Picked up by the wife

For the record, I am not a frequent flyer when it comes to posting due to the amount of travel I do for the j-o-b and other personal reasons.  But you know, I have stated before that I am a lucky man as my wife, for the most part, tolerates my habit.  She definitely sees the insanity in the collection I've accumulated over a number of decades.  But she has also participated in the addition to the insanity by making some purchases for me both with my knowledge and without.  About a month ago, I was out of town and she decided to take the little ones to a flea market in the Chicago area, which is where we call home these days.  She asked me if I wanted her to look for anything for me and of course baseball cards was the first thing out of my mouth.  She knows that as a given but it still is stated every time she asks. 

So anyway, I'm a hundred plus miles from home when I get a call from her.  She said she is in such a rural area that she's been trying to contact me for 15-20 minutes to no avail and the vendors are shutting down for the day.  She knows my wants start with vintage as I have plenty of post 1970 cards to go around and duplicates/triplicates/etc are not part of the plan when buying cards.  She proceeds to tell me about a binder she saw and she wasn't sure if the cards were real or reprints.  So she told me a little about what she saw (all White Sox with a smattering of Cubs) and they sounded legit so I asked her to buy them for me.  Hey, for the price of a mere blaster and hanger box filled with todays million dollar .200 hitters, I figured I'd go out on a limb and take a chance.  So I'm in my car maybe an hour later and she starts sending me pictures of what were in this binder.  Now mind you, I'm driving and looking at what she sends in almost disbelief.  The pictures below are a brief summary of what was found in the binder.

I'm loving this.  I have a few cards from the 1953 set (of course Rivera is a duplicate but who's complaining), more from 1954-1956 and adding these bad boys to the box made me a happy man.  They may not be the best conditioned cards, but in my mind, have been well loved and will fit well into my collection.  This is basically page one of 60+ pages filled with cards from 1953 through the 1990's.  On to the next page....

Who doesn't love a random Norm Cash rookie card among these other 1959 beauties.  I have few 1959 cards but have grown fond of the design.  I hope to see more of the late 1950's cards filling out boxes in my collection in the future.  Moving on, my largest vintage collection is of the 1960 set.  I have been fortunate enough to find these in quantities that put me at a greater than 50% completion rate.  I remember back in the 80's when I was a much younger lad and there was a dealer that would send you five 1960 cards for a mere 50 cents including postage.  I wish I had sent him triple what I did but I'm sure he knew my name well enough as I couldn't put two quarters into an envelope fast enough to see those hit my mailbox regularly.  That lasted for all of a summer way back when. So to find a few of that set also gave me joy....

So basically, I'm finding Topps cards (and a few other companies in later years) from almost every year starting in 1953.  Not every year but enough to know that I was happy she saw them, thought of me and decided to drop a mere $30 on a binder filled with Chicago White Sox and Cubs cards.  Roughly 600 in total.  1953 through 1994.  Mainly Topps, a few Upper Deck and Donruss but the majority are by far the flagship brand.  Yes, there were some lovely 1986-1989 Topps overproduced cards to fill the massive amounts already in my possession but a small price to pay when adding the cards shown here.  Below are a few other highlights but I could have scanned and posted so many more from the 1970's as well.

Needless to say, if she's out at another flea market, I can only hope she stumbles across another find like this.  I repeat, I am a lucky man to have a wife that tolerates me and my love of the cardboard in baseball fashion.

Random Thoughts on Topps Buyback program

Here I am less than two months from my last post.  Much better than the five month gap from the previous post and the seven month gap prior to that.  Progress....who knows.  At this pace, I may actually get more than 5 posts in for 2015.  Let's hope so.  I have been meaning to get this post done but I needed to wait until I was home to get scans of what I wanted to post.  For what it's worth, I enjoy perusing the blogs I read on a more regular basis but taking time to post is not something that will be a daily or even weekly event for me. So there you have it....let the sarcasm begin.

I have been fortunate enough to pull some decent buyback cards since Topps decided to venture into that business.  I'm not sure if it was an abundance of cards sitting on their desks after the 2011/2012 online promotion or if they just didn't want to put forth the effort to set up the web page so that we could have a little extra fun by trying to collect some older cards, if you were lucky enough to do so.  As I said, fortunate has been the theme for me but there are a few of these cards that I can only scratch my head and wonder; what the hell was Topps thinking when they made these secondary market purchases.  With that in mind, I present a variation of the most recent successes or lack thereof:

One of the better pulls from a pack.  An unmarked "We Are Family" 1979 Pirates Checklist.  Not one that I need for my set but still I look upon this as a successful pull.  35+ years old an in fairly good shape.  One that had I needed it for my set, would have been a welcomed sight and successful purchase.  I'll now move on to those that may not qualify as such.

Ok, a Dodger, but if you look closely enough, this card has seen better days.  The corners look as if they've been sitting in an open box without any protection and the crease across the upper right corner makes me believe this card traveled from LA to New York by courier pigeon who made a few extra stops along the way.  The crease is a front only surface crease and the back looks, well, ok for a fill in.  But not something many collectors would purchase to complete their set.  If it was a 1974 Winfield, I'd give a little grace, but a 10 cents common?  Geez...........but

Now for the coup d'état:

Really?  Are you flipping serious?  It is from 1969 but, damn Topps, did this work it's way to Woodstock for some card trading only to get shoved in somebody's back pocket before Jimi got up and played his arse off?  Who in their right mind would go to a card show or do business with a shady seller and buy this thinking it was ok to pass this on as a promotion?  It's comical to look at this and think whoever placed this in the stack for insertion thought this was a good idea.

Oh well, I suppose it's better than pulling a Walt Weiss 1989 Topps card in pristine condition.  At least this 1969 card gets some attention whereas the Weiss card would get shoved in a box with hundreds of other cards as if it was pulled out of a pack when the mullet craze was in full force.  On to the next phase of Topps insert conversation...........................

Christmas Surprise

Ok, so I've been MIA for a few weeks or months.  Well let's just say it for what it is, basically all of 2014.  Two whole posts in twelve months is not what I had in mind when I started this blog.  New year's resolution...more posts in 2015.  Now that should be an easy task.  I look back and see I posted on January 2nd, 2014.  I guess I'm a little late this year.  But this years post references 2014 so I'll straddle the fence for this one post and give half to 2014 and half to 2015.  That means I have to fulfill my resolution with at least three more posts this year.  Actually I see myself speeding past that this year.  Work travel is no longer every other week and then some.  Maybe a bit of that in January and February, but it should get to a manageable once per month at most timeframe soon.  I digress.......

Christmas was and always will be my favorite time of year.  I'm lucky enough to be able to take some time off and enjoy it with family and friends.  This year was no exception and I hope all of you also had a wonderful holiday season.  As it normally is in my house, I am an anomaly when it comes to receiving presents.  My motto is, if I want it, I'll buy it.  It doesn't matter what time of year.  So finding a list to put together is not always the easiest of tasks for me.  But it will always include cards.  That being said, this past year has been a slow card buying year.  I need to purge more than acquire.  I'm actually making that happen by selling the hockey cards that have only been collecting dust for 10+ years to a more caring and appreciative soul.  What started out as a 40 year collection has dwindled down a bit but still takes up more room than I'd like to see.  Why is it some people just don't want a set or three of 1991-92 Score Hockey cards???  Anyway, that project continues....

As I was saying, I am usually the one person that has cards on the brain but family doesn't like to buy what I don't collect.  It's been easy to say, Topps, Bowman and any variation of those.  But still the single pack of Bowman Platinum sits on a shelf waiting for some friends to join the fun in an 800 count box.  It gets lonely in there so I have reserved box dedication to those sets that have at least 100 cards to fill the box.  I assure you those Bowman Platinum's one day will see the inside of a box, but right now for those 15 cards..........lonely is the night.  Back to the list.....both last year and this year, I had a very easy time telling family what I wanted.  Topps Update Mega Box.  The two-fer special that includes Topps Update and Topps Chrome Update, both of which will have no problem seeing the inside of a box.  So this year I received 6-8 of those boxes from a few people.  Needless to say, I enjoyed opening those over the past week or so.  Unopened boxes don't stay unopened long in my presence.  No huge hits in either but still the Chrome set is complete except for one missing card and the Regular Update is close to being the same.  Hint, hint...look for those lists to be added in my ever growing want list tab.

After seeing those boxes cluttering the room, I thought I was done for the cards coming my way.  But I had a surprise waiting for me from my lovely wife.  For some reason she decided to venture onto my blog to see what she could rustle up for me.  To hear her tell it, she spent weeks/months searching, finding, deciding and changing her mind like a bottle of shampoo.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  But what she ended up purchasing was a couple of cards from the bottom of my list.  Many cards fill the gap between the first year listed on my blog to the second year listed but those 17 years are filled with more wants that haves, so they go unlisted...for now.  To culminate my Christmas present opening, I present to you the shock of gifts that I would have bet good money would never have been something I would have expected from my wife.

Yes, 1951 Topps Blue Back.  Two of the remaining eight cards needed to complete that set.  Shock does not even come close to what I felt when I opened that last gift.  And not even some bike spoke driven, fell in the mud kind of cards.  These are in a condition that put some, if not most, of the other 1951 Topps cards in my collection to shame.  The brightness of white glistens.  These cards must have been set aside and not touched for decades.

Needless to say, I'm now back in the game for the remaining 6.  I want to complete this set more than any other set I own.  But you don't find many people that are willing to trade for these.  I have a few doubles, not nearly as nice as these just in case any of you have a few 1951 cards set aside for trading. 

So I again want to say...you'll hear from me more in 2015 but most importantly, a gracious thank you to my lovely wife for these cards.  I can only imagine what could come my way next Christmas.  I need to start adding to my want lists so she has more to choose from.

Where have I been?????

Interesting that you ask.  I've been here all along.  I just have little to no time for my beloved hobby.  January was my last post and that seems like an eternity ago.  I spend my days in front of the computer working longer than I should.  In addition, I try to maintain some semblance of focus on the important things in life...being a husband and father.  The latter usually suffers more than it rightfully should.  So here I sit, again in front of a computer, far from home and typing out words that, in the big scheme of life, don't really matter much so I thank you for coming back to read and hopefully enjoy what it is I place in written form. 

I am not, nor will I ever be a daily blogger.  However, once every 6 months is also not what I expected to accomplish when I started this blog in 2013.  Writing in this blog is good for my soul.  This hobby relieves stress for me.  It allows me to connect to my inner youth.  It has also taken more than a few coins from my pocket.  All is good when I can sit and focus on sorting, tracking, and plain and simply "playing" with cards.  I wish I could do more of it but neither work nor family should suffer if that is to occur.  We now move on to the August 2014 rendition of "What are these cards doing in my collection"???

All of us that read, write and trade, simply enjoy this hobby.  There is nothing wrong in the approach anyone takes to collecting.  There are a myriad of ways it can be enjoyed.  Whether it's collecting certain player(s), team(s), sets, image settings on cards....it is personal.  This is where I digress into my collection and try to figure what to do with some cards found in the random pack of baseball cards.  I am all about finding the treasure in a random pack.  I have been fortunate enough to find some very nice cards in that fashion.  I have also found cards that, on the surface, do not match my love for the hobby.  For example:

"A Piece of Hollywood" Shirt.  How about a piece of shirt (without the r of course) from Hollywood.  What relation does this have to baseball?  I don't buy a pack or box of cards to find this.  I have no love for this nor do I put this anywhere near my collection.  It sits in a random corner, waiting to be traded, sold or picked up and torn to shreds by a 5 year old that sees it at eye level and wants to place the blue swatch on a Thomas the Train dining car as a table cover.  Can you help me understand why?  Others that fall into a similar pile include:

Really, a wrestling, swimming and fencing relic card?  Thank God there were no pubic hairs floating around in the first two, Ms Hill or Mr Thomas.  Here is where I may differ from others as there are a few individuals that like these cards.  I applaud you but feel free to help me get rid of them in a trade before the 5 year old finds them.

I can also point to some baseball related relic type cards that one will find in a random pack picked up at the local card shop or big box store that won't be mentioned.  Yes, they are baseball related, with baseball players on the card itself but to call these relics is not logical, in my mind.  And maybe I'm misinterpreting these "pulls" from a pack of cards.  Maybe it is just me that has an issue with them.  I'm good with that so feel free to call me out.  For reference, as I place these images in this blog entry, the more I write, the more each section becomes that much more relevant to the collecting world I enjoy. Yes, this is baseball related, but a class ring?  To what, high school?  Anyone can buy one for a mere $50 to $75.  Maybe I'm dating myself with that pricing as I haven't been in that market to know what is today's value.  Useless to me.  For what it's worth, here is the card I speak of:

I'm sure I will contradict myself with these last pictures.  They have some level of collectability to me so I'm not throwing them out completely but again, you can find thousands of these daily at every ball park in the country if you really wanted to find them.  My question is why are they in a baseball card.

 

 

You could say that these are as collectible as the piece of wood in a bat card but at least the bat, in theory, was a "game used" relic.  And yes, "game used' can be interpreted very liberally.  We can argue all day about how the actual piece of wood could be from little Billy's bat that some schmuck sold to Topps or Upper Deck as "authentic" but the intent is to get you "closer to the game".  The ticket gets you closer to the seat that you rested your a** in for four hours on any given summer evening.

Interestingly, as counter point to this entire entry, I do enjoy collecting the Topps manu-relic/manu-patch cards inserted in the boxes sold at retail outlets across the US.  So yes, I understand the hypocrisy in that so I will leave you this entry knowing I speak of WTF's out of only one side of my mouth. The other side is open to interpretation.  And yours is appreciated.

Until next bat time on this same bat channel, I bid you adieu.  Let's hope I'm not writing my next entry in 2015.

Orderly and Confused pt deux......a little later than expected

First I must say for anyone that reads my blog and has anticipated part deux, I apologize.  It has taken me almost four months to get to this post.  You can say I've been busy.  Understatement.  Just ask the wife and kids.  I have made a few trades intermittently during this time but for the most part, when my work day ends, I haven't been much in the mood to put my thoughts in print fashion.  Mostly I've tried to wind down by thumbing through a few hundred boxes looking for a few cards to send off to a fellow trader.  Or opening a couple of packs here and there to enjoy my hobby (or obsession, or neurotic behavior, if you will).  So as we move into 2014, I will look to post more often than once every three or four months.  I think I've crossed that line at work that will allow me to be successful in that statement.  So look out 2014, this blogger is staring you down.  I'm starting out quick on January 2nd to make my mark.  Let's just hope I don't end up a premature ejacu-blogger and wander off into oblivion for a few months.  Anyway, back to my dilemma....

As you may recall from last years entry, structure and order is of vital importance to me in my collection, at least from the layman's view.  Boxes in order by year and then alphabetical within that year with one exception.  Topps Flagship will always be the first set encountered in a year.  Beyond that, alphabetical order rules.  I look at the four or five dual row boxes that contain the hundreds and hundreds of relic, jersey, bat, auto cards, et al.  They are currently in alphabetical order by last name of the single individual on the card. First name, Bobby Abreu through last name, Joel Zumaya.  Easy to keep in order, easy to identify where they belong in the boxes.  In addition to these cards, I do keep some single relic cards in a different box based on the set in which they belong.  For example, you will find my Upper Deck 500 HR bat/auto cards all together along with the Upper Deck 3000 Hit Club bat/jersey/auto cards.  They are a subset within themselves and that makes sense in my mind. 

A few other subset minded cards fall into that same situation.  The Yankees Signature Series single, double and triple auto cards.  Again, acceptable order.  But now this is where things start to unravel...

Where does one put this when trying to maintain a sense of order?  I own a few clubhouse collection cards from other years but nothing close to being complete as the others mentioned above.  I don't keep collect nor do I order cards by team so that goes out the window.  Do I sort by the first player (as my wife has suggested in a moment of confusion as I explained my concerns).  That could work but what if I wanted to see if I had a Fred Lewis relic?  There's no way to find this if that were the order of the day.

How could you possibly put one ahead of the other for this card?  Ripken rules, Jeter rules????  And who is listed first?  Ripken going from top to bottom, Jeter going from left to right.  The Yankees are "my" team and there is no way I could make Ripken priority.  At some point logic will prevail, but it may be when I'm six feet under and this is card #426 of 985,438 on the auction list as my kids sit in the wings waiting for their portion of the proceeds.  You see why it is I can't figure this out.

Yeah, enough said.  Here we have three members of the years gone by Yankees folklore.  I actually think Donruss was trying to help me out with this gem #'d to 10.  The players last names are in alphabetical order, oldest to newest. and finally most desired home jersey to flannel grey away to the somewhat modern day polyester away jersey.  But still, let me see how many Maris relic cards I have.....Ooops I'm missing one.  I know I own this but who else is on the card?  Could it be Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Berra???  Where in the hell is that damn card in one of these damn boxes?  Deep breath, deep breath.  Count to ten.  It will show up.  It has to.  My kids haven't a clue how to find this and seeing that four of them are girls, they wouldn't even know why to look for this one particular card.  But Nolan....the blog namesake.  He does, he's a smart four year old.  He knows a smidgen about these cards as we share our moments of daddy screaming...DON'T GRAB IT BY THE CORNERS!!! NO, NO, NO, DON'T DROP IT!!!!

Ok, I'm back.  Anyway, as I was saying, I reach out to my fellow bloggers for input.  I'm curious how you handle this type of situation in your collection, if you do.  Maybe you don't.  Maybe this is just one card settling between a 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco Rated Rookie card and a cherished 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken F*** Face card.  But maybe one of you has the key to making my neurosis go away, at least in the short term.  I'm asking for help.  Who's offering free advice for this wandering soul?  I guess I'd be willing to shell out 5 cents for that psychiatric help. 

Orderly and Confused pt 1

My collection is one that has taken me 40+ years to acquire.  The pace at which I collect these days is much less than previous so I spend more time trying to trade than trying to buy.  There are more gaps in the collection than I'd like to admit so trading through these channels has allowed me to get closer and closer to my OCD completion of what I have surrounding me.  My baseball card collection is structured.  As you view this panoramic view of the room set aside for my cards, they appear to be just boxes on shelves.

Upon a closer look, starting at the bottom left, they are all in order by year, alphabetically by company with one exception.  Topps as the mainstay of every year, is the first set you come to in each year.  After Topps, sweet alphabetical, structured order.  Once you reach the lower right shelf of the left section, moving up the order continues going left, then up, then right, and so on and so on zig-zagging across the room.  Now if I could only say the cards within those boxes were also in order, that would be a miracle.  I've started to make that a reality by going backwards from 2013 but I think I've been stuck on 2005 for six months.

Once you reach the bottom right of the picture, that is where things start to unravel.  The randomness of what is left just sits there without attention, without structure, without a sense of being.  In this area are random cards and other card related items.  Nothing that would warrant being put into the structure of the rest of the area.  What you don't see in the picture is behind the camera.  200-300 boxes of hockey cards that have gone unattended for 10 years.  That's another post sometime down the road.  The magnitude of this collection is one that my wife's friends and family look at in awe.  Wondering why a 40+ year old guy collects cards thought of as kids stuff.  And for those that collect and enjoy the hobby, nothing else needs to be said.

It's one thing to have the random cards that will never make there way into the system you see as 30 cards from the 1998 Skybox Thunder set won't get any more completed.  Those will sit until there is a person looking for these in trade or I decide to rid myself of thousands of cards at once.  Also part of what you don't see are the double rowed shoebox sized boxes that hold the autos, jersey and bat cards among other memorabilia cards that have filtered into the mix.  And these are where I begin to lose my mind with the structure of the collection. 

Part 2 of this post which will cover that next question of order.  One that no matter which direction I take, it will not be an acceptable answer to me.  Until the next post...............

Variation....not my thang

Here we are again, two plus months after my last rendition.  I hope nobody has been on pins and needles waiting for the pining of a random collector.  Aside from the constant time consumers of kids, new job, travel, honey-do lists, etc, there are few things that give me peace when I have time to myself as do baseball cards.  With this post, I thought I'd switch things up a bit.  I've written about trades with fellow collectors that continue to this day, what I'd like to collect and finish and the "keeper" collection in my few posts.  I figured let's get into something that I have but don't need or a better term want in my collection. 

As I may have mentioned previously, I have a obsessive compulsive problem with my collection.  Or at least, so I'm told.  I don't stray into jerseys, bats, balls, or other memorabilia as there is only so much room I can dedicate to this hobby.  I'm fortunate enough to currently have a 12'x25' room where I store all of the stuff I've collected over the past 4+ decades.  Two eight foot tables filled on top with the unsorted and out going items; underneath the 100,000 card hockey collection that has collected nothing but dust for a decade.  Then there is the three wall shelving that holds the ever growing baseball card collection.  As I look to the future, I see some room for growth in the last couple of shelves.  Part of this space is filled with the random cards and other things that I really should look to pass on to someone that has an interest in such things.  I have over 5,000 of such cards filling space so if you have any desire for these, feel free to reach out and I can spend an hour going through them for some specific player or team.  This post is dedicated to those types of cards.

Let's start with the Say Hey Kid himself.  A card from the long ago decade of the 80's.  Card #24 of "The Willie Mays Story" first printing, mind you, from some company that goes by RGI.  They were so kind to include the names of the others pictured.  Whitey Ford and Tom Thresh of the NY Yankees from 1962.  Yes, it says Thresh.  Apparently, editors were too much for this company so they went about their business with reckless abandon.

Next up....the Wizard.  This 2"x2" piece of cardboard is from our friends at Fantastic Sam's.  There is an entry form to the superstar sweepstakes that has a grand prize of 4 tickets to a 1988 championship game.  It doesn't really say in what sport.  Maybe a 1988 high school wrestling championship within 20 miles of the winners home.  Not that there's anything wrong with wrestling.  What I find even more humorous is first prize.  Win a Pro player for a day.  Yes, your very own pro player for a day.  Again, I'm sure the word "Pro" is used liberally in this contest so one never knows who you would win.  But in any form or fashion, you have them for the entire day.  Maybe you could have used them to help with the laundry or mow the lawn. 

Now joining the parade, Mr October.  Nothing better than the than the thought of a Quaker Chewy Granola Bar and Reggie.  This was a few years past the REGGIE bar craze, but still...a granola bar?  The late 80's brought out anyone willing to buy some paper and plaster a picture of a baseball player on it to make a buck.  It only made sense as everything produced in those years were somehow tied to baseball cards.  You can't go 50 feet in any direction and not find a late 80's baseball card, can you?  And speaking of an 80's baseball card from those that really speak to the baseball world.....

Yes, the "You look Mahvelous"....ooops sorry, wrong Fernando.  But a True Value, it surely is.  I love the MLB logo and name of the Los Angeles Dodgers but please, don't use the logo on the hat.  That's just not acceptable.  Let's just make it airbrush blue.  He does look marvelous though, doesn't he?  Just for the sake of time and space, here are a few more gems from the magical era of the 80's; pre-steroids of course.  No MLB logo to be found, but the team emblems are there for all to see.  I wonder if any lawsuits came of this?  I'm not talking about the Clemens posterior injection kind either. 

I did go back a few years for this next one.  But still I wonder what market they really thought would buy their product for the cards.

Lefty as we knew and loved him, just squeaking in his 300th win to finish the 1983 season.  He also squeaked in his 200th loss, in case you're not paying attention at home.  Ralston Purina???  Pure marketing genius.  Puppy Chow and baseball cards.  It just rolls off the tongue.  Hand in hand.  Laurel and Hardy, Batman and Robin, Lennon and McCartney.  At least Topps had their name sprawled across the front of this one to give some credence.

As we wind down, at least we're getting back into the realm of baseball.  Bazooka, yes thank you.  Baseball and bubble gum.  George "Pine Tar" Brett.  He was a hitting machine back in the day and he did chew gum for a good portion of his career.  Maybe had we not moved into the tobacco era, things would have been different.  Yeah, probably not.  I guy can dream can't he?  And now....drum-roll please.....the finale.....

Did you notice the name of this blog?  This is the name sake of the little guy in the picture with me.  No collection would be complete without the Ryan Express.  However, Donruss tried to join in with the Coca-Cola company in 1992 with a set 26 cards that highlighted the career of this legendary player.  Problem was, he was still on the mound.  Did I miss the update version set of 4 that completed the 30 card set?  Didn't think so.

For what it's worth, these are a snippet of what I have that to me are quality cards that have accumulated over the years of buying massive lots.  But I am a completionist for the mainstream sets not the oddball card just to fill space.  Do some of these get set aside for the personal collection, of course.  There are some Ryan Express and Mr Jeter cards that will have their own place.  But the thousands that sit in one of three dark 3200 count boxes, are just waiting to be appreciated more than they have been.  Bring them into the light and give them some air.  They can be a fine addition to any collection.