Just Check Out My (Not So) Common Birthday Present To Myself.

       Tuesday was my birthday; I hit the immortal Jack Benny number.  Much as 29 sounded much older to me than 30, 39 seems to be bumming me out much more than I imagine 40 will.  My mood increased tremendously, though, when I went to the mailbox and found not one but two fat jiffy packs waiting for me - one from COMC.com and one from Just Commons.  Granted, I didn't actually plan for them to arrive on my birthday but I'll take a thin slice of serendipity any time. 

The stuff I ordered from COMC was pure frivolity.  Like many of you I'm sure, I have plucked away at their Challenge to help reassemble their database.  Over the last few weeks, I've used my insomnia time to squirrel away $42 worth of found money for cardboard.  The next couple of scans show the bounty of my superfluous harvest:

Shiny Mets.  Shiny Mets everywhere.  Normally, these Fan Favorites refractors are overpriced but with a fistful of loose dollars, I made offers on as many as I could.  I got the four you see for between 2 and 3 bucks each.  Speaking of shiny, those Tribute cards finish off a set I started making 11 years ago.  Well, I started making it a couple months ago with some cards I found in a long forgotten box from 11 years ago.  Funny how that works.  Nolan and Roberto there weren't cheap but in my world, they were free.  Those bottom three Finest cards are pre-production models that finish off a page that has had six of them for as long as I have been making pages of sets.  Of course, now I have to figure out what to do with the 3 1994 Bowman promos that have been occupying that page for a while.

Following that trend, I finished off a few other pages that have long eluded completion.  This buying spree was like finding two $20 bills in a winter coat:

Those 1996 Playoff Pennant football cards are not just die cut triangles, they are made of felt, so they are all fuzzy and touchable.  I have had seven of them laying around forever.  Now they have the required nine.  The Donruss Champions sent from 2005 was not a favorite, but I liked the award winners subset and now there is a page of that too.  I had Legends pages of 2002 and 2003 Diamond Kings, so for completistism's sake, I now have 2004.  Half of them are in color and half are in black and white.  I am not certain if that is part of the design or if they are variations or something but I like the B&W ones better.  Lastly, I bought one each of the Heritage buybacks I didn't have so they can hang out on my Topps pages.  I picked those up for $2 pretend dollars each. 

My other spree from mid-May was on Just Commons.  Once again, I blame my current bought of insomnia.  Over three or four nights, I filled up my shopping cart with about 100 cards and $20 worth of stuff.  Sadly, these cost me a real Andrew Jackson.  Happily, Just Commons is a wonderful site to pick up random cards you never thought you'd find and/or refuse to buy for $3 each on ebay.  Aside from the first card on the first scan, nothing was more than 37 cents.

I discovered that Brooks Robinson and David Wright card while I was obsession of one of the same players of a slightly different caliber.  While going through my HOF binder, I noticed I didn't have a Lou Brock card of him on the Cubs, so I rectified that issue.  I recently decided to make a Gregg Jefferies page of cards of him not on the Mets, since that was when he was most successful.  My last package of JC cards had boatloads of Rookie Cup needs, this time, it only has three but it does complete the 1997 team.  The bottom three are some Sandy Koufax cards for his page and a Jim Bunning card to start his page.  I wrote about this year's Gypsy Queen on A Pack to be Named Later; I might have been too kind.

I finished off a lot of player pages, here they are in condensed pile form:

Jimmie Foxx, Joe Torre, Starlin Castro, Luis Tiant, and Bobby Murcer are now all completed (I underestimated my needs and still need one Walt Alston).  I was born a bit too young to have seen Luis Tiant pitch but from everything I have seen about him, I am absolutely convinced he would have been my favorite pitcher.  He's like the best parts of Hideo Nomo, Fernando Valenzuela, and Pedro Martinez all thrown together.  I think we all should worship at the alter of El Tiante.  Right in the middle there is Matt Harvey, I mean, how could go on a spree and not buy some Harvey cards?  The last two piles are of cards with a particular number (527) and of players named Max.  I couldn't think of anything more appropriate to get on my birthday. 

Double Trade Post*

*in which I am grateful for my trade partners' generosity and then a dick about their idiosyncrasies.

I am way behind in my trade posts so I am gonna try to tackle them all this week and I am going to start by taking care of two of them, both dealing with two first time traders and new Topps cards. 

First comes a wonderful swap with Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown.  During the flurry of 2014 Topps posts, I noticed he had posted a Red Target Zack Wheeler parallel and dropped him a line saying I would love to have it.  He immediately got back to me and we were off and running.  He sent that wonderful Wheeler and a few other goodies.

