TCDB Trade #480: 1 Lewis was all it took

A few weeks ago I bought quite a few cards at a card show (duh) from a football dealer.  Just decided to throw a bunch of parallels and numbered cards into a pile at a quarter a piece.   Sounds like a typical card show for me right?

Well, little did I realize that one of those cards would turn into a dozen cards for my wide receiver collections.  

For a quarter, I added to my pile a Ray Lewis teal parallel from 2020 Chronicles.  Someone who wanted it for his Ray Lewis collection offered me 5 cards for it originally and as you can imagine I didn't pass that up.

Here are 4 of the 5 cards that John (TCDB ID: ravensray52) offered.

 

All of them shiny, definitely won't complain about these.  The one card he couldn't find was a 2012 RC of  T.Y., he felt bad and said he would send me 7 other cards that he had off of my want list.  I said not to worry, that things happen and I did appreciate him letting me know.  His next reply struck me as kind of funny...

"no worries, you're the only Hilton collector I have encountered so I know they will go to a good home"

So these 8 cards have come to a good home!

I can honestly say I love hearing this kind of stuff from other collectors, as I like to make lopsided trades from time to time with other set builders because I know they appreciate it.  Moving cards from trade boxes to other peoples collections is a beautiful thing, which is one of the main reasons I enjoy the TCDB site so much.

Thank you for the trade John, it is appreciated!!

Keep on enjoying the hobby!

Robert

You can't spell Thursday without TY

 A few weeks ago Joe, who sells under the Cheap Cards moniker on Twitter, posted this T.Y. Hilton card for sale.

I don't add a lot of cards to my player PC's now a days, but for $4 I quickly jumped on this card from 2016 Panini Clear Vision.  Serial #'d to just 49 copies doesn't hurt.  The red version is one of 7 different colors available, likely ones that I won't chase but will grab if they come my way such as this one did.

T.Y.'s teammates on the card are already both retired; Mathis left football after the 2016 season which was his 13th in the league, while Andrew Luck left 2 years later after just 6 years in the league.  

It'll be interesting to see how Hilton fares in 2021 with another new quarterback as Carson Wentz joins the Colts after the big trade with the Eagles.  Hopefully they have the same success as 2020 with Philip Rivers as the signal caller.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

TCDB Trade Week #3: Thunderfoot

I get a lot of trades come in from guys on the TCDB website that have what I lacked several years ago:  creativity.  There are a lot of great names on the site and I was fortunate to complete a trade recently with John (TCDB ID: Thunderfoot) that sports a name that could represent a football kicker that has some good distance.

I thought of football immediately when I saw the trade that John proposed; he took a few Larry Fitzgerald doubles off my hands, plus some inserts from recent sets that I'd have no need for and in return he sent me back some player collection pieces for both my wide receivers.

I really haven't focused much on adding to both the Fitzgerald and T.Y. Hilton PC's lately, as I've been more in a set building frame of mind.

This isn't to say that I'd turn down a good offer to get some of my player collection cards in hand though!  I've been very partial to the colorful parallels that I've obtained of Larry Fitzgerald since I started his collection, and even though its hard to tell, the Playoff Absolute green parallel in the lower left corner looks really nice in hand.  

While this post doesn't contain much of Hilton, tomorrow's post features a very nice add to the T.Y. collection from a fellow blogger who also shares my birthdate.

Thank you very much for the cards John, they are appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby, 

Robert 

TCDB Trade Week: Clay

This trade, my first one with TCDB ID Clay (my apologies, I didn't write your name down...) netted me a page worth of football cards.   I traded away a handful of Steelers cards and gained 8 cards towards my 2018 Panini Prestige FB set

A few stars showed up, along with a trio of Rookie cards that depict players that I don't know much about.  I still kind of regret starting this set, but I blame it on myself for not researching more before taking the plunge.  I found a few of these on Sportlots recently for cheap, so there is light at the end of the tunnel with just 32 cards left on the want list. 

