Christmas in January

Peoria did not experience a white Christmas this year. We had two decent snows in November and one of those was fierce enough to force a "snow day" for all the local schools.

December? Nothing.

January? Ten inches fell last Saturday and another four this morning. And then I received this nice little package referencing Christmas in the mail.

So, I guess this is my white Christmas. 😂

I don't remember the last time Daniel and I put together a formal trade. I'll collect some Diamondbacks through random retail packs and dime boxes at card shows. Once I have enough to fill a bubble mailer, then off they go to It's like having my own Card Shop. Sometimes I'll check to see if the address is the same and other times I just cross my fingers as drop of the package at the post office.

I have this type of relationship with a dozen or so bloggers and I really enjoy the randomness of it all. Surprise cardboard can be the best type of cardboard!

 Wait, that's not cardboard. It's plastic! I have about a half-dozen graded cards in my collection and today that number gets a 50% bump!

First, this is very nice design and I enjoy Sammy showing off his sliding technique. Second, did you see the bat relic encased in plastic? That's different. Lastly,  the grade is "10 Mint or Better." Isn't 10 the highest grade? What does the grading company mean by "or Better?"

Alright, enough stalling. Here's the card Daniel was alluding to in his note.

This is a 1996 Best autograph card of one of the six players, in my collection, who I have deemed checklist worthy. Brooks Kieschnick! And yes, Daniel, this card was new to my Kieschnick player collection. Many thanks!

Wow, that package packed quite a punch! I'll be on the lookout for Diamondback cards for you!

My HOF Binder

I've been slowly procuring cards for my Hall of Fame Binder for about two years now. Usually when I go to a card show I'm hyper-focused on the following three items:

1. Checklist of cards to finish a set
2. Cheap trade fodder
3. If room in my budget remains, then a couple of vintage cards for the HOF Binder

I've reached the point where I have a card to represent 93% of the players enshrined in Cooperstown. Part of the fun is trying to "upgrade" cards when and where I can. Upgrades can be a tricky thing, thus I have my set checklist on my phone at all times so I can cross check details when needed. Here's an example of a "busy" section of my checklist.

 Red is bad as it means I need a card of that player.  Orange denotes I have a card, but it's a modern day card and I'd really prefer a card from the player's playing days, which are mentioned in the far right column. Names highlighted in yellow are of players who I should be able to find a vintage card to upgrade with, for the right price of course. Green. Green is good! It means I either have a vintage card or I'm just happy to have a card in general, like Leon Day's 1993 Ted Williams Card Company baseball card. 

Vintage is wonderful, but prices for middle to high grade vintage are not. Long ago I accepted pin holes, paper loss, fading, rounded corners and creases into my collection. For instance, my 1960 Topps Stan Musial is beat to hell, but I got it for a price I could afford and I couldn't be happier. It's mine and I LOVE it. Someday I'll add a Mickey Mantle to this collection... it would merit a grade of -3 from PSA or Beckett, but it'll be mine! lol

I don't have many rules for my collection, but I do have some preferences:

• Vintage whenever possible.
• Players in uniform with the team they represent in Cooperstown, when possible. There's a column for "team" in my spreadsheet, but I didn't include that in the above picture.
• I love cards with full career stats, but I also seek out rookie cards and earlier cards of players during their younger years. Yes, these two things are mutually exclusive. I'm a complex man.
• I'd prefer that no two cards on any given page are from the same set. This is a tough one to follow for some pages depending on the players and their place in the baseball card world.

So, with out further adieu, I give you the first of look at my Hall of Fame binder. 

Most of the players on this binder from childhood have plaques in Cooperstown, so I thought it was the perfect fit.

Here's page #1.

I have placeholders for the years the players were elected. This allows me to add cards for new electees at the back of the binder and I don't have to reshuffle cards if I were sorting alphabetically by last name or some other method. 

1994 UD - Diamond Legends, #174 -- Ty Cobb

I'm pretty content with this card.