The first was a chrome card of the gone-but-never-forgotten RA Dickey - sure it's metallic, but not shiny.  Now if it is shiny you want, that Pacific John Franco can't be beat.  That is not only a spectacular card, but also a card I did not have, which is always a marvelous surprise when trading blind.  Then came a few recent cards of Mets players and then some junk wax.  Okay, I always appreciate the effort.  But wait!  This is Gav we are talking about and he does a special thing to junk wax:

This is the best I could do to capture the magic - Ansel Adams I am not.

He makes those mutherfuckers glow in the dark!!!! And he sent three of them for me, all of them numbered and signed buy the artist...

My only issue with Gavin's package?  He used header cards for protection (always smart) but he wrote his note on this graphic filled Ultra Pro card when he had a nice blank canvas to scribble on this Fleer checklist.  Boy, can I be a nitpicking dick or what?  Anyway, sincere thanks Gavin for the great surprises in the trade, I am certain this won't be our last.  I hope what I sent makes up for my being a bastard.

My other 2014 Topps swap was with Chris of The Raz Card Blog.  After I had listed my 2014 Topps  series 1 goodies, Raz asked me about my four Power Player inserts.  I told him if he had any Mets from this year that I didn't have that I would be glad to send them.  And boy did he send some Mets:

Two Zack Wheeler inserts and a Matt Harvey for my player collection, not to mention a sparkly red Daniel Murphy - that is a great picture on this year's card with the Home Run Apple in the background.  He also sent me three of the All Rookie Cup Team inserts, of which I had pulled exactly zero.  Along with an incomplete eBay lot, I was able to put together the whole set in easy frugal fashion and take it off my want list. 

And my lord, look at how neatly these cards were packed:

I have received hundred dollar cards from eBay sellers that weren't so well protected.  Not to mention the penmanship on the note...way to make the rest of us look bad Chris.

So this is what I have become?  The kind of person who find fault in the kindest of gestures?  What is wrong with me?  I am such an asshole.  Chris, on the other hand, is awesome.  Thanks for initiating this trade and I am sure we will do it again soon. 

Thick.

Help!

I am reaching out to the Card Blogosphere for some advice and perspective.  As most of you who read this blog with any regularity know, one of the areas where I am stubbornly completist is Topps All Star Rookies.  As luck would have it, this year's flagship set has a few inserts sets devoted to this corner of the Topps Universe.  One of them is a Relic collection with manufactured rookie cups embedded in them numbered to /99.  I got a look at these cards and decided they are quite handsome and while it is cost prohibitive for me to complete an entire set of these, I made the decision to at least make a nine pocket page of them.  This weekend, I got bored and went on a little eBay spending spree and bought a good six of them at, on average, about $15 a pop.  The first of those cards arrived today and, well, there is a problem.  They are thick.  Really thick.  I am talking Kim Kardashian twerking at an ice cream social thick. Here, take a look:

The left is obviously NOMAH! but the card on the right providing thickness perspective is Rod Carew.  Yeah, like I said, thick.

There is no way they will fit in a standard nine pocket page.  I tried and tried and no dice.  I even tried a few different kinds of nine pocket pages with absolutely no luck.  I did have a little brain storm; since the issue is size, I tried to slide the cards into a standard 8-card page and while it is certainly not ideal, as you can see, they did fit.





































Here is what I would like some input on...what should I do here? 

a) go with the eight pocket page set up.

b) hold out hope that there is a nine pocket page out there that will fit these.  In fact, if any of you own or know of anything like this that will fit these gargantuanly thick beasts, I will gladly compensate you with cards, cash, or love to obtain one.

c) suck it up and just collect the whole set and give in to my completist instincts.

d) give it up and sell off the ones I bought - keeping the Gary Carter, of course.

e) something else I haven't thought of, but one of you brilliant homo sapiens has.

So there it all is.  Any and all opinions are greatly appreciated.  I mean, this isn't binding arbitration or anything, but my brain is broken from the initial disappointment and I would like to hear what you have to say.  Thanks in advance.

Ketchup.

       I hate people who lament how much or little they blog.  I believe I blog just the right amount.  I do it as a hobby or, more to the point, to augment the hobby I love.  I do it when I have time or when I am inspired.  I have gotten behind, though, it would seem, as I have a bunch of drafts and a fuckton of scans that I haven't used.  So what am I gonna do now? Post about brand new cards I just scanned, of course. 

When I returned from New Orleans, there were a few packages waiting for me, one of them an eBay lot I had purchased and seemed to take forever to arrive.  I believe it was coming from Long Island, so I found it in my heart to excuse any Sandy-related delays.  I am a sucker for Topps Triple Threads.  I used to buy a few boxes of the stuff every year.  It seemed I would nail a big hit that would pay for the others.  It was a nice zero sum game.  Then, two years in a row, I kind of struck out and it soured me on the whole thing.  But I still like to have a nice page of the base cards, or in this instance, the sepia parallels:

I bought this lot because I got a lot of other cards that I wanted/can sell.  This is a good looking page and highlights the brief time Hanley Ramirez was in a Miami Marlins jersey. 