Filling out the page is a T.Y. Hilton card from the same year but a different brand.  It's from the Panini Playoff set, and I decided to take a quick look at the parallel sets to see what colors they were.

I was wrong, they're actually named by situations, 1st down, 2nd down, 3rd down, 4th down, Goal Line, Kick Off, Red Zone and Touchdown.  The "downs" are serial #'d starting at 99 and work their way down to 10.  The Touchdown's are 1 of 1s.  Goal Line, Kick Off and Red Zone aren't numbered, and have just the moniker stamped on the card to differentiate.   Not very inspiring for me.

None the less, the cards plug a few holes and the trade was completed in both directions in less than a week, so I certainly cannot complain.

Thank you for the cards Clay, they are appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby, Robert

Two racing legends add to the chase

It's actually one person that added cards via a trade, but the screen name was quite interesting if you're a racing fan.  A big thanks to Rusty (TCDB ID: rustypetty) for putting a big dent into a couple football set want lists with this trade.

2018 Panini Prestige was my punishment.  Yes, I decided to put it together before looking at the set breakdown; not figuring out that there were 100 SPs out of the 300 card set taught me a valuable lesson in collecting modern sets, look before you leap.

These 8 knock my want list down to 42 cards, just 6 of them are part of the base set.  Ugh, 36 SPs, there are some big names among that list and it may take me some time to finish this off, but this set will be part of the next wave of sets to be completed.

This was the big part of the trade, 32 cards from the Donruss 2019 set.  This will also be part of the next group of sets to be finished, as this is down to 60 cards.  Similar to 2018 Prestige, this set has just 1 card remaining that isn't a rookie card.  That's right, 59 RCs to go....yikes!

To finish off the trade, I received 4 cards from my WR collections, mostly of T.Y. Hilton.

It was funny, when I looked at the 2018 Absolute card in the lower right corner, something just didn't seem right.  The guy was too tall and too slender to be T.Y. Hilton.  Sure enough, the photos both front and back are of Donte Moncrief, another Indianapolis WR.  In this age where everything is scrutinized with a fine tooth comb, it's surprising that this card got through the quality check process at Panini.

A big thanks to Rusty for knocking down these want lists, it is appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Four by Four

The trade similarity run continues today as there's a pair of trades that also came in during the past 7 days that netted me 4 cards apiece.  First off, we have a pair of cards from two different collections via repeat trader Jerry  (TCDB ID: nozzlemaster).

I had bought one of those repack boxes from Target on my last visit there a couple of weeks back, and one of the packs inside was 2019 GQ.  While I didn't pull anything that helped my collections, a couple of cards inside (including a Roger Maris SP) went Jerry's way for these 4 cards.

The GQ green is slowly making its way towards completion, I'm at 229 out of the 300 cards in hand now.  Again, what I thought would be a lengthy project looks like it has a chance of being finished this year which is great!

Jim Thome's collection is also growing nicely; finally getting his cards on the TCDB site and putting up a healthy want list has made all the difference.  The '99 Pacific is the 49th card just from 1999, and that's not even the most I have from 1 year for Thome (2002 has 50).  Have a good shot at hitting 600 cards for this collection by the end of the year, as I have some relics that I'm sure I haven't added, and I'm just 27 cards away from that milestone.

In contrast, the T.Y. Hilton collection is still in its infancy, just 65 cards in hand.  No worries though, this collection is something that's cool to add to on the side, but not a major focus right now.  These came from a first time trade partner, Shawn (TCDB ID: herkyone) and arrived quickly, well at least as quick as PWE's are getting through the mail these days.

Thanks to both for the trades, the cards are appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

2 by 2

It's been a pattern lately.  Trades, or generous offerings, coming in PWE's that contain just 2 cards.  People say size matters, and it does to some, but you know what, sometimes smaller offerings can make a difference as well.

Two cards, from two different bloggers, via two different methods of communication.  Too much!!

Another quick trade with Colbey from the Cardboard Collections blog netted me a pair of the 1985 Topps inserts from this year's set.  Try not to ugh too loudly, but after a failed attempt to chase the 1984 inserts from last year (failed meaning never got started after I said I would), I've put up a want list for the '85s on TCDB.

