Many Thanks are Due!

I have fallen way behind on posts, to the point where I am still blogging about things from early 2017. In the meantime, cards have piled up ever-higher on my desk, and I have lost track of a great many things in the rubble. Unfortunately, some of those lost things are maildays from other bloggers, which should really be acknowledged and blogged as soon as they come in. I'll try to catch up as I dig my way through the stacks, but I know that the identities of some senders may be lost to me. The cards I am posting about today were stuffed in an envelope with someone else's return address on it, but the note accompanying them was from Jon over at A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts. Why did I put them in that other envelope? I don't know.

This first card of Astros hurler Doug Drabek comes from 1995 Studio, a set that was designed to resemble credit cards. Between this and Fleer's acid trip, 1995 was a weird year for cardboard. The back of the card even features a printed magnetic strip and a facsimile signature. 

Speaking of 1995 and weird things, how weird is it to see Goose Gossage in a Mariners uniform on this 1995 Score card. He played the last year of his career for Seattle in 1994, making this a sunset card for him. Jon also included some other sports in this mailing, with this serially-numbered Hakeem Olajuwon Scoring Kings Stat Line card from Donruss.

I really like the way Denver Broncos look on cardboard, but I haven't put much effort into that collection, outside of the occasional group break spot or Shannon Sharpe card. It was pretty neat to get a trio of Broncos here, including a couple of nice John Elway cards. I liked the look of Topps Magic, but never bought much of it. There is always too much other stuff to chase. The coating on that Willie Green card is just asking me to peel it off, but I am often reluctant to 'alter' a card in that way. Also, I've heard horror stories of people trying it after a number of years and having the face of the actual card peel off with the coating.

Thank you for the cards, Jon! I always appreciate maildays, and I'm sorry it's taken me a while to get this written. Again, I apologize to anyone who has sent me cards without an acknowledgment on my part. I will try to identify the sources of as many mailings as I can, and give proper thanks here on my page.

At the Trade Deadline 42: An Awesome Trade Package from Lonestarr

I recently got a massive trade package from blogger Lonestarr / Twitch. It touched on nearly every part of my collection. I scanned quite a bit of it for this post, but there was plenty more. I just couldn't scan any longer.

I don't have many Elway cards, and this SPx Gold card is a great addition to my collection. I remember that the Hakeem Olajuwon SPx Gold from this set's basketball equivalent was one of the prizes of my collection in my teen years. Hologram, die-cut, and foil on thick card stock? Yes, please!

This package may have nearly doubled my Peyton Manning collection. It certainly was a big boost to the number of Manning cards I have showing him in a Broncos uniform. I've heard rumors that Peyton will officially announce his retirement soon. I guess we'll see what happens. That whole business with the sexual harassment allegations from his college days is pretty disappointing. Without any context outside of working in male-exclusive jobs for a large portion of my life I imagine he tried to pull some sort of prank that went over the line, and instead of owning his actions he denied them and went on the attack. Probably a sincere apology and an admission of wrongdoing 20 years ago would have cleared the whole business up.

There were plenty of other Broncos in the package. That Terrell Davis is probably my favorite of this bunch, although it is hard to deny the power of Tim Tebow. I wore my Tebow jersey just the other day. Apparently there was a poll recently in which respondents were asked who their favorite and least favorite NFL quarterbacks were. Tim Tebow appeared in the top handful of both lists (5th-most popular, 2nd-least popular), despite the fact that he hasn't played in a regular season NFL game for a few years.

Switching sports to basketball, several Houston Rockets cards were included in the package, highlighted by a couple of appearances by my favorite player of all time, Hakeem Olajuwon. I also liked that Panini Black Friday Dwight Howard card, although Dwight Howard himself has been pretty underwhelming as a Rocket. I have to wonder how long it will be before he and James Harden get run out of town and the Rockets enter another rebuilding phase without really living up to their potential? It's almost like a repeat of the Yao Ming / Tracy McGrady days, although their problems had more to do with injuries than with attitude. I don't know why that Earl Boykins cards has rounded corners. It must be a parallel that I am not aware of.

There were two other cards in this Astros scan, but I cropped them out when I discovered a big hair on the scan in front of one of them. It was a sweet card, but I was so done with the scanner by that time. I like that Bill Virdon card. I pulled an autograph of his out of a box of Heritage in 2014. For whatever reason that makes him stick in my head. I'm not about to run out and start a Bill Virdon PC, but I'm at least two cards into one now. I love those rainbow-colored uniforms. Sometimes I think I might be part unicorn or part leprechaun or something.

There were plenty of Astros from all eras in this package. I think I've mentioned at least six times that I didn't scan them all. I DIDN'T SCAN ALL THE CARDS IN THIS PACKAGE! There were a lot of cards. If I were a rapper I would be bragging about all of my phat stacks (of cards). But I'm not a rapper. When I try to sing or rap my wife tells me, "No!" and mists me with a spray bottle.

That Nolan Ryan / J.R. Richard card is one of the cooler cards in the package. It's an Astros card, but it's also a Nolan Ryan card, but from a time when he wasn't an Astro. And now the Astros are in the A.L. so this card wouldn't even be possible anymore unless they started making AL West Leaders cards. At that point Topps would have jumped the shark. Can you imagine Division Leader cards for all of the different divisions? That would be ridiculous.

The Astros probably got the least freaky of the 1995 Fleer card designs. Things don't get all that trippy until you're below the waistline and the colors go weird, which I guess is kind of a metaphor for life.

I like those framed Gypsy Queen parallels. That's one of the few things I like about the Gypsy Queen brand. I guess I'm a Ginter man if it comes down to faux-old-timey vintage brands. I like that Lance Berkman Soaring Stars card. It's like he's defending the Earth from Randy Johnson-thrown meteors with a cosmic bat or something.

Now we're getting to the hits portion of this trade package. Those two cards on the top are serially-numbered. Nolan Ryan is # / 250 and Tony Scheffler is # / 200. Olajuwon is die-cut, Prizmed, and # / 199. Also he is wearing those cool goggles that he sported for a while. He tried, but he couldn't rock the goggles as well as Horace Grant did. If there were a Mt. Rushmore of eyewear it would definitely have Horace Grant and Kent Tekulve on it. Who else would be on it? That Aaron West autograph is pretty cool, too. When I see the name Aaron it makes me think of that Key & Peele Substitute Teacher skit.

These relics are all pretty cool. I believe that Lancaster JetHawks Mascot Patch is my first manu-patch relic. Some of my readers might be impressed that I have remained untainted this long, while others wonder why I didn't get on the manu-patch train a long time ago. My one stalker might comb feverishly through my posts to find out if this really is my first manu-patch card. I know for sure that the J.R. Towles card in the upper right contains my first game-used base relic. The other relics are your more standard swatches of fabric, but the Rod Smith is # / 750 and the other card contains the previously-mentioned Tracy McGrady's pants or something. It's not a breathable enough material to be a jersey.

Closing things out are some non-sports items in the form of sketch cards featuring some of my favorite comic book characters. I believe the She-Hulk sketch was done by Lonestarr / Twitch himself, while the Wonder Woman sketch was done by Colby Zigler. I haven't been able to add as many She-Hulk and Wonder Woman sketches to my collection as I'd like, so these were a welcome addition to my sketch card binder. (I wish I had a sketch card binder. I actually don't. I have a vague idea of which sketches I have and sometimes I can find them in among the other cards in boxes and the piles of cards on my desk.

Closing things out is a sketch of Power Girl reminding all the fanboys out there that Cosplay does not equal Consent. That's a big deal with cosplayers and models, both online and at convention or promotional appearances. Sketch artist Cesar Feliciano has illustrated what might happen if one of these rude folks mistook Power Girl for a cosplay model.

This was an awesome package from top to bottom, and I was super-stoked to flip through all of it. I wasn't super-stoked to scan all of it, but I scanned many of the best parts. The rest of the stuff you'll just have to wonder about. It was all pretty cool, with plenty of touches personally-tailored to my collecting habits. Thank you!

At the Trade Deadline 40: Holiday Greetings from Dawg Day Cards

Like many people across the card-blogging landscape, I received a Christmas card in the mail from Angus of the Dawg Day Cards blog. He bears the unfortunate burden of being a Cleveland Browns fan, but in between all the Johnny Manziel drama he found time to send out tons of holiday cheer to other bloggers. I am actually quite the Cleveland fan myself this year, as members of the team (TE Gary Barnidge, WR Travis Benjamin, and RB Duke Johnson Jr.) have played key roles on my fantasy football roster at different times this year, a roster that just made it into the second round of the playoffs with a good chance at advancing to my office league's championship game.

Tucked inside a smaller envelope within the Christmas card were three different-sized football cards featuring my favorite NFL team, the Denver Broncos. First up is a 1986 McDonald's All-Star Team tear-off card featuring DE Rulon Jones. In the middle is a standard-sized 1996 Playoff Absolute football card of the legendary man-horse, John Elway. And on the right is a 1989 Panini American Football sticker of G Keith Bishop. I love those classic Denver Broncos uniforms. They are a thing of beauty.

