The Final 50

I've been on a mission to complete (almost) all of my baseball, football, and hockey set builds by the end of 2023. This excludes my 1956 Topps project and a handful of hockey near-sets with too many SPs/rare singles. It kind of excludes the 1988-89 Fleer basketball set, which is not in the budget to be completed this year. But there are some lower-value singles in that set that I can afford to upgrade, so I've added it.


Here's my shopping list for the rest of the year. If I can add at least 50 of these to the collection in the next four months I'll be very pleased (and I'll be able to focus on vintage in 2024 and beyond.)

1992 Donruss Diamond Kings
11 - Jeff Bagwell
14 - Harold Baines
17 - Jay Bell

I offered a TCDB user ten singles from 2023 Topps for six 2023 Topps cards and the Baines DK. He declined 🤷

1993 Donruss Diamond Kings
17 - Darren Daulton
21 - Gary Sheffield
26 - Luis Polonia
29 - Pat Listach
30 - Eric Karros

Really hope I don't have to pay for the Polonia.

2010 Topps
100 - Albert Pujols
327 - Albert Pujols (award winner)
549 - Derek Jeter
637 - Ruth/Gehrig (checklist)

Incoming from Sportlots: 7, 8, 125, 206, 215, 361, 379, 400, 404, 476, 530, 541, 551, 559, 560, 588, 590, 623, 652, 653

2017 Topps Heritage
419 - Francisco Lindor SP
428 - Mookie Betts SP

I've given up on the Topps Game rookies inserts so adding these two 'base' SPs would close the book(s) on this set.

2023 Topps
363 - Logan O'Hoppe RC
524 - Terrin Vavra RC
550 - Mark Vientos RC
557 - Nate Eaton RC

Incoming from Sportlots/TCDB: 334, 385, 417, 425, 446, 469, 482, 526, 559, 645

1989 Pro Set
457 - Sam Clancy RC
459 - Mike Webster
460 - Bob Golic
469 - Vaughan Johnson RC
486 - Deion Sanders RC
493 - Bobby Humphrey RC
494 - Barry Sanders RC
499 - Cleveland Gary RC
505 - Brian Williams RC
511 - Tim Worley RC
526 - Jonathan Hayes RC
539 - James Jefferson RC
548 - Carnell Lake RC
555 - Gary Hogeboom

I picked up the main set (cards #1-440) on eBay for $10 dlvd. I'll have to pay about that much for just Barry and Deion.

2015 Panini Prizm
16 Joe Montana
55 Colin Kaepernick
87 Rob Gronkowski
221 Darren Waller RC
236 Eli Harold RC
237 Eric Kendricks RC
250 J.J. Nelson RC
260 Landon Collins RC
298 Tyler Lockett RC

I bought the Nelson on COMC earlier this summer but those **ckers sent me a creased card 😠

1988-89 Fleer
17 - Michael Jordan
18 - Charles Oakley
20 - Scottie Pippen RC
42 - Bill Laimbeer
43 - Dennis Rodman RC
57 - Reggie Miller RC
120 Michael Jordan ASS

I hated the '90s Bulls. So why did I decide to build this set? Because these were the first basketball cards I ever saw as a kid. Also that's not a typo; MJ is an a-hole. I will die on this hill.

1989-90 Fleer All-Star Stickers
1 - Karl Malone

Ugh.. another jerk. I actually have this card but it's more miscut than your typical All-Star Sticker from this set, and it messes with my OCD. That said, I'd rather pay 50 cents for the Polonia DK than upgrade this.

1988-89 Topps
16 Joe Nieuwendyk RC
25 Clint Malarchuk
33 Randy Burridge
55 Ray Sheppard
66 Brett Hull RC
91 Brian Mullen
105 Andrew McBain
113 Doug Halward
120 Wayne Gretzky
129 Tony Hrkac RC
134 Bob Sweeney RC
137 Petri Skriko
155 Kelly Hrudey
158 Randy Hillier
165 Brian Noonan RC
177 Rick Tocchet
178 Brad McCrimmon
186 Rejean Lemelin
195 Brian Hayward
197 Doug Crossman

Immaculate Grid tip o' the week: 700-goal scorer and Hall of Famer Brett Hull started his career with Calgary.

2022-23 Upper Deck
416 Nick Paul
425 Elias Pettersson
450 Charlie McAvoy/Moritz Seider CL

Incoming from Sportlots/TCDB: 30, 263, 264, 369, 374, 401


Have you seen what Upper Deck plans to do to their flagship hockey set in '23-24?!?? I'm glad I wrote the Young Guns chronicles this year. Between this and Topps Big League's four-tier SP garbage it's getting harder and harder to build a current year set. I can definitely see the end of my collection coming...




Thanks for reading!



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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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Post 360

I spent the past week compiling a checklist for my All-Time teams Frankenset. It has been completed, updated, and posted to the pages tab. You can click here for the list. 

Here are some of the newest candidates for the Frankenset, courtesy of 7th Inning Stretch. I call this "Wave One." (Wave two is a trade with TCDB user Randylaw; wave three is my order from baseballcardstore.ca.)

New York aces Tom Seaver and Whitey Ford were among the few cards in this order that cost more than fifty cents. This 2003 Topps Retired Seaver single was $0.64 while the Whitey Ford from 2005 set me back just $0.97 - not bad for a Gold Parallel #d/500.

I had exactly one Don Drysdale card in my collection - and it's graded - so why not add one where he's sporting a Brooklyn cap? 1991 Topps Archives '53 won't help my cause as much as I had expected, though this single enables me to cross Clem Labine off my list. All-Time Fan Favorites singles will be scattered all over the Frankenset and Pristine is a personal favorite. This pair of Ron Cey cards gives me an idea... 

Would anyone be interested in a Frankenset Sunday feature where I post multiple cards of one player and you can vote for which one to include in the Frankenset binder? It would be almost exactly like Nick's Dime Box bracket.

Here are some sets you'll see in the binder pages - Pacific Legends, Conlon Collection (including a colorized Red Faber that I found for 50 cents) and SP Legendary Cuts. Hank Greenberg was completely absent from my collection before this order.
 

I've now got two Greenberg cards, and a third one on the way. The 1964 Topps Jim Landis is the oldest card in this order by far and one of the most expensive at $0.84.

As you can see, Quiz is a Tiffany parallel and Landis has had his back scratched.

I went a little crazy on 2004 UD Timeless Teams singles. Bill Russell and Ray Knight aren't even part of this project but I tossed them in the cart anyhow.

This trio of O's will help. I also picked up a 1963 Topps Oriole on COMC but who knows when I'll be able to have it shipped to me.

Some Red Sox for my Boston binder. The '84 Allenson is another Tiffany single. 

I really like these 1999 Fleer/SI Greats of the Game cards. 2000 Fleer Greats was more "high-end" because of the autographs (which I love) but the base cards are bland compared to these.

Here are the three Billy Williams cards I bought - which somehow earned me a free rookie card of the Cubs legend. Williams was another HOFer that wasn't in my collection. My next project will be to make a list of the top five baseball greats I'm still missing.

If I'm going to add cards of every all-time great I'll need to rely on reprints such as these. My aunt told me about Monty Stratton when I was a kid and I completely forgot about him until seeing this card. The Babe Ruth Dodgers card ($2.61) and the Addie Joss Turkey Red at the top left ($2) were the only cards in this order that cost more than a dollar.

The rest of the baseball legends including my first ungraded George Sisler single and the return of a Billy Herman card that was in my collection many years ago. 

Not all of the cards from 7th Inning Stretch were for my All-Time Teams project. This Pete Bauer was somehow missing from the 2003 Ravens team set I bought at the ballpark. Gary Sanchez brings my 2018 Stadium Club set build down to 21 needs. (A John Smoltz single is supposedly headed my way..)

When I got back into collecting basketball cards the late '80s Fleer sets appealed to me more than ever. I'm dreading any attempt at completing 1988-89 or 1989-90 (thanks, MJ) but I'm still picking up cheap singles when I can.

You'll see more of these when Wave Two hits. Also, how is Tom Chambers not a Hall of Famer? I nearly wrote a blog post about his Springfield-worthy career. Maybe someday.

We often discuss which players will or should be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. I'd like to hear from basketball (or football or hockey) fans who likely know more than I would about Hall-worthy players. Do you think Tom Chambers belongs in the Hall? How about Chris Webber? Tim Hardaway? Who else is missing?

For the football and hockey fans - are there players who you feel have waited far too long for the call to Canton or Toronto? Let me know in comments.

Thanks for reading!


 
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