Barnes & Noble >>> Target

Christmas is just over a month away and my daughter's 16th birthday is even sooner, so I've been doing a lot of shopping for girly things I know nothing about. We're visiting my family in Connecticut for Thanksgiving, so I had to order what I could last week to ensure it would arrive before this coming Wednesday.

A Barnes & Noble opened nearby just as the school year was starting, and both my girls wanted books, so I stopped in on my lunch break. There was a woman practically harassing the cashiers and manager, over something that was going to be released the next day. The lady claimed that Wal-Mart and Target had already released them, so she couldn't understand why B&N wouldn't sell to her. She tried all the excuses -- you're losing out on sales, flippers are going to buy them all up. Can you hide one for me? Can you limit them to one per customer?

The staff stood firm - we're going to follow store guidelines, ma'am. Good on them. But now I was curious... what the heck was coming out the next day that this woman was going psycho for?!?!

Just in time for the holiday season, the highly anticipated Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Phantasmal Flames drops Nov. 14 

Part of me wanted to come back that morning and buy up all the Pokemon I could, but the collector in me sympathized with the kid who asked for them. My mom used to go to toy stores at the crack of dawn and ask the stock workers if they were unloading a fresh supply of Starting Lineup figures so she could get first look at the selection. 

And so, as a way to support the store for standing firm while also appeasing the collecting gods, I bought some cards.

Apparently this has been a thing for a while; we used to have a much bigger B&N that closed about three years ago. Never saw any cards in there. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection -- four or five different brands of football, a small amount of baseball, and Topps Holiday Basketball. 

Yes, Topps is back in the basketball business. I've seen some interesting breaks of Flagship, but didn't know there was a Holiday release until I saw two mega boxes sitting on the shelf.

I don't care if there's a towel relic of some first-round bust in here, I'm just happy to have my purchase in hand..

The closest big box retailer to me is Target, and they almost always have a good selection of sports cards. I stopped in to shop for my girls and naturally checked the card aisle for Topps Update baseball and Upper Deck hockey. They had neither. I'm used to Target not having any hockey (they had a couple blasters of last year's Skybox Metal. Ugh) But ... no baseball?!?! Very little football, too.

Target had gone all in on Topps basketball; 80% of the card aisle was NBA product. I had to order the cards I wanted on Target's website because they are not available in stores. 

And so, I went home and ordered everything I was going to buy. Delivery was scheduled for Thursday. 

My soon-to-be 16 yr old had her first detention that afternoon (three tardies) and would have been home at 2:45 p.m. on any other day. My 13 year old comes home around 3:10 p.m. I texted her this:

NOT GOOD!!!! We didn't get the f**cking box!!!

Someone must have swiped it off our porch in the 15-20 minute gap between delivery and my daughter's arrival. Son. Of. A. Bitch. $150 in merch - more than half of which was cards - gone. 

There were more deliveries on the way, Friday and Saturday. I ran home as soon as I saw the delivery photo on Friday, then ran back when I saw a FedEx truck on my lunch break. Picked those up without incident. Saturday though... that was the big one. 

First year without my wife/their mom + sweet 16 b-day + Christmas = $800 laptop. This was me all day Saturday:

Needless to say the laptop arrived safely. One more delivery tomorrow and gift giving is just about done.

But I needed to fill that megabox-sized hole from losing my merch. I've been pulling double parent duty for 2+ months, working and cleaning and shopping for the girls. I deserve a little retail therapy, no? 

I wasn't going be too greedy and buy hobby boxes from my LCS for triple digits. And I wasn't going to order online again, especially since the delivery date would be the day we leave for CT. That meant more retail hoops:

It's not what I wanted, but I can treat myself to baseball and hockey after my next commission check from 4 Sharp Corners comes in (or my Christmas bonus from work 😉)

Not that anyone reading this is a big basketball collector (where have you gone, Jon and Billy?) but here's the highlights of the basketball haul from Target, starting with Prizm:

The Topps hanger was pretty standard. But it was interesting to see a (licensed) Topps set in a sport other than baseball:

Team cards and a Grizzlies throwback. I don't mind these, I just wish Topps would 86 the captions. The words "stars", "shine(s)", "young", "duo", and "lead the way" appear multiple times in these six cards. The editor in me is fuming at the lack of creativity. 

Legends are definitely not short-print variations in NBA sets. I pulled four, including a Schrempf Sonics card:

What is that wordmark though? I do not remember that at all. 

Here's a side-by-side comparison with the Holiday set:

Sochan paying tribute to Dennis Rodman here

One thing I was curious about was the cutoff date for off-season acquisitions. 

These weirdos both changed teams over the summer, but KD is pictured with his new squad on the Holiday card, while MPJ - now with the Nets - is still a Nugget in Flagship. Durant's latest trade demand was granted on July 6th while the Nuggets offloaded Porter on July 8th.

Holiday was released one week after flagship. Durant is a Rocket in both; MPJ is a Nugget in both. 

The hits had some more Nuggets, including the Jokic ornament and blue glitter parallel. The Dylan Harper relic is a nice pull as well. 8-Bit Ballers and 1980-81 Chrome are Flagship inserts. 

More Dylan Harper here. Collation was a bit odd - not that I was expecting a Cooper Flagg. Of the 85 base cards in the box, 18 were duplicates. Cam Thomas - who is still pictured in his Nets jersey despite being traded to Denver in the Porter deal - appears three times. Guess I'll have to return to TCDB soon..

One more thing... after I put my books and basketball card box on the counter, the girl at Barnes & Noble asked me if I would like to buy an Advent Calendar -- from Topps:

Yes. Yes I would.

Looks like I'll be doing daily posts in December :)



Thanks for reading!



~

Irish Day Updates

Aaron Rodgers told his special friend Patty McCaffeine that he wants to play for the Jets this season.

No trade is imminent as the two teams teams are still discussing compensation. Gutey, get Josh Morrissey or let Throw Rogan rot.

Fellow Packers fan Fuji sent a care package to Collector HQ this week:

Brendan Morrison (top left) continues the Irish theme. He's joined by three Scott Gomez inserts and a pair of James Lofton Topps singles for Ye Olde Green & Gold. I really should try to complete a run of Lofton Topps singles, at least from his Green Bay days. He's got an awesome Nike promo card that I recently learned about.

Hopefully other collectors have overlooked it since a young Michael Jordan is also in the set.  

Fuji included these gems as well. I'm very happy to add the Sami Kapanen and Donny (not Donyell) Marshall autos to my Connecticut Collection, and the 1988-89 Fleer cards are awesome as well. But that golden Doug Weight at the top left is a much better prize than it may appear. You see, this Playoff One on One card game (which is my wife's; I'd never heard of or seen them at the time) was issued as a starter/booster pack with common/uncommon/rare tiers. Weight happens to be an Ultra Rare; these were inserted at a rate of one per four booster packs. She managed to pull one (Alexei Zhamnov) but there are 39 38 more we need.

I doubt I'll ever manage to complete the set, but even if I don't it's a PC-ish card as Weight was one of my favorite hockey stars around the turn of the century. Fuji, thanks for the great cards!

So... this has been sitting in my basketball card box for a few years now:

Apparently it's worth a couple dollars. A couple hundred?!??! dollars??!?!

I think I might have to sell it. Maybe I'll just give up the job search and sell cards all day...

Speaking of Steve Nash, this year's NBA MVP race is ridiculous -- emphasis on race. I'm a bit of a Giannis guy, and I like Nikola Jokic as well. I'm neutral on Joel Embiid. But it seems to me that, all things being equal, the award should go to the best player on the best team. That would be the Bucks in the East (and overall), and the Nuggets in the West. If you want to look at which player has the weakest supporting cast as an indicator of which candidate is most valuable then that would be Giannis.

Embiid has James Harden on his team, and they're not as good as Denver or Milwaukee buuut he's leading the NBA in scoring. Honestly, you can't go wrong with any of the three. That's not how some people see it. Because some sports talkers are already eliminating Jokic from the discussion (looking at you, Perk)

Why? Because three MVP awards (especially consecutive) is legend territory. Certain sports talkers don't want to admit that Jokic is worthy of winning three. Many of those same people don't think Steve Nash should have won either of his two MVP awards. Haven't we given you people enough undeserved accolades?

 
I'm not enough of a basketball fan to care one way or the other. Give it to Joker, don't give to Joker.. whatever. Just don't not give it to Nikola because he's not welcome in da club.

 Back to the job hunt. See you next week, and Happy St. Patrik's Day everyone!

~

Defunct Franchises

My original title for this post was going to be "20 for '20" because I counted all of the basketball cards in my COMC order and well.. there were 20. But then I realized something even more interesting about these cards:

A high percentage of the cards I ordered depict teams that no longer exist. Take this Tom Chambers card here. This is one of five Seattle Supersonics cards I picked up accidentally-on purpose. I didn't realize that one fourth of the basketball cards I bought were Sonics stars until I had them in-hand.

 

Here's a festive batch of shiny hoopers that put me in a Christmas mood. The Lillard Rainmakers insert (which kind of looks like tinsel) cost $1.20, while the Love Optic parallel (#d/85) was one of the cheapest Fast Break Red Prizms available at just $0.93. The color-matching Hakeem cost $0.71, and the Gary Payton Defensive Gems insert was the cheapest of the six at $0.65.

Payton and Chambers were in my original COMC order which I requested in July. I did not plan on buying any more singles until these arrived. However, a seller named The27guy disrupted those plans by posting a bunch of Immaculate singles at low prices - then adding a sale I couldn't resist.

Sonic BOOM! This X-Man patch is numbered to 10 and set me back $7.30, the second-most expensive basketball card I bought. Hall of Famer David Thompson's Shadowbox Signature (#d/99) cost $4.30.

One more Sonics relic, and a zombie Sonics card to go with it. Both of these Standard singles are numbered to 75. Ray Allen was $4.90, while Serge Ibaka was too cheap to pass up at $1.15.

More Immaculate bargains. Gerald Henderson wasn't a star - if he were, this 3-color patch #d to 10 would have cost a lot more than $3.10. The Christian Laettner relic is my least favorite design here, but I can overlook the odd swatch window placement for $1.62.

 

Point gods. I passed on this Stockton relic so many times I was certain someone else would snatch it up. But my patience paid off and I brought it home for $3.44 (the cheapest copies on the site now are over $6.00) The Nets aren't exactly a defunct franchise - they're alive and well in a different city. I probably should have tried to get to a game while they were here but I didn't know any NBA fans :/

I did get slightly excited when J-Kidd led the Nets to back-to-back Finals appearances - until realizing they had no chance of winning either series. This Franchise Foundations card ($0.85) reminds me of 2003, when a banner hung over Continental Arena declaring the home of the Nets and Devils to be the "Arena of Champions." I'm not the world's biggest CP3 fan but this Limited single was a nice pickup for four dimes.

Here's another Essential single. Talk about a point god.. they don't get much better than the big O. I added Oscar and Kareem to my Bucks collection for $1.45. 

 

There was one more Bucks card in this COMC shipment.. one I purchased in October of 2019 but couldn't bring it home until last week:

This was kind of an impulse buy. I searched Robertson autos one night, saw that the cheapest were sticker autos over $30, and didn't give it another thought -- until a seller posted a 50% off sale and I snagged this for $18.25. Yeah, it's a sticker auto, but it's an auto of an all-time great numbered to 25. It's also my best autographed basketball card by far.

Let's wrap up the basketball portion with some local oddballs. These are from a UConn Huskies set issued in 1991-92:

I lived in Connecticut for 24 years and I've never heard of Petro Pantry - or UConn Field House, which was the Huskies' home prior to Gampel Pavilion. I have heard of Walt Dropo though. The longtime major league 1st baseman was one of the greatest all-around athletes in state history. I actually saw him at a card shop once, though I didn't meet him. We were traveling upstate on the hunt for baseball card stores and I popped in when he happened to be signing autographs. I think I was about 10 years old at the time.

 

Some more Connecticut cards, including a pair of West Haven Yankees. I showed off these Whalers before, but here they are again. They are a defunct team, after all :*(

So are the Nordiques and North Stars. I'd like to pick up some sticker-sized Ultra Pro pages some day but Panini/Topps stickers aren't the same size from year to year. Minny was $0.70, Quebec was $0.74. The Whalers logo has been sold out for over a year. I'll have to pay a premium for that one if it ever pops up again. 

I didn't pick up any Atlanta Thrashers in this order but I did get a sharp looking Flames team card for just $0.67.