These six Guardians of the Galaxy cards were shrink-wrapped together in a set, but I opened up the package so I could see them all. I enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie quite a bit, but I haven't watched the Disney XD cartoon that these cards are advertising.

Some of the coolest cards in this package were these odd-ball cards of Dale Earnhardt. Produced in 1996 by Pinnacle, they carry Sun-Drop branding. Sun-Drop is apparently a citrus soda popular in the southern United States. Who knew? The cards are numbered SD1, SD2, and SD3 and the backs feature a photo of Dale Earnhardt drinking from a Sun-Drop cup. I'm a big fan of this set.

Closing things out are a couple of trading cards put out by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a group that helps artists and others defend free speech in comics. The cards feature different legal cases that the CBLDF has participated in. I have thought about picking up a box of these from time to time because there are some okay sketch cards in the product, but I've never actually pulled the trigger on a purchase.

This was an awesome batch of cards. I am surprised that so much different stuff was able to fit inside the envelope. It touched on many of my personal collections and interests, and I had a good time looking through the cards and researching the stuff that was new to me. Thanks, Angus!

Combined Shipping Leads to Buying Stuff 6: Denver Broncos from the Glory Days

As part of the combined shipping lot I've been posting about recently I picked up a few cards for my football collection, which is even more neglected than my basketball collection, if such a thing is even possible. All of these are serially-numbered, but the numbers are pretty high, I think just about anyone who wants a copy should be able to get one. First up is a Shannon Sharpe Immortals card from 2013 Panini Certified. It's numbered # 487 / 999. Sharpe has always been my favorite Bronco, and I don't know if anyone will ever take that spot. I like Tim Tebow and I like Peyton Manning, but Tebow didn't stick around long enough and Manning did most of his work with the Colts. The one big knock I have against Sharpe is that he played for the Ravens. I hate the Ravens. I'll overlook that in his case, though, because I can.

I have an old Sharpe knockoff jersey that I get compliments on pretty much every time I wear it in public. He's popular even here in Idaho. This card is from 1998 Collector's Edge Masters. I am not sure how the parallels are set up in this set, but this card is numbered # 1076 / 3000.

Finally I have a nice shiny John Elway card from this year, a 2015 Panini Certified Immortals card numbered # 055 / 499. I like this one because of the old-school Broncos logo and uniform. Elway had a great career as a quarterback and a Super Bowl win would cement him as a great football executive, too. He's made some huge moves in bringing Peyton Manning to Denver and building a superb defense for the Broncos, but they haven't been able to cash that in and get a ring. With Tom Brady, Gronk, and the rest of the Patriots playing the way they have been this year I don't know if the Broncos can even get out of the AFC bracket, let alone beat whoever comes out of the NFC playoffs. I am afraid that the Broncos' window will close and Manning will miss out on getting a ring in Denver. It's really too bad they laid that huge egg against Seattle in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago.

At the Trade Deadline 28: Christmas Cards from Too Many Verlanders

I call this a trade post, but in reality it was more of a gift. Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders sent out a whole pile of packages in something he called Too Many Christmas Cards. A giant bubble mailer arrived in my mailbox with stacks and stacks of cards packed inside. I chose a few of my favorites to show off here. This first group features some recent Denver Broncos, including Von Miller, Demaryius Thomas, Montee Ball and Tom Brady's former man-crush, Wes Welker. Of course, now that they've had some time to see other people, Brady isn't feeling too much pain. I'm rooting against the whole Super Bowl this year. I hope no one wins. Or maybe Katy Perry could win the Super Bowl. That would be okay.

These cards came from what was probably my favorite stack of cards in the package. There was another stack in close contention, but someone in the postal service used the other stack as a bludgeon (I'm guessing to knock out a mugger or a rapist) and left a big ding on the corner of every card in that pile. I hope the brave letter carrier received a civic award for valor. Shannon Sharpe was my favorite Bronco of that era, and Elway wasn't half-bad himself. That Terrell Davis Hidden Gems Refractor is the 2nd-coolest card in the package. I love looking at it. While Tim Tebow may not actually have been a Complete Player, he was the face of a very exciting run by the Broncos. Although everyone knows that strong defense, clutch kicking and a lot of luck were the true heroes of that season, Tebow made for a much better story line. And he does a buttload of charity work that really brings a lot of good to the world.

In spite of questionable card design, that Nolan Ryan is a pretty good picture of one great pitcher. You have to love a guy who can intimidate so well while wearing a flippin' rainbow. I thought I had all of the 2013 Mascot cards from Topps Opening Day, but that Orbit card looks unfamiliar. Maybe his wooden gaze is just confusing me.

I loved drafting Michael Bourn in my fantasy baseball leagues for a few years, and he always sunk my teams. He's not a bad player, but I drafted his stolen bases too early and forgot that he wouldn't be providing any Home Runs or RBIs, and power is expensive in fantasy baseball. Speed is always available on the waiver wire.

Finishing up this group is a nice 'grip' card of R.A. Dickey, my current favorite player to collect. Unfortunately, the shine of his 2012 Cy Young season is long-gone and he is no longer featured in every set checklist. The Blue Jays' checklist slots are now mostly taken up by Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and maybe Marcus Stroman from time to time. With R.A. Dickey and Josh Reddick getting fewer cards lately and Press Pass going out of business on the NASCAR front I have been focusing more on my Jon Singleton player collection and some non-sport stuff. I've grabbed a few sketch cards, some comic and TV stuff, and some artist sketches lately that I think are pretty cool. I'm still looking forward to another season of baseball cards, though.

Here are a few Seattle-based players. I have to admit that having the Seahawks completely dismantle the Broncos last year in the Super Bowl kind of soured me on them a little bit, and I think they do a little too much talking (or not talking, in Marshawn Lynch's case), but I do like their colorful uniforms and I suppose I still root for them a bit. I still hope that everyone loses the Super Bowl. Michael 'Sticky Neck' Pineda makes the cut for an appearance here and so does a pretty cool picture of Jeff Clement with a ball in his glove.

And here is the card that kept Terrell Davis' Hidden Gems card from being the coolest card in the package. A Muggsy Bogues autograph! How can you not love this card? This is my second Bogues autograph, with the first having been purchased in the infancy of this blog.

This was a great gift, and I certainly owe Dennis plenty of Verlander and Michigan hits whenever they happen to fall to me. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have spent half of this post bagging on Tom Brady. Kind of a backward way to thank a guy for some cool cards, isn't it? In spite of the fact that I find it incredibly humorous to make fun of Tom Brady, I really enjoyed getting these cards in the mail. It is unfortunate that I took so long to post them, but the posts with the most scans seems to take the longest to write.

Thank you, Dennis!

Showing Off 1: There's a First Time for Everything

The somewhat local card shop hosts a card show every few months. I hadn't ever been to a card show, so I thought I might try it out. I got there about an hour before the doors closed, so probably about half of the dealers had already closed up shop. There were still a fair number of tables occupied, though, so there was still a decent amount of stuff to look at.

The first thing I bought was the last two packs from a box of Topps Chrome on the table of the guy running the show, so I could get change for my $20 bill. The thumbprints on the cards all came from me. Not much to say about the base cards. Here they are:

And here are the two horizontal cards from the packs. I think my favorite thing about Topps Chrome cards is the smell that they have. It's a plasticky chemical scent that probably causes cancer in the state of California. I have just confirmed that Panini Prizm cards have the same scent.

I did not pull either of the two autographs allocated per box, and I had to settle for two base Refractors as my inserts. At least they are Refractors of decent players; Joe Mauer and Yasiel Puig. I guess I ought to put the Puig on eBay. It's going for upwards of $10 right now. That just seems a little ridiculous to me. But I guess the demand is there. I've picked up a little bit of Chrome here and there so far, but I didn't think I wanted to try building the set, as you only get about 3-1/3 base cards per pack. At $2.99 per retail pack and assuming perfect collation, it would take me 67 packs to build the set, or $200.33 + tax. Boo! Sure, there is the off chance that I could hit some kind of crazy hit and be happy, but especially on the retail side the odds are against me. So I ordered a complete base set from a case buster on eBay for $25.00 and am calling it good. Now I can pick up a pack here or there without feeling driven to buy Moar! and Moar! in an attempt to finish a set. In looking at my Bowman set I finally decided to do the same thing, as I have busted a lot of that product and still was quite a bit short of a full set. I enjoy building a set just as much as anyone else, but I like to keep my sets mostly achievable, like Opening Day or the flagship set, stuff that offers 7 or 10 cards in a lower-priced pack. That is probably enough rant for now. I should just be happy that I pulled a Puig Refractor and not some scrub base card.

I think I read a blog post a while ago that warned against wearing team- or player-specific clothing to card shows because then that's all people will try to sell you, but I forgot about it until just now. I wore my Marshawn Lynch Seahawks jersey to the show, and everyone tried to sell me Russell Wilson? cards, even people who had Lynch cards visible on their tables. I had to explain to them that I am mostly a Denver Broncos fan, and I don't think any of them believed me. Next time I will have to wear something neutral.

