Thursday, November 7, 2024

Trade Me Anything XVIII Has Arrived!

Eighteen?!?!?!  That's right, Trade Me Anything is old enough buy smokes and porno mags.  I guess I often use this space to give a yearly life update.  Simply put, things suck.  I'll skip any talk of Tuesday in favor of more immediate hardship.  First of all, my family has been down to a single vehicle since May.  Back then, we bought (well, ordered) a new car, the first of my lifetime.  Everything was in place for a brand new Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid.  But about a week after picking out our package, Toyota put a stop production order on all Grand Highlanders because of an airbag flaw.  Production reportedly got back underway in later October, but we still don't have a car.  Luckily, I walk to work every day.  Unluckily, our secondary vehicle had to go into much heavier use than we wanted, and the long-in-the-tooth Murano is suffering for it.  A few weeks ago we broke down driving between Milwaukee and Madison for a soccer tournament.  The other team families were super helpful in getting us where we needed to be that weekend, but it ended up costing us over two grand in the end.
 
Speaking of expensive shit, what's the deal with Topps Update this year?  Last year I went the jumbo box route, but 2024 Update jumbos were going for over $300.  So what, I can actually complete a set worth $40 from a single box?  Nah.  I just bought a hobby box this year, but that gets you barely half of the base set.  You used to be able to complete the set from a hobby box.  Why is everything always getting worse?  Today's bags of Doritos are only slightly larger than those 1990s 99-cent Big Grab bags, and now you don't even get a Star Wars lenticular!  This country isn't going straight to hell, because we're already there.

In any case, I have a huge base card want list for this set.  They even had the nerve to slip me a bunch of base card doubles, an absolute travesty.  

So as to end on a positive note before I copy and paste the standard TMA instructions, I'll share that my children and I are very close to obtaining dual citizenship in Luxembourg, but that's another story for another day.

Here we go.
1. Check out the list of available cards below. Select one (or a few) you want. Just remember, the more you claim, the better your trade material should be.

2. Send me an email with your choice of card(s) at bill13boehm@yahoo.com 
Please don't leave a request comment on the blog. This just confuses people, so don't do it, it will just be deleted and will not count.

3. I will reply to you as to the card's availability. First come, first serve. I will include my mailing address.

4. When I confirm the card of your choice, pick out one or more of your own cards or anything else you want to send me. A few guidelines about what you can't send: Nothing that should really be in the garbage, nothing perishable, and nothing illegal. (Notice I didn't say nothing immoral.) I've got a want list you can check out, too!

5. Send me whatever is was you picked out. Don't tell me what it is before you send it, I'd like to have it be a surprise! Include a SASE or you won't be getting your card.

6. When I receive your item, I will take a picture of the trade materials and post the happy couple on my blog, and then I will send you the card. Here are the cards you may choose from. Cards that have officially been claimed are in BOLD

Base Cards
5 Mitchell Parker - Nationals
28 Mitch Spence - A's
44 Combos Adley Rutschman / Craig Kimbrel - Orioles
49 Jared Jones - Pirates
58 Evan Carter - Rangers
90 Adam Duvall - Braves
97 Jackson Holliday - Orioles - gcrl
124 Jon Berti - Yankees
129 Tanner Banks - White Sox
131 Zack Gelof - A's
134 Cade Smith - Guardians
156 Jack Leiter - Rangers
163 Combos Clayton Andrews / Josh Maciejewski - Yankees
186 Landen Roupp - Giants
220 Max Schuemann - A's
227 Combos Mason McCoy / Chandler Seagle - Padres
310 Oliver Dunn - Brewers

All-Star Game
5 Gunnar Henderson - Orioles - gcrl
12 Ketel Marte - Diamondbacks - gcrl
19 Corbin Burnes - Orioles - gcrl
21 Garrett Crochet - White Sox - gcrl
23 Mason Miller - A's - gcrl
36 Rafael Devers - Red Sox
37 Josh Naylor - Guardians - gcrl

Rainbow Foil
194 Jurickson Profar - Padres - Morgan
251 Tony Kemp - Reds

Gold (#/2024)
54 Trevor Rogers - Marlins
156 Jack Leiter - Rangers
 
All Class
6 Willie Mays - Giants

Autumn Tales
26 Albert Pujols - Cardinals
35 Stephen Strasburg - Nationals - Zpop

Mystical
9 Juan Soto - Yankees - Morgan
19 Jung Hoo Lee - Giants

1989 Topps 35th Anniversary
2 Ozzie Albies - Braves - gcrl
21 Connor Phillips - Reds
30 Mickey Mantle - Yankees - gcrl

1989 Topps 35th Anniversary Refractors
16 Darell Hernaiz - A's
50 Ketel Marte - Diamondbacks - Morgan
60 Pedro Martinez - Red Sox - Zpop
65 Jordan Beck - Rockies

***Please note, I will be going out of town for much of the weekend, so I will probably not be responding to requests made on Friday or Saturday until Sunday.  Of course I will be responding to email in the order they are received.

