Card Show Finds Part 1

I've mentioned the puny card show that is held in NW Arkansas monthly before.  Sometimes I find some good stuff, most times I don't.  The show is either Fayetteville or Rogers (about 30 miles apart) and the shows in Fayetteville are usually better, but the show in Rogers is closer to my home.  The show this weekend was in Rogers.  Here is the show in all of its glory:

This poor little mall is not exactly a happening place. You can't see it but I took this picture standing in a little kids area with 4 of those $.50 car rides that go up and down for about 2 minutes.  I had my two year old daughter with me.  Guess where we spent most of our time that Saturday morning?

To be fair, she was pretty patient while I looked over some of the tables.  The lovely wife was smart enough to send some fruit snacks with me and that kept her content while a browsed.  And, I'm happy to say that I found a few goodies.

First, some cheap vintage for my sampler album:

 All of these came out of $.10, $.20 and $.50 boxes.  Actually, only the 1975 Killebrew and Madlock were $.50 the rest were $.10 and $.20, so I was pretty pleased with this haul.

Here are a few other dime box finds I was proud of:

 That's not a mistake.  The Gil Hodges 1967 Card was in a dime box.  There is a little smudge on the top corner, but otherwise the card is in great shape.  I think I might be able to scrape off the smudge too.

And finally, I found this in a dollar box, but the seller gave me half off without asking and I got this 1959 Larry Doby for $.50:

Overall, I spent about $7 total, which ain't too shabby.  I spent almost that much on my daughter's kiddie rides.   I'll show the modern cards I got tomorrow.

A Long Time Ago...

A very nice fellow, Jeff,  from the fantastic, witty, and  well written blog Cardboard Catastrophes sent my little boy a package out of the blue.  As much as I enjoy getting yellow mailers for myself, it was pretty fun seeing a package addressed to "Doon Son" and seeing my little boy get excited when he found out is was for him and got past the confusion of seeing "Doon Son" on the mailer. 

Inside was a generous helping of vintage Star Wars cards that completely delighted my boy:

 The Tusken Raider card is his favorite (mine too).

I actually am embarrassed that I'm just now posting about it since Jeff sent it a few months ago.  This was a totally unexpected and terrific surprise from him, and further evidence of the type of person he is.  Thanks Jeff!

It's Time For A Change

I've done a lot of soul searching since the Ranger's heartbreaking loss in the World Series last fall.  For months I've lived with the agony of that defeat and I just can't seem to get over it.  One thing that keeps re-opening the wound is the hobby that I've loved for so long now.  It seems like every pack I open is a reminder of that horrible loss last October. 

It's taken me a while to come to the conclusion that I just can't collect baseball cards any more, and I sure can't blog about baseball cards anymore.  I still need an outlet for my collecting/hoarding tendencies though, so I've been seeking a worthy substitute.  The other day I had my two year old with me on the card aisle and together, we found something that will now be my collecting focus:

Yes, Yo Gabba Gabba cards are my collecting focus and now will be the center of my blogging point of view!

Yo Gabba Gabba (from here on referred to as YGG cards) are available at Walmart as rack packs for $4.98.  I will need to look into this further and see if Hobby Boxes are also available.  We brought our first rack pack this weekend and opened it up.  We were both thrilled to see our favorite character, Brobee, leading off the pack.  "There he is!" my daughter squealed when his card appeared.  I'm more of a fan of Plex the robot, but Brobee is pretty dope too.  This is going to be an incredibly fun ride, and I'm glad to be done with baseball cards.  In fact, I already loaded up my truck with my entire baseball card collection and made a much appreciated donation to the local Goodwill.

Of course, I would like to add:  "April Fool's" to this post.  You should have seen the looks on your faces!  I really had you going.  Suckers.

I did buy one of these ridiculous rack packs for my daughter, and she seemed to enjoy opening it, and she really was thrilled to see Brobee, of whom she has a stuffed... animal? or whatever the hell he is.

I'm actually a little concerned about Brobee.  As I was scanning these cards, I took a few minutes to actually pay attention to the content.  Check this card out:

Is it just me, or is Brobee imagining a monkey taking a dump in the grass and stating it's his favorite color?  It looks like the monkey had some stomach problems too based on what he left in the grass.

