Giveaway Day

I mailed out all the Anniversary Giveaway gifts. You should receive yours by August 6 - except Derek, who will hopefully receive his PWE around the 14th. [Fuji, the postal clerk made me leave out the second number of your home address so if you've got a box at your place check #70]

I also received a giveaway today. Tom offered some great cards on his blog and welcomed anyone to claim up to nine cards. I'm both greedy and lazy so I asked for ten cards, assuming that at least one of them was claimed in a previous comment. Rather than take the time to check, I just asked for any that were left. 

They were all left, and Tom sent all ten:

I'm chipping away at the 1992-93 Upper Deck basketball set, and these three Hall of Famers help push me past 60% completion. I'm not planning to put together the 1983 Topps baseball set but I grabbed two HOFers just in case. Got a CMC for the PC and a color matching Matt Moore just because. No idea how I'm going to fit Tyrese Maxey or Byron Scott into my basketball box, but I can discard a Michael Porter or Terry Rozier if I have to. 

Tom, thanks for the PWE! Sorry I bent the rules a bit 😁

Thanks for reading!


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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 Road to 666 (& Free Card Friday)

 

My 660th TCDB trade arrived yesterday, courtesy of proxyj99. I sent Jeff 20 duplicates from 2023 Topps and received mostly hockey cards in return.

Some commons for my 2022-23 Upper Deck set build. The only star players here are two dudes I do not like - Johnny Gaudreau and Chris Kreider. Once my latest order from baseballcardstore arrives, I'll have every base card in series 1 (though the Markstrom at the top could be upgraded) and almost every card from series 2. I'm not concerning myself with the gimmicky series 3/extended crapola.

I also got some '80s O-Pee-Chee cards from the great white north:

Want a good score in Immaculate Grid? Use Ray Ferraro as a Hurricane and a Ranger.
Want a great score in Immaculate Grid? Use him as a St. Louis Blue and a Winnipeg Jet.

That off-center Rich Preston card gave me an idea: I should ensure that my 666th TCDB transaction includes Devils! New Jersey Devils, that is. But, since not everyone collects hockey cards (shocker, I know) I expanded the offer to include Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Duke Blue Devils and, if I'm really lucky, Arizona State Sun Devils. Particularly this guy:

I'm hoping to squeeze in two or three more trades by the end of next week. 

 

In other news, I replaced a couple of my wantlist tabs with the Sarah's Surf Shop supercut - so if you missed it, the entire story is now in one place. There's another tab up there, too. I'm sure that one will get more clicks ;)

As a small token of my appreciation for those of you who read my short story, I'm extending an invite to partake in my initial Free Card Friday offering. Matt K., Fuji, and Derek please feel free to claim up to 12 cards on the Free Cards! page.

I've got a COMC order on the way as well, and I'm strongly considering a PSA submission through them. Probably not worth the $24/card fee but I don't buy nearly as much new product as I used to, so there's some room in the budget for 10-15 cards.

Also I should have a major card collecting milestone to celebrate right around my birthday. We'll see if it arrives in time...

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!



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NFL Week Giveaway Reveal

It's the final week of the NFL season -- is your team going to the playoffs? (I know your guys are, Fuji.)

At the end of November/beginning of December I ran an NFL-themed promotion with a series of football posts and a PWE swap. Anyone who participated through the blogs or TCDB was automatically entered into a giveaway for a mystery box of cards and card supplies. I received 37 entries!

click

For trading purposes I requested that everyone send a PWE because I only had about 8-12 cards to send to each participant. Some generous collectors sent much more than that: 30 cards... 50 cards... 400 cards?!?!? As a result, I added an extra entry for every 12 cards received, capped at five entries. 

Here is the final list of participants:

From blogs - Bo, Tom, Brett, Brendan, Gavin, Jim, AJ, Chris, Greg, Gregory, Trevor
From TCDB - BucCollector, crushnmove, FiresNBeers, Jenny Miller, ntlwhlr, SDre31
From out of nowhere - Ken

If you sent some cards my way and your name is not listed above - blame the post office, lol. Rest assured I will return fire as soon as I can. Today was the final day for NFL Week contest entries, not trading in general. 

