Work Trip to Dayton, Ohio: The Hobby Stuff

Now that my work trip to Ohio is about over, I figured I'd show off the hobby-related stuff I picked up while I was there. When I first flew in, I stopped to get something to eat and then I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff I needed, like a razor, some soda, and some baseball cards.

I don't think I've posted the previous Gypsy Queen blasters I bought yet, but they weren't all that great. I'd heard rumors that 2017 Topps Gypsy Queen retail was hot stuff, but in my experience that hasn't been the case. But I thought maybe it was just a problem with the blasters in Idaho. I picked up an Ohio blaster as a test, and also because there wasn't a whole lot of other stuff on the shelves.

I got a decent array of base cards. Derek Jeter was my short-printed base card. I got a Charlie Blackmon Green Back parallel. There are supposedly only 50 copies of each Green Back, as opposed to the Green Front parallels that come in value packs. There are a couple of inserts, too.

After three blasters, I finally pulled a hit out of Gypsy Queen. I should have just bought 2/3 of a Hobby box with that money, but I didn't, and now I have this Aaron Judge autograph card. He's been playing pretty well lately, so this card has actually kind of taken off in the two weeks since I pulled it. I should put it up on eBay or something.

I made a stop at TCI Sports Fan, a card shop that I stopped at on my last trip to Ohio. There were a few things I looked at while I was there, but they had this box of 2016 Topps Star Wars Rogue One: Mission Briefing cards on the discount shelf and I bought it. I probably should have purchased something else.

The base cards are about the same as every other faux-vintage Star Wars set that has come out recently. They have red borders and feature scenes from the films.

The Death Star insert set shows different important locations on the space station.

I got a few of these Comic Strips inserts in the box. Although the backs of The Death Star inserts actually have text, most of the other inserts have some variation of the 'COLLECT ALL [NUMBER] CARDS!' text on the back. 

These Villains of the Galactic Empire and Heroes of the Rebel Alliance cards are pretty cool.

The two cards in the upper left are Character Stickers. They are printed on thin stock and I believe they are actually stickers, although I haven't tried peeling one. The two cards in the upper right are part of a Darth Vader continuity set, so I guess there will be more of them in other releases. Maybe those other releases are already out. I don't know. There are so many sets being released that I don't even keep up anymore. The three cards on the left of the bottom row are Character Foil cards, and the card on the bottom right is probably part of the Montages set, which probably interconnects with other cards to create a panoramic scene.

I pulled quite a few Death Star Black, Green, and Blue parallels. Those are the more common ones. I didn't pull any of the scarce Gray, Gold, or Orange parallels, which are serially-numbered # / 100, # / 50, and # 1 / 1.

My two promised hits were a manu-patch of Captain Cassian Andor and a base autograph of Corey Dee Williams as Klaatu. Klaatu is one of the folks who hangs out in Jabba's palace, and he gets killed during the sail barge escape scene.

Here are the backs of the hit cards. That box was kind of underwhelming, but buying the low-cost stuff bring high odds that your hits are going to be low-end hits. The regular cards are more of the same stuff we've been seeing, reprints of earlier designs with many of the same film stills that have been in circulation for the last forty or so years.

Later, I made a second trip to TCI Sports Fan. They were having a die-cast sale, and I wanted to pick up something for my NASCAR collection. I eventually settled on this 2011 Danica Patrick Honoring Our Heroes car. She drove this car in the Nationwide race on September 11th, 2011.

There were 1,209 of these die-cast cars produced. This one was on sale for $25, which is a better price than I can get online, especially when you take shipping into account. There were a couple of other cars I was interested in, but I decided on just purchasing the one.

Here's what it looks like out of the box. It's a pretty cool paint scheme. Each of the stars represents one victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I think the mixture of sports and patriotism is kind of weird, but I know baseball really played a big healing role after the 9/11 attacks and after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

They had also moved these boxes of 2011 WWE Champions onto the sale shelf. For $12 apiece, I thought it might be fun to bust some WWE wax. This set is pretty basic, and I think it is the predecessor to the current WWE Road to WrestleMania product line.

The base set is all about the photographs, and recounts the WWE storyline between WrestleManias. The set isn't that big, so you'll complete it in one box with a fair number of doubles and maybe some triples.

There are no parallels, and only one insert set. There are also autographs, but they only fall 1:150 packs, so you'll only see one every 6 boxes or so. I wasn't lucky enough to pull an autograph. The Foil inserts are a 1:3 packs pull, so you get eight per box. It's a 10-card set, and I completed the set out of two boxes, with 6 doubles. I don't know what the selection criteria were for the checklist, but there are some cool names in the set.

