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?

20,000 Cards - They're Mine! And Yours?

If you're buying new product, 90 bucks can get you one hobby box of a newly-released product (maybe?), or 4.5 blasters (without tax) at the local big box retailer.

This is what 90 bucks on Craigslist just got me.

Those are six large file boxes (maybe used for comic books?) that are filled with cards.  They are stacked 3 or 4 layers deep in each one.  I estimate it is between 15,000 and 20,000 cards altogether.

So what is it?  Junk wax, right?  There definitely is some of that in here, but it's the minority.  Talking with the guy who sold it to me, he was collecting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it is just a big variety from that time-period, primarily.  Standing in his house for 5 minutes, I obviously couldn't look through every layer of every box, but I saw enough to know that I wasn't going to end up with only crap out of this -- there's a lot of fun stuff from that time-period.....which was the period when I WASN'T actively collecting, so this will fill a big need for my Royals collections from that era.  I am a "low-end" collector so doing all the digging through these should be a blast.

It is approx 70% baseball, 25% football, with 5% being miscellaneous (Basketball, Hockey, Star Wars, Simpsons).  I know one of the six boxes is completely full of MLB Showdown and NFL Showdown cards, which he said he was REALLY into at the time.  I rarely see those up for trade, so I should be a source for those if you have some team/player sets you need help with.

My project:  I am going to start sifting through these and posting the general contents of what I am finding (what years, what sets, how many cards, anything particularly interesting that I find).

If You Want Cards:  I know a lot of you are in the same boat as me, and weren't collecting during part of that period from 1995-2005.  There are WAY more cards here than I will be able to keep, and I'd love to trade away anything that you out in the blogosphere could use.  LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT and I will set it aside for you.
Please make your requests for:
1) Specific card wantlists from certain sets.  I.e., "I need cards #4, 13, 19, 22 from 2003 Fleer Double Header."  If you have a team-based wantlist with card numbers, shoot that my way.  These are the most-specific requests and will be honored first.
2) Player collections.  I.e. "Please set aside any Jeff Bagwell cards" or "Please set aside any Tom Glavine cards, but only if he is shown on the Mets."
3) Team requests.   I.e. "I want all your Seattle Seahawks."   <---This is the least specific, so I will honor those last.
Feel free to add any additional requests as you start to see what comes out of here.

When I brought the boxes home, I let my oldest son pull out a handful of cards to show him what was in here.  He grabbed a stack of miscellaneous football, and in the middle of his handful he says "Look at this one, Dad!"

It's a Starting Lineup oddball of my favorite football player.  Found in the first handful of this "haystack."   Let's see what other lovely "needles" we can uncover in this process, shall we?

Dime-Boxing at Valley Sports Cards

The day before Thanksgiving I was going to travel from my house in Ventura County down to my in-laws house in Orange County.  However, it seemed like everyone else in the state had the same idea.  The freeways were PACKED.  I would either have to suck it up and sit in traffic going through LA, or find some way to kill time until the roads were less busy.  Kill time?  How about a card shop!

Valley Sports Cards in Tarzana is technically my "Local" card shop since there aren't any closer, but even on a good day, it's still 30 minutes away, so I don't get there often.  I think it had been about a year and a half since my last trip there.  However, it's right off the 101, so it made a perfect pit stop while I waited out my fellow travelers.

This is not a big shop...and part of their space is used-up by their picture framing business, but one thing that I knew they had in abundance last time I was there was DIME BOXES, and that was my goal when I walked in.   As I entered the shop, the place where the dime boxes had been before was now a basketball cards display.  Not to fear, the dime boxes had been relocated to the back corner.  There were probably twenty of the 3,200-count boxes packed to the gills with baseball, football, basketball, and some assorted sports (hockey, golf, MMA, etc.).  

So was I able to kill time here?  Yep.  Three hours.  The end result of that was 225 dime-box cards, plus a few from the quarter and dollar boxes.  Take a look:

There is my stack of cards that I was keeping for myself....that's not the whole 225, since many of them were to trade away.

As part of my quest to collect guys with great mustaches, I felt I had to go for these Craig Stadler cards.  Ian Woosnam had some neat plaid pants, so I grabbed that one, too.

Here are some vintage Kickers and Punters that were no-brainers for ten cents.

A few other vintage goodies.  There were six Chuck Muncie cards in a row in one of the boxes.  He and I essentially wear the same style of glasses.  So I knew I would need to grab my spectacle-buddy.

Here's three for my "Spoiled Wide Receivers" collection.

And three more for my PC...Kurt Warner and Troy Davis (Iowa State alum).

Two of the 3,200-count boxes were full of old Allen and Ginter commons, going back to 2006-2012.  As you can see from the middle, I grabbed a big stack of them, and am showing some of my favorites here.  I FINALLY got my paws on the Revolving Door card -- which is probably my favorite Ginter card ever.  I had never seen the Groundhog card before, but could not resist a face like that.

Here's a sampling of the Royals that I picked up.  I loved the Gaylord Perry in a KC uniform, and another copy of the Sluggerrr card (even though I had it already).

I mentioned that several of the dime boxes were basketball.  I only collect a FEW basketball players...mostly Kyle Korver and guys who went to Iowa State.  Because of this, I wasn't going to waste my time on the basketball boxes.  However, as I was putting away one of the football boxes, my arm brushed across the top of a row of basketball, and it opened up to this card:

That's a rookie of my favorite Cyclone player from my early youth.  That I didn't have.  In a dime box I didn't want to look through.   :-)  It's just so freakin' cool to me.

Here's several stacks of miscellaneous cards I pulled out for other traders and friends/relatives of mine.  The Carolina Panthers stack is large enough to cast its own shadow. 

After the dimeboxes were done, I looked through the quarter and dollar boxes.  Here were two of my favorite pulls from there.  The George Brett was only a quarter for a Panini Black Friday exclusive from last year.  I'll take that!  The Bo Jackson was a little weird...mostly because I had never seen one, so was asking myself WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS CARD?  Apparently "Ames" was a discount/department store in the Northeast, and this card was part of a boxed set that was made exclusively for them.  I didn't know if a dollar was a good price for it, but if I have learned anything from "American Pickers" it's that the time to buy something unusual is when you see it!

Mike and Frank approve of me buying the Bo.

As they were getting ready to close up the store (yes...I was closing them down), I noticed they had boxes behind the counter of various years from the '50s, '60s, and '70s.  I figured this would be a good chance to make a dent in my "vintage Royals" (only going back to 1969...is that vintage?) needs, and asked for the '69 box.  I was able to quickly pull out 12 that I needed before the clock struck 7:00 PM:

All of those, plus some more quarter-box stuff I didn't show, plus a discount for paying cash means I got everything for $30 even.  I was a happy camper!  And by the time I left, traffic was smooth sailing all the way down to the OC.  :-)

What say you -- have you ever stopped at a card shop to avoid traffic?  What about to avoid your family?  :-)

Bombs Away - The Grand Finale

Due to work, life, health, etc....I've been slow posting lately, so I figured I would just dump the rest of the pics from Jaybarkerfan's ridiculous PWE Bombing of me.  It's kind of like at the end of the fireworks show when they just shoot off everything that is left....

Bombs Away - #13 - Warneriffic

Back to the Bombing...

 (This is a continuation of the PWE Bombing from Jaybarkerfan's Junk.)

Bombs Away - #11 - Handing Off

Are these bombings almost done, JBFJ?

I guess not.  :-)

Bombs Away - #7 - Warner Thunder

Thunder always comes after LIGHTNING.

Bombs Away - #4 - Topps QB

Oh!  Jaybarkerfan!  THAT's who's doing this to me.  I sure hope he lets me know when the bombing begins for real....

Bombs Away - #1 - Heroes

These have not been the best few weeks for me...work has been nuts, and then I found out I have a kidney stone!  (Thanks, ER visit).  It's left little time for posting.  Luckily, I have some great stuff to post.

Like I mentioned in the last post -- I just got BOMBED by JBF.  He included 3-6 cards and a note in every envelope.  However, the stupid postman got them out-of-order.  I will do my best to recreate the series in order, and scan 1 (or more) cards from each envelope.

So without further adieu...here's envelope #1.

Hello, JBF.

Those are some fancy low-numberings you've got there, Mr. Warner.

Sea Shepherds, See Rams, No Seahawks

I love using Listia...as you can see from all my other Lista wins.  Everything I bid on is always free shipping.  That usually means a plain white envelope (PWE) with the card thrown in it.  Maybe a little note that says "Thanks for bidding" or somesuch.   However, in my most recent package, I got my card plus a little something... 

The seller included this sticker.  Sea Shepherd is apparently a group that tries to protect dolphins.  There was a little flyer in there about their work, too.  I'm trying to decide where to stick this.  Whenever I receive stickers in my trade packages (like I have from Spankee and from Nachos Grande), I always stick those to one of my trade boxes.  But this isn't really card related...If I had a punk-rock guitar case, this would look great on there.  But alas...

Oh, you probably want to know what kind of cards the environmentalists are getting rid of...

It's a 2012 Topps QB Immortals Insert - Kurt Warner. 

 

As always, if you have extra Kurt Warner cards, I'm your man!

Postage Due

2001 Crown Royale - #117 - Kurt Warner

I had what I would consider to be my first "bad" Listia experience.  I got a bunch of "Greatest Show on Turf" (St. Louis Rams - Warner/Faulk/Holt/Bruce) for a pretty low # of credits + free shipping.  All is well, right? 

Wrong.  The lady sends me a bubble mailer with all the cards...and 90 cents of postage on it.

As all card traders know, sending a bubble mailer is at least $1.95 these days...and this particular package was $2.20, leaving $1.30 in unpaid postage to be paid by me.

Normally they would just send it back to the return address, except instead of a return address she just wrote "Danshelle."  Did nobody ever teach her what a return address meant??  Ay, ay, ay.

Anyway, at least I got this sweet die-cut Kurt Warner and a bunch of other Warners that I needed for my collection.  I'll just make sure I never try to buy from "Danshelle" again.

Obak at ya'

2011 Obak Football - Morten Andersen - Green Parallel - #/25

Contests.  I love 'em. 

I love entering them.
I love hosting them (keep an eye out for the return of the "BIG PILE" contest this fall).
I especially love WINNING them.  My online luck hasn't been great, but I have managed to win a few contests here and there...This is one of those stories.

Drew from Drew's Cards (naturally) had busted a box of 2011 Obak football, and was giving most of it away.  He split the box into 5 chunks and randomed each one off separately.  Not only did I win a chunk, I won THE CHUNK I WANTED -- "American Heroes and Best of the Rest."  Why did I want this piece?  Well...my main collections for football involve Kurt Warner and Kickers/Punters (see sidebar ----->), and this set netted me the Morten Andersen parallel above (#'d to 25), TWO Kurt Warners (regular and mini), and a Ray Guy.  Yep...that hits almost everything I like.  Too bad there wasn't a Tebow in this set.  :-)

2011 Obak Football - Kurt Warner Mini

2011 Obak  Football - Ray Guy

This was a set focusing more on the history of the game rather than current players.  Here's a sampling of the other stuff I got.

Running Backs with great nicknames and huge shoulder pads.  I remember learning how to do the "Ickey Shuffle" when I was little.  Man I was a cool kid.

A few modern guys.  Dennis Byrd is the "Rise and Walk" player.  They thought he would be paralyzed after a freak spinal injury, but he overcame that to walk again.

Quick question...which linemen would you rather face? 

These guys?

Or these guys?

Yes...those are US Presidents...but they all played football in college (and/or the big screen).


So thanks again, Drew, for the awesome contest.  These will all find a great place in my collection.