A bit of a bitch fest

I received an order from Sportlots earlier this week, actually it came the same day that I received the cards from CommishBob.

I was kind of excited about this 94 card order and was looking forward to receiving them.  I pulled from my mailbox a box of cards from Bob (just over 100 in total), shipped very well.   And I also received this...

This is an 8.5 x 11 white envelope.  No padding.   It would be something that you would receive documents in from say, a legal firm.  Not me.  I received 94 cards, without benefit of a top loader or any kind of protection.

I paid $6 premium shipping for this.   I get that people sell cards to make money, believe me I've been there myself.

I wouldn't do this to anyone.  Never.

AMAZINGLY, these cards arrived unscathed.

About 30 cards apiece for each of the 78, 84 and 85 sets were knocked off the want list.   Needless to say I have to find another seller though when I decide to knock another 100 or so cards off the list.

The moral of the story?  If you're going to charge someone $6 to ship them an order, at least try to spend more than half of it on the actual shipping charges. 

It's just good form.

Thanks for letting me bitch.   Robert

These are a good place to start as any

I received a fantastic small box of cards from everyone's favorite Commish, CommishBob of the Five Tool Collector blog.

Bob offered up a few '62 cards after he saw me mention that I was taking the '62 want list off of my blog so I can focus on other pursuits.  So I sent him that want list and chopped off a bunch of those, but that's for my next post.

Today's post is a half dozen 1970 Topps cards, quick and painless.

Of the 6, only the Shellenbach probably won't stand the test of time.  If you are able to look closely, there are 3 crosses on the right hand side of Jim's head.   Other than that card, the other 5 are great, including the Carl Yastrzemski card which was quite the nice surprise (and very much appreciated).

If you had asked me 5 years ago if the 1970 Topps set was something I would think about putting together, the answer probably would have been no.  But over the years I've been lucky to pick up a lot of these cards on the cheap, and quite a few people have sent me cards from this set as well.

Now, I'm up to 280 cards out of the 720 in hand, and while the set is not a pressing endeavor right now, this is part of the 68 through 86 run that I want to eventually complete.

Still lots of time for that though...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Inbound and Down #43: Baseball Card Breakdown

It's funny how things happen sometimes.  The other day I received an envelope from Oscar after going through a period where I hadn't received anything in my mailbox card related.

Then, I received an email from everyone's famous custom creator, Gavin from the Baseball Card Breakdown blog asking me if I'd received a PWE that he had sent a week previous.  The answer I had was no, I hadn't received anything yet.

The email actually reminded me that I had won a contest at his blog a while back.   My memory isn't tested as much as it used to be, so it doesn't work quite as well.  But that's another story...

The PWE came on Saturday, and it was full of cards that hit home.

Perfect.  Not only is it a Joe Sakic card, but it's one of the top 10 most wanted cards for my player collections, listed on the top of my other blog which can be seen here.   The list is down to 9 cards now, and the number of followers on that blog is slowly creeping up (it's at 19 now).  Maybe if hits 30 by the end of July I'll do some kind of COMC giveaway here...

Everyone knows that serial #'d cards are a true weakness of mine, and Gavin didn't disappoint in this department.

2006 Topps Co-Signers silver/bronze Vernon Wells/Lyle Overbay, 7/125

Aaron Hill 2007 Bowman Chrome blue #120/150 and Alex Rios 2008 Bowman Chrome X-fractor #202/250.   Love em....

2015 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Green Jon Harris #28/99.  And to show how far behind the times I am with current card releases (more on this in my next post), a Jose Bautista 2017 Topps Gold Label (one of my all time favorite sets) blue parallel Class 1 #27/150.   I was very pleased to see the great response that Jose received in his return to Toronto last week.  I saw a few people on Twitter calling for him to be entered into the level of excellence and having his number 19 retired.  Not sure if I would go that far, but I certainly admit that he was a big part of the Blue Jays over the past decade.

Last, and certainly not least, Gavin sent me a couple of his specialties, customs!!!

Doesn't hurt that you learn a little something from custom cards, now does it?  I knew the name Nate Colbert but had absolutely no idea that he attended spring training with the Jays in 1977 before being forced to retire due to back problems.  Love the homage to him on a '77 design.

Now, I had to look twice at this card.  Originally, I thought it was a card of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who as most of you know is a big time prospect in the Jays minor league system.

Looking again I realized it was VG Sr.!  2012 design had me thinking "did VG ever play with the Jays?"  On the back Gavin noted that Guerrero hit .358 in the Jays minor league system (A/AAA) in 2012 before hanging up the spikes at the age of 36. 

These are great and will never not be a part of my Jays collection. 

Gavin, thank you very much for the cards, serial #'d and 1 of 1 customs.  They are very much appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert