Slabbed Single Sunday

I've added about a dozen new graded cards to the collection so far this year - not counting the 1956 Topps set build which is just a handful of cards away from 75% completion. The initial plan was to get three or four posts out of my recent COMC pickups and eBay flips but the mini-stories weren't substantial enough on their own. Instead you get a 4-in-1 post, starting with:

The most expensive card from my COMC order was this mid-grade sunset season food issue of the legendary Hank Aaron. I've had this on my wantlist for a while and didn't see anything else worth spending $29.99 on, so I grabbed it. I've now got three vintage graded singles (plus a bat relic) of Hammerin' Hank; I should have four but the 1962 Topps card I bought on COMC a few years back was rejected by PSA for 'recoloring' 😡


This won't make sense to most of you. but I'm working on a project to acquire at least one PSA-graded baseball card (in EX 5 or better) for every year from 1950 to 1980 and have every team represented within that mini-collection. So I would need one Senator pre-1961 and another one post-1961, one St. Louis Browns card and one Orioles card, one Brooklyn Dodger and one Los Angeles Dodger, and so on. [If I decided to seriously pursue this project, the 1956 Topps set would count toward years but not teams.]

I haven't had a PSA membership in several years, and I've missed the fun of picking up cheap vintage singles on COMC, sending them in to PSA, and stashing (or selling) the newly-slabbed and graded cards. Unfortunately, like a lot of companies, they jacked up their prices during Covid and priced out the working class collector like myself. And you don't get any free submissions with a basic membership anymore.

So, when COMC offered a PSA grading special right around the holidays, I cashed out my Christmas bonus and submitted some cards. Here are some of my favorites:

All of these were COMC pickups, and came back at grades I was pleased with (though I was hoping for higher on the Sheldon Jones.) The Boyer and Dryden are modest upgrades over the amount invested, but I planned to keep both regardless. Apparently I have a good eye for 1953 Bowman Color cards; years after picking up a Billy Loes that graded out a Near Mint 8, another sight unseen purchase graded high: 

This was probably the best ROI of any single in my PSA-via-COMC order; it's probably worth twice the total of the card + grading fee.

I also had a 1953 Bowman Color Gus Zernial that graded a 6 - but I sold it on the site and bought these:

$18 for a high-grade vintage single of a well-known baseball lifer, and $13 for an old friend...

..though I didn't notice until scanning this that the bottom left corner of the case (top left in this scan) is a bit cracked. Still, I'm happy with this "trade".

Not everything I submitted was a winner, however. A 1933 Goudey single that I thought would be a 2-3 graded out at a 1.5. The Johnny Mize 1948 Bowman I bought on a whim was nowhere close to mid-grade (got a 3 on that one) and the other Gus Zernial I submitted came back a 5:

If I do another blog series this year it will be on the history of the Philadelphia/KC/Oakland Athletics, but I've got to get my audience back first. A lot of my regulars have been busy, or are no longer blogging.

BGS slabs seem to have fallen out of favor with graded card collectors. I haven't bought any in a while but I always like the way modern cards looked in their holders. There was one COMC seller practically giving away dozens of former Boston Red Sox prospects who never stuck, and I was tempted to grab a couple at these prices:

For the price of two Red Sox I instead opted for a low-numbered refractor of an active pitcher/DH who has missed significant time recovering from Tommy John surgery:

Brendan McKay probably won't make much of a major league impact but I couldn't resist adding this to my Blue Rays mini-collecion for well under $10. It pairs nicely with the pack-pulled Evan Longoria I sent to BGS about 15 years ago.

Can you tell it's time for me to get a new scanner? The McKay scan makes the gold BGS label look silver, and the more recent scan of this Longo (on the left) is far worse than the scan from my Sports Card Tour post six years ago (on the right).

My phone isn't much better, as I will demonstrate shortly. Not sure if it's the lighting in my card room or the camera itself, but card photos from my phone often come out blurry.

Here's a Michael Jordan All-Star card I picked up for my 1988-89 Fleer set. Scan on the left, phone pic on the right:

This classic card didn't cost me a dime out of pocket; the $65+ shipping was paid for by my eBay flipper friend. I'd sent him a bunch of cards to sell on his store page (okay, I did have to pay shipping for that) and he spent the proceeds on this at my request. He's the reason I plan to attend a card show next weekend; some of the cards he's sold for me were pickups from his local shows and I'm planning to return the favor. If I find some vintage singles - slabbed or unslabbed - for my PC, that's a bonus.


If I go, I'll have at least a couple post-show blogs to cover my pickups. If I don't, then perhaps I'll start that Athletics series a little sooner.

Thanks for reading!



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One and Done

Quick update tonight before I finish decorating the house for Christmas - and sorting all the new cards that have come in this week. 

PWE Swap packages have been mailed to everyone except Nachos Grande and Ken. The line at the post office this afternoon was far too long to send a bubble mailer. Your packages will be mailed Monday.

I probably won't have time to scan and discuss the football cards I've received but they are appreciated. It's been a great mix of players I collect and random stuff I never would have come across otherwise. Thanks again everyone!

Here are some cards I received in my COMC order. These were the last cards I needed to complete each set:

1986 Topps #11 ($2.44)

1989-90 Hoops #351a ($1.45)

2018 Stadium Club #145 ($0.35)

2019 Topps Opening Day #55 ($0.40)

Right now there are only two sets in my collection that are one card short of completion: 2007-08 Upper Deck Black Diamond hockey (damn Carey Price RC) and 2011 Topps Lineage. I only need #55:

You know who's not one and done? Anna Kendrick.

Her reign as The Collector's Celebrity Crush Champion (CCC) continues for a second consecutive year.

Anna held off a strong challenge from Brie Larson, who slides into my Women on Cards binder thanks to ePack:

Can Kendrick make it a Triple Crown? Or will her her former castmate take the title in '21? Don't count out a comeback attempt from Taryn Southern, and Melissa Benoist is bound to win it one of these years.

I guess there's enough time and space to squeeze in some recent vintage pickups:

Charley Neal has a couple small creases at the bottom but it was part of a 40-for-$40 deal that also included the Eddie Yost 1950 Bowman at the top right. That one is crease free. There were two other 1957 Topps cards in that package that are en route to a fellow blogger.

The other five were COMC purchases. Cepeda is really sharp, but there's some very slight gum staining on the front. Roberts is super clean but the top edge is a little rough. Dark looks nice at first glance but there's some scotch tape impression on the front and a tiny crease along the card number on the back.

Minarcin might be the best of the bunch. I've only bought graded singles for my 1956 Topps set build but this beauty was too good to pass up. Finding gems like this on COMC for under $3 ($2.16 to be precise) was one reason why I started this set four years ago. I'm a lot more than one away from completing it, but I am one card closer. Only 156 more to go...

Thanks for reading!




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COMC Black Friday weekend in review

Did you do any Black Friday shopping on COMC this past weekend? This is likely the first time I did not have anything shipped to me during their annual sale. Their "specials" continue to be less and less special every year, and setting a minimum purchase of $99 just to earn free shipping (by Dec.23?!?) was such an insult that I refused to qualify (but I nearly did anyhow...) 

Since the cards I purchased won't be in-hand for quite a while I might as well share my thoughts on them now.

I had $17 in challenge credit before the sale, and I will give credit to the COMC gatekeepers for keeping those challenges open the whole week leading up to the sale. There were four cards I immediately wanted to jump on, but only two of them were discounted - both by the same seller:

This Orlando Cepeda second-year card was $8 before the sale. I grabbed it for $5.29 on sale, which allowed me to add this to my cart:

Solly Hemus sounded only vaguely familiar to me but it's a 1952 Bowman rookie card in good shape (I hope), and it was only $2.69. That's good enough for me. 


I had $65 remaining from eBay sales and put $60 in my COMC account. It was all I'd planned to spend during the weekend. With my total up to $69, I made an offer on another vintage card and it was accepted:

Really thought I had a 1956 Topps Richie Ashburn already, but I guess I added it to my eBay watch list and never picked it up. This was an auto-accept at $36.20; the seller had another '56 HOFer I needed, but I could only afford one and chose the cheaper card so that I could pick up some Packers.

The backs of these Flashback Fabrics cards are weak (like most non-base cards these days) but it's an actual game used swatch, and..

It's numbered 4 of 399! This would be my first Favre card numbered #4/xx, so I gladly paid the sale price of $11.73.

Then we have this Jordy Nelson Immaculate Numbers relic. I absolutely overpaid for this. 

When I came across this last year it was priced at $20.25 ($16.25 on sale). That was too much for me, so I left it on my watch list all year. This Black Friday weekend, Nelson was on sale for.. $16.25. I got tired of waiting so I grabbed it. What could I have bought instead?

This Calvin Johnson relic is available for under $16 right now. On sale it was less than half that. Sigh.. the price of being a Packers fan..

To be honest I could have purchased both cards. I had enough room in the budget for Megatron, but instead I spent my remaining cash on a couple of Boston boys.

I added this Zdeno Chara to my Exquisite set build for just $3.75. That left me with $4.40. There was a Sterling Sharpe relic that I really wanted priced at $5.24 ($4.50 on sale.) I made an offer of $3.75, and the seller countered with the sale price of $4.50. I didn't have $4.50, I had $4.40. So I offered him that, and he declined.

Then I tried the same offer with a card priced at $5.25 (not on sale). This seller accepted:

That was it. My Black Friday shopping was complete, and I had... six cards?!? A new personal low by far. 

Then Cyber Monday came along and some of the cards on my watch list were discounted even further. I decided to clear them out, and added another $10 to my COMC account. With $2 more in challenge credit earned late Monday night I had $12 to spend... but what to spend it on?

The Calvin Johnson relic was now $6.25 and I agonized over it. I really wanted to grab a Taylor Hall auto even though I know he's not long for New Jersey and will probably be traded by the end of February. But $7 for an on-swatch auto was too good to pass up:

That left me with $5 - not enough for Calvin, but enough to add another Exquisite single:

Nathan MacKinnon cost just $2.49. I'm now down to five needs in the 30-card base set.


With my remaining $2.51 I added two more Brett Favre cards:

 

There were three copies of this Pinnacle Inscriptions Favre - one unpeeled for $2.75, one peeled (and scratched) for about $0.65, and this peeled and (hopefully) unscratched copy, which cost me $1.20. 

This Panini Illusions Favre sold at $0.75 then resurfaced for $0.68. I double-checked my TCDB have list, confirmed I don't have it, and added it to my cart.

That left me with $0.63, just enough for this odd-looking Dave Andreychuk milestones card which, if turned on its side, notes his 500th goal.

That's... better?

How did you spend your Black Friday weekend? Did you get any great deals on cards, gifts, or anything else?


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I Love The '70s

I've mentioned before on this and other blogs that there is a very large gap in my sports card collection: The 1970s. I went through a classic rock phase once, when I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin, Boston, Peter Frampton, The Who, etc.. and I gobbled up '70s movies from dystopian sci-fi like Soylent Green, The Andromeda Strain, and Logan's Run to sports classics like The Bad News Bears, Slap Shot, and Rollerball - which is kind of both.

 Yet somehow sports cards of the 1970s never got top billing in my collection. Until now..

One of my most frequent trade partners has been Bo, author of the blog Baseball Cards Come To Life! (I reisted the urge to call this "Bo knows trade packages"..and it's possible I've used that before.) Bo has been hoarding vintage cards lately, and had plenty of dupes to trade.

I offered up a small lot of '60s Sox featuring my 1969 Topps Tony Conigliaro dupe, which got the ball rolling on a swap. Bo sent me one in return - Hall of Fame skipper Dick Williams, the year he managed the "Impossible Dream" Red Sox of 1967.

 The rest were all swingin' stars of the seventies, baby..

Let's start with some sluggers from the 1970 Topps set. Harmon Killebrew's 49 homers in '69 (giggidy) led the A.L. ...but did you know who led the league in WAR that year?

 Rico Petrocelli, who appears in this trade package four times. Dig it.

 

Fred Lynn finished third in the A.L. in RBI in 1975 but led the league in runs scored, doubles, slugging, and OPS. He was the first player to win Rookie of the Year and league MVP in the same season. Dyno-mite!

 

Nearly every Topps set of the seventies was represented in this trade package. Here's another 1970 card. I don't know much about Dick Schofield (Sr.) but his son's Angels cards popped up often enough when I was a young collector. Apparently he's Jayson Werth's grandfather. Far out, man!

Here's a guy I'm familiar with. Ted Simmons was one of the top catchers of the decade and in my humble opinion, should be a Hall of Famer. This is his second-year card, and one of my favorites in the stack. I'm all out of '70s catch phrases.

I also picked out this '73 Dick Allen over a '70 issue of his..didn't realize from the pic that it was miscut. It's too bad I don't know anyone who collects miscut cards and White Sox.

The colorful 1975 Topps set is represented by the colorful Dock Ellis - who is pictured wearing what appears to be a batting glove. I've never seen a pitcher wear one while pitching before.

Here are some Hall of Famers from the 1976 Topps set, the legendary Ty Cobb..

And a trio of league-leading aces. Jim Palmer won the Cy Young award in '75, leading the A.L. in new-age stats like adjusted ERA+ and WAR..as well as the old-fashioned favorites like Wins, ERA, and shutouts.

The only years that didn't appear in this trade package were 1974 and 1979. It just so happens I made a small PWE trade with TCDB user John5150. John is working on the 1979 Topps and 1984 Topps sets. I sent him a few from each set and got a couple of his dupes in return:

 I also picked out a pair of Sterling Sharpe Packers cards, and some basketball stars:

That's Vince Carter on the SP Authentic card. The Shaq Ultra brings this back to Bo...

...who threw in 100 basketball cards, including a bunch of 1993-94 Ultra needs - and a postcard of the big Aristotle:

This was the first thing I pulled out of the package. According to the text on the back, it was what fans would get back from Shaq instead of a TTM auto:

  

Must have been disappointing for a young fan to receive this instead of a real auto. This trade package, on the other hand, was radical. Thanks for the trade, Bo!

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