Clean up your mess and you can go fishing

On the weekend I had some time on my hands.  I decided to do something I haven't done in several months, update the want lists on the blog.  They certainly needed the work.  One of the pages that I noticed needing the most work was the Allen & Ginter page.

I'd pulled in a lot of cards from trades over the past few months, and I noticed that there was a couple of sets that were getting pretty low.  One in particular was the 2012 set, which I realized had only one card on it.  For a long time, I was being cheap about spending the money for it, and I decided it was time to go fishing for some Trout.

I thought $14 was a reasonable price for Mike Trout's first A&G card, so I grabbed it.  I immediately updated the want list to show that it was done, even though the card wasn't in hand.  It showed up today and I'm very happy to take another box off the bookshelf and add it to the stack of other completed sets on the A&G run.

I searched the same seller to see if he had any other cards worth purchasing and I only found 1.

Already had the matching base card for '21 Heritage, so the In Action card becomes the 29th VGJ card in the mini collection.  Not bad for just over a buck.  If you have any base cards of his that you're looking to trade, let me know.  I'm sure that I need a little over 9,000 of them.

Robert

Check out some cards: Finally

The order wasn't big, just 55 cards (4 of which have been shown in a previous post), but waiting over 3 months to get them was a bit tortuous.  But finally receiving them has shown me one thing that I've known for a while but is more evident now...

I've got way too much going on.   Nobody's fault but my own.  

Let's see what we have now in the house...

 

All 20 cards here from the 2012 and 2019 Allen & Ginter sets are short prints.  Both sets are nearing completion; 2019 needs just 5 more SPs, and 2012 has a list of 46 with a dozen SPs.  More sets that are nearing completion to come here in this post.

Nice cheap pickup on the Saquon Barkley RC here, just $2.50.  The Prestige set is down to 12 cards, and I'm hoping to get that done soon.   The '86 Topps set has come together quite nicely and quickly, with the set only needing 3 cards to complete.   Two of them are RCs featuring great players Steve Young and Reggie White.  

The hockey contingent above are all sets on The next 10 list.  Top scan is the 02-03 Vintage Set which has nothing but SP stars and checklists left to go.  22 cards might cost me a bit.  

2018-19 OPC is next.  14 to go.  Short printed rookie cards (9), 4 season highlight cards and the Pittsburgh Penguin team checklist is all that's left.  A few of the RC's are overpriced.  Might have to bite the bullet and get it done.

2013-14 Panini Prizm has 27 to go.   A few bigger name RC's are on the list, finishing this set will be a bit pricey but it is doable.  It's time to focus on these 3 in the coming weeks and get them out of the way.

Poor Dave Balon.  Might that be the ugliest card ever, photoshop wise?  74 cards left in this set, it's been fun picking up reasonably priced commons/semistars recently, but it's time to put this aside and focus on a lot of other sets that are closer to completion finished.

I keep saying that, but it's too tempting to keep grabbing cards from other pursuits.  

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Stacked

 I do consider myself to be very lucky when it comes to my collection.  I've had quite a bit of help over the past 9+ years, bloggers with opinions on products, places to buy cards that I hadn't heard of when I first started writing about my collecting exploits.

What's interesting now with COVID-19 in our midst is what's happening to the card economy.  With a lot of non-essential business being shuttered due to social distancing, a lot of supplies and access to them have been in short supply.

What I've wound up with an excess of is top loaders, one of the items in short supply (so it seems).  I read a post on the TCDB website from someone who needed extra toploaders and responded saying I had a bunch that were just taking up space.   Used ones of course.

After a bit of back and forth, I decided to send them off with nothing promised in return, for 2 reasons.

1. It was about 250 top loaders, and the space that they were taking would be better used storing cards or other items
2. I was long overdue to perform a Random Act of Kindness.

Off to the post office I went and shipped them off.  Received a message a couple of days later thanking me for the package, and asking what I wanted in return.  Didn't really need anything, but told him if he wanted to send me something, I'd trust his judgement about fair value.   To be honest, I really wasn't concerned about getting anything back.

I was stacked.   Look at that stack!!!  I had recently just put up a want list for 2012 Allen & Ginter on TDCB, and Bobby (TCDB ID: Bobby L) took a shot at reducing it.  Just about 100 cards came my way, and the set is now just over half done with what I already in hand.  

This made my day when I wasn't expecting a stack like this to come my way.  The timing was also good as A&G 2020 made its way to shelves this past week.  I've seen a lot of early pulls on Twitter and I think it looks pretty good.  Of course, there's the normal bitching from people here and there, but over the years I've been converted and I enjoy the product each year.

Bobby, thank you for the great stack of cards, they really are appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

By the page: Allen & Ginter minis

I was just so glad to be able to get a bunch of the Allen & Ginter minis into pages (finally, thank you Greg!), that I couldn't wait to show them off.   Not that these are something that hasn't been seen in the blogosphere a hundred times before. 

I must admit, I was a little surprised at how good they look in pages.   Don't know why I was surprised, but I guess I didn't know what to expect until I put this page together.

Top row:  2011 Allen & Ginter

It's kind of weird showing a row of 5 cards.  Yes, there are 2 Brandon Morrow cards, one of them is an A&G back.

Middle row:   I thought I had 5 black parallels

I originally had an all black row.  Turns out that the Sergio Santos black parallel that I own is from Gypsy Queen.  So I had to improvise, and found a B.J. Ryan 2008 to go along with the 2007 version.

The solid black borders look much better in my opinion.

Bottom row:  Again I was one short

I'm not too fussy about the 2012 design, and when you put it side by side with a 2008, there's really no comparison, is there?

Not a perfect page by any stretch of the imagination, but I was just happy to be able to get these out of the Jays box and get them better protected.

I'm still a few cards short of a Gypsy Queen minis page ( I need 4 ) but being able to get the minis out of the box has prompted a few ideas for pages, which is a good thing.

thanks for reading, Robert