The other exciting package was a thick load of 30 cards from COMC.com.  I probably should have waited for Black Friday, but I am a firm supporter of Buy-Nothing Day, so I decided I can spend a dollar or two more for the bulk shipping and wait patiently.  Let's looks at the first nine:

OK, eight.  No surprises here.  Two Gary Carters from this year that I needed.  Two Zack Wheelers to start off my collection of him.  I think he and Matt Harvey will fight for my affection by the end of the 2013 season.  Also here are a 1984 Topps sticker of Tom Seaver and a 2004 Topps Pristine Legend of Reggie Jackson in his Arizona State uniform.  For all my huge Reggie player collection, I did not have single one with him in his Sun Devil digs; now I do.  Lastly, there are a mini Dickey and a golden Dickey, which matches my shiny Dickey.

Second nine:

Since no one seemed to have them to trade, I broke down and grabbed the two short print rookie cup cards from this year's Topps (the Reddick and the Arencibia). I also didn't have the Revere, but somehow overlooked snagging the Brett Lawrie...anybody have that one to spare/trade?  This shipment will expose the self centered habit I have to collect cards of people named Max.  You can see four of them here, two of them fictional (the Mann and Rebo) and two of them real, of which I did not have any (Russell and Monica Maxwell).  Rounding these out is a Cameron Jordan die cut rookie, Saints player I like (more on the direct purpose of that tomorrow or next week) and a OPC Legends card of Claude Lemieux, one of my favorite Devils of all time.  Remember hockey?  Yeah, me too.

This next batch are five 1996 Pinnacle Trophy Collection parallels and four 1984 Topps USFL cards:

I needed these to complete pages...

Here:

and here...

I now have pages of both USFL Topps sets and two from Pinnacle's late 90's obsession with dufex parallels, though I haven't featured the other yet. 

Since I have been obsessed and sorting my football cards, I have a few more to show.  I had found seven faux-vintage cards of two of my favorite old players, Gale Sayers and Joe Namath.

I snatched two more of each...

And now have a fantastic page of The Kansas Comet...


And Broadway Joe:

I should think about putting together that whole Namath UD Football Heroes set.  I do so enjoy those.  Namath and the Jets were my mother's favorite when she was a kid (for obvious reasons).  So while I am not big on the Jets in general, it seems fitting for me to have a page of Joe Willie.  The man is just too epic and awesome not to be represented.

***

You will also notice I updated the header graphic and added a festive holiday background picture (I would hate for all of you to get bored with my layout).  I have a bunch of Mets ornaments that go on my tree each year.  I would do a post about them, but someone already has a definitive Mets Christmas online repository.

Complete Set Sunday: Topps Rookie Cup.

        I promised a few posts ago to reveal one of my collecting obsessions.  Well, that particular oddity is going to require more preparation, so I will play bait and switch and expose a different one:

Topps Rookie All Stars!

My love of baseball cards is obvious...put a shiny little trophy on it....

...my reaction is simple:
 

This is one group of cards I do not keep in binders because most years there are 10 or 11 rookie all stars and only nine pockets on a page, thus ruining the whole visual makeup I like to maintain.  I might change my mind on this eventually, but for now they are all in 150-count cubes for my periodic ogling. 


In 2005, Topps released one of my favorite niche sets off all time, Topps Rookie Cup! (you can tell I love something by my overuse of exclamation points to describe it) It's as though they made this set just for me.  Kind of a crappy design, but I don't care, they all have that fantastic little trophy on it.

I bought this complete set on ebay and it has resided in a place of honor in one of my set binders ever since.  One thing I love about it is that players from "the dark period" (1974, 1979-1986) when they inexplicably didn't put the damn trophy on the cards finally get their hard-earned little golden idols.  If I had any sort of design skills, I would scan and make cards from the dark times with the proper recognition.  I am sure if I look around the interwebs there are plenty of lunatics who have done this, but I have not been that curious or motivated.  Yet.

Then, in 2008, Topps outdid themselves by making a two series insert set for the Rookie All Stars' 50th anniversary with 110 modern and vintage players.  The design mirrors the original 1959 cards, has the original trophy, and is five hundred kinds of wonderful.  I put this set together myself by pack ripping, trades, shows, and COMC.
 
Alas, Topps love affair with the Rookie All Star was short lived and no further sets have followed.  In fact, in 2010, they briefly changed the trophy (for worse) and started to forget to put it on some of the cards like they did in the old days.  2011 brought back the proper cup, but 2012 seems to have the problem of forgotten cups yet again. I could ramble on and on about these cards, but we both have lives.

I have updated the wantlist page with the All Star Rookie cards I don't have.  If you have any I need, shoot me an email and let's make a deal.