1996 UD Collector's Choice, #502 -- Walter Johnson

Another card I'm very happy with. 

1960 Fleer, #2 -- Christy Mathewson

 For the record, I'm ecstatic about finding this 1960 Fleer card in the dollar bin at a card show. It's not a T206, but it's still pretty sweet!

2011 Topps - 1932 U.S. Caramel Reproduction -- Babe Ruth

I'd like to upgrade this Ruth card if possible. Let me be very clear here: I will NEVER own a vintage card of Babe Ruth, but something that looks old-timey and has full career stats would be nice. 

2010 Topps - Vintage Legends Insert -- Honus Wagner

 This Honus Wagner really bothers me. I love the color photo and the full stats on the back, but the modern day look to the card clashes with Honus. Honus wears high socks... modern is not his thing.

1992 Conlon, #528 -- Nap Lajoie

 Conlon is nice, but a bit over represented in my binder.

2003 UD SP Legendary Cuts, #122 -- Tris Speaker

I'd like to find another card of Speaker as I'm not a fan of the design and he looks to be at the back end of his career. 

So, there we go. The first installment of my new HOF Binder Series. My goal is to continue to post a page each week until I finish with page 37 or 38 in September. 

I hope you'll enjoy this closer look at one of my favorite binders!

2-for-2 on the TTM Front

There are some prolific Through The Mail (TTM) autograph collectors out there. Torren' Up Cards and The Lost Collector (although I hear he's cutting back) immediately come to mind. Let's make no mistake here: I am not one of them.

My first and last TTM came back successfully during the spring of 2015. I appreciated the way Theo Epstein was going about the business of remolding the Cubs and he didn't have any certified autographs that I could afford.

Success! Inscribed in silver sharpie. Glorious!

Early on in David Ross' tenure as a Cub, I thought long and hard about sending out a second TTM request, but I ultimately decided against it as I wasn't prepared to lose one of the customs that were made for me.

Eventually I was able to snag an autograph of Ross in a Cubs uniform so it made the point of a TTM null and void, at least in my mind. 

This past November I received a mini Zippy Zapping and during the ensuing Pack Wars I found a Ken Rosenthal card from a pack of 2017 Allen & Ginter.

I'm a big fan of Rosenthal's baseball reporting and charitable work through bowtiecause.com. I wasn't sure where to file his card away in my collection, as I am very organized. He didn't really fit any the descriptors of any of my binders or boxes. Typically when this happens I place the cards in the trade box and eventually they find a new home. Yet, I wanted to keep this one.

Then Zippy Zappy mentioned, through the comments, that Ken Rosenthal does TTMs. Now, there was an idea! If I had the card autographed then it could find a home in my autographed cards box!

I found a sheet of notebook paper, penned a nice letter, and shipped out my request, with a SASE, in a PWE on Thursday, January 3rd.

On Saturday, January 12th, I had a letter awaiting me in my mailbox addressed in my handwriting.

It only took nine days. A handful of those days were due to USPS delivery and one of those days was a Sunday. I figure my TTM request sat in Rosenthal's mailbox for a few business days at most. Wow!

Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal, for signing for me!  Your card has already been placed in my autograph and relic box for me to flip through on rainy nights and/or snowy weekends. 😀

Ogle That Vogel: Sponsored by '90-'91 Hoops

Remember that craze back in December for Mark Jackson's 1990-1991 Hoops basketball card? At one point sales of the card were being banned on Ebay, but somehow my listing snuck through and I was able to flip two copies of the card for a laughable sale price.

Laughable? I would say so considering the junk wax status of the card. I looked up recent completed sales and the market and novelty of this card seems to waning fast. Strike while the iron is hot!

So, you may have heard that collecting Dan Vogelbach cards is kind of my thing. Recently a nice one popped up and I submitted a "Best Offer." The seller accepted.

It was glorious!

Behold, I now have half of the printing plates from the set. This plate/auto/relic of The VOGELMONSTER is from 2018 Panini's National Treasures set.

