Vintage Pickups Through Time Travel

By now you're surely aware of Matt's Time Travel Trading project. He's been running it for at least five years and built an impressive collection of cards - all of which are available for any older card. 

There was one card in particular that I'd had my eye on for a long while, and I was somewhat surprised that it had not been claimed. Somewhat, because it can be difficult for collectors to part with vintage - even for vintage that is just slightly newer. Eventually I got tired of seeing this card of a popular sixties star sitting there unclaimed, and so I scrounged up something older to offer. 

That's how I was finally able to add this to my All-Time Teams binder:

This 1966 Topps Bill Freehan bumps out a Pacific placeholder. It's not the oldest card I acquired.

Grabbed this snowy Jerry Adair, too. It doesn't fit my collection but he was a name that sounded familiar to me and I don't have many '64 singles. You may have noticed a similarity with these two cards. That isn't why I picked them out but it was kind of inevitable with vintage Topps singles.

The rest of my baseball pickups, including a sharp '69 Steve Blass that had just been added to Matt's offerings. Couldn't pass up that Sean Murphy RC - all I had to do was offer a 4+ year old card!

Now for the non-baseball portion:

A pair of 1970s football greats with Bob Lilly and Franco Harris. Lilly was another one I had my eye on. There's a small thumbnail crease in the bottom right corner but the rest of the card is clean. I didn't have a single Harris card in my collection and had to get him in somehow. Watson is.. not someone I'd go out of my way to add, but the marble borders on the Elite inserts are really nice.

Majerle and Howard will help me fill my basketball monster box (I actually had to make room by removing a couple PC players) and a Chico Resch insert rounds out the PWE. I'd seen that on Matt's list so many times that I thought I'd already traded for it lol.


If you are somehow unaware of Time Travel Trading take a look at his very long list of available cards. He usually posts fresh stock the last Monday of every month. I'm excited to see what he has to offer next.


Matt, thanks for another great Time Travel Trade!

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Smarch Swaps

One good thing about being home every day is that I don't have to wait until the evening to open my mail. Three PWE trades and a box from COMC arrived at Collector HQ last week.

The first trade in was from TCDB user gatorsportscardart:

I sent 18 basketball dupes (17 from 1990-91 SkyBox) out to Gator and got 12 cards in return, including two Lance Parrish issues and Mark Belanger's sunset card. I knew he was a very light-hitting shortstop but I had no idea his all-time great fielding was enough for him to stick around into the '80s.

The Francona card was not in the initial trade; I'd asked for a 1982 Topps Al Oliver but Gator couldn't find it so I asked for Tito instead. No, I'm not building the 1983 Topps set. Even after this trade I've only got 29 of the 792 cards.

Got a couple basketball cards in return for the 18 basketball cards. Also an off-center Jim Zorn and a couple newer cards in Porzingis and Kershaw - which is from the National League All-Star team set, though it looks exactly like the base card. Whatever.. different card number, different card I guess.

Here's a minor trade I made with JDStinz, sort of a 'bottom-pair defenseman for future 4th rounder' deal:

I sent three Stranger Things base cards and two 2015-16 Donruss basketball dupes to JD for these four. Classic Images is not one of my favorite sets at all, but I can't pass up a Brodeur, a Pronger(listed as a Whalers card on TCDB) and an Arnott. Wasn't easy finding an active user who needed my Stranger Things dupes, so I took what I could get. Lucas definitely jumped to the forefront in the most recent ST season. I really enjoyed his character arc and relationship with Max.

Do any of you watch Quantum Leap? Did you watch the original? My wife and I have been watching the reboot, which is funny to me since she had Quantum Leap nights at her college dorm back in the day.
 

I mention this show because the spoils of my most recent Time Travel Trade arrived last Thursday. It had been a while since I swapped cards with Matt, and I'm already preparing for the next one.

Royals and Red Sox here. Tazawa and Hanrahan are extras for my Red Sox binder.

You probably can't read the names on most of these (except for Hubie Brooks) so I'll list them for you: Jim Abbott, Roberto Alomar, and Gary Sheffield are pretty recognizable by photo. Then we have Brooks, Will Clark(also a familiar face), and Marcell Ozuna. Then at the bottom we have Charles Johnson and Josh Bell.

Clark reminds me that there was a Quantum Leap episode where Ben leaps back to the Bay Area right before the 1989 Earthquake.

 

 

And we'll finish with some football Hall of Famers. I was a little too slow on claiming a Scott Rolen card, so I added Moon as a substitute. He's joined by a 2019 Donruss Dan Marino I had to grab quickly because anyone could have offered anything 2018 or older. Michael Strahan rounds out the swap. I'm sure Matt will cover what he received in a future post at Diamond Jesters.

On the same day these arrived, I received my latest COMC order. Here's a preview:

 

I'll show off the rest of my order after the 100 Greatest Non-Hall of Famers Countdown concludes later this week.



Thanks for reading!



