OPC all over the place

This evening I'll be watching what arguably could be the biggest game of the regular season so far for the Maple Leafs, as they'll be right down the road from my house here in Sunrise.  The defense corps just lost its 3rd person, as Jake Muzzin is down for a month with a broken hand.  the current defense is nearly the same as the one that won the Calder Cup (AHL championship) two years ago.  Yikes!

So while I'm doing that, this post will automatically appear on the blogger site, featuring a group of OPC cards that came from Canada via new trade partner JF (TCDB ID: althib).

These are the bits and pieces of the trade, 4 cards from 3 different sets over the past 5 years.  No big names out of these 4, but they do remove 4 numbers off of 3 want lists.  Maybe this weekend I will get around to adding these want lists to the blog.

Since I really started focusing on trading on the TCDB at the beginning of 2019, the 1990-91 OPC set is one that I'm surprised that I haven't been able to complete yet.  I was sure that I'd get a lot of requests for trades, especially from north of the border.  Alas, that hasn't been the case, but the set is getting closer to being completed as I'm down to just 44 cards to go.  Been a long time coming...

JF pretty much cleaned me out of my 83 and 85 Topps baseball traders, which is cool as I'm glad that they found a good home.  Thank you for the trade JF, the cards are really appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby!   Go Leafs Go!

Robert

When 1 turns into 3

Like a magician, old friend and trading partner AJ from the Lost Collector turns 1 card:

Into 2:

Then into 3:

Scanning skills improving

AJ for several weeks now has been reminding me that he's had a single GQ green card for me (see AJ, I wasn't ignoring you!!).  So we agreed upon a quick trade on TCDB where I sent him a Gleyber Torres card from 2020 Topps for the GQ green above.  By the way, I'm just 2 cards short of 75% complete for the Green set, very exciting.

But when I open the envelope, not only do I see the 95 CC silver signature card featuring Joe Carter's HR to win the '93 world series, but then  I see the Larry Fitzgerald Air Command card from 2012 Panini Gridiron.  

I guess now all that's left to say is TA DA!!

Thank you very much AJ, as always.  The cards are very much appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Number 11?

I've talked pretty regularly on the blog so far this year about the 10 sets I'm going to finish off first in 2020.  Pretty much a way to keep myself motivated and not try to get too distracted.  But, with this recent trade that I received from 2nd time trade partner Aaron (TCDB ID: suedehead) I may now have the 11th set that I could finish this year.

This was actually a very big hockey trade, the biggest trade I've done in a while.  I wound up knocking off 84 cards off of 2 want lists, both of them being recent OPC sets.

First up is 9 of the 11 SPs that were part of 27 cards from the 2015-16 OPC set, which I had mentioned recently was just starting to get off the ground.  This set doesn't really have any big name RC's (the most notable I found was Sam Bennett), and the other half of the SPs are the Legends, which usually add a bit more to the cost.  I only have 81 cards out of the 600 for the set, so it's nowhere near worrying about yet.

Still need to figure out how to scan 

The 2018-19 OPC set was really bolstered with 40 cards from the base set, 18 of which are shown above, in whole or in part.

And 17 of the SPs, including 7 of the team cards, an idea which I've said that I love in the past.  I've also mentioned this before, but I like what Upper Deck did and instead of pushing the same old Legends cards on us year after year, they added the League Leaders cards at the end (See Ovi and Freddie Andersen above), and the Season Highlight cards #'d 551-560.  It was very nice to see a change, and I hope that they keep this trend going.

This 57 card lot that came in brought the set total to 501 out of 600 cards; there's been quite a jump towards completing this set with the past two trades.  With less than 100 cards to go now, this might be the next set up once the first 10 sets are done this year.  There's other sets that are close to being complete as well, but this is now in the mix.

Thank you for the trade Aaron, the cards are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

It had only been 18 months since a Jays hit

It's gotten to the point where I've run out of witty blog post titles.  Eventually I'm going to have to come up with more ways to describe trades, but for now I have my 2nd trade with Greg from the Collective Mind blog so far this year.   Not quite as big as the first one, but I still was able to add a couple of dozen cards to the collection.

