Cleve’s Auction Night: This Isn’t Going To Stop Is It, Napkin? Part 1

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a reaction from the lovely wife regarding my trips to Cleve’s.  She mostly just takes a quick look at what I bring home, nods or snorts, depending on if she approves of the pickups or not and goes about her business.  So when I came home tonight with my usual armload she asked the question from the title -“This isn’t going to stop, is it Napkin?”  

It was more of a statement than question, and was posited more with acceptance than indignation.  She was pretty blown away with Cleve’s generosity with me the other day.  Plus, despite her teasing, I think she knows how much I enjoy this stuff.    But the question made me think a little, and what I realized kind of depressed me.  It IS going to stop someday.  Cleve won’t hold these auctions forever.  One of these days he’ll hang up his spikes and close shop.  I don’t think it will happen soon, but it will happen.   Apparently, well run shops with owners who care about the hobby like Cleve are apparently a rare breed.  That’s really a shame.   And selfishly, I dread that as when eTopps decided to pull the plug, another source of cards (and blog material) will be taken from me.  I can’t imagine anyone will take over the auctions when Cleve has had enough.  He’s too well connected and has too many sources across the country to be easily replaced.  

But, like I said, I don’t think it will stop anytime soon, so I’m going to enjoy the auctions while I can.   This week was really, really solid.  Here is part 1 of what I got:

  This 1960 Topps Whitey Ford is in fantastic shape.  I would bet it would get a very nice grade if I were to send it in, which I'm not. This is one of the few 1960 Topps cards I have, so it will make a great addition to my sampler album (which I've not yet started).  Great deal for $6 I think.

Speaking of sampler album, I bought this lot of 1972 Topps Cards for just that purpose.  For $3 I got this nice little assortment of stars, all of which are, like the Ford above, in great shape:

Finally, from the vintage side of my auction winnings, I got this lot of 1965 Topps embossed cards for $3.  I was mostly just curious about them, since I don't own any.  They will go in the Topps sampler album too. 

Vintage Grades:

1960 Topps Whitey Ford- $6   A:  A vintage card of a Hall of Famer that is in near mint condition.  Hard to beat that.

1972 Topps Lot $3  A:  Great looking cards, and all of well known players.

1965 Topps Embossed Lot  B+:  These aren't all in great shape, and not exactly star players, but they're still pretty cool looking, and only $.60 per card.

Kinsler Shiny Swatch

I've seen a few of these Diamond Parallel "Topps 60" relic cards online here and there, and finally was able to get one on the cheap of one of my favorite players.  It came in this weekend:

I didn't care that much about the Topps 60 set in 2011, but this card is pretty sweet!

Album Rotation Time- Warning: Tears Were Involved

So the Rangers didn’t get Prince Fielder after all.  I was all set to move Prince Fielder out of my semi-star box straight to the big time glamor-fest that is my Rangers album (that is getting too full and needs to move to a bigger binder). Perhaps Scott Boras doesn’t know what he deprived his client of.    Back to the semi-star box for Prince?  It's something I'll need to think about.  

Which brings me to why I asked you all here.  Every year during the off season, I go through a card rotation process.  I decide which players need to be "called up" (taken from the semi star boxes and placed in the current star album) and which stars need to be "sent down" (taken from the current star album and placed in the semi star box), and which star players need to go to the retired stars album.   This process is entirely based on my whims and arbitrary judgements, so don't try to argue with my choices.  

For the cards that get sent down, it’s a difficult conversation.  And even though I am becoming more grizzled and calloused every day, it’s still hard to tell my cards they are losing their spot in one of my albums.  This year, Alfonso Soriano cards were one of three to get their cards sent down to the semi-star boxes.  The heart wrenching conversation I had to have with them was pretty typical, so I thought I would share it.  The first thing I do is pull the still full pages out of the binder and spread them out on a table.  Before I start yanking the cards from the pages, I begin the conversation with a warm, yet sad smile.  I don't waste any time though:

Me:  Alfonso Soriano cards, I’ve got some bad news for you.  We’ve made a decision.  We’re sending you down to the semi-star box.

Alfonso Soriano Cards:  (Blank Stare)

Me:  You’ve meant a lot to this collection, and when you first came up with the Yankees we had high hopes for you.  And when you moved on to the Rangers, we really had a lot of fun together.  In fact, I remember the day we told you that you were getting your own pages.  Remember those days, Alfonso Soriano cards?  Remember?

Alfonso Soriano Cards:  (Blank Stare)

Me:  (Tears welling up) I don’t know what happened, but we just stopped being interested in looking at you.  You’ll still have a home in our semi-star boxes, and some of you will probably get placed in penny sleeves.  We just don't have the binder space to keep you around.  Your relic cards will stay in the relic binder, so don’t worry about that.   I hope you stay open to the possibility of getting sent off to another collector.  If that opportunity arises, we’ll make sure you are well taken care of and not go to someone like the Lost Collector who will just send you out for autographs.

Alfonso Soriano Cards:  (Blank Stare)

***********************************

See, I told you this was difficult.  If Soriano had made it to retirement while still in pages, he would be sitting pretty. Once a player makes it to the retired star album he stays there and never has to worry about the indignity of the semi star box.    Even Sammy Sosa.

Below is an overview of the movement this year:

Yes, Prince Fielder, you have moved into the star album.  Congratulations!  And to Curtis Granderson and David Price.  These are indeed the salad days for you my friends, so enjoy living the good life!

Lance Berkman, Johan Santana and Alfonso Soriano, I'm sorry this happened.  Well, I'm not sorry for you Lance Berkman and that smug look on your face and all the trouble you caused the Rangers this year.  You're lucky you didn't get shoved in the common boxes.

I'm not sure if Pudge and Vladdy are retiring or not, but they're close enough, so they go in the retired albums.

I would also like to give a stern warning to a few guys in the star album:  Carl Crawford and Mark Teixeira.  I honestly am not that interested in looking at you right now, but your overall body of work has made me give you the benefit of the doubt one more season.  Let's be a little more interesting in 2012, shall we?

.........Wow....

I don't have a good title on this post because nothing that I would have come up with would have been good enough.   I have been stunned by the generosity of a very good man.  A man you all know as Cleve.

I was in Cleve's today looking around at Tuesday's auction material.  The past couple of times I've been in his store, he told me he had a nice Josh Hamilton card he wanted to give me, but was having trouble finding it.  I thought that was really nice of him and had no idea what kind of card he had in mind.  Today he told me he had found the card and went to the back to get it.  I looked around and a bit later saw him bring out a card that looked incredibly thick.  It was a Josh Hamilton card alright, and when I saw it, I almost passed out.  It was thick because it was a book card.  From Triple Threads.  With Josh Hamilton's autograph.  And jersey relics.  And oh by the way, the other side of the book had Evan Longoria's autographs.  And jersey relics.  And the card is numbered to 9.

Look at this!

I told him I didn't know what to say, and I still don't.  This is just about the best card in my collection now, and it was a gift from someone who had no reason to be so generous with me.   I hope I can think of some way to return the favor to him some day in some way.

If you are reading this, thank you Cleve! You are a special individual, and I am grateful more than you will ever know.

The New Joy I Get From Baseball Cards

I’ve been collecting cards to some degree for over 20 years now, and through all the stages in my collecting history, I have found some level of joy and satisfaction in the hobby.   

When I was a slouched-over idiot teenager, one of my best friends and I collected together.  We made up games with the cards, traded and even created our own cards.   We were horribly, horribly repugnant dorks, but we had fun.  I still remember the excitement of buying something like a whole box of 1987 Topps,  the feel of the waxy wrappers, the smell of the powdery pink gum and the anticipation of pulling a Bo Jackson rookie, or a Darryl Strawberry card, who was my favorite player at the time.

During college and my 20s, I didn’t care that much for cards, mostly because I was broke but also because I thought that collecting cards in public might hurt my chances with the ladies.  I figured that was what kept me from getting anywhere with them in high school, and not my gangly body and utter lack of style or common sense.

I started timidly collecting again in my 30s, doing it stealthily through eTopps and buying some wax here and there.  Then, miraculously, I managed to snare the lovely wife.  Once I was convinced she was ok with me being a big dork and wouldn’t leave me, I jumped back into the hobby head first.  And I experienced fulfillment with it all over again.  I enjoy the chase of the cards still and the process of collecting, but mostly, I’ve become such a huge fan of baseball in general, the cards are a nice supplement to my enjoyment of the game, especially with what the Rangers have been doing over the past several years.  If the Rangers are ever bad again, which I don’t see happening in my lifetime, we’ll see how that changes. 

And of course starting up and running this blog has been immensely enjoyable and has been something I look forward to daily which is yet another part of the fulfillment I get from this hobby.

Lately I have developed a new sense of fulfillment from baseball cards, and it comes from seeing things like this around my house:

My two year old girl has latched onto sports cards.  I gave her a handful of miscellaneous cards, and now I find them in interesting places all around the house: in my shoes, in the bathroom, in the refrigerator, etc. But she seems to be able to ultimately keep up with them.

She has a little chair in the corner of our dining room, and sometimes I catch her sitting there mimicking how I sort through my cards.  She’ll look at a card, jabber something at it and then stack it on the floor.  Then she’ll take the next card and do the same.   When I'm scanning cards she'll come in the room and demand some for herself, so I have a stash of cards for her that is readily available

 I can give her some cards and penny sleeves and she will stay busy for hours.  She loves the process of sorting and storing, both her cards and her other toys.  I think she might really get into this hobby as she gets older.

My 5 year old boy has is a little more organized.  He has an album of football cards that he flips through now and again.  I say a "little" more organized because we can't find this album anywhere right now, which is too bad because I wanted to show the cover page he drew.  Oh well.  He’s pretty hit or miss on his interest in cards, and he prefers football cards over baseball cards for reasons known only to him.   He’s a brilliant, yet contrary little fart, so I don’t try to push anything on him.    Right now he’s really into Star Wars and it’s been a blast dragging out my old Star Wars toys and playing with him.  Anyway, he has his own album, and has sort of expressed interest in going to Cleve’s with me one of these nights.

I genuinely love my card collection, but I can tell you that the most pleasure I will ever get from it will be the day when I pass it on to one or both of my kids, whoever wants it.    Of course that will be the day the lovely wife will be the happiest with my collection too.

Napkin And Baseball Cards Sitting In A Tree…

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First comes love, 

Then Comes Marriage,

The Comes Napkin Pushing a baby carriage!

( I completed the Finest Futures insert sets from 2011 Bowman by the way…)

Spiegeling with the Stars

Spiegel from the awesome blog Nomo’s Sushi Platter has become to trading with me what Alec Baldwin is to hosting Saturday Night Live:  a frequent guest who never disappoints.

I just wrapped up my third (or was if fourth?) trade with Spiegel.  He posted his end of the deal on a cool video post on his blog here.    I love video posts.  I would love to do my own.  But alas, I dare not unveil the shroud of secrecy that must not speak it’s name for, I Napkin Doon, shall forsooth not seek ye… something… under a cloak of secrecy…  um…  perpitude, or something.

Sorry, lost my train of thought.    Anyway, I got a thick stack of superstars from Mr. Spiegel and I’m giddy about it:

The Fleer Ultra Kinsler is sharp.  I may have to look into building that set.  

Since he’s a Razorback, I’ll root for Cliff Lee no matter where he plays.  But it still hurts a little not seeing him in a Ranger uni.

 How about that Jeter Gallery card?  Very nice.

Fill those Halladay and Ichiro pages Spiegel, fill them full my man..

Spiegel, once again, you are an awesome trade partner!

Happy Vietnamese New Year!

Aside from being exquisitely beautiful and talented, the lovely wife is of Vietnamese descent (eat your heart out suckers).  We spent this weekend celebrating the Chinese Vietnamese New Year with her family.  It's always a nice time, and our kids will love it more and more as they get older.  One of the traditions that I'm sure they will be especially fond of is the handing out of Li Xi (lee see).  Li Xi are little red envelopes containing various amounts of cash and are meant to bring good luck.   I got a red envelop myself this weekend:

See if you can guess what I spent it on, less than 24 hours after getting it.  Yep, just like Play at the Plate, I'm Weak. 

In my defense, these value boxes were marked down 25%.   $11 for these value boxes is too much for me to pass up.  Each box contains 5 packs of 2011 Topps Traded, 1 pack of 2011 Bowman Chrome, 1 Bryce Harper card and 1 Diamond Giveaway code card (I got 4 total codes out of both boxes, but the site has been down a few days so I don't know what my codes will bring yet).  Do you want to see how the little red boxes bought with my little red envelope turned out?  Sure you do.  First,here are the two Bryce Harpers. 

