Tuesday Mail Day and a Contest

Listia is a nice and easy way of getting rid of some cards that you can't find a taker for as long as you don't mind paying the postage.  I, for one, don't mind at all.

Why?

Because I'm going to use those credits to find cards that I do want to add to my collection and the "seller" will pick up the postage.  Essentially, it boils down to this:

junk cards + postage = cool cards!

Sold.  Every. Single. Time.

I had two different purchases arrive in my mailbox today and both added to my player collections while providing some trade fodder for down the road.

 First up, some 1993 Upper Deck Grand Slam cards!  I now have the Sandberg to add to my collection and...

The aforementioned trade bait of Will Clark, Darryl Strawberry, Joe Carter, Robin Yount, and Danny Tartabull (not pictured).

The second package featured four cards from the 2009 Topps Finest set.  Eric Chavez, Jermaine Dye, and Stephen Drew are behind my newest Kosuke Fukudome card.  

These are some slick looking cards on the whole and I really like the backs.  The reverse sides contain the basic biographical information, a good-sized team logo, career stat lines, and a trivia question to boot.

How about a quick-n-dirty contest? 

Rules:
1. Give me the name of the manager.
2. Tell me the year the game took place.
3. List your favorite team and player(s).

Be the first one with the correct answers (according to Topps) for parts #1 and #2 wins and you win!

Prize:
The Chavez, Dye, and Drew Finest cards AND whatever cards I can find laying around from your favorite team and/or player will go out in a bubble mailer with your name on it!

For the record, the trivia questions are multiple choice style on the back of the Finest cards, but I thought I'd see what kind of trivia buffs and/or research hounds we have out there in the blogosphere by omitting the multiple guess section of the card.

Heck, I can think of one blogger, just based by his name alone, who will probably know the answer off the top of his head!

Good luck!

'13 Bowman Packages

I completed a trade with Ryan, from "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog, the other day and he sent me some 2013 Bowman FrankenSet help.  I went to my checklist right away and was disappointed that nothing he sent me was new.  I filed the cards away and went and had dinner. 

Then I thought, "That's not like Ryan at all.  What gives?"

So I went back to the e-mail describing the trade and it appeared I was on board with the trade at the time.  Huh.  So, I pulled out my binder and discovered that there were empty spots for all of the cards!  I must have pre-crossed them off before receiving them in my haste to have an updated list before attending the last card show.  That's totally like me.

Thanks for helping out my FrankenSet project, Ryan!

Here's the inventory of four golds and two hometown parallels from the biggest O's fan I know:

And the now completed pages:

You'll notice that the pages are pretty heavy on the gold parallels.  If you're sitting on a blue, orange, or hometown parallel and are wondering if I'd be interested, the answer is "Yes."  If you have a silver ice card, then the answer is "YES!"  I do love the sparkly cards!

In other news, a PWE (plain white envelope) made an appearance in the mailbox today.  Nothing too crazy, but totally appreciated. 

This one was a generous offering from Judson, of My Cardboard Habit, and it was the last base card I needed to finish off the veteran portion of the 2013 Bowman set!    Thanks, Judson!

Last Touches on My Player Collections

I just finished up cataloging my Kerry Wood baseball card collection. There's a total of 188 in my collection, and 71 from my collection were issued in '99.  That means a whopping 38% are from one of the nineteen years that Wood has had cards on the market. 

Huh, why the lopsidedness?  Let's see... Wood was named Rookie of the Year in '98, he struck out twenty Astros in only his 5th major league start, and helped the Cubs reach the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade.  Yeah.  So he had a bunch of cards on the market in 1999 as a result.  Meanwhile, I was a first year teacher and coach who didn't know anyone in the middle of the cornfields of Illinois.  Translation: what else was I going to do in my down time?

A sample of my KW collection that hangs in the Man Cave.

Anyways, I now have my three main player collections all uploaded to Google Docs.  Quite an accomplish for this humble little card collector!  If you find any cards of Ryne Sandberg, Kosuke Fukudome, or Kerry Wood that need a good home just check out my "have list" and then send me an e-mail!  (mrcoach00 at yahoo dot com)  I would love to swing a trade!

By the way, I'm always up for adding Cubs cards to my collection, especially Hall-of-Famers and current prospects.  I can't help but think about the future (prospects) while reminiscing about the past (Hall-of-Famers)!  Someday, hopefully soon, my Cubs will be relevant to the standings.  Sigh...  until then... yeah, you know what comes next:  I'll be waiting 'til next year.

Sandberg Player Collection - Duplicates for Trade

I have finally managed to complete a checklist for my Ryne Sandberg player collection. It took some time, but that's what summers are for. As it stands right now, I have 677 different Sandbergs, which is about ten times as many in my Kosuke Fukudome collection.  In their totality, the cards span from 1981 to 2013.  A large majority of the cards have been placed in a binder in blue pages.  Yep, I have blue pages!  Take a look!

