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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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!

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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!




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