Weekend Card Show in Dyersville, IA

I had a real nice Saturday meeting up in Dubuque, IA, with the couple responsible for introducing me and my wife to one another. They are great folks and live in rural Wisconsin, so unfortunately we don't get to see them as much as we would like.  My mom and sister, both from the P-town area joined us on the 165 mile trek north, but we took separate vehicles.

I had plans.  Big plans. And said require my wife and I to leave at zero-dark-thirty so I could spend a couple of hours at a card show before meeting everyone for lunch.  #dedicationtothehobby

The was a card show in Dyersville, which is about thirty minutes west of Dubuque, at the National Farm Toy Museum.   For he record, I did not enter the farm toy portion of the buidling.

For those of you not in the know, Dyersville is also the address for the baseball field from Field of Dreams. I was at the movie site back in 2011, and although I wanted to visit again we were on time constraints.  Plus, there was a celebrity softball game during the morning and I didn't want to pay twenty-five dollars for the cheapest ticket to have the right to wander around the grounds. The celebrities listed were names like Pete Rose, Robin Yount, Andre Dawson, Brooks Robinson, Rollie Fingers and Carlton Fisk. Maybe I should have considered going instead of hitting up the card show?

Anyways, the show was great.  It was easily the largest show I had been to since my last trip up to the Chicago suburbs AND there was no admission!  There was about thirty vendors who had their cards all spread out over about sixty tables.  It was glorious.

There was vintage, binders chocked full of autographs, dime boxes, and just an incredible array of ticket stubs, bobbleheads, baseball postcards and PLENTY of high end cardboard. The main teams shown on the tables were the Cubs, Cardinals, Twins, and Yankees.  Yep.  Yankees.  SMH.

I came away with only five cards to add to my collection, but an entire stack of odds and ends to distribute among my blogosphere brethren. I could have purchased a nice parallel of Kris Bryant, or a Jorge Soler autograph, or a Kyle Schwarber jersey card, but instead I flipped my mental blogger list and had fun scavenging up and down the aisles.

Here's a couple of the card for my collection:

 I've been a Karl Olson kick of late. He was a pretty average 4th outfielder type back in the 1950s, but we share the same surname. For a couple of bucks I picked up his card from the 1956 set.  Nice.

Turk Wendell was one of my favorite Cubs in the early 90s because he was so quirky.  For three dollars I picked up an autographed card of his Upper Deck rookie.  A couple of things to note here: 1. he used a blue pain pent, which looks nice, and 2. he's brushing his teeth because he didn't like the taste of black licorice.  He chose to chew licorice when he pitched to build up his bad a$$ persona. You know, because chewing tobacco is bad, and he wanted that look without suffering through the potential side effects.

 I didn't know Sandberg had a 2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites card, but now it's mine!

The last two Cubs cards were on the top of dealer re-packs. I have purchased these from the same dealer at a show in the Quad Cities before and remember enjoying what was inside.  For four dollars you get the card on top, a relic card and another twenty or so cards.  I figured, why not? 

 

So, there's my five cards.  Honestly, I'm a little shocked that's all I bought for me, but I'm pretty happy as well. I'll be sending out a couple of packages with the some of my finds this week (including Night Owl's contest winnings), and the rest will go out in trade packages or random PWEs down the road.

My one regret is that I didn't have time to sit down at the dime boxes, but the trade off was I got to spend time with my family at lunch and later at the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium.
I think everyone but Mark Twain was happy about that.

My sister with a statue of the legendary author Mark Twain

Siblings Rock

I have just a quick post for today, but it's something of a milestone post for yours truly.

My sister, who frequents my blog more than any sane person should, has made three donations to my collection.

The first two of these gifts pieces of cardboard filled TWO gaps in my Cubs FrankenSet.

 The FrankenSet will never be finished, because I'll constantly look to add new and interesting Cubs cards to the pages.  The next card might be a 1984 Fleer Umbrella Hat card of Jay Johnstone or maybe a 2016 card of the Cubs newest pitching ace, David Price.  A guy can dream, right?

Jane has now given me a total of eight cards (including the epic Iowa Cubbie Bear) which have found their way into the FrankenSet, and these two filled the place holders for cards #530 and #586.

Only twenty-seven vacant slots left to fill!

