1426: Sportlots

It had been quite a while since I placed an order from Sportlots.  September of 2016 was the last time I bought anything off the site, and it makes me wonder why since I have so many modern sets on my want list that I haven't chipped more of those off with orders from the site.

I decided a week and a half ago to try and knock down a couple of baseball sets.  First up was this years flagship:

Only 5 of the 29 cards were horizontal.  I especially like the Blue Jays team card (of course), even more so because Topps managed to include a picture of last years "Big 4", Donaldson, Bautista, Tulo and Encarnacion.  Anyone else out there noticing the big numbers that Mark Reynolds is putting up so far in Colorado this year?  Might get his first all star nod if he keeps it going. 

Still need a little over 100 cards to finish off series 1.  With series 2 on shelves, I don't know if I can hold off buying packs before completing the first 350....

Another set that I'm trying to complete is the 2016 A&G release.  Still have 81 cards to go; I'd like to finish this set off before the end of summer so I can work on some other want lists that have been on my list for quite a while.

Finally, I added 4 more cards to my Andrew McCutchen collection.  At 18 cents each, it was easy to add them to the cart.  I'll have to start doing this more with Sportlots, as it's a lot cheaper to add to my PCs this way than always using COMC or ebay. 

The best part about this order was I received a 5 dollar credit from Paypal, so the whole thing only cost me 12 dollars! 

$1438-$12=$1426 left to spend in 2017.  June is the halfway point of the year, and I'd have to spend 426 dollars on cards in the next two weeks in order to be exactly half way to my 2017 budget. 

It looks as if I'll be ahead of the game for the next little while....

thanks for reading, Robert

1553: Heritage

Finally getting around to posting the 5 packs of Heritage I bought while on weekend errands a week and a half ago.

I'm trying to get a good chunk of the base set done before I go into an extended Heritage hibernation, meaning hunting down the SPs for the set which total 100 this year (sigh).

Let's have a look at each pack and see if there's anything interesting.

Pack 1:

The first of 2 1/2 and 1/2 packs...

1/2 of the pack is horizontal, 1/2 is vertical.  Not a bad pack, the Jameson Taillon is a SP card.   Best of luck to Jameson btw, here's hoping he recovers successfully from his testicular cancer diagnosis.  The Darwin Barney card will go into the Jays collection.

Pack 2:

 
Melvin Upton Jr. goes into the Jays collection as well.  The unknown Padres RC Home Run card is available to anyone out there who might want it (it's actually Hunter Renfroe).  No SPs in this pack. 

Pack 3:

Pulled the New Age Performers Kyle Hendricks card, available to anyone who may want it.  The 9th card was a horizontal one, the Royals team card.  No SPs in this pack as well. 

Pack 4:

The missing 9th card is Craig Kimbrel of the Red Sox.  The Then and Now Marichal/Porcello card is available if wanted by anyone out there...

Pack 5:

I'll probably end up sending the Topps Game card of Tyler Glasnow to Matt of Bob Walk the Plank fame.  Wonder how Topps gets away with placing RC designations on insert cards.  The missing 9th card is the Reds team card.

I showed off a "bonus card" in yesterdays post, a 2010 Topps Vladimir Guerrero card which was stamped with the Rediscover Topps brand.  I'll have to find a Vlady collector out there and see if he wants it...

Just one SP, so I still have 92 more of those to go.  It took me 6 years to collect 75 SPs from the '11 Heritage set, so simple math says that at that pace I should finish this set in 2025.

Looking forward to it already...

$1569-$16=$1553 left to spend.  That is going to drop below 1500 real quick with the contest giveaways from this past week.  Stay tuned for those...


thanks for reading, Robert

1707: Just had to have this

Just set it and forget it.  That's what I did with this card in my ebay cart.  About 3 weeks ago I was hunting for the final 3 cards from the '64 Topps set I'm building.  I found all 3, but didn't care for the total price combined.  So I let them sit there.

The Luis Aparicio card sold.

The Mike Joyce card sold.

But last week, this beauty was still sitting there.

At $36, I was foolish to wait as long as I did, but thankfully I was able to buy the card and today it arrived.

A little off center, sure.  Top left corner is dinged a bit.  A bit of dirt on the back.  It's all good.

I just had to have this, and now that I do I'm just 2 cards from finishing off the set.

$1743 - $36 =$1707 left to spend in 2017.

I'll have another one of the budget posts this week.

Thanks for reading, Robert

1743: Adding 2 more sets to the want list

I completed a few errands yesterday morning and while doing so I decided to stop into Target a pick up a few packs of cards to see if I could pull something worthwhile for myself.

No such luck.

I grabbed two packs of '17 Heritage and these three cards were the "highlights":

I guess I don't remember seeing anybody pull any of the Rediscover Topps cards from Heritage, so I was quite disappointed (to say the least) that this '91 Jody Reed came out of a pack.   Why Topps, why?   The Anthony Rizzo HBP card looks pretty cool, but I'll have to find a Cubs fan who would enjoy it more than I.  The Trea Turner is a SP card, so now I have 6 of the SPs, and only need countless more.

4 packs purchased so far, just 3 doubles.  Not bad, but there's a long way to go.  

Despite my grumbling, I will pursue the '17 Heritage set.  Seeing as I finally picked up the final 3 cards for the '11 Heritage set I need to replace it with something....

I also picked up a couple of rack packs of '17 Topps flagship.  Did as well as could be expected.  Couple of first pitch and a couple of award winner cards here.  Available to whoever wants them.
The Scherzer is already a double...

