2017 Allen and Ginter & 2016 Heritage High Number Blaster Breaks

I still haven't even seen a spot where Bowman Platinum was supposed to be and I have looked at 3 Walmarts, 2 Meijers and 2 Targets. I really don't like the set but I would love to take advantage of the Judge freaks out there spending 1000X the price his cards will be two years from now. Anyway, I did find a clearance priced 2016 Heritage high number and a 2017 Allen and Ginter retail blaster box while grocery shopping today. I should have stayed in the frozen vegetable aisle as I did not get a numbered card of any kind in either box. No relics, no autos, but worse yet; no token chrome numbered heritage card. Here are the barely highlights:

Some decent Rookies from the Heritage. The Nat's card is cool too.

I am a big McCullers fan so that card will stay with me. The others will end up in trade piles. As for the Allen and Ginter:

An actual PC guy whoohoo! These two were in the same pack!

Cool throwback guys.

Couple good rooks.

Miggy

Benintendi card

I didn't know the rediscover topps were included in 'Ginter.

ATTENTION: I am collecting these fish cards from this years set so if anybody has any they don't need/want let me know!

Lastly, I have a quote from Oscar at All Trade Bait, All The Time: "Don't worry about how long it takes to put something together. I live too much by clocks in real life, so I try not to apply them in our hobby" This guy is a card guru. That really made a big impression on me. He's right, and it may be that I am a stay at home dad now after years of grinding so I need to have deadlines but Oscar is right. He may not have tried to be inspiring by just dropping a line in an email but damn it if that isn't hobby poetry. I need to relax and take a minute to enjoy collecting and trading.

Fire Sales and Trades PLUS; My new-ish PC: Mark Fidrych

NEW TO THE PC WORLD

I don't expect anyone to notice such things as subtle changes to my blog. Especially after the reality check of doing a contest with two contestants. But, a little while back my top intro changed to include "PC: Mark Fidrych." I won't go into who he was or what he meant to fans, you either already know or can have the magic of discovering this great, recently passed man for yourself. Instead, I will just say; I am now trying to collect every Fidrych card made. One copy of each that is, I'm no Tim Wallach Collector. Now, when I was a kid I liked to think I was collecting every card of Cecil Fielder, Jose Canseco, and Nolan Ryan. Sadly, as I returned to collecting I found guys who don't even play let alone breathe anymore still have dozens of cards introduced constantly. So, recently I have had no interest in trying to complete a player collection just collecting cards I like of players I enjoy. That's when I stumbled into a few vintage Fidrych cards and looked at his checklist. Its not too bad. If I am going to collect someone thoroughly I should choose someone who doesn't have the attention a Ryan or Canseco get every year. So, with that typed; I am attempting to hoard Mark Fidrych cards. I have a good start that I may post sometime soon. For now, here is my favorite picture of any athlete ever taken:

Here is my most recent Bird pickup:

Dirty scanner + scratched top loader shot.

I can't stop looking at the so called "Fire Sales" posted in facebook groups. I have purchased a few cards through them when the price is right. It was definitely right on this card at $12. I tried getting an older Fidrych auto card a while back at a card show but the guy wouldn't budge on $50. I'll have to settle on this for now and someday I'll find a certified auto on a vintage card.

New Pick Ups

This poorly scanned Prince Fielder relic card is 1/3. Needless to say I would love to have the other two and maybe someday I will find them. I snagged this card in a trade with a dude on facebook that started with his interest in a basketball card. I gave up a ton of Tiger cards and good ones at that but this card is my greatest Prince card. It looks better in person.

This Diamond Anniversary Andy Dirks RC caught my eye in an instagram post. There were about 25 cards in the picture from some newby to the online trading world looking for trade partners. I bit and sent him some Dodgers for this gem.

Another bad scan. The card is sweet.

This is another card from the same "Fire Sale" as the Fidrych. I am a huge Richie Sexson fan and have always wanted an auto of his. The price was right again.

This may be the buy of the century for me on singles: $1.50 to my door. Why not add a relic card of one of the greatest players of all time for that price?!

Sorting City

Thank goodness for this back saving bar for sorting.

