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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Big Box of Big Cards

Just a few short years ago - when the blogs were more active and sports cards were cheaper/more accessible - I frequently exchanged cards with several regulars of the card blogging community.

Now I'm down to one regular "trade" partner here, and it's worked out quite well so far. If you're only going to swap cards with one blogger or TCDB user, I can't recommend anyone better than Dennis. 

He's offered up some tradebait spoils from card shows and I've offered up some Free Stuff here and there, but his recent acquisition of a big collection full of big cards launched this mailday from a potential PWE to a full flat rate box!

Some of the items were agreed to in advance but Dennis warned me there would be surprises.

This wasn't one of them. I knew it was coming, but I did not know that I would need it immediately.

Cards of all sizes were sealed within. I had a couple 2- and 4-pocket pages already so I claimed some box toppers and big sized singles. Got a lot more than I was expecting!

Some standard-sized cards, too. Hundreds of 'em. In addition to the completed (series 1) set of 1996 Score in the binder pages, Dennis used these as box filler - a complete (series 2) set of 1994 Ultra, plus all the base common bronze singles from (series 2) 1996 Finest.

Here they are, set free and stacked high. The cards in front are random claims from his card show purchases. The stack on the right (with Jimmie Foxx on top) contains 83 Red Sox base, insert, and relic cards.

This will keep me busy for a couple weeks - right up until my COMC shipment arrives. I'll be sure to share the wealth and offer up a few freebies next Friday, along with some new cards to claim.


Dennis, thank you very much for the hundreds of neat cards!!



Have a great weekend everyone!



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p.s. I am slowly chipping away at the "best players who didn't have a Starting Lineup figure" list. Hope to have that done in early November :)

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

I've been sick all week, stayed home alone for Thanksgiving, I can't go to the mall or have a Christmas-scented candle in my home, but I've still got some holiday cheer because ... the gift box is here.

Here's a sneak peek at what's inside:

 

 

You'll see more from this year's Black Friday haul in the next couple weeks. Some of you might even see a card or two in your mailbox 😉

 

 

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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Covid and Cards

My daughter tested positive for Covid over the weekend. I started showing symptoms on Monday, the same day that my COMC order arrived. I'm going to get tested tomorrow, and I'm certain it will confirm that I have Covid as well.

I've been trying to summon enough energy to discuss some of the 57 cards I received from COMC - and just as I started writing this post I received an email from Dennis informing me that I had a package. If I'm feeling better this weekend I'll try to scan up those cards. For now, here's a few I picked out in November.

This 1971 Topps Nate Colbert is in nice enough shape that I picked it up for my All-Time Teams collection even though I have a 1970 Colbert in the binder. Even if it's not an 'upgrade' I couldn't pass it up for 57 cents.

There aren't a lot of action photos on Cleveland Barons cards, so I didn't mind spending 78 cents on this Ralph Klassen single from 1977-78 O-Pee-Chee. I made an offer on a logo card but the seller wouldn't budge.

A lot of the cards in this order were newer and shinier than Colbert and Klassen, including this pair of Rams from 2015 Panini Prizm. Eric Dickerson set me back $1.60 while Jared Cook was just $0.34.

COMC's turnaround time has greatly improved; this order arrived in less than a month. Around the same time I placed an order at the Baseball Card Store. That one hasn't shipped yet and I'm not sure if it's because I didn't pay for shipping or if they've got a backlog of orders. I'll check in with Steven once I'm feeling 100% again.

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. Merry Christmas everyone!


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Cheap Set Fillers

This has been a strange year for me. I've been doing a lot of re-evaluating, in my life and in my card collection. I'm continuing to sell higher-value cards on eBay while chipping away at lower-end set builds.

This Rhys Hoskins Players Weekend Variation cost $1.86 on eBay. It's about twice as much as I'd hoped to pay, but none of the online retailers I frequent had this card and I gave up on trying to trade for it. ~$2 is a small price to pay to complete the master set of 2018 Topps Big League (except for the ten "error" SSPs.)

Sirius Sportscards has some very nice vintage singles at affordable prices. These two NM singles complete the Dodgers and Padres All-Time Teams, respectively. With free shipping the total was just $6 + tax, or roughly the amount of eBay bucks I earned in the 1st quarter of 2021.

I picked up a half dozen football set fillers on Sportlots, using direct shipping. This lot cost just $2.93 after applying my store credit and a tiny amount of loot.

In total these nine cards cost just over $5 out of pocket - or just over $11 total. Some other purchases have arrived, and more are on the way. I'm not sure if I'll discuss them all. I've been in a wistful mood lately and the hobby hasn't inspired me to write nearly as much as it used to. My mind is ..somewhere else. 

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!



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1st Sportlots order/500th Post

It's finally here! My first Sportlots order - and my 500th post!

I'm glad I have something special to show off for the occasion.

Sportlots was the 'final frontier' of online card sites for my collection. I'd ordered from COMC, Cardbarrel, the Beckett marketplace, and of course Baseballcardstore.ca multiple times. I was determined to make progress on my All-Time Teams project and after exhausting all other options (including TCDB trades) I decided to give Sportlots a try.

This was my first time using the site and I did carefully check to see which sellers offered free (or nearly free) shipping to the "box" and which ones were cheap enough to request shipping directly to me. As a result I got three cards within a week of placing my order. Here are two of them; the third one - along with 18 other cards from this order - will be featured on The 1993.

This 1971 Topps Danny Murtaugh card was listed as EX and cost $2 shipped. I'm quite pleased with it; there aren't any creases, the centering is fine, and the light border wear doesn't bother me considering the set. John Clarkson is a short print from 2013 Goodwin Champions, and considering how few modern cards he has I'm happy to add him to my All-Time Teams binder for $1.28 shipped.

After these two and my 1993 card arrived it was a long wait for the rest of the haul - and an unexpected expense. I didn't realize I'd have to pay for shipping from the sellers to the box and pay again for Sportlots to ship the box to me. It makes sense I suppose, but next time I'm just going to find sellers with decent prices for direct shipping.

 
At any rate, more than a dozen little packages were included in this box. It was fun to tear into each one - except one seller went overboard on taping their cardboard, which made opening the envelope more trouble than it was worth. He(she?) may have even wrecked the card inside, or caused me to wreck it. We'll get to that one.

These were all 18 cents each plus shipping, which equals... hell, I don't know. The Shaq Lawson Donruss was part of a second order that I placed because three cards I initially ordered were out of stock. Lawson and the three "replacement" cards cost about 47 cents out of pocket after the store credit.

I missed out on this Arky Vaughan playing card along with two 1993 inserts and instead I acquired..

..some Fleer basketball singles. Ellis, Woodson, and Wilkins were shipped with Shaq (Chuck Person was part of a separate order.) I have a trade incoming for the 1989-90 Fleer Magic Johnson and if it's clean I'll be two John Williams cards away from completing the set.

Ain't it funny how late-1980s Fleer baseball cards are considered "junk wax" and late-1980s Fleer basketball cards are considered rare jewels by comparison. These two were the cheapest 1987-88 Fleer singles of above-average players I could find on the site. I'm not collecting this set but I like picking up '80s cards I haven't seen a hundred times, especially basketball (and O-Pee-Chee hockey of course.)

That reminds me I should show off the hockey singles I bought on Sportlots, which were my most expensive purchases:

I've probably got about two dozen variations of this 2000-01 Be A Player Peter Worrell card. These three are all new to my collection; the Chicago Sun Times parallel cost $2.50 (before shipping) while the other two ($3 each) are prototypes and not listed on Trading Card Database. That figures :/

It's always fun to find new Worrell cards - even if they look the same as old ones. The stamped parallel is my 152nd different Worrell and 300th total, according to TCDB. That's 72.4% of all Peter Worrell cards ever made though obviously not all of his cards have been counted on TCDB.

Here's a batch of set fillers including the 2003 Finest base cards I mentioned in an earlier post. I'm still chipping away at 2017 Topps Heritage insert sets, and the recent release of 2021 Topps Heritage brought back memories of my 5-box break - one of the most fun days I've ever had ripping open packs. Nachos Grande just had a box break of '21 Heritage and I laughed out loud at the "hit" he pulled. Wish I could have been in the chat as it was live.

Btw, I update my set building wantlist every time I add new cards, and I will continue to do so even if I take a break from writing proper posts. My All-Time Teams wantlist is frequently updated as well.

I thought that this Sportlots order would get me to within ten cards of completing the project. However, I'm not as close as I thought I'd be, for two reasons. When I started building the 2013 and 2014 Topps baseball sets I had to take some cards out of the All-Time Teams binder and put them in the set build. As a result, I now need a(nother) card of Glen Perkins, Jhoulys Chacin, and Jeurys Familia. I think I need another Tyler Clippard, too.

That said, I'm thrilled with the selection of singles I found at Sportlots for my All-Time Teams collection. It's always a gamble to buy vintage singles sight unseen (even with condition notes) but I didn't want to wait six months for a COMC order so I grabbed these:

They're not without their flaws: the centering on Stu Miller is poor (and worse on the back), Reggie Smith isn't much better - but it's a Red Sox card and a high number. McBean is diamond cut, and McDaniel's bottom right corner is fuzzy. All but Miller were listed as EX; the seller listed Stu as NM. None of them cost more than $1.50 before shipping.
 

The 1960s singles are actually in better shape the the pair of Larry Dierker cards I purchased. These were the two singles that were wedged into a Card Saver, sandwiched in cardboard and taped to death. The '75 Dierker is kind of a mess but I was happy with the '70 - until I noticed the thumbnail crease on the right side. Did I do that? Guess I'll have to add Dierker to the 'needs upgrade' list.

Here's another pair of cards, in much better condition. I'm having trouble deciding which Willie Keeler to choose for the Barnstormers binder page: this TCMA single or the Cooperstown Crystal parallel:

Crystal is pretty but how about this Greatest Hitters card? "Wee Willie" is pictured with a Toronto team, long before the Blue Jays existed. I consulted baseball-reference and learned that Keeler played the last pro season of his Hall of Fame career with the International League's Toronto Maple Leafs in 1911. Go Leafs Go! The Panini parallel was the last card that made it to the box, delaying my order for a couple of days.

Staying in the deadball era, I picked up a Roger Bresnahan Turkey Red reprint for my frankenset and decided to add Larry Doyle and Jake Stahl, too. Stahl isn't an all-time Red Sox but he is a Red Sox, and I'll never be able to afford an original. I might try to build this Galasso set one day.

The highlight of this order for me were the two tobacco cards - reprints of course. I thought it would take years to track down a Jimmy Ryan card, and Sam Leever is another tough one. You're next, Noodles.

Here's a closer look at these. If it weren't for the text at the bottom of the photo you'd have no idea that "James" Ryan played baseball. The card backs are very different as well.

There wasn't much effort made to replicate the Ryan. But beggars can't be choosers. He's in the binder!

Here's the rest of my order, including a Bryce Harper that was selected for my 2018 Topps Chrome set build, not necessarily the All-Time teams collection. Overall, I was pleased with my Sportlots experience. The selection is fantastic. Prices were fair, though direct shipping may be the way to go in the future. I waited a while for my cards, but it's still better than COMC.

I'll show off the rest of my Sportlots order in the next day or two.

Thanks for reading my 500th post, and thank you to all of my readers. It's been a fun five years - my first blog entry as The Collector was in August of 2016, and I knew that I'd be talking to myself for a while. Before long I found a few other bloggers who share a love of collecting and writing, and it fueled me to keep this blog going whenever I ran out of ideas or thought about leaving the blog behind.

Special shout-outs to Matt (my first follower), Greg, Dennis, Fuji, Night Owl, Bo, Billy, Matt K., Shane, Jon, and many many more who supported this blog throughout the years. I was considering an Easter Egg hunt as a giveaway but I think I'll just send "surprise" PWEs instead. They will be 500-themed ;-)

Cheers!

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