I flipped two junk wax cards for a white whale. I still can't believe my good fortune!

Bustin' a Box of 2015 USA Baseball

Sorry about the delay getting to the 2015 box of Panini USA Baseball. I cracked open the 2013 and the 2014 boxes last month and thought I did pretty well as far as the return on my investment. Today I'll show the final box set in this mini-series, which thanks to a Black Friday sale set me back all of $14.95.

The box is nearly identical to the other two years I purchased. A nice brick of cards was waiting for me in the center with plenty of extra space to the left and the right. 

It's an 80-card base set with chances for low numbered autographs of players you may or may not have heard of. For $15 I'll take that gamble!

Here's your first look at the base cards for 2015. For the first time Panini uses the card design to help differentiate between the 15U, 18U and Collegiate players.

Jeremiah Jackson was a second round draft pick by the Angels this past summer. He debuted in Rookie Ball and had varying degrees of success.

The 18U players receive a red border.

Forrest Whitley, for my money, is one the top starting pitching prospects in all of baseball. He throws some serious heat, but he also has never topped 100 innings pitched in a season yet. My gut says he'll see time with the Astros at some point in 2019 and it'll be interesting to see how he's used. 

The Collegiate players get the blue border treatment.

Garrett Hampson got a cup of coffee for the Rockies in 2018 and did fairly well. He's a middle infielder who has a chance to play everyday with the departure of DJ LeMahieu.

Game Action is an insert set and highlights some of the bigger names to play for USA Baseball.

It's a simple design, but one that I can get behind. I chose to show A.J. Puk, who owns a minor league average of 12.8 K/9, but missed all of 2018 with Tommy John surgery. I don't know if Puk will be ready to go for spring training this year, but the A's rotation isn't exactly a hotbed of talent.

This box set also included the three team cards and a card of the USA Baseball's training complex in North Carolina.

Besides the Game Action Inserts the box set offers you three of the Crown Royale die-cuts.

Hey, there's that Puk kid again!

The Morgan McCullough card was numbered 19/25, which is a nice deal.

McCullough played for Chipola College and won back-to-back national JUCO baseball championships. I believe he'll be playing his junior season at Alabama.

On to the hits!

Cole Stobbe was drafted by the Phillies in the 3rd round of the 2016 draft. In his third year in minors he has never played about Single-A. His career OPS is 0.684. Moving on.

KJ Harrison, a 3rd round draft pick of the Brewers in 2017, put up some very solid numbers during his Rookie League debut. Last year he played in the Midwest League (Low-A) and struggled a bit at the plate, but he's an interesting 1B/C prospect with plus-power. 

Colton Bowman sounds like a name made for prospect hunting. Currently he's a high school senior in Texas with a commitment to Oklahoma State University. 

Robert Tyler was a 1st round pick of the Rockies in 2016. Currently he has hasn't pitched about Single-A yet, but he's another hard throwing arm who has gaudy strikeout numbers.

Let's take a break from the autos and switch gears to the relics.

 Jaden Fein is a freshman this year at San Diego St. University.

Well, how 'bout that. It's a Jaden Fein hot box!

Here's something a little bit more on the high-end side of things with a relic and an autograph on acetate.

 Tanner Burns was an All-American Freshman last year as a pitcher for Auburn University.

Oooooh!  Crown Royale die-cut auto!

Mickey Moniak was the overall #1 pick by the Phillies in the 2016 draft. Not a bad pull! This one is numbered to 99.

And, hey! The box claims there will be 8 hits included, but I happened to pull a 9th! Glorious!

I really do like these acetate auto-relic combos. Anthony Kay was a first round selection by the Mets in the 2016 draft. He started twenty-three games last year in his first taste of professional baseball.

And with that extra hit brings the close of my Black Friday purchases of Panini's USA Baseball. It was a fun break and I enjoyed looking up the players to see where they are in baseball. I'll bee keeping tabs on them down the road.

Thanks for reading along!