Who needs TMZ when you have TMV?

I was at the top of the list!  Dennis from the Too Many Verlanders blog had sent a tweet out saying that he was sending cards to fellow bloggers for Christmas, and good old @30aweekhabit was the first he mentioned (gotta be worth something, right?).  Very, very cool for me to get some cards from a long time friend on the blogs.

It's even better when they hit a bunch of the Player/Team collections.

I've stuck with just a pair of wide receivers for my football collections.  I've always been partial to WRs, as I played the position in high school and I know what taking some shots on deep routes feels like (oh to be able to run like I did in high school again....).  My favorite card on this page?  The blue 2008 Topps Chrome of Fitz sporting his Pro Bowl uniform.  If I was smarter, I would have added the die-cut Bowman in the lower left corner to the next scan...

Which features a trio of die-cut cards, including the Jim Thome Power Brokers card in the upper left which I can honestly say I've never seen before. 

I'm sure that there aren't many Leaf fans out there, but wouldn't it be good to have James Reimer back in a Leaf uniform as a backup?  I loved the way he battled in the net as a Leaf, and I'm sure that the guys would play with a bit more confidence with him on the ice than their current backup. 

Dennis, thank you very much for the great PWE, it is appreciated.  I am long overdue to send some cards your way....looooonnnnngggg over due.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Five and 5: Part 1

I still have a lot of cards to show off from CommishBob's great box that he sent me, but I have two posts that I want to write first that have something in common.   The number 5.

Today's post is going to piggyback off of Gavin's post about narrowing down his collection to just 5 aspects.  My answers are below.

1.  Set building

This is the core of my being.   Always has been.  I currently have a want list for twenty-eight sets on this blog.   Yes, it's insane but it is who I am.   The best part of having all these want lists on the blog?  I've reared back on my pack busting/current card spending.   Tremendously.

A lot of you might be laughing just like Jim Kern at the crazy amount of sets I've got going.  But it is my DNA.  I don't know what I'm going to do when I've completed the sets I'm building.

Oh yeah, I've still got #2 through 5....

2.  Toronto based sports teams.

This is another no brainer.  Blue Jays and Maple Leafs.  Closing in on 8000 combined between the two teams.   I've finally got them all organized (well almost, but I am close) 

Two of the biggest Toronto sports heroes during my lifetime, shown on two cards that run the gamut from common as they get (Clark, 1990-91 Pro Set) to premium product (Bautista, 2017 Gold Label).

Right now the ratio of Jays to Leafs cards is 6:1 Jays.  I'd love to even that out a bit as time goes on.

3.  My player collections

I currently have 10 of these types of collections.   I don't believe I'm going to add any more for quite a while.

The Sakic and Thome collections are over 700 & 500 respectively.  I have 3 or 4 others in the 100-200 card range.  A few others are below 100 cards.

What's great about these is there's no time frame or goal associated with adding cards.  I was at the monthly card show today and saw a Brett Lawrie card that I didn't have in my collection.  Hadn't bought any cards of him for quite a long time.   That's the beauty of PC's. 

Finding a card of one of your cardboard idols alongside an all time great, for pennies?  That will never get old for me....

4.  Serial numbered parallels

Ha, betcha that most of you were waiting for me to say that one, right?!

This obsession is a little crazy.  So crazy I built a frankenset around a shit ton of serial numbered cards.

Add gold, purple, red, green, turquoise, (add your own exotic color here), and the card gets better.  Add in that the card is one of my player PC's or a Toronto based card, and it becomes drool worthy.

Sad, yes.   But it's in my card collecting DNA.

5.  Blogging

This blog is just under two weeks from it's 7th anniversary.

I've written 1682 posts before this one.

I generally don't devote that much time and energy into anything unless it interests me.

I've gone periods of time not writing, or hardly writing.   But going forward I just can't see myself collecting without writing about it.

I guess that I just have to keep going with the writing because I love it.   I enjoy expressing the triumphs and the tragedies that surround my card collecting hobby.  I enjoy interacting with everyone that also writes about this hobby. 

I may not agree with what you say, and I'm sure that there's a lot of people out there that disagree with me regularly.  But that is what makes writing about this hobby fun. 

So you're going to see me around for a while longer.  As long as I have these 5 aspects of the hobby, I'll keep going.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Minor 9er

To this day I still remember my first day of high school, nervous and sweaty.  Used to walk the halls going to my next class and hearing the upper classmen call us "Minor 9ers", hence the inspiration for this post.

Daniel at It's like having my own card shop recently celebrated his blog's 9th anniversary and challenged the blogosphere to write a post containing 9 cards.  Anything at all.

So I'm sneaking my contest entry in under the wire, and writing about 9 of my player collections.

Still not quite at 100 cards, the Brett Lawrie train has slowed down over the past year.  I'll probably pick it up again at some point, but I'm sure that I'll be able to find cards cheaper as time goes on.

The John Olerud PC is something I should have started a long time ago.  I have 48 of his cards now, no hits or autos yet so I scanned this '92 Topps gold winner card  to show.  This is a PC that will grow over time as well, no rush.

I started collecting Keith Tkachuk a long time ago, but stopped for a long time.  I have just 72 of his cards, no hits or autos on this PC as well. 

Felix Potvin I just added to the PC train a few months ago, but have never really sat down to find out how many of his cards I have.   Need to rectify that.  I do have some nice jersey cards, and a pair of Mask cards as well, so his collection is coming along nicely.

 I recently found about a dozen pages of his cards in a binder, so this PC should be well over 100 cards now.  As with any Leaf player, any time I find a blue jersey card it's going to be added quickly.

I have almost 120 Andrew McCutchen cards now, but this is the only jersey card of his that I own.  I've been too busy adding parallels to his PC recently to worry about "hits". 

I'm already closing in on 150 Larry Fitzgerald cards, and I'm going to say this.  I really don't give a shit that this is one of the manufactured patch cards, I really love this card.   It has become one of my favorite pieces of any of my PC's.

Some times posts such as this make you dig up cards you forgot you had.  Ultimate Collection Thome jersey #'d out of 25.  Doesn't matter that it's a Philadelphia patch on a White Sox card.   Love it.   Have over 500 Thome cards now, and about 15 jersey/bat cards.

This guy will always be my no. 1 PC.   Over 700 Sakic cards in my collection and counting, I will never get tired of adding cards of him to my collection.  Love the three colors on this jersey card, it is probably one of my top 3 Sakic jersey cards.   Still have a lot more of him to add.

I didn't include Ichiro in my PC countdown, largely because I had to stop at 9 and he became the odd man out.

Thanks for the contest Daniel!!

Thanks for reading, Robert

Four by Ten

Sometimes on the spur of the moment I'll decide to hit Sportlots up for a quick card order.  My latest purchase from that website had me looking for a new seller to try out.

At the time, I was also looking to enhance a few of my player PCs.  I had just finished listing a couple of older collections (Mats Sundin and Keith Tkachuk) onto the TCDB website and decided to see if I could add a few more cards to those.

Well, I wound up adding 10 cards to each of those two collections but that just wasn't enough.  So I decided to grab 10 more for another PC, Jim Thome.

What's surprising to me is that even though my Thome count is over 500 in hand, I can still manage to purchase base card needs for the Sportlots minimum of 18 cents. 

Now the one card I have a question about is the Upper Deck Predictor card in the lower left corner.  I've seen most of the Collector's Choice versions of the Predictor card, where the date that the player is supposed to hit a homer is right on the card.  I can't say that I've ever seen a predictor card that's a scratch off before.  Now there's no way I'm going to scratch the card but I'd love to know if anyone out there did and if so what was underneath the bats.

Now to finish off my order, I decided to see if this seller had any of my set needs.  Sure enough, I found 10 cards off of my 1984 Topps want list in a hurry.

The only card I didn't scan was the Twins team checklist/leaders card.  So now I've got 10 fewer cards on that want list, and as an added bonus, he threw in an extra '78 Topps card that I needed for that set...

1978 Topps #208

Seeing this card got me thinking, how often is it that the Stolen Base leaders of both leagues are full time infielders.  You think of stolen base kings over the past 40 years, most of them are outfielders.  I found three years since '77 where full time infielders led both leagues in steals, 2014-15 when Dee Gordon and Jose Altuve led their leagues and 2002 when Luis Castillo and Alfonso Soriano (before he moved to the outfield) were the steal kings. 

So, I've found myself another go to seller on Sportlots, user ID is kommking.  I received the order in less than a week, and the nice '78 Topps bonus card was a plus.  Plus the 10% loot credit he gives is a nice bonus if I decide to place multiple orders over time.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Strike a pose

I hadn't gotten around to posting my PC additions from my last COMC order, they just sat there on my desk staring at me for the past week or so.  I'd found other topics to talk about until today, when going through the cards I came across this beauty...

I love the line on the bottom of the card "An icon of consistency".  This pose that the photographer captured on this card could be called iconic (a word that does get thrown out too often in today's vernacular), Ichiro pulling up his right sleeve while holding his bat out toward the pitcher.

It also got me to thinking; I'm sure that there are collectors out there who collect cards like this.  Batters in unusual poses, pitchers hitting/bunting, etc.   Someone with the time and money could probably put together a good collection of Ichiro in this particular pose (I'm not that someone by the way).

Would love to hear about your unique collection, poses, catches, shots, etc.   Let me know in the comments.

To continue with the PC pickups from my last COMC order, there weren't a whole lot of them to show off, just about 10 in total.

Yes, Felix Potvin is still on my collecting radar.  He still stands as my favorite Leaf goalie, and the cat mask and equipment design doesn't hurt the appeal either.  Picking up cards from his stints with the Islanders, Kings and Bruins also won't hurt as he used variations of the cat mask with those teams, much like Ed Belfour did with his famous eagle mask.

I'm sure that there's a few people out there yawning right now saying "jersey cards, boring", but for me I still get a bit of a kick when I get them.  It's even better when I can get them for a couple of bucks apiece, such as I did with these Beehive and Black Diamond cards.  The blue swatches didn't hurt the cause as well.

The final 4 cards to show off feature one Sakic card, an Ichiro parallel (less than a buck, was excited to get that card at that price!) and a pair of John Olerud cards.  Yes, I've started an Olerud PC, as his sweet swing and calm demeanor made him one of my favorite baseball players.  Cleaning up my Blue Jays PC allowed me to find about 40 doubles to get the PC started, and I grabbed a couple of cards off COMC that feature him from his time with the Mets and Mariners. 

Maybe a bat on shoulder pose could be another idea for a PC?  I've seen quite a few of those over the years...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Resurrecting the old and starting the new

Just a quick post tonight, I'm working on day 3 of a head cold that has sapped a fair bit of my energy.  I've been thinking off and on lately about adding a couple of more player PCs, and with a bit of extra time today to think about it I decided to pull the trigger.

Quite a while ago I started putting together a nice little collection of Mats Sundin cards.  I always enjoyed watching him as a Leaf, he really was the center of the team for better than a decade and was well deserving of having his #13 sent to the rafters a couple years ago.

I don't have a great deal of cards featuring Sundin (just over 60), and this 97-98 Black Diamond triple diamond Premium Cut is probably one of the "tougher" pulls I have in the collection.  I don't have a lot of parallels  that were rampant in the later part of the 90's and into the 2000's, so it will be fun picking those up here and there when I find them. 

Anybody who has read my blog over the years knows that John Olerud is one my favorites.  I pulled these two out of a big stack of Jays that I still have to go through from Adam, and I'm sure once I get through the entire collection and have it sorted I'll have enough doubles to get a good collection of Olerud going.  I doubt if I have any Mets or Mariners cards that feature him, so if you are inclined to send any Olerud cards my way, those would be the best bet.

It'll be nice to add a couple more of my hometown heroes to my player PC collections; I probably should have done it sooner.

Thanks for reading, Robert

The last of the COMC order...PC's please

First off, I hope that those of you out there who celebrate Christmas had a very merry one and spent it in the company of loved ones.

