Trade With The Dime Box Master

Nick from the prolific blog “Dime Boxes- the Low End Baseball Card Collector’s Journey” will heretofore have his blog referred to as the “Dime Box Master” for short on this post.  Or I guess I could just say "Nick's Blog" for shorter.  Or "Nick's" for shortest.

Anyway, I completed my first trade with him recently, and was able to help knock out some of his Heritage needs.  I was certainly happy with what he sent in return.  The best card wasn’t even one that I was expecting.  I was expecting this Nelson Cruz sticker:

Poor Nelson Cruz.  He will have that misplay of what should have been the final out in the World Series follow him the rest of his career.   If life were fair, people would also remember the walk off grand slam he hit against the Tigers in the LCS.  But life isn’t fair I guess.  I’m still a fan though, and I still remember the LCS grand slam, and my guess is that he will be just fine this year.

Nick also sent a nice group of other players I collect.

 

But the best part was this:

A 1984 Fleer Darryl Strawberry rookie.  I would ask if he found this in a dime box, but I probably don't want to know the answer.  About 20 years ago, I would have gone to great lengths to get this card.  I still love it, and as an unexpected add-in to the trade, it’s an incredible bonus!  That would have been worth the trade on its own.  Very excited about this, and I’m very appreciative of the Dime Box Master.    Keep up the great work on your blog Nick. 

But, I still can’t believe you passed on that 1971 rookie Concepcion for a dime.  That pains me every time I think about it.

Falling In Like With Adrian Beltre

Yes, "like" not "love".  Let's not get carried away.

But I am in "love" with this Tribute card I got this week.

I really had no opinion on Adrian Beltre before he joined the Rangers.  I thought he was a good player, and found it interesting that he didn't like people touching his head.  The lovely wife is the same way, so I don't find that all that odd.

Then the Rangers signed him last year and I was able to watch him play every day.  I've come to realize and appreciate not only how good he is, but how hard he plays every day.  His defense is downright sultry and his hitting is superb, and he by all accounts is a respected leader in the clubhouse.  One of the Rangers said the other day that ," Adrian doesn't come out every game to play, he comes out every day to beat the other team."    

Alright, alright... it's "love."

Opening Day....

was yesterday! And the day before yesterday!  And a week ago!  But, you know me, I like to go against the grain and rebel against society, so I'm posting my obligatory opening day post today.  You know, when the topic is no longer relevant.

From a sports perspective, yesterday was a mixed bag for me.  On the positive side, the Rangers looked strong, getting a solid win against the White Sox with very good starting pitching, filthy relief pitching and a few timely hits, including a home run from Ian Kinsler. 

 Speaking of the Rangers- I got these Tribute cards this week.

Things are not so rosy in Razorback-land though.  The Diamond Hogs lost their 4th straight game and are officially in a slump.  I don't even want to get into the Bobby Petrino mess, other than to say I don't see how the U of A doesn't fire him.  They really have no choice.  Again, I don't want to get into it because it aggravates me too much and it's no fun to write about.

But back to baseball and opening day.  Here is a look into the Napkin Doon crystal ball:

NL East:  Braves
NL Central: Cardinals
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL WCards: Marlins and Giants

Oh, and here are some other Tribute cards I got along with the Rangers above.  They are lovely.

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Tigers
AL West:  I decline to pick this division.  Not because I'm superstitious, but because I feel that my making a prediction will have a direct impact on how the season plays out.  

AL WCards:  Rays and a respectful decline to answer on the 2nd team since they may or may not come out of the AL West.

World Series:  Marlins vs. an AL Team from the Western Division who shall remain nameless but have been to the World Series a lot lately.

Trade With Pirates Treasure Room

A while back, Brian from the beautiful looking blog Pirates Treasure Room offered up a 2012 Topps SP of Eric Hosmer that I thought would be cool to have, so I claimed it.  I sent him a package of Pirates and he sent me a round-up of Rangers.  I was more than thrilled with my end of the deal.  First, the Hosmer card that started it all:

Here is the standard Hosmer 2012 card, next to the "Gatorade Bath" SP variation.  I've never been lucky enough to hit one of these SPs, so I'm glad to finally get one.  Brian sent a lot more than that though:

All three of these Kinslers would have been enough to trade for on their own.  They all came as part of the trade!  The blue tribute card is very, very shiny.

There were a whole bunch of other Rangers too.  I picked a few of my favorites to show. 

Thanks for the trade Brian, I appreciate it!

Value Boxes Called Me Back

I mentioned last week that Value Boxes were back in stores, and while I liked them ok, I was likely not going to buy anymore.  That vow didn't last long.  Here is what I got in the second value box I bought.

This Griffey chrome card was by far the coolest thing in the box.  I only got one code card, and once again, I just came away with a stupid virtual coin.

The two Heritage hobby packs gave me a couple of cards I liked, but nothing huge.

Same for the 5 Topps flagship packs.

Everything is for trade, but that Griffey will be hard to part with even though I'm sure I could pick it up cheap off eBay.

Card Show Finds Part 2

Yesterday, I covered the cheap vintage stuff I picked up at the local card show this past weekend.  Today I'll quickly cover the modern stuff.

 I got this Larry Walker card for $.50.  It has a little patch of "netting" in it that I thought was pretty cool.  It reminded me of an incredible Tony Gwynn card I got in a trade from "This Card Is Cool.." a while back.

 As great as dime boxes are, nickel boxes are fun too, especially when you find cool cards like these from the Fleer "Greats of the Game" set.  I got about 12, but I should have just grabbed them all (there were about 30) at $.05 each.

These tri-fold T205 cards were $.05 each as well, so I grabbed what I could.  This is about the time my daughter spotted the car rides and started getting jittery.

I managed to shuffle through the boxes a little longer and found a few misc things I didn't need but liked:

The 3D slugger and Eddie Mathews Chrome card were $.25 each and the tiny Cracker Jack and Reggie Jackson mini were dime box finds.

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!