TCDB Trading Contest

I've got about 300 cards in my trade box that I'm looking to clear out by the end of the year. If I can find takers for all of them every one I trade with from now until 12/31 will be entered into a drawing for... 

...we'll get to that. If you're on TCDB, take a look at my tradelist and send me an offer if anything interests you. (You can also leave a comment on this post and I'll contact you.) I'd be thrilled to cross off some set fillers from my wantlist but I'll take a look at any tradelists. PC players/teams are always welcome if you want to make it simple. My goal is to get these cards in the hands of collectors who can use them, as quickly and easily as possible.


If I am able to make trades that move out all 300 cards my trade partners will be entered into a random spinning wheel drawing for this card:

2016 Bowman (paper) Vladimir Gurrero Jr. Prospects/1st Bowman card

I'll announce the winner here on my blog and on TCDB but you should follow my blog anyway :)

 

 

Thanks for reading!



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The Diamond King Prizm Prize

 Quick 'thank you' post because the World Series is on tonight or something...

Recently Kevin, aka The Diamond King, had a contest offering to do some card show shopping for one lucky winner. I somehow won, and asked Kevin to keep an eye out for 1993 Donruss Diamond Kings inserts..

is this a sign that Texas will win?

Panini Prizm football parallels...

I like this color matching Carson Wentz, which was no doubt available because he is currently unemployed. Boy, how cruddy is this guy if Zach Wilson, Josh Dobbs, and Tyson Bagent are starting NFL games and he can't even get a backup job?

Blue Crystal Ice Prizm thingy numbered to 99 of a Falcon defender named Deion. (Did you know that this Deion led the league in interception return yards and pick-sixes as a rookie? "Coach Prime" didn't do that til his sixth NFL season.)

and current Packers.

Love stinks. Love hurts. Love...bites? Poor guy has the worst possible last name for bad puns.

The Packers pennant flag will come in handy as I've been looking for some logo cards to stick in the spine sleeve of my Green Bay binders. What do you think, should I keep it in here?

Kevin informed me that the card show didn't have as much cheap football as he had hoped, and asked if Mosaic parallels would be acceptable in addition to Prizm.

Sure, I'll take shiny parallels of these guys. Remember when I paid $30 for a fat pack of Mosaic because I was desperate to rip something during the pandemic? These reminded me, lol.

Colorful college cards were also included in this PWE -- and the second PWE that came with it. Bonus!

The Kelley might be my favorite here. I wouldn't have hand-picked Henry Ruggs, for obvious reasons, but its shiny and blends in with the others. I'll find a place for it in my box.

Hmm.. looks like my football boxes are stuffed. How am I going to squeeze these in? 

My space-saving solution is on the way. I just hope it doesn't arrive on Saturday, as I'll be visiting my family in Connecticut. My cousin and sister will be in town, and a distant cousin and her daughter are visiting from California. 

Apparently the daughter is an aspiring writer and Mom mentioned my short story. One thing led to another and... I may be doing a book reading/performance of Sarah's Surf Shop for an actual audience. Wish me luck. 

Kevin, thanks again for the fantastic football pickups (and the Juan Gone DK). I owe you one!



Thanks for reading!



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All-Time Teams 2.0

Three years ago I released an All-Time Teams series to celebrate 150 years of professional baseball. If you missed that series, it featured 25-man rosters of the best players by position in each MLB franchise's history. All 32 rosters were entered into a simulated tournament presented by DraftKings (of course) in which the Yankees held off the big Red Machine to win the World Series. 

I'm joking. I had nothing to do with that sim, it was just some fortuitous timing.


There were some basic parameters I put in place to make roster construction more interesting. They are:

• A minimum of four years with a franchise to be eligible for their All-Time Team. That means great players who moved around a lot might have trouble finding a home. It also results in average(or below) players earning spots on longevity alone if no one else qualifies.
   
• Players can only represent one team. This got messy in our initial run, as several all-time greats have near-equal splits with multiple teams. Almost all of the negative comments I received on the series had to do with my assignments related to this rule. I don't care. I ain't changing it.
  
  
• Players will be evaluated based on their contributions to that specific team only. For example, if an All-Time great player is blocked at his primary franchise, he may end up on a team for which he played 4+ years but not the majority of his career. However, if his numbers for that secondary team don't measure up to the other players who played there, he may be left out entirely.