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Stew, you should buy that

Once in a while I search eBay for Panini Immaculate relics and autos in the $10-20 range. My primary focus is the 2015 Immaculate Numbers acetate football patch relics. These are serial numbered to each player's uniform number. I won't ever complete the set but it doesn't stop me from accumulating as many as I can.

Last week an Aaron Rodgers card serial #d 12 of 12 popped up. I knew it would be too expensive based on the numbering and the seller - Probstein123. The single-color relic sold for $100.99. However, Probstein had another acetate relic from this set - a three-color patch numbered to just 28 copies. And it was much cheaper.

Carolina Panthers cards always look cool, especially patch cards from high-end sets. I'd just purchased some penny sleeves the day before so I only bid $6 for this Jonathan Stewart, fully expecting to get outbid because it's Probstein. I didn't. I scooped up Stew for $5.50, plus shipping and tax for a total of just over $10. I'd buy these for $10 all day long. 

This is the 12th Immaculate Numbers relic in my collection. There is a Hall of Famer on the way to me via COMC, and I just got an email that my 32 cards have finally been packaged - with an expected shipping date of August 18. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I made a Time Travel Trade with Matt of Diamond Jesters, acquiring these two cards:

And I claimed three freebies from Trevor at Bump and Run Football Cards:

I was surpised that the Jordy Nelson wasn't already in my collection, but now it is :) Never saw any Score McDonald's cards before. And I couldn't resist a color-matching Whit Merrifield parallel.

Trevor also threw in some basketball cards for my PWE swap. I'll have to scrounge up a return for him soon.

Thank you both for the cards!

I've got two ideas for posts at The 1993 - and I'm not sure which one I will write first. Perhaps I'll publish both this weekend. If you're not following me over there now's the time. I might even focus on that blog for a while. We'll see.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!




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My 100,000th card!!

It's finally here - the 100,000th card in my collection!

Can you guess what it is? Here are some hints:


It is a baseball card.
 




Of a Hall of Famer..


 



In his "sunset" season..





Give up? It's the one and only..








 ...Phil Niekro:

Just kidding! This is not my 100,000th card (I'm still stuck on 98,000 or so.) This is my entry in Matt's April Fools Day Bat-Around prank. By the way..

Did you know that Matt Batts

never..

ever...

ever bats?

This is true: Matt Batts played 546 games over ten seasons and didn't get to bat once.

April Fool! Obviously Matt Batts was allowed to bat, I just thought it was interesting that he was never shown holding a bat on any of his Topps or Bowman cards.



Thanks for reading!



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Stadium Club Group Break Results & Trade Recap

A lot of new cards have come in lately, thanks to a couple of trades and a group break. 

Matt, author of the blog Diamond Jesters, writes one of my favorite series Time Travel Trading. He's always got some great stuff available, and I claimed five cards for our latest swap:

Two of the newest additions to his trade stack were the 1964 Topps Roman Mejias (really clean card!) and the 1976-77 Topps Jacques Lemaire. I jumped on those right away. The Moses Malone had interested me when Matt first added it to the stack, and since it was still available I claimed that, too. Matt nudged me in the direction of the Sweet Caroline card - which I had totally missed - and I threw in the Carlos Correa for my star player box.

As a bonus, Matt threw in the Martin Brodeur Pacific Heads-Up card and the Sunkist Protoceratops (I think I mentioned collecting dinosaur toys as a kid.) Matt, thanks again for another great trade!

I've been shuffling through my surplus baseball cards and trying to fill as many wantlists as I can. When I made my first trade with Bo (Baseball Cards Come To Life!) I kind of flaked out on checking his wantlist and just sent him a bunch of Yankees. This time I did my homework and found 31 cards he needed. Andso I picked out 31 cards from his tradelist...

Bo had two cards from 2011 Topps Update - this Andrew McCutchen All-Star and the J.D. Martinez RC at the top of this post. That J.D. is red-hot, so I expanded the trade beyond a swap of base cards.

Two more for my 2016 Topps set. Most collectors dislike '16 and '17 flagship, and I don't disagree with them. I can live with the smoky '16 set though - and it's been easy to piece together most of it. I only need 19 more cards ...if anyone can help me put that set to bed I'd sure appreciate it!

Some 1994 Leaf, a few stars, and a Rogers Hornsby insert. In my St. Louis post I mentioned that I'd like to add more Hornsby cards to my collection..didn't take long to address that.

I grabbed a bunch of Topps Lineage from Bo because the player selection and design appealed to me...

...and also because I think one of my blogger friends is collecting this set. I can always use more tradebait.

I showed these Giants in my San Francisco post. The Belt RC is a dupe, as it turns out.

Finally we have five Rockies. I had no idea that I picked so many of one team, but I'm not complaining. The Jimenez and Helton are keepers. Possibly the Walker as well.  

Bo, thanks again for the great trade!

Before these trades were completed I had joined a group break hosted by Trevor P (Bump and Run Football Cards) Trevor is a fellow Packers fan, but this was a baseball box break-the first he's ever hosted and the first I've ever participated in. 

