The player collections are filling out nicely

I remember within the past couple of days on twitter Tanner asking when was the last time you traded and what was the deal.  If I had to write one specific trade in response, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I wound up tweeting this:

Currently have 10 trades on the go at

@tradingcarddb

. Having too much fun there to worry about Project 2020, Bowman, or any of the other craziness that I'm seeing on card Twitter right now.

That was the truth for me, I'm truly getting a lot of enjoyment out of making trades on TCDB because I've traded off a lot of doubles and inserts that I'll never need or look at, and getting cards in return that have helped me build sets, or fill out player collections.

These 3 trades today will help illustrate that...

New trading partner Andrew (TCDB ID: nkandy11), sent me a single card for 3 of my player collections, including the Omega 2000 John Olerud that I think is a nice shot of him just releasing his bat right after that great swing of his.  The Andrew McCutchen almost looks like he's in a Yankees uniform rather than his road grays from the Pirates.  I kind of liked the garish orange that the Marlins had for a couple of years, so much so that I almost went out and bought a jersey.   Almost.

I don't normally go for 1 for 1 trades, but new trade partner Chris (TCDB ID: clutchcity52) didn't have anything else available that matched my want lists, so we broke the ice with a straight up deal that netted me the Golden Moments Andrew McCutchen above.

This is one of those cards you look at and say "don't I have this already?" and then you go to the binder and it's not there.

Last up is a trio of hockey PC cards from Bill (TCDB ID:wbaker01), including a 98-99 Black Diamond triple diamond #'d/1000.  Felix Potvin and his cat mask is another that I won't get tired of seeing new cards for; I'm sure I've mentioned in the past that he's my favorite goalie that played for the Leafs during my lifetime (and there's been a lot of goalies in those 50+ years).

Thank you to all for the trades, they are appreciated!!  Lots more still coming in as well....

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

The post office was just Josh-ing me

Panic. Anxiety.  I felt them both on Monday waiting for some envelopes to arrive in the mail, both PWE and bubble mailers.

One of them was from long time trade buddy Josh from the very quiet Royals and Randoms blog.  I've always enjoyed trading with Josh, as he's quite friendly, and very generous as well.

A couple of dozen Royals of varying years, colors and varieties made their way to the west coast, and Josh knocked down a bunch of A&G wants from 2017.

But while I'm showing off the 44 cards in scan form, I'm going to relay my latest post office story for your amusement.

Along with Josh's 44 A&G cards, I was waiting on 2 other envelopes.  What I love about trading now is the tracking IDs, so I can keep an eye on (OCD like) the packages as they make their way to S. Florida.

I'm on the early shift this month, working 715-1615, and I don't see any texts from the P.O. stating that my packages were delivered.  This was not a major deal as I'm so close to the office that we're on the end of the carrier's route.  Not uncommon for the mail to arrive around 6 PM.

The wife and I have a beer, chat for a bit and have our dinner.  As is our custom lately, once dinner is complete we sit down and watch the Great British Baking Show on Netflix.  I don't do reality shows much, and I'm by no means a baker, but I am really enjoying watching this, as we're on our 5th season already after just under a month of watching.

7 PM rolls around, still no texts.  Not unusual either, as sometimes transmission of the delivery scan lags well behind the actual delivery.  I go to check the mailbox, empty.  I look to the east on our street, and see the mailman on the other side, 4 houses down.  I know from experience when seeing this that it's another 45-60 minutes before he hits our house.

Watch another baking show episode, takes us to 8PM.  No texts.  Now I have to know what's going on.  Look at the postal website, and both the tracking IDs I have an eye on have been returned to the post office with "incomplete address" scans on them.

What a load of crap!!  The driver couldn't finish his route, so he scanned them like that to save his arse.  I got a kick out of it though and told my wife as it happened.

So while I'm working Tuesday morning, at precisely 818, my phone starts blowing up with texts.

The previous day's mail was delivered, 3 bubble mailers and 2 PWE's.  The cards you see above are in one, along with a welcome Blue Jays relic.