The rookies, relics, and autos are all in top loaders.  Regardless of their type of storage, all the cards are easily accessible and in order so that I can look through whenever the mood strikes.

I put so much time toward his collection during my youth flipping through binders and boxes at card shows to accumulate these cards.  In fact, at one point I had just over 500 different cards before Ebay was invented.  That was no easy task!

It feels really good to have the collection finally cataloged.  If you have any Sandberg cards that could add to my collection please drop me a line!  I'd love to have a shot to trade for them.  Here's a link to my "have" list on Google Docs to get you started!

What's great about Google Docs is now I can take my list with me where I go.  I just have to check my smart phone.  When I was younger I had a mental picture of everyone of my Sandberg cards that I owned so that I wouldn't pick up duplicates.  It's so much easier these days!

I stopped collecting in 1994, and didn't really get started again until 2009.  I purchased quite a few Sandberg lots from Ebay in '09 in an attempt to fill some of the HUGE holes in my collection.  As a result I ended up with more repeats in a couple lot purchases than what I accumulated during my early years.

Boy, do I have duplicates... triples... and even a dozen repeats of some cards!  Yikes.  Here's a look at my box of doubles.

Is there another Sandberg collector out there that I could help?  How about a Cub fan in general that may be interested?  Speak now or many of these Sandbergs will wind up on Listia and Ebay so that I can buy others to fit into my collection.


Thanks for stopping in today!

Cardshow Post and Contest Pimpage

 I was able to carve some time out last Sunday to make the commute to my first card show in Normal, IL.  The round trip traveling time was about 100 minutes and I put a $30 cap on my spending budget to see what it must be like to be in Robert's shoes (author of the fantastic $30 a week habit blog).

I arrived to find 5 of the 8 dealers crowding a table while participating in a rambunctious box break of 2013 Series 2 Topps.  They were fun to listen to as I perused their tables.  I pulled aside cards and made stacks so I could "check out" with them when they were all finished with their break.  Who needs the National when you can frequent quaint little shows?

My first find appealed to the young collector in me.  I started collecting in '88 and was always really enamored with the other sets from the early to mid 1980's.  Someday I will chase the '87 Topps set, but this time around I was able to pick up the '86 Topps set for a cool $5.  That price is way cheaper than what you'll find it going for on Ebay, heck, that $5 wouldn't even cover shipping!

Next I was able to pick up all the 2013 Bowman parallels from a dealer's collection for less than the price of a pre-Puig inflated jumbo pack.  Forty-one parallels in all!  Some helped fill wholes in the FrankenSet and others helped make some upgrades.  I have a TON of gold parallels and I'm trying to add some variety, so this was a pretty good deal in my eyes.

At another table I ran into a box marked "Relics: $2 each or 6 for $10."  Nice.  I love digging through boxes!  I won't show what I picked out, because I just found myself $10 worth of some really nice trade fodder.  I wouldn't want to ruin any surprises!

Lastly, another gent had two 5,000 count boxes of cards in top loaders.  There was no rhyme or reason to the boxes and most of the cards didn't have prices on them.  In the end, I picked up the 1996 Score Tim Salmon at the top of the post and this Eric Davis for a song.

"Look, Mom!  It's my first baseball card!  Isn't it great!"

"Eric!  You're eyes aren't open and how many times have I told you to smile for the camera?!?"

Can't you just envision a conversation like this playing out with Eric Davis and his mother?  Meanwhile, this card will go in to the trade bait stack.  I wonder if anyone would be interested?

In summary, I came in about five dollars under my budget for the card show.

Wait, five dollars?  Well, that's perfect!

You see, there's a great $5 contest that's being held at Thorzul Will Rule.  I'm still not quite sure who Thorzul is or why he will eventually rule, but that's besides the point.  Check out the auction I almost won for my entry.  Man, some Dimwit would have been happy with this steal I'm sure!  Too bad I got sniped by another bidder at the end.

What are you waiting for!  Head on over to Ebay and get started!

Not a Trade Post After All

If you recall, on Monday I received five packages in the mail.  I cracked open three in Monday's post, reviewed a trade with The Toddfather in Tuesday's post, and thought it best to knockout the last trade post today.

Um, yeah, it's not a trade post.  I won a contest!  Yeah, I don't win many prizes in the real world, because the math teacher in me doesn't let me compete very often.  But, the kid in me pounds the money conscious math teacher into submission on a pretty regular basis when it boils down to my collecting habits and the blogosphere.

