4 down, 6 to go: This was supposed to be #7

For over 2 years, I left the 1973 Topps want list on my blog sitting at two cards.  The price of both was the sticking point for me pretty much every time I decided to look for either of the cards that were needed to finish it up.

Then 3 weeks ago, I found a checklist I liked, card #588 finally came home.  Today, you get to see the other half of the long awaited duo.

I stalled for a long time on this card, largely because I couldn't find one that I liked that was reasonably priced.   I was patient, very patient.  I would see cards in worse condition, much worse, that were priced too high.   I found copies that were slightly better than this, but priced well over $100, which was more than I was willing to pay.

Two weeks ago, during the long weekend, for some reason I went hunting again.  I found this copy.  $63.75.  I could handle the price, and the condition was good enough for me.  I put it in the cart, and didn't look at it again for 2 days.  I talked to my wife about it, and she actually talked me into purchasing it noting that I really had been spending less lately on cards because of my self-imposed hiatus on pack purchases.

1973 Topps, is now done!!!  I said that I would finish it this year, and kept my word.

The elation I felt was almost as good as when I finished the '64 set by picking up Luis Aparicio as the last card.

Almost....

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

588

588 might be the biggest number I've ever written a post about.  When I saw this card arrive in the mail today, and saw the card number on the back, I knew what this post was going to be.

588 could represent lots of things, such as

•  The number of days since I last picked up a card toward this set.
•  The number of similar cards I passed over on ebay, COMC and other sites just waiting for this particular one.
•  The number of times I've said that I was going to look for one of these cards, only to brush it off and keep waiting.

Well, a few days ago I decided to try and find the '73 Topps high number checklist on ebay, and I'd be damned if I didn't find one that I liked!!!

I've seen dozens of checklists marked and colored in various fashions.  Most of them were still not priced to my liking, many of them were $30+.   I was probably more patient than I've ever been chasing after any card in my entire time blogging (approaching 9 years now).

But I found this one last weekend, the boxes that are marked are for the most part clean, and the card was in even better shape than I imagined.   The price?  Even better.   Only $13.

There's only one card left go to for the set.  Card #615, the 3rd basemen rookie trio.

Ignore the checklist above, it's lying.  I don't have #615 yet....

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!!

Robert

2020 is upon us. Time to finish some sets.

Happy New Year to everyone!  I do hope that you had an enjoyable evening celebrating the ringing in of a new decade.

For me, collecting in 2019 was quite enjoyable, and successful.   I completed a few sets, and I also wound up with 154 transactions on the TCDB website (which becomes www.tcdb.com as of today so update your bookmarks), far better than I ever expected to accomplish this past year.

What I want to do this year is pretty simple.   Complete 10 sets.  Easy right?  All 10 sets that I'm going to discuss have want lists of 100 cards or less, 8 of which are under 30.  How I'm going to do it will be a little bit of a challenge, because why would I make it easy on myself?

OK, so here goes.  Here are the 10 sets that I will finish this year, in order of completion. 

1981 Topps

Robin Yount is my first scan of the 20's, and finishing this set is fait accompli.  I mentioned recently that I only needed Mark Wagner to finish this set, and I received a message shortly there after from Bruno in the Great White North (thank you Bruno!) that he was willing to send me the card in a trade, so this is done.  

1982 Topps

As part of that same trade, Bruno is sending me 5 of the remaining 15 cards that I need to finish the '82 Topps set.  That left me with 10, so I hopped on COMC and picked those up.  So, this set is done and is either in transit, or will be in transit in a couple of days.  Which brings us to...

1983 Topps

This was one of 4 cards from the '83 Topps set that I received in a recent trade package (thank you Jason!) that took 3 weeks to travel from Wisconsin to Florida via the USPS.  Dog sled, no doubt.  My '83 build is down to 26 cards, with 2 of them being the Gwynn and Sandberg RCs.  I bought the  Steve Carlton base card on COMC yesterday, so this set is currently in progress.  Once this is complete, next up is..

1979 Topps

Evidence as to why Mario had trouble hitting over 200.  Donuts on the bat make it tougher to hit the ball

This is where a bit of the fun begins.  I have 24 cards left to go to finish this set.  The Ozzie Smith RC will be the one that costs the most, but there's also Nolan Ryan and a host of other star cards to pick up, so I'll be hunting to try and find them as cheap as possible, like usual.  A bit of a hurdle, so after this is done I'll drop down a bit and make things easier for myself again with...

2012-13 O-Pee-Chee

This set will be one that I'll be glad to have out of the way.   I've stalled on it for way too long, and with only 6 SPs left to go, getting this completed will bring a bit of a sigh of relief.   Brandon Manning and his $5 SP (why???) be damned, I'll finish this one in the first half of 2020 finally.  Then I'll move on to...

1976 Topps

This set completion may not be as daunting as I thought.  20 cards remaining including a George Brett 2nd year card, Ellis Valentine and Ron Guidry RCs along with 4 All Star cards and a few other big names will make it a challenge on the wallet, but it's what I signed up for with this set so I'm looking forward to working on this roughly around the start of baseball season in late March.  After this is done, I'll finally finish...

1973 Topps

Yes, I've been down to 2 cards left to go for about 2 years now.  Mike Schmidt RC and the high number series checklist.  The stalling will end this year.   I promise.  Once this is done, we'll move back to hockey and finish...

2013-14 O-Pee-Chee

27 cards left to finish this up, 2 from the base set (Andrei Sekera and Taylor Hall) and 25 SPs.  This situation actually improved while writing this post, as I had the Vladimir Tarasenko RC on my want list, which I was pretty sure I had.  Checked the box and sure enough, there it is, so that dropped the want list by one.  When this is done, I've got two want lists that are a bit bigger, so we'll start with the more recent...

1978 Topps

Still a bit of work to do on this one, with 79 cards to go.  The Molitor/Trammell RC and the Dale Murphy RC are the two big starters on finishing this one, but there's quite a few commons that should help to knock the list down to a more manageable number quickly.  Once those are in hand, several big names such as Rose and Ryan will cost a few bucks.  I also need 11 team checklist and 2 manager cards, which I thought was interesting (Night Owl, do you have a Tommy Lasorda dupe from this set?).  Once this is done, the 10th and final set from this list is...

1974 Topps

92 cards remaining to finish this set.  Let's start with Dave Parker and Dave Winfield RCs.  4 Hank Aaron Special cards at the beginning of the set.  A Ryan/Seaver combo card.  Ryan, Bench, Stargell and Rose cards.  This will take a bit of time to finish up.  But I believe with the other 9 sets above completed and distractions to a minimum (hopefully), I can knock this out in a reasonable amount of time.  

There you have it.  10 sets that I'm going to finish in 2020.  The only other thing that I can promise is that will not rip any 1/1 cards in half.  

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

The push to complete sets is now on

We're already halfway through 2019, and I've had a pretty good year trade wise.  I'm over 70 completed trades so far, so the goal of 100 trades by the end of the year should not be a problem.

My goal of 5 complete sets will easily be knocked out as well, as I'm very close on a few of them.  But I decided to write a countdown post largely for my own benefit (I know that there are many out there who don't care for these types of posts).  I'm hoping that putting something in print will help me get my thoughts together on how to progress for the remainder of the year on my set building journey.

Here goes:

1.  1995-96 Collectors Choice Players Club Hockey

Cards remaining:  3
Confidence level:  Very high

Comments:   It's been a quarter of a century, time to put this to bed.  If I don't finish this by the end of the year, it's time to turn in my collecting badge and move on to basket weaving.

2.  1976-77 OPC hockey

Cards remaining:  9
Confidence level:  Medium High

Comments:  A common theme through out this post will be my cheapness.  I gave up hunting a few months ago for cheap copies of Ken Dryden, Bobby Orr and Tiger Williams, so sometime in the near future I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get this beauty of a set completed.

3.  1989 Upper Deck baseball

Cards remaining:  18
Confidence level:  Medium High

Comments:   A recent trade on the TCDB put a major dent in this set, dropping my want list from just over 100 cards to 18.  Mostly the big name RCs are left; Griffey Jr., Smoltz, Biggio and Johnson.  Again, just have to dig in and start adding them.

4.  2012-13 OPC hockey

Cards remaining: 18
Confidence level:  High

Comments:  There is nothing overly expensive preventing me from completing this set.  Some of the cards on sites like COMC are just ridiculously priced, so I might turn to trading for them to get this done.

5.  1976 Topps baseball

Cards remaining:  47
Confidence level:  Medium

Comments:  You know, if I didn't have the 4 sets above that I wanted to finish, I'd probably be quite confident that I could get this done by the end of 2019.   Even with the fact that 90% of the cards remaining for this set are stars.

6.  2013-14 OPC hockey

Cards remaining:  36
Confidence level:  medium

Comments:  Another set that has just some ridiculous prices on fringe rookies, mostly for the simple fact that they are SPs.  My refusal to pay such stupid prices is the reason that this is below '76 Topps BB.   Stubborn, yes I know I am, but sometimes you have to draw the line.

7.  1981 Topps baseball

Cards remaining:  185
Confidence level:  medium

Comments:  This set right now has the exact same number of cards left as the next set on the list (79T), but I rank this higher because I see so much more of this on trade lists than I do '79s.  By the way, someone on twitter had a question recently asking about underrated players from the 1980s, my answer would be Carney Lansford.

8.  1979 Topps

Cards remaining:  185
Confidence level:  Just below medium

Comments:  I just don't see a whole lot of these up for trade, and buying lots of them on ebay aren't very feasible (too many doubles), so I'll be patient and see if I get lucky and find someone willing to part with a bunch of them on the cheap.

9.  1973 Topps

Cards remaining:  2
Confidence level:  Lower than I can limbo

Comments:  Approaching 2 years now at 2 cards to go.  Mike Schmidt RC.  High number checklist.  Do I expect to find these 2 cards at a price I want to pay by years end?   Hell no.  Maybe it's time I just ignored everything else and went after this.   My frugality will likely prevail and this will end up on 2020's list of sets to finish.

I had a lot of fun writing this post.  I got a lot of my thoughts on these sets and current pricing out there for everyone to see.   I'm not ashamed to admit I'm cheap, but as you can see from what I've written above, maybe it's time to just move forward and concentrate on finishing these sets.

We'll see what happens and revisit this post at the end of the year.....

Thanks for reading!

Robert

On this date: June 10, 1973

• Wayne Twitchell was the big man for the Phillies on this day, going 3 for 3 at the plate with 2 singles, a double, a run scored and a RBI to help the Phillies to an 11-0 whitewash of the Padres.
• Oh yeah, he pitched a complete game shutout, allowing only 5 hits and a walk while striking out 8.  

• Meanwhile, Boots Day hits a 2 out, 2 run single in the bottom of the eighth inning to put the Expos ahead for good, as they beat the Giants 7-6 at Parc Jarry in Montreal.
• The winning pitcher for the Expos was reliever Mike Marshall, who would improve his record to 7-4.  Marshall would finish the season with a 14-11 record, appearing in 92 games, all in relief, finishing 73 games and saving 31.  Mike would also finish 2nd in Cy Young voting in '73, gaining 9 of the 24 first place votes.  Tom Seaver would win the award that season in the NL.

- Robert

1904

I had a pretty good time at the monthly card show this past weekend.   I spent a total of $80, 20 of which was on the Brett Hull RC I showed yesterday (which my be counterfeit now, I'll have to do some research and follow up with that--thanks to Coast to Posts for the info).

The other 60 was spent on a lot of other goodies, which I'm going to cram about 90% of them into this post.

A few more Leafs for the collection, including a couple of my favorites past and present, Darryl Sittler and Morgan Rielly.  I'm hoping that Rielly's injury that he suffered tonight isn't serious and he'll be able to come back soon.

I grabbed a couple of star cards from a pair of mid 80's OPC sets on the cheap.  I still have a very long way to go for both of these sets, maybe later this year I'll hunt for some cheap lots on eBay to try and knock the want lists down for both the 84-85 (Francis) and 85-86 (Coffey) sets.

I found a trio of star cards for the 1990 Leaf set that I'm trying to put together.  It seems that the last couple of shows I've attended I managed to snag a Nolan Ryan card or two each time. 

For $4 I was able to snag a '71-72 OPC John Bucyk all star card for that set.  Each of the past couple of shows I've also found a card from this set.  The border is definitely off center, but it's still a nice card with no other flaws, so I just had to pick it up

This was a very happy accident.   I was down to just 3 cards to finish the '73 set, and really didn't go to the show looking for any of them.  While sorting through a box of star cards from the early to mid 70's, I came across this card, and had to stop and look at my phone to see if this was something I needed.  Sure enough, it was, and I now need only 2 cards to finish the '73 set. 

I was able to grab these 6 cards for the '59 set I'm working on, the highlight being the Enos Slaughter card on the lower right which cost me $9. 