Every team will have a Designated Hitter - which was not the real-life rule at the time but is now standard across MLB. Another thing I'm not changing is the roster size. It's tempting to expand these rosters to 26 players, but it would take a lot of fun out of All-Time Teams 2.0 if personnel decisions were this easy:

There won't be data and description for the holdover players whose rosters spots are secure (I don't need to explain why Tony Gwynn or George Brett made their respective All-Time Teams, lol.) We'll have something new in store for them so it's not a complete copy of the original.

There will be data and description for players who are in danger of losing their spot on an All-Time roster, either due to re-evaulation, re-assignment, or a current star climbing the ranks.

Also, since this remastered series was initially conceived as a way to display the cards in my All-Time Teams binders, I should clarify that every card you see scanned in this series is from my personal collection. That includes the 1957 Topps Dodgers Sluggers single at the top of this post. I might even attempt to post a video of the full album(s) at the conclusion of the series.

For those of you stopping by from TCDB, or if you're just commenting for a chance at free cards (no judgment) this post is the official start of the contest. Once the series ends, I will hold a random drawing for everyone who commented by selecting a random post number (this counts as post #1 for contest/series purposes) and then a random comment number.


Instead of going alphabetically through the entire league, we're going to go by division this time. I hope you'll join me tomorrow for our first All-Time team - the Baltimore Orioles.

Thanks for reading, and play ball!



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600/600/600 Giveaway

I'm approaching both 600 posts here at The Collector and 600 completed trades at TCDB. And to celebrate, I will be giving away 600 cards once those milestones are reached. 

This will be two separate giveaways of 300 cards each - though anyone is eligible to win either or both prizes. Here's how:

Any TCDB user who completes a trade with me from now until my 600th trade (I'm at 580 now) will be entered into the first random drawing. If you are reading this from my blog, please feel free to send me a trade offer at TCDB (I'm hockeydude).

If you are a TCDB user and you are not following my blog please feel free to do so, as anyone who comments on my blog posts beginning March 30th and ending at my 600th post (I'm 34 away) will be entered into the second random drawing. That one will be randomized by post number, then comment number. More comments gives you more chances to win!

During this time I will be rebooting my All-Time Teams series with updated rosters for all 30 MLB franchises (and the "Best of the Rest" Barnstormers). I will also be sending out some TCDB trade offers for users who have some of my traders on their wantlist. I am happy to swap PWEs of 2-24 cards with anyone in the USA and Canada. 

If you have something on my wantlist but you don't need any of my tradebait, let me know. I may be willing to offer cards from my personal collection in exchange.


The winners will be announced on my blog sometime in June, or whenever both milestones are reached. I will also post updates on TCDB. Just my way of saying Thank You for reading nearly 600 posts! :)

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Timing is Everything

It's been a frustrating week for me, hobby-wise. After 530 successfully completed transactions on TCDB I encountered my first loss as a Canadian user appears to have ghosted several trade partners, myself included. It wasn't a particularly valuable trade; I sent 19 common-ish hockey cards out and was set to receive 19 cards back. 15 of those were Whalers cards, including two Ron Francis singles. The one non-hockey card would have completed my 1990-91 Skybox basketball set. So that's a bummer.

I had some auctions up on eBay that ended last night. This was designed to fund my Black Friday shopping on COMC, which I had to severely limit when my biggest item (a box of 22 McFarlane hockey figures) didn't get one single bid. Not only was I looking forward to the cash, I was also eager to clear some closet space. Strike two.

As a result, my COMC watch list currently has about $100 worth of cards waiting for me. I do have a shipment on the way (because there are Xmas gifts that need to be sent out somewhat urgently) but it is tough to wait and hope that the items I've been eyeing for a month or more are still there next week. One such card costs 74 cents more than I have, and so I picked up my phone on a random point during the work day and scrolled through the 'recently added' items to see if I could catch something flippable. 

All I need is 74 cents. This shouldn't be hard.

And then I saw it. One of the top cards newly added was this Leon Draisaitl autograph:

The seller was asking $5.25, which would have left me with $10 to spend. I couldn't click 'add to cart' fast enough.

No, seriously. I couldn't. Because this was what I saw when I clicked:

Aaahhhhh f**k f**k f**k!!!

Leon, for those of you who are not hockey fans, is arguably one of the top three (definitely top five) players in the NHL. His autographs should not be selling for $5 and change. Right now, the cheapest auto of Draisiatl available on COMC is on sale for $67.72. All I wanted was 74 cents and I could have made close to 74 dollars flipping that card -- if only I were five seconds faster. Strike three.

Needless to say, I was annoyed. But! When I got home from work a box was waiting for me. A box from Billy. Not long ago, Billy celebrated his 10-year anniversary on TCDB with a contest. I was at work when I saw the post, but I decided to comment quickly for two reasons. The contest included trivia, and if I had waited until after my work day to comment I probably could have had a few more correct answers by perusing his blog. However a dozen other users could have come up with those answers in the mean time. An 'open book' test is one thing; copying off another kid's paper is quite another.

I wanted to answer as quickly as possible to show Billy that I've actually been paying attention to his blog. That... didn't go well. My attention was diverted with work crap and I only got two correct answers. Luckily for me, only one other person took a real shot at it. They won first prize.

I came in second, and was very happy to do so. For the second prize, Billy let me choose 15 cards from his TCDB tradelist. I had to be a jerk and pick some oversized singles to fill my 2- and 6- pocket pages:

This Thrashers franchise card from 2004-05 In The Game pairs nicely with my Hartford Whalers box topper.

Another half-page of oversized singles including two thirds of "Run TMC" and a Jazzy Donyell Marshall High Topps card. Fellow UConn alums Scott Burrell and Ray Allen join him here, with Kerry Kittles in the middle.

More basketball, including a couple set fillers and some of my all-time favorite players in Olajuwon, Miller, and Lillard. Before the season started I read that LeBron James had invited Dame to his mansion, ostensibly to recruit him to play for the Lakers. The pitch was along the lines of "Do you want to stay in Portland, or do you want to win a championship?"

Uh... Bron? Have you seen the standings? Maybe Dame should be recruiting you to play for the Blazers! Do you want to stay in L.A., or do you want to win? 🤣

A couple of Canadian-based hockey stars rounded out my 15 selections. But wait, you say. I count 17 cards here. As if asking for oversized singles that would require more postage and a Connor McDavid insert wasn't enough... Billy tossed in the two Devils singles as a nice little surprise.

Receiving this box of goodies was a much needed pick-me-up after some tough hobby luck. And if I hadn't scrolled through TCDB during office hours I might have missed the contest entirely, as several users had lamented missing the contest. The post got more comments after Billy announced the winners!

 

Billy, thank you very much for the contest and these great cards. I'm adding you to my Christmas card list and I hope to send a return package your way in early December :)

Thanks for reading!

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The Missing Link

Which year is missing from my baseball card collection? Here are your guesses:


1951, 1953, 1953, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1958, 1963, 1965, 1965, 1966, 1966, 1968, 1983, 1994, 2002

One of those is the correct answer..i had a video reveal but it refused to upload straight so I scrapped it.

Congrats to Nachos Grande and Brett Alan! Please let me know if you would prefer a sport other than baseball. Your card will arrive in the mail by the end of November (unless I have to pick one out from COMC.)

Thank you all for reading and participating!

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Weekend contest - win a free vintage card!

 This Sheldon Jones card is one of two 1950 Bowman singles in my collection.

It's not the oldest card I own. However, it is the first in a chain of singles representing nearly every baseball season from 1950 to 2022. There is only one missing link. This particular year has eluded me, though I haven't tried all that hard to acquire any of that season's offerings. 

Here's the contest: simply comment below with the year that is missing from my collection. That's it. You don't have to specify a brand, since there may have been more than one set released that season.

Consider this a 'thank you' contest for sticking around during my hiatus. Anyone is eligible, though comments will be moderated until the end of the contest, Monday night at 8 p.m. EST.

The winner will receive: a single card from the missing year, up to a $10 value (definitely not a common) Not a baseball fan? No problem! You can't choose the card but you can choose the sport. 

If two readers answer correctly, a second prize will be awarded (probably not from the same year)

If more than two readers answer correctly, those names will be randomized to determine a winner.

Here's a clue: If a year/season you're thinking of contains an iconic moment or milestone, that season is most likely represented in my collection.

Good luck, and thanks for reading!


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A Completely Arbitrary Repack

This past Saturday I received a surprise package from Brian, author of Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary.  Apparently I'd won a contest at the end of 2019 by correctly guessing Brian would choose 1974 Topps as his next setbuild. My prize for winning this completely arbitrary contest was a repack box with a 1974 Topps Cecil Cooper showing: 

If I ever went anywhere interesting this would make a great wallet card.

This custom-made repack was loaded with Red Sox - and there was more than one hit included:

The Bernie Carbo autograph (in the '74 Topps design) is my favorite here.
 

More shiny. The Aurora insert is really nice. I'm interested to see where JBJ will sign - and when.

Lots of guys who aren't Red Sox anymore. I think Benintendi will break out in Kansas City.
 

Some Packers oddballls and a Ted Williams stamp. It's not every day that I add a new Packer to my collection but this is definitely my first card of Emmitt's brother Emory Smith (he's not even listed on Pro Football Reference) The Ken Ellis is a Wonder Bread issue, and the David Whitehurst comes with a COA. As promised, the repack came with a sealed pack - BBM Diamond Heroes. I haven't opened it yet. 

Brian, thanks again for the surprise repack!

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About ten days ago I placed an order on the Beckett Marketplace. I was on the hunt for some missing All-Time Teams players and found a seller who offered free shipping with just a $12 purchase. I filled my cart with 17 cards totaling $22.60 - a third of that ($7.50) was for a 1969 Topps Reggie Smith single listed as "Near Mint-Mint" - and placed my order. Usually I get an email within a day or two if any cards were out of stock - which was apparently an issue with other collectors who bought from Mac's Collectibles. 

I didn't get an email that anything was out of stock, and I didn't get an email that my order had shipped. A week after placing the order I emailed Mac's and asked them for an update. I got no response. Today the entire $22.60 was refunded without an explanation. Just an FYI for those of you who shop on the Marketplace - unless you're buying from Burbank or 7th Inning Stretch, proceed with caution. 

Guess I'll have to fill those All-Time Teams needs through TCDB trades...

Thanks for reading!



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Pete, Peter, Pedey

Here are some more of my favorite things...

This is Pete Wentz, Fall Out Boy bassist and songwriter. I knew his name before I knew anyone else in the band (including lead singer Patrick Stump) and I found that odd at the time. But he does have considerable crossover appeal. 

This is Pete Davidson, comedian and cast member of Saturday Night Live.

My guy has had quite a year- he got dumped by Ariana Grande, got into a beef with a U.S Congressman (and disabled veteran), may have attempted suicide, dated Kate Beckinsale, and then split from her. And all of that happened before the end of April!

This is Pete Buttigeig, mayor of South Bend, Indiana and 2020 presidential candidate. I'm still not sure that he's ready to be commander-in-chief, but he made a point in the first Democratic debate that really resonated with me. 

This is Pete Rose. If you don't know him you probably shouldn't be reading baseball card blogs!

Btw, have any of you heard the joke about Pete and Repete? It was in one of my childhood books.

This is Pete Peeters, former Bruins, Capitals, and Flyers goalie and winner of the Vezina trophy in 1983. I don't have an opinion on him, but his name is the perfect segue from Petes to Peters.

This is Peter Griffin. He's. A. Fam-ly Guy. One of the few shows I still watch at its original air time. 

This is Peeta Mellark, a main character in The Hunger Games. I'm assuming he's named Peeta because his family owned a bakery? 

This is one of my favorite memes:

I once dated a girl who was a few years older than me and was really into new wave, goth, and industrial stuff. She made a mix tape for me and this track was one of my faves:

Peter Murphy was the lead singer of Bauhaus before going solo. I never got into them.

These are the latest additions to my Peter Worrell collection. I've reached the point where the mainstream singles I need have dried up, and the only new cards i can find are oddballs and unlisted "1 of 1" gimmicks. Some of them aren't even standard-sized cards.

This Avalanche team-issued postcard (and the Panthers team-issued card above) were purchased with about $7 worth of eBay bucks, so I only spent about $4 "cash" to add three new items to my Peter PC.


And finally, we have the Laser Show, Dustin Pedroia.

Dustin is also called Petey, which I've been spelling Pedey (and the haters spell PEDey - though I've never heard any legit reason to insinuate that) Recently I came across a blog/collecting site called Sports Card Info. They were hosting a giveaway for a Pedroia patch card.

I hate to be the guy that only comments for free stuff but I would have felt more guilty if I didn't try to win this card for my Pedroia PC. Sports Card Info allowed one entry per day for a week and I tried to appease the collecting gods by posting legit comments like "Thanks for the contest! I would love to win this card." while everyone else simply said "Tuesday entry" "Wednesday", et cetera.


The collecting gods smiled upon me. I found out while visiting my mom in Connecticut that I was the winner!

