Just What I Need, Another Set to Pursue

I recently won an auction for a sweet looking Kellogg's card of HOF and Baseball Legend Cy Young, check it out.

When I was bidding, I thought this was a just a segment of the 1972 Kellogg's set, not aware there is also a 15 card All-Time Baseball Greats set with an impressive checklist:

1972 Kellogg’s ATG #1 Walter Johnson
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #2 Rogers Hornsby
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #3 John McGraw
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #4 Mickey Cochrane
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #5 George Sisler
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #6 Babe Ruth
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #7 Lefty Grove
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #8 Pie Traynor
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #9 Honus Wagner
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #10 Eddie Collins
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #11 Tris Speaker
1972 Kellogg's ATG #12 Cy Young
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #13 Lou Gerhig
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #14 Babe Ruth
1972 Kellogg’s ATG #15 Ty Cobb

I am a big fan of the 3D Kellogg's cards and a set like this would be great as part of my collection.  With this being my first, the other 14 cards now appear on my Set Want List.  Another cool aspect of these cards are the back, they are equally impressive.

Look at those write ups along with career and playoff stats.  I don't know if I recall a card back packing so much information.  Another set added to the Set Want List.

My Black Friday COMC Shipment

COMC has surpassed eBay and Sportlots as my favorite buying site.  The front and back photos of every card, the ability to make offers on cards and the fact that the cards are already in hand at COMC are all pluses.  No surprises on what cards you get and no worry about dishonest sellers take the worry out of internet buying.  Also the site has some great search functions and is pretty easy to navigate.

Starting earlier this year, I have been putting a decent portion of my monthly card budget into my COMC account and picking up new cards for my collection.  I have waited patiently until Black Friday to have the cards shipped, who doesn't love free shipping?

This year's haul arrived a little over 2 weeks after Black Friday and was 433 cards strong.

This is what the box looked like when I cracked it open:

I moved the Dave Winfield disc aside and opened up the boxes.  Here is what was staring me in the face:

I dug into the bigger box and pulled out all the scratchers.  These were give aways with Black Friday shipping. I had 41 or 42 total with this shipment and after scratching them all and putting in the codes I ended up with 7 winners.  There was no store credit however, only free shipping and the free shipping ends on 3/31/17.  I will probably only place one order between now and then so I guess I got 6 winners that will never be used. Last year I scored a few with store credit.  I don't know if they have gotten more stingy or if I just didn't have the same luck this year.
 

I thought I would pull out the first card and give you a sneak peak.  Hmmm, is that a T206 card from COMC?

I am pretty excited to show off what I received, the cards hit on most of my collection focus areas.  It might end up boring everyone to death or turning people away but over the next couple weeks my plan is to show off all 433 items.  Sound like fun?

The Goods from a Pair of Generous Super Traders

I have been delaying posting trade and Super Trader packages because I am so far behind but a wise friend once told me that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.  I am going to challenge that a bit with two bites at once and post the highlights from a couple Super Trader packages that have been sent my way.

First up is a group of Giants from AJ of The Lost Collector fame.

There was a pretty solid variety of Giants in the package, including these I picked out to share.  Along the top are some of my favorite all time Giants.  The bottom trio is an impressive group as well and I really like the photography on all 3 cards.

Again, 3 of my favorite players across the top.  I have mentioned it before but I am not sure I have ever seen someone hit a ball harder or farther than Glenallen Hill.  The Jose Cruz Jr. card is an example of a new version of Giants cards I have started to set aside as a future collection.  As you may notice, Cruz is pictured in a Giants uni but is designated a Blue Jay.

I have never made a checklist or want list of minor league Giants cards but am always glad to welcome them into my collection.  These all look they are new to me and have been placed in the box I am keeping to someday put together a binder of minor league cards.

If you had asked me, I would have sworn that I already had this relic in my collection.  I even believe that I have passed it up a few times when I could have purchased it.  Now I am glad I passed it up and it actually does have a place in my collection.

The highlight of the package for me was this seemingly unimpressive card, a 2004 Topps Total card of Jim Brower.  Why might you ask was this card so desired?  It is the final card I needed to complete my 2004 Topps Total Giants team set.

Thanks AJ for all the great cards!