It just wouldn't be a COMC order without a dose of cards for my player collections.  Often inspiration for picking up a card of Sakic, Thome or McCutchen (and now Ichiro) comes from seeing cards on the site while I'm writing up posts on my other blog.   I end up finding parallels, or as you'll see in this post, serial #'d cards from sets that I don't purchase much of.

I did pretty well with my #1 PC, Joe Sakic, picking up 8 more base/parallel cards:

Love how well the emerald parallel for Pacific Dynagon scanned.  OK, that was a bit of sarcasm as the scan doesn't show half of the dark green that the card contains.  The bottom and top portions of the card, as well as the "starburst" lines are all emerald and the card looks fantastic in hand.
I'm becoming more and more intrigued with the Beehive cards from the mid 2000's.  I totally missed out on that set when it was released, and I'm picking up cards here and there at shows or online. 

It's also getting tougher to find Sakic cards under a dollar, as I'm now more into the parallel/serial #'d portion of the cards I need to collect.  Half of the cards on these 2 scans were in the $1 to $1.50 range; still not exorbitant but it starts to add up. 

I did a quick count of my Sakic cards, and was stoked to find that I'm up over the 700 card mark now on his PC, and I'm looking to hit 800 in the new year.

In what had to be a moment or two of insanity, I grabbed a handful of Moments and Milestones cards from 2008 for the Thome and Ichiro PCs.  Yes, they were all below a buck, and add more cards to the PCs.  I need to make sure that I don't get carried away with chasing all of these, because there are so many cards with variations that it's absolutely head spinning.  

Well, with the end of the PCs from that order, I can say now that I've hit the 1600 post mark for the blog.  Now while 1600 posts is nothing compared to a few other bloggers out there that have passed the 2000 mark a long time ago, for me each time I hit a "milestone" post such as this one, it makes me happy because I realize that I'm making an attempt to entertain people. 

Why do I do this?  Just because I enjoy cardboard, as all of you do.  

Here's to many more milestones....

Thanks for reading, Robert

Taking another plunge

At the same time as I ordered the 81 Topps lot that I displayed last week, I decided to get a start on a new Player Collection that I talked briefly about last month.

I found a 30 card lot for $7 shipped of Ichiro Suzuki, and am using that along with a few loose cards I had on hand to start up a PC of him.

Pretty much base set cards, which is fine by me to start.  I expect that I'll probably end up with this PC in the same binder as Andrew McCutchen.  Probably mostly base cards and parallels, with the occasional jersey card thrown in.

I'm looking forward to diving a little more in depth to Ichiro's career, his streaks, records and maybe even learn a little about his career in Japan before he came to North America.

Things such as:  During his first decade in MLB, he missed only 32 games.  3 games a year.  Incredible.   Also during that decade he had 2244 hits, with his worst season totaling just 206.

Ichiro needs 5 more singles to reach 2500 for his career.  2500 singles.  Wow.

My Ichiro collection won't be as in depth as what I own for Joe Sakic or Jim Thome, but a couple hundred cards over time certainly will be fun to put in a binder and look at. 

Thanks for reading, Robert

Inbound and Down #17: I feel like a Collector again

I received a generous envelope a few days ago from Kin at the I Feel Like A Collector Again blog, but finally got around tonight to digging a few cards out of the envelope to show off.

Kin had no problem with hitting several of my want lists, so I had a bit of a tough time at first deciding what to put on the post.  So I decided to dig up an old friend, and show the cards off 5-4-3-2-1 style.

My recently debuted goalie frankenset was a hit in this envelope, as a few goalie masks came my way, including Eddie the Eagle Belfour, part of Kin's favorite hockey team, the Blackhawks.  Belfour's mask is a classic design, which didn't waver over the years.  The only thing that changed on the mask as Eddie changed teams was the background color.  You'll see it a few more times for sure.

Minis!!  Any current Jays fan is familiar with Osuna, Sanchez and Tulowitzki, but I had to look up Jeff Hoffman who was featured in the Future of the Franchise insert from 2014 Bowman Chrome.  Jeff was the Jays 1st round pick, 9th overall in the 2009 draft, and was traded to the Rockies in 2015 as part of a package for the player on the right, Troy Tulowitzki.  Jeff is currently in the Rockies rotation with a 6-3 record so far this year.

These are 3 cards that I needed for my three main player PCs.  They'll be featured on my other blog before too long.

A pair of serial numbered parallels from a few years back.   Neither of these guys are still with the club, but I'm sure that both cards will find a spot in the Jays box. 

I don't know if I recall seeing gold holograms from the early 90's Upper Deck cards.  But here's proof that they exist, as Kin sent me a gold Blue Jays hologram from the '92 set.  Kin also sent a silver one as well. 

Great stuff!  Kin, thank you very much for the cards, they are much appreciated!!

thanks for reading, Robert

Blog Bat Around: The Origins of my Player Collections

In case you missed it last Wednesday like I did, Tom from the Eamus Catuli blog started a blog bat around, asking what is the reason I collect the players I collect.

Well, I have 5 player PCs to speak of, each with their own tale of why I collect them.

My most recent collection is Felix Potvin.

I've been a life long Maple Leaf fan, and any of you who read this and are also Leaf fans know what a train wreck of a decade the 80's was in Toronto.  The biggest problem was the goaltending, starting with Jiri Crha who lasted just one season at the beginning of the decade, and the revolving door ended at the end of the decade with Grant Fuhr coming in from the dynasty in Edmonton.

The team started showing signs of life, but they needed a goalie to build the team around.  Felix was the Leafs 2nd round pick in the 1990 draft.  2 years later, he played 4 games at the end of the season, and became the #1 the next year.  I really enjoyed watching him play, and it didn't hurt that his mask design of "The Cat" was an instant favorite of mine.  Felix carried the design with him to the other 4 franchises he played with, and even though I never cared for any of those teams, I still followed his play.

Another Canadian born athlete that I collect is Brett Lawrie

I really enjoyed Brett's hard nosed play on the diamond, and I was also happy that the Jays acquired the Canadian born infielder from the Brewers for Shaun Marcum.  But he did something for a heartbroken young girl one day that really swayed me into his corner as a fan.  The girl was very upset when she found out he was traded to the A's, and a video of her in tears went viral.

The rest as they say is history.

Living north of Pittsburgh for over a decade had me watching the Pirates on TV, a lot.   It took a while, but starting to collect this guy became a real no-brainer.

What has impressed me more about Andrew is how he's handled all the adversity during his struggles of 2016 and early 2017.  You haven't heard him complain, he hasn't reacted to all the trade rumors, and his demotion in the batting order to 6th has turned him into the McCutchen of old. 

I'd really like to see him stay a Pirate for his entire career.   The way today's game is and how teams are run, that's going to be tough.

If I ever had enough baseball talent, Jim Thome reminds me of the kind of player I would have been.  I hit left handed, and had some power.  I played a lot of 3rd base where Jim started his career.  Jim was tough, wore the high socks and the eye black.

Just an old fashioned ball player.  How could you not love that?  600+ homers doesn't hurt either.  

When you're in Canada, you watch a lot of hockey.  It's what you do.  (I've heard that line somewhere before...)  You'll even watch it in French.  What impressed me about Joe to start collecting him?  Watching a English speaking player in his early 20's conduct a between periods interview completely in French, and not look out of place doing it, absolutely impressed me.  

I've collected Sakic ever since.  I've lost count, but I'd say I'm closing in on 600 cards of Sakic, if I'm not there already.  Chances are if I ever start buying higher dollar cards of any of the players I collect, they will be of "Burnaby Joe".  

Tom, thanks for the post idea, it was a good one.  I enjoyed taking a stroll down memory lane.  

Thanks for reading, Robert

Chase: I imagine I'll be doing a lot of that in 2017

The video is 14:34 long, so if you don't want to hear me talk, you can read the post below.

Here's my annual 7 goals for the year.   They are in no particular order.

1. Set completion:  '64 Topps, '73 Topps and '88-'89 OPC hockey are the three biggies that I want to finish during the first quarter of 2017.    I also want to work on getting the entire run of 80's OPC sets.  I know that I will not finish all of them this year, but I have a start on a trio of others, and  by the end of the year have the remaining want lists on the blog. 