Judson, the writer of My Cardboard Habit, hosted a fairly simple contest the other day.  All I had to do was make a comment on his blog and I would receive an entry to the contest.  Heck, I love to comment on blogs and entering this contest was quite the no-brainer.  As it winds up, I somehow bested the randomizer and came away with third place!

Let's see what Judson shipped my way as prize:
A. Jake Peavy 2013 Gypsy Queen mini framed relic

B. Jimmy Rollins 2013 Gypsy Queen mini framed relic

and the best...

C. Brett Jackson 2013 Gypsy Queen autograph

Jackson has a sweeeeet looking signature and I'm proud to own this card.  I'm hoping that he finds his way back to Wrigley before too long and figures out a way to stick around for a while.  He's a gamer and fun to watch.

Judson, keep up the good work with the blog and thanks for the contest winnings!  I already have planned a small thank you package that I think will be right up your alley.

I Made The Toddfather an Offer He Couldn't Refuse

In yesterday's post I alluded to two more trade packages to post.  In my recent trip out to Colorado to visit my sister-in-law I stopped at a couple of shops and found a few Rockies relics and Coors Field ballpark promotions and sent them to the Home of the Toddfather.  Tim, being a fine upstanding contributing member of the blogosphere, sent me back some Cubs for my efforts.  He didn't disappoint.

Most of the autographs I have in my collection have been collected in person, but I'm always up for something more official looking.

Presto!  Tim delivered with a Topps Certified 2008 Bowman Signs of the Future sticker autograph card of one-time prospect Josh Kroeger. Kroeger was a longtime prospect of the Diamondbacks and then he spent two years in the Cubs organization in '07 & '08.  He made his MLB debut in '04 with the Dbacks, but he hasn't been back to the show since and is now playing in one of the independent leagues.

Next, a 2003 Playoff Prestige jersey card of Mark Prior.  Cub fans are all to familiar with Prior and his short-lived career with the Cubs.  He's currently with his fifth organization and pitching out of the pen in AAA.  Nonetheless, this is a well done card (with a stripe barely visible) and one I'll gladly add to my collection!

Before we get to the card I'm most excited about, I'd be remiss if I didn't show the 2013 Bowman Tim sent my way.  I am this close (shows fingers almost touching) to finishing my base and FrankenSet project.  Check out my want list if you think you can help!

Last, but not least:

Yep, another Kerry Wood to add to my collection.  Later this week I'll have my Sandberg list completed and then I'll start cataloging my Wood personal collection.  Should be a lot of fun!  This one is from 2005 Topps Gallery and also has a jersey stripe going through it.  Awesome!

Thanks for a great trade, Tim.  It was a lot of fun looking for Rockies while out in the Rockies; I hope you enjoyed my shipment to you as much as the one I received in return!

Monday Mail Day Features a Surprise!

Like many of you in the blogosphere I walk a little faster than most on my way to the mailbox.  Discovering a yellow bubbler or a PWE in the back of my mailbox isn't a rare occurence and finding pictures of ball players on 2.5" by 3.5" cardboard inside the packages really makes this middle-aged guy smile. If nothing else, being a part of the baseball blogging community has taught me the lessons of generosity.  Sure, I made a trade for cards A, B, & C, but "Wow! I didn't expect D!"  It's no wonder that my ears are finely tuned to the engine sounds of my postman!

Well, today I broke my previous record for packages in a delivery with five.

I always open the packages whose contents I am fairly certain about.  In this case I was waiting on auctions from Ebay and Listia.

Item A, from Ebay:  Jae-Hoon Ha jersey card from 2013 Topps Pro Debut.  Ha played in Peoria back in 2010 and was a favorite of mine.  He was elected to the Futures Game in 2012, but he's not really a flashy player like a Yasiel Puig.  Yet, Ha plays the game the right way and contributes, and I look forward to him making his debut for the Cubs before the end of 2014 season.  Not bad for $1 and shipping.

Item B, from Listia: Ron Santo and Ferguson Jenkins 1988 Pacific Trading Cards. Free cards, Woo- Hoo!  I have the Ernie Banks from this set in a binder and now I have two more Hall-of-Famers who will happily join him!

Item C, from my best friend in Texas:

 Say what?!? Whoa!  Jeff has really hooked me up here!  The twenty cards in this package were the second of four baseball card giveaways at Wrigley this season.  I had just recently come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be able to attend any of these games even though I live within driving distance of Chicago.  And then, surprise!

Amazingly enough the cards came packaged with gum.  Boy, there's a blast from the past.

I won't show you all the cards, because you can find them all laid out in their glory at Wrigley Wax, but here are my three favorites!

 By default, I love anything Santo.  That's one of my favorite shots of Kerry Wood.  And lastly, those '72 Topps are slowly growing on me.