The second Super Trader I want to highlight is from Brian of Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary.  I actually believe these came in 2 separate packages so maybe I am eating 3 bites of the elephant at a time.

The first two scans are from the first package.  Quite the assortment of brands and years which is just up my alley.  Have to deem the Mays as my favorite but this is a nice group of cards.

Another cool grouping, this was my first time seeing the Lincecum Chrome card - very nice  I have acquired a ton of the Giants stickers this year through trades and purchases and I am trying to figure out what type of project to use them on - I might turn my 4-year old loose.  You have to love a Gold MadBum!

The more recent package again contained a nice variety of card.  I needed several of these and was perhaps the most happy with the Brandon Crawford from Archives.  I have recently decided to collect that insert set as well, they just look so crisp and clean from a design perspective.

The final group of cards has a couple minis and some of my favorite Giants.  I had the Willie Mac card in his binder but I have started putting dups into the Giants binders as well.  Did you all know that Randy Moffitt is Billy Jean King's brother?  I think that is old trivia that most of you know but I thought I would throw it out there just in case.

 Thanks for the card Brian, great stuff.

An update to my Super Trader friends.  I have assembled the fold up table in my card room and started putting together stacks of cards by team.  There is a good chance in the next couple weeks I will get my first packages of cards out.  It has been a long time coming but I am finally getting organized to the point where it is possible.  Looking forward to returning the favors of all the great bloggers/traders out there.

Launching My New HOF Baseball Auto Page

I figured that it was time to share something I have been working on for quite a while, a blog page dedicated to my HOF autograph collection.  In addition to this link, there will be a link on the right side of my blog.  I have shared a number of cards I have acquired over the last few years to add to this collection and while my original goal was to dedicate a post to each card in my HOF auto collection, I think this is a better way to share.

I have listed out every HOFer by year of induction.  Where I don't have an auto, I have shared some cards that I have in my collection.  There are some players who I do possess base or insert cards of that I didn't add to this page.  I may fill in those gaps over time but right now just the players name and position are listed.

I have limited the page to showing 2 cards of each player as there are some I have more of. I have attempted to share my favorite cards when I do have more than two.

I don't like to make a post without cards so I thought I would share two of my more recent additions that I pulled from 2 boxes of 2015 Leaf Cut Signature History of Baseball Edition.

I feel very fortunate about pulling these two players.  Both were new to my collection and both passed away prior to an influx of autographed trading cards.  Both players sport easy to read signatures and are far from border line HOFers.  Since moving to the KC area, I have had two chances to visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and my appreciation for the talents of the Negro League players continues to grow.  You will see on my new page that I bought a collection of Frisch cards at the NLBM and included cards for the Negro League players.  Over time I will probably fill in some gaps of other players with non-hit cards from my collection.

I hope you get a chance to take a look at my page.  You will note that I also include some players that are in my personal HOF (I think they deserve to be in Cooperstown) but have yet to be enshrined.  If you have someone you think I should consider, feel free to make your case and nominate them.  I have a ton of fun looking through these cards and would appreciate any comments.

I am looking for some affordable additions to my collection if you have any suggestions (I recently picked up a Rick Ferrell card and a couple you will see shortly from my COMC order).  Happy Collecting!

Merry Christmas!!!

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and thought I would spread a little bit of holiday cheer with this recent pick up:

Sketch Card Contest Winnings - The Shining

I am a huge Stephen King fan, I have all of his books (and there are a ton) and have read almost all of them - just a couple to go.  When Corky over at Pack War had a contest for some of his sketch cards back in late October/early November I saw a lot of cards I really liked but was immediately drawn to his sketch of Jack Torrance of The Shining fame.  Jack was fresh in my mind as I had just finished up Doctor Sleep a few months before which is a book featuring Jack's son Dan.  I quickly entered the contest and hoped to score the Torrance card.

There was a surprising low turnout for the contest with only 7 entries and I believe 8 sketch cards so everyone was a winner.  After some randoming, I ended up right in the middle at #4.  Lucky for me, Freddy Krueger, The Invisible Man and Jason Voorhees went in the 3 picks and my #1 pick was there for the taking.  Check it out.

Super cool and a great, unique addition to my collection.  Thanks Corky!

As I was prepping this post, I realized I had won another contest over at Pack Wars - I am so miserably behind in my trade, contest and gift posts.  I figured I would also share the cool stuff I received in the last contest as well.

