Trade with Napkin Doon

Both my family and my wife's family live back east. Because of the distances involved we haven't gone back for Thanksgiving in many years. Generally, in the past, a former work colleague of my wife, who is now retired, invites us to his place down in Paul's Valley to have dinner with his, and his wife's family. The last few years, they decamped for Waco at Thanksgiving since his mother-in-law was in poor health and couldn't make the trip up. So, we had held Thanksgiving dinner at our place and invited our friends who were solo for the holiday (we affectionately called them The Orphans) over. But, this year we are heading back down to Paul's Valley. Luckily, The Orphans were able to get together with another set of friends for dinner.

So, I only have time for a quick post, as I need to get into the kitchen and make a Cowboy Caviar appetizer and spicy cornbread sticks to take with us today.

Recently, in my quest to clear a lot of the cards I don't want out of here, I made a trade with Napkin Doon. In exchange for some random Rangers, he sent me 12 cards I needed for my 2001 Heritage set, including two of the Classic Renditions short print inserts.





Also, he sent along a couple cards out of a lot he won at Cleve's Auction Night. For those of you who don't know, Cleve's is a LCS in NW Arkansas and hold weekly auctions. I have participated in the past, phoning bids prior to the auctions start, and have picked up some nice 1956 cards. Due to a variety of reasons, I haven't participated in the auctions in a couple months, but after the holidays are over, I intend to start again. Nap had won a lot of 1954 Red Man tobacco cards and found out that the lot included not one, but three Johnny Antonelli cards. Since I had, oddly enough, just started a Johnny Antonelli player collection, he was gracious enough to send me two of them.

They are really nice, but are pretty large and I don't have an Ultra-Pro that they fit in at the moment. I'm going to have to be extra careful with them, as they are in fantastic shape, as you can see from the scan below. I'd say it is clearly Near Mint.


So, thanks Nap and Happy Thanksgiving to you all (and a happy belated Thanksgiving to any Canadian readers). Allow me to be serious for a moment more. If any of you are planning to deep fry a turkey, please watch this PSA from State Farm about the proper use of your turkey fryer.

Starting 1976

So, I did end up at the card shop yesterday. I had a birthday check from my folks burning a hole in my pocket. I got a good start* on my 1976 set, picking up about 180ish commons towards the 704 card set (660 base and 44 traded), for around $40. Here are what I consider the highlights.


Riffing off recent comments about the generally offensive nature of the Indians mascot, Chief Wahoo, I cannot help but think the reference to wigwam is similarly an artifact of a less enlightened time.


I probably ought to just look it up, but I am too lazy today. Is there any such beast anymore as a light hitting, but excellent fielding starting shortstop?


What is it with the Cubs and the floating head team cards. I probably ought to look it up, but I am too lazy today. Are all their team cards of this design?


I always show Burt, since he is the pitching coach for the local minor league team, the OKC Redhawks.


I was surprised that Sparky's card was considered a common, since he was a leading fireman of his era and the 1977 Cy Young Winner.


I think he shares a hair stylist with Tim Lincecum.


This card is all kinds of awesome, but the best part is this:


They actually held a elimination tournament. During the off-season, I'd definitely watch such a show. Get on that MLB Network!

* To be perfectly accurate, I already had a start on 1976 with cards from the Diamond Giveaway site and a trade with Chris from The Vintage Sportscard Blog, including the iconic Oscar Gamble Traded card.

Trade with Potch Wheeler

Yesterday was a good day. I completed a trade with the esteemed Hoosier, Potch Wheeler. I had a few 2011 Topps cards he needed and was able to help him out on his 1978 set with some of the duplicates I had from when I built my set early this year. In return I got several cards I needed.



Heritage short prints are like gold to me. I currently have three Heritage sets that I am working on. I am closest to completing 2011, but I am still needing a fair number of short prints. And I hadn't made any progress on it whatsoever in months. These cards revived my effort.


I am really close to completing the Topps Lineage 200 card base set. This card reduced my want list by 20%. I am pretty psyched about it, since the last few rack packs I bought yielded a bunch of duplicates. I had given up on getting any more base cards for this set, except through trades. So, a huge thanks out to Potch for helping me get closer on two different sets.

On a separate note, I am off this week and have spent my morning putting together a want list for the 1976 set. I just finished 1977 and expect 1971 to take a while since I mostly lack the expensive high number cards, I figured I needed something to keep me busy during the off=season. 1976 should be good in that the commons will be fairly cheap and the stars aren't all that outrageous. And since I am off today, I may wander over to the card shop and start on it.

Mail Call - November 16th Edition

A couple of packages arrived in the mail today. One was expected. One wasn't.


2011 Topps Lineage 1952 Reprint Autograph - This was the one I was expecting. I snagged it off of EBay for my Johnny Antonelli PC. This next one was unexpected:


1993 MCI Ambassadors of Baseball Paul Blair Autograph. I had won this in an EBay back in September, but it never arrived. I ended up getting a refund a couple weeks ago. So, it finally showed up today. The postage clearly shows the seller shipped on time, so I resurrected the Paypal transaction and repaid them. No point in punishing them for the post office's screw up.

