Week in review: Panic relief and the larger half

Before I show off a bunch of 1972 Topps cards that I believe you'll enjoy, have to relay a quick USPS story.  Well, I got another offer from repeat trade partner Mike (TCDB ID:49ants) who lives in CA.  2 for 2, quick and easy, with the key card coming my way being this Ichiro '09 Heritage Chrome

LOVE this card

His end arrives nice and quick, 4 days if I remember correctly.  I sent my end on the 12th of this month.  Mike sent me a message 10 days later, saying nothing had arrived yet.  Now I even paid the extra postage to send it as non-machinable, and was kind of surprised that my end hadn't arrived.  I replied and told him that I'd sent my end as always, PWE on the date that the transaction was updated.

I followed up on the 26th, 2 weeks after I had sent the envelope, asking if anything had arrived.  Nothing.   Now the panic starts to set in, as one of the cards I sent was a 2019 Topps black parallel, which would cost me a few bucks to replace.  Imagine my relief when he updates the trade on 29th as arrived.   17 days!  USPS trying to give me a heart attack!

OK, onward.  The larger half of my trade from Greg at the Collective Mind was a healthy lot of 1972 Topps.  So much so that I'm now above the halfway mark for the set!!  Let's take a look at the bounty.

5 sets of full page scans make up the first 45.  Most of these in the VG to VG-EX range, perfect for my collecting tastes. 

Trying to keep most of the scans reasonably even, I made the next scan just 6 cards.  Nice big rookie cup on the Steve Braun card, and the Sandy Alomar is a nice head shot in my opinion.

Had 11 horizontal cards, and it just worked out that there were 4 Rookie Stars cards and 4 team checklists, including the Yankees!  I remember when putting the '64 set together that the Yankees team card was one of the last, but certainly not one of the cheapest, so I was glad to get this one for this set out of the way early.

Billy Conigliaro was the last vertical card, so he wound up with the remaning 2 horizontal cards.  Love the AL ERA leaders card, all great pitching names, and the Ron Bryant In Action card shows something you don't see on cards much now (that I remember anyhow), and that's a bunt in progress.

Finally, a little Hammerin' Hank for you...

Joe Torre and Willie Stargell as well.   Great looking card, slightly miscut (you can see it plainly on the right hand side of the card), but I still love it.  This haul brings me up to 414 cards in hand, or just over 52% done.  A big lift which has made me a little more serious about completing the set relatively timely.  I'm sure that the high series cards will straighten me out quickly....

Greg, thank you very much for the trade, it really is appreciated!!   Look forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

Week in review: trades aplenty and some minor pack purchases

During my travels this week, I bought cards at Target a couple of times.  At the Target near my house, I bought one of those Fairfield repacks for $11.99 which contained 10 packs of hockey cards.  Nothing major in the 2 MVP 5 card packs, the 90-91 Pro Set series 2 pack was also fine, but I did pull a Martin Brodeur RC out of the 90-91 Score American pack that was inside...

Can Enterprise pick you up?

The remaining packs in the Fairfield were Upper Deck packs from 2016-17 to current, a nice deal, including a jumbo pack!  Those went into my hurricane stash of packs that I have accumulating at the bottom of my bookshelf. 

I had to hit Target one day at work to pick up some supplies for the office, and no visit is without a pack purchase.  Didn't see any hockey there, so I picked up a couple of packs of Panini Rookies & Stars football, and the first parallel I hit wasn't too shabby.

The Green didn't come out very well in the scan, needless to say it will be added to my trade bait on the TCDB website.  Speaking of TCDB, I mailed out 4 trade envelopes this week, at a cost of just under $6.  Incoming was a different story, as I received two packages from Canada, along with 3 others from the US.

One of the trades came from Washington state, and inside was 11 GQ Green parallels including these two key players, Trout and Judge.  I was worried that I might have to buy them as this set came to a close, but now I don't have that problem. 

The same trade netted me a nice add to the T.Y. Hilton collection, which is starting to grow nicely.

I see all types of collections out there, does anyone collect cards that feature the elements on them, such as the two cards in the middle row that have T.Y. running in the snow.   If you do, point me to some posts/scans so I can check them out.