2. Video posts.  Once a month.  Don't want to scare everyone away.   I enjoyed the first one, and I was better prepared for this one.  Hopefully I can enhance my preparation and speaking ability to make better videos as time goes by.

3.  COMC.   Time to get this going.  This was something I wanted to do last year, but just never got around to it.  Now that I have the time, and the first 100 cards ready to go, there's no more excuses.

4.  Jays and Leafs collections.  Have to get them organized and updated on spreadsheets.  This is going to take some time and effort. 

5.  Contest, 100 cards, 100 words.  As I mentioned in the video, I'm hoping to send 50 PWE's with 2 cards each to fellow bloggers.  The catch?  You have to write a 100 word post about the envelope when you receive it.   I'll explain more as I get the project started.   Want 2 cards?  Make sure that your want lists are up to date and leave a comment below.   If I don't get 50 comments, well I'll be sure to pick some people that I want to see get some cards.  There's a prize at the end...trust me.

6.  2016 Allen & Ginter completion.  If you watched the video, you saw the small  brick of cards I have so far.  I want the whole set, 350 cards, plus the 100 card Number's Game insert set.  I'm not buying any more packs.  Let's go!

7.  $2k.  I've flirted with raises for my budget in the past, now I'm going through with it.  52 x $30 is $1560, which is still pretty cheap when compared to some other hobbies.  I'm increasing my limit to $2000 total in 2017, and I'm going to chronicle every penny I spend.   This blog was started on trying to stay within a budget, and 2017 is going to be all about that.   Once I hit the 2000 dollar mark, that's it, no more. 

Let's have some fun in 2017, shall we?  That's what collecting is all about...

thanks for reading, Robert

BPI

A few weeks back I sent off an envelope of Pirates cards to Matt at the Bob Walk the Plank blog simply because I thought they would be better off in his hands than mine.

One of the players that was in the envelope was this guy...

I had a few cards on my desk of his, and I had bandied about the idea of starting an Andrew McCutchen PC.  I thought about it and decided that it might get too expensive, so I sent the few cards that I had off to Matt.

Not a week later, I hit the monthly card show and a box of cards that were 20 for a dollar.  I sat down and took a long time going through these boxes, and sure enough, there was a stack of 22 McCutchen cards together.

It was as if someone was telling me something.

Finding cards like the Pastime's Pastimes insert from 2014 A&G for a nickel reminded me of what I really can do when I set my mind to it.

Be extremely cheap.

So after 2 weeks of sitting on this pile of 22 cards, I finally am making the commitment to adding Andrew McCutchen as my 4th player PC.

Why you ask?  One, he's a helluva player.  Two, he's a throw back.  He wants to stay in Pittsburgh.  He's always wanted to play for Pittsburgh.  He says and does the right things.  Most of all, he has fun while he's on the diamond.  My wife and I have enjoyed watching him since his initial call up in 2009.  Just because we've left the Pittsburgh area doesn't mean my wife and I will not be following the Pirates this year, and Andrew is a big reason why.

Now, onto my frugality. 

Because McCutchen is a big time star, there are a lot of jersey cards/auto cards out on the market.  That's a lot of $$ if you chase them all.  So I don't destroy my wallet, I've decided to make Andrew a BPI collection.

Base cards, Parallels, Inserts.  That's it.  Manageable.

When I start finishing the vintage sets I've been putting together, maybe that will change.  It's going to be a while before that happens, so keeping this PC on the cheap side will help.

Anyone else out there have PCs that they keep on the cheap?  Would love to hear how you do it...

thanks for reading, Robert

Knocking cards off of the top 30 list

Finally getting around to showing off a few additional cards from the COMC orders from a couple of weeks back.   Not only did I knock off a bunch of serial numbered cards for SNI, I also picked up a few cards off of my top 30 most wanted list.  I'm glad that I started that list, because what I've done is focused myself more on going after base cards for my player PCs.  Instead of randomly searching for more expensive jersey/auto/low numbered parallels, having the list of base cards (at least for now) has given me a method of adding to my collections without denting the wallet.

If there is one player that will probably see a lot of turnover on the most wanted list, it will probably be Brett Lawrie.  He's not a player that is chased by a lot of collectors, and now that he's on the west coast he'll probably fly even more under the radar (unless he's playing the Royals). 

