card show bonus box from Rod

Always nice to bump into Rod at the monthly card show; And when he surprises me with a box of cards.. even better! Let's check out what this one's got in store.

I love shiny, numbered cards. That orange Wil Myers is #'d a scant 7/25... wow!

Hot rookies representing!

Some hits and inserts. Tanaka relic, pink Giancarlo, Big Hurt rookie reprint, and a couple Twins. That /25 Sano may come in handy if I ever attempt hammering out another trade with his Twitter supercollector.

More 2018 stuff. This is my first look at '18 Gallery in-hand. Although in my eyes this product is just a step above Panini Triple Play-- unless they're vintage or 1/1 sketchcards, I have very little interest in drawn/painted baseball cards-- I will give Topps credit on the solid design this year.

More good stuff from the box I can use.

Half dozen certified autos! Some familiar Padres From The Past for me here. Rymer Liriano didn't make it out of AAA this past season (Angles and Brewers systems), but did crank 20 homers, so maybe he'll stick around a while longer. Dane Phillips was a 2nd round pick in 2012 that didn't pan out and seems to have been out of baseball this year. Ben Davis was another highly touted Padres catcher who didn't live up to expectations, but at least he made the show and saw action in 7 MLB seasons.

A trio of signed customs! Always nice when there are extra Padrographs that Rod can share with me.

The backs look good too. I know firsthand that making custom backs can be a pain (they usually take like twice as long as the fronts if you include stats n' such), so I appreciate it when anyone takes the time to not just leave a custom as a blank-back.

I'm sure there are a few needs for me here in this nice Gwynn lot.

Rounding out the surprise box from Rod was a big stack of WWE divas. Some keepers for my "girlie card" minicollection here, including a pair of Alexa Blisses and rookie cards of Liv Morgan and Ronda Rousey.

Huge thanks, Rod! I'm in your debt, per usual, so please don't hesitate to let me know if I can help you out with anything.. cards, customs, photoshop work, whatever!

Black Zapday

Got a nice mini Zippy Zapping in the mail.

Manuel Margot hasn't yet blossomed into the perennial all-star he was projected to be, but he just turned 24 and still has a lot of prime years ahead of him. Hoping for a breakout 2019 season. And I sure do love black refractors!

It was a little eerie to get a Patrick Mahomes card from Kenny, as I only added him to my wantlist like a couple days before. Now that's service! But yeah, I scored some cheap Mahomes cards at a card show a couple months back and that helped inspire me to add a rare current football player to my wantlist. This is a nice addition.

Sweet! Fernando Tatis, Jr is pretty much the only thing that keeps Padres fans from crying themselves to sleep at night these days. I gotta think chances are good he'll make the '19 opening day roster, and we're hoping he takes the league by storm and hits a grand slam every at-bat.

While I don't collect Mariners or Kyle Lewis, I'm always happy to receive refractor/#'d prospect cards in trade. Kyle's a 1st rounder (2016) who hasn't put it together yet in the minors yet, but still has potential.

And we'll finish the highlights of the envelope with some more Padres top prospects. Fingers crossed these guys pan out and help San Diego be competitive over the next several years.

Good stuff. Thanks, Kenny! I'll hit you back with a little something soon.

Mama Kin (Guns N' Randoms)

I haven't done a "Guns N' Randoms" post in a while, where I clear off some cards from my sorting table so I can file them away, and title the post after a GNR song, going roughly in chronological order. I think the reason for the delay is the next song up "Mama Kin" (Aerosmith cover) doesn't lend itself well to a title for cards. I mean, yeah, there's a prominent fellow cardblogger named Kin Kinsley, and it would make a solid title for a trade post featuring cards from him, but unfortunately I don't recall ever trading with him and I can't wait indefinitely for that to happen.

The opening lyrics are "It ain't easy, livin' like a gypsy" so maybe I should feature some Gypsy Queen cards or something? Nah.

The best I can muster is that "Mama Kin" doesn't sound too far from "Templeton."

Keep in touch with Templeton
Tell him where you've gone and been
Livin' out your fantasy
Sleeping late and smoking tea

As if this post hadn't scared off enough prospective readers already, I'm leading off with a trio of overproduction-era cards. Somebody alert Blogger to prepare backup servers ASAP because the imminent traffic surge on this post may cause a system failure!!

But check it out, these aren't (quite) junk after all. They're Tiffany/Glossy versions I picked up to spice up my Garry Templeton PC.

And another off-the-beaten-path Templeton, this a shiny gold sticker from 1981.

A blogger I can't recall now was talking highly of Boys of Summer inserts from Score. Prone to peer pressure, I went looking for a cheap example I could fit into my collection. I settled on Bret Boone since he's almost a guy I collect thanks to being from my neck of the woods not to mention he played a few solid season in San Diego. While the steamy mirage thing is kind cool, honestly this 1994 design doesn't do much for me and I'm second-guessing this $1 purchase. The 1993 design is pretty hot though (pun intended), featuring a big, bright sun behind the player. I'll have to keep an eye out for one of those, especially the Piazza, Pedro, or Klesko.

I love adding cards of the late, great Ken Caminiti, especially from his short-term stops, and especially hits. He only played 54 games with the Rangers, so he doesn't have many cards with them, making this bat relic even cooler in my eyes.

The 2018 Margot auto was an add-on buy with a recent eBay win. He hasn't been great this year but figures to stick as the Padres center fielder for the long haul. He's still only 23.

Another 23 year old Friar, Franmil Reyes was tearing up PCL pitching earlier this season, and was called up for a brief stint in San Diego but is now back in AAA (Update: just recalled again). He has very little cardboard on the market at the moment. I picked up this 2014 Bowman Chrome mini refractor on COMC a while back.

Speaking of Bowman Chrome refractors, time to ride the wave! I'm a sucker for these wave refractors.

I especially dig 2015 Bowman Chrome, on the left there. Continuing from what I was talking about in yesterday's comments regarding how it's nearly always a design mistake to use foil for the player name.. I think that's one reason why collectors seem to agree that the Chrome version of a design typically looks better than the standard/flagship/paper. Chrome cards never have foil. In this example, 2015 Bowman (standard) kinda sucks because it's often hard to read the foil names. But the Chrome version looks great, one of my favorite designs of the past few years of any product. The moral of the story is card companies should refrain from using foil for player names. Logos and borders? Sure, fine. But not names!

Anyways, I was looking at cheap colored parallels from 2015 Bowman Chrome on COMC, and among the sea of unknowns, I found this blue wave Matt Chapman. A little surprised to find a solid card like this of the A's starting 3rd baseman for just 65 cents. Maybe one day I'll work on a parallel frankenset of 2015 Bowman Chrome since I dig them so much, but I think I need to put some other collecting projects to bed first.

The 2013 red wave David Holmberg was $1.25, which might seem like a lot to pay for a card of a guy I don't collect, who was released by the lowly Orioles in spring training, currently struggling with Colorado's Triple-A team? Well...

Christmas Card!
Not that I go around paying over a dollar for just any card stamped 12/25, but a neat looking refractor? Sure, probably.

Let's close the post with this, a solid lot of '64 Topps needs from COMC. Just looking for good deals on cards that hopefully weren't too beat up. Some of these I wouldn't mind upgrading someday, but good enough for now. I also focused on high-numbers, trying to cross off a few more from the pesky last series. I'm scratching at the door of 2⁄3 complete with this set now. Probably won't wrap it up by the end of the year (especially with me being distracted by my '57 Topps project), but maybe sometime before the decade's out if I keep at it.

Well, thanks for reading, and always remember:

It ain't easy, livin' like ya want to
And it's so hard to find peace of mind
The way I see it, you've got to say shit
But don't forget to drop me a line

Cardblogger Con NW '18 recap

Five card-bloggers getting together for drinks and conversation. Really good time! Gcrl (Cards As I See Them), Rod (Padrographs), Kerry (Cards on Cards), Ken (Cardboard Hogs), and myself (Baseball Card Breakdown). If you know of more cardbloggers getting together at once, let me know, but otherwise I'll consider this the record-breaker for most cardbloggers hanging out in person. Lots of fun, swapping cards and sharing stories.

I don't have much time for blogging today (and I'm a little hungover), so I'll just cover the cards I got from Ken now, and get to the others soon.

Ken was a late invite, which I feel bad about, but I know he's got his hands full these days with work and his kids, and hasn't blogged much in the past year, so I didn't think the chances were good that'd he'd be able to make it into downtown for the meetup. But I'm glad I thought to invite him better late than never, and that it worked with his schedule, because he's a good dude and definitely a welcome addition to the group.

Kicking things off with neat inserts and parallels of young Padres. Sounds like Renfroe might be on the trading block.

Pair of Margots. Hoping for a big '18 season from him.

Some San Diego favorites from the past. Rollie gets in on consecutive posts, featured here on a Berger's Best reprint.

Nice batch of Bowman prospects.

Full team set of 2005 Portland Beavers! Love the mascot card. I kind of regret not catching any Beavers games before they went away a few years ago. (Today happens to be my 9 year anniversary of moving to Portland.)

And a few more Padres (and USA Drew Pomeranz).

Good stuff.. thanks, Ken. Great seeing you. Sorry I was out of Redskins and had to resort to a custom-heavy lot hitting some of your PC guys, but hope you got a kick out of them.

And thanks again to the other fellas who came out to the get-together. I hope we can do it again sometime. Looking forward this weekend to going through the rest of the cards I brought home thanks to you guys.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

It's So Easy (card show recap)

It's so easy to build a tall stack of cards at the card show. Sometimes I have to police myself a little and be like, "Is this a guy I collect, or a card that would be appreciated by a trader buddy, or a killer deal I shouldn't pass up?" And if the answer's no, I (usually) put it back, even if it's a cool card that in a perfect world where money and space weren't an issue, I'd grab along with a ton more cards.

Here are some more cards that made the cut last weekend.

A nice lot of Kris Bryant cards.
Get ready for a bunch more 2017 Gold Label.

Some greats.

And yet more Gold Label. I wasn't joking the other day when I said I spend a lot of time at this show squinting at Gold Label cards trying to read the tiny text trying to find out which class they were, scoring a few class 2 and 3's.

A couple inserts of young Red Soxes.

Big Unit /199. Cutch /499.

Fine Young Padres! Margot /99.

Gold rookies and a Kellogg's Reggie will close us out for the day.

That'll do it. Thanks for reading and hope you have an easy weekend!

A one-two punch from the Plankmaster

Matthew Scott recently loaded up his cannons and lobbed shots across the bows of several cardbloggers, with myself luckily being included.

Kris Bryant! My man! Seems like his hype with collectors dipped a little bit in 2017 after being ROY in 2015 and MVP in 2016. Probably just overshadowed by rookiemania of Judge and Bellinger. His power numbers were down a little, but his batting average and strikeouts were career bests. Should be back with another MVP-caliber season this year, you gotta assume.

Be sure you didn't miss that "1st Day Issue" stamp on this card! While not serial numbered, these are very rare parallels, with an announced print run of only 10 of each card.. Easily my most scarce card of his now. Not sure how Matt lucked into it, but I will gladly welcome it into my respectable KB PC, joining an auto and some Transcendent Party exclusives adorning the collection's crown.

And he piled on with a second big card in the package...

Beautiful Manny Margot Triple Threads RC featuring a nice on-card auto, plus brown and gold swatches. Love it! Hoping for a big sophomore season from Manny in 2018.

Thanks so much, Matt! I've loaded up some return fire to hit you back with ASAP.

Trading Trader Jack (Great batch of cards from gcrl)

Happy Flagship Release Day, everybody. (Oops, I think it's technically tomorrow, though plenty of it is floating around already.) I didn't buy any flagship in 2017, and I don't plan to in 2018 either. Topps' designs since 2015 haven't done much for me. I'm content eventually adding cards I want from the set thanks to trader buddies.

Speaking of which, I was the grateful recipient of an unexpected trade package from the cardsphere's favorite acronymed blogger, gcrl. (Do any of you pronounce that "Guh-Curl" in your head when you read it? "Gee-Curl" perhaps?)

I remember hearing a little about this stadium giveaway from last year and was thrilled to get this near-complete set (gcrl plucked out the Garvey for his supercollection).
More info on this set swiped from an eBay auction:

Awesome 58 Card Set only available at 1 San Diego Padres Game this season. By far the largest standard size SGA sets we have ever seen. Sponsored by Sony and issued to commemorate JACK MCKEON induction into the Pads Hall Of Fame . The set features all 1980's Players McKeon drafted, traded for, or signed as Free Agents. Too many to name but it is loaded and a great trip down memory lane with TONY GWYNN STEVE GARVEY RICH GOOSE GOSSAGE ROBERT ALOMAR SANDY ALOMAR JR GRAIG NETTLES BENITO SANTIAGO OZZIE GUILLEN FRED LYNN KURT BEVACQUA JOHN KRUK JOE CARTER BRUCE BOCHY JACK CLARK etc.
The set is housed in a plastic case with a McKeon sticker on top. Because of how they were prepared, the cards were stuffed in the case and there are no gem mint cards. All are brand new but corners can have issues and that is the case with every set issued. No PSA gems to be had, but for the true collector one of the nicest sets you will ever own.

Pretty cool. I probably won't bother keeping it near-complete (though I wouldn't mind landing the Garvey someday), but rather break it up for my PCs since there are about a dozen guys I collect in there.

A couple of my top PCs right here in Gwynn and Bip. The description quoted above wasn't kidding when they said the cards weren't originally packaged with much care. Dinged corners and surface nicks abound.

Some notable guys with brief stints in San Diego. Happy to add new Padres cards of Freddy Lynn, Joe Carter, and Kevin Mitchell.

And the rest of the dudes I collect.

The backs are fine, but I wish they had a little copyright line at the bottom. It'll be confusing when uninformed collectors stumble upon these cards years from now. No card number, no year listed, no indication of who made them. For the record, I think these are referred to as 2017 Trader Jack Padres.

But that was only half of gcrl's trade package...

Here's the perfect card for the "We Didn't Start The Fire" binder to upgrade the placeholder for the "Brooklyn's got a winning team" line, commemorating Brooklyn's only championship before moving to LA. Love those great Laughlin cartoons.

Nice Stargell duo here including the 1983 Fleer card that had been atop my Desperate Double Dozen wantlist for a while.

It's a beauty of a sunset/final tribute card. Full career stats, even squeezing in a AAA season. He also got a Donruss card in '83, but of course they truncate stats to just the last few years. He didn't get a '83 Topps card.

Been wanting that gorgeous Stadium Club Winfield for a while now. Nice Margot additions too.

Andre Dawson PC got a nice boost.

Gavins representing.

More guys I collect.

Let's end the post with a big one. I always love getting Christmas Cards in trade regardless of the player/subject, but I really love when it's a Christmas Card of a main guy I collect!

Big thanks, Jim! I'll be getting a return out in the mail to you later this week.