Finally, I made a trip to the Dayton Visual Arts Center to put some money in the Art-o-mat machine. The gallery was between exhibits, so there wasn't much art on the walls and I had to dodge ladders and stuff to get to the machine, but the staff didn't kick me out and even gave me change because the machine wouldn't take my bill. They didn't have Raz Card Blog favorite artist John Soukup stocked in the machine, so I had to try some new artists. The first was Andy Brzeczek, an artist out of Colorado. He doesn't seem to have much of a web presence, but I found a Facebook page and a profile on an art organization's page. Based on his Facebook feed, it looks like he does batches of Art-o-mat paintings with a similar theme, often centered around UFOs. The art block I got features a cow about to have a Close Encounter of some kind; maybe of the Fourth or Sixth Kind, depending on how things go.

Next, I pulled the lever for a piece of art from Jack Hernon. He has a web page and some profiles on various art pages, but none of them seem to have a lot of activity. I wasn't sure which way to orient the picture, so I went with the way that felt right to me. I've read that part of the fun of abstract art is seeing which way people choose to hang it.

It was a pretty successful trip from a hobby standpoint. I'd probably like to take back the Star Wars purchase and get something else or save that money, but I am pretty happy overall. There were a couple of comic book stores I meant to get to, but I never got around to it.

The Die is Cast 8: A Delivery from Die-Cast Santa

Every year in December, Lionel Racing runs a 12 Days of Christmas promotion on their Facebook page. You have to enter on each day and answer the question posed in the photo above. I've entered every day for the last couple of years, and this year my entry was chosen as the Day 7 winner of a delivery from Die-Cast Santa. I didn't ask for a specific car; my only request was Danica Die-Cast! Let's see what he sent me.

Lionel switched to new boxes this year. These ones have a corner of the box and foam cut out to form a display window. This is my first one in the new style. It looks like it could be prone to damage in shipping, but I guess it's a good way to display your cars without unboxing them?

Here's the end of the box, with the sticker announcing this as the #10 GoDaddy TaxAct 2015 SS from an edition of 775 cars. But that doesn't tell the whole story of the car. Let's get it out of the box.

Here it is in the foam. I didn't have a screwdriver handy to separate the car from the foam, so I made do with what I had. It's a pretty nice color scheme. I like the angular black section on the front and green and orange are some of my favorite colors, so this is a cool car for me. The hood, roof flaps, and truck all open, and the driver's window screen can be lowered.

Inside the back window is usually where the DIN (Die-cast Identification Number) is located, but this one doesn't have a DIN. That's because it's a production sample, which as I understand it is a car from the final test run before the actual production run is made. They are identical to the retail cars outside of the missing DIN, and are considered collectible in their own right. I was pretty excited to win the contest and receive a nice Danica Patrick die-cast prize. GoDaddy is no longer sponsoring her car next year, so this is the last year for these green cars. Thanks, Lionel and Die-Cast Santa!

The Die is Cast 7: Josh Wise 2011 Nationwide #7 We Salute You Impala

I added another die-cast car to my NASCAR collection recently, after doing an eBay search to see what all Josh Wise had available on the market. The last car I picked up was also a Josh Wise car, the Dogecoin-sponsored #98 car from 2014. This one goes back a little further, being an America-themed ride that Wise piloted in the Nationwide 5-Hour Energy 200 on May 14, 2011. He split time in the #7 that season with Danica Patrick.

I didn't really set out targeting this specific car, although I do like patriotic paint schemes. I wound up with this one because the seller was blowing it out at about half the price of anything else listed, pushing for a quick sale. I'm more than willing to purchase discount die-cast and there were 5 watchers on the listing already, so I added it to my cart and checked out hastily. Two days! later the car arrived in a Priority Mail box.

Inside the back window you can see the DIN printed on the plastic, which you can use to register the car on the Lionel Racing website. I told my wife while I was registering the number that for me one of the most satisfying parts of getting a new die-cast is going to the die-cast DMV to register my new vehicle. Hey, what's that on the windshield...

Yes, this is my first autographed die-cast car. Most of the JR Motorsports drivers used those holographic stickers on their autographs for a couple of seasons, and they can be found on a lot of Press Pass trading cards from that era, as well as die-cast cars and other merchandise. This isn't a particularly limited piece, being serially-numbered # 0491 / 1284, but it's a pretty cool piece and I couldn't argue with the price.

Just to be on the safe side the box also included this Certificate of Authenticity. More recent certificates actually have the serial number of the car written on them, and collector's get pretty anal about the quality of the handwriting and complain when the certificates are creased or dinged in packing/transit. Collectors are an odd lot.