I'll show off most of my hockey and baseball card purchases next week. Until then, here's one more from a long-gone franchise:

Hall of Famer Harry Howell was one of the few stars the Seals had in the early 1970s. This 1970-71 Topps base card is the cleanest vintage hockey card I've seen in a while - and it only cost 86 cents!

----------------------------------------------------------

The PWE Swap Meet has been a huge success so far! Yesterday alone I received two stuffed bubble mailers and four envelopes. In the first week I've received cards from reader Ken, Bo, Elliptical Man, Night Owl, Nachos Grande, Nine Pockets, The Angels In Order, and three TCDB traders. My football box is overflowing already!

I'll have those return PWEs mailed out this weekend, and I'll reveal a portion of the prize box here:

Frank "Home Run" Baker of the Philadelphia Athletics

The PWE Swap is open until December 28th. Send me those unwanted football cards!


 

Thanks for reading!




~

Wave 2.2 - Winter Sports

The Third Wave arrived today - my first order from Baseball Card Store in Canada. I'd been hoping for a CardBarrel type website that sells cards for all sports - and this could be it. 

But before I dive into that shipment there's plenty left from the Second Wave - my 400+ card trade with TCDB user Randylaw. This post will focus on winter sports because it frickin' snowed last weekend. (It's 83F in Jersey today.)

Ladies first:

I've really been slacking on adding to my Women on Cards binder. This is my first Lindsey Vonn card.

Erin Hamlin was selected as the flag bearer for the U.S. delegation at the 2018 Winter games - which prompted speed skater Shani Davis to have a Twitter temper tantrum. 

A pair of fantastic figure skaters. Gracie Gold has struggled with an eating disorder in recent years but she's making a comeback and doing well on and off the ice.

As for that other ice sport..

It's getting tough to find Devils cards I don't have from 1990 to about 2008. I actually had the Sean Burke already. Oh well.

I have no plans to build the 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee (or Topps) set but I don't mind picking up HOFers like Yzerman and near-HOFers like Nicholls and Barrasso. The airbrushed Randy Cunneyworth is pretty weak though. 

Oh Ca-na-da! Darin Madeley counts as a New Haven Senator. Guy Carbonneau is a Hall of Famer; Theo Fleury is not. (It pays to be Montreal's captain.)

More from the junk wax era - though Bowman doesn't count as "junk". My LCS overpriced these singles back in the day so I had very few at the time. Nothing but HOFers and borderline HOFers here. On that note:

SPx and SPa including a pair of P.K. I'm not much of a Jonathan Quick fan but he is a CT guy, born and raised in Milford (the town next to mine and home to the card shows I attend when I visit my mom.) Is Marc-Andre Fleury a Hall of Famer? I kind of think he is, but goalies are tough to judge. Curtis Joseph and Tom Barrasso are still waiting for the call..

..and so is Mike Richter, though his career was cut short by injury. I really miss Topps hockey cards; it's a little surprising to me that I didn't collect more Heritage hockey.

This trade reminded me of just how great those sets were. (I also miss the Thrashers.)

Basketball isn't considered a winter sport - but the NBA season is played in winter so I'll count it for this post.

I still have dozens of duplicates from my 1992-93 Fleer Ultra box, and I was able to swap a bunch of them to Randy for some 1993-94 needs. This stack of 40 singles brings my set build to about 85% completion. 

1991-92 Skybox was one of my favorites as a kid. The vibrant colors were a huge improvement over the initial Skybox set. I have no plans to build the set but it's easy to add these singles to any trade.

Some popular '90s Nets.. and Tate George, the first UConn star of the Jim Calhoun era. Aguirre and Potapenko were substitutes for the 16 cards Randy didn't have. 

Chrome cards are another thing I look for in dime boxes and trades. 

Season Ticket stars. I always overcompensate when I'm short on a star player such as Nikola Jokic. I'll have to re-calibrate and see what other stars I'm missing. (As soon as I'm done with scanning the new cards coming in I'll explore this further.)


I'm not sure how I'll scan and discuss the rest of the cards I received in this trade with Randylaw. Perhaps I'll complete the trilogy with a baseball and football post, or perhaps I'll mix them in with cards from the Third Wave. Either way, I'm getting closer to my goal of 100,000.


Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!



~