I have to make due with random shoe and amazon boxes until I strike it rich and can afford card holding boxes for each team.

I am very blessed to have an amazing wife who not only puts up with my cardboard affliction but lets me use our big basement to spread them out to bask in them. I have been doing a ton of sorting down to teams and am looking for new trades whenever.

Contest results and a TTM return. Plus, BLOGGING KARMA: The good side of the blogging culture.

Contest

So I haven't posted this week so that my contest question post would be on top of my site hoping more people would get into the conversation. I only had 2 commenters on my contest which is disappointing but I loved hearing their takes on the question. It partially accomplished what I had hoped in that the comments I got changed my ideas of the topic. I thought I would have a smaller collection but I would probably have a bigger one. They were great answers and both dudes will be getting great prize packages from me for participating. I really appreciate The Lost Collector and All Trade Bait, All The Time taking the time to comment. I had hoped the contest would add another aspect to the blog other than just a display of the cards I gather like some actual discussion or open conversations but it was just the first pitch. I get two more failures before I'm out right? The two guys that commented produce two of my favorite blogs that I visit every night in case they have updated. Definitely check them out.

Blogging Karma

So next order of business is a PWE I received from P-Town Tom from the blog Eamus Catuli! There's another tab to open on your browser and add to your favorites. Tom generously sent me some cards as a thank you. He picked up this Sparky Anderson ⍐ card from his LCS. Sparky, as I explained to Tom, is like the Godfather of Tigers baseball around here. This card goes directly into my most cherished lock and key box of treasures. Thanks again Tom!
He wasn't done there either, he tossed in this sweet Miggy ⍗ and Kinsler ⍗ cards I didn't have!

There is a culture that has been made with some of these good guy bloggers. Guys do trades and buy cards from each other but there is a bit of a brotherhood feeling to a lot of these dudes that have PWE's full of goodies keeping mailmen around the country busy because a guy pulled a card that he knows will make someone else's day. Its a pretty cool community that has been built here based on what goes around comes around as sending gifts one way can give you good blog karma and meaningful little plain white envelopes like this one.

I smiled like Ian here when I opened this PWE!

TTM Return: Bronson Arroyo

FRONT

BACK

Next, I received a return from Bronson Arroyo ↑. I had sent him an Allen and Ginter card during Spring Training and got this back last week. I don't know if he usually sends these out and keeps the cards sent to him or if there was a mix up but I always say; its better to receive something rather than nothing. I love watching the Arroyo leg kick when he's on the mound.

So for my TTM year here are my stats:

110 Sent out 95% during ST
10 Returned signed
2 Were donations so almost automatic
3 Rejections
1 RTS

I still can't believe I haven't hit 10% success for my year. That is a lot of wasted stamps. Close to 50 of them were within the Tigers organization and if you look at the Detroit Tigers Foundation page on their website they now say they are "updating soon" the list of fees for signatures. I am guessing 48 of my TTM requests will be returned to me with donation request forms.

 

 

 

 

Catching Up

Its pretty obvious I need to clean my scanner. This dog hairy JaCoby Jones ↑ was the last of my purchases of him for a bit. I have invested a bit and am awaiting some kind of return. I also won a facebook contest for the all star game which I think I mentioned in an earlier post. I am still receiving packages for winning that. I am 3 packages short of what I was supposed to receive so I hope they all come but they are prizes. I can't be too mad that free stuff hasn't been sent to me yet. I just don't like the idea of guys posting prizes and getting the recognition as good Admins for a group and not actually following through. Here are some of the cards I have been given from that so far:

Card Collecting CONTEST Question #1: What if...

Why not have a contest, eh? I often think about the state of the hobby and a ton of "what ifs" pop into my mind. I wonder what everyone else thinks. If this catches on I may start to blow your mind often with goofy questions like this one...

 

 What if the internet was invented 10 years sooner? 

Here is a little brain teaser to help you daydream about cards for a while (as if we don't already). What if the internet was around in the late 80's to early 90's? Now I know it was "invented" in 1983 and progressed from there. I mean how it is today; everywhere. What would your collection look like if ebay debuted in 1984? Would you be a millionaire from hot wax pulls? What would the hobby itself even look like? Now, before this looks too much like a 10th grade history class essay question, here are some of my thoughts without getting too far into this.

