Set Building Update

I've been having a difficult time trying to write a traditional sports card post.

There are a couple topics that I've considered discussing here and at The 1993  - perhaps a post about Kyle Schwarber or a catcher comparison featuring Buster Posey - but I seem to have exhausted all of my creativity on my 6-part "goodbye" series. (If you read any or all of that, I truly appreciate it. If you missed the series here's part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.)


I haven't purchased any current-year cards in a long, long time. This may be changing soon, as I'm intrigued by 2021 Topps Archives and 2022 Topps flagship. It would be good timing since I've managed to earn some bonus cash at work and I'm in dire need of new trade bait.

 

 

The only cards I've been adding to my collection have been set fillers - mostly from the overproduction era. Basically I'm just trying to clear out as many duplicates as I can for... pretty much anything I don't have. I seem to have run out of trade matches on TCDB, so if any of my regular readers want to browse my trade list let me know what you need and I'll send a PWE your way. I'm not expecting anything in return but I've posted my complete set building list below - just in case I don't write another post for a while:

Baseball Checklist

1993 Fleer Ultra inserts
Home Run Kings #6 Barry Bonds, 7 Joe Carter
Strikeout Kings #4 Nolan Ryan

1993 Upper Deck
#257 Andy Stankiewicz, 486 Barry Bonds, 487 Dennis Eckersley

2013 Topps
#270 Manny Machado, 338 Mike Trout, 536 Mike Trout

2013 Topps Update
#US8, 26, 29, 51, 79, 80, 87, 99, 100, 101, 109, 116, 138, 146, 150, 168, 175, 178, 183, 199, 216, 218, 224, 250, 253, 255, 259, 265, 274, 278, 279, 282, 290, 300, 315, 321, 324, 329, 330

2017 Topps Heritage inserts
Baseball Flashbacks #BF-NR Nolan Ryan
Now and Then #NT-10 Aaron Judge
Topps Game #8 Anthony Rizzo, 12 Jake Arietta

2018 Topps Chrome
#1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 21, 25, 30, 32, 39, 42, 49, 54, 61, 65, 66, 67, 70, 72, 80, 82, 92, 93, 98, 100, 101, 104, 105, 109, 110, 113, 117, 122, 126, 128, 133, 135, 141, 147, 148, 150, 153, 155, 157, 162, 164, 170, 173, 177, 179, 180, 181, 193

Football Checklist

1986 Topps (upgrades)
#19, 25, 42, 54, 106, 112, 119, 125, 127, 135, 174, 176, 179, 183, 195, 218, 241, 252, 257, 259, 294, 296, 297, 321, 331, 371, 376, 389

1987 Topps (upgrades)
#27, 36, 37, 52, 64, 70, 117, 133, 136, 168, 170, 179, 232, 266, 326, 366, 374, 386

2019 Score
#10 Chris Conley, 346 Miles Sanders RC

Basketball Checklist

1990-91 Hoops
#4, 13, 279, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 353, 355, 358, 372, 376, 378, 379, 380, 382, 383, 385, 386, 388, 389, 390, 392, 394, 398, 399, 400, 403, 408, 426, 428, 431, 436, 437, 440

1991-92 Upper Deck
#4, 5, 22, 30, 32, 33, 34, 44, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 69, 70, 72, 75, 76, 92, 94, 100, 146, 148, 162, 171, 176, 192, 197, 198, 199, 200, 209, 245, 250, 251, 261, 270, 272, 273, 287, 291, 300, 317, 318, 319, 324, 333, 334, 335, 337, 346, 347, 348-351, 365, 380, 386, 398, 400 (plus most of high series)

1992-93 Upper Deck All-Division Team inserts
#1 Shaquille O’Neal, 8 Larry Johnson, 11 David Robinson, 12 Karl Malone, 16 Kevin Duckworth

2003-04 SP Authentic
#6, 8, 13, 15, 26, 30, 35, 38, 49, 62, 77

Hockey Checklist

1988-89 Topps
#9, 13, 16, 25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 38, 42, 44, 53, 54, 56, 57, 61, 63, 66, 68, 75, 83, 90, 91, 98, 105, 112, 113, 120, 121, 123, 125, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 145, 149, 152, 153, 158, 160, 165, 176, 177, 178, 183, 186, 187, 195, 197

1993-94 Leaf Painted Warriors inserts
#4 Patrick Roy, 5 Grant Fuhr, 9 Tom Barrasso

1995-96 Playoff One on One Challenge
#119, 123, 125, 127, 136, 137, 146, 148, 150, 151, 152, 158, 160, 180, 181, 184, 190, 195, 208, 219, 220 (plus high series SPs)

2001-02 Topps
rookies #331-360

2003-04 Topps Lost Rookie Cards inserts
#LRC-BH Brett Hull, CJ Curtis Joseph, JR Jeremy Roenick

2003-04 Topps Pristine (base rookies #d/1199)
#107 Patrice Bergeron, 113 Dominic Moore, 137 Matt Stajan

2007-08 Black Diamond
#194 Carey Price RC

 

Also I thought I was finished with COMC forever but I am starting to get that 'Black Friday' feeling again and it would be nice to have something to look forward to and enjoy this holiday season. So I might have something interesting to discuss by the end of the month. We'll see how it goes.




Thanks for reading!



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Trading from a surplus

Earlier this month I purchased a flat rate box of baseball cards on eBay for just over a penny a card.

I got a bunch of set fillers for 2018 Topps and a starter set of 2017 and 2019 Topps. This appeared to be a surplus box of base commons from a dealer or high-volume ripper; only a handful of players depicted could be considered stars. There didn't appear to be any hits either. Aside from some Big League gold parallels I managed to find one decent card the seller missed:

When I sorted through the 3,000 cards in the box (discarding a couple dozen that were damaged and/or dirty) I didn't notice anything special about this Andrelton Simmons card.

Then I counted out the dupes, and found that I had a sabermetric Advanced Stat parallel.

Once I took what I wanted from the box I had over 2,500 surplus singles. I've spent the past week adding them to my TCDB trade list and making some deals. If I had the time I'd make a spreadsheet of every card I received in the flat rate box, so that I can track what I traded every card for. (I don't expect to offload all of the cards, but you never know.)

That seems unnecessary anyhow; my transaction page keeps a record of everything I send/receive, and my trades will inevitably include cards that didn't come from this box.

The first trade featuring cards from the surplus pile arrived yesterday. I traded 18 cards from 2017 Topps and 2018 Topps (plus three overproduction-era singles) to TCDB user Joe0786 for these 18 cards:

A six-pack for my 2018 Topps set build, including a Miguel Andujar RC. There were no RCs in the box I bought, and all of the cards I traded were base veterans.

To balance things out I asked for a bunch of older football cards, including a pair of Pro Set. The Bennie Blades is creased; I've added it to the discard pile.  

Picked a few Packers needs. I'm surprised I didn't have the Bennett and Freeman Ultra cards.

 

These were the last two cards I picked, Ahman Green and Adrian Peterson. 


A second trade arrived yesterday, a PWE swap with TCDB user mrdonnee. This did not include any surplus baseball singles, but all eight of the cards I traded were dupes. 

In return for five star quarterbacks from my Panini Classics blaster break, an Aaron Rodgers Prizm insert, and a pair of 2015-16 Donruss basketball stars, I received these 12 cards:

A pair of Kemba Walker cards for my Connecticut collection. The Teal Explosion parallel has a corner ding, but the Optic cards are sharp.

Some '90s basketball including John Stockton and Vin Baker. The Robert Horry has a corner ding. It's been a common theme lately. What the heck is the post office doing with these packages?

Finally a pair of 1992-93 Ultra set fillers and a Derek Carr that doesn't fit my collection but I grabbed it because it looks cool. Just an FYI, the tabs at the top of this blog have been updated, including the list of things I collect. All of my set builds can be found on the "The Collector Collects..." page.

Also, if you need any 2017, 2018, or 2019 Topps base cards please let me know. I've got hundreds of each and I'd be happy to help my blogger buddies finish these sets.


Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!


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Card Show in a Bag

I filled this bag for $40.

Today's card show was a little more sparse than the one I went to last year. It seemed like there were fewer tables and fewer dealers - but the dealers had more tables and much more selection. 

I was there for an hour and a half and only bought from two dealers. Went in with $60, came out with over 250 cards..and a $20 in my wallet.  

The dealers I bought from last time were not there, as far as I could tell. I was looking for the guy who had boxes and binders full of vintage baseball. Didn't see him, so I didn't buy any vintage singles. That's the one thing on my "look for" list that I didn't get. 

Another dealer I bought from last time was a kid who had a nice dime box of recent baseball cards at 12 for $1. I ended up getting 72 cards from him for just $4. But I didn't see him, either.

The Elks Lodge shows are in one big square room. There are tables along the perimeter and tables in the middle. I started on the right side of the middle tables. All of them were run by a guy wearing a Kansas City Chiefs hoodie. His boxes were as follows: 5 for $1, 4 for $10, and 15 for $1. 

The first two boxes were being picked through when I arrived, but his dime boxes were wide open. There must have been at least eight of them, with rows of cards from all years, brands, and sports. I'll show off those spoils throughout the week. 

After a while the dollar box raiders left and I got a look. The 4 for $10 boxes were lower-end relics and autos. I picked out six, carried them with me as I did my dime box digging, and decided to put them back when the dealer wasn't looking (I hope he doesn't think I stole them.)  None of the six cards fit my collection, and I couldn't justify spending that much on a handful of "hits" when I could get 150 dime box singles for the same price.

I'd searched and searched and searched all but one of those dime boxes. One of the things I was looking for was Prizm parallels. Unfortunately (for Jon at least) the only ones in the dime boxes were hockey:

There were a couple more in the quarter box. I wasn't thrilled with the selection there (probably cleaned out by the guys ahead of me) but I found a dollar's worth:

The Zito, Sefarian-Jenkins, and Mirotic were bought with bloggers in mind, so if anyone wants them, let me know. I like the KCP a lot so I'll probably keep that one.

I joined Kerry's Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club so I picked these up with him in mind. If he doesn't need them I'll probably keep them.

These dime boxes had a ton of the big four sports..and also some tennis, golf, and soccer. I searched for some Kylian Mbappe but came up empty. Got these three instead, mostly because there aren't many soccer stars I've heard of (passed on a Paul Pogba because it was in the 5/$1 box and it was the sixth card.) 

Most of the 190 cards I bought in the dime boxes were new..but there was a handful of '80s issues in there. Phegley in particular is super sharp. However the Bernie Nicholls has a dented left edge and a tiny crease at the bottom. I swear I didn't see notice these flaws until I scanned it :/

One more batch for tonight...here's a little bit of baseball bait. 

The Danny Duffy snow camo (#d/99) was one of the few numbered parallels I found in he dime boxes. 

I'll have more cards to show off once I scan 'em up and log 'em in on TCDB. 


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