so much mail!!

The mail came today, as it does every non-holiday, with around five small envelopes/packages. There was also one yesterday. I'll start with that one:

1956 Hank Aaron and 1963 Bill Mazeroski. Its a damn crime that I snagged the Maz for 99 cents, but the Hank came at $30. Still a great price. The seller had these and some other vintage stuff, including some 54s that I had wanted the most. I lost on the 54s but no one touched these two.

Up next are from two different sellers:

The bottom and the one on the top numbered 240, I got from the same seller, for a total of $2.55. The other one numbered 155, I got for a buck. Under four bucks for three Vernon autos? Yes please.

Speaking of autos:

Mr. 'almost-perfect-game', Armando Galarraga from 2008 Topps Chrome. Another card I got for 99 cents. It "books" at $20, but we all know what that means. I watched that game, well the end of it at least, and it was definitely some history there.

History?:

Some '54 Cubs for the set. In pretty good shape for the $4.78 I got them for.

The final package was from Julie over at Things Are Funner Here. It was a package filled with Jays goodness, in response to my sending over some extra Halladays. I haven't had a chance to go through them to see what I need yet, but it is all greatly appreciated and looks like its a great stack of stuff I don't have for the Jays box. Thanks a bunch!


(and thanks to eBay, or rather, thanks to the bidders who ignored all these great auctions and allowed me to win them for cheap)

the gangs all here!

I braved the snow yesterday and ventured out to get the mail. We only had one small brown envelope, containing this:

1954s Yogi. With this card the 'big 16' is finished! Take a look:


I apologize for the sideways scans. I had to scan them that way so it would fit the whole page and I rotated them in my picture program on the computer here, but they uploaded to blogger here sideways. Don't know why but they are all here. With these (hopefully) the rest of the set will just fall into my 8 pocket pages. I have a few lots of commons coming in from eBay with the gold Strasburg money plus I sold a set of 2010 Topps (series 1, 2 and Update) also. It had sold for less than what I'd like, but its less cards around here, and more 54s for me. That's all for now.

its 'snow' fun

As some of you in the south and in New York have experienced, I am currently snowed in. Lots of wind, snow and unplowed roads...oh, and no work. Only because the boss said not to worry about it today due to us not being behind in our printing. The other back story to this post is while I am at shows, I'll pick up some random old packs just to save for a rainy (snowy) day. Well, here we are. Let the wax fly! Here is what I picked today, something I have never opened before:

1981 Donruss. Have I ever mentioned how bad this set is photography-wise? The actual card design isn't horrible, but the photos sure are. Blurry action shots, blurry close-ups. Every card looks as if it was taken with a Kodak instant camera. Well, here is what I got:

Some good names there; Gary Carter, Carl Yastrzemski (twice, two different cards), Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley. Had I opened this pack in '81, I would have been the big kid on the block....maybe. If you notice, the pack only held Red Sox and Expos. Weird collation, but not for Donruss, who are notorious for weird collation. I got a pack of 1988 Donruss once and it was 15 cards in numerical order. Oh yeah, there was one more card in the pack, but unfortunately he didn't make it out alive:

Too bad too, Dwight Evans is a solid 1981 pull. Silly gum, maybe thats why they went with puzzles. I have seen 1981 Donruss before but have never had the 'thrill' of opening up a pack and overall I guess I can't be too disappointed due to the names I grabbed but its a pretty lame set.

some holiday generosity

Fellow blogger Don from over at Tiger Sportscards and Other Ramblings, had sent me an email about some 1954 Topps he had. He had mentioned that they were a bit roughed up but that he was willing to send them over, no strings attached. Well, I could never turn down some 54's but I told him that I had to send him something in return. I am currently working on his pile to send over. Going over his wantlists and such. Here are the 54's:

Are they rough? Yes, very, but each one has character. I love cards with character. How did this get bent? Why are there scratches here? How is there paper loss on the back? I can only imagine the things these cards have seen over the past 56 years. The games the kids played with them back then, flipping them, putting them in the spokes of their bikes, etc. Stuff my dad said he did with his cards in his youth. While these are far from perfect, they will make great set fillers for the 54 project. Thanks a million to Don for the contribution and like I had mentioned, your pile is being constructed and will be sent out soon!

two more for the pile

Look who decided to show up to the party:

Larry Doby, I feel, is very under appreciated in the baseball community. While Jackie certainly did everything first, Larry was an excellent player, who's stats rival Mr. Robinson himself. Larry being the second African-American player in the MLB, and the first in the American League. He even went on to play in Japan for a year in 1962, becoming only the third player to do so around that time. Its not that people forget Larry's very important contribution to baseball and America as a whole, but he definitely lives in Robinson's shadow.

Then there is this guy:

This is the second 'bookend' to the 1954 set. Very interesting that Topps did this for Williams, and was a very nice 'thanks' to Ted, for signing on board to Topps products. I love the classic swing in the black and white shot of him here, so timeless.

I doubt I'll have any time to post over the next few days, so I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone reading out there. Some of you have also emailed me about getting your Topps boxes in the mail. Here is a collective 'you're very welcome' to everyone and a huge thanks for the great support for what I'm doing over here.

topps heritage

With all this talk of Topps Heritage as of late, I took a stroll through my Heritage of years previous. I feel that Topps has the right idea with this line as a whole. Its photography is one of the things I appreciate most. Just looking at the above picture shows three (I feel) classic baseball card pictures. Posing is all they did in the early days of Topps cards, so I feel its really justified as to using almost nothing but posed shots for these sets. Topps base should have action shots and almost nothing but. They have done pretty well in that area (they still aren't Upper Deck, but baby steps need to be taken first), with the exception of all the recycled images. Topps isn't without its faults in the Heritage line though. Short prints suck. Hard. However, I do understand what they are doing with the idea, as pretty much every set released before 1973 has short printed cards. I just with Heritage sets were a little easier to complete. I don't mind the chromed versions of the cards, but do we really need THREE versions of each chrome? The autos and relics are good and not all that overdone....yet. The seat relic debacle from a few years ago seems to be a sour taste in many collector's mouths, so hopefully an idea like that won't be returning. Well, maybe the stamps or coins in the 2011 will be next years seat relics. Oh goody. On the plus side though, if the sell sheets and rumors on the interwebs are true, then 2011 Heritage will see autos of such names as Sandy Koufax, Al Kaline, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Ernie Banks. What a line-up, and supposedly all on-card. Those names alone make me want to buy a case of the stuff, even though I'll never see any of these names written on any of my cards, I can certainly hope. Until March 17th!

something interesting

My father gave me a plain brown envelope a few years back. He had said that he got it from his father. The envelope was beat up, the flap was nearly falling off. It felt kind of thick, like there were multiple pieces of paper in there. Well, there was...in a way. There was a piece of cardboard that was about the size of this:

This photo of Babe Ruth and his wife at the time, Claire Merritt Hodgson (Ruth then). The photo has some small writing on the left side, indicating that the photo was taken in Yankee Stadium, __-23-1942 (I can't make out the month). I'm also not sure who the signature is made out to, looks to me like Julius Burs but I'm probably wrong on that. The signatures are facsimile, so its value isn't anything more than sentimental. I have no idea when my father or grandfather picked this up but regardless, I now have it. Even if its not really signed by them, it remains one of my favorite baseball related pieces in my collection.

we fare thee well

So after 5 seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays, Lyle Overbay has signed on with the Pittsburgh Pirates for the 2011 season. Not sure who is going to be his replacement at first, maybe Adam Lind? He has played there before, amongst playing outfield and designated hitter. Overbay isn't new to switching teams, having played on the Diamondbacks for three seasons and the Brewers for two. I had a feeling he was going to be a guy who left the roster after this season. As far as collecting him goes, I really kinda don't want to anymore. I mean, I'll still collect his Jays years cards, but I won't go out of my way for them, like I would current Jays. Has that happened to anyone else? A player you like to collect on your favorite team, switches teams and you lose interest? Or do you follow him no matter where he goes? I know there are a few Carl Crawford fans/collectors out there and I can only think that Overbay leaving is the closest I'll come to that situation (although Carl is way more popular and was a Ray for far longer, so the impact is greater). Let me know what you think.

2009 o-pee-chee

While out finishing up my Christmas shopping, I stopped by the other card shop. The one I don't usually frequent. This one has more Yankees/Red Sox/Mets sporting goods than cards. Its been there for quite some time, as I went there in the mid 90's. I saw some of these 2009 UD O-Pee-Chee blasters for ten bucks, so I picked one up. I like this set a lot, very colorful with a great mix of action and posed shots as seen above. The set has a black bordered parallel, which come one per pack. There is also a mini black bordered set too, which seem more difficult to come by because I only got one. I also really like the team checklist cards (see Dodgers card above), which show really nice wide angle stadium shots. The blaster also yielded a seriously colorful triple relic of boring white swatches but of three pretty decent players. I like the set enough to consider completing it but it may have to wait a while during the 1954 project.

I mentioned going to a show today but I didn't end up making it due to it seeming like it wasn't going to be held. Usually this show is on the third Thursday of the month at a local VFW. The show is also listed on a show calendar I found online and it wasn't listed under the months of December and January but is for February. I may just have to wait until then for some more 54 goodness (but hopefully not).

question/additions

I have a question for you Cubs fans out there. Check this card out:

I pulled this from a box of 2009 UD Legendary Cuts yesterday. The thing I can't (or the shop owner) couldn't figure out, is when the Cubs wore these type of uniforms. The swatch is a baby blue with a white stripe. When did they wear these? I know someone must know, as I know there are more than a few Cubs fans out in bloggyland. I don't know much as far as their history goes, so any help would be appreciated. The card is not for trade at this point in time, but it may be in the near future.

This is where the additions come in:

The Banks is the big one I spoke of a few posts ago. Tommy was picked up for a pretty good price too. Both are solid additions to the 54 project, and with these two, I'm only missing 2 of the 'big 16'. I plan on hitting up a show tomorrow (if it is being held) for some of the commons of the 54 set. We'll see how many I can get.

what is going on?

Alright, so a couple of things to discuss today. First, I just want to apologize but the TOPPS BOXES HAVE FINALLY SHIPPED! I am apologizing because it has taken me much longer than I wanted to send these out. However, working 60+ hours and going to the post office during the busiest time of the year do not mix well. Regardless, they have shipped and you should have them in your hands quite soon.

The next topic is that I have fallen off of the wagon, per say. I picked up one of those "The Best of 2010 Topps Chrome" boxes from Target today. The damn shininess could not be avoided. Inside were the 2 Million Card Giveaways (got nothin'), 5 Topps Chrome packs, and 5 Bowman Chrome packs (also nothin' in all 10). The 5 exclusive refractors are nice, and I was very pleased to get the Jackie Robinson, which I didn't know was included in that 5 card set. Also was Jason Heyward, Starlin Castro, Mickey Mantle and the new Mantle, Stephen Strasburg. You know, Topps' new go-to guy for making collectors buy more product? I really wish him the best and a long and healthy career, and its not his fault Topps is shoving him down our collective throats. He did, however show up again in the Bowman Platinum pack:

A gold refractor parallel, numbered 301/539. This card is already up on eBay. I checked for hahas and found there has only been one up so far, and it ended at $66. I figured I would try my luck...and to do it while he is still hot and on everyone's collecting list. Well, THOSE collectors maybe. Doesn't seem like many bloggers care for him much, but again, that may just be result of Topps over doing it again. Here is a link in case you want to watch the auction and see how it goes. Stephen is going to get me that second Teddy! (hopefully, or at least close)

stuff you may have missed (part2)

Here is the second installment of stuff you may have missed. As stated yesterday, Topps added a few exclusive cards to their factory sets this year. Lets see what we have today, shall we?

Here are cards numbered RC1-RC5:

Here are cards numbered RC6-RC10:

The rookies, or at least the most popular rookies of this season. My reason for showing these off are simple; maybe you haven't seen them. I know some of you guys collect Braves, Orioles, Marlins, Tigers, etc. and in your quest of collecting these teams and players, you may not have come across these cards before and maybe you want to add them to your collection. These are not for trade, but I assure you that they can be found relatively cheap. Plus its another Strasburg! Don't we all collect him? Or is that just what Topps wants us to do? I forget. They did have three more exclusive sets that I haven't gotten my hands on yet. Those being 5 card sets for the following teams: Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees. Each team got an exclusive themed box and a 5 card pack of variations. I think I'll get them eventually.

A 54 came today too!

a Rookie of the Moose! His birthday is in three days too as it states on the back of the card. Though a quick Wikipedia look-up suggests that his birth year was 1930, when the card says 1928. I wonder who is right.

stuff you may have missed (part1)

Topps added some cards to their factory sets this year. I know this is nothing new, they add gimmicks to their sets all the time. Be it a Mantle manu-patch like 2009, or the Mantle relics of 2007, there is always something extra. I thought I would take the time to show you guys some of the cards they did add to the factory sets this year, in case you missed them.

This set came in the All Star game edition of the factory set. It is only Angels cards numbered AS1-AS5. All horizontal and great in game shots makes for some great cards for Angels collectors (there has to be some of you....right?)

This next set of five are the veteran variations, numbered RS1-RS5. Just different shots of some of the star players in either series. I'm not exact on which factory set these came in but I'll guess retail until I find out otherwise.

You can find these cards individually or by the set on eBay as I did, and for relatively cheap too. I think the Angels set ran me 5 bucks and the Veterans ran me 10. I believe it was the hobby sets that came with the red bordered, numbered to 299 parallels but I am not positive if they came with any sort of variation set. As the title mentions, this is part 1. I will be posting up the second part tomorrow.

the other four red hots

Here are the four other Red Hot Rookies that I was set to receive. They all came in the mail today, in four individual packages. Amusingly enough, my wife had to sign for the Strasburg, as it was sent Certified Mail. Just him though. The envelope was the same, and I had no idea why she had to sign for it until I opened it. I found it very amusing. Like I had mentioned, I have two of the Tabata card. He was number 2, and somehow I pulled two of the redemptions.

Two more 54's came today too:

The guy I won the Ford from I also won a McGwire 1985 Topps rookie for $1.04. Not too shabby.

Also an update on the Update set, the guy finally sent me the missing cards from the master set I had bought from him, thus completing my 2010 Update set. Thats about it for now. Anyone else get their Red Hot Rookies yet?

s'more 54s ('say hey' edition)

More towards the set. This is actually a couple of different auctions all put together, but they all came in today. The Mays is obviously the big one here and is my first card of his playing days. The Hodges came at a very fair ten dollars. Both have been freed of their cardboard prisons since I scanned this. The Snider from the other day has been too. The razor in the plastic case sides worked very well. I was quite careful and the cards are cookies. Now, there is another big one on the way, hopefully it'll get here soon. No, I am not printing money in my basement to pay for these awesome vintage cards. I am however working some long-ass overtime hours and have sworn off buying new cards while I am buying this stuff up, so it all works out pretty well. Vintage doesn't disappoint me like modern packs have as of late. I know just what I'm getting.

new 54s and a question

This 1954 Topps set project is coming along very well. In the issue of Beckett I have from May of this year, it lists a total of 24 cards in the 1954 Topps section. Essentially they list anything that is over fifty bucks. Of those 24, 16 of them book at over 100. My aim was to finish off those 16 as soon as possible, because the sooner those are taken care of, the commons will just fall into place. There are no short printed series in this set, so nothing is impossible to come across. Now, I don't really care what Beckett says for pricing, because the market is what determines the price. The price on the Aaron rookie is $1800. That's near mint. Obviously the one I have is not even close to near mint, but regardless, its a Hank Aaron rookie. I assure you I am quite pleased with what I paid for it. For the most part, I have been getting those 'big 16' cards at a tenth of what the Beckett says. None of them mint, but all of them good enough for me. I've turned down on buying some cards due to their rough shape and have waited for a good one to appear. It just seems like good ones have popped up a lot in the last week or so. Out of those 16, I have 9, with 4 more on the way. Only 3 'big guys' left to get. Here are three of them:

I know everyone likes to hate on the Yankees but these two cards are pretty nice. The Kaline, while kinda rough, is still a great buy. Yes, another card at a tenth of book value. Could be better, but I certainly won't complain about it.

Oh, right. That question. What can $14 bucks buy you on eBay?
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Duke Snider, one of the 16. This is also one of the graded cards I asked how to free the other day. I can safely say that it seems like it is going to be easier than I had thought to open him up and free him of his holding cell of cardboard doom. Once the other cards come, I'll be sure to post them up here. Bring on the commons!

from yesterday...

'Nuff said!

they're hot!

Has anyone else gotten their Red Hot Rookies yet? I got this one in the mail today, the first of five. I actually have another of this guy coming, sometime in the future when Topps decided to mail me the rest. I haven't checked eBay yet to see if there are people selling them, but I can only assume that there are. I guess they look pretty good. The Rookie Card logo is blackened on this one for some reason. I also have no idea why these take so long to get into our hands.

On another note, I mentioned that I was getting some graded cards in the mail and asked how to open them up. Thanks for the advice, and when they get here I'll try some methods and let everyone know how it turned out. I just checked and saw that they are 2 PSAs and 1 SGC. Hopefully they are easy to bust out.

The last thing is that I got a card in the mail today that I will post tomorrow. I have no words to describe it and it surely adds some fantastic quality to my budding collection. Feel free to speculate as to what it is. Check back tomorrow to see what I'm talking about!

making the grade?

Ok, so as I posted the other day, I am full on in attacking this 1954 Topps set. I did go a little crazy this weekend and bought a few of the "big guys" off of eBay. You will see them when I see them in my grubby little hands. A few of them are CRIMINALLY cheap, and I almost feel that I ripped the seller off (you'll see who I'm talking about when it gets here) but some others I felt were at a really great price so I nabbed 'em. One question though:

Has anyone pried open a graded card before? Obviously opening up this card would be a crime, but as far as some of these 1954s go, I don't want them graded. Personally I could care less about graded cards and the only reason I bought them was because of the cheap-o price I got them for. I don't have any graded cards, nor do I look at them at shows, so I really have no idea how they are trapped in there (I assume glue), but it immediately makes me think of this:

Let them out I say! I really am going to get those cards out of there, crazy or not. They do not fit into the binder, 8 pocket pages when graded. I am going to doubt that anyone has really tried this before, but I may be surprised. If you do have some experience in this, please let me know. Call me crazy!

just can't help myself

I don't know what it is about 1954 Topps that I just can't get away from. Topps' fourth baseball set ever, all vertical design is just really appealing to me.

Its been imitated:

Its been 'Heritage-ized':

Nothing comes close to the original though:

I only have around 35 cards so far, but I think I'm going to go all out and try to actually finish the set off. I can't do it immediately, like I like to do modern sets. Modern sets I need finished as soon as possible, it bothers me knowing that there is a card missing from something so easily obtainable. This is different though. This is a quest of epic proportions that I just can't get around anymore. I was on the fence before about putting this set together due to cost and scarcity. A couple of things appealing about this set are:

a) its awesome vintage
b) its small at 250 cards

(and this is the best part)

c) NO PESKY MANTLE!!

Yes 1954 was missing Mickey Mantle. Meaning that this set isn't an overblown pricing nightmare like say, 1953. This set is a reasonable set for almost the average collector to actually finish. Any set before 1964 that has a Mantle in it is just almost unreachable by regular people. That is also the sad part about this set though, is the guys that it is actually missing. Mickey Mantle, Roy Campanella, Stan Musial, just to name a few. It does have 2 Ted Williams, Ernie Banks and Henry Aaron rookies, Willie Mays and Duke Snider. So its definitely not shorted as far as superstars go. Speaking of the Banks and Aaron rookies, those are the two cards that will hurt the wallet the most. Everything else I have seen (or gotten) at reasonable prices. Now is the time, now that there isn't anything to collect until February, it seems like the right time to go for it. We'll see how far I can get.

topps would say d'oh!

More errors? Topps doesn't make errors. Ever.


....sure. Just ask Frank Thomas. Anyway, this years Topps set (series 2 and Update) included some cards I really liked called Vintage Legends. We've all seen them. Babe Ruth on a 1975 card, Mel Ott on a 1968, etc. Well, while going through the ones from Update today, I noticed an error on Topps' part. Maybe someone at Topps doesn't know their stuff, or maybe it was Tibor's day to work the photoshopping machine. See if you can spot the error on Mr. McCovey here:

What year is this, 1988 Topps right? Ok, got it. Check the back:










...did you see it? Vintage Legends are supposed to depict a great player out of his era. The front of the card is supposed to show what year they put him into for the blurb on the back. Well it looks like Willie got the Delorean stuck in junk wax hell that is 1988 on his way to 2004. The front shows 1988, the back says 2004. I know you all know what 2004 Topps looks like, but here is a refresher:

See? The only thing 88 and 04 Topps have in common is the big team name at the top. Oh and a white border. Other than that the designs are quite different. While the card still gets its point across but in a flawed manner. Oh well, just a goof on Topps' part there. I severely doubt that it will be corrected but an interesting error to say the least.

warning: may cause irritation

Ok, so maybe this has been noticed before, maybe even said before. I had only just noticed it the other day. While going through my box 'o Jays duplicates, sorting them out by player, I came across this peculiar oddity:

2008 and 2009 Topps used the same Adam Lind photo. Now, I know this was commonplace in the 1960s sets, but come on Topps, you didn't take another photo of Lind in a whole year? I know thats not the truth because his 09 Bowman has a different picture. The picture is fantastic, don't get me wrong. I just think they could have at least went from a different angle or something. Here is an example of when recycled photography is alright:

2009 Chrome and 2010 Ginter Ricky Romero. Same picture, but at least they Ginterized the 2010 card. Makes it not as half-assed as it really is. Some work was put into this, as opposed to, well....nothing. Maybe the Lind was a tribute to sets of yesteryear when they used the same photos year to year? Or maybe it was a slip up and they didn't realize it until 2009 was released? Or maybe they just said screw it, he's not a Yankee, no one will ever notice. I'll leave that judgment up to you.

recent acquisitions

I picked up these two HoF relics in the past two weeks or so. Things have been such a mish-mash of my time lately that I forget when I got them exactly, but they are both new to my collection.

Ty Cobb is a dual bat relic from 2009 Topps Tribute, numbered 62/75. Mel Ott is a jersey and comes from this years tribute and is numbered 24/75. Collecting Hall of Fame relics is tricky due to the demand. I really don't like paying huge sums of money on one card, and thankfully I haven't had to yet. Seemingly everyone knows these guys, among other HoFers, so their demand is high. That and the fact that these guys played in the early portion of the 1900s, makes for great relic cards. I'd love to get my hands on something related to Honus Wagner or Cy Young, but those have proven to be difficult so far. Like I have mentioned before, I'm a sucker for baseball history and the early guys who were at the top of the game in the days of the dead-ball era and the depression era are all fascinating to me.

a post is a post is a post

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope that all is well and that your time spent with your respective families is wonderful.

Now that that is said, I received my Topps Million giveaway cards yesterday. That was really fast, Topps is on top of their game when it comes to sending those cards out. I know a few of you have had similar experiences for this promotion, so it looks like Topps is doing pretty good. This bunch of cards completed my 2002 and 2005 Topps sets, filled my 'Topps history' binder (the one with 8 to 9 cards of every Topps year) with the exception of the years 1952 and 2002. I need one more card from each to finish off those pages. I also ended up with about 6 1958s, some random 50s and 60s and two Del Crandall cards (1958 and 1964) weirdly enough. Overall, I'm quite happy with what I ended up with, and I still have about 53 cards left, but nothing earlier than 1976. Still not sure what to do with them yet. We'll see.

why donruss? why?

I came across this card today:

Why would you use this picture for the front of his card? This one is going into the personal collection for absurdity alone.

the (first) annual year end clearance! (final)

Alright, so by now those of you that have claimed a lot of cards from me have probably gotten the cards by now. Some of you have gotten back to me and said that you have enjoyed what I have sent over. I'm definitely glad that you guys are enjoying the boxes o' fun I have sent to you. Well, now for the fun part. Well, I had fun making these, and I hope you guys have some fun with these too, because they are a little different.

Here is the breakdown:

I have made sixty packs containing nothing but Topps cards. These packs contain 30 cards from various Topps years, teams and sets. I have placed six packs into a small post office box and sealed them up. There are 10 of these boxes total. Ten boxes containing 6 thirty card packs (about 180 cards). There is a possibility of getting a special 'chase pack' that contains nothing but inserts and parallels. I made 5 of these and have seeded them in every other box. So you have a one in two chance of getting a 'chase pack' (actually 2 out of these 5 are different, when you see them, you'll know why).

This was tough for me to explain, I really just couldn't get the wording right, so here is a (hopefully) simple breakdown of what I'm trying to explain, for those of you I may have lost. I know I'm confused and I wrote it!

10 small post office boxes
6 packs per box
30 cards per pack
1 in 2 chance of getting a 'chase pack'
completely randomized

Much better. So, here is what I need;

Ten readers. Send me a comment FIRST, letting me know that you would like one of these Topps boxes. Once you have left your comment, then send me an email with your address. If you don't send a comment first letting me know, I won't be able to count your request (just to avoid any problems). I am not limiting this to people that I haven't sent something to, so first come, first served. Each box is already sealed up and ready for shipping, so I have no idea who will be getting what. Again, I only have TEN boxes so once they are gone, they are gone. Start your commenting and thanks for reading!

card show pick up

Work ended at 11 for me today. Right after I left there, I went to the post office, as I had to get there before noon. Packages are sent, so if you are waiting on a giveaway box from me, it should arrive shortly! After the post office, I hit up the second card show of the month, the Plainville VFW show. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, I just wanted to see what was out in the local marketplace. Well, I ended up with 2 Vernon Wells relics for 3 bucks each, some random Jays and HOFers I collect. Then I ended up with these:

I got most of the vintage from one guy. I actually got five 1952s, six 53s a couple of 56 and 57s and some 60s stuff too. These vintage cards were to fill up my Topps 1952-2010 binder I have going. Its a page of 9 (or 8 in the case of 52-56) cards to represent each year of Topps. The 1950s stuff is tough to come by at a good price, especially 1952s. The Mathews card isn't perfect but at 10 bucks I really can't complain. The Jordan card is actually a basketball card, but I felt it justified the quarter the guy wanted for it. The guy who sold me most of the vintage had some bins of random packs, 3 for a buck. I picked out three 1989 Fleer packs, hoping to get one card, the Griffey rookie. Well, I opened one pack, and didn't get much past a Dave Stieb that I may need and a Dodgers sticker, I left one pack still sealed up, for my unopened pack collection (yeah, I know, junk wax yay!) but I opened up the third pack, and this is what was in it:

Right behind the Rangers sticker that I was able to see at the top of the pack, was the Kid. I couldn't believe it, what are the odds? Seriously? Not only did I leave one pack unopened, and I swear there had to be like 20 packs in that bin of 89 Fleer. Maybe just luck, I don't have his 89 Fleer yet, so it worked out great. The back of the pack was the Mattingly, so he has a lil wax on him. Some other good cards too, Will Clark, Steve Sax, this would have been one hell of a pack to open in 1989. Too bad everyone overproduced their cards because maybe these would actually be worth something right now. Oh and sorry about the sideways rest of the pack, but its tough to fit it all on my scanner in one pass. Good stuff all around.

update (two ways)

So I'm either really lazy, or really busy. I still haven't made it to the post office yet, but I will tomorrow. Usually it is lazy with me, but busy is really the issue. Work picks up quite a bit this time of year and the 55+ hours will be starting very shortly (like next week). These boxes will get out tomorrow, and for the better. I will announce the Topps portion on Monday. I know I know, I've been saying this for a bit now, but its true this time. Plus it'll be fun.

The other update refers to Topps Update, as I FINALLY received my master set in the mail today, after winning it around Oct. 20th. Yes, it has taken that long to get here. Apparently he had the flu. I can excuse that. A delay in shipping is nothing compared to what awaited me in the set...or what didn't await me rather. You see, I was going through the cards, only to find out it was missing a total of 25 cards. Yes, twenty-five missing cards. Oh wait, 26, because I was promised a random auto too. That I didn't get. This is what I can't forgive. Shipping? No problem. Missing promised cards? A definite problem. Thankfully, out of those 25 I had 18 of them already from packs I bought. I contacted him about the issue and he was surprisingly right on top of it. I sent the message and about 25 minutes later I had a response. So there is that. He asked for a list of what I was missing, and he is damn sure going to get that 26 card list. I don't care if I already have some, they should have been there. He blamed it on his hired help, which is kind of understandable as people are usually sloppy when they don't care.

On one other note, (ok, so its three updates) my sets will be finished soon! If you remember I posted up a want list of the couple of sets (2002 Topps, 2005 Topps, 2009 206, and 2010 Chrome) I was missing cards from. I really wanted to finish up these sets before the end of the year. Thanks to a trade (thanks a ton Kenneth), Chrome got finished. EBay finished up the 2009 206 once the last three cards get in my hands. The best one though is the 2002 and 2005 Topps. Both factory sets were missing cards. I used the Million Card Giveaway to trade for the three missing cards from both sets (2 from 2002 and 1 from 2005), and those along with all the pre-1973 stuff I unlocked (39 cards total in this order) are on their way from Topps. I have about 50 more cards left in my account that I don't really want but I'm not sure what to do with yet. I'll keep you posted with what I will do with them.

reorganization

Its been a little while since I have posted up anything here to read, so I figured now is as good a time as any. The lapse in posts have come from a few things. I've been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops for a bit now, at least since Saturday when I picked it up. I have also been trimming the collection down to you guys and getting those cards out in the mail. I have been getting the Topps cards ready for the next giveaway post, to be posted really soon (I swear). The trimming has also allowed me to refocus on what I really want to collect, as opposed to having boxes upon boxes of cards. While I love going through them and pulling stuff out for trades or sets and whatnot, I've just simply run out of tolerable space in this room back here. Basically I just felt I had too many for right now. My focus is turning to finishing off the sets that need to be finished, my personal collection (consisting of players from Connecticut, team cards, weird cards, and Hall of Famers I find interesting and of course Blue Jays), and some good vintage stuff. Relics too, like these below:

Picked up these two from the 'Bay on the cheap. I like the blue swatches on both, I wouldn't have gone for white ones, I'm sick of those.

I do have one more lot to offer up before I start the Topps goodness. This lot is one lot only and I can only send to one reader. It consists of random stuff. when I say random, I really mean random. Cards of odd size, puzzle pieces, etc. If you want a box 'o weird, let me know in a comment here, and an email following that comment with your address in it. Only one reader, and I would like it to be someone who hasn't claimed anything yet. Once all these are mailed, I will post what I am doing with the Topps stuff. I think its really going to be fun and I hope you guys will think so too.

the (first) annual year end clearance! (part 2)

Ok, now that most of the packages are sent out and you guys are receiving them, its time for round two. This time around I have only three lots and only one of each. So that means the first three readers who claim these will get them, so long as they haven't already claimed a lot from me in the first round. Alright, here we go:

Lot# 1- Bowman and Obak. This lot contains nothing but Bowman and Obak cards. All from different years, teams etc. I don't care much for Bowman and I really don't know why I keep buying it but here it is, my Bowman collection. Obak too, I've just decided that I won't be collecting these anymore, so like Bowman, I'll stop buying the Obak.

Lot# 2- Upper Deck. This lot has a handmade 'frankenset' of nothing but Upper Deck cards numbered 1-100. This was really difficult to choose who went in where. I did have to add in about three 2007 Fleer Ultras to complete the set, and while they are Fleer, they were owned by Upper Deck at the time, so it works. I do apologize in advance if there are duplicate players in the lot, but Upper Deck likes to make small 100 card sets, and they tend to use many of the same players. Also included are some Upper Deck cards with weird numbers. Examples: AW-11, UD12, X2-DO, stuff like that, anything that isn't just a number by itself. Also added are just some random UD cards to fill out the box.

Lot# 3- Another kinda random box. This box will contain random cards that are not Topps or Upper Deck. Stuff like Donruss, Score, Fleer, etc....that about sums up that box, nothing else to say there.

There you have it. Round two is the aforementioned three lots. Three lots for three readers, no multiples this time and only if you didn't claim one previously. As with the last giveaway, please leave a comment, then send me and email with your address. Sorry, no favorite team cards included in this round. Its ok though, I've got something really fun cooked up for the extra Topps cards that I'll post soon. Thanks for reading!

the set topps got right (seriously this time!)

I knew very little of the 2002 release of Topps T206. In fact, I knew next to nothing except that it existed. I knew I had a few Blue Jays cards that one of you may have sent over, and I had that stray Vladimir Guerrero sitting in my Topps box. I never knew of its scale of how on point the set is to the original. Until yesterday. As many of you know, I find the 2009 T206 set to be one of my favorite sets and I had stated my over the top liking for this set in this post. How wrong I was. Well, not fully as I still really like 2009. As I neared completion of the 2009 issue, I started to do some looking for the 2002 set on eBay. I found one that said it was the complete 456 card set. I thought it would be just right, even though in Beckett it said the full set was 525 due to the variants. Well the set came in yesterday and after looking through it, I began to see it was indeed the full 525 cards. Someone had painstakingly put together this set (including the 90 Team 206 subset cards from each of the three series), included all the variants, the three boxtoppers with the history of the 2002 issue written by Keith Olbermann, and even included the three paper checklists from the boxes. There were even 20 or so duplicates of the original T-206 reprints, including the six pictured above. This was the most complete set I could have ever asked for and totally didn't expect. What I paid for it was even more scary, as practically no one touched it and it ended at $16 (plus $11 for shipping). After picking through it and reading over the three boxtoppers, I realized that this set, not the 2009 set, was Topps' real love letter and tribute to the original 1909-11 issue. The two to three variants per superstar player, the reprints of the originals, the size of the individual series is even close to the original. The relics were not included here, but I have seen some of them online and on the checklist and they seem tremendous. Johnny Evers Jerseys, Honus Wagner bats, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, the list goes on of fantastic relics from 100 years ago. I believe this set has now taken over the top spot as my favorite modern set. Simply incredible that they went these lengths to preserve the legacy of one of the most famous and collected baseball card sets ever. Now my one question: where is the Topps that pieced together the ideas for this set? Because surely they aren't the same Topps we have around now.

mel's shirt

As some of you readers know, I have begun collecting Mel Ott cards. I wanted to collect a retired player while collecting an active player (Vernon Wells...but you already knew that), a player that I would seek his cards out and get what I can. Well, I have maybe 8 or so thus far, with 25 more on the way (thanks eBay seller, here is your dollar). The local shop has a Mel Ott relic, the one pictured above in fact. He wants $50 for it, which isn't bad considering it books at $80. I got this one on eBay for $7.50 (and $2.50 shipping). It's fantastic, I love the old feel of the material. It must have been sweltering to wear these old uniforms, they seem so thick. It's not numbered but it probably should be, I mean, how many of his uniforms could there be floating around? Maybe Upper Deck found a stash of them.

In other news, I have sent out most of the boxes from the clearance, most should be arriving today or within a few days. I hope that you guys enjoy what I put into each one. I am prepping some more lots to send out and I'll be posting it up soon, once I think of a couple more. Now, I will be making only one of each lot this time around and if I sent you a lot in the first round, I won't be able to for the next. Sorry, but I'm trying to make it fair to everyone who reads the blog here, so one for each reader who claims one seems the most fair to me. Again, enjoy and thanks for reading!