30 Day baseball card challenge Day 4: A rookie card from one of your favorite players

Well, since this is the baseball card challenge I decided to go with a rookie card from one of my PC's.  Jim Thome's 1991 Bowman card #68.  It has a little bit of light wear on the lower left corner, but all in all not a bad card to show. 

Brett Lawrie RC's I do not own as they are from products released in 2008 that were either autograph cards or minor league releases (which I normally don't chase).

Same with Andrew McCutchen, all his RC's are from 2004 Bowman or Bowman Chrome Draft Picks and Prospects sets, which I never collected back then (nor will I now).

Now that this quick post is done, I decided to wait a couple of days before showing off the '64 Topps complete set is that my next post is #1500, and I figured what better way to celebrate a post milestone than by showing off a great set.

Hope you'll be able to stop by...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Knock off a set here, a set there

First up, to all the veterans who served in the military here in the US or abroad, thank you for your service.  Happy Veterans Day to all of you out there.

I guess you could say I've been converted.  Tony from the Off Hiatus blog got me started on the Just Commons website train a few weeks ago, and after the 2nd transaction that I recently completed, I must say I'm impressed.

I actually have a good story about the Just Commons site that I'm going to save until the weekend.  In short, I'll say that it was definitely a positive experience for me and I'll be sending more business their way in the future.

But for now, I wanted to show off a few cards that knocked off some Blue Jays want lists out of this last order.

1994 Score is the first victim here, with these 4 cards in hand I was able to remove this set from the giant want list.  One of these days I'm going to have to put a checklist together of Carlos Delgado cards that feature him in catchers gear, because I keep finding more.  Love the shot of Pat Borders on the bottom getting ready to tag Ivan Rodriguez out at the plate. 

I see these two cards, sit here and scratch my head and wonder how I didn't have them in hand.  I collected so much '92 Ultra back in the day.  Crazy.   But, it's another set that is no more.

Yep, the final piece of the '91 Bowman puzzle was Roberto Alomar.  Usually when single cards sit on a want list for as long as this one did, it's usually because the player is a star.  That's the case here, along with the next card up....

The addition of the '81 Donruss Dave Stieb card means that any card that I need prior to 1984 is either from Topps (2 cards) or O-Pee-Chee (115 cards).  I don't know what's worse, the 2 card want list from '77 Topps or the fact that I counted out 115 cards that I need for OPC sets.  It's amazing just how many players from the Jays and Expos that OPC featured.

A little bit of art to finish off the post, as this '87 Leaf Diamond King card of Lloyd Moseby wipes another set off the board.  A great likeness of the Shaker if you ask me...

In addition to completing some sets that have been worked on for a long time, I'm trying to knock the Jays want list down some.  I'm trying to be a little more realistic and remove some of the rarer parallel sets off of the list while using Just Commons to whittle down the mainstream sets. 

Just in case you're wondering, there's a lot more to this order than just these 5 cards, trust me.

Thanks for reading, Robert

I heard him, but I just didn't listen

Fellow Blue Jays collector Richard from the Toronto Blue Jays Collection blog wrote not too long ago about purging some of his collection, especially to other Blue Jays collectors.

I'm guessing that I was one of the ones he had in mind, because I received a great envelope of Blue Jays cards that had me writing the word "COMPLETE" on the Jays want list a few times.

Case in point:

1985 Fleer (Upshaw in the lower right) and Fleer Update (the rest) are no longer needed.

One card want lists also went by the wayside as well.  1994 Bowman, '91 Fleer Update and '81 Fleer were also victims of this random act of generosity.

You say you want to see a bigger checklist go down?  Sure thing, how about '93 Fleer?

I didn't bother scanning the 19th card, which was a Jack Morris league leaders card.   That '93 Fleer list, is no more.

Richard didn't finish '92 Bowman, but he did send me a bakers dozen from that set, including some forgotten names like Howard Battle, Jose Pett and Aaron Small. 

12 cards were also removed from the '91 Bowman list, including some high fashion shots featuring Doug Linton, Nigel Wilson, Howard Battle and Felipe Crespo.  At least the Crespo picture had something baseball related, instead of Wilson's shot of him holding up a stone arch. 

Finally, Richard sent me the entire 1988 Fire Safety cards, 36 in all:

These are approximately 4" x 6", and feature some good photography.  What I like about them is that they were all photographed at Exhibition Stadium, featuring the Jays in their home whites.  The backs all have fire safety tips, as well as the player's bio. 

These were all great, and quite unexpected.   Thank you very much Richard, the envelope is greatly appreciated!  (I'll keep my eye out for Joe Carter cards for you)

thanks for reading, Robert