Yes, it is adding more to the already bloated amount of cards that I want, but I've been so happy with the number of sets I've knocked off so far this year, that I decided to add something a little frivolous.

Scanner skills quickly improving!!

My man Jon from the Penny Sleeves blog sent me a message on Twitter asking if I needed the T.Y. Hilton barber pole parallel from 2015 Prizm.  Of course I needed it, I still only have about 60 cards for Hilton, so Jon said he'd find something else and send it off to me.

Little did I know, Jeremy Lin #'d to 99 on the left of the scan would be the mate in the envelope.  The 14-15 Artist Proof from Hoops becomes the 39th card in the #'d to 99 PC, much better than I ever thought I'd do so soon.

Colbey and Jon, thank you both very much for the cards, they really are appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

Serial Saturday #32: Shameless

I usually don't make it a point of writing to companies customer service departments.  More often than not, you get the stock email back.  You know the one "we're working to fix your problem, there's nothing else you can do at this point".  No kidding right?  People are looking for you to do something to fix it, and fix it quick.

Well, I actually wrote to COMC's customer service this week.  Kind of shameless really, as I wanted my cards that the site said would be shipped on the 21st.  Tuesday was the 25th, and no notice from them that the cards had shipped, so I fired off a quick email.  I actually received a fairly quick response a few hours later.   COMC stated that they had received an unusually high number of shipment requests, and were backlogged.   OK, fair enough I thought.

Later on Tuesday, my order was boxed up (more on that tomorrow) and yesterday my cards were in hand!

This was a small order for me, just over 50 cards, and only 5 of them met my serial #'d needs.  All 5  were for various player collections.

I'm up to 6 out of my 500+ Jim Thome card collection from the Moments and Milestones set.

I truly do have mixed emotions about the Moments and Milestones cards from 2008.  They fit my serial #'d wants yes, but there's so many of them (I think there's over 450 for Thome alone) and multiple colors that it's a daunting task to go after them.  So, I'll end up just maybe grabbing one here and there to scratch the itch.

The T.Y. Hilton collection is really still in its infancy, with only 59 cards in hand before adding these 2.  The orange die cut from Prizm on the left is one that I especially liked.  I bought a couple of packs of Donruss football back in 2016, and liked the design that's featured on the right, but never did chase the set.  Smart...too much going on around here.

Most of my serial #'d cards that have come in over the past couple of months have been Panini parallels, so picking up a Topps product is a nice change. The Museum Collection card on the left I believe is the first one that I own, and the Sapphire Blue parallel looks very nice in hand.  I decided to check and see if he was gong to be ready by Opening Day, but this report says that he's likely to start the season on the IL.

Yes, in the end my request to have my cards might have been shameless, but I learned that sometimes you just have to grease the squeaky wheel in order for something to happen.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

A couple of more trades come in

A rare day when I receive a couple of trades in the mailbox, and none of the cards end up going towards any of my sets.   Mind you, it was only 7 cards that came in, but still...

A pair of really nice refractor cards from the early part of the 10's came all the way from CA courtesy of multiple time trade partner Mike (TCDB ID: 49ants), who received a duplicate I had of McCutchen, and the Oracle Park black parallel I had from this past year's Topps set. 

These 5 cards came from new trade partner Leo (TCDB ID: LO212257) and had me scratching my head at a couple of them.  The T.Y. Hilton portion of my collection is starting to fill up nicely, as these two cards put me solidly into the 50's.  When I made the offer to Leo, I couldn't believe that I didn't have either the McCutchen or the Fitzgerald base cards in my collection.  Had to stop and check both binders to make sure.  Needed them both...

Now you may be thinking the Greg Cater card from '83 Topps FB is a little random, but I actually have a want list on TCDB for the set for a friend of mine.  Need about 75 more to go to finish the set, a lot of them star cards, but it'll be fun to see if I can get a few of them for him via the trade route. 