Every entry was randomly assigned a number to make things a little more... random. That placed the names in this order:

Brett Alan
Greg (N.O.)
Chris (N.G.)
BucCollector
Bo
Ken
Bo
Greg (N.O.)
Trevor
Gregory (N.P.)
Bo
Ken
Brendan
ntlwhlr
AJ
Trevor
FiresNBeers
Chris (N.G.)
Greg (N.O.)
Bo
Tom
crushnmove
Ken
Jim (GCRL)
Ken
Trevor
Greg (N.O.)
SDre31
Bo
Gavin
Ken
ntlwhlr
Trevor
Greg (N.O.)
Jim (GCRL)
Jenny Miller
Trevor

I used random.org to shuffle up this list and ran the randomizer seven times. The name at the top of the list on the seventh turn gets the mystery box.

And the winner is... 

Congrats, Trevor! I Hope you like the box, it will be shipped to you this weekend.

 

Once again thank you all for participating and sending so many great football cards! This is my last unscheduled post of 2020 but I'll be back on Thursday and Friday and Saturday, and every day in January. Hope you all like hockey...

Thanks for reading!



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You Had One Job

Elliptical Man has been running some giveaways on his blog. On Labor Day he offered up a stack of players with occupational last (or first) names. Less than ten days later I received a bubble mailer full of football cards just for commenting. Let's take a look at these laborers:

 

Taylors

 

Marshalls

Barbers and a Hunter

Butlers and a Baker (bonus points for the Packer parallel)

Coopers and a Fletcher

 

Garçon, coffee!

Mr. Monk

...and the rest. One of these guys was a first overall draft pick. Can you name which one, without peeking at Pro Football Reference?

Brendan also sent some 1987 Topps cards for my nascent set build. He specifically said not to send him anything in return so I will respect his request -- for now. Thanks for the cards!

I will be back in Connecticut tomorrow, saying goodbye to the house I grew up in. I'll try to take some pics for posterity and/or a blog post.

 

 Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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Nine In The Afternoon

I went to the card show in Milford today. The dime box guy was not there so I was in and out in less than an hour. I spent a total of $50 on nine cards:

I picked these three from a dealer who has some nice Red Sox cards. He had a Carlton Fisk Panini Immaculate Jersey & auto card #d/15 for $45 that I was tempted to buy, and an Ivan Rodriguez Clearly Authentic auto for $35 that was also intriguing. I decided not to spend that much on a single card. The Betts relic (#d/199) was priced at $18. The JDM/Papi dual (#d/150) was priced at $9. The Perez (#d/36) was priced at $5. 

I offered $25 for the three and he accepted.

The dealer wasn't pushy but he made it clear that he would be flexible on price. While I was searching through his boxes a kid stuck his hand in the row of cards I was looking at, plucked a Yankees card that the dealer valued at $3 and asked if his crumpled up dollar was enough. It was.

On the other side of the room was another dealer I'd seen before. He had a box of random loose packs from all sports and years. I had seen this box before but was too focused on dime box diving to pluck some packs. I've really been jonesing to rip open something (a box of 1993 Leaf S2 baseball is on its way to me) so I reached my hand in the box and pulled out a bunch of 2016 Donruss football and 2016-17 Upper Deck hockey. That's when I noticed these were four-card packs. I was hoping they'd be .50 but I was expecting $1. 

He informed me they were $2 each. I put them all back and bought singles from him instead:

The last time I attended a card show I'd picked up Panini Immaculate autos of Kevin Love and Horace Grant for $15 each. This might have been the same guy; his inventory was similar and there was a crowd around his table just like at the December show. Since there was no dime box (and I didn't see a Steve Young RC anywhere) finding more Immaculate cards was my last remaining goal. 

This dealer wanted $12 for Rick Barry and $6 each for Dan Majerle and Kenny Anderson.  Curry and Brodeur were 50 cents each. He didn't know what to charge me for the Cubs trio so he tossed it in as a freebie. 

On my way out I bought  a bunch of penny sleeve packs (5 for $4) and two packs of top loaders, so I spent about $70 total. I was satisfied with my purchases and the amount of time/money spent, but I don't think I need to go there again for a long time.


But! These are not the only nine cards I acquired this weekend...

There's a story behind these and a hundred other cards I brought home. And I'll tell you all about it in my next giveaway this Friday :)

Thanks for reading!



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Free Stuff Finale

I honestly feel like this whole "Free Stuff Friday" thing has jumped the shark. It started off as a very generous idea by Jon, and it was nice to see other bloggers take the ball and run with it. (Rod has really outdone all of us.) However the number of bloggers making claims far outweighs the number of those who offer up something for others to claim.

It's frustrating to see a blog post that takes time and research and creativity get a smattering of comments while a "Free Stuff" post draws dozens. It's disheartening to see comments from people who haven't visited a certain blog since the last time there was a giveaway. And it's aggravating that Fridays on the blogosphere have become one big race to see who can claim the best stuff first. 

I'm guilty of it, too. I've been looking forward to Fridays, checking blogs to see who's offering what. I'm getting competitive with other collectors and resenting those who simply claim all the available cards for a given sport. I try to be mindful of this when I comment - only claiming cards that truly fit my collection, deferring to others even when I get there first, and writing a meaningful comment that shows gratitude. 

Some bloggers (myself included) aren't reading the fine print. Jim (GCRL) offered up some great cards but they weren't quite free. He was just looking for a little help with his want list, a la Nachos Grande. Which reminds me... my wantlist tab has been updated. Hint hint nudge nudge wink wink. 


Anyway.. you're not here to read my complaints. You're here to claim some cards, am I right? 

I've moved "Free Stuff Friday" ahead a day because I'm off tomorrow and I will be venturing out to the post office to ship out trades and claims. I had planned on doing one more round of Free Stuff next week but I'd rather get this all out now while I can.

Please claim up to eight of the cards scanned below and indicate if you do not want me to ship your cards out tomorrow (I know Billy is holding off on receiving mail; not sure about anyone else.) 

We finally get an actual legit sporting event tonight! I'll be watching as much of the NFL Draft as I can, for three things in particular:

• There was talk that the Dolphins would Tank for Tua last year but they played hard down the stretch (3-2 in December) and they might end up getting him anyway at #5. I hope they do. If Tagovailoa is still on the board when the Panthers pick at #7 it will get interesting. 

• This draft is loaded with impact wide receivers. The Packers are in desperate need of a play-making pass-catcher to pair with Davante Adams... so they're probably going to end up taking an offensive lineman from Iowa :/

• The Las Vegas Raiders have two picks in the first round, #12 and #19. I'm not usually interested in the Raiders but I'm curious as to how they will kick off the Vegas era. It's a key component of my next post. Hint. 

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the NFL draft - if you're not in a hurry to claim cards ;)

Again, please make sure to indicate if you do not want me to send your claims tomorrow. I'll have no trouble sending out PWEs but if you've claimed more than 12 cards total and the scene at the local post office is too much to handle I might have to break them up into multiple envelopes rather ship in a bubble mailer. (I should probably do that anyway to save money.) 


Thanks for reading!



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Free Stuff Friday - All-Time Teams exclusive

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on the All-Time Teams series. If you see your name listed below, please claim up to ten of the cards pictured in this post. List your claims in the comments (first come, first serve) and let me know if you would like me to hold your cards until after the Covid-19 crisis is over or ship them ASAP in a PWE.

Billy (Cardboard History)

Bo (Baseball Cards Come To Life!)

Brett Alan (no blog)

Brian (Collecting Cutch)

Brian (Highly Subjective...) 

Bulldog (Nothing If Not Random)

Dennis (Too Many Verlanders)

Elliptical Man (no active blog?)

Fuji (The Chronicles of Fuji)

Greg (Night Owl Cards)

Gregory (Nine Pockets)

Henry (Cardboard Greats)

Jon (A Penny Sleeve...)

Julie (A Cracked Bat)

Matt (Diamond Jesters)

Mike (Not Another Baseball Card Blog)

Rod (Padrographs)

Shane (Shoebox Legends)

Tom (Waiting 'til Next Year)

Trevor (Bump and Run Football Cards)

Get ready for a lot of scans. Mostly baseball, but some football and hockey at the end:

Football:

Hockey:
 please note the first five are well-loved

I might do an "open" Free Stuff Friday at the beginning of May with some basketball cards and more from these sports. Until then, thanks as always for reading! Have a great weekend, and take care out there!


 

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