Sox and set singles

I haven't felt like saying much lately. The news has been depressing and exhausting. I'm hardly even aware of the Super Bowl - though I'm sure I will hate-watch it, and I'm sure the 49ers will win because I absolutely don't want them to. 

There are plenty of posts percolating in my mind. I'm hoping to publish a couple of them before rebooting the All-Time Teams series. All of this will require energy and enthusiasm, which I am very low on at the moment.

I'm nearly finished cataloging my card collection. I had hoped to be done by the end of January, but I didn't quite make it. I thought that when every card was hand-checked (again) the final count would eclipse 98,000. It looks like I'll fall just short.

A couple trades came in this week, along with an unofficial trade. Julie of A Cracked Bat is back, and she offered up some fresh new cards for pocket pickin'. 

I asked for five singles. She sent nine, generous soul that she is:

This was a pleasant surprise! I'm impressed that Julie was able to ship a relic in a PWE without incident. I tried that once and it did not go well.

The rest of the PWE. Snider, Seager, Scherzer, Varitek and Lowell were my picks. Julie threw in the Devers and Pedro cards. Thanks again Julie! 

I'm not one to simply take cards without giving something in return, and I was able to scrape together a return PWE. However I feel terrible because my Tigers traders were depleted on a "gift" that was not even acknowledged. From now on, if I get any decent Tigers cards they're going to Julie or Dennis. Period, full stop.


Anyway... I added some more Red Sox to my collection this week, thanks to a pair of TCDB trades. The first is a PWE trade with CardsInTheBasement:

Six Sox from 2019 Topps Heritage, including some highlights from their 2018 title. Ah, the good old days. Honestly, none of these players evoke good feelings right now - except maybe JBJ. I love Mookie and all, but there's no point in blowing up the payroll and paying penalties just to hand him $400 million. Is he worth it? Compared to Mike Trout's contract, sure. But how many World Series has Trout won? Or Bryce Harper? Or Giancarlo Stanton?

Here are some more cards you're probably sick of seeing. 2020 Topps Series 1 is about to hit shelves and I haven't finished the 2019 set yet. I'm surprised at myself for even wanting to collect this set give how much I disliked it initially. I would say that the new flagship issue doesn't interest me - which it doesn't (it looks too much like a Bowman design) but I'll probably give in eventually.

My 95th completed trade on TCDB was with jmsisco. This was a bigger swap - I unloaded 74 flagship dupes in exchange for 51 cards I needed. Why did I offer to take 23 fewer cards?

So that I could snag the Eloy Jimenez RC! I'm now just a handful of singles away from completing the 2019 Topps set. I had hoped to complete it by the end of January, but I didn't quite make it.

 

Similar to the previous trade, this one also included a handful of Sox singles from 2019 sets.

My main goal was to send surplus Topps singles to someone who needed them. I wasn't too picky about what I could get in return, whether it's Bowman Platinum singles of guys I collect...

..or an assortment of singles from Update. I now have about 1/3 of this set, but I'm not sure I'll attempt to complete it. Side note: the Festa card was of particular interest to me since that was also the last name of my 8th grade crush.

 
I'll be in Connecticut visiting family this weekend. No card show this time; those are at the end of each month and I probably wouldn't go even if it were this weekend. The dime boxes were kind of picked clean last time I was there. Besides, as I'm re-cataloging my collection I've found that I have very little room for any new cards - except football.

 Go Chefs!!


Thanks for reading, and enjoy the SuperbOwl!


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Flagship Roll Call!

Before I start my All-Time Teams project I have one more recent purchase to discuss.

 

The 2019 Topps cards were in the toy aisle, away from all of the other sports cards. I was not a fan of this year's design when it was released, but I got a good head start on the series 1 set in the surplus box I bought on eBay. Supplementing that with trades helped push me over 82% completion without buying one single pack (the downside is that many of the cards have corner dings.) 

I had just 22 cards from series 2 before my Target purchase. There was a metal sign at the top of the end cap with the price list for each type of box : $2.99/pack, $9.99/hanger box, $19.99/blaster box. 

My gut reaction was to pick up a blaster - and I did. But then I did the math in my head. For $20 I'd get 99 cards - and one of those would be a 150th Anniversary manu-patch thing. There would probably be an insert in every pack, and so now we're down to maybe 90 cards for my set.

I put down the blaster. I picked up those two beat-up hanger boxes. All of the hanger boxes were dented. But there's 67 cards in each (and no manu-patch) for a total of 132 cards. Even if 16 of them are inserts that means I'm getting 116 base cards - assuming there aren't any dupes between the two boxes. 

Let's see how I did..

My favorite thing about this year's set has to be the ballpark cards. Look at that sky above Citi Field! (Bonus - the names are in proper order.)

Some more horizontal cards, including an Andrew McCutchen cameo. I don't mind horizontal cards in flagship sets because I end up sleeving every card and stashing them in boxes anyhow. Topps sets are too big to display in binders (especially now that Ultra Pro shrunk the f*cking D-ring)

Some throwback threads here. Which one is your favorite?

More notable cards, including an Ohtani rookie cup. I guess that's Tulo's sunset card.

And if Dustin Pedroia really can't play anymore then I hope this is his sunset card. I know how annoyed collectors get when someone like Jacoby Ellsbury or Scott Kazmir keep popping up in sets when they haven't played in two years. I don't want them saying that about my guy.

Another reason I bought hanger packs instead of a blaster was to try and pull a Legends variation. I don't know that they're not inserted into blaster packs, but I thought the odds might be better with a hanger pack.

No such luck. 

Here are the inserts I did pull - minus a Steven Brault rainbow parallel that didn't fit in the scan.

I have no idea who Nick Martini is but the rest of the pack is solid. I've wanted this Yount for my PC and Koufax is an unofficial PC player. Scherzer is a blue parallel.

  

The second pack only had seven inserts - which gave me false hope for a Legend or other photo variation. The Judges and Larsen will go in a stack of Yankees/vintage I'm building for Bo.

This break was a bit of letdown considering the value I got from the Score Football fat packs, but the point was to get as many set fillers as possible. On that front, I succeeded.

Of the 117 base cards in these packs I needed 110. Anything over 98 would have made me happy. I've still got a long way to go to complete this set, but series 2 is off to a good start.

While I'm at it, here's a quick roll call of my progress with the last five Topps sets, which I'll call the Flagship Five.

2019 Topps

417 haves
283 needs
700 card set

variations: none

 

2018 Topps
698 haves

2 needs* (#540 Mitch Garver, #653 Jorge Soler)
700 card set

variations: 2 (#439b Dustin Pedroia, #550b Jackie Robinson)

*plus the corrected versions of #364 (Dodgers) and #565 (Mets) 

 

2017 Topps
614 haves
86 needs
700 card set

variations: none

 

 

2016 Topps

set complete

variations: 1 (#478 Cody Asche 42 jersey)

 

2015 Topps
set complete

variations: 1 (#302 Martin Prado Gatorade shower)

I'd like to complete at least one more of these before 2020 Topps comes out In five months. 

Are any of you (still) working on these sets? Let me know what you need, I have hundreds of dupes.

Thanks for reading!



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