More Jim Thome cards to add to the collection.  It's amazing just how many base cards he had over his career.  Which just tells you how many products were released over a nearly 2 decade span through the 90-s and 00-s.  Bottom center is a Upper Deck Sweet Spot that is serial numbered, one aspect of the Thome collection that is somewhat lacking, a lot of serial numbered cards.

The rest of the 14 are featured above, the Prestigious Pros card adding to the serial #'d total.  The one card I really don't fancy all that much is the '07 Artifacts in the upper row center, with the old style typewriting font on the back, it looks too much like news print to me.  Just the opposite, the Donruss Kings Timeline card is great, featuring two artist renderings of Jim as both an Indian and a Phillie.

There were 10 cards from the '83 Topps FB set for my friend Chris, but I neglected to scan them before I moved them on to my friend, so no luck in showing them.

Finally, this is the 1st addition to the Blue Jays hits page I've made in over 18 months.

Very cool to get a certified autograph of Anthony Alford in the collection, but I will say that his auto is much like most modern athletes....too short.  It almost looks like he wrote "A of A"on the front of the card.   Nonetheless, it is good to update the Jays "hits" page after all this time.  Maybe when I get this run of sets I'm working on complete, I'll try and chase down a couple more autos of current Jays if I can find them cheaply.

Greg, thank you very much for the cards, they are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

Serial Saturday #31: Cheap Cards

Leave it to me, a person who loves cheap cards (who doesn't?) to find a seller on twitter with the handle Cheap Cards.  Joe holds sales usually Thursday through Saturday evenings, and I've been able to find a few cards here and there to add to my various collections.

Especially cheap serial #'d cards.  That's what Saturdays are about on the blog, right?

This week I have 5 more cards that I was able to add to the #'d/99 collection, all of which were purchased for less than the designated $2.50 ceiling.

I'm likely not going to find a lot of the current youthful Blue Jays squad #'d to 99 for less than $2.50, so I made do with this Aaron Sanchez gold press proof card for $2.  This scanned out pretty nice if you ask me...

My biggest fear about adding basketball cards to this collection is finding guys whose names I knew.  This post features 3 cards of guys who I do know, starting with this Brook Lopez purple Prizm from back in 2015-16.  Love how the purple looks and scans, and for $1 how could I go wrong.

I don't know much about him, but I do know the name Andrew Bogut, and similar to the two previous cards, this card scanned really well.  Doesn't hurt that there's the old fashioned "Traded to Mavericks" tagline on the card.

I will admit that my basketball curiosity started up again at the end of last season while the Raptors were making their run to the NBA title.  I had heard about the DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard trade the previous summer and that the Raptors had a good shot at winning it all.  I'd never heard of Serge Ibaka previously, but it appears that he's a vital part of the Raptor machine averaging 15 pts and 8 rebounds a game last year.

This Crown Royal card also had a great scan to it, and is the only cards that featured the serial number on the back...

Finally, the last card of this week's additions to the collection is a name I remember, but hadn't heard in quite a while, Jacquizz Rodgers of the Atlanta Falcons.  He didn't do too bad for a 5'6" RB, lasting 8 years in the NFL mostly as a depth performer.  This 2013 Rookies and Stars Longevity parallel also scanned well, with the serial number at the bottom clearly visible.

Finally this week, this next card doesn't fit the #'d to 99 set, but is a nice add for the Larry Fitzgerald collection.

2019 Panini XR blue parallel, #'d to 199 for $3 is a very nice add to the growing Fitzgerald PC.  The gold lettering didn't scan very well, but the blue popped nice and the red Cardinals logo also looks good.

$10 for this lot is a great deal as far as I'm concerned, and Joe's shipping is very fair priced and he doesn't skimp on the packaging as well.  So far he might be the best twitter shipper I've come across to date.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert