Checking where I rank with some lesser-collected PC guys

Got a few more cards from my big shipment to document on the blog today. These here are non-HOF "fan favorite" type guys from the past.. Generally players that aren't chased by many collectors out there. It's fun to go after oddballs and whatnot from them, and maybe even take a run at completing their full run of cards, or at least trying to build the #1 PC for a guy on TCDB.

Starting alphabetically with Dick Allen-- not exactly an obscure name, but still-- here are a couple smaller-than-standard cards. That side-eyein' 2009 Goodwin Champions is one of my all-time favorites.. I've got at least a couple other versions of it, including the auto which had been a white whale of mine for a few years, and am happy to snag the black bordered mini of it now. 1990 Target All-Time Dodgers is a familiar set to me after seeing gcrl cover the whole thing on his blog a few years back, plus occasional appearances on Night Owl Cards. Sucks they couldn't have found a picture of Dick from this Dodger days to use on the card. That out of place White Sox uniform is worthy of young Richie's side-eye.

At the time of this post, Crash's #1 collector on TCDB is user "theFalcon" with 84, with the 2nd most being 61 cards. I haven't added up all my DA's or entered them into the site, but I'm probably somewhere between those two. TCDB lists 325 total cards for him... many of which are just from this year, with Dick being included in '21 Heritage and getting multiple Project 70 cards, too (none of which I've pulled the trigger on, though nice to see him getting some hobby love).

UPDATE: I clawed my way into 2nd place with 62 cards, though I had to resort to counting a couple Kellogg's cards that are currently stored in setbuilds not the player collection, if you wanna get technical about it-- but whatever, I own the cards. I'd probably be around 70 cards if I counted more set stuff like that. 

BTW, I already owned the above two cards, dang it! Good thing I'm trying to keep better track of my collection now. Oh well, I'll add the dupes to the "for trade/sale" inventory I've been meaning to build up on TCDB to hopefully see more trade action.

Rod Beck has 414 total cards listed. These are 3 cheap parallels I probably needed.

1995 Upper Deck - Electric Diamond Silver

1995 Score - Hall of Gold

1997 Donruss Limited - Limited Exposure (with John Wetteland on the other side)

Shooter's top collector on TCDB is user "bronnerea" with 164 cards. I can't top that, but think I'd have a shot at being in the top 10 were I to check in mine to the site.

Ken Caminiti is a guy I have a lot of cards of, but still probably wouldn't crack the top 10 on TCDB ("Expos1990" rules comfortably with 597 cards.. probably over 3 times as many as me). Ken's represented in this order by a thick, leathery insert (1997 Topps Stadium Club Patent Leather --pretty sure I saw one of these get a thumbs-up on Fuji's blog and had to grab one for myself) plus a couple $1 buybacks. And if it's buybacks of notable Padres sluggers you're into, well have I got a group of cards to show you...

A half dozen boughten-back Nate Colbert cards. Not too far from a full career Topps run of buybacks, but his high-numbered '67 rookie stars card and high-numbered '72 (and corresponding In Action) make that an unlikely project to ever complete.

And some more Colberts for my semi-supercollection. Looks like I went on a little shopping spree with Nate in mind on 4/11/2020, as all 12 of these cards were bought on the same day. Some of these weren't good deals ($5+ each for the Ty Cobb back mini and the TCMA? Geez), but just wanted to basically snag anything on the site that I didn't already have.

I think I'd have a good chance of being #1 for Nate Colbert on TCDB. Oh yeah, I just looked it up and the top spot is only 31 cards. I think I could beat that, though then again a lot of my cards of him are proof cards that wouldn't be on the TCDB checklist. But yeah, I should enter in my PC one of these days.

UPDATE: Ok, I did. 

Woo! #1 by a wide margin. Most of the above buybacks plus the APBA "card" aren't listed, so my actual number would be even greater if those were added in.

Dave Henderson is a PC I really enjoy adding to, but he's a relatively recent addition to my crew, so doubt I'd rank too highly on TCDB ("DaClyde" is first with 248 cards, followed by "bronnerea" with 175).. I still need most of his junky base cards (attn: trader buds). A pair of tiffany cards are among the parallels I grabbed this time around. I don't regard 1989 Bowman very highly.. but 1989 Bowman Tiffany? For whatever reason, I love it! Being glossy and printed on high quality cardstock somehow excuses it for the audacity of being oversized and not printing the player's name on the front. The weird by-team stats breakdown thing is still on the back, but at least it's easier to read on bright stock. lol

COMC damaged the Bill Madlock foldy, so I went ahead and folded it as intended by the design. I got it specifically because it was the only card of Mad Dog pictured on the Texas Rangers I didn't have. I might have a shot at the top 10 on TCDB for Madlock, but doubt I'd be too near the top ("bronnerea" repeats as king here with 154).

The Maas and Scioscia cards are imported from the north.

Just wanted to find a couple PC guys cheap as an excuse to add Canadian 1990 Fleer cards to my collection. ("Ptd. in Canada" on the bottom.) Feels like that's some mythic set that I hear about a lot but had never actually seen in-hand before.

Also in the photo, a look at the damage on the Madlock. It was in a long top loader, but it had been cranked pretty hard somehow in packaging and managed to damage the card within it. At least it only cost me $1 so I didn't make a stink about it. But yeah, not cool, COMC.

Mike Sharperson might be a really random player for me to collect, but I decided to build up a collection of his cards after remembering liking him back in my early days as a baseball fan and card collector circa '90-92 which really happened to be his only good seasons. Besides those 3 years, he was mostly on the roster for depth, spending the majority of his time in AAA with occasional promotions to the big league club. He was on the verge of making his Padre debut in 1996 spelling a hurt Ken Caminiti, but was fatally injured in a car wreck on the way to the airport.

TCDB lists 104 total cards with the top collector being "bronnerea" again with 70. It'll be a while till I'm anywhere near that, but enjoy picking up some oddities like these. (The '89 Bowman and middle '91 Topps are tiffany.) Still need most of his junky cards, but I'd rather get those in trade then have to buy them.

I also scored a few needs for my Dan Walters PC, mostly minor league issues. The most expensive of these was the 1989/red one ($3.20), which sadly is another victim of COMC's employee damaging the card during packaging. You can see the top left corner got jacked up. And by context of the package contents, it was clearly damaged during packaging, not already damaged before the fact nor damaged in transit. Boo. I know those guys are rushing to catch up on their backlog, but wish they'd be more careful with the cards.

Dan Walters is yet another player featured in this post whose life was cut short. I don't consciously decide to collect guys who die before reaching old age, but perhaps on some level my heart goes out to them. Collecting their cards might be like my way of paying tribute.. and/or a reminder that life is precious and I should take the time to appreciate every day I wake up in good health.

Walters has just 42 cards listed on TCDB, with ol' "bronnerea" ranked the #1 collector with 26 of them. That guy must either have a huge collection, or we just happen to share a few favorite retired players. I might be able to challenge him on this one, as I think I've got around 20-30 Dan Walters cards.

UPDATE: I've got 24 cards. So close! Good for 2nd; in striking distance of 1st.

One thing that bugs me about TCDB is the arbitrary way cards are assigned to players.

Per TCDB's checklist, the card on the left is considered a Dick Allen card, yet the card on the right isn't considered a Dan Walters card. I suppose "My collection, my rules" doesn't apply when you're using somebody else's website (and the site's many users have plenty of room to edit as they see fit).

Last guy for today is Marcus Giles...

That's an impressive page-worth of refractor goodness, eh!

As I've mentioned plenty of times on the blog, I grew up with Marcus, in the same grade as him at the same school from elementary through community college. So it's cool to collect a former classmate of mine. Like, check it out, a guy in my high school P.E. class is sharing a card with Ken Griffey Jr!-- How cool is that? Plus it's a good excuse for me to add some fun parallels from years that I wasn't actively collecting. And despite three strong seasons in his career, he was never a huge star, so his cards usually don't run me too much cash.

TCDB user "bravefan1" has a commanding lead for the top spot with 143 Marcus Giles cards, but I could probably challenge that total if I added my PC to the site. Too lazy to do that right now-- beautiful Memorial Day weekend over here-- but remind me another day. lol

Sentimental Sundays - 5th Grade Confidential

Time to check out some more of my old crap.

I've still got a dozen or so Micro Machines from my childhood toy collection. I loved the things, but always seemed to me they were more expensive than they should have been. So small, after all! I'm not a big "car guy" but this is a '57 Chevy, right? Cool car. If I won the lottery, I'd probably pick me up one of those to cruise around on pleasant Sunday afternoons.

I've had this lava lamp for a long time. Recently brought it "out of storage" and set it up in my little temporary "work station" area where I do much of my work-from-home stuff. Pretty neat. Also works well as a hand-warmer, as it gets quite hot, but not hot enough to burn you if you want to hold it for a moment.

I never really collected stamps, but the collecting gene was strong enough in me to hold onto interesting stamps that might have fallen in my lap as a youth. The 25¢ Yosemite stamp is uncanceled, though by the back you can tell it's been used. Then there are a couple canceled non-US stamps. I'm sure none of this is worth anything (though I might be able to get away with using the Yosemite stamp as a quarter's worth of postage), but interesting enough not to throw away, I suppose. Not sure how I came into these 2 foreign stamps.. probably an aunt of mine or maybe a family friend sent us a postcard with them or something like that.

Hey, it's my old geode! The perennial "show and tell" standby. Speaking of passive collections of my younger days, I also have a rock collection from back then, and this geode is among the few highlights. It's about the size of a racquetball when the halves are put together. Not super impressive as far as geodes go (Google image search), as it only has a tiny flicker of shiny crystals in there. But still cool to a kid.

Ooh, I'm happy to find this thing-- I hadn't seen it in a while and was worried maybe I had lost it at some point over the years. It's a metal bottle-opener from Peru featuring what I'm guessing is a llama.

I think I've told the story here before about how in Mr. Pedrazzi's 5th grade class, when it was your time as "student of the week" or whatever, you got to pick out a neat item from a small box of goodies Mr. Pedrazzi would bring in. Future ballplayer Marcus Giles was in this class with me, and he got a slingshot that was the envy of all the boys in class. (And we're talking a legit slingshot-- meaning it was a real, manufactured, metal and rubber slingshot, not just a conveniently shaped stick with a rubberband that the rest of us had to be content with.)

The item I eventually ended up with wasn't as cool as a slingshot, but I was still pretty happy with the neat old bottle opener from a distant land of long ago.

No markings on the back, but I'd guess it's probably from the 60s or 70s. I can imagine it cranked caps off plenty of pop and suds in its prime. It's not "in service" currently, packed away with my childhood crap, but I might use it to open a beer later today for the heck of it.

Always loved Ghostbusters as a kid. This Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was a way to sneak a "toy" into my pencil case.

See, it's a pencil-sharpener.


That's probably enough for today. Normally I like to squeeze in something baseball related.. but I suppose I mentioned Marcus Giles, so that's close enough.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Infusion of 2004 Chrome black refractors

I keep an eye out for bulk lots of 2004 Topps Chrome black refractors, and one such lot popped up recently. It was 79 cards at a buck per card plus shipping. Not quite a steal, but still good enough to get me to bite.

The guy pranked me by shipping them in a box for '91 Fleer Update. I opened up the package and saw that and immediately thought there was a mixup. But nope, '04 black refractors hidden inside.

Some highlights...

There were a few dupes for me in the lot, including Marcus Giles and Fred McGriff here, but since I collect both these guys, I don't mind having an extra copy for the respective PCs. The dupes of dudes I don't collect should make for decent trade fodder.

Big sluggers of the era.

A pair of near Hall of Famers here. (I say put 'em in.)

These 2 guys have been in the news lately... for very different reasons: Ross for being named the Cubs' new manager, and Edmonds for an ugly divorce.

There are some nice photos in this set that if Topps used them today, would likely be zoomed in 2x. It's refreshing when the image can "breathe" a bit.

HOFers! The Vlad is the card I saw in the listing that made me click the "buy it now" button. That guy was a beast!

A couple guys winding down their solid careers on unfamiliar teams.

Closing us out is a nice Dontrelle Willis rookie cup, and (as far as I can tell) the last active player in 2004 Topps Chrome who was still playing in 2019, Oliver Perez. (Fernando Rodney is not in the set.)

This lot took me from 37.17% complete up to 48.25%. Honestly a little disheartening that I'm still not even halfway done. Maybe I'll do a Sportlots order one of these days to get me over the hump.