I saw the X on the back and thought it might be a die cut that I needed from the 2008 set.  This definitely works too!!  I've kind of stayed away from the Jays a lot, as storage problems will become an issue if I keep going after all the base cards.  Getting relics and autos are much easier to store, as there aren't many coming my way.

Josh sent 3 other cards, which I'll feature on Saturday as they fit that that day's theme quite well.

Great stuff Josh, thank you very much!!

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

dAndy

Sometimes the end result of waiting for a long time for a trade to come in is well worth the wait.  Case in point with this trade from multiple time trade partner Andy (TCDB ID: andyroy) who sent me a big helping of cards to make a few want lists shrink quite nicely.

I still remember sitting at a kitchen table with a buddy of mine 30 years ago, ripping open a box of these cards.  We split the proceeds in half, and they promptly went in one of my many monster boxes and sat for over 2 decades.  I finally decided to get a want list going about 18 months ago, and piece by piece this want list has shrank.

I just looked at the want list, and it's down to just 29 cards, much less than I thought.  This set is definitely on the radar now for completion as the task is a lot less daunting than I imagined.  I'll get that done sometime in 2020.....for sure??

The 85-86 OPC set build is the exact opposite of its counterpart above, as it only has 34 cards in hand as of now.  I'm finally starting to get some in here and there via trading, but it's been a very slow process for this set, which is probably my favorite from the 80's.

The only portion of the trade that saw any baseball come my way was these three cards for the Thome and Olerud collections.  The Olerud collection is starting to pick up a little since I expanded the want list, and it's just a handful of cards shy of the 200 mark.   Thome's collection, which I've been working on for much longer, is now 20 cards from hitting 600, and I had to add a 2nd binder as the first one was just too overloaded and a bit tough to manage each time I opened it.

The last scan is nearly a full page of needs for my various hockey collections, including a much appreciated Mitch Marner card from the 2017-18 Tim Horton's set.

This envelope actually arrived via the Pony Express, as it was mailed in April and didn't arrive until Friday of last week, about 5 weeks enroute.  In the end, it was worth the wait.

Thank you for the trade Andy, it is appreciated!  Looking forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

Trades aplenty

There was a bit of a lull in trading for a while on the home front, totally understandable with all that's gone on the past couple of months.  But business has picked up again, and I've got a trio of small trades to show off this evening.

First up is three cards from new trade partner Wayne (TCDB ID: family1), who took some 2003 Topps inserts off of my hands and sent me some Olerud and Thome PC cards.

I had to look closer at the third card, the Upper Deck hitters club card, to see what it was that is written halfway up the card.  Apparently, UD thought it a good idea to have Jim's career batting average stenciled on his hip pocket.  At least .287 was a reasonably good enough number to have there, it could have been a lot worse.

Another 3 card trade was care of another new trade partner, J.D. (TCDB ID: CSUBiochem).  J.D. took some cards off my hands and set me these from this years homage to '85 Topps.

This set is coming along OK, I'm now up to 37 out of the 100 cards, but it's also not a major priority at the moment as there's plenty of other sets on the go.

Last but not least is another trade with a 3rd new trade partner, Dan (TCDB ID: DMarcketta), who sent me these 2 Green GQ beauties.

This green set has been a favorite since I laid eyes on it last year, and the amount of cards I've pulled in already may be testament to that love.  231 out of 300 are in hand and I have 3 more on the way from another trade in process.  There's a good shot of getting this completed this year if I set my mind to it.

Thank you to all 3 for the trades, they are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!!

Robert

Going my own way

If there's been one good thing that has happened during the COVID-19 pandemic/lockdown/work from home period that has been the last 2 months is that my card collecting process has finally evolved to what it probably should have been a couple of years ago.

I've kind of gotten sick of pack ripping.  Sick of hunting for packs on big box store shelves, only to find them picked over and searched by assholes (yea, I used that word...apologies to those who are offended).

