TCDB trade #622, 2 of this, 2 of that, and a guy formerly known as Mike

Man that was easy.  Trade offered by Chris (CH34) on the Wednesday, I replied the same day and within 8 days we both had our new cards in hand.  Some Heritage went Chris' way, and I received 5 cards that helped with some collections.

The Jim Thome collection is now up to 669 cards:

I've been getting a lot of his cards lately in trades; I remember not long ago my Thome collection just passed 600 cards.  Now I'm hoping to hit the 700 card mark later this year.  I've been getting them 2 and 3 at a time in trades, so I think 700 is very possible.

The Ichiro Suzuki collection is now up to a nice 333 card total:

No goals are in place for Ichiro, but I'm enjoying the growth of his collection over time.  I'll never go after his big ticket items, the base cards along with the cheaper parallels and inserts are good enough for me.  

My 2013 Allen & Ginter set build increased by one in this trade also:

Stanton is #303 out of the 350 card set that I have in hand.  47 to go, almost half of them are the Short Prints.  All but one of them are baseball players, the soccer legend Pele is the only one that stands out from the others.  Interesting the two versions of the Pele card, one has no description at all on the back, The prices I've found for them on eBay are around the $15 mark, not bad.  

Thank you for the trade Chris, the cards are appreciated!!

Robert

Trades can bring you some nice surprises

It felt like it was too good to be true.  I looked at a trade recently and thought to myself, "there's just no way I'm getting these cards".  I waited a couple of days, looked at the trade again and looked at the feedback.  100%.  I was sending 5 cards for 4, not a bad trade on my part.  I hit the button, and some great cards headed my way in the mail.   They arrived last night and brought a smile to my face.   

I've collected Fleer Ultra cards over the years, but I can't recall ever seeing a Follow the Leader insert come from any of those sets.  Especially one featuring Jim Thome.  The design is simple, and the card has a short bio on the back recounting the 2003 Phillies falling short of the playoffs despite Jim's 10HR/30 RBI September.  

The next three cards were thought to have to be purchased to add them to my 84-85 OPC set.  Wrong.

The Chris Chelios rookie card has come down slightly in price over the past few years, but still is a quality addition to any collection.  Still need the Neely and Yzerman rookie cards, but having this one in hand is a great feeling.

A pair of Gretzky cards round out the trade, bringing the want list for the 84-85 OPC set down to just 24 cards.  6 of them are RC's, 6 of them are Gretzky cards (!) and 5 others are Edmonton Oilers (no commons in the bunch).  

To finish the set is going to cost probably $100 or so (Steve Yzerman rookies aren't cheap), and this parallels with 2 football sets that I'm down to a dozen or so cards remaining.  My 81 Topps set needs the Joe Montana rookie, and the 82 Topps still needs Lawrence Taylor and Ronnie Lott rookie cards.  

I'm wandering a little off topic here.  Even though most of my trades have featured a few cards here and there with nothing major going through the mail, sometimes you get a nice surprise like this one and remember that there are a lot of great people out there in the card community.  

Robert

JT and EB

Once in a while, I'll look at the history links on my TCDB pages to see how my collection has progressed over time.  I recently received a trade (yes, the trades have started up again) and saw a trio of cards which made me think:

"Gee I haven't seen any of these in quite a while."

Case in point, a pair of Jim Thome base cards that have been added to the collection, bringing the total to 655.

The beginning of Jim's second tour of duty in the AL with the White Sox, along with the end of a decade plus that he spent in Cleveland are featured on this pair.  

I kept on looking at the 2002 Upper Deck card on the right and wondered if I'd seen this before.  I opened the Thome binder, which apparently I haven't done in a while and discovered that I don't have the card.  The history link on the TCDB page told me that there's been no additions to the Thome collection since February 2022!  

The same drought applies to the 2006 A&G set:

Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks became the most recent addition to the '06 set build, almost a year since I received the last card toward the set.   March 2022 was the last time I added cards to the set, which is acting like a vintage build as I only have 130 cards out of the 350.  Maybe people are hoarding them?

Both want lists are up to date on my TCDB account (ID:rmitchell6700) and trades are welcome.  

Robert

It is a pretty darn good community

For the longest time, I have posted and bragged about the TCDB community.  I've made hundreds of trades, probably a couple of really good trade partners along the way and watched a lot of good things happen to the site via the input of many of the users.

It's happened to me once before on the site, but I was still surprised when I received an envelope totally out of the blue the other day from another Robert (TCDB bkim) who sent a couple of birthday cards my way.

A couple of player collections were increased by 1 and I especially enjoyed the Ichiro card as it's an early one from his career, a 2003 Topps #100.  

What's great is people don't have to do this, my birthday could come and go and nothing could have come my way and I would have been fine with that.  But it's little things such as this which make me talk about the site constantly, and sometimes go a hunting/trading expeditions when I have extra time off.

Thank you for the birthday cards Robert, they are really appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

#'s 5 and 475

Part of me trying to get back on the writing on a regular basis trail is working on posts, no matter how quick and painless (painful?).  Trade posts from the TCDB are going to help, especially now that I have quite a few trades on the go.  Having these trades going is a welcome change after I had written last Saturday about how trading had kind of dried up, then all of a sudden I made a few offers and had a few others come in.

This quick 2 card inbound trade is from fellow Floridian Justin, adding 1 each to a set and a player collection.

I'm still having trouble with chrome cards on the new scanner, you'll have to trust me that this 2000 Tribe-unal insert card looks really nice in hand.  640 Thome cards in the house now, this is the first card I've added to the collection in probably a few months.

This is the just 5th emerald card from the 2008 UD Baseball Heroes set that I have, but like a lot of sets that I have currently on the go, there's really no hurry for this one.   For those who don't know I'm putting together 3 of the parallel sets from '08 Heroes, Black, Emerald and Red, more as a fun thing than any serious pursuit.  I definitely will not turn them down in a trade if they're a part!

Thank you for the trade Justin, it is appreciated.  Just 25 to go to reach 500 on TCDB.

Enjoy the hobby

Robert

15 months is a long time

It had been over 15 months since I had hit a card show, until today.  I had planned to go to the West Palm Beach card show for a couple of weeks now as the date is easy to remember, the 3rd Sunday of every month.  

It had been over 2 years since I was to this particular show, as the last couple that I had been to were kind of disappointing due to very low dealer turnout.  The show was still in the same location and I was kind of curious to see what it would be like when I arrived.

The parking lot was a lot more full than I remembered, which was a good sign.   I was actually greeted by the promoter when I walked into the hall, a very nice gentleman who was kind enough to let me know that entrance was "mask required".  Even though I've been fully vaccinated for over a month now, I had no problem putting a mask on after taking a quick peek inside and seeing everyone masked up.

I was shocked to see that the hall was full, tables front to back were all occupied by dealers.  I arrived at 10AM, an hour after the show started and there was a decent crowd inside.  (I actually heard one of the dealers say that this was the "slowest" show in a few months, which really surprised me)  I walked in and started wandering around, finding a table that had dime boxes (9 monster boxes crammed full).

I sat down, the first box was a bit slow for me as I only pulled out a few cards, then I started hitting some good stuff (well, at least for me).

A page worth of Ichiros, including the trio at the bottom that I hadn't seen previously.  10 cents apiece didn't hurt as well.

More player collection cards, definitely not what I intended when I left for the show this morning, but they didn't hurt.

Top row:  A pair of '08 UD heroes black parallels.  That particular set is almost 10% in.  The Anthony Rendon is serial #'d out of 99, a wonderful find for a dime!

Middle Row:  Mario Lemieux in the dime box will always end up in my pile.  The 2 stadium club cards are first day parallels.

Bottom Row:  Trade fodder, which was a nice portion of what I brought home today, with some household names.

I traded off a bunch of the Yankee Stadium Legacy cards a while ago on TCDB, this half dozen will prop up the trade pile for those.

Steven Jackson is another football player that I always enjoyed watching, love his nickname (the bull) and his running style.  10 cents and 10 cents.

I've been pretty hot with collecting the A&G run of sets the past few months and this was the key find for me, over 50 cards from the '13 A&G set, of which I have very few cards.  This set had taken such a back seat to a bunch of others that I hadn't even added a want list to the TCDB.  There are probably a few dupes in the group, but this batch will probably get me over the 20% mark and with a dozen SPs coming home today, it's probably time to update that list on the site.

Last up I grabbed a bunch of serial #'d Topps Moments and Milestones cards.  There was almost 2 dozen that I found with a nice price, so I grabbed them.  

My count was 245 dime cards and two hours of digging through boxes and chatting with other collectors.   The cost?

$20

For me, it was worth the 15 month wait.  I've already found out about another card show closer to home next weekend.  I'll be sure to check it out....

