Set Building Progress Report - Baseball

The 2022 baseball season is about to begin! Why not celebrate the occasion with an update on my baseball set builds? 

I'm not attempting a 2022 Topps set build, but I've picked up some singles in TCDB trades. I had to bite the bullet and buy a small binder at Staples for Red Sox overflow; Dime Box Nick filled up the last of my five full-sized Boston binders!

Some more flagship singles I recently acquired. Three of these four aces have World Series rings; the other has pitched for the Astros and Yankees 😜

I'm still chipping away at inserts from two sets nearly a quarter-century apart: 1993 Fleer Ultra and 2017 Topps Heritage. And I need Nolan Ryan in each of them!

His Strike Out Kings card would complete that six-card set. I also need two Home Run Kings inserts - Joe Carter and Barry Bonds. (No plans to finish other '93 Ultra insert sets at the moment.)  This Flashback insert of a young Ryan is the only 2017 Topps Heritage insert I need that isn't a Topps Game card. Just yesterday I picked up a Jake Arrieta single from the 'main' Topps Game insert set on COMC. That means Anthony Rizzo is the only other card I need - unless I decide to pursue the tough Rookie 'Game' insert sets.


2013 Topps Update is nearly complete, thanks to these recent acquisitions from COMC:

Puig my friend. The rest of these guys... not so much. Although I've got nothing against Gattis or Didi. I was lucky to snag the Cole RC (the one on the left) for $4.25; they're usually at least $6 on the site. However I passed on a chance to procure the Mike Trout All-Star card (#300) for $3.00 and now the cheapest copy is over $5. You win some, you lose some.

Aside from that Trout I only need the Nolan Arenado RC.. and maybe a Grant Green upgrade.

It's a similar story for my 2014 Topps set build: I need a Mike Trout, a star third baseman's rookie card, and an upgrade of a common card. Four more cards - including a Trout checklist and Marcus Semien's RC - are waiting in my COMC inventory, leaving me with the 'base' Trout (#1), a Logan Morrison upgrade, and a rookie card of recently-extended Guardians slugger Jose Ramirez to finish off '14 Flagship.


And then there's 2018 Topps Chrome. I've been chipping away at this one as much as I can, through trades:

I traded a PWE full of 2014 Topps blue parallels for these

COMC purchases:

And Sportlots. I found a seller who had three rookies I need and charged just 95 cents shipping for up to four cards. Once those arrive - and the four COMC is holding for me now - I'll have just six cards left to acquire:

• #12 Tyler Mahle RC
• #25 Rafael Devers RC
• #66 Max Fried RC
• #72 Ozzie Albies RC
• #150 Shohei Ohtani RC
• #193 Ronald Acuna Jr. RC

Eeek! I can see myself giving up on this set build six cards away from completion, like I did with the 2014-15 Panini Prizm basketball set. Not to get too off-topic but I needed the Joel Embiid and, rather than pay $150+ for that card during the pandemic, I broke up the set and earned about $150 for the lots I sold. Embiid is having an MVP-caliber season and that Prizm RC has actually gone... down. Huh?!?

Not ready to throw in the towel on the 2018 Chrome set yet.

Future Projects

Aside from a few 1993 inserts (Score Franchise, Donruss Diamond Kings) the only other baseball sets I'd consider building are 2010 Topps and 2012 Topps. That would give me a complete ten-year run of flagship - which is certainly tempting. I already have the 2012 Topps Trout, so that will save me $10-20.

However I'm nowhere close to completing either issue. I've actually got a higher percentage of 2010 Topps Chrome(20.9%) and Update(17.9%) than the main set (15.6%). I'm barely at 10% of the error-filled 2012 "surfboard" set, and I'd need the Bryce Harper RC to complete that one.


How many Topps flagship sets have you completed by hand? Do you own any Topps factory sets? Have you spent $25 (or more) on a single card to complete a recent set?

 

Thanks for reading!



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A Decade of Dime Boxes

Dime Box Nick recently celebrated his tenth anniversary of blogging about baseball cards with a ten-part giveaway of some fantastic baseball cards. I tried to claim only what I needed for a set or PC. 

My eyes lit up when I saw this 2013 Topps Update Christian Yelich RC among Nick's offerings. I was worried it was a Topps reprint/tribute/insert thing, but it's the real deal. With this key card out of the way I headed to COMC to purchase rookie cards of Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon. Now all I need is one Mike Trout and the Nolan Arenado RC to finish the Update set!

Most of my early claims were Brewers cards, but that's simply a coincidence. Axford and Lezcano join Grimm, Carty, Weaver, and Iwakuma as potential All-Time Teams upgrades. Hammonds is a local guy.

Finally I grabbed a pair of Sox here, with Hideo Nomo and Xander Bogaerts. I assure you the Bogey is in better shape than the scan would suggest.

