Blogger friends come first

Over the past month or so, I've had small trades and purchases arrive from eBay, Sportlots, and TCDB. Logic would indicate that the orders coming from the east coast would arrive first, followed by central/midwest, then west coast, and Canada would take the longest. 

Personal assumption here but I'd expect that eBay shipments would be most reliable, then Sportlots, then TCDB - just based on the visibility and feedback structue, selling cards vs. trading cards, and moderation of each website. 

Naturally, the post office has laughed at this assumption. I've had issues with receiving cards from all three websites, regardless of location. And while the sellers/trading partners have varied in their responses and the sources, locations, and volume of cards in the incomplete transactions have varied, there is one constant.

Blogger friends have come through every time. 

Here's a care package from Night Owl. He offered to help me complete a couple sets and asked for nothing in return. (don't worry, I'll hit him back for the anniversary giveaway) 

This stack of cards took 3-4 days to travel from NY to NJ, as it should. Meanwhile, I made a trade with a TCDB user in Staten Island more than two weeks ago. I sent my cards two Saturdays ago. Did he receive them? I don't know, he hasn't logged in since the 19th. And I still don't have my cards. 

Bookending with another New York-based blogger, Bo sent me a very generous trade offer on the 15th. That trade took about a week to complete. I filed those cards away already but here's a scan of one of them. 

That's just one TCDB user though. Sometimes trade partners disappear, it happens. What about eBay? There's far more mechanisms in place to prevent sellers from ghosting. 

Ah, but those standard envelopes for single card purchases under $20 are always risky. 

I paid under $2 shipped for this Junior which arrived in four days from Las Vegas. It should have completed my 2024 Topps set, but a three-card trade with a west coast TCDB user has not arrived. This trade partner (I'm not going to name names) logs in every day and has been responsive. They sent my three cards on June 2. That small envelope has apparently been lost in the mail. 

While eBay sellers do have more incentive to complete transactions than TCDB traders, this still seems random to me. Not only because the west coast 3-card trade was with a more active trader(with 100% feedback) while the NY trader has far more feedback (but a negative or two). But because an eBay purchase I made two weeks ago was also lost in the mail. And this seller deserves to be mentioned by name.

Another $2 purchase shipped in a standard envelope. Should have arrived roughly the same time as the Caminero - maybe a day earlier since this seller is in the Boston area. But it didn't. The eBay tracking wasn't helpful as it hadn't even been marked as shipped after 11 days. So I sent The Card Pagoda a quick message just to confirm the card was shipped, and he ... immediately apologized, refunded my $2, and offered to send a replacement. 

The replacement has already arrived. 

More value that I had intially expected, plus two Whalers (based on my screen name) and a refund?!? For a two dollar card? The only reason I even thought to ask Gus to confirm the card shipped was because of a Sportlots order I still have not received.

I wanted my 100th Sportlots purchase to be significant. I also wanted to complete some hockey card sets and that is very tough to do on TCDB. So I saved my pennies and purchased large chunks of cards from three different sellers. 

All three were tracked. Two have arrived. Guess which one didn't? That's right, the one with free shipping. I specifically loaded up at TNT because of the $0 shipping for 101+ cards. They are a preferred seller with 100% feedback. So what happened? 

Sorry, I was away for a week helping my mother and had not dropped off the packages to the post office. I will get your order dropped off at the post office today.

Hey, I get it. Moms always come first. I was anxious about this one because I'm going away to see my mom soon, and I didn't want the package sitting on the porch for five days.

Even after this message it still sat in limbo all week with no status update, though TNT was responsive and offered a refund if the cards didn't arrive soon. As I began writing this I checked USPS to screenshot the lack of status and.. apparently it is moving and expected to arrive tomorrow. So that's a relief. If and when it does, I'll need just 15 cards to complete a run of Upper Deck hockey base sets.

Hopefully I will be able to complete those sets through TCDB trades. And that means sending envelopes across the border to Canada, which is tough for several reasons. The envelopes can't have too much weight to them or customs flags them down and charges $500. As noted above, small envelopes within the US get lost all the time, so adding another country to the mix only increases the diffculty. And some TCDB users north of the 49th won't even trade with Americans (can't say I blame them)

But you know who does? Crazie Joe. 

Joe had a mix of everything for me - Devils, Whalers, an Ovi, and a pair of set fillers. These arrived from Ontario in a week. I was blown away. If I can complete a small PWE trade with someone in Canada this fast, there's no reason for any trade or purchase from anywhere in the lower 48 to take longer. 

It seems so random, right? Some trades arrive fast, others don't. Some small purchases arrive fast, others are lost. Some tracked orders arrive fast, others don't. But Joe here proves that there is a commonality among all the transactions I've completed on time. 

He has a blog. 

So, whether you're buying on eBay or Sportlots, trading on TCDB or elsewhere, don't check a person's feedback rating for peace of mind. Check to see if they have a sports card blog 😁

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Spring Things

I haven't had the creativity to post anything here, but I am working on updating and remastering some old posts and new wantlists. I'm also making TCDB trades. Soooo many trades...

Our family has no plans for Memorial Day weekend (cause my "America first" in-laws will be in the UK lol) so I should be able to post the full Top Ten by position project during the three-day weekend. 

In the Meantime here are some things I did this spring that I wanted to blog about but just couldn't find the time to make each topic its own post:

I visited my mom in CT for a few days. The girls and I took a tip up to the WestFarms Mall in Hartford and I found an awesome card shop in Milford:

This place is a hundred times better than my LCS down the street. There were dozens of boxes with single cards to look through. I found 50-60 set fillers for various 2025 baseball sets including a Heritage SP and when I brought them to the counter the guy charged me $4 for the stack. Awesome. 

I also grabbed some random football cause I didn't have a lot of time to go through other boxes. But if you're a hardcore player collector looking for some obscure safety or lineman drafted in the early '00s .. JB probably has their card buried in these boxes. Really wish I had more time to explore those.

Around the perimeter of the store I found racks of blaster boxes and single packs from junk wax era sets to recent Prizm football and Upper Deck hockey issues. 2022-23 UD Extended fat packs for $2 each? I'll take all of 'em please and thank you. 

My eyes lit up when I saw the shelf with Topps baseball factory sets. I have 1988, 1990, 1991, and 1993 but it never made sense for me to buy 1989 or 1992 as the shipping cost was prohibitive. Grabbing these off the shelf for $15 each though? Heck yeah. Only issue was that when I got them home I noticed the 1989 set (my least favorite ever) was bursting out on one end. So I opened it and saw that all the cards were curled. Serves me right for buying a set I loathe. I've actually managed to trade about half on TCDB already. 

Next to the cash register there was a drum full of store-made mystery packs in manilla envelopes, roughly 30 cards each with at least one auto for $15. I grabbed two. I'll show those off one day if I remember. Solid value there. 

Also picked up two graded cards and a pack-box of Ultimate Collection hockey that was far worse than I could have expected. I knew there was no way that I'd get 100% of the value back but I was hoping for a nice patch card or something, even if it wasn't a great player. LOLno. I got a one-color relic of Justin Sourdif, a fake relic thing of William Karlsson (I like the player, but for that price, this better be a real hit) and an autograph of Jonathan Marchessault. $10 card probably. Absolutey set $150 on fire. Never doing that again.

BUT it was not the store's fault. There were four boxes behind the counter and the guy let me pick a number between 1 and 4. I picked 3. Do not pick 3. Ever. Now, do I think the other boxes were hiding a Connor Bedard patch auto? No. But I could have at least pulled a real relic hit of a star player. Maybe. 

Despite this I loved this store and plan to go back in the summer when I visit my mom again. 

I bought my youngest daughter tickets to Stars on Ice for her birthday. She's a huge fan of golden boy Ilia Malinin:

This is the only photo I took; the rest were video.

He did four solo performances including a fun one where he skates to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" while wearing a black hoodie and stonewashed jeans. Quite a character. 

The US team has a ton of personality, including fan favorite and Olympic champion Alyssa Liu:

And my girl Amber Glenn, who my daughter calls "bird lady" because she looks like a bird I guess? 

For the old heads, Jersey Girl Isabeau Levito is a more traditional skater - very elegant and lovely to watch, but not a lot of spice. 

I was wondering if there would be a unique or special moment for Isabeau since this is her home ice and all - but the only thing that might have been a nod to that was at the end - when Amber carried Izzy off the ice on her shoulders. Wish I had a picture of that lol. 

We got two seats tickets in a suite - which I would never be able to afford for a Devils game. From the Prudential Center website it looked like there would be food and drinks available to everyone, but that must only be during hockey season. Huge bummer there. Also our tickets were standing room only but a nice rich lady informed us that she wasn't using all of her seats and we got to sit in two front row seats. I'm still team Eat The Rich but I also refuse to judge all members of a group by the actions of a few. Thank you rich lady :)

My finances were kinda tapped out after the CT trip and Stars On Ice but then I got an email from American Airlines warning me that my wife's points were about to expire. I am deathly afraid of flying and D will obviously not be using them, so I converted them to a $75 eBay gift card. 

After a few days of shopping I had my eye on this card:

The seller has this on an auction with a starting bid of $60 or best offer. So I offered $75 and .. they did not respond. The auction was nearing an end without any bidders so I bid my $75 and.. it sold for $77. Two bidders used auction snipe tools in the last five seconds. I hate auctions. 

Instead I bought a card for my '80s/'90s legends project that I wouldn't have spent my own money on - but since it's "free" I figured why not?

Have you ever come across cards whose real value doesn't match your own personal value? Like you see something nice and think to yourself if that was $50 I'd buy it - but I'm not touching it at $75. It happens to me all the time.  

For example: I'd buy every single one of these 2025-26 Ultra hockey inserts that recreate 1993 Flair baseball:

If they were $1-3 each. Unfortunately they are numbered to 93 and if you're not picky about the player you can maybe get one for $5. I'm not paying $6 for this Sam Reinhart - but Victor Hedman? Sure. 

I'll have to see if JB's has any of these Flair '93s next time I'm in town to visit mom.

Have you been to any good card shops lately? If so, what did you purchase?

Thanks for reading!





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eBay adventures

Bought a complete base set of 2024-25 Upper Deck hockey from an eBay seller in Quebec. The cards arrived today, and ... it's not complete. There were five duplicate cards, and two missing cards: 

Filip Forsberg and Jonathan Quick aren't superstars, nor are they French-Canadian (Forsberg is Swedish; Quick's hometown is right next to mine). Probably just an oversight. But that means I have to go back to Sportlots one more time to actually complete this set. Guess I'll pick up some Whalers and Devils while I'm there... 

One of the cards I submitted to BGS for grading is a Filip Forsberg Panini Prizm rookie card. I picked up the Blue Pulseczar Prizm on COMC a couple years ago and if the grade is high enough, it's going to look awesome in a slab. Here's a J.T. Miller Blue Pulsar for context: 

That order should return to me by the end of July. There's a couple other hockey RCs in there, along with a Jackson Chourio Mojo Refractor and a couple low-numbered basketball inserts. 

eBay really is a necessary evil for collectors. I wish I didn't have to buy or sell on that godforsaken site, but it's the easiest way to offload unwanted cards and collectibles. A few weeks ago I listed a medium flat rate box of about 2,500 football cards in an auction. Here's the key pic, and the description:

This medium flat rate box is FILLED with over 2,500 football cards from Panini Prizm, Donruss, Donruss Optic, Topps, Upper Deck, and more. 90% of these cards are modern football from 2000-2024 and more than half are from 2020-2024. Lots of stars and parallels in this box plus a few inserts and rookies of players such as Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Caleb Williams, Tony Gonzalez, Barry Sanders, Derrick Henry, Justin Jefferson, Rome Odunze, Marvin Harrison Jr., J.J. McCarthy, Christian McCaffrey, and many more!!

The buyer was "extremely disappointed" because there were only a few rookies and the rest was "junk". I told her (based on the name I assumed it was a female bidder) that the cards pictured and described were all shipped. 

It was pretty obvious that she (or he) was trying to flip this lot and make a couple hundred dollars. Why else would they be disappointed with hundreds of recent base cards from Panini Prizm and Donruss, which included hundreds of semistars and stars. 