The 4-box break included two Hobby Boxes of 2018 Stadium Club, a hobby box of 2018 Diamond Kings, and a blaster of 2018 Topps series 2. I was tempted to choose a potentially profitable team like the Angels or Yankees, but I played it straight and went with the Red Sox. My randomly assigned team was the Brewers..which would have been okay, except Robin Yount isn't in any of these sets :/

Here's the Diamond Kings. I've never bought packs of logoless Panini before..these aren't bad at all. Taking that 2016 Topps smoke effect to a whole new level. I got 5 of the 8 Red Sox in the base set (missing Harry Hooper, Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio.) Didn't pull any SPs or variations, but Trevor was kind enough to assign the J.D. Gallery of Stars insert to me. He's clearly pictured in Arizona colors, but the card says Boston. I'll take it!

Trevor's box of Diamond Kings yielded the entire Milwaukee Brewers team set. Here it is:

No Ryan Braun, no Robin Yount, no Gorman Thomas...nothin'. At least there would be some nice Brewers in Stadium Club.

The one Brewers card that I was really hoping for was the Keon Broxton, which in my incomplete analysis is a top-ten card in the set. Did I get it?

Nope! I got every Brewers base card except Broxton! Figures, huh? At least I got my first Milwaukee cards of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich. 

Here's the rest of the Brew Crew-including the four base cards from the Topps2 blaster. The Mike Fiers was one of four Brewer freebies. 

Eight of the ten Brewers I have (and 8 of 11 overall) were vertical, but all of the Red Sox I pulled are horizontal. It just so happens that the three Sox I didn't get - Rafael Devers, Jackie Bradley, and Mookie Betts - are the only three vertical Sox in the set.

These two have drawn raves from Sox fans and non-Sox fans alike. Its no wonder Dustin Pedroia keeps getting hurt-his glove is much too big!

The Topps2 blaster yielded just one Red Sox base card, but two inserts in Williams and Devers. The Boggs insert, Vazquez, and Brian Johnson were among the ten Boston bonus cards Trevor added.

 

While I didn't get any 'hits' it was a fun break. I would certainly consider joining another one - when I have some extra money to spend. Great job Trevor, thanks again!

Have you participated in any group breaks? If so, what products were in the break? If not, what are your thoughts on group breaks?

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I Won a Contest (And So Can You!)

I recently won a contest hosted by Matt on his blog Diamond Jesters as part of his one year blogging anniversary celebration. This was very exciting for me as it was the first time I had won any kind of card contest (I won a free book through a blog contest many years ago)

The theme of Matt's contest was based around his Repack Haiku series, and as the winner I got first choice of which type of card I wanted him to write about. I got a look at the list and chose 1996 Upper Deck - which he noted was a good choice.

Here it is, my very own haiku - and the subject card:

I love it! It's a perfect description of Bryan Rekar's "bad pitcher face" - and it's a Connecticut card to boot! As noted on the back, Rekar pitched for the New Haven Ravens in 1995. I'm sure I saw at least one of his starts back when my mom and I had partial season tickets to Ravens games.

Matt also added some 2016 Topps singles I needed:

As I just realized last night while negotiating a trade with another blogger, my wantlists are not up to date. I'll be sure to fix that in the next day or two.


It must be contest season around the blogs - Matt had a contest, Fuji is having a contest, and at least two other bloggers have hinted at contests to come. And there's a contest going on here, too.

My Sports Card Tour is nearing the halfway point, and last week I kicked off the Sports Card Tour Giveaway Contest. This is my way of rewarding you for reading and commenting on my posts. If you're interested, you can find the rules and official entry on my Memphis post. Be sure to leave a comment there if you'd like to participate!


So far there are ten players and two more who commented but did not specify their entry. Billy, I'm counting you in unless you say otherwise. Ketchupman, please confirm you'd like to play. Thanks.

Every participant gets a 20-card team pack just for playing (if you don't collect baseball cards I have other sports, too) If we're able to get 24 players I will award 100 cards to each of you!

 

That's because there will be 24 prizes available in the draft. Here's a look at some of them:

Sealed retail packs (unfortunately I don't have a hobby shop near me, so the selection will be limited to whatever I can find at Target.)

COMC spoils, like this Mark Teixeira bat card. I'll also be offering up a 'passport' pack - one card from each city stop on the Sports Card Tour.

 There will be lots of Sports Illustrated and Beckett back issues available...

 ...and plenty of toys, too. Mostly McFarlane baseball and hockey figures - though not necessarily the ones pictured. (I can also add some non-sports items to the pool if there's any interest.)

Some 8 x 10 photos, including this Mike York auto - and plenty of other random memorabilia from my closet. I'm on vacation all next week so I will be cleaning and sorting and scanning up items for the giveaway. 


My next post will look at the sports teams in Milwaukee. If you've been with me from the beginning you might recall that I teased a vintage Hank Aaron card in my Atlanta post. Well, now I've got an interesting story about an Eddie Mathews card, too. 


Matt, thanks again for the contest and the freebies! If you're not following Diamond Jesters yet - go follow him now! And sign up for the Sports Card Tour giveaway contest! 



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