Also disheartening about his quest of mine?...

The Yadier Molina "first year" card (that I still need) selling for $160+ recently. Ouch. It's not even an auto, for frick's sake!

So yeah, it's a long-term project, for sure.. but I love these cards and I'll keep grinding, and maybe someday I'll finish this one off.

first trade roundup in a while

My mailbox had been quiet for a while, but I got a couple trade packages this week.

First was a lot of 70+ cards for my 1972 Topps setbuild from new Twitter buddy of mine Mark Del Franco, kindly answering my call for help starting out with this set. Most of these are in upgradeable condition, but I'm still happy to add them to my stack of 72s. A few semi-high numbers from the 5th series are included. Juan Marichal is the biggest name here, though the card looks to have been updated by a kid in '74 during the Dominican Dandy's brief stint with Boston.

This lot takes me from 36% complete now up to 43%. Thanks, Mark!

-   -  - --o

Next is a surprise PWE from Chris the Collector.

A shiny Brian Giles plus a dual relic of both Giles Bros. Love getting cards of Brian and Marcus together, though it does present the dilemma of which PC to store it in. I think I usually default to Brian since it's the bigger of the two. Though as my former classmate, perhaps I should give Marcus top priority.

Four needs for the recently acquired (via Rod) near-complete '88 Fleer set. All well-known names here, too!

Wrapping up with a Hank Blalock relic and a Teke sticker.. very cool. Both the Giles dual relic and the Blalock arrived with some damage-- creasing around the memorabilia window. I just hope that's how they were when Chris acquired them, not victims of the envelope's cross-country journey.
But yeah, I don't collect Blalock at all so why would I care about this card?...

Christmas Card, that's why!! Nice!

Thanks, Chris! Good stuff. I'll get a return out to you shortly.

Having a rare damp July day here in Portland. (Snapped a pretty flower pic in my backyard.) I'm sure the summer heat will kick in pretty soon, so I'm trying to enjoy the moderate temperatures while I can.

Hope y'all are having a nice weekend as well.

A decade gone

Today marks 10 years since I moved up to Portland. So it's been a full decade since I packed up my things and left behind my hometown of El Cajon in East County San Diego. Let's see.. in that time, I've had 3 different jobs, a couple awesome dogs, gotten married, and most importantly as far as this blog is concerned: returned to the hobby of card collecting.

One way I like to "remember my roots" is by collecting cards of pro athletes who went to my high school-- "Guys From Granite", as I call that part of my collection.

One sidequest I had since the beginning was to acquire an autograph of every Guy From Granite who made the major leagues (currently totalling 8 players), and I'm pleased to announce I've just recently met that goal, finally. To celebrate, let's run down the list chronologically.

#1 Mike Reinbach
MLB debut: 1974

The original Guy From Granite, Mike got a cup of coffee with the Orioles in '74, then had greater success playing in Japan. A few years after his playing days, he was tragically killed in a car wreck. Maybe someday I'll find an autographed card, but for now I've got to make due with a pair of signed index cards.
See also: The Harrowing Tale of Mike Reinbach, Setting the Mike Reinbach story straight, and Mike Reinbach apocalypse.


#2 Chris Jones
MLB debut: 1985

Chris D. Jones briefly appeared with the Astros in '85 and the Giants in '86. He was the last guy I needed an autograph from. His common name makes it hard to search for his cards/autographs (there are a lot of people named Chris Jones in the world), but thanks to Padrographs Rod and an autograph dealer buddy of his, I was finally able to track down a signed minor league card. I've also got his mailing address now and I plan to try a TTM attempt with a custom or two soon.
See also: Chris Jones, but not that Chris Jones


#3 Brian Giles
MLB debut: 1995

Brian Giles had the longest, most successful baseball career of the guys to come out of Granite Hills High, and so it's no surprise he easily had the most cards produced of the players on this list. He was still active after the next 4 guys on this list had come and gone.
See also: Brian Giles was a narc at my school and My Brian Giles PC

#4 Tom Fordham
MLB debut: 1997

Tom is currently the only pitcher to ever make it to the bigs out of Granite Hills. He got into 36 games (6 of them starts) with the White Sox in '97 and '98. He got some cardboard love back in the day, mainly from Bowman and Best.
See also: Tom Fordham went to my high school

