A Night with My Collection

It's a blessing and a curse to get a package in the mail from COMC.  And one that included my Black Friday pickups was my largest ever at 300 cards.  The plus side?  Tons of new cards.

The down side?  Tons of new cards.  I've been working on being a little less anal about tracking my collection.  I've stopped tracking my Steelers, Pens, and WVU collections.  It just got too time consuming to maintain spreadsheets for each collection.  Especially when my additions tend to come in waves.

 Will I ultimately end up with some doubles in my collection?  Sure.  But my largest of the batch is my Steelers collection at about 1000 cards.  And even at that number, it barely scrapes the surface of what's available.

 Now my Pirate collection...

 That's a different story.  I keep a detailed spreadsheet of my entire Pirates collection.  And it's more than paid dividends for all the time and energy that continues to go into maintaining it.

 More than a few times I've nearly passed on a card I actually didn't have.  And even more frequently, it's stopped me from buying a card I already had.

 So tonight I'll be settling in, watching the NCAA championship game, and catching up on getting my spreadsheet up to date.  Things only a card collector (or accountant) would say...

Ending the Year in Style

I'll be settled in watching some college football all day today.  I've never been a big New Year's guy, but there probably aren't many who are happier to see 2015 turn into 2016 than this guy.  And while this year has been a roller coaster for my blogging, including a disappearing act for most of the year, let's send 2015 out in style.

In my COMC package from their Black Friday sales, I nabbed a couple big additions to my collection.  I was able to spear a couple cards that at one point topped my want list.  And there's no sweeter feeling than that.  But first up, I may have a addition to my favorite cards.

Vlad Guerrero has long been one of my favorite players.  I still vividly remember a game against the Expos where a friend and I were sitting in the seats directly behind home plate and being amazed by how big and athletic Vlad was up close.  At his prime, I don't know that there was any player more interesting to watch in my lifetime.  He could do it all.

I've been looking for a Vlad auto for a while, but haven't pulled the trigger.  But as I was browsing through a seller's sales, I saw this card for $8.  It was an impulse buy, but one I'm glad I made.  The sticker auto doesn't look so bad on the awesome foil stock, and I'm glad I was able to get a card that pictured Vlad in his Expos road uniform.

 But the real gem?  This guy.  This Sean Casey auto is his only picturing him as a Pirate, and is insanely hard to find.  Before my Pirate collection went full scale, I was working on just getting an auto of every player who had a Pirates certified auto.  And aside from a couple high priced Heritage Real One autos, I had them all.  Except this one.

And after years and years of looking, I had only seen one copy that was already in another Pirates collector's hands.  I nearly lost my mind when I saw a copy had been recently added to COMC during one of my routine mid-week searches.  Better yet, it was listed for a whopping $1.25.

I couldn't click buy fast enough.  It may not be a huge value card, but man does it feel good to spear a card that has been near the top of my want list for a full decade now.

 While the back story isn't nearly as compelling, I added a couple of these Japan Fractors.  They just look awesome.  End of story.

 And my first Santonio Holmes auto.  Now I just need another one to turn into an awesome custom idea I have.

 And for the third year in a row, Starling Marte autos continue to be very affordable on COMC.  I was able to snag this one for about $3.  On card and Prizm?  Yes, please.

 And despite the top side damage, this is just an awesome pickup for my collection.  My first tobacco card, and an awesome WVU card to add to my collection.  Amazingly I was able to add a card that is over 100 years old for a whopping $2.  The scan doesn't do the card justice - the gold on the card really pops in person, and has a slight fleck like quality to it.

 There is no such thing as a bad PMG.

 And more Marte!  This is, to date, my only card from the 2015 Tek release.  But I can only hope there will be many more to follow.

And last but not least, another former Most Wanted card.  At one point in 2008-9, this Pedro was at the top of my want list.  He was, after all, the future of the franchise and his Razor cards were his only autograph releases.  I think they actually still are.

These cards have seen some major swings (and misses) along Pedro's career.  I think this officially counts as buying low, though.  The card cost me about $3.  At various points, they were selling for well above that.  But so the hobby pendulum swings.

So here's to 2015.  It was a year I can't say I'll miss, but I did add some great new cards to my collection.  Hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year, and happy collecting in 2016!

Tis the Season

One thing every baseball fan is accustomed to is the revolving human carousel of winter in baseball.  And while my feelings are mixed on the players leaving Pittsburgh this winter, it's always an interesting moment of reflection.