I don't think I'd ever seen a Panini black Friday card before picking up this 2013 version, I must say that they don't look too bad.  The lack of logos really do hurt the overall grade, however. 

The Donruss Power Alley card wasn't on the most wanted list, but I happened to spot it for cheap when searching through the Thome list on COMC, so I decided to grab it.  Sorting cards by cheapest available made these 4 cards available to me for around $2.00 total, well worth it for a couple of his earlier cards.

My favorite PC is the Joe Sakic, largely because I've worked on it for a long time, and hockey is my first love.  It is disappointing for me that these cards, which are some of his early to mid 90's releases, weren't already in my collection.  Maybe when I start putting some of these bigger set projects to bed I'll be able to start honing on the Sakic PC, as it's the one that I'd really love to show off and grow  over time.

OK...that pile can be moved off the desk now

thanks for reading, Robert

Lucky Seven

One of the 4 great envelopes that came in recently was from Doug at the Sportscards from the Dollar Store blog.   Doug emailed me not too long before the Spring Expo in Toronto asking me if I was going to be able to make the trip.  Sadly, I couldn't make it this time around, so Doug was kind enough to knock a few cards off of a couple of PC want lists while he was at the show. 

I needed all 4 of these Joe Sakic cards, and I was especially grateful to see the top two cards.  The top left card is the 2015 National Hockey Card day release from UD that was available in Canada.  The top right card is from a redemption pack that Panini released back in 2011-12.  I had never seen a Panini Select card, much less owned one until the 2013-14 Sakic version landed on my doorstep.  Finally, a card that I thought I owned already, the 06-07 Fleer Total 'O' insert rounds out the envelope.

Great stuff.

Doug also knocked off a couple of Brett Lawrie cards from the Top 30 most wanted list.  The two Gypsy Queen cards become #'s 3 and 4 off of the list, which has been updated (finally).

The 2013 Pinnacle was also something I needed, but taking a look at it made me wonder.  I know Panini doesn't have a license to show team logos, that I get.   Couldn't they at least show Lawrie's name on the back of the jersey?  Even while typing that last sentence, I also noticed that the number 13 isn't the standard numbering style (see the GQ card on the right).  Does the license/lack of license also restrict Panini from using names & styles specific to the team as well?

None the less, the cards are great, and I'm lucky to have these 7 in my collection now.

Thank you Doug, these cards are really appreciated!!

thanks for reading, Robert

Just because I haven't been blogging...

Doesn't mean I haven't been doing something that is related to the blog.  I've spent a bit of my spare time updating/sorting my PC's, finding doubles in both the Thome and Sakic binders.  What I thought would amount to a handful of hours on a weekend turned into a 4 evening project, but in the end it was well worth it knowing that both of those collections are up to date.  Now, the focus has changed to getting the piles of cards off of my desk.

One of the giant piles should be easy to handle, it's a giant stack of these:

Hockey will always be a weakness of mine, and even after saying that I wouldn't chase the 14-15 OPC set, there's a big stack on my desk.   I decided to show the Orr card after seeing a post here the other day.   One day I'm going to have to learn how to put custom cards together, I've seen so many people in the blogosphere do it and it looks like a lot of fun.

A pile that I actually did get off the desk this weekend was a bunch of these.

The Blue Jays "Just the hits" page is finally complete.   All of my autos and jersey cards are finally scanned and up for your viewing pleasure (if looking at the Jays actually pleases you).  There was about 40 of them to scan, and the stack of top loaders was a lot taller than I imagined. 

Next pile that's up for removal?   Minis.

I have an aversion to minis.  Yes, they are cards, but I find that I have a tough time handling them.  Over time what I've done with them is as they come in, I set them to the side.  More come in, the pile grows a little higher.  I guess what I'm hoping is that they'll magically go away somehow.

No chance there.   Now it's time to deal with them.

The goal in 2015 is to get things finished, sorted and neat.  That takes time, and for this guy, patience.

Hopefully I can find lots of both and get back to a state of sanity....

thanks for reading, Robert