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

TCDB Trade Week #3: rl16

Fellow blogger Ray (TCDB ID:rl16) approached one day under the guise that we share a common birthday.  We do, so it really wasn't a guise, but he decided that we had enough on each other's want list that a trade was in order.  

I can honestly say that this trade was more than well worth it on my end.

 Continuing on with yesterday's theme of Allen & Ginter, this trade starts off with a trio more cards from the '19 A&G set, all household names for sure.

2 player collection cards, both of which taught me something.  The Andrew McCutchen is a red bordered card, so I know now that brown is the new red.  The Jim Thome isn't the old Pinnacle, it's a new Pinnacle card.  Even though I'm a year older as of last week, I learned something new.

Ray also included a trio of Serial #'d/99 cards.  He asked if they needed to be stars; no is the quick and easy answer to that.  Just looking to add cards that are serial #'d to 99, and the more names I can add, the better.  These are all new names to the list and the PC is at 78 cards.  

Finally, Ray asked if I'm still collecting T.Y. Hilton.  Even though I really haven't got a whole lot of cards in lately, I said that I'm definitely interested in anything Hilton related (not the hotel).  Boy was I floored when I received this...

Ray said he had received this autograph of T.Y. Hilton before a minor league baseball game last year (assuming it was the Indianapolis Indians), and had it sitting in his room.  He believed it belonged in the hands of a fan, and I can say that I'm very grateful that he sent it my way.  I will have this framed and hanging in my office in the near future.

Thank you Ray for the cards and the autograph, they really are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby.

Robert

A little bit of help

 Chris from the Collector blog spotted a post of mine a couple of weeks ago asking for a start on the '86 Topps football set.  A day or 2 later, a TCDB trade popped up that netted me some help on a pair of sets.  Let's start with the '86 FB

What I love about this set is not only the design, is that I remember a lot of the names that I've been seeing on cards so far.  The big name on the first scan is of course Danny White of the Cowboys, the QB that took over America's Team when the legend Roger Staubach retired.  You may or may not remember that White also did the punting for the Cowboys for a decade, an interesting side job on a football field.

What I like about the set so far is the team cards.  Love seeing the action photos and then turning over the card and seeing the team leader stats, along with the full results from the '85 schedule.  Different, but still it works for me.  By the way, Gary Anderson had way too great a hair style for a football player in the 80's.  Looks as if he should have been on an episode of Miami Vice.

These 21 cards just about doubled my total; I now have 43 cards out of the 396 card set.  Still a long way to go, and I'd still like to see if I can get another nice chunk of cards to get the build going.  

Not only did Chris hit this set, he hit another one that I've been building for a while.  The 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee hockey set is becoming one of my favorites because a good portion of what I have so far has come via the trade route.

11 more cards to add bringing the total to 330 out of the original 600 card set.  I bought very little of this set when it first came out, so hitting this number is very satisfying because of the help I've received from the card community.  

Last up is a quartet of "random" cards, 1 each from 3 of my player collections, and Terry Ruskowski from the 81-82 OPC set.  Ruskowski is in great shape considering 81-82 is known for rough edges and poor cuts.  The Thome and Sundin cards fit into the "didn't I have that already" category, but thankfully I did not.  

A big thank you to Chris for putting a very nice dent into a couple of set want lists, especially the '86 Topps football which I'm excited about putting together.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Come on USPS--you can do better than this

I've written posts here and there both praising and condemning the USPS.  Sometimes they do great work, case in point, I've had a couple of trades with fellow collectors in the great white north arrive to me in 10 days recently.   10 days from Canada, especially the prairies and the west coast is a pretty good time.

Then, there's this one.

I completed a trade a couple of weeks back with Douglas (TCDB ID: dwunder) which netted me some great cards for 4 of my player collections.  More on that in a minute.

I received this envelope yesterday.  9/3

It was shipped 8/19 from Iowa.  15 days.

It had tracking on it, so I decided to look it up.  It's been out for delivery since the 24th of August.  10 days.  It takes me 15 minutes to walk to my post office from my house. 

Come on USPS--you can do better than this.

Rant over.  Card time

Getting close to finishing the '08 UD X die cut set, just 10 to go.   Nice to have the Freak in house.

Early days Ichiro.  Always great to get a couple of these added to the collection.

Non Blue Jays cards featuring John Olerud are always welcome.  That collection is starting to grow as well.