Alright, make your claim and go find some anything!

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Packs That Just Showed Up #5

It's time for another one of these packs, and next on the pile is a pack of 2015 Topps Update Series.  Like my pants after Thanksgiving dinner, it's a good thing this pack is already open to accommodate some extra girth.  You'll see what this means soon enough.

No, I didn't mix up my photo files, these are 2018 Topps Update Series cards emerging from the 2015 pack.  At some point in the past several years, these cards made it into the 2015 wrapper, along with the actual 2015 cards.  It's a cozy fit in there, but they're making it work.  No cards are complaining about anyone hogging the armrest.
US161 Seranthony Dominguez, US117 Kyle Martin, US96 Tyler Clippard, US52 Justin Anderson / Michael Hermosillo
Four horizontal cards to start things off, kind of weird.
PO-18 Mariano Rivera Postseason Preeminence 
It's an educated guess as to the name of this insert, it's really hard to read with the player blending into the text, especially with the pinstripes.
#S-5 Bo Jackson Legendary All-Stars
Bo Jackson just always looks awesome in a Royals uniform.
US64 Mookie Betts, US63 Corey Dickerson, US146 Blake Treinen, US276 Hector Santiago
The Santiago is a stealth Feces Smear parallel (unnumbered).

Now we get to the cards that were actually in the 2015 wrapper.
US340 Fernando Salas, US25 Byron Buxton, US54 Max Muncy / Tyler Ladendorf, US227 Mike Trout Checklist
Since I already have this complete set, maybe I'll put the Buxton and Muncy cards on eBay as a nice little rookie lot.
WW-10 Jim Palmer Whatever Works
I don't remember this insert set, but it's an interesting one, basically a compilation of superstitions held by various players.  Jim Palmer ate pancakes during every Orioles victory in the 1966 World Series, so he kept doing it throughout his career.
US16 John Axford, US346 Brandon Crawford, US66 Neftali Feliz, US211 Tommy Milone, US69 Zach McAllister

Twenty cards, three inserts, and a ton of fun, pretty good stuff for a DIY fat pack.

Saturday, July 13, 2024

The $1.99 Goodwill Grab Bag

The other day I was out thrifting and I hit up one of the Goodwill stores in town.  In addition to finding some all-timer hip-hop CDs that never show up at thrift stores (Biggie, Gravediggaz, Brand Nubian), there were several bagged stacks of cards hanging on a rack near the checkout.  The usual suspects were there, none of which were worthy of coming home with me, but there was one bag that had me intrigued.
Initially it was the 1970 Topps Scratch Off that caught my eye, and the reduced price sticker ($1.99, a buck less than usual) was what drove it home.  Let's see if there was anything interesting inside.

First, the Jim Spencer Scratch Off.  Really rough shape, but the presence of the black residue suggests that this was once part of a bigger pile of these, and there might be more inside.
 
That's a big nope.  No more were to be found, and the game had been played to its maximum.

Next up, a pair of 1982 Fleer.  I actually have a list going for this set, but I didn't need either of these guys.

There were exactly four 1982 Topps cards in the bag, two of Ed Romero and two of Randy Lerch.  Some home cooking, I see.  They'll go into the Brewers box next June, where there are likely a few more just like them.
 
We saw Joe Niekro from outside the bag, and there were a bunch more 1981 Topps.  I already have the whole set, and there's nothing special here, but I do like the ink smear on the Sees-toh Brewers card.

For the rest of the package we stay in the early '80s with a pile of 1982 Donruss.  Got some top-tier Diamond Kings, a few more than once.
The only problem with these is a flaw with the upper left corner on the back of most of them.  Probably the result of some improper storage techniques over the last 40-plus years.

Here are the rest of the base cards from the same set.
Not many standouts here, either.  This foursome is probably the best of the bunch.  Gene Tenace is included for absolutely killing it during the 1972 World Series, and Jerry Augustine makes the cut because not only was he a Brewer, he was also the head coach of the UW-Milwaukee baseball team in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  He even got the team into the NCAA tournament, which doesn't happen often in this northern climate.

It was a good grab bag of cards whose status could improve depending on how things shake out once I get the Donruss sorted.  I'm just glad I didn't get Bipped.

But I came pretty damn close.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Packs That Just Showed Up #4

We're digging deep into the category labeled "Stuff I Wouldn't Buy."  My rule of thumb for logo-less sports cards is, if it didn't get cut off a box of Fruit Roll-Ups or from the frozen innards of a package of regionally branded chimichangas, I don't want it.  Or, at the very least, I won't seek it out.  Panini baseball cards, as they are currently sold, just aren't for me.  Let's see what was inside this ten-year-old pack of 2014 Panini Donruss baseball cards.  

195 Johnny Bench
Not a bad start, seeing as the chest protector and backwards helmet obscure the missing stuff.

132 Giancarlo Stanton
The backs mimic the basic blue design of 1986 or 1988 Donruss.

175 Jay Bruce
Bruce retired shortly after the start of the 2021 season, which he started with the New York Yankees.  File that one away for the Immaculate Grid.

70 Troy Tulowitzki
Tulo retired in the the middle of the 2019 season, also with the New York Yankees.

72 Elvis Andrus
Elvis is not currently with any MLB team, but has not yet retired.

40 Tim Beckham Rated Rookie
It's interesting to note that at the back end of the aughts, two players with the same last name were selected as top 10 draft picks.  Tim here was #1 overall in 2008, and in that same draft the White Sox chose Gordon Beckham.  Collectors were left to wonder which Beckham would break through as an eventual superstar.  The answer, sadly, was neither.  That's the way it usually goes.

153 Domonic Brown
Six-year career with the Phillies, All-Star in 2013.

138 Victor Martinez
After Bench, probably the best player in the pack.  Named an American League All-Star five times.

As stated this product is not my cup of tea, but I will file these cards away in a box marked, for the time being, "2013-Present."  Such is the state of my collection of "recent" cards.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Packs That Just Showed Up #3

Let's keep the Topps Heritage posts coming, shall we?  This next pack that somehow showed up at my house is a retail pack of 2016 Topps Heritage High Number Baseball.  This set features stars from seven years ago in the 1967 design.
 
The wrapper depicts a baseball player for a nondescript team getting tripped up by the controversial "mashed potato hazard," a short-lived attempt to slow runners on the basepaths during a portion of the 1966 season.  A literal and figurative "hot potato," the obstacle was abandoned after a two-week test run that August.  The baseball world never got to see the reputed follow-up, gravy foul lines.

Let's see who we get.
623 Denard Span
536 Ryan Madson
596 Adam Warren
661 Geovany Soto
RP-JU Julio Urias Rookie Performers

You know what, I had this card scanned and ready, but I'm going to leave it out of this post.  This blog has no space available for men who abuse women.  Insert or not, I'm moving on.

Actually, let's go back a step and recognize the good works of Denard Span, who started the Denard Span Foundation, which aims to "serve and empower single-parent homes."  Bravo to you, good sir.

523 Logan Verrett
655 Matt Reynolds
558 Mike Napoli
654 Brad Ziegler
As far as I know, no domestic abuse pleas from any of this quartet.
And while we're at it, let's give a shout out to Brad Ziegler, who is apparently a pretty serious card collector.  One of us! 

Not an amazing pack, but still a nice look back a few years.

Saturday, June 29, 2024

Completion! - A Familiar Face

This is a post that's a long time coming.  Shortly after completing my 1959 Topps set, I received the final card needed to finish the modern set using the same design, the 2008 Topps Heritage High Number set.  The card that completed the set was #686 Gavin Floyd of the Chicago White Sox, a card that was short printed.

Let's take a tour of some of the highlights of this set.
Unlike it's 1959 design-sake, the Rookie Stars subset checklist was amazingly robust, featuring rookie cards of Max Scherzer...
Evan Longoria...
...and Clayton Kershaw.
(Editor's Note: Death Stare Cards normally eschew graded and slabbed cards, but when the time came to acquire this Kershaw, this BCCG version was actually selling for less than any raw versions we could find.)