Yes, Brobee, I knew the color you were thinking of was brown.  Your choice of objects to relay this statement was a little odd though.
Speaking of odd, how about this sad sack of a character:

This guy doesn't look well at all.  I also noticed that he is not apart of any of the group pics from the rest of the pack (see the above scan).  I wonder why:

Poor Gooble.  The card explains, "He is always crying for some reason or another..." and asks, "Why do you think he's so sad?"  I think I know.

He hasn't got over the World Series yet either.

Topps Value Packs Are Back In Stores

I had some good luck with “value packs” last year, so I was  happy to see them make a return for 2012.   This year’s value pack is basically the same as the first value pack that came out last year:  5 packs of Topps Flagship, 2 Hobby Packs of Heritage, a code card and a special chrome card (either Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. or Mickey Mantle).  I saw some today at my local Walmart and couldn’t help myself, even though I’m not especially interested in building either set.    He are the highlights:

 I love this Hamilton card, and I'm glad to get the gold sparkle parallel.

 Nothing too interesting.  The Golden Moments set is sort of interesting to me.

Here was the Chrome card- Willie Mays

Other than these two cards, my Heritage packs didn't provide squat.  The Vogelsong is the Chrome parallel.

So, nothing earth shattering.  I got 2 total code cards which yielded 2 ridiculous coins.  I’m really due for a big hit in wax.  I’m also due for a Die-Cut card from the code redemption program.  I am 0-9 so far this year, with only a bunch of fictional worthless coins to show for my efforts.

Everything is for trade except the Hamilton Gold parallel.

Cleve’s Auction Night: Changing My Mind By The Minute

I have alternately gone back and forth tonight on my opinion of how I fared at Cleve's just a few hours ago.  I initially left the auction feeling a little let down, mostly due to what I didn't get. 

There were a couple of cards on the docket tonight that I really wanted, but I was soundly beaten on both of them.  One was a magnificent 1959 Roberto Clemente.  It was clean, perfectly centered and had sharp  corners.  I hoped I might be able to get it for $25, but it went for around $40 something.  The other was a 1933 Goudey of some fella I don't remember.  But it was a 1933 Goudey, and it too was in great shape.  It went for north of $40 also, and was out of my range.   I can live with missing the Goudey, since I didn't know anything about the player and one of these days I'll get one at a price I can live with.

That Clemente is going to haunt me for a while though.  It was absolutely gorgeous, and at a minimum I could have flipped it for a nice profit if I had a case of buyer's remorse. 

However, no one wants to hear me whine about what I didn't get.  Let's get to what I brought home.

After I win an item,  I quickly have a gut instinct as to if it was a good purchase or not.  Yes, it would make sense to think that if my immediate reaction was that it was a bad purchase, I should not have made it in the first place, only moments beforehand.  That's the power of impulse purchasing, and that is why I keep telling myself I need to have a detailed strategy going into each auction.   That said, after some reflection,  I think my gut instinct was wrong on almost every purchase I made tonight.  I'll explain purchase by purchase:

We were about halfway through the auction, and I didn't have anything to show for the evening.  This pair of former Razorback Joe Johnson cards came up for $3 and before I realized what I was doing, I bid on them.  I immediately was ticked at myself.  Yes, I wanted some nice Joe Johnson's for my Razorback binder, but honestly,  I couldn't even see the cards from where I was sitting and hadn't scouted these cards beforehand.  They could have been anything and my dumb ass just heard "Razorback rookie" and stuck my hand in the air.  Thankfully, these are pretty sweet cards.  The Avant-Guard is numbered to #500 and the Topps Chrome is nice looking too.  So despite my immediate despondency,  I'm good with this purchase.

I had about the same Pavlovian response to hearing "Jeter Rookie" as I did "Razorback Rookie" and paid $2 for this 1993 Jeter card.   Again, I immediately was ticked at myself since this is probably one of the more boring Jeter rookies.  But it's still a legitimate Jeter Rookie and I'm not going to get this for less than $2 anywhere probably.  So again, I'm fine with my purchase.