As I recall, the contest was to get one of a variety of items and I selected this Sammy Sosa collector's tin with a card and the ability to turn it into a display.  I have a couple others of these in my collection as I scored the Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire in a group break.  The Sammy looks very cool.  I wonder if what looks to be some softening by the HOF voters towards some of the suspected steroid users will every get Sammy into the HOF. Personally I doubt it but you never know.

Also included were some misc. Giants cards and some very cool ones at that.

 The Bonds is a Leaf Limited gold parallel and the Hubbell helped me complete that team set.  Also included were a Freak rookie, a couple of nice looking Poseys and a Kevin Mitchell siting.

 These 3 also found nice spots in my collection.  Back when 2012 Panini Cooperstown was released the middle woodlike card was a replacement in each box for what was supposed to be a different kind of hit. It ended up dropping the box cost of cards which helped me complete the set.  Those 2012 and 2013 Panini Cooperstown releases are some of my favorite of the decade.

Finally, a fairly rare siting here on the blog, basketball cards.  I do have a few player collections of hoops cards and Corky was able to knock these 3 off the want list.

Corky, sorry for the delay in finally posting these great cards you sent my way.  Your creativity and skill on your customs is something I envy and your generosity is greatly appreciated!

Black Friday Box Breaks #4 - 2014 Panini Hall of Fame Baseball #2

Haven't posted in a week, been having too much fun going through my recently delivered COMC order.  I have been buying on there for the last few months, took advantage of some Black Friday sales then had 433 items shipped to me for free.  Sorting, cataloging and scanning is just about complete but in the meantime, I thought I would share my 2nd box of 2014 Panini Hall of Fame Baseball from a recent purchase.

Here are the base cards:

Just like my first box, I received 2 cards /75 and one /50.  I sure would have liked to score a lower print run card but I am still a big fan of these cards.  Three great Hall of Famers here and I am really liking the photo selection.

On to the Crusade cards.

 Scored 2 base unnumbered Crusade cards and a sweet die cut Johnny Evers /25.  No Giants this time but I am loving the old school player selection here.

Speaking of old school, also scored 2 HOFers from well before my time with the Diamond King cards.  As I look at this Casey Stengel card, it seems to me that he really hasn't been well represented in card releases despite his almost universal recognition as one of the top managers in history.  (I decided to fact check myself - no false news here - and Casey does have almost 500 different cards in the Beckett database with a significant percentage since I started collecting in 1979).

I scored an extra Elite Series card in this box and it is a nice Cal Ripken Jr. /25 - very nice!  As mentioned with my last box break I am a fan of both of these sets. If you have any floating around feel free to send them my way :-)

Now for Auto #1....

This first auto is a disappointment. I like Eck and appreciate his cool autograph but this is a duplicate for me.  Not just the fact that I have an Eck auto in my collection, I actually have this exact same card.  I guess as my HOF auto collection grows this is bound to happen.  If anyone is in need or want of this card, hit me up for a trade.

Any now the final card...

Wow!  Another Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes buyback auto of a deceased HOFer.  I bought this set of cards (without the autos of course) a little while back because I am such a fan of the set.  To get 2 of them autographed in these two boxes is really nice.  Despite the Eck duplicate, this card makes this a very successful box in my view.

I have one more box to share from this order but I think it will wait for a while.  It wasn't the most exciting box break and I am more eager to start posting about my monster COMC order.

Black Friday Box Breaks #3 - 2014 Panini Hall of Fame Baseball

My next box break to share is my first of 2 boxes of 2014 Panini Hall of Fame Baseball.  With 2 guaranteed Hall of Fame autos I struggle not to pick these up when they are on sale.  I actually have autos of most of the players who appear in this product but I also enjoy the other cards and it isn't a crime to have more than one auto of Hall of Famers.

First up is what I guess would be considered the base cards of the product:

Three guys I grew up watching, all solid cards to pull.  I didn't get any crazy low print run cards but I am pretty happy with the pulls. For some reason I am drawn to the Gwynn card, it looks like a younger picture of Tony and he seems to have a solemn look on his face.  The bat on the shoulder is great as well.

I pulled 3 Crusade cards.   The Dawson is a Purple parallel numbered to 50.  The Terry is a blue base version and is a new Giant to my collection.  The Whitey is numbered 10/10 and I just love the die cut versions of these cards.

This pack/box had 2 of the Diamond King cards.  The Roush is the base version, I am a little disappointed he is shown as a Red as he did play as a Giant. I seem to score a lot of Jim Rice's when opening boxes of this product.

A couple shiny inserts that I believe were also included in the Donruss product.  I am a fan of both and have contemplated going after sets of both.  I have no idea how big the sets are and should probably research it before I get too serious. Grimes is card number 2 and Gibson card number 1 so that is no help at all.

 My first auto in this box was this Goose Gossage card.  It is my second Goose auto in my collection.  This card is nice, love the Gossage photo with his trademark facial hair.  I live the overall design of these autos and you have to appreciate how clean Goose's auto is.  Gossage did tick me off earlier this year with some negative comments blaming Buster Posey for the new rule eliminating collisions at the plate.  I will chalk that up to an aging semi-senile former Yankee douche-bag. I still have respect for his career accomplishments but he needs to keep his mouth shut when it comes to the game today.

 Someone I have always had mad respect for is Stan the Man Musial.  My second auto was this super cool Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes buyback auto card.  As Stan aged his auto started to suffer.  It looks like this card was later in life but not during those final few months of his life when he was signing lots of stickers for Leaf.  This is also my second Musial auto and was my favorite pull, by far of my Black Friday breaks.  The serial numbering to 57 is curious but what a great addition to my growing HOF auto collection.

My Hometown Team

I grew up in a small town suburb of Sacramento, CA.  Sacto in my opinion, has always been a city with an identity crisis. They are the capitol of the state of CA yet are overshadowed by cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, etc.  Sacramento has been labeled a "cow town" by many and, while there are some cows in the area, there are places throughout central CA that are much more cow centered.  Growing up we all thought CA was a big city and deserved to have big league sports teams.  There were rumors of the Giants relocating to Sacramento around the same time they almost moved to Toronto but neither materialized (thank goodness!).

In the mid 1980's we finally became a big league town when the Kansas City Kings of the NBA moved to Sacramento.  The city quickly constructed Arco Area in a large warehouse that seated 10,333 fans.  My dad went in with 3 business partners on a couple season tickets and someone who was a best a casual basketball fan fell in love with pro hoops.  I got to go to a few games their first few years with a couple highlights being seeing the Celtics and Larry Bird and swapping seats in the 3rd Quarter with my dad's buddy to watch Michael Jordan set an Arco Area 3rd Quarter scoring record from the 4th or 5th row.

I moved down to So Cal for college and still followed the Kings with a nice rivalry brewing between my Kings and the Lakers but my Kings could never get over the hump. However, for a few years, they had a pretty amazing teams with players like Jason "White Chocolate" Williams, Mike Bibby, Doug Christie, Scot Pollard, Bobby Jackson and my two favorites Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic.  I liked Peja so much that when we found a box turtle in my yard and decided to keep him as a pet he was named Peja.

I have a pretty large player collection of Chris Webber and you will see some of my more recent pick ups below but every so often I get the urge to seek out some inexpensive autos or relics of my favorite players from my favorite NBA area.

I saw that Peja has been signing recently and found this great trio of autographed cards:

Peja Stojakovic - 2015-16 Panini Prizm Orange Auto 39/65

Peja Stojakovic - 2015-16 Gala Action Autographs 40/40

Peja Stojakovic - 2015-16 Immaculate Collection Auto 25/45

I also stumbled across this Autographed Mike Bibby card featuring a sweet action shot.  I remember feeling upset when Jason Williams was traded to get Bibby into town but Bibby was one of the most clutch players in Sacramento history. I quickly became a fan.

Mike Bibby - 2007-08 SP Rookie Threads Portraits Auto

The final cards in my walk down memory lane are these base cards and inserts of Chris Webber.  As mentioned above, I have a pretty solid collection of Webber cards with 682 different cards including these I have picked up over the last few months.  I have mentioned this before but one of the reasons I like collecting a few basketball players is the great action photos featured on many of the cards.

Since their peak years the Kings have really struggled.  This year they have a brand new stadium that I hope aides in a rise out of the basement and at least into playoff contention in the coming years.  Let's Go Kings!