Stacked

 I do consider myself to be very lucky when it comes to my collection.  I've had quite a bit of help over the past 9+ years, bloggers with opinions on products, places to buy cards that I hadn't heard of when I first started writing about my collecting exploits.

What's interesting now with COVID-19 in our midst is what's happening to the card economy.  With a lot of non-essential business being shuttered due to social distancing, a lot of supplies and access to them have been in short supply.

What I've wound up with an excess of is top loaders, one of the items in short supply (so it seems).  I read a post on the TCDB website from someone who needed extra toploaders and responded saying I had a bunch that were just taking up space.   Used ones of course.

After a bit of back and forth, I decided to send them off with nothing promised in return, for 2 reasons.

1. It was about 250 top loaders, and the space that they were taking would be better used storing cards or other items
2. I was long overdue to perform a Random Act of Kindness.

Off to the post office I went and shipped them off.  Received a message a couple of days later thanking me for the package, and asking what I wanted in return.  Didn't really need anything, but told him if he wanted to send me something, I'd trust his judgement about fair value.   To be honest, I really wasn't concerned about getting anything back.

I was stacked.   Look at that stack!!!  I had recently just put up a want list for 2012 Allen & Ginter on TDCB, and Bobby (TCDB ID: Bobby L) took a shot at reducing it.  Just about 100 cards came my way, and the set is now just over half done with what I already in hand.  

This made my day when I wasn't expecting a stack like this to come my way.  The timing was also good as A&G 2020 made its way to shelves this past week.  I've seen a lot of early pulls on Twitter and I think it looks pretty good.  Of course, there's the normal bitching from people here and there, but over the years I've been converted and I enjoy the product each year.

Bobby, thank you for the great stack of cards, they really are appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Checklists with lines and other cards

While scanning the cards for this post, I noticed something that I hadn't seen before.  Checklists with lines.

I look at this scan of 9 cards from old TCDB trading partner Tom (TCDB ID: BigOinPA) and wonder what's going on.  Thought the scanner bed was dirty, because I see all kinds of lines on the bottom right hand card.

Shows how much I pay attention, because both of the checklists that I received have lines on them.  Now I'm not going to go digging through other sets, but I can't recall a pure checklist card having lines.  I'm sure someone in the comments will set me straight by pointing me to another set that features lines on the checklist, but it struck me as quite odd when I first saw them.

It was great getting 27 cards from the 09-10 OPC set, one that Tom has contributed a fair number of cards towards.   One thing I noticed while writing this post is that not one of the players featured is still in the league.  Even though the set is just over a decade old, I was surprised that no one is still around playing in the league.

The trade brought this set to just over halfway complete and I think I'm going to start plucking away at some of the cheaper SPs in the set.  Eventually, I'd like to have the entire run of the modern OPC sets, which is why I've added a few of them to the starter sets wanted list on the right hand side of the blog.  Even a small starter set similar in size to the trade above would be a great help and I'd do what I could to work something out if you have them.  Let me know!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Starting to chop down the '74 Topps tree

As I mentioned the other day, it was time to get started on knocking down the '74 Topps want list.  Not only did I make one trade on TCDB that netted me a couple, I also hit the Bay for a few of the star cards as well.

Lousy, lousy scan

I had to dig through my trade archives, but this trio of cards was part of the 2nd trade that I've made with Hal (TCDB ID:halfnard), and not only did I knock a couple commons off of the '74 want list, I was also fortunate to gain the '70 Dave Johnson card, one of the few cards I have left #'d less than 100 on that list. 

Hal had notified me that he may have a bit of a delay in shipping due to the wildfire situation out west, which I totally understood (safety first of course!) and still the cards got here just a few days later safe and sound in their PWE.   Thank you Hal!

For $9 shipped in a bubble mailer, one of my reliable eBay sellers oldbbcards sent me this very nice copy of Johnny Bench.  I've had my eye on it for quite a while, and this was probably the nicest copy that I have seen on all the sites.

I was surprised to find the #4 Hank Aaron Special on eBay for just $5, so it quickly went into my cart.  This card was courtesy of seller hhm224, someone who I used for the first time but would recommend as I bought this card on Saturday, and here it is in my hands on Tuesday!  This leaves me with just the #1 card left out of the 6 Aaron Specials and from what I'm seeing it's going to run me about $20-$30.  Chances are #1 may be the last card I hunt to complete the set.

I have 2 more from the '74 set on the way, which will reduce the list to just 21 cards, including 2 checklists.  6 of those are currently in my Sportlots cart, so the '74 Topps tree is starting to get a little smaller.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

Hey '74 Topps, I haven't forgotten about you

I've just been dragging my feet. 

I nabbed 4 cards on the Sportlots order for the '74 set, bringing that want list below 30 cards.  While writing this post I'm thinking it is time to get the set done, and will likely spend the weekend chasing the remainder on various websites.

Surprising as the want list has shrunk that I'm still finding common cards that I need.  Even more surprising is that I found these all for less than a quarter apiece on Sportlots. 

I paid 90 cents for the Ron Santo card you see here, not bad, but a little bit rough edged on the right hand side, and it almost looks as if he's got a piece of gum or something on the one side of his mouth.  There's also a crease on the right hand side as well, but for under a buck I think I'm happy enough with this copy of Santo.  It does show the risk you take with some sellers and vintage on Sportlots. 

Now, it's off to find Rose, Garvey, McCovey, Munson, Bench, Robinson and a couple of Aaron cards in order to get this one in the books.  $50-60 I'm thinking (read hoping) to finish this up...

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

These 5 sets aren't next

It's nice that I made some progress on the sets that I'm going to show, but it's also a bit sad to know that I have a ton of sets that I'd like to finish.  The sets below range in completion from around 35% to in the 60's, but they're not on the set completion radar yet.

My introduction to the modern OPC sets was the 2007-08 OPC set that I found fat packs of in a Wal Mart one day.  I've now the mindset that OPC sets from the past that I'm going to finish are going to be started SPs first, thus making the pain of the final few cards hopefully a lot lighter.  These 9 cards ranged in the 30 to 50 cent range, just perfect for me and I'm sure that sellers priced them that way in order to move them from their inventory.  That and outside of PA Parenteau in the top center, there aren't any players that had a decent career in the NHL on this page.

I have another envelope coming from Sportlots as they notified me the day after they sent my box that they forgot one envelope of 20 cards.  These two sets will be a good chunk of those cards, as I found a seller that's selling commons at anywhere from 18-25 cents, which works for me.   I was a bit off on my opening paragraph, the 85-86 OPC set is nowhere near 1/3 complete, it's actually 1/6 done so there's a long way to go. 

One of my favorite sets of the 80's and one that I'll be glad to have completed again, the 84-85 set took a nice jump with these 13 cards.  As I'm going through my next 10 sets, I'll probably end up continuing to pick off commons as cheaply as I can, avoiding finding the Steve Yzerman RC for as long as possible.   Took a quick look on eBay for the Yzerman RC while writing this, and the cheapest copy is just over $40, and you can clearly see a corner that is nowhere near sharp.

Moving on from mid 80's OPC we come to more modern shiny cards with the 2013-14 Prizm set.  I remember seeing these in Wal Mart a few years ago and loving the look of them.  Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn't have kept on buying them as the last 100 cards of the set are all rookies, and there were some good names among the final 3rd of the set so it'll likely be a while before I start chasing this one more vigorously. 

Going through the Sportlots box has been a blast because I knocked about 200 cards off of my massive want lists, but seeing just how much I still want makes me think sometimes if I've taken on way too much and get myself overwhelmed.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert