Checklist Chipaway: SPX Winning Materials

Quick post to show a lot of 4 2003 SPX Winning Materials cards I received this week.  Got all of them of eBay for pretty good prices.  I am now only 7 cards away from completion. 

Black Friday Haul From COMC Thanks To CCC

Lest anyone say we are all just a bunch of goobers showing each other our baseball cards, ponies, chippy notes from Hall of Famers,  and mustaches, I'm grateful to say that because I read other blogs, I was alerted to the Black Friday sale at Checkoutmycards.com on, well, Black Friday.  Cheap Card Collecting was diligently posting the Black Friday deals as they went live, and because of this, I was able to get some good stuff at at good prices.  I love Checkoutmycards.com, but shipping can add up quickly since there is a $.25 per card processing fee.  On Black Friday, they ran a special for $4.95 for the first 20 cards shipped, plus $.11 each additional card.  It still was kind of expensive shipping, but if you found a card that was already heavily discounted, the shipping wasn't such a big deal.
I jumped on and was able to chip away at several sets, and picked up a few cards outside my master checklist.  Of course I grabbed some Gypsy Queen:

I was very pleased to get the Ruth Home Run Heroes, and am now only 2 cards shy of knocking out this insert set.  I was even more please to get the last 2 Future Stars I needed, completing that set.

I am also now only 3 away from finishing the Bowman's Best prospect set. One of those 3 is NOT Bryce Harper, so it won't be too difficult to finish.

As for older-ish sets on my list, I edged a little closer to finishing my 2002 Stadium Club Master set.  "Capture the Action" is now complete, and the lovely "Diamond Pearls" set is 65% done.

I also dinged my 2005 Topps Gallery Artist Proof set and Topps HD master set with a couple of onesies.
Finally, I picked up a couple of single cards of sets I'm not building, but really liked:

This Bob Feller Sterling card was only $1 so I jumped.  I much prefer 2009 Sterling over this 2010 design, but it's nice nonetheless.

 I hadn't yet seen any of the 2011 Topps Tribute in real life yet, so I grabbed this Tony Gwynn priced under $1.  These are super nice cards.  I may have to get a few more.

Finally, this Topps T205  Honus Wagner was under $1 too, and it is a beautiful card in hand. It's glossy and shiny and thick.  I'll definitely try to get more from this set.

All in all, I was very happy with my Black Friday purchase, and again thanks to CCC for the good work on the alerts!

Checklist Chipaway: EX Century & GQ

Picked up 3 more EX Centurys this week off sportlots.com.

I am so close, it makes me want to puke.  I just need 2 more:  Corie Koskie and Gabe Kapler.  Surely I'll be able to find those cheap somewhere.

I also knocked off a few more Gypsy Queen inserts, again, courtesy of sportlots.com. 

Speaking of puking, I spent all Sunday doing just that as a result of food poisoning.  I know, it's hard to imagine that something like that could happen to poor little Nappy, especially with my sophisticated eating habits.  But it did happen, and it put me behind a couple of days.  If you are waiting on me for an answer to a trade post, please forgive me.  I think all of my mail has finally gone out, with Cardboard Catastrophes deserving a special apology for my tardiness.  Your cards are on the way, and I'm sorry for the delay!

Gypsy Queen Life Vest- Courtesy "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog

My assault on Gypsy Queen continues.  This week, I received some much appreciated help from Ryan at "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog, who not only sent some nice GQ, but some other sets I'm working on as well.  Ryan has a beautiful blog, and I kind of want to be an Orioles fan whenever I read his posts.  Here are the GQ:

 I'm most excited about the Green Framed Paper cards.  I think this will wind up being my favorite set from 2011.  The set is only 100 cards large, so getting 4 of these guys is a big help.  He also sent a couple of Bowman's Best Prospects, which takes me to 68% done on that nice insert set.

Speaking of Bowman, Ryan sent several base and prospect cards that are getting me that much closer to completion on those sets as well:  76% complete on prospects and 93% complete on base.  I didn't scan the base, but he sent a lot.  A LOT.  He even added some 2010 base as well (interestingly, I am also 93% complete on the 2010 base also.)

Finally, he added 10 Kimball Champions, which takes me to 57% on that set, not including the 50 cards from Topps Update, which I suppose I need to add if I want to truly complete that set. 

Thank you to Ryan for a great trade, and I look forward to many more!

Gypsy Queen Life Vest- Courtesy The Daily Dimwit

I have been stoked about the responses I've received so far from my "Help Wanted" post for Gypsy Queen.  I've had a few trades and my checklists are shrinking quickly.  The first batch of cards came in from Sam at the bigtime blog, The Daily Dimwit, who was very generous on his side of the deal.  He sent about 20 base cards that I needed.  Being the genius that I am, I neglected to immediately scan them, and instead put them in a box with my other GQ base cards.   I am not 100% sure that what I am showing are what he sent.  I think they are, because I'm pretty sure I remember getting excited about seeing Jackie Robinson in there.  Nonetheless, he sent me about 20 cards, and put a nice dent in my base checklist.  I think these are some of they:

Thanks Sam, and I can't wait to ogle more non sports cards from your new blog sponsor.

I need a sponsor.  I'll shill for anyone.  You hear me out there?  Anyone! 

Checklist Chipaway- Topps HD Clear Relics

I am trying to complete a master set of Topps HD from the 2 years it was issued (2000-2001), and recently was able to snag a couple of these relics at good prices.  It’s too bad the checklist for this insert set isn’t better (Vernon Wells is the best card in the set), because these are some ridiculously nice looking cards. You can't tell by the scan, but they are made of clear plastic.  There are only 8 cards in the set, so I am now 25% there.

I also reached another “milestone” on my master checklist this week.  I am now down to 40sets.  And according to my Napkin Doon2.0 Sanity Rules, 40 sets is now my ceiling.  If I had left my list at 41, I would have had room to maneuver, with 50 sets being the ceiling.   But I decided to cut out a couple of sets that did not have an adequate “cost/enjoyment” ratio.   

Checklist Chipaway: Gypsy Queen Inserts

I recently wrote about my desire to quickly build a Gypsy Queen set.  I took a good step toward this goal this week with the arrival of a chunk of GQ inserts:

 Future Stars- 4 Cards- Checklist now at 75% with 5 cards to go.

 Home Run Heroes- 4 Cards- Checklist now at 68% with 8 cards to go.

Great Ones-2 Cards- Checklist now at 50% with 15 cards to go.

Checklist Chipaway: 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects

Last week I was perhaps a bit rash in my grade from one of the purchases I made from Cleve's weekly auction:

"Bowman Chrome Lot $4: C-  Sure, it will likely fill some holes in my 2010 chrome set, but I had already dropped that set from my Super Duper Checklist."

I guess I should have looked through the Bowman Chrome lot a little closer, because it contained about 85 cards of the 110 card checklist, and took my completion of this set from a paltry 60% to about 90% in one quick shot.  Between this lot and what I already had, I only needed 9 more cards.  I re-activated the set on the Super Duper Checklist and grabbed almost all of what I lacked off sportlots.com.  They came in the mail today:

I now only need card #84-Yowill Espinal to put this puppy to bed.   I'm sure I'll pick it up on my next sportlots.com visit.  I have a lot left over if anyone else is building this set and needs fillers.

I hereby give myself a solid A- for some shrewd auctioning and displaying tremendous subconscious brain power that led me to snatch up these cards at auction.

Help Wanted- Gypsy Queen

Now that my Master Checklist has been revamped to actually show the cards I need (duh), I would like to start a periodic feature where I focus with laser- like intensity on a particular set I want to wrap up.  I thought wanted to wait a year and let Gypsy Queen settle before I knocked out the cards I still need, but I changed my mind, as I am apt to do.

So, under the Master Checklist Progress tab at the top is a link to my updated checklist, which has a page that shows the base and insert cards of Gypsy Queen I am seeking.  I am not going to bother going after the stamps, relics, minis or autos.  I already have the key cards I want from those groups.

If you have any of these to spare, let me know and hopefully we can work out a trade.

Checklist Chipaway: 2011 Topps Chrome

It’s fun to grind out the completion of the set, slowly but surely, a few cards at a time.   But sometimes you just have to go for the kill when a good deal comes along.  I posted some progress toward my 2011 ChromeBase set the other day and had a comment from Mike from Sports Syzygy saying he had busted a case of chrome and could help fill my set.    He also said he had a complete set that he would send for $25 shipped.   (He also posted on his blog that he had another one for sale at the same price the other day.  Not sure if it’s still available, but that beats anything you will find on eBay).   The more I thought about that deal, the better it sounded.  I was still only about 50% done, and even thought I only needed about 100 cards, that would still be at least $18 plus postage if I got them all off sportlots.com at $.18 per card.    Plus, this would give me an additional Eric Hosmer.    So I decided to skip Cleve’s auction this week, as well as the Etopps IPOs, which weren’t that great this week anyway, and spend that money on a set from Mike.  They arrived quickly and in pristine condition Tuesday.

I’ve already placed the cards in pages and a nice binder, and spent some time admiring them last night.  Sometimes I forget how enjoyable it is to read stats on the back of a card.  If the comments are interesting, even better, but the stats tell a better story anyway.

I was tempted to scan all the pages, but I’ll keep it to the front and back of the first 27 cards.  

 

And check out Mike’s blog.  He’s a neat guy.  One of his hobbies is collecting pressed pennies, which I find incredibly interesting.  Check out this post about it and you'll agree!  Thanks for the deal Mike!     

Checklist Chipaway- SPX Winnng Materials 2003

First of all, sometimes I love being wrong.  The lovely wife thought I'd thrown quite a pity party for myself with that post, by the way.  I'll spare you all extended recaps from my teams this weekend, but the Rangers and Razorbacks made Saturday a very fun day.  I will pat myself on the back for calling a disastrous start for the Hogs, but they showed a ton of fight and put it on the Aggies after halftime.  It also looked bleak early for the Rangers, but it's hard to keep all those bats silent for too long.  I'll just give a big "whatever" for the Cowboys gift wrapping that game for the Lions.  I'm not even going to pile on Tony Romo.  Some targets are just too easy (unless you are Tony Romo-  oooh, rim shot).  I was absolutely dead on about my kids though- they were total animals all weekend, but it's not so aggravating when your teams are winning.
Here was something else that made me smile on Saturday:

I am now about 70% done with this 2003 SPX Winning Materials set.  This Tejada card is very sharp, with the cool A's logo and the green jersey.  I'm going to be extremely proud of this small but tough set once it's done.

Checklist Chipaway: EX Century

The master checklist takes a small hit this week with deliveries of a trio of slick 1999 EX Century Cards:

I am now at 95% complete, with 5 cards left to go!
 

Checklist Chipaway and Blogger Aggravates Me

Slowly but surely, my master set from the two year run of Topps HD is nearing completion.  Last week, I picked up a couple of inserts online.  The problem with HD is that I don't think they made every card that was scheduled to go in each insert set. For example, the Image insert set that this Albert Belle goes to should be 20 cards, but I can only find names for 10 of the 20 cards leading me to think not all 20 exist.  So who knows, I may be closer to finishing than I think.



And once again Blogger seems to have it in for me.  My most recent post has not shown up on my dashboard or google reader 24 hours after posting (Saturday morning).    So it doesn't look like I've posted anything in a few days.    I checked blogger help and found other bloggers have had this problem.  But I couldn't find a solution unfortunately.   

Napkin Doon 2.0: Master Checklist Update

I finally took a few minutes to mess with Google Docs and convert my super duper checklist into something that can be viewed on the blog.  All of the sets I am building are now on my master checklist page at the top of the blog rather than just an image of the overview page.

The costs listed on some of the pages are from sportlots.com, which is what I use as a guage to estimate how much it will cost me to finish my sets.

I imagine this workbook looks like a big confusing mess, but the whole thing makes total sense to me. 

200 Posts! Napkin Doon 2.0

I like to think of myself as a steady, well balanced individual.  Not prone to wild mood swings and impulsive behavior.  My dark side, Napkin Doon, on the other hand, is an irrational maniac, especially when it comes to baseball cards.  Napkin Doon has trouble saying “no” to cards.  More to the point, Napkin Doon doesn’t say “no” to baseball cards.  Thus, my card collection, much like myself, has become bloated and disorganized.  I track the sets I am building with my super duper checklist.  I could never get my super duper checklist below 90 sets.  As soon as I did, it would come roaring back up to close to 100. 

I finally was able to put Napkin in time out for a few hours and take a hard look at my checklist.  There were 30+ sets on it that I either had 0% interest in building and/or no reasonable chance in building due to scarcity and/or cost, and I cut them out.  My checklist is now down to a svelte 51 sets.  I am going to really try to keep it at 50.  So I will make a rule that I cannot add any new set without removing one.  I guess I should instate that rule now.  It helps that I have decided to pass on Allen and Ginter and Lineage, although I really like some of the inserts.  Once I get to 50, the list will stay at 50 sets or lower.  Then, if I get it whittled down to 40, I will make 40 the ceiling.  I will keep doing this until I get down to 20 sets.  Why am I telling you this?  I don’t know, but there you have it.   I am now committing in public, in writing, the first rule of maintaining sanity in my collection:

Rule #1 is:  There are no rules!  Sorry, I’ve just always wanted to say that.  Seriously here it is:

Rule #1 is:  You do not talk about Fight Club.  Always wanted to say that too.  Third time is the charm:

Napkin Doon Collection Sanity Rule #1:  My Checklist will never expand beyond a 50 set ceiling.  The checklist ceiling will drop at every ten set interval once that interval is reached.  No set will be added unless an existing set is cleared.

Technically, that is a group of several rules, but it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

On a side note, I just saw that I had reached 200 posts!  I am not sure why that is a significant number, but it's a clean easy number, so I'll mention it.  Thank you to all of you who have read, commented, played and traded with me over these past 7 months!  I look forward to the next 200!

Checklist Chipaway 2003 SPX Winning Materials- Ichiro

There once was a fella named Doon

Who blogged like a total buffoon

But he felt so angelic

Winning this Ichiro Relic

Cause this set would be knocked out quite soon!

(67% complete- 14 cards to go!!)