So, because they bid over $70 for this huge box of cards, which included a Caleb Williams Prizm parallel RC and got exactly what was shown here... I got neutral feedback "unsatisfactory" 

I petitioned eBay to remove it because there was no reason for this comment but they're very pro-bidder.
 

On a lighter note, Fuji asked about the mystery batting champion whose mother bought his card from my friend. And since no one else is reading this, I don't mind sharing ;)

My guy Baseball Brittie does much more volume than me, and seems to have much better luck with customers (not just DJ's mom) I don't think I've ever plugged his store, so if you absolutely must shop on eBay and you see something you like, tell him Chris The Collector sent you. He'll hook you up!

In more personal news, my wife is doing much better. We visited my family and best friend in CT for the first time since February (when she couldn't eat and had to go the hospital for a week) Everyone commented on how much healthier she looks. She's been eating solid food again, and has much more energy than she did even a month ago. 

And we breathed a huge sigh of relief this week. My insurance company was in negotiation with the cancer center that Mrs Collector has been visiting and there was a last-minute agreement to continue coverage. If they didn't agree to terms and our hospital was no longer in-network, our only options would have been to rush the surgery to squeeze it in before Continuity of Care would have ended August 31st, or pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. Yeah. No.

Luckily, all is well and we don't have to rush. But her improvement has me hopeful that we could schedule her for the end of August anyway.

I've got a significant anniversary coming up, which is somewhat tied to an NHL anniversary as well..

Thanks for reading!



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p.s. even though the UD hockey cards I bought were advertised as a complete set and I did not receive a complete set.. I left positive feedback and didn't bother the seller about the two missing cards. I'm not petty. 

That was fast

It seems that COMC has finally gotten their act together.

My first order of 2024 was requested on the first day of 2024. It arrived on the 25th.

Of March.

 

Then, because COMC is the only place with affordable mid-grade 1956 Topps singles (fvck you very much, 4 Sharp Corners) I placed another order in spring. Requested shipping on May 12, received cards July 13th. 

Better, but still godawful. Both orders took so long to fill that I got an apology email with a $5 voucher for shipping on my next order. And so, like the sucker that I am, I placed order #3 and requested shipping on August 28th. I was expecting it to arrive around Halloween.


It got here yesterday. 12 days - that's almost like a real business. I didn't pay for expedited shipping or anything. 

Perhaps if I knew their turnaround times had drastically improved I'd have bought more cards and waited another month. Alas, I have just 40 cards to show off today - starting with the aforementioned '56 singles:

The seller I usually buy these from had a 25% off sale, and posted something else I'd had on my wantlist for years - a vintage Walter Payton card.

I'd been shopping around for a 1977 Topps Payton but the prices and my profits from eBay sales were never in sync. Instead I bought back the oldest football card I had as a young teenager.(That one was an OC copy with at least one rough corner.)

Some thick boys and prospects. There was a blue parallel #d/99 of the Syndergaard relic for about $2.50, but I bought the base for $1.27 and picked up the Pedro with the balance. My prospecting days are over but the Lazaro Montes was mislabeled and the Jackson Chourio was priced way too low.

Cheaper shiny here. Almost all were 50 cents each or less. Rasmus Asplund is a fringe NHL player but a blue color-matching auto for under $1.50 is hard to pass up; I nearly bought a Casey Mittlestadt Blue Rainbow auto for about $5, but then I would have had to put back the Prizms.

More hockey here (yes, the top two cards are from a hockey set.) The Neighbors and Cuylle Young Guns were a package deal; I sent an offer which basically got me the Cuylle for free. The Hull completes my Lost Rookie Cards insert set and triggered this order in the first place, since no one else has this card for under $8.

Picked up what I thought would be among the final Arizona Coyotes cards - but then I saw 2024-25 Upper Deck MVP was released without any mention of Utah. The Game Dated Moments card is ridiculous; the caption reads "Coyotes players say goodbye to the 2023-24 season...." Umm, what?!?!?

Finally some PC teams here, including a Blue Diamond Dustin (not to be confused with Dustin Diamond) and Juke Box Heroes inserts of the Hughes brothers. I foolishly bought the Yoshida and Casas refractors for 35 cents each even though I have absolutely no more room for any Red Sox inserts or parallels of any kind. I had to take out all the mini cards, put those in a separate box, and then it was still a tight squeeze.

I've had to get very selective about buying Boston base cards, too, as I only have space for about 20 across all my binders. Once my incoming Sportlots order arrives, I'll have less than a dozen pockets available.

And, not to dunk on COMC after giving them their flowers, but I bet the Sportlots seller will ship faster than 12 days. Just sayin' ;P

I did make one more very minor purchase. Picked up a couple cheapies on eBay and...

.... got that 2,000th feedback ten minutes after paying the seller. Woo-hoo!!! 🥳

Thanks for reading!



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1999 - 2000

I did not receive feedback from the eBay seller for the Orioles Starting Lineup lot, nor did I receive feedback from the seller who had those two boxes of 1990 Pro Set football I (possibly over)paid for.

This doesn't usually concern me, but it just so happens I was sitting on a 1,999 feedback score as I approached my 25th anniversary as an eBay user:

For reasons that only make sense to me, I thought it would be cool to hit 2,000 on my 25th anniversary. And so I decided to fill in that annoying little gap in the 1990 Pro Set set by purchasing the Final Edition for $10:

But.. the seller also had an intriguing lot of 2023 Panini Prizm football, 100 cards for $15:

I bought these and paid immediately, just prior to my anniversary date. And then I waited for that milestone feedback to arrive (along with... you know... the cards.)

I've now spent $60 reliving my childhood on this landfill of a set.. but at least now it's truly complete. Right?

I still need six cards from series 1: #159 Bruce Wilkerson, #191 Randall McDaniel, #199 Gary Zimmerman, #236 Jeff Lageman, #338 Eric Dickerson Pro Bowl, and #373 Derrick Thomas Pro Bowl.

I need 25 cards from Series 2: #457, 460, 469, 480, 482, 483, 484, 487, 491, 492, 494, 496, 497, 508, 520, 523, 525, 608, 612, 630, 640, 651, 703, 728, 731.

The good news is, none of the series 2 needs are big names. Not that it matters, right? Aside from the Emmitt Smith RC - of which I have two - what's the most any single from this set could cost? 50 cents?

It seems that one of those series 1 needs was pulled from packs early in production due to a licensing issue:

This card sells for about half the asking price, but still...I was expecting to pay 25 cents for an Eric Dickerson, not 25 dollars. Stupid friggin Pro Set is gonna cost me nearly a hundred bucks to complete?!?

I have not purchased the Dickerson card - yet - but the Final Edition cards were interesting and (mostly) new to me, I'm happy with the Prizm lot, and I got that coveted 2,000th feedback. Right? .... Right?!??!

Four purchases in the past four weeks and I'm still sitting on the Prince number. Maybe I've gone 0 for 4 before, I haven't really noticed. But now that I am paying attention I'm suddenly whiffing more than the White Sox.

If I do earn my 2,000th feedback it will have to be through selling, cause I'm not making any more eBay purchases for a loooooooong time. 

Thanks for reading!



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Everything Everywhere All At Once

Today is my wedding anniversary with Mrs. Collector. We have nothing planned, because:

• My mother in law might also have cancer and had to go to the hospital for tests today. No one else is around to take her and stay with her, so my wife did. And now she's tired.
  
• The relentless, oppressive "heat dome" was supposed to subside today. It has not. I saw the forecast and told my daughters that I would take them to the park and Friendly's after I got home from work today. LOL. LMAO, even.
• My wife had stomach issues this morning when I left for work, and she's having trouble keeping down most of her food, so an anniversary dinner would be a bad idea even if we could afford it. Which we can't because we just bought a couch to replace the one we bought 12 years ago and give her a comfortable place to rest. It's not here yet.
• I'm in a mood anyway because the only other person in my department has been out on vacation all month (she returns tomorrow -- I think?) and the customers have been especially annoying and dumb lately. I would really like to tell these idiots to pay electronically or kick rocks, but I can't get fired. Need the insurance because I'm giving myself diabetes and high blood pressure.
• Oh, and my wife asked my daughters which aunt/uncle they would stay with if something happened to both her and me... and they separately gave her the same answer. Awww hell no. I'm living forever ... was my response. But, given the rapidly declining health of my family, the planet, our country's politics, etc... it's a struggle.

And so, I take refuge in my own personal oasis. The thing that has acted as my safe space since my alcoholic father terrorized my mother 37 years ago. Cards. And that part of my life has gone fairly well.

I requested shipping on my latest COMC order in early May.
I placed a small order at Sportlots in late June.
I placed two orders at Cardbarrel the second week of July.

All of these orders arrived at the same time. That happened to be the same day that my daughter helped me assemble my brand new bookshelf.

..which I'd bought with a gift card earned from finishing 2nd (out of about 115 entrants) in a company town hall trivia contest. I considered buying some baseball cards with the free cash but the two blasters in my cart (2023 Stadium Club and 2024 Topps Heritage) totaled the same price. I chose the bookshelf over roughly 100 new cards because organizing my card room has been a nice distraction from all the personal and general despair.

Plus, I already had plenty of new cards coming my way.

I'd like to show them off, but my old printer/scanner finally bit the dust. The printer didn't print and the scanner kept scanning fuzzy. So I bought a new printer/scanner with a prior gift card:

I followed the instructions to install the printer, and that's when I encountered a problem. The software requires a modern version of Windows - something from the past dozen years or so.

My computer, which was purchased before my daughters were born, still runs fine. It also runs Windows 7.

Did I ever mention I went to school with that girl? Anyway.. to illustrate how old Windows 7 is, I first saw this commercial during Brett Favre's return to Green Bay as the Vikings QB. In 2009.

All of this is to say I will be borrowing a lot of TCDB scans for the foreseeable future - which is fine for the Athletics series or another round of All-Time Teams. It's not so great for showing off new purchases.

Here's a look at the first Cardbarrel order. These pictures were taken with my phone, it's the best I could do:

I loaded up on Red Sox commons to fill out some of my binders (now that I have more shelf space..)

Of course I picked out some non-Sox as well:

I have a bit of a Terry Francona PC and I enjoy picking up Expos/Blue Jays cards in O-Pee-Chee and ('80s)Leaf sets.

Some substitutions at the top of this one. I did not order a '94 Bowman Kenny Rogers; that was an unannounced replacement for a '94 Donruss Red Sox card. Same for the 1993 Fleer Tim Salmon, which replaced a 1993 Finest Mike Greenwell. :/

This order pushed my reward points past 2,000 so I had a gift code coming. Since the big order was still 'processing' I decided to spend the free cash quickly, in hopes that both orders would arrive at once.

Indeed they did. I made a list of the 'free' cards - before remembering my gift code was for slightly more than $20.

The Sportlots order took a couple weeks to arrive from Saskatchewan. The two cards at the bottom left arrived damaged, but I left the seller positive feedback anyway because I'd fallen so far behind on Sportlots orders that I copy/pasted "A+++ thank you very much!" for every purchase I made this year.

And then there's COMC. A day after receiving yet another $5 apology coupon my order shipped. It arrived two months after I used my prior apology coupon and requested shipment.

On top of that, they mislabeled one of the cards I purchased.

Here's a couple '56 Topps cards from the order. You'll notice the Tommy Carroll is a PSA 8. I definitely didn't buy a PSA 8. No way is there room in the budget for a high-grade Yankee; I had to settle for a PSA 4 with HOFer Early Wynn. 

See? I sensibly ordered an EX-MT 6 and... wait... zoom in on that scan...

COMC sent the right card, they just listed it wrong. Which I guess the seller didn't notice either, or they would have asked for 3-4x more. I only have a handful of PSA 8s in my 1956 Topps set build, and none are Yankees or Dodgers. Until now.

My CA ebay seller friend is sitting on $80 for me to spend, and I asked him to grab a Young Guns RC of a top-ten goal scorer in the NHL. He made an offer that was declined, then the seller ended the listing and reopened it at a significant markup. (This move is also known as "The JoelshitShow".) But now he feels bad I missed out on the card and he's making it his mission to secure the star RC for me.

If and when that happens I'll be sure to show it off here. If not, I don't think I'll have anything new coming in for a while because... one month from now, right after my birthday... there's a bigass card show about an hour away.

Thanks for reading!

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