Finally, one of the trades from Canada added a few older cards to my Joe Sakic collection, which is slowly inching it's way to the 800 card mark.

The Score card in the middle row?  That's a Kellogg's card from 91-92, a great food issue that I thought I might never see.  The 90-91 UD next to it is the French version, of which I have none.  Even with all the cards I have from the 90's of Joe, I'm still adding more with these 5.  Great stuff.

So, total spent this week was $26, knocked off wants from the Sakic, Potvin, Sundin and Olerud player collections, several set builds also had some cards added, and a bit of trade bait crossed my desk.

Card show tomorrow.  Hopefully find some cards to finish off the '83 Topps set, maybe some '79s as well.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

Week in review: Progress made on a couple of fronts

I've wanted for quite a while to start up the weekly review posts that I used to write on Friday's a long time ago.  Seeing as I'm dedicating to doing things this year such as finishing off 10 sets, I'm going to try and dedicate some of my energy to these Friday posts.

So, let's begin.

I went a few bucks over the mythical $30 spending limit, but unlike in the past where I spent it willy-nilly on crazy stuff, I'm working towards finishing a few sets.

$20 deposited in the COMC account helped me finish up the '82 Topps set, grab a few cards for the '83 Topps set, and have them shipped my way with just under $5 left in the account.

A couple more exhibits from a recent TCDB trade

Oh, and by the way, COMC raised their shipping rate for the economy shipping level to $4.99 at the beginning of the year.  Adjust accordingly...

Woke up this morning and turned on twitter, and lo and behold Beau (@onemillioncubs on twitter) had a link to his eBay auctions.  I've enjoyed reading his exploits as he heads towards his 1M card goal, so I clicked on the link.  To my surprise, the first card on his auction list was the Tony Gwynn '83 Topps RC.   Big Brother is definitely watching.

So along with a cheap Ryne Sandberg RC I had in my cart, and using the $4.25 eBay bucks I had accumulated, the 2 key pieces I had remaining for the '83 set are on their way for just over $12. 

Finally, off to the post office I went this morning to send off one trade envelope for $4, which will net me a couple of key cards in the '19 GQ Green parallel set that I needed, along with a nice boost to my T.Y. Hilton collection.  Hopefully I'll be able to show them off sometime toward the end of next week.

So, spent just over $36 this week, not too bad considering I have a nice bunch of cards headed my way. 

Fingers crossed that I can keep up these Friday posts...

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

Week in review: A little purging is necessary

Posting this week has been a little sporadic.  An odd work schedule for me this week is a big reason for that.  Having to get up at 3 in the morning on Wednesday, and then 330 AM today has really messed with my sleeping habits. 

So, instead of having 6 posts like I normally would, I sacrificed a couple of posts and got some sleep.  You could say that I purged the need to post every night.

Another need for purging came to me last week.  I felt the need to start cleaning up and organizing the multitude of monster boxes that I have lying around in my bedroom.  There are so many partial sets that haven't been looked at in almost a decade that it kind of made me a little sick to my stomach.  I even have a monster box that is starting to fall apart; even cardboard that gets moved around a lot over a 15 year period is going to take a beating.

My goal was to take the cards that were in that box and either start putting sets together, or get rid of the cards.   I didn't have the heart to throw the cards out, that didn't seem right.  Having become more charitable over the past couple of years (thanks to my wife), I started thinking about donating some of the excess.  I then remembered reading a long time ago about an organization that accepts donations and gets the cards out to children.

Commons4kids.org was the right thing for me.   I gathered about 1000 cards, boxed them up, and sent them off.  For the price of postage, I freed up some room, and did something good (in my opinion) for the hobby.  Hopefully there is a kid or two out there that will get some enjoyment out of these cards and become a future collector.

I'm sure that as I look through more boxes I will find more stuff to donate, but clearing out a little more than one row from a 5000 count monster box is a good start. 

I have to start making room for stuff that comes in that I want to have as part of my collection, like this..

An '84 Fleer sticker of Dave Collins.  The 1984 season was probably the best of Collins' career, hitting 15 triples and stealing 60 bases.  The back of this sticker was an interesting boast by Fleer...