There's gold in dem dar Thomes.   I have very few Bowman parallels featuring Jim Thome.  Time to start changing that. 

Speaking of Bowman parallels, I love the Bowman International versions with the flag as the background.  Of course, I'm partial to the American flag, as it looks great behind the follow through of Andrew McCutchen.

The 1985 parallel on the left is just one of 2 that I need.  This one will go with the set, so if someone finds another I could use it for my Cutch collection.

Thank you Doug for the cards, they are appreciated!  Look forward to our next trade.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

TCDB Trade Week: CrazieJoe

This is the 5th TCDB trade between Joseph and myself and each time hasn't disappointed me.  Joseph runs the CrazieJoe's Card Corner blog, which features cards of varying sorts, even wrestling! 
This time I sent him a bunch of early year Blue Jays cards for his collection, and in return I received 7 cards towards various want lists.

This is a pair of cards from the 2009-10 OPC set, immediately I put them both into the "where are they now? category.

Of course, Atlanta lost its hockey team for the 2nd time to Winnipeg several years ago.  Maybe if they had brought the Flames back to Atlanta it might have worked, but the Thrashers never really caught on.

I certainly remember Christian Ehrhoff in the NHL about a decade ago, but I wondered what had happened to him when I saw his card.  Off to hockey reference for a look.

Christian played 2 years in Vancouver right after leaving San Jose, and had his most productive seasons in the league.  He scored 14 goals in each of his 2 seasons with the Canucks and garnered Norris Trophy votes for the best defenseman in both years.

After having those 2 solid seasons, he was traded twice in 2 days, both times for 4th rd picks in the 2012 draft, which kind of baffles me.  Christian would play 3 years in Buffalo, then finish off his career in the 14-15 season playing for both LA and Chicago.  789 games over 12 seasons, 74 goals.  A solid NHL career if you ask me.  I just couldn't remember him leaving the game...

This will go into the Ichiro binder, but to be honest these Triple Play cards will always leave something to be desired in my books. 

I was going to grouse on how the Upper Deck First Edition cards were just another rehash of their base sets in the late 2000's, but then I remembered that Topps does the same thing with Opening Day and their designs.   Moving on...

Finishing up with a trio of Keith Tkachuk cards.  I especially like the one on the right that features him in the classic Kachina style Coyotes jersey (I own one myself).  I've really expanded the want list for Tkachuk cards on the TCDB site and this is the first of 2 trades that I'll show this week that has helped this collection along. 

Thank you very much Joseph for another great trade!!  Look forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Sometimes a gentle reminder is all it takes

Much to my delight and surprise, I received a bubble mailer yesterday from the one and only....

Love this card.  Need to get me an autographed copy one day

Totally unexpected was this fine package of cards, and it provided me a reminder of my first National back in 2012.  I'll get to that shortly.

First off, the meat of the package.   A bunch of 2017 A&G which is quickly getting close to completion.

7 base cards, including an Ichiro which I also believe is needed for the Ichiro PC.  Seeing Nick Jonas reminds me of driving to South Carolina last summer and "Sucker" was being played on hit radio constantly.   I really like that song, and taking a quick look at the back also let me know that Nick collects baseball cards.  Cool!

To go with those were 7 Short Prints, very nice!!  I still look at these cards and remember 3 years ago my disdain for them when they were first released.  Boy that changed, as I can honestly say that my tastes have shifted and I've become more of an A&G fan overall.  My only beef?  Well of course it's the price, as I'd love to see it be a little lower.   You can't have everything though, right?

22 cards left for the set, 14 base and 8 SPs.   This set will be part of the "next 10" that is completed when I finish the '74 Topps set, hopefully some time soon.

The lone Jim Thome card in the package is from the 2005 Fleer National Pastimes set.  It's either #601 or 602 in the Thome PC.  Nice card, you can't see it in the scan but the photo of Jim has a kind of 3D look, almost raised off the card a bit.

Both this package and the last one that Greg sent my way each contained a lone 1969 Topps card.  Not a set that is on everyone's radar, but it's one that I love. 

I can actually tell you when I fell in love with it.   Let's go back a little over 8 years ago to the 2012 NSCC show which was in Baltimore.  It was my first, and I can still remember my awe when I walked through the hall.  The enormity of it just astounded me.

I went for two days, and I remember on the 2nd day I sat at a table in the back of the hall, and if I remember correctly, I was the only one at the table at the time.  It was a woman running the table, very pleasant and easy to chat with.  But it was one card that jumped out of the box and into my pile that I think was the highlight of the show for me, and started my love of the '69 set.

