A great way to start the long weekend

A while back the Night Owl commented on one of my infrequent posts that he was "scraping together" an envelope to send my way.  It arrived today, and I'll say that I don't think scraping together was the right phrase.

Except maybe for the first two cards.

I'm sure that these two cards couldn't leave his house fast enough.  Maybe not the prettiest set in the world, but these two Donruss cards are welcome additions to the Jays collection.

Yes, 2014 Topps series 2 still has a want list on my blog.  It's down to 4 cards now thanks to this trio that found its way into the envelope.  Have to do something about this want list, and soon.

A lot of envelopes that have arrived lately have allowed me to mark certain Blue Jays team sets as COMPLETE.   The Damaso Garcia in the middle from the '82 Donruss set makes the want list that much smaller.  The '91 Classic card on the left of Ernesto Rodriguez is as obscure as you're going to get as far as my Blue Jays collection.  2 years in the Jays system, 91 & 92, never made it past A ball.   That's it. 

I think that there should be a law written in the blog world that if you mention the Night Owl at all in a post, mini cards must be included somewhere in the post.

The Rasmus is an A&G back from the '13 A&G set.  The Halladay on the right is the mini black parallel.

Now that I've mentioned the minis, I can get to the grand finale,  a '64 Topps high number...

A holy shit moment to start the weekend.  Card #543 in the set, and something that I've seen at shows a few times, but found the card to be overpriced each and every time.

Now I don't have to worry about the price, because he's mine!!!  The Uecker cards brings me down to 61 cards remaining to complete the '64T set. 

The answer to the note inside the envelope is "no, and I don't have to anymore".

Thank you for the envelope Greg, great as always and very much appreciated!!

thanks for reading, Robert

I wish I had more time

With only about 2 hours to spend at the show last night, I didn't have the time to go through all the tables as thoroughly as I would have liked.  With the sea of vintage that was at the show, I could have had a field day with more time, and money....

But in the end, I didn't fare too badly. 

'68T wasn't high on my priority list yesterday, but the first table I hit had these for a $1 apiece. 

I will admit that I didn't look long and hard for the 2014/2015 Topps needs on my list, but I only saw 1 table that had a decent display of modern cards.  What's worse, I only found 5 of the 8 cards I needed to finish the 2015 set, and didn't find any 2014's.  I guess it's time for Sportlots to finish the job.

At that same table, the dealer had a large amount of GQ on display as well, including a box of inserts and a box of minis.   When I saw "The Queens Throwbacks" cards that you see here, I was impressed.  If I had to complete one insert set this year, this would be it.  At a quarter apiece, I couldn't resist picking up a few of these. 

I did also pick up a few jersey cards here and there, but they are for other bloggers, so I'll keep them a surprise until they get sent out.

The main focus wound up being the '64 Topps set yesterday.  I knocked a dozen cards off of that want list, which was more than I expected.

I don't think I've ever seen the '64 Yankees team card before yesterday.   I knew that it was expensive, so when I saw this copy for $7, I snapped it up quickly.  The Pirates team card here in western PA is usually overpriced, so when I saw it priced at $3, I didn't think twice and added that to the pile.

An unmarked 7th series checklist and a Casey Stengel card for $2 apiece.  Easy pickins.

I found the Glen Hobbie and the Phillies Rookie Stars card at the first table for a $1 apiece, too bad I couldn't find any more high numbers at that price!!  The other 4 cards were $2 each.  For high numbers, I was happy to find them so cheap.

I listened to a lot of Tony Kubek in the early years of Blue Jays telecasts, and now I finally own one of his cards.  I picked up this copy for $5.

I spent a fair bit of time hunting for the 2 Yaz cards that I wanted ('64 and '73).  I didn't see any of the '73s, but this beauty came home with me for just $15. 

I'm down to just 62 cards to finish the '64 set, a very attainable number in my mind.  My goal is to finish this set by the end of 2015, but in order to do so, I will likely have to hit one more big show in order to find some good deals on the cards that I still need.

I'm guessing a trip to Chicago just might be in order...

thanks for reading, Robert