Ok, I was excited about this then, and am excited about it now.  I got this 1983 Topps Tony Gwynn Rookie for $4.  I'll take that every time I can get it.

I don't know how to feel about this one.  I got this 1973 Hank Aaron for $5.  Normally, I would be ecstatic about adding a Hank Aaron to my collection for $5.  It should be the card of the night.  But take a look at the right side, about 3/4 of the way down.  The card has a nice size split in the side, about a quarter of an inch long.   You know what?  Who cares?  This is going to be a great addition to my sampler album, and I would have spent that $5 on a lousy rack pack of 2012 Topps anyway.  I'll just put my thumb over the cut when I look at the card and pretend it's not there.

I think this was the best value purchase of the night though.  I got this pair of great looking 1959s for $3, and one of them is Whitey Herzog.  The Herzog is in great shape.  As a point of reference, the Clemente I spoke about earlier was in every bit as good a shape as this.  Man, I'm still bummed I didn't get it!







Grades:


Joe Johnson Rookies $3  B+:  Nice cards of the former Razorback


Derek Jeter 1993 UD $2  B+:  Solid pickup of the Yankee great

1983 Topps Gwynn Rookie $4  A-:  I will make this purchase any and every chance I get, no matter how many I accumulate.

1973 Hank Aaron $5  B:  This should be an A+ but for that blasted cut on the side of the card. 

1959 Topps Lot $3  A:  The Herzog alone was worth $3 and this pair will go nicely in my sampler album.



1959 Clemente Miss:  F:  I wish I had that to do over again.  Big time fail on my part.

Checklist Chipaway: 2001 Topps HD Image Mark McGwire

I have had a lot of trouble getting this card, at least for a price I'm comfortable with.  The last couple that I've watched on eBay have sold for double digits and I just couldn't bring myself to pay that much for it.  This one slipped through the cracks and I got it for about $5 shipped.  I now only need A-Rod and Griffey to complete this set, and my HD Master set will be that much closer to completion. 

Ranger Tribute Parallels

I wrote about some base 2012 Topps Tribute cards I picked up the other day.  I liked them so much I wanted to get a few more.  I got these two from the same seller, so with the discounted shipping, the overall cost was just a few bucks per card.  I like them, but not considerably better than the base (although the black is pretty sharp):

Starting Lineup Saturdays: Devaluation Works In My Favor

Every once in a while, Cleve will have Starting Lineups come through his auctions.  I’m not really interested in expanding my SLU collection, but if I see something cheap, I’ll probably try to get it.  Case in point, several months ago, I got this Pete Rose SLU from one of his auctions for $2 on a write in bid.  I didn’t expect to get it.  It was the only thing I got for that particular auction, and since it wasn’t a baseball card, I never wrote a “Cleve” post about it.  

When these figures first came out, I would have had to pay $5 or $6 bucks for this, or much more on the secondary market.   Pete Rose doesn’t do anything for me, but I never got around to getting this one in 1988, so I went ahead and bid on it.  

Cleve's Auction Night: I Have Something You Don't Have..

Once again, work travel blocked me from attending Cleve's auction this past Tuesday.  Once again, I placed several write in bids.  Unlike the last auction, I managed to win a few things this time.  One of wins was something I was shocked to get with a low write in bid considering it's age, uniqueness and what I presume to be scarcity.

Here are the spoils:

First was this 1970 Topps "Supers" Bob Gibson.  I don't know a whole lot about this set.  I've seen plenty of the 1964 Topps Giant Cards around, but hadn't ever heard of the 1970 "Supers Set."  I like this quite a lot though, and may pick a few more since they seem to be pretty affordable.

I put in a $2 bid on this 1978 Topps Dave Concepcion and that was enough to win.  I have no real interest in this other than the fact that I don't have any cards graded by SCG.    The slabs from SCG are very nice, and makes this ho hum card look and feel more expensive. Plus the grade is a 96 which is near perfect.

