Sometimes I Win Stuff

 

If you watch "The Card Life" show with Matt Strahm on Bally Sports (or other regional sports networks), you know they do a small giveaway each month sponsored by Hobby Armor.

For this month's show they were in Milwaukee, so they were giving away this Rookie Auto of Nelson Cruz (then on the Brewers) from Topps Finest.  I happened to be the winner! 

8 teams later (MIL, TEX, BAL, SEA, MIN, TB, WAS, SD) and at age 42, Cruz is sitting at 464 HR.  Quite a successful career!

So thanks to Hobby Armor and The Card Life for the prize.

Remember Puig-mania?

 

These would have fetched a pretty penny back then...circa 2013/2014 when it was all Puig all the time in "the industry".  

These are some more cards from the recent garage sale purchase.  The two Topps cards are both #331 from 2014, which means the "hands on hips" is an image variation SP.  Even today that card is worth enough to get me a burrito (my standard for valuable cards), so this is a very fun find that I wasn't expecting from that box.  

There were some more fun inserts in that stack - big hair Coco, orange Greinke, and Ace Ventura.  RIP.  

With all the focus on Puig, they largely ignored another guy they should have focused on.

Yep.  That was in the box, too. 

I can almost taste the burritos already.

Garage Sale Archives

 Last month I hit up a local garage sale that had some cards for sale and I walked out of there with a 4-row box at a price I was pleased with.  It was mostly football and had a good number of Serial-Numbered cards from the early 2000s.   

There was also about half a row of baseball.   In my initial perusal it looked like it was all 2015 Topps Archives base cards.   So imagine my surprise to find these four guys hiding within them.  

I love the look of Tekulve here.   The autos from him and Willis are both on-card, done with blue Flair pen. A nice buyback of (the other) Brett, and Ferrell sporting the catcher's gear. 

10 Bucks at an Estate Sale

I was browsing on FB Marketplace, and someone in the next town over was doing an "online estate sale" -- posting single items or lots they had for sale.  Scrolling through, I saw one of the pictures looked like this.

I was a little worried that it said "Pre-1990s" (since that includes the 1980s junk wax), but it had a 1972 Topps on the front and the backs I could see poking up looked old, too.   I was itching to open something -- I had nearly purchased a Fairfield Repack blaster at Target the night before, and talked myself out of it -- so I bought it!  I was expecting about 150 cards from that picture, so for half of the price of a blaster I was willing to gamble.  Let's see what was in there.

Total cards:  212

I'll go "oldest-to-newest" on these.

1968: 1 card // 1969: 2 cards

The Alley is in good condition.   The checklist, however, is all marked up. 

1970: 3 cards

Some nice cards to go in my trade boxes here.

1971: 56 cards

Here's where we start to get into the majority of the box.  There was a big stack of these.

Condition varied a lot.  The two on the top row were in fantastic shape!   The ones on the bottom - eek!  I'm not sure how you do that to the corners without tearing them off.

There were a couple highlights in here - Two Willie Stargells.  Pops!   One in pretty nice shape, and one a bit more worn.

Two of Pirate legend Bill Mazeroski, and a nice condition card of Dock Ellis.

1972: 99 cards.   

When it looked like there were a few '72s in the box....I definitely underestimated!   This was half of the box. 

Condition varied a lot on these.  Here's some bad guys.  Many of them looked like they had water damage on the top edge, which sullied some otherwise nice vintage cards.   The Maddox is a LITTLE miscut.  Someone took a red pen to Carlton/Seaver, and they have apparently made a lot of progress on their '72 checklist, too!

Showing the damage a little more...you can see it at the top of these HOFers.

However, there were quite a few "names" which were in outstanding condition!  Will keep a few of these and trade the rest.  Another Dock Ellis, too.

1973: 21 cards

Here's everything from that year.  Brooks suffered a little top damage, but the Blyleven looks nice.

Rockcards!  13 cards.  Someone opened a pack of these.  It had a few big stars I recognized.

The rest: 16 cards

 There was some other junk in there (including a little pile of bent 1994 Topps).  But these all caught my eye - George Bell "hole puncher" variation, an Elks membership card from Palm Desert, CA (I don't live there....), a Yamaha motorbike, and a nice 1994 Piazza.

I will enjoy putting these in my trade list on TCDB.  If you see anything you'd like, let me know!

In summary: 

Did I enjoy the variety in this box?  Yes!  

Did I get my money's worth?  Yes!  

Was this better than a repack blaster?  Yes!  

So I end this post as a happy camper.

Question:  Which card should I keep in my collection forever and ever?

Trick or Treaters....

 ...I got my bowl ready.

We got Fun Dips, too!

I did it again - Bulk Buy - $110

[Jim Nantz voice]

Hello friends.....

[end Jim Nantz voice]

I bet you thought I was dead!  I'm not....but you can always hope.  :-)

I'm back because I have been perusing Craigslist and Facebook for cheap card lots recently.  Found this one this week...an older guy one town over has an Ebay business...and is trying to wind it down/get out completely.  Super-friendly guy.  Long story short, these were not his best-best cards (ie, won't be finding any J-Rod rookies, Wander, Ohtani, etc.) which he is still selling online, but there are still lots and lots of inserts and parallels, along with the occasional lower relic/auto cards, and a TON of recent base cards.  Everything is from the last 4 years.  Lots of Prizm, Chrome, etc.  Fun, shiny stuff. 

All the packs have been opened and then he used these blasters to just store the cards he couldn't sell outright.  Every single one of those boxes is packed full...so much more than one blaster's worth of cards in each. 

I counted 57 blaster-sized boxes, 4 almost-complete factory sets of 2022 Topps (removed the image variations and the relic), and the large 2-row box that is almost all football rookies and parallels.  Picked up a handful and it had 8 Devonta Smiths in it.  :-)   He estimated 12,000 cards, but it might even be more than that.  

Distribution is approximately 40% baseball, 35% football, 20% basketball, and 5% hockey (who collects hockey?).  

It's a lot of volume but at that price ($110) I just had to pull the trigger.  He said he originally started it at $400, but has been dropping the price since he got no takers and wanted to get rid of it.   Bought a Brock Purdy rookie and a few Breece Hall cards from him on the side for my Iowa State PC, too.  

This is going to be a fun rip/sort with my son who is very interested to get into all of these.  Am very happy based on what I've seen so far.  Might take us awhile to get through it, but we'll get them into sets, then start putting stuff up on TCDB for trade! 
 

Any recent players that you are collecting?  I can keep an eye peeled for them.

Bulk Buy - $30 - Not Too Shabby

What's this?  A new post?  Don't get used to it.  ;-)  

Perusing Facebook Marketplace last Saturday night, I came across a new ad.  A guy was trying to sell a medium flat-rate box of cards.  His ad said 2,000 cards and the only picture looked something like this:

He wanted $30 + $17 shipping.  However, he was local to me (15 mins away) so I could pick-up without the shipping charge.  I messaged him and asked "How much of this is junk wax?"   He said "None.  It's 2014 and 2019-present."  Intriguing.  We set up a time to meet Sunday and I grabbed it without digging into it any further.   He said he buys blasters and this is all from there.  8 stacks fit in the box.  Let's show it off in chronological order and see how I did.

 

1990 Topps - 8 cards

What????!?!  I was promised no junk wax!   It's OK.  These were the only junk in the whole box, so I'm not disgruntled.   These are going in the trash, though.  :-)

 2012 Panini Triple Play - 6 cards, 1 insert

Don't need any of these, but maybe that Zimmerman sticker can find a home.

 

2014  Topps Update - 328 cards, 3 inserts

Lots of base here!  They left in stars here (Jeter, Miggy, etc.), but there was no Mookie Betts rookie (of course).  

Only inserts were the 3 mini die-cuts (below).

Props to this guy -- condition on all these cards in the box was top-notch.  Definitely looked pack-fresh.

2018 Topps Finest - 2 cards

These are in the same picture with the minis above.

 

2014 Topps Heritage - 251 cards, 5 inserts

There was a VERY healthy stack of these, but they had definitely been picked-over in the past.  Not a lot of major stars.  Fun to see a clean-shaven Charlie Blackmon, though.  Inserts here were "Then and Now" and "New Age Performers".   

2020 Topps - 9 cards from S1, 40 from Update, and 67 from Update Chrome

I was very happy when I started finding Chromes of Ichiro, Ripken, Judge, Jeter, etc.  I never buy these, but Chromes aren't cheap, right?   Aren't they like 50 cents-per-card coming out of the packs?  

2021 Topps - 109 cards, 7 inserts

Got a decent stack of these, and was really happy to get 3 Medallion cards of HOFers!  I haven't bought a lot of new cards, so all of these will supplement my trade-list on TCDB.com. 

2021 - Topps Heritage - 210 cards, 9 inserts

Another sizable new stack!  I feel like the guy I bought from has pulled out most of the rookies from this set, but left everything else.  Nice to see Tatis, Vlad Jr, Soto, etc.  Jimenez is chrome/999, and Kepler is red.

2021 Topps Gypsy Queen - 43 cards, 4 inserts

Another Tatis.  An Ohtani.  A Tarot Verlander.  Looking good here!

2021 (2022 release date) Topps Big League - 57 cards, 19 inserts

I got very excited when I saw these.  Didn't they come out, like, LAST WEEK??  I was thinking I would go buy a $20 Target blaster to get a taste for them, but now I don't have to.  Maybe he was mistakenly Wander hunting?  This is about 75% of a full blaster, including the blue blaster parallels.  Two of the oranges were Royals, so Mondesi and Benintendi will go right into my PC, and there were 3-4 Royals base, too. 

 

2021 Donruss Optic - 10 cards, 1 insert

Small stack here, but includes a nice Yaz insert that will probably go to a collector kid at church who told me that Yaz is his current favorite player.

2021 Donruss - 59 cards, 3 inserts

These were picked over in terms of pulling out the obvious inserts, but still had an Ohtani base (and a good-looking Salvy for me).  Don't think he noticed the variations on the names/cities.   Got a KESTDADDY, WINDY CITY, and THE 6 variation.  

2021 Diamond Kings - 4 cards, 2 inserts

Here's all of them.  Didn't know Sammy Sosa was still getting hobby love, but here he is.  It's a nice-looking card, IMHO.

2021 Absolute Retail - 93 cards, 34 inserts

2021 Absolute Retail GREEN - 25 cards, 18 inserts

The final set in the box.  Forgot to take a picture of the whole stack, so just pulled a few inserts/parallels for this picture.  Quite a sizable stack.  There are LOTS of inserts in this set, so those are fun to get.  A mix of current and OLD timers (saw a Frank Chance in there).  

Bieber is Red Retail/99.   I'm not sure why there are so many GREEN parallels of both the base and the inserts, but there are a lot.  They look neat, so I'm OK with that.  

 

2022 Topps Series 1 - 469 cards

Definitely some Wander and insert hunting going on here.  Giant stack of base cards only in here - all for trade if you need something for your set-build.

FINAL TALLY

1,785 Base Cards

   111 Inserts/Parallels

1,896 Total Cards

1,896???  That's less than the 2,000 he advertised!  FRAUD.  I think I'll ask my credit card company to do a chargeback.  :-)  JK - in the world of cash bulk buys all sales are final -- caveat emptor!  I'm actually very happy - I definitely consider this to be worth my money, and will have a lot of fun keeping some of these, and trading the rest away.  If you read this far and see something you need - let me know!!

Question:  What was the last bulk buy you made, and how did you find out about it?