For the record, Steve Stone and his puffy hair almost made the cut.  You can see what I'm referencing in the above picture... he's peeking over the top of Soriano.

Well, I'm going to cut this one short.  I know, I know.  I received five packages and I've only shown off the goods from the first three.  Patience, my friends.  The other two are trade packages from members of the blogosphere and I'd like to give each one their own post.

The first and third packages in the picture remain for a future post!

 Thanks for stopping in today!

Warning: Vintage Ahead! (a Trade Post with Coot Veal and the Vealtones)

Dustin, from the excellent blog Coot Veal and The Vealtones, contacted me about some Tigers that I recently ran into.  No, no...  it's okay.  I wasn't harmed.  I was actually able to package up the Tigers and send them his way.  Not even a scratch.  Well, er, I mean... not even a paper cut!  There were Archives Tigers, a Hall of Fame autographed Tiger, and some vintage Bowman Tigers as well. 

For what it's worth, I think Dustin has one of the best named baseball card themed blogs out there.  I haven't researched this Coot Veal guy yet, but from what I hear the Vealtones are some pretty righteous dudes. (Or are they dudettes?)

Dustin sent a very generous amount of cards back my way, and if you ever have the opportunity to trade with him you'd be wise to not miss out!

Let's go through the highlights, shall we?

First, let's start with the subjects of my player collections.
Two more (new to me) Kosuke Fukudome cards to bring my collection total up to 68 cards.  I really like the border of the 2009 A&G framed relic!

 

Ryno!  Dustin parted with a nice amount Sandbergs, but unfortunately I only needed the 2012 Topps Historical Stitches card.  The card itself is a little different and I must admit I had to touch the fabric of the patch.  Fuzzy!

 For what it's worth, I'm about 95% finished in my quest to catalog my Sandberg Collection.  Once I've put the finishing touches on that list I'll tackle the last remaining player in my player collection...

...Kerry Wood!  I don't know exactly which Wood cards I have, but I know with 100% certainty that theses are both new to me: a 2001 Topps Gold parallel and a 2009 Upper Deck Goudey.

Hall of Famers?  Yes please!  2008 Upper Deck baseball Heroes of Mr. Cub and an oddball of The Hawk.

Set help?  Sure! Nineteen more 2002 Topps Total cards to cross of the want list.  Thanks, Dustin! I was beginning to think I would never make any progress on this bad boy.

 Present Cubs?  Absolutely!

Welington Castillo is one of my favorite current Cubs.  He played in Peoria and seemed like a pretty nice guy.  Hey, and a sparkly surfboard card of Shark!  See what I did there?

Past Cubs?  Sure, we have Mark Grace in vintage garb on a 1993 Studio Heritage card.

The Grace card dovetails nicely into what was next: actual vintage!  You know the stuff!  Faded colors... flimsy cardboard... rounded corners... creases... pin holes... pen marks... Glorious stuff!

Man, receiving vintage Cubs in a trade is like bathing in a tub of kittens.  (The "tub of kittens" line is a new simile I'm trying out. I don't actually bathe with kittens.  That would be weird, but so fun!)

We'll start with the youngest cards and work our way back through time.

1975 Topps Mini Team Checklist . . . My first mini from '75!  This card alone was worth trading all those Tigers!

It may not look like a mini, but trust me, it is!

1972 Topps Strikeout Leaders card and Johnny Callison.  Cards of Fergie Jenkins never get old, especially when he's sharing cardboard time with Tom Terrific!

 

1971 Topps Joe Pepitone and Tommy Davis.  Pepitone's sideburns are what dreams are made of!

1969 Topps RBI Leaders featuring three Hall of Famers.  This card is a true gem!  McCovey Santo, and Williams... oh my!

1968 Topps Kenny Holtzmen and Ron Santo All-Star card!  These are the first '68s in my collection and they're beautiful!

 1959 Topps Al Dark and a 1957 Topps Cal Keeman.  Somebody prior to me loved Mr. Dark so much that he was taped to the wall or a notebook. 

Oh, and it gets better.  How about a 1952 Bowman Hal Jeffcoat?
Interesting factoid: Jeffcoat spent the first six years of his career in the majors as an outfielder and the last six as a pitcher.  You don't see that too often these days.

 

Mr. Jeffcoact easily represents the oldest card in my collection.  Wait, I mean "represented."

Because this guy was on the bottom of the stack:

It's a 1951 Bowman edition card of Bill Serena.  Holy cow!
I had never heard of Jeffcoat or Serena, but now they are household names!  Well, they are in my man cave at least.

I hope Dustin is as happy as I was receiving his package when he lets all of those Tigers out of the bag... er, yellow bubbler.  Thanks for a great trade, Dustin!