"Collect Fleer trading cards, rated best in '84!"  I went to a more reliable source to see if this was the truth.

Turns out they were right.  What do I know?

Total spent on the hobby this week:  $0

It looks as if I'll be on the cheap for a few weeks (hopefully) until the big Robert Morris card show in Pittsburgh the 3rd week of May. 

thanks for reading, Robert

Week in review: On the cheap again

I spent a good portion of the week enjoying the great envelopes that came my way, with the majority of cards inside hitting the want lists over many different years and sets. 

To be honest, I really didn't have to spend any money this week if I didn't want to, but I decided to work on one of my hockey want lists, and purchased 5 of the final 6 cards that I needed from the 1999-00 Upper Deck MVP silver signature set.  I just purchased them on Wednesday, so I don't expect them to hit my doorstep until some time next week.   The only card I need to complete the set is Mike Richter, card #133. 

I still have quite a few cards to display from a trio of envelopes that came in this week, but I wanted to show one card in particular:

A.O.

Thanks to Nick at the great Dime Boxes blog, I'm now one card closer to completing my '73 Topps set.  I'm debating whether I will head up to Strongsville, Ohio on Saturday to hit a card show.  It's about a 90 minute drive, but from what I've heard it's one of the better shows for vintage cards.  I already checked with my better half to see if she had any plans for me this weekend (luckily that was a no), so now I think it's going to be one of those times where I'll go if I feel up to it when I get up on Saturday. 

Total spent on cards this week:  $8.88

Yea, the 5 silver signature cards cost me that much because one of them is a Wayne Gretzky.  The shipper was cool and with the 5 auctions came free shipping, which I couldn't pass up.  I'll be sure to show them off on the hc blog when they arrive.

Thanks for reading, and happy Friday!   Robert

Week in review: It's all about the new

When I say new, I mean new Blue Jays cards.  At least they are new to me.   That's all that happened in my little corner of the world this week.   Included among the great stuff that came my way during the past 7 days was this Roy Halladay card:

Now I really couldn't tell you if this is Roy's rookie card or not.  Never the less, this card is great, and I'm glad that I own it.  I'm also hoping that Roy joins the Level of Excellence with other great Blue Jays players in the not too distant future.

To update, the Blue Jays want list is now about 95% finished.   All I have to do is update the 2013 and 2014 want lists by removing the cards I already own, and with any luck, that should happen this weekend.


Speaking of want lists, you may or may not have noticed that the hockey based want lists/PCs are no longer at the top of the blog.  You can now find them here.  I hope that you'll enjoy this new hockey (card) blog endeavor, because it's something that I have wanted to start for quite a while now.  

Total spent on the hobby this week:  $0.00 

I'm still recovering from the card show spending from a couple of weeks ago.  I doubt I'll be hitting the stores to pick up Heritage, but maybe a trip through Sportlots will be the ticket this weekend.

thanks for reading, Robert

Week in review: Spent a little bit more than one week's budget

When card shows come around, I tend to let loose.  After all, if I only took $30 to a show to spend on the sets I'm currently working on, I wouldn't get very far.  So I spend a little bit more, load up on cards, and try to spend the next few weeks playing catch up by spending less.

Being able to spend a little more money allows me to make purchases like the following:

Love the sleeveless jerseys.  I wouldn't mind seeing more of those around baseball

Ron Willis looks kind of spaced out

I wonder how Dave Ricketts was able to wear those glasses under his catchers mask.

The majority of these cards were either 50 or 75 cents.  The Don Sutton at the bottom was $1 because of the crease that you can plainly see dividing his face in half. 

My favorite card of the bunch?  3rd scan, top left corner, Ted Savage.   Love the old school bear cub logo on the sleeve.   A close 2nd is the Bob Rodgers in the last scan. 

These 28 cards brought me to a total of 98 cards owned for the '68 set.  Exactly 500 to go!  I only need another 22 more cards to hit the goal of having 20% of the set owned by years end.  The '68 is a little more wallet friendly than the '62, so I am likely going to be pursuing this set a little more vigorously.  The burlap design is also growing on me quickly as I obtain more cards.

