A Blue Chicken and Some Sparkly Suits

Back in late July I made a purchase from "Erik's Fire Sales" on Twitter (@EriksFire)...well it was really a large quantity of very small purchases.  He was posting tons of cards for sale, and you could claim whatever you wanted.  Here are the highlights for my keepers...in addition to these, I grabbed some cards for the PCs of my frequent-traders.

Obviously, my stack would always start with Royals.  I love the red Guthrie, the green Holland, the Black Gold Montgomery, and an assortment of unusual Salvys.

Here are some Basketball Coaches.  This is a VERY minor, back-burner PC of mine, but I grab them when I can.  However, I've got to say something about the Panini photo selection here...is this the best you can do??  Coaches just standing there - arms crossed or hands on hips?  Do these guys actually DO anything?  Can I get a pointing and a screaming coach, please?

On the plus side, it's not every day you get an X-Fractor of a guy in a suit.

 I grabbed a few football cards:

1. Kurt Warner - my favorite player ever.
2. David Johnson - another UNI alum and prime contributor to my Fantasy Football success in 2016, so I have a small PC of him.
3. Alan Page - Just in case anyone doesn't know his story, the guy had a Hall of Fame football career, got his law degree while he was still in the NFL from the University of Minnesota, and THEN became a member of the Minnesota Supreme Court.  What a life!  

Brush with Greatness:  When I offered to pay my dime for the Alan Page card....his wife liked my Tweet.  :-)
https://twitter.com/DenHartogJ/status/1016475151372836864

This blog is called "Royals and Randoms" for a reason...I do like my oddballs. The chicken is a blue parallel and my sons are trying to get me to trade it to them.  I like that I am developing two oddball collectors.

His prices were quite reasonable...I don't think anything you will see here was more than 50 cents --  the Luminescent die-cut was the most expensive.  He hasn't run a sale in the last month or so, but he's definitely worth following on Twitter for some good cheap pickups next time he runs a sale.

Which of these cards was your favorite?

The OdieGoat

3 months with no posts?!?!  Well, I'm here now!

I have spent most of my card-time in the last few months cataloging my collection over at Trading Card Database after the Zistle collapse, and have almost all of my Royals cards entered over there.  Once that is done I will have a rather comprehensive want-list there that I can use to make trades with the active trading members over there. 

The other avenue that I have been exploring (besides blogging) is Twitter.  See, blogspot.com is blocked at my office, but Twitter is not.  :-)  I am there @DenHartogJ, but I don't tweet much...mostly I use it to look at other people's cards and listen to people whine about the Royals. 

However, one interesting thing that happens there is a "Flash Sale" or "Fire Sale" where someone will post a bunch of cards with a price for each one, and you can claim whatever you want - first come, first served.  One member I have bought from on several occasions is @odiegoat, who hosts his "Odie Sales" every month or so. Last week I bought a few cards from him for both myself and some of my trading partners.  These are my favorite keepers from my haul:


This Bo Jackson is from 2018, and since I have been buying NO new product, this was a great one to pick up.

2018 Topps - Bo Jackson 1983 Topps

 Johnny Cueto -- Put that shimmy in the windup, big boy!   This is a "Prism Refractor" which looks great in-hand.  Cueto's complete-game victory in the 2015 World Series will live on in Royals lore for ages, and keeps him in my good graces even if he did sign with the despised Giants.

Topps Chrome - Johnny Cueto Prism Refractor

 And the main reason I bought cards from The OdieGoat this time was this George Brett:

2017 Topps Silver Pack - George Brett

My favorite player on my favorite Topps card design?  And it's shiny?  YES PLEASE.  This is from the 2017 Silver Packs that came with Topps Hobby Box purchases.  I paid more than I should have for it, but didn't want to risk missing out on this one!  It was still under the price of one retail pack of Ginter or Gypsy Queen. 

There were some other cards too, but those will be finding their way into mailboxes over the next few months. 

While I'm on the topic of flash sales, the other guy that you should follow is @EriksFire.  His prices can't be beat, and he reduces the price on unsold merchandise until it goes.  So a 50-cent card will become 25-30 cents, then 10-15 cents over time.  It's like a virtual dimebox, and he lets you accumulate a stack and just pay/ship once a month. 

That's all for now - Do you have a Twitter handle?  And who are your favorite card-sellers or card-related accounts on there?

Black Friday Shopping and Other Men's Wives

All the big online sites had tons of doorbuster deals on hobby boxes for Black Friday...and I didn't buy from any of them.

Instead, I hit up a LCS with my brother-in-law while we each left our children with Grandma.

The LCS in question was MVP Sports Cards in Laguna Hills, CA.  This is a small shop, but they had some good stuff.  My BIL came out of there with a 1968 Mickey Mantle and a 1973 Nolan Ryan.  Needless to say, he spent a little more money than I did.  :-)  But all my digging yielded some great stuff to add to my collection.

I have felt like I need to focus my Royals collecting a little more to make sure that I have team sets of all the major releases in team history (starting in 1969).  This focus helped me pick up 12 cards for the 1969 Topps team set that I still needed.  Here are my 6 favorites -- Joe Keough can't decide on a bat (the Paradox of Choice) while Dave Wickersham is just happy to be here.  I still need #619 and #662 to finish that one off.

 

I added some oddballs of #5.

  

Bo knows Classic.

Out of the dollar-bin I pulled this 1969 Deckle Edge (#22) of Joe Foy.  Foy was the only Royal in this set during KC's inaugural season.  He's not quite as notable a name as some of the other players on the checklist (Clemente, Carew, Aparicio, Gibson, McCovey, Mays), but I think it's a beautiful card and I was lucky to find it.

 The cards above were all Royals, but let us not forget my affinity for "Randoms," too.  This bad boy caught my eye as I was pawing through some cheaper autographs and he had to go in my pile.

Autographed.  Mascot.  Oddball.  I headed to Google to find out who the Phoenix Firebirds were.  Apparently they were the AAA team for the Giants in the early '90s, but left when the Diamondbacks arrived to become the Tucson Sidewinders (D-Backs AAA Team).  This lead the Tucson Toros to move and become the Fresno Grizzlies.  Mr. Phineas T. Firebird had a few other cards made of him before he rose from the ashes and skipped town.  This one is autographed by a real purple bird, so I'm sure it's worth serious coin.

That's the end of the cards, but I had one other thing that I noticed in this LCS.  The staff here were super-friendly and helpful at letting me know what they had, what was on special, and pulling out boxes from the back for me to look at. It was also pretty obvious that "the staff" were a husband-and-wife team who own the shop.  This is the 3rd shop I have been to with a husband-and-wife running the place (see Valley Sports Cards and Pal's, too), and those shops have always felt more welcoming than the shops I visit who are just run by one guy.  I think the feminine influence helps a lot.  The "lone wolf" shop owners need to get hitched ASAP!  Has anyone else noticed this effect in their LCS?

 

Bountiful Bonus Booty Bestowed by Benevolent Blogger

Who is the Benevolent Blogger?  Why, Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits, of course!

Matt ran a contest last summer to see who could identify a player that he had selected, based on a series of clues that were increasingly specific.  When all was said and done, I narrowed down the answer to just a few players, then finally down to one - Wilson Ramos!  That qualified me for a prize, and when the randomizer was done spinning, I came out of it with a whole lot of 2017 Ginter cards!  Knowing his affinity for Ginter cards, I figured it would be something good.  It was.  :-)

Here you can see the box that hit my mailbox.

 

To be specific, that box had a full base set of 2017 Ginter (Cards 1-300), and then half of the short-prints (301-350).  1987 Topps (favorite set!) were used as filler.  No respect for the classics!  :-)

Here's the full team set of 2017 Royals (non-SP). 

 

He also included one SP (LoCain), and a mini of Hosmer and black mini of LoCain.  

It didn't seem like the Ginter base set had as many interesting non-baseball cards in it as it has in past years, but there were still a few good ones.  All of the cards in the next two pictures are other cards from the base set that I wanted to keep. 4 Ex-Royals (Kendrys, Manaea, Zobrist, Cueto), guys from my earlier days (Canseco, Smith, Banks, Johnson, Dawson), Random current guys I like (Ichiro, Werth, Wilson Ramos(!), then the miscellaneous ones.  Vashti Cunningham and Laurie Hernandez were Olympians.  I watched a Crossfit documentary on Netflix and Ben Smith was the winner of that (Spoiler!).  There was no "Revolving Door" or "X-Ray" card in this set, so a Panda and a Waterfall will have to fill that gap. 

As I mentioned, there were also half of the Short-Prints from this set.  Those are shown below and are all available (except for Lorenzo) since they don't fit my PC.  If anyone still is working on this set and needs one of these, let me know and I can get that to you.  I have a lot of base to trade/give, too.

I really only need one more full-size base card from this set -
Base SP #313 - Matt Strahm. 

Do any of you have that one for me?

Thanks so much, Matt!  You might be wondering why it took me 3 months to post this.  Well....this package hit my mailbox the same week my wife gave birth to our daughter.  Between her and my two older boys, I've had limited card-blogging time since then.  But these were all much appreciated and will be given a good home!  

The Best Part Of This Post Is The End

In the seemingly never-ending string of packages that Wes/Jaybarkerfan has been sending to my door, he hit me with another mailer.  It was full of Royals, of course, and I finally got it all entered into Zistle and scanned here.


I liked the oddballs that were part of it, and wanted to show those off here.

Baby Billy Butler.

Bubble-Blowing Brett.

Unscannable Hal.

Jimmy Dean, the Sausage King of Kansas City.

"Tetrad?"  Never heard of this.  Lucky for me, there were ONLY 45,000 of these made, so good luck ever tracking down another.  Suckers.

Finally, it's not a JBFJ package without a little intrigue.  This internal envelope was awaiting me...

Oh man!  It's probably a George Brett Rookie - GEM MINT 10 - I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I'VE WAITED SO LONG WES IS THE BEST WES IS THE BEST WELL EVEN IF IT ISN'T THAT IT'S GONNA BE A BILLY BUTLER AUTOGRAPH OR JOAKIM SORIA OR DAVID DEJESUS OR SOMETHING TRULY GREAT!!!!!!

AND THE RESULT IS.....

I just got "Grimace"-Bipped.  There was no photoshopping involved in the above picture -- I just threw them all on the scanner.  Well played, sir.  :-)


Ken Harvey was an outstanding 1B for the Royals.  See his fielding prowess below.

Yep.  He was our All-Star.  Thanks, Wes!

I'm Lovin' It

1992 Donruss McDonald's - #3 - George Brett

A Hand-Written Friendship Bracelet

When I was in 2nd grade, if you were buddies with someone you would give them a friendship bracelet. You'd get a couple of pieces of colored-string, braid them together, and BOOM -- instant friendship.  It was a personal gift that took some time and care, which is part of what made it mean something.

Now in the internet age, much is made of the "lost art of the hand-written letter."  With all the IMing, emailing, facebooking, and twittering, actually sitting down with a pen and paper and sending someone a personalized note counts as the height of graceful manners.

Relating this to the blogosphere...I'll admit that I am guilty of sending "impersonal" trade packages.  Maybe I'll just drop a team-bag into a bubble mailer and send it off.  If I'm lucky, I might offer a perfunctory "Thanks for trading!" on a slip of paper that I toss into the envelope.

So.....if the quality scale goes from short boilerplate email (bad) to hand-written letter plus friendship bracelet (very good), how can I possibly place a ranking on THIS?

Gene Mauch

This is by far one of the coolest things I have received from the card-blog world.  It's from TTG @ Friars on Cardboard.  It is a hand-collated pack of manager cards, wrapped in white paper, and then decorated with the cover art seen above.  If a hand-written item is notable...what can I say about a hand-drawn pack?  AWESOME is what I can say.  Keep in mind that this whole thing is the size of a regular baseball card and done in ink.  And this was a "Just Because" package...no trade was involved.

And with that preview...I was hoping the pack would contain that top card.  IT DID.

1987 Topps Gene Mauch

There were several other manager cards from TTG (many of them grumpy, per my preferences), but this was my favorite.  It's a double-dose of grumpitude.

Buck Showalter and Jim Fregosi

Although I didn't know it, not only do I collect grumpy manager cards, apparently I also collect grumpy manager STICKERS. 

2012 Triple Play Sticker - Screaming Manager - #8

Another package from TTG had several Royals I needed, including Jeff Conine jumping rope with the old crossover technique.  Thanks to 4th grade P.E. class, I can do that same trick.  Maybe I should send that teacher a hand-written note of thanks?

Speaking of elementary school, Sherman Corbett and I had the same glasses, apparently.

1989 Topps Sherman Corbett, 1990 Topps Mike Scott

This exceeded anything I could have hoped for, TTG.  Thank you so much.  Know that I appreciate it a ton -- This hand-written friendship bracelet of a pack.  :-)

Support Your Local Minnow

Why is the above card more than just a random 1978 Topps card?  I'll let you stew on this for a moment.

All of the cards in this post came to me courtesy of Trevor, proprietor of a new blog I found last month...."Supporting the Minnow."  I saw he had made a trade with $30/Week Habit and clicked on through to Trevor's blog.  A few post comments later and we had a trade in the works.

In case you are wondering...he has access to a baseball card vending machine at his local tire shop (LTS?). 

Trevor buys miscellaneous lots of cards, mostly keeps the hockey, then has the other stuff to trade away.  So why is trading with him a good idea?  Because that card at the top is not a random Topps card.  It is a random O-PEE-CHEE card.  Trevor is Canadian.

Dear readers in New York, Michigan, and Minnesota, you may have ready access to Canadian cards, but here in SoCal, they don't show up at the garage sales I go to.  So the only way I get OPC is in trade. 

Frank White has a 2nd-BUT, just in case he loses his first one.  I am always glad to add another Voltigeur to my collection.

Amos Otis is au jeu (not au jus).  Dennis Leonard is a Lanceur (I remembered that from my Orel Hershiser OPC card). 

Additionally, he tossed in a George Brett "Pre-Production Sample" from 1994 Topps.  You can see the full story on this card here. 

Thanks again for a great trade!

Orel Hershiser and George Brett got in a fight...

...but not with each other.  George Brett gets into fights with Jack Morris.  Orel Hershiser gets into fights with Darryl Strawberry.  Apparently, they have each been in /2499 fights...or so the numbering on the back appears to say.

Donruss Leather and Lumber - #10 and #37

These all came from "Rhubarb Runner" at "e rayhahn, rayhahn."  He had the right answer in my "Awesome Card" contest, and I sent him some Twins from his wantlist.  He mistakenly (awesomely) thought this was a trade and sent me all these Royals inserts back. 

2003 Fleer Genuine Longball Threats - Mike Sweeney

2004 Playoff Prestige Achievements - George Brett

2004 Awesome Honors - Angel Berroa

2005 Leaf Alternate Threads - Ken Harvey

I wish everyone I came into contact with made such awesome mistakes.  Thanks, RR!

Next Stop: Backstop

If you're not making trades with Marcus over at Backstop Cards, you're missing out.  He's making trades fast and furious down there, and if you don't yet have an outlet for your Padres, that would be a good place to send them.

He just sent me another little package with some Royals goodness in it (after perusing my Zistle wantlist).  Here were a few of the highlights:

A couple of  Eric Hosmers to start  your day off right.  The Blue Opening Day parallel is #'d /2012.  The Archives Hosmer is based on the 1984 design, but feels the need to use bright pink on an otherwise great card.  Eric has struggled this season...he's had one of the lowest BABIP of any big leaguers, so hopefully a reversion to the mean on that next year will help him regain that rookie season form.

This is the 2012 Archives George Brett rookie.  The real version is on my Most Wanted list, and I already have a Chrome Reprint version, but this one is a plain reprint with the gold stamp.   It's not nearly as beat-up as Nick's version.  :-)

2012 Topps Archives George Brett

Baseball Dad's Refractor Pad

Baseball Dad sent me a little package in exchange for the handful I sent him. 

We've got the Billy Butler X-Fractor, and a whole mess of 1991 Topps MICRO.  How have I never seen these before?  I think he gave me the full set (didn't scan them all, obviously)....but these guys are TINY.

Happy Father's Day, Baseball Dad!

Drew Brees and the Eyes of the Owl

(I am WAY behind on trade package postings and purchases...this one is two months old.  Apologies to everyone who has been sending me good stuff.  I'm working on the backlog now.)

2010 Allen and Ginter # 287 - Drew Brees

Sometimes you get something good, and then it keeps getting better.

I have had a good relationship with Night Owl.  I love his blog, and had already made a trade with him earlier.  Awhile back I posted my Dodgers Trade Bait, and he responded that he wanted the Chad Billingsley relic that I had received in Spankee's group break.  I sent that out to him along with a bunch of other stuff off his wantlist.  He fired a package back at me containing some great cards, including the Drew Brees above!  That was #1 on my Most-Wanted List!  Now I've got it -- lovin' it.

Here's a sampling of the stuff he sent me:

A Sweeney, a UL, and LOOK at that soup-strainer on Dennis Leonard.  That is STRONG.  He reminds me of my old engineering professor... 

Erik Antonsson - Not a Baseball Player

Orel Hershiser

Some cool Orel Hershisers found their way in.  The Fleer has a good texture to it.  I remember buying some packs of Topps Kids in my youth.  They were cheap and fun.  Just like Donruss Triple Play.

The sizing was all over the place here.  I was so confused.  Wilson Betemit was normal-sized, but very COGNAC-y.  Nelson Briles was a 1975 mini.  George Brett was WAY too big for his britches.  Seriously...his britches were a really odd size.

All that stuff was great.  It was a good trade -- some Dodgers were sent and some Royals received -- what more could I ask for?

A week later, I got another envelope from him...a little "something extra" to say thanks.  Oh yeah, his little extras are #'d to 50... :-)

2002 Fleer Hot Materials - Mike Sweeney relic - HM-MS - #27/50

What a guy.  Night Owl, that is.  Although Sweeney is cool, too.