Another trade or two to come in and I'll hit the 200 mark for completed transactions on the site.  Not bad since I started 2019 at just 37.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Week in review: trades aplenty and some minor pack purchases

During my travels this week, I bought cards at Target a couple of times.  At the Target near my house, I bought one of those Fairfield repacks for $11.99 which contained 10 packs of hockey cards.  Nothing major in the 2 MVP 5 card packs, the 90-91 Pro Set series 2 pack was also fine, but I did pull a Martin Brodeur RC out of the 90-91 Score American pack that was inside...

Can Enterprise pick you up?

The remaining packs in the Fairfield were Upper Deck packs from 2016-17 to current, a nice deal, including a jumbo pack!  Those went into my hurricane stash of packs that I have accumulating at the bottom of my bookshelf. 

I had to hit Target one day at work to pick up some supplies for the office, and no visit is without a pack purchase.  Didn't see any hockey there, so I picked up a couple of packs of Panini Rookies & Stars football, and the first parallel I hit wasn't too shabby.

The Green didn't come out very well in the scan, needless to say it will be added to my trade bait on the TCDB website.  Speaking of TCDB, I mailed out 4 trade envelopes this week, at a cost of just under $6.  Incoming was a different story, as I received two packages from Canada, along with 3 others from the US.

One of the trades came from Washington state, and inside was 11 GQ Green parallels including these two key players, Trout and Judge.  I was worried that I might have to buy them as this set came to a close, but now I don't have that problem. 

The same trade netted me a nice add to the T.Y. Hilton collection, which is starting to grow nicely.

I see all types of collections out there, does anyone collect cards that feature the elements on them, such as the two cards in the middle row that have T.Y. running in the snow.   If you do, point me to some posts/scans so I can check them out.

Finally, one of the trades from Canada added a few older cards to my Joe Sakic collection, which is slowly inching it's way to the 800 card mark.

The Score card in the middle row?  That's a Kellogg's card from 91-92, a great food issue that I thought I might never see.  The 90-91 UD next to it is the French version, of which I have none.  Even with all the cards I have from the 90's of Joe, I'm still adding more with these 5.  Great stuff.

So, total spent this week was $26, knocked off wants from the Sakic, Potvin, Sundin and Olerud player collections, several set builds also had some cards added, and a bit of trade bait crossed my desk.

Card show tomorrow.  Hopefully find some cards to finish off the '83 Topps set, maybe some '79s as well.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

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

In the nineties

This has been one helluva year for me trade wise.   I received a couple of envelopes in the mail this week, bringing my trade count for 2019 to 92. 

I honestly thought that 100 trades would be a fight right to the bitter end of the calendar year for me, but with 8 currently on the go (and 1 on "lost" status), by the first week of October I'll have hit my goal.  

Incredible...

The first envelope was another USPS surprise, making it from Washington State to Florida in 2 days.  Jim (TCDB User ID:  jmkidd) snapped up a few Seattle Seahawks cards from me, and in return I got a bit of set help and a bit of help with 3 of my player collections.

First up, the set help.  Fred Lynn's card from the '81 Topps set was a nice one to grab, along with the Saves leaders card from '78 featuring Rollie Fingers and Bill Campbell.   Would love to see the term firemen come back to the game..

The '69 Topps Darrell Brandon reminds me that the '69 set is becoming similar to my 85-86 OPC hockey build.  1 card comes in at a time, slowly nibbling away at the set.  Only problem is, I still need about 460 cards to finish the set, and that's a lot of trades at 1 card at a time!

A pair of cards each for Olerud and Fitzgerald were nice additions.   I'm actually doing quite well adding Olerud cards featuring him in uniforms of the Mets and Mariners.  T. Y. Hilton's card brings him to a paltry 19 cards, but there's a ton of base cards on my want list on the TCDB site, so I'm sure eventually that number will start climbing.

Next up is a nice lot of cards from Edward (TCDB ID: kaline6), which hit want lists for a couple of sets I expect to finish by the end of the year, along with a few other goodies.

