Big Box O' BasketBo

I'm finally finished sorting the box(es) of cards Bo sent me in the NBA Week "PWE swap"

I'll discuss the set chunks in another post, and I wrote about the baseball cards at The 1993.

There's one big stack of random stuff among all these starter sets. Here are some of my favorites:

Bucks and Grizzlies:

I noticed a fair amount of Greg Anthony in the box. I never liked him, but the Vancouver uniform makes these cards much cooler.

Speaking of cool '90s cards, how about this Mark Price:

The Tsakalidis RC is numbered to 499. I like the Super Teams Celtics and Finest singles, too. And I'm always happy to receive Ray Allen Sonics cards.

Some notable rookie cards here. Not the 'right' Laker SP but I'll take it!

 

 

Some of these might end up going to blogger buddies one day. But I'll be happy to hold on to the rest.

Bo, thanks again for all the great cards!



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Christmas In July

Cleveland sports teams have been on my mind a bit lately. First there was the three-part documentary about the Cavaliers from Secret Base. Then the Cleveland Indians changed a few letters in their name.

In between, this card arrived in my mailbox. It's my first legit Cleveland Barons card; there are five in the 2004-05 In The Game franchises set. The only other vintage Barons card in my collection appears to be airbrushed. In fact there are very few cards from the Barons' two seasons of existence that actually show the team logo. 

I had requested this Gilles Meloche card - along with 14 set fillers from 2018 Topps Chrome - in a TCDB trade offer made on June 11th. It took me nearly six weeks to complete this deal, but I had to be patient. Nine cards - including a Seth Jones Black Diamond RC and some 2014 Topps baseball inserts - were sent to RustyK99 in exchange for:

Two Cardinals, two Astros, two Twins, and the Indians' only decent hitter - plus a guy who just got cut by the Tigers. My 2018 Topps Chrome set build is now 68% complete. I still need far too many rookies, but every little bit helps.

For a while I had turned off trading as I planned to finish my PWE Swap and then rebuild the tradelist from scratch. However I saw some Texas trader anxious to get rid of his football and basketball cards for some reason  and he clearly stated that he would trade 10 cards to 1 in our favor.

I happened to have two cards he needed, and so I scoured his tradelist for some NFL/NBA goodies. Of the ten cards I'd requested two were taken - a Larry Bird Hall of Fame insert and a Bobby Portis Mosaic green parallel. My substitutions were even better: I found a Brett Favre insert on second glance and got a nice Red Prizm parallel of a guy I semi-collected a couple years ago.

My first 1986-87 Fleer single and my first Domantas Sabonis card. He was probably the best NBA veteran not represented in my collection - until now. The Kevin Huerter Hoops Premium will fit right in with the fat pack I got as a free gift for spending way too much money at Dave and Adam's.

Broadcasting legend Mike Wallace is the only set filler needed from this trade. The Taylor RC might be the sleeper of the deal; he was the NFL's third-leading rusher in 2020 as a rookie. A pair of Packers would have been a fair trade on their own; this is my second Za'Darius Smith card and my 844th Favre single.

I got all ten of these for a Houston Astros Panini logo sticker (and I threw in a Warren Moon checklist card.)


As for that Hoops Premium stock pack, it was fairly pedestrian:

I'm not a fan of the Ball family, and I would have preferred the other Blazers star.

First year player cards. Cam Reddish played well once he got a chance in the East final. Cavaliers point guard Darius Garland might be the best of the three rookies.

The hits. Wendell Carter Jr. is back, in Green prizm form. The Lazer Prizm pack yielded Cleveland's best player and two Jazz superstars.

More NBA content (what is this, Secret Base?) The PWE Swap Meet is nearing the big finish. Two more envelopes arrived this weekend, one from Jafronius:

...and one from The Diamond King, who asked that I do not send a return. (Are you sure, DK?)

The black Bird is SN'd to 99

Thank you Jerold and Kevin! I've shipped out all of the "Rack Pack" PWEs and sent a small box to Bo in exchange for the grand finale of NBA Week. (Fuji, there's still time to jump in if you're interested.)

When I mailed out the PWEs - and Bo's box - something at the counter caught my eye:

It was too late to send these to one of our resident Yankees fans but I'll save them for the next mailer to Bo, AJ, or anyone else who might want one. And I'll be sure that they're in the envelope, not on it ;-)

One final card to discuss. Stephen of the Baseball Card Store reached out about some 1994-95 SP hockey singles he was offering. I'd included a bunch in my last order and he wanted to give me first crack at his new stock. The only one I needed was Joe Sakic, and I told him that if it's still there when I order again, I'll take it. But I didn't expect him to hold it for me.

He sent it to me as a gift. A... Christmas gift?

Merci, Stephane! And Merry Christmas everyone ;P


Thanks for reading!




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PWEs for me, PWEs for you

It's Day 12 of NBA week and I've got one more post for you before the basketball content comes to a close. In case you missed it I discussed the Phoenix Suns, Gheorghe Mureșan, and Reggie Lewis over at The 1993.

Here at the flagship, NBA week tipped off with an All-Star squad of recent Second Round draft picks (Including Khris Middleton.) We discussed the card-less 1982-83 NBA season and reviewed Fleer and Hoops offerings from 1989-90.

The seventh post of the series will focus on my favorite active basketball player. You may be familiar with my favorite retired stars since they are popping up frequently in the PWEs I've received so far. Two more arrived this week, one from Dennis (Too Many Verlanders) which was heavy on 1999-00 Ultra and players I collect:

...and one from AJ (the Lost Collector), which was a lot more random.

I'm always happy to increase my player PC count but I do love a good potpourri PWE. Thank you Dennis and AJ!

These arrived from Sportlots. I've mentioned all of them except the Sean Elliott in previous NBA Week posts.

 

Now that you've seen what I've received so far in this PWE Swap Meet, it's time to discuss what I'll be sending. I'm preparing up to 40 12-card PWE strips for claiming, but I have a question: should I group some PWEs by team, by set, by year, or by brand? Or would you prefer random samplings of various sets? Most of the 3-pocket pages will be one-sport, so if you want baseball you'll get 12 baseball cards - not some hidden hockey from 1991 lol. 

Let me know what you think. I will probably scan and post the PWEs for you to claim on Saturday at noon. Hopefully that works for everyone involved. 

Thanks for reading, and Gooo Suns! ;P

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Saturday Show and Tell

Before the second half of NBA Week begins I thought I'd squeeze in a recap of all the cards that have arrived at Collector HQ this week. We'll start with the first pair of PWEs for the Swap Meet:

The mysterious Elliptical Man who never provides a last name sent 15 singles, including loads of legends:

I knew Moses Malone was great - but I didn't realize just how dominant he was until researching my 1982-83 "Topps" Basketball set. Tim Hardaway will be a Hall of Famer eventually.. right?

Very nice mix of cards here. Thank you Brendan!

Jeff, author of the blog Wax Pack Wonders, contributed 14 cards:

1980's Fleer! I'm now back up to 32% of thie 1988-89 set, after purging some PSA singles.

These six Reggie Miller cards bump Karl Malone off the top spot in my collection; I have 54 Mailmen and I now have 56 Millers - not including his cameo in the Hardaway card.

Six Hakeem Olajowon cards round out the PWE.Thank you Jeff!

I bought a pair of hockey cards from Harris Sports Cards on eBay:

Tyler Seguin is the 27th card I've added to my 2015-16 Exquisite set build. There are 30 cards in this subset/base set, but try telling that to TCDB. I was excited to add the Whalers logo sticker to my order for $1. Couldn't find it at any of the online retailers I frequent, and no one had it for trade on TCDB.

I tried filling sets through Sportlots. Bandit24 offers free shipping if you order more than 80 cards from him.

I ordered 109.

My 1986 Topps Football set is complete; these are all upgrades. Pat McInally invented Starting Lineup figures.

My wife had about 80 of the 180 cards in the 1994-95 Upper Deck SP insert set and I've nearly completed it for her. I'm down to just 8 needs, with one card on the way from Baseballcardstore.ca.