A huge thank you to Andrew and everyone at Sports Card Info for sending me this fantastic card! Give them a follow if you haven't already.


Who is your favorite Pete/Peter/Petey?



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Stanley Cup Contest Winners

Programming note: My card cataloging and reorganization project is almost complete. Regular blogging activities (and trading!) will resume on or about June 1.


The St. Louis Blues punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final last night, eliminating the San Jose Sharks in six games. Since no one claimed the Blues or the Boston Bruins in my playoff contest I can announce the winners now.

The teams that were claimed are listed below:

Tampa Bay Lightning - Gregory (Nine Pockets)
Toronto Maple Leafs - Commishbob (The Five Tool Collector)
New York Islanders - Corky (Pack War)
Pittsburgh Penguins - Brian (Collecting Cutch)
Washington Capitals - Greg (The Collective Mind)
Calgary Flames - Gavin (Baseball Card Breakdown)
Nashville Predators - Jon (A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts) playing for Billy
San Jose Sharks - Fuji (The Chronicles of Fuji)
Vegas Golden Knights - Billy (Cardboard History)

Those of you who participated get one chance at the main prize (a bubble mailer full of hockey cards) for every playoff win your claimed team accumulated. Here's the full list of wins by team:

Capitals
Capitals
Capitals
Flames
Golden Knights
Golden Knights
Golden Knights
Islanders
Islanders
Islanders
Islanders
Maple Leafs
Maple Leafs
Maple Leafs
Predators
Predators
Sharks
Sharks
Sharks
Sharks
Sharks
Sharks
Sharks
Sharks 
Sharks
Sharks

I entered this list into random.org and randomized it four times (to represent the four rounds of playoffs) The team at the top is the winner:

I should not be surprised that the winner is Fuji since San Jose won the most games of any claimed team by far. Fuji, I wish the Sharks could have won the Stanley Cup - but at least they won you some free cards!

Now we'll do the random drawing for a PWE of hockey cards. Everyone (else) gets an equal chance:

Gregory wins the PWE, wehich makes me feel better about this since the team he claimed didn't win one single playoff game. Gregory, email your address to sutherlandct@gmail (dot com) and I'll ship the prizes out this weekend.

Thanks for playing and enjoy the Stanley Cup Finals. Let's Go Bruins! :-)



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Stanley Cup Contest 2019

The Stanley Cup Playoffs start this week, and I've got way too many hockey cards. So I thought I'd give some away in a Stanley Cup Contest!

source:NHL.com

The Contest:

Choose one of the sixteen playoff teams in the comments below. It can be a team you're cheering for, or a team you think will have a good chance of winning the Stanley Cup. (Your choice of team will not determine which cards you receive.)

For every playoff game your team wins, your name will be added to the randomizer one time. That way your odds increase with your claimed team's success - but you can still win the big prize even if your team doesn't.

If your team is swept in the first round, no worries. There will be a second prize drawing where I will randomize the names of everyone who didn't win the first prize.

Both drawings will be held a day or two after the Stanley Cup is awarded.

The prizes:

First prize is a bubble mailer full of hockey cards (from all teams) including inserts, parallels and a relic or auto. I might even include a sealed pack or two, depending on the selection at Target.

Second prize is a PWE full of hockey cards from the same surplus pile as the first prize.

The fine print:

The Stanley Cup Contest is open only to regular readers, and anyone who commented on my previous post. [Last time I did a giveaway, more than one participant claimed a prize and never commented again.] Contest is open until Friday, April 12 or until all teams are claimed. 

The teams:
Tampa Bay Lightning - Gregory (Nine Pockets)
Columbus Blue Jackets -

Boston Bruins -
Toronto Maple Leafs - Commishbob (The Five Tool Collector)

New York Islanders - Corky (Pack War)
Pittsburgh Penguins - Brian (Collecting Cutch)

Washington Capitals - Greg (The Collective Mind)
Carolina Hurricanes -

Calgary Flames - Gavin (Baseball Card Breakdown)
Colorado Avalanche -

Winnipeg Jets -
St. Louis Blues -

Nashville Predators - Jon (A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts) playing for Billy
Dallas Stars -

San Jose Sharks - Fuji (The Chronicles of Fuji)
Vegas Golden Knights - Billy (Cardboard History)

I realize that there aren't a lot of hockey card collectors on here but hopefully this will generate some interest. Enjoy the playoffs, and good luck to all the participants!


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