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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Sox, Rox, and a Box

A couple weeks ago I saw a post on the TCDB forums called Please claim a baseball team. It was posted by Terry, a Dodgers collector who offered to send cards of every (other) team to anyone who wants them. I didn't partake at first. My goal is to reach 100,000 cards but I want to get there organically, not through a large lot purchase. And I definitely didn't want to take on a whole box of cards without sending something in return.

But by this time last week Terry still had a couple of teams available, including the Colorado Rockies. 

I decided to help him out and take this unwanted team off his hands, mostly for the '90s guys who passed through New Haven. Terry sent about 500 Rockies cards, which I've spent the past three days sorting, cataloging, and repackaging as a pay it forward to the only Colorado collector I know. Here are some of the keepers:

We'll see if Cooperstown is calling Larry Walker in just a few days. My fingers are crossed for him.

The cards were almost all from 1992-2006, so there was a handful of Walker but no Nolan Arenado. It didn't bother me any, since I was claiming this lot for former Ravens:

Pitchers and Petrick. Jamey Wright had a nice long career in the bigs.

Q! Gibby! Neifi! The Chrome card at the top left also counts as a Red Sox single. Bonus! :)

Todd Helton was the big draw here. The Finest and 40 Man inserts are awesome. (I snuck Garrett Atkins in at the bottom right to fill space.) Everyone keeps sending me mins; I should probably pick up some protective pages for them.

Some cool Colorado cards here, especially the top three. The Bryn Smith Leaf is missing foil on the front. But you know the rules...

Some short-term stops here (I didn't even know Gant and Relaford were Rockies) along with another Atkins and my second card of Mr. Laura Rutledge. 

We've got Todd Helton and Larry Walker.. now here's Todd Walker. I know nothing of Chris Martin the pitcher but I'm a fan of Chris Martin the singer. 

Some cool parallels/inserts from Donruss and Topps were also included. Many thanks to Terry for all the great Rockies cards!

When I updated my wantlist tabs at the beginning of the year, I was immediately contacted by two readers who offered to send me cards. Nick had some set fillers for me:

The Dime Box king did some serious damage to my 2019 Topps set. These are just the highlights.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see this Fernando Tatis Jr. RC in the stack!

Nick also included a nice stack of Red Sox cards: 

Legendary left fielders and horizontal heroes.

Some Holiday cards featuring Benintendi and Sale. 

 

A new Dustin Pedroia relic, a very cool Mookie Betts Wall Climbers insert, and some chromey cards.

Big Papi was well represented in the mailer from Nick. I now have 254 different David Ortiz cards, more than any other baseball player in my collection.

But that wasn't all the Ortiz. Let's check the back of that Johnny Damon stack...

Ohh! These are neat. They look like 2002 Topps but they are actually a 2003 Japanese release called Kanebo. TCDB lists this as a 54-card set, but Damon is obviously card #55. Shea Hillenbrand is #14.

Perhaps the gem of the group was this Buster Posey bat relic #d/99. It's fitting that Nick sent a pair of Posey cards (in addition to Koufax and Bryant) because he's one guy I often look for when I'm sifting through dime boxes. Nick, thanks again for the great cards! I'll get something out to you soon!

A couple other things came in the mail this week. After I used up most of my eBay bucks on the Warren Spahn auto I decided to spend the remainder on a box of basketball cards:

This sealed box of 1992-93 Fleer Ultra ended up costing me less than a blaster after the eBay bucks were deducted. I'm going to save this for a post about 1992-93 Fleer Ultra sets, since they all look the same. 


Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!



 
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