Finally, at a table that had a dollar box, I grabbed 11 serial #'d cards for the SNIH set.  If you bought 15 cards out of the box, he charged only $10, so I got these for 66 cents apiece, right around what I normally like to pay for serial #'d cards.  I was excited to get another Tony Esposito card for the set, the classic Butch Goring helmet that he wore for his entire career was also another cool pickup for me.

Let's do the math.  $1984- $80 spent at the show leaves the budget for 2017 down to $1904.  If I did an average spent per day so far, the $2K right now would last me until the 354th day of the year, December 20th.

Let's see how that plays out...

Thanks for reading, Robert

3, 2 and 1 from the almost done (page)

The Black Friday haul from COMC proved quite fruitful for a few reasons.   Part of the purchase was knocking off part (or all) of the want lists on the "Almost Done" page.  Making this a quick and simple post of just 6 cards, which removed one want list and shaved down a couple more...

Why I didn't chase these down sooner, I can't explain.  But getting the last 3 RC's (at least I believe they are, you never know anymore) from the 2015 A&G set puts it to bed.  Now I can start to work on the 2016 set, maybe some time in 2017 I'll start buying some more packs.

There's still a bit of hope that the '64 set may be completed in the next 18 days.  We'll have to see how the Christmas budget goes.  If I spend more than I expect on holiday gift giving, then the final couple of big ticket cards may have to wait until the new year.  Joe & Jerry here are on card #564, another high number off the list.   There are some of you out there that will like the 2nd high number card I bought more...

For just under $7, I finally was able to get a copy that was in nice shape at an affordable price of the LA Dodgers team card.  The only flaw on the card, front or back, is the soft lower left corner.  A lot better condition than I expected. 

Finally, the rookie shortstops card from the '73 set is now in hand.   Completing the '73 set wasn't on the priority list for this year, even though I'm down to just 3 cards.  But finding a Schmidt RC at a decent price has been very tough, and I imagine that will continue for the foreseeable future, unless I get lucky.  I also have the Dwight Evans RC to pick up as well, so the '73 set will probably wait until sometime into 2017 before it's done. 

There are only 14 cards remaining on the 3 want lists on the almost done page.  2 of which I have already bought from the '64 set.  Maybe my next goal will be to wipe out that page entirely before I get another set close enough to move onto the page.

We'll see how that goes...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Vintage Gavin

The title for the first half of this trade post was really easy.  It was good to hear from one of the most creative bloggers out there, Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown, a couple of weeks back.  Gavin said he had a few cards to send my way, and asked if I had anything off of his want lists, including the 2011 Topps frankenset that he's working on.  I sent him a few little things, and in return today I received quite the bubble mailer.

Today is the vintage, or close to vintage.

Gavin promised a '82 Topps Padres team set.

Seeing the 21 card team set reminded me of how much I prefer the older Padres uniforms.   Honestly, I wish they would stop changing every few years and just go back to these. 

And yes, technically I know '82 wouldn't be considered vintage, but I needed something to fill out the post a little.  The 21 cards just about doubled my total for the '82 set; I now have a whopping 44 cards toward the 792 card quest.  748 left isn't that daunting a task, is it?

It's not too often that someone can say that they knocked off 20% of a want list, but Gavin succeeded with just 1 card

The '73 T want list is down to 4.  Fred Scherman is the final card in the set, #660.  Still need a checklist, the Bumbry/Dw. Evans RC, Schmidt and a rookie shortstops card.  Maybe by the end of 2016 I'll pick these 4 up.

Finally, Gavin sent a six pack of '68s.  No, they weren't 6 commons either...

Would you rather have this combo as your SS and C?

Not bad.   Or how about these 2?

There were 3 outfielders in the group of 6, definitely no Tom, Dick or Harry's here...

Wondering why Topps had to airbrush Rusty's helmet to pure black.  He hadn't played anywhere else during his time in the majors but Houston before '68.  Maybe somebody out there knows why this happened.

My '68 pursuit is now over 200 cards complete, 205 to be exact.  Not bad for a set that I never really intended to chase, and now I've been picking up cards so slowly that I might be 68 years old before I finish the set.   Hey, it's not a sprint, right?

Tomorrow, I'll show off the other half of the envelope, which has a couple of autos, a pair of homemade cards (one of which is a legend), and a boat load of Blue Jays.