BOBOC - Pack 3

1991 Leaf Series 1

This pack was characterized by managers. Not manager cards, but players that went on to manage, though not all at the Major League level.

137 - Felix Fermin, Cleveland


Felix was your quintessential light hitting shortstop during his MLB career, but went on to manage the Sultanes de Monterrey from 2007 through 2010. Monterrey is a city that I have been to numerous times on business. My impression is that it isn't much of a baseball town. Like much of Mexico, it is a soccer mad city. I can recall once that I scheduled a conference call with folks in Monterrey at time that overlapped with a World Cup game involving the Mexican team. It was made clear to me that my call was going to finish early that day, whetehr I liked it or not. But, I digress....

142 - Erik Hanson, Seattle
147 - Danny Tartabull, KC
152- Joe Orsulak, Baltimore
156 - Damon Berryhill, Chicago Cubs


Damon has spent the last three years managing the Rookie League Ogden Raptors, part of the Dodgers chain.

157 - Gene Larkin, Minnesota
162 - Jim Abbott, California
233 - Luis Quinones, Cincinnati
238 - Will Clark, SF


239 - Albert Belle, Cleveland


243 - Orel Hershiser, LA


244 - Pete O'Brien - Seattle
248 - Dave Johnson, Baltimore
253 - David Cone, NY Mets
258 - Joe Girardi, Chicago Cubs



What can I say? Of the three managers in the pack, Joe here is the only who has managed / is managing at the major league level. He is, of course, the skipper of the Yankees since 2008.

Next up: 1988 Donruss

Words Matter

Last night I was in the early stages of working out a trade with a Rays fan, and the discussion reminded of the old joke that the United States and Great Britain are two nations separated by a common language.

You see, we didn't have a common starting point on the definition of CC. For him, CC means this:


For me, CC means this:


At least neither of us felt that CC meant this:

Unexpected Bonus Cards

A couple few weeks ago, I won a lot of nearly 200 2001 Topps Heritage cards on EBay. It cost me $38.50, including shipping. When I got the cards, there was a 2001 Topps Heritage Chrome Randy Johnson card included. I didn't have much use for it, so I threw it up on EBay to see if I could recoup a little of my cost. Well, the card sold for $36. My Topps Heritage lot was essentially free. So, flush will all this cash, I decided to splurge over at COMC before I went into card hibernation during the holidays.

My shipment from COMC arrived today (Saturday), and I am quite pleased with my haul

Inspired by the cards from Chris at The Vintage Sportscard Blog, I finally broke down and got the last few cards I needed for my 1977 set. That set is now complete.







I also decided to work on my two player collections. For my Paul Blair PC, I got:


1991 Crown Cola All Time Orioles


1986 TCMA All Time Orioles


2001 Topps Archive


2001 Topps Archive Reserve

I also decided to add a few cards to my nascent Johnny Antonelli PC:


2010 National Ethnic Heritage Foundation Sons of Italy


1984 Mother's Cookies All Time Giants


1991 Topps Archive 1953 Reprint


2002 Topps Super Teams Retrofractor


1954 Bowman - This card is the gem of the shipment. It is hard to judge from a scan, but this card is absolutely stunning. Perfectly centered and I would rate it at Near Mint to Mint condition. I cannot adequately express how tickled I am with this card.

So, I ended up spending a little bit more than the $36 I started with. Even so, I am pretty happy with the haul.

Trade with Vintage Sportscards

I recently completed another trade with Chris at Vintage Sportscards. I sent him some vintage cards that didn't fit with my collecting priorities and he sent me some cards that he had that did. So, without further ado:

Chris sent me 6 cards from the 1977 set. This cut my want list almost in half, going from 13 down to 7. Included among what he sent were three Hall of Famers and one guy that could almost make the Hall.






He also sent four of the original issue Star Wars cards. This is a set I am going to put together for my wife, since she had a few of the cards and loves the movies.


This does deserve noting further. Chris had mentioned on a previous post that this Star Wars set was the first set he collected. To receive some of his duplicates from the set that was his entry into this hobby is pretty awesome.

If that wasn't enough, he sent along five 1956 cards.






1956 is my long term project. I am not sure I will ever finish this set, what with Micky Mantle booking at $1,500. But, I love the card design enough that I am going to chip away at it and hope that perhaps sometime in the future, I'll have enough disposable dinero to buy that card. These five cards bring me up to 40 for the set, which means I have crossed the 10% complete threshold. Mayo Smith was a duplicate, but that is pretty cool for two reasons. First, this one is in far better condition than the one I had before and will now replace it's predecessor in the binder. Secondly, while it is normally a letdown to get duplicates, in this case it is cool to get a duplicate for such an iconic set. It signifies that I am moving up in the collecting world. That is my interpretation anyways.

So, thanks Chris!