The Die is Cast 6: 2014 Josh Wise #98 Dogecoin Car

Josh Wise is one of the drivers on the NASCAR circuit who seems to hang around and drive for lower-tier teams. Currently he drives the #98 car for Phil Parsons Racing. Earlier this season a Reddit user noticed that he was driving an unsponsored car, admired his competitive spirit, and rallied the online community to raise money for a sponsorship. Proponents of the cybercurrency Dogecoin were able to raise enough money to sponsor the car for one race, leading to an ongoing sponsor relationship. They were able to stuff the ballot to get Wise into the All-Star race, leading to extra purse money that the team promised would be used to purchase newer, more competitive tires for the race car. I believe they were also able to raise money for another race sponsorship through the sale of t-shirts. I don't know much about cybercurrency, but I am familiar with the internet meme that the Dogecoin is named after. Soon after I saw the car design I hoped that Lionel Racing would create a die-cast version. When it went up for preorder I put my order in and waited. After a few months they made the minimum number of orders they needed to produce the car, and recently mine arrived in the mail. Such race car! Much fast!

The back of the car features a couple of phrases in the the traditional Comic Sans font and distinctive grammar patterns of the original Doge meme. I can imagine that it might be a little unsettling for any racer behind this car to have those dog eyes staring back at them.

Here's a view of the car from the top. Wise has had a few finishes this year in the 20-30 range, which is pretty good for an underfunded team. The press and fan attention from the Dogecoin deal seems to have sparked other niche companies to sponsor the car for a few races. Provident Metals picked up a few races this year, with their niche seeming to be collectible silver coins, more traditional precious metals, and survivalist gear like food storage and emergency kits.

Although my main NASCAR interests still lie with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick, and to a lesser extent Tony Stewart, I have paid attention to Josh Wise this year because of his internet fame. He usually isn't going to stand a chance of finishing within the top 20, but he is fun to cheer for as an underdog(e). I am glad that Lionel was able to get enough orders to make this car, and I am happy I got one. Mine is serially-numbered # 320 / 553.

The Die is Cast 5: Dale Earnhardt Jr. 2014 Daytona 500 Raced-Win Elite

After Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Dayton 500 early this year, Lionel Racing announced that they would be making a Raced-Win version of the car, which is different from your standard die-cast featuring the livery of a race car. When making the Raced-Win versions, Lionel takes photos of the car as it appears in Victory Lane and then does up the bodywork to resemble it, confetti, race damage, and all. In races where a winner has shredded the tires doing the usual doughnuts on the track, the tires of the die-cast are flat. Earnhardt didn't do a lot of rubbing or wrecking in this race, so there isn't a lot of damage shown on the car, just a little scraping on the front of the wheel arches. The biggest feature on this particular car is the big piece of black tape that was stuck to Earnhardt's grill.

Soon after Lionel put the car up for pre-order on their website, the car was on track to become the best-selling die-cast in Lionel's history, beating out the car from Junior's previous win in 2012. With a large print run, this might not wind up being the most valuable collectible in the world, but I am pretty happy with it. I ordered the Elite Version, which has better components and more features than a standard car. This one is serial-numbered, being # 1873 / 2388 pieces made.

On this car the hood opens to show the engine, the flaps on the roof open up, and the trunk opens to reveal the fuel system. The net in the driver's window can be opened and re-secured, and if your finger is small enough you can reach in there and move the steering wheel, which turns the front wheels from side to side.

There were a few other things in the box with the car. The first thing is a Certificate of Authenticity with the car's serial number written in. The Raced-Win versions of cars always get a Winner sticker and often a bag of confetti collected from Victory Lane after the race. This car also includes a little card with a picture of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and some of his stats from the race. It's a pretty cool car and the first Raced-Win car in my collection.

The Die is Cast 4: Danica Patrick 2013 GoDaddy Cares All-Star Elite

I took the stock photo (stock photo of a stock car, ha!) from the Lionel Racing website because the camera on my cell phone is pretty crappy. I guess I could track (track, like a racetrack, ha!) down my iDevice and see if the camera on it would take a better picture, but my NASCAR posts don't get a lot of views anyway. It's like I am actually driving (driving cars, ha!) readers away every time I post something race-y. Maybe my terrible jokes are the real culprit here.

Anyway, Lionel usually has a few cars in the clearance part of their site, and they were offering free shipping on some of them. I went ahead and purchased this Danica Patrick car while it was listed in that deeply-discounted free-shipping part of the website.