Nick threw in some nice extras including a pack's worth of 2021 Topps Chrome. If I'd paid $5-10 for this pack I might be disappointed. But, since I haven't bought any new Topps packs since 2019 Update I'm very happy to add these to my collection - along with a pair of fantastic Stadium Club singles.

He also added some Red Sox odds and ends, including a Jim Rice glossy All-Star that just wouldn't stay still. For a second I thought Topps included Mike Greenwell in 2020 Heritage, or an Archives set I'd missed. Then I remembered those old Baseball Card Magazine cut-outs.

Some newer Sox here including a Mookie Betts Montgomery collection thing. I don't bother with Topps' On-Demand offerings, which is why this is my first such single. Happy to have this sharp looking card.

Some 2021 singles, and a note from Nick thanking me for celebrating his blog. Nick, thank you for the great cards - and for sharing your card show stories/collecting experiences with us over the years!

While I'm showing off some new arrivals, here's a small trade I made on TCDB. My 370th completed trade on the site was with Godzilla8you. I sent him two Red Sox dupes in exchange for four cards:

My favorite here is the Rob Dibble Fleer Update RC. He's joined by another Connecticut card and a 2019 Topps Update set filler. Once my COMC shipment arrives that set will be 100% complete.

 

Not pictured: a 1993 Upper Deck Dennis Eckersley set filler I no longer needed.

I'm trying to reach 400 trades on TCDB but I've run out of active users that have the singles I need to finish off my sets. And so I turned to Sportlots, rather than paying 50 cents each on COMC and having to wait two months for my cards.

My initial goal was to finish the 1991-92 Upper Deck basketball set. These three All-Stars clear my wantlist; once my stack of Michael Jordan cards arrive from Redmond I'll have this one finished, too.

I attempted to upgrade some 1986 and 1987 football singles for 18 cents each. Not a wise thing to do sight unseen but if I want to pay common prices it's the only way to go. The '87s were a definite improvement; the centering on '86 issues is so damn tricky.

The Sportlots seller I bought from (ceveritt) offered $1.50 shipping for up to 16 cards, so I added these eight Hoops Decade needs. The grand total was $4.31 after I deducted some spare change 'loot'. Artest was an upgrade and Celestand will need one; there's a long scratch along the bottom. I'm now at just under 63% completion of this set, with another one on the way via TCDB trade.


Also I got the job.

Thanks for reading!


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A Barrel of Fun

What an absolutely exhausting week. I had two job interviews that went well. One of them told me to call and let them know when I can start. However I held out for the second job (much closer, better pay/benefits) and after that interview I was told I was "at the top of the list." Unfortunately they had two more days of interviews and I didn't get the job (yet?) If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.

Meanwhile my current place of employment has become a shitshow. We were operating as part of a franchise until January 1. Our owners decided to sever ties with the franchise and change the name of the company, which makes it really difficult to follow up on jobs that started before the name change. Also it's tough to keep track of which customers know us by which name, and some customers have to be asked to re-sign documents because the original copy had our company's old name on it. Fun times.

Anyway... here are some cards I bought at CardBarrel. I got a big order from BaseballCardStore too, but that deserves its own series of posts. I don't have the energy for that yet.

These Conlon Collection cards were a mixed bag. I already had the Rice. Cuyler has a small crease across the front. Wood is fine though. This is my first non-Red Sox card of Smoky Joe, who passed away in my hometown when I was four.

A pair of newer Brewer cards. I now have 117 different Robin Yount cards but not his 1975 Topps RC. I do have a Yelich RC incoming, as soon as Nick stops giving away cards :D

The rest of my Cardbarrel order featured set fillers, including two from 2013 Topps Update. I need just 16 cards to complete the 330-card set, and all but two or three of them are big names. The 2018 Chromes you see here leave me just 29 cards shy of a complete set, 25 of which are rookie cards.

2019 Topps Update got a big boost as well. Does anyone know why Mike Trout is wearing #45 here?

Every other card I ordered was a 2014 Topps common. I forgot to scan any of those before putting them away, so here's a Domonic Brown from my duplicate pile. Sorry folks, it's been quite a week.

I was hoping to visit my mother today, whom I haven't seen since before Thanksgiving. After I got Covid, my girls got Covid, and my mom got Covid I thought that there was no one left to get Covid and delay our visit. LOL. Her heart doctor got Covid, so she had to put off having a test done until... today. 😡

Perhaps I'll see her next weekend. This weekend I plan to put away the rest of my new card purchases (and Christmas gifts), update my wantlists, update my tradelists on TCDB, and visit your blogs while watching playoff football. Since my Packers have a bye I'm hoping for the Bengals to win and the Buccaneers to lose. I'd add Dallas to the 'lose' list but I've got no love for the Niners, either.


Enjoy the games, and have a great weekend!


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