My Milwaukee Brewers are looking good in this team photo.  Good job by the photographer to keep everyone especially well lit while the sun was rising behind them.

Onto the inserts.  There are more Then & Now cards, continuing from the original series.
Some more Then & Now cards, and the first half of the Rookie Performers inserts.  Again, a distinctly strong checklist with these rookies.  That Kershaw is very nice.
More Rookie Performers.
The last two rookies and some of the 2008 Flashbacks.  Griffey, Pujols, Ichiro, all legends.

And to finish things off, I also completed the partial parallel of black backs.  These are actually very easy to find, and key cards usually cost less as a black back than the regular green ink back.  I think I finished these off before I was a parent, and I'm slated to have a teenager in the house later this summer.  So it goes.
The Kershaw black back parallel.  This one actually came out of one of my boxes 15+ years ago, didn't have to hunt it down.

Is this the end of the story?  Maybe not.  I do have a pretty tall stack of chrome parallels from this set and the regular Heritage set.  That impossible-to-find Jerry Hairston is throwing me off the scent, though.  (Look it up, it's a dark corner of Topps Heritage history.)
As for now, I'm happy with this set in its binder with the requisite box cover header.  One of my most enjoyable periods of collecting is, for the most part, done.

Saturday, May 4, 2024

Completion! - 1959 Topps

I teased this several weeks ago on whatever I'm using as my current social media account, but then life came at me fast.  Before we get any further here, can we all just agree that the spring kind of sucks?  Yes, baseball gets underway, but for those of us from certain walks of life, February through May can be a real slog.  I race across town three nights a week for soccer practice, which eats up my whole evening.  Kids at school are going crazy because of district policies that have basically turned elementary schools into middle schools (in terms of behavior) over the past two decades.  And there have been a bunch of weekends when I've been out of town the whole time.  First Communions, water parks, Illinois soccer tournaments that don't even use linespeople to help officiate the games (WTF?!?!), it all got busy.  Most of it was fun, but the time to post just didn't exist.
 
But here we are now, time to unveil the final card I acquired to complete my 1959 Topps baseball card set.
#217 Carl Erskine

Back when you start a set like this, you never really know who the last guy is that you'll need.  To be honest, back when you start a set like this, you don't even know you're starting.  I'm not even really sure how long it took me.  I just know that I was at a card show in the late aughts, and there was a guy selling cards from the 1950s for 50 cents each.  Condition wasn't great, but I scooped up a bunch that looked cool.  What also helped was the 2008 Heritage set being released.  We're quickly coming up on a year when the Heritage design will come from a year during which I was alive, but at the time 1959 might as well have been 1776 or 1215.
 
For a while, my tiny collection of '59s just sat in a stack, not doing much of anything or bothering anybody.  At some point, I started going after the big boys in the set.  Getting the Mickey Mantle #10 in pretty decent condition at a fair price was probably what started to make things feel possible.
 
Yeah, I keep them in a binder.  Sue me.  Report me to the slab police.  I just prefer to put cards in albums instead of toting them around in a gun safe.  They're documents form the past, but they're not the U.S. Constitution.  They need to be accessible.  Cards tell the story of baseball, so a book seems like the best place for them.

Speaking of slabs, I have one card that isn't in the binder.  Back when I bought the Bog Gibson RC, I wanted to make sure I was getting the real deal.  The price on this PSA 4 is probably double now what I paid for it.  Glad I got most of the big ones pre-pandemic.  He would look really nice next to the Killebrew, though.

For the rest of this post, I'll just share photos of a few key cards/pages.  You'll see that condition varies from card to card, but I tried to get nice clean copies of all of the stars.
 
First page, starting with #1 Commissioner Ford Frick.

Hank Aaron, with Don Drysdale in the corner.

Fence Busters, Aaron and Mathews

Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks.

Both Robinsons on one page, what a great coincidence.

All those beautiful Baseball Thrills.

Mays, right in the center of things.

Campanella: Symbol of Courage, and the start of the All-Stars.

And finally, the page you show to people to make their eyes bug out.  It's one Holy Hell of a completed page, to be sure.

And now that I'm at the end of this post, I'm realizing that I've left out Sandy Koufax at least*, and there are probably a bunch more.  Oh well.  It was great fun building the set for the last 15-ish years, and now all that's left is to decide which one to try next.  Thanks for reading!

*Oh JEEZ, Roberto Clemente, too!  On two different cards!