I can't exactly I'm overcome with emotion over Pedro Alvarez being non-tendered.  He was always a flawed player who could hit light tower shots when he actually made contact.  But he certainly had his fair share of big hits against the rival Cardinals.  If you could capture his 2013 season and clone it, there's no doubt he would still be a Pirate.  But the whole playing defense thing...is a thing.  And for reasons that still sadden me, baseballs hit into rivers still count just the same as every other one that goes over a wall.

Maybe that's one rule they can look into amending...

Welcome to October

I don't think there is any sport I associate so strongly with a season as baseball.  Hockey and basketball feel like a mercifully out of place ending when the winter sports wrap up as the shorts come out.  And while I love a good football playoff game in the snow, the holiday cheer makes the Superbowl feel a little anti-climactic to me.  But baseball?  After a long, sweltering, glorious summer, nothing feels as fitting as the weather begins to bite and the leaves begin to turn as playoff baseball.

 Tomorrow is the third consecutive one game play-in for the Pirates.  I'm hoping for another win, but the Cubs are a tough match up.  If the Pirates have a chance, they need to get the "good" version of the two guys in this post.  No player has been as frustrating to me as Pedro Alvarez.  For all his pedigree and early success, he has always been a maddening strikeout machine.

And while Polanco shows flashes of brilliance and is still very young, the margin of error couldn't be slimmer and a win and you're in, lose and we wait for next year scenario.

But win or lose, I'll be enjoying a glorious post season with glass of apple cider in hand.  Here's to October.

Flea Market Shenanigans

It's been a pretty busy summer around here, which at least partially accounts for the lack of posting.  While it hasn't been as often as I would like, we've hit a few flea markets this summer with some great results.

These cards all came from a flea market trip two weekends ago.  My regular vendor at the flea market bought the collection of a friend who had died unexpectedly to help the family out.  He's more of an old school vintage guy, and really didn't know much about what he bought, but wanted to help the family out at least a little.  This is actually my second time digging through the collection.  The first time, I picked up some great cards (which I'll get around to posting eventually), but didn't want to spend toooooo much, so cut myself off after a while.

I was headed out that direction to help my parents rearrange some furniture since the nearly year long house remodel is almost over, and figured a little flea market stop wouldn't hurt.

 I felt pretty good that I had gone through the cards pretty thoroughly the first time through and pulled out anything that was a "must have" for the collection.  There were about six monster boxes.  But the vast majority of the cards were football rookies and baseball prospect cards from the last couple years.

 I imagine there was some really nice stuff in there at some point, but the dealer said the family shopped the collection around at the big Robert Morris show, and some dealers picked off all the best stuff.  So while it wasn't exactly a treat to flip through 300 2014 Bowman Jameson Taillon cards, it was worth it when I hit some gems.  The Newcomb above was a welcome addition to my long-long term plans to put together the 1960 set in any condition.

 Going through the boxes, the collection was a bit of a mystery to me.  There was a box with a fair amount of vintage, mostly early 70's commons and a few early-mid 80's star cards.  And then the boxes upon boxes upon boxes of commons from recent Bowman products.  How many Dri Archer and Alen Hanson cards does one man need?  Apparently the answer is "a lot."  I'm guessing the original owner was buying up a lot of those Bowman paper lots that flood ebay.

There was some 90's and early 2000's stuff too, but not a lot.  Though I did fine a nice run of Kordell Stewart commons that will fill in quite a few gaps in my collection. 

 Best guess?  The guy collected some in the 80's, narrowed down his collecting in the 90's, left the hobby when the game used/auto revolution happened in the late 90's, and then came back to the hobby semi-recently using some of those old school "hoard ze rookies!" mentality.

 Maybe I'm weird (I am), but I always find it interesting to see how other people collect.  There are so many ways you can approach the hobby, and I find it interesting to see what make other people's hobby radar tick.

 There were some interesting odds and ends still in the box, but the majority of my stack was just plain old commons.  I added a good chunk of my needs for 2014 Heritage, Gypsy Queen, and a few of the other sets from last year that I'm woefully behind on.

 When it was all said and done, I had a nice stack.  I asked him how much, and the vendor said just give me whatever you think they're worth.  It's an interesting system we have - he always gives me a fair deal on the stuff he knows prices on, and trusts me not to rip him off on the rest.  And I get the impression he doesn't have much into these cards.  For a cool $10, everybody was happy.

 When I got home, I counted up the haul.  I ended up with just over 100 cards, pricing everything out at about a dime a piece.

 Can I count this as a dime box haul?

 While nothing is exactly going to set the world on fire, I was able to add some cool new cards and fill in some holes in recent sets.  I do everything I can to stay away from all the prospect-centric sets, so it's convenient when somebody else does all the legwork for me and I can pluck up what I need for my binders.

If I'm out that way again soon, I'll definitely be stopping by for round three with these boxes.  They're probably picked over of all the really exciting stuff, but there were a few commons I realized I still needed and I may take a closer look at some of the Steelers and Pens cards just for the hell of it.

All hail flea market season!

My COMC Haul, Black and Gold Edition

Round one of my COMC packages came in yesterday, with part two still not shipped.  I ended up with 201 new cards headed my way.  About half of those were purchased between Thanksgiving and the last free shipping special sometime last Spring.

And there was certainly no shortage of shiny cards in this order.  I was finally able to snag a few cards I have been after for quite some time.  In 2002, Topps colored refractors to Chrome.  The base refractors were gold bordered, to match the Flagship set that year.  The set also had a black refractor parallel, which I had absolutely no idea existed until years later.  In 2002 Topps Traded, the Black refractors were /100, and I actually pulled a couple from the boxes I opened back in the day.  But I had no idea the main Chrome set also included the black parallels, limited to 50 copies.

The Black Refractors look great for the Pirates cards, but seemed insanely tough to come across.  But after years of chasing even a single copy, I was able to snag two of the black ref's /50 off of COMC in recent months, both for around $3 each.  While Pat Meares doesn't exactly evoke warm and fuzzies among Pirate fans, I love the dugout shot that shows PNC park in the background.  

 I keep telling myself I'm going to stop buying Bowman prospect cards unless the player actually reaches the majors.  And then I see a card on the cheap, and the cycle begins anew.  Trae Arbet is just one of many shortstop prospects that will probably never hit enough to reach the majors.  But I paid $1.35 for a card numbered /35.  And it's shiny.  And I'm a weak willed collector.

 Remember how for a few years Topps insisted on inserting boxtoppers with those obnoxious Uncirculated cases?  Topps was pretty indecisive with the numbering of the gold refractors in the early 00's.  There were 99 copies in 2001, 50 in 2002, and 330 in 2003.  For whatever reason, 2003 has been the hardest to track down.  I blame the damn uncirculated cases.

 Remember how big of a deal people were making about the Holiday Mega Boxes with exclusive Update Chrome cards last year?  What you probably don't remember is how quick prices fell off a cliff.  The first copies on ebay for this Liriano were going for $10-15.  I think I paid $2-something for mine.  Jeff over at 2X3 Heroes was gracious enough to trade me the Black Refractor, so this makes for one shiny mini rainbow.

 And in case you needed a reminder of how fickle the baseball gods can be, HR Derby and home run crown one year, bench bat that can't throw the baseball to the nice man with a glove the next.  Hopefully Pedro can do more hitting and less throwing in 2015.

 This scan came out looking orange, but I swear it's a gold.  Jim Negrych played at Pitt before being drafted by the Bucs.  He moved up the system pretty quickly as a high average/on base guy who didn't really have a true position.  I know I wasn't the only Pirate fan hoping he could end up a multi-position bench bat ala Rob Mackowiak and Josh Harrison.  But he ultimately topped out at AAA, and played independent ball last season.

 Quinton Miller was one of those projectable bonus babies that the Pirates loved.  He signed for somewhere around $1M as a 20th round pick.  He made it up to AA as a reliever last year, but he's nothing more than organizational fodder at this point.  But for a mere $4, I couldn't pass up the chance to add a gold refractor auto.  This makes me a prospector, right?

When Team Sets Stopped Being Fun

I might be in the minority here, but few things about the changing hobby landscape in recent years have bugged me as much as Topps' fascination with short printed and super duper insanely impossible short printed photo variations.

The $200/pack high end craze?  I can always skip it.  Numbering every card to /25 or less, but making 800 color variations?  I pick the pretty colors.  But these damn photo variations?  They're this gaping hole in my binder pages of otherwise easily completable team sets, staring, laughing, mocking my unwillingness to shell out $15 on a base card.

But I've slowly been chipping away at the cheapest and coolest of the bunch.  There are probably four years of cardboard that will always be special in my collecting life:

2000 - the year I started seriously collecting
2001 - the first year my dad and I got a season ticket package for the newly opened PNC Park
2006 - the summer Pittsburgh hosted the All-Star game and I started college, and thus watched way too much baseball
2013 - I'm introduced to the concept of playoff baseball in Pittsburgh.

And for that reason alone, I don't mind breaking the bank a bit.  Not that this card did - it onbly ran me $3 or $4, after waiting for prices to settle a bit.  And it carries some good memories of the Pirates sending more than one player to the all-star game.  And better yet...one less blank slot in my binder.

Ooo, Shiny

 I typically try to stay away from picking up cards off ebay right around the street date.  I'm a bargain hunter.  Buying when prices are most inflated is not a bargain.