Finally, I previously had posted about a 1950 Callahan I bought online.  Last week at Cleve's one of the auction items was an original box that had contained a complete set.  I thought it was very interesting, and with my recent discovery of the Callahan cards, I wanted this empty box if I could get it cheap.  I put in a bid for $4 and that was all it took:

I only see a couple of these on eBay right now, and they are selling for way more than $4.  I'm not sure if I want to unfold the box and make it flat for storage in a binder, or leave it as a 3D box (it's not glued and breaks down and re-boxes very easily).  Either way, this an awesome addition to my collection!

Grades:

Bob Gibson Topps Supers:  $3 B+:  It has a crease in the bottom, but it's still a nifty card of a HOF pitcher.

SCG 1978 Dave Concepcion  $2  B+:  A nice card of a multiple All Star that I picked up with couch change.

1950 Callahan Box $4 A+:   A great, historical oddball item that I may not see available again.  Big win for me!

This Post Cost Me $.98

Having something to blog about was the only reason I bought this pack of 2012 Stickers.  I haven't yet seen any posts about the 2012 stickers yet, so I thought I would do my good deed of the day and show anyone who was curious what they looked like.

When I first saw the package I was pretty excited thinking there was a new mini set out from Topps I was unaware of, similar to the mini sets back in the late 80's.  But it turned out to be stickers.  I didn't see any albums, but I assume these are available now too.  Here were my 8 cards:

 I like the mascot stickers, and Josh Hamiltons are always welcome.  I'll give these to my kids, and see what interesting things they wind up stuck to here in a few days.

2012 Topps Tribute

Topps Tribute is a set that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention in the blogging community.  I'm sure many out there are like me and just can't bring themselves to gamble on a getting a big hit at such a high cost.  For sets like this (see Topps Sterling 2009) I'm actually a bigger fan of the base cards than the hits or parallels anyway.  So I'll save my money and pick up a few of my favorite player's base cards, which can be had at a tremendous value when you consider the up front cost of busting a box.  Here is a handful I received this week:

Let me break out the obligatory "scans don't do these cards justice" refrain.  Scans don't do these cards justice.  They are very bright and shiny and remind me a lot of the wonderful Flair sets in the late 90s. Yes they also remind me of the Topps Tribute sets from the past two years as well.  I won't be chasing this set, but these are very pretty cards and would look great as a complete set in pages.

T206 Tuesdays: T as in Terrifying

It’s been a long time since I’ve bought a vintage T206 card.  I have about a half dozen now.    I’m pretty selective in which ones I chase because I like to have T206 cards that have a story behind them.  The last card I bought was of Lena Blackburne.   His contribution to the game is felt in every single pitch thrown in every single Major League Baseball game.  

The other day I was reading my Bill James baseball abstract, looking for potential T206 subjects, and came across a mention of Larry McLean.   McLean was noted in the abstract because he was the largest player in the 1910's at 6'5" 289 lbs.  He also had a bad disposition when he'd been drinking.  Further research revealed that he was shot and killed in a bar by a bartender acting in self defense as McLean climbed the bar and attacked him. 

 Out of curiosity, I searched eBay for T206 cards of Mclean.   I found one with a reasonable price and went after and won it.  It came in the mail last week:

 McLean beckons you closer...

Other than the dot on the front, this card is in magnificent shape.  Of the few T206 cards I own, this is by far the best condition of any.  

However, as nice a card as it is, this picture, along with the story of McLean scares and intimidates me a little.  I wonder what this guy was like when he was alive.  And there is something strangely familiar with this picture.  What does it remind me of?  Oh yeah, this:

I will show this card off proudly during the day, but at night it’s getting tucked safely away.  Where it can’t get me. 

This card is definitely a great steak.

Topps Heritage Opens Old Wounds

Like many of you, I have tested out Topps Heritage recently.    Unlike many of you, I burst into tears when I opened one of the packs in the blaster I bought.

I totally forgot that Heritage runs these World Series cards.  What a painful reminder of that horrible turn of events.  Sure, this is a card of game two, which the Rangers won, but all I can remember about that World Series is the disastrous game 6.   In fact, when I first saw this card, I thought it was referring to Feliz coming in with the lead in game 6 and blowing it.  Now THAT would have been mean.  