When it arrived there was a big goobery mess on one of the fenders and some deep scratches in the paint. I felt a little bad complaining about a clearance item, but the folks on the other end of the e-mail and phone were quite helpful and got me a postage label to send the defective one back, and eventually a replacement was sent out. It arrived in good shape, and so I have to commend Lionel on their customer service, especially when compared with Topps, who won't even acknowledge my inquiries about the defective Bo Jackson card they sent me. The DIN (like a VIN for die-casts) registry tells me that this is car # 052 of 125 models made. I believe that this is my 6th Danica Patrick die-cast.

The Die is Cast 3: Danica Patrick 2013 Pink GoDaddy and 2011 Nationwide Tissot

I got a couple more Danica Patrick cars for my collection. This first one is the 2011 Nationwide Series Tissot #7 Elite car, numbered # 256 / 300. It was the cheapest Patrick Elite car on eBay at the time and featured a sponsor and color scheme I didn't already have.

edit: On 27 June 2015 my kids got into my collection and broke this car, so I don't have it anymore. Kids and collections don't mix!

edit 2: On 02 February 2017, I got the replacement for this car in the mail. It is # 249 / 300 in the production run. I'll try to keep this one away from the kids!

The other is the 2013 GoDaddy Pink #10 Elite car, which is numbered # 192 / 200. Lionel had some of the 2013 cars on sale with the pending 2014 releases on deck and I had a $20 credit on the site, so I got this one for a relative bargain. I like pink parallels in both cars and trading cards, so I was pretty happy to get this one.

There is still a Dale Earnhardt Jr. Pink car I want to get, as well as an Orange Amp Energy car, but I don't see myself adding piles of new cars to the collection in the near future. They sure are a fun collectible, though.

The Die is Cast 2: Patrick in Pink

I got a pretty sweet die-cast car in the mail the other day. It is the 2012 Danica Patrick Elite Pink car, numbered # 084 / 150. Yup, these cars have serial numbers. There is even a website that is kind of like a die-cast DMV where you can enter the serial number and get a 'title' for your cars and see what you have in a virtual garage. It's a pretty slick car. I really need to get a display case for my cars. My kids got into the hobby room the other day and popped one of the windows off of a Dale Earnhardt Jr. car I have, so my brand new car collection is already down one window. I am trying to source a spare window for it, but it is proving difficult. I really need to get our digital camera up and running again. These cell phone photos just aren't cutting it.

I am still not all the way versed on the world of die-cast cars. In the current market Lionel appears to have a monopoly on the NASCAR die-cast license, sort of like Topps with Major League Baseball. There are several tiers of cars in production Generally the lower tiers have fewer parts, more plastic, and are produced in larger numbers. Higher tiers will have more parts, more metal pieces, greater detail, and lower production runs. Not every driver will get a car in every tier. There are also a lot of cars with special paint jobs that don't necessarily match a car that was actually driven by the racer in question. Usually it is kind of like a Refractor, with one color on the car being replaced by a shiny metallic finish of some kind. There are also raced-version cars and race-win cars, which feature the car as it looked at the end of the race, with scrapes on the door, covered in confetti, and whatever else they can add to the model to make it look like it does in pictures taken at the end of the race. They might even include a relic of some kind, like a baggie of the confetti used at the race. 

Here are my other cars so far. This is a special Gunmetal finish car based on the 2012 Godaddy.com car, numbered # 045 / 349.

This is the blacked-out Stealth version of the same car. This one is numbered # 126 / 300. I like this Stealth finish a lot. There is also an Ice finish that is all white with shiny accents.

This next car is a Dale Earnhardt Jr. Amp Energy in the Gunmetal finish. Until I got the Pink Elite car mentioned at the top of this post, it was the most rare car I had. It is also the car that my kids popped the window off of. It is numbered # 141 / 188.

I had to get at least one Dale Jr. National Guard car, as the Guard has been my employer part-time from 2000-2008 with an 18-month deployment thrown in there, and full-time thereafter. This is the Color Chrome paint variation, which is shinier than the standard finish, and is numbered # 462 / 512.

This last car was on sale for $8.00, and appears to be from the lowest tier of cars. The details are rougher, the window net is a solid piece of plastic instead of a mesh that can be raised and lowered, and the trunk does not open. It is a Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dark Knight Rises car, and is numbered # 0138 / 1500.

I am still not sure what direction to take with this collection. These cars are a lot of fun, but to keep up with them all is a bit too much. I will have to choose a couple of variations each year and stick to one or two drivers. I think my main goal right now is to get set up with a display case so that I have somewhere I can see the cars, but where they will also be safe from the little people who live in my house.