2 down, 3 to go

This recent order from COMC was my smallest in quite a long time, just 29 cards.  But it was a purposeful one, as 11 of the cards polished off the 2018 Allen & Ginter set.

I could stomach paying 70 cents for a Roberto Clemente card, which is what this one cost me.  The others in the scan were in the 40-50 cent range; similar to yesterday I probably could have got them cheaper on Sportlots but I didn't want to potentially pay more than 1 postage rate because I had to buy from multiple sellers.

I don't think my luck was too bad as only 5 of the final 11 cards I needed to finish the set were SP's, which you see above.  Brandon Woodruff's RC was the most expensive of the bunch, at 94 cents.  I think in the end I spent between $6 and $7 to finish the set, which is reasonable.

Tomorrow's post will have a few more cards scanned than the past 2 days.  That's what everyone likes right?

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

A little bit here, a little bit there

I received a couple more trades this week in the mail, 1 PWE and 1 bubble mailer.   More set needs by the wayside...

The first trade was a quick PWE trade, 4 for 3, with a new trade partner Barry (TCDB ID: CoachBarry).   As I have mentioned several times over the past few months, it has been great trading off inserts that I don't normally collect for cards towards the sets that I need.

Strike 4 more off the 2018 A&G want list.

The Sloane Stephens card on the lower right is the first non-baseball player card that I've received in quite a while.  Taking a quick look at the scan, I see a different logo on the sleeve of the Honus Wagner card that's new to me.  I imagine the "PBC" stands for Pittsburgh Baseball Club, but I don't ever remember seeing that logo anywhere else.   Artistic license maybe?  Or can anyone point me to another image/photo that features the PBC.

Now the bubble mailer kind of surprised me, as it is one of 3 mailers that I was awaiting from the Great White North.  I actually tweeted earlier this month that I was waiting for 3 Canadian mailers for probably the first time ever, and joked that I hope they arrive by April. 

Well, here's the first one...

Another new trade partner, Kari (TCDB ID:  karsal) sent quite a few goodies my way, starting with some additions to my player collections.  It's always nice filling in some of the gaps from the mid to late 90's of both Sundin and Tkachuk, and there's plenty of John Olerud cards that I need so hitting that want list shouldn't be hard for anyone...

Set fillers.   Blue Jays from Canada, you don't say?  The more cards I get from the 09-10 OPC set, the more I can't wait to complete it.  That's a long way off as these 4 bring the total to 113, well shy of the 600 total. 

What really surprised me about Kari's offer was the big batch of 2018 Panini Prestige football cards.  28 total ( I was lazy and only scanned 27 of them ) but some pretty big names in here such as Brady, Wilson, Luck and Terrell Suggs.  Kari also sent a few of the rookies as well, putting a small dent into what might be a larger task than I thought.  The last 100 of the 300 card set are all RC's, including Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and Saquon Barkley.  I still need about 70 of them, but there's no hurry as I don't expect to finish the set anytime soon.

I'm up to 22 trades completed so far this year, and three more are halfway done.  Having 25 trades complete by the end of March will have me right where I need to be, 1/4 of the way to my goal of 100 trades in 2019.

Keep them coming guys (and ladies)...

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Tally-Ho

I've been quite fortunate so far in 2019.  Today I received one card in the mail from another TCDB trade from repeat trade partner Robert (TCDB ID:  Hilochef).

I'm still 6 cards away from completing the Baseball Equipment of the Ages insert set from the '18 Allen & Ginter set.  The card itself wasn't the inspiration for this post, it's the number of trades I've completed so far this year.

This is trade #16 in 2019, and I thought to myself that I've been really fortunate in obtaining cards that I want in my collection while getting cards that I don't want out of the house.

I was curious to see how many cards have come in and gone out so far, so I made a little spreadsheet and the numbers were pleasing.

Cards in so far:  285 (just under 18 per trade)
Cards out so far:  157 (just under 10 per trade)

Not gonna lie, this thrills me.  Not only have people been generous when trading with me, I've knocked off quite a few cards off of my set want lists, especially the 1968-86 Topps want lists. 