My scanning arm hurts already...

thanks for reading, Robert

My latest COMC pickups--the vintage portion

Since dipping my toe into the COMC waters a few months ago, I've pretty much used the site as a way to find cards for my player collections and more modern set building endeavors. 

After not spending a cent on cards for several weeks while I was moving, I decided to throw a few dollars into the COMC account and see what happened.

For some reason, I decided to try and find some reasonably priced vintage to knock down some long neglected want lists.  I don't think I fared too badly with this order.

Picking up this Dave Concepcion brings the 1973 set build want list down to just 5 cards, one of those being the very high priced Ron Cey RC.  The red on Dave's helmet and sleeves really stands out when holding the card in hand.  I didn't think the $3.75 price tag on this card was that bad.

These 6 cards combined were cheaper than the Concepcion card.  I didn't pay more than 44 cents for any of these cards, and I now have 1/3 of the '68 set in hand.  Not bad for a set that really is an afterthought when I'm at shows or browsing online.

For just under $4 combined, these 4 '59 commons arrived as part of the order.  These were priced much the same as I've been paying at shows for commons, so I wasn't too upset at all.  The '59 set is coming along nicely, with these 4 cards raising the completion rate to just over 54%.  Still a long way to go and a lot of big names to pick up, but it's getting there.

Finally, the nearly completed '64 Topps set gets a little love with these 3 cards making their way here.  A little more pricey than the others, these 3 set me back just over $12 total.  Not picking any of these up over the past 2-3 months have made me fall behind in my "one per week" pace.   With about 15 weeks left in 2016, my '64 want list is down to 20 cards.  I still have to find reasonably priced copies of the AL Bombers and Tops in NL cards along with some other big names such as Whitey Ford and Orlando Cepeda. 

Now that I have my first vintage purchase from COMC under my belt, I'm happy enough with it that I'll definitely try again in the future. 

Tomorrow I'll show off A&G inserts and some hockey for a little variety.

Thanks for reading, Robert

2 by 2 by 2

A good week as far as cards coming into the house.  Between a Sportlots order, a COMC purchase, and a brief stay at the monthly card show, quite a few cards were knocked off of want lists.  It just so happened that there were three separate sets that had 2 cards removed.

One part of the COMC order (that I'd been putting together for a month) was these 2 high numbers from the '73 Topps set.  Dig the eyebrows on Andy Etchebarren, almost reminiscent of the Wally Moon cards from the early 60's.  The only one of the 3 pitchers in the Rookie Pitchers card that I had heard of was Mike Garman.  Mike had actually appeared for the Red Sox in parts of 3 seasons ('69, '71 and '72) before this card was released.  He was traded to the Cardinals after the '73 season and had a couple of very good seasons there before bouncing around the league with 3 other teams up until his major league career ended after the '79 season.

I found a couple of reasonably priced SPs on COMC for the 2011 Heritage set.  The Orioles team card reminds me of the high number battle I am facing with the '64 set, and the overpriced Dodgers high number team card.  Sorry, but I can't stomach paying $10 for a team card, high # or not...

It hurts a little to see a Roy Halladay card featuring him in a Phillie cap, but he did some things there that he never did in Toronto (make a ton of money, pitch in the playoffs, etc.) so that takes the sting off somewhat.  He's still one of the top 5 pitchers in Blue Jays history in my opinion.

It is extremely rare that I go to a card show and come home with only 2 single cards for myself.  But that happened yesterday because the dealer that I was really hoping to purchase a lot of cards from wasn't there.  So I ended up buying a pair of '59s featuring a couple of HOF players.  Can't say that I ever remember seeing that style of uniform that the Cubs Clubbers are wearing.

 I was also curious to see what kind of numbers that Banks and his teammates put up in the '59 season, and was quite shocked as the disparity.   Banks--.304/45HR/143/RBI.  Long--.236/14HR/37RBI.  Moryn--.234/14HR/48RBI.  Only one other Cub had more than 50 RBI's in the '59 season.  There was Banks with his 45 HR, and no other Cub had more than 14 (although 7 had more than 10).

These two cards bring the '59 set a little bit closer to the halfway mark, with just 29 more cards needed to hit 50%.

Believe it or not, the big purchase from the card show yesterday was a hobby box of 2016 Topps.  I haven't cracked a box of cards in quite a long time, so I'm eager to see what the fuss is all about.  You'll see a post soon about it for sure.

Thanks for reading, Robert