Blogging >> Trading

I bought a stack of 100 stamps just before the latest increase in postal rates (thanks again, GWB) with the intention of making 50+ trades on TCDB. I had hoped to offload all 1,200+ duplicates in my trade box, but it seems I've hit a wall. There aren't a lot of active traders who want what I have, or have what I want.

The trades I've 'completed' lately have included damaged cards far too often. Some traders aren't getting back to me, while others have countered my trade offer because they suddenly can’t find what I asked for - or they just sold the card I really want (more on that later).

I can't even give cards away. Three days ago I offered up two free Pay it Forward 'trades'. One user replied right away and was very grateful. The other has checked into the site every day since - but still hasn't accepted my free cards.

Meanwhile, while I've been on break from blogging.. Night Owl has been hard at work sending his 250-card repacks to 20 lucky readers. Guess it's easier to give cards away here, huh? 😜

I wasn't one of the first 20 to comment (was visiting my mom in CT that weekend IIRC) but I made a comment that Night Owl appreciated and so he scrounged up a small 50-card sampler for me:

 

A pair of Packers starts off this pack. These are from 1977 Topps.

Some Red Sox, including a fantastic Lenny Green from 1966 Topps. It's card #502 in a 598-card set so I assumed it was one of those pesky high numbers.. but it's not listed as such on TCDB or COMC. Still one of the nicest vintage Sox singles I've received.

No Night Owl repack would be complete without some of his surplus Dodgers cards, including a Hideo Nomo Stadium Club RC and a shiny Clayton Kershaw (with A.J. Puk on the back) Love the Duke Snider Archives Reserve single, too.

More signature N.O. favorites here, including a Kellogg's card of A's catcher Jeff Newman, a Jim Wynn scratch-off game card, and a Willie Wilson food issue from 1983. The '78 Ron Guidry is a nice one as well.

Newer Topps singles, the cornerstone of any repack. The top three are from 2010 Topps Update.

This repack didn't guarantee a hit, and I didn't see the odds posted on the side. Guess I'm just lucky mine contained a Diamond haha. The Josh Johnson OPC black is very cool, and a pair of early '90s Oilers are a nice bonus.

 

(Mostly) non-sports singles here including '80s icon Molly Ringwald. The wrestling ladies are the exception, I s'pose.

Once again Greg, thank you so much for your generosity and for all you do in the card blogging community.

Kevin at The Diamond King also offered up some freebies recently. I thought I’d missed out on claiming a card there, too, but a couple days ago this showed up in my mailbox:

When I saw this shiny Schwarber I couldn't help but offer it a good home. Kevin was kind enough to oblige. Thank you Diamond King!

If I ever get my blog reboot off the ground I will have some type of freebie page as a 'grand re-opening'. Hopefully you'll find some cards worth claiming.

Back to that failed TCDB trade. I made a 4-for-4 offer, specifically for a Mikaela Shiffrin parallel. A few days later I got a counter offer with the Shiffrin card removed, as the guy had "sold" it and forgot to remove it from his inventory. Recent examples of the card in question have sold for about two dollars!

Until this year, the only Mikaela cards I could get my hands on were flimsy perforated singles from Sports Illustrated for Kids issues:

 I think this was a blog freebie as well :)

Thanks to 2021 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions, there are now several Shiffrin singles to collect:

In fact I just spent $5 on four more Mikaela cards, which will probably stay at COMC HQ until after Black Friday, along with this..

This Luis Arroyo cost $3.25, and it's unofficially my 196th different 1956 Topps card (depending on whether or not I buy some more in the interim) I was hoping to hit 200 by my birthday but I'm going to fall just short of that goal.

I'm about to hit 900,000 career COMC Challenge credit points, and I've spent all of it. I'm going to try and save up all the credit I earn from 900k to one million and earn a high-end single or two absolutely free. Easier said than done. But is it easier than giving cards away on TCDB? We shall see...

Thanks for reading!



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That's Not Wright

 Kingston Center Shane Wright was projected to be the first overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft. 

The Montreal Canadiens owned the 1st overall pick, while the New Jersey Devils had the second pick. Most mock drafts had Wright going #1 to Montreal, followed by Slovak winger Juraj Slafkovsky going #2 to the Devils.

 

New Jersey has selected #1 overall twice in recent years, taking centers in 2017 (Nico Hischier) and 2019 (Jack Hughes). Devils fans would have been happy to have a 6' 4" 230 lb winger fall to them at number two... but Montreal flipped the script and selected him with the first pick.

It's rare for a consensus #1 pick to not go #1 overall, in any draft. There didn't seem to be much dispute over Shane Wright's standing as the top prospect available - though he wasn't seen as a generational superstar such as Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews. Scouts compared Wright to Patrice Bergeron, a future Hall of Famer who excels on both ends of the ice but has never been a top-tier scoring star.

Perhaps Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald could have traded the pick, acquiring a veteran scoring winger to pair with Hischier and/or Hughes. Instead the Devils used the second overall pick to select.. not Shane Wright.

Perhaps Simon Nemec will develop into a franchise cornerstone like Victor Hedman or Drew Doughty - two other defensemen taken #2 overall. Perhaps Fitzgerald will regret passing on Wright, who was selected #4 overall by Seattle.

Far too many NHL "experts" assumed that New Jersey had no need for the highly-touted centerman. The Devils are set at center was the common refrain. No one even paid lip service to the idea that a team that missed the playoffs in 9 of the last 10 seasons should take the best player available.

 

Jack Hughes is a star in the making. He's also 21 years old and hasn't played a full season in the NHL. Hischier - who was also seen as a two-way center in the Bergeron/Kopitar/Toews mold - just finished his fifth season, in which he set career highs with 21 goals and 60 points. 

New Jersey had one player in the NHL's top 50 point scorers - left winger Jesper Bratt. Hughes didn't finish among the league's top 100 point producers. Hischier didn't rank among the NHL's top 100 goal scorers.

But we don't need Shane Wright. We're all set at the center position.

Here's my rebuttal to that, if the 'best player available' mantra doesn't work for you.

In 2004, the Pittsburgh Penguins had the 2nd overall pick. They selected Evgeni Malkin, a center.
In 2005, Pittsburgh won the lottery and selected 1st overall. They chose Sidney Crosby, a center.
In 2006, the Penguins again had the 2nd overall pick, which they used to select Jordan Staal.. a center. 

 
In 2008 the Penguins reached the Stanley Cup final. The next year they were Cup champs. Who were the top three scorers on that championship squad?

Want a more recent example of a team drafting three centers in the top three? Let's look at Edmonton:

In 2011, the Oilers had the #1 overall pick. They selected Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, a center.
In 2014, the Oilers had the #3 overall pick. They selected Leon Draisaitl, who is also a center.
In 2015, the Oilers once again picked first, selecting Connor McDavid. Guess what position he plays?

Edmonton hasn't won a Stanley Cup or even made it to the final with their haul of high draft picks. However, they were in the Western Conference final this past season. Three of their top four point producers were, in order: McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins.

Let me be clear here - I am not comparing Hughes/Hischier to Crosby/Malkin or McDavid/Draisaitl. Sid, Geno, Leon, and Connor have all won NHL MVP trophies and scoring titles.That's my point.

Hughes and Hischier are not on that level yet, and it's unlikely they ever will be. So why would a non-playoff team pass on a prospect like Shane Wright, whose ceiling is higher than Hischier's by all accounts, simply because they're all centers? Nico would be a heck of a #3, just like Staal was and Hopkins is. 

If scouts or GMs or talking heads want to make the case that Simon Nemec has more upside as a future top-pair defenseman, or that Wright had plateaued - perhaps even regressed - in his draft year, I can't argue those points. But the notion that New Jersey doesn't need another talented center doesn't make sense to me.

I'm happy the Kraken selected Shane Wright 4th overall, not just because they're my 'girlfriend' team but because Philly had the fifth pick  😯

Here's hoping that both the Devils and the Kraken got the .. right guy. Sorry, I had to!

 

Thanks for reading!


 

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Lowering My Standards

For much of my collecting life I've been a stickler for condition. When I was younger, it didn't matter to me if cards had frayed corners, scratches, or poor centering - I was happy to get my hands on anything. As an adult I'm much more discerning. It's one reason why I gravitated toward graded cards.

While it is exciting to have a high-grade copy of a card, especially a superstar's RC or a vintage Hall of Famer, it's more about the eye appeal for me than the prestige or resale value. The same reason I'm finicky about corners and centering is likely the same reason I replace my used 9-pocket pages and penny sleeves every three years or so.

In the post-pandemic landscape of higher prices and lesser quantities, having such collecting OCD can be costly. In addition to replacing supplies, I've attempted to replace off-condition singles from completed sets such as 1986 Topps football and 1989-90 Fleer basketball. At least a half-dozen times I've completed trades on TCDB for cards I already had, hoping for an upgrade, only to receive a worse copy. What a waste of stamps, cards, and time.

This past week, two users were nice enough to describe their cards as "well-loved" before accepting the trade. I told them that I appreciate the honest description of the cards, but that I was looking to upgrade a completed set. 

I'm still trying to upgrade 17 cards from 1986 and 1987 Topps football, including rookie cards of Karl Mecklenburg, Anthony Carter, Bruce Smith, and Charles Haley. Carter and Al Toon in particular have been very tough to find with acceptable centering. 

I also need to upgrade newer cards, as a pair of COMC purchases for my 2014 set build - Mike Trout and Marcus Semien - arrived with dinged corners. I learned to live with such flaws after attempting (twice) to upgrade the Logan Morrison base card. Not sure I can accept having a dinged Trout and/or Semien RC in my set.

Upgrading cards already in my collection is a luxury not unlike paying $35 for a PSA 9 Pie Traynor card for my 1961 Golden Press set build. All of my Golden Press singles are graded EX-MT 6 or better, and $35 is a fair price for a Mint 9 considering the market. However, I'm two cards shy of completing half of that set, and legendary names like Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Speaker, Wagner, and Cy Young are missing from my set build. If I'm going to complete this 33-card set I might need to lower the bar to include lower graded singles or ::gasp:: ungraded copies.

Which brings me to my 1956 Topps set build.

I'm considering this set my magnum opus, my lifetime achievement award. An heirloom to leave to my childrens' childrens' children (unless I have to sell it for my kids' college fund first.)  I've sacrificed several high-value rookie cards to fund this project. Sidney Crosby Upper Deck RC? Gone. Connor McDavid Upper Deck RC? Gone. Stephen Curry Upper Deck RC? Gone.

Mid-grade second-year Roberto Clemente cards don't grow on trees, you know.

I'm at 57% completion of the '56 set, with several big names behind me. I'm not giving up on the set build.. but I am lowering the bar.

This Walt Dropo single cost me $20 on COMC:

Dropo was a legend in my home state, excelling at baseball and basketball at the University of Connecticut. I sort-of saw him signing autographs at a card shop upstate when I was a kid. I spotted the store from the road, decided to stop in for a few packs, and saw that he was sitting at a table up front. I didn't know who he was at the time :/

This Jim Wilson single was part of the same COMC order, setting me back $3.19:

Spending $15+ on PSA graded singles of the Jim Wilsons and Ray Moores of the set doesn't make much financial sense when Willie, Whitey, Pee Wee, and other HOFers are still needed. 

I do have some ungraded 1956 singles, but I try to select the best possible examples. Even after examining scans of the front and back there's always a chance that a card will have a hidden flaw.

Like a scratch mark across Wilson's cap. 

If I want to complete the '56 set by the time I turn 56 I'll need to average just over 10 new additions per year..  or add one new card per month for the next twelve years. 

Guess I'll have to resist the urge to upgrade every flawed single in my connection, vintage or modern.

Thanks for reading!



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Thank Yous

I received this Thank You card at work today. Two of the girls I work with (who are both younger than me so I feel silly calling them "ladies") got married... I think. No one actually specified. But last week one of the managers passed around a very large 'Congratulations!' card for us to sign, which included an envelope. "You don't have to contribute anything." He told me. I certainly would have - if I had any cash. 

I felt bad accepting this Thank You card but I would have felt worse telling Jazz that "I didn't give anything. I'm sorry." Apparently they have been together for 11 years. I didn't know they were a couple until I was handed the 'Congratulations!' card!

Six months ago I had never encountered an office couple in my life. Now I've seen three.. I think. There's a guy that sits at the far end of the office, by the warehouse, and he waits in his car at 5pm until a blonde woman joins him. At first I thought that was his lady but she might - might - be young enough to be his daughter. I'm getting off-topic here. 