Yes, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid on this guy, and I actually like these cards.
I guess my little red envelope did bring me some luck too:

I don't know much about Guyer, but this Bowman Chrome auto is numbered to #50, so I'm geeked out over it.
Other than that, I didn't get much to write home about in the 2 Bowman Chrome packs.  Here are the highlights from the Topps traded packs:

 Lot's of shiny, and the Ethier is #d to 60. 

I also got a few Kimball minis and another Hosmer to add to my PC of former Northwest Arkansas Naturals.

Aside from the Hosmer and the Silver Harper, everything is for trade! 

Ficociello a la Dimwit oooh la la Magnifico

Hey, you like-a the Dominic Ficociello? Is good eh?  He play-a for the... emmm how you say: Arkansas Razorbacks?

Ok, it's taking too long to write this post in Italian, so I'll just go back to my backwoods English.

So, Sam at the Daily Dimwit was giving Topps the what-fer about a month ago for a) terrible collation on some redemptions of Topps Chrome USA autographs (2 of 5 of the autos were of Razorback stud Ficociello), but worse b) mucking up the autographs of one of the Ficociellos, and worst of all c) refusing to do anything about it.   It's actually an unbelievably poor display of customer service, and the above links have to be read to be believed.

I'm a little embarrassed to look back on these posts regarding Sam's ordeal.  If you read the comments on the first post, you'll several offerings of concern and support from considerate folks... followed by yours truly asking if he could have the Ficociello card that wasn't screwed up.    What a guy I am.

Well, what a guy Sam is, because he was willing to send the Ficociello my way.  He liked a couple of Jeff Bagwell cards I had, including a really cool "game used dirt" card and we worked out a deal.  My cards arrived Friday, and the Ficociello is every bit as awesome as I thought it would be.  You never know on  prospects, but I think he's the real deal.  Of course I am a tad biased about my Razorbacks.  Even if he doesn't get to the Majors, I'll still have a great card of a great Razorback.

And I got a few bonus cards too.  You may be familiar with the gentleman on the bottom right.  Yes, that is former Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton.  I'm thrilled there is a card of him out there.  I know Arkansas is a small state, but Clinton was a pretty high profile governor and made a few appearances on late night shows like Letterman and Leno, so he has some national appeal.

Thanks for the trade Sam!  Hope you enjoy the dirt I sent you!

Just When I Thought I Was Out… Cynical Buddha Pulls Me Back In

I really like 2010 Topps Finest and 2010 Topps Turkey Red inserts.  I originally had them listed on my Master Checklist and had a modest portion of each set complete (about 25% each I guess).  I went through a “paring down” phase several months ago and started taking another look at my master checklist, which had bloated itself to nearly 100 sets at one point.  I decided to put my pursuit of many sets (including 2010 Turkey Red and Finest) on pause while I focused a little more on others.  I decided that I didn’t have enough headway on the aforementioned sets to continue building them and they dropped off my master checklist cover page, although I kept the actual checklists up for the future.

Mark from Collector's Crack, (and other blogs) stepped up and gave me some new momentum on both sets.  Not only are they back on my checklist radar, I have a new appreciation to just how nice these sets are.  They are a nice contrast in styles- modern, shiny, slick Finest goodness and classic, artistic Turkey Red goodness:

As awesome as these two lots were, they weren’t even the best part of the trade.  He also sent me these sweet Ranger cards:

The Young card is now one of the best cards I have of him.    I didn’t know it until I saw the card, but this Young is numbered #1 of 100.  I like to think that since this was the first one of this card, after it was printed, all of the printers and executives at Leaf stopped the press and held this card up to the lights with rubber gloves, rotated it around, sniffed it a few times and then as a group walked it over to the machine that wraps the cards and said goodbye.  That’s why it’s important to get  #1 of a serial numbered card.  It’s probably treated with the most care.

Like my trade with Crinkly Wrappers, I’m pretty sure Mark outdid on me the trade... maybe.   Mark was the recipient of the lot of stamp stuff I won at Cleve’s the other day.  I’m hoping it’s worth something, or at least there is something in there Mark can use.  It's probably a bunch of garbage, but I hope not.  I had already committed away the 1909 postcards I wrote about before he asked about them, but the rest was packed off to Mark in beautiful Alaska.  I also sent several assorted Brewers cards as well.  

Perhaps the best part of the trade was taking an opportunity to explore Mark’s blog(s) a little more closely.  You should really check out his work on this blog.  What a talent!  I have always been envious of people who can draw.  There is no shortage of them in the card blog world either apparently.  But Mark is extremely talented and has a really entertaining family of blogs.  

Thanks for the great first trade Mark!  I look forward to many more!

Conlon Collection Part 6: Wrapping Up A Fun Set

Unlike me, the writer of these cards didn’t seem to be losing steam as he neared the end of this entertaining set.  Below are the final 6 cards and the write ups.

I’ve made fun of this writer several times, but I have to admit the use of ( ) parentheses to describe how Honus Wagner’s legs looked was pretty clever.  I also thought it was interesting that the author noted the T206 card of Wagner as part of the write up and stated that the card was worth “above $20,000 today.”

I also love the photo of Hack Wilson, diving out of the way of a pitch.  I don’t know much about Wilson other than his 191 RBI record, but I thought the footnote about how his fondness for “the bubbly” had kept him out of the Hall of Fame for a period of time was interesting.    After a cursory search, I discovered that Wilson was elected by the Veteran’s committee in 1979, well after his death.   He did appear to be a heavy drinker (and fighter) by the accounts I read.

Checklist Chipaway: 2011 Bowman's Best Prospects

I love this set.  I managed to get the Harper in a blaster, so the rest were not too difficult to get cheaply.  These were the last two I needed.  No, I am not going to include the new additional cards that were tacked onto this set when Bowman Chrome came out.  I just wanted 1-25 and that was it.

Glad to get the Trout card.  I hate to admit, but he is a stud and will probably be a thorn in the Rangers side for years to come.   I was able to watch him play in person a few times when he came through AA and played against the Naturals here in NW Arkansas.

Taken to the Woodshed By Crinkly Wrappers

I recently sent Ted from the supreme blog Crinkly Wrappers a single card.  It was a nice eTopps T206 card of Christy Mathewson, and I kind of hated to part with it.  But he had a real T206 card of Mathewson, and wanted to display the cards side by side.  I thought that was a nifty idea, and I was glad to be able to send the eTopps version to someone who would really like it.

It was a nice card, but it was one card.    Ted said he would send me a lot of stuff in return.  He wasn't kidding.

Today I received my part of the trade.  It came in a box.  Holy schnikes, there was a lot of great stuff in that box:

To start, he sent me over 70, yes I said 70, Gypsy Queen base cards. 

Did I mention I sent him ONE card?

He told me he had a "bunch" of GQ cards, and I said I'd take whatever he thought was fair.  My base checklist went from 50% to 73% complete just like that.  That would have been more than enough for what I sent, and would have left me feeling guilty enough on its own.  But there was more in the box:

There were a couple of awesome Nelson Cruz numbered cards.  That Marquee Cruz may be my favorite card of 2011.  My scanner frustrates the hell out of me.  Sorry about the weird scan.

And a Finest Alexi Ogando, and a Marquee Ian Kinsler with Ichiro trying to hog the spotlight.  Again, sorry for the weird scan.  Again, I just sent him one card.

And he sent a bunch of 2011 Topps parallels.  Did I mention I only sent him one card?

And finally, a handful of 2010 finest base sets, a couple of Turkey reds and some Attax Rangers.  Actually, he also sent a couple of A&G code cards and two other Rangers cards that I wanted to scan but when I went to our bedroom to scan them, I saw that the lovely wife (who is sick) was already asleep.  I didn't have the heart to crank up the scanner again and risk waking her up.  But the code cards are very nice, I assure you.  Speaking of the lovely wife, she was being nosy and checking out my box of cards from Ted.  When I assured her I wasn't spending money and that this was a trade, she looked at the amount of stuff I got for one card and said, "What the hell did you send him?" 

Not nearly enough lovely wife, not nearly enough.  Ted, thank you so much for the awesome trade.  I won't be able to get over my guilty conscious for this lopsided trade until I even it out at least a little.  Be on the lookout for another package.  You didn't get confused and think I sent you the original T206 Mathewson did you?