Both the '81 and '82 sets are winding their way to completion, I believe combined they are around 100 cards from being finished.  Still some star cards to pick up here and there, but it shouldn't be a major dent to my wallet to get these done.

Four more cards off of the '79 want list takes that set below 80 cards needed to complete.  Need both the Ozzie Smith RC and the Nolan Ryan cards on that group, so that's a big maybe to see this complete by the end of the year.  And yes, the George Foster card is quite a bit off center,  you're not seeing things.

The lone wolf from the '69 set, Joe Sparma of the Tigers.  Just 10 more cards to reach the 200 mark.   Not a big priority at the moment however.

Four more cards for the Olerud collection.  Every time I write one of these posts, and see all the Blue Jays cards that I've added to the sets and player collections, I often wonder if I should just have poached my Jays collection to reduce these lists.  I'm glad that I didn't...

Thank you to both Jim and Edward for the trades, the cards are really appreciated!!

Thanks for reading!

Robert

A couple of nice card show pickups

Spent almost $50 at the monthly card show yesterday, probably the most I've spent there in several months.  In addition to the star cards that I plucked out of the 3 for a $1 bin for trade bait, I found a few cards to add to my McCutchen and T.Y. Hilton collections.

Hilton is really easy to buy for right now, as I only have about 20-25 cards in that PC.  I hadn't seen the die cut Playmakers insert anywhere before, so that was snapped up really quickly.  The McCutchen PC is a little harder, as that's nearing 200 cards, but I was pretty sure that I didn't have the Legends blue parallel, as well the Fire parallel was something I was OK with buying even though I may have had it.  

My thoughts over the past couple of years have also turned from being a Blue Jays collector (which has gotten way out of hand with all the baseball that is released now a days) to my other hometown team, the Maple Leafs.   There's nowhere near as much hockey product out there, and down here in the south, I can usually find it for cheaper than up north.

When I saw this Morgan Rielly "brick" for $6, I snapped it up...

It's hard to see but the card is #'d 31/49 from the SP Game Used Edition set from 2015-16, so adding that to the pile was also easy. 

But this next card was the biggest addition of the day, and almost half of what I spent.

This Eddie Murray RC was in the display case of the first table I sat down at, and was an easy buy at $22.  Now I just have to find a Molitor/Trammell RC to my liking, and then the other 134 cards needed to finish the '78 Topps set should fall into place.  Probably will not finish this in 2019; 1st half of 2020 is more realistic if I get some of the other sets I'm close to completing done.

Now it's time to get back to trading, and see if I can hit the 100 trade mark for the year by the end of September.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

Living in the c i T.Y.

I've been wanting to write this post for a while, but for some reason have put it off.  Now that I'm headed up to New York state for a much needed vacation, I decided to put this in as a auto post while I'm away.

I've done quite well with my Larry Fitzgerald collection (over 300 cards now!), and I wanted another football player to round out my player collections. 

I figured 10 guys to collect was a good stopping point....

I've always admired wide receivers as well, the speed, the ability to take a hit in mid air, the pass catching skills of a lot of these guys is really fun to watch.   One such player that I really enjoy is my height; that would be T.Y. Hilton of the Indianapolis Colts.

I really don't have much for him so far, just 18 cards in the collection, but I've noticed right away that similar to Larry Fitzgerald, I am able to get parallels for Hilton on the cheap.

Everything I have so far for T.Y. I've bought off of COMC, no trades so far off of my small want list I have posted on the TCDB site.   Maybe while I'm on vacation I'll expand that list to hopefully generate some more trades.

The one aspect of football collecting that I notice is that there is no shortage of parallels.  I already have a black, orange, red and green parallel of T.Y. in the first group of cards I've acquired. 

I also have wanted to collect someone born and raised in south Florida, and T.Y. fits that bill as well, as he's from Miami Springs, and attended college at Florida International. 

Now I have even more cards I can pull in from trades on TCDB, there's less and less room now for someone to say "I don't have anything that you need".

With 10 players on my collecting want list, there's no shortage of cards to find...

Thanks for reading!!

Robert