The third card from Jane is the LAST card for 2012 Panini Triple Play master set.  I opened somewhere around six boxes of packs and never did pill this Nolan Ryan Hall of Fame Card.  The subset usually only had two or three of these cards per box, which in my book counts as short-printed.  Let's not talk about all the weird looks I received at card shows and brick & mortar card shops when I asked if they had any Triple Play cards.

 Yep, I've finished my first master set!  Base cards, subsets, relics, puzzles, stickers, tattoos, and eye black. What a task that was!  And, for what it's worth, it looks awesome in a binder! What a pretty great surprise from my sister!

Now that the Triple Play set has been put to bed I don't have any other sets left to finish. I was working on twelve sets back in January, and I set a goal to complete six of them before 2016, but instead I knocked off each and every last one!  It's been a good collecting year.  That's for sure!
 
Thanks for the help, Jane!

"Just" a Few Cards from BWTP

 Just.  What a funny word.  There's a plethora of meanings for the word, but here's the one I think Matt, from Bob Walk the Plank, intended within his note.

Merely a few cards?  Only a few cards?  Yes, there were "just" a few in Matt's latest mailing, but I think I would have worded it differently.

You be the judge.

I'll reveal you them in the order of my level of excitement.

This was the first card from the mailer, and I thought I found the best card right off the bat: 2005 Trilogy Signature Materials card of Aramis Ramirez by Upper Deck.

"Just" plain wow!

"Just" the other day I was mentioning how I thought ARam was one of the top five third basemen in Cubs History.  Now I have serial numbered card (62/75), with a bat relic, a jersey relic, and an on card autograph.  Did I mention that the picture of the card is acetate?  This card has EVERYTHING, but it was to be topped (twice).

Card number two got me pretty excited, easily raising my pulse rate a good thirty beats per minute.

Behold, "just" you run-of-the-mill 2008 Sweet Spot Signatures card of Mr. Kerry Wood.

"Just" FREAKING awesome!

I have Carlos Zambrano's Sweet Spot Signature card from the 2005 set, but this is KERRY WOOD!  Numbered 56 of 58, it's the 409th card added to my Kerry Wood collection and only my second certified autograph!  Woot!  What a beautiful card!

At his point, I was sure the second of the three cards would be the best of the package . . . until I saw . . .

 

 The Vogelmonster!  This is a 2012 Panini Playoff Prime Cuts autograph, serial numbered to 299.

 Yes, it's logo-less, but it's a picture from his high school days in Florida.  Sure, it's "just" a sticker auto, but it's a Vogelmonster sticker auto!

I have a couple of the Vogelmonster's autographs, but nothing from his early card days.

I pretty much had to pick myself up off the floor after seeing this one.

You know, "just" you're typical reaction when adding a beast of a card to your collection.  Except, it's my collection and it's my favorite minor leaguer!  Ahhhhhhhhh!   The VOGELMONSTER!

Ahem.  Allow me to take a second and compose myself.

Whew.  That's better.

Yes, Mr. Walk the Plank, in number, there was "just a few things" for me.  But please keep in mind that you pretty much broke my baseball card mojo-meter.

I am in your debt, kind sir.  And, I will look to pay off that debt in the near future. Thank you!

Highly Objective and Completely Random Winner

As Willie Stargell attests, we have twice the amount of fun into today's blog post. We'll get to the winner from Saturday's celebratory 750th post contest in a moment, but first let's get to a nice PWE from Brian, the mind behind Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary.

First up we have a couple of serial numbered cards of Aramis Ramirez. 

 The card on the left is #218/219 and belongs to the 2009 Topps Tribute set.  I must say, it is probably one of the more strikingly beautiful cards I've held in my hand in some time.  The 2011 orange paper ARam is #161/250 and another nice addition of one of the best Cubs third sackers in the history of the franchise. Seriously.  I would easily put him in the top five with Ron Santo and Stan Hack.

The Billy Williams card also hails from the high end Tribute set.  I'm not sure how Brian is picking these up, but if he's been busting boxes of Tribute then I think we need to be closer friends!   LOL!

 Mark Pawelek.  He was the Cubs number one draft pick in 2005 and I remember thinking, "We drafted a high school kid from Utah?"  Utah is not a state known for it's prep baseball teams like Florida, California, Texas, and Arizona. The drafting of Pawelek was one based upon projection and sign-ability, due to the tight purse strings of the Tribune Company. Needless to say, the Cubs missed on yet another #1 pick.  Sigh. 

