I haven't had the creativity to post anything here, but I am working on updating and remastering some old posts and new wantlists. I'm also making TCDB trades. Soooo many trades...
Our family has no plans for Memorial Day weekend (cause my "America first" in-laws will be in the UK lol) so I should be able to post the full Top Ten by position project during the three-day weekend.
In the Meantime here are some things I did this spring that I wanted to blog about but just couldn't find the time to make each topic its own post:
I visited my mom in CT for a few days. The girls and I took a tip up to the WestFarms Mall in Hartford and I found an awesome card shop in Milford:
This place is a hundred times better than my LCS down the street. There were dozens of boxes with single cards to look through. I found 50-60 set fillers for various 2025 baseball sets including a Heritage SP and when I brought them to the counter the guy charged me $4 for the stack. Awesome.
I also grabbed some random football cause I didn't have a lot of time to go through other boxes. But if you're a hardcore player collector looking for some obscure safety or lineman drafted in the early '00s .. JB probably has their card buried in these boxes. Really wish I had more time to explore those.
Around the perimeter of the store I found racks of blaster boxes and single packs from junk wax era sets to recent Prizm football and Upper Deck hockey issues. 2022-23 UD Extended fat packs for $2 each? I'll take all of 'em please and thank you.
My eyes lit up when I saw the shelf with Topps baseball factory sets. I have 1988, 1990, 1991, and 1993 but it never made sense for me to buy 1989 or 1992 as the shipping cost was prohibitive. Grabbing these off the shelf for $15 each though? Heck yeah. Only issue was that when I got them home I noticed the 1989 set (my least favorite ever) was bursting out on one end. So I opened it and saw that all the cards were curled. Serves me right for buying a set I loathe. I've actually managed to trade about half on TCDB already.
Next to the cash register there was a drum full of store-made mystery packs in manilla envelopes, roughly 30 cards each with at least one auto for $15. I grabbed two. I'll show those off one day if I remember. Solid value there.
Also picked up two graded cards and a pack-box of Ultimate Collection hockey that was far worse than I could have expected. I knew there was no way that I'd get 100% of the value back but I was hoping for a nice patch card or something, even if it wasn't a great player. LOLno. I got a one-color relic of Justin Sourdif, a fake relic thing of William Karlsson (I like the player, but for that price, this better be a real hit) and an autograph of Jonathan Marchessault. $10 card probably. Absolutey set $150 on fire. Never doing that again.
BUT it was not the store's fault. There were four boxes behind the counter and the guy let me pick a number between 1 and 4. I picked 3. Do not pick 3. Ever. Now, do I think the other boxes were hiding a Connor Bedard patch auto? No. But I could have at least pulled a real relic hit of a star player. Maybe.
Despite this I loved this store and plan to go back in the summer when I visit my mom again.
I bought my youngest daughter tickets to Stars on Ice for her birthday. She's a huge fan of golden boy Ilia Malinin:
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And my girl Amber Glenn, who my daughter calls "bird lady" because she looks like a bird I guess?
For the old heads, Jersey Girl Isabeau Levito is a more traditional skater - very elegant and lovely to watch, but not a lot of spice.
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I was wondering if there would be a unique or special moment for Isabeau since this is her home ice and all - but the only thing that might have been a nod to that was at the end - when Amber carried Izzy off the ice on her shoulders. Wish I had a picture of that lol.
We got two seats tickets in a suite - which I would never be able to afford for a Devils game. From the Prudential Center website it looked like there would be food and drinks available to everyone, but that must only be during hockey season. Huge bummer there. Also our tickets were standing room only but a nice rich lady informed us that she wasn't using all of her seats and we got to sit in two front row seats. I'm still team Eat The Rich but I also refuse to judge all members of a group by the actions of a few. Thank you rich lady :)
My finances were kinda tapped out after the CT trip and Stars On Ice but then I got an email from American Airlines warning me that my wife's points were about to expire. I am deathly afraid of flying and D will obviously not be using them, so I converted them to a $75 eBay gift card.
After a few days of shopping I had my eye on this card:
The seller has this on an auction with a starting bid of $60 or best offer. So I offered $75 and .. they did not respond. The auction was nearing an end without any bidders so I bid my $75 and.. it sold for $77. Two bidders used auction snipe tools in the last five seconds. I hate auctions.
Instead I bought a card for my '80s/'90s legends project that I wouldn't have spent my own money on - but since it's "free" I figured why not?
Have you ever come across cards whose real value doesn't match your own personal value? Like you see something nice and think to yourself if that was $50 I'd buy it - but I'm not touching it at $75. It happens to me all the time.
For example: I'd buy every single one of these 2025-26 Ultra hockey inserts that recreate 1993 Flair baseball:
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