I've pulled a few of the '87 inserts, Dansby Swanson being the latest.  The Shin-Soo Choo card in the middle is a rainbow foil parallel.  The George Springer card tells us that he wears #4 in honor of his parents and 2 siblings.   These 3 cards are also up for grabs. 

As far as duplicates go, my luck has been horrible.  I've bought 5 rack packs so far (36 cards in each), and have the equivalent of one of those packs as duplicates.  From where I sit, that's not too good.  But I'll still give this set a go anyhow, because I like the look of the design more this year than last. 

I'll have want lists up sometime this week, as long as the Leafs chase for the playoffs doesn't distract me horribly from my card pursuits.

What am I saying?  I didn't post last week.   I'm terribly distracted!!

The 4 packs cost me $23 total, so $1766-$23= $1743 left for 2017.   At this pace, I'll spend just $1019 on cards this year.  Maybe I should have given myself a raise a long time ago!

thanks for reading, Robert

1792

It doesn't appear as if I will be spending any more money on cards during February, so I'll have $1792 left in my $2000 budget for the remaining 10 months of the year. 

I honestly thought that by giving myself a little more money to spend on cards that I'd go a little more "spend happy", but it's actually worked the other way around.  If I were to have spent $30/week over the first 9 weeks as normal, that would add up to $270.  I've only spent $208 thus far.

Maybe I'm watching what I'm spending a little more closely. 

I'm sure part of the decline is that I didn't hit the monthly card show in February.  That's usually good for 70-80 bucks right there. 

But enough babbling, you're wondering what the latest purchase was.  Well, I added 75 bucks to my COMC account a few weeks ago in order to purchase cards for the guys who wanted a handful.

That's done.  I received the final address I needed yesterday, and the envelopes will go out tomorrow for sure. (I couldn't get to the post office yesterday because I received a call late Friday to help out a friend to mix concrete, which took up a good portion of my Saturday.)

The order didn't take up the entire $75, so I was fortunate to add a few cards to my personal collections.

I really like the black and white photos of the Leaf Certified Immortals cards, so I snagged a couple more for the SNI hockey project.  Mike Bossy is #'d 51/699, while Mike Modano is #'d 686.  Scratch those two off of the want list.

Three more SPs from the long neglected 2012-13 OPC set are now off the list.   I've always been a big fan of the artwork on goalie masks, and the Rogie Vachon card jumped right out at me.  Sometimes less is more, and the Crowns above the eyes on Rogie's mask are a perfect example.  Perfect.  Tim Kerr was one of the best power play scorers during the 80's, amassing 20 or more PPG in a season 4 times, including an amazing 34 PPG during the 85-86 season.  Those 34 goals on the power play are still an NHL record, one that may never be touched.

Finally, I grabbed a handful of more recent Joe Sakic cards to add to my collection.   They won't be shown off on the PC blog anytime soon, so there was no worry of showing them off here.  I wouldn't mind getting a few more followers on that blog, I'm hoping to hit 25 within the next couple of months.  Maybe I'll give something away if I do...

$1867 - $75 = $1792.  If I keep going at this pace, I'll barely spend $1200 this year. 

Thanks for reading, Robert

1984

The annual homage to one of my favorite releases, the Upper Deck hockey set.  I participate every season in the ritual that is buying a few packs, chasing the rookies in the Young Gun portion of the set, and drying away the tears when I end up without any yet again.

 But, I always love the photography, and the set design is usually sharp enough to keep me entertained.  This year is no different.   I bought 5 packs last week at Target on the day I started getting sick, and I'm finally getting around to posting them on the blog.

Pack 1 of 5 had nothing to speak of, save for the Alex Ovechkin base card.  I will stop and watch a Capitals game if I see it on TV,  in hope of seeing one of Ovie's howitzers hit the net.  First year HOFer in my book.

The base set pickups of the Maple Leafs will be relatively easy again this year, with two of them being pulled in pack two.  While James van Riemsdyk on the right is one of the core Maple Leaf players (interesting that the photo was taken in Phoenix), Joffrey Lupul appears to have played his last game in a Maple Leaf jersey.  Must be nice to have that kind of money to burn...

I've always been a big fan of NHL jerseys, I have quite a few of them in my closet.  One day I would like to own the alternate Colorado Avalanche jersey that is shown he on the Gabriel Landeskog card.  Takes me back to the Colorado Rockies jersey from the late 70's.   Love it!!

These were the only 2 inserts I pulled in the 5 packs that I bought.  Jumbo Joe Thornton featured on the Shining Stars card on the left, and the UD Canvas cards are represented by Jason Spezza from the Dallas Stars on the right.  Both will likely be sent off to COMC to be sold in the marketplace.

I've always been a big fan of grinding type forwards that like to hit and don't score a lot.  Leo Komarov fits that description to a 'T'.  Not that the graceful skating on one leg depicted on his card would signify.  I saw the Jonathan Ericsson card on the right and thought to myself "boy the numbers on his jersey are huge!!"  Forgot that they had these uniforms for their outdoor game last season against the Avalanche.  Guess when you're that far away from the ice in those football stadiums that the numbers need to be big so you can see them.

As usual, no luck with pulling any of the Young Guns cards, and chances are that the 2016-17 set will not be something that I chase.  The cheapest copy that I saw of an Auston Matthews RC was $110, I also saw another auction that was selling a pair of the RC's for $275.   Yikes.  Even the oversize box toppers of Matthews are going for about $40.  This may be one of the best RC classes for quite a long time, and also one of the most expensive. 

I've got other, more pressing collecting needs at this moment, which hopefully this weekend's card show will help alleviate.

These 5 packs cost me just under $16 (including tax), so I'll just round up to $16 even.  $2000 - $16 = $1984 left to spend in 2017.

Thanks for reading, Robert