#5 Shane Spencer
MLB debut: 1998

Brian Giles may have had the longest career of the guys on this list, but Shane had the good fortune of being a part of the turn-of-the-millenium Yankees dynasty and picked up 3 rings in his relatively short career, highlighted by some clutch home runs in the fall of 1998.
See also: Yankee hero Shane Spencer went to my high school


#6 John Barnes
MLB debut: 2000

Now we're entering my time at Granite. John was a big man on campus when I was a freshman/sophomore while he was a junior/senior. He came up through the Red Sox organization before being traded to the Twins where he got a few dozen MLB at-bats in 2000-2001. Later attempted a comeback as a pitcher, though didn't make it past AAA.
See also: I went to school with John Barnes and he played in the majors

#7 Marcus Giles
MLB debut: 2001

As I've mentioned several times in the past on this blog, I was in the same grade as Marcus, going to school with him from elementary school all the way up through community college. Sure was a thrill to watch him rise through the minors and become an NL All-Star in 2003.
See also: My classmate the All-Star

#8 Travis Taijeron
MLB debut: 2017

After an extended dry spell, it was great to see another Guy From Granite finally crack the majors near the end of the 2017 season. It looks like Travis recently signed a minor league deal with the Mets, returning to his original organization after a year on the Dodgers' Triple A squad. Wishing him the best of luck in the upcoming 2019 season.
See also: Better Call Up Taijeron! and Superfractor auto pickup!


That wraps it up. Here's to another 10 great years up here in the Pacific Northwest, though I'll always keep my hometown in my heart and in my collection.

The Nickening

Looks like I'll have a string of trade recap posts this week. Yesterday was Zippy, today is Dimebox Nick, and waiting in the wings are packages from Angus and Wes that just showed up. With all these great incoming cards, it's easy to ignore the release of 2019 Topps Series One today. I feel like my interest in current flagship couldn't be lower, though I don't hate the design this year and am glad to see the return of full stats on the back.

Here's a nice one to kick off with. McCovey is a big PC guy for me, plus I'm thinking I'd like to make a run for Kellogg's sets at some point in the coming years.

A little deja vu from yesterday's Japanese girlie cards, another one of those boxes with a bunch of swimsuit cards of one particular young lady. Jun Amaki here is quite lovely. Perhaps this was re-traded by way of Zippy? Hey, I'll happily take any unwanted girlie cards (and probably pass off any I don't want to Billy.)

Back to baseball, here are some minis. Always love adding a new Hoyt.

These old Baseball Card Magazine pseudo-customs are fun. I had been debating whether or not to cut the sheet I recently got featuring the Kevin Maas card, but thanks to this already-cut one from Nick, I can leave the other intact.

And more various cards of  guys I collect.

Solid selection of Padres from this decade. Looks like I needed all 3 of those 2011 Topps parallels for my frankenset, so that makes me happy.

Trea Turner is a guy I recently bumped off my wantlist and retired the PC into the Hundred Card Club. That didn't take me long.. feels like he was just recently a rookie, fleeced from San Diego's org. Hopefully Tatis Jr at shortstop takes the sting out of that transaction soon. Anyways, nice lot here.

Nick and I are both Rod Beck collectors, and he's good about throwing his dupes my way.

And of course Mr. Padre. Dig the cartoon fly with backwards hat.

Impressive lot of George Springer cards.

Bunch of Brian Giles.

And little bro, Marcus.

More Pads of the Past. Some nice ones here. Note the minor league Bochy with "C/CH" position. That was his last stand as a player.

The package wraps up with some vintage cards from Nick's dad, buttering me up for another batch of music customs on the horizon.

The '64 Topps needs are much appreciated. Inching toward ¾ complete with this set.

The highlights here are legendary manager Walt Alston and a combo card featuring Yaz. (Not sure how Chuck Schilling squeezed onto this "Sox Sockers" card; the guy hit a total of 23 homers in his entire career.)

Big thanks, Nick! (and Nick's dad!) I don't think I've got much left set aside for you right now, but I'll keep an eye out. And just let me know when your dad wants to get that custom project going.