I don't think I would have a Cecil Fielder, Jose Canseco, and Nolan Ryan collection like I do today. I would have been too young to afford cards of those guys. On the other hand, I could have traded world wide and not just with my brother. I am assuming card companies would have progressed faster and more serial numbered, relic, and auto cards would exist so all those players would have relics and autos that I wouldn't have been able to afford. I also assume card companies would have exploited the collector with ridiculous 1/1 cards and digital daily cards way sooner. You almost have to look into the current future because everything would have advanced 10 years. What will collecting look like in 10 years? But that is a whole 'nother question for another time.

CONTEST

Think about the question and give me a few thoughts in the comments. I'll send the best one something cool. Contest ends 07/23/2017 at 12pm EST. Check back after this time to see if you won. Winner please click my contact info and email me your favorite player/team and address if I don't already have your email address. Good Luck.

Images stolen from Google search because, well, the internet let me do it.

2017 Stadium Club

I was able to sneak to the LCS while "getting groceries" to see what was new. The counters were all taken up with people cracking into 2017 Stadium Club boxes. I didn't see anything too great come out of them except one fat kid pulled a chrome Omar Vizquel, called it junk, and then refused to trade/sell it to me. I would have offered him a box of twinkies but he didn't want to barter. Anyway, I bought one pack of Stadium Club to be like the cool kids. $8.00!  I saw someone else post about paying 6 or 7 and thought it was kind of funny. I got taken, that's what I get. Anywho, I did pull the one card I wanted most out of the set:

Still waiting for this guy to explode.

 Here are the other two cards worth mentioning from the set:

Sickest RC ever!

I keep trading Sanchez but he probably has a better chance of being HOF than Judge being a catcher and Judge having such little time played for how old he is.

 I can't wait to get my hands on some 5X7's of this set! Also, I have been to numerous stores countless times and have yet to see ANY Bowman Platinum or Stadium Club other than at the LCS. I am awaiting a few trade packages and a bunch of packages of Tigers stuff I won in Homerun Derby and All Star Game contests on Facebook.

Card Collecting Confusion: 2016 Topps Update Blaster Box

I have talked to a lot of collectors like me who were baseball card crazy in the 80's and 90's and lost interest a little after that. Whether we found girls or other hobbies to invest out time or that baseball hit a lull that didn't interest us, many of us have found our way back to our cardboard addictions. For me, I have come back with training wheels on. When I was a serious (as serious as a 12 year old can be) collector back in the 90's I understood the hobby. In those pre-internet to pre-ebay days the Beckett was your bible and everything was black and white so it seemed. Today's cards are beautiful but annoyingly complex. Collectors in my opinion are taken advantage of by card companies with an noncollectable amount of variations. Rookie cards used to be when a guy put in enough time in the bigs, now Bowman cards throw high school kids on cards just to have the first card out of mostly never big league players. Anyway, that is way more bitching than I like to post. Check out The Lost Collector for a much better description of how us returning collectors feel.

I say all this because recently I grabbed a blaster box of 2016 Topps Update. It was marked 25% off so I bit. I was confused by a lot of the cards. Here are some pulls:

These Seager cards are of great confusion to me. One is a RC, one is not? They are from the same box, the same pack actually. What's the deal? How many Seager cards are even in this set and why?

Now Mazara who looks to be a great up and comer for Texas. Why two cards that celebrate the same thing?

Why do some RC's contain two players? So Seager gets a handful of RC variations and Dae-Ho Lee gets 1/2?

Couldn't they find a Berrios picture of him doing something else? Why make two cards almost the same and just turn one?

I thought these inserts looked sweet!

Another insert set.

A nice Gold Numbered RC

The Fire inserts are awesome but too common.

A lot of the photos rival Stadium Club.

Rainbow foil or refractor or something like that.

Awesome photo of Trumbo.

Heavy-ass medallion card.

Strange Franklin advertising card.