Total amount spent this week:  $90

I only spent $60 of that at the show, the other $30 was spent in a moment of weakness at Wal Mart last weekend on a bunch of cards encased in metal.  Another bad habit I'll describe in tomorrow's post.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Week in review: Close on a couple of fronts

I decided to take today off so I could enjoy a 3 day weekend.  With the weather finally starting to turn the corner a little bit, it was nice to get out of the house for an hour or two with the mrs., even if it meant having to run a couple of errands.

Those errands were in the early afternoon, which meant I had the morning to continue work on the Blue Jays piles on my desk.

Let me correct that.   Pile.

Yes, I've finally cut a swath through the massive piles of cards, and am down to roughly 100 cards to go before they are either removed from the want list, or found to be one of the many duplicates that I have.   Even with 24 days to go before my self imposed deadline, the goal of having these cards cataloged and the want list up to date is very close at hand.

Speaking of close, I received the 2nd part of my Sportlots order today, and I'm now 12 cards closer to completing the 2008-09 OPC set.

One of my favorite players to ever wear the #27, Frank Mahovlich, is in the upper right corner.  Great card except that he's wearing the dreaded CH instead of the blue and white.  Shack and Bower on the bottom row more than make up for that.   I wish that there were more coaches cards in products like OPC; instead of spitting out the same retired players every year, put all 30 coaches into a set.  For me it would be a nice change.

Even with OPC, the rookie lottery is in play.  You just never know what you're going to get with the RC's.  Joey Mormina played 1 game in the NHL.   Erik Ersberg played 3 years in the NHL, and now plays in the KHL.  Mattias Ritola played 43 games over parts of 4 seasons, and is now back in his native Sweden.  Jack Hillen has had an OK career so far, playing in 257 games with 4 clubs.  Brassard and Abdelkader are both NHL regulars, but neither are top 6 forwards. 

I guess that's why I got these SPs on the cheap....

Money spent this week: $15.36

That means that I have a little extra to spend on the show this weekend.  Now if I can only figure out what my plan of attack is for tomorrow, I'll be all set.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Week in review: I didn't know Topps was still doing this

I splurged this week.  Part of my trip down south was a trip to the Hard Rock Casino.  After a successful visit to the blackjack tables, I decided to treat myself and purchase a hobby box of 2014 series 1.  I'll share a couple of cards that I didn't expect to pull out of the box.

A couple of years back when I bought a hobby box of  Heritage, I pulled a buy back card of Chuck Hiller from '62 Topps.  I remember being happy about the card, except for the giant foil logo that Topps pasted on it.

About halfway through this years' hobby box, I pulled this card.

I have this card already for the '73 set I'm putting together (sporadically), but I have to check to see if this is an upgrade.  I'm thinking it probably is.  To be honest, I don't even mind the Topps 75th logo in the upper right corner.  For me, it really doesn't take much away from the card.

In the next pack, I was shocked to pull this card. 

Even with the 75th anniversary logo in the upper right corner, this is the nicest '57 that I own.   I've only purchased a handful over the past couple of years, but sometime down the road this is a set that I'd like to try and put together.  There is only a very small crease in the top center of the front, but other than that this card is in great shape.

Total spent on cards this week:  $65 + tax

Yea, it's probably more than I should have spent, but it was "found money", and I didn't have to wait for the box to be shipped.  Plus spending money at a  B&M card dealer is probably a good idea every once in a while. 

I may have pulled a pink, a black, and a few red parallels, but for me these were the best pulls of the box.

Now it's time to put the set together.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Week in review: 44 dollars made me holler

My goal to bring back the weekly review was kind of derailed the past couple of Fridays.   Last Friday, it was because I was driving towards the frozen Canadian tundra.  Two weeks ago, my Friday evening was consumed by work, and by the time I arrived home I had no desire to write a post.

Both of those posts likely would have been dull anyhow, because the amount that I spent on cards during each of those weeks was the same.

$0.00

To be honest there was nothing I really wanted to pick up.  Series 1 didn't come out until this week, and with no card shows around there was no ready vintage for me to buy.

This brings me to last Saturday.  While sitting inside my friends house in the frozen north, I decided to hit eBay.  With a couple of weeks worth of my budget available to use, I decided to hunt for something that I needed for my '64 Topps set.

After about 20 minutes, I found this...

No, it's not a reprint.  Here's the back...

Yes, it's off center on the back.

The front has a couple of creases, and the corners aren't the greatest. 

After using the $20 in my Paypal account and shelling out $44 more, this card is now mine, and I couldn't be happier.

All my qualms at the beginning of my pursuit of the '64 Topps set are pretty much gone.  Seeing cards that list for hundreds of dollars in the magazine come my way for a fraction of the listed prices proved to me that if you're not incredibly fussy about condition, a vintage set can be completed if you're patient.

And yes, I did let out a bit of a yell when I pulled this out of the envelope.  How could I not?

It's the Mick.

Thanks for reading, Robert

The week in review: holding tight so far

It's only been a week and a half since the start of the new year, but I've done well in the first 10 days to keep to the New Years goals I set.  If the past is any indication, I'll get the itch for pack busting in the next week or 2.  I did manage to avoid grabbing a pack during my visit to Wal-Mart this evening, so there's progress so far.

Money spent on the hobby this week:  $45.00

I did well at the show last weekend, only hitting the one table, and sticking with the plan of only buying vintage.  If you read the blog at all this week, you saw the cards I was able to add from the show.

Best card of the week:  Melky Cabrera '13 Bowman Chrome green parallel refractor

I'm sure there's a lot of you saying "how can this be better than all of that vintage you bought?"

Well, that's a good question.  To be honest, I just got this card today from Pat at the Hot Corner Cards blog (I have a couple of PWE's for you btw Pat....), and it jumped right at me.

The scan doesn't do it justice, it really is a great looking card.   It's also a Blue Jay, and even better it is something that I wasn't expecting.   The cards that come to you out of the blue are the best, aren't they??  thank you for the PWE's Pat!!!

The Phil Dunphy Challenge:   This has been good for me.  I've been on the elliptical for 13 straight evenings, and I'm finally hit 20 minutes in this evening's session (believe me, that's good for this guy....).  I was going to post my daily results on the blog, but then I thought better of it because this is all about the cards here.  I do post daily on my Facebook page however.  The total mileage so far is 15.1 miles, which leaves me with just under 197 miles to go.  I'll keep you up to date on the weekly recap.  

Thanks for reading, Robert

The return of the weekly review

It's always weird when you have a holiday in the middle of the work week.  For me, it kind of breaks the week up into two shorter ones. 

What did I learn this week?  The power that is Phil Dunphy and the Modern Family TV show.

You may remember that my 7th goal for 2014 was a personal fitness goal, using the TV character as the inspiration.  That post was 2 days ago, and so far it has 271 hits.

HUH???  I'll get anywhere from 20-60 hits on a post, depending on the subject matter (very few people read the SNI posts....)  The crazy spike in Wednesday's post can only be from the mention of Phil.

Anyhow, what happened collection wise this week?  I spent a good portion of last night sorting through the two giant stacks of Blue Jays cards on my desk, and made some good headway.  I found the 4 gold parallels from 2013 you see in the scan below.

I also found a Bowman international parallel (I believe that is what they're called) of Jake Marisnick, who was part of the huge trade with the Marlins last year....

I do like this parallel, I'm partial to the US flag...

The last of the "important" finds in the first stack that I went through was this '87 Donruss card of Glenallen Hill.   Why is it important?  It finishes the '87 Donruss team set.  It's nice to get another team set out of the way.  It felt good to get started on the Jays goal of getting the want list updated and on the blog by the end of the first quarter of this year.

Amount spent on the hobby this week:  $0.00

That's good, because the monthly card show is tomorrow, and I'll need some extra funds for that.

I'm also on the 3rd day of being "retail free".  I mentioned that to my wife this evening, and told her that she's responsible if I crack.  (try to keep the spit take to a reasonable distance...)

26 days until the release of 2014 Topps series 1....

thanks for reading, Robert