I've got some virtual Thank Yous to hand out for some blogger pals, starting with Bob of The Best Bubble. Back in March Bob posted his finds from an estate sale haul, and I inquired about a card that was not shown. His Sam Jethroe autograph was part of an Ohio Baseball Hall of Fame set that also included..

It's Noodles!!

I've been looking for something - anything - of the Reds' greatest-ever starting pitcher to fill in one of the two remaining holes in my All-Time Teams collection. This won't fit in a nine-pocket page but it will make a nice addition to the collection. Thank you Bob! Now.. does anyone have a George Davis card?

I'm going to thank Fuji in advance for sending me some 2012 Topps baseball set fillers. It's the last flagship baseball set I plan to build, unless I change my mind about 2010 or 2022. I've got a cardboard box that fits nine 800-ct boxes perfectly:

Once the 2012 Topps set is complete I'll have to decide between filling it thisly:

• 2010 or 2022 Topps set, 2012-2019 Topps sets - all hand collated

or thusly:

• 2011 Topps - factory set, 2012-2019 Topps sets - hand collated

Fuji, thank you for your (forthcoming) help with this set project!

This past Saturday I received two bubble mailers in my mailbox. The smaller of the two was my COMC order. Not much to report there; the best stuff was featured in my recent post at The 1993 (yes I still post there sometimes!)

The bigger mailer was a surprise gift from Dennis. Longtime readers of this blog and others are no doubt aware of Dennis's generous care packages. I had actually worried a bit when receiving it; I might not have room for such a big pile of cards, and I certainly wouldn't have a worthwhile return for him.

It... wasn't cards.

Have you read my fairly recent post about the astronomical prices of actress autographs? Well...

Dennis laughs at your $500+ KatMac cards. Here's a whole ass book signed by Anna Kendrick:

I did read Scrappy Little Nobody a few years ago, but this Target edition contains a bonus chapter.

Now I can pair my Anna auto with her "rookie card":

Dennis, thank you very much for this pleasant surprise! A PWE is headed your way.

Fuji, I will send a small mailer to you this weekend. I've got one card for you that wont fit in a PWE.

Bob, feel free to pick a handful of cards from my for sale/trade list and I'll send 'em out ASAP. 

Thank You.. for reading ;-)

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Comparing CuJos

I'm headed out to a bar to meet a co-worker friend (you may remember him as "young guy") and my blog is sort of in limbo at the moment (potential overhaul but no time yet) .. but I wanted to share something with you all.

 I listed five cards on eBay recently. Four of them sold. This one didn't:

 

This is a third period parallel of borderline Hall of Famer Curtis Joseph. If you look on his blocker pad you'll see it's numbered to ten. My wife and I bought about a dozen packs of Be a Player that year and one of us - probably her - pulled this card. I listed this for $34.99 with a Buy It now price of $49.99, using a sold copy of a Jose Theodore third period parallel as a guide. No one wanted to give me $35 for this CuJo. However...

The Mrs. pulled this card from a box of 1996-97 Black Diamond hockey 25 years ago. These Run for the Cup inserts are tough pulls, but as you can see on the back...

...there are 100 copies of each. I had never considered selling this card because a) it's not technically mine, and b) the Oilers were always my second-favorite team. But the economy is kinda weird right now, and neither of us have the passion for card collecting that we once did. I'm starting to think of the giant piles of sports cards and memorabilia my daughters would inherit upon my passing. They wouldn't know what to do with all the stuff. What's valuable? What's not? Hell, I don't even know anymore.

Just for the heck of it, I looked up recent sales of Run for the Cup inserts. This is the only one I found:

Obviously Messier is an all-time great while Joseph is, in my estimation, the greatest goalie of all-time .. who is not in the Hall of Fame. (No cups, no Vezinas, never led the league in goals against average, shutouts, or wins.) So I listed the CuJo card at $199.99 with a Buy It Now price of $499.99.

I did not get $500 for this card.

I got $570 for this card. That will pay for my night out tonight... and add another $500 to the kids' college fund.

Can anyone explain why a card numbered to 10 wouldn't sell for $35 but a card numbered to 100 of the same player would sell for so much more? I doubt we're sitting on any other hidden gems but I might have to double-check.

As for the blog, I'm thinking of changing the name and theme this summer. But I'm also working on a novel and a short story, and the family's schedule has been brutal lately. Maybe after the playoffs...

Have you sold any cards for much more than you were expecting?

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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