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.

2012 Goals

I come to you from the past, as this post was written last year on Dec 31, 2011.  2011 was a helter skelter year for me in terms of my card collection which naturally translated to a helter skelter year for my blog, which is really just a way of documenting my collection. 

It was my second full year back into the card hobby itself.   I threw a very wide net over all the cards I had collected previously and decided that I would finish practically every single set I had ever started.  I created a master checklist (I previously called it The Super Duper Checklist but realized that sounds really stupid) which at one point was over 100 sets.  I discovered sportlots.com and picked cards off that site on what seemed like a daily basis.  I also discovered Cleve’s auctions and was buying anything and everything I could get my hands on with no rhyme or reason. 

Several months ago, I started to get a little self control.  I’ve whittled down my checklist to 30 sets, and was able skip some auctions here and there.  I expect my purchases to further settle down in 2012, and be much more focused.  I expect to limit my chases to a few sets.  I surely will jump on Gypsy Queen and Topps Flagship, but I passed on A&G this year and didn’t miss it at all, so I can probably get by with skipping it again in 2012, unless George Will makes the set.  I probably will not chase Bowman 2012 either, even though 2011 Bowman was berry, berry good to me.    I am more interested in Heritage in 2012 than I was in 2011, but I still will likely be pretty subdued with it.  I hope the lovely wife is reading this and is impressed with my incredible selflessness and control.  Actually, I hope she doesn’t read it so that I can pretend I never wrote this when I start getting card fever when baseball season starts.

Here are some goals for 2012:

• Knock Master Checklist down to 20 sets.  I’m at 30 right now and there are a few sets I can knock out with only a handful of cards.  Again, I expect to add some 2012 sets, so I really need to knock off some of the low hanging fruit soon.
• Add 15 more cards to my 2009 Topps Sterling set.  I had a lot of momentum on this set early in the year but have hit the wall over the past few months.  The cards I need are getting hard to find, and when I do find them, they are expensive.   I need 27 more cards to finish this set, and if I can average just over 1 card a month and get most of that knocked out, I will be happy.  I don’t mind taking two more years to finish this one.
• Get one of the “Big Cards” for my SPX 2003 Winning Materials Set.  I only need 7 more cards for this set, but two of those are Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams.  They will not be cheap.  I’ll get one in 2012 and one in 2013.
• Finish 2011 Gypsy Queen Master set before 2012 GQ comes out.  The green paper parallels may be difficult to finish, but the others will be pretty easy.  I’m not collecting the relics or mini’s so I guess it’s not really a master set, but who cares.
• Hold at least 2 Big Fun Games.  Folks seemed to like these, so I will make every effort to have a few more in 2012.
• Build a Topps Sampler album.  Have one 9 pocket page for every Topps base set from 1951 to 2012.  As the pages become complete, I will over the course of time replace common cards with better known players.
• Attend the Futures Game during All Star Weekend in Kansas City with the lovely wife and kids.  Every time I see this event on TV, there are tons of empty seats.  I would hope that means tickets are readily available.  All Star Weekend in KC should provide plenty of blog fodder.
• Maintain organization of cards.  I’ve done pretty well getting everything corralled, it’s just a matter of keeping up.  I should probably thin out some of the bulk wax I don’t need any more.
• Set up a Trade Bait page with images of “good cards” I have available, and checklists of base/common cards available.

Other than maybe touching up the design of my blog, and holding some Big Fun Games, I don’t really have many blog specific goals.   I will try to be better about rushing out posts.  I hate when I hammer out a post and then re-read it a few hours later and notice a gaffe. 

I guess I would also like to have another tournament similar to what I did with hot dogs. 

I’d also like to take a moment to thank all of you for helping make this blogging journey so much fun.  It has been even more fulfilling than I expected it to be.  I wish you all a wonderful 2012, with the Razorbacks back in a BCS game and the Rangers finding a way to get that last strike in the World Series!