But sometimes things can work in your favor, particularly with Topps' screwy release calendar.  Topps Chrome and Triple Threads went live within a short timespan, and mostly containing the same players.  The result is a flood of new cards hitting the market for these players.  And while there are many collectors out there with deeper pockets than I, the big fish are bound to miss a tasty morsel or two.

I've become largely disinterested with Topps' refractor parade each year, as more and more "colors" are added to the Topps rainbow.  But there's no arguing that Bucco cards always look good in black and gold refractory goodness.  And with most of the collecting dollars chasing the hits out of TTT, it was inevitable that some gorgeous cards would slip through the cracks.

And quite honestly I'd rather have a nice refractor over a shrapnel card that contains a piece of jersey that may have been on the field, or may more accurately resemble one of the jerseys I wore to the Pirates games this past weekend.

I was able to snag both of these black refractors for a little less than $5 delivered, and I'm perfectly fine with that.  Lambo and Alvarez are both out of favor with both collectors and Pirates brass right now, but they'll find a good home in my collection.  And I really like the way the black border looks with the Pirates black jersey.  It's doubtful I'll be able to round out the black ref team set at prices I'm happy with, but I do need to get on adding some more Pirates refractors from this year.  The Bucs were woefully represented in Chrome for most of the past few years, so I need to take advantage of the variety while I can.

There's Gold in Them Hills...Somewhere

I participated in a group break with my group of team collectors last night.  The release of Topps Chrome had been what initiated the order for the 5 box break.  But when all was said and done, Chrome was probably the least exciting break.  And that seems pretty typical for the product this year.  Most boxes don't seem to be yielding any colored refractors at all, and the breaks just seem generally uninspiring.  When our Topps Series 2 box is more interesting than Chrome...it's not a good sign.

Maybe collectors have been spoiled in recent years.  While I'm no fan of Topps and their million parallels, I realize that for box breakers the addition of new colors each year makes the break...well, more colorful.

Speaking of color, I picked up this Pedro Alvarez refractor from Finest off ebay.  Wanna play a round of guess what color it is?

If you guess gold, you're right.  But with all the color in the background, it's pretty tough to actually make out that it's a gold refractor.  If anything, the gold pops more in the scan than it does in person.  I really like the design to Finest this year, and it reminds me a lot of the 90's Finest sets.  But the colors seem to completely wash out of the colored ref's with the multi-colored background.  Though the X-Fractors from the set do look amazing.  But for $3.50 shipped, I can't complain too much.  It's a cool card at a good price.  But boy would a more pronounced gold background look nice with those Sunday throwback uniforms.

Trade Post: The Angels, In Order

I've been sluggish on the blogging of late.  Blame the summer heat, or something like that.  Tom over at The Angels, In Order emailed me a while back after he saw a comment I left about my modest Charles Johnson collection.  He had a stack of cards that needed a good home, and I was happy to oblige.

For the early part of my collecting life, I collected just about anything but Pirates cards.  Steelers, basketball, and some meager player collections of my favorite players - Charles Johnson, Ripken, Jeff Bagwell, and Junior.  He wasn't a star by any means, but I learned to appreciate CJ's amazing defense.  My dad had been a catcher playing up through high school, and any time we were watching a game I was sure to get a dissertation on how well or poorly the catcher did his job behind the plate.

The Marlins became an expansion franchise the year I started playing t-ball.  Something about the ridiculously 90's color scheme stuck with me even as I grew up, and I've always loved the jersey sets the Marlins wore before they introduced black and screwed the whole thing up.

While I haven't been very active on this blog or in trades this year, blogging has helped me revitalize my interest in the random, cool, and otherwise amusing cards I collected as a kid but tried to shy away from as a an adult collector just focusing on "my team."  I give major credit to this for Dimebox Nick in particular.  It has been fun remembering that it's ok if the focus of your collection is that it has no focus.

The down side?  I now have another 10 binders of random cards, on top of the 13,000 Pirate cards I have.  Thanks guys, thanks a lot.

But revisiting my Charles Johnson collection is just part of my expanded collecting interests.  I haven't had the chance to really talk a lot about the great side collection pickups I've made from the National due to my lack of posting, but I'm hoping to have a new page up soon listing my various non-Pittsburgh collections.

Tom also threw in a few great Pirate cards, which were much appreciated.  I've been slacking in adding Pirates from 2014 for a variety of reasons, so they were much appreciated.

Better yet, the trade lined up with my trip to the National, giving me an excuse to pick up some cool Halos cards for Tom while digging through boxes.  I always enjoy finding cards for others when digging through a box, and it makes the dig go faster in my opinion.

Thanks for the great trade, Tom!