2013 Topps is almost complete. I just need three Mike Trout cards, the Manny Machado rookie, and nine other randos. 2013 Topps Update is less complete. I'm at about 85% of the 330-card set.

Another very ambitious set build I'll probably never finish - 2018 Topps Chrome. The good news is I've got 61% of the set. The bad news is I still need the Ronald Acuna RC, the Rafael Devers RC, and the Shohei Ohtani RC. Yikes.  The Ron Artest Hoops Decade RC has a roller mark on it. I'll probably have to upgrade.

1995-96 Playoff One on One is another one of wifey's starter sets I'm trying to finish. I've added about 40% of the 2019 Score football set over the past couple of months - and at far less than the cost of a blaster.

I picked out a couple of cards for my team PCs, including a Xander Bogaerts insert and an Aaron Rodgers base card. By the way, every single card in my order was 18 cents.

Except for this Wayne Gretzky sticker from 1985-86 Topps. This was kind of an impulse buy at $3.95.

I made some room in my Hartford Whalers binder (by taking out New Haven cards) so I started filling in those empty slots. Also picked up a couple of Colorado Rockies cards. I might add the Rockies and Scouts to my list of team collections, since they are part of the Devils' lineage.

Made some progress on my 1988-89 Topps set build - but not quite as much as I intended.

How did I manage to order two Rick Vaive cards? I could have filled in another need. Oh well :/

These are all in nice shape, but the Hrudey is way off center on the back. I might have to upgrade that one.

Finally, the main focus of this order was finishing off my 1992-93 Topps Archives basketball set. I needed 15 cards and Bandit24 had them all. They were the first cards I placed in my cart. Everything else was secondary.

Feckin' hell. Gold parallels.

All of them were gold parallels. It's a nice bonus, I guess. But now I have to go get those 15 base cards.

I've already spent the $1.98 in loot (and a $0.36 refund) on more cards from Bandit - but I didn't bother trying to order these again. 

Have you ever received parallel cards when ordering base set fillers? Did you notify the seller?

Thanks for reading!




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NBA Week PWE Swap Meet

The NBA Finals are just around the corner. Here at The Collector (and The 1993) we're celebrating the sport with a week of posts similar to the NFL Week series from December. 

It was a lot of fun coming up with a topic a day for football, and I'm already working on some posts about basketball - and basketball cards. Thanks to bloggers like Billy, Kerry, and Jon my NBA collection has grown exponentially over the past few years. But it still trails the other three major North American sports:

A couple bloggers have offered to send basketball cards if I do an NBA swap meet - and I couldn't imagine doing a theme week without one. The Swap Meet stand is open for business!

My football card collection was under 10,000 before the first Swap Meet, in which I requested any football cards in exchange for a PWE of cards that fit your collection. I know I won't get to 10,000 basketball cards, or even 6,000. But if I can get to half of my football total I'll be happy.

The NBA Swap Meet will be a little different. Participants can send me any 12-15 unwanted basketball cards in exchange for 12-15 cards of your choice. Basketball card prices have gone through the roof over the past year and a half so I'm not expecting any rookie cards of Zion or Luka or Trae. Early '90s Hoops, Upper Deck, and Skybox cards are fine with me. It might even kick-start a set build or two.

There's been some mention of rack packs 'round the cardsphere and I thought that it would be fun to recreate those in my offerings. At the end of NBA Week I will scan up over two dozen 3-pocket pages available for claiming so that you can see the front facing cards. Here is a sample:

Anyone who comments on a basketball post and wishes to participate can select a PWE (or more). There will be hundreds of cards available from all sports, brands, and teams. Perhaps even some vintage and an autographed card or two ;)

If we've traded before I'll send your PWE as soon as it is selected. If you're new to the blog I will be happy to swap but I must ask you to send a basketball card PWE first. And if you plan to send more than 15 cards my way, please let me know and I'll put together an equal amount of cards for you. 

NBA Week officially tips off tomorrow at The 1993 and returns here starting Saturday. I hope you'll join me for a celebration of basketball - and a PWE swap :)

Thanks for reading!


 

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