I went to Target Saturday morning, first time in almost a month.   Nothing has changed when it comes to visiting the store; I go and find the items I need, and then hit the card aisle last before checking out.  What I saw was kind of pitiful.

• All the clamor that has been Bowman over the past couple of weeks, no sign of it at all.
• It barely looked touched/restocked.  If it had been restocked, all there was for jumbo packs was Heritage, MVP hockey, and a bit of GQ
• Blasters were minimal as well; the only one that I touched was 18-19 OPC hockey, and I put it down right away because I thought I could do better with that $20

It also made me think.  I'm really happy with how my collection is progressing.  I've been completing sets at a good rate so far in 2020, and I'm hoping to have 3 more completed in June when some orders arrive.  I've also revisited a couple of sites that I slowed down on using for card shopping, one of them being Sportlots.

I hit up a reliable seller that I've used many times in the past for hockey card needs and decided to start picking up some OPC short prints for a pair of sets I'm working on.

Clint (Sportlots ID: ctcdork) has a great selection of cards at reasonable prices.  I decided to grab a bunch of SPs, starting with the 8 above from the 2009-10 OPC set.  My thought process has changed a bit on building these "older" OPC sets, I'm actually going after chunks of the SPs first before finishing up with the base cards.  I still need 313 cards for this set, but only 37 of them are SPs, and I'll probably keep buying them up before chasing more trades to finish up the set.

Because when I do it the other way, like I did with 2013-14 OPC...

I end up having to buy a bunch of SPs at the end, usually leaving me frustrated (or pissed, you choose the word you prefer) when I need a bunch of them and hate having to pay prices I don't want to pay.

It may sound like a backward way of thinking, but I kind of wish I had started with the more expensive cards from a vintage baseball set such as '59 Topps, because I spent a lot of time building up "numbers" of cards, and now have hit pretty much a screeching halt because I have nothing but high dollar cards left to go.

But that's all water under the bridge.  Saving money on packs right now is helping me focus more on trying to complete a boatload of sets I've been working on, and I go back to the immense joy I had when I finished my '64 Topps set, and I'm looking to get more of that in the coming weeks and months.

Venting over.  I'm going my own way...come along if you wish.

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!!

Robert

Serial Saturday #37: More cheap cards

Somehow in the midst of all the craziness that's going on with the post office now, I was able to receive my latest bubble mailer of cards from Joe, whom I know as @cheapcardsales on Twitter.  The moniker is perfect for my type of buying, as Joe usually has some very good deals on cards, and his shipping rates are also very reasonable.

The 4 cards in this envelope that fit the Saturday theme are all #'d out of 99, bringing that mini collection up to 57 cards.

All 4 cards this week are color themed, starting with this bright purple Prizm from 2014 that features Derek Holland of the Texas Rangers.  Serial #'d 47/99 on the back and like anything Prizm related, the purple really scans well and looks good in hand.

Big Mac!  Haven't seen many parallels featuring Mark McGwire for cheap, and grabbing this green one from 2019 Topps Tribute was a no brainer for me.  Yes, I'm still keeping to the $2.50 max price for these cards.

This is the orange parallel from the 2019 Panini Rookies & Stars set featuring the Chargers Keenan Allen.  The scan really looks more red than orange but it still fits the bill, serial #'d 70/99.   I like the photo, as it appears that there's a couple of Ravens well behind Keenan.  Couldn't happen to a better team!

Another orange parallel, and what I believe is the first insert as part of the #'d/99 collection, Julio Jones is a star that I couldn't resist having in hand.  2nd straight card from the 2019 Panini Rookies and Stars set, the Rookies & Stars logo is the only part that is orange, and again scanned red.

I think I'm going to try and see if I can collect all the serial #'s 1 through 99 in this collection, a small homage to the Serial Numbered Insanity set I finished a few years back.  Why not?  What's another project added to all the others I have going.

Thank you for the cards Joe, I appreciate what you're doing in offering these up for cheap.

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert