78 Topps is also in my sights

Following up on yesterday's post, Adam also sent a nice lot of '78 Topps cards, another set which until the past 2 weeks I thought I had no shot of finishing this year, but things have changed a bit recently. 

Now there's still 136 cards on the want list, and with the Eddie Murray RC part of that list, this may not happen in 2019, but with the way my luck has been recently with trades and generosity such as Adam's, who knows?

Oakland is heavily represented in the first 3 scans, as 5 of the green and gold warriors found their way here.  Maybe my favorite card of the first 27 is the Roy White card, a nice action shot of Roy just after contact.  Not sure but maybe that's Carlton Fisk behind the plate?

2nd scan.  Dick Pole.  Commence snickering....

Love the Al Oliver card, him sitting in the dugout with his elbow resting on his batting helmet, just waiting for his turn to pick up one of his 2743 hits. 

Had no idea that Donnie Moore was a Cub.  My memories of him were as a closer for the Angels, and the unfortunate circumstances of his death.  Interesting to note that while he spent pretty much his entire career as a reliever, he wasn't a bad hitter.  16 hits in 57 AB's, including 2 doubles and 2 triples!

I remember Len Barker as an Indian, throwing a perfect game against the Jays in '81.  Buck Martinez is still the play by play voice of Blue Jays TV broadcasts, it seems like he's been doing that for an eternity. 

Dwight Evans without a mustache just doesn't look the same to me...

I miss the days of light hitting, great glove middle infielders such as Fred Stanley and Denny Doyle.  Manny Sanguillen's only season away from Pittsburgh was 1977, when he played for the A's.  He actually led the A's in hits in '77.  I had no idea that he was traded to the A's for Chuck Tanner. 

To finish off the envelope, and continue the theme from yesterday, there were a couple of '83 checklists in there that I needed...

Adam, thank you very much for the cards, they are greatly appreciated!!   A link to his want lists for all just in case you may have something he needs...

Thanks for reading!

Robert

'81 Topps is in the sights

I had mentioned in my post last Sunday about getting one card closer to the '81 Topps set, and the next day I received an email from long time blogger Adam who mentioned that he had a bunch of cards that he could send my way, along with some '78s as well.

This certainly was a fun envelope to go through, as you'll see in a few seconds.   There's 11 scans coming your way....

Apparently, most of the cards I had on my '81T want lists were checklists.  There's 3 already.  As you can see, it's not just commons he sent my way, there's some star power as well.

The middle of these 3 scans is the key one, featuring both the Gibson and Baines RCs!  Nothing cheap about this big batch of cards.  Oh, and checklist #4 as well. 

More checklists, although now we have the team variety.  A dozen of these arrived as well.  Interesting that they couldn't get the Cubs together for a team photo, so they all just got their heads on the card instead.

The last scan has both a bird and a hawk in it.  I'm guessing the Art Howe photo was taken during spring training, because home whites and outdoors back in 1980 weren't a thing for the Astros. 

Lots of black and white White Sox uniform shots on the scans.   Both different colors of the Pirates hat on display (black and gold).

When I took a quick glance at the Bobby Brown card, I thought the picture was of Dwight Gooden. 

Never knew that Bucky Dent made an All-Star team.  I thought he was famous only for his HR against the Red Sox.  Saw Don Baylor's card and was reminded that he left this Earth way too soon.

Don't remember Al Holland as a Giant.   Loved seeing cards of Tom Seaver, Pedro Guerrero and Ron Cey.  Ron LeFlore could run...455 stolen bases in just 9 seasons.  This was the only season that Topps released a card of him as an Expo (he actually had 3 in the 1981 set), while OPC had updated his 1980 card to show that he was on the Expos but featured him in his Tigers uniform.

This fantastic group of cards turned '81 Topps from a maybe I'll finish this year to a "better get it done this year" status.  Just 46 cards left to go to finish this up, and I bought 8 of those this morning on COMC.  

It'll happen.

Tomorrow, the other half of Adam's envelope...

Thanks for reading!

Robert

He ain't Crazie, he's my brother

Fellow blogger, and now 2 time trade partner Joe (TCDB ID:CrazieJoe) recently swapped some cards with me; about 2 dozen went traveled about 1600 miles in each direction to get to their intended target.

It's quite easy trading with Joe, as our interests are very similar.  Blue Jays and hockey are the common thread, and while I sent Joe a few duplicate parallels of Jays, he sent me some hockey cards that are new to my eyes.

A lonely 2000-01 Topps Heritage card featuring Andrew Brunette starts off the scan.  I know it's probably going to be a long time before I find a trade partner to put a big dent into that set, but at least there will be 1 fewer card on the want list when I do find them. 

2007-08 OPC was a set that I was excited about collecting when it was released over a decade ago, and I wish that I had kept after it back then.  But my knowledge about where to find cards on the net has increased exponentially since then, and now I'm looking forward to continuing on the path to putting that set together.  

The 2009-10 OPC build has grown a lot quicker than I thought it would originally.  I had hoped to find a starter set on ebay or at a show sometime in the past year, but that hasn't happened.  I've wound up already acquiring about a third of the set through trades, and these 15 cards make a nice little dent into that want list.  No major names in this group, but there's lots of color (especially red), and the vintage Penguins uniform that Ruslan Fedotenko is sporting is a favorite of mine.

This trade with Joe brings me to within 10 of my 2019 goal of 100 trades, as I now have 90 in the bank.   With 1/3 of the calendar to go this year, this one is in the bag....

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

Thanks for reading!!

Robert

Football season is upon us

Last year I decided to dip my toe in the waters again and try to build one football set.   Prestige might not have been the wisest choice, as I think I've only recieved a couple of small trades to advance that set closer to completion.

This year, I decided to go a bit more low level and started on the 2019 Donruss football set, which resembles it's baseball cousin.

Had to scan a card with Mitchell on it

Love the look of the base set, like how the stripes near the team logo are the team's colors.  The base set is also manageable at 350 cards, with the RCs numbered from 251-300 and the Rated Rookies from 301-350. 

I bought a couple of the retail yellow hanger boxes, the ones that contain a jersey card inside, and I didn't do too badly.

Within a week of getting this card, Clowney has already been traded to the Seahawks to bolster their defensive line. 

There's also a ton of inserts and parallels, like most sets these days.  I have a few of the red press proofs and a few of the blues as well...

What's nice for guys like me who enjoy modern product but don't go totally insane over it, is that Donruss made the variations easy to spot...

The card numbers have the letter "V" below them.  Makes it a lot easier for novices such as me....

I haven't opened everything that I plan to open for Donruss football, as I have my hurricane stash ready, and that includes one of the 30 card packs that have the blue parallels inside.  If and when we get hit, I'm going to start posting a few packs here and there to pass the time....

Stay tuned...
 
Thanks for reading!

Robert

Playing the waiting game

Took a couple of weeks away from posting again, mostly because I didn't have a lot of things to say or write about.

But now there's a little storm in the Bahamas that is headed our way.  Dorian is her name.

And the next few days are going to be fun.  As of this writing, the maximum sustained winds are 180 MPH.   The storm should get a speeding ticket....

While we're waiting for this to ride through, or away depending on what part of the spaghetti model you prefer to enjoy, I have one trade envelope that arrived yesterday to show off.   Regular TCDB trade partner Bill (TCDB ID: minibbcards) snapped up the few minis that I offered up from the 2019 A&G release, and in return I was able to knock off 4 cards from a trio of want lists.

Early 80's to begin.  I remember the name Rick Ownbey, but I don't recall watching him pitch.  Now that Reggie Jackson fellow, yea I remember watching him with a few different teams during the last decade of his career.  The '81 Topps set build is starting to wind down a bit, as I'm down to 135 cards to go to finish the set. 

I have a few sets that are starting to close in on completion, and now with the final 3rd of the 2019 calendar year upon us, I'm hoping that '78, '79, '81, '82 and '83 Topps sets can be completed.  Combined, I need 702 cards to finish them all off.  Might be a bit lofty, but we'll see if I can snag another big trade or 2 on the TCDB site to put a dent into those.

The 3rd card that was to come my way was from the '69 Topps set (one of my faves), and as a bonus, I received a 2nd '69!

Any time you can get a League Leaders card in a deal, especially with names like Tiant, McLain and McDowell on it, it's hard to pass on it.  Bernie Allen's card was the added bonus, another low number off the want list, which is still quite extensive as I'm barely over 28% done with the set. 

I'm hoping to get another post or two completed while I'm shuttered in during the storm.  We were lucky during Irma a couple of years ago and never lost power, so I'm hoping with the projected path we're going to do the same during this storm.

Thanks for reading, and have a great long holiday weekend!

Robert