lately, which of course I'm not complaining about...

I'll certainly hand it to Paul (TCDB ID: Paulie3jobs), he certainly did some digging on all my want lists to find 3 cards on 3 different want lists to send me.   I actually just completed another trade to get 7 more of the 2008 UD X die cut cards sent my way; I'm loving the fact that I've been putting up want lists for stuff that I'd given up long ago on completing and now I'm finding trade partners that have them, such as the UD X set.  I believe I'll have close to half of the set complete when those 7 arrive.

Thanks to both Paul and Mark for the cards, they are appreciated.   Both of them are great trade partners and I look forward to more trades with them.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Let the cards do the talking

Going to make it easy tonight and let the cards be the focal point.  Thanks to Mark (TCDB ID: Mark1010) for adding 59 cards to my 1978 Topps set.  It's not often I scan this many cards for a post, so enjoy!!

I'm sorry, but all these late 70's uniform logos and designs beat anything that's out today.   You want to do retro nights?  Bring a bunch of these back...

Thanks for looking!

Robert