What is also helping my hobby state of mind is that I'm finding cards that I'd long forgotten about.  Stuff that I haven't seen (partial sets)in several years is now being added to the TCDB website hoping to be finished sometime this year. 

While there are a couple of folks I know in a hobby funk (been there), I've been working hard to get things cleaned up and organized, which has kept me invigorated so far this year.

Complete sets are in the not too distant future as well, so stay tuned for those.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

TCDB trade #50 is in the books

I was fortunate enough to receive my 50th trade package today from a TCDB member.  Many of you know Matt from the Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits blog.  Matt is a big A&G collector (maybe the biggest that I know), and offered up a trade to knock down some of my '18 A&G want list for a few of the minis that I received from Wes' big box break (yes Wes, a lot of the dupes and minis are being put to good use)!

Lots of stars on these 2 scans, including legends Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson.  Also, the first scan has one of the Baseball Equipment of the Ages inserts, the modern batting helmet.  This is the first time I've seen the card, and kind of got a kick that they used the Twins logo, and not a generic blank helmet. 

I'm down to 28 to go, 10 of them SPs.   That will change later this week as I have a couple of more trades coming in, one of them having 8 of the A&G cards I need. 

Today's envelope also had a couple of Andrew McCutchen cards I needed.

Well, with 50 total trades on the TCDB website completed, that means I have finished 13 so far in 2019.  Two more trades were shipped out today so I should have them in the week, bringing the total to 15.  Not a bad start, but a long way to go to get to 100 for the year.

Thank you for the trade Matt, it is really appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Robert

The 10 per cent

A weird kind of fun that I have is when I receive a package from COMC, and spend the first 15-20 minutes after opening the package just sorting the cards.   I wound up with 4 stacks this time:

• Larry Fitzgerald cards, which was the biggest stack
• Modern hockey, including Joe Sakic cards for that PC
• Older hockey, 71-72 OPC through 86-87 OPC
• Baseball

After going through all the cards, I realized that I only ordered 14 baseball cards.   The total order was 121,  so in reality it's about 11.5% of the order, and not the 10% I quoted.

Close enough.

With this small of a pile, I thought it would be easy enough to show all of the cards in one post.  So here we go.

I bought these 3 '68s specifically to complete pages in the set.  Since I put the '68s in pages a couple of weeks ago, I find that I'm enjoying this set much more than I did when the cards were sitting in a box.

Case in point, here's the page that the Richie Allen card completed.

#'s 217-225

Doesn't hurt that this page also features Harmon Killebrew.  Still a long way to go to complete the set, but now that it's in a binder and pages, I might be more inclined to pick up cards here and there.

Cisco Carlos is the only card from the '69 set in this order.   He's pretty lonely.

Love the George Scott game action photo.  It looks as if he's popped one up on the infield.

The '74 and '76 sets have received little love from me on this blog, and that's a shame.  Both of them are over 3/4 complete, and it seems as if I've never written about them at all.  There's a slim chance that either of them might be completed this year, as the only major card that I need from the '76 set is the Eckersley RC, while the '74 set still needs the Winfield RC and a few other pricey items for completion. 

Still have to get both of these want lists on the TCDB as well.  Maybe this weekend if I have the chance...

Not much in the way of modern cards as you can plainly see.   The John Olerud card was the only baseball player PC card I picked up.   There seems to be some scarcity to Olerud cards, as I ran through the site many of the base cards were $2 and up (what's up with that?)  Still want to finish the Baseball Equipment of the Ages insert set from last year's A&G, I have 13 of them left to go (8,11,12,14,16,20,21,22,23,25,26,29,30 are the numbers if you're so inclined to check).  Would love to hear from you if you have any.

Still a lot to show off from COMC in the coming days, hopefully you'll check back....

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Getting the hang of this trading thing

It was cool to get a repeat trader already on the TCDB website.   Bill (User ID: minibbcards) has helped me reduce my minis in hand (a good thing for me) and also decrease my want lists for vintage sets (also a good thing).

This time, I shipped off 15 minis that I had recently added to the site, and in return I received some 69 and 70 Topps cards

When I looked at the Joe Rudi and Sal Bando cards on the scan, I thought that my scanner had gone berserk.   I looked at the cards again in hand, and they are that blurry. Will have to check if there are upgrades to these cards out there. 

These 5 bring my '70 set build up to almost 40% done, not bad for a set I never intended to collect in the first place.

This was the bulk of the deal for me, 7 '69 Topps cards, along with an added card that I needed from this year's A&G set of Method Man.  I wondered for a moment about the airbrushing on the A's players hats/helmets, then I thought that maybe they had moved to Oakland and the KC needed to be removed.  Sure enough that was the case.  

I always remember Rick Monday as a Dodger, hitting that home run off of Steve Rogers in Game 5 of the 1981 NLCS.  What I didn't remember about that game was that the Expos had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th after drawing 2 walks off of Fernando Valenzuela, the Dodgers brought in Bob Welch out of the bullpen to get the save.  Interesting that both sides used a starting pitcher as relievers in the 9th inning to finish the game. 

My '69 Topps set progress has been slow, but it's finally almost at a quarter complete.  Out of all the sets I'm working on at the moment, this one might be my favorite because the design is so simple and the pink backs look fantastic.  I guess the simple sets are the most appealing to me, as I thought the same thing about the '64 set while I was putting it together. 

Thank you for the trade Bill, looking forward to our next one!!

Thanks for reading, Robert

1700th post: An A&G blaster break

Hopefully my enthusiasm for this set comes out in the video, as I really do enjoy putting this set together (this will be my 4th A&G set).

I really like the Baseball Equipment of the Ages insert set and will be putting that together along with the base set.  These are 4 I have so far, so I have plenty more to pick up (26 to be exact).  If you have any that you don't want, let me know and I'll be happy to trade for it/them. 

The minis are always up for trade.  Zimmer and Clemens are A&G backs. 

The inserts above are also available to anyone that wants them.   Let me know in the comments if you're interested.

To everyone, thank you for all for reading the blog.  Glad to hit 1700 posts, and like I said in the video, I hope to double that over time.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Try A Pack #15: 2018 Allen & Ginter

I've been pretty good at staying away from this years products.  Not because I don't like them, but because of my effort to build a boat load of older sets.  If you haven't noticed, I have updated my want lists for baseball and hockey at the top of the blog, they should be much easier to read now.

While at Target yesterday buying a birthday card, I decided to see if there was anything worthwhile in the card aisle.  I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money on cards, so I decided on a couple of packs of this year's Allen & Ginter.  I've put together three of these sets in the past, and usually have some decent luck with packs.

Assuming the SPs are the same numbers this year (301-350), I didn't fare too badly.

Pack 1

2 retired players and one RC for the 3 base cards.   Not bad so far.

SP of Dennis Eckersley.  3rd retired player out of 4 in the pack.   Interesting...

I've never been a big fan of minis, many of you who read regularly know that.  But A&G always seems to put some interesting topics on them.  This Hawaiian postage stamp was an interesting read, as I didn't know that Hawaii was a kingdom at one time.

I've never been big on going to the beach, but this might be something interesting.   I'll have to look into how many of these are in the set and see if they're worth collecting.

Pack 2

The base cards.  No duplicates yet so all is well.

2 packs, 2 SPs.  Just 48 more packs to get all 50 (like I'm that lucky...).

Mini A&G back of Bradley Zimmer.  Didn't need to show the front, because if you look 2 scans up you'll see Zimmer plain as day.  This is available for trade if anyone wants it.

Another interesting insert.   I'm not big on inserts either, but seeing classic pictures like this old catcher's mitt might be worth a look.

If there is any set from 2018 that I might put together, it's this one.  I don't know how much more I will buy pack wise as it tends to get swallowed up quickly down here in the swamp.  Plus, the amount of luck I've had finding bargains and snapping up cards off of my current want lists has been really good, so my focus on those is likely to continue for the near future.

I do like what I see so far, the design is nice in my opinion; I'll have to look at the checklist to see if there are any non-sports personalities in the set that interest me.  I'll be sure to let everyone know if I decide to build it so a trade or 3 might happen.

Thanks for reading, Robert