The guy I bought the next batch of cards from really tried to push a Ronnie Hillman (one of this year's Broncos Running Backs) relic card on me, but this is the card I was interested in:

The card says something about this being a Veronica Mars card, but I don't even know what that is. This is a card signed by the actress who played Deb in Napoleon Dynamite, Tina Majorino. I don't think there were ever any Napoleon Dynamite autograph cards released, so this is about as close as it gets for fans of that movie.

I also got this Panini Prestige die-cut transparent acetate card of Marshawn Lynch from the same seller. It is a pretty good addition to the collection, although I don't know why the guy didn't lead with it, as I was wearing the jersey featured on the card. Same colors, same player, everything. I don't know.

The guy was pretty frustrated by the lack of business he'd had at the show and told me he wouldn't be coming back in December for the next one. I don't know what card shows generally look like, but there can't be a lot of collectors in this area anyway, and the guy didn't exactly have a table overflowing with stuff that would pull in piles of cash.

Many of the dealers had two tables covered with 5000-count boxes of singles, maybe some display cases for bigger hits, and a couple odds and ends like bobbleheads, magazines, or complete sets. Most of them seemed to be pretty happy with the amount of business they'd seen. This dude had probably 50 cards laid out on a small table, and I didn't see anything mind-boggling among the selection. I would imagine a show is what you make of it.

He tossed in these two Elway cards. I guess that's pretty cool. I didn't even notice them on the table until he added them to the stack. I want to know why Elway is so flippin' orange all the time. He's like a human carrot. I was watching the Denver game this last week and the camera kept zooming in on his face. It was scary. I guess this explains it.

The last table I lingered at had some player-specific boxes of basketball cards. I overpaid for six Hakeem Olajuwon cards for my long-neglected player collection. Don't get me wrong, these are all the nifty insert cards I wouldn't have been able to purchase at the card shop in my youth (I could only afford base cards because I am terrible at saving my money) and I like them, but I overpaid.

When I was a kid, Olajuwon signed a deal with Spalding to release a shoe that kids could afford. The internet way-back machine tells me the MSRP on those was $35.00. I had a pair of them and still store part of my Olajuwon collection in the box they came in, but they didn't really have any staying power. Just a few days ago he released a new shoe as part of his DR34M SHAKE fashion line. The price on it is $185.00. It is also butt-ugly. I guess even our heroes can have flaws.

I may already have this base card. I may even have a picture of it on this blog. I don't know.

 After I got the Olajuwons I felt a little bad about the price I paid for them, the show was just about to close, and my pocket was pretty much empty of cash, so I left. I think that if I go again I need to give myself time to dig through the cheap boxes and work toward my want lists rather than just running around at the last minute without a plan.

The highlights of the show were probably the Majorino autograph, the Puig Refractor, and the two Olajuwon Flair Showcase cards.

What eBay Hath Wrought 3: Hometown Hero

Last weekend I found myself driving by Killebrew Drive, in the hometown of Harmon Killebrew, Payette, Idaho. My Army National Guard units drills in Payette, which is about 35 minutes from the town I went to high school in and 50 minutes from the town I live in now. So I had Killebrew on the mind when I put in some bids on a bunch of low-priced eBay cards that had no bidders.

I scanned the back of the card because it shows Payette, ID right there beneath his name. The card was surprisingly thick, but I guess that's to be expected when you're paying those prices for a super-premium product.

I also picked up a couple of nice quad relics, featuring R. A. Dickey and Billy Butler. There was another R. A. Dickey relic card up for grabs with some nice bits of color on the swatches, but the price on that one skyrocketed, even though it was numbered out of 99 instead of 75. I was happy to swoop in and get this one with no competition.

And the Billy Butler has a nice dirt (at least I hope it's dirt) streak on one of the swatches, which is a nice little touch. It's not too often that you are happy to have some soil on your baseball cards.

And up next we've got the card that my Nolan Ryan mini-collection came attached to. When I was younger, the rookie cards of my favorite players were far out of reach. I remember when Hakeem Olajuwon's rookie card went up over $200. I guess a high-graded copy of the card can still run in the $80-100 range, but you can get a decent copy for under $30, and if you shop around and wait a while you can even get a decent one under $20.

So I got to thinking the other day, "I wonder what John Elway's rookie card is going for these days?" Not a whole lot, it would appear. So I placed my bid and got a nice looking copy of that card and a collection of Nolan Ryan issues.