 Jaime Navarro was nine games over 0.500 in two seasons with the mid 90s under-achieving Cubs.  Not bad when you think about.  I like this card because it features FOUR DIFFERENT pictures of Navarro in three different uniform tops.  Two with facial hair and two without.  It's an equal opportunity baseball card and it's super shiny.  And, we all know how I feel about shiny!

Brian also sent two cards of the Cubs most recognizable pitchers in recent memory.  I love when pitchers wear eye black.

Brooks!  Originally I thought Brian sent me a duplicate of the same card, so I snapped a picture of both sides.

 After cataloging my new piece of cardboard I found that one was stamped in foil on the front with "Future Stock."  These are numbers 37 and 38 in my Kieschnick collection, of which I can thank Highly Subjective and Complete Arbitrary for 14%.  Brian is my biggest Kieschnick card supporter!

Lastly, after some truly great additions to my collection, comes the best.  Keep in mind all of these came from a PWE!    Wow!

My run of Topps wintage Ron Santo cards is nearing completion!  With the addition of this beautiful 1964 card, I'm now only missing his 1961 and 1968 editions.   Thanks for a such a wonderful PWE pack with Cubs mojo, Brian!

Alright. Let's move on to the winner of the contest.

I asked everyone who they would cheer for in this year's playoffs if their team was out of the running and I was a little surprised by the number of Astros supporters out there. Their success is a nice story, so I totally understand the love. But, I think they would be my third choice in the AL and fourth overall behind the Royals, Blue Jays, and Pirates.

Here's the winner:

Congratulations, Night Owl!  I'll try to have your Dodgers out to you before the weekend.

A Contest Gets Me to #751

Two weeks sometimes seems like a lifetime, and then there are other times where it's more like a blink of the eye. My grandfather has told me on more than one occasion that decades seem to move at the same pace. It's all a matter of perspective I suppose.

I had to go back and look at the time stamps of my most recent entries to realize that I haven't had a post in fourteen days, and that post just so happened to be #750 in my humble little blog's history.  Nice.

Having put the blogosphere through 750 blog posts of my ramblings, I suppose I should reward my loyal readers with a contest. The prize?  A bubble mailer full of cards cards from your favorite team!  (Oh, my trade box is devoid of Blue Jays and Astros, but all the others are up grabs . . . even the Cubs!)  I'll enter all contestants into the all-powerful randomizer and the individual holding the top position after three rounds will be designated the winner.  The contest will run through noon, P-town time, on Monday. 

All you have to do is answer the following two questions:
1.  With which team would you like me to fill the bubble mailer?
2.  Of the teams which are still in the MLB playoff hunt, which team will you be rooting for come October?  And why?  Did I mention that you can't choose your favorite team if they are playoff bound?

Personally, I'm going with the Royals.  Why?  I like small market teams, they aren't in the NL, AND they have local boy Ben Zobrist, who has been rejuvenated in Kansas City.  That's reason enough for me!

Now that my junior high softball coaching season is over I'll be able to blog a little bit more.  I've actually been sitting on a couple of packages from HSCA and BWTP, which I'm looking forward to blogging about.  All in good time, folks!

In the meantime feel free to drool over a couple of my "recent" pick-ups.

I didn't make it to the National, but I did pick up a couple of cards from Ebay that were exclusive to the show.  The Sandberg card is the 778 unique Ryno cards in my collection, while the Schwarber is the 8th.  But, it's an acetate card, so that's worth 770 cards, right?

 I'm now only one card away from completing the 2012 Panini Triple Play MASTER Set.

 Yep, that Master Set includes the sticker, tattoos, eye black and all the cards, including the stinking short-printed higher numbers.  The last time the Real Feel Pants card was on EBay it went for over $23, which made me think I would never complete the set, but I got this one for under $5 shipped.  I was pretty happy, and even happier when the seller through in the Real Feel Jersey card.  That's some good mojo.

Lastly, I have my first two Gleyber Torres cards.  Torres, only eighteen years old, was named the Midwest League prospect of the year.  He's the Cub's next big prospect coming up the organizational ladder to the big leagues.

 On the left is his card from South Bend, the single-A affiliate of the Cubs.  I picked up the Midwest League All-Star team set last week at the Peoria Chiefs team shop.  I really like how the designers incorporated the P-town skyline within the All-Star logo.  Yes, Torres is represented in the set.

As always, thanks for reading and good luck in the contest!