My player collections have really begun to grow

Not only have I been knocking down the wantlists for the vintage sets I've been working on, I've been raiding both COMC and Sportlots trying to fill out my Lawrie, Thome and Sakic collections.  As you know with my past, I've being doing this as best as I can on the cheap.

Case in point, this 2014 Bowman Red Ice parallel of Brett Lawrie

I love how this looks in hand even more than how good it looks scanned.  It is just limited to 25 copies, and now one of them is off the market for just $3.25. 

Even cheaper was this 2014 Gypsy Queen black bordered mini, #29/199.  This came to me for just under a buck and a half. 

A lot of my Lawrie collection right now is parallels and variations, but hopefully as his career progresses I'll be able to grab more base cards.  Maybe being part of the White Sox will help that along.

2012-13 SP Authentic went all out featuring Joe Sakic; he appears on 6 cards in the base set alone.  Some of my favorite Sakic cards are ones that feature him in a Team Canada uniform, and add Mario Lemieux to the card and it's a real winner for me.  $1.38 brought both of these home.

A pair of Gold Medallion parallels from Fleer Ultra were also purchased.  I definitely prefer the one on the right, as most of the Gold Medallions over the years featured the full card's background in gold.  The 96-97 on the left looks as though Fleer got a little lazy and just added foil to the player and team names. 

Although the scan is kind of crappy, my favorite card from the recent Jim Thome binge on Sportlots is this 2001 Topps Heritage card.  The group of Sportlots cards that came my way extended from 1996-2004, and made me realize just how many sets were being pumped out from the card companies at that time.   Even though I've passed the 300 card mark for Thome, there is still a lot of base cards and parallels to gather to fill out this PC.

I've decided to start another blog (yeah, I know) dedicated to my 3 player PCs.  I've done well so far, 40 posts in and I'm still making sure that there's at least one card a day featuring a couple of lines about the card, or the player.  I've added a page for each player as well, making sort of a checklist for each card that is posted.  

If I'm lucky I'll even improve on the 1 follower that I already have...

thanks for reading, Robert

2 by 2 by 2

A good week as far as cards coming into the house.  Between a Sportlots order, a COMC purchase, and a brief stay at the monthly card show, quite a few cards were knocked off of want lists.  It just so happened that there were three separate sets that had 2 cards removed.

One part of the COMC order (that I'd been putting together for a month) was these 2 high numbers from the '73 Topps set.  Dig the eyebrows on Andy Etchebarren, almost reminiscent of the Wally Moon cards from the early 60's.  The only one of the 3 pitchers in the Rookie Pitchers card that I had heard of was Mike Garman.  Mike had actually appeared for the Red Sox in parts of 3 seasons ('69, '71 and '72) before this card was released.  He was traded to the Cardinals after the '73 season and had a couple of very good seasons there before bouncing around the league with 3 other teams up until his major league career ended after the '79 season.

I found a couple of reasonably priced SPs on COMC for the 2011 Heritage set.  The Orioles team card reminds me of the high number battle I am facing with the '64 set, and the overpriced Dodgers high number team card.  Sorry, but I can't stomach paying $10 for a team card, high # or not...

It hurts a little to see a Roy Halladay card featuring him in a Phillie cap, but he did some things there that he never did in Toronto (make a ton of money, pitch in the playoffs, etc.) so that takes the sting off somewhat.  He's still one of the top 5 pitchers in Blue Jays history in my opinion.

It is extremely rare that I go to a card show and come home with only 2 single cards for myself.  But that happened yesterday because the dealer that I was really hoping to purchase a lot of cards from wasn't there.  So I ended up buying a pair of '59s featuring a couple of HOF players.  Can't say that I ever remember seeing that style of uniform that the Cubs Clubbers are wearing.

 I was also curious to see what kind of numbers that Banks and his teammates put up in the '59 season, and was quite shocked as the disparity.   Banks--.304/45HR/143/RBI.  Long--.236/14HR/37RBI.  Moryn--.234/14HR/48RBI.  Only one other Cub had more than 50 RBI's in the '59 season.  There was Banks with his 45 HR, and no other Cub had more than 14 (although 7 had more than 10).

These two cards bring the '59 set a little bit closer to the halfway mark, with just 29 more cards needed to hit 50%.

Believe it or not, the big purchase from the card show yesterday was a hobby box of 2016 Topps.  I haven't cracked a box of cards in quite a long time, so I'm eager to see what the fuss is all about.  You'll see a post soon about it for sure.

Thanks for reading, Robert