From a marketing standpoint, wouldn’t it have made more sense to feature the ALCS instead of the World Series?  Isn't the ALCS a bigger deal than the World Series?  I know it was in 2011 anyway.  Wouldn't we all have enjoyed that?  Or maybe a great Rangers Moments from 2011 set?  Topps really blew it on this one.

It kind of ruined the whole box for me, and I have no interest in building this set.  But here are some other cards I got in my blaster.  Nothing really great:

 The Adam Jones is a Chrome refractor which is fine I guess, and the McCutchen mini sticker is ok.  

What a downer.  I guess I’m not over last season yet.  At least the new season is almost upon us and a new opportunity will arise.  I think the Rangers have a realistic shot of going 162-0 this year, barring any bad luck.  Let’s say 152-10 just to be safe.

If anyone is building Heritage, I’ve got some for trade.  Other than the Cliff Lee and Ian Kinsler cards, everything is available.  Especially the cruel World Series card.

NW Arkansas Naturals Fan Fest

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals held their first ever “Fan Fest” a few weeks ago, and I had been looking forward to it for weeks.  As has been the case in many places of the country, we’ve had unseasonably warm temperatures over the past several weeks.  It was expected to keep up that weekend, and a nice warm day at the ballpark, even in March was enough to get my baseball fever thermometer percolating.    The Fan Fest activities included a bouncy house for the kids, tours of the facility, including the luxury boxes, press box, dugout and clubhouse, free hot dogs and discounts on merchandise.    Please, allow me to show you some nice pictures.  Click here.

Yeah, I have to send you to Crinkly Wrappers for an overview of a Minor League Fan Fest, because my day at the park went down the crapper about the minute we arrived.

To begin, the temperature dropped considerably that Saturday, and the wind picked up.  Cool temperatures and wind are not a good combination on an open air, shaded concourse like at the Naturals beautiful park.    It’s great in July.  It sucks in March.  So the 6 year old and the 2 year old were not comfortable from the get go, and even though she didn’t complain, I’m sure the lovely wife was not thrilled with the weather either. 

Undeterred, I thought  I would let the kids get in the bouncy house and let them jump around and warm up.  Unfortunately, already in the bouncy house ahead of them was a wild pack of older animal-children that were completely out of control.  The 2 year old watched them thrash around and wanted no part of joining them, and although the 6 year old made a game effort to get in there, it was not a lot of fun for him and he got out pretty quickly.

So we decided to take the tour.  This was what I was most looking forward to anyway.  We saw David Glass’s luxury suite that was being remodeled and had no furniture or carpet and was basically an empty room overlooking the ballpark.  I didn’t really see a point in taking a picture, and the children immediately started getting bored.

Then we went to the press box.  I have to say, this was pretty inspiring to me.  Is there any chance they would let a blogger come and write about the game from the press box?  How awesome would that be?  I’m going to look into it and see if I can get up there for a game sometime this year. 

I guess the kids didn’t share my enthusiasm for this part of the tour, because they went from bored to downright miserable.    The 2 year old wanted to grab anything that was remotely in her reach, and the 6 year old decided this was a good time to start scaling Mt. Daddy.    That's why I don't have pictures.  As aggravated as I was getting, they weren’t  being bad, they were just being kids.  Kids with ants in their pants.  Kids who couldn’t possibly be interested in luxury suites or press boxes.    As much as I wanted to see the locker room and the dugout, I didn’t want to deal with what I knew would  soon escalate into whining and complaining.     So our tour ended abruptly and we headed home.   Maybe next year.

Check Out My Stanky Pie!

I sniped a couple of nice vintage cards off eBay really cheaply while I was traveling last week.  They were waiting on me when I got home.

This is my second Eddie Stanky card.  It was only few of bucks, and I really like these old Bowmans.    $2.25 shipped for a 1950 card of a pretty well known player/manager?  Sa-weeet.

This is my first 1950 Callahan card.  Pie Traynor was a HOFer so this was another  great pick up for only $3.25 shipped.  I like these Callahan cards.  They are small sized cards, and the illustrations are done with some kind of “dot” process, and are not standard sketches.   You can see the craft of the card better in the scan. 

 

You can also read the back better in the scan.  For a small card, that type is microscopic.  Either that or I'm getting old.