Lefty was just $12 (yes I still remember the price), I loved the look of the card and the pink back had me hooked.  I was pretty sure that one day I would start putting together this set.  Roberto Pena up above brings my total up to 207 cards, still not even a third of the way through. 

Pena was a reminder of my love for this set, and it's got me wanting to give this set a little push before too long. 

Thank you for the envelope Greg, the cards are really appreciated!!  And yes, you did beat the Trading Card Database guys.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Tradecenter--2s and 3s

It's been a busy month on the trade month so far.  17 trades completed and a lot of walks to the post office, sometimes with 2 or 3 envelopes in hand to send to fellow collectors.

Today's post is just a quick homage to 5 trades I've made that all saw me receive just 2 or 3 cards, which for me works just as well as bigger trades, but I don't have to stand in line at the post office to send PWE's.

The 3 cards I received above were my first trade with someone from Slovakia!  I remember him telling me that the trade might take a little longer because he's in Europe, and I thought to myself it's not a big deal, I was only sending a few cards so why not?

I received the cards in a little over 2 weeks, no different than if they came from Canada.  Fabulous.

Loving the chase for the '85 inserts from this years flagship, and the two trades above netted me an extra card for a pair of player collections.  A fairly large need for the Olerud collection are cards that feature him as a Met, Mariner, Yankee or Red Sox player.  70% of the collection features him as a Jay, even though half his career was spent elsewhere...

I was going to chase the series 2 set this year, but the card insanity at the retail stores, and the brick and mortar shops selling boxes at $120 (really!) has made me think twice.  I grabbed the McCutchen in a trade and that will be all for Series 2.  Meanwhile the 2019 GQ green release keeps chugging along, and it will certainly be part of the next 10 sets that I work on once '74 Topps is done.

Haven't really shown off a lot of vintage on the blog in recent weeks, so a trio of '72 Topps I'm sure is a welcome sight for some.  I really haven't looked at this set much recently in trades, and now that I've worked my towards the semi-high and high numbers, this will probably stay slow for a while.  There's a long way to go though, as the set is only 55% complete. 

Still have more trades to show off, mostly player collection stuff which I've taken some time to enhance my want lists on the TCDB website.  These will be more of the 7-9 card variety, filling those Ultra Pro pages in the PWE's quite nicely.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

300 x 600

After a slow climb the past few weeks, I finally hit the 300 "transaction" mark on the TCDB website.  I used the term transaction because I have made one purchase and sent 1 RAK envelope as part of the 300 number, but none the less it's a number that I'm certainly happy with.   I'm well on the way to 400 with 11 trades in various stages of progress at the moment.

Not bad for a guy who started 2019 at just 37....

We're going to document a couple of trades in this post, the first being with another Rob (TCDB ID: Cardflipper1974).  We made a quick and easy 4 for 4 card swap, with 2 player collections and my 2020 Topps 1985 set being added to nicely.

You know, I followed the Pirates for better than a decade while I lived in PA, largely due to Andrew McCutchen.  I honestly thought he could have been one of those players that played his entire career in the city, and by the end being mentioned as one of the best players ever for the Bucs.  It was a shame in my opinion that management traded him, and I really didn't care to see him in a Giants or Yankees uniform (apologies to fans of those teams).  Maybe it's because the Phillies are in PA, but I can live with seeing him in a Phillies jersey. 

I'm still finding cards in trades of Jim Thome in an Indians jersey in trades, and Rob sent the Hall of Gold card from '95 Score to help me hit towards the 600 card mark for the Thome collection.

These 6 cards got me even closer, as they were part of a trade from Bob (TCDB ID: abide).  Not only did I get these 6 for the Thome collection, my John Olerud collection grew by 2 with these..

I can't say that I've ever heard of a Royal Gold parallel from the Stadium Club releases over time, but the card on the right is from the 2003 Stadium Club set, and it's listed here just in case you're wondering. 

I showed off the 600th card from my Thome collection the other day on Twitter, but for those who don't partake in that part of social media, here it is...

2005 Bowman's Best emerald green parallel.  Another serial #'d card for the collection, which is always a good thing. 

Two more milestones are crossed off the imaginary list, but the way things are going with both trades and Thome cards being added to the collection, I might hit the next century mark for both reasonably quickly.

Thank you to both Rob and Bob for the trades, they are appreciated! 

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert